“What on earth do you mean!” he asked.
“Just what I said. If it belongs to nobody, we, being the Godets’ descendants, can surely take it. Who’d have a better right?”
Jack looked more and more puzzled, as he said—“What would you do with it?”
“Do with it? Why, live in it, of course.”
The boy regarded her with such a worried look that she laughed outright.
“I’m perfectly sane, Jack. My plan is this. We’ll have to live somewhere during the winter; and if we board, we’ll use up all the money we make this summer. With this as our headquarters, during unpleasant weather we could make day trips as we planned, and send Prissy to school every day in Wolfville. Or possibly you could get some kind of a job in Windsor for the winter, and I could take charge of the wagon.”
“But nobody could possibly live in that cabin,” objected Jack, brushing away a persistently hovering bee. “It’s hopeless.”
“Indeed it isn’t hopeless. I agree with you that no one could live in it the way it is now, but with new floors and a couple of partitions, it would be fine. You admitted that the walls were stout, and the chimney perfect.”
“With help, I could put down floors—” began Jack half to himself, after a moment’s consideration. “We’ll have to think this out more carefully, though, and talk it over again.” And he added hurriedly as they got near the wagon, and Priscilla dashed out to meet them, “Don’t say anything yet before the children.”
The same afternoon Jack went again to town, and did not return until supper time. Priscilla was curious to know what he did there, but he gave such absurd answers to her questions that she finally gave up.
“I’m not ever going to ask you another question,” she announced.
“Not until next time,” teased Jack, ruffling up her hair.
“I suppose you are as curious as Prissy,” he said later on to Desiré, after the children were asleep.
August had come in with a cool wind from over Fundy, and after darkness fell, the chill was more noticeable; so Jack had built a small camp fire, and he and Desiré were sitting beside it on a pile of cedar boughs.
“Well, yes,” admitted Desiré. “I must confess that I am.”
“I went to see a young carpenter that the judge recommended to me—”
“About floors?” asked Desiré eagerly, twisting around so quickly to look directly into his face that the pile of boughs swayed threateningly.
“Look out, Dissy!” warned her brother. “You’ll have us both in the fire if you don’t sit still. Yes, about floors, and partitions.”
“What did he say?”
“He’s busy on one of the farms now, but when the crops are in he’ll do the work for us at a price that we can afford to pay. That is, I think we can if we do well for the rest of the summer.”
“Then we’ll just have to,” decreed Desiré, tossing a couple of pine cones into the fire.
“The judge is a good old scout. Seemed so interested in us that I told him what we were doing, or rather trying to do, and he was awfully keen about seeing the rest of you. So he’s coming out tomorrow to lunch—”
“Tomorrow!” exclaimed Desiré. “Why, I thought you were anxious to get on to Windsor; and we’ve already lost a day.”
“Yes, I know; I don’t know just why I hung around here, but it just seemed as if we were meant to.”
“And to lunch, Jack,” she added, in dire dismay. “What made you ask him to a meal?”
“I don’t know. The invitation was out before I thought. But you would have asked him, too. He seems so kind of lonely, and he says he dotes on picnics. You can manage something simple; can’t you?” the boy asked anxiously.
“I’ll try hard, of course. Do you suppose you could catch a few fish in the morning?”
“Probably, and I saw some ripe huckleberries as I came along this afternoon. The youngsters can gather some of those, and we’ll get along all right.”
The children were delighted at the prospect of “company,” and immediately after breakfast, Jack escorted them, armed with a tin pail and a couple of cups, across a field to the berry bushes loaded with blue fruit.
“When the pail is filled, go right back the way we came, and take the berries to Desiré,” he instructed, as he set out in a different direction for the river, with his fish pole. The banks of the sparkling stream were pink with masses of wild roses, freshly opened and wet with dew.
“Desiré would be crazy over these,” he thought. “Guess I’ll take some to her when I go back.”
An hour’s fishing resulted in enough fish for a meal; and after cutting an armful of roses, Jack returned to camp. The children had reached there ahead of him, and were busy making things ready for the eagerly awaited guest.
Desiré had laid on the ground, in a shady spot, a red-bordered tablecloth, anchored it at each corner with a stone concealed by a pile of pine cones. She greeted Jack’s offering with enthusiasm—“Just what we need for the centre of the table. Prissy, get an empty fruit can to put them in, and lay some big ferns around it. I must attend to my biscuits.”
It was wonderful what good things Desiré could cook on the little camp stove, which they really had not felt able to afford when they saw it in Yarmouth. “It will pay for itself very soon,” she had argued; “for we can’t live on cold food all the time; and eating in restaurants is awfully expensive.” Jack had approved; so the stove and even a little oven to set on top of it, when needed, had been added to old Simon’s outfit.
About twelve o’clock a Ford coupé was seen in the distance, and soon came to a stop beside the Wistmores who, one and all, stood in a row in front of the camp. A thin little man with heavy white hair got nimbly out of the car.
“This is my family, Judge Herbine,” said Jack; “Desiré, Priscilla, and René.”
“Very glad, indeed, to know you all,” replied the judge, bowing low with old-fashioned courtesy, but gazing searchingly at each one over the tops of the glasses which he wore so far out on his nose that it was a miracle that they stayed on at all. Priscilla was so fascinated by them that she could hardly keep her eyes off them.
“We’ll have lunch right away,” announced Desiré; “so please take your places at the table. This is yours, Judge,” indicating the side facing the road, where a cushion had been placed. The others sat on the ground.
The fish which Jack had fried over a camp fire, while Desiré finished her biscuits, were done to a turn; and the judge did full justice to them.
“These biscuits are mighty fine,” he commented, “and you say you made them on that little gadget of a stove? Marvelous! Marvelous!”
After the huckleberries and some wafers which Desiré had taken from their stock were disposed of, the guest insisted upon helping clear up. He was a lively little man, and skipped hither and thither, carrying dishes, picking up papers, and making himself generally useful.
“Now for a visit,” he said, settling himself beside a tall pine, leaning back against its trunk, and stretching his legs, clad in cream-colored crash, straight out in front of him.
CHAPTER XVI
A NEW FRIEND
“So you’re going to try to live in the old Godet house this winter—”
“Oh, are we?” cried Priscilla, throwing herself on Desiré.
“Oh! Oh!”