Lady Teddy comes to town

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I The Mysterious Kings i

II Mary May Tells the Story ... 17

Chapter I

Monkey Morley, sauntering up the road to the West Hill as carelessly as if he had never really intended to go that way at all, met Tom Pressly and Barry Welles, leaders of the boy half of the “West Hill crowd,” coming down the road, and coming in a hurry.

“What's the matter with you fellows ?” asked Monkey, innocently, though had the others taken the time to look at him, they would have seen that his big black eyes were fairly snapping with excitement under their sleepylooking lids.

“W-why, we heard that some folks had moved in over at the old King house, during the night," gasped Tom and Barry together.

“Oh — shucks,” said Monkey, with a very bored manner, “I knew all about that ages ago ! Why, I helped with the moving!”

If he had thrown a bomb at them, the other boys could not have looked more astonished. “You did?” they cried in chorus.

“Y-e-s,” drawled Monkey with maddening calm, “I guess I know as much about that little surprise party as any person in King’s Town,” and he began drawing pictures in the dust with the toe of one worn shoe.

“Well then, hurry up and tell us,” begged Barry. But Tom, mindful of others, broke in, “Oh, wait till we get the gang together. Everyone’ll want to hear. Come along up to our barn, Monkey.”

“All right,” agreed that important young gentleman. As they went, Tom and Barry opened their mouths and gave three of the most long-drawn, tremendous yells ever heard, which must have carried miles through the stillness of the quiet, sunny Saturday morning.

“Say — girls in this, too?” queried Monkey, who didn’t care for girls. He knew that particular long-drawn yell meant a gathering of the entire West Hill clan. The boys generally whistled to each other. The girls gave mild “Hoo-hoos.” Those three great yells meant, in local language, ‘‘Everybody in hearing come to the Pressly barn — double quick,” and Monkey was a trifle upset when he heard it.

But Tom and Barry, who both had companionable sisters, simply nodded, and whooped again.

Instantly, Muriel and Madeleine Johns, roused by the first yell, came in sight around the corner of their house, their long, thin curls and their long, thin necks seeming to try to help their long, thin legs as they ran. Powell, or as he was generally called, “Pow Wow” Carpenter, the quietest boy in the crowd, appeared with a guinea pig peeping inquiringly from each pocket, and the hammer, with which he had been mending their pen, still in his hand. Fixing his troublesome spectacles firmly on his round snub nose, he fell into line. Bud Spencer and Jimmie Pressly, who, both mounted on Bud’s pony, had just started down the hill to gather news on their own account, turned the fat brown pony to the right-about face and made him gallop back, so being the first to arrive in the big breezy old barn, which Dr. Pressly had turned over entirely to the children, when he built his new garage up near the house.

Mary May Pressly, who had been pounding the piano with all the horror of a twelve year old girl who is not musical, but is made to practise, came dodging out from the shelter of the lilac bushes. Knowing it was quite useless to ask to be let off the rest of her torture hour, she had taken the law into her own hands, climbed out of the window, and made her escape at first sound of the gathering cry, arriving just in time to help plump, pretty Georgia Welles push her fatter, prettier baby brother up the little slope to the barn, and to receive Blanche Black, daughter of the new Methodist minister, who, as a stranger, had to be treated with some formality yet. Mary May rather scowled at Phil, the youngest Pressly, who, being only six, wasn’t old enough to be a real member of the crowd and shouldn’t have •come. But Phil, conscious of being a recent kindergarten graduate, stuck up his freckled nose at her and went serenely on.

Excitement had been in the air that morning, and everybody came with such a rush that Monkey Morley, special speaker of the occasion, was actually the last child to enter the barn, and Tom and Barry had breathlessly explained his importance before he appeared. So it happened that when he did step into the big sunny room, he was met by glances more interested, admiring and envious than any that had ever been turned upon him before.

He stood still in the door a moment, looking at his little audience. There before him were the four Pressly children, all of them rather plain, very blond, freckled, wholesome, hearty and “nice.” Then the Johns girls, Muriel, prim and timid, Madeleine, noisy and boyish, both dark, and like enough to be twins, except that Madeleine was pretty and poor Muriel wasn’t; then Blanche Black, with thick brown hair neatly bobbed, keen blue eyes, pink cheeks and a very red, very determined, mouth ; pretty blond Georgia Welles and Barry, her handsome, graceful dark brother ; then plain, clever, near-sighted “Pow Wow” Carpenter, and sturdy, red haired, smiling Bud Spencer. These boys and girls were the cream of King’s Town’s juvenile society. And here they were, gathered together to listen to him, Monkey Morley, at whom the girls, at least, frequently turned up their noses!

It made Monkey feel very shy, and very important too, as his black eyes looked from one eager face to another. It was, as usual, the excitable Mary May who hurried things along.

“Begin, Monkey,” she cried. “Talk or I’ll die ! Who came to the King house, and why did they come, and what are they going to do now they’ve got here? Tell everything you know — quick!” With the last word she gave such an energetic bounce that the upturned bushel basket upon which she sat broke beneath her, and she plumped down inside it, a mere mass of waving arms and legs and tow-colored pigtails. But the mishap didn’t silence her.

“Talk,” she commanded from the depths of her small prison, “I can hear you.”

But Monkey meant to be deliberate. He wasn’t going to tell all he knew and so lose his importance, before such a course was necessary. He said he wanted to sit down, and he was deliberate in finding a seat, and he shoved his cap down over his thick black hair till it nearly covered his eyes, and then he took out his knife and began to whittle !

It was too much! An insulted gasp went up from his audience, and Monkey hastily began, “Well, you know how hot it was last night?”

“Why — yes,” came in an astonished chorus. What on earth had the state of the weather to do with the news in hand ?

“Hum-m-m — well, my Cousin Cordelia wanted to go off somewhere, so she sent me to bed awful early, and then she locked the door and went. I just waited till I was sure she was out of sight, and then I skinned down the waterspout and went, too.”

“Oh — didn’t you wait to get dressed?” gasped Muriel Johns, who always believed exactly what she heard, neither more nor less.

“Hadn’t undressed, silly, except my shoes. If I get in between the sheets with them on, she catches me. I did not put them on again ; barefoot’s too much fun. I got away and went down to the depot. It’s lots of fun down at the depot, nights.”

Monkey sighed with delight. The other boys sighed, as he had hoped they would, with envy. All, owing to the fact that they were possessed of careful, loving parents, were denied many of the joys Monkey indulged in, and frequently thought it might not be so very bad to be an orphan, in charge of a cousin of your grandfather !

“Hurry up,” growled Barry Welles. “I don’t believe you saw a thing — you’re just bluffing.”

Monkey’s black eyes flashed at Barry, but his voice went on evenly enough, “I went down to the depot, and I waited around with the men and pretty soon the nine-forty flier came in — and it stopped.”

Monkey had meant to spread his story over a very long space of time, but somehow words seemed scarce. “It stopped,” he repeated, as if that were a most unusual performance. “And a lot of folks got off. There was the fat drummer who sells those extra-big all-day suckers to Mother Barlow, and that new stenographer up at the Mills, and — ” but here, seeing signs of a storm, he finished hastily, “and a lot of strangers. Four of ’em. There was a fat old woman, and a thin young one, and two ordinary men, and they had the greatest lot of bags and bundles and trunks. They asked for a carriage, and they was awful mad when Noah Hicks told ’em old Bill Sill was sick and so there wasn’t no ’bus” —

“Wasn’t any ’bus,” corrected Mary May, automatically, as she corrected the grammar of her younger brothers, when it strayed from the paths of propriety. “Go along, Monkey. It’s getting interesting now.”

Monkey glared at her, but obeyed. “So Noah Hicks asked ’em where they wanted to go. And they said to King’s Wood, the home of Mr. Theodore King, Senior, and everybody around that station was so astonished they stopped whatever they were doing and came around to listen. Old Mr. Hicks’s little chin whiskers began to wiggle up and down, the way they do when he’s excited, and he says, ‘You must be mistaken, my friend. No one ever goes to either of the King houses any more. They are closed and deserted and have been for years, except for Mr. and Mrs. Alphonso Parler, caretakers.’

“But then the fat old woman spoke right up. She said it was true, and all right, and the Parlers ought to have been expecting ’em for there’d been a letter sent. She said they’d been

II sent on purpose to open up the old King place and clean it and fix it, because — the Kings were coming back i”

A gasp of astonishment went up from his hearers. Monkey paused.

“Don’t stop — don’t stop/’ cried Madeleine the impatient.

Monkey pretended to be much more interested in the stick he was whittling than in the story he was telling, but his eyes, under their thick lashes, glowed with delight over the importance of his position.

“Well,” he went on, “there was a lot of talking. The fat woman who’d lived out there once as housekeeper, she said, wanted to telephone to the Parlers, but you know they wouldn’t have no ’phone — Mary May, if you catch me up on my grammar again I won’t say another word — and so Noah Hicks said, well, he had his automobile, real important, and he got out that little old car of his, and they got in, the two women and some bundles, and the two men walked, and a whole lot of us helped them carry the other things. I got an umbrella to carry myself.”

Monkey looked triumphantly at the other boys, who would, he knew, have given a great deal to be so intimately connected with important doings.

“Was it a brown silk umbrella with a cord and tassel?” asked Georgia, who had wanted such a thing so long that it seemed to her much more valuable than the silks and diamonds longed for by the other girls.

“I should say it wasn't! It was a man’s umbrella, or I wouldn’t have carried it,” declared Monkey decidedly, and Georgia was so disappointed she gave the baby buggy an awful jerk and started small Rob to crying.

“Go on, Monkey,” begged the others above Rob’s racket.

“There ain’t much more to tell,” said Monkey. “We took ’em up, and they asked questions about the town, and we asked them about the Kings, and we didn’t tell them much and they didn’t tell us much either. Nobody i3 was doing any answering, somehow. When we got there, the Parlers was up, of course, and had let the women into the big house, and Mrs. Parler was mad because he’d got the letter and hadn’t given it to her, or opened it or anything, and everybody was talking and scolding and getting sort of mixed up. So the new folks just took their things from us and said thank you and went in and shut the door.”

“Oh, dear !” mourned Mary May and Madeleine.

“Hear ’em say anything about keeping horses?” asked Bud Spencer. “They used to keep some dandies, my dad says.”

“Shucks — horses are out of date !” exclaimed Barry Welles. “This isn’t 1904, when the Kings went away from King’s Town — it’s 1912! How many autos they got, Monkey?”

Monkey stared disgustedly at the boys.

“Look here,” he said. “Do you think folks are going to tell everything about themselves to folks they don’t know, just after they’ve got into a house that wasn’t expecting them, at ten o'clock at night? They were pretty busy just thinking about beds to sleep in — I can tell you that! They didn’t say much to us. They talked to the Parlers.”

“Oh, Monkey !” chorused the girls, in great disappointment. “Didn’t you see or hear another thing?”

“I saw something,” said Monkey. “That white horse Mary May’s always told about is really there. Funny looking thing — a big white horse in the hall of a house !”

“There, I told you I didn’t make up seeing that horse!” shrieked Mary May in high glee. “I told you I remembered it.”

Immediately there arose a babel of voices, everybody talking about some special thing they had heard about the Kings. Monkey’s amazingly quiet audience was turned to Bedlam, until Blanche Black’s cool tones cut across the noise, saying, “I wish somebody’d please tell me what all this excitement is about, anyhow. What if some people named King are coming back to their house to live ! Can’t folks come home without having folks act like this ? I think it’s just as silly as can be, so now!”

There was a startled silence. The others, especially the girls, stared at her in horror. What could she mean? Didn’t she KNOW?

They felt that the whole world must know the exciting, romantic story of the Kings — their own Kings — the Kings of King’s Town. And they said as much.

“Well, I don’t know anything, except that they own the Mills and the town’s named for them and they don’t live here any more — or didn’t,” said Blanche coolly. “If they’re so interesting and wonderful, you’d better tell me about them.”

The other children looked at each other. Then Muriel Johns said, “Mary May’s the one. She must tell you. Her folks knew the Kings, and then she tells stories so awfully well anyhow. Get her to tell.”

Blanche turned imperiously to Mary May, but that young lady said, “Not now,” so decidedly, that Blanche flushed and tossed her brown head.

She had been used to being a leader herself, had Blanche, and she had tried to be here in this new town, until Mary May had kindly but firmly shown her there wasn’t room for two generals among the West Hill girls, and that she had no intention of giving up her place. Blanche, being a wise young person, had outwardly given in, though she still resented “being bossed,” as she called it. Her bright blue eyes flashed rather angrily, but she only said, “Why not? Where are you going?”

“Over to the Kings, of course,” answered Mary May. “Very likely our folks wouldn’t let us, so there’s no use wasting time asking. We’ve just got to go. I’ll help you with Rob’s buggy, Georgia, so we can all go faster.”

And down the long, warm, dusty slope of the West Hill raced an avalanche of children, Monkey Morley leading, Georgia and Mary with the baby carriage bringing up the rear.

CHAPTER II The children had rather a long walk before

them. First, down the pretty road that led from the trim houses on the top of West Hill,

then, across the little valley in which the greater part of the village of King’s Town lay, and so on up the slope of East Hill, from which looked down, not a number of medium sized houses, but two very large ones.

It was hot in the valley, and everybody stopped at the fountain in the little village park to get a drink.

As they stood there, they looked north, along King’s Town’s one business street, to the great black Mills beyond, while behind them to the south were the older homes of the village — big square houses, mostly of red brick, with lots of beautiful big trees and old-fashioned flow- 17 ers. It was June now, and the whole village smelled of roses.

It was in one of these old houses that Monkey Morley lived, and in another, right next door to his, lived another child who played often with the West Hill children — Esther Barrows.

Georgia, who never wanted to have anybody miss anything, suggested that they stop for Esther, now. Muriel added that she was distantly related to the Kings, and might have a little extra news to give.

But the boys hurried on, and Mary May behind them, so the other girls went on too. Everyone was eager to see with his or her own eyes the longed for opening of that interestingly tight-shut house, at which all had gazed so many, many times. And so on they went, until at last they all stood, tired but happy, outside the big imposing fence that shut in the estate of King’s Wood.

There was a gap through the thick shrubbery within the fence, through which the great house could be seen, and there the children hurried, settling down on the grass outside the “peek hole” like a flock of birds. They had come there often before, for the big, silent, mysterious old house was one of the most interesting things in all their lives. No child with a shred of imagination but had dreamed what might be inside — what fun it would be to play in the grounds. They were such fascinatingly different grounds — unlike any others that these children knew.

There were many giant trees and much thick lovely shrubbery, of course, though such things their own homes possessed. But — here, scattered among the trees, were wonderful marble people, in strange clothes, gleaming like ghosts, while the antlered heads of two bronze deer reared themselves at one side, seeming to watch perpetually for the nearer approach of two big bronze grayhounds, who guarded the walk to the front steps, or the great stone lion, who crouched on the open lawn. The boys groaned to think what fun a fellow could have playing hunter or Indian in those grounds!

Then, added joy, there was a miniature lake, with a rustic bridge across it, and white swans, arching their graceful necks and flapping their great wings in the sunshine, while at the back, built right out over the water, was a wonderful rustic summer-house, at which the girls looked longingly. Couldn’t one have the most gorgeous tea parties within its vine-hung walls?

The house itself was very big and tall and imposing, like everything else that belonged to the Kings, and it was crowned by the last delight of all — at one corner of the mansion a tower went up, four stories high, topped by a round open porch with a little peaked roof — a porch from which it must be possible to see for many miles, and in which one could play delightful games impossible anywhere else — enchanted castle, robber baron, and so forth. Mary May, especially, had looked with longing eyes upon that faraway tower!

But no child of the present generation of children had ever even been on that porch.

The Kings themselves had not been there, and the Parlers were crotchety, silent old people who did not encourage any visitors at all, let alone children. The only thing that Mr. Parler ever would do, was now and then to turn the key in the lawn which started the fountain — when fascinating fishes threw streams of water from their mouths into a big bowl held high above her head by a very beautiful stone lady, from which the water streamed down again into the great basin of the fountain.

Oh, the King homestead was a wonderful place ! Every child in town had admired it always, and wanted to go in, and longed for the family to come back, so that perhaps they might ! And to-day it seemed as though their wishes were coming true at last !

Now, the big house of dull gray stone was far from silent and lonely and mysterious. Its windows were all open, its curtains hung in long, wet, white rows above the grass, its lawns were decorated with great rugs and carpets, from which men were raising clouds of dust, and even its big imposing chairs and sofas, of velvet and leather, stood out there in the sunshine to be cleaned, like the most ordinary chairs in the world!

“Oh, dear — isn’t it just the most wonderful thing you ever saw?” gasped Mary May Pressly, staring with all her eyes, while Muriel said half beneath her breath, “I never was so excited in all my life! Just look!”

Blanche Black turned up her straight little nose and openly sniffed. She refused to see anything very exciting or wonderful in an ordinary house cleaning, just such as her own well regulated home went through twice every year ! She said so very decidedly, and all four girls stared at her in horror. Even the boys looked surprised. It was Monkey Morley who said, “I guess Blanche doesn’t understand how King’s Town folks feel towards the Kings, yet. I know I didn’t when I first came. It seemed funny to me, and I was lots littler than she is. You’d better tell her the yarn, Mary May.”

“Oh, yes,” clamored the others. “Hurry,

Mary May — tell her now.” Mary May loved to talk about anything. Most of all, she loved to tell stories.

And so, leaning back against a tree trunk, she began in true fairy-tale fashion, a story that seemed to King’s Town people, as good as any fairy-tale that ever was written.

“Once upon a time, long ago, there was a family lived up here on this hill, named King. It was all open country up here then, and there wasn’t the least sign of a town down there in the valley either, and there weren’t any Mills — the falls in the river hadn’t a thing to do but just be beautiful !

“The Kings had a big farm. The farmhouse stood where this house stands, and it had been built out of logs by the first King, who had fought in the Revolution, and been given land here after the war, and brought his family out to live in the wilderness, with the wild beasts and the fierce, scalping Indians. He was very brave, and fought everything here, as he’d fought the British, and he was never hurt, or anybody belonging to him, though the Indians attacked him once, and burned another man they had caught, over there in the Big Woods, and the Kings could hear it all, and you can see the tree where the man was tied, to-day !

“But after that King died, things began to go very wrong with the family. The farm was big, but somehow they couldn’t seem to make it pay, and so they got poorer and poorer all the time.

“At last the oldest son, Thaddeus, ran away one night, and was never, never heard from again. They never even knew whether he died or not. And then the two girls, who came next, were over in the Big Woods, right there beyond us, and somehow they fell into the Black Pool there, and were drowned, nobody knew how, and then Timothy, the next son, got discouraged, too, and he went out into the world to seek his fortune, and he never came back either.”

“Humph,” said Blanche Black irreverently.

“Exactly like the story of the five little pigs, isn’t it? Who was the big wolf that ate Thaddy and Tim, and what did the last pig do?”

But the others glared at her so angrily for making fun of what seemed to every King’s Town person the most romantic and wonderful story in the world, that Blanche had the grace to redden, and hold her naughty tongue while Mary May went on.

“It just seemed as if all the trouble there was had come to the Kings. But there was another son, the youngest child, Theodore, and he didn’t go away, or die, or anything. He said he was going to support himself and his poor broken-hearted father and mother. But folks thought he took a very strange way to do it. For he tinkered a lot more at the old blacksmith’s forge his grandfather had had, than he did at farming. And he spent more money on the queer things he made there than on farm tools. And everybody said he was the worst of the lot. That he didn’t even have courage enough to go out into the world and try to make money, or energy enough to make it at home, and that all the Kings would go to the Poor House sure enough. And then, when he was the very poorest, and, folks thought, the very craziest, he married Esther Barrows’ great-grandmother’s only sister, for whom Esther is named, and everybody was just dreadfully surprised and sorry, and some said Theodore King ought to be ashamed to do it. Then Esther had some money of her own, and she gave it to her husband, though her family made an awful fuss. But she said she had faith in him. Wasn’t that lovely? With everyone telling her he was no good, and that she was silly? And he took the money and patented some of the queer things he had made at his old forge, and made some more, and sold them. And after awhile he had to have a man to help him, he sold so many. And then he hired another man, and another, and built a bigger place, and a bigger, until by the time his son, Theodore II, the old Theodore of to-day, was a man, the great Mills had been started down there in the valley beside the waterfall, and the old farmhouse was gone, and this house stood in its place. And it was here that Theodore II brought his pretty young bride from the East, when they married, and here that Theodore III was born. But Madam King — who was young Mrs. King then — didn’t like King’s Town a bit. It was very, very little then, and she thought it was awfully pokey, and she lived in New York and Europe a lot. But Mr. King stayed here, with his father and mother, who lived to be ever so old, and he worked hard at the Mills and made them bigger and better, and he brought up his son to love them too. And when that son grew up, and got married, why his wife was different from his mother. She wanted to live right here. She was proud of King’s Town, and of everything in it, and glad to have her husband in the great Mills his grandfather had started, and so young Theodore built King’s Croft for her, that other house there across the road, and he worked hard, and she made friends here and everybody seemed just as happy. But the bad luck of the King family was coming back!”

With the instinct of the true story-teller, Mary May stopped impressively. She had the satisfaction of seing that Blanche Black was very sincerely interested now. The others, old as the story was to them, were breathless too.

“What happened?” demanded Blanche.

“Death — and worse than death,” said Mary May dramatically. “The very same night our Tom was born, they had a baby too. But it was a girl. Wasn’t that dreadful?”

“Why, no — of course not,” exploded Blanche, who as the only girl in a family with four much older brothers, had been taught to consider herself of a good deal of importance. “What makes you say such a thing?”

“Goosie — because she wasn’t a Theodore IV — don’t you see? Why, it was about as important for our Kings to have a son, as it would be for a real King to have one! But she was a girl. And things were worse next day. For her mother died! She died that very night. Then they knew there wouldn’t be any Theodore IV, not ever, so they did the best they could, and named her Theodora/’

'‘Why doesn’t she live here? Is she alive now?” demanded Blanche.

“Well, there’s a lot more of the story. And it’s just as interesting and tragic as the first part, too. She did live here — in King’s Wood, not King’s Croft — for the first three years of her life. She lived here because King’s Croft was shut up tight as tight, and never opened any more. Right after young Mrs. King’s funeral her husband shut up all the windows and shutters and doors, and they say that nobody has ever been inside the house since — just think !