The Story of the Big Front Door
M >> Mary Finley Leonard >> The Story of the Big Front Door* * * * *
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[Illustration: "THEY HAD DRAWN THEIR CHAIRS TOGETHER IN A COSEY
GROUP."]
THE STORY
OF
THE BIG FRONT DOOR
BY
MARY F. LEONARD
"THEY HELPED EVERY ONE HIS NEIGHBOR."
NEW YORK: 46 EAST FOURTEENTH STREET
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY
BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET
COPYRIGHT, 1898,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE OUTLAWS 1
II. IN THE STAR CHAMBER 12
III. THE LADY OF THE BROWN HOUSE 20
IV. DORA 31
V. UNCLE WILLIAM 51
VI. THE MAGIC DOOR 59
VII. IKEY'S ACCIDENT 65
VIII. THE M.KS. 74
IX. A RIVAL CLUB 84
X. GOOD NEIGHBORS 93
XI. PLANS 103
XII. CEDAR AND HOLLY 112
XIII. THE HARP MAN'S BENEFIT 127
XIV. CLOUDS 140
XV. DORA'S BRIGHT IDEA 156
XVI. SILVER KEYS 165
XVII. A PRISONER 172
XVIII. SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS 183
XIX. AUNT SUKEY'S STORY 190
XX. THE ORDER OF THE BIG FRONT DOOR 198
XXI. WORK AND PLAY 206
XXII. UNCLE WILLIAM IS SURPRISED 219
XXIII. JIM 230
XXIV. A DISAPPOINTMENT 238
XXV. AUNT ZELIE 246
XXVI. THE BIG FRONT DOOR IS LEFT ALONE 255
THE STORY
OF
THE BIG FRONT DOOR.
CHAPTER I.
THE OUTLAWS.
"Come listen to me, ye gallants so free,
All ye who love mirth for to hear;
And I will tell you of a bold outlaw
Who lived in Nottinghamshire."
_Old Ballad._
Ikey Ford was the first to make the discovery, and he lost no time in
carrying the news to the others.
Great was their consternation!
"Moving into the Brown house? Nonsense, Ikey, you are making it up!"
Carl exclaimed.
"What shall we do about the banquet for King Richard?" cried Bess,
sitting down on the doorstep despairingly.
"And my racket is over there, and your grandma's fur rug, Ikey Ford!"
wailed Louise, shaking her finger at the bringer of evil tidings. He
assented meekly, adding, "and Sallie's clothes-pins."
A stranger might have been puzzled to guess what sort of calamity had
befallen the little group in the doorway of the pleasant,
hospitable-looking house among the maple trees, that warm August
morning. Something serious certainly, for Louise's dimples had
disappeared, Bess was almost tearful, and the boys, though they
affected to take it more lightly, wore plainly depressed.
"Let's go over to Ikey's and look through the fence," suggested Carl,
and, as there seemed nothing else to do, the others agreed.
They filed solemnly down the walk and across the street,--Bess with a
roll of green cambric under her arm,--and nobody uttered a word till a
secluded spot behind Mrs. Ford's syringa bushes was reached, where,
through an opening in the division fence, they could look out
unobserved upon the adjoining house.
"The side windows are open!" Louise announced in a tragic whisper.
"Didn't I tell you so?" replied Ikey with mournful triumph.
It was a small house with a pointed roof, and it stood in the midst of
an old-fashioned garden, where for years and years lilacs and
snowballs, peonies and roses, pinks and sweet-william, and dozens of
other flowers, had bloomed happily in their season, without any
trouble to anybody. In the background sunflowers and hollyhocks grew,
and on either side of the front gate two stout little cedars stood
like sentinels on guard. The street upon which this gate opened was
wide and shady, and the bustle and din of the city had not yet invaded
its quiet.
Though in reality a red house grown somewhat rusty, it was called the
"Brown house," because as far back as any one in the neighborhood
could remember it had been occupied by an old lady of that name. For
years before she died she was bed-ridden, and to the children there
was something mysterious about this person who was never seen, but on
whose account they were cautioned not to be noisy at their play. After
her death the house was left closed and unoccupied, but hardly more
silent than before. An air of mystery still hung about the place; the
children when they passed peeped in at the flowers alone in their
glory, and spoke softly as though even yet their owner might be
disturbed.
This was in the early spring; as the summer wore on this garden grew
more and more irresistible. Other playgrounds lost their charm to the
eyes that looked in at the long waving grass and the pleasant shady
places under the apple trees.
"Let's play Robin Hood," Bess proposed one morning as they sat in a
row on the fence.
Carl and Louise received the idea with enthusiasm, and Ikey listened
in silent admiration as the details of the fascinating game were
unfolded.
The Hazeltine children had from their babyhood been in the habit of
making plays of their favorite stories, but it seemed to Ikey
immensely clever; so while the others argued over who should take this
part and who that, he joyfully accepted whatever was offered him.
He did not fare so badly either, for being plump and rosy he was
allowed to personate the jolly Friar Tuck. Robin Hood fell naturally
to Carl as the oldest and the leader, Bess became Little John, Louise
appeared by turns as Allan-a-Dale and the sheriff of Nottingham, and
little Helen was occasionally pressed into service as Maid Marian. Who
first thought of turning the deserted garden into Sherwood forest no
one could ever remember, but as they sat on the fence that morning
with the waving sea of grass below them, somebody began
"One for the money,
Two for the show,..."
and away they all went. Some minutes later, Mrs. Ford, glancing from
her window, wondered what had become of the children.
So the fun began and continued through the long summer days, when
grown people stayed indoors and wondered what the children found to do
out in the heat from morning till night. But in that distant corner of
the garden, where, under the shelter of a crooked apple tree, the
forest rovers had their trysting place, the weather was never too
warm. The unoccupied house became transformed into Nottingham castle,
and was never approached without delicious thrills of terror.
Excitement ran high on the day when Robin was released from the
jail--otherwise a small rustic arbor--by his trusty followers.
There was simply no end to the fun, and the secrecy with which it was
carried on helped to deepen the interest. The climax was reached when
preparations were begun for King Richard's banquet.
As usual, it originated with Bess, when she heard that a favorite
cousin, a boy about Carl's age, was coming to visit them for a few
days.
"Aleck will make a very good King Richard," said Louise, when the
matter was under discussion, "and we can pretend that he is just back
from the Holy Land."
It was decided that this must be a real feast, not merely an occasion
of pepper grass and cookies, so their combined funds were carefully
laid out at the corner confectionery. Many articles supposed to be
necessary to the comfort of the royal guest were smuggled into the
garden, and everything was in readiness for his arrival on the next
day, when Ikey made his startling discovery.
It had never occurred to them that some one might come to live in the
Brown house; they were quite overwhelmed by it, and for more than an
hour they sat under the syringa bushes peeping through at their lost
domain. No one had much to say. Bess was gazing sadly at her roll of
cambric which was to have done duty as suits of Lincoln green for the
foresters, and Ikey was thinking of the fur rug and the clothes-pins,
when Carl proposed a raid for the recovery of their possessions. "The
girls can wait on the fence and take the things as we bring them," he
said.
This promised a little excitement, so on the very spot from which they
had made their first entrance into Sherwood forest, Bess and Louise
waited while the boys dropped down and disappeared behind the bushes.
In a few minutes they came rushing back empty handed, to report that
not a trace of anything was to be found, and that a man with a scythe
was at work on the other side of the garden cutting down the grass.
* * * * *
It was very quiet in the neighborhood that afternoon. There were no
children to be seen anywhere, and on the broad piazza of the house
where the Hazeltines lived the chairs and settees, with here and there
a gay cushion, appeared to be having a good time all to themselves,
gathered in sociable groups. The clematis and honeysuckle swung softly
in the breeze, making graceful shadows, and the maple trees stretched
out long arms and touched each other gently now and then. At the back
of the house on the kitchen steps sat Aunt Sukey, a person of dignity
and authority. Her hands were folded over her white apron and her eyes
rested with satisfaction on the rows of peach preserves that
represented her morning's work.
"Mammy," as the children called her, was a family institution, and
could not be spared, though her last nursling was fast outgrowing her.
No preserves tasted like Sukey's, and no one could, on occasion, make
such rolls.
"Yes," she remarked, continuing her conversation with Mandy, the cook,
who was stepping around inside, "they's _mischevious_ of course, but I
can remember when Mr. Frank and Mr. William was a heap worse."
"Law, Aunt Sukey, I wouldn't want to see 'em if they was any worse
than that Ikey Ford! It looks like the children has been up to twice
as many pranks since he come," replied Mandy.
"He don't take after his pa, then; Mr. Isaac was as nice,
quiet-mannered a boy as you ever see, when he used to go with Mr.
Frank. But pshaw! all that triflin' is soon over. Look at Miss Zelie:
seems like it warn't no time since she was climbin' fences and tearin'
her clothes, till I'd get clean discouraged tryin' to keep her nice.
Oh! they's fine children, I don't care what you say; and Louise is the
flock of the flower. She is like Miss Zelie, with her dark eyes and
shinin' hair."
"Miss Zelie herself sets more store by Carl than any of the rest,"
said Mandy, coming to the door.
"That's cause he favors his ma's family and has a look like his uncle
Carl. You know Miss Zelie married Miss Elinor's brother. He used to
come here for his holidays when she was a little girl no bigger 'n
Bess,--that was after Mr. Frank married Miss Elinor,--and they was
always great friends. It looks like it's mighty strange that Miss
Elinor and Mr. Carl should be taken, and old Sukey left."
There was silence for a minute; then as Sukey wiped her eyes she
continued, "I've nursed 'em all from Mr. William down, and I knows old
master's grandchildren is bound to turn out right."
It was almost sunset when Aunt Zelie--tall and fair, like Bess's
favorite heroines--came and stood in the front door, wondering where
the children were. She was not left long in doubt, for hardly had she
settled herself to enjoy the pleasant air when there was a sudden rush
from somewhere and she was surrounded by a laughing, breathless little
company. The outlaws of the morning were scarcely to be recognized.
Little John and the sheriff of Nottingham were attired in the freshest
of white dresses, with pink bows on their Gretchen braids, while Robin
and the Friar were disguised as a pair of bright-faced modern boys,
and with them was little Helen, a dignified person of eight, who
carried a doll in her arms.
"Auntie, did you know that somebody is coming to live in the Brown
house?" Louise asked, as they drew their chairs as close as possible
to hers. At this time in the day she was their own special property,
though there _were_ people who complained that they always monopolized
her.
"Yes, your father heard that a relative of old Mrs. Brown's was going
to take the house, but that is all I know," she answered.
"Carl and Ikey saw a cross-looking woman with a feather duster. I do
hope there will be some nice children," said Bess.
"All boys," Carl added briefly.
"Boys? No, indeed! Girls are much nicer, aren't they, Ikey?" and
Louise looked at him mischievously over her shoulder.
Ikey's shyness or his politeness, perhaps both, would not allow him to
reply.
"They are both nice when they are nice," said Aunt Zelie. "Being a
girl myself, of course I like girls, and so does this individual,"
patting the head against her shoulder.
"Oh, I like _some_ girls!" Carl conceded graciously.
"I wish there would be a little girl for me to play with," remarked
Helen plaintively, for it was the trial of her life that she was
considered too little to be made a companion of by the other children
except on special occasions.
"It is a fortunate thing that the house is to be occupied," said Aunt
Zelie, "for Mr. Jackson, the agent, told Frank that it looked as if
some one had been camping out in the garden. The grass was trampled
down and I don't know what damage done."
If she had not happened to be looking across the street she would have
seen some guilty faces. Bess grew red, Louise opened her mouth and
shut it again without saying anything, Carl drummed on the back of his
chair with an air of extreme indifference which Ikey tried to copy,
and Helen looked from one to the other with very big eyes.
The Fords' tea bell, rung at the front door for Ikey's benefit,
relieved the strain. Then presently Louise saw her father and baby
Carie coming up the street, and the Brown house was not mentioned
again.
As Aunt Zelie was on her way upstairs that night she was waylaid in
the dimly lighted hall by three ghostly figures.
"What are you doing out of bed?" she exclaimed.
"Oh, auntie, we want to tell you something! It is about the Brown
house. We have been playing Robin Hood in the garden."
"It was a lovely place, and we didn't do any harm, really."
Aunt Zelie listened with just a little bit of a smile till she had
heard the whole story. It had been great fun, there could be no doubt
of that.
"Was it wrong?" asked Bess anxiously.
"We did not hurt anything, not one bit," Carl insisted.
"Why did you keep it such a secret?"
"That was part of the fun; but I wish we had told you," said Louise.
"Yes, it is nicer to have you know things;" and Bess sighed, relieved
now that confession was made.
"It is too late to discuss it to-night, but I want you to think about
it and decide for yourselves whether or not it was right."
"Did you know it before we told you?" Carl asked suddenly.
"I only guessed it to-day," she replied, smiling.
CHAPTER II.
IN THE STAR CHAMBER.
There never lived a more genial, kindly man than old Judge Hazeltine,
and the house he planned and built reflected, as perfectly as a house
could, the character of its owner.
"The front door looks like the Judge," people used to say, laughing as
they said it, for he was portly and the door was wide. But they meant
more than just that, for there were few, even among the unimaginative,
who did not feel drawn to that door. Hospitality shone from every
panel, the big fanlight was like a genial sun, and the resemblance to
his cheery face and cordial manner was not altogether fanciful.
Of the inside of the house perhaps it is enough to say at present that
it kept the promise of the outside.
After the judge's death the old home fell to the share of the younger
of his two sons, for the William Hazeltines had already built their
fine mansion out on Dean avenue, where Aunt Marcia found things more
suited to her fastidious taste than on the quiet street which had
ceased to be fashionable.
On the other hand, her brother-in-law declared that he much preferred
his large garden and home-like neighborhood to the elegant monotony of
her surroundings. The children agreed with their father, and so
perhaps, for the matter of that, did Uncle William.
At the top of the house there was a long low room, with five windows
looking east, west, and south, which was known as the star chamber.
This name had originated with Uncle William in the days when he and
his brother Frank played and studied there, as Carl and his sisters
did now. On rainy days when the garden was out of the question the
children were most likely to be found here.
It was a pleasant place and well suited for any sort of indoor game.
Except for a rug or two the floor was bare, and the furniture
consisted of an old claw-footed sofa on which at least six people
could sit comfortably at one time, a wardrobe, some book-shelves, and
a hammock swung across one corner. There may have been a chair or two,
but the wide window-sills made pleasanter resting-places. Here in the
summer time you looked out into the soft greenness of the maple trees,
getting glimpses of the quiet street, but when the branches were bare
a fine outlook was to be had all over the neighborhood, and you saw
how big houses and little houses stood sociably side by side, while an
old gray church kept guard at one corner. Here Bess and Louise
romanced over an imaginary family known as "The Carletons," or played
dolls with Helen, and here Carl arranged his stamp album and made
signals to Ikey across the street. Sometimes their father and uncle
would drop in and pretend they were boys once more. Then what delight
it was to listen to their stories of boyish pranks!
Aunt Zelie was their most frequent visitor. The days when she kept her
dolls and "dressing-up things" in the old wardrobe, which was now put
to the same use by her little nieces, were not so very far back in the
past, and many of her story books were still to be found on the
shelves among later favorites.
Going up to the star chamber on the morning after the excitement over
the Brown house, she walked in upon an indignation meeting.
"Just when we wanted to play Crokonole!"
"It is _too_ mean!"
"She might let him come, it spoils all our fun!"
This is what she heard, and she asked in surprise, "What in the world
is the matter?"
There was silence for a minute, during which the rain made a great
pattering outside; then little Helen, who was serenely busy with her
paper dolls, replied, "Ikey's grandma won't let him come over, 'cause
he took her fur rug and Sallie's clothes-pins."
"What did he want with the clothes-pins and rug?"
"We wanted them to play with, Aunt Zelie. You can do a great many
things with clothes-pins," Bess explained.
"Aleck was to have been King Richard--the rug was for him at the
banquet; and now he hasn't come and we can't do anything," said Louise
mournfully.
Aunt Zelie sat down on the sofa and folded her hands in her lap.
"I should like to know how many of _our_ things have been carried over
to the Brown house garden," she said.
"We took some of the straw cushions and two or three cups that Mandy
said we might play with," replied Bess, watching her aunt's face
anxiously. There was another silence, during which Carl became
absorbed in a book and Louise gave her attention to Helen's dolls.
Then Aunt Zelie spoke:
"The more I think of this the more uncomfortable I feel about it."
"I can't see why," came from Carl.
"Because it seems to me such a lawless proceeding. Do you know that
there are people who say that no children were ever so lawless as
American children to-day?"
"That is poetry, auntie; you made a beautiful rhyme," laughed Louise.
But her aunt refused to smile.
"It is not poetry, but sad fact, I'm afraid. You may not have done
much actual harm, but you have shown no respect for other people's
property. You went into the Brown house garden without leave, and you
encouraged Ikey to carry off his grandmother's things without
permission. I have trusted you all summer--I thought I could; but this
makes me afraid that you ought to have someone with more experience to
watch over you. You know when I came back to you two years ago I
promised to stay so long as I could be a help to you, but--"
"Oh, Aunt Zelie! You do help us--don't go away!" cried Bess, clasping
her around the waist; Louise seized one of her hands tightly in both
her own, and Carl looked out the window with a flushed face.
"That is not fair, Aunt Zelie," was all he said.
He could never forget--nor could Bess--how she had come to them in
their loneliness, and taken the motherless little flock into her arms,
comforting them and wrapping them all about with her love and
sympathy. How could they ever do without her?
"You aren't going away, are you?" Helen asked, leaving her dolls and
coming to her side.
"I hope not, for I can't think what I should do without my children,"
she answered. And then they all snuggled around her on the old sofa
and talked things over. It was astonishing what a difference it
made--trying to look at the matter from all sides. Even Mrs. Ford's
indignation did not seem so very unreasonable when you stopped to
think how inconvenient it was to be without clothes-pins on Monday
morning.
"I know it does not seem exactly right as you put it, Aunt Zelie,"
Carl acknowledged, "but it was such fun, we couldn't have had so good
a time anywhere else."
"Suppose you found the Arnold children playing in our garden some day,
would you think that because they had found that they couldn't have so
good a time anywhere else, it was all right?"
"Why, auntie, those Arnold boys are not nice at all; we _couldn't_
have them in our garden," cried Louise.
"No one was living in the Brown house--it is different," Carl began.
"I know what she means," said Bess. "Just because it is fun isn't a
good excuse."
"That is it," answered her aunt. "I believe in fun if only you do not
put it first, above thought for the feelings or property of others. I
am sure you did not mean to do wrong, but it would not do for me to
let you go on being thoughtless, would it?"
"Mrs. Ford isn't a bit like you, Aunt Zelie; she was dreadfully mad at
Ikey, and said he must stay in his room all day," remarked Louise.
"I am sorry for Mrs. Ford. I rather think _I_ should be dreadfully mad
too, if I were in her place. She is an old lady and is used to having
her household affairs move on smoothly, and one day she finds her
servants upset and some of her property missing, all because certain
naughty children cared more for a little fun than for her comfort."
Aunt Zelie spoke gravely, and her audience looked very much subdued.
In the course of the day Joanna, one of the maids, was sent over to
the Brown house to inquire about the things left by the children in
the garden. She returned with the missing articles, which had been
carried into the house by the man who cut the grass.
"Did you see anybody, Jo? Are there any children?" were the questions
she met with. But she had only seen a middle-aged woman who was
cleaning the hall, and had learned nothing about the new occupants.
"It is very stupid of Joanna," said Carl as he rolled up the rug and
the clothes-pins and marched over to apologize to Mrs. Ford for their
share of the mischief. He did this so meekly and with such evident
sincerity that the old lady was greatly mollified, and sent him up to
tell Ikey he might consider himself released from the day's
confinement in his room.
For the rest of the week the children were models of propriety. No one
would have dreamed that they had been outlaws so short a time before.
From the star chamber windows Robin and his merry men looked down on
the transformation which was taking place in their old domain.
The long grass was cut down, and with it those patches of pepper grass
that had seasoned many a feast. The bushes and vines were trimmed, the
walk was reddened, the shutters were thrown open. Every day added
something to the change, yet, besides the servants, no one had been
seen about the house.