Chapter VI: The Woods Road

Judy’s unasked question was soon answered. The owner of the green car proved to be the matron of a nearby orphanage. She had been introduced as Miss Hanley, but Judy was soon calling her Meta just as the Jewell sisters did.

“I took the woods road,” she said, smiling at the girls. “It hasn’t been used for several years but, with the weather so dry, I felt sure I could make it. I had to stop the car a couple of times to remove trees the beavers had gnawed down, but the Beetle finally plowed through.”

“The Beetle?” Judy questioned, still a little bewildered. “That’s what we call our car.”

Miss Hanley laughed. She looked younger and prettier when she was laughing and talking. Holly probably would call her middle-aged. Holly considered anybody over thirty middle-aged. Judy guessed Meta Hanley was about thirty-five. She said she had noticed Judy’s car as it came down the hill.

“It’s black, isn’t it?” she asked. “I guess that makes two Beetles, a black one and a green one. Danny named mine. He has names for everything.”

Danny, she told them, was one of the many orphans she mothered.

“They’ll love these apples,” she told the Jewell sisters. “We have a few apple trees, but the apples aren’t ripe yet. The older children help on the farm,” she explained to Judy and Holly. “We raise nearly everything we eat. You should see the family I have at table.”

“I wish we could see them,” Judy told her. “Are visitors allowed at the orphanage?”

“Of course. The children love visitors. They do react differently to them,” she admitted. “Those who want to be adopted put on their best manners. The others run and hide.”

“That’s strange,” Judy said. “Don’t they all want to be adopted?”

“Meta is so good to them,” Violetta put in, “that quite a few of them hope to stay where they are.”

“They can’t, of course,” Dorcas added. “The orphanage is too crowded. If Violetta and I were younger we might consider adopting one of them ourselves.”

“I wish we could help,” Judy said.

“Perhaps you can. We’ve been helping,” Violetta told her. “We’ve been giving Meta a day off now and then. We go to church now that Dorcas is driving, and the women in our church take turns at the orphanage.”

“It’s awfully kind of them,” Meta Hanley said. “Mrs. Alberts is there today. I must be getting back to relieve her. Would you girls like to ride along with me as far as the beaver dam?” she asked. “It is a lonely road, and it does bring back memories.”

“Cherish them,” Dorcas advised in her abrupt way. “Some day memories will be all you have.”

What did Dorcas mean? The remark hurt, Judy could see that. Meta was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I better be going. Perhaps you girls would rather walk, though it’s quite a hike to the beaver dam.”

“Then we’ll come with you,” Judy decided.

“Where _is_ the road?” Holly asked.

A faint path was pointed out. It crossed the open field, and then came a small break in the trees where it entered the woods. The beaver dam was about a mile farther along.

“I’ll drop you off there, but I’m afraid you’ll have to walk back. Walking is good for the constitution,” the matron declared. “I often take the orphans on hikes. They know the country around here as well as I do. Take Danny, for instance. He’s only ten, but he can tell you more about the beavers than I can. He comes down to the pond and sits for hours just watching them. The late afternoon is the best time to see them.”

Judy glanced at her watch. “It _is_ late afternoon, much later than I thought. I hoped Horace or Honey or even Peter would be here by now. But if anyone stops and asks, you’ll direct them to the woods road, won’t you?” she asked the Jewell sisters.

“Of course we will. Stop in and have a bite of supper with us on your way back,” Dorcas invited them.

“All of us?” asked Judy. “I’m afraid that would be an imposition. We’ll stop next time.”

“We’ll be back,” Holly promised. “Judy has been asked to get together a few things for an exhibit at the library. You may have some old cards or calendars—”

“We have plenty of things. Violetta and I were wondering what to do with them. Would you like old Christmas cards, Judy?”

“I’d love them.”

“Then you shall have them,” both sisters assured her in almost the same breath.

“They’re perfect dears, aren’t they?” Holly asked a little later as she and Judy and the matron of the orphanage were bumping along on the woods road in the green Beetle.

“Well, not perfect. Dorcas is a little too abrupt and Violetta a little too timid. I don’t want to be like them,” declared Meta. “I don’t want to grow old with nothing but memories to cherish. They aren’t enough. Of course,” she added after her car had bumped over a rough place where a tree had fallen, “the Jewell sisters have each other.”

“Don’t you have anyone?” asked Judy with quick sympathy.

“I have the orphans. I’m an orphan myself,” she confided, “so I guess I really feel for them. Once I thought I would marry and have a family of my own. We were going to live in a big house on the other side of the hill. This road takes me right past it.” She sighed. “The windows are boarded up now, and the yard is overgrown with weeds.”

“Do we pass it?” asked Holly.

“No,” she replied. “It’s beyond the beaver dam. This road joins another road that crosses the state line into New York.”

“That isn’t the road we took in our Beetle, is it?” questioned Judy.

“No, it crosses that, too. The orphanage is down in the valley near the crossroads. I hope you do visit us some time.”

“We will,” Judy and Holly promised.

The green car hurtled over more bumps in the little-used road and then stopped. They must be near the beaver dam. To their left, down a slope thick with ferns, Judy could hear water running.

“Well, here we are.” Meta opened the door on her side of the car. “I’ll walk a little way with you,” she offered. “Otherwise you may lose time looking for the pond. It’s near the head of this stream.”

“Does the stream have a name?” Judy asked as she and Holly stepped out on the needle-covered ground. Overhead were dark fir trees that made the woods seem lonely and full of whispers as the wind moaned through their branches.

“George always called it Jewell creek,” Meta Hanley said. “He used to meet me here and we’d talk and plan what we’d do with the house after we were married. Then, on the day he’d promised to give me my ring, he never came. Jewell creek,” she repeated, looking at her ringless finger. “That isn’t its real name, of course, but the water sparkles like jewels, and it does run past the Jewell place. Actually it’s one of the forks of the Genessee. The Cowanesque heads the other side of this hill.”

Judy took Holly’s arm, her camera in her free hand. They were near the beaver dam, so near that Judy could see a mass of piled-up saplings cemented together with mud.

“The pond’s just beyond that obstruction. I’ll leave you here. Wait quietly on the bank. Keep yourselves hidden in the ferns, and don’t make a sound,” Meta directed the two girls, “and you may catch a glimpse of the beavers swimming in their pond.”

But Judy, on sudden impulse, had caught a glimpse of something else and snapped a picture.