Strawberry Acres | Page 3

romantic sister, whose dreams of life in the country he considered
worse than folly. He turned up his trousers widely at the bottom as he
spoke.
"It's such a little way, we could soon have a better path," Sally replied.
"Look, there are the chimneys, I'm sure, just beyond that grove of pines.
It's hardly more than five minutes' walk from the car."
"Five minutes through a February blizzard is five minutes too much."
"But five minutes through a midsummer evening is an hour too little,"
Sally gave him back.
"That pine grove belongs to the place," called back Bob, who was
considerably in advance of the others. Sally, in spite of her eagerness,
was adapting her pace to the limitations of Uncle Timothy, who at sixty
could hardly be expected to walk in competition with nineteen.
"Pine groves are worth something these days," said Max, eyeing the
thick tops critically.
Sally had charmed eyes for the pine grove; but she did not look at it
long, for beyond showed the great chimney-tops she remembered from
her childhood, when it had been the happiest treat she knew to be
invited by Aunt Alicia to spend the day at Uncle Maxwell's country
place.
The young Lanes had all been born and brought up in the city. Their
home had been one of moderate luxury until, three years before, their
father had died suddenly, leaving the mere remnant of an estate which
had been supposed to be a large one. The shock, and the change from a
life of ease to one of close economy, had weakened the always delicate
constitution of the wife and mother until, a year after her husband's
death, she had followed him.
Max had left college at the end of his third year and gone into the bank

of which his Uncle Maxwell was vice-president. Alec, just ready for
college, had reluctantly resigned his purpose and taken a position in the
drafting-office of a firm of contractors, friends of his father. Even
Robert, the youngest, had found something to do. The family had sold
the old home to obtain money with which to meet expenses until the
salaries of the workers should begin to count, and had moved into the
little flat where the nineteen-year-old sister had, for a year now, done
her girlish best to make a home for her "four men," as she called them,
while she kept many violent attacks of heartache bravely hidden--for
the most part--under a bright exterior. Nobody knew how Sally disliked
the flat--unless it was Bob, who was her closest confidant.
"There's your fine family mansion!" called Max, pointing from the
curve of the road, which he had reached close after Bob.
Sally stood still in astonished surprise. Could that really be the
aristocratic old place of her memory? Max could hardly be blamed for
his derisive comments.
A noble house gone to decay is a sight infinitely more depressing than
that of an humble one. This once had been an imposing structure; it
looked now like a relic of war times.
"Look at the tumbling chimneys!" crowed Alec. "Look at the broken
shutters, swinging by one hinge. See those porch pillars--were they
ever white? Behold that side entrance--looks as if a cyclone had struck
it!"
Sally was silent. Even her buoyant hopes fell before the indisputable
evidence given by her eyes. It was so big--the old place! A small house
one might hope to repair, but a large building like this--it would cost
more than they would have to spare in years. If the outside were any
indication of the inside, the situation was hopeless.
She followed Alec in through the gateway, at the dilapidated stone
side-posts of which Max gave a significant wave of the hand as he
passed. An overgrown hedge ran along the entire front of the place, its
untrimmed wildness adding to the general unkempt look, as did the

sodden, tangled surface of what had once been a lawn, the rank
bunches of shrubbery which half hid the front windows from sight, and
the broken bricks in the old walk which led, beside a grass-grown
driveway, from gate-post to porch.
"How did Maxwell ever come to let this place go to seed like this?"
lamented Uncle Timothy. "He must have cared nothing at all for it. One
would think it was forty years instead of only ten that it had been left to
wind and weather."
"It's a wonder that some passing tramp hasn't set fire to it," commented
Max, searching in his pocket for the key which had been delivered to
him by Mr. Sidway, his uncle's executor. "Take a long breath before I
let you in. It'll be musty and fusty enough to stifle you, probably."
With considerable difficulty he turned the key in the