December, 1911 
HOUSE AND GARDEN 
367 
You’re in the country out here, Mam, and what’s more it's winter.” 
“What have you got?” she asked, a little alarmed. 
“Why, Water's pink-label soups, an' Make-it-in-a-minute 
mince-meat, an’ Gold Seal guaranteed near-butter, an’ — why 
quite a line of such things. The drummer says they are all used 
quite free in Noo York.” 
“Where do you get anything fresh?” pleaded the woman. 
“Oh, we do most of our buyin’ down at Priestly,” joined in 
the postmaster. “Last stop before this place, you came right 
through it.” 
“When is the next car back?” asked Bob, whose interest in 
the discussion of provisions was getting painfully acute. 
“9 :45 — tomorrow morning,” said Bill. “Only it don’t run to¬ 
morrow, bein’ Christmas.” 
“Look-a-here,” interrupted Mr. Logan, with an expansive 
smile that indicated he had been hit by a happy thought, “it’s 
only three miles back, and only one mile further out to the place 
than it is from here. We’ll let the trunks go out direct, and we'll 
go by way of Priestly. The sleighin’s good, an’ it won’t take 
much more’n half an hour longer — not includin’ th’ shoppin’ of 
course,” he added, with a timely thought on woman’s ways. 
Suit-cases and grips were put aboard the sled, and they piled 
in. Three miles over a smooth road, covered to the tune of 
cheery sleigh bells and to the time of Lute’s long-striding mare 
“Fly-away,” went quickly enough. As they flew past peaceful 
homestead and snow-blanketed white hills, with now and then 
the contrast of groups of dark firs, black as the heart of mid¬ 
night, the satisfying consciousness came to them that all this 
fitted in with the spirit of their Christmas lark and that they 
were leaving the city and its troubles very far behind. The moon 
hung clear and full in the cloudless sky, and the keen, vitalizing 
air, rushed into their lungs, so 
long used to the desiccated at¬ 
mosphere of city rooms, with al¬ 
most the effect of an exhilarating 
cordial. 
Mr. Mantell (thought his wife, 
as she eyed him sideways through 
her veil), looked ten years 
younger and twenty years more 
boyish than he had for a long 
time. As he glanced up suddenly 
he saw his wife’s face clear cut in 
the moonlight. Her eyes were shin¬ 
ing, her thin, delicately carved 
nostrils dilated with the sheer joy 
of life—life at the full tide, in¬ 
surgent, resistless—and in that 
moment the blood rushed and 
swirled about his heart in the an¬ 
cient, primal way that he had 
not experienced in years. It was 
a revelation of many things in a 
lightning flash; and now he sat 
wondering about it, wondering 
what had fallen out of his life, 
and how it had gone without his missing it, and why. 
“Thar she lays,” exclaimed Mr. Logan, rounding a sharp 
curve and flourishing his whip half way around the horizon. 
At the foot of a long hill, spread out before them like a photo¬ 
graphed Christmas tree, sparkled the little city of Priestly. 
A few minutes more found them in its shopping center, with 
a red-cheeked and suspiciously curve-nosed butcher explaining 
to Mrs. Mantell that his supply of holiday niceties was ‘‘direct 
and fresh from Boston,” and the apples — he showed her the mark 
on the tissue wrapper enveloping each—from Oregon. 
Apparently no one in the place, including several farmers from 
the adjacent countryside, saw anything incongruous in the fact 
that squash, celery and lettuce were being supplied to them from 
a distant city, and apples from across a continent. Mr. Mantell, 
being a stranger, was struck by the fact that it seemed rather 
funny. Mrs. Mantell was struck by a fact that was not at all 
funny—the prices of all the nice things she had expected to find 
so cheap in the country, were in most cases higher than city 
prices. To keep inside the single green bill with a 5 in the corner, 
which she had set as the limit, she finally decided upon a pork 
roast instead of chicken, which really was the part of wisdom, 
for the pork was extra nice and the chickens were not. That 
was hardly their fault either, for several long months they had 
been freezing blue and pucker-skinned in storage awaiting the 
rush season. 
When they finally reached the homestead, the trunks were 
awaiting them on the veranda, which faced south, and there also 
was piled half a cord of wood. This offset to some extent the 
inhospitable looks of closed blinds and boarded up doors; in¬ 
hospitable, that is, to the extent that this low, rambling roofed, 
veranda-screened, nestling house could look inhospitable. Its 
whole appearance and attitude spoke a word of welcome, offered 
quietness and comfort. 
Mrs. Mantell, inwardly somewhat agitated, tried the golden 
key in the lock of the wide door, entering the house from the 
veranda, the only one not boarded up. A final misgiving fluttered 
through her mind as to whether she had not been terribly foolish. 
Suppose it was wet and leaky? Wouldn't it be impossibly damp 
and musty? She set her lips firmly, exerted all the strength in 
her fingers, and the big bolt shot back. 
“I christen it ‘Pandora Cottage,’ ” she cried, stepping back, 
“for whatever comes out, Hope will remain here!” And she 
threw the big door open. 
It was not at all bad; only 
“kinder like a front parlor after 
a funeral,” as Mr. Logan lugubri¬ 
ously put it. Close, musty, a little 
dank, of course it was. 
Mr. Mantell’s camping experi¬ 
ence had prompted the taking of 
a hatchet, and with the capable as¬ 
sistance of Mr. Logan and his 
man, a fire was soon roaring on 
the hearth. At first it wanted to> 
smoulder and smoke and blow out 
into the room. But some dry old 
shingles, from a pile in the shed, 
soon had it sucking burning frag¬ 
ments of them bodily up the cavern¬ 
ous flue, and radiating a gener¬ 
ous warmth out into the room. 
Apparently everything had been 
left ready for immediate occu¬ 
pancy. An axe and a rusty saw 
were at hand in the well filled 
woodshed. Dishes and cooking 
utensils occupied their places on 
shelves and nails in the kitchen. 
The kitchen range stored a fire beautifully. Even the pump 
worked after a few minutes’ operation, and though the water 
seemed all right, Mr. Mantell would not permit its use. So Rob 
and Helen got some from the well outside. One bucket leaked 
and the other was mossy, but the water was all right. 
The trunks were brought in and began to yield up their useful 
contents. Supper was soon under way, with the women folks 
in charge, while Mr. Mantell and Rob explored the house. It 
had been left partly furnished and evidently with the idea that 
(Continued on page 396) 
Everything was apparently ready for immediate occupancy and 
the cavernous fireplace was suggestive of warmth and hospitality 
