"We've found one of 'em," the younger lad announced. "It's in a dandee
room! I bet you Jane will choose it for hers."
Then Julie chimed in with: "Jane, please come and see it."
The older girl, who was feeling terribly sorry for herself, rose
languidly and went with the small sister. The boys followed.
"Why, what a nice room this is!" Dan, truly pleased, remarked. Then
anxiously, and in his voice there was a note that was almost imploring,
he asked: "Jane, dear, don't you think you can be comfortable in here?"
The girl's heart was touched by the tone more than the words, and she
turned away that she might not show how near, how very near, she had been
to crying out her unhappiness. It was hardship to her to be in a log
cabin where there were none of the luxuries and conveniences to which she
had been used. She smiled at her brother, but he saw her lips tremble. He
was tempted to tell her to go back to civilization, since it was all
going to be so hard for her, but something prompted him to wait one week.
Inwardly he resolved: "If Jane is not happy here by one week from today,
I am going to insist that she return to Newport and to the friend Merry
for whom she cares so much."
But Jane, too, had been making a resolve, and so when she spoke her voice
sounded more cheerful.
"It is a nice room," she said. "That wide window has a wonderful view of
the mountains and the valley." It was hard to keep from adding, "If
anyone cares for such a view, which I do not."
But instead she looked up at the rafters. "What are those great bundles
that are hanging up there?" she inquired.
Dan laughed. "Why, those bundles, Dad said, contain the mattress and
bedding which he and mother stored away. They are wrapped in canvas and
so he expected that we would find them in good condition."
"But how are we to get them?" Julie wanted to know.
Gerald's quick eyes found the answer to that.
"Look-it!" he cried, pointing. "There's a ladder nailed right against the
back wall. I'll skin up that in two jiffs. Give me your knife, Dan. I'll
cut the ropes."
The boy was soon sliding along a rafter. "Out of the way down below
there!" he shouted the warning. "Here they come!"
There was a soft thud, followed by another as the two great bundles fell
to the floor. An excellent mattress was in one of them and clean warm
blankets in the other.
"Now, I'll get the sheets from the packing trunk and a pillow case, and
in less than no time at all we'll have a fine bed in our lady's chamber."
Dan led Jane to another large comfortable though rustic chair as he said:
"The rest of us are going to pretend that you are a princess today and we
are going to wait upon you. By tomorrow, when you have had a long sleep,
perhaps you will want to be a mountain girl."
Again there was the yearning note in his voice. How he hoped that Jane
would want to stay, but a week would tell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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