That very week their advertis.e.m.e.nts brought them a gentleman and his wife with a little crippled daughter. It was getting warm enough now so that people were not afraid to come to board in a house that had no heating arrangements but open fireplaces.

As the numbers of the boarders increased, however, Lyddy did not find that the profit increased proportionately. She was now handling fifty-one dollars and a half each week; but the demands for vegetables and fresh eggs made a big item; and as yet there had been no returns from the garden, although everything was growing splendidly.

The chickens had hatched--seventy-two of them. Mr. Bray had taken up the study of the poultry papers and catalogs, and he declared himself well enough to take entire charge of the fluffy little fellows as soon as they came from the sh.e.l.l. He really did appear to be getting on a little; but the girls watched him closely and could scarcely believe that he made any material gain in health.

With Harris Colesworth's help one Sat.u.r.day, he had knocked together a couple of home-made brooders and movable runs, and soon the flock, divided in half, were chirping gladly in the spring sunshine on the side lawn.

They fed them scientifically, and with care. Mr. Bray was at the pens every two hours all day--or oftener. At night, two jugs of hot water went into the brooders, and the little biddies never seemed to miss having a real mother.

Luckily Lyddy had chosen a hardy strain of fowl and during the first fortnight they lost only two of the fluffy little fellows. Lyddy saw the beginning of a profitable chicken business ahead of her; but, of course, it was only an expense as yet.

She could not see her way clear to buying the kitchen range that was so much needed; and the days were growing warmer. May promised to be the forerunner of an exceedingly hot summer.

At Hillcrest there was, however, almost always a breeze. Seldom did the huge piles of rocks at the back of the farm shut the house off from the cooling winds. The people who came to enjoy the simple comforts of the farmhouse were loud in their praises of the spot.

"If we can get along till July--or even the last of June," quoth Lyddy to her sister, "I feel sure that we will get the house well filled, the garden will help to support us, and we shall be on the way to making a good living----"

"If we aren't dead," sighed 'Phemie. "I _do_ get so tired sometimes. It's a blessing we got Mother Harrison," for so they had come to call the widow.

"We knew we'd have to work if we took boarders," said Lyddy.

"Goodness me! we didn't know we had to work our fingers to the bone--mine are coming through the flesh--the bones, I mean."

"What nonsense!"

"And I know I have lost ten pounds. I'm only a skeleton. You could hang me up in that closet in the old doctor's office in place of that skeleton----"

"What's _that_, 'Phemie Bray?" demanded the older sister, in wonder.

'Phemie realized that she had almost let _that_ secret out of the bag, and she jumped up with a sudden cry:

"Mercy! do you know the time, Lyd? If we're going to pick those wild strawberries for tea, we'd better be off at once. It's almost three o'clock."

And so she escaped telling Lyddy all she knew about what was behind the mysteriously locked green door at the end of the long corridor of the farmhouse.

Harris Colesworth, on his early Sunday morning jaunts to the swimming-hole in Pounder's Brook, had discovered a patch of wild strawberries, and had told the girls. Up to this time Lyddy and 'Phemie had found little time in which to walk over the farm. As for traversing the rocky part of it, as old Mr. Colesworth and Professor Spink did, that was out of the question.

But fruit was high, and the chance to pick a dish for supper--enough for all the boarders--was a great temptation to the frugal Lyddy.

She caught up her sunbonnet and pail and followed her sister. 'Phemie's bonnet was blue and Lyddy's was pink. As they crossed the cornfield, their bright tin pails flashing in the afternoon sunlight, Grandma Castle saw them from the shady porch.

"What do you think about those two girls, Mrs. Chadwick?" she demanded of the little lame girl's mother.

"I have been here so short a time I scarcely know how to answer that question, Mrs. Castle," responded the other lady.

"I'll tell you: They're wonderful!" declared Grandma Castle. "If my granddaughters had half the get-up-and-get to 'em that Lydia and Euphemia have, I'd be as proud as Mrs. Lucifer! So I would."

Meanwhile the girls of Hillcrest Farm had pa.s.sed through the young corn--acres and acres of it, running clear down to Mr. Pritchett's line--and climbed the stone fence into the upper pasture.

Here a path, winding among the huge boulders, brought them within sound of Pounder's Brook. 'Phemie laughed now at the remembrance of her intimate acquaintance with that brook the day they had first come to Hillcrest.

It broadened here in a deep brown pool under an overhanging boulder. A big beech tree, too, shaded it. It certainly was a most attractive place.

"Wish I was a boy!" gasped 'Phemie, in delight. "I certainly would get a bathing suit and come up here like Harris Colesworth. And Lucas comes here and plunges in after his day's work--he told me so."

"Dear me! I hope n.o.body will come here for a bath just now," observed Lyddy. "It would be rather awkward."

"And I reckon the water's cold, too," agreed her sister, with a giggle.

"This stream is fed by a dozen different springs around among the rocks here, so Lucas says. And I expect one spring is just a little colder than another!"

"Oh, look!" exclaimed Lyddy. "There are the strawberries."

The girls were down upon their knees immediately, picking into their tins--and their mouths. They could not resist the luscious berries--"tame"

strawberries never can be as sweet as the wild kind.

And this patch near the swimming hole afforded a splendid crop. The girls saw that they might come here again and again to pick berries for their table--and every free boon of Nature like this helped in the management of the boarding house!

But suddenly--when their kettles were near full--'Phemie jumped up with a shrill whisper:

"What's that?"

"Hush, 'Phemie!" exclaimed her sister. "How you scared me."

"Hush yourself! don't you hear it?"

Lyddy did. Surely that was a strange clinking noise to be heard up here in the woods. It sounded like a milkman going along the street carrying a bunch of empty bottles.

"It's no wild animal--unless he's got gla.s.s teeth and is gnashing 'em,"

giggled 'Phemie. "Come on! I want to know what it means."

"I wouldn't, 'Phemie----"

"Well, _I_ would, Lyddy. Come on! Who's afraid of bottles?"

"But _is_ it bottles we hear?"

"We'll find out in a jiff," declared her younger sister, leading the way deeper into the woods.

The sound was from up stream. They followed the noisy brook for some hundreds of yards. Then they came suddenly upon a little hollow, where water dripped over a huge boulder into another still pool--but smaller than the swimming hole.

Behind the drip of the water was a ledge, and on this ledge stood a row of variously a.s.sorted bottles. A man was just setting several other bottles on the same ledge.

These were the bottles the girls had heard striking together as the man walked through the woods. And the man himself was Professor Spink.

CHAPTER XXV