Title: Surprise house
Author: Brown, Abbie Farwell
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Surprise house" ***


By Abbie Farwell Brown


  SURPRISE HOUSE. Illustrated.

  KISINGTON TOWN. Illustrated.

  SONGS OF SIXPENCE. Illustrated.

  THEIR CITY CHRISTMAS. Illustrated.

  THE CHRISTMAS ANGEL. Illustrated.

  JOHN OF THE WOODS. Illustrated.

  FRESH POSIES. Illustrated.

  FRIENDS AND COUSINS. Illustrated.

  BROTHERS AND SISTERS. Illustrated.

  THE STAR JEWELS AND OTHER WONDERS. Illustrated.

  THE FLOWER PRINCESS. Illustrated.

  THE CURIOUS BOOK OF BIRDS. Illustrated.

  A POCKETFUL OF POSIES. Illustrated.

  IN THE DAYS OF GIANTS. Illustrated.

  THE BOOK OF SAINTS AND FRIENDLY BEASTS. Illustrated.

  THE LONESOMEST DOLL. Illustrated.


  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  BOSTON AND NEW YORK



Surprise House



[Illustration: “I DIDN’T!” PROTESTED JOHN. “IT WAS--SOMETHING, I DON’T
KNOW WHAT--THAT SPOKE” (_Page 19_)]



  SURPRISE
  HOUSE

  BY

  Abbie Farwell Brown

  _With Illustrations_

  [Illustration]

  BOSTON AND NEW YORK
  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
  The Riverside Press Cambridge
  1917



  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE YOUNG CHURCHMAN COMPANY
  COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY ABBIE FARWELL BROWN
  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  _Published October 1917_



  --_And I as rich in having such a jewel
  As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,
  The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold._



Contents


     I. THE HOUSE                   1

    II. THE LIBRARY                10

   III. A VISITOR                  17

    IV. THE BOOKS                  25

     V. INSTRUCTIONS               34

    VI. THE LANTERN                43

   VII. CALIBAN                    50

  VIII. THE BUST                   58

    IX. THE ATTIC                  72

     X. THE PORTRAIT POINTS        84

    XI. GEMS FROM SHAKESPEARE      91

   XII. THE PARTY                  99

  NOTE:--Thanks are due to the publishers of _The Young Churchman_ for
  courteous permission to reprint chapters of this book which appeared
  as a serial in that publication under the title of “Aunt Nan’s
  Legacy.”



Illustrations


  “I DIDN’T!” PROTESTED JOHN. “IT WAS--SOMETHING,
    I DON’T KNOW WHAT--THAT SPOKE”                    _Frontispiece_

  “OH, KATY, WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE AUNT NAN
    MEANT THIS TIME?”                                             62

  THINGS THAT HAD BEEN WAITING THROUGH GENERATIONS
    OF AUNT NAN’S ANCESTORS FOR SOME ONE TO MAKE
    THEM USEFUL                                                   80

  “OH, THEY ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL,” SAID MARY                        96

  _From drawings by Helen Mason Grose._



SURPRISE HOUSE



CHAPTER I

THE HOUSE


On the main street of Crowfield stood a little old red house, with a
gabled roof, a pillared porch, and a quaint garden. For many weeks it
had been quite empty, the shutters closed and the doors locked; ever
since the death of Miss Nan Corliss, the old lady who had lived there
for years and years.

It began to have the lonesome look which a house has when the heart has
gone out of it and nobody puts a new heart in. The garden was growing
sad and careless. The flowers drooped and pouted, and leaned peevishly
against one another. Only the weeds seemed glad,--as undisturbed weeds
do,--and made the most of their holiday to grow tall and impertinent
and to crowd their more sensitive neighbors out of their very beds.

But one September day something happened to the old house. A lady and
gentleman, a big girl and a little boy, came walking over the slate
stones between the rows of sulky flowers. The gentleman, who was tall
and thin and pale, opened the front door with a key bearing a huge tag,
and cried:--

“Good-day, Crowfield! Welcome your new friends to their new home. We
greet you kindly, old house. Be good to us!”

“What a dear house!” said the lady, as they entered the front hall. “I
know I am going to like it. This paneled woodwork is beautiful.”

“Open the windows, John, so that we can see what we are about,” said
Dr. Corliss.

John shoved up the dusty windows and pushed out the queer little wooden
shutters, and a flood of September sunshine poured into the old house,
chasing away the shadows. It was just as if the house took a long
breath and woke up from its nap.

“What a funny place to live in!” cried Mary. “It’s like a museum.”

“Whew!” whistled John. “I bet we’ll have fun here.”

The hallway in which they stood did, indeed, seem rather like the
entrance to a museum, as Mary Corliss said. On the white paneled walls
which Mrs. Corliss admired were hanging all sorts of queer things:
huge shells, and ships in glass cases, stuffed fishes, weapons, and
china-ware. On a shelf between the windows stood a row of china cats,
blue, red, green, and yellow, grinning mischievously at the family
who confronted them. On the floor were rugs of bright colors, and odd
chairs and tables sprawled about like quadrupeds ready to run.

“Gee!” whispered John Corliss, “don’t they look as if they were just
ready to bark and mew and wow at us? Do you suppose it’s welcome or
unwelcome, Daddy?”

“Oh, welcome, of course!” said Dr. Corliss. “I dare say they remember
me, at least, though it’s thirty years since I was in this house.
Thirty years! Just think of it!”

They were in the parlor now, which had been Miss Corliss’s “best room.”
And this was even queerer than the hallway had been. It was crowded
with all sorts of collections in cabinets, trophies on the walls,
pictures, and ornaments.

Dr. Corliss looked around with a chuckle. “Hello!” he cried. “Here are
a lot of the old relics I remember so well seeing when I was a boy,
visiting Aunt Nan in the summer-time. Yes, there’s the old matchlock
over the door; and here’s the fire-bucket, and the picture of George
Washington’s family. I expect Aunt Nan didn’t change anything here in
all the thirty years since she let any of her relatives come to see
her. Yes, there’s the wax fruit in the glass jar--just as toothsome as
ever! There’s the shell picture she made when she was a girl. My! How
well I remember everything!”

They moved from room to room of the old house, flinging open the blinds
and letting fresh air and sunshine in upon the strange furniture and
decorations. Mrs. Corliss looked about with increasing bewilderment.
How was she ever to make this strange place look like their home? Aunt
Nan and her queer ways seemed stamped upon everything.

“It’s a funny collection of things, Owen!” she laughed to her husband.
“All this furniture is mine, I suppose, according to Aunt Nan’s will.
But I am glad we have some things of our own to bring and make it seem
more like a truly home. Otherwise I should feel, as Mary says, as if we
were living in a kind of museum.”

“We can change it as much as we like, by and by,” her husband reassured
her.

“What a funny old lady Great-Aunt Nan must have been, Daddy!” said
John, who had been examining a hooked rug representing a blue cat
chasing a green mouse. “Did she make this, do you think?”

“Oh, yes,” said Dr. Corliss. “I remember seeing her working at it. She
hooked all these rugs. It was one of her favorite amusements. She was
strange enough, I believe. I can remember some of the weird things she
used to do when I was a lad. She used to put on a man’s coat and hat
and shovel coal or snow like any laborer. She was always playing tricks
on somebody, or making up a game about what she happened to be doing.
We must expect surprises and mysteries about the house as we come to
live here. It wouldn’t be Aunt Nan’s house without them.--Hello!”

John had sat down on a little three-legged stool in the corner; and
suddenly he went _bump!_ on the floor. The legs of the stool had spread
as if of their own accord and let him down.

“That was one of Aunt Nan’s jokes, I remember!” laughed Dr. Corliss.
“Oh, yes! I got caught myself once in the same way when I was a boy.”

“Tell about it, Father,” said Mary.

“Well; I was about your age, John,--about ten; and I was terribly
bashful. One day when I was visiting Aunt Nan the minister came to
call. And though I tried to escape out of the back door, Aunt Nan spied
me and made me come in to shake hands. As soon as I could I sidled away
into a corner, hoping he would forget about me.

“This innocent little stool stood there by the stuffed bird cabinet,
just as it does now, and I sat down on it very quietly. Then _bump!_
I went on to the floor, just as John did. Only I was not so lucky. I
lost my balance and kicked my heels up almost in the minister’s face.
I can tell you I was mortified! And Aunt Nan laughed. But the minister
was very nice about it, I will say. I remember he only smiled kindly
and said, ‘A little weak in the legs,--eh, John? I’m glad my stool in
church isn’t like that, Miss Corliss. I’d never trust you to provide me
with furniture,--eh, what?’”

“I don’t think that was a bit funny joke,” spluttered John, who had got
to his feet looking very red.

“Neither do I,” said his mother. “I hate practical jokes. I hope we
shan’t meet any more of this sort.”

“You never can tell!” Dr. Corliss chuckled reminiscently.

“What a horrid mirror!” exclaimed Mary, peering into the glass of a
fine gilt frame. “See! It makes me look as broad as I am long, and ugly
as a hippopotamus. The idea of putting this in the parlor!”

“Probably she meant that to keep her guests from growing conceited,”
suggested Dr. Corliss with a grin. “But we shall not need to have it
here if we don’t like it. There’s plenty of room in the attic, if I
remember rightly.”

“Yes, we shall have to change a great many things,” said Mrs. Corliss,
who had been moving about the room all by herself. “What do you suppose
is in that pretty carved box on the mantel?”

“It’s yours, Mother. Why don’t you open it?” said John eagerly.

Mrs. Corliss lifted the cover and started back with a scream. For out
sprang what looked like a real snake, straight into her face.

“Oh! Is it alive?” cried Mary, shuddering.

But John had picked up the Japanese paper snake and was dangling it
merrily to reassure his mother. “I’ve seen those before,” he grinned.
“The boys had them at school once.”

“Come, come!” frowned Dr. Corliss. “That was really too bad of Aunt
Nan. She knew that almost everybody hates snakes, though she didn’t
mind them herself. I’ve often seen her put a live one in her pocket
and bring it home to look at.”

“Ugh!” shuddered Mrs. Corliss. “I hope they don’t linger about
anywhere. I see I shall have to clean the whole house thoroughly from
top to bottom. And if I find any more of these jokes--!” Mrs. Corliss
nodded her head vigorously, implying bad luck to any snakes that might
be playing hide-and-seek in house or garden.

Secretly John thought all this was great fun, and he dashed ahead of
the rest of the family on their tour of the house, hoping to find still
other proofs of Aunt Nan’s special kind of humor. But to the relief of
Mary and her mother the rest of their first exploring expedition was
uneventful.

They visited dining-room and kitchen and pantry, and the room that was
to be Dr. Corliss’s study. Then they climbed the stairs to the bedroom
floor, where there were three pretty little chambers. They took a peep
into the attic; but even there, in the crowded shadows and cobwebs,
nothing mysterious happened. It was a nice old house where the family
felt that they were going to be very happy and contented.

Down the stairs they came once more, to the door of the ell which they
had not yet visited. It was a brown wooden door with a glass knob.

“Well, here is your domain, Mary!” said Dr. Corliss, pausing and
pointing to the door with a smile. “This is your library, my daughter.
Have you the key ready?”

Yes, indeed, Mary had the key ready; a great key tagged carefully,--as
all the other keys of Aunt Nan’s property had been,--this one bearing
the legend: “LIBRARY. Property of Mary Corliss.”

“Here is the key, Father,” said Mary, stepping up proudly. “Let me
put it in myself. Oh, I hope there are no horrid jokes in here!” And
she hesitated a moment before fitting the key in the lock of her
library--her very own library!



CHAPTER II

THE LIBRARY


According to the will left by that eccentric old lady, Miss Nan
Corliss, her nephew, Dr. Corliss,--whom she had not seen for thirty
years,--was to receive the old house at Crowfield. His wife inherited
all the furniture of the old house, except what was in the library.
John Corliss, the only grandnephew, was to have two thousand dollars to
send him to college when he should be old enough to go. And to Mary,
the unknown grandniece whom she had never seen, Aunt Nan had declared
should belong “my library room at Crowfield, with everything therein
remaining.”

Mary was now going to see what her library was like, and what therein
remained. She drew a long breath, turned the key, pushed open the
door, and peered cautiously into the room, half expecting something to
jump out at her. But nothing of the sort happened. John pushed her in
impatiently, and they all followed, eager, as John said, to see “what
sister had drawn.” Dr. Corliss himself had never been inside this room,
Aunt Nan’s most sacred corner.

What they saw was a plain, square room, with shelves from floor to
ceiling packed tightly with rows of solemn-looking books. In one corner
stood a tall clock, over the top of which perched a stuffed crow, black
and stern. In the center of the room was a table-desk, with papers
scattered about, just as Aunt Nan had left it weeks before. On the
mantel above the fireplace was a bust of Shakespeare and some smaller
ornaments, with an old tin lantern. Above the Shakespeare hung a
portrait of a lady with gray curls, in an old-fashioned dress, holding
a book in her hand. The other hand was laid upon her breast with the
forefinger extended as if pointing.

“Hello!” said Dr. Corliss when he spied the portrait, “this is Aunt Nan
herself as she looked when I last saw her; and a very good likeness it
is.”

“She looks like a witch!” said John. “See what funny eyes she has!”

“Sh! John! You mustn’t talk like that about your great-aunt,” corrected
his mother. “She has been very good to us all. You must at least be
respectful.”

“She was eccentric, certainly,” said Dr. Corliss. “But she meant to
be kind, I am sure. I never knew why she refused to see any of her
family, all of a sudden--some whim, I suppose. She came to be a sort of
hermitess after a while. She loved her books more than anything in the
world. It meant a great deal that she wanted you to have them, Mary.”

“I wish she had left _me_ two thousand dollars!” said Mary, pouting.
“These old books don’t look very interesting. I want to go to college
more than John does. But I don’t suppose I ever can, now.”

“Books are rather useful, whether one goes to college or not,” her
father reminded her. “She needn’t have left you anything, Mary. She
never even saw you--or John either, for that matter. She hadn’t seen me
since I was married. I take it very kindly of her to have remembered us
so generously. I thought her pet hospital would receive everything.”

“What do you suppose became of her jewelry, Owen?” asked Mrs. Corliss
in an undertone. “I thought she might leave that to Mary, the only girl
in the family. But there was no mention of it in her will.”

“She must have sold it for the benefit of her hospital. She was very
generous to that charity,” said Dr. Corliss.

Mary and John had been poking about the library to see if they
could find anything “queer.” But it all seemed disappointingly
matter-of-fact. They stopped in front of the tall clock which had not
been wound up for weeks.

“We’ll have to start the clock, Father,” said Mary. “The old crow looks
as if he expected us to.”

“The key is probably inside the clock case,” said Dr. Corliss, opening
the door.

Sure enough, there was the key hanging on a peg. And tied to it was
the usual tag. But instead of saying “Clock Key,” as one would have
expected, this tag bore these mysterious words in the handwriting which
Mary knew was Aunt Nan’s: “_Look under the raven’s wing._”

“Now, what in the world does that mean?” asked Mary, staring about the
room. “What did she mean by ‘the raven,’ do you suppose?”

“I guess she means the old crow up there,” cried John, pointing at the
stuffed bird over the clock.

“Do you suppose she meant that, Father?” asked Mary again, looking
rather ruefully at the ominous crow.

“Maybe she meant that,” said her father, sitting down in a library
chair to await what would happen. “But I believe this is another of
Aunt Nan’s little jokes. It sounds so to me.”

“Pooh! It’s just an old April Fool, I bet!” jeered John.

Mary still stared at what Aunt Nan called “the raven,” and wondered.
“Under which wing am I to look?” she thought. Finally she gathered
courage to reach up her hand toward the right wing, very cautiously.
She half expected that the creature might come alive and nip her. But
nothing happened. There was nothing under the right wing but moth-eaten
feathers, some of which came off in Mary’s fingers.

“I’ll try the other wing,” said Mary to herself. She poked her fingers
under the old bird’s left wing. Yes! There was something there.
Something dangled by a hidden string from the wing-bone of Aunt Nan’s
raven. Mary pulled, and presently something came away. In her hand she
held a little gold watch and chain. On the case was engraved the letter
_C_, which was of course as truly Mary’s initial as it had been Aunt
Nan Corliss’s.

“Why, it is Aunt Nan’s watch, sure enough!” said Dr. Corliss, beaming.
“Well, Mary! I declare, that is something worth while. You needed a
watch, my dear. But I don’t know when I could ever have bought a gold
one for you. This is a beauty.”

“It’s a bird of a watch!” piped John, wagging his head at the crow.

“I like it better than wriggly snakes,” said Mrs. Corliss, smiling.

“Oh, how good Aunt Nan was to leave it here for me!” said Mary. “I am
beginning to like Aunt Nan, in spite of her queerness.”

“I like this kind of joke she plays on you,” said John enviously. “I
wish she’d play one like that on me, too. I say, Mary, do you suppose
there are any more secrets hidden in your old library? Let’s look now.”

“I wonder!” said Mary, looking curiously about the dingy room. “But I
don’t want to look any further now. I am satisfied. Oh, Mumsie! Just
look!” Mary put the chain of the new watch around her neck, tucked the
little chronometer into her belt, and trotted away to see the effect in
the crooked old mirror of the parlor.

John wanted to take down the crow and examine him further.

“Come along, John,” said his father, pushing the little brother toward
the door. “This is Mary’s room, you know. We aren’t ever to poke
around here without her leave, mind you.”

“No,” said John reluctantly. “But I do wish--!” And he cast a longing
glance back over his shoulder as his father shut the door on Mary’s
mysterious library.



CHAPTER III

A VISITOR


The very next day Dr. Corliss shut himself up in his new study while
Mrs. Corliss and Mary set to work to make the old house as fresh as
new. They brushed up the dust and cobwebs and scrubbed and polished
everything until it shone. They dragged many ugly old things off into
the attic, and pushed others back into the corners until there should
be time to decide what had best be done with them. Meanwhile, John
was helping to tidy up the little garden, snipping off dead leaves,
cheering up the flowers, and punishing the greedy weeds.

The whistles of Crowfield factories shrieked noon before they all
stopped to take breath. Then Mrs. Corliss gasped and said:--

“Oh, Mary! I forgot all about luncheon! What are we going to feed your
poor father with, I wonder, to say nothing of our hungry selves?”

Just at this moment John came running into the house with a very dirty
face. “There’s some one coming down the street,” he called upstairs;
“I think she’s coming in here.” He peeped out of the parlor window
discreetly. “Yes, she’s opening the gate now.”

“Let Mary open the door when she rings,” warned his mother. “It will be
the first time our doorbell rings for a visitor--quite an event, Mary!
I am sure John’s face is dirty.”

“I’m not very tidy myself,” said Mary, taking off her apron and the
dusting-cap which covered her curls, and rolling down her sleeves.

The latch of the little garden gate clicked while they were speaking,
and looking out of the upstairs hall window Mary saw a girl of about
her own age, thirteen or fourteen, coming up the path. She wore a
pretty blue sailor suit and a broad hat, and her hair hung in two long
flaxen braids down her back. Mary wore her own brown curls tied back
with a ribbon. On her arm the visitor carried a large covered basket.

“It’s one of the neighbors, I suppose,” said Mrs. Corliss, attempting a
hasty toilet. “Go to the door, Mary, as soon as she rings, and ask her
to come in. Even if we are not settled yet, it is not too soon to be
hospitable.”

Mary listened eagerly for the bell. Their first caller in Crowfield
looked like a very nice little person. Perhaps she was going to be
Mary’s friend.

But the bell did not ring. Instead, Mary presently heard a little
click; and then a voice in the hall below called, apparently through
the keyhole of the closed door,--“Not at home.”

There was a pause, and again,--“Not at home.” A third time the tired,
monotonous voice declared untruthfully, “Not at home.” Then there was
silence.

“John!” cried Mary, horrified. For she thought her brother was playing
some naughty trick. What did he mean by such treatment of their first
caller? Mary ran down the stairs two steps at a time, and there she
found John in the hall, staring with wide eyes at the front door.

“What made you--?” began Mary.

“I didn’t!” protested John. “It was--Something, I don’t know What, that
spoke. When she pushed the bell-button it didn’t ring, but it made
_that_. And now I guess she’s gone off mad!”

“Oh, John!” Mary threw open the door and ran to the porch. Sure enough,
the visitor was retreating slowly down the path. She turned, however,
when she heard Mary open the door, and hesitated, looking rather
reproachful. She was very pretty, with red cheeks and bright brown
eyes.

“Oh! I’m so sorry!” said Mary. “You didn’t ring, did you?”

“Yes, I did,” said the girl, looking puzzled. “But I thought no one was
at home. Somebody said so.” Her eyes twinkled.

Mary liked the twinkle in her eyes.

“I don’t understand it!” said Mary, wrinkling her forehead in
puzzlement. Then an idea flashed into her head, and she showed her
teeth in a broad smile. “Oh, it must have been one of Aunt Nan’s patent
jokes.”

The girl gave an answering smile. “You mean Miss Corliss?” she
suggested. “I know she didn’t like callers. We never ventured to ring
the bell in her day. But Mother thought you new neighbors might be
different. And I saw you going by yesterday, so I thought I’d try--”
She looked at Mary wistfully, with a little cock to her head. “My name
is Katy Summers, and we are your nearest neighbors,” she added.

“Oh, do come in,” urged Mary, holding open the door hospitably. “It is
so nice to see you! I am Mary Corliss.”

Katy Summers beamed at her as she crossed the doorsill. And from that
moment Mary hoped that they were going to be the best of friends.

John appeared just then, much excited and forgetting his dirty face.
“It must be a kind of graphophone,” he said, without introduction. “Let
me punch that button.”

Twisting himself out into the porch, John pushed a dirty thumb against
the bell-button of the Corliss home. Instantly sounded the same
monotonous response,--“Not at home-- Not at home-- Not at home.”

“I say! Isn’t it great!” shouted John, cutting a caper delightedly.
“Aunt Nan must have had that fixed so as to scare away callers. Wasn’t
she cute?”

Mary blushed for her brother, and for the reputation of the house.
“It wasn’t cute!” she said hastily. “We shall have to get that bell
changed. We aren’t like that, really,” she explained to her visitor.
“We love to see people. You were very good to come to this inhospitable
old house.”

“I wanted to,” said Katy simply, “and Mother thought you’d perhaps all
be busy this morning, getting settled. So she sent you over this hot
luncheon.” And she held out to Mary the heavy basket.

“Oh, how kind of you!” cried Mary. “Let me tell Mother. She will be so
pleased! It is so nice to have our nearest neighbor call on us right
away.”

“I can’t stop but a minute this time,” said Katy, “for my own luncheon
is waiting on the table. But I’d like to see your mother. I’ll wait
here in the hall.”

At the end of the hall facing the front door was an armchair with a
back studded with brass nails. Katy sat down in this chair to wait
for Mrs. Corliss. Mary ran up the stairs feeling very happy, because
already she had found this new friend in the town where she was afraid
she was going to be lonesome.

But hardly had she reached the top of the stairs when she heard a funny
little cry from the hall below. It was Katy’s voice that called. “Oh!”
it cried. “Help! Mary Corliss!”

“What is it?” called Mary, leaning over the banisters to see what the
matter was.

And then she saw a queer thing. The chair in which Katy Summers sat was
moving rapidly of its own accord straight toward the front door. Katy
was too startled to move, and there she sat, grasping the arms of the
chair, until it reached the doorsill. When it touched the sill, the
chair stopped and gently tilted itself forward, making Katy slide out,
whether she would or no.

“Well, I never!” said Katy with a gasp. “If that isn’t the impolitest
chair I ever saw!”

“Oh, Katy!” cried Mary, flying down the stairs. “I am so sorry. We
didn’t know it was that kind of chair. We hadn’t cleaned the hall yet,
so we never suspected. It must be another of Aunt Nan’s jokes. She
probably had this made so that peddlers or agents who got inside and
insisted on waiting to see her would be discouraged. Please don’t blame
us!”

Then down came Mrs. Corliss, with Katy’s basket in her hand. “What a
reception to our first caller!” she said with a rueful smile. “And you
came on such a kind errand, too! But you must try to forget, little
neighbor, that this was ever an inhospitable house, and come to see us
often. We are going to change many things.”

“Yes, indeed, I shall come again,” said Katy Summers. “I hope that Mary
and I shall be in the same class at High School.”

“So do I,” said Mary. “I begin to-morrow. Will you call for me so that
I can have some one to introduce me on my first day?”

“Yes,” said Katy, with a roguish look, “if you’ll let me wait for you
in the garden.”

Mary turned red. “You needn’t be afraid,” she said. “We won’t let
those things happen any more, will we, Mother?”

“No,” said Mrs. Corliss. “We will have the carpenter attend to those
‘jokes’ at once.”

But until the carpenter came John had a beautiful time riding down
the front hall on the inhospitable chair, and making the automatic
butler cry, “Not at home.” John thought it a great pity to change these
ingenious devices which made the front hall of Aunt Nan’s house so
interesting. But he was in the minority, and that very afternoon the
carpenter took away an electric device from the old armchair, which
ended its days of wandering forever. And instead of the “bell” he put
an old-fashioned knocker on the front door.



CHAPTER IV

THE BOOKS


The town of Crowfield was built on a swift-flowing river with a
waterfall, which gave it strong water-power. So the houses were easily
fitted with electricity. Even the old Corliss mansion was up to date
in that respect, at least. This was why Aunt Nan had been able to
carry out her liking for queer devices and unexpected mechanical
effects, as Mr. Griggs, the carpenter, explained when he came to make
more hospitable the front hall. He chuckled over the moving chair,
the secret of which was a spring concealed under one of the brass
nail-heads. Any one who sat down and leaned back was sure to press this
button, whereupon the chair would begin to move.

“It beats all how clever that old lady was!” said Mr. Griggs. “I never
saw anything like this before. She must ’a’ got some electrician down
from the city to fix this up for her. We don’t do that kind of job in
Crowfield.”

“Do you suppose there are any more such things about the house?”
inquired Mrs. Corliss anxiously.

“I’ll take a look,” said Mr. Griggs. “But I mightn’t find ’em, even so.”

And he did not find them; Aunt Nan had her secrets carefully concealed.
But for weeks the family were continually discovering strange new
surprises in their housekeeping.

That very night at supper, just after Mr. Griggs had left the house
with his kit of tools, a queer thing happened. They were sitting about
the round dining-table, the center of which, as they had noticed from
the first, seemed to be a separate inlaid circle of wood. In the middle
of this Mary had set a pretty vase of flowers--nasturtiums, mignonette,
marigolds, and yellow poppies, the last lingerers in their garden.

They were talking about their first day in Crowfield, about the visit
of Katy Summers, and the funny things that had happened to their first
caller; and they were all laughing merrily over Mary’s description of
how Katy had looked when she went riding out toward the door in the
inhospitable chair. Dr. Corliss had just reached out his hand for the
sugar. Suddenly the table center began slowly to revolve, and the sugar
bowl retreated from his hand as if by magic.

“Well, I never!” said the Doctor. “This is a new kind of butler’s
assistant!”

“It makes me feel like Alice in Wonderland!” exclaimed Mary. “It is
the Mad Hatter’s breakfast; only instead of every one’s moving on one
place, the place moves on by itself!”

They found that Mary had hit her knee by accident against a spring
concealed under the table.

“Aunt Nan lived here all alone,” said Mrs. Corliss, “and I dare say she
found this an easy way to pass things to herself when she was eating
her lonely meals.”

“Let’s keep it like this,” said Mary. “Now I shan’t be needing always
to ask John to pass the salt.”

“I don’t think it’s fair!” protested John. “Now, Mary has the seat by
the button, and she can make the table turn when she likes. I wish I
had a button, too.”

“You’d keep the table whirling all the time, John,” laughed his father.
“No, it is better as it is. We chose our seats this way, before we knew
about the lively center-piece. Let’s stick to what chance gave us. Aunt
Nan’s house seems to be a kind of good-luck game, doesn’t it?”

But in spite of the queer things that were continually happening there,
it did not take long for the Corliss family to feel quite at home
in this old house, and in Crowfield. Mary was admitted to the High
School, and found herself in the same class with Katy Summers, which
pleased them both very much. They soon became the closest chums. John
went to the Grammar School, where he found some nice boys of his own
age who lived just down the road; Ralph and James Perry, cousins in
opposite houses, and Billy Barton a little farther on.

These promptly formed the Big Four; and the neighborhood of the Big
Four was the liveliest in town. The Corliss house, with its collections
and curiosities, became their favorite meeting-place, and in these
days could hardly recognize itself with the merry streams of children
who were always running in and out, up and down the stairs. It was
fortunate that Dr. Corliss, who kept himself shut up in his study with
the book he was writing, was not of a nervous or easily distracted
temperament.

As for Mrs. Corliss--being a mother, she just smiled and loved
everybody. It was her idea that first of all a home should be a happy
place for the family and for every one who came there. The first thing
she did was to send for the familiar furniture of the city house
which they had left when Dr. Corliss was obliged to give up his
professorship in college and move into the country. Now the queer rooms
of Aunt Nan’s inhospitable old house were much less queer and much more
homelike than they had ever been, and every corner radiated a merry
hospitality.

But in the library nothing was changed. Mary would not let anything be
moved from the place in which Aunt Nan had put it. For she had grown
much attached to the old lady’s memory, since the finding of that
little watch and chain.

You may be sure that Mary and John looked about the library carefully,
to see if more of the same kind of nice joke might not be concealed
somewhere. But they found nothing. It was not until nearly a week
later, when there came a rainy Saturday, that they found time to look
at the books themselves.

“Hello! Here’s a funny book to find in an old lady’s library!” cried
John. “It’s our old friend ‘Master Skylark,’ one of the nicest books I
know. But how do you suppose a children’s book came to be here, Mary?
Daddy says for years Aunt Nan never allowed any children in the house.”

“I wonder!” said Mary. “And here’s another child’s book, right here
on the desk. I noticed it the first time I came in here, but I never
opened it before. ‘Shakespeare the Boy’ is the name of it. I wonder if
it is interesting? I like Shakespeare. We read his plays in school, and
once I wrote a composition about him, you know.”

“Papa says Aunt Nan was crazy about Shakespeare,” said John.

“Why, here’s a note inside the cover of the book, addressed to me!”
said Mary wonderingly.

“Let me look!” cried John, darting to her side. “Yes, it’s in that same
handwriting, Mary. It’s a letter from Aunt Nan. Do hurry and open it!”

Mary held the envelope somewhat dubiously. It was not quite pleasant
to be receiving letters from a person no longer living in this world.
She glanced up at the portrait over the mantel as she cut the end of
the envelope with Aunt Nan’s desk shears, and it seemed to her that the
eyes under the prim gray curls gleamed at her knowingly. She almost
expected to see the long forefinger of the portrait’s right hand point
directly at her.

It was a brief letter that Aunt Nan had written; and it explained why
she had left her library of precious books to this grandniece Mary whom
she had never seen.

  Mary Corliss (it began): I shan’t call you dear Mary because I
  don’t know whether you are dear or not. You may be if you like the
  sort of things I always liked. And in that case I shall be glad you
  have them for your own, when I can no longer enjoy them. I mean
  the things in this room, which I have given all to you, because
  there is no one else whom I can bear to think of as handling them.
  I heard your father say once that he hated poetry. That was enough
  for me! I never wanted to see him again. He can have my house, but
  not my precious books. Well, I read in the paper which your mother
  sent me that you had won a prize at school for a composition about
  William Shakespeare, the greatest poet who ever lived. You have begun
  well! If you go on, as I did, you will care as I have cared about
  everything he wrote. So you shall have my library and get what you
  can out of it. Be kind to the books I have loved. Love them, if you
  can, for their own sake.
                                             Your Great-Aunt,
                                                            NAN CORLISS.

“What a queer letter!” said John. “So it was your composition that did
it. My! Aren’t you lucky, Mary!”

“I do like Shakespeare already,” said Mary, glancing first at Aunt
Nan’s portrait, then at the bust of the poet below it. “And I guess I
am going to like Aunt Nan.” She smiled up at the portrait, which she
now thought seemed to smile back at her. “I must go and tell Father
about it,” she said eagerly, running out of the room; and presently she
came back, dragging him by the hand.

“Well, Mary!” said Dr. Corliss. “So it was your Shakespeare essay that
won you the library! I remember how fond Aunt Nan used to be of the
Poet. She was always quoting from him. I am glad you like poetry, my
dear; though for myself I never could understand it. This is, indeed,
a real poetry library. I am glad she gave it to you instead of to me,
Mary. There are any number of editions of Shakespeare here, I have
noticed, and a lot of books about him, too. I suppose she would have
liked you to read every one.”

“I mean to,” said Mary firmly. “I want to; and I am going to begin with
this one, ‘Shakespeare the Boy.’ I feel as if that was what she meant
me to do.”

As she said this Mary began to turn over the leaves of the book in
which she had found the note from Aunt Nan. “The story sounds very
nice,” she said.

Just then something fell from between the leaves and fluttered to the
floor. Her father stooped to pick it up.

“Aunt Nan’s bookmark,” he said. “It would be nice to keep her marks
when you can, Mary. Why!” he exclaimed suddenly, staring at what he
held in his fingers. It was long and yellow, and printed on both sides.

“Mary!” he cried, “did you ever see one of these before? I have
never seen many of them myself, more’s the pity!” And he handed the
“bookmark” to his daughter.

It was a hundred-dollar bill.

“Papa!” gasped Mary, “whose is it?”

“It is yours, Mary, just as much as the watch and chain were; just as
much as the library is,” said her father. “Everything in the room was
to be yours; Aunt Nan said so in her will. This is certainly a part of
your legacy. I wonder if Aunt Nan forgot it or put it there on purpose,
as another of her little jokes?”

“I think she put it there on purpose,” said John. “My! But she was a
queer old lady!”

“I think she was a very nice old lady,” said Mary. “Now I must go and
tell Katy Summers about it.”



CHAPTER V

INSTRUCTIONS


With the hundred dollars which she had found in the book Mary started
an account in the Crowfield Savings Bank, under her own name. She was
very proud of her little blue bank-book, and she hoped that some time,
in some unexpected way, she would save enough money to go to college,
as John was to do.

But the outlook was rather hopeless. The Corliss family were far from
well off. Even in Crowfield, where expenses were low, they had a hard
time to live on the small income from what Dr. Corliss had managed to
save while he was Professor of Philosophy in the city college. Dr.
Corliss was writing a book which he hoped would some day make his
fortune. But the book would not be finished for many a day. Meanwhile,
though there was very little money coming in, it was steadily going
out; as money has a way of doing.

The best thing the family could do at present was to save as much as
possible by going without servants and dainties and fine clothes--just
as people have to do in war-time; and by doing things themselves,
instead of having things done for them. Mrs. Corliss was a clever
manager. She had learned how to cook and sew and do all kinds of things
with her deft fingers; and Mary was a good assistant and pupil, while
John did everything that a little boy could do to help. He ran errands
and built the fires, and even set the table and helped wipe the dishes
when his mother and sister were busy.

The neighbors were very friendly, and there were so many pleasant new
things in Crowfield that the family did not miss the pleasures they
used to enjoy in the city, nor the pretty clothes and luxuries which
were now out of the question. And Mary did not spend much time worrying
about college. There would be time enough for that.

After the finding of that hundred-dollar bill, Mary and John spent a
great deal of time in opening and shutting the leaves of books in the
library, hoping that they would come upon other bookmarks as valuable
as that first one. But whether Aunt Nan had left the bill there by
mistake, as Dr. Corliss imagined, or whether she had put it there
on purpose, as Mary liked to think, apparently the old lady had not
repeated herself. The only foreign things they found in the musty old
volumes were bits of pressed flowers and ferns, and now and then a
flattened bug which had been crushed in its pursuit of knowledge.

John soon grew tired of this fruitless search. But Mary came upon
so many interesting things in the books themselves that she often
forgot what she was looking for. Many of the books had queer,
old-fashioned pictures; some had names and dates of long ago written
on the fly-leaf. In many Mary found that Aunt Nan had scrawled notes
and comments--sometimes amusing and witty; sometimes very hard to
understand.

Mary loved her library. She had never before had a corner all to
herself, except her tiny bedroom. And to feel that this spacious
room, with everything in it, was all hers, in which to do just as she
pleased, was a very pleasant thing.

“Where’s Mary?” asked Katy Summers one afternoon, running into the
Corliss house without knocking, as she had earned the right to do.

“I think she is in the library,” said Mrs. Corliss, who was busy sewing
in the living-room. “That is a pretty likely place in which to look
nowadays, when she isn’t anywhere else!”

“Shall I go there to find her?” asked Katy.

“Yes, Dear; go right in,” said Mrs. Corliss. “She will be glad to see
you, I am sure.”

The door of the library was hospitably open. And Katy Summers, creeping
up on tiptoe and peeping in softly, saw Mary with her thumb between the
leaves of a book, kneeling before one of the bookshelves.

“I spy!” cried Katy. “What’s the old Bookworm up to now? Or perhaps I
ought to say, considering your position, what’s she _down_ to now?”

Mary jumped hastily to her feet. “Hello, Katy,” she said cordially. “I
was just looking up something. Say, Katy, do you know what fun it is to
look up quotations?”

“No,” said Katy, laughing. “I don’t see any fun in that. No more fun
than looking up things in a dictionary.”

“Well, it _is_ fun,” returned Mary. “I think I must be something like
Aunt Nan. She loved quotations. Just look at this row of ‘Gems from the
Poets.’ They’re full of quotations, Katy. I’m going to read them all,
some time.”

“Goodness!” cried Katy. “What an idea! I think poetry is stupid stuff,
sing-song and silly.”

“So Daddy thinks,” said Mary. “But it isn’t, really. It is full of the
most interesting stories and legends and beautiful things. This library
bores Daddy almost to death, because all the books on these two walls
are poetry. I believe that Aunt Nan had the works of every old poet who
ever wrote in the English language. And see, these are the lives of the
poets.” She pointed to the shelves in one corner.

“Huh!” grunted Katy. “Well, what of it?”

“Well, you see,” said Mary, looking up at Aunt Nan’s portrait, “the
more I stay in this library, the more I like Aunt Nan’s books, and the
more I want to please Aunt Nan herself. I like her, Katy.”

“I don’t!” said Katy, eyeing the portrait sideways. “You never had her
for a neighbor, you see.”

“She never did anything to you, did she?” asked Mary.

“No-o,” drawled Katy reluctantly. “She never did anything either good
or bad to me. But--she was awfully queer!”

“Of course she was,” agreed Mary. “But that isn’t the worst thing in
the world, to be queer. And she was awfully kind to me.-- Say, Katy,
don’t you like Shakespeare?”

“Not very well,” confessed Katy.

“Well, I do,” Mary asserted. “I haven’t read much of him, but I’m going
to. Every time I look at that head of Shakespeare on the mantelpiece, I
remember that it was my composition about Shakespeare that was at the
bottom of almost everything nice that has happened in Crowfield. Why,
if it hadn’t been for him, perhaps we shouldn’t have come to live here
at all, and then I shouldn’t ever have known _you_, Katy Summers!”

“Gracious!” exclaimed Katy. “Wouldn’t that have been awful? Yes,
I believe I do like him a little, since he did _that_. I wrote a
composition about him once, too. It didn’t bring anything good in my
direction. But then, it wasn’t a very good composition. I only got a
_C_ with it.”

“Well,” said Mary, “I feel as if I owe him something, and Aunt Nan
something. And sooner or later I’m going to read everything he ever
wrote.”

“Goodness!” said Katy. “Then you’ll never have time to read anything
else, I guess. Look!”-- She pointed around the walls. “Why, there are
hundreds of Shakespeares. Hundreds and hundreds!”

“They are mostly different editions of the same thing,” said Mary
wisely. “I shan’t have to read every edition. There aren’t so very
many books by him, really. Not more than thirty, I think. I’ve been
looking at this little red set that’s so easy to handle and has such
nice notes. I like the queer spelling. I’m going to read ‘Midsummer
Night’s Dream’ first. I think that’s what Aunt Nan meant.”

“What do you mean by ‘_what Aunt Nan meant_’?” asked Katy curiously.
“Has she written you another letter?” Mary had told her about the will.

“No, not exactly,” confessed Mary. “But see what I found just now when
I finished reading ‘Shakespeare the Boy,’--the book that was lying on
her desk with that first note she wrote me.” And she opened the volume
which she held in her hand at the last page. Below the word “Finis”
were penned in a delicate, old-fashioned writing these words:--

  Mem. Read in this order, _with notes_.

  1. Midsummer Night’s Dream.
  2. Julius Cæsar.
  3. Twelfth Night.
  4. Tempest.
  5. As You Like It.
  6. Merchant of Venice.
  7. Hamlet, etc.


“Pooh!” cried Katy. “I don’t believe she meant that for you, at all!
She was just talking to herself. Let’s see if there was anything
written at the end of ‘Master Skylark.’ Didn’t you say that was lying
on her desk, too?”

They ran to get this other child’s book, which, queerly enough, had
also been left lying on the desk, as if Aunt Nan had just been reading
both. And there, too, at the end was written exactly the same list,
with the same instructions.

“That settles it!” exclaimed Mary. “She did mean me to see that list,
so she left it in both those children’s books, which she thought I
would be sure to read first. I am going to read Shakespeare’s plays in
just the order she wished. I’m going to read my very own books in my
very own library. I’m going to begin this very afternoon!” Mary was
quite excited.

“Oh, no! Please not this afternoon!” begged Katy. “I want you to come
with me while I do an errand at the express office in Ashley. It is a
three-mile walk. I don’t want to go alone. Please, Mary!”

“Oh, bother!” Mary was about to say; for she wanted to begin her
reading. But she thought better of it. Katy had been so kind to her.
And, after all, it was a beautiful afternoon, and the walk would be
very pleasant down a new road which she had never traveled. She laid
down the book reluctantly.

“Well,” she said. “I can read my books any time, I suppose. Isn’t it
nice to think of that? Yes--I’ll go with you, Katy. It will be fun.
Just wait till I get my hat, and tell Mother.”

“You’re a dear!” burst out Katy, hugging her.

“If I go with you this time, Katy, you’ll have to read Shakespeare with
me another time,” bargained Mary with good-natured guile.

“All right,” said Katy. “Sometime, when it is not so nice and crisp and
walky out of doors, as it is to-day.”

And off the two girls started, with comradely arms about one another’s
shoulders.



CHAPTER VI

THE LANTERN


Mary had no chance to begin reading her Shakespeare until the following
day. But just as soon as she had finished her French and algebra home
lessons, she laid aside those books and seized the list which Aunt Nan
had made for her.

“‘Mem. Read in this order--Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ That sounds good
for a beginning,” she said to herself. “I just love the name of it. I
wonder what it’s about?” Running to the bookshelves on the left side
of the fireplace, where one whole section was devoted to the works of
William Shakespeare, Mary began fumbling among the little red books.
“Here is ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’!” said she, settling herself
in the big leather armchair to read. “Why, it’s full of fairies and
private theatricals! I know it is going to be nice!”

Mary read for some time and found that she liked the play even better
than she had expected. She always liked to read about fairies, of whom,
indeed, the book was full. And the scene of the play-acting was very
funny, she thought, especially where Bottom wanted to play all the
parts himself.

Presently she came to a place in the text where a line was heavily
underscored. It was where Moon says, “_This lantern is my lantern_.” “I
wonder why Aunt Nan marked that line?” thought Mary. She turned to see
if there was anything about a lantern in the notes. And there she found
this remark in the writing which she had come to recognize as Aunt
Nan’s: “_See lantern on mantelshelf._ CAREFUL!”

“That is a funny note!” thought Mary. “What mantelshelf? There isn’t
any in the play. Can she mean--why, yes! There’s a lantern over there
on _my_ mantelshelf!”

Sure enough! Mary had not noticed it especially until this minute.
But there, not far from the bust of Shakespeare, was a queer old tin
lantern, pierced with holes for a candle to shine through--the very
kind that Moon must have used in the play, in Shakespeare’s day.

Mary dropped the book and went over to the lantern, with a pleasant
sense of possession. Everything in the room was hers. This would
be just the thing to play Pyramus and Thisbe with! She took up the
old lantern and examined it curiously. In the socket was the stub
of a candle. “I wonder who lighted it last?” thought Mary idly.
She tried to pull out the candle, but it stuck. She pulled harder,
and presently--out it came! There was something in the socket
below--something that rattled. Mary shook the lantern and out fell a
tiny key; a gilt key with a green silk string tied to the top. That was
all.

“What a funny place for a key!” thought Mary. “I wonder how it got
there.” Then she thought again of the quotation which had been
underlined--“‘_This lantern is my lantern_.’ She wanted me to find it,
I am sure!” thought Mary eagerly. “It is the key to something. Oh, if
I could only find what that is! How in the world shall I know where to
look?”

“Oh, John!” she cried, “John!”--for just then she heard his whistle in
the hall, and she ran down to show him her find.

Up came John; up the stairs two steps at a time, with Mary close after
him. “I bet I know what it is!” he cried. “It’s the key to a Secret
Panel. I’ve read about them in books, lots of times. Let’s hunt till we
find the keyhole.”

The wall of the library between the bookshelves was, indeed, paneled
in dark wood, like the doors. But there was little enough of this
surface, because the built-in bookshelves took up so much space. With
the aid of the library ladder it took Mary and John comparatively
little time to go over every inch of the paneling very carefully,
thumping the wall with the heel of Mary’s slipper, to see if it might
be hollow. But no sound betrayed a secret hiding-place. No scratch or
knot concealed a tiny keyhole. Tired and disgusted at last, they gave
up the search.

“I think that’s a pretty poor joke!” said John. “A key without anything
to fit it to is about as silly as can be!”

“Aunt Nan made some silly jokes in other parts of the house,” said
Mary. “But she hasn’t done so in the library. I don’t believe she meant
to tease me. Let’s go and tell Father. Perhaps he will know what it
means.” And forthwith they tripped to the Doctor’s study, with the key
and the lantern and the marked copy of “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to
puzzle the Philosopher. They laid the three exhibits on his desk, and
stood off, challenging him with eager eyes.

Dr. Corliss looked at these things critically; then he followed them
back to the library and glanced about the walls.

“Well, Father?” asked Mary at last. “What do you think it means?”

The Doctor hummed and hawed. “Why, I think it means that Aunt Nan was
playing a joke on _you_ this time, Mary!” he said, laughing. “It would
be just like her, you know. You can’t hope to be the only one to escape
her humors. Besides, this key doesn’t look to me like a real key to
anything. You mustn’t expect too much, my girl, nor get excited over
this legacy of yours, or I shall be sorry you have it. I suspect there
are no more gold watches and hundred-dollar bills floating around in
your library. It wouldn’t be like Aunt Nan to do the same thing twice.
It was the unexpected that always pleased her. You had better make the
most of your books for their own sakes, Mary.”

“Yes, I am going to do that,” said Mary, taking the key from her father
and putting the green string around her neck. “I am going to wear it as
a sort of ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ charm. And I believe that some day
I shall find out the key to the key, if I look long enough.”

“If you read long enough, perhaps you may,” said her father,
laughing. “I have heard that they find queer things in Shakespeare
sometimes--ciphers and things like that. But I never had time to study
them up. A cipher is _nothing_ to me.” And he chuckled at his little
joke.

“If I read long enough, perhaps I may find out something. That’s so!”
said Mary. “I’ll keep on reading.”

“Pooh! That’s a slow way!” said John. “If there was anything in _my_
library, I’d want to find it out right away!”

“If she has put anything in my library, that isn’t the way Aunt Nan
meant me to find it,” retorted Mary. “I am going to do what Aunt Nan
wanted, if I can discover what that is.”

“That’s right, Mary!” said her father. “I believe you are on the right
track.”

Just at this moment there was a queer sound, apparently in one corner
of the room.

“Hark!” said Dr. Corliss. “What was that, Mary?”

“It sounded like something rapping on the floor!” said John, with wide
eyes.

“Oh, I hear sounds like that quite often,” said Mary carelessly. “At
first it frightened me, but I have got used to it. I suppose it must be
a rat in the cellar.”

“Yes, I dare say it is a rat,” said her father. “Old houses like this
have strange noises, often. But I have never seen any rats.”

“It sounded too big for a rat,” declared John. “Aren’t you afraid,
Mary?”

“No,” declared Mary; “I’m not afraid, whether it’s a rat or not. Some
way, I think I couldn’t be afraid in this room.”

“I thought girls were always afraid of rats,” murmured John.



CHAPTER VII

CALIBAN


With rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes Mary returned from a walk with Katy
Summers. It had been pleasant but uneventful. Just as she turned in at
the little dooryard of home, she thought she spied a black Something
dart like a shadow across the little strip of green beside the house.

“It looks like a cat,” said Mary to herself. “I will see where it went
to.” She followed to the end of the house, where the shape had seemed
to disappear. There was nothing to be seen. She went around the ell,
and back to the front of the house again. Still there was no trace of
the little shadow that had streaked into invisibility.

“If it was not my imagination, it must have gone under the house,”
said Mary to herself. “Two or three times I have thought I spied a
black blur in the act of disappearing; and I believe we are haunted by
something on four legs. I will ask the family.”

That night at the supper-table she broached the question.

“Mother, have you ever seen a cat about the place--a black cat, a swift
cat, a cat that never stays for a second in one spot--a mysterious cat
that is gone as soon as you see it?”

“That sounds spooky enough!” commented Dr. Corliss. “You make the
shivers run down my sensitive spine!”

“I have not seen any cat,” said Mrs. Corliss. “I think you must be
mistaken, Mary.”

“Yes, I’ve seen a cat!” volunteered John,--“a thin black cat, oh, so
thin! I saw him run across the lawn once; and once I saw him crouching
down by the lilac bush near the back door. I think he was catching
mice.”

“Then there _is_ a cat,” said Mary. “I thought I might be dreaming. He
must be very wild. I believe he lives under our house.”

“Under the house!” exclaimed Mrs. Corliss. “Surely, we should all have
seen him if he lived so near. I can’t think he could have escaped my
eyes. But now, I remember, I have heard strange noises in the cellar
once or twice.”

“I have, often,” said Mary, “under my library.”

“Maybe it is a witch-cat!” suggested Dr. Corliss, pretending to look
frightened. “You people are all so fond of poetry and ravens and
mystery and magics--you attract strange doings, you see. Maybe Aunt Nan
had a witch-cat who helped her play tricks on the ever-to-be-surprised
world.”

“Daddy!” cried John, “there’s no such thing as a witch-cat, is there,
truly?”

“Of course not!” laughed his mother. “Daddy is only joking. And now I
come to think of it, I have wondered why the scraps I put out for the
birds always vanished so quickly. A hungry cat prowling about would
explain everything.”

“It might be Aunt Nan’s cat,” said Mary thoughtfully. “Poor thing! He
might have run away when he couldn’t find Aunt Nan any more. He might
have been frightened, and have hid under the house.”

“I think in that case he would have starved to death in all these
weeks,” said Mrs. Corliss. “Besides, I should think the neighbors would
have told us, or that Aunt Nan herself would have left some word.”

“I’m going to find out, if I can,” said Mary. “If it’s Aunt Nan’s cat I
want to be good to him. We want to be good to him, anyway, don’t we?”

“Of course we do,” said Mrs. Corliss. “But there is nothing so hard to
tame as a wild cat.”

Katy Summers knew nothing of any cat belonging to Miss Corliss. Neither
did the other neighbors.

That next day on coming home from school Mary again spied the cat. Just
as she clicked the gate she saw the long, black shape scurry across the
lawn and vanish under the ell, under Mary’s library. Mary tiptoed to
the house and, stooping, called gently, “Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!”

At first there was no response. But presently there came a feeble and
doleful “Miaou!” And Mary thought she could catch the gleam of two
green eyes glaring out of the darkness.

“I must get him something to eat,” said Mary. “Perhaps I can tempt him
to make friends.” And running into the house she returned with a saucer
of milk and a bit of meat, which she set down close to the house.
“Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!” she called, in a tone of invitation.

“Miaou!” cried the forlorn cat again. But he did not come forth from
his hiding-place.

“I shall have to go away, and give him a chance to eat when I am not
by,” thought Mary. And this she did. From her chamber window she could
just manage to watch the hole under the ell. After a long time she was
rewarded by seeing the cat’s head emerge from the hole. For a minute
he stared around with wild eyes, his body ready to spring. But finding
himself safe, he hungrily seized the meat and retreated with it under
the house. Presently he came out again, licking his chops eagerly,
and began to lap the milk, retreating every now and then as if some
fancied sound alarmed him. The poor creature’s sides were so thin that
he resembled a cut-out pasteboard cat. His tail was like that of a long
black rat. He seemed to be wearing a collar about his neck.

“He must have been somebody’s pet cat,” said Mary to herself. “I must
try to tame him.”

But it took a great deal of time and patience to make friends with
the poor black pussy, which had evidently been greatly frightened and
almost starved. Day after day Mary set out the saucer of milk and a
bit of meat. And each time she did so, she talked kindly to the cat
hidden under the house, hoping that he would come out while she was
still there. But it was many days before she got more than the mournful
“Miaou!” in answer to her coaxing words.

At last, one day, after waiting a long time beside the saucer of milk
and a particularly savory plate of chicken-bones, Mary was rewarded
by seeing the cat timidly thrust out his head while she was talking.
He drew back almost immediately. But finally the smell of the chicken
tempted him beyond caution, and he got up courage to face this stranger
who seemed to show no evil intentions. He snatched a chicken-bone and
vanished. But this was the beginning of friendship.

The next day the cat came out almost immediately when Mary called
him. Presently he would take things from her hand, timidly at first,
then with increasing confidence, when he found that nothing dreadful
happened. But still Mary had no chance to examine the collar, on which
she saw that there were some words engraved.

At last came a day when the cat let Mary stroke his fur, now grown
much sleeker and covering a plumper body. And from that time it became
easier to make friends. Soon Mary held the creature on her lap for a
triumphant minute. And the next day she had a chance to examine the
engraved collar. On the silver plate was traced,--“_Caliban. Home of N.
Corliss. Crowfield_.”

“He was Aunt Nan’s cat!” cried Mary in excitement. And she ran into the
house with the news.

Mrs. Corliss was astonished. “We must make Caliban feel at home
again,” she said. “He must have had a terrible fright. But we will help
him to forget that before long.”

In a little while Mary succeeded in coaxing Caliban into the house.
And once inside he did not behave like a stranger. For a few moments,
indeed, he hesitated, cringing as if in fear of what might happen. But
presently he raised his head, sniffed, and, looking neither to right
nor left, marched straight toward the library. Mary tiptoed after
him, in great excitement. Caliban went directly to the big armchair
beside the desk, sniffed a moment at the cushion, then jumped up and
curled himself down for a nap, giving a great sigh of contentment. From
that moment he accepted partnership with Mary in the room and all its
contents.

“Well, I never!” cried Mrs. Corliss, who had followed softly. “The
cat is certainly at home. I wonder how he ever happened to go away? I
suppose we shall never know.”

And they never did. They made inquiries of the neighbors. But nobody
could tell them anything definite about Aunt Nan’s cat. Some persons
had, indeed, seen a big black creature stalking about the lawn in the
old lady’s time, and had not liked the look of him, as they said. But
as Miss Corliss had never had anything to do with her neighbors, so
her cat seemed to have followed her example. And when Aunt Nan’s day
was over, the cat simply disappeared.

Caliban must have lived precariously by catching mice and birds. But he
never deserted the neighborhood of the old house when the new tenants
came to live there; though it took him some time to realize that these
were relatives of his mistress whom he might trust.

Once more an inmate of the house, Caliban never wandered again. He
adopted Mary as his new mistress, and allowed her to take all kinds of
liberties with him. But to the rest of the family he was always rather
haughty and stand-offish. John never quite got rid of the idea that
Caliban was a witch-cat. And sometimes he had a rather creepy feeling
when the great black cat blinked at him with his green eyes.

But Mary said it was all nonsense. “He’s just a dear, good, soft
pussy-cat,” she cried one day, hugging the now plump and handsome
Caliban in her arms.

And Caliban, stretching out a soft paw, laid it lovingly against his
little mistress’s cheek.

But John vowed that at the same moment Caliban winked wickedly at him!



CHAPTER VIII

THE BUST


For some weeks life went on quietly for the Corliss family, made more
interesting by the coming of Caliban, who resembled his late mistress
in some unexpected qualities. But the family had got used to being
surprised by Aunt Nan’s jokes, so that they were no longer jokes at
all. And nothing further of a mysterious nature happened in Mary’s
library, so that everybody had about forgotten the excitement of the
watch, the bookmark, and the unexplained key.

The more Mary read her Shakespeare, the better she liked the plays,
which, as she said, were “just full of familiar quotations!” Caliban
approved heartily of Mary’s reading. He liked nothing better than
to curl up in her lap while she sat in the big easy-chair, with her
book resting on its broad arm; and his rumbling purr made a pleasant
accompaniment whenever she read aloud. For Mary liked to read aloud to
herself and to him. It made her understand the story so much better.

Probably Caliban was used to assisting Aunt Nan in this same way. He
was truly a cat of fine education. Mary wondered if he knew all the
books in the library. “He looks wise enough to,” she thought.

“I think Caliban likes some plays better than others,” she confided
to her mother. “He didn’t seem to care so much for ‘Midsummer Night’s
Dream,’ But then, I had almost finished it before he came. He was crazy
over ‘Julius Cæsar,’--you ought to have heard him purr at Marc Antony’s
great speech! And now that I have begun ‘The Tempest,’ he gets so
excited, Mother!”

“Of course,” said Mrs. Corliss; “that’s where he comes in, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Mary. “Oh, Mumsie, I was so surprised when I found
Caliban’s name in the list of characters! I just shouted it right out;
and you ought to have seen Caliban arch his neck and rub his head
against me, and purr like a little furnace. I’m sure he knew it was
_his_ play. And isn’t it a lovely play, Mother? I like it best of all.”

“So do I,” said her mother.

One day Mary coaxed Katy Summers home with her after school. “The time
has come for you to keep your promise, Katy,” said Mary. “You’ve got
to listen to Shakespeare now.”

“All right,” said Katy resignedly. “I suppose I must, sooner or later.”

“I am going to read you some of ‘The Tempest,’” said Mary. “I want you
to like it as well as I do.”

“You know I never cared for poetry,” said Katy doubtfully.

“But you will care for _this_,” said Mary positively, “especially if
you hear it read. That’s the way everybody ought to know poetry, I
think. Why, even Caliban likes to hear me read poetry. See, here he
comes to listen.”

Sure enough, at the sound of Mary’s voice Caliban had come running into
the library with a little purr. He looked very handsome and fluffy
these days. Waving his tail majestically, he jumped up into Mary’s lap
and sat on her knee blinking his green eyes at Katy as if to say, “Now
you are going to hear something fine!”

“I believe John is right,” said Katy. “He does look like a witch-cat.
He’s too knowing by half! I suppose I shall have to like the reading,
if he says so.” Katy was just a bit jealous of Mary’s new friend.

“Of course Caliban knows what is best!” chuckled Mary. “Now, listen,
Katy.” And she began to read the beautiful lines. Presently she caught
up with her own bookmark, and went on with scenes which she had not
read before. Mary read very nicely, and Katy listened patiently, while
Caliban purred more and more loudly, “knitting” with busy paws on
Mary’s knees.

After a while Katy saw Mary’s eyes grow wide, and she paused in the
reading, ceasing to stroke Caliban’s glossy fur. Caliban looked up at
her and stopped purring, as if to say, “What is it, little Mistress?”

“What is the matter? Go on, Mary,” cried Katy. “I like it!”

“It’s a Song,” said Mary, in a queer voice, “and words of it are
underlined, Katy, in the same way that the other place I told you of
was underlined.”

Katy nodded eagerly. She had heard about the clue to the finding of the
key. “What does it say?” she asked.

And Mary read the lines of the Song:--

  “Full fathom five thy father lies;
    _Of his bones are coral made_;
  _Those are pearls, that were his eyes_;
    Nothing of him that doth fade,
  But doth suffer a sea-change
  Into _something rich and strange_.
  Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell;
  Hark! now I hear them--Ding-dong, bell!”

“It’s lovely!” cried Katy. “And which lines are underscored, Mary?”

“‘_Of his bones are coral made_,’ and ‘_Those are pearls that were
his eyes_,’ and ‘_something rich and strange_.’ Oh, Katy, what do you
suppose Aunt Nan meant this time?” said Mary with eager eyes.

[Illustration: “OH, KATY, WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE AUNT NAN MEANT THIS
TIME?”]

At this point Caliban arched his back and yawned prodigiously, then
jumped down on the floor and sat at Mary’s feet, switching his tail.

“Hurry and look at the notes at the end of the book, Mary!” cried Katy,
almost as much excited as her friend. “I did not know that poetry could
be so interesting.”

Mary turned hastily to the back of the book. In the margin beside the
printed notes were penned several words; references to other plays
which evidently Aunt Nan wanted Mary to look up. “Bother!” said Mary in
disappointment; “it’s only more quotations. I don’t want to stop for
_them_.”

“You had better, Mary,” suggested Katy. “Perhaps if you do they will
give you still another clue. See how queer Caliban looks!”

The cat was looking up in Mary’s face expectantly; and when she stooped
to pat him, he opened his mouth and gave a strange, soundless “Miaou!”

“It looked as if he said ‘Yes!’ didn’t it, Katy?” said Mary. “Well,
then, I suppose I had better do it. The first reference is to ‘As You
Like It,’ Act II, Scene i.”

Mary went to the Shakespeare shelf, found the volume quickly, and
looked up the proper place. “Yes!” she exclaimed, “there is a line
underscored here, too,--‘_Wears yet a precious jewel in his head_.’
What a queer saying, Katy! What do you suppose it means? And this is
the next quotation, in the ‘Sonnets’--Number CXXXV, Line 1. Here it is!
‘_Whoever has her wish, you have your Will._’ Now, what connection can
there be between those two things, Katy?”

“I don’t know!” said Katy, disappointed. “Is that all, are you sure? It
doesn’t seem to mean anything, does it?”

“Wait a minute!” added Mary. “Here in the Sonnet-margin she has
written, ‘_Will S.--Yours. Look!_’”

“Look where?” wondered Katy. “What _Will S._ have you, Mary?”

At the word “_Look!_” Mary had glanced up at the portrait of Aunt Nan,
and it seemed to her as if the eyes in the picture were cast down on
something below them. Mary’s own eyes followed the look, and fell on
the bust of Shakespeare in the middle of the mantelshelf. “Does she
mean--perhaps she does--that bust of Will Shakespeare?” said Mary.
“It is mine now, of course. ‘_Whoever has her wish_’--‘_Wears yet a
precious jewel in his head_’--‘_Something rich and strange_.’”

“Oh, Mary! It all fits together!” cried Katy, clapping her hands. “Do
have a look at that bust, dear! If it is your Will.”

“That’s just what I will do!” cried Mary, running to the mantelpiece,
with Katy close behind her, and Caliban following them both.

The bust was a plaster one about six inches high, and it stood on a
black marble block like a little pedestal. Mary had dusted it many
times and she knew it was not fastened to the pedestal and that it was
hollow. But was it also empty?

While the girls were looking at the bust, Caliban suddenly made two
leaps, one to a chair, then to the mantelshelf which he reached
without a slip. Then he took up his pose beside the bust of
Shakespeare, and sat blinking wisely at them.

“Do look at Caliban!” cried Katy. “He certainly looks as if he knew
secrets!”

“Perhaps he does,” said Mary. “Maybe there is a secret about this bust.
I am going to see. If you please, Master Will S.”

She took down the bust and shook it gently. Nothing rattled inside.
Nothing fell out. She poked with her finger as far as she could reach.
There seemed to be nothing in the interior.

“Try again, Mary,” begged Katy, producing something from her pocket.
“Here’s my folding button-hook.” Cautiously Mary thrust the hook up
into the place where the brains of William S. would have been, were
they not distributed about the library instead in the form of books.

Yes! There was something up in the head; something that was yielding to
the touch of the steel; something that came out at last in her hand. It
was a piece of soft chamois-skin, folded and tied with green silk cord
like that on which hung the mysterious key.

“Oh, Mary!” cried Katy, holding her breath. “What is it?”

“Sh!” said Mary, with shining eyes. Cautiously she undid the little
packet; and there inside was another packet, wrapped in silver foil,
very tiny, very hard. Mary squeezed it gently, but the feeling gave no
clue as to the contents.

While Katy watched her with bulging eyes, Mary peeled off the silver
paper, a bit at a time. First of all was revealed a pink bead; more
pink beads; a whole necklace, strung on a pink thread, of the most
beautiful coral.

“Miaou!” cried Caliban suddenly.

“Oh-h!” cried Katy. “I never saw anything so sweet!”

“‘_Of his bones are coral made_,’” quoted Mary. “Oh, clever Aunt Nan!--
What else?” for the next quotation was running in her head, and she
was very eager. With trembling fingers she unwrapped the rest of the
package, and brought to light a tiny pasteboard box of not more than an
inch in any dimension.

“I know what it is!” whispered Katy.

But she gasped when she saw what really came out--yes, a ring, on a
white velvet bed. But such a ring! It had two big pearls in it, side by
side, as big as the end of Mary’s little finger.

“Oh!” cried Mary with delight. “What a beautiful ring! I do love
pearls.--‘_Those are pearls which were his eyes_,’ Katy, do you see?
And this is the ‘_something rich and strange_.’ What fun it is to find
a treasure all by the aid of lovely quotations!”

“I think it is wonderful!” said Katy. “It is so poetic.”

“Come; let’s show these to Father and Mother,” said Mary, giving
Caliban a big hug. And off the two girls ran to exhibit the treasures.

Mrs. Corliss was delighted with her daughter’s find. “I am glad you
have the pretty necklace to wear with your best dresses,” she said. “It
is very nice and suitable for a schoolgirl. But the pearl ring--I think
we must put that away until you are older. It is too valuable and too
conspicuous. I don’t like to see little girls wearing jewelry.”

“I can wear it when I go to college--if I go; may I not, Mother?” asked
Mary wistfully.

“Oh, yes, _if_ you go to college, Dearie,” sighed her mother. “At any
rate, you can wear it when you are eighteen.”

Dr. Corliss examined the ring carefully. “Yes, I am sure I have seen
Aunt Nan wear it,” he said. “It must be one of the set of famous
pearls that she was once proud of. Doubtless she sold the rest long ago
and gave the money to her hospital. I am glad Mary has this; but Mother
is right. School-girls should not wear jewelry. Put it away until you
are grown-up, my daughter.”

So Mary fastened the pretty necklace about her round throat, and shut
the pearl ring away in her bureau drawer, with a sigh.

But Katy Summers said:--

“I wouldn’t mind, Mary, even if you can’t wear it yet. Just to think
that you have it, and that you got it in such a mysterious way! Why, it
is like a story-book!”

“Doesn’t it make you want to hear some more Shakespeare?” demanded
Mary, laughing.

“Indeed it does!” agreed Katy. “I’ll come and listen whenever you will
let me. Who knows what may happen? Yes, I’ll wager that Caliban knows.”

“The same thing never happens twice,” sighed Mary.

John was disgusted when he came home from a meeting of the Big Four to
find that he had missed this most exciting discovery; although, after
all, when it came to the jewelry, John thought the result rather
small. “My goodness, Mary!” he exclaimed, “I’ll bet there are lots more
things hidden in that old library of yours. Don’t you go and do all the
hunting when I’m not here.”

“I don’t,” said Mary. “I didn’t mean to hunt. I don’t ever mean to
hunt. But if things come--all right.”

“I wish you’d let me have the fun of hunting in the library all I want,
just once,” said John wistfully.

Mary hesitated. She did not want anybody to rummage among her books.
But she hated to be “stingy,” and she felt as if she were really having
more than her share of fun out of Aunt Nan’s legacy, in spite of John’s
two thousand dollars. So she said generously, without letting John see
how great an effort it was: “All right, Johnny. To-morrow is Saturday,
and I’ll give you free leave to hunt all you want to in my library. I
won’t even come to bother you.”

“Bully for you!” crowed John. “Finding’s having?”

But that was more than Mary bargained for.

“Oh, no, John!” she cried. “I don’t think Aunt Nan would like that. Do
you?”

“Oh, bother! I suppose not,” grumbled John. “She was a queer one!”

The next Saturday morning John spent in hunting that library from floor
to ceiling. Caliban, sitting on a corner of the mantelpiece, watched
him gravely during the whole operation, but offered no suggestions.
John poked behind the books, in every corner, under every rug. He even
ripped open a bit of the cover on the old sofa. But nothing interesting
could he find.

“I say, Caliban, can’t you help me?” he said once, to the watching cat.

But Caliban only blinked, and gave his tail a little switch.

“I’ll give it up!” growled John at last, disgustedly, when Mary came to
call him to dinner. “I guess you’ve got about all you are ever going to
get out of Aunt Nan’s legacy. If Caliban knows anything more about it
he won’t tell _me_. Anyway, I’ve got my two thousand, and that’s best
of all.”

“All right, John,” retorted Mary good-naturedly. “I’ve got my two
thousand books, anyway, and Caliban. So I am not complaining.”

She did not tell John that she still hoped to solve the mystery of the
key on the green silk cord; not to solve it by hunting or by hurrying,
but in Aunt Nan’s own way, whatever that might be.

And Caliban, looking up at her, switched his tail and gave a wise,
solemn wink.



CHAPTER IX

THE ATTIC


The Corliss family were sadly in need of funds. There were the butcher
and the baker and the candlestick-maker politely presenting their bills
to the family recently arrived in Crowfield, suggesting in print and
in writing and by word of mouth that “bills are payable monthly.” Now
it was the end of the month, and there was no money to pay these same
bills; for the expense of moving and settling in a new place had been
heavy, and their small income had already disappeared.

“How much money is it that we need for immediate bills, Mother?” asked
Dr. Corliss wearily. It always tired him to talk about money.

“Just about a hundred dollars would bridge us over nicely,” said his
wife, with an anxious pucker in her forehead. “But I don’t see any sign
of our getting that hundred dollars for a month to come. And then it
will be needed for fresh bills.”

“Why, of course, you must take my hundred dollars that I found in Aunt
Nan’s book,” said Mary cheerfully, though it cost her a pang to think
of using up her wonder-gift so soon in this way. “I’ll just take it out
of the bank next Saturday morning.”

“I hate to touch that money of yours, Mary, even if we put it back for
you when we can,” sighed her mother. “I hoped we could save that for
your nest-egg toward a college fund. Let me think it over a bit longer.
Perhaps something will happen to help us. Or I may think of some way to
earn the money.”

They left discussion of the matter for that time. But they all took the
troublesome problem away with them into their daily tasks.

“It is a shame for Mary to have to give up her hundred dollars,”
thought John. “I wish I could help earn some money so that she needn’t
do it. If I was in the city I could sell papers or something. But what
can I do here when I have to go to school every day? School takes up
such a lot of time!”

John sighed as he swung his books over his shoulder and started off for
school. All day he thought about that needed money; and it was in his
mind when he turned in at the gate that night.

“I wish I was clever and could think up something,” said John to
Caliban, who was sitting on the top step looking at him when John came
in. “I wonder you don’t help us, Caliban. Come, now, can’t you think of
something, old witch-cat?”

Caliban did not seem to mind being spoken to in this impolite way. But
he did look at John in a fashion that the boy thought very knowing, and
he did unmistakably wink one eye.

“Miaou!” said Caliban, and he turned his back on John, and began to
walk upstairs.

John was going upstairs too; so he followed Caliban, who, however,
hopped three steps at a time, while John could only take two with his
short legs. When they reached the top of the flight, Caliban looked
about to see if John was still following him. John had not meant to do
so, but when he saw Caliban turn and look, with that queer expression
in his green eyes, John had an idea.

“Maybe he wants me to follow him,” said he to himself. He tossed his
books on to a chair and tiptoed after the big black cat. Caliban ambled
unconcernedly along the hall and suddenly darted up the attic stairs.
“Hello!” said John, with a whistle under his breath. “What is Caliban
up to now? I thought he never went far from Mary’s library. But, I
declare, he is coaxing me to follow him up into the attic! You bet I’ll
follow you, old boy!”

John had never paid much attention to the attic. He had looked into it,
of course. But it was so dark and dusty and cobwebby that it was not
much fun poking about up there. Since their first visit the family had
not been there except to store away some of Aunt Nan’s superfluous old
furniture and ornaments.

If the house had seemed like a museum to the family when they first
entered it, this attic looked like a junk-shop. Every corner was
filled with furniture, boxes, bundles, strange garments hanging from
hooks, bales bursting with mysterious contents. Away back in the dusty
corners, where it was so dark that John’s eye could not distinguish,
bulked other dim shapes.

Caliban walked across the floor in a furtive fashion, then suddenly
made a dive into a distant dark corner, where John immediately heard a
scurrying and scratching.

“He’s after a mouse!” thought John excitedly. And he, too, dived into
the darkness after the cat, who had disappeared. But Caliban had
scuttled into some hole too small for John to enter. John could hear
him still scratching and sniffing. And an occasional squeak betrayed
the misfortune of some long-tailed dweller in the garret that Caliban
had taken by surprise.

John got down on his hands and knees the better to investigate that
corner. But still he could not spy the cat and his prey. He only bumped
his nose against the low beams, and got his mouth full of cobwebs. But
in that dark hiding-place he came upon an unexpected thing. This was
something that at first he took to be a bicycle. But he soon found by
feeling of it that there was but one wheel, and that it was made of
wood. At one end was a curious bunch of what felt like long hair; it
made John shudder. But presently he remembered.

“It must be a spinning-wheel,” said John to himself. “I remember seeing
one in the picture of Priscilla and John Alden.” Just then he bumped
his head on something hard. “What is this great long-handled pan?” he
said. “I’ve seen those in the curiosity shops, too. Hello! Here’s a
cradle, the kind that rocks. I’ve seen those in pictures. And here’s
a pair of andirons. My! this is a regular old curiosity shop. These
things must be worth a lot of money.”

Then a sudden wonderful idea popped into John’s head. “Why can’t we
sell them, if they are worth a lot of money? Why, of course we can
sell them, and save Mary’s hundred dollars! Maybe that is just what old
Caliban knew, when he coaxed me to follow him up here. Say, you old
rascal, where are you? Here, ’Ban! ’Ban! Come on out and let me see
what you think about it!”

But Caliban had disappeared with his mouse, or whatever it was, which
had ceased to squeak. And there was nothing but darkness and silence in
the old attic beside the little boy and that strange litter of ancient
things.

John looked around and shivered. “I guess I’ll be going,” he said. “I
won’t stop to examine anything more. They all belong to Mother. I’ll
let her do the looking-up. I’ll run down and tell her what I’ve found.”

And hurrying as fast as he could out of the dark corner, where the
cobwebs and the dust were trying to keep intruders away from the old
things to which they clung, John made for the attic stairs. Two or
three times he thought he heard strange noises behind him, and he
couldn’t go fast enough. Probably it was Caliban still scratching in
some dark subway under the rafters. But John had no wish to stop and
investigate. He came clattering down the stairs, and burst into his
mother’s room.

“Mother!” he cried, “I’ve found something!”

“Goodness, John!” she said. “What a dirty face you have, and your
eyebrows are all cobwebby. Where in the world have you been, and what
have you found?”

“I’ve found things up in the attic!” exclaimed John triumphantly.
“Caliban showed me the way. It was all his doings. I think he did it on
purpose--to help Mary.”

“To help Mary! What in the world do you mean?” cried Mrs. Corliss.
“Have you found a treasure, John, or some more mysterious secrets?”

“Well, no, not exactly,” confessed John, somewhat crestfallen. “Unless
we make it a secret. I’d like that. But I think it’s a nice surprise,
Mumsie, and I _think_ it will save some of Mary’s hundred dollars.
Mother,--all the furniture belongs to you, doesn’t it?”

“Why, yes, Johnny,” she answered, wondering. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” said John importantly, “I have been snooping around the
attic, Mumsie, and I think there are a lot of things you can sell.”

“What kind of things do you mean, John?” she asked, looking interested.

“Why, you know, Mother,” said John, “there’s a lot of old truck in the
corners up there that looks just like the stuff we used to see in the
curiosity shops in the city. I didn’t look very far, Mumsie, ’cause it
was so--well, so dirty in there. But there’s wheels and andirons and
things that I bet are worth lots of money!”

“Are there, John?” said Mrs. Corliss. “How clever of you to think of
it! I never dreamed of looking in Aunt Nan’s attic to find the way out
of our difficulty. Perhaps this is the solution!”

“It’s Caliban’s idea,” said John, wishing to be fair and not to claim
too much credit, but feeling well pleased with himself, just the same.

“Let’s go up right away and see what we can find; shall we, John?” said
his mother. “I can’t wait!”

“All right,” agreed John. “But you’d better take a candle, Mumsie. It’s
terribly dark and spooky up there. And noises sound louder in the dark.”

Back to the garret they went, Mrs. Corliss as eager as John. And into
those dark corners which had been undisturbed for many, many years they
shed the light of their blinking, inquisitive candle. Mrs. Corliss was
more thorough than John had cared to be. She untied strings, and lifted
lids of trunks, and unwrapped coverings. Out of chests and bundles and
crates they dragged things that had been waiting through generations of
Aunt Nan’s ancestors for some one to make them useful; things that had
been discarded or pushed back still farther in order to make room for
her whims and “jokes.”

[Illustration: THINGS THAT HAD BEEN WAITING THROUGH GENERATIONS OF AUNT
NAN’S ANCESTORS FOR SOME ONE TO MAKE THEM USEFUL]

Besides the old spinning-wheel, andirons, and warming-pan, they found
parts of a four-post bedstead, a tall clock, and many quaint chairs.
They unearthed a hair trunk, foot-warmers, mirrors, crockery, and lamps
with prisms dangling; shawls and bonnets and carpet-bags. All of these
things were old and most of them were ugly. But Mrs. Corliss knew that
they would look beautiful to many persons, just because they were old;
which seemed to John a strange reason.

When they had brought all this old stuff together in the middle of the
attic floor, Mrs. Corliss looked about and smiled through a face-veil
of dusty cobwebs.

“Well, John!” she said, “I believe my part of the legacy is not to be
laughed at, either. We don’t want to keep these old things, for they
have no history for us and they are not beautiful in themselves--the
only two excuses I see for cherishing useless old things. Luckily
there are plenty of people who think differently. I’ll go up to town
to-morrow with a list of what you and I have found, and see what I can
get for them at some reliable antique shop. Let’s keep it a secret, and
surprise your father and Mary, if we have good luck with the venture.
Shall we?”

“Let’s!” cried John, clapping his hands.

Just then out of the darkness crept Caliban, licking his chops, and
looking very sly.

“Now, don’t you go and tell Mary, Caliban!” charged John. “For this
is our secret. You let me into it yourself, and you’ve got to be our
partner now. Don’t you dare even to _purr_ about it!”

Caliban did not promise; but he trotted downstairs before them very
discreetly. And all that evening no one would have guessed by the
manner of those three conspirators what a tremendous secret they were
concealing in their hearts. John did not dare to look at his mother’s
face, however, he was so bursting with importance.

The next day Mrs. Corliss went to town on an errand which she explained
rather vaguely to the rest of the family. She returned with a queer
little old man with round shoulders and a white beard, who spoke
English strangely and whose hands were not very clean. Mrs. Corliss
took him straight up to the attic, which was the only part of the house
he seemed anxious to visit. They stayed up there some time, and there
was a great noise of pushing and rolling of furniture. When they came
down, the little old man was looking very much pleased and rubbing his
dirty hands together. And he went away still rubbing.

Mrs. Corliss came to the supper-table with something which she
fluttered triumphantly before the eyes of her bewildered family.

“Hurrah!” she cried. “I’ve got it!”

“What is it, Mother?” said Mary.

“How much is it, Mumsie?” begged John at the same minute.

“It is a check for a hundred dollars!” cried Mrs. Corliss. “It’s to pay
the horrid bills. Hurrah!”

“Where in the world did you get it?” asked Dr. Corliss. “Is it another
of Mary’s bookmarks?”

“Not a bit of it!” sang Mrs. Corliss. “Mary’s bookmark is all her own,
safe in bank. I got this out of the attic--out of my furniture. Now,
perhaps you will think something of my despised legacy. I sold only
a few of the old things that are of so much less use to us than the
space they occupy. There are plenty of them left, and the dealer is
crazy to get them, too. We need be in no hurry to part with them. Aunt
Nan’s attic is a perfect storehouse of treasures in that man’s eyes. It
was Johnny who found it out.”

“Me and Caliban,” said John loyally; “don’t forget him.” And he told
the others the whole story of his following the cat.

“You blessed old Caliban!” cried Mary, catching up the great bundle of
fur and hugging him tightly. “You shall have an extra saucer of milk
for your supper, so you shall!”

Caliban did not explain to her about the nest of fat mice which he had
discovered in the attic. That was his share of the “treasure.”



CHAPTER X

THE PORTRAIT POINTS


One winter afternoon some weeks after the discovery of the coral
necklace and the pearl ring, Mary was in the library alone, reading
“Hamlet.” It was the last play on the list which Aunt Nan had
suggested, and Mary liked it best of all. Nothing further of a
“mysterious” nature had happened in the library; but Mary had almost
forgotten to think about anything of the kind. She was reading now for
the pleasure of it.

She had kindled a little fire in the fireplace, and the library was
very cozy, full of flickering shadows and dancing lights, that played
about the old volumes, and seemed every minute to change the expression
on the bust of Shakespeare and on Aunt Nan’s picture above it.

But Mary, cuddled up in the big armchair with Caliban in her lap and
the little red book in her hand, was too much interested in the fate
of poor Ophelia and the unlucky Prince to notice lights or shadows.
She had come to the scene where Hamlet is talking sorrowfully to his
mother in her chamber, and every word was wonderful. Suddenly she came
upon a line underscored; the last part doubly underscored:--

“_Look here upon this picture_, THEN ON THIS.”

Hamlet was pointing out to his mother the portraits of two kings, the
good one who had been murdered, and his wicked brother who had killed
him. The underscored line made Mary’s heart beat faster. She had
learned to connect some pleasant surprise with Aunt Nan’s choice of
quotations. In the margin opposite this line was penned an exclamation
point--just that and nothing more. Eager as she was to go on with the
story, and to find out what Hamlet had to say next, Mary knew that
it was time to turn to the notes at the back of the book, to see if
Aunt Nan meant anything in particular by that exclamation. She could
not help feeling as if Aunt Nan herself had called out, “Stop! Look!
Listen!”--just as the signs at the railway crossings do to absorbed
travelers.

Yes; there was something written in the notes, in a blank space at the
end of a paragraph: “_Look at my portrait! Then turn to the play of
Othello._--”

“Oh, dear!” said Mary to herself. “I believe we are coming to another
Secret!” And she felt her heart give a little jump of excitement. “‘_My
portrait._’ There is only one portrait of Aunt Nan.” And she glanced
up at the picture over the fireplace. Then, indeed, she noticed how
the firelight was making Aunt Nan’s queer eyes dance and glitter, and
how her mouth seemed to be smiling in the most knowing way. “_Look
here upon this picture_, THEN ON THIS.” What did the last part of this
line, doubly underscored, mean to Aunt Nan? Mary studied the picture
long and earnestly. There was something about it that she did not quite
understand. It was as if Aunt Nan were trying to tell her something,
but could not make the words plain. Mary felt that she almost had the
clue to something--but not quite. Caliban did not seem to help her. If
John were only here; John was so good at guessing riddles!

Mary put down Caliban, who promptly jumped up onto the desk. Then she
ran out into the hall and called, “John! John!” for she knew that he
was in the house, probably, as usual, ravenous for tea. “Come to the
library, John!” she called again, in answer to his “Hello! What?”--“I
think it’s another Secret. Quick!” she added, to bring him the sooner.

Down came clattering boots, and John dashed into the room all
excitement. “What’s up?” he asked eagerly. And Mary showed him the
line. “H’m!” commented John, looking at the portrait curiously. “She
does look sly, doesn’t she, Mary? But you haven’t looked up the other
thing yet. I say, hurry! Let’s see what your old ‘Othello’ has to tell
about it.”

Sure enough! Mary had forgotten the reference to “Othello.” Hurriedly
she got out the proper volume, and turned to the right page and line.

  “_A fixéd figure for the time of scorn
  To point his slow unmoving finger at._”

She read slowly. “What in the world does that mean? I’m sure I don’t
know.”

John had been all this time studying the portrait with its queer
expression. When Mary read the quotation he clapped his hands. “Oh, I
say!” he cried. “It talks about a _finger_, pointing. That’s it! She
means the hand of the portrait is pointing to something. It has been
pointing all the time, and we’ve only got to find out _what at_! Look,
Mary. Don’t you see she is pointing, just as plainly as can be?”

Mary dropped “Othello” and ran to look at the picture. The queer eyes
of Aunt Nan seemed to meet hers, and yes! she certainly seemed to be
pointing with the long forefinger of her right hand which rested on her
breast.

Mary followed the direction of the pointing finger, as John was trying
to do in the fading light. It seemed to point to a corner of the wall
on which the portrait itself hung; to a shelf in the left-hand alcove
by the fireplace. Both Mary and John ran eagerly to the corner and
began to sight from finger to shelf and back again, to get a straight
line from the pointing finger.

“I think it falls _here_” said John, touching a fat brown book labeled
“Concordance,” on the fourth shelf from the bottom. “But I have looked
behind all the books on this shelf. I know I have!”

“No, it doesn’t fall there,” said Mary. “I am sure she is pointing
about _here_.” And she laid her hand on a row of green-and-gold
volumes, whose titles she could hardly read in the dim light.

“‘Gems from the Poets,’” spelled John with difficulty. “Do you suppose
she means these? And what does she want us to do, anyway? Let’s try
this one.” He took down Volume I, which turned out to be “Gems from
Marlowe,” a poet of whom neither of them had even heard. John looked
under the book, and examined the wall behind where it had stood, and
began to look through the book itself, as carefully as possible. But
Mary was searching farther. “I don’t think it is that one,” she said.
“I think she is pointing farther along in the row.”

“Let’s try them all,” suggested John, seizing another volume,--“‘Gems
from Beaumont and Fletcher’--whoever they are!” He flapped the leaves
and looked in the space at the back where the cover was loose. But
there was nothing unusual about that book. Meanwhile Mary was still
drawing an imaginary line from the point of the portrait’s finger to
the shelf in the corner.

“I am sure she is pointing _here_,” she said, laying her hand on the
last volume in the row, which looked exactly like the others. “‘Gems
from Shakespeare,’” she read the label on the back. “Yes, of course
this ought to be the right one. She liked him best of all the poets,
John. I believe this is it!”

Mary pulled the volume from the shelf eagerly. But when she held it in
her hands she uttered a cry of surprise that made John drop the book he
was flapping strenuously, and turn to her.

“What is it, Mary?” he asked. “Have you found something?”

“Oh, John!” she whispered in the greatest excitement, “it isn’t a book
at all! It is--something else! I think it is the Secret!”



CHAPTER XI

GEMS FROM SHAKESPEARE


It was an exciting moment when Mary stood with the “Gems from
Shakespeare” in her hand, declaring that this was not a book at all,
but something else! What was it, then, which made her so excited?
Caliban eyed her from the desk benevolently. “Miaou!” he cried. But no
one noticed him.

“What do you think it is, Mary?” cried John. For he, too, saw in a
moment that it was not a mere book at which his sister was gazing with
wide eyes.

The back, with its green-and-gold leather and its label, “Gems from
Shakespeare,” matched the rest of the set, so far. And the sides were
flat and cover-like. But the front and top and ends, where the edges
of leaves would naturally show in any proper book, were enclosed in
leather, so as to make the whole thing into a sort of case.

“It’s a box!” said Mary solemnly.

John thrust his face up close to the mystery, and presently he gave a
start. In the end where you would naturally open the book to read, he
had spied something strange.

“Oh, Mary!” he cried; “Look! Here is a little keyhole! I believe we’ve
found the clue to your key that was in the lantern. Have you got the
key here? Quick, Mary!”

Mary was shaking the box very gently. “Something rattles!” she said.
“What do you suppose it is?”

“Oh, do be careful. Maybe it is something breakable. Hurry and find out
what it is!” begged John in the greatest excitement.

Mary always wore the puzzling key about her neck, on the green silk
cord which had come with it. She now pulled it out, and they carried
the “Gems from Shakespeare” over to the table, so that they might see
better under the lamp.

Just then there came a knock at the door, and both children jumped as
if they had been caught in doing something wrong. “Mary! John!” cried
the voice of their mother, “where are you both? What in the world are
you doing? I rang the bell for tea three times; and I never knew you
both to be so late before!”

“Oh, come in, Mother,” said Mary; “do come in, quickly!”

The door opened, and there stood Mrs. Corliss with the Doctor close
behind her.

“I thought I heard you shouting at one another in here,” said Dr.
Corliss. “What’s up? More surprises, eh? Something better than tea?”

“Caliban looks as if he thought so,” said Mrs. Corliss. “See how his
green eyes glitter!”

“Oh, yes, Father!” said Mary; “it’s the most exciting surprise of all,
we think; because Aunt Nan has taken pains to make it a part of her
portrait.”

“Part of the portrait! What do you mean, Mary?” exclaimed her father,
advancing into the room, and like the rest of them forgetting all about
tea in the excitement of the occasion.

Mary showed them the “Gems from Shakespeare” with the keyhole in the
end, and explained how the picture had guided them to it. They lighted
the lamp hastily, and Dr. Corliss had to see just how the “slow
unmoving finger” of Aunt Nan’s portrait pointed to the shelf in the
corner where the “Gems” lived.

“Why, yes!” exclaimed the Doctor, examining the picture still more
closely than the children had done. “And now that I have a clue, I see
something more, that you haven’t discovered. Look, children! Do you
see what this book is on which Aunt Nan’s left hand is resting? It is a
picture of this very same ‘Gems from Shakespeare,’ I can even make out
a ‘G--S’ on the binding. But I never should have discovered it without
your clue. I believe there is something in it, Mary!” And he looked as
excited as any of them.

“Well, do let’s find out what is in it!” urged Mrs. Corliss. “I can’t
wait another minute!”

“Neither can I!” cried John. “Hurry, Mary!”

Mary took the little key and tried it in the keyhole. Yes, it just
fitted. She turned it, and a lock clicked.

“Lift the cover!” cried her father. And Mary opened what would have
been the front cover of the book, if it had been a book which she was
holding.

Inside the hollow leathern shell which pretended to be a book was a
box; a green wooden box, with brass trimmings. Mary lifted the cover of
this with a rapidly beating heart. And what do you think she found?

First of all she found a sheet of paper, at the top of which was
written “GEMS FROM SHAKESPEARE.” Below it followed a list of quotations
from Shakespeare, of a character that made them all very much excited;
you will readily guess why. These are the quotations:--

  “The little casket bring me hither.--More jewels yet!”
                                                       _T. of A._ I, ii.

  “The jewel that we find we stoop and take it.” _M. for M._, II, i.

  “Bid my woman search for a jewel.” _Cym._ II, iii.

  “And what says she to my little jewel?” _T. G. of V._, IV, vii.

Under this sheet of quotations was spread a tiny silken blanket of
pink. With trembling fingers Mary lifted this covering.

“Gems from Shakespeare,” indeed! The sight made them all gasp. There,
lying on velvet cushions, in little pens, were drops and clusters and
strings of pearls; big and little, round and oval, creamy and lustrous
and beautiful. Piece by piece Mary lifted them out of their beds. There
was a long necklace which would go twice around her throat; earrings;
brooches; bar-pins and bracelets and rings. Some of the pearls were set
with diamonds, and some with emeralds and sapphires and rubies; some
were made up into rosebuds with pink coral like that of the necklace
which Mary had found in the bust of Shakespeare. It was a wonderful
collection.

“Well!” cried Dr. Corliss, the first one of the family to get his
breath,--“well, Mary! So you have Aunt Nan’s jewels, after all. She
did not sell them for the benefit of her hospital, as I believed. She
wanted them to go with her beloved library. There can be no doubt that
these belong to you, and that she wished you to have them, if you were
clever enough to find them. And a pretty little fortune they will
prove, if I am not mistaken.”

[Illustration: “OH, THEY ARE VERY BEAUTIFUL,” SAID MARY]

“Here is a note in the bottom of the box,” said Mary, drawing out a
sheet of folded paper. Nowadays she did not dread Aunt Nan’s notes as
she had done at first, for she began to think of the queer great-aunt
whom she had never seen as one of her best and kindest friends.

“_To Mary Corliss_” the note was addressed, and it read:--

  These are my jewels, Mary, since you have found them--my mere jewel
  stones. But by this time, as I hope, you will have learned the
  greater beauty of my other jewels--the real “Gems from Shakespeare.”
  You will know, if you have done as I wished, that books are the best
  treasure of all. And that in poetry--especially in Shakespeare’s
  poetry--are the most precious gems to be found in this world. These
  so-called _precious_ bits of stone and pearl have never been of any
  use to me. I have never worn them. Why I have not sold them long ago,
  I do not know. Perhaps because I wanted to play this one last joke
  with them, for somebody’s benefit. They have been waiting here in
  this secret place for years. Now I have played my last joke, and you
  shall do with the “Gems” whatever you please. I hope you will be a
  wise girl.
                                                                   N. C.

“What do you suppose Aunt Nan meant by that last remark?” asked Mrs.
Corliss wonderingly. “The pearls are far too splendid for our Mary ever
to wear. I should hate to see her flaunting them, Owen.”

“So should I!” said Dr. Corliss fervently. “They are grand enough for a
princess to wear at a court ball. What do you say, Mary?”

“Oh, they are very beautiful,” said Mary, “but I don’t want to wear
them, any more than Aunt Nan did. Father, do you think it would be
right to sell them? I’d like so much to have the money to help us
all--and perhaps there would be enough so that I could go to college,
too.”

“That’s my daughter!” cried her father, hugging her proudly in his
arms. “That is what I hoped you would say. I can see no possible reason
why you should keep the jewels. Evidently Aunt Nan did not care for
them herself, and you have no association with them except through
her. They can do you no good, except in one way. So my girl will be
able to go to college, after all, as well as my boy. I am so glad!”

“Thanks to Aunt Nan--and to Shakespeare,” said Mary, patting the volume
of “Hamlet” lovingly. “If Shakespeare hadn’t given the clue I might not
have found the gems for ever and ever so long.”

“You might never have found them, Mary!” cried John. “Ginger! how
awful! They might have stayed here all your life; or some old
bookseller might have got them when you began to fill up with new books
in place of these old ones.”

“Like Aladdin swapping off his old lamp for a new one,” smiled Dr.
Corliss.

“No,” said Mary, “that wouldn’t have happened. And I should have found
them, anyway, sooner or later. For I shall never part with one of Aunt
Nan’s books. And sooner or later I mean to dip into every one, and
read it through, if I can. I guess Aunt Nan knew that.” She glanced
gratefully at the portrait over the mantelpiece, which seemed to look
very happy in the lamplight, while the box of gems stood open on the
table.



CHAPTER XII

THE PARTY


From Aunt Nan’s pearls Mary kept out a brooch for her mother and two
bar-pins for herself and Katy Summers, just alike. The rest of the
“Gems from Shakespeare” she entrusted to Mr. Wilde, the family lawyer,
who undertook to sell them for her in the city.

It was an exciting day for Mary when he told her the result of his
mission.

“My dear,” said he, with a twinkle in his wise old eyes, “those
Shakespeare ‘Gems’ of yours made the eyes of the jewelers pop out of
their heads. You won’t have any trouble in going to college when the
time comes; if you still wish to do so, and if you haven’t already
learned all there is to be known from that famous library of yours. I
hold forty thousand dollars in trust for you. Are you disappointed?”

“Forty thousand dollars!” Mary could only gasp. And the rest of the
family had to pinch themselves to be sure they were not dreaming. But
it was, indeed, a fact. There need be no more anxiety or overwork
for any of them. With care and economy they were provided for until
Mary and John should have finished college and be ready to earn their
living. Dr. Corliss could go on writing his book in peace, without
worrying about bills. Mrs. Corliss could have a little maid to help her
in the housework.

And Mary could have a party!

“Mother,” said Mary, when they had recovered from the first excitement
of the news which Mr. Wilde had brought them, and when they had seen
that proud and delighted old gentleman off once more for the city where
he lived,--“Mother, I want to have a party, and give the other children
a good time. I want to celebrate not only our good luck, but the way we
got it. I want to have a Shakespeare party.”

“Oh, yes! Let’s have a party!” crowed John. “A dress-up party, Mary?”

“Yes, a dress-up party. Everybody must be a Shakespeare character.”

“I think that is a very nice idea,” said Mrs. Corliss. “Next month
comes Shakespeare’s birthday, the twenty-third of April, which is also
Saint George’s day. I think it would be lovely to have a party and show
our Crowfield friends that Aunt Nan’s house is going to be hospitable
and jolly from this time on.”

They invited all the children in Mary’s class of the High School and
in John’s class of the Grammar School. Everybody was told that he
or she must come in a Shakespeare costume; and this set them all to
looking up quotations and reading plays more than had ever before been
done in Crowfield.

For days before the party Mary’s library was crowded every afternoon
with eager children who came to ask questions and get suggestions about
their costumes. Mary and Katy Summers helped them as best they could,
and Mrs. Corliss pinned and draped and made sketches to show how things
ought to look.

During these busy days Caliban retreated to the attic and sulked most
of the time, because Mary paid him so little attention. But then, Mary
said his costume was already nearly perfect. So why bother about him?

They held the party in the library, the biggest room in the Corliss
house. And Aunt Nan’s portrait looked down on a strange gathering
of folk out of her favorite books. It seemed as if the old lady
must be pleased if she knew how many persons had become interested
in Shakespeare through the things which had happened and were still
happening in her library.

The door was opened by John dressed as Puck, in brown jacket and
tights, with little wings sprouting out of his shoulder-blades.

In the library the guests were received by Mary in long, glittering,
green draperies to represent Ariel, with a wand and a crown of stars.
She kept Caliban close at her side, beautiful in a green ribbon collar
which bored him greatly.

Katy Summers stood beside Mary, and looked sweet as Titania, in a fairy
dress of white tarlatan, with a crown of flowers. Dr. Corliss had been
made to represent Prospero, with a long white beard and gray robes. And
Mrs. Corliss was one of the witches from “Macbeth.” She wore a dress of
smoky gray veiling, with a veil over her long hair, which concealed her
face. Some of the children were afraid of her at first, for they did
not know who she really was; she looked very bent and witch-like, and
acted her part weirdly.

Ralph and James Perry, two members of John’s “Big Four,” came as
the two Dromios, the clowns in “A Comedy of Errors.” Their faces
were whitened, and they acted like real clowns in a circus, turning
somersaults and making grimaces. Whatever one did the other imitated
him immediately, and it kept the other children in gales of laughter.

Billy Barton, the fourth member of the “Big Four,” made a hit as Nick
Bottom, wearing the Ass’s head, and braying with comical effect; though
as Billy had never heard the strange noise which a donkey really makes
when it brays, he actually sounded more like a sick rooster. His
long-eared head-piece soon grew so hot to wear that Billy took it off
and hung it over his arm, which rather spoiled the illusion, but was
much more comfortable.

Then there was Charlie Connors, a very fat boy, who dressed as
Falstaff, with a fierce mustache and impressive rubber boots, a plumed
hat, belt full of pistols, and a sword. There was Lady Macbeth, in a
white nightgown with her hair hanging loose, a dangerous dagger in one
hand and a lighted candle in the other. But when she nearly set fire to
the draperies of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Mrs. Corliss made the
Lady extinguish her sleep-walking candle.

Hamlet himself was there, too, in melancholy long black stockings, with
a waterproof cape flung tragically over one shoulder. He carried one of
Aunt Nan’s ostrich eggs in his hand to represent a skull. Indeed, the
attic and the “Collections” had helped supply many necessary parts of
this Shakespeare masquerade.

There was Cleopatra, in a wonderful red sateen robe hauled out of one
of the old chests; and Shylock, with a long beard hanging over a purple
dressing-gown of the Early-Victorian period. There was Julius Cæsar in
a Roman toga made from some of Aunt Nan’s discarded window-curtains,
and Rosalind looking lovely in a blue bathing-suit and tam o’ shanter.

There were also a number of little Grammar-School fairies in
mosquito-netting robes, and many other citizens of places earthly and
unearthly, who seemed to have wandered out of the books in Mary’s
library. Ariel recognized them all, and named them to the company as
they came in. They squatted about on the chairs and on the floor till
everybody had arrived.

And then they gave the play.

Ever since reading “Midsummer Night’s Dream” Mary had wanted to try the
delicious foolery of “Pyramus and Thisbe.” It required no scenery, no
other costumes than a shawl or two, to cover up what the actors were
already wearing to represent other characters. It was all a huge joke,
as the audience soon saw; and throughout the scene the children laughed
and squealed with delight, as Mary had thought they would. For the
actors must have given the play as ridiculously as Shakespeare himself
intended; which was saying a great deal.

Billy Barton, covering himself with a mackintosh, acted Prologue, and
introduced Mary, draped as Pyramus, and Katy as Thisbe; John, parted
for a time from his wings, and tied up in a gray shawl, with a fringed
rope fastened on for a tail, was the horribly roaring Lion. Ralph and
Jimmie represented Wall and Moonshine.

It was a very funny thing to see Wall hold up his fingers to make a
chink through which Pyramus and Thisbe might kiss each other. And when
Lion begged the audience not to be frightened by his roar, the children
shrieked with laughter.

But funniest of all was when Jimmy Perry as Moonshine came in with the
old tin lantern to represent the Moon, and tried to make Caliban in his
green ribbon act the part of the Moon Man’s dog. Caliban didn’t like
theatricals. He would not act the part, but lay down in the middle of
the floor, with his feet in the air, and his ears laid flat, ready to
scratch the Moon Man if he persisted. The Prologue had to rush in again
and drag him off.

When the Lion had roared and made Pyramus think he had eaten poor
Thisbe, so that the hasty fellow stabbed himself in grief; and when
Thisbe had died, too, after sobbing about her lover’s “lily lips” and
“cherry nose,” the little play was over, and everybody in a good humor.
And the children said, “I didn’t know Shakespeare was so funny, did
you?”

Then Ariel and Titania, Prospero, and the Witch made a magic--they
were a mighty quartet, you see. John suggested that they were really
the “Biggest Four.” They waved their wands and lifted their hands, and
Caliban helped with a mighty “Wow!” Then in came Puck and the other
fairies bearing a huge iron kettle, with a ladle sticking out of the
top. From the kettle rose a cloud of smoke and a sweet smell that made
Caliban sneeze. The fairies put the kettle in the middle of the room,
and the four magicians waved their wands over it, and moved slowly
about it singing,--

  “Double, double, toil and trouble,
  Fire, burn, and cauldron, bubble!”

When the spell was finished, the smoke died away, and the Witch stooped
over and ladled something out, which she threw into the fireplace.
“Now, come, everybody!” she cried in a cracked voice, “and dip pot-luck
out of the magic kettle.”

One by one the guests came and helped themselves to a ladleful of
pot-luck. The “luck” turned out to be a tissue-paper package tied
with red ribbon. In each package was a little present. Sometimes the
children did not get an appropriate gift; but then they could “swap.”
Shylock, who was one of the biggest boys, drew a Japanese doll, which
he exchanged for a jack-knife that had fallen to the lot of a little
girl-fairy. Cleopatra drew a conductor’s whistle, and Hamlet had a
beautiful bow of pink hair-ribbon; so they made a trade. The Ghost
was made happy with a jews-harp, and the Ass secured a fan; while fat
Falstaff made every one roar with laughter by unrolling from the great
bundle of tissue paper, which he had carefully picked out, a tiny
thimble.

After this they danced and played games, and made the roof of Aunt
Nan’s old house echo with such sounds as it had not heard for many
years. Shakespeare characters flitted from room to room, up the stairs
to the attic and down to the cellar, in a joyous game of hide-and-seek.
And nobody said “Don’t!” or “Careful!” or “Sh!” This was a night when
Dream-People had their way undisturbed.

Then they all went out into the dining-room and had supper--sandwiches
and chocolate and cake and ice-cream. And they all voted that they
liked Shakespeare very much, and that they ought to celebrate his
birthday every year.

Nobody wanted to go home, of course. But in time, mere ordinary fathers
and mothers and big sisters and big brothers, in ugly, common clothes,
came and dragged away the Shakespeare people, one by one. When they
had all, as Prospero said, “melted into air, into thin air,” when even
Titania had waved her wand and disappeared with a kiss on Ariel’s
cheek, this happy Spirit and Prospero and the Witch, Puck and Caliban,
were left alone in front of the library fireplace.

“Wasn’t it a lovely party!” cried Puck.

“I am sure Aunt Nan would have been pleased,” said the Witch, looking
up at the portrait over the mantel.

“Just think what a happy time she has given us; dear Aunt Nan!” said
Ariel.

“Yes; it was a very nice party, indeed,” acknowledged Prospero,
stroking his long beard gravely. “I confess I never expected to get
so much pleasure out of poetry. But now, to quote myself, ‘I’ll to my
book.’ Good-night.” And he retired to his study.

“I’m so sleepy!” said John. “Isn’t it too bad that poor Shakespeare
died before they invented ice-cream?”

“Yes,” said Mary, “I wish he were still alive. I should like to see
him. But when I look about the library now I feel as if all the books
were alive--just full of live people!”

“They are alive so long as we read them,” said Mrs. Corliss.

“I’m going to keep them alive!” cried Mary.

“Miaou!” protested Caliban, scratching wearily at his ribbon. He at
least was tired of wearing his costume.

“Poor Caliban!” said Mary, untying the ribbon. “Now you can go to sleep
comfortably. To-morrow I shan’t be Ariel any more. But you will still
be Caliban, for you are the realest of us all!”

Caliban switched his tail, yawned, and jumped up into the armchair,
where he curled himself to sleep.

Mary had a strange dream that night. Perhaps she had eaten too much
ice-cream. She thought that as soon as the house was quiet, Caliban
rose on tiptoe and put on little wings like those of Puck, and flew
right out of the open window, away to the land of fairies and shadows
and book-folk. She dreamed that though she hunted and hunted, she
never could find him again. The dream made her cry, and she woke up
very early in the morning, still sobbing.

The dream was still too real! She jumped out of bed, flung on her
little blue wrapper, thrust her feet into her blue slippers, and
hurried downstairs into the library. There in the middle of the
mantelpiece, under Aunt Nan’s portrait and close beside the bust
of Shakespeare, sat Caliban. He blinked in grave surprise at her
unexpected entrance.

“Oh, Caliban, dear Caliban!” cried Mary, running up to him and hugging
him tight. “I was afraid you had ‘vanished into thin air,’ too. I
couldn’t have borne that, Caliban. I don’t know what I should ever do
without you, pussy dear!”

“Miaou!” said Caliban, fondly kissing her cheek.

And Aunt Nan’s portrait smiled down upon the pair.


THE END



  The Riverside Press
  CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
  U . S . A



TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.



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