23 chapters
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Selected Chapters
23 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
Her Great Idea “Jack, Jack, I have had a truly wonderful inspiration!” cried Pam as she came dashing down the stairs like a whirlwind. Unfortunately Barbara, the little maid-of-all-work, was at that moment toiling upwards with the soup tureen and a pile of plates on a tray. She was near the top, too, and very much out of breath. She had no strength to stand against the violent impact, but went down before it, being brought up in a heap at the turn of the stairs while tray, tureen, and plates wen
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Business Enterprise Galena Gittins had her hair screwed up tightly in curling-pins. Reggie Furness was late in coming to do “chores” that morning, and so he had crept in by way of the milk-room door with as little ostentation as possible. He had found by experience that it was not wise to attract attention to himself when he was behind time. Directly he noticed the curling-pins his courage revived. The fair Galena was never hard to live with when there was a festivity to the fore. She was dashin
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
The Surprise Party Pam stepped off the boat at Hunt’s Crossing. There was a curious sense of unreality all about her. She felt as if she were walking in her sleep, and she half-expected to wake presently and find herself back in the top bedroom of the boarding-house in London, which she had shared with her mother and Muriel. The forest had been pushed back a little at Hunt’s Crossing. There were three wooden houses and several barns grouped near the river, but they all had a ragged, unfinished l
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
What They Found Don drew his horses up with a jerk and sprang to the ground. “The other lot from over the Ridge have not got here yet, so we are first,” he remarked cheerfully, and then he held out his arms to Pam, so that she might descend with safety. But she drew back with a sudden shyness. “You go first, please, and show me the way,” she said to Sophy, who laughed, and then dropped into the strong arms of her brother, which was certainly the easiest mode of descent. “Come, Miss Walsh, I prom
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
The Next Day Dawn was only faintly creeping up through the avenues of the forest when the last wagon, filled with tired merrymakers, drove away from Ripple. The silence which dropped when they had gone was so appalling that Pam turned to Sophy with actual consternation in her eyes. “Is it always as deadly quiet as this?” she asked, and now it was hard work to keep her voice from quavering. She did not realize that she was worn out with all the excitement she had gone through. “You don’t think of
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Where has He Gone? It was quite late in the afternoon when the two girls reached the house again. They were both of them tired out, for the day was fiercely hot. They had come upon no trace of the old man, but of one thing they had made quite certain: he was not lying in a dying or dead condition in any of his fields, which was, as Pam said, a comfort of a sort. They heard the dog barking wildly as they reached the house, and a man was turning away from the door as if he had been trying to get a
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
Searching Days passed. The police came and went. Indeed, they might be said to haunt Ripple at this time. The dog grew so used to strange faces and visitors at all hours that it took no notice of them at all. It was tired, too. Morning, noon, and night Pam was searching for some trace of the old man whom she had come so far to live with, and yet had never seen; and where she went the dog went too. It was a dead body she was looking for now, and she had tramped the fields until she knew the land
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
The First Snow Pam had been five weeks at Ripple. She was getting used to the forest solitude. She was rosy and energetic, keenly resolved to do her very best to keep the farm going until her grandfather came back or made some sign. She was more puzzled than ever that he should have gone and never left one word or sign. It was cruel to her, so she told herself sometimes, because he knew that she was coming; and what a plight she would have been in but for the Griersons! Mrs. Grierson, a kindly b
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Making the Best of It Quite a wave of excitement spread over the neighbourhood when the news of Pam’s encounter with the lynxes got abroad. Hunting parties were organized, and enthusiastic young men spent nights of watching in the forest. When Nathan Gittins had three sheep mauled the excitement grew to fever heat, everything else was let slide, and the district rose as one man to rid the place of such a serious menace to property. During these days neither Pam nor Sophy went beyond the few clea
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
Someone’s Desperate Plight The weeks of winter wore on, and Christmas passed in quite a whirl of hard work and social activities. There were packing bees, when everyone worked with perspiring energy at packing apples in boxes and barrels for sending to the cities. Pam liked that work; the apples reminded her of summer, and they linked her up with warmth and sunshine. There were also bees for making lard, but they were not so interesting. The fat portions of several pigs were cut into small squar
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
Who was It? Neither Pam nor Sophy had realized how far away they had wandered, when they followed that faint cry for help. Indeed, just at the first Pam could not think where they were, or which direction they ought to take to find the house. The night was clouding over, the fine brilliance was gone, and a chill wind moaned through the leafless trees. The dog had not come back. Pam had whistled and called until she was tired. Then she turned to help Sophy back, blaming herself bitterly because s
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
Sugaring Spring was coming with swift and certain steps. A breath of life was sweeping through the forest, and there was a stir and a movement which quickened the pulses of the forest-dwellers. The snow lay deep on hill and valley, and the cold was more intense than ever, but the days were lengthening, and the sun had more heat in it when it shone at midday. Pam was casting about for some way to earn money, or at least to save money, for in that isolated region saving often stood for earning, an
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Just a Doubt! “It is Grandfather!” cried Pam in a startled tone. She had recognized the things at once, and of course she came to the most obvious conclusion concerning them. “You can’t be sure, unless you can swear to his having carried the bag and the wallet when he went away from Ripple, and you were not here yourself to know anything about it,” objected Nathan, who prided himself on having a judicial mind, and not accepting anything as fact which had not been proved inside and out. Pam thrus
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
From an Unexpected Quarter “It is downright ripping!” burst out Jack with explosive energy. Then he dropped into sudden silence, and said never a word while Pam was guiding the obstinate old horse as close to the door of the house as she could persuade it to go. She stole a glance at him once, and was so awed by the expression of his face that she turned her head quickly, for she guessed he would not want her to know how he was feeling. The horse had its own ideas about how close to the door of
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
Pam’s Big Adventure Never before had Pam realized how much one’s brother might be to one. Those first days of Jack’s coming to Ripple would have spelled unalloyed happiness for her had it not been for the trouble about her grandfather. It was of no use to tell herself that she knew the old man was not a thief, and that he would not have dreamed of robbing the man he had hurt so badly. The fear that he had done it in a moment of evil temper was always present with her to spoil her peace. She worr
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Why did He Go? There was a stirring of wind in the willows at the side of the creek. Some wreckage swung gently against a box laden with tinware that was taking a hurried voyage down-stream, and the collision brought a chiming protest from the tinware that made Pam think of church bells in England. She struggled for strength to speak, and tried to lift her hands to clutch at something that would hold her back from that awful gulf into which she had so nearly slipped. What was it the boy had to t
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
What Reggie Suspects His eyes bright, and his face flushed with fever, Reggie Furness was sitting up in bed talking rapidly in a low tone. “What is the matter, old fellow?” asked the Doctor, entering the room with Sophy, greatly perturbed, at his heels, while Pam brought up the rear, and stood halting on the threshold, as if uncertain whether to go in or to remain outside. “It is Mose, only I didn’t like to say so.” Reggie turned his flushed face to the Doctor and talked rapidly, as if he were a
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Met on the Trail Pam’s face was so long when she came out of the house in response to a summons from Don that he took to rallying her on her evident depression as they drove back to Ripple. “It looks as if you and Galena had been having a little difference of opinion, and that you had come off second best. Why didn’t you shout for me? It would have given me all the pleasure in life to have squashed her flat.” “But it would not have mended matters at all,” said Pam with an impatient sigh. “I want
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
The Stranger’s Errand “I could not think of letting you guide me anywhere in this downpour,” said the stranger, who had drawn Pam away from the fine tree against which she was leaning, telling her that it was not safe to shelter under a tree, especially a beech tree, until the storm was over. “If you will tell me which way to go I dare say that I can manage, or, if it is very complicated, perhaps you will let me go with you to the nearest shelter. This rain is going to keep on for a few hours, w
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Wedding Plans No trouble was spared to clear the name of Wrack Peveril from the shadow that had rested upon it. The confession left by Mose Paget was read out in the meeting-house on the following Sunday. This was the only place and time, at that busy season of the year, when men and women could be got together for the purpose. Pam was not present. She went across to the Gittins’s place and stayed with Reggie, who was too much of an invalid as yet to stand the shaking and bumping of the wagon on
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
How it was Done Never in her life had Pam worked so hard as she did in that week before Sophy was married. The house must be scrubbed from top to bottom. It had seemed clean enough for everyday occupation, and she would not have troubled about it until some wet spell had given her the leisure from outside tasks necessary for cleaning out the one or two rooms which seemed to need it most. But the wedding altered everything. Pam cared not at all because the place needed almost everything in the wa
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Good News People accustomed to waiting on themselves never feel so much at a loss in times of strain as those who have servants to command in a general way. Galena Gittins, summoned by the Irishman, came to the out-place, and started making coffee for all that big company with the ease and dispatch that came from long years of having to do all sorts of things at the shortest possible notice. She wondered why Pam had not spoken to her before about doing this particular bit of business, but she su
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
The Mystery Cleared Mrs. Walsh looked round her with mingled pleasure and pain. The pleasure was because the old house was so unchanged, and it made her feel almost young again to be shot back into the scenes of her girlhood, and to find that the environment had scarcely altered at all. But there was keen pain in the thought of what the old man’s lonely years must have been like, and the mystery of his disappearance was brought home to her so much more forcibly now that she stood in her old home
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