Jean Craig In New York

FALCON BOOKS

Jean Craig In New York

BY KAY LYTTLETON

When lovely Jean Craig moved with her family to Woodhow farm in Connecticut, she thought she was giving up her art lessons forever. And then suddenly the opportunity came to go to New York to study, and she went to live with her cousin Beth in the suburbs of New York. These months were an exciting interlude in her life. She loved seeing her old friends again, going to parties, and meeting new people, among them Aldo Thomas, an artist from Italy.

Jean Craig in New York tells of Jean’s adventures in the city, but it is also the story of the Craigs who meet life’s adventures with gaiety and courage.

Other FALCON BOOKS for Girls:

JEAN CRAIG GROWS UP JEAN CRAIG FINDS ROMANCE PATTY AND JO, DETECTIVES

JEAN CRAIG IN NEW YORK

by KAY LYTTLETON

THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY CLEVELAND AND NEW YORK

Falcon Books are published by THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY 2231 West 110th Street · Cleveland 2 · Ohio

W 2

COPYRIGHT 1948 BY THE WORLD PUBLISHING COMPANY

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1. Jean Finds a Stranger

It was just five days before Christmas when a pink express card arrived in the noon mail. The Craigs knew there must be something unusual in the mail, for Mr. Ricketts, the rural free delivery carrier, had lingered at the end of the drive.

Jean, the oldest of the four children, slipped into a coat and stadium boots and ran down the drive to see what he wanted.

“There’s something for you folks at the express office, I guess. If it’s anything heavy I suggest you go down and get it today. Looks like we’d have some snow before nightfall.”10 He waited while Jean glanced at the card. “Know what it is?”

“Why, no, I don’t believe I do,” she answered. “We’ve gotten all our Christmas packages. Maybe they’re books for Dad.”

“Like enough,” said Mr. Ricketts. “I didn’t know. I always feel a little bit interested, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” laughed Jean, as he started his truck. She hurried back to the house, her head down against the wind. The front door banged as Kit, fifteen and two years younger than Jean, let her in, her hands floury from baking.

“For Pete’s sake, why do you stand talking all day to that old gossip? Any mail from the West?”

The previous spring, the Craig family had moved to Elmhurst, Connecticut, because of Mr. Craig’s health. Due to a war injury, he11 had required a complete rest. At the suggestion of his cousin Rebecca, the family had left Long Island to live on a farm. Rural living was far different from anything Jean, Kit, thirteen-year-old Doris, and eleven-year-old Tommy were used to, but they grew to love it more and more as they made new friends and discovered the never-ending surprises that the country held for them.

As told in Jean Craig Grows Up, the family met their landlord, Ralph McRae, a young good-looking boy of twenty-four, from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, who was immediately attracted to Jean. When he returned to his western ranch, he took Buzzy Hancock, his cousin and Kit’s best friend, back with him. Now, Jean was finding it hard to wait for the summer to come when Ralph and Buzzy would return.

With a letter from Ralph in her hand, Jean12 answered Kit’s questions hurriedly. “Mr. Ricketts only wanted to know about an express package, whether it was heavy or light, where it came from, and if we expected it.” She piled the rest of the mail on the dining room table. “There is no mail from Saskatoon for you, Kit, only for me.”

“Oh, I thought maybe Buzzy might have written to me. The mug, he promised to send me a silver fox skin for Christmas, if he could find one. I’m going to give up waiting for it. With Christmas five days away, he surely would have sent it by now.”

Kit’s face was perfectly serious. Buzzy had asked her before he left Elmhurst what she would like best, and she had told him. The others laughed at her, but she held firmly to the idea that if it were possible, Buzzy would get it for her.

Jean was engrossed in a five-page letter13 from Ralph and had paid no attention to Kit’s remarks. She finished reading the letter, full of Christmas wishes and regret for having to be away from her, especially during the holiday season, and opened another from one of the students at the Academy back in New York. The previous winter, Jean had studied art there and had been sorry to give it up.

“Peg Moffat is taking up impressionism.” Jean turned back to the first page of the letter she had been reading. “She says she never fully realized before that art is only the highest form of expressing your ideals to the world at large.”

“Tell her she’s all wrong.” Kit looked up from her seed catalogues. “Becky told me the other day she believes schools were first invented for the relief of distressed parents just to give them a breathing spell, and not for kids at all.”

14“Still, if Peg’s hit a new trail of interest, it will make her think she’s really working. Things have come to her so easily, she doesn’t appreciate them. Perhaps she can express herself now.”

“Express herself? For gosh sakes, Jeannie, tell her to come up here, and we’ll let her express herself all over the place. Gee! Just smell my mince pies this minute. Isn’t cooking an expression of individual art too?” And Kit made a beeline for the oven in time to rescue four mince pies.

“Who’s going to drive down after the package?” asked Mrs. Craig from the doorway. “I want to send an order for groceries too and you’ll want to be back before dark.”

“I’m terribly sorry, Mom,” called Kit from the kitchen, “but Lucy and some of the girls are coming over and I promised them I’d go after evergreen and Princess pine. We’re 15getting it for wreaths and stars to decorate the church.”

“Tommy and I’ll go. I love the drive.” Jean handed Peg’s letter over to Kit to read, and gave just a bit of a sigh. Nobody could possibly have sustained any inward melancholy at Woodhow. There was too much to be done every minute of the day. Still, Peg’s letter did bring back vividly memories of last winter at the Art Academy. Perhaps the students did take themselves and their aims too seriously, yet it had all been wonderful and interesting. Even in the peaceful countryside, Jean missed the companionship of girls her own age, with the same tastes and interests as herself.

She called to Tommy, who was down in the basement making a model airplane, and told him to come with her to the express office. He came upstairs under protest, his face smeared with dirt.

16 “Gosh, Tommy, you look a sight. If you’re going to come with me, you’ll have to wash first. Look at your hands.”

“Gee, whiz,” he grumbled, “what’s the use in washing all the time. A guy only gets dirty again, anyway.” But he leisurely went upstairs and came down again after what seemed to Jean an unnecessarily long time.

“What took you so long, anyway? Hurry up. I don’t want to be driving after dark.”

“OK, OK, I’m coming.” And the two went out the back door to the garage.

It was only a drive of seven miles to Nantic, but the children never tired of the ride. It was so still and dreamlike with the early winter silence on the land. At the mill house, Lucy Peckham waved to them. Along the riverside meadows they saw the two little Peckham boys driving sheep with Shep, their black and white dog, barking madly at the foot of a tall hickory tree.

17 “Look, Tommy, see those red berries in that thicket overhanging the rail fence? Will you get out and pick me some?” Jean stopped the car and Tommy jumped out. A car passed going the other way while Jean was waiting, and she recognized the driver as the stationmaster’s son.

“Somebody is coming home for Christmas, I guess,” she remarked to Tommy when he came back.

Jean drove on with her chin up, cheeks rosy and eyes alert. When they drove up in front of the express office, Tommy didn’t want to wait in the car, so they walked up the steps of the office together. Just as they opened the door, they caught the voice of Mr. Briggs, the agent, not pleasant and sociable as it usually was, but sharp and high-pitched.

“Well, you can’t loaf around here, son, I tell you that right now. The minute I spied you hiding behind that stack of ties down the18 track, I knew you’d run away from some place, and I’m going to find out all about you and let your family know you’re caught.”

“I ain’t got any family,” came back a boy’s voice hopefully. “I’m my own boss and can go where I please.”

“Did you hear that, Jean?” exclaimed Mr. Briggs, turning around at the opening of the door. “Just size him up, will you. He says he’s his own boss, and he’s no bigger than a pint of cider. Where did you come from?”

“Off a freight train.”

Mr. Briggs leaned his hands on his knees and bent down to get his face on a level with the boy’s.

“Isn’t he slick, though? Can’t get a bit of real information out of him except that he liked the looks of Nantic and dropped off the slow freight when she was shunting back and forth up yonder. What’s your name?”

“Jack. Jack Davis.” He didn’t look at Mr.19 Briggs, but off at the hills, windswept and bare except for their patches of green pines. There was a curious expression in his eyes, Jean thought, not loneliness, but a dumb fatalism. As Becky might have said, it was as if he had known nothing but trouble and didn’t expect anything better.

“How old are you?”

“’Bout nine or ten.”

“What made you drop off that freight here?”

Jack was silent and seemed embarrassed. Tommy, who had been eyeing him curiously, responded instantly.

“Because you like it best, isn’t that why?” he suggested eagerly. Jack’s face brightened up at that.

“I liked the looks of the hills, but when I saw all them mills, I—I thought I’d get some work maybe.”

“You’re too little,” Mr. Briggs cut in. “I’m20 going to hand you right over to the proper authorities, and you’ll land up in the State Home for Boys if you haven’t got any folks of your own.”

Jack met the shrewd gray eyes doubtfully. His own filled with tears that rose slowly and dropped on his worn short coat. He put his hand up to his shirt collar and held on to it tightly as if he would have kept back the ache there, and Jean’s heart could stand it no longer.

“I think he belongs up at Woodhow, please, Mr. Briggs,” she said quickly. “I know Mother and Dad will take him up there if he hasn’t any place to go, and we’ll look after him. I’m sure of it. He can drive back with us.”

“But you don’t know where he came from nor anything about him, Jean. I tell you he’s just a little tramp. You can see that, or he wouldn’t be hitching on to freight trains.21 That’s no way to do if you’re decent God-fearing folks, riding freights and dodging trainmen.”

“Let me take him home with me now, anyway,” pleaded Jean. “We can find out about him, later. It’s Christmas Friday, remember, Mr. Briggs.”

There was no resisting the appeal that underlay her words, and Mr. Briggs relented gracefully, although he maintained the county school was the proper receptacle for all such human rubbish.

Jean laughed at him happily, as he stood with his feet wide apart, his hands thrust into his coat pockets.

“It’s your own affair, Jean,” he returned dubiously. “I wouldn’t stand in your way so long as you see fit to take him along. But he’s just human rubbish. Want to go, Jack?”

And Jack rose, wiping his eyes with his coat22 sleeve, and glared resentfully back at Mr. Briggs. He took the smaller package, Tommy the other, and the three left the office.

“Guess we can all squeeze into the front seat,” Jean said. “We’re going down to the store, and then home.”

2. New York Cousins

Doris caught the sound of the squeaking snow under the tires of the car as it came up the drive about four o’clock. It was nearly dark. She was standing in the living room lighting the Christmas candles in the windows, and she ran to the front door.

“Hi,” called Jean when she saw Doris in the doorway, “we’re back.”

Tommy jumped out of the car at the back door and took Jack by the hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. He was shivering, but Tommy pulled him into the kitchen where Kit was getting supper. Over in a corner lay the24 pile of evergreens and pine that she and the other girls had gathered that afternoon.

“Look, Kit,” Tommy cried, quite as if Jack had been some wonderful gift instead of a dusty, tired, limp little derelict of fate and circumstance. “This is Jack and he’s come to stay with us. Where’s Mom?”

One quick look at Jack’s face checked all mirthfulness in Kit. There were times when it was better to say nothing. She was always intuitive, quick to catch moods in others and understand. This case needed her mother. Jack was fairly blue from the cold, and there was a pinched, hungry look around his mouth and nose that made Kit leave her currant biscuits.

“Upstairs with Dad. Beat it up there fast and call her, Tommy.” She smiled at Jack, a radiant, comradely smile that endeared Kit to all she met. “We’re so glad you’ve come home,” she said, drawing him over to the25 stove. “You sit up on that stool and get warm.” She slipped into the pantry and dipped out a mug of rich, creamy milk, then cut a wide slice of warm gingerbread. “There now. See how that tastes. You know, it’s the funniest thing how wishes come true. I was just longing for somebody to sample my cake and tell me if it was good. Is it?”

Jack drank nearly the whole glass of milk before he spoke, looking over the rim at her with very sleepy eyes.

“It’s awful good,” he said. “I ain’t had anything to eat since yesterday morning.”

“Oh, dear,” cried Kit. This was beyond her. She turned with relief at Mrs. Craig’s quick light step in the hall.

“Yes, dear, I know. Jeannie told me.” She went straight over to the stool. And she did just the one right thing. That was the marvel of Mrs. Craig, she always seemed to know naturally26 what a person needed most and gave it to them. She took Jack in her arms, his head on her shoulder, patting him while he began to cry chokingly.

“Never mind, child, now,” she told him. “You’re home.” She lifted him to her lap and started to untie his worn sodden shoes. “Tommy, get your slippers, dear, and a pair of wool socks. Warm the milk, Kit, it’s better that way. And you cuddle down on the couch by the living room fire, Jack, and rest.”

Mrs. Craig had gone into the living room and found a gray woolen blanket in the wall closet off the little side hall. From the chest of drawers she took some of Tommy’s outgrown winter underwear. Supper was nearly ready, but Jack was to have a warm bath and be clad in clean fresh clothing. Tucking him under one wing, as Kit said, she left the kitchen, and Jean told the rest how she had27 rescued him from Mr. Briggs’s righteous indignation and charitable intentions.

“Got a good face and looks you square in the eye,” said Doris. “I’d take a chance on him any day, and he can help around the place a lot, splitting kindlings and shifting stall bedding and what not. He and Tommy seem to be good friends already.”

The telephone bell rang and Jean answered. Rambling up through the hills from Norwich was the party line, two lone wires stretching from telephone pole to telephone pole. Its tingling call was a welcome sound. This time it was Rebecca at the other end. After her marriage to Judge Ellis, they had taken the long-deferred wedding trip up to Boston, visiting relatives there, and returning in time for a splendid old-fashioned Thanksgiving celebration at the Ellis home. Maple Grove, Becky’s former home, was closed for the winter but28 Matt, the hired man, decided to stay on there indefinitely and work the farm on shares for Miss Becky, as he still called her.

“And like enough,” Becky said comfortably, when she heard of his intentions, “he’s going to marry somebody himself. I wouldn’t put it past him a bit. I wish he’d choose Cindy Anson. There she is living alone down in that little bit of a house, running a home bakery when she’s born to fuss over a man. I told Matt when I left, if I were he I’d buy all my pies and cake from Cindy, and then when I drove by Cindy’s I just dropped a passing word about how badly I felt at leaving such a fine man as Matt to shift for himself up at the house, so she said she’d keep an eye on him.”

Over the telephone now came her voice, vibrant and cheery, and Jean answered the call.

“Hello, yes, this is Jean. Mother’s right in29 the living room. Who? Oh, wait till I tell the kids.” She turned her head, her brown eyes sparkling. “New York cousins over at the Judge’s. Who did you say they are, Becky? Yes? Beth and Elliott Newell. I’ll tell Dad right away. Tomorrow morning early? That’s swell. ’Bye.”

Before the others could stop her, she was on her way upstairs. The largest, sunniest room had been given over to her father. The months of relaxation and rest up in the hills had worked wonders in Mr. Craig’s health. As old Dr. Gallup was apt to say when Kit rebelled at the slowness of recovery, “Can’t expect to do everything in a minute. Even the Lord took six days to fix things the way he liked them.”

Instead of spending two-thirds of his time in bed or on the couch now, he would sit up for hours and could walk around the wide porch, or even along the garden paths before the cold30 weather set in. But there still swept over him without warning the great fatigue and weakness, the dizziness and exhaustion which had followed as one of the lesser ills in his nervous breakdown.

He sat before the open fire now, reading from one of his favorite news magazines, with Miss Tilly purring on his knees. Tommy had found Miss Tilly one day late in October, loafing along the barren stretch of road going over to Gayhead school. She was a yellow kitten with white nose and paws. Tommy, forever adopting stray animals, had tucked her up in his arms and taken her home. Becky had looked at the yellow kitten with instant recognition.

“That’s a Scarborough kitten. Sally Scarborough’s raised yellow kittens with white paws ever since I can remember.”

“Had I better take it back?” asked Tommy anxiously.

31 “Land, no, child. It’s a barn-cat. You can tell that, it’s so frisky. Ain’t got a bit of repose or common sense. Like enough Mrs. Scarborough’d be real glad if it had a good home. Give it a name, and feed it well, and it’ll slick right up.”

So Miss Tilly had remained, but not out in the barn. Somehow she had found her way up to Mr. Craig’s room and its peace must have appealed to her, for she would stay there for hours, dozing with half-closed jade-green eyes and incurved paws.

“Dad!” Jean exclaimed, entering the quiet room like an autumn flurry of wind. “What do you think? Becky just phoned, and she wants me to tell you two New York cousins are there. Beth and Elliott Newell. Do you remember them?”

“Of course,” smiled Mr. Craig. “It must be little Cousin Beth and her boy. I used to visit at her old home when I was a little boy.32 She wanted to be an artist, I know.”

“Oh, Dad, an artist? And did she study and succeed?”

“I think so. I remember she lived abroad for some time and married there. Her maiden name was Lowell, Beth Lowell.”

“Did she marry an artist too?” Jean leaned forward from her low chair facing him, her eyes bright with romance, but Mr. Craig laughed.

“No, indeed, she married a schoolmate from New York. He went after her, for I suppose he tired of waiting for Beth’s career to come true. They had a very happy life together and I think Beth misses him very much since he died about two years ago. Listen a minute.”