Rest and Be Thankful by Helen MacInnes Read Free Book Online Page B

personally?”
    “No,” Sarah Bly admitted. “All we are interested in, frankly, is the fact that they are unknown writers. They haven’t been published yet.”
    “Mr. Atherton Jones knows them,” Mrs. Peel said. “He had planned a summer group for August of very promising but quite unknown writers. He rented a delightful old farm, built in pre-Revolutionary days, in New England. We heard from him, only a week or so ago, that he is in a fearful quandary because all the group is arranged but the house has begun to fall down. It has just been condemned as unsuitable for human habitation. He doesn’t know what to do. Here’s the group of writers all ready for August, and there’s the houses—”
    “Falling down,” Brent said. “Seems to me he has a better eye for historical architecture than he has for simple foundations. It also seems to me that he must have made some money out of literature, too. That kind of idea costs money. So if I were you, Mrs. Peel, I wouldn’t worry too much about that book of yours.”
    “No, he hasn’t made money,” Mrs. Peel said quickly.
    “He hasn’t exactly starved, either,” Sarah Bly said.
    “That’s because he has been lecturing ever since he came back to America, Sarah. And you know how he hates it. Actually, Mr. Brent, he was arranging his summer group on a very business-like basis, but without any profits at all. The writers were to pay fees, and that would cover living expenses as well as the cost of the lectures that Mr. Atherton Jones’s friends were going to give about the art of writing. But no profits. He made that quite clear to us all.”
    “Will you charge fees?” Brent asked.
    “No. Fares out to Wyoming will be a big enough item.”
    “We don’t want fees, and we don’t want lecturers,” Sarah Bly said. “We don’t see it that way.”
    “The writers will merely be our guests, and I assure you that writers make very quiet, delightful guests. Have no fear of that, Mr. Brent.”
    “If they aren’t,” Sarah Bly said, “we’ll put phenobarbital in their coffee.”
    “They will,” Mrs. Peel continued, silencing Sarah with a shake of her head, “not trouble you at all, Mr. Brent. Or the ranch.”
    “Mrs. Peel,” Jim Brent said, “I don’t think I’ve made up my mind just yet.”
    “Of course, you must have time to think about it,” Mrs. Peel murmured. “But if you did think about it, what kind of price would you ask?”
    “About fifty thousand dollars, I guess.” They’d never meet that. It was as polite a way of refusing as any.
    “For everything?” Mrs. Peel was amazed. “Furniture, guesthouse, and everything?”
    “It’s worth much more,” Sarah Bly said. “I’m sure it is.”
    “It’s isolated,” he replied. “And it is expensive to operate. You’ll need extra help, unless you’re willing to do a lot of work yourselves. And there’s Mrs. Gunn—she may not like this idea. She’s made her home here for years.”
    “We couldn’t do without Mrs. Gunn, either,” Mrs. Peel said quickly. “I do hope she approved of us.”
    A sudden thought struck him. “Did you ask her to arrange this dinner here tonight?”
    “Good gracious, no!” Mrs. Peel said, with such vehemence that there was no disbelieving her.
    “Then she probably approves,” he said. He began to understand why Ma Gunn hadn’t disturbed them to clear the coffee-cups away.
    “You will let us have the house?” Miss Bly was asking.
    “At that price? Isn’t that a lot?” He was amazed in turn. The house and grounds were well worth fifty thousand dollars. But he had expected some Eastern haggling. Whenever you had to sell anything you were always told that the market was poor and you would be lucky to get half the value. When you had to buy it was peculiar how high the market value had suddenly become.
    Mrs. Peel and Miss Bly looked at each other.
    “I’ll take it,” Mrs. Peel said, as if she had been born and raised in the West.
    “I’ll think it