Highacres

Jane Abbott

Description

If John Westley had not deliberately run away from his guide that August morning and lost himself on Kettle Mountain, he would never have found the Wishing-rock, nor the Witches' Glade, nor Miss Jerauld Travis.

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819907749
• Langue: English

Extrait

CHAPTER I
K ETTLEMOUNTAIN
If John Westley had not deliberately run away fromhis guide that August morning and lost himself on Kettle Mountain,he would never have found the Wishing-rock, nor the Witches' Glade,nor Miss Jerauld Travis.
Even a man whose hair has begun to grow a littlegray over his ears can have moments of wildest rebellion againstauthority. John Westley had had such; he had wakened very earlythat morning, had watched the sun slant warmly across his verypleasant room at the Wayside Hotel and had fiercely hated thedoctor, back in the city, who had printed on a slip of office paperdefinite rules for him, John Westley, aged thirty-five, to follow;hated the milk and eggs that he knew awaited him in the dining-roomand hated, more than anything else, the smiling guide who had beenspending the evening before, just as he had spent every evening,thinking out nice easy climbs that wouldn't tire a fellow who wasrecuperating from a very long siege of typhoid fever!
It had been so easy that it was a littledisappointing to slip out of the door opening from the big sun roomat the back of the hotel while the guide waited for him at theimposing front entrance. There was a little path that ran acrossthe hotel golf links on around the lake, shining like a bright gemin the morning sun, and off toward Kettle Mountain; feeling verymuch like a truant schoolboy, John Westley had followed this path.A sense of adventure stimulated him, a pleasant little breezewhipping his face urged him on. He stopped at a cottage nestled ina grove of fir trees and persuaded the housewife there to wrap hima lunch to take with him up the trail. The good woman had packedmany a lunch for her husband, who was a guide (and a close friendof the man who was cooling his heels at the hotel entrance), andshe knew just what a person wanted who was going to climb KettleMountain. Three hours after, John Westley, very tired from hisclimb but not in the least repentant of his disobedience, enjoyedimmensely a long rest with Mother Tilly's good things spread out ona rock at his elbow.
At three o'clock John Westley realized that thetrail he had chosen was not taking him back to the village; at fourhe admitted he was lost. All his boyish exhilaration had quite lefthim; he would have hugged his despised guide if he could have methim around one of the many turns of the trail; he ached in everybone and could not get the thought out of his head that a man coulddie on Kettle Mountain and no one would know it for months!
He chose the trails that went down simplybecause his weary legs could not climb one foot more! And hehad gone down such steep inclines that he was positive he haddescended twice the height of the mountain and must surely comeinto some valley or other – then suddenly his foot slipped on theneedles that cushioned the trail, he fell, just as one does on theice – only much more softly – and slid on, down and down, deftlysteering himself around a bend, and came to a stop against a deadlog just in time to escape bumping over a flight of rocky steps,neatly built by Nature in the side of the mountain and which led toa grassy terrace, open on one side to the wide sweep of valley andsurrounding mountains and closed in on the other by leaning,whispering birches.
It was not the amazing view off over the valley, northe impact against the old log that made his breath catch in histhroat with a little surprised sound – it was the sudden apparitionof a slim creature standing very straight on a huge rock! His firstjoyful thought was that it was a boy – a boy who could lead himback to the Wayside Hotel, for the youth wore soft leather breechesand a blouse, loosely belted at the waist, woolen golf stockingsand soft elkskin shoes, but when the head turned, like a startleddeer's, toward the unexpected sound, he saw, with more interestthan disappointment, that the boy was a girl!
"How do you do?" he said, because her eyes told himvery plainly that he was intruding upon some pleasant occupation."I'm very glad to see you because, I must admit, I'm lost."
The girl jumped down from her rock. She had anexceptionally pretty face that seemed to smile all over.
"Won't you come down?" she said graciously, asthough she was the mistress of Kettle Mountain and all itsglades.
Then John Westley did what in all his thirty-fiveyears he had never done before – he fainted. He made one littleeffort to rise and walk down the rocky steps but instead he rolledin an unconscious heap right to the girl's feet.
He wakened, some moments later, to a consciousnessof cool water in his face and a pair of anxious brown eyes close tohis own. He felt very much ashamed – and really better for havinggiven way!
"Are you all right now?"
"Yes – or I will be in a moment. Just give me ahand."
He marveled at the dexterity with which she liftedhim against her slim shoulder.
"Little-Dad's gone over to Rocky Point, but I knewwhat to do," she said proudly. "I s'pose you're from Wayside?"
He looked around. "Where is Wayside?"
She laughed, showing two rows of strong, whiteteeth. "Well, the way Little-Dad travels it's hours away so thatSilverheels has to rest between going and coming, and Mr. TobyChubb gets there in an hour with his new automobile when it'll go , but if you follow the Sunrise trail and then turn by theIndian Head and turn again at the Kettle's Handle you'll come intothe Sleepy Hollow and the Devil's Pass and – – "
John Westley clapped his hands to his head.
"Good gracious, no wonder I got lost! And just wheream I now?"
"You're right on the other side of the mountain.Little-Dad says that if a person could just bore right throughKettle you'd come out on the sixth hole of the Wayside Golf course– only it'd be an awfully long bore."
John Westley laughed hilariously. He had suddenlythought how carefully his guide always planned easy hikesfor him.
The girl went on. "But it's just a little way downthis trail to Sunnyside – that's where I live. Little-Dad's myfather," she explained.
"I'd rather believe that you're a woodland nymph andlive in yonder birch grove, but I suppose – your garments look sovery man-made – that you have a regular given-to-you-in-baptismname?"
"I should say I had!" the girl cried in undisguiseddisgust. " Jerauld Clay Travis. I hate it. Nearlyevery girl I know is named something nice – Rose and Lily andClementina. It was cruel to name any child J-e-r-a-u-l-d."
"I think it's – nice! It's so – different." JohnWestley wanted to add that it suited her because she wasdifferent, but he hesitated; little Miss Jerauld mightmisunderstand him. He thought, as he watched from the corner of hiseye, every movement of the slim, strong, boyish form, that she wasunlike any girl he had ever known, and, because he had three niecesand they had ever so many friends, he really knew quite a bit aboutgirls.
"Yes, it's – different," she sighed, unconscious ofthe thoughts that were running through the man's head. Then shebrightened, for even the discomfiture of having to bear the nameJerauld could not long shadow her spirit, "only no one ever callsme Jerauld – I'm always just Jerry."
"Well, Miss Jerry, you can't ever know how glad I amthat I met you! If I hadn't, well, I guess I'd have perished on theface of Kettle Mountain. I am plain John Westley, stopping over atWayside, and I can swear I never before did anything so silly as tofaint, only I've just had a rather tough siege of typhoid."
"Oh, you shouldn't have tried to climb sofar," she cried. "As soon as you're rested you must go home withme. And you'll have to stay all night 'cause Mr. Chubb's not backyet from Deertown and he won't drive after dark."
If John Westley had not been so utterly fascinatedby his surroundings and his companion, he might have triedimmediately to pull himself together enough to go on to Sunnyside;he was quite content, however, to lean against a huge rock and"rest."
"I'm trying to guess how old you are. And I thoughtyou were a boy, too. I'm glad you're not."
"I'm 'most fourteen." Miss Jerry squared hershoulders proudly. "I guess I do look like a boy. I wear this sortof clothes most of the time, 'cept when I dress up or go to school.You see I've always gone with Little-Dad on Silverheels when hewent to see sick people until I grew too heavy and – andSilverheels got too old." She said it with deep regret. "But I live– like this!"
"And do you wander alone all over the mountain?"
"Oh, no – just on this side of Kettle. Once a guideand a man from the Wayside disappeared there beyond Sleepy Hollowand that's why they call it Devil's Hole. Little-Dad made mepromise never to go beyond the turn from Sunrise trail. I'd liketo, too. But there are lots of jolly tramps this side. This" –waving her hand – "is the Witches' Glade and that" – nodding at therock against which the man leaned – "is the Wishing-rock."
John Westley, who back home manufacturedcement-mixers, suddenly felt that he had wakened into a world ofmake-believe.
He turned and looked at the rock – it was very muchlike a great many other rocks all over the mountainside and yet –there was something different!
Jerry giggled and clasped her very brown handsaround her leather-clad knees.
"I name everything on this side – no one fromWayside ever comes this way, you see. I've played here since I wasever so little. I've always pretended that fairies lived in themountains." She leveled serious eyes upon him. "They must !You know it's magic the way things – are – here!"
John Westley nodded. "I understand – you climb andyou think you're on top and then there's lots higher up and youslide down and you think you're in the valley and you come out on aspot – like this – with all the world below you still."
"Mustn't it have been fun to make it all?"Jerry's eyes gleamed. "And such beautiful things grow everywhereand the colors are so different! And the woodsy glens andravines – they're so mysterious. I've heard the trees ta