At a window inside Mr. William Kingsley was watching excitedly. A tall figure of the general proportions of his sister Isabel's husband, James Dent, was at his elbow. "By George!" he ejaculated, "Syl's gone with Sam!"Mr. George Kingsley, partially deaf, caught his own first name. "What's that, Will?" he responded eagerly.William wheeled and saw whom he was addressing. George, his anxious eyes peering down the road, was plainly not thinking of family quarrels. Why should anybody think of family quarrels with Sam's young Syl lying upstairs looking as if the life had been knocked out of him by that terrific fall? William found himself unable to answer this question."Sylvester's gone with Sam after Doctor Graham," he announced in George's interrogative best ear."You don't say!" responded George. "Well, it's a good thing."It certainly was. Not a member of the family but would admit that. Also, if it was a good thing for Sylvester and Sam to tear down the road together in a sixty-horse-power car, after a quarrel the proportions of which anybody must concede were far more serious than those of the difficulty between George and William, it would seem rather forced, at least until the truth was known about young Syl, for two other brothers looking out of the same window to cling to outward signs of estrangement."Sam's got an extremely powerful machine," observed William, continuing to gaze down the road, though the aforesaid machine was already probably a mile away and far out of sight."I guess he has. Must go faster than Sylvester's, I should say.""Sylvester's isn't made so much for speed as for getting about the city warm and comfortable for his wife. Syl's not much on speed, as I remember. Shouldn't wonder if Sam's pace going to meet the doctor would make Syl hang on some.""It's Sam's boy," said George in a lower tone."So it is," agreed William. "Couldn't blame him if he took some chances. Don't know as he'll get Graham here more'n five minutes quicker'n he could get here with his own car, but it'll relieve the strain for Sam a little to be doing something.""That's so," admitted George.At this moment Harold, George's boy, with a pale, frightened face and a pair of very red eyes, came into the room and up to his father. He had no eyes for his Uncle William standing half within the long, crimson folds of the library curtains."Dad," said the boy, "did you know I——""Eh?" said his father, turning his best ear. Then he saw his son's face. "Why, what's the matter?" he asked anxiously. "Is Syl——""Dad," burst out the boy, "I—I was the one that did it.I—threw—Syl!"He buried his head against his father's arm."Why, Harry—Harry, boy——" began his father in consternation.Uncle William came out from behind the curtain. He thought he had better get out of the room. But as he passed Harold his hand patted the young head. He stooped to the boy's ear. "We all know it was an accident," he whispered.A nursemaid knocked upon the door of Mr. Stephen Kingsley's room. In her arms was Mrs. Sam's baby, the prettiest baby of the three who were in the house."Mr. Kingsley," said the maid, "Mr. Dent—the young man—said I should bring Dorothy to you and ask you to take care of her for a little while, if you didn't mind. He has something for me to do.""Yes, yes—yes, yes," answered the invalid. "I'll keep her." He reached out his arms. "How is the boy now, do you know?" he asked. He had had a bulletin within the last five minutes, but minutes go slowly under suspense."They think he may not be badly hurt, sir," said the maid.But this was what they had told him from the beginning. He felt that they could not know. They were afraid to alarm him. Fall so far and not be badly hurt? It was not possible.He took the baby, and laid his white cheek against hers of rose-leaf pink. So Jim had sent him the baby to take up his mind. Was there anything Jim didn't think of? And one certainly cannot look after an eight-months-old baby and not give the matter considerable attention.Young Sylvester Kingsley, Samuel's son, opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was his mother's face, which smiled at him. Mothers can always smile, if necessary, thank God! The next thing noticeable was his Cousin Jim's bright blue eyes looking rather brighter than usual. He heard a caught breath somewhere near and then a whisper: "Sh-h—don't startle him!" It sounded like his Aunt Clara's rather sibilant whisper. Aunt Clara had the tiniest sort of a lisp. There was a strong smell of camphor in the air, and Syl's forehead seemed to be oppressed by something heavy and cold. He attempted to put up his hand to his head, but the thing didn't work, somehow. He was conscious that his arm hurt, besides. He didn't feel exactly like speaking, so he stared questioningly into his Cousin Jim's face."All right, old man," replied Cousin Jim instantly, in a quiet, cheerful sort of way which was most reassuring. "You've had a bit of a knockout, but we'll soon have you fixed up. Yes, I know that arm hurts—that'll be all right presently."Out in the upper hall Aunt Clara, who had crept out of the room lest the relief of seeing the lad alive, and the wonder of watching Syl's mother smile at her boy like that, should make the sob in her own throat burst out, ran blindly into a figure at the top of the stairs."Oh, he's come to!" she whispered loudly."He has? Thank the Lord!" came back in another joyful whisper. "But he must be awfully hurt, just the same. We can't know till the doctors come. Don't you suppose it must be time for them now?""I don't know. Who's with him?""His mother and that angel Jim. I never saw anybody like Jim Dent. He's the dearest fellow, so cool and cheerful, thinks of everything and everybody. No wonder Stephen adores him.""Thank you, Clara," whispered the other woman. Clara hastily wiped her eyes. The hall was dim and her eyes had been thick with tears. She had been exchanging whispers with Isabel.It didn't matter. She was glad of it. The mother of Jim Dent deserved recognition, if she had said her kitchen was hot in summer. Clara put out her arms. Isabel came into them. Clara's plump cheek touched Isabel's thin shoulder. Isabel's hand patted Clara's back. Jim Dent opened the door. Seeing the affair outside he closed it again and went to find something he wanted, by a different exit. His anxiety was still great, but a side issue like this one must not be upset.But by the second exit he found somebody else in his path. All the beautiful colour shaken out of her cheeks, her dark eyes wide with alarm, her lips pressed tight together in her effort at self-control, young Syl's sister, Anne, caught at Jim Dent's capable, blue-serge arm. She said not a word, but he answered her as if she had spoken:"He's opened his eyes, dear. That means a good deal, I'm sure. Keep cool.""If I could onlydosomething!""You can—what we're all doing.""Oh,yes!" breathed little Anne. "O Jim!—do you think it helps—really?""Know it," asserted Jim Dent, as confidently as he had ever said anything in his life. He smiled at her and hurried on. That smile of his had been known to win games for his college teams which had been all but lost—why shouldn't it cheer a frightened girl and encourage her to go on doing that one thing which was the only thing she could do, and which Jim Dent was so sure would help?The gray roadster came down the road at a speed which barely allowed it to slacken in time to make the curve at the gateway. It missed the stone post on the left by the width of a tenpenny nail. Sylvester, in the rumble, turned not a hair. Thirty miles of driving, with Sam's hand on the steering-wheel, had brought Sylvester to a condition of temporary paralysis as regarded danger.The three of them were in the house in less time than it takes to tell it, Dr. Wilford Graham propelled by a hand on each arm. It would have been difficult for him to say which of his companions seemed the more eager to get him up the stairs.Samuel opened the door of the room where he had left young Syl, his hand shaking on the knob. A somewhat feeble but decidedly cheerful voice greeted him."Say, dad, you'll tell me where I tumbled from, won't you? The rest of 'em have got me stung about it."Samuel turned around to the doctor behind him. He pushed past the doctor and bolted out into the hall. He bumped smartly into his brother Sylvester, who had stopped to wait just outside the door. Sylvester put his hand on Samuel's shoulder."I heard, Sam, I heard," he murmured.Samuel nodded. He could not speak. There was no particular need that he should.Young Syl had a broken arm. But what is a broken arm, when by acquiring it one escapes injuring some vital part of one's body? He had, also, a large-sized contusion on his head, because on the rebound he had come somewhat forcibly into contact with the newel-post. But the contusion was precisely on the spot specially fortified by Nature for such emergencies, and the doctors feared no evil results from it."In short," declared Doctor Graham with great satisfaction, "the boy has managed to get out of his fall easier than many a football victim who is thrown only the distance of his own height. I won't say that a Turkey carpet with a leopard-skin rug on top of it doesn't make a fairly comfortable bed to fall on. If it had been one of our modern bare floors, now!—But it wasn't.""Mayn't I have my dinner with the rest of 'em?" begged Syl.Dinner! The Christmas dinner! They had all forgotten it except the hero of the day. "Because I'm awfully hungry," urged Syl.In the deserted hall downstairs Jim Dent happily encountered Anne. He seized her hand."Come with me to tell Uncle Stephen!" he commanded. "But—stop crying first! Uncle Steve's a pretty wise man, but he can't be expected to tell the difference between tears of sorrow and tears of crazy joy—not at first sight.""I don't know why I'm crying," sobbed Anne, breaking down completely and burying her face on the blue-serge shoulder which conveniently offered itself at the moment, just as she had done many times since she was a baby. Even when she was eight and Cousin Jim was fifteen, that shoulder of his had been one to hide one's unhappy eyes upon. "I didn't cry a drop—till I knew Syl was s-safe!""I know. Queer, isn't it? It always works that way. I confess I had some difficulty in seeing the way across the room myself, a few minutes ago. But wipe 'em away and come on! Uncle Stephen mustn't have to wait for his news. Look up here. Smile! Here—maybe this will help——" and for the third time within twenty-four hours he stooped and kissed her.The tremulous lips broke suddenly into the smile he sued for. Through the tears shone a sudden mischievous light. "Cousin Jim," she observed, "you seem to have changed your methods a good deal. Always before it was chocolates. Are you out of chocolates?""No, I'm not out of chocolates." James Dent, Junior put his hand into his blue-serge pocket and produced a small box. "But you're too old for 'em," he explained, and put the box back.He hurried her past the threshold of Mr. Stephen Kingsley's room. Across the baby's golden head Uncle Stephen looked tensely up at them. It needed but one look. Then his nephew sprang forward and took Anne's baby sister from a grasp which had grown suddenly nerveless, and his niece, stooping over her uncle's chair, gently patted a white cheek down which the first tear of relief was slowly trickling.It seems to "work that way" with the whole human race. Except, perhaps, with mothers. Upstairs, Mrs. Sam sat beside her boy's bed, and his keen young eyes saw no tears upon her lovely, radiant face. If she cried at all it was only in her heart—her happy heart—which ached yet with the agony of what might have been—on Christmas Day.It was a good thing that the dining-room in the old house was a big one. Mr. Kingsley had specially decreed that everybody—everybody—should be seated at one great table. There was to be no compromise effected by having the children wait for the "second table"—has any one who has ever waited for that "second table" at a family gathering forgotten what an ordeal it is, or how interminably long the old folks are about it? There were twenty-nine of them, including the three babies, but by some marvel of arrangement Mrs. Griggs had managed to make a place for every one."But you'll have to say how we're to seat them," said Mrs. Griggs, anxiously invading Mr. Stephen Kingsley's room. "With all our planning we've forgot that part. You'd better make me out a list, so I can lay those holly cards you've written the names on.""Bless my soul," murmured Mr. Kingsley, "must they be specially arranged? Of course they must. I had forgotten. Clara"—he turned to his sister who came in at the moment—"help me with this, will you?""Give me the cards, Mrs. Griggs," requested Mrs. Clara capably. She swept a clear space on the table at her brother's elbow as she spoke."What's all this?" asked Jim Dent at the door five minutes later. "Card games?""Do come and help me, Jim," cried his aunt. "I thought this would be easy, but it's not. I can't keep George's and William's families apart," she explained in a lower tone. "There are so many of them.""Don't try.""Oh, but I must. They—you know that old——""It seems to be a thing of the past. I met Uncle George's boy Harold and Uncle William coming downstairs hand in hand just now. They'd been up to see Syl together.""Jim!" His uncle's face lighted as if the sunlight had struck it. "But the fathers?"Jim put his head out of the door and took a survey of the room beyond. "Sitting on opposite sides of the fireplace," he announced."That's pretty near," admitted Mr. Kingsley. "That's certainly pretty near. With a fire between them. I wonder what——""Syl's tumble did it. It made the mix-up we were looking for. Not exactly as we would have planned it, but rather more effectively, I should say.""Stephen," said Mrs. Clara, moving the cards about in an absent sort of way, "Stephen and Jim, I want to tell you that—well—Isabel and I——""Yes," helped Stephen eagerly."Good for you!" encouraged her nephew."We couldn't seem to keep it up—not here—on Christmas Day—after Syl——" Tears were suddenly threatening the holly cards. Mrs. Clara rose quickly. "I think they're all right now, Stephen," she said, indicating the cards and clearing her eyes with a touch of a lace-bordered handkerchief. "I've put Sam and Syl at the far ends of the table.""I want them near together.""But—had you better?""I'm going to risk it.""Risk it, Uncle Steve," advised Jim. "Everybody's taking chances to-day.""But—Sam and Sylvester!" persisted Clara doubtfully."It's Christmas Day with them, too," argued Jim.Mrs. Clara went out with the cards and laid them down at the proper places. She had arranged them as nearly as possible in approved dinner style, a man next a woman, then a boy, then a girl, then another man, another woman, and so on.When she had gone Jim sneaked out and scrutinized this arrangement. Laughing to himself he picked up the cards and juggled with them. About his uncle Stephen he grouped the cards of his three brothers and their wives. At the other end of the table he put all the children together."There, that's better," said Jim with conviction, to himself.Mrs. Griggs announced dinner. Jim Dent brought Uncle Stephen out first in his wheel-chair and placed him at the head of the table. Then came the rest, Samuel Kingsley carrying his son Syl, looking very hero-like indeed, with his bandaged head and his arm in a sling. All the children's eyes were riveted fascinatedly on Syl as he was placed in a special easy chair at the foot of the table, where nobody could possibly by any chance hit the injured arm.On one side of Mr. Stephen Kingsley, Mrs. Samuel found her place; on the other side, Mrs. Sylvester. Sylvester was next Mrs. Sam, Sam beyond Mrs. Syl. How he dared, every one wondered, thinking it Uncle Stephen's plan. Uncle Stephen himself turned a little pale as he saw them standing behind their chairs. Only Jim Dent, whose wide-awake eyes had been seeing things all day, felt at all cool about it. And even he was not quite as cool as he looked.There was a moment's hushed silence before they sat down, even the children fluttering into quiet. Then, just as everybody laid hands on chairback, Samuel Kingsley spoke."Steve," he said, looking at his brother, "I want to make a little speech."Everybody was at attention. Stephen Kingsley looked up, wondering. He smiled at his brother, but his heart was making riot in his feeble breast. What was Sam going to do?"I want to say," said Samuel—then he stopped. He was an accomplished after-dinner speaker, was Samuel Kingsley, but he had never had a speech to make like this one. He had thought he had it ready on his tongue, but it stuck in his throat. He turned and looked down the table at his boy Syl. Syl nodded at him, comprehending in a boyish way that his father was having some sort of difficulty with his speaking apparatus. Then Samuel looked at Mrs. Samuel, who smiled at him. She was a little pale yet, but her smile was bright as ever. Yet still Samuel could not make his speech.The silence grew tense. Jim Dent, leaning forward and watching his uncle eagerly, felt that it must be relieved. He lifted his glass. "Here's to Uncle Sam's speech!" he cried.The tension broke. Everybody laughed—a little agitatedly, and Uncle Sam's firm lips, under the close-cut, gray moustache, wavered, then set themselves. He looked at his nephew, and something about the sympathetic affection in the bright blue eyes steadied him."I'm afraid I can't make it, after all, Jim," said Samuel. "But perhaps I can act it."And he stretched his hand across the table toward his brother Sylvester, who grasped it, as everybody could see, with a grip that stung.Jim Dent's eyes flew to his Uncle Stephen's face. He saw it like that of Saint Stephen's of old, "as it had been the face of an angel."To young Sylvester Kingsley, hero of the day, was destined to come still further distinction. It was all of a chance observation of his, made just before his removal to bed—at the same hour as his baby sister, much to his disgust. But, resigning himself to his fate, as Cousin Jim stooped to bear him away he gave one last look about the pleasant, holly-hung room.Although their elders had kept as many of the family differences from their children's ears as was possible, they had not been able to forestall the use of the children's sharp eyes, and the sight Syl now saw struck him as unusual. It was nothing more than the gathering of five brothers, of varying ages, about the chair of one of their number, in front of the great fireplace where roared and crackled a mighty fire of logs. But the expressions of geniality and cordial interest upon the five faces indicated such good fellowship that the young son of Samuel Kingsley was moved to say to his cousin Jim:"What a lot of brothers there are in this house! Dad's got four, and I've three and Harold's two, and they're all in this room. This ought to be called 'Brotherly House.'""So it ought," agreed Jim Dent, smiling at the thought. "It would be a fine name, and true, too."He carried the boy away, and stopped to tell him a story after he was in bed—a football story, such as only Cousin Jim could tell, because he knew all about it from the inside. But when Jim came back to the fireside he told them of young Syl's idea. "And a jolly idea I call it, don't you?" he added.Uncle Stephen looked from one to another of the four men around him, and saw the assenting smiles upon their faces—a bit shame-faced, perhaps, yet genuine.Samuel Kingsley rose to his feet. "I could make my speech now," he said, with a happy laugh, his hands shoved well down into his pockets, where they jingled some loose change there in a boyish fashion. "But I don't want to. I'm only going to say that as long as I have a brother in the world like Stephen Kingsley I'm coming to see him as often as he'll have me. And the more of you boys I meet here the better I'll be pleased—particularly if the boy I meet here happens to be—" he glanced, smiling, across the little circle—"my brother Syl!""Hear, hear!" answered Sylvester Kingsley's deep voice.So, to Stephen Kingsley's intense delight, "Brotherly House" it was—and has been ever since.THE ENDTHE COUNTRY LIFE PRESSGARDEN CITY, N.Y.[image]Printer logo, sample page*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKBROTHERLY HOUSE***
At a window inside Mr. William Kingsley was watching excitedly. A tall figure of the general proportions of his sister Isabel's husband, James Dent, was at his elbow. "By George!" he ejaculated, "Syl's gone with Sam!"
Mr. George Kingsley, partially deaf, caught his own first name. "What's that, Will?" he responded eagerly.
William wheeled and saw whom he was addressing. George, his anxious eyes peering down the road, was plainly not thinking of family quarrels. Why should anybody think of family quarrels with Sam's young Syl lying upstairs looking as if the life had been knocked out of him by that terrific fall? William found himself unable to answer this question.
"Sylvester's gone with Sam after Doctor Graham," he announced in George's interrogative best ear.
"You don't say!" responded George. "Well, it's a good thing."
It certainly was. Not a member of the family but would admit that. Also, if it was a good thing for Sylvester and Sam to tear down the road together in a sixty-horse-power car, after a quarrel the proportions of which anybody must concede were far more serious than those of the difficulty between George and William, it would seem rather forced, at least until the truth was known about young Syl, for two other brothers looking out of the same window to cling to outward signs of estrangement.
"Sam's got an extremely powerful machine," observed William, continuing to gaze down the road, though the aforesaid machine was already probably a mile away and far out of sight.
"I guess he has. Must go faster than Sylvester's, I should say."
"Sylvester's isn't made so much for speed as for getting about the city warm and comfortable for his wife. Syl's not much on speed, as I remember. Shouldn't wonder if Sam's pace going to meet the doctor would make Syl hang on some."
"It's Sam's boy," said George in a lower tone.
"So it is," agreed William. "Couldn't blame him if he took some chances. Don't know as he'll get Graham here more'n five minutes quicker'n he could get here with his own car, but it'll relieve the strain for Sam a little to be doing something."
"That's so," admitted George.
At this moment Harold, George's boy, with a pale, frightened face and a pair of very red eyes, came into the room and up to his father. He had no eyes for his Uncle William standing half within the long, crimson folds of the library curtains.
"Dad," said the boy, "did you know I——"
"Eh?" said his father, turning his best ear. Then he saw his son's face. "Why, what's the matter?" he asked anxiously. "Is Syl——"
"Dad," burst out the boy, "I—I was the one that did it.I—threw—Syl!"
He buried his head against his father's arm.
"Why, Harry—Harry, boy——" began his father in consternation.
Uncle William came out from behind the curtain. He thought he had better get out of the room. But as he passed Harold his hand patted the young head. He stooped to the boy's ear. "We all know it was an accident," he whispered.
A nursemaid knocked upon the door of Mr. Stephen Kingsley's room. In her arms was Mrs. Sam's baby, the prettiest baby of the three who were in the house.
"Mr. Kingsley," said the maid, "Mr. Dent—the young man—said I should bring Dorothy to you and ask you to take care of her for a little while, if you didn't mind. He has something for me to do."
"Yes, yes—yes, yes," answered the invalid. "I'll keep her." He reached out his arms. "How is the boy now, do you know?" he asked. He had had a bulletin within the last five minutes, but minutes go slowly under suspense.
"They think he may not be badly hurt, sir," said the maid.
But this was what they had told him from the beginning. He felt that they could not know. They were afraid to alarm him. Fall so far and not be badly hurt? It was not possible.
He took the baby, and laid his white cheek against hers of rose-leaf pink. So Jim had sent him the baby to take up his mind. Was there anything Jim didn't think of? And one certainly cannot look after an eight-months-old baby and not give the matter considerable attention.
Young Sylvester Kingsley, Samuel's son, opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was his mother's face, which smiled at him. Mothers can always smile, if necessary, thank God! The next thing noticeable was his Cousin Jim's bright blue eyes looking rather brighter than usual. He heard a caught breath somewhere near and then a whisper: "Sh-h—don't startle him!" It sounded like his Aunt Clara's rather sibilant whisper. Aunt Clara had the tiniest sort of a lisp. There was a strong smell of camphor in the air, and Syl's forehead seemed to be oppressed by something heavy and cold. He attempted to put up his hand to his head, but the thing didn't work, somehow. He was conscious that his arm hurt, besides. He didn't feel exactly like speaking, so he stared questioningly into his Cousin Jim's face.
"All right, old man," replied Cousin Jim instantly, in a quiet, cheerful sort of way which was most reassuring. "You've had a bit of a knockout, but we'll soon have you fixed up. Yes, I know that arm hurts—that'll be all right presently."
Out in the upper hall Aunt Clara, who had crept out of the room lest the relief of seeing the lad alive, and the wonder of watching Syl's mother smile at her boy like that, should make the sob in her own throat burst out, ran blindly into a figure at the top of the stairs.
"Oh, he's come to!" she whispered loudly.
"He has? Thank the Lord!" came back in another joyful whisper. "But he must be awfully hurt, just the same. We can't know till the doctors come. Don't you suppose it must be time for them now?"
"I don't know. Who's with him?"
"His mother and that angel Jim. I never saw anybody like Jim Dent. He's the dearest fellow, so cool and cheerful, thinks of everything and everybody. No wonder Stephen adores him."
"Thank you, Clara," whispered the other woman. Clara hastily wiped her eyes. The hall was dim and her eyes had been thick with tears. She had been exchanging whispers with Isabel.
It didn't matter. She was glad of it. The mother of Jim Dent deserved recognition, if she had said her kitchen was hot in summer. Clara put out her arms. Isabel came into them. Clara's plump cheek touched Isabel's thin shoulder. Isabel's hand patted Clara's back. Jim Dent opened the door. Seeing the affair outside he closed it again and went to find something he wanted, by a different exit. His anxiety was still great, but a side issue like this one must not be upset.
But by the second exit he found somebody else in his path. All the beautiful colour shaken out of her cheeks, her dark eyes wide with alarm, her lips pressed tight together in her effort at self-control, young Syl's sister, Anne, caught at Jim Dent's capable, blue-serge arm. She said not a word, but he answered her as if she had spoken:
"He's opened his eyes, dear. That means a good deal, I'm sure. Keep cool."
"If I could onlydosomething!"
"You can—what we're all doing."
"Oh,yes!" breathed little Anne. "O Jim!—do you think it helps—really?"
"Know it," asserted Jim Dent, as confidently as he had ever said anything in his life. He smiled at her and hurried on. That smile of his had been known to win games for his college teams which had been all but lost—why shouldn't it cheer a frightened girl and encourage her to go on doing that one thing which was the only thing she could do, and which Jim Dent was so sure would help?
The gray roadster came down the road at a speed which barely allowed it to slacken in time to make the curve at the gateway. It missed the stone post on the left by the width of a tenpenny nail. Sylvester, in the rumble, turned not a hair. Thirty miles of driving, with Sam's hand on the steering-wheel, had brought Sylvester to a condition of temporary paralysis as regarded danger.
The three of them were in the house in less time than it takes to tell it, Dr. Wilford Graham propelled by a hand on each arm. It would have been difficult for him to say which of his companions seemed the more eager to get him up the stairs.
Samuel opened the door of the room where he had left young Syl, his hand shaking on the knob. A somewhat feeble but decidedly cheerful voice greeted him.
"Say, dad, you'll tell me where I tumbled from, won't you? The rest of 'em have got me stung about it."
Samuel turned around to the doctor behind him. He pushed past the doctor and bolted out into the hall. He bumped smartly into his brother Sylvester, who had stopped to wait just outside the door. Sylvester put his hand on Samuel's shoulder.
"I heard, Sam, I heard," he murmured.
Samuel nodded. He could not speak. There was no particular need that he should.
Young Syl had a broken arm. But what is a broken arm, when by acquiring it one escapes injuring some vital part of one's body? He had, also, a large-sized contusion on his head, because on the rebound he had come somewhat forcibly into contact with the newel-post. But the contusion was precisely on the spot specially fortified by Nature for such emergencies, and the doctors feared no evil results from it.
"In short," declared Doctor Graham with great satisfaction, "the boy has managed to get out of his fall easier than many a football victim who is thrown only the distance of his own height. I won't say that a Turkey carpet with a leopard-skin rug on top of it doesn't make a fairly comfortable bed to fall on. If it had been one of our modern bare floors, now!—But it wasn't."
"Mayn't I have my dinner with the rest of 'em?" begged Syl.
Dinner! The Christmas dinner! They had all forgotten it except the hero of the day. "Because I'm awfully hungry," urged Syl.
In the deserted hall downstairs Jim Dent happily encountered Anne. He seized her hand.
"Come with me to tell Uncle Stephen!" he commanded. "But—stop crying first! Uncle Steve's a pretty wise man, but he can't be expected to tell the difference between tears of sorrow and tears of crazy joy—not at first sight."
"I don't know why I'm crying," sobbed Anne, breaking down completely and burying her face on the blue-serge shoulder which conveniently offered itself at the moment, just as she had done many times since she was a baby. Even when she was eight and Cousin Jim was fifteen, that shoulder of his had been one to hide one's unhappy eyes upon. "I didn't cry a drop—till I knew Syl was s-safe!"
"I know. Queer, isn't it? It always works that way. I confess I had some difficulty in seeing the way across the room myself, a few minutes ago. But wipe 'em away and come on! Uncle Stephen mustn't have to wait for his news. Look up here. Smile! Here—maybe this will help——" and for the third time within twenty-four hours he stooped and kissed her.
The tremulous lips broke suddenly into the smile he sued for. Through the tears shone a sudden mischievous light. "Cousin Jim," she observed, "you seem to have changed your methods a good deal. Always before it was chocolates. Are you out of chocolates?"
"No, I'm not out of chocolates." James Dent, Junior put his hand into his blue-serge pocket and produced a small box. "But you're too old for 'em," he explained, and put the box back.
He hurried her past the threshold of Mr. Stephen Kingsley's room. Across the baby's golden head Uncle Stephen looked tensely up at them. It needed but one look. Then his nephew sprang forward and took Anne's baby sister from a grasp which had grown suddenly nerveless, and his niece, stooping over her uncle's chair, gently patted a white cheek down which the first tear of relief was slowly trickling.
It seems to "work that way" with the whole human race. Except, perhaps, with mothers. Upstairs, Mrs. Sam sat beside her boy's bed, and his keen young eyes saw no tears upon her lovely, radiant face. If she cried at all it was only in her heart—her happy heart—which ached yet with the agony of what might have been—on Christmas Day.
It was a good thing that the dining-room in the old house was a big one. Mr. Kingsley had specially decreed that everybody—everybody—should be seated at one great table. There was to be no compromise effected by having the children wait for the "second table"—has any one who has ever waited for that "second table" at a family gathering forgotten what an ordeal it is, or how interminably long the old folks are about it? There were twenty-nine of them, including the three babies, but by some marvel of arrangement Mrs. Griggs had managed to make a place for every one.
"But you'll have to say how we're to seat them," said Mrs. Griggs, anxiously invading Mr. Stephen Kingsley's room. "With all our planning we've forgot that part. You'd better make me out a list, so I can lay those holly cards you've written the names on."
"Bless my soul," murmured Mr. Kingsley, "must they be specially arranged? Of course they must. I had forgotten. Clara"—he turned to his sister who came in at the moment—"help me with this, will you?"
"Give me the cards, Mrs. Griggs," requested Mrs. Clara capably. She swept a clear space on the table at her brother's elbow as she spoke.
"What's all this?" asked Jim Dent at the door five minutes later. "Card games?"
"Do come and help me, Jim," cried his aunt. "I thought this would be easy, but it's not. I can't keep George's and William's families apart," she explained in a lower tone. "There are so many of them."
"Don't try."
"Oh, but I must. They—you know that old——"
"It seems to be a thing of the past. I met Uncle George's boy Harold and Uncle William coming downstairs hand in hand just now. They'd been up to see Syl together."
"Jim!" His uncle's face lighted as if the sunlight had struck it. "But the fathers?"
Jim put his head out of the door and took a survey of the room beyond. "Sitting on opposite sides of the fireplace," he announced.
"That's pretty near," admitted Mr. Kingsley. "That's certainly pretty near. With a fire between them. I wonder what——"
"Syl's tumble did it. It made the mix-up we were looking for. Not exactly as we would have planned it, but rather more effectively, I should say."
"Stephen," said Mrs. Clara, moving the cards about in an absent sort of way, "Stephen and Jim, I want to tell you that—well—Isabel and I——"
"Yes," helped Stephen eagerly.
"Good for you!" encouraged her nephew.
"We couldn't seem to keep it up—not here—on Christmas Day—after Syl——" Tears were suddenly threatening the holly cards. Mrs. Clara rose quickly. "I think they're all right now, Stephen," she said, indicating the cards and clearing her eyes with a touch of a lace-bordered handkerchief. "I've put Sam and Syl at the far ends of the table."
"I want them near together."
"But—had you better?"
"I'm going to risk it."
"Risk it, Uncle Steve," advised Jim. "Everybody's taking chances to-day."
"But—Sam and Sylvester!" persisted Clara doubtfully.
"It's Christmas Day with them, too," argued Jim.
Mrs. Clara went out with the cards and laid them down at the proper places. She had arranged them as nearly as possible in approved dinner style, a man next a woman, then a boy, then a girl, then another man, another woman, and so on.
When she had gone Jim sneaked out and scrutinized this arrangement. Laughing to himself he picked up the cards and juggled with them. About his uncle Stephen he grouped the cards of his three brothers and their wives. At the other end of the table he put all the children together.
"There, that's better," said Jim with conviction, to himself.
Mrs. Griggs announced dinner. Jim Dent brought Uncle Stephen out first in his wheel-chair and placed him at the head of the table. Then came the rest, Samuel Kingsley carrying his son Syl, looking very hero-like indeed, with his bandaged head and his arm in a sling. All the children's eyes were riveted fascinatedly on Syl as he was placed in a special easy chair at the foot of the table, where nobody could possibly by any chance hit the injured arm.
On one side of Mr. Stephen Kingsley, Mrs. Samuel found her place; on the other side, Mrs. Sylvester. Sylvester was next Mrs. Sam, Sam beyond Mrs. Syl. How he dared, every one wondered, thinking it Uncle Stephen's plan. Uncle Stephen himself turned a little pale as he saw them standing behind their chairs. Only Jim Dent, whose wide-awake eyes had been seeing things all day, felt at all cool about it. And even he was not quite as cool as he looked.
There was a moment's hushed silence before they sat down, even the children fluttering into quiet. Then, just as everybody laid hands on chairback, Samuel Kingsley spoke.
"Steve," he said, looking at his brother, "I want to make a little speech."
Everybody was at attention. Stephen Kingsley looked up, wondering. He smiled at his brother, but his heart was making riot in his feeble breast. What was Sam going to do?
"I want to say," said Samuel—then he stopped. He was an accomplished after-dinner speaker, was Samuel Kingsley, but he had never had a speech to make like this one. He had thought he had it ready on his tongue, but it stuck in his throat. He turned and looked down the table at his boy Syl. Syl nodded at him, comprehending in a boyish way that his father was having some sort of difficulty with his speaking apparatus. Then Samuel looked at Mrs. Samuel, who smiled at him. She was a little pale yet, but her smile was bright as ever. Yet still Samuel could not make his speech.
The silence grew tense. Jim Dent, leaning forward and watching his uncle eagerly, felt that it must be relieved. He lifted his glass. "Here's to Uncle Sam's speech!" he cried.
The tension broke. Everybody laughed—a little agitatedly, and Uncle Sam's firm lips, under the close-cut, gray moustache, wavered, then set themselves. He looked at his nephew, and something about the sympathetic affection in the bright blue eyes steadied him.
"I'm afraid I can't make it, after all, Jim," said Samuel. "But perhaps I can act it."
And he stretched his hand across the table toward his brother Sylvester, who grasped it, as everybody could see, with a grip that stung.
Jim Dent's eyes flew to his Uncle Stephen's face. He saw it like that of Saint Stephen's of old, "as it had been the face of an angel."
To young Sylvester Kingsley, hero of the day, was destined to come still further distinction. It was all of a chance observation of his, made just before his removal to bed—at the same hour as his baby sister, much to his disgust. But, resigning himself to his fate, as Cousin Jim stooped to bear him away he gave one last look about the pleasant, holly-hung room.
Although their elders had kept as many of the family differences from their children's ears as was possible, they had not been able to forestall the use of the children's sharp eyes, and the sight Syl now saw struck him as unusual. It was nothing more than the gathering of five brothers, of varying ages, about the chair of one of their number, in front of the great fireplace where roared and crackled a mighty fire of logs. But the expressions of geniality and cordial interest upon the five faces indicated such good fellowship that the young son of Samuel Kingsley was moved to say to his cousin Jim:
"What a lot of brothers there are in this house! Dad's got four, and I've three and Harold's two, and they're all in this room. This ought to be called 'Brotherly House.'"
"So it ought," agreed Jim Dent, smiling at the thought. "It would be a fine name, and true, too."
He carried the boy away, and stopped to tell him a story after he was in bed—a football story, such as only Cousin Jim could tell, because he knew all about it from the inside. But when Jim came back to the fireside he told them of young Syl's idea. "And a jolly idea I call it, don't you?" he added.
Uncle Stephen looked from one to another of the four men around him, and saw the assenting smiles upon their faces—a bit shame-faced, perhaps, yet genuine.
Samuel Kingsley rose to his feet. "I could make my speech now," he said, with a happy laugh, his hands shoved well down into his pockets, where they jingled some loose change there in a boyish fashion. "But I don't want to. I'm only going to say that as long as I have a brother in the world like Stephen Kingsley I'm coming to see him as often as he'll have me. And the more of you boys I meet here the better I'll be pleased—particularly if the boy I meet here happens to be—" he glanced, smiling, across the little circle—"my brother Syl!"
"Hear, hear!" answered Sylvester Kingsley's deep voice.
So, to Stephen Kingsley's intense delight, "Brotherly House" it was—and has been ever since.
THE END
THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESSGARDEN CITY, N.Y.
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*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOKBROTHERLY HOUSE***