Jane of Lantern Hill by L. M. Montgomery Page B

proved hopeless. The floors were cut and warped and slanted in all directions. The doors didn’t hang right. The windows wouldn’t open. There was no pantry.
    There was too much gingerbread about the fourth house, dad said, and neither of them looked twice at the fifth…a dingy, square, unpainted building with a litter of rusty cans, old pails, fruit baskets, rags, and rubbish all over its yard.
    â€œThe next on my list is the old Jones house,” said dad.
    It was not so easy to find the old Jones house. The new Jones house fronted the road boldly, but you had to go past it and away down a deep-rutted, neglected lane to find the old one. You could see the gulf from the kitchen window. But it was too big, and both dad and Jane felt that the view of the back of the Jones barns and pig-sty was not inspiring. So they bounced up the lane again, feeling a little dashed.
    The sixth house seemed to be all a house should be. It was a small bungalow, new and white, with a red roof and dormer windows. The yard was trim, though treeless; there was a pantry and a nice cellar and good floors. And it had a wonderful view of the gulf.
    Dad looked at Jane.
    â€œDo you sense any magic about this, my Jane?”
    â€œDo you ?” challenged Jane.
    Dad shook his head.
    â€œAbsolutely none. And, as magic is indispensable, no can do.”
    They drove away, leaving the man who owned the house wondering who them two lunatics were. What on earth was magic? He must see the carpenter who had built the house and find out why he hadn’t put any in it.
    Two more houses were impossible.
    â€œI suppose were a pair of fools, Jane. We’ve looked at all the houses I’ve heard of that are for sale…and what’s to be done now? Go back and eat our words and buy the bungalow?”
    â€œLet’s ask this man who is coming along the road if he knows of any house we haven’t seen,” said Jane composedly.
    â€œThe Jimmy Johns have one, I hear,” said the man. “Over on Lantern Hill. The house their Aunt Matilda Jollie lived in. There’s some of her furniture in it too, I hear. You’d likely git it reasonable if you jewed him down a bit. It’s two miles to Lantern Hill and you go by Queen’s Shore.”
    The Jimmy Johns and a Lantern Hill and an Aunt Matilda Jollie! Jane’s thumbs pricked. Magic was in the offing.
    Jane saw the house first…at least she saw the upstairs window in its gable end winking at her over the top of a hill. But they had to drive around the hill and up a winding lane between two dykes, with little ferns growing out of the stones and young spruces starting up along them at intervals.
    And then, right before them, was the house… their house!
    â€œDear, don’t let your eyes pop quite out of your head,” warned dad.
    It squatted right against a little steep hill whose toes were lost in bracken. It was small…you could have put half a dozen of it inside of 60 Gay. It had a garden, with a stone dyke at the lower end of it to keep it from sliding down the hill, a paling and a gate, with two tall white birches leaning over it, and a flat-stone walk up to the only door, which had eight small panes of glass in its upper half. The door was locked but they could see in at the windows. There was a good-sized room on one side of the door, stairs going up right in front of it, and two small rooms on the other side whose windows looked right into the side of the hill where ferns grew as high as your waist, and there were stones lying about covered with velvet green moss.
    There was a bandy-legged old cook-stove in the kitchen, a table, and some chairs. And a dear little glass-paned cupboard in the corner fastened with a wooden button.
    On one side of the house was a clover field and on the other a maple grove, sprinkled with firs and spruces, and separated from the house lot by an old, lichen-covered board fence. There was an apple tree in the