Augusta Huiell Seaman - The Curious Affair at Heron Shoals

THE big, dim kitchen was very warm and smelled of hot biscuits and baking gingerbread. The late September afternoon sun slanted through a west window, intensifying the velvety green of the tall cedars outside. Within the kitchen it caused the red-checked table-cloth to glow with a burning brilliance. Little old Mrs. Greene bustled about the room, opening and shutting the oven door and putting a shovel or two of coal in the range. Suddenly the rays of sunlight were gone from the west window. The swift, late September twilight had begun. It left the old kitchen dimmer than ever.

“I wonder where Marty can be?” Mrs. Greene muttered aloud, glancing uneasily at the loud-ticking wooden clock on the mantel. (She often thought aloud when she was quite by herself.) “It’s half-past five now—and the school-bus came down at four. She should’ve been in long ago. I s’pose she’s over to the Station—as usual—though I told her—”

“Just a minute!—Just a minute!—Just a—” squawked a great blue parrot with a brilliant yellow breast, shuffling about on his high T-perch in a warm corner near the range.

“Oh, hush up!” exclaimed Mrs. Greene irritably. “You’ve been squawking all afternoon, Methuselah. You’ve got on my nerves!”

“Don’t get excited!—Don’t get excited!—Don’t get—” shrieked the bird, as his mistress lit a big oil-lamp and placed it on the table near the window. At that moment the kitchen door burst open and a bronze-haired girl of fifteen rushed in. Her great brown eyes were dancing with excitement.

“Nana!” she cried. “What in the world is going on over at the Station?” Mrs. Greene surveyed her granddaughter with a slightly inscrutable look, but merely replied:

“So that’s where you’ve been this past hour or so! I thought as much! When you’ve been away from home overnight, like you was last night to play in some silly basket-ball contest, you know I worry about you till you get home.”

“Well, good gracious, Nana!” replied her granddaughter, Marty Greene. “You knew I was staying with Aunt Martha and couldn’t possibly come to any harm. Aunt Martha and Uncle Dick came to see the game and I went home with them right afterward. And we beat the Draketown team to a frazzle!” she ended proudly. Then added, “But what’s going on over at the Station?”

“Why should anything be going on?” countered Mrs. Greene. “It’s all closed up by the Government and empty now, ain’t it? So why should anything be going on? You’ve been over to your Uncle Cy’s house—I know that. How are they to-day? I haven’t had time to go over.”

“They’re all right,” declared Marty impatiently. “But something queer is going on. I haven’t told you what I saw coming home—after I left the bus where it stops and started to walk home. That’s what’s got us all guessing!”

“Well, my patience—what did you see!” cried Mrs. Greene, herself now roused to some curiosity.

Marty sat down at the table, after throwing aside her beret and sweater. She found some secret satisfaction in keeping her grandmother on tenterhooks, when she could, because Mrs. Greene was of a singularly secretive nature and continually kept Marty in a state of guessing and conjecture. In all other ways Marty found her grandmother loving, devoted, and self-sacrificing to a degree. Therefore she sniffed the air now and remarked,

“Ah-h! I smell fresh gingerbread. Give me a slice, Nana, before supper, and then I’ll tell you all about it. I’m starving!” Mrs. Greene, who could refuse her most beloved granddaughter nothing, sniffed in pretended indignation, but nevertheless drew a pan of hot gingerbread from the oven and cut Marty a generous slice. The girl ecstatically sank her white, even teeth into it. At that moment the parrot, who had, since Marty’s entrance, been quietly resting on his perch, suddenly came to life and squawked,

“Thusy wants a cracker!—Thusy wants a cracker!—Thusy wants—” Marty chuckled and held a bit of gingerbread out to him.

“Don’t you give him that, Marty!” commanded Mrs. Greene. “You know as well as I do, it’ll make him sick.”

“Oh, just a mite, Nana!” begged Marty. “It won’t hurt him just once.” Methuselah was hopping up and down on his perch in great excitement, but Mrs. Greene sternly answered,

“No! He’s been sick before from you feeding him such things—and I have to nurse him through it. I’ll give him a soda-biscuit and stop his noise.” She handed him one from a tin. He took it in his claw, bit into it suspiciously and threw it contemptuously on the floor of his perch. Then he began the uproar afresh.

“Sometimes he makes me so mad I could slap him!” sighed Mrs. Greene. “But, tell me now, what was so queer going on over at the Station?” Before Marty answered, she finished her gingerbread and waited for the parrot to stop his racket, against which it was impossible to talk. Methuselah, perceiving that no one was paying him any attention, and that there was no likelihood of gingerbread, hopped down to the floor of his perch and retrieved his cracker. After that the kitchen grew quiet. When the last crumb of her gingerbread had disappeared, and Mrs. Greene was almost frantic with hidden curiosity, Marty began.

“Funniest thing you ever heard of, Nana. I was walking down the road from where the bus stops at the end of the concrete, and about half-way here there was a great, enormous van, right in the road, and dug in so deep in the sand that it simply couldn’t move. You know how terrible our road is from the end of the concrete one to here. Nothing but two sand ruts, and even an ordinary car has trouble getting through it, most times. Well, that van was stuck—and stuck good and proper! I couldn’t think why it ever tried it, anyway. There were three men on it, and they were trying their hardest to get out. One was at the wheel, and the other two were pushing at the back, and the wheels were digging in deeper every minute!

“I couldn’t get by at all except by going around through the bushes, and when I had, I asked one of the men where the van was going. He said to the Heron Shoals Coast-Guard Station, and I asked whatever for, as it had been closed up by the Government a couple of months ago and all the coast-guards had gone. He said he didn’t know about that, but those were their orders and how far away was it? I told him it was about half a mile further on—same kind of road—and advised them to get some old boards or logs to put under the front tires and that would help them get out of the mess they were in. I told them they could probably find plenty over on the beach just across the dunes and they started out to hunt for some. But before they left, I asked them what they were bringing down to the Station in that big van, and, Nana, what do you think they said?—Two grand pianos!—Did you ever hear of such an absurd thing?”

Mrs. Greene only grunted in reply, but her eyes were veiled in an inscrutable look that was not lost on Marty, who went on:

“They said they‘d had orders from the big department store up the coast, where they came from, to bring them down and set them up in the Station. That former Captain Greene—that’s Uncle Cy—who lived close by, had been informed about it and would see that they were received. That’s all they knew about it, and they left me, while they walked over the dunes to get some boards.

“I didn’t waste a minute after that, but hustled down to Uncle Cy’s to hear all about it. Only Gwen was there—and Aunt Emmeline, of course—and they said Uncle Cy was over at the Station doing something or other—they didn’t know what. Gwen had tried to go out and scout around to find out—she’s the most curious little imp! But Uncle Cy had shooed her back into the house and told her to stay there. So they didn’t know anything about what I’d seen, but you’d better believe they were just about wild when I told them! Gwen was all for flying up the road to see the van, but Aunt Emmeline said she simply couldn’t go as she had to peel the potatoes for supper. Aunt Emmeline asked all sorts of questions, too, but I just couldn’t make her understand—she’s so deaf!