Sailboat
A CONTRAST IN FATHERS
GEORGINA was having a beautiful day. It was the first time she had ever taken part in a Bazaar, and so important was the role assigned her that she was in a booth all by herself. Moreover, the little mahogany chair in which she sat was on a high platform inside the booth, so that all might behold her. Dressed in a quaint old costume borrowed from the chests in the Figurehead House, she represented "A Little Girl of Long Ago."
On a table beside her stood other borrowed treasures from the Figurehead House—a doll bedstead made by an old sea captain on one of his voyages. Each of its high posts was tipped with a white point, carved from the bone of a whale. Wonderful little patchwork quilts, a feather bed and tiny pillows made especially for the bed, were objects of interest to everyone who crowded around the booth. So were the toys and dishes brought home from other long cruises by the same old sea captain, who evidently was an indulgent father and thought often of the little daughter left behind in the home port. A row of dolls dressed in fashions half a century old were also on exhibition.
With unfailing politeness Georgina explained to the curious summer people who thronged around her, that they all belonged in the house where the figurehead of Hope sat on the portico roof, and were not for sale at any price.
Until to-day Georgina had been unconscious that she possessed any unusual personal charms, except her curls. Her attention had been called to them from the time she was old enough to understand remarks people made about them as she passed along the street. Their beauty would have been a great pleasure to her if Tippy had not impressed upon her the fact that looking in the mirror makes one vain, and it's wicked to be vain. One way in which Tippy guarded her against the sin of vanity was to mention some of her bad points, such as her mouth being a trifle too large, or her nose not quite so shapely as her mother's, each time anyone unwisely called attention to her "glorious hair."
Another way was to repeat a poem from a book called "Songs for the Little Ones at Home," the same book which had furnished the "Landing of the Pilgrims" and "Try, Try Again." It began:
"What! Looking in the glass again?Why's my silly child so vain?"
The disgust, the surprise, the scorn of Tippy's voice when she repeated that was enough to makeone hurry past a mirror in shame-faced embarrassment.
"Beauty soon will fade away.Your rosy cheeks must soon decay.There's nothing lasting you will find,But the treasures of the mind."
Rosy cheeks might not be lasting, but it was certainly pleasant to Georgina to hear them complimented so continually by passers-by. Sometimes the remarks were addressed directly to her.
"Mydear," said one enthusiastic admirer, "if I could only buyyouand put you in a gold frame, I'd have a prettier picture than any artist in town can paint." Then she turned to a companion to add:
"Isn't she a love in that little poke bonnet with the row of rose-buds inside the rim? I never saw such exquisite coloring or such gorgeous eyes."
Georgina blushed and looked confused as she smoothed the long lace mitts over her arms. But by the time the day was over she had heard the sentiment repeated so many times that she began to expect it and to feel vaguely disappointed if it were not forthcoming from each new group which approached her.
Another thing gave her a new sense of pleasure and enriched her day. On the table beside her, undera glass case, to protect it from careless handling, was a little blank book which contained the records of the first sewing circle in Provincetown. The book lay open, displaying a page of the minutes, and a column of names of members, written in an exquisitely fine and beautiful hand. The name of Georgina's great-great grandmother was in that column. It gave her a feeling of being well born and distinguished to be able to point it out.
The little book seemed to reinforce and emphasize the claims of the monument and the silver porringer. She felt it was so nice to be beautiful andto belong;to have belonged from the beginning both to a first family and a first sewing circle.
Still another thing added to her contentment whenever the recollection of it came to her. There was no longer any secret looming up between her and Barby like a dreadful wall. The letter telling all about the wonderful and exciting things which had happened in her absence was already on its way to Kentucky. It was not a letter to be proud of. It was scrawled as fast as she could write it with a pencil, and she knew perfectly well that a dozen or more words were misspelled, but she couldn't take time to correct them, or to think of easy words to put in their places. But Barby wouldn't care. She would be so happy for Uncle Darcy's sake and so interested in knowing that her own little daughterhad had an important part in finding the good news that she wouldn't notice the spelling or the scraggly writing.
As the day wore on, Georgina, growing more and more satisfied with herself and her lot, felt that there was no one in the whole world with whom she would change places. Towards the last of the afternoon a group of people came in whom Georgina recognized as a family from the Gray Inn. They had been at the Inn several days, and she had noticed them each time she passed them, because the children seemed on such surprisingly intimate terms with their father. That he was a naval officer she knew from the way he dressed, and that he was on a long furlough she knew from some remark which she overheard.
He had a grave, stern face, and when he came into the room he gave a searching glance from left to right as if to take notice of every object in it. His manner made Georgina think of "Casabianca," another poem of Tippy's teaching:
"He stoodAs born to rule the storm.A creature of heroic blood,A brave though ... form."
"Childlike" was the word she left out because it did not fit in this case. "A brave and manlike form"would be better. She repeated the verse to herself with this alteration.
When he spoke to his little daughter or she spoke to him his expression changed so wonderfully that Georgina watched him with deep interest. The oldest boy was with them. He was about fourteen and as tall as his mother. He was walking beside her but every few steps he turned to say something to the others, and they seemed to be enjoying some joke together. Somebody who knew them came up as they reached the booth of "The Little Girl of Long Ago," and introduced them to Georgina, so she found out their names. It was Burrell. He was a Captain, and the children were Peggy and Bailey.
As Georgina looked down at Peggy from the little platform where she sat in the old mahogany chair, she thought with a throb of satisfaction that she was glad she didn't have to change places with that homely little thing. Evidently, Peggy was just up from a severe illness. Her hair had been cut so short one could scarcely tell the color of it. She was so thin and white that her eyes looked too large for her face and her neck too slender for her head, and the freckles which would scarcely have shown had she been her usual rosy self, stood out like big brownsplotcheson her pallid little face. She limped a trifle too, as she walked.
With a satisfied consciousness of her own rose-leafcomplexion, Georgina was almost patronizing as she bent over the table to say graciously once more after countless number of times, "no, that is not for sale."
The next instant Peggy was swinging on her father's arm exclaiming, "Oh, Dad-o'-my-heart! See that cunning doll bathing suit. Please get it for me." Almost in the same breath Bailey, jogging the Captain's elbow on the other side, exclaimed, "Look, Partner,that'sa relic worth having."
Georgina listened, fascinated. To think of calling one's father "Dad-o'-my-heart" or "Partner!" And they looked up at him as if they adored him, even that big boy, nearly grown. And a sort of laugh come into the Captain's eyes each time they spoke to him, as if he thought everything they said and did was perfect.
A wave of loneliness swept over Georgina as she listened. There was an empty spot in her heart that ached with longing—not for Barby, but for the father whom she had never known in this sweet intimate way. She knew now how it felt to be an orphan. What satisfaction was there in having beautiful curls if no big, kind hand ever passed over them in a fatherly caress such as was passing over Peggy Burrell's closely-clipped head? What pleasure was there in having people praise you if they said behind your back:
"Oh, that's Justin Huntingdon's daughter. Don'tyou think a man would want to come home once or twice in a lifetime to such a lovely child as that?"
Georgina had heard that very remark earlier in the day, also the answer given with a significant shrug of the shoulders:
"Oh, he has other fish to fry."
The remarks had not annoyed her especially at the time, but they rankled now as she recalled them. They hurt until they took all the pleasure and satisfaction out of her beautiful day, just as the sun, going under a cloud, leaves the world bereft of all its shine and sparkle. She looked around, wishing it were time to go home.
Presently, Captain Burrell, having made the rounds of the room, came back to Georgina. He smiled at her so warmly that she wondered that she could have thought his face was stern.
"They tell me that you are Doctor Huntingdon's little girl," he said with a smile that went straight to her heart. "So I've come back to ask you all about him. Where is he now and how is he? You see I have an especial interest in your distinguished father. He pulled me through a fever in the Philippines that all but ended me. I have reason to remember him for his many, many kindnesses to me at that time."
The flush that rose to Georgina's face might naturally have been taken for one of pride or pleasure, but it was only miserable embarrassment at not beingable to answer the Captain's questions. She could not bear to confess that she knew nothing of her father's whereabouts except the vague fact that he was somewhere in the interior of China, and that there had been no letter from him for months and that she had not seen him for nearly four years.
"He—he was well the last time we heard from him," she managed to stammer. "But I haven't heard anything lately. You know my mother isn't home now. She went to Kentucky because my grandfather Shirley was hurt in an accident."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," was the answer in a cordial, sympathetic voice. "I hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her and I wanted Mrs. Burrell to know her, too. But I hope you'll come over to the Inn and play with Peggy sometimes. We'll be here another week."
Georgina thanked him in her prettiest manner, but she was relieved when he passed on, and she was freed from the fear of any more embarrassing questions about her father. Yet her hand still tingled with the friendliness of his good-bye clasp, and she wished that she could know him better. As she watched him pass out of the door with Peggy holding his hand and swinging it as they walked, she thought hungrily:
"How good it must seem to have a father likethat."
Mrs. Triplett came up to her soon after. It wastime to close the Bazaar. The last probable customer had gone, and the ladies in charge of the booths were beginning to dismantle them. Someone's chauffeur was waiting to take Georgina's costume back to the Figurehead House.
She followed Mrs. Triplett obediently into an improvised dressing-room in the corner, behind a tall screen, and in a very few minutes was about to emerge clad in her own clothes, when Mrs. Triplett exclaimed:
"For pity sakes! Those gold beads!"
Georgina's hand went up to the string of gold beads still around her neck. They also were borrowed from Mrs. Tupman of the Figurehead House.
"I was going to ask Mrs. Tupman to take them home herself," said Mrs. Triplett, "but she left earlier than I thought she would, and I had no chance to say anything about them. We oughtn't to trust anything as valuable as gold beads that are an heirloom to any outsider, no matter how honest. They might be lost. Suppose you justwearthem home to her. Do you feel like doing that? And keep them on your neck till she unclasps them with her own hands. Don't leave them with a servant."
Georgina, tired of sitting all day in the booth, was glad of an excuse for a long walk. It was almost six o'clock, but the sun was still high. As she went along, jostled off the narrow sidewalk and back on to it again every few steps by the good-natured crowdwhich swarmed the streets at this hour, she could smell supper cooking in the houses along the way. It would be delayed in many homes because the tide was in and people were running down the beach from the various cottages for a dip into the sea. Some carried their bathing suits in bundles, some wore them under raincoats or dressing gowns, and some walked boldly along bare-armed and bare-legged in the suits themselves.
It was a gay scene, with touches of color in every direction. Vivid green grass in all the door-yards, masses of roses and hollyhocks and clematis against the clean white of the houses. Color of every shade in the caps and sweaters and bathing suits and floating motor veils and parasols, jolly laughter everywhere, and friendly voices calling back and forth across the street. It was a holiday town full of happy holiday people.
Georgina, skipping along through the midst of it, added another pretty touch of color to the scene, with her blue ribbons and hat with the forget-me-nots around it, but if her thoughts could have been seen, they would have showed a sober drab. The meeting with Captain Burrell had left her depressed and unhappy. The thought uppermost in her mind was why should there be such a difference in fathers? Why should Peggy Burrell have such an adorable one, and she be left to feel like an orphan?
When she reached the Figurehead House she wastold that Mrs. Tupman had stepped out to a neighbor's for a few minutes but would be right back. She could have left the beads with a member of the family, but having been told to deliver them into the hands of the owner only, she sat down in the swing in the yard to wait.
From where she sat she could look up at the figurehead over the portico. It was the best opportunity she had ever had for studying it closely. Always before she had been limited to the few seconds that were hers in walking or driving by. Now she could sit and gaze at it intently as she pleased.
The fact that it was weather-stained and dark as an Indian with the paint worn off its face in patches, only enhanced its interest in her eyes. It seemed to bear the scars of one who has suffered and come up through great tribulation. No matter how battered this Lady of Mystery was in appearance, to Georgina she still stood for "Hope," clinging to her wreath, still facing the future with head held high, the symbol of all those, who having ships at sea, watch and wait for their home-coming with proud, undaunted courage.
Only an old wooden image, but out of a past of shipwreck and storm its message survived and in some subtle manner found its way into the heart of Georgina.
"And I'll do it, too," she resolved valiantly, looking up at it. "I'm going to hope so hard that he'llbe the way I want him to be, that he'll justhaveto. And if he isn't—then I'll just steer straight onward as if I didn't mind it, so Barby'll never know how disappointed I am. Barby must never know that."
A few minutes later, the gold beads being delivered into Mrs. Tupman's own hands, Georgina took her way homeward, considerably lighter of heart, for those moments of reflection in the swing. As she passed the antique shop a great gray cat on the door-step, rose and stretched itself.
"Nice kitty!" she said, stopping to smooth the thick fur which stood up as he arched his back.
It was "Grandpa," to whose taste for fish she owed her prism and the bit of philosophy which was to brighten not only her own life but all those which touched hers. But she passed on, unconscious of her debt to him.
When she reached the Gray Inn she walked more slowly, for on the beach back of it she saw several people whom she recognized. Captain Burrell was in the water with Peggy and Bailey and half a dozen other children from the Inn. They were all splashing and laughing. They seemed to be having some sort of a game. She stood a moment wishing that she had on her bathing suit and was down in the water with them. She could swim better than any of the children there. But she hadn't been in the sea since Barby left. That was one of the thingsshe promised in their dark hour of parting, not to go in while Barby was gone.
While she stood there, Mrs. Burrell came out on the piazza of the Inn, followed by the colored nurse with the baby who was just learning to walk. The Captain, seeing them, threw up his hand to signal them. Mrs. Burrell fluttered her handkerchief in reply.
Georgina watched the group in the water a moment longer, then turned and walked slowly on. She felt that if she could do it without having to give up Barby, she'd be willing to change places with Peggy Burrell. She'd take her homely little pale, freckled face, straight hair and—yes, even her limp, for the right to cling to that strong protecting shoulder as Peggy was doing there in the water, and to whisper in his ear, "Dad-o'-my-heart."
Female figurehead
A LETTER TO HONG-KONG
THERE are some subjects one hesitates to discuss with one's family. It is easier to seek information from strangers or servants, who do not feel free to come back at you with the disconcerting question, "But why do you ask?"
It was with the half-formed resolution of leading up to a certain one of these difficult subjects if she could, that Georgina wandered down the beach next morning to a little pavilion near the Gray Inn. It was occupied by Peggy Burrell, her baby brother and the colored nurse Melindy.
Georgina, sorely wanting companionship now that Richard and Captain Kidd were off on their yachting trip, was thankful that Mrs. Triplett had met Captain Burrell the day before at the Bazaar, and had agreed with him that Georgina and Peggy ought to be friends because their fathers were. Otherwise, the occupants of the pavilion would have been counted as undesirable playmates being outside the pale of her acquaintance.
Peggy welcomed her joyfully. She wasn't strong enough yet to go off on a whole morning's fishing trip with brother and Daddy, she told Georgina, and her mother was playing bridge on the hotel piazza. Peggy was a little thing, only eight, and Georginanot knowing what to do to entertain her, resurrected an old play that she had not thought of for several summers. She built Grandfather Shirley's house in the sand.
It took so long to find the right kind of shells with which to make the lanterns for the gate-posts, and to gather the twigs of bayberry and beach plum for the avenues (she had to go into the dunes for them), that the question she was intending to ask Melindy slipped from her mind for a while. It came back to her, however, as she scooped a place in the wall of pebbles and wet sand which stood for the fence.
"Here's the place where the postman drops the mail."
Then she looked up at Melindy, the question on the tip of her tongue. But Peggy, on her knees, was watching her so intently that she seemed to be looking straight into her mouth every time it opened, and her courage failed her. Instead of saying what she had started to say, she exclaimed:
"Here's the hole in the fence where the little pigs squeezed through." Then she told the story that went with this part of the game. When it was time to put in the bee-hives, however, and Peggy volunteered to look up and down the beach for the right kind of a pebble to set the bee-hives on, Georgina took advantage of the moment alone with Melindy. There wasn't time to lead up to the question properly.There wasn't even time to frame the question in such a way that it would seem a casual, matter-of-course one. Georgina was conscious that the blood was surging up into her cheeks until they must seem as red as fire. She leaned forward toward the sand-pile she was shaping till her curls fell over her face. Then she blurted out:
"How often do husbands write to wives?"
Melindy either did not hear or did not understand, and Georgina had the mortifying experience of repeating the question. It was harder to give utterance to it the second time than the first. She was relieved when Melindy answered without showing any surprise.
"Why, most every week I reckon, when they loves 'em. Leastways white folks do. It comes easy to them to write. An' I lived in one place where the lady got a lettah every othah day."
"But I mean when the husband's gone for a long, long time, off to sea or to another country, and is dreadfully busy, like Captain Burrell is when he's on his ship."
Melindy gave a short laugh. "Huh! Let me tell you, honey, when a manwantsto write he's gwine to write, busy or no busy."
Later, Georgina went home pondering Melindy's answer. "Most every week when they love's 'em. Sometimes every other day." And Barby had had no letter for over four months.
Something happened that afternoon which had never happened before in all Georgina's experience. She was taken to the Gray Inn to call. Mrs. Triplett, dressed in her new black summer silk, took her.
"As long as Barbara isn't here to pay some attention to that Mrs. Burrell," Tippy said to Belle, "it seems to me it's my place as next of kin. The Captain couldn't get done saying nice things about Justin."
Evidently, she approved of both Mrs. Burrell and Peggy, for when each begged that Georgina be allowed to stay to supper she graciously gave permission.
"Peggy has taken the wildest fancy to you, dear," Mrs. Burrell said in an aside to Georgina. "You gave her a beautiful morning on the beach. The poor little thing has suffered so much with her lame knee, that we are grateful to anyone who makes her forget all that she has gone through. It's only last week that she could have the brace taken off. She hasn't been able to run and play like other children for two years, but we're hoping she may outgrow the trouble in time."
The dining-room of the Gray Inn overlooked the sea, and was so close to the water one had the feeling of being in a boat, when looking out of its windows. There were two South American transports in the harbor. Some of the officers had come ashore and were dining with friends at the Gray Inn. Afterwardsthey stayed to dance a while in the long parlor with the young ladies of the party.
Peggy and Georgina sat on the piazza just outside one of the long French windows, where they could watch the gay scene inside. It seemed almost as gay outside, when one turned to look across the harbor filled with moving lights. Captain and Mrs. Burrell were outside also. They sat farther down the piazza, near the railing, talking to one of the officers who was not dancing. Once when the music stopped, Peggy turned to Georgina to say:
"Do you hear Daddy speaking Spanish to that officer from South America? Doesn't he do it well? I can understand a little of what they say because we lived in South America a while last year. We join him whenever he is stationed at a port where officers can take their families. He says that children of the navy have to learn to be regular gypsies. I love going to new places. How many languages can your father speak?"
Georgina, thus suddenly questioned, felt that she would rather die than acknowledge that she knew so little of her father that she could not answer. She was saved the mortification of confessing it, however, by the music striking up again at that moment.
"Oh, I can play that!" she exclaimed. "That's the dance of the tarantula. Isn't it a weird sort of thing?"
The air of absorbed interest with which Georgina turned to listen to the music made Peggy forget her question, and listen in the same way. She wanted to do everything in the same way that Georgina did it, and from that moment that piece of music held special charm for her because Georgina called it weird.
The next time Georgina glanced down the piazza Mrs. Burrell was alone. In her dimly-lighted corner, she looked like one of the pretty summer girls one sees sometimes on a magazine cover. She was all in white with a pale blue wrap of some kind about her that was so soft and fleecy it looked like a pale blue cloud. Georgina found herself looking down that way often, with admiring glances. She happened to have her eyes turned that way when the Captain came back and stood beside her chair. The blue wrap had slipped from her shoulders without her notice, and he stooped and picked it up. Then he drew the soft, warm thing up around her, and bending over, laid his cheek for just an instant against hers.
It was such a fleeting little caress that no one saw it but Georgina, and she turned her eyes away instantly, feeling that she had no right to look, yet glad that she had seen, because of the warm glow it sent through her. She couldn't tell why, but somehow the world seemed a happier sort of place for everybody because such things happened in it.
"I wonder," she thought wistfully, as her eyes followed the graceful steps of the foreign dancers and her thoughts stayed with what she had just witnessed, "I wonder if that had been Barby and my father, wouldhe?"——
But she did not finish even to herself the question which rose up to worry her. It came back every time she recalled the little scene.
On the morning after her visit to the Gray Inn she climbed up on the piano stool when she had finished practising her scales. She wanted a closer view of the portrait which hung over it. It was an oil painting of her father at the age of five. He wore kilts and little socks with plaid tops, and he carried a white rabbit in his arms. Georgina knew every inch of the canvas, having admired it from the time she was first held up to it in someone's arms to "see the pretty bunny." Now she looked at it long and searchingly.
Then she opened the book-case and took out an old photograph album. There were several pictures of her father in that. One taken with his High School class, and one with a group of young medical students, and one in the white service dress of an assistant surgeon of the navy. None of them corresponded with her dim memory of him.
Then she went upstairs to Barby's room, and stood before the bureau, studying the picture upon it in a large silver frame. It was taken in a standingposition and had been carefully colored, so that she knew accurately every detail of the dress uniform of a naval surgeon from the stripes of gold lace and maroon velvet on the sleeves, to the eagle on the belt buckle and the sword knot dangling over the scabbard. There were various medals pinned on his breast which had always interested her.
But this morning it was not the uniform or the decorations which claimed her attention. It was the face itself. She was looking for something in the depths of those serious dark eyes, that she had seen in Captain Burrell's when he looked at Peggy; something more than a smile, something that made his whole face light up till you felt warm and happy just to look at him. She wondered if the closely-set lips she was studying could curve into a welcoming smile if anybody ran to meet him with happy outstretched arms. But the picture was baffling and disappointing, because it was a profile view.
Presently, she picked it up and carried it to her own room, placing it on the table where she always sat to write. She had screwed up her courage at last, to the point of writing the letter which long ago she had decided ought to be written by somebody.
Once Barby said, "When you can't think of anything to put in a letter, look at the person's picture, and pretend you're talking to it." Georgina followed that advice now. But one cannot talk enthusiasticallyto a listener who continues to show you only his profile.
Suddenly, her resentment flamed hot against this handsome, averted face which was all she knew of a father. She thought bitterly that he had no business to be such a stranger to her that she didn't even know what he looked like when he smiled. Something of the sternness of her old Pilgrim forbears crept into her soul as she sat there judging him and biting the end of her pen. She glanced down at the sheet of paper on which she had painstakingly written "Dear Father." Then she scratched out the words, feeling she could not honestly call him that when he was such a stranger. Taking a clean sheet of paper, she wrote even more painstakingly:
"Dear Sir: There are two reesons——"
Then she looked up in doubt about the spelling of that last word. She might have gone downstairs and consulted the dictionary but her experience had proved that a dictionary is an unsatisfactory book when one does not know how to spell a word. It is by mere chance that what one is looking for can be found. After thinking a moment she put her head out of the window and called softly down to Belle, who was sewing on the side porch. She called softly so that Tippy could not hear and answer and maybe add the remark, "But why do you ask? Are you writing to your mother?"
Belle spelled the word for her, and taking anothersheet of paper Georgina made a fresh start. This time she did not hesitate over the spelling, but scribbled recklessly on until all that was crowding up to be said was on the paper.
"Dear Sir: There are two reasons for writing this. One is about your wife. Cousin Mehitable says something is eating her heart out, and I thought you ought to know. Maybe as you can cure so many strange diseeses you can do something for her. The other is to ask you to send us another picture of yourself. The only ones we have of you are looking off sideways, and I can't feel as well acquainted with you as if I could look into your eyes.
"There is a lovely father staying at the Gray Inn. He is Peggy Burrell's. He is a naval officer, too. It makes me feel like an orfan when I see him going down the street holding her hand. He asked me to tell him all about where you are and what you are doing, because you cured him once on a hospital ship, and I was ashamed to tell him that I didn't know because Barby has not had a letter from you for over four months. Please don't let on to her that I wrote this. She doesn't know that I was under the bed when Cousin Mehitable was talking about you, and saying that everybody thinks it is queer you never come home. If you can do only one of the things I asked, please do the first one. Yours truly, Georgina Huntingdon."
Having blotted the letter, Georgina read it overcarefully, finding two words that did not look quite right, although she did not know what was the matter with them. So she called softly out of the window again to Belle:
"How do you spell diseases?"
Belle told her but added the question, "Why do you ask a word like that? Whose diseases can you be writing about?"
Georgina drew in her head without answering. She could not seek help in that quarter again, especially for such a word as "orfan." After studying over it a moment she remembered there was a poem in "Songs for the Little Ones at Home," called "The Orphan Nosegay Girl."
A trip downstairs for the tattered volume gave her the word she wanted, and soon the misspelled one was scratched out and rewritten. There were now three unsightly blots on the letter and she hovered over them a moment, her pride demanding that she should make a clean, fair copy. But it seemed such an endless task to rewrite it from beginning to end, that she finally decided to send it as it stood.
Addressed, stamped and sealed, it was ready at last and she dropped it into the mail-box. Then she had a moment of panic. It was actually started on its way to Hong-Kong and nothing in her power could stop it or bring it back. She wondered if she hadn't done exactly the wrong thing, and made a bad matter worse.
PEGGY JOINS THE RAINBOW-MAKERS
ONLY one more thing happened before Barby's return that is worth recording. Georgina went to spend thedayat the Gray Inn. Captain Burrell, himself, came to ask her. Peggy had to be put back into her brace again he said. He was afraid it had been taken off too soon. She was very uncomfortable and unhappy on account of it. They would be leaving in the morning, much earlier than they had intended, because it was necessary for her physician to see her at once, and quite probable that she would have to go back to the sanitarium for a while. She didn't want to leave Provincetown, because she did not want to go away from Georgina.
"You have no idea how she admires you," the Captain added, "or how she tries to copy you. Her dream of perfect happiness is to look and act just like you. Yesterday she made her mother tie a big pink bow on her poor little cropped head because you passed by wearing one on your curls. You can cheer her up more than anyone else in the world."
So Georgina, touched both by the Captain's evident distress over Peggy's returning lameness, andPeggy's fondness for her, went gladly. The knowledge that everything she said and did was admired, made it easy for her to entertain the child, and the pity that welled up in her heart every time she watched the thin little body move around in the tiresome brace, made her long to do something that would really ease the burden of such a misfortune.
Mrs. Burrell was busy packing all morning, and in the afternoon went down the street to do some shopping that their hurried departure made necessary. Peggy brought out her post-card album, in which to fasten all the postals she had added to her collection while on the Cape. Among them was one of the Figurehead House, showing "Hope" perched over the portico.
"Bailey says that's a sea-cook," Peggy explained gravely. "A sea-cook who was such a wooden-head that when he made doughnuts they turned green. He's got one in his hand that he's about to heave into the sea."
"Oh, horrors! No!" exclaimed Georgina, as scandalized as if some false report had been circulated about one of her family.
"That is Hope with a wreath in her hand, looking up with her head held high, just as she did when she was on the prow of a gallant ship. Whenever I have any trouble or disappointment I think of her, and she helps me to bear up and be brave, and go on as if nothing had happened."
"How?" asked Peggy, gazing with wondering eyes at the picture of the figurehead, which was too small on the postal to be very distinct. Anything that Georgina respected and admired so deeply, Peggy wanted to respect and admire in the same way, but it was puzzling to understand just what it was that Georgina saw in that wooden figure to make her feel so. Accustomed to thinking of it in Bailey's way, as a sea-cook with a doughnut, it was hard to switch around to a point of view that showed it as Hope with a wreath, or to understand how it could help one to be brave about anything.
Something of her bewilderment crept into the wondering "why," and Georgina hesitated, a bit puzzled herself. It was hard to explain to a child two years younger what had been taught to her by the old Towncrier.
"You wait till I run home and get my prism," she answered. "Then I can show you right away, and we can play a new kind of tag game with it."
Before Peggy could protest that she would rather have her question unanswered than be left alone, Georgina was off and running up the beach as fast as her little white shoes could carry her. Her cheeks were as red as the coral necklace she wore, when she came back breathless from her flying trip.
There followed a few moments of rapture for Peggy, when the beautiful crystal pendant was placed in her own hands, and she looked through it into aworld transformed by the magic of its coloring. She saw the room changed in a twinkling, as when a fairy wand transforms a mantle of homespun to cloth-of-gold. Through the open window she saw an enchanted harbor filled with a fleet of rainbows. Every sail was outlined with one, every mast edged with lines of red and gold and blue. And while she looked, and at the same time listened, Georgina's explanation caught some of the same glamor, and sank deep into her tender little heart.
That was the way thatshecould change the world for people she loved—put a rainbow around their troubles by being so cheery and hopeful that everything would be brighter just because she was there. To keep Hope at the prow simply meant that she mustn't get discouraged about her knee. No matter how much it hurt her or the brace bothered her, she must bear up and steer right on. To do that bravely, without any fretting, was the surest way in the world to put a rainbow around her father's troubles.
Thus Georgina mixed her "line to live by" and her prism philosophy, but it was clear enough to the child who listened with heart as well as ears. And clear enough to the man who sat just outside the open window on the upper porch, with his pipe, listening also as he gazed off to sea.
"The poor little lamb," he said to himself. "Tothink of that baby trying to bear up and be brave onmyaccount! It breaks me all up."
A few minutes later as he started across the hall, Peggy, seeing him pass her door, called to him.
"Oh, Daddy! Come look through this wonderful fairy glass. You'll think the whole world is bewitched."
She was lying back in a long steamer chair, and impatient to reach him, she started to climb out as he entered the room. But she had not grown accustomed to the brace again, and she stumbled clumsily on account of it. He caught her just in time to save her from falling, but the prism, the shining crystal pendant, dropped from her hands and struck the rocker of a chair in its fall to the floor.
She gave a frightened cry, and stood holding her breath while Georgina stooped and picked it up. It was in two pieces now. The long, radiant point, cut in many facets like a diamond, was broken off.
Georgina, pale and trembling at this sudden destruction of her greatest treasure, turned her back, and for one horrible moment it was all she could do to keep from bursting out crying. Peggy, seeing her turn away and realizing all that her awkwardness was costing Georgina, buried her face on her father's shoulder and went into such a wild paroxysm of sobbing and crying that all his comforting failed to comfort her.
"Oh, I wish I'ddiedfirst," she wailed. "She'll never love me again. She said it was her most precious treasure, and now I've broken it——"
"There, there, there," soothed the Captain, patting the thin little arm reached up to cling around his neck. "Georgina knows it was an accident. She's going to forgive my poor little Peggykins for what she couldn't help. She doesn't mind its being broken as much as you think."
He looked across at Georgina, appealingly, helplessly. Peggy's grief was so uncontrollable he was growing alarmed. Georgina wanted to cry out:
"Oh, Idomind! How can you say that? I can't stand it to have my beautiful, beautiful prism ruined!"
She was only a little girl herself, with no comforting shoulder to run to. But something came to her help just then. She remembered the old silver porringer with its tall, slim-looped letters. She remembered there were some things she could not do. Shehadto be brave now, because her name had been written around that shining rim through so many brave generations. She could not deepen the hurt of this poor little thing already nearly frantic over what she had done. Tippy's early lessons carried her gallantly through now. She ran across the room to where Peggy sat on her father's knee, and put an arm around her.
"Listen, Peggy," she said brightly. "There's apiece of prism for each of us now. Isn't that nice? You take one and I'll keep the other, and that will make you a member of our club. We call it the Rainbow Club, and we're running a race seeing who can make the most bright spots in the world, by making people happy. There's just four members in it so far; Richard and me and the president of the bank and Mr. Locke, the artist, who made the pictures in your blue and gold fairy-tale book. And you can be the fifth. But you'll have to begin this minute by stopping your crying, or you can't belong. What did I tell you about fretting?"
And Peggy stopped. Not instantly, she couldn't do that after such a hard spell. The big sobs kept jerking her for a few minutes no matter how hard she tried tostiflethem; but she sat up and let her father wipe her face on his big handkerchief, and she smiled her bravest, to show that she was worthy of membership in the new club.
The Captain suddenly drew Georgina to his other knee and kissed her.
"You blessed little rainbow maker!" he exclaimed. "I'd like to join your club myself. What a happy world this would be if everybody belonged to it."
Peggy clasped her hands together beseechingly.
"Oh,pleaselet him belong, Georgina. I'll lend him my piece of prism half the time."
"Of course he can," consented Georgina. "But he can belong without having a prism. Grown peopledon't need anything to help them remember about making good times in the world."
"I wonder," said the Captain, as if he were talking to himself. Georgina, looking at him shyly from the corner of her eye, wondered what it was he wondered.
It was almost supper time when she went home. She had kept the upper half of the prism which had the hole in it, and it dangled from her neck on the pink ribbon as she walked.
"If only Barby could have seen it first," she mourned. "I wouldn't mind it so much. But she'll never know how beautiful it was."
But every time that thought came to her it was followed by a recollection which made her tingle with happiness. It was the Captain's deep voice saying tenderly, "You blessed little rainbow-maker!"