Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
Strawberry Acres
By GRACE S. RICHMOND
1911
I. Five Miles Out
II. Everybody Explores
III. The Apartment Overflows
IV. Arguments and Answers
V. Telephones and Tents
VI. In the Pine Grove
VII. Everybody is Satisfied
VIII. Problems and Hearts
IX. Max Compromises
X. Jack-O'-Lantern
I. What's in a Name
II. In the Old Garden
III. Afternoon Tea
IV. Two and Two
V. On an August Evening
VI. Time-Tables
VII. The Southbound Limited
VIII. From April North
IX. Round the Corner
X. Green Leaves
Strawberry Acres
The four Lanes—Max, Sally, Alec and Robert—climbed the five flights ofstairs to their small flat with the agility of youth and the impetus ofhigh but subdued excitement. Uncle Timothy Rudd, following more slowly,reached the outer door of the little suite of rooms in time to hear whatseemed to be the first outburst.
"Well, what do you think now?"
"Forty-two acres and the house! Open the windows and give us air!"
"Acres run to seed, and the house tumbling down about its own ears! Amagnificent inheritance that!" Max cast his hat upon a chair as if heflung it away with the inheritance.
"But who ever thought Uncle Maxwell Lane would ever leave his poorrelations anything?" This was Sally.
"Five miles out by road—a bit less by trolley. Let's go and see itto-morrow afternoon. Thank goodness a half holiday is so near."
"Anybody been by the place lately?"
"I was, just the other day, on my wheel. I didn't think it looked soawfully bad." This was Robert, the sixteen-year-old.
As Uncle Timothy entered the tiny sitting-room Sally was speaking. Shehad thrown her black veil back over her hat, revealing masses of flaxenhair, and deep blue eyes glowing with interest. Her delicate cheeks werewarmly flushed, partly with excitement, and partly because for two hoursnow—during the journey from the flat to the lawyer's office, the periodspent therein listening to the reading of Uncle Maxwell Lane's will andthe business appertaining thereto, and the return trip home—she hadworn the veil closely drawn. Her simple mourning was to her a screenbehind which to shield herself from curious eyes, always attracted bythose masses of singularly fair hair and the unusual contours of theyoung face beneath.
"I think it's a godsend, if ever anything was," she