Dories obeyed and was soon busy at the simple task. To change the subject, her mother spoke of the planned trip. “It will be your very first journey away from Elmwood, dear. At your age I would have been ever so excited.”
The girl looked up from her work, a cloud of doubt in her eyes. “Oh, Mother, do you really think that you would have been, if you were going to a summer resort where the cottages were all shut up tight as clams, boarded up, too, probably, and with such a queer, grumphy person as Great-Aunt Jane for company?” The girl shuddered. “Every time I think of it I feel the chills run down my back. I just know the place will be full of ghosts. I won’t sleep a wink all the time I’m there. I’m convinced of that.”
Her mother’s merry laugh was reassuring. “Ghosts, dearie?” she queried, glancing up. “Surely you aren’t in earnest. You don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”
“Well, maybe not, exactly, but there are the queerest stories told about those lonely out-of-the-way places. You know that there are, Mother. I don’t mean made-up stories in books. I mean real newspaper accounts.”
“But it doesn’t matter what kind of paper they’re printed on, Dori,” her mother put in, more seriously, “nothing could make a ghost story true. The only ghosts that haunt us, really, are the memories of loving words left unsaid and loving deeds that were not done, and sometimes,” she concluded sadly, “it is too late to ever banish those ghosts.” Then, not wishing to depress her already heart-broken daughter, she said in a lighter tone, “After all, why worry about your visit to Siquaw Point, when, as yet, you haven’t heard that your Great-Aunt Jane has really decided to go. I expected a letter every day last week, but none came, so she may have given up the plan for this year.” Then, after glancing up at the clock, she added, “Three, and almost time for the postman. I believe I hear his whistle now.”
At that moment Peter bounded in, his face rosy from his nap. “Postman’s coming,” he sang out. “Come on, Dori, I’ll beat you to the gate.”
The girl rose, saying gloomily, “This is probably the fatal day. I’m just sure there’ll be a letter from Great-Aunt Jane. I don’t see why she chose me when she’s never even seen me.”
When Dories reached the front door, she saw that Peter was already out in the road, frantically beckoning to her. “Hurry along, Dori. The postman’s just leaving Mrs. Doran’s,” he called; then as the mail wagon, drawn by a lean white horse, approached, the small boy ran out in the road and waved his arms.
Mr. Higgins, who had stopped at their door ever since Peter had been a baby, beamed at him over his glasses. “Law sakes!” he exclaimed, “Do I see a bandit? Guess you’ve been reading stories about ‘Dick Dead-shot’ holding up mail coaches in the Rockies. Sorry, but there ain’t nothin’ for you.” Then, smilingly, he addressed the girl. “Likely in a day or two I’ll be fetchin’ you a letter, Dori, from your old friend Nann Sibbett. It’ll be powerfully lonesome around here for you, I reckon, now she’s gone.”
The girl nodded. “Just awfully lonesome, Mr. Higgins, and please do bring me a letter soon.” Just then Johnnie Doran called for Peter to come over and play, and the girl went slowly back to the house.
Her mother looked up inquiringly. “No letter at all,” Dories announced in so disappointed a tone that she laughingly confessed, “Mother, I do believe that I’m made up of the contrariest emotions. I do hate the thought of spending that dismal month of October with Great-Aunt Jane at Siquaw Point, but I hate even worse going back to High without Nann.”
“Dear girl,” the mother’s voice held a tenderly given rebuke, “you aren’t thinking in the least of the pleasure your companionship might give your Great-Aunt Jane. She was very fond of your father when he was a boy, and he spent many a summer with her at Siquaw. That may be her reason for inviting you. Your father seemed to be the only person for whom she really cared.” Then, before the rather surprised girl could reply, the mother continued, “I wish, dear, that you would hunt up your Aunt’s last letter and answer it more fully. I was so busy when it came that I merely sent a few lines, thanking her for the invitation.”
Dories sighed as she rose to obey, but turned back to listen when her mother continued: “I know how hard it is going to be, dear girl, but I have a reason, which I cannot explain just now, for very much wishing you to go. Now write the letter and make it as interesting and newsy as you can.”
Dories, from the door, dropped a curtsy. “Very well, Mrs. Moore,” she said, “to please you I’ll write to the crabbedy old lady, but – ” Her mother merrily shook her finger at her. “I want you to withhold judgment, daughter, until you have seen your Great-Aunt Jane.”
CHAPTER III
A LOST MOTHER
A week passed, and though Dories received several picture postcards from her best friend, not a line came from her Great-Aunt Jane.
“She has probably changed her mind about going to Siquaw, dear, and so you would better prepare to start back to school on Monday. I had talked the matter over with the principal, Mr. Setherly, and he told me that you could easily make up October’s work, but, if you are not going away, it will be better for you to begin the term with the others.”
They were at breakfast, and for a long, silent moment the girl sat gazing out of the window at a garden that was beginning to look dry and sear. When she turned back toward her mother, there were tears in her eyes.
The woman placed a hand on the one near her as she tenderly inquired, “Are you disappointed because you’re not going, daughter?”
“No, no, not that, but you can’t know how I dread returning to High without Nann. We had planned graduating together and after that going to college together if only we could find a way.”
Her mother glanced up quickly as though there was something that she wanted to say, then pressed her lips firmly as though to keep some secret from being uttered. Dories listlessly continued eating. There was a closer pressure of her mother’s hand. “It is hard, dear, I know,” the understanding voice was saying. “Life brings many disappointments, but there is always a compensation. You’ll see!” Then, glancing toward the stair door, which was slowly opening, the mother called, “Hurry up, you lazy Peterkins. Come and have your breakfast. I want you and Dories to go to the village and match some silk for me as soon as you can.”
Then, when she served the little fellow, the loving woman returned to her daily task and left a half self-pitying, half rebellious and wholly dispirited girl to wash and put away the dishes. Then listlessly she donned her scarlet tam and sweater coat and went into the sewing room to get the samples that she was to match. Her mother smiled up into her dismal face. “Dori, daughter, don’t gloom around so much,” she pleaded. “I shall actually believe that you are disappointed because you are not going to Siquaw. Now, here’s the silk to be matched and there’s Peterkins waiting for you. Come back as soon as you can, won’t you?”
It was midmorning when Dories and the small boy returned from the shopping expedition. They went at once to the sewing room, but their mother was not there. They looked in the living room and in the kitchen. “Mother, where are you?” they both called, but there was no reply.
“Maybe she’s upstairs,” Peter suggested.
“Of course. How stupid for me to forget that we have an upstairs to our house.” Dories felt strangely excited as she ran up the circling front stairway calling again and again, but still there was no reply. Down the long upper corridor they went, opening one door and another, beginning to feel almost frightened at the stillness.
Then Dories exclaimed, “Oh, maybe she’s gone over to Mrs. Doran’s for a moment. I guess she couldn’t do any sewing until we came back with the silk.” They were about to descend the back stairs when they heard a noise in the garret overhead.
The frail boy caught his sister’s