Nell Speed - The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

“How I hate being poor!” exclaimed Helen Carter, looking ruefully at her darned glove.

“Me, too!” echoed the younger sister, Lucy.

“Shh! Father will hear you,” admonished Douglas.

“Nobody can hear above the rattle of this horrid old day coach,” declared Helen. “There is something about the odor of a common coach that has spent its life hauling commuters from home to work – from work to home, that sickens me,” and Helen’s sensitive nostrils quivered in disgust.

“I’m sorry, dear; I know it is all so hard on you,” said Douglas.

“Not a bit harder on me than it is on you.”

“Not a bit!” from Lucy.

“I think it must be,” smiled Douglas. “I have an idea Nature did not intend me to ride in Pullmans. I am really just as comfortable in a day coach and I think they are lots more airy and better ventilated. What do you think about it, Nan?”

“Oh, I like ’em – such interesting types,” drawled Nan. “You get to your destination sooner, too, as the Pullman is always hitched onto the back end of the train.”

“I can’t see anything very interesting in commuters, I must say,” laughed Helen, “but Nan was always easy to please.”

“Yes, Nan is our philosopher,” said Douglas.

“Well, since Lucy and I are to join the army of commuters it would be foolish of us not to find them interesting. Don’t you remember Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby? If we find them interesting maybe they will return the compliment.”

“Yes, and I remember Mrs. Bedonebyasyoudid, too,” declared Douglas, exchanging a sly glance with Helen.

The two older sisters could not help seeing that a nice looking boy sitting across the aisle had already found something to interest him in the dreamy brown eyes of one courageous commuter to be. His own grey eyes were twinkling with merriment. Evidently the rattle of the despised coach had not drowned the conversation so far as he was concerned. He had made some pretense of studying, but Latin Comp. was deadly dull in comparison with the chatter of the Carter girls.

The Carters were en route to their winter quarters, chosen after much discussion and misgivings as the best place they could find for all concerned. The doctor had pronounced the ultimatum: Mr. Carter must be in the country for another year at least and he must have no business worries. He must live out-of-doors as much as possible and no matter how perplexing the problems that in the natural course of events would arise in a household, they were not to be brought to the master of that household. As Mrs. Carter had determined many weeks before to play the rôle of a lily of the field, announcing herself as a semi-invalid, who was to be loved and cherished and waited on but not to be worried, it meant that Douglas, as oldest child, must be mother and father as well. Hers was the thankless task of telling her sisters what they must and must not do, and curbing the extravagance that would break out now and then in spots. Small wonder that it was the case, as, up to a few months before this, lavish expenditure had been the rule in the Carter family rather than the exception.

They had spent a wonderful summer running a week-end boarding camp on the side of a mountain in Albemarle County. It had been a remarkable thing for these young girls to have undertaken and accomplished, all untrained as they were. But when their father’s nervous breakdown came and the realization that there was no more money in the family till, and none likely to be there unless they could earn it, right manfully they put their young shoulders to the wheel and with a long push and a strong push and a push all together they got their wagon, if not hitched to a star, at least moving along the highroad of life and making some progress.

Dr. George Wright, the nerve specialist who had undertaken Mr. Carter’s cure, had been invaluable in their search for the proper place in which to spend the winter, this winter that was to put the keystone in their father’s recovery. Such a place was not easy to find, as it must be near enough to Richmond for Nan and Lucy to go to school. That was one time when Douglas put her foot down most emphatically. The two younger girls were quite willing to follow in their sister Helen’s footsteps and “quiturate,” but Douglas knew that they must be held to their tasks. She bitterly regretted her own inability to continue her education, as college had been her dream, and she also deplored the fact that Helen was not able to spend the one more year at school necessary for her graduation. As for Helen, not having to go to school was the one bright spot for her in the whole sordid business, at least she had boldly declared such was the case.

The winter was to be a busy one for Helen, as the home work was to fall to her share. Douglas, by a great piece of good luck, had obtained a place as teacher in a district school not far from the little farm that had been selected as the abiding place for the Carter family during that winter of 1916 and ’17. The teacher who had been employed had been called away by private affairs, and Douglas had fallen heir to the position.

The train rocked and swayed and bumped on the illy-laid road-bed as our girls sped on to their destination. Mrs. Carter in a seat across the aisle had placed her tired head on her husband’s shoulder. The poor little lady felt in her heart of hearts that all of this going to out-of-the-way country places to spend winter months was really absurd, but then it was absurd to be poor anyhow, something she had not bargained for in her scheme of existence. She had said not a word, however, but had let Douglas and that stern Dr. Wright manage everything. She felt about as capable of changing the plans of her family as her youngest child, Bobby, might.

Bobby, who had spent the time on the train most advantageously, having made friends with the brakeman and conductor, was now sitting in an alert attitude, as his new friends had informed him that there were only five minutes more before they would reach Grantly, their destination. Going to the country was just what he wanted and he was preparing to have a glorious time with no restrictions as to clean face and hands. To be sure, he had heard that he was to go to school, but since Douglas was to be the teacher this fact was not disturbing him much.

The summer in the mountains had done much to develop this darling of the Carters. He no longer looked so much like an angel as when we were first introduced to the family. His curls were close cropped now and he was losing teeth faster than he was gaining them. If there could be such a thing as a snaggled tooth angel perhaps that celestial being would resemble Bobby Carter; but I am sure if that angel could have thought up as much mischief in a week as Bobby could execute in an hour, he would have met the fate of Lucifer and been hurled from Heaven. It may be, though, that if Lucifer had possessed such eyes as this little boy he would have been forgiven and might still be in his happy home. It was an impossibility to harbor wrath against Bobby if once you looked in his eyes. They were like brown forest pools. His sister Nan had the same eyes and the same long curling lashes. The shape and color of their eyes were inherited from their beautiful little mother, but the soulful expression that the children possessed was something that came from within and is not controlled by laws of heredity. Mrs. Carter’s eyes if they reminded one of forest pools were certainly very shallow pools.

“At last!” as the brakeman called out their station, came with a sigh of relief from the whole family.

The station consisted of a platform and a little three-sided shed designed to shield the traveler from the weather, if the weather did not happen to arrive on the unprotected fourth side.