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.
[26]“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!”
[27]“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[28] 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[29] 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[30] 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.
[31]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[32] 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[33] 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.”
