The Happy Venture | Page 8

one," said Felicia. "We thought it would be
nice to go to another one--in the country. Oh, you'll like it."
"How queer!" Kirk mused. "Perhaps I shall. But I don't know about this
corner; it used to be covered up. Please start me right."
She did so, and then ran off to attend to a peculiar pudding which was
boiling over on the stove. She had not told him that the low-boy was
sent away to be sold. When she and Ken had discovered the appalling
sum it would cost to move the furniture anywhere, they heartbrokenly
concluded that the low-boy and various other old friends must go to
help settle the accounts of Miss Bolton and the nurse.
"There are some things," Ken stoutly pronounced, however, "that we'll
take with us, if I have to go digging ditches to support 'em. And some
we'll leave with Mr. Dodge--I know he won't mind a few nice tables
and things."
For the "different house" was actually engaged. Mr. Dodge shook his
head when he heard that Ken had paid the first quarter's rent without

having even seen the place.
"Fine old farm-house," said the advertisement; "Peach and apple
orchards. Ten acres of land. Near the bay. Easy reach of city. Only
$15.00 per month."
There was also a much blurred photograph of the fine old farm-house,
from which it was difficult to deduce much except that it had a gambrel
roof.
"But it does sound quite wonderful," Felicia said to the attorney. "We
thought we wouldn't go to see it because of its costing so much to travel
there and back again. But don't you think it ought to be nice? Peach and
apple orchards,--and only fifteen dollars a month!"
"I dare say it is wonderful," said Mr. Dodge, smiling. "At any rate,
Asquam itself is a very pretty little bayside place--I've been there.
Fearfully hard to get your luggage, but charming once you're there.
Don't forget me! I'll always be here. And you'd better have a little more
cash for your traveling expenses."
"I hope it really came out of our money," Ken said, when he saw the
cash.
Nothing but a skeleton of a house, now. No landmarks at all were left
for Kirk, and he tumbled over boxes and crates, and lost himself in the
bare, rugless halls. The beds that were to be taken to Asquam were still
set up,--they would be crated next day,--but there was really nothing
else left in the rooms. Three excited people, two of them very tired, ate
supper on the corner of the kitchen table--which was not going to the
farm-house. That house flowered hopefully in its new tenants' minds.
Felicia saw it, tucked between its orchards, gray roof above gnarled
limbs, its wide stone door-step inviting one to sit down and look at the
view of the bay. And there would be no need of spending anything
there except that fifteen dollars a month--"and something for food,"
Felicia thought, "which oughtn't to be much, there in the country with
hens and things."

It amused Kirk highly--going to bed in an empty room. He put his
clothes on the floor, because he could find no other place for them.
Felicia remonstrated and suggested the end of the bed.
"Everything else you own is packed, you know," said she. "You'd better
preserve those things carefully."
"Sing to me," he said, when he was finally tucked in. "It's the last
night--and--everything's so ugly. I want to pretend it's just the same.
Sing '_Do-do, petit frère_,' Phil."
Felicia sat on the edge of the bed and sang the little old French lullaby.
She had sung it to him often when she was quite a small girl, and he a
very little boy. She remembered just how he used to look--a cuddly,
sleepy three-year-old, with a tumble of dark hair and the same grave,
unlit eyes. He was often a little frightened, in those days, and needed to
hold a warm substantial hand to link him with the mysterious world he
could not see.
"_Do-do, p'tit frère, do-do_."
His hand groped down the blanket, now, for hers, and she took it and
sang on a bit unsteadily in the echoing bareness of the dismantled
room.
A long time afterward, when Kenelm was standing beside his window
looking out into the starless dark, Felicia's special knock sounded
hollowly at his door.
She came over to him, and stood for a while silently. Then she turned
and said suddenly in a shy, low voice:
"Oh, Ken, I don't know how you feel about it, but--but, I think,
whatever awful is going to happen, we must try to keep things beautiful
for Kirk."
"I guess we must," Ken said, staring out. "I'd trust you to do it, old Phil.
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