The Phantom Town Mystery

by Carol Norton

  CHAPTER XVIII A STRANGE HOSTESS

  Etta Dooley, evidently unused to receiving calls, stood in the open door,her rather sad mouth and her fine hazel eyes unsmiling. Her plain browncloth dress hid the graceful lines of her young form. She was wonderingand waiting.

  Mary and Dora dismounted, and, as the red-headed, ten-year-old twins hadcome pell-mell from the garden, Mary, smiling down at them in hercaptivating way, asked them not to let the horses wander far from thehouse. Then, with the same irresistible smile, she approached the stillsilent, solemn girl.

  "Good morning, Etta," Mary said brightly, pretending not to notice theother girl's rather disconcerting gaze. "We are friends of Mrs. Newcomb,and she wanted us to become acquainted with you. I am Mary Moore. I livein Gleeson across the valley and Dora Bellman is my best friend from theEast."

  Etta's serious face lighted for a brief moment with a rather melancholysmile as she acknowledged the introduction.

  Dora thought, "Poor girl, if _that's_ the best she can do, how cruel lifemust have been to her, yet she isn't any older than we are, I am sure. Iwish we could make her forget for a moment. I'd like to see her reallysmile."

  Etta had stepped to one side and was saying in her grave, musical voice,"Won't you come in?" Then a dark red flush suffused her tanned face asshe added, not without embarrassment, "Though there aren't two safechairs for you to sit on. The children made them, such as they are, outof boxes."

  Mary, ever able to blithely cope with any situation, exclaimed sincerely,"Oh, Etta, it's so gloriously lovely outdoors today, let's sit here. I'lltake the stump and you two may have the fallen tree."

  Then, as Etta glanced back into the room, half hesitating, Mary asked,"Were you busy about something?"

  "Nothing special," Etta replied. "I wanted to see if we had wakened BabyBess. She sleeps late and I like to have her." Again the hazel eyes weresad. The reason was given. "She hasn't been well since Mother died."There was a sudden fierce tenderness in her voice as she added, "I can'tlose Baby Bess. She's so like our mother."

  Then, as though amazed at her own unusual show of feeling beforestrangers, Etta sank down on the log and shut herself away from thembehind a wall of reserve.

  But Mary, baffled though she momentarily was, knew that Aunt Mollie wascounting on the good their friendship would do Etta, and so, glancingabout, she exclaimed, "I love that rushing brook! It seems so happy,sparkling in the sun and singing all the time."

  Dora helped out with, "This surely is a beauty spot here under the trees.It's the prettiest place I've seen since I've been in Arizona."

  "I like it," Etta said, then with unexpected tenseness she added, "I'dlove it, oh, _how_ I'd love it, if it were our own and not _charity_."

  Dora thought, "Now we're getting at the down-deepness of things. Poor,but so proud! I wonder who in the world these Dooleys are. The namedoesn't suggest nobility." But aloud she asked no questions. One justdidn't ask Etta about her personal affairs.

  Dora groped for something that she could say that would start theconversational ball rolling, but, for once, she had a most unusual dearthof ideas.

  Luckily there came a welcome break in the silence which was becomingembarrassing to the kindly intentioned visitors.

  A sweet trilling baby-voice called, "Etta, I'se 'wake."

  Instantly their strange hostess was on her feet, her eyes love-lighted,her voice eager. "I'll bring her out. It's warm here in the sunshine."

  While Etta was gone, Mary and Dora exchanged despairing glances whichseemed to say, "We've come to a hurdle that we can't jump over." Aloudthey said nothing, for, almost at once Etta reappeared. In her arms was atwo-year-old; a pretty child with sleep-flushed cheeks, corn-flower blueeyes and tousled hair as yellow as cornsilk. Etta's expression told herlove and pride in her little darling.

  Baby Bess gazed unsmilingly at Dora as though she knew that here wassomeone who did not care for dolls, then she turned to look at Mary.Instantly she leaned toward her and held out both chubby arms, her suddensmile sweet and trusting.

  Dora, watching Etta, saw a fleeting change of expression. What was it?Could Etta be jealous? But no, it wasn't that, for she gave Mary herfirst real smile of friendship.

  "Baby Bess likes you," she said. "That means you must be _very_ nice.Would you like to hold her?"

  "Humph!" Dora thought as she watched Mary reseating herself on the stumpand gathering the small child into her arms, "I reckon then I'm _not_nice."

  After that, with the child contentedly nestling in Mary's arms, the icemelted in the conversational stream. Of her own accord Etta spoke ofschool. She asked how far along the girls were and astonished them bytelling what she was doing, subjects far in advance of them.

  Then came the surprising information that her father and mother had bothbeen college graduates and had taught her. She had never attended aschool. She in turn taught the twins. Then, in a burst of confidencewhich Dora rightly guessed was very foreign to her reserved nature, Ettasaid, "My father lost a fortune four years ago. He made very unwiseinvestments. After that Mother's health failed and we came West. Dad didnot know how to earn money. He grew old very suddenly," then, once again,despair made her face far older than her years. She threw her arms wide."All this tells the rest of our story."

  Mary's blue eyes held tears of sympathy which she hid in the child'syellow curls. Etta would not want sympathy.

  Luckily at that moment there came a welcome interruption. A gay hallooinglower down the road announced the approach of Dick and Jerry.

  Dora could see Etta rebuilding her wall of reserve. She acknowledged theintroduction to Dick with a formal, unsmiling bow. Baby Bess kept thesituation from becoming awkward by welcoming Jerry with delighted crowsand leaps. The tall cowboy, his sombrero pushed back on his head, tookher in his strong hands and lifted her high. The child's gurgling excitedlaughter was like the rippling laughter of the mountain brook. After afew moments Jerry gave the baby to Etta. The twins came around a clump ofcottonwood trees leading the horses, their freckled faces bright withwide grins, their Irish blue eyes laughing. Not for them the anxiety andsorrow that so crushed their big sister.

  Jerry tossed them coins to pay them for the care they had taken of theponies. Dora, glancing quickly at Etta, saw that the troubled expressionwas again brooding in her eyes.

  Later, when Mary and Dora had said goodbye to their new friend and wereriding away up the canyon road, Dora said, "Jerry, doesn't it seem queerto you that the boys are so different from their sister? I should almostthink that _she_ belonged to an entirely different family."

  "A changeling, perhaps," Dick suggested.

  "Me no sabe," the cowboy replied lightly. He was thinking of a verypleasant dream of his own just then.

  Mary said with fervor, "Anyway, _whoever_ she is, I think she is adarling girl and the baby is adorable. I wish that we lived nearer thatwe might see her oftener, Dora." Then, before her friend could reply,Mary added brightly, "Oh, Jerry, I know where you are taking us. You wantto show Dick your own five hundred acres, don't you? It's the loveliestspot in all the country round, I think."

  Jerry's gray eyes brightened. "That's what I _hoped_ you would think,Little Sister," he said in a low voice, which the other two, following,could not hear.

  They had gone about half a mile up the winding, slowly climbing road whenJerry stopped. The mountain had flattened out in a wide grass-coveredtableland moistened by many underground springs.

  Jerry waved his left hand. "This all was blue and yellow with wildflowers after the spring rains," he told them. Mary turned her horse offthe road and went to the edge of the hurrying brook.

  "See, Dick," she called, "this is where Jerry is going to build him ahouse some day. His granddad willed it to him. It takes in the part ofthe canyon where the Dooleys are, doesn't it?"

  "Close to it," Jerry replied. "Their garden is on my line, but Dad and Iwill never put up fences."

  "Of course not!" D
ora exclaimed. "Since you are the only child, it willall be yours."

  "There's a jolly fine view from here," Dick said admiringly as he sat onhis horse gazing across the valley to the far range beyond Gleeson.

  As they rode back down the valley Dora was thinking, "How can Mary helpknowing that Jerry hopes that _she_ will be the one to live in the househe plans building?" Then, with a little shrug, her thought ended with,"Oh well, and oh well, the future will reveal all."

  Down the road Mary was saying, "Jerry, I didn't give that flannel toEtta. I just couldn't. I was afraid she would think that we had come_only_ for charitable reasons. Of course we did in the beginning, but,afterwards, I was _so_ glad something had given me a chance to meet her."

  A solution was offered by the sudden appearance of the twins by theroadside.

  Jerry, slipping the parcel from Mary's saddle horn, tossed it down,calling, "This is for Baby Bess, tell Sister Etta."

  Mary flashed him a bright, relieved smile as they went on down the canyonroad.