CHAPTER XXV A CONTINUOUS WEEK END.

ETHEL was reading a letter, Ellery and Cherry having brought the mail up from the post-office. Ellery had now been at Clover Lodge a fortnight and during that time we had fished (for bull heads this time), had gone on long tramps, had read to each other, and had played many a game of tennis, and while we could not say that Ellery was in a fair way to propose to Cherry, he was hard hit.

The glamour of the place had appealed to him and neither he nor Cherry had any intention of going back until we went in September.

Minerva had shown signs of homesickness, and one day we had let her and James go to Springfield to spend the day, and after her return she had said,

“City ain’t what it was,” which we had taken to be a most encouraging sign. Nearly three months out of New York and still happy. Who would have predicted it?

Ethel dropped the letter in her lap and said, “What are we going to do, Philip? This letter is from Madge Warden, and she and Tom are going to a place in Vermont to try it on the recommendation of a friend, and Madge asks if it would be convenient to stop off on the way up instead of on the way back. She says that if we could find a shack for them here, Tom wouldn’t care to go to Vermont.”

“Well, of course, have ’em come.”

“Yes, but she wants to come this Friday for over Sunday, and we’ve invited the Benedicts for over Sunday.”

I thought a minute.

“It would be great to have them all here, because they are so congenial, but unless you and I gave up our room and slept in hammocks—”

“Why couldn’t you and Ellery sleep in hammocks and then I could let Madge share my room with me and give the Benedicts the spare room?”

“And what would become of Tom?”

“Oh, that’s so,” said Ethel. “I’m afraid we can’t do it.”

“They’s a sofa in the woodshed,” said Minerva, who had been dusting the sitting room and always interested in household problems, had stopped at the open window outside of which we were sitting.

“So there is. Good for you, Minerva,” said I, in spite of a warning look from Ethel, who says that at times I am too colloquial with Minerva.

Ethel and I went around to the woodshed to look at it. It was across two rafters, but with help from James, who was busy in the vicinity, I got it down.

“So I’m to write and tell them all to come? Isn’t this going to be a good deal of a drain on your pocketbook, Philip?”

“We can’t do worse than go home broke and then I’ll begin again.”

“‘Easy come, easy go,’” quoted Ethel, with a half sigh.

“Don’t you want ’em to come? Will it be too hard on you?”

“No, no, we’ll make them understand it’s a picnic, but you will have to hustle in the fall.”

“Well, hustling never killed anybody, and we’ll have a summer to remember. It’s a lucky thing that James is so handy. He can help in the kitchen.”

And so the sofa was brought into the house and dusted, and the Wardens were implored to come up and told to take the same train that the Benedicts were coming on, and the haying season being practically over, we were able to engage Bert’s double team and his three-seated wagon, and Friday afternoon we all went down to meet them.

No, not all. We left Minerva behind. She and James had to prepare a dinner for eight.

There was no accident on the way down, and we arrived at the station several minutes before the arrival of the train.

At last we heard the whistle below the bridge and then it steamed in and we took up our station around the parlour car and prepared to greet our guests.

But the only one to get off was a well-setup young fellow in irreproachable apparel, and he did not belong to us.

“Why, of course, they never would have taken a parlour car. The Benedicts might, but the Wardens wouldn’t,” said Ethel, and we looked down the platform to see whether they had alighted. But they had not. Our guests had not come.

“Isn’t it too provoking,” said Cherry, sympathetically to Ethel.

“It really is,” said Ethel. “That dinner will be stone cold if we wait for the next train.”

“When is the next train?” asked Ellery.

“In two hours,” I replied. “They won’t come to-night, though. Something happened to Tom at the last minute and he asked the rest to wait and they waited. We’ll get a telegram saying so. Everybody obeys his will always.”

The irreproachable stranger had been walking around as if he was looking for somebody. He now approached me with uplifted hat.

“Would you be so good as to tell me whether Mr. Vernon lives near here?”

“I am Mr. Vernon.”

He coloured, stammered and said,

“I am Talcott Hepburn, and I am afraid that I’ve been led into an unpardonably rude act.”

“Are you the son of Talcott Hepburn, the art collector?” said I.

“Yes,—oh, you know him then,” said he, relieved. “My friend Tom Warden took the liberty of bringing me along with him—only”—here he paused. “He has missed the train.”

I understood in a minute. Tom Warden is an artist, and he is the soul of hospitality. He knows Ethel and me as well as he knows his father and mother, and it never had occurred to his simple but executive soul that there was anything unusual in his asking a friend to come along without letting us know.

Of course, if we could accommodate eight we could accommodate nine. But now it looked as if we would have but five.

I presented Mr. Hepburn to the rest of the “family.” He was about twenty-four or five, good looking, smooth shaven, of course, with a sober expression that might have hidden a humorous temperament, but did not. It evidently did not strike him that there was anything whimsical in his having arrived ahead of the man who had invited him to be the guest of a stranger. He did see, however, that the act itself was one that might be misconstrued, and he began to explain the case to Ethel, who said at once,

“Why, Mr. Hepburn, Tom’s friends are our friends, and the more the merrier. I’m only sorry they missed the train.”

“He was busy with a picture that some one had bought and which he wasn’t satisfied with, and I dare say he missed it on that account. He was coming with a Mr. and Mrs. Benedict, and I was to meet him on the train. I was a little late myself, and just had time to step aboard, and they missed it.”

While he was talking I was looking at the telegraph office intending to step over there—it lay just across the track—to enquire whether there was a telegram for me. A messenger boy came out, mounted a wheel, and started across the track, bound for the road that leads up to Clover Lodge.

I ran and intercepted him.

“Have you a telegram for Philip Vernon?” said I.

“Yes, sir,” said he, dismounting and pulling the telegram out of his side pocket. “I was just go’n’ up to your place.”

“Saved me a dollar, didn’t it?” said I.

“Yes, sir, and lost me ten cents.”

“Here’s the ten cents,” said I, as I signed for the telegram.

“It’s collect, sir,” said he; “forty-five cents.” I paid him and I opened the envelope.

“All missed confounded train. Be good to Hepburn if he caught it. Will come on next train. Wait for us. Tom.”

A most characteristic telegram in every way. It’s superfluity of expression, its thought of Hepburn and its command to wait, were all as like Tom Warden as they could be.

“There’s nothing to do but wait,” said I when I had shown the telegram to the others.

“The dinner will be spoiled,” said Ethel ruefully.

“Let me walk up and tell Minerva to wait,” said Cherry, and Ellery enthusiastically seconded her motion.

“Why, it seems too bad,” began Ethel.

“Not at all. We’re just going to take a walk,” said Cherry, and they started, well pleased at the turn of affairs.

I knew young Hepburn to be a millionaire in his own right and I knew that Ethel would worry at having him see the make shifts to which we resorted, but I was rather amused at the prospect myself. We had already shown the simple life to two New Yorkers and now we would show it to some more.

We asked him if he would not like to ride around Egerton and see a typical Massachusetts town and he said he would.

“Do you know,” said he to Ethel, “I held back about coming up in such a very unconventional way, but you know how compelling Tom is, and he said he would explain it all before I was even presented, and so I came. And then to have him miss the train. It was awkward.”

“Simply one on Tom, Mr. Hepburn,” said I. “Our house is one of those affairs that can be stretched to accommodate any number of people if they themselves are accommodating.”

“Well, you know,” said Mr. Hepburn, “I might find a room at the hotel.” Perhaps he had thought he was not accommodating.

I knew that Ethel was wishing that he would find a room at a hotel, but there was no hotel. She was beginning to think how much less a sofa would be than the bed he was accustomed to sleep in when he was at home. But when you are picnicking the only thing to do is to have a good time and forget that there is such a proverb as “Other times, other manners.”

Our ride was pleasant and it did not seem anything like two hours when we heard the whistle of the train at South Egerton, and drove rapidly to the station.

Hepburn offered to stay in the carriage and mind the horses, and I accepted his offer, although I knew that Ethel thought it making a very free use of a millionaire. Not that Ethel is snobbish, but she has never used millionaires much.

The train came in and this time I took up my place by the ordinary cars, and soon saw the quartette moving along the aisle.

Tom looked out of the window and saw Hepburn sitting erect in the front seat of the picnic wagon holding the unmistakably farm horses, and he exploded into laughter that we outside plainly heard.

“Hello,” said he as soon as he emerged. “Broken him in already. Well, here we are. Better late than never. You know the Benedicts?”

“What a question,” said Ethel, kissing in turn Madge and Mrs. Benedict.

“But we didn’t know Mr. Hepburn,” said she saucily.

“Oh, well, he’s harmless and I’ll bet he came out of it all right. Hello, Cr?sus. Stole a march on us, eh?”

“Cr?sus” raised his derby, but good driver that he was, kept his eyes on the horses.