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16
A New Old Name

Every Friday evening when Mr. Blake returned to spend the weekend, the first thing he did was to take a "tour of inspection," both inside the house and outside. Every new thing was of interest: every flower, every shrub, every pair of curtains or new coat of paint. The safe with its little cache of jewels had fascinated him, and now and then, just to feel splendid, he wore Captain Dadware's signet ring.

Now, on a Friday late in August, he was strolling on the lawn, arm in arm with Mrs. Blake. Portia had his other arm, and Foster was dawdling along beside, before, or behind them, as the mood took him. But he stayed near. Gulliver had performed his leaping dance of welcome, and now was strolling about, too, sniffing for rabbits. Mousenick, composed and quiet, was sitting on the doormat, waiting to feel playful again.

"You know it's really turning into a handsome house," Mr. Blake said. "Well, not handsome, perhaps, but distinguished. Substantial. Interesting."

"I think it's just beautiful," Portia said, and her mother agreed with her.

They all stood looking up at their house with satisfaction. It was warmed by the late afternoon sunshine, and in the rich ivy, here and there showing a ruddy leaf already, sparrows were rustling and squabbling.

"But I don't really mind them, do you?" Mrs. Blake said. "I've never minded sparrows as much as you're supposed to...." They began strolling on again. "Oh, Paul, did I tell you what Aunt Minnehaha told me? No, I didn't. She only told me yesterday. She says that this house was built on the site of another one, a very grand one that was built more than two hundred years ago. But then about 1830 it was struck by lightning and burned to the ground...."

"Amberside," said Foster, walking beside her.

"Hmm? What did you say, darling?" asked his mother, smoothing down his cowlick as she liked to do.

"Amberside. That was the house's name. The other house's. The one that burned."

"Was it really? How do you know?"

"That's what Eli Scaynes says. He says his grandma told him so, and her grandma told her."

"Amberside ... Amberside...."

"You never told me that, Foster," Portia reproached him.

"You never asked me," Foster replied reasonably. "I knew it a long time. I knew it the first day Eli came to work here. He told me when he was riding me around in his wheelbarrel."

"Amberside," Mrs. Blake repeated thoughtfully, stopping to look at the house again, looking at it with her head on one side and her eyes narrowed.

"It would be a good name to give to one of those yellow cats," Portia observed.

"It would be a good name to give to a house, too," her father said.

"Yes, it would," Mrs. Blake agreed. "Oh, it would, Paul, wouldn't it? It suits it; now, anyway, with the late sun on it like this ... and later, in September, when the maples are pure yellow....

"And later still on winter nights with all the windows lighted...."

"Winter nights! We'll never see it on winter nights," said Portia sadly.

"Perhaps you will...."

"Oh, tell them, Paul, do tell them! I can't keep the secret one more minute!"

"What secret?" Portia demanded, already joyfully suspecting.

"What secret, Daddy?" cried Foster, jumping. Gulliver barked.

"How would you like to live here all year round?" asked their father.

How would they like it! The mere thought made them jerk and prance and squeal!

"Because I think I'm going to work on the paper with Uncle Jake and write my book on the side. So that would mean we'd have to live here all the time."

"And I could go to school at Julian's school!" cried Portia.

"And I could go to school at Davey's!" cried Foster.

"And we'd learn how to ski—"

"And ice-skate and wear snowshoes."

"And go to see Aunt Minnehaha and Uncle Pin all winter long!"

"And Gulliver would like it so much better," said Foster, sounding a virtuous, unselfish note.

"Of course we'll have to put heat in the house and pretty soon at that," Mr. Blake said. "Probably electricity, too."

"There goes the Hepplewhite breakfront," Mrs. Blake remarked cryptically. "But it's worth it."

"Oh, wait till I tell Julian!" And off went Portia in one of her great swooping dances of delight.

"Amberside," Mrs. Blake said to Mr. Blake. "Amberside the second; but we'll leave off 'the second.' Doesn't it sound nice, though? 'Mr. and Mrs. Paul Bannister Blake who live at Amberside with their daughter and their son and their dog and their cat'!"

So at last the new old house had a new old name to be called by. Mr. Blake painted the name on a signpost to stand at the entrance of the drive; and Mrs. Blake had it printed at the top of all the letter paper and on the flaps of all the envelopes.

Gradually people began to speak of the place as Amberside, though there were a few die-hards who never stopped calling it the Villa Caprice, or, as in the case of Eli Scaynes, the Villa Cay-priss.

But Julian and Joe and Tom and Lucy and Davey never called it anything except "the Blakes' house"; and Portia and Foster never called it anything but "home." All their lives they knew that one of the best things that ever happened to them was to be able to call it that.