Chapter 1

* A Distributed Proofreaders Canada eBook *

This eBook is made available at no cost and with very few
restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make
a change in the eBook (other than alteration for different
display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of
the eBook. If either of these conditions applies, please
contact an FP administrator before proceeding.

This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be under
copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada, check your
country’s copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT
IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

Title: Cherry Square
Date of first publication: 1926
Author: Grace S. Richmond (1866-1959)
Date first posted: Oct. 13, 2013
Date last updated: Oct. 13, 2013
Faded Page eBook #21031016

This eBook was produced by: David T. Jones, Al Haines, Paul Ereaut
& the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

[Illustration: cover]

CHERRY SQUARE

BY GRACE S. RICHMOND

AUTHOR OF

“The Brown Study,” “A Court of Inquiry,”
“Foursquare,” “With Juliet in England,” “Red
Pepper Burns,” “Round the Corner in Gay Street,”
“Rufus,” “Under the Country Sky,” etc.

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc.

Printed in U. S. A.

COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY. COPYRIGHT, 1926, BY
THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE
UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

Consider whether it is better to change and be living than to be
unchanged and dead.

STUART SHERMAN

Cherry Square

lies in the centre of Cherry Hills, a small town a certain number of
miles outside of a Great city. Even if it were considerably nearer, it
could in no sense be called a suburb. It is entirely unrelated to the
city; it governs itself; it thinks well of itself; it is itself and no
other.

Brook Street runs on the north side of the Square; rather, it parades
dignifiedly across the space. Cherry Hills’ best houses are upon Brook
Street; the Gildersleeves, the Broughtons, the Abbotts, the Harmons
live in them. The old Cherry House, at the corner of the Square, has
the deepest lawn, the largest trees–in a town abounding in large
trees–the most significant air of having been built while the town was
young and of having watched the other houses spring up about it. But it
has acquired of late years a less desirable air of having been lived in
by no real life; of having no contacts with the other houses; of being
aloof, withdrawn into a still impressive but lonely old age.

Quite suddenly everything was changed.

A young Irishman, whistling blithely, set about mowing the lawns,
trimming the hedges, grubbing the weeds out of the paths and driveways;
and then presently, when everything was in readiness, life came again
into Cherry House–rushed into it. Young life, bursting to be gay;
maturer life, eager to solve its problems. The old place took on a new
aspect, quite aside from the material changes made by hands. It seemed
itself to live again, to be proud and glad to be once more sheltering
under its broad roof a new brood.

If an empty old house could speak, an intent listener might hear a
wistful voice sighing:–“Oh, if I could just be lived in again!” And if
after a year–two years–of emptiness, its doors should be opened once
more and its bare rooms be filled, one again listening carefully might
hear still another sigh–a contented, repleted sigh:–“I am lived in
again. What more–what more can an old house ask?”

So it was with Cherry House, on Cherry Square, in Cherry Hills, in June
of a year not long ago.

Cherry Square

I

When Josephine Jenney came by, Mrs. Norah O’Grady on hands and knees
was fiercely scrubbing the square front-porch floor of the old Cherry
House which stood on the Brook Street side of Cherry Square, in the
small town of Cherry Hills. Now the old Cherry House, though there were
reaches of lawn and garden beside and behind it, stood so close to the
street that a bare two yards of distance separated the white picket
fence from the iron-railinged steps. Therefore, Jo Jenney, passing
by, was so near to Mrs. O’Grady’s back that she could see the tight
muscles stand out on the red, capable arm which wielded the scrubbing
brush. Mopping a long unused front-porch floor wasn’t good enough for
Norah O’Grady; it had to be scoured as though it were an ancient buried
monument just retrieved from the drifting sands of Egypt.

“Good morning, Mrs. O’Grady. So somebody really is going to live in
this delightful-looking old house again. I’m so glad.”

One swift glance over her shoulder confirmed Mrs. O’Grady’s impression
that it was Miss Jenney who was speaking. Norah particularly liked this
young teacher in the village school, who had been in the place only a
year, but who in that short time had done wonders with the intelligence
of bullet-headed Patsy O’Grady, the pride of his mother’s heart. So
though Norah didn’t stop working for an instant she answered Jo less
brusquely than she had answered much the same question–only they
called it “the old Cherry House”–from some nine women and five men who
had previously passed by. To most of these she had vouchsafed not much
more than a nod, refusing to be drawn into conversation. The town would
know all about it soon enough. Let them wait. It wasn’t often she had
the chance to withhold so much interesting information.

“I’m glad mesilf, Miss Jenney. It’s too long the place has been like a
tomb. Now we’ll see some life about it.”

“Who’s coming, Mrs. O’Grady–if you don’t mind telling?”

“I do mind tellin’,” said Mrs. O’Grady frankly, with a last vigorous
swish of her scrubbing brush. “Because I was told not to tell–just
yet. But if ye can think of a good r’ason why I should be tellin’ ye
an’ denyin’ the rest, maybe I’ll give ye a hint. It’s more than human
nature can stand to tell no one at all. Annyhow, they’ll soon be here.
An’ the town guessin’ everybody except the right ones–and the right
ones the very ones that should be here.”

“Do you mean–some of the Cherry family?”

Mrs. O’Grady nodded. “I mean that. It’s old Miss Cherry’s niece, that
married the city minister ten years ago, an’ she used to come here when
she was a girl. Now she’s comin’ back, with her children, while her
husband goes travellin’ on his vacation. He’s tired out, she says, what
with his big city parish, an’ he’s goin’ over the water with a party of
men, while she comes here for the summer. An’ it’s my notion that she’s
glad to get away from bein’ a minister’s wife for a few short months.”

Jo Jenney laughed appreciatively. “Now, how do you come to think that?”
she questioned. “Because of course she didn’t say so.”