The Squirrel Inn Part 3

"You!" cried Mrs. Cristie. "When did you do that?"

"It was two years ago this spring," said Lodloe. "I was up there getting material for an article on the college which I wrote for the 'Bayside Magazine.'"

"Did you write that?" said Mrs. Cristie. "I read it, and it was just as full of mistakes as it could be."

"That may be, and I don't wonder at it," said the young man. "I kept on taking in material until I had a good deal more than I could properly stow away in my mind, and it got to be too late for me to go back to the town, and they had to put me into the Founder's Room, because the house was a good deal crowded. Before I went to bed I examined all the things in the room. I didn't sleep well at all, for during the night the old gentleman got down out of his frame, and sat on the side of my bed, and told me a lot of things about that college which n.o.body else ever knew, I am sure."

"And I suppose you mixed up all that information with what the college people gave you," she said.

"That may be the case," answered Lodloe, laughing, "for some of the old gentleman's points were very interesting and made a deep impression upon me."

"Well," said Mrs. Cristie, speaking very emphatically, "when I had finished reading that article I very much wished to meet the person who had written it, so that I might tell him what I thought of it; but of course I had no idea that the founder had anything to do with its inaccuracies."

"Madam," said Lodloe, "if it had not been for the mistakes in it you never would have thought of the man who wrote the paper, but you did think of him, and wanted to meet him. Now it seems to me that we have been quite properly introduced to each other, and it was old Matthew Va.s.sar who did it. I am sure I am very much obliged to him."

Mrs. Cristie laughed. "I don't know what the social authorities would say to such an introduction," she answered, "but as baby is asleep I shall take him into the saloon."

IV

LODLOE UNDERTAKES TO NOMINATE HIS SUCCESSOR

It was late in the afternoon when the Romney pa.s.sengers were landed, and Mrs. Cristie and Lodloe, with a few other persons, repaired to the village hotel.

"There is a sort of stage-wagon," said the lady, "which takes people from this house to the Squirrel Inn, and it starts when the driver is ready; but before I leave Romney I must try to find some one who will go with me as nurse-maid."

"Madam," said Lodloe, "don't think of it. I have made inquiries of the landlord, and he says the roads are rough, and that it will take more than an hour to reach the Squirrel Inn, so that if you do not start now I fear you and the baby will not get there before dark. I prefer to stay here to-night, and it will be no trouble at all for me to look up a suitable person for you, and to take her with me to-morrow. It will be a good plan to take four or five of them, and when you have selected the one you like best the others can come back here in the wagon. It will be a lark for them."

Mrs. Cristie drew a long breath. "Truly," she said, "your proposition is phenomenal. Half a dozen nurse-maids in a wagon, from whom I am to pick and choose! The thing is so startling and novel that I am inclined to accept. I should very much dislike to be on the road after dark, and if you have planned to stay here to-night, and if it will not be much trouble--"

"Say not another word," cried Lodloe; "project your mind into to-morrow morning, and behold a wagon-load of willing maidens at the door of the inn."

When Mrs. Cristie and the baby and an elderly woman who lived in Lethbury, a village two miles beyond the Squirrel Inn, had started on their journey, Walter Lodloe set about the task he had undertaken. It was still hot, and the Romney streets were dusty, and after an hour or two of inquiry, walking, and waiting for people who had been sent for, Lodloe found that in the whole village there was not a female from thirteen to seventy-three who would think of such a thing as leaving her home to become nurse-maid to a city lady. He went to bed that night a good deal chagrined, and not in the least knowing what he was going to do about it.

In the morning, however, the thing to do rose clear and plain before him.

"I can't go to her and tell her I've failed," he said to himself. "A maid must be got, and I have undertaken to get one. As there is n.o.body to be had here, I must go back to the city for one. There are plenty of them there."

So when the early morning boat came along he took pa.s.sage for the nearest railroad station on the river, for he wished to lose no time on that trip.

The elderly lady who was going to Lethbury took a great interest in Mrs.

Cristie, who was to be her only fellow-pa.s.senger. She was at the hotel with her carpet-bag and her paper bundle some time before the big spring-wagon was ready to start, and she gave earnest attention to the loading thereon of Mrs. Cristie's trunk and the baby-carriage. When they were on their way the elderly woman promptly began the conversation:

"I think," said she to Mrs. Cristie, "that I've seed you before."

"Perhaps so," said the other; "I was in this region three years ago."

"Yes, yes," said the elder woman; "I thought I was right. Then you had a husband and no child. It now looks as if you had a child and no husband."

Mrs. Cristie informed her that her surmise was correct.

"Well, well," said the elderly woman; "I've had 'em both, and it's hard to say which can be spared best, but as we've got nothin' to do with the sparin' of 'em, we've got ter rest satisfied. After all, they're a good deal like lilock bushes, both of 'em. They may be cut down, and grubbed up, and a parsley bed made on the spot, but some day they sprout up ag'in, and before you know it you've got just as big a bush as ever.

Does Stephen Petter know you're comin'?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: A WAGON-LOAD OF NURSE-MAIDS.]

"Oh, yes," said Mrs. Cristie, quite willing to change the subject; "all that is arranged. I was so pleased with the place when I was here before, and Mrs. Petter was so good to me, that I quite long to spend a summer there with my child."

"Well, I'm glad he knows you are comin', but if he didn't, I was goin'

ter say to you that you'd better go on to Lethbury, and then see what you could do with Stephen to-morrow. It's no use stoppin' at his house without givin' notice, and like as not it ain't no use then."

"Is Mr. Petter's house filled?" asked Mrs. Cristie.

"Filled!" said the elderly woman. "There's n.o.body on the place but his own family and the Greek."

"Greek!" exclaimed Mrs. Cristie.

"Yes," said the other; "he keeps a Greek in an outhouse, but what for n.o.body knows. I think Stephen Petter is gettin' more oncommon than he was. If he wants to get custom for his house the best thing he can do is to die. There ain't no other way, for Stephen's not goin' to do no changin' of himself. My niece, Calthea Rose, the daughter of Daniel Rose, who used to keep the store,--she keeps it now herself,--goes over there a good deal, for she's wonderful partial to Susan Petter, and there's a good reason for it too, for a better woman never lived, and the walk over there is mostly shady, or through the fields, to both of which Calthea is partial, and so she knows most things that's goin' on at the Squirrel Inn, which latterly has not been much, except the comin'

of the Greek; an' as n.o.body has been able to get at the bottom of that business, that isn't much, neither."

"I think I remember Miss Calthea Rose," said Mrs. Cristie. "She was tall, wasn't she, with a very fair complexion?"

"Yes," said the elderly woman; "and it's just as fair now as it was then. Some of it's owin' to sun-bonnet, and some of it to cold cream.

Calthea isn't as young as she was, but she's wonderful lively on her feet yit, and there ain't many that could get ahead of her walkin' or bargainin'."

"And she keeps the store?" asked Mrs. Cristie.

"Yes," said the other; "she keeps it, and in more ways than one. You see, when Dan'el died--and that was two years ago last March--he left everything to Calthea, and the store with the rest. Before he died he told her what he had done, and advised her to sell out the stock, and put the money into somethin' that would pay good interest, and this she agreed to do, and this she is doing now. She wouldn't consent to no auction, for she knew well enough the things wouldn't bring more 'n half they cost, so she undertook herself to sell 'em all out at retail, just as her father intended they should be sold when he bought 'em. Well, it's took her a long while, and, in the opinion of most folks, it'll take her a long while yit. You see she don't lay in no new goods, but just keeps on sellin' or tryin' to sell what she's got on hand.

"It was purty easy to get rid of the groceries, and the iron and wooden things got themselves sold some way or other; but old dry-goods, with never any new ones to lighten 'em up, is about as humdrum as old people without youngsters in the family. Now it stands to reason that when a person goes into a store and sees nothin' but old calicoes, and some other odds and ends, gettin' mustier and dustier and a little more fly-specked every time, and never a new thing, even so much as a spool of cotton thread, then persons isn't likely to go often into that store, specially when there's a new one in the village that keeps up to the times.

"Now that's Calthea Rose's way of doin' business. She undertook to sell out them goods, and she's goin' to keep on till she does it. She is willin' to sell some of the worst-lookin' things at cost, but not a cent below that, for if she does, she loses money, and that isn't Calthea Rose. I guess, all put together, she hasn't sold more 'n ten dollars'

worth of goods this year, and most of them was took by the Greek, though what he wants with 'em is more 'n I know."

"I am sorry to hear that there are no guests at the Squirrel Inn," was Mrs. Cristie's only reply to this information.

"Oh, you needn't give yourself no trouble about loneliness and that sort of thing," said the elderly woman; "before to-morrow night the whole house may be crowded from c.o.c.kloft to potato-cellar. It never has been yit, but there's no tellin' what Stephen Petter has a-brewin' in his mind."

V

THE LANDLORD AND HIS INN