the road was a sunny, dusty one, leading upward through medford valley, with half-wooded hills on each side whose far outline quivered in the hot, breathless air of mid-june afternoon. oliver peyton seemed to have no regard for heat or dust, however, but trudged along with such a determined stride that people passing turned to look after him, and more than one swift motor car curved aside to give him room.
"want a ride?" inquired one genial farmer, drawing up beside him. "where are you going?"
oliver turned to answer the first question, meaning to reply with a relieved "yes," but his square, sunburned face hardened at the second.
"oh, i am just going down the road—a little way," he replied stiffly, shook his head at the repeated offer of a lift, and tramped on in the dust.
the next man he met seemed also to feel a curiosity as to his errand, for he stopped a very old, shambling horse to lean from his seat and ask point-blank: "where may you be going in such a hurry on such a hot day?"
oliver, looking up at the person who addressed him and gauging his close-set, hard gray eyes and his narrow, dark face, conceived an instant dislike and distrust of the stranger. he replied shortly, as he had before, but with less good temper:
"i am going down the road a little way. and, as you say, i am rather in a hurry."
"oh, are you indeed?" returned the man, measuring the boy up and down with a disagreeable, inquisitive glance. "in too much of a hurry to have your manners with you, even!" he shot him a look of keen and hostile penetration. "it almost looks as though you were running away from something."
he stopped for no further comment but went jingling off in his rattletrap cart, the cloud of dust raised by his old horse's clumsy feet hanging long in the air behind him. oliver plodded forward, muttering dark threats against the disagreeable stranger, and wishing that he had been sufficiently quick of speech to contradict him.
yet the random guess was a correct one, and running away was just what oliver was doing. he had not really meant to when he came out through the pillared gateway of his cousin's place; he had only thought that he would walk down the road toward the station—and see the train come in. yet the resolve had grown within him as he thought of all that had passed in the last few days, and as he looked forward to what was still to come. as he walked down the road, rattling the money in his pockets, turning over his wrongs in his mind, the thought had come swiftly to him that he need no longer endure things as they were. it was three miles to the railroad station; but, once there, he could be whisked away from all the troubles that had begun to seem unendurable. the inviting whistle of a train seemed to settle the matter finally.
"it isn't as though i were afraid of anything," he reflected, looking back uneasily. "if i thought i were afraid i would never go away and leave janet behind like this. no, i am only going because i will not be made to do what i hate."
he told himself this several times by way of reassurance, but seemed always to find it necessary to say it again. there were some strange things about the place where he and his younger sister janet had come to make a visit, things that made him feel, even on the first day, that the whole house was haunted by some vague disquiet of which no one would tell him the cause. his cousin jasper had changed greatly since they had last seen him. he had always been a man of quick, brilliant mind but of mild and silent manners, yet now he was nervous, irritable, and impatient, in no sense a genial host.
janet, oliver's sister, had already begun to love the place, nor did she seem to notice the uneasiness that appeared to fill the house. she did not remember her cousin as well as did her brother and was thus less conscious of a change. so far, she had been spending her time very happily, being shown by mrs. brown, the housekeeper, through the whole of cousin jasper's great mansion and inspecting all the treasures that it contained. it was a new house, built only a year ago.
"and a real calamity it was when the work came to an end so soon," mrs. brown had said, "for it kept mr. peyton interested and happy all the time it was going on. we had hoped the south wing would be building these three months more."
janet thought the great rooms were very beautiful, but oliver did not like their vast silence in which the slightest sound seemed so disconcertingly loud. he was not used to such a quiet house, for their own home was a cozy, shabby dwelling, full of the stir and bustle and laughter of happy living. here the boy found that noises would burst from him in the most unexpected and involuntary manner, noises that the long rooms and passageways seemed to take up and echo and magnify a hundred times. mrs. brown was constantly urging him "not to disturb poor mr. peyton," and hotchkiss, the butler, who went about with silent footsteps, always looked pained when oliver slammed a door or made a clatter on the stairs. he had never seen a butler before, except in the movies, so that he found the presence of hotchkiss somewhat oppressive.
it was the change in his host, however, that had really spoiled the visit. jasper peyton was a cousin of his mother's, younger than she and very fond of her and her children. at their house he was always a much-desired guest, for he had "the fairy-godfather gift," as their mother put it, and was constantly doing delightful things for them. he was tall and spare, with a thin, sensitive face that, so it seemed to oliver, was always smiling then, but that never smiled now.
the boy had noted a difference on the evening of their arrival, even as they drove up to the house through the warm darkness and the drifting fragrance of the june night.
"i can hardly remember how cousin jasper looks, but i think i will like his garden," janet had observed, sniffing vigorously.
oliver nodded, but he was not listening. he was looking up at the lighted house where the door stood open, with hotchkiss waiting, and where he could see, through the long windows facing the terrace, that cousin jasper was hurrying through the library to meet them in the hall. even at that distance their cousin did not look the same; he walked slower, he had lost his erect carriage and his old energy of action. he seemed a thin, high-shouldered ghost of his former self, with all spirit and cheerfulness gone out of him.
janet and oliver were paying their first visit without their mother, and, to guests of thirteen and fifteen respectively, such an occasion was no small cause for excitement. for that reason they were very slow to admit that they were not enjoying themselves, but the truth at last could not be denied. cousin jasper, preoccupied and anxious, left them almost completely to their own devices, neglected to provide any amusement for them, and seemed, at times, to forget even that they were there.
"you are a great comfort to him, my dears. he seems worried and distracted-like lately," mrs. brown had told them. "he does not like to be in this great house alone."
to oliver it seemed that their presence meant very little, a fact which caused him to puzzle, to chafe and, finally, as was fairly natural, to grow irritated. after he and janet had explored the house and garden, there seemed nothing left to do for oliver but to stroll up and down the drive, stare through the tall gates at the motors going by, or to spend hours in the garage, sitting on a box and watching jennings, the chauffeur, tinker with the big car that was so seldom used. janet was able to amuse herself better, but her brother, by the third day, had reached a state of disappointed boredom that was almost ready, at any small thing, to flare out into open revolt. the very small thing required was the case of cousin eleanor.
they were all walking up and down the terrace on the third evening, directly after dinner, the boy and girl trying to accommodate their quick steps to cousin jasper's slower and less vigorous ones. their host was talking little; janet, with an effort, was attending politely to what he said, but oliver was allowing his wits to go frankly woolgathering. it was still light enough to look across the slopes of the green valley and to see the shining silver river and the roofs of one or two big houses like their own, set each in its group of clustering trees. beyond the stream, with its borders of yellow-green willows, there rose a smooth, round hill, bare of woods, or houses, with only one huge tree at the very top and with what seemed like a tiny cottage clinging to the slope just below the summit.
"where that river bends at the foot of the hill, there ought to be rapids and good fishing," the boy was thinking. "perhaps i might get over there to see, some day."
he was suddenly conscious, with a flush of guilt, that cousin jasper was asking him a question, but had stopped in the middle of a sentence, realizing that oliver was not listening.
"so," he interrupted himself, "an old man's talk does not interest you, eh?"
he followed oliver's glance down to the crooked river, and made an attempt to guess his thought.
"you were looking at that big stone house beyond the stream," he said, "and i suppose you were wondering who lives there."
he seemed to be making an effort to turn the conversation into more interesting channels, so that oliver immediately gave him his full, but tardy attention.
"a cousin of mine owns the house. we are really all cousins or are related more or less, we who own the land in medford valley. but tom brighton is of closer kin to me than the others and i am very fond of him. we have both been too busy, just lately, to exchange as many visits as we used to do, but he has a daughter, eleanor, just about your age, oliver, a thoroughly nice girl, who would make a good playmate for both of you. i am neglecting your pleasure, i must have you meet her. you should see each other every day."
the suggestion seemed to afford janet great delight; but, for some reason, it had the opposite effect upon oliver. perhaps cousin jasper did not know a great deal about younger people, perhaps he had not been taking sufficient note of the ways and feelings of this particular two, for it was quite certain that he had made a mistake. oliver cared very little for girls, and to have this one thrust upon him unawares as a daily companion was not to his liking.
"it will be very nice for janet," he remarked ungraciously, "but i—i don't have much to do with girls."
some pure perversity made him picture his cousin eleanor as a prim young person, with sharp elbows and a pinched nose and stringy hair. she would be lifeless and oppressively good-mannered, he felt certain. all the ill success of the last three days seemed to be behind his sudden determination to have none of her. but cousin jasper, having once conceived the idea, was not to be gainsaid.
"no, i haven't been doing the proper thing for you. we will have eleanor over to lunch to-morrow and you two shall go with jennings in the car to fetch her. don't protest, it won't be any trouble."
later, as they went upstairs, janet pleaded and argued with a thunderously rebellious oliver who vowed and insisted that he would have no unknown female cousin thrust upon him.
"it is all right for you, janet," he insisted, "but i won't have cousin jasper arranging any such thing for me. when i told him i didn't like girls, he should have listened. no, i don't care if it is wrong, i am going to tell him, to-morrow, just what i think."
janet shook her brown, curly head in despair.
"i believe you will have to do what he says, in the end," she declared.
the next morning, at breakfast time, oliver had not relented, for a night haunted by visions of this unknown cousin had in no way added to his peace of mind.
"i have been thinking about that girl you spoke about," he began, looking across the table and over the wide bowl of sweet peas to fix his cousin with a glance of firm determination, "and i don't really care to meet her. janet can go to fetch her, but—you mustn't expect—i don't know how——"
his defense broke down and cousin jasper was ill-advised enough to laugh.
"stuff and nonsense," he said. "if you are afraid of girls it is time you got over it. i have telephoned eleanor already, but she couldn't come." oliver brightened, but relapsed, the next moment, into deeper gloom than ever. "she said that she would be at home later in the afternoon, so you and janet are to go over and call on her. i have ordered the motor for three o'clock."
it was janet's suppressed giggle that added the last spark to oliver's kindling anger. he was fond of his cousin jasper, he was troubled concerning him, and disturbed by the haunting feeling that something was wrong in the big house. yet baffled anxiety often leads to irritation, and irritation, in oliver's case, was being tactlessly pushed into rage. he said little, for he was a boy of few words, nor, so he told himself, could he really be rude to cousin jasper no matter how foolishly obstinate he was.
"but i'll get out of it somehow," he reflected stormily as he gulped down his breakfast and strode out into the garden. "i'll think of a way."
cudgel his brains as he might, however, he could think of no plausible escape from the difficulty. he had found no excuse by lunch time, and was relieved that cousin jasper did not appear, being deep in some task in his study. at half past two janet went upstairs to dress and hotchkiss came to oliver in the library to say:
"the car was to be ready at three o'clock, sir. is that correct?"
to which oliver replied desperately:
"tell jennings to make it half past three. i am going for a walk."
so he had plunged out through the gates and, once away down the dusty road, he became more and more of a rebel and finally a fugitive.
"i won't go back," he kept saying to himself. "i won't go back."
there was enough money in his pocket to take him home, and there was a train from the junction at three. he could telephone from there, very briefly, that he was going and that hotchkiss was to send his things. he was beginning to discover some use for a butler, after all.
he trudged on, growing very hot, but feeling more and more relieved at the thought of escape. the way, however, was longer than he had imagined, and three o'clock came, with the station not yet in sight. there was another train at five, he remembered, but thought that it would be better not to spend the intervening time waiting openly on the platform. he would be missed long before then and jennings and janet, or perhaps even cousin jasper himself, would come to look for him. it would be better for him to cross the nearest meadow and spend the two hours in the woods, or he might settle the question over which he had been wondering, whether there were really fish in that sharp bend of the river.
he climbed a stone wall and dropped knee-deep into a field of hay and daisies. toward the right, a quarter of a mile away, he could see the house of gray stone standing in the midst of wide, green gardens and approached by an elm-bordered drive. at that very moment he should have been rolling up to the door in cousin jasper's big car, to inquire for the much-detested eleanor brighton. he made a wry face at the thought and went hurrying down the slope of the hayfield, passed through a grove of oak and maple trees, and reached the river. it was a busy, swift little stream, talking to itself among the tall grasses as the current swept down toward the sea. a rough bridge spanned it just below the bend, and here he could stand and see the fish; for they were there, as he had thought. in the absence of fishing tackle, he could only watch them, but the sound of a car, passing on a road near by, made him hurry on.
now, he felt, he was away from passers-by indeed! another stone wall, patterned with lichen, separated him from the briar-filled wilderness of an old, abandoned orchard. each one of the twisted apple trees looked at least a thousand years of age, so bent, gnarled, and misshapen had it become. through the straight rows he could look up the slope of the round hill that he had so often watched from cousin jasper's garden, he could make out the roof line of the tiny, dilapidated cottage, and could see that the big tree at the summit was an oak. the orchard was a deserted waste and the house seemed uninhabited. yet just below the summit, the hill was dotted with small, boxlike structures, painted white, that might have been chicken houses, but seemed scarcely large enough. filled with curiosity, he went forward to investigate, munching, as he went, a yellow june apple that he had picked up in the grass.
a rough lane opened before him, that passed through the orchard and wound up the hill, with its high grass trodden a little as though, after all, people did sometimes pass that way. he had climbed only a little way when he heard voices.
the tumble-down cottage was not empty, as he had thought, for two people were standing in the doorway. he stopped abruptly. the man in worn overalls and the girl beside him, with her bobbed hair, bright eyes, and faded pink gingham apron, did not look like a very forbidding pair. but oliver's uneasy conscience made him feel that any person he met might guess his plans in some mysterious way and interfere with his escape. very quietly he turned about and began to hurry down the hill. he had retreated too late, however, for the man had seen him and proceeded to call after him in what seemed a very peremptory tone:
"stop!"
for a moment, oliver hesitated, uncertain whether to obey or to take to his heels and seek safety in the wood below. could the man have read his secret, or was the apple in his hand the cause of the summons? before he could really decide, the girl's voice was raised also—pleading and urgent.
"we need you," she called. "you must help us. oh, don't go away!"
he turned slowly and went toward them through the tall grass, uncertain, suspicious, afraid even yet that he might fall into some trap that would delay his flight. his uneasiness was not in any way quieted by his seeing that one of the white boxes stood, uncovered, before the two and that it was a beehive.
"you have come just in time," said the man, "if you are willing to help us. it is a difficult business, hiving a swarm of bees at this season, and polly, here, is no use at all. this is her first day with the bees this year, and she jumps up and down when they sing around her head, and that stops everything."
"i do better usually," the girl confessed humbly, "but i forget, over the winter, how to be quiet and calm when a million bees are buzzing in my ear."
she thrust into oliver's hand the leather and metal bellows that blows wood smoke into the hive, and her father began giving him directions as unconcernedly as though his helping were a matter of course.
"just stand beside me, stay very still, and keep blowing smoke; that is right. don't move and never mind how close the bees come. there is no danger of your being stung."
the square white box was full of wooden frames, hanging one behind another, like the leaves of a book. one by one the man lifted them out, swept off the black curtain of bees that clung to them, and showed the clean, new, sweet-smelling honeycomb.
"when an old hive gets too crowded, and the bees begin to swarm," he explained, "we divide them and put some frames and bees into a new, empty hive. see them going to work already, and look at that piece of comb that has just been built; one would think that the fairies had made it."
oliver had never seen anything so white and thin and delicate as the frail new cells ready for the fresh honey. he forgot any dread of the myriad creatures buzzing about his head, he forgot even his plan, and his impatience of delay. he bent to peer into the hive, to examine the young bees just hatching, the fat, black, and brown drones and the slim, alert queen bee. the girl, now that the responsibility of helping was off her hands, forgot her own nervousness and pressed forward also to look and ask questions. she must be about thirteen or fourteen years old, was oliver's vague impression of her; she had dark hair and quick, brown eyes, her cheeks were very pink, and one of them was decorated with a black smudge from the smoke blower. he was too intent to notice her much or to remember his fearful dread of girls. and of course this little thing in the shabby apron was very different from the threatened cousin eleanor.
he could not see much of the man's face under the worn straw hat, as they bent over the hive, but he liked the slow, drawling voice that answered his innumerable questions and he found the chuckling laugh irresistibly infectious. the stranger's brown hands moved with steady skill among the horde of crawling insects, until the last frame was set in place, the last puff of smoke blown, and the cover was put down.
"there, young man," said the beekeeper, "that was a good job well done, thanks to you; but you must not go yet. polly and i always have a little lunch here in the honey house when we have finished, to revive us after our exhausting labor."
oliver was about to protest that he must go on at once, but the man interrupted him, with a twinkle in his eye.
"there is a spring behind the house where we wash up," he said. "polly will give you some soap and a towel. wood smoke smells good, but it is just as black as the soft-coal kind."
when he looked at himself a moment later in the mirror of the spring, oliver realized that he was scarcely fit to start on a journey, since, in his energetic wielding of the smoker he had smudged his face far worse than even polly had. he began splashing and scrubbing, but honey and soot and the odd, sticky glue with which bees smear their hives are none of them easy to remove. when he presented himself once more at the door of the cottage, there was a feast spread out on the rough table—buttered and toasted biscuits spread with honey, iced cocoa with whipped cream, and a big square chocolate cake. quite suddenly he remembered how far he had walked and how hungry he was and with equal suddenness forgot his pressing necessity for setting off again. he sat down on the three-legged stool that the beeman offered him, sampled the hot biscuit and the cold drink, and breathed a deep, involuntary sigh of content. in the presence of these friendly, shabbily dressed strangers he felt, for the first time since leaving home, really happy and at ease.
it seemed dark and cool within the little cottage after the blazing sunshine outside. the place was evidently no longer used for anything but a storehouse and a shelter for picnics of this kind, but it was a quaint, attractive little dwelling and evidently very old. the main room where they sat had a big-beamed ceiling, deep casement windows, and a door that swung open in two sections, one above the other. the upper half was wide open now, framing a sun-bathed picture of the green slope, the treetops of the orchard, and the rising hills opposite, with a narrow glimpse of sparkling, blue sea. the air was very hot and quiet, with the sleepy peacefulness that belongs to summer afternoons. the round, dense shadow of the oak tree above them was lengthening so that its cool tip just touched the doorstone.
polly, with hands as brown and skillful as her father's, was still toasting biscuits before the little fire they had built on the rough hearth. the beeman, having taken off his hat, showed a handsome, cheery face much like his daughter's, except that his big nose was straight, rather than tilted like her small one, and his eyes were gray. their clothes were even older and shabbier than oliver had at first observed, but their manners were so easy and cordial that the whole of the little house seemed filled with the pleasant atmosphere of friendliness.
polly left the fire at last, bringing a plate of hot biscuits, and sat down beside the table.
"daddy always tells me a story when we have finished with the bees," she began a little shyly. "he said he had one saved up in his head that i would especially like. you won't mind our going on with it, will you?"
oliver would not mind at all. he felt assured already that he would like anything that the beeman had to say.
"i suppose you must have it, if your heart is set on it," polly's father said, "but my tales are usually designed for an audience of only one. this young gentleman may not like our style of stories, my dear."
"i hope he will," replied polly, "but—oh, daddy, i forgot all about it, didn't we have an engagement some time about now, at home?"
"no," he returned so positively that his daughter, though at first a little puzzled, seemed quite satisfied. "it is quite all right for us to stay here."
he chuckled for a moment, as though over some private joke of his own, then at last laid down his pipe and crossed his legs. oliver leaned back against the wall and polly curled up on the bench by the fireplace.
"are you both quite comfortable?" the beeman inquired. "very well, then i'll begin."
