The Camp Fire Girls Solve a Mystery; Or, The Christmas Adventure at Carver House
of having wakened in the midst of a fairy tale deepened.
"You can see the Winter Palace from the window here, when there isn't any
frost on it," proceeded the "princess," setting up a volcanic disturbance
inside the patchwork mountain by turning herself inside of it, and she
pointed toward one of the bay windows with a thin white hand. "It's on
top of a high hill and at night it twinkles."
It came over Katherine in a flash that possibly it was Nyoda's house that
this queer child meant by the "Winter Palace." A big house set on a high
hill----
A rippling laugh caused her to look down hastily, and there was the girl
on the couch fairy convulsed with laughter.
"It's been such fun!" she exclaimed, demolishing the mountain by throwing
the quilt aside with a sudden movement of her arms and disclosing a
slender little body wrapped in a grayish woolen dressing gown. "I never
had anybody from outside to play it with before. I get tired playing it
alone so much, and Aunt Aggie is mostly always too busy to play it with
me. Besides," she said with a regretful sigh, "she has no imagination,
and she forgets most of the really important things. Oh, it was wonderful
when you said, 'Is there anything I can do for you, Your Majesty?' It was
just as real as real!" She laughed with delight at the remembrance.
Katherine, as much startled by the swift change in her little hostess as
she had been at her strange manner of speech in the beginning, was still
uncertain what to say. "Is it a game?" she asked finally.
The girl nodded and began to explain, talking as though to an old friend.
"You see," she began, "not being able to walk, it's so hard to find
anything really thrilling to do."
"You are lame?" asked Katherine with quick sympathy. It had just come
over her that while the slender arms had been waving incessantly in
animated gestures as the voice chattered gaily on, the limbs under the
dressing gown had not moved.
The girl nodded in reply to Katherine's question. "Crippled," she
explained. "I was following a horse down the middle of the street trying
to figure out which leg came after which when I slipped and fell and hurt
my spine, and I have never walked since."
"Oh-h!" said Katherine with a shudder of distress.
"And so," continued the girl, "to pass away the time while Aunt Aggie was
working I began to pretend that I was a princess and lived in a palace
with my indulgent father, the king, and had a grand court and a great
train of attendants--all dukes and duchesses and counts and things, and a
royal grand duchess for my lady-in-waiting. That one is Aunt Aggie, of
course, and it's great fun to pretend she's the duchess."
"'My dear Duchess,'" she cried, giving an animated sample of her make
believe, "'what do you say to having our cousin, the Crown Prince, in to
tea!' Then Aunt Aggie always forgets and says, 'Let's see, which one is
the Crown Prince, now?' It's _very_ disconcerting, the way the Grand
Duchess forgets her royal relations!" She giggled infectiously and
Katherine smiled too.
"What is your real name, Princess Sylvia?" she asked.
"Sylvia Deane," replied the girl. "Only the princess part is made up. My
name is S-s-ylvia-a."
Her teeth began to chatter on the last words and she drew the quilt up
around her tightly. Katherine suddenly felt cold, too. Then she became
conscious for the first time that there was no heat in the room. In the
first contrast to the biting wind outside the place had seemed warm, and
with her heavy fur-collared winter coat she had not felt chilly. She
glanced at the stove. It was black and lifeless.
"The f-f-fire's g-g-gone o-u-t," chattered Sylvia, huddling under the
quilt as a fierce blast rattled the panes in the bay windows. Katherine
felt hot with indignation at the thought of the invalid left all alone in
the cold room.
"Where is your--lady-in-waiting?" she asked, a trifle sharply.
"Aunt Aggie's gone to the city," replied Sylvia. "She went at six o'clock
this morning and she was going to back at noon. She hasn't come yet, and
I'm so cold and----"
She checked herself suddenly and held her head up very stiffly.
Katherine turned abruptly and made for the stove. It was a small
old-fashioned cook stove, the kind that Katherine had been familiar with
in her childhood on the farm. Beside it in a box were several lumps of
coal and some kindling. She stripped off her gloves and set to work
building a fire. When the stove had begun to radiate heat she lifted
Sylvia, quilt and all, into the rocking chair and drew it up in front of
the fire.
"And now, if you'll tell me where things are I'll prepare your Majesty's
supper," she said playfully.
"Thank you, but I'm not hungry," replied Sylvia.
"I don't see how you can help being," said Katherine wonderingly. "Or
have you had something to eat since your aunt went away?" she added.
"No," replied Sylvia.
"Then you must be famished," said Katherine decidedly, "and I'm going to
get you something."
She moved toward a cupboard on the wall over in a corner of the room
where she conjectured the supplies must be kept. The cupboard had leaded
glass doors, she noticed, and the framework was of mahogany to match the
woodwork of the room. It had probably been designed as a curio cabinet by
the builder of the house.
"Never mind, I don't want anything to eat," said Sylvia again, in a tone
which was both commanding and pleading.
"You must," said Katherine firmly, with her hand on the cut glass knob of
the cupboard door. "You're cold because you're hungry."
She opened the door and investigated the inside. There were some cheap
china dishes and some pots and pans, but no sign of food. She glanced
swiftly around the room, but nowhere else were there any supplies. Then
Katherine understood. Her intuition was slow, but finally it came to her
why Sylvia did not want to admit that she was hungry. There was nothing
to eat in the house. There was a pinched, blue look about Sylvia's face
that Katherine had seen before, in the settlement where she had worked
with Miss Fairlee. She recognized the hunger look.
Sylvia met her eye with an attempt at lofty unconcern. "Our royal
larder," she remarked, valiantly struggling to maintain her royal
dignity, "is exhausted at present. I must speak to my steward about it."
Then her air of lofty composure forsook her all at once, and with a
little wailing cry of "Aunt Aggie!" she put her head down on the arm of
the chair and wept, pulling the quilt over her face so that Katherine
could not see her cry.
Katherine was beside her in an instant, seeking to comfort her, and
struggling with an unwonted desire to cry herself. The thought of the
brave little spirit, shut up alone here in the dark and cold, hungry and
anxious, singing like a lark to keep down her loneliness and anxiety, and
welcoming her chance guest with the gracious air of a princess, moved
Katherine as nothing had ever done before.
"Tell me all about it," she said, cuddling the golden head close.
Sylvia struggled manfully to regain her composure, and sat up and dashed
the tears away with an impatient hand. "How dare you cry, and you a
princess?" she said aloud to herself scornfully, with a flash of her
brown eyes, and Katherine caught a glimpse of an indomitable spirit that
no hardship could bow down.
"'Twas but a momentary weakness," she said to Katherine, with a return of
her royal manner. Katherine felt like saluting.
"We've been having a hard time since Uncle Joe died," began Sylvia. "He
was sick a long time and it took all the money he had saved. Then Aunt
Aggie got sick after he died and isn't strong enough yet to do hard work.
She makes shirts. There's a shop here that lets her take work home. You
see, she can't leave me." Here Sylvia gave an impatient poke at her
useless limbs. "We came here from Millvale, where we used to live, a
month ago. We couldn't find any place to live, so Aunt Aggie got
permission from the town to come and live in here until we could find a
place. Nobody seems to own this house, that is, nobody knows who owns it,
it's been empty so long. Aunt Aggie sold all her furniture to pay her
debts except her sewing machine and the few things we have here. Aunt
Aggie makes shirts, but her eyes gave out this week and she couldn't do
anything, so there wasn't any pay. Aunt Aggie got credit for a while at
the store, but yesterday they refused her, so we played that we would
keep a fast to-day in honor of our pious grandfather, the king, who
always used to fast for three days before Christmas. Aunt Aggie only had
enough money to go to the city and get glasses from somebody there that
would make them for nothing for her, so she could go on sewing. She went
on the earliest train this morning and expected to get back by noon. I
can't think what's keeping her so late."
Katherine looked at her watch. It was half past seven. She wondered if
the shops were still open so that she could go out and buy groceries. She
began to draw on her gloves.
"Don't go away," pleaded Sylvia, catching hold of her hand in alarm.
"Stay here till she comes. Oh, why doesn't she come? I know something's
happened to her. She's never left me alone so long before. Oh, what will
I do if she doesn't come back?"
Fear seized her with icy hands and her face worked pitifully. "Aunt
Aggie! Aunt Aggie!" she cried aloud in terror.
Katherine soothed her as best she could, mentioning all the possible
things that could have occurred to delay her in the rush of holiday
travel. Sylvia looked reassured after a bit and Katherine was just on the
point of running out to get some supper for her when there was a sound of
feet on the creaking steps outside.
"Here she comes now," said Sylvia with a great sigh of relief.
The footsteps crossed the porch and then stopped. Instead of the sound of
the front door opening as they expected there came a heavy knock.
"How queer," said Sylvia, "she never knocks. There's no one to let her
in."
Katherine hastened out to the hall door. A man stood outside. "Does Mrs.
Deane live in this house?" he asked.
"Yes," said Katherine.
"I'm Mr. Grossman, the man she works for," he said. Katherine admitted
him. "The girl, is she here?" he asked. Katherine brought him into the
room. Sylvia looked up inquiringly.
Without greeting or preamble he blurted out, "Your aunty, she's been
hurt. Somebody just telephoned me from such a hospital in the city. She
was run over by a taxicab and her collarbone broke and her head hurt.
She's now by the hospital. She tells them to tell me and I should let you
know."
He stopped talking and whirled his hat around in his hand as though ill
at ease.
Sylvia sank back in her chair, dead white, her eyes staring at him with a
curiously intent gaze, as though trying to comprehend the size of the
calamity which had befallen her.
Tingling with pity, Katherine looked into Sylvia's anguished eyes, and in
the stress of emotion she suddenly remembered Nyoda's name. Sheridan.
Sheridan. Mrs. Andrew Sheridan. Carver House. 241 Oak Street. How could
she ever have forgotten it?
"What's going to become of me?" cried Sylvia in a terrified voice.
Mr. Grossman shifted his weight from one foot to the other and scratched
his head reflectively. Then he shrugged his shoulders helplessly. He was
a Russian Jew, living with his numerous family in a few small rooms over
his shop, and what to do with this lame girl who knew not a soul in town
was too much of a problem for him. To his evident relief Katherine came
to the rescue. "I will take care of her," she said briefly. She opened
her handbag and fished for pencil and paper. "Go out and telephone this
person," she directed, after scribbling for a minute, "and give her the
message written down there."