Chapter XXV: A Continuous Week End

ETHEL was reading a letter, Ellery and Cherry having brought the
mail up from the post-office. Ellery had now been at Clover
Lodge a fortnight and during that time we had fished (for bull
heads this time), had gone on long tramps, had read to each
other, and had played many a game of tennis, and while we could
not say that Ellery was in a fair way to propose to Cherry, he
was hard hit.

The glamour of the place had appealed to him and neither he nor
Cherry had any intention of going back until we went in
September.

Minerva had shown signs of homesickness, and one day we had let
her and James go to Springfield to spend the day, and after her
return she had said,

“City ain’t what it was,” which we had taken to be a most
encouraging sign. Nearly three months out of New York and still
happy. Who would have predicted it?

Ethel dropped the letter in her lap and said, “What are we going
to do, Philip? This letter is from Madge Warden, and she and Tom
are going to a place in Vermont to try it on the recommendation
of a friend, and Madge asks if it would be convenient to stop
off on the way up instead of on the way back. She says that if
we could find a shack for them here, Tom wouldn’t care to go to
Vermont.”

“Well, of course, have ’em come.”

“Yes, but she wants to come this Friday for over Sunday, and
we’ve invited the Benedicts for over Sunday.”

I thought a minute.

“It would be great to have them all here, because they are so
congenial, but unless you and I gave up our room and slept in
hammocks—”

“Why couldn’t you and Ellery sleep in hammocks and then I could
let Madge share my room with me and give the Benedicts the spare
room?”

“And what would become of Tom?”

“Oh, that’s so,” said Ethel. “I’m afraid we can’t do it.”

“They’s a sofa in the woodshed,” said Minerva, who had been
dusting the sitting room and always interested in household
problems, had stopped at the open window outside of which we
were sitting.

“So there is. Good for you, Minerva,” said I, in spite of a
warning look from Ethel, who says that at times I am too
colloquial with Minerva.

Ethel and I went around to the woodshed to look at it. It was
across two rafters, but with help from James, who was busy in
the vicinity, I got it down.

“So I’m to write and tell them all to come? Isn’t this going to
be a good deal of a drain on your pocketbook, Philip?”

“We can’t do worse than go home broke and then I’ll begin
again.”

“‘Easy come, easy go,’” quoted Ethel, with a half sigh.

“Don’t you want ’em to come? Will it be too hard on you?”

“No, no, we’ll make them understand it’s a picnic, but you will
have to hustle in the fall.”

“Well, hustling never killed anybody, and we’ll have a summer to
remember. It’s a lucky thing that James is so handy. He can help
in the kitchen.”

And so the sofa was brought into the house and dusted, and the
Wardens were implored to come up and told to take the same train
that the Benedicts were coming on, and the haying season being
practically over, we were able to engage Bert’s double team and
his three-seated wagon, and Friday afternoon we all went down to
meet them.

No, not all. We left Minerva behind. She and James had to
prepare a dinner for eight.

There was no accident on the way down, and we arrived at the
station several minutes before the arrival of the train.

At last we heard the whistle below the bridge and then it
steamed in and we took up our station around the parlour car and
prepared to greet our guests.

But the only one to get off was a well-setup young fellow in
irreproachable apparel, and he did not belong to _us_.

“Why, of course, they never would have taken a parlour car. The
Benedicts might, but the Wardens wouldn’t,” said Ethel, and we
looked down the platform to see whether they had alighted. But
they had not. Our guests had not come.

“Isn’t it too provoking,” said Cherry, sympathetically to Ethel.

“It really is,” said Ethel. “That dinner will be stone cold if
we wait for the next train.”

“When is the next train?” asked Ellery.

“In two hours,” I replied. “They won’t come to-night, though.
Something happened to Tom at the last minute and he asked the
rest to wait and they waited. We’ll get a telegram saying so.
Everybody obeys his will always.”

The irreproachable stranger had been walking around as if he was
looking for somebody. He now approached me with uplifted hat.

“Would you be so good as to tell me whether Mr. Vernon lives
near here?”

“I am Mr. Vernon.”

He coloured, stammered and said,

“I am Talcott Hepburn, and I am afraid that I’ve been led into
an unpardonably rude act.”

“Are you the son of Talcott Hepburn, the art collector?” said I.

“Yes,—oh, you know him then,” said he, relieved. “My friend Tom
Warden took the liberty of bringing me along with him—only”—here
he paused. “He has missed the train.”

I understood in a minute. Tom Warden is an artist, and he is the
soul of hospitality. He knows Ethel and me as well as he knows
his father and mother, and it never had occurred to his simple
but executive soul that there was anything unusual in his asking
a friend to come along without letting us know.

Of course, if we could accommodate eight we could accommodate
nine. But now it looked as if we would have but five.

I presented Mr. Hepburn to the rest of the “family.” He was
about twenty-four or five, good looking, smooth shaven, of
course, with a sober expression that might have hidden a
humorous temperament, but did not. It evidently did not strike
him that there was anything _whimsical_ in his having arrived
ahead of the man who had invited him to be the guest of a
stranger. He did see, however, that the act itself was one that
might be misconstrued, and he began to explain the case to
Ethel, who said at once,

“Why, Mr. Hepburn, Tom’s friends are our friends, and the more
the merrier. I’m only sorry they missed the train.”

“He was busy with a picture that some one had bought and which
he wasn’t satisfied with, and I dare say he missed it on that
account. He was coming with a Mr. and Mrs. Benedict, and I was
to meet him on the train. I was a little late myself, and just
had time to step aboard, and they missed it.”

While he was talking I was looking at the telegraph office
intending to step over there—it lay just across the track—to
enquire whether there was a telegram for me. A messenger boy
came out, mounted a wheel, and started across the track, bound
for the road that leads up to Clover Lodge.

I ran and intercepted him.

“Have you a telegram for Philip Vernon?” said I.

“Yes, sir,” said he, dismounting and pulling the telegram out of
his side pocket. “I was just go’n’ up to your place.”

“Saved me a dollar, didn’t it?” said I.

“Yes, sir, and lost me ten cents.”

“Here’s the ten cents,” said I, as I signed for the telegram.

“It’s collect, sir,” said he; “forty-five cents.” I paid him and
I opened the envelope.

“All missed confounded train. Be good to Hepburn if he caught
it. Will come on next train. Wait for us. Tom.”

A most characteristic telegram in every way. It’s superfluity of
expression, its thought of Hepburn and its command to wait, were
all as like Tom Warden as they could be.

“There’s nothing to do _but_ wait,” said I when I had shown the
telegram to the others.

“The dinner will be spoiled,” said Ethel ruefully.

“Let me walk up and tell Minerva to wait,” said Cherry, and
Ellery enthusiastically seconded her motion.

“Why, it seems too bad,” began Ethel.

“Not at all. We’re just going to take a walk,” said Cherry, and
they started, well pleased at the turn of affairs.

I knew young Hepburn to be a millionaire in his own right and I
knew that Ethel would worry at having him see the make shifts to
which we resorted, but I was rather amused at the prospect
myself. We had already shown the simple life to two New Yorkers
and now we would show it to some more.

We asked him if he would not like to ride around Egerton and see
a typical Massachusetts town and he said he would.

“Do you know,” said he to Ethel, “I held back about coming up in
such a very unconventional way, but you know how compelling Tom
is, and he said he would explain it all before I was even
presented, and so I came. And then to have him miss the train.
It was awkward.”

“Simply one on Tom, Mr. Hepburn,” said I. “Our house is one of
those affairs that can be stretched to accommodate any number of
people if they themselves are accommodating.”

“Well, you know,” said Mr. Hepburn, “I might find a room at the
hotel.” Perhaps he had thought he was not accommodating.

I knew that Ethel was wishing that he _would_ find a room at a
hotel, but there was no hotel. She was beginning to think how
_much_ less a sofa would be than the bed he was accustomed to
sleep in when he was at home. But when you are picnicking the
only thing to do is to have a good time and forget that there is
such a proverb as “Other times, other manners.”

Our ride was pleasant and it did not seem anything like two
hours when we heard the whistle of the train at South Egerton,
and drove rapidly to the station.

Hepburn offered to stay in the carriage and mind the horses, and
I accepted his offer, although I knew that Ethel thought it
making a very free use of a millionaire. Not that Ethel is
snobbish, but she has never used millionaires much.

The train came in and this time I took up my place by the
ordinary cars, and soon saw the quartette moving along the
aisle.

Tom looked out of the window and saw Hepburn sitting erect in
the front seat of the picnic wagon holding the unmistakably farm
horses, and he exploded into laughter that we outside plainly
heard.

“Hello,” said he as soon as he emerged. “Broken him in already.
Well, here we are. Better late than never. You know the
Benedicts?”

“What a question,” said Ethel, kissing in turn Madge and Mrs.
Benedict.

“But we didn’t know Mr. Hepburn,” said she saucily.

“Oh, well, he’s harmless and I’ll bet he came out of it all
right. Hello, Crœsus. Stole a march on us, eh?”

“Crœsus” raised his derby, but good driver that he was, kept his
eyes on the horses.

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