The Happy Venture | Page 9

along now to bed," he added gruffly; "we'll have to be up like larks

to-morrow."
CHAPTER IV
THE FINE OLD FARM-HOUSE
Asquam proper is an old fishing-village on the bayside. The new
Asquam has intruded with its narrow-eaved frame cottages among the
gray old houses, and has shouldered away the colonial Merchants' Hall
with a moving-picture theater, garish with playbills and posters. Two
large and well-patronized summer hotels flourish on the highest
elevation (Asquam people say that their town is "flatter'n a johnny
cake"), from which a view of the open sea can be had, as well as of the
peninsulas and islands which crowd the bay.
On the third day of April the hotels and many of the cottages were
closed, with weathered shutters at the windows and a general air of
desolation about their windy piazzas. Asquam, both new and old,
presented a rather bleak and dismal appearance to three persons who
alighted thankfully from the big trolley-car in which they had lurched
through miles of flat, mist-hung country for the past forty minutes.
The station-agent sat on a tilted-up box and discussed the new arrivals
with one of his ever-present cronies.
"Whut they standin' ther' fer?" he said. "Some folks ain't got enough
sense to go in outen the rain, seems so."
"'T ain't rainin'--not so's to call it so," said the crony, whose name was
Smith. "The gell's pretty."
"Ya-as, kind o'," agreed the station-agent, tilting back critically. "Boy's
upstandin'."
"Which one?"
"Big 'n. Little 'un ain't got no git-up-'n'-git fer one o' his size. Look at
him holdin' to her hand."

"Sunthin' ails him," Smith said. "Ain't all there I guess."
The station-agent nodded a condescending agreement, and cocked his
foot on another box. At this moment the upstanding boy detached
himself from his companions, and strode to where the old man sat.
"I beg your pardon," he said, "can you tell me how far it is to the
Baldwin farm, and whether any of Mr. Sturgis's freight has come yet?"
"Baldwin fa'm?" and the station-agent scratched his ear. "Oh, you mean
out on the Winterbottom Road, hey? 'Beout two mile."
"And Mr. Sturgis's freight?"
"Nawthin' come fer that name," said the agent, "'less these be them." He
indicated four small packages in the baggage-room.
"Oh no," said Ken, "they're big things--beds, and things like that. Well,
please let me know if they do come. I'm Mr. Sturgis."
"Oh, you be," said the agent, comprehensively.
"Ain't gonna walk away out to the Baldwin place with all them valises,
air you?" Smith inquired, breaking silence for the first time.
"I don't know how else we'll get there," Ken said.
"_Yay_--Hop!" shouted Smith, unexpectedly, with a most astonishing
siren-like whoop.
Before Ken had time to wonder whether it was a prearranged signal for
attack, or merely that the man had lost his wits, an ancient person in
overalls and a faded black coat appeared from behind the
baggage-house. "Hey? Well?" said he.
"Take these folks up to the Baldwin place," Smith commanded; "and
don't ye go losin' no wheels this time--ye got a young lady aboard." At
which sally all the old men chuckled creakily.

But the young lady showed no apprehension, only some relief, as she
stepped into the tottering surrey which Hop drove up beside the
platform. As the old driver slapped the reins on the placid horse's
woolly back, the station-agent turned to Smith.
"George," he said, "the little 'un ain't cracked. He's blind."
"Well, gosh!" said Smith, with feeling.
Winterbottom Road unrolled itself into a white length of half-laid dust,
between blown, sweet-smelling bay-clumps and boulder-filled
meadows.
"Is it being nice?" Kirk asked, for the twentieth time since they had left
the train for the trolley-car.
Felicia had been thanking fortune that she'd remembered to stop at the
Asquam Market and lay in a few provisions. She woke from
calculations of how many meals her family could make of the supplies
she had bought, and looked about.
"We're near the bay," she said; "that is you can see little silvery flashes
of it between trees. They're pointy trees--junipers, I think and there are
a lot of rocks in the fields, and wild-flowers. Nothing like any place
you've ever been in--wild, and salty, and--yes, quite nice."
They passed several low, sturdy farm-houses, and one or two
boarded-up summer cottages; then two white chimneys showed above a
dark green tumble of trees, and the ancient Hopkins pointed with his
whip saying:
"Ther' you be. Kind o' dull this time year, I guess; but my! Asquam's
real uppy, come summer--machines a-goin', an' city folks an' such.
Reckon I'll leave you at the gate where I kin turn good."
The flap-flop of the horse's hoofs died on Winterbottom Road, and no
sound came but the wind sighing in old apple-boughs,