Diane of the Green Van | Page 7

woods,"
she added abruptly, "with stars twinkling overhead and the moonlight
showering softly through the trees?"
"I'm very sure I never have!" said Aunt Agatha with considerable
decision. "And it's not at all likely I ever shall. There are bugs and
things," she added vaguely, "and snakes that wriggle about."
"I've always wanted to lie and dream by a camp fire," mused Diane,
unconscious of a certain startled flutter of Aunt Agatha's dressing gown,
"to hear the wind rising in the forest and the lap of the lake against the
shore." She wheeled abruptly, her eyes bright with excitement. "And
I'm going to try it."
"To sleep by a lake in springtime!" gasped Aunt Agatha in great
distress. "Diane, I beg of you, _don't_ do it! I once knew a man who
slept out somewhere--such a nice man, too!--and something bit him--a
heron, I think, or a herring. No! It couldn't have been either. Isn't it

funny how I do forget! Strangest thing! But to sleep by a lake in
springtime, think of that!"
"Oh, no, no, no, Aunt Agatha!" laughed Diane. "I didn't mean quite that.
I'm merely going back to the Glade farm to-morrow to--" she glanced
with furtive uncertainty at her aunt and halted. "Aunt Agatha, I've been
planning a gypsy cart! There! It's out at last and I dreaded the telling!
When the summer comes, I'm going to travel about in my wonderful
house on wheels and live in the free, wild, open country!"
"I can't believe it!" said Aunt Agatha, staring. "I can't--I won't believe
it!"
"Don't be a goose!" begged the girl happily. "All winter the voice of the
open country has been calling--calling! There's quicksilver in my veins.
See, Aunt Agatha, see the spring moon--the 'Planting Moon' an Indian
girl I used to know in college called it! How gloriously it must be
shining over silent woods and lakes, flashing silver on the pines and the
ripples by the shore. And the sea, the great, wide, beautiful, mysterious
sea droning under a million stars!"
"Think of that!" breathed Aunt Agatha incredulously. "A million stars!
I can't believe it. But dear me, Diane, there are seas and stars and
moons and things right here in New York."
With a swift flash of tenderness Diane slipped her arm about Aunt
Agatha's perturbed shoulders.
"You're not going to mind at all!" she wheedled gently. "I'm sure of it.
I'd have to go anyway. It's in my blood like the hint of summer in the
air to-night."
Aunt Agatha merely stared. The Westfalls were congenital enigmas.
"A gypsy cart!" she gurgled presently, rising phoenix-like at last from a
dumb-struck supineness. "A gypsy cart! Well! A wheelbarrow wouldn't
have surprised me more, Diane, a wheelbarrow with a motor!"

"Don't you remember Mrs. Jarley's wagon?" reminded Diane. "It had
windows and curtains--"
"Surely," broke in Aunt Agatha with strained dignity, "you're not going
in for waxworks like Mrs. Jarley!"
"Dear, no!" laughed Diane, with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes.
"There are so many wild flowers and birds and legends to study I
shouldn't have time!"
"Great heavens," murmured Aunt Agatha faintly, "my ears have gone
queer like mother's."
"And maybe I'll not be back for a year," offered Diane calmly. "I can
work south through the winter--"
Aunt Agatha fell tragically back in her chair and gasped.
"Didn't we take a whole year to motor over Europe?" demanded Diane
impetuously. "And that was nothing like so fascinating as my gypsy
house on wheels."
"If I could only have looked ahead!" breathed Aunt Agatha, shuddering.
"If only I could have foreseen what notions you and Carl were fated to
take in your heads, I'd have refused your grandfather's legacy. I would
indeed. Here I no more than get Carl safely home from hunting
Esquimaux or whatever it was up there by the North Pole--walravens,
wasn't it, Diane?--well, walrus then!--than you decide to become a
gypsy and sleep by a lake in springtime under a planting moon and stay
outdoors all winter, collecting birds, when I fancied you were safely
launched in society until you were married."
"But Aunt Agatha," flashed the girl, "I'm not at all anxious to marry."
Aunt Agatha burst into a calamitous shower of tears.
"Aunt Agatha," said Diane kindly, "why not remember that you're no
longer burdened with the terrible responsibility of bringing Carl and me

up? We're both mature, responsible beings."
Aunt Agatha dabbed defiantly at her eyes.
"Well," she said flatly, "I shan't worry, I just shan't. I'm past that. There
was a time, but at my time of life I just can't afford it. You can do as
you please. You can go shoot alligators if you want to, Diane, I shan't
interpose another objection. But the trials that I've endured in my life