Kit of Greenacre Farm | Page 4

if we went away and left you in charge for
one single day, Kit, you would manage to get into some kind of
misadventure," Jean said, reproachfully, that evening. "If you only
wouldn't act on the impulse of the moment. Why on earth didn't you
tell father, and ask his advice before you telephoned to Mr. Hicks?"
"That's a sensible thing for you to say," retorted Kit, hotly, "after you've
all warned me not to worry Dad about anything. And I did not act upon
the impulse of the moment," very haughtily. "I made certain logical
deductions from certain facts. How was I to know he was hunting
gypsy moths and other winged beasts when I saw him bending over
bushes in our berry patch? Anyhow it would simplify matters if Dad
would let us know when he expected illustrious visitors. Did you see
old Hannibal's face and Evie's, too? They were so disappointed at not
having a prisoner in tow to exhibit to the Gilead populace on the way
over to the jail."
Mrs. Gorham glanced up over her spectacles at the circle of faces
around the sitting-room table. The girls had volunteered to help her
pick over berries for canning the following day. It was a sacrifice to
make, too, with the midsummer evening calling to them in all its varied
orchestral tones: Katydids and peep frogs, the swish of the wind
through the big Norway pines on the terraces, and the scrape of Shad's
old fiddle from the back porch. It was Friday evening, and Mr. and Mrs.
Robbins had driven over to the Judge's to attend a community meeting,
the latter being one of Cousin Roxy's innovations in Gilead.
"Land alive," she had been wont to say. "Here we are all living on the
same hills and valleys and never meeting 'cept on Sundays when we
have to, or now and again when there happens to be a funeral. I declare
if I didn't drive about all the time behind Ella Lou, I'd never know how
folks were getting on. So every two weeks the Judge and I are going to

hold an old-time social, only we call it a community meeting so as to
try to give it the new spirit. It's just as well for us to remember that we
ain't all dead yet by a long shot, 'though I do think there's a whole lot
that ain't got any more get up and get to them than Noah's old gray
mule that had to be shoved off the Ark."
Mr. Robbins had invited the erstwhile prisoner to accompany them, but
he had decided instead to keep on his way to the old Inn on the hill
above the village, much to Jean and Helen's disappointment.
Helen had discovered that his first name was Stanley, which relieved
her mind considerably.
"If it had been Abijah or Silas, I know I could never have forgiven him
for getting in the berry patch," she said, "but there is something
promising about Stanley. Seems as if he lit like Mercury just when
there wasn't anything happening here at all."
"Wonder if I turned out that oil stove," Mrs. Gorham said thoughtfully.
"Seems like I smell something. Shad," raising her voice, "do you get up
and go out in that 'ell' room and see if I turned out that fire under the
syrup. I smell smoke."
"Oh, Lord," groaned Shad, laying aside his cherished instrument. "You
could smell ice if you half tried."
He got up lumberingly and sauntered out through the kitchen into the
long lean-to addition, that was used as a summer kitchen now, and the
moment he opened the door there poured out a thick volume of black
smoke and flying soot. The old-fashioned oil stove had a way of letting
its wicks "work up," as Shad said, if left too long to its own devices.
There was a spurt of flame from the woodwork behind the stove, and
Shad slammed the door to, and ran for the water bucket.
It seemed incredible how fast the flames spread. Summoned by his
outcry, the girls formed a bucket brigade from the well to the kitchen
door, while Shad, his mouth bound around in a drenched Turkish towel,

fought the blaze single handed.
Mrs. Gorham made straight for the telephone, calling up the Judge, and
two or three of the nearest neighbors for help. The Peckham boys from
the sawmill were the first to respond, and five minutes later Hiram was
on the spot, having seen the rising smoke and flare in the sky from
Maple Lawn.
"You'll never save the place," old Mr. Peckham told them flatly. "The
well's low and everything is dry as tinder. Better start carrying things
out, girls, because the best we men-folks can