Surprise house, by Abbie Farwell Brown—A Project Gutenberg eBook

Produced by: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

ON the main street of Crowfield stood a little old red house, with a gabled roof, a pillared porch, and a quaint garden. For many weeks it had been quite empty, the shutters closed and the doors locked; ever since the death of Miss Nan Corliss, the old lady who had lived there for years and years.

It began to have the lonesome look which a house has when the heart has gone out of it and nobody puts a new heart in. The garden was growing sad and careless. The flowers drooped and pouted, and leaned peevishly against one another. Only the weeds seemed glad,—as undisturbed weeds do,—and made the most of their holiday to grow tall and impertinent and to crowd their more sensitive neighbors out of their very beds.

But one September day something happened to the old house. A lady and gentleman, a big girl and a little boy, came walking over the slate[2] stones between the rows of sulky flowers. The gentleman, who was tall and thin and pale, opened the front door with a key bearing a huge tag, and cried:—

“Good-day, Crowfield! Welcome your new friends to their new home. We greet you kindly, old house. Be good to us!”

“What a dear house!” said the lady, as they entered the front hall. “I know I am going to like it. This paneled woodwork is beautiful.”

“Open the windows, John, so that we can see what we are about,” said Dr. Corliss.

John shoved up the dusty windows and pushed out the queer little wooden shutters, and a flood of September sunshine poured into the old house, chasing away the shadows. It was just as if the house took a long breath and woke up from its nap.

The hallway in which they stood did, indeed, seem rather like the entrance to a museum, as Mary Corliss said. On the white paneled walls which Mrs. Corliss admired were hanging all sorts of queer things: huge shells, and ships in[3] glass cases, stuffed fishes, weapons, and china-ware. On a shelf between the windows stood a row of china cats, blue, red, green, and yellow, grinning mischievously at the family who confronted them. On the floor were rugs of bright colors, and odd chairs and tables sprawled about like quadrupeds ready to run.

“Gee!” whispered John Corliss, “don’t they look as if they were just ready to bark and mew and wow at us? Do you suppose it’s welcome or unwelcome, Daddy?”

“Oh, welcome, of course!” said Dr. Corliss. “I dare say they remember me, at least, though it’s thirty years since I was in this house. Thirty years! Just think of it!”

They were in the parlor now, which had been Miss Corliss’s “best room.” And this was even queerer than the hallway had been. It was crowded with all sorts of collections in cabinets, trophies on the walls, pictures, and ornaments.

Dr. Corliss looked around with a chuckle. “Hello!” he cried. “Here are a lot of the old relics I remember so well seeing when I was a boy, visiting Aunt Nan in the summer-time. Yes, there’s the old matchlock over the door; and here’s the fire-bucket, and the picture of[4] George Washington’s family. I expect Aunt Nan didn’t change anything here in all the thirty years since she let any of her relatives come to see her. Yes, there’s the wax fruit in the glass jar—just as toothsome as ever! There’s the shell picture she made when she was a girl. My! How well I remember everything!”

They moved from room to room of the old house, flinging open the blinds and letting fresh air and sunshine in upon the strange furniture and decorations. Mrs. Corliss looked about with increasing bewilderment. How was she ever to make this strange place look like their home? Aunt Nan and her queer ways seemed stamped upon everything.

“It’s a funny collection of things, Owen!” she laughed to her husband. “All this furniture is mine, I suppose, according to Aunt Nan’s will. But I am glad we have some things of our own to bring and make it seem more like a truly home. Otherwise I should feel, as Mary says, as if we were living in a kind of museum.”

“We can change it as much as we like, by and by,” her husband reassured her.

“What a funny old lady Great-Aunt Nan must have been, Daddy!” said John, who had been examining a hooked rug representing a blue[5] cat chasing a green mouse. “Did she make this, do you think?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Corliss. “I remember seeing her working at it. She hooked all these rugs. It was one of her favorite amusements. She was strange enough, I believe. I can remember some of the weird things she used to do when I was a lad. She used to put on a man’s coat and hat and shovel coal or snow like any laborer. She was always playing tricks on somebody, or making up a game about what she happened to be doing. We must expect surprises and mysteries about the house as we come to live here. It wouldn’t be Aunt Nan’s house without them.—Hello!”

John had sat down on a little three-legged stool in the corner; and suddenly he went bump! on the floor. The legs of the stool had spread as if of their own accord and let him down.

“That was one of Aunt Nan’s jokes, I remember!” laughed Dr. Corliss. “Oh, yes! I got caught myself once in the same way when I was a boy.”

“Well; I was about your age, John,—about ten; and I was terribly bashful. One day when I was visiting Aunt Nan the minister came to[6] call. And though I tried to escape out of the back door, Aunt Nan spied me and made me come in to shake hands. As soon as I could I sidled away into a corner, hoping he would forget about me.

“This innocent little stool stood there by the stuffed bird cabinet, just as it does now, and I sat down on it very quietly. Then bump! I went on to the floor, just as John did. Only I was not so lucky. I lost my balance and kicked my heels up almost in the minister’s face. I can tell you I was mortified! And Aunt Nan laughed. But the minister was very nice about it, I will say. I remember he only smiled kindly and said, ‘A little weak in the legs,—eh, John? I’m glad my stool in church isn’t like that, Miss Corliss. I’d never trust you to provide me with furniture,—eh, what?’”

“I don’t think that was a bit funny joke,” spluttered John, who had got to his feet looking very red.

“Neither do I,” said his mother. “I hate practical jokes. I hope we shan’t meet any more of this sort.”

“What a horrid mirror!” exclaimed Mary,[7] peering into the glass of a fine gilt frame. “See! It makes me look as broad as I am long, and ugly as a hippopotamus. The idea of putting this in the parlor!”

“Probably she meant that to keep her guests from growing conceited,” suggested Dr. Corliss with a grin. “But we shall not need to have it here if we don’t like it. There’s plenty of room in the attic, if I remember rightly.”

“Yes, we shall have to change a great many things,” said Mrs. Corliss, who had been moving about the room all by herself. “What do you suppose is in that pretty carved box on the mantel?”

Mrs. Corliss lifted the cover and started back with a scream. For out sprang what looked like a real snake, straight into her face.

But John had picked up the Japanese paper snake and was dangling it merrily to reassure his mother. “I’ve seen those before,” he grinned. “The boys had them at school once.”

“Come, come!” frowned Dr. Corliss. “That was really too bad of Aunt Nan. She knew that almost everybody hates snakes, though she didn’t mind them herself. I’ve often seen her[8] put a live one in her pocket and bring it home to look at.”

“Ugh!” shuddered Mrs. Corliss. “I hope they don’t linger about anywhere. I see I shall have to clean the whole house thoroughly from top to bottom. And if I find any more of these jokes—!” Mrs. Corliss nodded her head vigorously, implying bad luck to any snakes that might be playing hide-and-seek in house or garden.

Secretly John thought all this was great fun, and he dashed ahead of the rest of the family on their tour of the house, hoping to find still other proofs of Aunt Nan’s special kind of humor. But to the relief of Mary and her mother the rest of their first exploring expedition was uneventful.

They visited dining-room and kitchen and pantry, and the room that was to be Dr. Corliss’s study. Then they climbed the stairs to the bedroom floor, where there were three pretty little chambers. They took a peep into the attic; but even there, in the crowded shadows and cobwebs, nothing mysterious happened. It was a nice old house where the family felt that they were going to be very happy and contented.

Down the stairs they came once more, to the[9] door of the ell which they had not yet visited. It was a brown wooden door with a glass knob.

“Well, here is your domain, Mary!” said Dr. Corliss, pausing and pointing to the door with a smile. “This is your library, my daughter. Have you the key ready?”

Yes, indeed, Mary had the key ready; a great key tagged carefully,—as all the other keys of Aunt Nan’s property had been,—this one bearing the legend: “LIBRARY. Property of Mary Corliss.”

“Here is the key, Father,” said Mary, stepping up proudly. “Let me put it in myself. Oh, I hope there are no horrid jokes in here!” And she hesitated a moment before fitting the key in the lock of her library—her very own library!

ACCORDING to the will left by that eccentric old lady, Miss Nan Corliss, her nephew, Dr. Corliss,—whom she had not seen for thirty years,—was to receive the old house at Crowfield. His wife inherited all the furniture of the old house, except what was in the library. John Corliss, the only grandnephew, was to have two thousand dollars to send him to college when he should be old enough to go. And to Mary, the unknown grandniece whom she had never seen, Aunt Nan had declared should belong “my library room at Crowfield, with everything therein remaining.”

Mary was now going to see what her library was like, and what therein remained. She drew a long breath, turned the key, pushed open the door, and peered cautiously into the room, half expecting something to jump out at her. But nothing of the sort happened. John pushed her in impatiently, and they all followed, eager, as John said, to see “what sister had drawn.” Dr. Corliss himself had never been inside this room, Aunt Nan’s most sacred corner.

[11]What they saw was a plain, square room, with shelves from floor to ceiling packed tightly with rows of solemn-looking books. In one corner stood a tall clock, over the top of which perched a stuffed crow, black and stern. In the center of the room was a table-desk, with papers scattered about, just as Aunt Nan had left it weeks before. On the mantel above the fireplace was a bust of Shakespeare and some smaller ornaments, with an old tin lantern. Above the Shakespeare hung a portrait of a lady with gray curls, in an old-fashioned dress, holding a book in her hand. The other hand was laid upon her breast with the forefinger extended as if pointing.

“Hello!” said Dr. Corliss when he spied the portrait, “this is Aunt Nan herself as she looked when I last saw her; and a very good likeness it is.”

“Sh! John! You mustn’t talk like that about your great-aunt,” corrected his mother. “She has been very good to us all. You must at least be respectful.”

“She was eccentric, certainly,” said Dr. Corliss. “But she meant to be kind, I am sure. I[12] never knew why she refused to see any of her family, all of a sudden—some whim, I suppose. She came to be a sort of hermitess after a while. She loved her books more than anything in the world. It meant a great deal that she wanted you to have them, Mary.”

“I wish she had left me two thousand dollars!” said Mary, pouting. “These old books don’t look very interesting. I want to go to college more than John does. But I don’t suppose I ever can, now.”

“Books are rather useful, whether one goes to college or not,” her father reminded her. “She needn’t have left you anything, Mary. She never even saw you—or John either, for that matter. She hadn’t seen me since I was married. I take it very kindly of her to have remembered us so generously. I thought her pet hospital would receive everything.”

“What do you suppose became of her jewelry, Owen?” asked Mrs. Corliss in an undertone. “I thought she might leave that to Mary, the only girl in the family. But there was no mention of it in her will.”

“She must have sold it for the benefit of her hospital. She was very generous to that charity,” said Dr. Corliss.

[13]Mary and John had been poking about the library to see if they could find anything “queer.” But it all seemed disappointingly matter-of-fact. They stopped in front of the tall clock which had not been wound up for weeks.

“We’ll have to start the clock, Father,” said Mary. “The old crow looks as if he expected us to.”

“The key is probably inside the clock case,” said Dr. Corliss, opening the door.

Sure enough, there was the key hanging on a peg. And tied to it was the usual tag. But instead of saying “Clock Key,” as one would have expected, this tag bore these mysterious words in the handwriting which Mary knew was Aunt Nan’s: “Look under the raven’s wing.”

“Now, what in the world does that mean?” asked Mary, staring about the room. “What did she mean by ‘the raven,’ do you suppose?”

“I guess she means the old crow up there,” cried John, pointing at the stuffed bird over the clock.

“Do you suppose she meant that, Father?” asked Mary again, looking rather ruefully at the ominous crow.

“Maybe she meant that,” said her father, sitting down in a library chair to await what[14] would happen. “But I believe this is another of Aunt Nan’s little jokes. It sounds so to me.”

Mary still stared at what Aunt Nan called “the raven,” and wondered. “Under which wing am I to look?” she thought. Finally she gathered courage to reach up her hand toward the right wing, very cautiously. She half expected that the creature might come alive and nip her. But nothing happened. There was nothing under the right wing but moth-eaten feathers, some of which came off in Mary’s fingers.

“I’ll try the other wing,” said Mary to herself. She poked her fingers under the old bird’s left wing. Yes! There was something there. Something dangled by a hidden string from the wing-bone of Aunt Nan’s raven. Mary pulled, and presently something came away. In her hand she held a little gold watch and chain. On the case was engraved the letter C, which was of course as truly Mary’s initial as it had been Aunt Nan Corliss’s.

“Why, it is Aunt Nan’s watch, sure enough!” said Dr. Corliss, beaming. “Well, Mary! I declare, that is something worth while. You[15] needed a watch, my dear. But I don’t know when I could ever have bought a gold one for you. This is a beauty.”

“Oh, how good Aunt Nan was to leave it here for me!” said Mary. “I am beginning to like Aunt Nan, in spite of her queerness.”

“I like this kind of joke she plays on you,” said John enviously. “I wish she’d play one like that on me, too. I say, Mary, do you suppose there are any more secrets hidden in your old library? Let’s look now.”

“I wonder!” said Mary, looking curiously about the dingy room. “But I don’t want to look any further now. I am satisfied. Oh, Mumsie! Just look!” Mary put the chain of the new watch around her neck, tucked the little chronometer into her belt, and trotted away to see the effect in the crooked old mirror of the parlor.

“Come along, John,” said his father, pushing the little brother toward the door. “This is[16] Mary’s room, you know. We aren’t ever to poke around here without her leave, mind you.”

“No,” said John reluctantly. “But I do wish—!” And he cast a longing glance back over his shoulder as his father shut the door on Mary’s mysterious library.

THE very next day Dr. Corliss shut himself up in his new study while Mrs. Corliss and Mary set to work to make the old house as fresh as new. They brushed up the dust and cobwebs and scrubbed and polished everything until it shone. They dragged many ugly old things off into the attic, and pushed others back into the corners until there should be time to decide what had best be done with them. Meanwhile, John was helping to tidy up the little garden, snipping off dead leaves, cheering up the flowers, and punishing the greedy weeds.

The whistles of Crowfield factories shrieked noon before they all stopped to take breath. Then Mrs. Corliss gasped and said:—

“Oh, Mary! I forgot all about luncheon! What are we going to feed your poor father with, I wonder, to say nothing of our hungry selves?”

Just at this moment John came running into the house with a very dirty face. “There’s some one coming down the street,” he called upstairs; “I think she’s coming in here.” He peeped out[18] of the parlor window discreetly. “Yes, she’s opening the gate now.”

“Let Mary open the door when she rings,” warned his mother. “It will be the first time our doorbell rings for a visitor—quite an event, Mary! I am sure John’s face is dirty.”

“I’m not very tidy myself,” said Mary, taking off her apron and the dusting-cap which covered her curls, and rolling down her sleeves.

The latch of the little garden gate clicked while they were speaking, and looking out of the upstairs hall window Mary saw a girl of about her own age, thirteen or fourteen, coming up the path. She wore a pretty blue sailor suit and a broad hat, and her hair hung in two long flaxen braids down her back. Mary wore her own brown curls tied back with a ribbon. On her arm the visitor carried a large covered basket.

“It’s one of the neighbors, I suppose,” said Mrs. Corliss, attempting a hasty toilet. “Go to the door, Mary, as soon as she rings, and ask her to come in. Even if we are not settled yet, it is not too soon to be hospitable.”

Mary listened eagerly for the bell. Their first caller in Crowfield looked like a very nice little person. Perhaps she was going to be Mary’s friend.

[19]But the bell did not ring. Instead, Mary presently heard a little click; and then a voice in the hall below called, apparently through the keyhole of the closed door,—“Not at home.”

There was a pause, and again,—“Not at home.” A third time the tired, monotonous voice declared untruthfully, “Not at home.” Then there was silence.

“John!” cried Mary, horrified. For she thought her brother was playing some naughty trick. What did he mean by such treatment of their first caller? Mary ran down the stairs two steps at a time, and there she found John in the hall, staring with wide eyes at the front door.

“I didn’t!” protested John. “It was—Something, I don’t know What, that spoke. When she pushed the bell-button it didn’t ring, but it made that. And now I guess she’s gone off mad!”

“Oh, John!” Mary threw open the door and ran to the porch. Sure enough, the visitor was retreating slowly down the path. She turned, however, when she heard Mary open the door, and hesitated, looking rather reproachful. She was very pretty, with red cheeks and bright brown eyes.

“Yes, I did,” said the girl, looking puzzled. “But I thought no one was at home. Somebody said so.” Her eyes twinkled.

“I don’t understand it!” said Mary, wrinkling her forehead in puzzlement. Then an idea flashed into her head, and she showed her teeth in a broad smile. “Oh, it must have been one of Aunt Nan’s patent jokes.”

The girl gave an answering smile. “You mean Miss Corliss?” she suggested. “I know she didn’t like callers. We never ventured to ring the bell in her day. But Mother thought you new neighbors might be different. And I saw you going by yesterday, so I thought I’d try—” She looked at Mary wistfully, with a little cock to her head. “My name is Katy Summers, and we are your nearest neighbors,” she added.

“Oh, do come in,” urged Mary, holding open the door hospitably. “It is so nice to see you! I am Mary Corliss.”

Katy Summers beamed at her as she crossed the doorsill. And from that moment Mary hoped that they were going to be the best of friends.

[21]John appeared just then, much excited and forgetting his dirty face. “It must be a kind of graphophone,” he said, without introduction. “Let me punch that button.”

Twisting himself out into the porch, John pushed a dirty thumb against the bell-button of the Corliss home. Instantly sounded the same monotonous response,—“Not at home— Not at home— Not at home.”

“I say! Isn’t it great!” shouted John, cutting a caper delightedly. “Aunt Nan must have had that fixed so as to scare away callers. Wasn’t she cute?”

Mary blushed for her brother, and for the reputation of the house. “It wasn’t cute!” she said hastily. “We shall have to get that bell changed. We aren’t like that, really,” she explained to her visitor. “We love to see people. You were very good to come to this inhospitable old house.”

“I wanted to,” said Katy simply, “and Mother thought you’d perhaps all be busy this morning, getting settled. So she sent you over this hot luncheon.” And she held out to Mary the heavy basket.

“Oh, how kind of you!” cried Mary. “Let me tell Mother. She will be so pleased! It is so[22] nice to have our nearest neighbor call on us right away.”

“I can’t stop but a minute this time,” said Katy, “for my own luncheon is waiting on the table. But I’d like to see your mother. I’ll wait here in the hall.”

At the end of the hall facing the front door was an armchair with a back studded with brass nails. Katy sat down in this chair to wait for Mrs. Corliss. Mary ran up the stairs feeling very happy, because already she had found this new friend in the town where she was afraid she was going to be lonesome.

But hardly had she reached the top of the stairs when she heard a funny little cry from the hall below. It was Katy’s voice that called. “Oh!” it cried. “Help! Mary Corliss!”

“What is it?” called Mary, leaning over the banisters to see what the matter was.

And then she saw a queer thing. The chair in which Katy Summers sat was moving rapidly of its own accord straight toward the front door. Katy was too startled to move, and there she sat, grasping the arms of the chair, until it reached the doorsill. When it touched the sill, the chair stopped and gently tilted itself forward, making Katy slide out, whether she would or no.

[23]“Well, I never!” said Katy with a gasp. “If that isn’t the impolitest chair I ever saw!”

“Oh, Katy!” cried Mary, flying down the stairs. “I am so sorry. We didn’t know it was that kind of chair. We hadn’t cleaned the hall yet, so we never suspected. It must be another of Aunt Nan’s jokes. She probably had this made so that peddlers or agents who got inside and insisted on waiting to see her would be discouraged. Please don’t blame us!”

Then down came Mrs. Corliss, with Katy’s basket in her hand. “What a reception to our first caller!” she said with a rueful smile. “And you came on such a kind errand, too! But you must try to forget, little neighbor, that this was ever an inhospitable house, and come to see us often. We are going to change many things.”

“Yes, indeed, I shall come again,” said Katy Summers. “I hope that Mary and I shall be in the same class at High School.”

“So do I,” said Mary. “I begin to-morrow. Will you call for me so that I can have some one to introduce me on my first day?”

“Yes,” said Katy, with a roguish look, “if you’ll let me wait for you in the garden.”

Mary turned red. “You needn’t be afraid,”[24] she said. “We won’t let those things happen any more, will we, Mother?”

“No,” said Mrs. Corliss. “We will have the carpenter attend to those ‘jokes’ at once.”

But until the carpenter came John had a beautiful time riding down the front hall on the inhospitable chair, and making the automatic butler cry, “Not at home.” John thought it a great pity to change these ingenious devices which made the front hall of Aunt Nan’s house so interesting. But he was in the minority, and that very afternoon the carpenter took away an electric device from the old armchair, which ended its days of wandering forever. And instead of the “bell” he put an old-fashioned knocker on the front door.

THE town of Crowfield was built on a swift-flowing river with a waterfall, which gave it strong water-power. So the houses were easily fitted with electricity. Even the old Corliss mansion was up to date in that respect, at least. This was why Aunt Nan had been able to carry out her liking for queer devices and unexpected mechanical effects, as Mr. Griggs, the carpenter, explained when he came to make more hospitable the front hall. He chuckled over the moving chair, the secret of which was a spring concealed under one of the brass nail-heads. Any one who sat down and leaned back was sure to press this button, whereupon the chair would begin to move.

“It beats all how clever that old lady was!” said Mr. Griggs. “I never saw anything like this before. She must ’a’ got some electrician down from the city to fix this up for her. We don’t do that kind of job in Crowfield.”

“Do you suppose there are any more such things about the house?” inquired Mrs. Corliss anxiously.

[26]“I’ll take a look,” said Mr. Griggs. “But I mightn’t find ’em, even so.”

And he did not find them; Aunt Nan had her secrets carefully concealed. But for weeks the family were continually discovering strange new surprises in their housekeeping.

That very night at supper, just after Mr. Griggs had left the house with his kit of tools, a queer thing happened. They were sitting about the round dining-table, the center of which, as they had noticed from the first, seemed to be a separate inlaid circle of wood. In the middle of this Mary had set a pretty vase of flowers—nasturtiums, mignonette, marigolds, and yellow poppies, the last lingerers in their garden.

They were talking about their first day in Crowfield, about the visit of Katy Summers, and the funny things that had happened to their first caller; and they were all laughing merrily over Mary’s description of how Katy had looked when she went riding out toward the door in the inhospitable chair. Dr. Corliss had just reached out his hand for the sugar. Suddenly the table center began slowly to revolve, and the sugar bowl retreated from his hand as if by magic.

“Well, I never!” said the Doctor. “This is a new kind of butler’s assistant!”

[27]“It makes me feel like Alice in Wonderland!” exclaimed Mary. “It is the Mad Hatter’s breakfast; only instead of every one’s moving on one place, the place moves on by itself!”

They found that Mary had hit her knee by accident against a spring concealed under the table.

“Aunt Nan lived here all alone,” said Mrs. Corliss, “and I dare say she found this an easy way to pass things to herself when she was eating her lonely meals.”

“Let’s keep it like this,” said Mary. “Now I shan’t be needing always to ask John to pass the salt.”

“I don’t think it’s fair!” protested John. “Now, Mary has the seat by the button, and she can make the table turn when she likes. I wish I had a button, too.”

“You’d keep the table whirling all the time, John,” laughed his father. “No, it is better as it is. We chose our seats this way, before we knew about the lively center-piece. Let’s stick to what chance gave us. Aunt Nan’s house seems to be a kind of good-luck game, doesn’t it?”

But in spite of the queer things that were continually happening there, it did not take long for the Corliss family to feel quite at home in this[28] old house, and in Crowfield. Mary was admitted to the High School, and found herself in the same class with Katy Summers, which pleased them both very much. They soon became the closest chums. John went to the Grammar School, where he found some nice boys of his own age who lived just down the road; Ralph and James Perry, cousins in opposite houses, and Billy Barton a little farther on.

These promptly formed the Big Four; and the neighborhood of the Big Four was the liveliest in town. The Corliss house, with its collections and curiosities, became their favorite meeting-place, and in these days could hardly recognize itself with the merry streams of children who were always running in and out, up and down the stairs. It was fortunate that Dr. Corliss, who kept himself shut up in his study with the book he was writing, was not of a nervous or easily distracted temperament.

As for Mrs. Corliss—being a mother, she just smiled and loved everybody. It was her idea that first of all a home should be a happy place for the family and for every one who came there. The first thing she did was to send for the familiar furniture of the city house which they had left when Dr. Corliss was obliged to[29] give up his professorship in college and move into the country. Now the queer rooms of Aunt Nan’s inhospitable old house were much less queer and much more homelike than they had ever been, and every corner radiated a merry hospitality.

But in the library nothing was changed. Mary would not let anything be moved from the place in which Aunt Nan had put it. For she had grown much attached to the old lady’s memory, since the finding of that little watch and chain.

You may be sure that Mary and John looked about the library carefully, to see if more of the same kind of nice joke might not be concealed somewhere. But they found nothing. It was not until nearly a week later, when there came a rainy Saturday, that they found time to look at the books themselves.

“Hello! Here’s a funny book to find in an old lady’s library!” cried John. “It’s our old friend ‘Master Skylark,’ one of the nicest books I know. But how do you suppose a children’s book came to be here, Mary? Daddy says for years Aunt Nan never allowed any children in the house.”

“I wonder!” said Mary. “And here’s another child’s book, right here on the desk. I[30] noticed it the first time I came in here, but I never opened it before. ‘Shakespeare the Boy’ is the name of it. I wonder if it is interesting? I like Shakespeare. We read his plays in school, and once I wrote a composition about him, you know.”

“Why, here’s a note inside the cover of the book, addressed to me!” said Mary wonderingly.

“Let me look!” cried John, darting to her side. “Yes, it’s in that same handwriting, Mary. It’s a letter from Aunt Nan. Do hurry and open it!”

Mary held the envelope somewhat dubiously. It was not quite pleasant to be receiving letters from a person no longer living in this world. She glanced up at the portrait over the mantel as she cut the end of the envelope with Aunt Nan’s desk shears, and it seemed to her that the eyes under the prim gray curls gleamed at her knowingly. She almost expected to see the long forefinger of the portrait’s right hand point directly at her.

It was a brief letter that Aunt Nan had written; and it explained why she had left her library of precious books to this grandniece Mary whom she had never seen.

“What a queer letter!” said John. “So it was your composition that did it. My! Aren’t you lucky, Mary!”

“I do like Shakespeare already,” said Mary, glancing first at Aunt Nan’s portrait, then at the bust of the poet below it. “And I guess I am going to like Aunt Nan.” She smiled up at the portrait, which she now thought seemed to smile back at her. “I must go and tell Father[32] about it,” she said eagerly, running out of the room; and presently she came back, dragging him by the hand.

“Well, Mary!” said Dr. Corliss. “So it was your Shakespeare essay that won you the library! I remember how fond Aunt Nan used to be of the Poet. She was always quoting from him. I am glad you like poetry, my dear; though for myself I never could understand it. This is, indeed, a real poetry library. I am glad she gave it to you instead of to me, Mary. There are any number of editions of Shakespeare here, I have noticed, and a lot of books about him, too. I suppose she would have liked you to read every one.”

“I mean to,” said Mary firmly. “I want to; and I am going to begin with this one, ‘Shakespeare the Boy.’ I feel as if that was what she meant me to do.”

As she said this Mary began to turn over the leaves of the book in which she had found the note from Aunt Nan. “The story sounds very nice,” she said.

Just then something fell from between the leaves and fluttered to the floor. Her father stooped to pick it up.

“Aunt Nan’s bookmark,” he said. “It would[33] be nice to keep her marks when you can, Mary. Why!” he exclaimed suddenly, staring at what he held in his fingers. It was long and yellow, and printed on both sides.

“Mary!” he cried, “did you ever see one of these before? I have never seen many of them myself, more’s the pity!” And he handed the “bookmark” to his daughter.

“It is yours, Mary, just as much as the watch and chain were; just as much as the library is,” said her father. “Everything in the room was to be yours; Aunt Nan said so in her will. This is certainly a part of your legacy. I wonder if Aunt Nan forgot it or put it there on purpose, as another of her little jokes?”

“I think she put it there on purpose,” said John. “My! But she was a queer old lady!”

“I think she was a very nice old lady,” said Mary. “Now I must go and tell Katy Summers about it.”

WITH the hundred dollars which she had found in the book Mary started an account in the Crowfield Savings Bank, under her own name. She was very proud of her little blue bank-book, and she hoped that some time, in some unexpected way, she would save enough money to go to college, as John was to do.

But the outlook was rather hopeless. The Corliss family were far from well off. Even in Crowfield, where expenses were low, they had a hard time to live on the small income from what Dr. Corliss had managed to save while he was Professor of Philosophy in the city college. Dr. Corliss was writing a book which he hoped would some day make his fortune. But the book would not be finished for many a day. Meanwhile, though there was very little money coming in, it was steadily going out; as money has a way of doing.

The best thing the family could do at present was to save as much as possible by going without servants and dainties and fine clothes—just[35] as people have to do in war-time; and by doing things themselves, instead of having things done for them. Mrs. Corliss was a clever manager. She had learned how to cook and sew and do all kinds of things with her deft fingers; and Mary was a good assistant and pupil, while John did everything that a little boy could do to help. He ran errands and built the fires, and even set the table and helped wipe the dishes when his mother and sister were busy.

The neighbors were very friendly, and there were so many pleasant new things in Crowfield that the family did not miss the pleasures they used to enjoy in the city, nor the pretty clothes and luxuries which were now out of the question. And Mary did not spend much time worrying about college. There would be time enough for that.

After the finding of that hundred-dollar bill, Mary and John spent a great deal of time in opening and shutting the leaves of books in the library, hoping that they would come upon other bookmarks as valuable as that first one. But whether Aunt Nan had left the bill there by mistake, as Dr. Corliss imagined, or whether she had put it there on purpose, as Mary liked to think, apparently the old lady had not repeated[36] herself. The only foreign things they found in the musty old volumes were bits of pressed flowers and ferns, and now and then a flattened bug which had been crushed in its pursuit of knowledge.

John soon grew tired of this fruitless search. But Mary came upon so many interesting things in the books themselves that she often forgot what she was looking for. Many of the books had queer, old-fashioned pictures; some had names and dates of long ago written on the fly-leaf. In many Mary found that Aunt Nan had scrawled notes and comments—sometimes amusing and witty; sometimes very hard to understand.

Mary loved her library. She had never before had a corner all to herself, except her tiny bedroom. And to feel that this spacious room, with everything in it, was all hers, in which to do just as she pleased, was a very pleasant thing.

“Where’s Mary?” asked Katy Summers one afternoon, running into the Corliss house without knocking, as she had earned the right to do.

“I think she is in the library,” said Mrs. Corliss, who was busy sewing in the living-room. “That is a pretty likely place in which to look nowadays, when she isn’t anywhere else!”

“Yes, Dear; go right in,” said Mrs. Corliss. “She will be glad to see you, I am sure.”

The door of the library was hospitably open. And Katy Summers, creeping up on tiptoe and peeping in softly, saw Mary with her thumb between the leaves of a book, kneeling before one of the bookshelves.

“I spy!” cried Katy. “What’s the old Bookworm up to now? Or perhaps I ought to say, considering your position, what’s she down to now?”

Mary jumped hastily to her feet. “Hello, Katy,” she said cordially. “I was just looking up something. Say, Katy, do you know what fun it is to look up quotations?”

“No,” said Katy, laughing. “I don’t see any fun in that. No more fun than looking up things in a dictionary.”

“Well, it is fun,” returned Mary. “I think I must be something like Aunt Nan. She loved quotations. Just look at this row of ‘Gems from the Poets.’ They’re full of quotations, Katy. I’m going to read them all, some time.”

“Goodness!” cried Katy. “What an idea! I think poetry is stupid stuff, sing-song and silly.”

“So Daddy thinks,” said Mary. “But it[38] isn’t, really. It is full of the most interesting stories and legends and beautiful things. This library bores Daddy almost to death, because all the books on these two walls are poetry. I believe that Aunt Nan had the works of every old poet who ever wrote in the English language. And see, these are the lives of the poets.” She pointed to the shelves in one corner.

“Well, you see,” said Mary, looking up at Aunt Nan’s portrait, “the more I stay in this library, the more I like Aunt Nan’s books, and the more I want to please Aunt Nan herself. I like her, Katy.”

“I don’t!” said Katy, eyeing the portrait sideways. “You never had her for a neighbor, you see.”

“No-o,” drawled Katy reluctantly. “She never did anything either good or bad to me. But—she was awfully queer!”

“Of course she was,” agreed Mary. “But that isn’t the worst thing in the world, to be queer. And she was awfully kind to me.— Say, Katy, don’t you like Shakespeare?”

[39]“Well, I do,” Mary asserted. “I haven’t read much of him, but I’m going to. Every time I look at that head of Shakespeare on the mantelpiece, I remember that it was my composition about Shakespeare that was at the bottom of almost everything nice that has happened in Crowfield. Why, if it hadn’t been for him, perhaps we shouldn’t have come to live here at all, and then I shouldn’t ever have known you, Katy Summers!”

“Gracious!” exclaimed Katy. “Wouldn’t that have been awful? Yes, I believe I do like him a little, since he did that. I wrote a composition about him once, too. It didn’t bring anything good in my direction. But then, it wasn’t a very good composition. I only got a C with it.”

“Well,” said Mary, “I feel as if I owe him something, and Aunt Nan something. And sooner or later I’m going to read everything he ever wrote.”

“Goodness!” said Katy. “Then you’ll never have time to read anything else, I guess. Look!”— She pointed around the walls. “Why, there are hundreds of Shakespeares. Hundreds and hundreds!”

“They are mostly different editions of the same thing,” said Mary wisely. “I shan’t have[40] to read every edition. There aren’t so very many books by him, really. Not more than thirty, I think. I’ve been looking at this little red set that’s so easy to handle and has such nice notes. I like the queer spelling. I’m going to read ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ first. I think that’s what Aunt Nan meant.”

“What do you mean by ‘what Aunt Nan meant’?” asked Katy curiously. “Has she written you another letter?” Mary had told her about the will.

“No, not exactly,” confessed Mary. “But see what I found just now when I finished reading ‘Shakespeare the Boy,’—the book that was lying on her desk with that first note she wrote me.” And she opened the volume which she held in her hand at the last page. Below the word “Finis” were penned in a delicate, old-fashioned writing these words:—

[41]“Pooh!” cried Katy. “I don’t believe she meant that for you, at all! She was just talking to herself. Let’s see if there was anything written at the end of ‘Master Skylark.’ Didn’t you say that was lying on her desk, too?”

They ran to get this other child’s book, which, queerly enough, had also been left lying on the desk, as if Aunt Nan had just been reading both. And there, too, at the end was written exactly the same list, with the same instructions.

“That settles it!” exclaimed Mary. “She did mean me to see that list, so she left it in both those children’s books, which she thought I would be sure to read first. I am going to read Shakespeare’s plays in just the order she wished. I’m going to read my very own books in my very own library. I’m going to begin this very afternoon!” Mary was quite excited.

“Oh, no! Please not this afternoon!” begged Katy. “I want you to come with me while I do an errand at the express office in Ashley. It is a three-mile walk. I don’t want to go alone. Please, Mary!”

“Oh, bother!” Mary was about to say; for she wanted to begin her reading. But she thought better of it. Katy had been so kind to her. And, after all, it was a beautiful afternoon,[42] and the walk would be very pleasant down a new road which she had never traveled. She laid down the book reluctantly.

“Well,” she said. “I can read my books any time, I suppose. Isn’t it nice to think of that? Yes—I’ll go with you, Katy. It will be fun. Just wait till I get my hat, and tell Mother.”

“If I go with you this time, Katy, you’ll have to read Shakespeare with me another time,” bargained Mary with good-natured guile.

“All right,” said Katy. “Sometime, when it is not so nice and crisp and walky out of doors, as it is to-day.”

And off the two girls started, with comradely arms about one another’s shoulders.

MARY had no chance to begin reading her Shakespeare until the following day. But just as soon as she had finished her French and algebra home lessons, she laid aside those books and seized the list which Aunt Nan had made for her.

“‘Mem. Read in this order—Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ That sounds good for a beginning,” she said to herself. “I just love the name of it. I wonder what it’s about?” Running to the bookshelves on the left side of the fireplace, where one whole section was devoted to the works of William Shakespeare, Mary began fumbling among the little red books. “Here is ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’!” said she, settling herself in the big leather armchair to read. “Why, it’s full of fairies and private theatricals! I know it is going to be nice!”

Mary read for some time and found that she liked the play even better than she had expected. She always liked to read about fairies, of whom, indeed, the book was full. And the[44] scene of the play-acting was very funny, she thought, especially where Bottom wanted to play all the parts himself.

Presently she came to a place in the text where a line was heavily underscored. It was where Moon says, “This lantern is my lantern.” “I wonder why Aunt Nan marked that line?” thought Mary. She turned to see if there was anything about a lantern in the notes. And there she found this remark in the writing which she had come to recognize as Aunt Nan’s: “See lantern on mantelshelf. Careful!”

“That is a funny note!” thought Mary. “What mantelshelf? There isn’t any in the play. Can she mean—why, yes! There’s a lantern over there on my mantelshelf!”

Sure enough! Mary had not noticed it especially until this minute. But there, not far from the bust of Shakespeare, was a queer old tin lantern, pierced with holes for a candle to shine through—the very kind that Moon must have used in the play, in Shakespeare’s day.

Mary dropped the book and went over to the lantern, with a pleasant sense of possession. Everything in the room was hers. This would be just the thing to play Pyramus and Thisbe with! She took up the old lantern and examined[45] it curiously. In the socket was the stub of a candle. “I wonder who lighted it last?” thought Mary idly. She tried to pull out the candle, but it stuck. She pulled harder, and presently—out it came! There was something in the socket below—something that rattled. Mary shook the lantern and out fell a tiny key; a gilt key with a green silk string tied to the top. That was all.

“What a funny place for a key!” thought Mary. “I wonder how it got there.” Then she thought again of the quotation which had been underlined—“‘This lantern is my lantern.’ She wanted me to find it, I am sure!” thought Mary eagerly. “It is the key to something. Oh, if I could only find what that is! How in the world shall I know where to look?”

“Oh, John!” she cried, “John!”—for just then she heard his whistle in the hall, and she ran down to show him her find.

Up came John; up the stairs two steps at a time, with Mary close after him. “I bet I know what it is!” he cried. “It’s the key to a Secret Panel. I’ve read about them in books, lots of times. Let’s hunt till we find the keyhole.”

The wall of the library between the bookshelves was, indeed, paneled in dark wood, like[46] the doors. But there was little enough of this surface, because the built-in bookshelves took up so much space. With the aid of the library ladder it took Mary and John comparatively little time to go over every inch of the paneling very carefully, thumping the wall with the heel of Mary’s slipper, to see if it might be hollow. But no sound betrayed a secret hiding-place. No scratch or knot concealed a tiny keyhole. Tired and disgusted at last, they gave up the search.

“I think that’s a pretty poor joke!” said John. “A key without anything to fit it to is about as silly as can be!”

“Aunt Nan made some silly jokes in other parts of the house,” said Mary. “But she hasn’t done so in the library. I don’t believe she meant to tease me. Let’s go and tell Father. Perhaps he will know what it means.” And forthwith they tripped to the Doctor’s study, with the key and the lantern and the marked copy of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to puzzle the Philosopher. They laid the three exhibits on his desk, and stood off, challenging him with eager eyes.

Dr. Corliss looked at these things critically; then he followed them back to the library and glanced about the walls.

The Doctor hummed and hawed. “Why, I think it means that Aunt Nan was playing a joke on you this time, Mary!” he said, laughing. “It would be just like her, you know. You can’t hope to be the only one to escape her humors. Besides, this key doesn’t look to me like a real key to anything. You mustn’t expect too much, my girl, nor get excited over this legacy of yours, or I shall be sorry you have it. I suspect there are no more gold watches and hundred-dollar bills floating around in your library. It wouldn’t be like Aunt Nan to do the same thing twice. It was the unexpected that always pleased her. You had better make the most of your books for their own sakes, Mary.”

“Yes, I am going to do that,” said Mary, taking the key from her father and putting the green string around her neck. “I am going to wear it as a sort of ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ charm. And I believe that some day I shall find out the key to the key, if I look long enough.”

“If you read long enough, perhaps you may,” said her father, laughing. “I have heard that[48] they find queer things in Shakespeare sometimes—ciphers and things like that. But I never had time to study them up. A cipher is nothing to me.” And he chuckled at his little joke.

“If I read long enough, perhaps I may find out something. That’s so!” said Mary. “I’ll keep on reading.”

“Pooh! That’s a slow way!” said John. “If there was anything in my library, I’d want to find it out right away!”

“If she has put anything in my library, that isn’t the way Aunt Nan meant me to find it,” retorted Mary. “I am going to do what Aunt Nan wanted, if I can discover what that is.”

“That’s right, Mary!” said her father. “I believe you are on the right track.”

Just at this moment there was a queer sound, apparently in one corner of the room.

“It sounded like something rapping on the floor!” said John, with wide eyes.

“Oh, I hear sounds like that quite often,” said Mary carelessly. “At first it frightened me, but I have got used to it. I suppose it must be a rat in the cellar.”

[49]“Yes, I dare say it is a rat,” said her father. “Old houses like this have strange noises, often. But I have never seen any rats.”

“It sounded too big for a rat,” declared John. “Aren’t you afraid, Mary?”

“No,” declared Mary; “I’m not afraid, whether it’s a rat or not. Some way, I think I couldn’t be afraid in this room.”

WITH rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes Mary returned from a walk with Katy Summers. It had been pleasant but uneventful. Just as she turned in at the little dooryard of home, she thought she spied a black Something dart like a shadow across the little strip of green beside the house.

“It looks like a cat,” said Mary to herself. “I will see where it went to.” She followed to the end of the house, where the shape had seemed to disappear. There was nothing to be seen. She went around the ell, and back to the front of the house again. Still there was no trace of the little shadow that had streaked into invisibility.

“If it was not my imagination, it must have gone under the house,” said Mary to herself. “Two or three times I have thought I spied a black blur in the act of disappearing; and I believe we are haunted by something on four legs. I will ask the family.”

[51]“Mother, have you ever seen a cat about the place—a black cat, a swift cat, a cat that never stays for a second in one spot—a mysterious cat that is gone as soon as you see it?”

“That sounds spooky enough!” commented Dr. Corliss. “You make the shivers run down my sensitive spine!”

“I have not seen any cat,” said Mrs. Corliss. “I think you must be mistaken, Mary.”

“Yes, I’ve seen a cat!” volunteered John,—“a thin black cat, oh, so thin! I saw him run across the lawn once; and once I saw him crouching down by the lilac bush near the back door. I think he was catching mice.”

“Then there is a cat,” said Mary. “I thought I might be dreaming. He must be very wild. I believe he lives under our house.”

“Under the house!” exclaimed Mrs. Corliss. “Surely, we should all have seen him if he lived so near. I can’t think he could have escaped my eyes. But now, I remember, I have heard strange noises in the cellar once or twice.”

“Maybe it is a witch-cat!” suggested Dr. Corliss, pretending to look frightened. “You people are all so fond of poetry and ravens and[52] mystery and magics—you attract strange doings, you see. Maybe Aunt Nan had a witch-cat who helped her play tricks on the ever-to-be-surprised world.”

“Daddy!” cried John, “there’s no such thing as a witch-cat, is there, truly?”

“Of course not!” laughed his mother. “Daddy is only joking. And now I come to think of it, I have wondered why the scraps I put out for the birds always vanished so quickly. A hungry cat prowling about would explain everything.”

“It might be Aunt Nan’s cat,” said Mary thoughtfully. “Poor thing! He might have run away when he couldn’t find Aunt Nan any more. He might have been frightened, and have hid under the house.”

“I think in that case he would have starved to death in all these weeks,” said Mrs. Corliss. “Besides, I should think the neighbors would have told us, or that Aunt Nan herself would have left some word.”

“I’m going to find out, if I can,” said Mary. “If it’s Aunt Nan’s cat I want to be good to him. We want to be good to him, anyway, don’t we?”

“Of course we do,” said Mrs. Corliss. “But there is nothing so hard to tame as a wild cat.”

[53]Katy Summers knew nothing of any cat belonging to Miss Corliss. Neither did the other neighbors.

That next day on coming home from school Mary again spied the cat. Just as she clicked the gate she saw the long, black shape scurry across the lawn and vanish under the ell, under Mary’s library. Mary tiptoed to the house and, stooping, called gently, “Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!”

At first there was no response. But presently there came a feeble and doleful “Miaou!” And Mary thought she could catch the gleam of two green eyes glaring out of the darkness.

“I must get him something to eat,” said Mary. “Perhaps I can tempt him to make friends.” And running into the house she returned with a saucer of milk and a bit of meat, which she set down close to the house. “Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!” she called, in a tone of invitation.

“Miaou!” cried the forlorn cat again. But he did not come forth from his hiding-place.

“I shall have to go away, and give him a chance to eat when I am not by,” thought Mary. And this she did. From her chamber window she could just manage to watch the hole under the ell. After a long time she was rewarded by seeing the cat’s head emerge from the hole. For[54] a minute he stared around with wild eyes, his body ready to spring. But finding himself safe, he hungrily seized the meat and retreated with it under the house. Presently he came out again, licking his chops eagerly, and began to lap the milk, retreating every now and then as if some fancied sound alarmed him. The poor creature’s sides were so thin that he resembled a cut-out pasteboard cat. His tail was like that of a long black rat. He seemed to be wearing a collar about his neck.

“He must have been somebody’s pet cat,” said Mary to herself. “I must try to tame him.”

But it took a great deal of time and patience to make friends with the poor black pussy, which had evidently been greatly frightened and almost starved. Day after day Mary set out the saucer of milk and a bit of meat. And each time she did so, she talked kindly to the cat hidden under the house, hoping that he would come out while she was still there. But it was many days before she got more than the mournful “Miaou!” in answer to her coaxing words.

At last, one day, after waiting a long time beside the saucer of milk and a particularly savory plate of chicken-bones, Mary was rewarded by seeing the cat timidly thrust out his head while[55] she was talking. He drew back almost immediately. But finally the smell of the chicken tempted him beyond caution, and he got up courage to face this stranger who seemed to show no evil intentions. He snatched a chicken-bone and vanished. But this was the beginning of friendship.

The next day the cat came out almost immediately when Mary called him. Presently he would take things from her hand, timidly at first, then with increasing confidence, when he found that nothing dreadful happened. But still Mary had no chance to examine the collar, on which she saw that there were some words engraved.

At last came a day when the cat let Mary stroke his fur, now grown much sleeker and covering a plumper body. And from that time it became easier to make friends. Soon Mary held the creature on her lap for a triumphant minute. And the next day she had a chance to examine the engraved collar. On the silver plate was traced,—“Caliban. Home of N. Corliss. Crowfield.”

“He was Aunt Nan’s cat!” cried Mary in excitement. And she ran into the house with the news.

Mrs. Corliss was astonished. “We must make[56] Caliban feel at home again,” she said. “He must have had a terrible fright. But we will help him to forget that before long.”

In a little while Mary succeeded in coaxing Caliban into the house. And once inside he did not behave like a stranger. For a few moments, indeed, he hesitated, cringing as if in fear of what might happen. But presently he raised his head, sniffed, and, looking neither to right nor left, marched straight toward the library. Mary tiptoed after him, in great excitement. Caliban went directly to the big armchair beside the desk, sniffed a moment at the cushion, then jumped up and curled himself down for a nap, giving a great sigh of contentment. From that moment he accepted partnership with Mary in the room and all its contents.

“Well, I never!” cried Mrs. Corliss, who had followed softly. “The cat is certainly at home. I wonder how he ever happened to go away? I suppose we shall never know.”

And they never did. They made inquiries of the neighbors. But nobody could tell them anything definite about Aunt Nan’s cat. Some persons had, indeed, seen a big black creature stalking about the lawn in the old lady’s time, and had not liked the look of him, as they said. But as[57] Miss Corliss had never had anything to do with her neighbors, so her cat seemed to have followed her example. And when Aunt Nan’s day was over, the cat simply disappeared.

Caliban must have lived precariously by catching mice and birds. But he never deserted the neighborhood of the old house when the new tenants came to live there; though it took him some time to realize that these were relatives of his mistress whom he might trust.

Once more an inmate of the house, Caliban never wandered again. He adopted Mary as his new mistress, and allowed her to take all kinds of liberties with him. But to the rest of the family he was always rather haughty and stand-offish. John never quite got rid of the idea that Caliban was a witch-cat. And sometimes he had a rather creepy feeling when the great black cat blinked at him with his green eyes.

But Mary said it was all nonsense. “He’s just a dear, good, soft pussy-cat,” she cried one day, hugging the now plump and handsome Caliban in her arms.

And Caliban, stretching out a soft paw, laid it lovingly against his little mistress’s cheek.

FOR some weeks life went on quietly for the Corliss family, made more interesting by the coming of Caliban, who resembled his late mistress in some unexpected qualities. But the family had got used to being surprised by Aunt Nan’s jokes, so that they were no longer jokes at all. And nothing further of a mysterious nature happened in Mary’s library, so that everybody had about forgotten the excitement of the watch, the bookmark, and the unexplained key.

The more Mary read her Shakespeare, the better she liked the plays, which, as she said, were “just full of familiar quotations!” Caliban approved heartily of Mary’s reading. He liked nothing better than to curl up in her lap while she sat in the big easy-chair, with her book resting on its broad arm; and his rumbling purr made a pleasant accompaniment whenever she read aloud. For Mary liked to read aloud to herself and to him. It made her understand the story so much better.

[59]Probably Caliban was used to assisting Aunt Nan in this same way. He was truly a cat of fine education. Mary wondered if he knew all the books in the library. “He looks wise enough to,” she thought.

“I think Caliban likes some plays better than others,” she confided to her mother. “He didn’t seem to care so much for ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ But then, I had almost finished it before he came. He was crazy over ‘Julius Cæsar,’—you ought to have heard him purr at Marc Antony’s great speech! And now that I have begun ‘The Tempest,’ he gets so excited, Mother!”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Corliss; “that’s where he comes in, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Oh, Mumsie, I was so surprised when I found Caliban’s name in the list of characters! I just shouted it right out; and you ought to have seen Caliban arch his neck and rub his head against me, and purr like a little furnace. I’m sure he knew it was his play. And isn’t it a lovely play, Mother? I like it best of all.”

One day Mary coaxed Katy Summers home with her after school. “The time has come for[60] you to keep your promise, Katy,” said Mary. “You’ve got to listen to Shakespeare now.”

“I am going to read you some of ‘The Tempest,’” said Mary. “I want you to like it as well as I do.”

“But you will care for this,” said Mary positively, “especially if you hear it read. That’s the way everybody ought to know poetry, I think. Why, even Caliban likes to hear me read poetry. See, here he comes to listen.”

Sure enough, at the sound of Mary’s voice Caliban had come running into the library with a little purr. He looked very handsome and fluffy these days. Waving his tail majestically, he jumped up into Mary’s lap and sat on her knee blinking his green eyes at Katy as if to say, “Now you are going to hear something fine!”

“I believe John is right,” said Katy. “He does look like a witch-cat. He’s too knowing by half! I suppose I shall have to like the reading, if he says so.” Katy was just a bit jealous of Mary’s new friend.

“Of course Caliban knows what is best!”[61] chuckled Mary. “Now, listen, Katy.” And she began to read the beautiful lines. Presently she caught up with her own bookmark, and went on with scenes which she had not read before. Mary read very nicely, and Katy listened patiently, while Caliban purred more and more loudly, “knitting” with busy paws on Mary’s knees.

After a while Katy saw Mary’s eyes grow wide, and she paused in the reading, ceasing to stroke Caliban’s glossy fur. Caliban looked up at her and stopped purring, as if to say, “What is it, little Mistress?”

“It’s a Song,” said Mary, in a queer voice, “and words of it are underlined, Katy, in the same way that the other place I told you of was underlined.”

Katy nodded eagerly. She had heard about the clue to the finding of the key. “What does it say?” she asked.

“‘Of his bones are coral made,’ and ‘Those are pearls that were his eyes,’ and ‘something rich and strange.’ Oh, Katy, what do you suppose Aunt Nan meant this time?” said Mary with eager eyes.

At this point Caliban arched his back and yawned prodigiously, then jumped down on the floor and sat at Mary’s feet, switching his tail.

“Hurry and look at the notes at the end of the book, Mary!” cried Katy, almost as much excited as her friend. “I did not know that poetry could be so interesting.”

Mary turned hastily to the back of the book. In the margin beside the printed notes were penned several words; references to other plays which evidently Aunt Nan wanted Mary to look up. “Bother!” said Mary in disappointment; “it’s only more quotations. I don’t want to stop for them.”

“You had better, Mary,” suggested Katy.[63] “Perhaps if you do they will give you still another clue. See how queer Caliban looks!”

The cat was looking up in Mary’s face expectantly; and when she stooped to pat him, he opened his mouth and gave a strange, soundless “Miaou!”

“It looked as if he said ‘Yes!’ didn’t it, Katy?” said Mary. “Well, then, I suppose I had better do it. The first reference is to ‘As You Like It,’ Act II, Scene i.”

Mary went to the Shakespeare shelf, found the volume quickly, and looked up the proper place. “Yes!” she exclaimed, “there is a line underscored here, too,—‘Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.’ What a queer saying, Katy! What do you suppose it means? And this is the next quotation, in the ‘Sonnets’—Number CXXXV, Line 1. Here it is! ‘Whoever has her wish, you have your Will.’ Now, what connection can there be between those two things, Katy?”

“I don’t know!” said Katy, disappointed. “Is that all, are you sure? It doesn’t seem to mean anything, does it?”

“Wait a minute!” added Mary. “Here in the Sonnet-margin she has written, ‘Will S.—Yours. Look!’”

At the word “Look!” Mary had glanced up at the portrait of Aunt Nan, and it seemed to her as if the eyes in the picture were cast down on something below them. Mary’s own eyes followed the look, and fell on the bust of Shakespeare in the middle of the mantelshelf. “Does she mean—perhaps she does—that bust of Will Shakespeare?” said Mary. “It is mine now, of course. ‘Whoever has her wish’—‘Wears yet a precious jewel in his head’—‘Something rich and strange.’”

“Oh, Mary! It all fits together!” cried Katy, clapping her hands. “Do have a look at that bust, dear! If it is your Will.”

“That’s just what I will do!” cried Mary, running to the mantelpiece, with Katy close behind her, and Caliban following them both.

The bust was a plaster one about six inches high, and it stood on a black marble block like a little pedestal. Mary had dusted it many times and she knew it was not fastened to the pedestal and that it was hollow. But was it also empty?

While the girls were looking at the bust, Caliban suddenly made two leaps, one to a chair, then to the mantelshelf which he reached without[65] a slip. Then he took up his pose beside the bust of Shakespeare, and sat blinking wisely at them.

“Do look at Caliban!” cried Katy. “He certainly looks as if he knew secrets!”

“Perhaps he does,” said Mary. “Maybe there is a secret about this bust. I am going to see. If you please, Master Will S.”

She took down the bust and shook it gently. Nothing rattled inside. Nothing fell out. She poked with her finger as far as she could reach. There seemed to be nothing in the interior.

“Try again, Mary,” begged Katy, producing something from her pocket. “Here’s my folding button-hook.” Cautiously Mary thrust the hook up into the place where the brains of William S. would have been, were they not distributed about the library instead in the form of books.

Yes! There was something up in the head; something that was yielding to the touch of the steel; something that came out at last in her hand. It was a piece of soft chamois-skin, folded and tied with green silk cord like that on which hung the mysterious key.

[66]“Sh!” said Mary, with shining eyes. Cautiously she undid the little packet; and there inside was another packet, wrapped in silver foil, very tiny, very hard. Mary squeezed it gently, but the feeling gave no clue as to the contents.

While Katy watched her with bulging eyes, Mary peeled off the silver paper, a bit at a time. First of all was revealed a pink bead; more pink beads; a whole necklace, strung on a pink thread, of the most beautiful coral.

“‘Of his bones are coral made,’” quoted Mary. “Oh, clever Aunt Nan!— What else?” for the next quotation was running in her head, and she was very eager. With trembling fingers she unwrapped the rest of the package, and brought to light a tiny pasteboard box of not more than an inch in any dimension.

But she gasped when she saw what really came out—yes, a ring, on a white velvet bed. But such a ring! It had two big pearls in it, side by side, as big as the end of Mary’s little finger.

[67]“Oh!” cried Mary with delight. “What a beautiful ring! I do love pearls.—‘Those are pearls which were his eyes,’ Katy, do you see? And this is the ‘something rich and strange.’ What fun it is to find a treasure all by the aid of lovely quotations!”

“Come; let’s show these to Father and Mother,” said Mary, giving Caliban a big hug. And off the two girls ran to exhibit the treasures.

Mrs. Corliss was delighted with her daughter’s find. “I am glad you have the pretty necklace to wear with your best dresses,” she said. “It is very nice and suitable for a schoolgirl. But the pearl ring—I think we must put that away until you are older. It is too valuable and too conspicuous. I don’t like to see little girls wearing jewelry.”

“I can wear it when I go to college—if I go; may I not, Mother?” asked Mary wistfully.

“Oh, yes, if you go to college, Dearie,” sighed her mother. “At any rate, you can wear it when you are eighteen.”

Dr. Corliss examined the ring carefully. “Yes, I am sure I have seen Aunt Nan wear[68] it,” he said. “It must be one of the set of famous pearls that she was once proud of. Doubtless she sold the rest long ago and gave the money to her hospital. I am glad Mary has this; but Mother is right. School-girls should not wear jewelry. Put it away until you are grown-up, my daughter.”

So Mary fastened the pretty necklace about her round throat, and shut the pearl ring away in her bureau drawer, with a sigh.

“I wouldn’t mind, Mary, even if you can’t wear it yet. Just to think that you have it, and that you got it in such a mysterious way! Why, it is like a story-book!”

“Doesn’t it make you want to hear some more Shakespeare?” demanded Mary, laughing.

“Indeed it does!” agreed Katy. “I’ll come and listen whenever you will let me. Who knows what may happen? Yes, I’ll wager that Caliban knows.”

John was disgusted when he came home from a meeting of the Big Four to find that he had missed this most exciting discovery; although, after all, when it came to the jewelry, John[69] thought the result rather small. “My goodness, Mary!” he exclaimed, “I’ll bet there are lots more things hidden in that old library of yours. Don’t you go and do all the hunting when I’m not here.”

“I don’t,” said Mary. “I didn’t mean to hunt. I don’t ever mean to hunt. But if things come—all right.”

“I wish you’d let me have the fun of hunting in the library all I want, just once,” said John wistfully.

Mary hesitated. She did not want anybody to rummage among her books. But she hated to be “stingy,” and she felt as if she were really having more than her share of fun out of Aunt Nan’s legacy, in spite of John’s two thousand dollars. So she said generously, without letting John see how great an effort it was: “All right, Johnny. To-morrow is Saturday, and I’ll give you free leave to hunt all you want to in my library. I won’t even come to bother you.”

“Oh, no, John!” she cried. “I don’t think Aunt Nan would like that. Do you?”

The next Saturday morning John spent in hunting that library from floor to ceiling. Caliban, sitting on a corner of the mantelpiece, watched him gravely during the whole operation, but offered no suggestions. John poked behind the books, in every corner, under every rug. He even ripped open a bit of the cover on the old sofa. But nothing interesting could he find.

“I’ll give it up!” growled John at last, disgustedly, when Mary came to call him to dinner. “I guess you’ve got about all you are ever going to get out of Aunt Nan’s legacy. If Caliban knows anything more about it he won’t tell me. Anyway, I’ve got my two thousand, and that’s best of all.”

“All right, John,” retorted Mary good-naturedly. “I’ve got my two thousand books, anyway, and Caliban. So I am not complaining.”

She did not tell John that she still hoped to solve the mystery of the key on the green silk[71] cord; not to solve it by hunting or by hurrying, but in Aunt Nan’s own way, whatever that might be.

THE Corliss family were sadly in need of funds. There were the butcher and the baker and the candlestick-maker politely presenting their bills to the family recently arrived in Crowfield, suggesting in print and in writing and by word of mouth that “bills are payable monthly.” Now it was the end of the month, and there was no money to pay these same bills; for the expense of moving and settling in a new place had been heavy, and their small income had already disappeared.

“How much money is it that we need for immediate bills, Mother?” asked Dr. Corliss wearily. It always tired him to talk about money.

“Just about a hundred dollars would bridge us over nicely,” said his wife, with an anxious pucker in her forehead. “But I don’t see any sign of our getting that hundred dollars for a month to come. And then it will be needed for fresh bills.”

“Why, of course, you must take my hundred dollars that I found in Aunt Nan’s book,”[73] said Mary cheerfully, though it cost her a pang to think of using up her wonder-gift so soon in this way. “I’ll just take it out of the bank next Saturday morning.”

“I hate to touch that money of yours, Mary, even if we put it back for you when we can,” sighed her mother. “I hoped we could save that for your nest-egg toward a college fund. Let me think it over a bit longer. Perhaps something will happen to help us. Or I may think of some way to earn the money.”

They left discussion of the matter for that time. But they all took the troublesome problem away with them into their daily tasks.

“It is a shame for Mary to have to give up her hundred dollars,” thought John. “I wish I could help earn some money so that she needn’t do it. If I was in the city I could sell papers or something. But what can I do here when I have to go to school every day? School takes up such a lot of time!”

John sighed as he swung his books over his shoulder and started off for school. All day he thought about that needed money; and it was in his mind when he turned in at the gate that night.

“I wish I was clever and could think up something,”[74] said John to Caliban, who was sitting on the top step looking at him when John came in. “I wonder you don’t help us, Caliban. Come, now, can’t you think of something, old witch-cat?”

Caliban did not seem to mind being spoken to in this impolite way. But he did look at John in a fashion that the boy thought very knowing, and he did unmistakably wink one eye.

“Miaou!” said Caliban, and he turned his back on John, and began to walk upstairs.

John was going upstairs too; so he followed Caliban, who, however, hopped three steps at a time, while John could only take two with his short legs. When they reached the top of the flight, Caliban looked about to see if John was still following him. John had not meant to do so, but when he saw Caliban turn and look, with that queer expression in his green eyes, John had an idea.

“Maybe he wants me to follow him,” said he to himself. He tossed his books on to a chair and tiptoed after the big black cat. Caliban ambled unconcernedly along the hall and suddenly darted up the attic stairs. “Hello!” said John, with a whistle under his breath. “What is Caliban up to now? I thought he never went[75] far from Mary’s library. But, I declare, he is coaxing me to follow him up into the attic! You bet I’ll follow you, old boy!”

John had never paid much attention to the attic. He had looked into it, of course. But it was so dark and dusty and cobwebby that it was not much fun poking about up there. Since their first visit the family had not been there except to store away some of Aunt Nan’s superfluous old furniture and ornaments.

If the house had seemed like a museum to the family when they first entered it, this attic looked like a junk-shop. Every corner was filled with furniture, boxes, bundles, strange garments hanging from hooks, bales bursting with mysterious contents. Away back in the dusty corners, where it was so dark that John’s eye could not distinguish, bulked other dim shapes.

Caliban walked across the floor in a furtive fashion, then suddenly made a dive into a distant dark corner, where John immediately heard a scurrying and scratching.

“He’s after a mouse!” thought John excitedly. And he, too, dived into the darkness after the cat, who had disappeared. But Caliban had scuttled into some hole too small for John to enter. John could hear him still scratching and[76] sniffing. And an occasional squeak betrayed the misfortune of some long-tailed dweller in the garret that Caliban had taken by surprise.

John got down on his hands and knees the better to investigate that corner. But still he could not spy the cat and his prey. He only bumped his nose against the low beams, and got his mouth full of cobwebs. But in that dark hiding-place he came upon an unexpected thing. This was something that at first he took to be a bicycle. But he soon found by feeling of it that there was but one wheel, and that it was made of wood. At one end was a curious bunch of what felt like long hair; it made John shudder. But presently he remembered.

“It must be a spinning-wheel,” said John to himself. “I remember seeing one in the picture of Priscilla and John Alden.” Just then he bumped his head on something hard. “What is this great long-handled pan?” he said. “I’ve seen those in the curiosity shops, too. Hello! Here’s a cradle, the kind that rocks. I’ve seen those in pictures. And here’s a pair of andirons. My! this is a regular old curiosity shop. These things must be worth a lot of money.”

Then a sudden wonderful idea popped into John’s head. “Why can’t we sell them, if they[77] are worth a lot of money? Why, of course we can sell them, and save Mary’s hundred dollars! Maybe that is just what old Caliban knew, when he coaxed me to follow him up here. Say, you old rascal, where are you? Here, ’Ban! ’Ban! Come on out and let me see what you think about it!”

But Caliban had disappeared with his mouse, or whatever it was, which had ceased to squeak. And there was nothing but darkness and silence in the old attic beside the little boy and that strange litter of ancient things.

John looked around and shivered. “I guess I’ll be going,” he said. “I won’t stop to examine anything more. They all belong to Mother. I’ll let her do the looking-up. I’ll run down and tell her what I’ve found.”

And hurrying as fast as he could out of the dark corner, where the cobwebs and the dust were trying to keep intruders away from the old things to which they clung, John made for the attic stairs. Two or three times he thought he heard strange noises behind him, and he couldn’t go fast enough. Probably it was Caliban still scratching in some dark subway under the rafters. But John had no wish to stop and investigate. He came clattering down the stairs, and burst into his mother’s room.

“Goodness, John!” she said. “What a dirty face you have, and your eyebrows are all cobwebby. Where in the world have you been, and what have you found?”

“I’ve found things up in the attic!” exclaimed John triumphantly. “Caliban showed me the way. It was all his doings. I think he did it on purpose—to help Mary.”

“To help Mary! What in the world do you mean?” cried Mrs. Corliss. “Have you found a treasure, John, or some more mysterious secrets?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” confessed John, somewhat crestfallen. “Unless we make it a secret. I’d like that. But I think it’s a nice surprise, Mumsie, and I think it will save some of Mary’s hundred dollars. Mother,—all the furniture belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

“Because,” said John importantly, “I have been snooping around the attic, Mumsie, and I think there are a lot of things you can sell.”

“Why, you know, Mother,” said John, “there’s[79] a lot of old truck in the corners up there that looks just like the stuff we used to see in the curiosity shops in the city. I didn’t look very far, Mumsie, ’cause it was so—well, so dirty in there. But there’s wheels and andirons and things that I bet are worth lots of money!”

“Are there, John?” said Mrs. Corliss. “How clever of you to think of it! I never dreamed of looking in Aunt Nan’s attic to find the way out of our difficulty. Perhaps this is the solution!”

“It’s Caliban’s idea,” said John, wishing to be fair and not to claim too much credit, but feeling well pleased with himself, just the same.

“Let’s go up right away and see what we can find; shall we, John?” said his mother. “I can’t wait!”

“All right,” agreed John. “But you’d better take a candle, Mumsie. It’s terribly dark and spooky up there. And noises sound louder in the dark.”

Back to the garret they went, Mrs. Corliss as eager as John. And into those dark corners which had been undisturbed for many, many years they shed the light of their blinking, inquisitive candle. Mrs. Corliss was more thorough than John had cared to be. She untied strings, and lifted lids of trunks, and unwrapped[80] coverings. Out of chests and bundles and crates they dragged things that had been waiting through generations of Aunt Nan’s ancestors for some one to make them useful; things that had been discarded or pushed back still farther in order to make room for her whims and “jokes.”

THINGS THAT HAD BEEN WAITING THROUGH GENERATIONS
OF AUNT NAN’S ANCESTORS FOR SOME ONE TO
MAKE THEM USEFUL

Besides the old spinning-wheel, andirons, and warming-pan, they found parts of a four-post bedstead, a tall clock, and many quaint chairs. They unearthed a hair trunk, foot-warmers, mirrors, crockery, and lamps with prisms dangling; shawls and bonnets and carpet-bags. All of these things were old and most of them were ugly. But Mrs. Corliss knew that they would look beautiful to many persons, just because they were old; which seemed to John a strange reason.

When they had brought all this old stuff together in the middle of the attic floor, Mrs. Corliss looked about and smiled through a face-veil of dusty cobwebs.

“Well, John!” she said, “I believe my part of the legacy is not to be laughed at, either. We don’t want to keep these old things, for they have no history for us and they are not beautiful in themselves—the only two excuses I see for cherishing useless old things. Luckily[81] there are plenty of people who think differently. I’ll go up to town to-morrow with a list of what you and I have found, and see what I can get for them at some reliable antique shop. Let’s keep it a secret, and surprise your father and Mary, if we have good luck with the venture. Shall we?”

Just then out of the darkness crept Caliban, licking his chops, and looking very sly.

“Now, don’t you go and tell Mary, Caliban!” charged John. “For this is our secret. You let me into it yourself, and you’ve got to be our partner now. Don’t you dare even to purr about it!”

Caliban did not promise; but he trotted downstairs before them very discreetly. And all that evening no one would have guessed by the manner of those three conspirators what a tremendous secret they were concealing in their hearts. John did not dare to look at his mother’s face, however, he was so bursting with importance.

The next day Mrs. Corliss went to town on an errand which she explained rather vaguely to the rest of the family. She returned with a queer little old man with round shoulders and a white beard, who spoke English strangely and[82] whose hands were not very clean. Mrs. Corliss took him straight up to the attic, which was the only part of the house he seemed anxious to visit. They stayed up there some time, and there was a great noise of pushing and rolling of furniture. When they came down, the little old man was looking very much pleased and rubbing his dirty hands together. And he went away still rubbing.

Mrs. Corliss came to the supper-table with something which she fluttered triumphantly before the eyes of her bewildered family.

“It is a check for a hundred dollars!” cried Mrs. Corliss. “It’s to pay the horrid bills. Hurrah!”

“Where in the world did you get it?” asked Dr. Corliss. “Is it another of Mary’s bookmarks?”

“Not a bit of it!” sang Mrs. Corliss. “Mary’s bookmark is all her own, safe in bank. I got this out of the attic—out of my furniture. Now, perhaps you will think something of my despised legacy. I sold only a few of the old[83] things that are of so much less use to us than the space they occupy. There are plenty of them left, and the dealer is crazy to get them, too. We need be in no hurry to part with them. Aunt Nan’s attic is a perfect storehouse of treasures in that man’s eyes. It was Johnny who found it out.”

“Me and Caliban,” said John loyally; “don’t forget him.” And he told the others the whole story of his following the cat.

“You blessed old Caliban!” cried Mary, catching up the great bundle of fur and hugging him tightly. “You shall have an extra saucer of milk for your supper, so you shall!”

Caliban did not explain to her about the nest of fat mice which he had discovered in the attic. That was his share of the “treasure.”

ONE winter afternoon some weeks after the discovery of the coral necklace and the pearl ring, Mary was in the library alone, reading “Hamlet.” It was the last play on the list which Aunt Nan had suggested, and Mary liked it best of all. Nothing further of a “mysterious” nature had happened in the library; but Mary had almost forgotten to think about anything of the kind. She was reading now for the pleasure of it.

She had kindled a little fire in the fireplace, and the library was very cozy, full of flickering shadows and dancing lights, that played about the old volumes, and seemed every minute to change the expression on the bust of Shakespeare and on Aunt Nan’s picture above it.

But Mary, cuddled up in the big armchair with Caliban in her lap and the little red book in her hand, was too much interested in the fate of poor Ophelia and the unlucky Prince to notice lights or shadows. She had come to the scene where Hamlet is talking sorrowfully[85] to his mother in her chamber, and every word was wonderful. Suddenly she came upon a line underscored; the last part doubly underscored:—

Hamlet was pointing out to his mother the portraits of two kings, the good one who had been murdered, and his wicked brother who had killed him. The underscored line made Mary’s heart beat faster. She had learned to connect some pleasant surprise with Aunt Nan’s choice of quotations. In the margin opposite this line was penned an exclamation point—just that and nothing more. Eager as she was to go on with the story, and to find out what Hamlet had to say next, Mary knew that it was time to turn to the notes at the back of the book, to see if Aunt Nan meant anything in particular by that exclamation. She could not help feeling as if Aunt Nan herself had called out, “Stop! Look! Listen!”—just as the signs at the railway crossings do to absorbed travelers.

Yes; there was something written in the notes, in a blank space at the end of a paragraph: “Look at my portrait! Then turn to the play of Othello.—”

“Oh, dear!” said Mary to herself. “I believe[86] we are coming to another Secret!” And she felt her heart give a little jump of excitement. “‘My portrait.’ There is only one portrait of Aunt Nan.” And she glanced up at the picture over the fireplace. Then, indeed, she noticed how the firelight was making Aunt Nan’s queer eyes dance and glitter, and how her mouth seemed to be smiling in the most knowing way. “Look here upon this picture, THEN ON THIS.” What did the last part of this line, doubly underscored, mean to Aunt Nan? Mary studied the picture long and earnestly. There was something about it that she did not quite understand. It was as if Aunt Nan were trying to tell her something, but could not make the words plain. Mary felt that she almost had the clue to something—but not quite. Caliban did not seem to help her. If John were only here; John was so good at guessing riddles!

Mary put down Caliban, who promptly jumped up onto the desk. Then she ran out into the hall and called, “John! John!” for she knew that he was in the house, probably, as usual, ravenous for tea. “Come to the library, John!” she called again, in answer to his “Hello! What?”—“I think it’s another Secret. Quick!” she added, to bring him the sooner.

[87]Down came clattering boots, and John dashed into the room all excitement. “What’s up?” he asked eagerly. And Mary showed him the line. “H’m!” commented John, looking at the portrait curiously. “She does look sly, doesn’t she, Mary? But you haven’t looked up the other thing yet. I say, hurry! Let’s see what your old ‘Othello’ has to tell about it.”

Sure enough! Mary had forgotten the reference to “Othello.” Hurriedly she got out the proper volume, and turned to the right page and line.

She read slowly. “What in the world does that mean? I’m sure I don’t know.”

John had been all this time studying the portrait with its queer expression. When Mary read the quotation he clapped his hands. “Oh, I say!” he cried. “It talks about a finger, pointing. That’s it! She means the hand of the portrait is pointing to something. It has been pointing all the time, and we’ve only got to find out what at! Look, Mary. Don’t you see she is pointing, just as plainly as can be?”

Mary dropped “Othello” and ran to look at the picture. The queer eyes of Aunt Nan seemed[88] to meet hers, and yes! she certainly seemed to be pointing with the long forefinger of her right hand which rested on her breast.

Mary followed the direction of the pointing finger, as John was trying to do in the fading light. It seemed to point to a corner of the wall on which the portrait itself hung; to a shelf in the left-hand alcove by the fireplace. Both Mary and John ran eagerly to the corner and began to sight from finger to shelf and back again, to get a straight line from the pointing finger.

“I think it falls here” said John, touching a fat brown book labeled “Concordance,” on the fourth shelf from the bottom. “But I have looked behind all the books on this shelf. I know I have!”

“No, it doesn’t fall there,” said Mary. “I am sure she is pointing about here.” And she laid her hand on a row of green-and-gold volumes, whose titles she could hardly read in the dim light.

“‘Gems from the Poets,’” spelled John with difficulty. “Do you suppose she means these? And what does she want us to do, anyway? Let’s try this one.” He took down Volume I, which turned out to be “Gems from Marlowe,” a poet[89] of whom neither of them had even heard. John looked under the book, and examined the wall behind where it had stood, and began to look through the book itself, as carefully as possible. But Mary was searching farther. “I don’t think it is that one,” she said. “I think she is pointing farther along in the row.”

“Let’s try them all,” suggested John, seizing another volume,—“‘Gems from Beaumont and Fletcher’—whoever they are!” He flapped the leaves and looked in the space at the back where the cover was loose. But there was nothing unusual about that book. Meanwhile Mary was still drawing an imaginary line from the point of the portrait’s finger to the shelf in the corner.

“I am sure she is pointing here,” she said, laying her hand on the last volume in the row, which looked exactly like the others. “‘Gems from Shakespeare,’” she read the label on the back. “Yes, of course this ought to be the right one. She liked him best of all the poets, John. I believe this is it!”

Mary pulled the volume from the shelf eagerly. But when she held it in her hands she uttered a cry of surprise that made John drop the book he was flapping strenuously, and turn to her.

“Oh, John!” she whispered in the greatest excitement, “it isn’t a book at all! It is—something else! I think it is the Secret!”

IT was an exciting moment when Mary stood with the “Gems from Shakespeare” in her hand, declaring that this was not a book at all, but something else! What was it, then, which made her so excited? Caliban eyed her from the desk benevolently. “Miaou!” he cried. But no one noticed him.

“What do you think it is, Mary?” cried John. For he, too, saw in a moment that it was not a mere book at which his sister was gazing with wide eyes.

The back, with its green-and-gold leather and its label, “Gems from Shakespeare,” matched the rest of the set, so far. And the sides were flat and cover-like. But the front and top and ends, where the edges of leaves would naturally show in any proper book, were enclosed in leather, so as to make the whole thing into a sort of case.

John thrust his face up close to the mystery, and presently he gave a start. In the end where[92] you would naturally open the book to read, he had spied something strange.

“Oh, Mary!” he cried; “Look! Here is a little keyhole! I believe we’ve found the clue to your key that was in the lantern. Have you got the key here? Quick, Mary!”

Mary was shaking the box very gently. “Something rattles!” she said. “What do you suppose it is?”

“Oh, do be careful. Maybe it is something breakable. Hurry and find out what it is!” begged John in the greatest excitement.

Mary always wore the puzzling key about her neck, on the green silk cord which had come with it. She now pulled it out, and they carried the “Gems from Shakespeare” over to the table, so that they might see better under the lamp.

Just then there came a knock at the door, and both children jumped as if they had been caught in doing something wrong. “Mary! John!” cried the voice of their mother, “where are you both? What in the world are you doing? I rang the bell for tea three times; and I never knew you both to be so late before!”

[93]The door opened, and there stood Mrs. Corliss with the Doctor close behind her.

“I thought I heard you shouting at one another in here,” said Dr. Corliss. “What’s up? More surprises, eh? Something better than tea?”

“Caliban looks as if he thought so,” said Mrs. Corliss. “See how his green eyes glitter!”

“Oh, yes, Father!” said Mary; “it’s the most exciting surprise of all, we think; because Aunt Nan has taken pains to make it a part of her portrait.”

“Part of the portrait! What do you mean, Mary?” exclaimed her father, advancing into the room, and like the rest of them forgetting all about tea in the excitement of the occasion.

Mary showed them the “Gems from Shakespeare” with the keyhole in the end, and explained how the picture had guided them to it. They lighted the lamp hastily, and Dr. Corliss had to see just how the “slow unmoving finger” of Aunt Nan’s portrait pointed to the shelf in the corner where the “Gems” lived.

“Why, yes!” exclaimed the Doctor, examining the picture still more closely than the children had done. “And now that I have a clue, I see something more, that you haven’t discovered.[94] Look, children! Do you see what this book is on which Aunt Nan’s left hand is resting? It is a picture of this very same ‘Gems from Shakespeare,’ I can even make out a ‘G—S’ on the binding. But I never should have discovered it without your clue. I believe there is something in it, Mary!” And he looked as excited as any of them.

“Well, do let’s find out what is in it!” urged Mrs. Corliss. “I can’t wait another minute!”

Mary took the little key and tried it in the keyhole. Yes, it just fitted. She turned it, and a lock clicked.

“Lift the cover!” cried her father. And Mary opened what would have been the front cover of the book, if it had been a book which she was holding.

Inside the hollow leathern shell which pretended to be a book was a box; a green wooden box, with brass trimmings. Mary lifted the cover of this with a rapidly beating heart. And what do you think she found?

First of all she found a sheet of paper, at the top of which was written “Gems from Shakespeare.” Below it followed a list of quotations from Shakespeare, of a character that made[95] them all very much excited; you will readily guess why. These are the quotations:—

Under this sheet of quotations was spread a tiny silken blanket of pink. With trembling fingers Mary lifted this covering.

“Gems from Shakespeare,” indeed! The sight made them all gasp. There, lying on velvet cushions, in little pens, were drops and clusters and strings of pearls; big and little, round and oval, creamy and lustrous and beautiful. Piece by piece Mary lifted them out of their beds. There was a long necklace which would go twice around her throat; earrings; brooches; bar-pins and bracelets and rings. Some of the pearls were set with diamonds, and some with emeralds and sapphires and rubies; some were made up into rosebuds with pink coral like that of the necklace which Mary had found in the bust of Shakespeare. It was a wonderful collection.

“Well!” cried Dr. Corliss, the first one of the[96] family to get his breath,—“well, Mary! So you have Aunt Nan’s jewels, after all. She did not sell them for the benefit of her hospital, as I believed. She wanted them to go with her beloved library. There can be no doubt that these belong to you, and that she wished you to have them, if you were clever enough to find them. And a pretty little fortune they will prove, if I am not mistaken.”

“Here is a note in the bottom of the box,” said Mary, drawing out a sheet of folded paper. Nowadays she did not dread Aunt Nan’s notes as she had done at first, for she began to think of the queer great-aunt whom she had never seen as one of her best and kindest friends.

“What do you suppose Aunt Nan meant by that last remark?” asked Mrs. Corliss wonderingly. “The pearls are far too splendid for our Mary ever to wear. I should hate to see her flaunting them, Owen.”

“So should I!” said Dr. Corliss fervently. “They are grand enough for a princess to wear at a court ball. What do you say, Mary?”

“Oh, they are very beautiful,” said Mary, “but I don’t want to wear them, any more than Aunt Nan did. Father, do you think it would be right to sell them? I’d like so much to have the money to help us all—and perhaps there would be enough so that I could go to college, too.”

“That’s my daughter!” cried her father, hugging her proudly in his arms. “That is what I hoped you would say. I can see no possible reason why you should keep the jewels. Evidently Aunt Nan did not care for them herself, and you have no association with them except[98] through her. They can do you no good, except in one way. So my girl will be able to go to college, after all, as well as my boy. I am so glad!”

“Thanks to Aunt Nan—and to Shakespeare,” said Mary, patting the volume of “Hamlet” lovingly. “If Shakespeare hadn’t given the clue I might not have found the gems for ever and ever so long.”

“You might never have found them, Mary!” cried John. “Ginger! how awful! They might have stayed here all your life; or some old bookseller might have got them when you began to fill up with new books in place of these old ones.”

“No,” said Mary, “that wouldn’t have happened. And I should have found them, anyway, sooner or later. For I shall never part with one of Aunt Nan’s books. And sooner or later I mean to dip into every one, and read it through, if I can. I guess Aunt Nan knew that.” She glanced gratefully at the portrait over the mantelpiece, which seemed to look very happy in the lamplight, while the box of gems stood open on the table.

FROM Aunt Nan’s pearls Mary kept out a brooch for her mother and two bar-pins for herself and Katy Summers, just alike. The rest of the “Gems from Shakespeare” she entrusted to Mr. Wilde, the family lawyer, who undertook to sell them for her in the city.

“My dear,” said he, with a twinkle in his wise old eyes, “those Shakespeare ‘Gems’ of yours made the eyes of the jewelers pop out of their heads. You won’t have any trouble in going to college when the time comes; if you still wish to do so, and if you haven’t already learned all there is to be known from that famous library of yours. I hold forty thousand dollars in trust for you. Are you disappointed?”

“Forty thousand dollars!” Mary could only gasp. And the rest of the family had to pinch themselves to be sure they were not dreaming. But it was, indeed, a fact. There need be no more anxiety or overwork for any of them. With care and economy they were provided[100] for until Mary and John should have finished college and be ready to earn their living. Dr. Corliss could go on writing his book in peace, without worrying about bills. Mrs. Corliss could have a little maid to help her in the housework.

“Mother,” said Mary, when they had recovered from the first excitement of the news which Mr. Wilde had brought them, and when they had seen that proud and delighted old gentleman off once more for the city where he lived,—“Mother, I want to have a party, and give the other children a good time. I want to celebrate not only our good luck, but the way we got it. I want to have a Shakespeare party.”

“I think that is a very nice idea,” said Mrs. Corliss. “Next month comes Shakespeare’s birthday, the twenty-third of April, which is also Saint George’s day. I think it would be lovely to have a party and show our Crowfield friends that Aunt Nan’s house is going to be hospitable and jolly from this time on.”

They invited all the children in Mary’s class[101] of the High School and in John’s class of the Grammar School. Everybody was told that he or she must come in a Shakespeare costume; and this set them all to looking up quotations and reading plays more than had ever before been done in Crowfield.

For days before the party Mary’s library was crowded every afternoon with eager children who came to ask questions and get suggestions about their costumes. Mary and Katy Summers helped them as best they could, and Mrs. Corliss pinned and draped and made sketches to show how things ought to look.

During these busy days Caliban retreated to the attic and sulked most of the time, because Mary paid him so little attention. But then, Mary said his costume was already nearly perfect. So why bother about him?

They held the party in the library, the biggest room in the Corliss house. And Aunt Nan’s portrait looked down on a strange gathering of folk out of her favorite books. It seemed as if the old lady must be pleased if she knew how many persons had become interested in Shakespeare through the things which had happened and were still happening in her library.

The door was opened by John dressed as[102] Puck, in brown jacket and tights, with little wings sprouting out of his shoulder-blades.

In the library the guests were received by Mary in long, glittering, green draperies to represent Ariel, with a wand and a crown of stars. She kept Caliban close at her side, beautiful in a green ribbon collar which bored him greatly.

Katy Summers stood beside Mary, and looked sweet as Titania, in a fairy dress of white tarlatan, with a crown of flowers. Dr. Corliss had been made to represent Prospero, with a long white beard and gray robes. And Mrs. Corliss was one of the witches from “Macbeth.” She wore a dress of smoky gray veiling, with a veil over her long hair, which concealed her face. Some of the children were afraid of her at first, for they did not know who she really was; she looked very bent and witch-like, and acted her part weirdly.

Ralph and James Perry, two members of John’s “Big Four,” came as the two Dromios, the clowns in “A Comedy of Errors.” Their faces were whitened, and they acted like real clowns in a circus, turning somersaults and making grimaces. Whatever one did the other imitated him immediately, and it kept the other children in gales of laughter.

[103]Billy Barton, the fourth member of the “Big Four,” made a hit as Nick Bottom, wearing the Ass’s head, and braying with comical effect; though as Billy had never heard the strange noise which a donkey really makes when it brays, he actually sounded more like a sick rooster. His long-eared head-piece soon grew so hot to wear that Billy took it off and hung it over his arm, which rather spoiled the illusion, but was much more comfortable.

Then there was Charlie Connors, a very fat boy, who dressed as Falstaff, with a fierce mustache and impressive rubber boots, a plumed hat, belt full of pistols, and a sword. There was Lady Macbeth, in a white nightgown with her hair hanging loose, a dangerous dagger in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. But when she nearly set fire to the draperies of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Mrs. Corliss made the Lady extinguish her sleep-walking candle.

Hamlet himself was there, too, in melancholy long black stockings, with a waterproof cape flung tragically over one shoulder. He carried one of Aunt Nan’s ostrich eggs in his hand to represent a skull. Indeed, the attic and the “Collections” had helped supply many necessary parts of this Shakespeare masquerade.

[104]There was Cleopatra, in a wonderful red sateen robe hauled out of one of the old chests; and Shylock, with a long beard hanging over a purple dressing-gown of the Early-Victorian period. There was Julius Cæsar in a Roman toga made from some of Aunt Nan’s discarded window-curtains, and Rosalind looking lovely in a blue bathing-suit and tam o’ shanter.

There were also a number of little Grammar-School fairies in mosquito-netting robes, and many other citizens of places earthly and unearthly, who seemed to have wandered out of the books in Mary’s library. Ariel recognized them all, and named them to the company as they came in. They squatted about on the chairs and on the floor till everybody had arrived.

Ever since reading “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Mary had wanted to try the delicious foolery of “Pyramus and Thisbe.” It required no scenery, no other costumes than a shawl or two, to cover up what the actors were already wearing to represent other characters. It was all a huge joke, as the audience soon saw; and throughout the scene the children laughed and squealed with delight, as Mary had thought they would. For the actors must have given the[105] play as ridiculously as Shakespeare himself intended; which was saying a great deal.

Billy Barton, covering himself with a mackintosh, acted Prologue, and introduced Mary, draped as Pyramus, and Katy as Thisbe; John, parted for a time from his wings, and tied up in a gray shawl, with a fringed rope fastened on for a tail, was the horribly roaring Lion. Ralph and Jimmie represented Wall and Moonshine.

It was a very funny thing to see Wall hold up his fingers to make a chink through which Pyramus and Thisbe might kiss each other. And when Lion begged the audience not to be frightened by his roar, the children shrieked with laughter.

But funniest of all was when Jimmy Perry as Moonshine came in with the old tin lantern to represent the Moon, and tried to make Caliban in his green ribbon act the part of the Moon Man’s dog. Caliban didn’t like theatricals. He would not act the part, but lay down in the middle of the floor, with his feet in the air, and his ears laid flat, ready to scratch the Moon Man if he persisted. The Prologue had to rush in again and drag him off.

When the Lion had roared and made Pyramus think he had eaten poor Thisbe, so that the hasty fellow stabbed himself in grief; and when[106] Thisbe had died, too, after sobbing about her lover’s “lily lips” and “cherry nose,” the little play was over, and everybody in a good humor. And the children said, “I didn’t know Shakespeare was so funny, did you?”

Then Ariel and Titania, Prospero, and the Witch made a magic—they were a mighty quartet, you see. John suggested that they were really the “Biggest Four.” They waved their wands and lifted their hands, and Caliban helped with a mighty “Wow!” Then in came Puck and the other fairies bearing a huge iron kettle, with a ladle sticking out of the top. From the kettle rose a cloud of smoke and a sweet smell that made Caliban sneeze. The fairies put the kettle in the middle of the room, and the four magicians waved their wands over it, and moved slowly about it singing,—

When the spell was finished, the smoke died away, and the Witch stooped over and ladled something out, which she threw into the fireplace. “Now, come, everybody!” she cried in a cracked voice, “and dip pot-luck out of the magic kettle.”

[107]One by one the guests came and helped themselves to a ladleful of pot-luck. The “luck” turned out to be a tissue-paper package tied with red ribbon. In each package was a little present. Sometimes the children did not get an appropriate gift; but then they could “swap.” Shylock, who was one of the biggest boys, drew a Japanese doll, which he exchanged for a jack-knife that had fallen to the lot of a little girl-fairy. Cleopatra drew a conductor’s whistle, and Hamlet had a beautiful bow of pink hair-ribbon; so they made a trade. The Ghost was made happy with a jews-harp, and the Ass secured a fan; while fat Falstaff made every one roar with laughter by unrolling from the great bundle of tissue paper, which he had carefully picked out, a tiny thimble.

After this they danced and played games, and made the roof of Aunt Nan’s old house echo with such sounds as it had not heard for many years. Shakespeare characters flitted from room to room, up the stairs to the attic and down to the cellar, in a joyous game of hide-and-seek. And nobody said “Don’t!” or “Careful!” or “Sh!” This was a night when Dream-People had their way undisturbed.

Then they all went out into the dining-room[108] and had supper—sandwiches and chocolate and cake and ice-cream. And they all voted that they liked Shakespeare very much, and that they ought to celebrate his birthday every year.

Nobody wanted to go home, of course. But in time, mere ordinary fathers and mothers and big sisters and big brothers, in ugly, common clothes, came and dragged away the Shakespeare people, one by one. When they had all, as Prospero said, “melted into air, into thin air,” when even Titania had waved her wand and disappeared with a kiss on Ariel’s cheek, this happy Spirit and Prospero and the Witch, Puck and Caliban, were left alone in front of the library fireplace.

“I am sure Aunt Nan would have been pleased,” said the Witch, looking up at the portrait over the mantel.

“Yes; it was a very nice party, indeed,” acknowledged Prospero, stroking his long beard gravely. “I confess I never expected to get so much pleasure out of poetry. But now, to quote myself, ‘I’ll to my book.’ Good-night.” And he retired to his study.

“I’m so sleepy!” said John. “Isn’t it too[109] bad that poor Shakespeare died before they invented ice-cream?”

“Yes,” said Mary, “I wish he were still alive. I should like to see him. But when I look about the library now I feel as if all the books were alive—just full of live people!”

“Miaou!” protested Caliban, scratching wearily at his ribbon. He at least was tired of wearing his costume.

“Poor Caliban!” said Mary, untying the ribbon. “Now you can go to sleep comfortably. To-morrow I shan’t be Ariel any more. But you will still be Caliban, for you are the realest of us all!”

Caliban switched his tail, yawned, and jumped up into the armchair, where he curled himself to sleep.

Mary had a strange dream that night. Perhaps she had eaten too much ice-cream. She thought that as soon as the house was quiet, Caliban rose on tiptoe and put on little wings like those of Puck, and flew right out of the open window, away to the land of fairies and shadows and book-folk. She dreamed that though[110] she hunted and hunted, she never could find him again. The dream made her cry, and she woke up very early in the morning, still sobbing.

The dream was still too real! She jumped out of bed, flung on her little blue wrapper, thrust her feet into her blue slippers, and hurried downstairs into the library. There in the middle of the mantelpiece, under Aunt Nan’s portrait and close beside the bust of Shakespeare, sat Caliban. He blinked in grave surprise at her unexpected entrance.

“Oh, Caliban, dear Caliban!” cried Mary, running up to him and hugging him tight. “I was afraid you had ‘vanished into thin air,’ too. I couldn’t have borne that, Caliban. I don’t know what I should ever do without you, pussy dear!”

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I.	The House	1
II.	The Library	10
III.	A Visitor	17
IV.	The Books	25
V.	Instructions	34
VI.	The Lantern	43
VII.	Caliban	50
VIII.	The Bust	58
IX.	The Attic	72
X.	The Portrait Points	84
XI.	Gems from Shakespeare	91
XII.	The Party	99

“I didn’t!” protested John. “It was—Something, I don’t know what—that spoke”	Frontispiece
“Oh, Katy, what do you suppose Aunt Nan meant this time?”	62
Things that had been waiting through Generations of Aunt Nan’s Ancestors for some one to make them Useful	80
“Oh, they are very Beautiful,” said Mary	96

Surprise House

Contents

Illustrations

CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE

CHAPTER II
THE LIBRARY

CHAPTER III
A VISITOR

CHAPTER IV
THE BOOKS

CHAPTER V
INSTRUCTIONS

CHAPTER VI
THE LANTERN

CHAPTER VII
CALIBAN

CHAPTER VIII
THE BUST

CHAPTER IX
THE ATTIC

CHAPTER X
THE PORTRAIT POINTS

CHAPTER XI
GEMS FROM SHAKESPEARE

CHAPTER XII
THE PARTY

Surprise House

Contents

Illustrations

CHAPTER I THE HOUSE

CHAPTER II THE LIBRARY

CHAPTER III A VISITOR

CHAPTER IV THE BOOKS

CHAPTER V INSTRUCTIONS

CHAPTER VI THE LANTERN

CHAPTER VII CALIBAN

CHAPTER VIII THE BUST

CHAPTER IX THE ATTIC

CHAPTER X THE PORTRAIT POINTS

CHAPTER XI GEMS FROM SHAKESPEARE

CHAPTER XII THE PARTY