Dorothy's Travels Part 20

After this supper which was more hearty than most dinners at home, they walked to the postoffice and found a heap of mail that had been forwarded along their route. As usual there were letters from the "Boys"

and the Judge hailed with delight the news that they, as well as the Governor-General, would be among the morrow's arrivals.

"We'll stay till Sunday in Halifax, then start for camp on Monday, rain or s.h.i.+ne, wind, fog, or suns.h.i.+ne;" wrote the correspondent who arranged matters from the other end of the line.

"Good enough, good enough! Then my vacation will actually begin!" cried the pleased man.

"And pray, what do you call the days that have just pa.s.sed, my brother?"

demanded Auntie Lu, with a smile.

"My dear, I call that a 'personally conducted tour,' a tour of great responsibility and many perils. After Monday, when I deposit you ladies and the youngsters at Farmer Grimm's, I wash my hands of the whole of you for one long, delightful month!"

The laugh with which he said this disarmed the words of any unkindness and was echoed by another laugh quite free from offense.

"Very well, then, Schuyler, until Monday we hold you to your 'personally' conducting. You must take us everywhere, show us everything that is worth while. I want to go to the 'Martello' tower; to the Citadel, the old churches, the parks, all over the harbor on all sorts and conditions of boats, to--"

But the Judge held up his hand, protesting. Then asked:

"Suppose it proves a foggy season? Fog is one of the things to be counted upon in all parts of this country, more especially here. One summer I was here three weeks and the sun didn't s.h.i.+ne once!"

However, Mrs. Hungerford was bent upon enjoying and making others enjoy this visit; and she laughingly a.s.sured him that they were all "fog proof."

"Every one of us has overshoes, umbrella, and raincoat. We feminines I mean and 'boys' aren't supposed to mind any sort of weather. Am I not right, Melvin?"

"Yes, Mrs. Hungerford, I fancy you are. We have so much wet weather we're 'most unprepared for suns.h.i.+ne, don't you know."

This was so long a remark for Melvin, and so thoroughly "English" with its "fancy" and "don't you know," that all laughed.

But they waked in the morning to find the Judge's fear of a fog justified. The whole city was a-drip. The decorations which had been so crisp and brilliant on the day before hung limp and already discolored; and the scarlet and white bunting which had been so artistically wreathed about columns and cornices now clung tightly to them as if s.h.i.+vering in the wet.

It was a disheartened populace, too, which one met upon the street; for the expense had been great in preparations for the Governor's visit and the week of Carnival that had been planned seemed doomed to a series of disappointments.

None the less Auntie Lu held her brother to his promise to escort them everywhere; and everywhere they went, though mostly in covered carriages or under dripping umbrellas. One morning when the suns.h.i.+ne came for a brief visit they hastened to the street before the Provincial building to hear the most famous band in all the Canadas give its open air concert. Other people besides themselves had flocked thither at the first ray from the sun and now crowded the pavements surrounding the iron-fenced grounds. Everybody waxed enthusiastic and hopeful till--suddenly a drop fell on the tip of the band leader's nose. He cast one glance skyward but continued to wield his baton with great flourish and skill. Another drop; many; and the summer crowd swiftly dispersed.

Not so our sightseers from the States. But let Dorothy tell the tale in her own words and in the journal-letter she faithfully tried to keep for Father John:

"Dear Father:--

"Since we've been here in Halifax I haven't had a chance to write as regular as I ought. You see we come home so tired and wet every time that--Well, I just can't really write.

"We went to an open air concert in the heart of the city. The band was, were--which is right? Anyhow the men all had on their Sunday uniforms, the most beautiful red and bra.s.s and b.u.t.tons, and their instruments shone like anything. It rained, still they didn't even wink, except the head of them. He was brillianter dressed than any of them and he didn't like the rain. You could see that plain as plain. They all had little stands before them with their music on and the music got wet and splattery, but they didn't stop. They just tossed one piece of music down and began another, after they'd waited a little bit of while, to get their breath, I reckon. By and by all the people, nearly, had gone away from the sidewalk yet the band played right along.

"Then I heard somebody laugh. It was the Judge. He was laughing at Auntie Lu; he always is and she at him. When she asked him 'why,'

he said: 'I was thinking this was a match game between British and Yankee pluck. It's the Britisher's 'duty' to play to the end of his program and he'll do it if he's melted into a little heap when he's finished. It seems to be Yankee pluck, or duty, to stand out here in this melancholy drizzle and hold on as long as he does.'

"'Of course,' said Mrs. Hungerford, 'it would be mean of us to desert the poor chaps and leave them without a listener at all.'

"Then he said: 'Let's go indoors and sit in the 'seats of the mighty.''

"She didn't know what he meant but he soon showed her. The Province Building where their sort of Congress meets was all open wide and they weren't having any session, it not being session time. So we went in and sat around in leather covered chairs, only Molly and I and the boys climbed up on the window seats and sat there. We could hear beautiful and we got quite dry. Only it isn't any use getting dry, daytimes, 'cause you're always going right out and getting wet again.

"Sunday was the wettest yet. It didn't look so and Auntie Lu let us girls put on white dresses, but she made us take our raincoats and umbrellas and rubbers just the same. We went to the soldiers'

church out of doors, 'cause they'd thought it was clearing off.

There were benches fixed in rows like seats in church, and there was a kind of pulpit all covered by a great English flag. Other benches were up at one side. They were for the band. By and by a bugle blew and they came marching, marching over the gra.s.s from the big barracks beyond. The field sloped right down the side of a great hill and at the foot, seemed so close one could almost touch it but you couldn't for there were streets between, was the harbor of water.

"It was an English church service and the minister prayed for all the royal family one by one. The soldier-band played the chants and hymns and they and anybody wanted sang them. After a little while it rained again and we put on our coats and didn't dare to raise our umbrellas, 'cause we were in church you know.

"It seemed pretty long but I loved it. I loved the red soldiers and the beautiful place and all. Auntie Lu said it was a good sermon and that the preacher considerately cut it pretty short. But it wasn't so short but that we got our hats dreadfully wet and Auntie Lu had to buy herself a new one before we came away last Monday morning. In the evening we went to St. Paul's, which is the oldest church in this oldest city of Markland, as some call Nova Scotia.

"Now we have ridden a good many miles in wagons to this great old farmhouse right on the edge of the woods. Miles and miles of woods, seems if. There are lakes in them and rivers and game of every sort, seems if, to hear them tell. Judge Breckenridge's friends are here, too, and the Indian guide. He calls them 'the Boys,' and they do act like boys just after school's let out. They laugh and joke and carry on till Molly and I just stare.

"Judge has hired a river to fish in. Isn't that funny? To pay for a place to fish, and the Farmer Grimm we're to live with is going to haul all their camp things out there to-morrow morning before sun-up. Monty and Melvin are to go, too, and I expect we women folks'll feel pretty lonesome.

"One lovely thing the Judge did for me. He hired a violin for me to practice on here. He said he thought it would pa.s.s the time for all of us. There's a piano, too, already in the house, and Molly can play real nice on that. Her Auntie Lu plays mag-nifi-cently. I wrote that out in syllables so as to get it right and to make it more--more impressiver. I'm dreadful tired and have been finis.h.i.+ng this letter sitting on the floor beside a great big fire on the hearth. It isn't a bit too warm, either, even though the sun has shone again to-day.

"Good night. Your sleepy Dorothy, but always loving you the best of all the world.

"P. S.--The funniest thing happened after supper. Two the funniest ones. The bashful-bugler, that's Melvin, slipped something into my hand and said: 'That's to remember me by, a keepsake, if anything should happen to me out in the woods. I bought it for you that day in Digby.' When I opened the little box there was one those weeny-wiggley sort of silver fishes, they call the 'Digby chickens,' that I'd wanted to take home to Alfy. But I shan't take her this; I shall keep it. 'Cause Molly wants one, too, and when we get our next month's allowance, _if_ we get it, we can write and buy some by mail.

"The other funny thing was one of those grown up 'boys.' He asked me to play for him and had me stand right near him. When I got through he looked over at the Judge and nodded his head. Two, three times he nodded it and then he said, just like this he said it: 'It is the most remarkable likeness I ever saw. You're on the right track Schuy, I'm sure of it!' And the Judge cried real pleased, 'Hurray!'

"They two were little boys together, down in the south where they lived and they know Mrs. Cecil Calvert real well. And the other 'boy' said: 'Aunt Betty'd ought to be spanked--same as she's spanked me a heap of times.'

"I wonder if it was I 'resembled' anybody and who! I wonder why any gentleman should say such a dreadful impolite thing about that dear old lady! I wonder,--Oh, Father John! Your little girl so often wonders many, many things! Good night at last. Molly calls real cross and I must go.

"DOLLY."

Dorothy's letters to Mother Martha were equally descriptive though not so long. One ran thus:

"Dearest Mother Martha:--

"You ought to see this farm where we're living now. It's so big and has so many cattle and men working, and orchards and potato-fields.

They call the potatoes 'Bluenoses' just as they call the Nova Scotia folks. The house is part stone and part wood. The stone part was built ever and ever so long ago; strong so the man who built it could protect himself against the Indians. The man was English, and he was a Grimm; an ancestor of this Mr. Grimm we board with. The Indians were Micmacs and friends of the French. Seems if they were all fighting all together all the time, which should own the land.

Mrs. Grimm says there have been a good many generations live here though all are gone now except her husband and herself. They are more than seventy years, both of them, but they don't act one bit old. She cooks and tends to things though she has two, three maids to help her. He rides horseback all over his farm and jumps off his horse and works with the men. Sometimes he drives the ox-carts with the hay and lets us ride.

"I did want you that last Sat.u.r.day in Halifax. The day your letter came to me with the one dollar in it. I expect you wanted I should buy something to bring you with it but I didn't. Listen. It was what they called a 'green market' morning. Rained of course, or was terrible foggy between showers. The market is just a lot of Indians and negroes, and a few white people sitting round on the edge of the sidewalk all around a big building. The Judge told me many of them had come from across the harbor, miles beyond it, so far that they'd had to walk half the night to bring their stuff to market.

Think of that! And such funny stuff it was. Green peas sh.e.l.led in little measures, ready to cook. (I wish they'd have them that way in our own Lexington market at home!) Wild strawberries--I didn't see any other kind, no big ones like we have in Baltimore or at home. The berries were hulled and put into little home-made birch-bark baskets that the Indian women make themselves, just pinned together at the end with a thorn or stick. Auntie Lu bought some for us but Miss Greatorex wouldn't let me eat the berries, though I was just suffering to! She said after they'd been handled by those dirty Indian fingers she knew they were full of microbes or things and she didn't dare. Oh! dear! I wish she didn't feel so terrible responsible for my health, 'cause it spoils a lot of my good times. The boys weren't afraid of microbes and they ate the berries but I have the basket. It will be all I have to bring you from Halifax; because one of those Indian women had her baby with her and she looked so poor--I just couldn't help giving that dollar right to her. I couldn't really help it. She wanted me to take baskets in pay for it, but I knew that wouldn't be _giving_. You won't mind, will you, dearest Mother Martha? if the only thing I bring you from that city is a poor Indian woman's blessing? You always give to the poor yourself, so I wasn't afraid you'd scold.

There are just two things that I'd like different here, on this lovely vacation. One is if only you and father were here, too!

Every new and nice thing I see, or good time I have, I do so want them for you both also. The other is--I wish, I wish I knew who my father and mother were! The real ones. They couldn't have been any nicer than you have been to me, but folks that don't know me are sure to ask me about my family. Molly and Monty and Melvin are always able to tell about theirs, but I can't. Her mother, the 'other Molly,' died when she was a little thing, but she knows all about her. The Judge has a beautiful miniature of this 'other Molly' his wife, and takes it with him wherever he goes, even into that camp, where we're to be let to go, maybe, for a salmon dinner that the 'Boys' catch themselves.

"There are lots of books in this old house and a piano. Each generation has added to the library and Mrs. Grimm says that in the winter she and her husband read 'most all the time. Christmases, no matter how deep the snow, all their children come home and then the rooms are opened and warmed and they have such fun. Oh! it must be grand to belong to a big family and know it's all your own! They burn great logs of wood and even now we have a fire on the living-room hearth all the time. One of the young Indian boys who works here has nothing else for his ch.o.r.es except to keep the wood-boxes filled and the fires fresh. He's rather a nice Indian boy but he's full of capers. Molly is so lonesome without Monty and Melvin to play with she makes plays with Anton. I don't think Mrs.

Grimm likes it and I'm sure Aunt Lucretia doesn't, for I heard her tell Molly so. But n.o.body can keep Molly Breckenridge still. She doesn't care to read much and she hates practicing, and she cries every time she has to sew a seam, though Mrs. Hungerford makes her do that 'for discipline.' I don't know what would become of the darling if it wasn't for Anton. She likes me, course, but I can't climb trees after cherries, or wade in ponds after water-lilies, and though I like to ride horseback with her I'm afraid to go beyond bounds where we're told to stay. Molly isn't afraid.

"Please give my love to Aunt Chloe and write soon to your loving

"DOROTHY."

Having finished this letter, longer than common, Dorothy wandered out of doors seeking her mate. She was nowhere in sight, but the man who rode into town so many miles away, to fetch and carry the mail and to bring supplies of such things as the farm did not produce, was just driving up the road and playfully shook his mail-pouch at her. She sped to meet him, was helped into his wagon and received the pouch in her arms. She and Molly were always eager to "go meet the mail," which was brought to them only every other day, and whichever was first and obtained it was given the key to the pouch and the privilege of distributing its contents. This privilege would be Dorothy's to-day; and she skipped into the living-room and to the ladies at their sewing, dragging the pouch behind her.

Little she knew of its contents; or that among them would come the solution of that "wonder" that now so constantly tormented her:--"Who were my parents?"