Kit of Greenacre Farm | Page 7

Izola Forrester
Jean. "It would
hurt his feelings." She glanced back over her shoulder to where Mr.
Delaplaine worked, taking off the outer layer of charred clapboards
from the front of the house.
"Still it is nice to own a dean, almost as good as a squire," repeated Kit,
placidly. "There were only seven original ones here in Gilead; and his
grandfather was one of those. Let's see, Jean, he would have been our
great-great-great-grandfather, wouldn't he? Great-Uncle Cassius is

named for him, Cassius Cato Peabody. Just think of him, Jean, with a
name like that when he was a little boy, in a braided jacket and those
funny high waisted breeches you see in the little painted woodcuts in
Cousin Roxy's childhood books."
"I didn't pay much attention to what they were saying about him," said
Jean, dreamily. "Is he still alive?"
"He is, but I guess he might as well be dead as far as the rest of the
family is concerned. Cousin Roxy said he'd never married, and he lived
with his old maiden lady sister out west somewhere. Not the real west,
either; I mean the interesting west like Saskatchewan and Saskatoon
and--and California; you know what I mean, Jean?"
"I didn't even hear where they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested.
Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they could
leave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting it
white with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I
suppose everybody would say it was flying in the face of tradition, after
the Trowbridge place has been white two hundred years."
"There comes the mail," called Jean, starting up and running down the
drive like a young deer, as the little cart hove in sight. The carrier
waved a newspaper and letter at them.
"Nothin' for you girls, to-day, only a letter for your pa, and weekly
newspaper for Hiram. I'll leave it up at the old place as I go by." He
added as a happy afterthought to relieve any possible anxiety on their
part, "It's from Delphi, Mich."
Kit stood transfixed with wonder, as he passed on up the hill.
"Jean," she said, slowly, "there's something awfully queer about me. I
heard Cousin Roxy say once, I was born with a veil, and ought to be
able to prognosticate. That letter was from Uncle Cassius Cato
Peabody."
"Well, what if it is?" asked Jean, shaking the needles from her serge

skirt as she rose leisurely.
Kit drew on her freshman knowledge of ancient history, and quoted:
"Last night the eagles circled over Rome, And Caesar's destiny----"
Jean laughed and pointed to a line of crows rising leisurely from a
clump of pine woods.
"What does it mean when the crows circle over Gilead?"
Kit jammed her velvet "tam" down over one ear adventurously, and
started towards the gateway, finishing the quotation as she went:
"--crowned him thrice king!"
CHAPTER IV
THE ORACLE AT DELPHI
It appeared that Uncle Cassius lived strictly up to tradition, for it had
been over fifteen years since any word had been received from the
oracle at Delphi, as the girls dubbed him from the very first. The letter
which broke the long silence was read aloud several times that day, the
girls especially searching between its lines for any hidden sentiment or
hint of family affection.
"I don't see why on earth he tries to be generous when he doesn't know
how," Helen said, musingly. "I wonder if he's got bushy gray hair and
whiskers, like somebody we were studying about yesterday. Who was
that, Kit?"
Kit glanced up from Uncle Cassius' letter with a preoccupied
expression.
"Whiskers?" she repeated. "Why, I don't know; Walt Whitman, Ibsen,
Longfellow, Joaquin Miller? Tolstoi had long straggly ones, didn't he?"
"These were kind of bushy ones. I think it was Carlyle."

"Wait a minute while I read this thing over carefully again," Kit warned
them. "I think while we're alone we ought to discuss it freely. Mother
just took it as if it were a case of 'Which shall it be, which shall it be, I
looked at John, John looked at me.' It seems to me, since it concerns us
vitally, that we ought to have some selection in the matter ourselves."
"But Kit, dear, you didn't read carefully," Jean interposed with a little
laugh. "See here," she followed the writing with her finger tip. "He says,
'Send me the boy.' There isn't any boy."
"No," Kit agreed, thoughtfully, "but I presume there should have been a
boy. I'm more like father than any of you, and I'd love to have been the
boy in the family. I wonder why he said that."
"Well, it certainly shuts off any further negotiations because 'there ain't
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