Almost immediately the pursuer, who was Lena May Vandergrift, appeared in the doorway. The young bookseller was on his feet at once and there was a sudden light in the dreamy brown eyes that told its own story.
“Good morning, Dean,” the girl said. “Have you seen Antony Wilovich? I told him to wait out in front for me so that he could escort me to the Settlement House this morning.”
Dean smiled knowingly and replied, which was his part of the game: “Well, well, has that little scamp run away again somewhere, and hidden? I guess he doesn’t love his Miss May or he wouldn’t do that.”
This always proved too much for the little fellow in hiding, and from under the counter he would dart, his arms extended. Then the girl, stopping, would catch him in a loving embrace. “I do so love Miss May,” the child would protest. “I loves her next most to my muvver over dere.” A chubby finger would point, or the golden head would nod, in the direction of the rickety tumble-down tenement across the way, the very one which Miss Selenski, the former agent of the model tenement, had called a “fire trap.”
This little game of hide-and-seek took place every morning, for Lena May had promised the “muvver over dere,” who was slowly dying of consumption, that she would call for Tony, take him to the Settlement sandpile and return him safely at noon.
If this was a merry moment each day for little Tony, it was to Dean Wiggin much more. The sweet, sympathetic girl, in her pretty muslin dress and flower-wreathed hat, suggested to the lad from the country all that he most loved, the fragrance of blossoms, the song of birds, and the peace of the meadow-pool at noon time. When she was gone, with a friendly backward nod at the crippled bookseller, he would always read poetry or try to write one that would express what Lena May was to him, to little Tony, or to the invalid mother who trusted her with her one treasure.
And so that two weeks had raised the curtain upon three dreams, but one of them was to become a tragedy.
Time—A week later.
“Hello, Bobs, is that you?” But it was Lena May who had answered an imperative ring at the telephone, and so she replied, “Oh, good morning, Mr. Caldwaller-Cory. No, I am not Roberta. I will call her.”
A moment later Ralph knew that he was talking to the girl whom he loved.
“I say, Bobety,” he exclaimed, “will you go for a drive with me right away this minute? Please say ‘yes’ (for she had hesitated), I have something of great importance to tell you.”
“Honestly, I can’t, Ralph,” was the earnest reply. “I am going to give Lena May a holiday. She and Dean Wiggin are going to take little Tony Wilovich to Bronx Park and spend the day. The little fellow is wild to see the monkeys and Lena May needs a day among the trees.”
Her youngest sister was at her elbow whispering, “We can go some other time, dear, if there’s something that you want to do.”
But Roberta shook her head. There was a brief silence at the other end of the line, then the lad spoke again. “I say, Bobs, how are they going? On the L! That’s what I thought. Suppose I get Dad’s big car. We can take them out to the park and then on the way back you and I can have the visit I want. In fact I’vegotto see you, Bobs. It’s terribly important to me. I’m all cut up about something that has happened and——”
Roberta knew by her friend’s voice that something had occurred to trouble him greatly, and so she said: “Wait a moment, Ralph. I will talk it over with my sister.”
Lena May thought the plan a good one and Ralph was told to be at the Pensinger mansion in one-half hour with the car and they would all be ready and waiting for him.
Lena May then departed to the rickety tenement to get the wee lad.
“Oh, Mrs. Wilovich,” the girl said, as she looked about the small, hot room. “How I do wish that you would go with us today. Don’t you feel strong enough?”
“No, dearie, thanks though. The coughin’ spell was harder’n usual this mornin’. ’Twas all as I could do to get Tony’s breakfast. I’ll be that happy knowin’ as the little fellow’s seein’ the monkeys his heart’s been set on ever since the picture posters was up on the fences.”
Five minutes later the girl and the little boy were joined by the young bookseller on Seventy-eighth Street.
“Dean,” Lena May said sadly, “I don’t believe that Mrs. Wilovich will be with us one month from today.”
“Nor do I,” the lad replied; then he added, as he looked at the curly-headed three-year-old, who had darted ahead but who looked back, laughing at them, “What will become of Tony?”
“I’m going to keep him, somehow. Gloria has given her permission. I wanted to be sure that Sister thought my plan wise that I might know just what to say to the little mother when she speaks of it to me, as she will in time.”
No wonder was it that the lad’s unspoken love for the girl took unto itself the qualities of adoration. “She is too sweet and too good to be loved by a useless man such as I am,” he thought, and how he wished that his muscle-bound arm might be freed that he could work and fight the world for this angel of a girl. A surgeon had once told him that there was really nothing wrong with his arm. It had grown with the passing years, but was stiffened from long disuse.
Tony was wildly excited when he saw the big green car in which he was to ride for the first time in his short life, and he entertained them all with his chatter.
Roberta, sitting on the front seat with her friend, glanced often at his face and realized that, although he, too, joined in the laughter evoked by the baby’s prattle, his thoughts were of a very serious nature, and she wondered what she was to hear when they two were alone.
She little dreamed that Ralph was to say something that would greatly affect her.
Dean, carrying the basket which was well filled with picnic refreshments, and Lena May leading the shining eyed three-year-old, waved back at the big car as they entered the side gate of the woodsy Bronx Park.
Bobs smiled as the baby voice wafted to them, “Ohee, see funny cow!”
They were near the buffalo enclosure.
Then Ralph started the engine and slowly the car rolled along the little river and toward the country. Roberta, knowing that something was greatly troubling her friend, reached out a hand and laid it sympathetically upon his arm. Instantly his left hand closed over hers and his eyes turned toward her questioningly. “Bobs,” he said, “you’ve been a trump of a friend to me. I’m not going to try to tell you just now what it means. It’s another friend I want to talk about. Dick—Dick De Laney. You remember that I told you he has become almost as dear to me as a brother, since Desmond died. I was sure Dick would do anything for me. I had such faith in his loyalty, in his devoted friendship, but now he has done something I can’t understand.” Ralph paused and his companion saw that he was greatly affected. “Bobs, I’m taking this awfully hard. I——”
Roberta was amazed. What had her old pal, Dick De Laney, done to so hurt her new friend? “Why, Ralph dear,” she said, for he had turned away as though too overcome with emotion for the moment to go on with his story. “What has Dick done? I know that it is nothing disloyal or dishonorable. You don’t know Dick as I do if you can doubt him for one moment. He would do what he believed was right, even if the consequences were to bring real suffering to him. He’s been that way ever since he was a little fellow. You may take my word for it, Ralph, that whatever Dick has done, his motive is of the highest. Now tell me what has hurt you so deeply?”
“Well, it’s this way,” the lad began. “I’ve missed Dick terribly, more, of course, before I met you, but I have been looking eagerly forward to the month he was to spend with me in the Orange Hills. I didn’t tell you that I expected him to arrive today. I wanted to surprise you, but instead I received a letter on the early morning mail and it informed me that, although the writer really did love me as though I were his brother, he thought it best not to visit me this summer; instead he had decided to travel abroad indefinitely and that he had engaged passage on a steamer that leaves Hoboken at noon today. What can it mean?”
The lad turned and was amazed at the expression in the face of the girl. “Why, Bobs,” he blurted out, “can it be—do you care so much because Dick is going away.”
“Oh, Ralph, of course I care. It’s all my fault. I knew Dick loved me. I guess I’ve always known it, and last April, when he was home for the spring vacation, I promised him that—Oh, I don’t remember just what I did promise, but I do know that I haven’t written often of late, and I guess he thinks I don’t care any more; and maybe that’s why he’s going away; but I do care, and, oh, Ralph, I can’t let him go without telling him. I always meant to tell him when he came home from college. I thought we were too young to be really engaged until then. Dick has been so patient, waiting all these years, and loving me so truly and so loyally. Can’t we stop him, or—at least can’t we see him before he sails?”
The expression in the fine face of the lad at her side plainly told the struggle that was going on within his heart. So, after all, Dick De Laney had been as loyal as a brother. He was going away to give Ralph a clear field.
Well, it was Ralph’s turn now to show the mettle he was made of. In a voice that might have betrayed his emotion if Roberta had not been so concerned with her own anxiety and regrets, he said:
“Of course, Bobs, we will try to reach the boat before it sails. We’ll ferry over to the Jersey side and then we’ll break the speed limit.”
Dick De Laney was leaning over the railing of the big liner that was to take him away from the country that was home to him and from the girl he loved, whose happiness meant more to him than did his own, but, as he looked out over the choppy waters of the bay and toward the broad Atlantic he could see ahead of him nothing but years of loneliness.
Then it was that he heard a voice that was eagerly, tremulously calling his name. He whirled and beheld Roberta back of him, her hands outstretched. There were tears in her eyes as she said: “Dick, why did you do it? Why did you plan going away without saying good-bye? Even if you have changed your mind, even if you don’t care for me any more, it isn’t like you to just run away.”
Dick’s face, troubled at first, was radiant when the full meaning of the words reached his consciousness.
“Bobs,” he said, “why, Bobita, I thought you didn’t care; that is, I thought maybe you loved Ralph, and so——”
“And so you were going away to let me have someone else, you dear old stupid! To think that I so nearly lost you just because I was so very sure that you loved me; that I never could lose you, and so I didn’t write about it.”
These two were holding each other’s hands and looking deep into each other’s eyes, entirely oblivious of their surroundings. Roberta continued:
“Dicky-boy, I’ve had my lesson, and when we are married, every day the first thing, instead of good morning, I am going to say I love you, which, after all, will mean the same thing.”
“Married, Bobs! When are we to be married?”
The girl laughed at the lad’s eagerness, but as many passengers were appearing on deck, she replied, demurely, “Sometime, of course, and live happily ever after.”
It was hard for Dick not to shout, but, instead, he said:
“Come along, dear, and I’ll cancel my passage, and then I’ll go home with you and tell you what all this means to me. I can’t very well here.” Then, as he glanced about, he inquired: “How did you get here, Bobs? Did you come alone?”
“No, Ralph brought me.” Her conscience rebuked her, for she had completely forgotten the existence of her other friend. “He was as hurt as I was because you were going away without seeing him,” she told Dick.
“Poor old Ralph,” was all he said. “I certainly am sorry for him, but I suppose it can’t be helped.”
“Sorry for Ralph? Why?” Roberta’s expression of surprised inquiry was so frank that the lad knew his pal had never spoken of his love.
Dick was even more puzzled when, upon reaching the dock, he saw his friend Ralph leap toward them with hands outstretched. Joyfully he exclaimed: “Great. I know by your radiant faces that you’ve made up. I congratulate you both. I certainly am glad that we made it on time.” Then after a hearty hand-shaking: “What put that wild notion of flight into your head, old man? You can’t get rid of us that easy, can he, Bobs? My detective-partner here has been telling me that she has been engaged to you ever since she wore pinafores, or was it a little later?”
Roberta laughed. “I believe I had on a riding habit that day, didn’t I, Dick?”
Ralph turned away after a fleeting glance at the girl’s face as it was uplifted to his roommate. He had not dreamed that she could be as beautiful as that expression of love had made her.
Dick was replying, “Oh, it doesn’t much matter when it happened, dear. The big thing is that it did happen at all.”
Then, when they were in the big green car (the front seat was wide enough to hold all three of them), Dick began to ask questions.
“How is Gwen now?” was the first of them. He was pleased to hear that the girl, but a year Roberta’s senior, was much better and visiting his sister, Phyllis.
Then it was that Bobs thought of something. “Why, Ralph,” she said, “you never did have an opportunity to meet my beautiful sister, Gwendolyn, did you? She hasn’t been strong enough to visit with strangers, and now she has gone away for a whole month.”
Dick smiled as he said to the driver: “Bobs is giving herself a compliment when she calls Gwendolyn beautiful, for the family resemblance between the two girls is very striking.”
Roberta laughed. “I should say that it must be, Dick. Did I ever write you about the time a stage manager thought that IwasGwen, and I actually had to do a song and dance? I laugh every time I think of it. Gloria said afterwards that it was a natural mistake, for though I am not as sylph-like as my sister, we do look very much the same.”
Ralph smiled, but he made no response. His thought was commenting: “As though anyone could be like you, Bobs.”
It was noon when the Pensinger mansion was reached, and Roberta told the lads that she wasn’t going to ask them in just then, as she had to do some writing for Mr. Jewett that must be delivered that afternoon, but she invited them both to supper, if they weren’t afraid to eat her cooking. Dick said he certainly would reappear as soon as she would permit him to come, but Ralph had an engagement with his Dad. As that was not unusual, Bobs did not think that this time it was an excuse to remain away, as indeed it was.
Roberta turned at the house door to wave to the lads in the car that was starting away. Vaguely she wondered what they would talk about. How little she knew of the aching heart that one of them was so bravely trying to hide.
The two lads who were close as brothers rode for some time in silence after having left Roberta at the Pensinger mansion. It took skillful driving to cross the crowded streets at First, Second and Third, but after that the way was open to Central Park and, when at last they were riding down one of the wide, tree-shaded avenues, Ralph turned his gaze from the road and smiled at his friend.
The eyes of Dick were searching.
“And all this means what, to you?” he asked earnestly.
“That I wrote the letter to which you are referring, hastily, on an impulse, before I was really acquainted with Miss Vandergrift. I know now that she isn’t the girl for me, and I also know that sheisthe girl for you, and I sincerely congratulate you both. Now I say, Dick, you aren’t going to spoil my plans for a house party in the Orange Hills by bolting, are you? Ma Mere will be back tomorrow, and she wrote that I might have my friends for a week as soon as the house has been aired out. You know it has been closed all winter.”
“Indeed, I’m not going anywhere.” Dick felt greatly relieved, for he believed that Ralph was telling him the truth. He knew that his college pal was impulsive and often did things in more of a headlong manner than he would had he given the matter thought. “Of course he admires my Bobs; no one could help that, but I’m glad that he doesn’t really love her,” Dick was thinking. “He’s had sorrow enough as it is.” Aloud he asked, “Who are you going to ask?”
“Well, I did invite all four of the Vandergrift girls, but Bobs is the only one who has accepted. The oldest and youngest sisters are free but a few hours each day; the rest of their time they devote to Settlement work and they feel that they are especially needed now that it is vacation in the schools. Gwendolyn, however, may come, as of course I have invited your sister Phyllis and her guests.”
Dick looked at Ralph with the light of a new inspiration in his eyes. “I say, wouldn’t it be great if you could care for my sister Phyl? Then you would be my brother in very truth.”
Ralph laughed. “Dicky-boy,” he said, “are you turning matchmaker? It’s too late for that, old man. Bobs tells me that Phyllis is engaged to a fine chap from up Boston way. His name is Arden Wentworth.”
“Gee, that’s great news! Arden is a chap after my own heart, but I didn’t think that he ever could win Phyl. She must have changed a lot this last year.”
“Why, how’s that?” Ralph looked around inquiringly. “His father has piled up a few millions. That ought to please any girl.”
“That’s just where the shoe pinches, so to speak,” was the reply. “Arden, being a red-blooded young American, refused to just spend his father’s money and so he put on overalls and began at the bottom in one of his dad’s factories. He said he wanted to prove to himself, even if the world didn’t care, that he had brains enough to make good without help. Phyl wouldn’t speak to him after that, hoping that, for her sake, he would give it up; but he didn’t, and so I thought it was all off between them.”
“Well, something must have happened, for Bobs tells me that they are really engaged, and so, of course I have also invited Arden. By the way, you know Gwendolyn Vandergrift. What kind of a chap ought I to ask for her? Harry Birch is in town. I thought she might like him.” And so the lads talked over the plans for the coming house party, and so successfully did Ralph play his part that his pal did not for one moment suspect that his friend was secretly wishing that he might have sailed away in Dick’s place on the boat which, that noon, had left for distant shores.
But night is darkest before the dawn.
Ralph and Dick were out on the wide velvety lawn which surrounded the handsome rambling summer home of the Caldwaller-Corys.
The gay awnings, palms and boxes of flowers gave the house a festive appearance, while the many colored lanterns strung about the garden suggested that some merriment was planned for the evening.
Mrs. Caldwaller-Cory, who seemed very young to be the mother of a junior member of an ancient law firm, emerged from the house closely followed by Roberta Vandergrift.
Bobs, in an attractive summer dress and wide flower-wreathed hat, looked very different from the girl who, while on the East Side, dressed in a simple dark tailor-made suit and a neat, narrow-brimmed hat.
“Aren’t your guests late, my son?” the hostess inquired. Ralph looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.
“They certainly are,” he replied, “late by a full hour now, and I am almost inclined to think that they had a breakdown. They were coming in Jack Beardsley’s tallyho, and he said he would time the drive from New York so that they would reach us promptly at two-thirty, and now it is nearing four.”
Just at that moment a butler crossed the lawn and, beckoning Ralph to one side, told him that someone awaited him at the telephone. Excusing himself, the lad fairly ran indoors. As he had expected, it was the voice of his friend, Jack Beardsley, that greeted him. “I say, Ralph, are you alone so that no one will get wise to what I am going to say?”
“Yes,” was the reply.
“We don’t want to worry her sister needlessly. There really is no cause for that, but we’ve been delayed at the Orange Hills Inn because Gwendolyn Vandergrift, who isn’t as strong as she thought, has found riding in the tallyho too hard. She’s got grit, that girl has! Never complained, but kept up as long as she could that she need not trouble anyone until she just keeled over and fainted. She’s better now, and Phyllis thought that if you would come over after her with that little runabout of yours, made comfortable with blankets and pillows, it wouldn’t be as hard for Miss Vandergrift as this old tallyho of mine. Mrs. Buscom, the innkeeper’s wife, will look out for her, and so, if you are coming, we’ll start along, as I want to make the steep grade with this lumbering vehicle of mine before dark.”
“Sure thing, I’ll get there all right. I’ll take a short cut through the hills, so you won’t pass me, but don’t be alarmed. I’ll probably get back here in The Whizz as soon as you do in the tallyho, so I won’t say anything to her sister, Roberta, as yet. So long.”
Again Ralph was acting on impulse. His first desire had been to take Bobs with him, but if he did there would not be room to make the invalid sister comfortable on the return trip, and, moreover, it wouldn’t be fair to Dick.
His dad wouldn’t arrive with the big car until five-thirty, and so The Whizz would have to do. Sending word out to the group on the lawn that the tallyho had been delayed but would soon arrive, Ralph donned his leather coat, cap and goggles and made his way out through a back entrance and down to the garage. Soon thereafter he was speeding over a country road which led among the hills and was a short cut of many miles to the Inn. He broke the speed limit whenever the dirt road was smooth enough to permit him to do so, but, although he frightened many a flock of birds from the hedges, no one arose from the wayside tangle to bid him go more slowly.
When at last he drew up at the Inn, the kind Mrs. Buscom appeared and smilingly informed him that the young lady was quite rested and that the tallyho had been gone for half an hour. She was about to lead the way into the dim, old-fashioned parlor of the Inn when new arrivals delayed her, and so Ralph went in alone.
The blinds in the old-fashioned parlor of the Inn were drawn, and, having come in from the dazzling sunshine, Ralph at first could scarcely see, but a girl, who had been seated in a haircloth rocker, arose and advanced toward him. She wore a rose-colored linen hat and dress. For a moment the lad paused and stared as though at an apparition.
“Bobs!” he ejaculated. Then he laughed as he extended his hand. “Miss Vandergrift, honestly, just for a second I thought that I was seeing a vision. I had quite forgotten that you and your sister so closely resemble each other, though, to be sure, you are taller than Bobs; but pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Ralph Cory, of whom, perhaps, you have heard.”
“And I am Gwendolyn Vandergrift, of whom I am sure that you have heard, else you would not have come for me,” the girl smiled; and, to his amazement, Ralph found that his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer. “If you are sure that you are rested, Miss Vandergrift,” he said, “we will start back at once. I’ve brought soft pillows galore, and a jolly soft lap robe. I do hope you’ll be comfortable.”
On the porch of the Inn, Gwen turned and, holding out a frail hand, she said to the kindly woman: “Thank you, Mrs. Buscom, for having taken such good care of me. I shall stop again on our way back to town.”
The bustling little woman helped arrange the pillows and tucked in the blanket. Then to Ralph she said as the machinery started: “Do take care of the pretty dear. It’s like a flower she is, and ought to be sheltered from the rough winds of the world.”
“I’ll do that little thing, Mrs. Buscom. Good-bye. Wish us luck!”
Ralph drove slowly at first, but Gwen said, “I’m so well packed in pillows, Mr. Cory, it won’t jar me in the least if you go faster.” And so the speed increased. It was late afternoon and the highway was deserted. “I’d like to overtake the tallyho,” Ralph remarked. “If I thought you wouldn’t mind the pace we’d have to hit.”
Gwendolyn smiled up trustingly. “I have perfect faith in your driving,” she said. “I know you will take care of me.”
Ralph, looking into the face of the girl at his side, again had the strange feeling that it was Bobs, only different, and—Oh, what was the matter with him, anyway? Was it possible that he liked the difference?
Bobs had always been a frank comrade, more like another boy, when he came to think of it, but this girl, who was equally beautiful, was depending upon him to take good care of her.
A fifteen-minute spurt brought them to the top of a hill and in the valley below they saw the tallyho.
Ralph stopped a brief moment on the plateau, leaped out to be sure that The Whizz was in perfect condition, and then anxiously inquired, “Are you sure you’re game? Loop the loop won’t be in it.”
Gwen nodded. “I’ll like it,” she assured him. The color had mounted to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. “All right! Hold fast! Here goes!” Then The Whizz went like a red streak down that hill on which, as Ralph had observed from the top, there was nothing to impede their progress.
They overtook the tallyho and slowed up that they need not startle the horses. They had reached the outer boundaries of the Caldwaller-Cory estate.
“Suppose I get back in the tallyho with the others,” Gwen said, “then Bobs won’t know that I had a fainting spell. If she knew it, she would feel that she ought to take me right home, and I don’t want to go.” Her smile at Ralph seemed to imply that he was her fellow-conspirator.
“I’m not going to let you go,” he heard himself saying.
So the change was made. Ralph turned The Whizz into a rear entrance, used only by delivery autos, and in that way reached the garage.
He had asked Jack Beardsley to give him time to get out on the lawn before he arrived, and so the three, who were still seated around a tea table under a spreading oak, saw Ralph coming from the house at the same time that the tallyho entered the front gate.
They little dreamed of all that had happened.
And now while these young people are having a care-free, happy time in the beautiful Orange Hill country, let us return to the East Side that is sweltering in the heat of late June.
It was nine o’clock at night and the air was still breathlessly stifling. The playground that edged the East River was thronged with neighboring folk who had brought what portable bedding they had and who planned sleeping upon the ground out-of-doors to catch some possible breeze from over the water.
Many of these people were residents of the rickety tenement across from the model apartments, but one there was who had been unable to leave the small, hot room that she called home, and that one was Mrs. Wilovich.
She was not alone, nor had she been, for all that day Lena May had been at her bedside.
“She cannot last the night out,” the visiting district nurse had said. “Hastn’t she any own folks to stay with her till it’s all over?”
“I shall stay,” little Lena May had replied.
“You? Do you think you ought? You’re a mere girl. Aren’t there some women in this house who’d do that much for a neighbor?”
“I am seventeen,” was the quiet reply, “and Mrs. Wilovich would rather have me. She never made friends among the neighbors.”
“Well, as you wish,” the busy nurse had said. “I have many more places to visit this evening, so I can’t stay; and, anyway, there’s nothing to do but to let her——”
“Hush, please, don’t say it. Little Tony might hear,” Lena May had implored in a whisper as she glanced at the child curled up on the floor as though he were asleep.
When the nurse was gone, Dean Wiggin appeared in the open doorway, as he had many times that day and evening. Nell had been called to the country to see about the small farm which their foster-father had bequeathed them, or she would have been with Lena May. Gloria had left at eight to take her evening classes at the Settlement, and had promised to return at ten and remain with her sister until the end.
The giant of a lad, with his helpless arm that was always held in one position as it had been in slings so long ago, glanced first at the woman in the bed, and then at the girl who advanced to him.
“Can’t I stay now?” he spoke softly. “I’ve closed the shop and the office. Isn’t there anything that I can do to help?”
“No, Dean, I don’t need you, and there isn’t room; but I do wish that you would take Tony out of doors. It is stifling here.”
The little fellow seemed to hear his name. He rose and went to Dean. The lad lifted Tony with his strong right arm. “I’ll take him down to the docks a while,” he told the girl. “Put a light in the window if you want me.”
Lena May said that she would. Then for a time the young girl stood in the open window watching the moving lights out on the river. At last she turned back and glanced at the bed. The mother lay so quiet and so white that Lena May believed that she had passed into the land where there is no sweltering, crowded East Side. She was right. The tired soul had taken its flight. The girl was about to place the lamp in the window to recall Dean when she paused and listened. What a strange roaring sound she heard, and how intensely hot it was becoming. In another moment there was a wild cry of “Fire! Fire!” from the playground.
Lena May sprang to the open door. She knew there was but one fire escape and that at the extreme rear of the long, dark hallway. That very day she had noticed that it was piled high with rubbish. Then she must make her escape by the narrow, rickety front stairs. Down the top flight she ran, only to find that the flight beneath her was a seething mass of flame.
She darted back into the small room and closed the door. Then she ran to the open window and called for help, but the roaring of the flames drowned her voice. However, she was seen, and several firemen ran forward with a ladder, but a rear wall crashed in and they leaped back.
At that moment a lad darted up and pushed his way through the crowd. “Put the ladder up to that window,” he commanded, pointing to where Lena May, pale and quiet, was still standing.
“By heck, we won’t! It’s sure death to climb up there. The wall’s rocking even now. Stand back, everybody,” the chief shouted; but one there was who did not obey. With superhuman effort he lifted the ladder. Several men seeing that he was determined helped him place it, then ran back, and left the lad to scale it alone. Never before had Dean so regretted his useless arm.
“God, give me strength!” he cried; then mounted the ladder. He could feel it sway. Flames leaped from the windows as he passed. He caught at the rounds with his left hand as well as his right, and up, up he went. The girl leaned far out. “Drop down. Hold to the window sill! I’ll catch you,” the lad called. Lena May did as she was told, and, clinging to the top round with his left hand, Dean clasped the girl’s waist with his strong right arm and climbed down as fast as he could go. He did not realize that he was using his left arm. He had to, it was a matter of life and death. A pain like that made by a hot branding iron shot through his shoulder, but even this he did not know.
Firemen rushed forward and took the girl from him, and none too soon, for with a terrific roar the fire burst through the roof, which caved in; then the wall tottered and crashed down about them.
“Where’s that boy? The one that went up the ladder?” people were asking on all sides. Where was he, indeed?
A week later Lena May was in the sunny kitchen of the Pensinger mansion making broth. A curly-headed three-year-old boy was sitting on the floor playing contentedly with his toys. He had been told that his mother had gone to a beautiful country where she would be well and happy and that some day he would see her again.
“Muvver likes Tony to stay wiv you, Auntie May,” he prattled as the girl stooped to kiss him. Then, as he suddenly reached up his chubby arms, he added: “Tony likes to stay wiv you.”
“There, now, the broth’s ready and Tony may help Auntie May,” she told him. The little fellow was given a plate of crackers and the girl followed with a bowl of steaming refreshment. They went to Bobs’ room, where a lad was lying in bed.
Once again Dean Wiggin had fought a fire for the sake of a friend, but this time had undone the harm that had been done in the long ago. Even the surgeon who had been called in declared that the way the lad had wrenched his arm free and had actually used it was little less than a miracle; but, all through the ages, people who with a high purpose have called upon God for help, have received it, and that help has been named a miracle.
“See, Lena May,” the lad said as he stretched out his left arm, “it moves, doesn’t it? Stiffly, perhaps, but I must keep it going, the doctor told me.” Then he drew himself into a sitting position and the girl raised the pillows to make him comfortable.
He smiled at her beamingly as he said: “Another bit of good news is that tomorrow I may get up. Just because one wall of a burning tenement fell on me is no reason why I should remain in bed longer than one week and be waited upon.”
“You surely had a wonderful escape, Dean,” the girl said as she gave him the broth. “Just by chance the firemen instantly turned the water where you had fallen and so you weren’t burned.”
“Nor drowned,” the lad said merrily, “just knocked senseless.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he continued: “I want to be up and about before Nell returns. She will be in about noon tomorrow. Unless it got into the New England papers, which isn’t likely, she won’t know a thing about it. I don’t want her to hear of it before I tell her. She would imagine all sorts of things that aren’t true, and be needlessly worried.”
“How glad your sister will be when she finds that the use of your arm has been restored to you.” Lena May sat by the bedside holding Tony on her lap.
“Won’t she?” Dean’s upward glance was radiant. “No longer will I have to follow the profession of old book-seller. I want to do something that will keep that arm constantly busy.”
“What, Dean, have you thought?”
“Yes, indeed. You won’t think it a very wonderful ambition. I want to be a farmer. I don’t like this crowded city. I feel as though I can’t breathe. When I am lying here alone, I keep thinking of the New England farm where my boyhood was spent, and I long to really work in that rocky soil, standing up now and then to breathe deep of that sparkling air and to gaze at that wide view over the meadow-lands, and the shining, curving silver ribbon, that is really a river, to the distant mountains. Lena May, how I wish you could see it with me.”
“I am sure that I would love it,” the girl said, then, rising, she added: “Here comes Gloria and Mr. Hardinian. They are going to hear some Hungarian music tonight, and I promised to have an early supper for them. Tony may stay with you. I am sure he would like to hear a story about the little wild creatures who live on your farm.”
But, when the girl was gone, the little fellow accommodatingly curled up by Dean’s side and went to sleep, and so the lad’s thoughts were left free to dream of a wonderful something that might happen some day on that far-away New England farm.
Time—Two weeks later.
Place—Kitchen of the Pensinger mansion.
Characters—Gloria, Gwendolyn, Roberta, Lena May and little Tony.
“Haven’t things been happening with a whirl of late?” Bobs exclaimed as she passed a plate of hot muffins. “I feel dizzy, honestly I do! I’m so proud of Dick,” she added as she sank into her own place at the table.
“All of his own accord he told me that he’s going back for one more year at law school and then he and Ralph are going to hang out a shingle for themselves. They’re going to start a new firm and be partners. Judge Caldwaller-Cory thinks that his son must be crazy, when he is already a junior member of an old and well established firm. They got the idea from Arden Wentworth, I suppose. He has made good by himself, and the plan rather appeals to Dick and Ralph.”
“They’re great pals, aren’t they, these two? Brothers couldn’t care more for each other, I do believe,” Lena May said, as she buttered a muffin for her little charge.
“And to think that they are to marry sisters in the dim and distant future. That ought to cement the brotherly ties even closer than ever,” Gloria remarked, as she smiled at Gwendolyn, who, wind-browned and sun-rosy, looked as though she had never been ill.
“Gwen, you and Ralph fell in love rather suddenly, didn’t you?” Lena May inquired.
“Maybe so,” her sister replied. “Ralph says that he has always felt sure that he would know the girl who was meant for him the very moment that he saw her, and he insists that he loved me the minute he met me at Orange Hills Inn.”
Roberta leaned over and placed her hand on that of her sister. “I’m so glad,” she said, “for I do believe that Ralph is almost as fine a chap as my Dick, and that is saying a great deal; and to think that if it hadn’t been for the Pensinger mystery, we might never have met him.”
“By the way,” Gloria remarked, “what has become of the Pensinger mystery?”
Roberta laughed as she arose to replenish the muffin plate from the oven. “I’m afraid it is destined to always remain a mystery. Ralph and I followed every clue we could possibly think of. It’s a shame, isn’t it, not to have this old place owned by someone, to say nothing of the money.”
After a moment’s silence, Gloria asked: “Lena May, was there any news of general interest in Dean’s letter this morning?”
Their youngest sister smiled brightly. “Oh, yes, indeed. He was so glad to get back to that New England farm where he can breathe. He said that there are wonderful possibilities in the old house and that he is going to begin work on it at once. He hopes that by the time I am eighteen, it will look like a real home; but there was another item in the letter that I am sure you will all be glad to hear. His group of nature poems has been accepted by a magazine calledThe New England Homestead, and the check they sent seems like a real fortune to Dean. The best of it is, they have asked for more.”