Head of the House

by Grace Livingston Hill

  “Yes, that’s just what I was going to ask. Have you any thoughts, Jerry?”

  “No, I was only thinking of getting away from that chump, Pete Willis. But we might as well go on for a while on this road till we come to a good place to turn off and study the map awhile, don’t you think so?”

  “Well I guess so, only I know you’re all in. Why don’t you let me drive awhile?”

  “Well, after a bit. Wait till we find a nice quiet place and then we’ll all rest awhile. What’s the matter with Robin? He hasn’t spoken a word since it happened.”

  “Oh, I guess he’s just sleepy. Come over here, Robin, and sit beside me, and put your head in my lap.”

  Robin came willingly enough and was soon asleep again, and they traveled on silently. As morning dawned clearer there was more and more traffic.

  Presently Jerry veered off onto a side road, and soon they were in a wood, where they could be free from staring eyes. There they rested awhile and ate the lunch they had hurriedly packed on the boat before they left.

  The children had a chance to run around and exercise, and Jerry and Jennifer retired behind a map to try to see where they were and what they should do next. But they found it exceedingly difficult to decide anything.

  It was almost five o’clock when, reluctant to leave this quiet place, they at last called the children together and piled into the car again. They had decided to drive as far as they could, until they got too tired to keep going, and then to take the first likely resting place, be it hotel or cottage or campground.

  Chapter 15

  As they went on, their journey grew more and more upward.

  “We are getting into the mountains,” said Jennifer, looking around her, somewhat troubled. “I wonder if that is wise.”

  “Why not?” asked Jerry. “It looks good to me here. It’ll be good for the children to have some mountain air.”

  “Yes, but you forget. The mountains are where a lot of our family acquaintances go in the summer. We’re liable to come right into a nest of them, and of course they have heard we are away, and they’ll rush right at us to know where we went and why, and they’ll call up Aunt Majesta or Agatha Lane and tell them we are here, and that will be the end of us.”

  “Well, but it’s getting toward night, and they’ll not be likely to spot us on the highway at night. And by morning we can find a pleasant byway and keep out of their haunts. Besides, if we steer clear of the well-known resorts we are practically safe, don’t you think? And after all we haven’t got the money to go to the hotels where they go.”

  “I don’t know,” sighed Jennifer. “I don’t know as we are safe anywhere. Even if we went to the North Pole there would be somebody we know, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t vanta go to the norf pole,” said Robin wearily. “I vant my nice little home beddie or my bunk.”

  Jennifer cast a look of despair at Jerry.

  “And that’s that!” she said in a low tone as she gathered the little boy into her arms comfortably. “He hasn’t seemed like himself all day.”

  “Well, let him take another nap and perhaps he’ll feel better. I don’t know where else to go, not at this stage of the game.”

  So they settled down for the night; and Jerry, weary already and sick at heart, drove on, while Jennifer, in the backseat, held the heavy, limp little boy, who tossed about in her arms and moaned every little while.

  She tried to get to sleep herself, but her mind went to and fro, worrying about Robin. Oh, nothing must happen to Robin! He was her mother’s baby! She decided that the shock of watching Peter, together with the shock of seeing him upstairs frowning the day they left home, had been too much for his small mind. He really had been rather wonderful yesterday on the boat, using discretion that even a more mature mind might not have had. But finally she fell asleep.

  Sometime in the night she awoke with a start to realize that the car was not moving. She opened her eyes and peered out of the window, seeing nothing but darkness at first. Rubbing her eyes and continuing to gaze out, the darkness resolved into dim, darker tree trunks everywhere, dense and black. The road beneath the car was black also. They seemed to be parked in the middle of a dense forest. As far as she could see, ahead, behind, at either side, it was all alike!

  Startled, she looked where Jerry had been at the wheel and there she saw him slumped comfortably down, his head against the window frame, his arms relaxed, his breath coming steadily as if he were in a deep sleep. Poor Jerry! She blamed herself that she had not woken sooner and relieved him at the wheel.

  But perhaps it would be as well not to disturb him just now. They were here, and certainly in no immediate danger of being discovered. Why not just stay until at least a little daylight would show them the way out? Jerry had evidently turned out all lights and settled here deliberately. Perhaps that was the best thing he could have done.

  So she relaxed once more and dropped into oblivion again.

  Morning found them all stiff and sore and cold, for there the mountain summer seemed not to have penetrated. The children awoke miserable and cross and hungry and shivering. Robin awoke sneezing.

  “We’ll have to get out into the sunshine somewhere quickly,” said Jennifer anxiously. She had a sudden realization of what it would be if one of them got sick, or even caught a heavy cold. Robin had been a croupy baby, she recalled, and what if he should get one of those fearful attacks! She hadn’t much experience with them. Mother and the nurse always looked after him then. What would she do? Or was he too old for croup now? She didn’t know. How many things there were that she did not know.

  Jerry roused, heavy eyed from sleep, and manipulated the car out of the darkness of the woods into a sunny spot.

  “I just couldn’t go on another mile,” he apologized, “and I saw you were all in. I was afraid if I tried to drive any longer that I would fall asleep at the wheel and run you all into a tree, or into a river somewhere.”

  “Poor soul!” said Jennifer. “I know. We shouldn’t try to drive late at night. Not unless a regiment of police are after us and we have to save our lives. Though in that case, I guess we would be so excited that we wouldn’t be in danger of going to sleep.”

  Jennifer herded her flock out of the car and made them run in the sunshine until they were warm and glowing again, and then they sat down on the running board or stood around and cleaned up everything eatable that they had brought along.

  “Now,” said Jennifer, when they were back in the car and had started on their way again, “for pity’s sake let’s find a place to stay before night, even if it’s only a campground. I don’t see having these children sleep in a close little heap another night, let alone ourselves. You and I have got to keep fit, Jerry, or we never can take care of the children!”

  “I know,” said Jerry wearily, “I feel all crumpled up!” And he stretched and yawned wearily.

  So when they came to the next little town they drove around its outskirts hunting a place to stay. They didn’t want to be in a town. Too many acquaintances might be going through. But they wanted to be near enough to one to get what provisions they would need.

  But it was two days later before they came on a forlorn little shanty that seemed a possible answer to their need.

  They had spent the two nights between, one in a campground, the other in the car again, drawn up in the woods. They hadn’t dared try the better-looking resorts lest they might meet someone they knew. For even a servant who had been acquainted with some of their servants might inform on them by chance, or in case by this time Aunt Petra had got under way and offered a reward for their return. But it was nervous work, those nights, with that feeling of heavy responsibility resting on the young brother and sister who had never had any responsibility in their lives before.

  So when they saw this uninviting little cottage with a big sign—For Rent—on its ugly front door, they stopped and Jerry got out and went to investigate.

  The house was back from the road among the
trees, on a little private road, just a homemade road marked by the wheels of an old-time car that stood in the unkempt yard.

  The door was opened by a forlorn woman with untidy hair and a soiled cotton dress. Jerry stepped in and looked around. He went upstairs and then came down briskly.

  “It’s fifty dollars for the month of August. Twenty-five more if we want it in September,” he said. “She says she’ll throw in the rest of this month, it’s only three days more anyway, and we can come in right away if we want to. There’s a parlor and dining room and kitchen, if you can call a thing like that bare place in there a parlor, and there are three bedrooms and a bathroom. The bedrooms each have a double bed, and there is a cot, so I guess we could make out. We have to pay the fifty down, because she wants to get away. Her daughter’s sick, and she needs the money to go to her. What do you say? Shall we take it?”

  “Oh, I guess so,” sighed Jennifer. “It doesn’t look very inviting, but I shouldn’t think any of our friends would look for us in a place like this. How far is it from a village?”

  “About three miles either way, a village each way.”

  “Well, let’s take it.”

  The woman, it appeared, was about to go to her daughter anyway, money or no money, for an ancient car drove in behind them just then, and a man yelled out: “Ready, Auntie?” So the old woman accepted the fifty dollars Jerry hastily handed out, took her bags and cardboard boxes, and departed. Jennifer got out to take her first lesson in renting houses and finding out what to do with them after they were rented.

  She entered the house and looked around in despair.

  “Why, it’s dirty, Jerry!” she said in dismay.

  “It certainly looks so,” said the boy. “Well, shall I get in the car and chase her down and tell her we’ll take our money and go on?”

  “Oh, no,” she said sadly, “I suppose we can clean it. Soap and water make things clean, of course, though I don’t really know how, but I guess I can learn. Somebody had to learn how to clean the first time it was done.”

  “Oh sure!” said Jerry cheerfully. “What one person can do another can!”

  There was a wood stove and only three sticks of wood in sight, so Jerry brought in the camp stove from the car and set some water to heat in one of their own clean kettles. Then he set about trying to make a wood fire in that impossible stove, with no kindling and no newspaper, only matches to start it with. But he lacked skill and knowledge of dampers, and it required time to learn all those things.

  Jennifer went upstairs and looked around and came down with her nose in the air and a firm look around her pretty mouth.

  “Jerry, it’s awful!” she said. “Dirt everywhere! And there aren’t but four sheets in the place, and they have been used! As for the mattresses, they are made up of corn husks, I think, and have been used by generations, to judge by their looks. They’re just impossible. We’ll have to get quite a lot of things.”

  “Okay!” said Jerry. “What’ll I get? It’s either get things or forfeit our fifty dollars and go on away, isn’t it?”

  “Well, perhaps!” said Jennifer. “But the three blankets are filthy! Of course, we have a few along, but we’ll need more if it is mountain-cold here the way it was last night.”

  “Likely I can find a washerwoman,” encouraged Jerry. “Suppose I go scouting and see what I can discover. I’ll empty the car and take Hazel with me, and Try can stay here with you. Now, what do you want first?”

  “Well, a broom and a scrubbing brush, some rags¾no, you can’t buy rags¾cheesecloth! I think that’s what to use. Get several yards.”

  “How many is several?”

  “Oh, five yards, I guess. It’s cheap, I know.”

  Jerry went to work.

  “Tryon,” he called, “spread out those newspapers we got before we left the boat. I haven’t even had time yet to read them, but never mind. Spread them on the grass and pile everything that needs to be cared for from the ground on top of them. Empty the car. Then you’d better get your old working togs and put them on. You don’t want to spoil anything else.”

  “Be sure to get some soap!” called Jennifer from the upper window.

  “There are big brown slippery-looking bugs walking around under the sink, awfully fast!” called Heather.

  “Oh, let’s see!” said Karen and sped on eager feet, with Robin hopping on behind and shouting. “Wes-see! Wes-see!”

  “Sister, shall I get some food?” asked Hazel with a grown-up air. “We’ll all be frightfully hungry pretty soon, and we haven’t anything much left but two jars of jam and some peanut butter.”

  “Yes,” said Jennifer wearily. “Get bread and butter, milk, plenty of it, a glass jar of tongue, a pound of sliced ham, some cheese and crackers, and oranges. There’s no use getting anything that has to be cooked till we know how to work that stove. We’ve got coffee and sugar in the picnic box. You could get some fruit, too, whatever looks nice, and a can of cookies.”

  Hazel and Jerry started off and Tryon and Jennifer organized to clean up. An old floppy broom took the first layer off the floor and frightened the cockroaches away. Jennifer took the dirty sheets from the bed with the tips of her fingers and dropped them out the window on the grass. Then she sent the dirty blankets after them. She looked with disgust again at the mattresses. How could they ever be willing to lie down and realize that those vile mattresses were under them? How were they going to endure several weeks in this environment? Oh, how silly they had been, to let fifty dollars go away from them so easily without even looking around to see whether this was the right kind of place or not! Of course, Mother or Daddy would have known at the first look. But maybe she would have known, too, if it had not been that she was tired and worried. But, of course, Mother and Daddy had probably never been in straits like this. They had never been afraid that the police might come after them and drive them into trouble.

  And then, for the first time since she had started out on this expedition, Jennifer began to wonder whether after all she had been right to run away from home this way with all the children. If they had stayed at home and gone on from day to day, surely there would have been some way to assert their rights and decline to have the family separated. Of course, it would have been a terrible battle, for Aunt Petra and the rest were indomitable, and it would have been hard for Uncle Blake, for he never had really tried to stand up against those aunts. At least she didn’t know that he had. And he might not have tried. He likely had no right to object. Why, hadn’t he said in the New York paper that he agreed with them? Practically put his approval, as far as that would go, on what they had done?

  But Jennifer saw now that it had been a foolhardy thing to do, and very likely if she had not been so fearful and so impatient there might have been some other way to accomplish it. Perhaps there had been a guardian, likely some lawyer. What she ought to have done was to hunt him out and go and tell him all about it. Only she hadn’t dared.

  Well, she didn’t, and she was here and must make the best of it. Probably even this house would turn out to be not so bad when they got it cleaned up. But would they ever get it cleaned so that they wouldn’t hate every inch of it and dread to touch anything?

  She could remember hearing Daddy and some of his friends tell how they had felt in France when they would get into a dugout to sleep and find cooties infesting the whole place. She shuddered! What were cooties like, anyway?

  Then there came another thought. The beds? There were such things as bedbugs. She had heard of them, though she had never met any of them personally. If there should be bedbugs, what would she do? There were things they did to bedbugs to get rid of them, but how could she find out?

  She put out a shrinking thumb and finger and lifted a corner of the mattress but dropped it before she discovered anything. Perhaps it would be just as well not to know it if there were any. But oh, the thought! How was she going to be willing to get into one of those awful rickety beds?

  By the time Jerry
and Hazel were back, Jennifer and Tryon had managed to swab out the terrible excuse for a sink and to wash off the pantry shelves so there would be a place to put Hazel’s purchases, but there was a kind of despair over their faces as the others drove up. They were both tired and discouraged. It seemed to Jennifer that she couldn’t lift a hand to do a thing until she had a good night’s sleep. Yet she had to go on and work all the afternoon, at hard unaccustomed tasks, and not even know if she was doing them the right way.

  Hazel had been smart. She had purchased a dozen rolls of cotton wadding, and when it was opened out to its full width it was wide enough to sheath those awful mattresses. Jennifer took heart of hope and went to work. She and Tryon washed the bedsteads from one end to the other, even the springs had their share of cleansing, and then she shrouded the mattresses in cotton wadding. Hazel had also purchased new sheets. They were coarse and quite stiff with starch, perhaps to camouflage their coarseness, but they were clean and new, and after a little hesitation Jennifer uncompromisingly took the old sheets and tore them into cleaning cloths, which she washed out thoroughly before she used them.

  “We can leave these new ones behind in their place when we go,” she explained to Hazel, who was horrified that she dared.

  So the work of cleaning went on.

  They put Robin and Karen to take naps in the car, but all the rest worked, and by night the fire was going briskly¾Jerry had asked questions down at the hardware store¾and there was a clean table to eat on, a clean chair or stool apiece, and a so-called clean, if somewhat questionable, place for each one to sleep. But there wasn’t a pillow in the cottage that Jennifer would let any of them sleep on. However, they were too weary to care about that, and after a pick-up supper they went to bed.

  The children slept fitfully, tossing about on their unaccustomedly hard beds. Robin moaned in his sleep and complained sorrowfully in unintelligible language.

  It turned out that there were mosquitoes in addition to the other occupants in the house, and there were no screens! Night was their harvesttime.