Treasure for Debby

Front matter

TREASURE

for

DEBBY

Chapter Eighteen. A Dream Comes True . . 243 ILLUSTRATIONS

"Why — yes,” said Dehby looking up in

surprise ...... Frontispiece

Would Aunt Retta know anything about it? . . 3 5

Examining every inch of it with greatest care . . 97

But it was not old Minnie at the door . . .134

"I don 9 t want you to think we Stebbins are not just

Chapter One

D ebby —oh—Debby,” came the shrill triumphant voice of little Polly Stebbins from the upper hall, "Aunt Nell asked Aunt Retta to let me wear Great-grandmother’s brooch, and I’ve got it on!”

Following the voice came Polly herself, sliding down the mahogany banister, and bouncing off the newel post at the bottom.

"Polly,” said Deborah severely, "you know Aunt Retta told you not to do that again. And now the whole house is dusted and fixed for the guests.” "Well, I just gave it an extra dusting,” said Polly calmly, adjusting her brooch. Then she looked up at her older sister, standing in the doorway in the oldfashioned dress. "Oh, Debby,” she exclaimed, forget¬ ting everything else, "you’re wonderful! You look exactly like the portrait—only prettier,” Polly added generously.

Polly herself was not in the least pretty. Her straight black hair stuck out around her dark, thin little face, and her nose tilted ridiculously. Debby was dark too, but her face was soft and oval, her hair fluffed out around it, and her nose was exactly right.

Both the girls glanced through the drawing-room door at the portrait of handsome Great-grandmother Stebbins in crimson gown, that hung over the mantel¬ piece. Debby, wearing this same gown, did look won¬ derfully like Great-grandmother, except for the tall comb at the back of Great-grandmother’s hair, and the jeweled cross on a carved chain at her neck. Debby and Polly felt sure that this chain and cross must have come from some Spanish treasure house. For Great-grandfather Israel Stebbins had been cap¬ tain of a splendid clipper ship, and had brought home his bride from the Spanish colonies far to the south. She was beautiful and mysterious, this great-grand¬ mother of theirs—and tragic too, for five years after her marriage she had gone down with her husband in their ship at sea in a great storm, leaving three tiny children behind her at home in the old Stebbins man¬ sion.

"I wish you had the chain to wear today, Debby,” said Polly, looking at the portrait. "'Then you’d be perfect. Did it really go down with the ship ? If I had had anything like that, I shouldn’t have taken it on a journey.”

"They think that she took it,” said Debby. "At least, nobody ever saw it again. And she took nearly all her fine clothes too, except this dress and the brooch, because she and Great-grandfather sometimes went to grand balls when they touched at foreign ports.”

"I wish she was here today,” sighed Polly. "She’d be ever so much nicer and prettier than Aunt Retta to shake hands at the door, and she’d love to have all the people coming in to see the beautiful old things that she had to leave behind her when she went on that dreadful journey.”

"She wouldn’t like that old pasteboard box you’ve left on the table there, Polly Stebbins,” said Debby suddenly. "Don’t you remember that Aunt Retta said you mustn’t put anything down in the hall this afternoon. What’s in it?” And Debby picked up the box.

"Don’t you touch it!” cried Polly, jumping for the box, "It’s mine and Zab’s.”

"Oh!” said Debby, with a little squeal, as she lifted the cover. "You dreadful child! It’s full of daddy-long-legs.”

"They’ve all lost one leg,” said Polly, recovering her box. "We’re going to see if we can do something about them.”

Polly intended to be a trained nurse when she grew up, and was already practising the art of healing on anything she could find. Little Zabdiel Eaton, who lived next door, practised the art of anything that Polly did.

"Well, you’d better do something about them right off,” said Debby. "If Aunt Retta finds them, they’ll lose more than one leg. This is the most important day in the whole year for this house.”

It was, indeed, a great day for every house in the little Maine town of Bellport. All along its wide elmshaded street the fine old mansions were standing with doors wide open in the August sunshine, waiting for the visitors who would soon come thronging in their cars, from far and near. It was Community Day, and any one who bought a ticket at the Academy at the head of the Green might wander at will in and out of the old houses, upstairs and down, among all the price¬ less things that they held. In order to raise money for the little Academy, the people of Bellport would for this one day show their treasures to the world. No other town in Maine could boast such Chippendales and Heppelwhites, such pewters and porcelains, such ivories and carvings and hangings, brought straight from the Orient in the clipper ships that long ago had crowded Bellport’s wharves.

And of all the old houses, the richest in treasures was perhaps the Stebbins mansion, standing stately and withdrawn, with its four great chimneys and its high white portico, on a little hill at the edge of the town. Only a few, even among the people of Bellport, knew the half of all the beautiful old things that it held, for Miss Henrietta and Miss Eleanor had lived, like their house, a little withdrawn from the life of the town. Some said that they were too proud to mix in community affairs, others that they were too poor—perhaps both poor and proud. For it was rumored that they had lately been obliged to sell one of their beautiful old highboys, in order to make ends meet. Nobody had seen the highboy go—it must have been taken away in the night—but the place where it had stood was empty.

The people in the other old Bellport houses asked one another how Miss Henrietta and Miss Eleanor could possibly get along at all, now that their brother’s two grandchildren had come to live with them. Deborah, to be sure, was very talented, and had found a place to help in the drawing classes at the little Academy, but Deborah was only eighteen, and the Academy itself was poor, and could pay very little.

Perhaps it was because the Academy had been good to Debby that Miss Henrietta had consented at last to exhibit her treasures, for when Community Day arrived, she had not only opened wide her door under the high white portico, but she had dressed her pretty niece in Great-grandmother Stebbins 5 crimson gown, and had set out her Paul Revere silver on the ma¬ hogany table in the dining-room. Miss Eleanor had made a trayful of thin delicate oatmeal wafers, and from four to five Debby was to serve tea in the old China cups. The Stebbins mansion, that in Captain Israel’s day had kept open house to all who came, should offer a little hospitality again.

"There comes Aunt Retta now,” exclaimed Polly, as there was a firm step on the stairs, and she hastily thrust the box of daddy-long-legs into the drawer of the mahogany table. "And there’s a car parking just outside. Oh, goody, they’re beginning to come. I shall stay right here in the hall, and take everybody in to see Great-grandmother’s portrait.”

"I’m going into the work-shop for a minute, before I put the kettle on,” said Debby, all at once shy and self-conscious in her crimson gown, and she ran quickly through the door at the back of the hall, and out into the little room at the side of the house that opened on the garden. It was Debby’s own little studio. In it she kept her drawing materials, and in it she dreamed her dreams of the art school where she, somehow or other, was some day going to study.

To learn to paint —really to paint, fine and beauti¬ ful things like Great-grandmother’s portrait! It made her tingle to think of it. She had been working on a sketch of the portrait just within the last two weeks. It was lying now, almost finished, in her old sea chest. Sometimes Debby wondered whether, if she should sell the chest, she would have money enough to go to Art School. She shivered a little whenever she thought of this possibility. For the old sea chest had been made by Captain Israel Stebbins himself, and seemed to Debby almost as much of an heirloom as the other beautiful old furniture in the mansion. Rough-hewn it was, with handles of knotted rope, but on top was a nice bit of home-made carving, and quaint letters intertwined:

"WHERE THY TREASURE—THERE

THY HEART”

The only treasure Debby had found in it were two or three old charts, but some day it should be filled with the drawings that would make her rich.

She rather wished that Polly would think of send¬ ing somebody in to see the old chest. It was funny, thought Debby, that Polly was not a bit shy with strangers. She was seven years younger than Debby, but Polly always knew what to say to people. She should have worn the crimson gown, since it was she who was helping Aunt Retta and Aunt Nell at the front of the house. Debby could hear Polly’s high, cheerful voice in the distance, inviting people to go right upstairs and turn to the left, and directing others to the drawing-room and Great-grandmother’s portrait.

Debby, lingering, looked out between the heavy red curtains of the window in the little work-shop, and saw a stream of visitors coming up the hill toward the house. She really must go and put the kettle on, and set out Aunt Nell’s oatmeal wafers in the dining¬ room. People would soon be wanting their tea. Was that Aunt Retta coming to find her now? She heard a firm step already just outside the door.

Debby turned and went quickly toward it. But it was not Aunt Retta. It was a tall, strange young man, who filled up the whole doorway. He was sev¬ eral years older than Debby, and rather grave, ex¬ cept for his eyes, which had a pleasant twinkle.

"There are no antiques in here,” said Debby, in sudden confusion.

"No?” responded the young man. "Well, perhaps after all I am a little tired of antiques.” And he smiled at Debby.

The quick color came into Debby’s face, but she smiled back in spite of herself, for there was a pleasant friendliness about the young man that made her feel at ease with him at once.

"In fact,” he added, "I prefer reproductions when they are as good as that,” and he looked with frank admiration at Great-grandmother’s crimson gown, and the dark hair piled high on the pretty head, so exactly like the portrait’s. "You see, I deal mostly in reproductions myself,” he added.

"Oh?” said Debby, her hands on the back of a chair behind her, as she looked up at him with ques¬ tioning eyes.

"I’m connected with the Columbian Museum of

Fine Arts. I buy pictures for it,” explained the young man. "My name is Eric Anderson. I suppose you are Miss Stebbins?”

"Yes,” said Debby, all uncertainty gone from her face at the mention of the great museum. Her most precious day-dreams had to do with the beautiful pictures that filled it, and with its famous art school, where girls more fortunate than herself could learn to paint. She had been there once—had seen those happy girls, in painting smocks, standing before easels in the great corridors. And now here, before her, was somebody really connected with the mu¬ seum. She forgot her shyness, forgot that Eric Ander¬ son was still looking at her.

"How did you happen to come here?” she asked.

"I came because Em most awfully interested in old treasures like the portrait in the other room— and this,” said Eric Anderson, looking away from Debby at last to the old sea chest that stood against the wall.

He walked over to examine it more closely. He touched the weathered oak and the hand-wrought iron clasps. Then he stooped to read the carved words:

"WHERE THY TREASURE—THERE

THY HEART”

"That’s a fine piece,” he said. "Is it old?”

"My Great-grandfather made it,” said Debby, who had followed Eric Anderson across the little room, and stood beside the chest. "My aunt gave it to me. She doesn’t consider it a real antique, but I like it best of all.” Debby laid her hand lovingly upon it.

"Is there treasure in it?” Eric Anderson asked. "There ought to be, in chests like that, you know.”

"Nothing but my old drawing papers,” laughed Debby.

"Do you draw?” said Eric Anderson, looking down at her with fresh interest.

"A little,” said Debby. "I help to teach drawing at the Academy, but really I need to be taught my¬ self—if I could ever go to Art School!”

"Do you want to go?” asked Eric, his eyes still on Debby’s eager face.

"More than anything in the world,” said Debby, with an intensity that surprised him.

"Why don’t you, then?” said Eric Anderson.

"Well—I suppose we can’t afford it,” replied Debby, with an embarrassed little laugh.

Then she bit her tongue. What would Aunt Retta think if she could hear her saying these personal things to a strange young man? But Debby had never met any one like Eric Anderson. Though she had known him but a few minutes, he seemed already an old friend.

"Won’t you show me something you have done?” said Eric. Then, as Debby hesitated —"Please ”

With an impulsive movement, she opened the chest, and took out a sheet of paper that lay on top of the other drawings. It was the sketch, in color, of Great¬ grandmother’s portrait.

"I don’t really know much about doing faces,” said Debby, holding out the sketch rather shyly for Eric Anderson to see, "but it’s fascinating to try to work in flesh tints, and I love rich colors like this dress and the jeweled chain.”

"So do I,” said Eric, as he took the sketch.

For what seemed to Debby long minutes he studied it, examining it closely, then holding it at arm’s length, but he made no comment. Of course, thought Debby, sitting on the chest, he must consider it crude and amateurish, and he was just racking his brain for something tactful to say. What a silly goose she had been to show it to him! Aunt Retta was right—she was altogether too impulsive, especially when she liked people.

"I think I made the sketch as much for the jeweled chain as anything else,” said Debby hurriedly, to fill in the embarrassing silence. "You see, there has always been a mystery about it. It disappeared. That is, nobody knew what became of it after Great-grand¬ mother was lost at sea. It was immensely valuable, and I—I thought I should rather like to have another exact picture of it for family records.”

"That’s interesting,” said Eric Anderson, but his eyes were still on the sketch, as if he had not more than half heard what Debby had said. Then he looked up, and there was more interest than ever in his eyes.

"Would you be willing, Miss Stebbins, to let me borrow this sketch for a few days or a week?” said Eric. "Your aunt tells me that you do not know what artist painted the original portrait. There is some¬ body at our museum who knows a great deal about portraiture, and the styles of different artists. I think if he saw this sketch he might be able to help identify the artist who did it. He might know what marks to look for on the original. I would be very careful of it.”

"Why—yes,” said Debby, looking up at Eric An¬ derson in surprise. "Of course you may take it— that is—if you think it will really be of any use in finding out about the artist. But,” she hesitated, "it’s such an imperfect thing—I don’t see how it can.”

"It is wonderfully good,” declared Eric Anderson. "You have caught the pose and spirit of the thing exactly. I mean you have conveyed the artist’s own touch remarkably. Did you really do it quite by your¬ self—without any help or instruction?”

"Why—yes,” said Debby again.

She did wish that she knew some way to keep the color from coming into her cheeks. It made one so utterly ridiculous to blush. Great-grandmother Steb¬ bins probably blushed in her day, and no doubt Aunt Retta in hers—though it was hard for Debby to imagine Aunt Retta in any such predicament. But girls of to-day were not so foolish. Why couldn’t she be like Polly, whose cheeks never grew pink, except when she ran races. Polly could always look anybody in the eye and say, without changing color, just what was in her mind.

Debby, too, looked right at Eric Anderson as she spoke. In spite of that betraying color, there was always about Debby, when anything had to be faced, a certain clear directness, a dash of the same high spirit that had carried Great-grandmother Stebbins to sea in clipper ships.

"But if I am to take it away,” ventured Eric Ander¬ son, "you must let me make a deposit. I am sure you value it, and you don’t know me at all, you see.” And he put his hand in his pocket.

"Oh, no,” said Debby, with unexpected decision, getting up from the chest, and taking the sketch from his hand. "I couldn’t do that. It’s not finished. Besides, I couldn’t take money that way.” And Eric Anderson, looking down at the slim, straight figure in the crimson gown, and those dark unwavering eyes, caught a glimpse of something unflinching.

"But I’ll be glad to have you just— take it,” said Debby relenting, and holding out the sketch, "if—if you really want it.”

"Thank you, I do want it very much, and I promise that it shall come safely back,” said Eric. And he took the picture, but he looked at Debby.

"Oh, dear!” she exclaimed suddenly in consterna¬ tion, turning away from him. "It must be after four, and I’ve forgotten the tea. Oh, poor Aunt Nell!” And she ran toward the door. It was only yesterday that Aunt Retta had reproved her again for being so irresponsible and day-dreaming, and now she had neglected her part on this day of days. What would Aunt Nell think of her?

"Please don’t go. It’s only five minutes of four,” said Eric reassuringly, looking at his watch. "And nobody will think about tea for half an hour.”

Debby turned in the doorway.

"It will be ready in five minutes,” she said, with a little smile at the corners of her mouth, "and the dining-room is almost across the hall—if you would like any.”

Then, with a rustle of the crimson dress, she was gone.

"Aunt Nell,” came Polly’s high little voice from somewhere, "Debby’s been in the studio for half an hour with a strange, handsome young man, and she’s never liked young men before!”

Eric Anderson smiled as he put the sketch care¬ fully into his brief case. Then he went out into the hall—and turned toward the dining-room.

Chapter Two THE LITTLE HOUSE AT THE FOOT OF THE

GARDEN

D ebby ran up the stairs to the attic, with Great¬ grandmother’s crimson dress over her arm. It was so lovely, and such pleasant things had happened while Debby had had it on, that she wished she could keep it in her closet, but Community Day had come and gone, and Aunt Retta said that the old dress must be folded away again at once in its trunk.

The attic was in the fourth story of the high old Stebbins mansion, and the stairs were steep, so that Debby paused for a moment, a little breathless at the top, outside the attic door. From inside came a familiar sound—click-clack-clicketty-clack, click-clack-clicketty-clack. Debby knew that it was Polly, writing on the old typewriter in the little room at the end of the attic. Polly called this her office, and when¬ ever she was missing it was the first place to be searched.

Debby opened the door and went in. She walked across the great square attic, with the big brick chimneys in the shadowy corners, past the rows of trunks, the old churn and spinning-wheel, and a bat¬ tered desk, full of charts and tarry string that smelt of the sea. She looked in through the doorway of the "office,” and there, sure enough, was Polly, in her Scout uniform, sitting up very straight on a piano stool before the old typewriter, tapping it busily with one finger. Polly had only recently joined a Scout troop, and although she was not supposed to wear her uniform about the house, she put it on and came up into the "office” whenever she could.

The sun was pouring in through the one little square window, and the small room looked very bright and cheerful to Debby, after the dimness of the attic. There was nothing in it but the typewriter on a shaky table, the stool on which Polly sat, and an old broken-down armchair. All over the walls were pasted pictures of animals, which Polly had cut out of the newspapers and Our Four-footed Friends, and above the typewriter hung a worsted motto in a frame, unearthed from somewhere in the attic, read¬ ing "GOD BLESS OUR HOME.”

"Are you doing some more on Sylvia?” asked Debby, with a smile. Polly had for some time been writing a novel, called Sylvia Fisher, or the Adven¬ tures of a Trained Nurse, of which Debby had one day found and read the first chapter. Polly was very much in earnest about Sylvia Fisher, and she did not like the way Debby smiled.

"None of your business,” said Polly, going right on with her typing.

"Do you think that’s a very nice answer for a Girl Scout?” said Debby, looking severely at the uni¬ form. "I thought Scouts were supposed to be courteous.”

"It’s Wednesday,” said Polly, without looking up.

"What difference does that make?” said Debby.

"Fm courteous on Fridays,” said Polly, raising her head, with more of a tilt to her nose than usual, "extra courteous, to make up for the rest of the time. It’s easier to remember, if you put the things all in different days. On Wednesdays Fm cheerful.”

"Oh,” said Debby, trying not to look amused. "Well, what are you on Tuesdays?”

"Fm useful and a help to others,” said Polly, with¬ out a moment’s hesitation.

"I hadn’t noticed it,” said Debby. "What did you do to be helpful yesterday?”

"Pleaps of things,” said Polly indignantly. And she stopped typing, and quickly pulled the paper out of the machine. "You can just read them for yourself if you want,” she added, thrusting the paper at Debby.

Debby took the yellow sheet, and this is what she read:

THE HELPFUL DEEDS OF PAULINA DE CORDOVA STEBBINS ON TUESDAY, AUGUST THE 15TH IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD ONE THOU¬ SAND NINE HUNDRED AND THIRTY-

1. I got up at six and let in Isaak Walton and gave him his fish because he was mewing at the door.

2. I made Aunt Retta’s bed though she was perfectly horrid.

3. I told Aunt Nell she had a run in her stock¬ ing before she went down street.

4. I saved fifteen lame daddy-long-legs from certain death.

5. I dusted the south parlor for Community Day and I didn’t shake the duster in the fire¬ place once.

6. I was a great help to Aunt Nell all the afternoon. P.S. She told me so herself.

7. I didn’t tell Aunt Retta about Debby’s boy friend.

"What do you mean, Polly Stebbins!” exclaimed Debby. "He’s not my boy friend. I never saw him before.”

"Well, I didn’t tell Aunt Retta how long you talked to him anyway,” said Polly airily, and she picked up the sheet of yellow paper, which Debby had put down on the table, and marched out of the "office” and through the attic. Polly always did have a way of sailing out of things, thought Debby, look¬ ing after the Scout uniform, as it turned down the attic stairs, and smiling a little in spite of herself. Then she went back into the attic, and opened the old trunk to put away the crimson dress.

There were other things in the trunk—an old satin waistcoat that Aunt Nell said Great-grandfather had worn at his wedding, Great-grandmother’s slip¬ pers with the little rosettes, and boxes full of smaller treasures. There were also several Paisley shawls, pungent with the camphor of many years. Debby loved the delicate smell of old camphor. There was something mysterious and haunting about it, just like the attic itself, and she always looked in the boxes to make sure that there were no treasures that she had not seen before. Always she hoped against hope that somewhere, in a forgotten corner, she might come upon Great-grandmother’s beautiful carved chain, with the cross and the priceless jewels. Of course she never would, for the chain had been lost for more than sixty years, and was probably at the bottom of the sea. Besides, they had been all through the trunk ever so many times.

But today Debby did find something new in it, after all. Kneeling on the attic floor, she lifted the things out one by one and looked at them again. At the bottom of the trunk, under an uninteresting piece of old cloth, she came upon a little quaint pink cotton apron, that must have been Great-grandmother’s when she was a young girl, because on the tiny pocket were embroidered the letters P. de C. in faded coarse blue cotton—Paulina de Cordova. Polly was named after Great-grandmother. Debby held the little apron in her hand and looked at it intently. It made Great¬ grandmother seem suddenly so near and real—a young girl like herself. Debby stood up and put the apron over her own fresh pink dress, tying the faded strings behind. With her dark hair, she knew that pink and crimson were her colors, just as they had been Great-grandmother’s. Then she put her hand into the little embroidered pocket, and, lo and behold, there was something in it! Debby’s heart gave a little jump, for it felt like a necklace, and when she took it out, sure enough it was; no rich, carved chain with jeweled cross—the pocket was too small for that— just a gay little string of gold beads, which Great¬ grandmother had probably worn in the morning with the little apron, when she went singing about the big house as a young bride. Would Aunt Retta know anything about it, wondered Debby? Aunt Retta had been only four when her mother went to sea for the last time, and remembered her only very dimly.

Indeed, Debby knew that there was only one person in all Bellport old enough to remember the day when Great-grandfather had brought home his pretty Spanish bride. That was poor old Anthony Thorpe, who lived with his deaf and dumb niece, Minnie, in the tumble-down cottage at the foot of the Stebbins

Would Aunt Rett a know anything about it?

3 6 garden. Old Anthony was the village half-wit, and although in his younger days, and before the illness which had still more addled his wits, he had, so the story went, been handy with tools about the ship¬ yards, and had even gone to sea and seen a bit of the world, by the time that Debby and Polly had come to live in Bellport, he was just a queer, doddering old man of ninety, who went mumbling about the vil¬ lage with his basket of eggs. He and his old niece kept a bedraggled flock of hens, that ran about the field behind the cottage. Sometimes the hens ran through the hedge into the Stebbins cottage, and then Aunt Retta vowed that she would have old Anthony moved out of the cottage at once.

"They should be in the poor-house,” said Aunt Retta. "They are utterly shiftless, and they ought to be taken care of.” Nevertheless, she sometimes bought old Anthony’s eggs, for Aunt Retta had a kind heart, as well as a stern face and a sharp tongue— "Though I shouldn’t buy anything else that came out of that dirty little house,” declared Aunt Retta. "One would never be sure what might not be lurking in it.

Debby and Polly had been told that they must not go into old Anthony’s cottage, and this, of course, was just enough to make it a place of fascination to Polly. She walked by the little house and looked through the fence whenever she could, and she felt dreadfully sorry for old Anthony’s six or eight gaunt cats, because they looked as if they did not have enough to eat.

Debby in the attic, thinking about old Anthony, wondered if he had ever seen Great-grandmother wearing this little string of gilt beads. She clasped them around her slim neck, and ran to look in the broken old mirror that hung by one of the attic windows. She had piled her hair on her head this morning again, just for fun. Perhaps, thought Debby, as she looked at the mirrored reflection of the quaint little apron, the dark head and the bright beads, perhaps Great-grandmother had really been like that seventy years ago. She smiled to herself— perhaps she was a good reproduction, just as Eric Anderson had said, only not so pretty of course. Eric Anderson! Polly was too silly. One could surely talk with a man, without having him called one’s "boy friend” in that vulgar way. Polly must be spoken to. Why any one, even Aunt Retta, would have enjoyed talking to Eric—Eric Anderson. What made her keep thinking of him by his first name, when she had met him only once? Would he really show her sketch to his friend at the Columbian Mu¬ seum? Oh, she hoped that he would! How long would he stay at Bellport Harbor? Debby, full of day-dreams, turned impulsively to the window and looked out.