"Hand in hand when our life was May.Hand in hand when our hair is gray.Sorrow and sun for everyoneAs the years roll on.Hand in hand when the long night tideGently covers us side by side——Ah, lad, though we know not when,Love will be with us forever then.Always the same, Darby my own,Always the same to your old wife Joan!"
After that there were other songs which Aunt Elspeth asked for, "Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast," and "Robin Adair." Then came a long tiresome pause when Georgina didn't know what to do next, and Aunt Elspeth turned her head restlessly on the pillow and seemed uneasy.
Georgina wished with all her heart she was out of the stuffy little bedroom. If she had gone with the others, she would be speeding along the smooth, white road now, coming home from Brewster, with the wind and sunshine of all the wide, free outdoors around her.
Aunt Elspeth drew a long, tired sigh.
"Maybe you'd like me to read to you," ventured Georgina. She hesitated over making such an offer, because there were so few books in the house. Nothing but the almanac looked interesting. Aunt Elspeth assented, and pointed out a worn little volume of devotions on top of the bureau, saying:
"That's what Dan'l reads me on Sundays."
Georgina opened it. Evidently it had been compiled for the use of sea-faring people, for it was full of the promises that sailor-folk best understand; none of the shepherd psalms or talk of green pastures and help-giving hills. It was all about mighty waters and paths through the deep. She settled herself comfortably in the low rocking-chair beside the bed, tossed back her curls and was about to begin, when one of the rainbow lights from the prism danced across the page. She waited, smiling, until it glimmered away. Then she read the verses on which it had shone.
"All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me, yet the Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me."
The sweet little voice soothed the troubled spirit that listened like music.
"When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers: they shall not overflow thee.... Thus saith the Lord which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters."
Aunt Elspeth reached out a groping hand for Georgina's and took the soft little fingers in hers. Georgina didn't want to have her hand held, especially in such a stiff, bony clasp. It made her uncomfortable to sit with her arm stretched up in such a position, but she was too polite to withdraw it, so she read on for several pages.
"He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. So He bringeth them into their desired haven."
Attracted by the sound of heavy breathing, she looked up. Aunt Elspeth was asleep. Georgina laid the book on the table, and slowly, very slowly began to raise herself out of the chair, afraid of arousing the sleeper who still held her hand. As she stood up, the board in the floor under her squeaked. She was afraid to take another step or to try to pull her hand away. She had come to the end of her resources for entertainment, and she was afraid Aunt Elspeth's next awakening might be to a crying, restless mood which she could not control. So she sat down again.
It was very still in the bedroom. A fly buzzed on the outside of the window screen, and away off on another street the "accommodation" was going by. She could hear the bells jingling on the horses. As she sat thus, not even rocking, but just jiggling the chair a trifle, the words she had read began to come back to her after a while like a refrain: "SoHe bringeth them into their desired haven. So He bringeth them into their desired haven." She whispered them over and over as she often whispered songs, hearing the music which had no tone except in her thought.
And presently, as the whispered song repeated itself, the words began to bring a wonderful sense of peace and security. She did not realize what it was that was speaking to her through them. It was the faith which had lived so long in these lowly little rooms. It was the faith which had upborne Uncle Darcy year after year, helping him to steer onward in the confidence that the Hand he trusted would fulfil all its promises. She felt the subtle influence that goes out from such lives, without knowing what it was that touched her. She was conscious of it only as she was conscious of the nearness of mignonette when its fragrance stole in from the flower-bed under the window. They were both unseen but the mignonette's fragrance was wonderfully sweet, and the feeling of confidence, breathing through the words of the old psalm was wonderfully strong. Some day she, too, would be brought, and Barby would be brought into "their desired haven."
Georgina was tired. It had been a full day, beginning with that digging in the dunes. Presently she began to nod. Then the rocking chair ceased to sway. When the clock struck again she did not hear it. She was sound asleep with her hand still clasped in Aunt Elspeth's.
ON THE TRAIL OF THE WILD-CAT WOMAN
MEANWHILE, the pursuing party had made the trip to Brewster and were on their way home. At the various small towns where they stopped to ask questions, they found that the patent-medicine vendors had invariably followed one course. They had taken supper at the hotel, but after each evening's performance had driven into the country a little way to camp for the night in the open. At Orleans an acquaintance of Mr. Milford's in a feed store had much to say about them.
"I don't know whether they camp out of consideration for the wild-cat, or whether it's because they're attached to that rovin', gypsy life. They're good spenders, and from the way they sold their liniment here last night, you'd think they could afford to put up at a hotel all the time and take a room for the cat in the bargain. You needn't tell me that beast ever saw the banks of the Brazos. I'll bet they caught it up in the Maine woods some'rs. But they seem such honest, straightforward sort of folks, somehow you have to believe 'em. They're a friendly pair, too, specially the old lady. Seems funny tohear you speak of her as the wild-cat woman. That name is sure a misfit for her."
Mr. Milford thought so himself, when a little later he came across her, a mile out of Brewster. She was sitting in the wooden rocking chair in one end of the wagon, placidly darning a pair of socks, while she waited for her husband to bring the horses from some place up in the woods where he had taken them for water. They had been staked by the roadside all night to graze. The wild-cat was blinking drowsily in its cage, having just been fed.
Some charred sticks and a little pile of ashes by the roadside, showed where she had cooked dinner over a camp-fire, but the embers were carefully extinguished and the frying pan and dishes were stowed out of sight in some mysterious compartment under the wagon bed, as compactly as if they had been parts of a Chinese puzzle. Long experience on the road had taught her how to pack with ease and dexterity.
She looked up with interest as the automobile drew out of the road, and stopped alongside the wagon. She was used to purchasers following them out of town for the liniment after a successful show like last night's performance.
Despite the feedman's description of her, Mr. Milford had expected to see some sort of an adventuress such as one naturally associates with such a business, and when he saw the placid old lady withthe smooth, gray hair, and met the gaze of the motherly eyes peering over her spectacles at him, he scarcely knew how to begin. Uncle Darcy, growing impatient at the time consumed in politely leading up to the object of their coming, fidgetted in his seat. At last he could wait no longer for remarks about weather and wild-cats. Such conversational paths led nowhere. He interrupted abruptly.
"I'm the Towncrier from Provincetown, ma'am. Did you lose anything while you were there?"
"Well, now," she began slowly. "I can't say where I lost it. I didn't think it was in Provincetown though. I made sure it was some place between Harwichport and Orleans, and I had my man post notices in both those places."
"And what was it you lost?" inquired Mr. Milford politely. He had cautioned his old friend on the way down at intervals of every few miles, not to build his hopes up too much on finding that this woman was the owner of the pouch.
"You may have to follow a hundred different clues before you get hold of the right one," he warned him. "We're taking this trip on the mere chance that we'll find the owner, just because two children associated the pouch in their memory with the odor of liniment. It is more than likely they're mistaken and that this is all a wild-goose chase."
But Uncle Darcyhadbuilt his hopes on it, had set his heart on finding this was the right clue, and hisbeaming face said, "I told you so," when she answered:
"It was a little tobacco pouch, and I'm dreadfully put out over losing it, because aside from the valuables and keep-sakes in it there was a letter that's been following me all over the country. It didn't reach me till just before I got to Provincetown. It's from some heathen country with such an outlandish name I couldn't remember it while I was reading it, scarcely, and now I'll never think of it again while the world wags, and there's no way for me to answer it unless I do."
"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Uncle Darcy. "Youmustthink of it. And Imustknow. How did this come into your hands?"
He held out the little watch-fob charm, the compass set in a nut and she seized it eagerly.
"Well, you did find my pouch, didn't you?" she exclaimed. "I made sure that was what you were aiming to tell me. That's a good-luck charm. It was given to me as much as eight years ago, by a young fellow who was taken sick on our ranch down in Texas. He'd been working around the docks in Galveston, but came on inland because somebody roped him in to believe he could make a fortune in cattle in a few months. He was riding fences for Henry, and he came down with a fever and Henry and me nursed him through."
Always talkative, she poured out her informationnow in a stream, drawn on by the compelling eagerness of the old man's gaze.
"He was a nice boy and the most grateful soul you ever saw. But he didn't take to the cattle business, and he soon pushed on. He was all broke up when it came to saying good-bye. You could see that, although he's one of your quiet kind, hiding his real feelings like an Indian. He gave me this good-luck charm when he left, because he didn't have anything else to give, to show he appreciated our nursing him and doing for him, and he said that he'dmakeit bring us good luck or die a-trying and we'd hear from him some of these days."
"And you did?"
The old man's face was twitching with eagerness as he asked the question.
"Yes, about five years ago he sent us a nice little check at Christmas. Said he had a good job with a wealthy Englishman who spent his time going around the world discovering queer plants and writing books about them. He was in South America then. We've heard from him several times since. This last letter followed me around from pillar to post, always just missing me and having to have the address scratched out and written over till you could hardly make head or tail of what was on it.
"He asked me to write to the address he gave me, but whether it was in 'Afric's sunny fountain or India'scoral strand,' I can't tell now. It was some heathenish 'land in error's chain,' as the missionary hymn says. I was so worried over losing the letter on account of the address, for he did seem so bent on hearing from us, and he's a nice boy. I'd hate tolosetrack of him. So I'm mighty thankful you found the pouch."
She stopped, expecting them to hand it over. Mr. Milford made the necessary explanation. He told of Captain Kidd finding it and bringing it home, of the two children burying it in play and the storm sweeping away every trace of the markers. While he told the story several automobiles passed them and the occupants leaned out to look at the strange group beside the road. It was not every day one could see an old lady seated in a rocking chair in one end of an unattached wagon with a wild-cat in the other. These passing tourists would have thought it stranger still, could they have known how fate had been tangling the life threads of these people who were in such earnest conversation, or how it had wound them together into a queer skein of happenings.
"And the only reason this compass was saved," concluded Mr. Milford, "was because it had the initials 'D. D.' scratched on it, which stands for this little boy's name when he plays pirate—Dare-devil Dick."
The motherly eyes smiled on Richard. "If youwant to know the real name those letters stand for," she said, "it's Dave Daniels. That's the name of the boy who gave it to me."
Richard looked alarmed, and even Mr. Milford turned with a questioning glance towards Uncle Darcy, about to say something, when the old man leaned past him and spoke quickly, almost defiantly, as a child might have done.
"That's all right. I don't care what he told you his name was. He had a good reason for changing it. And I'm going to tell you this much no matter what I promised.Iscratched those initials on there my own self, over forty years ago. And the boy who gave it to youisnamed Daniel, but it's his first name, same as mine. Dan'l Darcy. And the boy's mine, and I've been hunting him for ten long years, and I've faith to believe that the good Lord isn't going to disappoint me now that I'm this near the end of my hunt. He had a good reason for going away from home the way he did. He'd a good reason for changing his name as he did, but the time has come now when it's all right for him to come back and," shaking his finger solemnly and impressively at the woman, "I want you to get that word back to him without fail."
"But this is only circumstantial evidence, Uncle Dan'l," said Mr. Milford, soothingly. "You haven't any real proof that this Dave is your Danny."
"Proof, proof," was the excited answer. "I tellyou, man, I've all the proof I need. All I ask for is the address in that letter. I'll find my boy quick enough."
"But I don't know," was all the woman could answer. "The only way in the world to find it is to dig up that pouch."
"But even if you can't remember the new address tell me one of the old ones," he pleaded. "I'll take a chance on writing there and having it forwarded."
But the woman could not recall the name of a single city. South America, Australia, New Zealand, she remembered he had been in those countries, but that was all. Richard, upon being cross-questioned again, "b'leeved" the stamp was from Siam or China but couldn't be certain which.
"Here comes Henry!" exclaimed the woman in a relieved tone. "Maybe he'll remember."
Henry, a tall, raw-boned man with iron-gray hair under his Texas sombrero, in his shirt sleeves and with his after-dinner pipe still in his mouth, came leisurely out of the woods, leading the horses. They were already harnessed, ready to be hitched to the wagon. He backed them up to the tongue and snapped the chains in place before he paused to give the strangers more than a passing nod of greeting. Then he came around to the side of the wagon nearest the machine, and putting one foot up on a spokeof his front wheel, leaned over in a listening attitude, while the whole story was repeated for his benefit.
"So you're his father," he said musingly, looking at Uncle Darcy with shrewd eyes that were used to appraising strangers.
"Who ever would a thought of coming across Dave Daniels' tracks up here on old Cape Cod? You look like him though. I bet at his age you were as much alike as two peas in a pod. I never did know where he hailed from. He was a close-mouthed chap. But I somehow got the idea he must have been brought up near salt water. He talked so much sailor lingo."
"Put on your thinking-cap, Henry," demanded his wife. "The gentlemen wants to know where that last letter was written from, what the postmark was, or the address inside, or what country the stamp belonged to. And if you don't know that, what are some of the other places he wrote to us from?"
"You're barking up the wrong tree when you askmeany such questions," was the only answer he could give. "I didn't pay any attention to anything but the reading matter."
Questions, surmises, suggestions, everything that could be brought up as aids to memory were of no avail. Henry's memory was a blank in that one important particular. Finally, Mr. Milford took two five-dollar gold pieces out of his pocket and a handfulof small change which he dropped into the woman's lap despite her protests.
"We'll square up the damage the children did as far as possible," he said with a laugh. "But we can't get the letter back until the wind is ready to turn the dunes topsy-turvy again. That may be in years and it may be never. Let me have your address and if ever it is found it shall be sent directly back to you, and the children can inherit the money if I'm not here to claim it."
The man made a wry face at mention of his address. "We sort of belong to what they call the floating population now. Home with us means any old place where Mother happens to set her rocking chair. We've turned the ranch over to my daughter and her husband while we see something of the world, and as long as things go as smoothly as they do, we're in no great shakes of a hurry to get back."
"But the ranch address will always find us, Henry," she insisted. "Write it down for the gentlemen. Ain't this been a strange happening?" she commented, as she received Mr. Milford's card in return with the Towncrier's name penciled on the back. She looked searchingly at Richard.
"I remember you, now," she said. "There was such a pretty little girl with you—climbed up on the wagon to touch Tim's tail through the bars. She had long curls and a smile that made me want to hug her. She bought a bottle of liniment, I remember,and I've thought of her a dozen times since then, thought how a little face like that brightens up all the world around it."
"That was Georgina Huntingdon," volunteered Richard.
"Well, now, that's a pretty name. Write it down on the other side of this piece of paper, sonny, and yours, too. Then when I go about the country I'll know what to call you when I think about you. This is just like a story. If there was somebody who knew how to write it up 'twould make a good piece for the papers, wouldn't it?"
They were ready to start back now, since there was no more information to be had, but on one pretext or another Uncle Darcy delayed. He was so pitifully eager for more news of Danny. The smallest crumb about the way he looked, what he did and said was seized upon hungrily, although it was news eight years old. And he begged to hear once more just what it was Danny had said about the Englishman, and the work they were doing together. He could have sat there the rest of the day listening to her repeat the same things over and over if he had had his wish. Then she asked a question.
"Who is Belle? I mind when he was out of his head so long with the fever he kept saying, 'Bellemustn't suffer. No matter what happensBellemust be spared.' I remembered because that's my name, and hearing it called out in the dead of night theway a man crazy with fever would call it, naturally makes you recollect it."
"That was just a friend of his," answered Uncle Darcy, "the girl who was going to marry his chum."
"Oh," was the answer in a tone which seemed to convey a shade ofdisappointment. "I thought maybe——"
She did not finish the sentence, for the engine had begun to shake noisily, and it seemed to distract her thoughts. And now there being really nothing more to give them an excuse for lingering they said good-bye to their wayside acquaintances, feeling that they were parting from two old friends, so cordial were the good wishes which accompanied the leave-taking.
Girl in prow of rowboat
THE RAINBOW GAME
WITH her arm stiff and cramped from being held so long in one position, Georgina waked suddenly and looked around her in bewilderment. Uncle Darcy was in the room, saying something about her riding home in the machine. He didn't want to hurry her off, but Mr. Milford was waiting at the gate, and it would save her a long walk home——
While he talked he was leaning over Aunt Elspeth, patting her cheek, and she was clinging to his hand and smiling up at him as if he had just been restored to her after a long, long absence, instead of a separation of only a few hours. And he looked so glad about something, as if the nicest thing in the world had happened, that Georgina rubbed her eyes and stared at him, wondering what it could have been.
Evidently, it was the honk of the horn which had aroused Georgina, and when it sounded again she sprang up, still confused by the suddenness of her awakening, with only one thing clear in her mind, the necessity for haste. She snatched her prism from the window and caught up her hat as she ran through the next room, but not until she was half-way homedid she remember that she had said nothing about the eggs and had asked no questions about the trip to Brewster. She had not even said good-bye.
Mr. Milford nodded pleasantly when she went out to the car, saying, "Hop in, kiddie," but he did not turn around after they started and she did not feel well enough acquainted with him to shout out questions behind his back. Besides, after they had gone a couple of blocks he began explaining something to Richard, who was sitting up in front of him, about the workings of the car, and kept on explaining all the rest of the way home. She couldn't interrupt.
Not until she climbed out in front of her own gate with a shy "Thank you, Mr. Milford, for bringing me home," did she find courage and opportunity to ask the question she longed to know.
"Did you find the woman?Wasit her pouch?"
Mr. Milford was leaning forward in his seat to examine something that had to do with the shifting of the gears, and he answered while he investigated, without looking up.
"Yes, but she couldn't remember where the letter was from, so we're not much wiser than we were before, except that we know for a certainty that Dan was alive and well less than two months ago. At least Uncle Dan'l believes it is Dan. The woman calls him Dave, but Uncle Dan'l vows they're one and the same."
Having adjusted the difficulty, Mr. Milford, with a good-bye nod to Georgina, started on down the street again. Georgina stood looking after the rapidly disappearing car.
"Well, no wonder Uncle Darcy looked so happy," she thought, recalling his radiant face. "It was knowing that Danny is alive and well that made it shine so. I wish I'd been along. Wish I could have heard every thing each one of them said. I could have remembered every single word to tell Richard, but he won't remember even half to tell me."
It was in the pursuit of all the information which could be pumped out of Richard that Georgina sought the Green Stairs soon after breakfast next morning. Incidentally, she was on her way to a nearby grocery and had been told to hurry. She ran all the way down in order to gain a few extra moments in which to loiter. As usual at this time of morning, Richard was romping over the terraces with Captain Kidd.
"Hi, Georgina," he called, as he spied her coming. "I've got a new game. A new way to play tag. Look."
Plunging down the steps he held out for her inspection a crystal paperweight which he had picked up from the library table. Its round surface had been cut into many facets, as a diamond is cut to make it flash the light, and the spots of color it threw as he turned it in the sun were rainbow-hued.
"See," he explained. "Instead of tagging Captain Kidd with my hand I touch him with a rainbow, and it's lots harder to do because you can't always make it light where you want it to go, or where you think it is going to fall. I've only tagged him twice so far in all the time I've been trying, because he bobs around so fast. Come on, I'll get you before you tag me," he added, seeing that her prism hung from the ribbon on her neck.
She did not wear it every day, but she had felt an especial need for its comforting this morning, and had put it on as she slowly dressed. The difficulty of restoring the eggs loomed up in front of her as a real trouble, and she needed this to remind her to keep on hoping that some way would soon turn up to end it.
It was a fascinating game. Such tags are elusive, uncertain things. The pursuer can never be certain of touching the pursued. Georgina entered into it, alert and glowing, darting this way and that to escape being touched by the spots of vivid color. Her prism threw it in bars, Richard's in tiny squares and triangles.
"Let's make them fight!" Richard exclaimed in the midst of it, and for a few moments the color spots flashed across each other like flocks of darting birds. Suddenly Georgina stopped, saying:
"Oh, I forgot. I'm on my way to the grocery, and I must hurry back. But I wanted to ask you twothings. One was, tell me all about what the woman said yesterday, and the other was, think of some way for me to earn twenty cents. There isn't time to hear about the first one now, but think right quick and answer the second question."
She started down the street, skipping backwards slowly, and Richard walked after her.
"Aw, I don't know," he answered in a vague way. "At home when we wanted to make money we always gave a show and charged a penny to get in, or we kept a lemonade stand; but we don't know enough kids here to make that pay."
Then he looked out over the water and made a suggestion at random. A boy going along the beach towards one of the summer cottages with a pail in his hand, made him think of it.
"Pick blueberries and sell them."
"I thought of that," answered Georgina, still progressing towards the grocery backward. "And it would be a good time now to slip away while Tippy's busy with the Bazaar. This is the third day. But they've done so well they're going to keep on with it another day, and they've thought up a lot of new things to-morrow to draw a crowd. One of them is a kind of talking tableau. I'm to be in it, so it wouldn't do for me to go and get my hands all stained with berries when I'm to be dressed up as a part of the show for the whole town to come and take a look at me."
Richard had no more suggestions to offer, so with one more flash of the prism and a cry of "last tag," Georgina turned and started on a run to the grocery. Richard and the paperweight followed in hot pursuit.
Up at one of the front windows of the bungalow, two interested spectators had been watching the game below. One was Richard's father, the other was a new guest of Mr. Milford's who had arrived only the night before. He was the Mr. Locke who was to take Richard and his father and Cousin James away on his yacht next morning. He was also a famous illustrator of juvenile books, and he sometimes wrote the rhymes and fairy tales himself which he illustrated. Everybody in this town of artists who knew anything at all of the world of books and pictures outside, knew of Milford Norris Locke. Now as he watched the graceful passes of the two children darting back and forth on the board-walk below, he asked:
"Who's the little girl, Moreland? She's the child of my dreams—the very one I've been hunting for weeks. She has not only the sparkle and spirit that I want to put into those pictures I was telling you about, but the grace and the curls and the mischievous eyes as well. Reckon I could get her to pose for me?"
That is how it came about that Georgina found Richard's father waiting for her at the foot of theGreen Stairs when she came running back from the grocery. When she went home a few minutes later, she carried with her something more than the cake of sweet chocolate that Tippy had sent her for in such a hurry. It was the flattering knowledge that a famous illustrator had asked to make a sketch of her which would be published in a book if it turned out to be a good one.
With a sailing party and a studio reception and several other engagements to fill up his one day in Provincetown, Mr. Locke could give only a part of the morning to the sketches, and wanted to begin as soon as possible. So a few minutes after Georgina went dancing in with the news, he followed in Mr. Milford's machine. He arrived so soon after, in fact, that Tippy had to receive him just as she was in her gingham house dress and apron.
After looking all over the place he took Georgina down to the garden and posed her on a stone bench near the sun-dial, at the end of a tall, bright aisle of hollyhocks. There was no time to waste.
"We'll pretend you're sitting on the stone rim of a great fountain in the King's garden," he said. "You're trying to find some trace of the beautiful Princess who has been bewitched and carried away to a castle under the sea, that had 'a ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl.'"
Georgina looked up, delighted that he had useda line from a poem she loved. It made her feel as if he were an old friend.
"This is for a fairy tale that has just begun to hatch itself out in my mind, so you see it isn't all quite clear yet. There'll be lily pads in the fountain. Maybe you can hear what they are saying, or maybe the gold-fish will bring you a message, because you are a little mortal who has such a kind heart that you have been given the power to understand the speech of everything which creeps or swims or flies."
Georgina leaned over and looked into the imaginary fountain dubiously, forgetting in her interest of the moment that her companion was the great Milford Norris Locke. She was entering with him into the spirit of his game of "pretend" as if he were Richard.
"No, I'll tell you," she suggested. "Have it a frog instead of a fish that brings the message. He can jump right out of that lily pad on to the edge of the fountain where I am sitting, and then when you look at the picture you can see us talking together. No one could tell what I was doing if they saw me just looking down into the fountain, but they could tell right away if the frog was here and I was shaking my finger at him as if I were saying:
"'Now tell me the truth, Mr. Frog, or the Ogre of the Oozy Marsh shall eat you ere the day be done.'"
"Don't move. Don't move!" called Mr. Locke, excitedly. "Ah, that's perfect. That's exactly what I want. Hold that pose for a moment or two. Why, Georgina, you've given me exactly what I wanted and a splendid idea besides. It will give the fairy tale an entirely new turn. If you can only hold that position a bit longer, then you may rest."
His pencil flew with magical rapidity and as he sketched he kept on talking in order to hold the look of intense interest which showed in her glowing face.
"I dearly love stories like that," sighed Georgina when he came to the end and told her to lean back and rest a while.
"Barby—I mean my mother—and I act them all the time, and sometimes we make them up ourselves."
"Maybe you'll write them when you grow up," suggested Mr. Locke not losing a moment, but sketching her in the position she had taken of her own accord.
"Maybe I shall," exclaimed Georgina, thrilled by the thought. "My grandfather Shirley said I could write for his paper some day. You know he's an editor, down in Kentucky. I'd like to be the editor of a magazine that children would adore the way I do theSt. Nicholas."
Tippy would have said that Georgina was "running on." But Mr. Locke did not think so. Children always opened their hearts to him. He held themagic key. Georgina found it easier to tell him her inmost feelings than anybody else in the world but Barby.
"That's a beautiful game you and Dicky were playing this morning," he remarked presently, "tagging each other with rainbows. I believe I'll put it into this fairy tale, have the water-nixies do it as they slide over the water-fall."
"But it isn't half as nice as the game we play in earnest," she assured him. "In our Rainbow Club we have a sort of game of tag. We tag a person with a good time, or some kindness to make them happy, and we pretend that makes a little rainbow in the world. Do you think it does?"
"It makes a very real one, I am sure," was the serious answer. "Have you many members?"
"Just Richard and me and the bank president, Mr. Gates, so far, but—but you can belong—if you'd like to."
She hesitated a trifle over the last part of her invitation, having just remembered what a famous man she was talking to. He might think she was taking a liberty even to suggest that he might care to belong.
"I'd like it very much," he assured her gravely, "if you think I can live up to the requirements."
"Oh, you already have," she cried. "Think of all the happy hours you have made for people with your books and pictures—just swarms and beviesandflocksof rainbows! We would have put you on the list of honorary members anyhow. Those are the members who don't know they are members," she explained. "They're just like the prisms themselves. Prisms don't know they are prisms but everybody who looks at them sees the beautiful places they make in the world."
Sea of dreams illustration
"Georgina," he said solemnly, "that is the very loveliest thing that was ever said to me in all my life. Make me club member number four and I'll play the game to my very best ability. I'll try to do some tagging really worth while."
He had been sketching constantly all the time he talked, and now, impelled by curiosity, Georgina got up from the stone bench and walked over to take a look at his work. He had laid aside the several outline studies he had made of her, and was now exercising his imagination in sketching a ship.
"This is to be the one that brings the Princess home, and in a minute I want you to pose for the Princess, for she is to have curls, long, golden ones, and she is to hold her head as you did a few moments ago when you were talking about looking off to sea."
Georgina brought her hands together in a quick gesture as she said imploringly, "Oh,doput Hope at the prow. Every time I pass the Figurehead House and see Hope sitting up on the portico roof I wish I could see how she looked when she was riding the waves on the prow of a gallant vessel. That's where she ought to be, I heard a man say. He said Hope squatting on a portico roof may look ridiculous, but Hope breasting the billows is superb."
Mr. Locke was no stranger in the town. He knew the story of the figurehead as the townspeople knew it, now he heard its message as Uncle Darcy knew it. He listened as intently to Georgina as she had listened to him. At the end he lifted his head, peering fixedly through half-closed eyes at nothing.
"You have made me see the most beautiful ship," he said, musingly. "It is a silver shallop coming across a sea of Dreams, its silken sails set wide, and at the prow is an angel. 'White-handed Hope, thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,'" he quoted. "Yes, I'll make it with golden wings sweeping back over the sides this way. See?"
His pencil flew over the paper again, showing her in a few swift strokes an outline of the vision she had given him.
And now Tippy would have said not only that Georgina was "running on," but that she was "wound up," for with such a sympathetic and appreciative listener, she told him the many things she would have taken to Barby had she been at home. Especially, she talked about her difficulties in living up to the aim of the club. In stories there are always poor people whom one can benefit; patient sufferers at hospitals, pallid children of the slums. But in therange of Georgina's life there seemed to be so few opportunities and those few did not always turn out the way they should.
For instance, there was the time she tried to cheer Tippy up with her "line to live by," and her efforts were neither appreciated nor understood. And there was the time only yesterday when she stayed with Aunt Elspeth, and got into trouble with the eggs, and now had a debt on her conscience equal to eight eggs or twenty cents.
It showed how well Mr. Locke understood children when he did not laugh over the recital of that last calamity, although it sounded unspeakably funny to him as Georgina told it. In such congenial company the time flew so fast that Georgina was amazed when Mr. Milford drove up to take his distinguished guest away. Mr. Locke took with him what he had hoped to get, a number of sketches to fill in at his leisure.
"They're exactly what I wanted," he assured her gratefully as he shook hands at parting. "And that suggestion of yours for the ship will make the most fetching illustration of all. I'll send you a copy in oils when I get time for it, and I'll always think of you, my little friend, asGeorgina of the Rainbows."
With a courtly bow he was gone, and Georgina went into the house to look for the little blank book in which she had started to keep her two lists of Club members, honorary and real. The name ofMilford Norris Locke she wrote in both lists. If there had been a third list, she would have written him down in that as the very nicest gentleman she had ever met. Then she began a letter to Barby, telling all about her wonderful morning. But it seemed to her she had barely begun, when Mr. Milford's chauffeur came driving back with something for her in a paper bag. When she peeped inside she was so astonished she nearly dropped it.
"Eggs!" she exclaimed. Then in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Saggs, she added, "Can you beatthat!"
One by one she took them out and counted them. There were exactly eight. Then she read the card which had dropped down to the bottom of the bag.
"Mr. Milford Norris Locke."
Above the name was a tiny rainbow done in water colors, and below was scribbled the words, "Last tag."
It was a pity that the new member could not have seen her face at that instant, its expression was so eloquent of surprise, of pleasure and of relief that her trouble had thus been wiped out of existence.
LIGHT DAWNS FOR UNCLE DARCY
FOR some time the faint jangle of a bell had been sounding at intervals far down the street. Ordinarily it would have caught Georgina's attention long before this, but absorbed in the letter to which she had returned after putting the eggs down cellar, she did not hear the ringing until it was near enough for the Towncrier's message to be audible also. He was announcing the extra day of the Bazaar, and calling attention to the many new attractions it would have to offer on the morrow.
Instantly, Georgina dropped her pencil and flew out to meet him. Here was an opportunity to find out all about the Brewster trip. As he came towards her she saw the same look in his weather-beaten old face which she had wondered at the day before, when he was bending over Aunt Elspeth, patting her on the cheek. It was like the shining of a newly-lighted candle.
She was not the only one who had noticed it. All the way up the street glances had followed him. People turned for a second look, wondering what good fortune had befallen the old fellow. They had cometo expect a cheery greeting from him. He always left a kindly glow behind him whenever he passed. But to-day the cheeriness was so intensified that he seemed to be brimming over with good will to everybody.
"Why, Uncle Darcy!" cried Georgina. "You look so happy!"
"Well, is it any wonder, lass, with such news from Danny? Him alive and well and sure to come back to me some of these days! I could hardly keep from shouting it out to everybody as I came along the street. I'm afraid it'll just naturally tell itself some day, in spite of my promise to Belle. I'm glad I can let off steam up here, you knowing the secret, too, for this old heart of mine is just about to burst with all the gladness that's inside of me."
Here was someone as anxious to tell as she was to hear; someone who could recall every word of the interview with the wild-cat woman. Georgina swung on to his arm which held the bell, and began to ask questions, and nothing loath, he let her lead him into the yard and to the rustic seat running around the trunk of the big willow tree. He was ready to rest, now that his route was traveled and his dollar earned.
Belle, back in the kitchen, preparing a light dinner for herself and Georgina, Tippy being away for the day, did not see him come in. She had not seen him since the day the old rifle gave up its secret, andshe tried to put him out of her mind as much as possible, for she was miserable every time she thought of him. She would have been still more miserable could she have heard all that he was saying to Georgina.
"Jimmy Milford thought that the liniment folks calling the boy 'Dave,' proved that he wasn't the same as my Danny. But just one thing would have settled all doubts for me if I'd a had any. That was what he kept a calling in his fever when he was out of his head: 'Belle mustn't suffer. Belle must be spared, no matter what happens!'
"And that's the one thing that reconciles me to keeping still a while longer. It was his wish to spare her, and if he could sacrifice so much to do it, I can't make his sacrifice seem in vain. I lay awake last night till nearly daylight, thinking how I'd like to take this old bell of mine, and go from one end of the town to the other, ringing it till it cracked, crying out, 'Danny is innocent,' to the whole world. But the time hasn't come yet. I'll have to be patient a while longer and bear up the best I can."
Georgina, gazing fixedly ahead of her at nothing in particular, pondered seriously for a long, silent moment.
"If you did that," she said finally, "cried the good news through the town till everybody knew—then when people found out that it was Emmett Potter who was the thief and that he was too much of acoward to own up and take the blame—would they let the monument go on standing there, that they'd put up to show he was brave? It would serve him right if they took it down, wouldn't it!" she exclaimed with a savage little scowl drawing her brows together.
"No, no, child!" he said gently. "Give the lad his due. Hewasbrave that one time. He saved all of those lives as it is chiseled on his headstone. It is better he should be remembered for the best act in his life than for the worst one. A man's measure should be taken when he's stretched up to his full height, just as far as he can lift up his head; not when he's stooped to the lowest. It's only fair to judge either the living or the dead that way."
For some time after that nothing more was said. The harbor was full of boats this morning. It was a sight worth watching. One naturally drifted into day-dreams, following the sweep of the sails moving silently toward the far horizon. Georgina was busy picturing a home-coming scene that made the prodigal son's welcome seem mild in comparison, when Uncle Darcy startled her by exclaiming:
"Oh, itpaysto bear up and steer right onward! S'pose I hadn't done that. S'pose Ihadn'tkept Hope at the prow. I believe I'd have been in my grave by this time with all the grief and worry. But now——"
He stopped and shook his head, unable to findwords to express the emotion which was making his voice tremble and his face glow with that wonderful inner shining. Georgina finished the sentence for him, looking out on the sail-filled harbor and thinking of the day he had taken her out in his boat to tell her of his son.
"But now you'll be all ready and waiting when your ship comes home from sea with its precious cargo." They were his own words she was repeating.
"Danny'll weather the storms at last and come into port with all flags flying."
The picture her words suggested was too much for the old father. He put his hat up in front of his face, and his shoulders shook with silent sobs. Georgina laid a sympathetic little hand on the rough sleeve next her. Suddenly the sails in the harbor seemed to run together all blurry and queer. She drew her hand across her eyes and looked again at the heaving shoulders. A happiness so deep that it found its expression that way, filled her with awe. It must be the kind of happiness that people felt when they reached "the shining shore, the other side of Jordan," and their loved ones came down to welcome them "into their desired haven."
That last phrase came to her lips like a bit of remembered music and unconsciously she repeated it aloud. Uncle Darcy heard it, and looked up. His cheeks were wet when he put down his hat, but itwas the happiest face she had ever seen, and there was no shake in his voice now when he said solemnly:
"And nobody but the good Lord who's helped his poor sailors through shipwreck and storm, knows how mightily they've desired that haven, or what it means to them to be brought into it."
A delivery wagon from one of the fruit stores stopped in front of the gate, and the driver came in, carrying a basket. Uncle Darcy spoke to him as he passed the willow tree.
"Well, Joe, this looks like a chance for me to get a lift most of the way home."
"Sure," was the cordial reply. "Climb in. I'll be right back."
Georgina thought of something as he rose to go.
"Oh, wait just a minute, Uncle Darcy, I want to get something of yours that's down cellar."
When she came back there was no time or opportunity for an explanation. He and the driver were both in the wagon. She reached up and put the bag on the seat beside him.
"I—I did something to some of your eggs, yesterday," she stammered, "and these are to take the place of the ones I broke."
Uncle Darcy peered into the bag with a puzzled expression. He had not missed any eggs from the crock of bran. He didn't know what she was talking about. But before he could ask any questions the driver slapped the horse with the reins, and they wererattling off down street. Georgina stood looking after them a moment, then turned her head to listen. Somebody was calling her. It was Belle, who had come to the front door to say that dinner was ready.
Whenever Mrs. Triplett was at home, Belle made extra efforts to talk and appear interested in what was going on around her. She was afraid her keen-eyed Aunt Maria would see that she was unhappy. But alone with Georgina who shared her secret, she relapsed into a silence so deep it could be felt, responding only with a wan smile when the child's lively chatter seemed to force an answer of some kind. But to-day when Georgina came to the table she was strangely silent herself, so mute that Belle noticed it, and found that she was being furtively watched by the big brown eyes opposite her. Every time Belle looked up she caught Georgina's gaze fastened on her, and each time it was immediately transferred to her plate.
"What's the matter, Georgina?" she asked finally. "Why do you keep staring at me?"
Georgina flushed guiltily. "Nothing," was the embarrassed answer. "I was just wondering whether to tell you or not. I thought maybe you'd like to know, and maybe you ought to know, but I wasn't sure whether you'd want me to talk to you about it or not."
Belle put down her tea-cup. It was her turn to stare.
"For goodness' sake! Whatareyou beating around the bush about?"
"About the news from Danny," answered Georgina. "About the letter he wrote to the wild-cat woman and that got buried in the dunes too deep ever to be dug up again."
As this was the first Belle had heard of either the letter or the woman, her expression of astonishment was all that Georgina could desire. Her news had made a sensation. Belle showed plainly that she was startled, and as eager to hear as Georgina was to tell. So she began at the beginning, from the time of the opening of the pouch on the Green Stairs, to the last word of the wild-cat woman's conversation which Uncle Darcy had repeated to her only a few moments before under the willow.
Instinctively, she gave the recital a dramatic touch which made Belle feel almost like an eye witness as she listened. And it was with Uncle Darcy's own gestures and manner that she repeated his final statement.
"Jimmy Milford thought the liniment folks calling the boy Dave proved he wasn't the same as my Danny. But just one thing would have settled all doubts for me if I'd had any. That was what he kept a calling in his fever when he was out of hishead: 'Bellemustn't suffer.Bellemust be spared no matter what happens.'"
At the bringing of her own name into the story Belle gave a perceptible start and a tinge of red crept into her pale cheeks.
"Did he say that, Georgina?" she demanded, leaning forward and looking at her intently. "Are you sure those are his exact words?"
"His very-own-exactly-the-same words," declared Georgina solemnly. "I cross my heart and body they're just as Uncle Darcy told them to me."
Rising from the table, Belle walked over to the window and stood with her back to Georgina, looking out into the garden.
"Well, and what next?" she demanded in a queer, breathless sort of way.
"And then Uncle Darcy said that his saying that was the one thing that made him feel willing to keep still a while longer about—you know—what was in the rifle. 'Cause if Danny cared enough about sparing you to give up home and his good name and everything else in life he couldn't spoil it all by telling now. But Uncle Darcy said he lay awake nearly all last night thinking how he'd love to take that old bell of his and go ringing it through the town till it cracked, calling out to the world, 'My boy is innocent.'
"And when I said something about it's all coming out all right some day, and that Danny wouldweather the storms and come into port with all flags flying——" Here Georgina lowered her voice and went on slowly as if she hesitated to speak of what happened next—"he just put his old hat over his face and cried. And I felt so sorry——"
Georgina's voice choked. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke of the scene.
"Don't!" groaned Belle, her back still turned.
The note of distress in Belle's voice stilled Georgina's lively tongue a few seconds, but there was one more thing in her mind to be said, and with the persistence of a mosquito she returned to the subject to give that final stab, quite unconscious of how deeply it would sting. She was only wondering aloud, something which she had often wondered to herself.
"I should think that when anybody had suffered as long as Danny has to spare you, it would make you want to spare him. Doesn't it? I should think that you'd want to do something to sort of make up to him for it all. Don't you?"
"Oh,don't!" exclaimed Belle again, sharply this time. Then to Georgina's utter amazement she buried her face in her apron, stood sobbing by the window a moment, and ran out of the room. She did not come downstairs again until nearly supper time.
Georgina sat at the table, not knowing what to do next. She felt that she had muddled things dreadfully. Instead of making Belle feel better as she hoped to do, she realized she had hurt her in someunintentional way. Presently, she slowly drew herself up from her chair and began to clear the table, piling the few dishes they had used, under the dishpan in the sink. The house stood open to the summer breeze. It seemed so desolate and deserted with Belle upstairs, drawn in alone with her troubles and Tippy away, that she couldn't bear to stay in the silent rooms. She wandered out into the yard and climbed up into the willow to look across the water.
Somewhere out there on those shining waves, Richard was sailing along, in the party given for Mr. Locke, and to-morrow he would be going away on the yacht. If he were at home she wouldn't be up in the willow wondering what to do next. Well, as long as she couldn't have a good time herself she'd think of someone else she could make happy. For several minutes she sent her thoughts wandering over the list of all the people she knew, but it seemed as if her friends were capable of making their own good times, all except poor Belle. Probablyshenever would be happy again, no matter what anybody did to try to brighten her life. It was so discouraging when one was trying to play the game of "Rainbow Tag," for there to be no one to tag. She wished she knew some needy person, some unfortunate soul who would be glad of her efforts to make them happy.
Once she thought of slipping off down street to the library. Miss Tupman always let her go inwhere the shelves were and choose her own book. Miss Tupman was always so interesting, too, more than any of the books when she had time to talk. But that grim old word Duty rose up in front of her, telling her that she ought not to run away and leave the house all open with Belle locked in her room upstairs. Somebody ought to be within hearing if the telephone rang or anyone came. She went into the house for a book which she had read many times but which never failed to interest her, and curled up in a big rocking chair on the front porch.
Late in the afternoon she smelled burning pine chips and smoke from the kitchen chimney which told that a fire was being started in the stove. After a while she went around the house to the kitchen door and peeped in, apprehensively. Belle was piling the dinner dishes into the pan, preparatory to washing them while supper was cooking. Her eyes were red and she did not look up when Georgina came in, but there was an air of silent determination about her as forcible as her Aunt Maria's. Picking up the tea-kettle, she filled the dishpan and carried the kettle back to the stove, setting it down hard before she spoke. Then she said:
"Nobody'll ever know what I've been through with, fighting this thing out with myself. I can't go all the way yet. Ican'tsay the word that'll let the blow fall on poor old Father Potter. But I don't seem to care about my part of it any more. I seethings differently from what I did that first day—youknow. Even Emmett don't seem the same any more."
For several minutes there was a rattling of dishes, but no further speech from Belle. Georgina, not knowing what to say or do, stood poised uncertainly on the door-sill. Then Belle spoke again.
"I'm willing it should be told if only it could be kept from getting back to Father Potter, for the way Dan's donedoesmake me want to set him square with the world. I would like to make up to him in some way for all he's suffered on my account. I can't get over it that it washimthat had all the bravery and the nobleness that I was fairly worshiping in Emmett all these years. Seems like the whole world has turned upside down."
Georgina waited a long time, but Belle seemed to have said all that she intended to say, so presently she walked over and stood beside the sink.
"Belle," she said slowly, "does what you said mean that you're really willing I should tell Barby? Right away?"
Belle waited an instant before replying, then taking a deep breath as if about to make a desperate plunge into a chasm on whose brink she had long been poised, said:
"Yes. Uncle Dan'l would rather have her know than anybody else. He sets such store by her good opinion. But oh,domake it plain it mustn't betalked about outside, so's it'll get back to Father Potter."
The next instant Georgina's arms were around her in a silent but joyful squeeze, and she ran upstairs to write to Barby before the sun should go down or Tippy get back from the Bazaar.