girl walking dog
A MODERN "ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON"
BARBY was at home again. Georgina, hearing the jangle of a bell, ran down the street to meet the old Towncrier with the news. She knew now, how he felt when he wanted to go through the town ringing his bell and calling out the good tidings about his Danny to all the world. That's the way she felt her mother's home-coming ought to be proclaimed. It was such a joyful thing to have her back again.
And Grandfather Shirley wasn't going to be blind, Georgina confided in her next breath. The sight of both eyes would be all right in time. They were so thankful about that. And Barby had brought her the darlingest little pink silk parasol ever made or dreamed of, all the way from Louisville, and some beaten biscuit and a comb of honey from the beehives in her old home garden.
It was wonderful how much news Georgina managed to crowd into the short time that it took to walk back to the gate. The Burrells had left town and Belle had gone home, and Richard had sent her a postal card from Bar Harbor with a snapshot of himself and Captain Kidd on it. And—she loweredher voice almost to a whisper as she told the next item:
"Barby knows about Danny! Belle said I might tell her if she'd promise not to let it get back to Mr. Potter."
They had reached the house by this time, and Georgina led him in to Barby who rose to welcome him with both hands outstretched.
"Oh, Uncle Darcy," she exclaimed. "I know—and I'msoglad. And Justin will be, too. I sent Georgina's letter to him the very day it came. I knew he'd be so interested, and it can do no harm for him to know, away off there in the interior of China."
Georgina was startled, remembering the letter whichshehad sent to the interior of China. Surely her father wouldn't send that back to Barby! Such a panic seized her at the bare possibility of such a thing, that she did not hear Uncle Darcy's reply. She wondered what Barby would say if it should come back to her. Then she recalled what had happened the first few moments of Barby's return and wondered what made her think of it.
Barby's first act on coming into the house, was to walk over to the old secretary where the mail was always laid, and look to see if any letters were waiting there for her. And that was before she had even stopped to take off her veil or gloves. There were three which had arrived that morning,but she only glanced at them and tossed them aside. The one she wanted wasn't there. Georgina had turned away and pretended that she wasn't watching, but she was, and for a moment she felt that the sun had gone behind a cloud, Barby looked so disappointed.
But it was only for a moment, for Barby immediately began to tell about an amusing experience she had had on her way home, and started upstairs to take off her hat, with Georgina tagging after to ask a thousand questions, just as she had been tagging ever since.
And later she had thrown her arms around her mother, exclaiming as she held her fast, "You haven't changed a single bit, Barby," and Barby answered gaily:
"What did you expect, dearest, in a few short weeks? White hair and spectacles?"
"But it doesn't seem like a few short weeks," sighed Georgina. "It seems as if years full of things had happened, and that I'm as old as you are."
Now as Uncle Darcy recounted some of these happenings, and Barby realized how many strange experiences Georgina had lived through during her absence, how many new acquaintances she had made and how much she had been allowed to go about by herself, she understood why the child felt so much older. She understood still better that night as she sat brushing Georgina's curls. The little girlon the footstool at her knee was beginning to reach up—was beginning to ask questions about the strange grown-up world whose sayings and doings are always so puzzling to little heads.
"Barby," she asked hesitatingly, "what do people mean exactly, when they say they have other fish to fry?"
"Oh, just other business to attend to or something else they'd rather do."
"But when they shrug their shoulders at the same time," persisted Georgina.
"A shrug can stand for almost anything," answered Barby. "Sometimes it says meaner things than words can convey."
Then came the inevitable question which made Georgina wish that she had not spoken.
"But why do you ask, dear? Tell me how the expression was used, and I can explain better."
Now Georgina could not understand why she had brought up the subject. It had been uppermost in her mind all evening, but every time it reached the tip of her tongue she drove it back. That is, until this last time. Then it seemed to say itself. Having gone this far she could not lightly change the subject as an older person might have done. Barby was waiting for an answer. It came in a moment, halting but truthful.
"That day I was at the Bazaar, you know, and everybody was saying how nice I looked, dressedup like a little girl of long ago, I heard Mrs. Whitman say to Miss Minnis that one would think that Justin Huntingdon would want to come home once or twice in a lifetime to see me; and Miss Minnis shrugged her shoulders, this way, and said:
"'Oh, he has other fish to fry.'"
Georgina, with her usual aptitude for mimicry, made the shrug so eloquent that Barby understood exactly what Miss Minnis intended to convey, and what it had meant to the wondering child.
"Miss Minnis is an old cat!" she exclaimed impatiently. Then she laid down the brush, and gathering Georgina's curls into one hand, turned her head so that she could look into the troubled little face.
"Tell me, Baby," she demanded. "Have you heard anyone else say things like that?"
"Yes," admitted Georgina, "several times. And yesterday a woman who came into the bakery while I was getting the rolls Tippy sent me for, asked me if I was Doctor Huntingdon's little girl. And when I said yes, she asked me when he was coming home."
"And what did you say?"
"Well, I thought she hadn't any right to ask, specially in the way she made her question sound. She doesn't belong in this town, anyhow. She's only one of the summer boarders. So I drew myself up the way the Duchess always did in 'The Fortunes of Romney Tower.' Don't you remember? and Isaid, 'It will probably be some time, Madam.' Then I took up my bag of hot rolls and marched out. I think that word Madam always sounds so freezing, when you say it the way the Duchess was always doing."
"Oh, you ridiculous baby!" exclaimed Barby, clasping her close and kissing her again and again. Then seeing the trouble still lingering in the big brown eyes, she took the little face between her hands and looked into it long and intently, as if reading her thoughts.
"Georgina," she said presently, "I understand now, what is the matter. You're wondering the same thing about your father that these busybodies are. It's my fault though. I took it for granted that you understood about his long absence. I never dreamed that it was hurting you in any way."
Georgina hid her face in Barby's lap, her silence proof enough that her mother had guessed aright. For a moment or two Barby's hand strayed caressingly over the bowed head. Then she said:
"I wonder if you remember this old story I used to tell you, beginning, 'St. George of Merry England was the youngest and the bravest of the seven champions of Christendom. Clad in bright armor with his magic sword Ascalon by his side, he used to travel on his war horse in far countries in search of adventure.' Do you remember that?"
Georgina nodded yes without raising her head.
"Then you remember he came to a beach where the Princess Saba called to him to flee, because the Dragon, the most terrible monster ever seen on earth, was about to come up out of the sea and destroy the city. Every year it came up to do this, and only the sacrifice of a beautiful maiden could stop it from destroying the people.
"But undismayed, Saint George refused to flee. He stayed on and fought the dragon, and wounded it, and bound it with the maiden's sash and led it into the market place where it was finally killed. And the people were forever freed from the terrible monster because of his prowess. Do you remember all that?"
Again Georgina nodded. She knew the story well. Every Christmas as far back as she could remember she had eaten her bit of plum pudding from a certain rare old blue plate, on which was the picture of Saint George, the dragon and the Princess.
"Nowadays," Barby went on, "because men do not ride around 'clad in bright armor,' doing knightly deeds, people do not recognize them as knights. But your father is doing something that is just as great and just as brave as any of the deeds of any knight who ever drew a sword. Over in foreign ports where he has been stationed, is a strange disease which seems to rise out of the marshes every year, just as the dragon did, and threaten the health and the lives of the people. It is especially bad on ship-board,and it is really harder to fight than a real dragon would be, because it is an invisible foe, a sickness that comes because of a tiny, unseen microbe.
"Your father has watched it, year after year, attacking not only the sailors of foreign navies but our own men, when they have to live in those ports, and he made up his mind to go on a quest for this invisible monster, and kill it if possible. It is such a very important quest that the Government was glad to grant him a year's leave of absence from the service.
"He was about to come home to see us first, when he met an old friend, a very wealthy Englishman, who has spent the greater part of his life collecting rare plants and studying their habits. He has written several valuable books on Botany, and the last ten years he has been especially interested in the plants of China. He was getting ready to go to the very places that your father was planning to visit, and he had with him an interpreter and a young American assistant. When he invited your father to join him it was an opportunity too great to be refused. This Mr. Bowles is familiar with the country and the people, even speaks the language himself a little. He had letters to many of the high officials, and could be of the greatest assistance to your father in many ways, even though he did not stay with the party. He could always be in communication with it.
"So, of course, he accepted the invitation. It is far better for the quest and far better for himself to be with such companions.
"I am not uneasy about him, knowing he has friends within call in case of sickness and accident, and he will probably be able to accomplish his purpose more quickly with the help they will be able to give. You know he has to go off into all sorts of dirty, uncomfortable places, risk his own health and safety, go among the sick and suffering where he can watch the progress of the disease under different conditions.
"The whole year may be spent in a vain search, with nothing to show for it at the end, and even if he is successful and finds the cause of this strange illness and a remedy, his only reward will be the satisfaction of knowing he has done something to relieve the suffering of his fellow-creatures. People can understand the kind of bravery that shows. If he were rescuing one person from a burning house or a sinking boat they would cry out, 'What a hero.' But they don't seem to appreciate this kind of rescue work. It will do a thousand times more good, because it will free the whole navy from the teeth of the dragon.
"If there were a war, people would not expect him to come home. We are giving him up to his country now, just as truly as if he were in the midst of battle. A soldier's wife and a soldier's daughter—it is the proof of our love and loyalty, Georgina, to bear hislong absence cheerfully, no matter how hard that is to do; to be proud that he can serve his country if not with his sword, with the purpose and prowess of a Saint George."
Barby's eyes were wet but there was a starry light in them, as she lifted Georgina's head and kissed her. Two little arms were thrown impulsively around her neck.
"Oh, Barby! I'm so sorry that I didn't know all that before! I didn't understand, and I felt real ugly about it when I heard people whispering and saying things as if he didn't love us any more. And—when I said my prayers at bedtime—I didn't sing 'Eternal Father Strong to Save' a single night while you were gone."
Comforting arms held her close.
"Why didn't you write and tell mother about it?"
"I didn't want to make you feel bad. I was afraid from what Cousin Mehitable said you were going todie. I worried and worried over it. Oh, I had the miserablest time!"
Another kiss interrupted her. "But you'll never do that way again, Georgina. Promise me that no matter what happens you'll come straight to me and have it set right."
The promise was given, with what remorse and penitence no one could know but Georgina, recalling the letter she had written, beginning with a stern "Dear Sir." But to justify herself, she asked after the hair-brushing had begun again:
"But Barby, why has he stayed away from home four whole years? He wasn't hunting dragons before this, was he?"
"No, but I thought you understood that, too. He didn't come back here to the Cape because there were important things which kept him in Washington during his furloughs. Maybe you were too small to remember that the time you and I were spending the summer in Kentucky he had planned to join us there. But he wired that his best friend in the Navy, an old Admiral, was at the point of death, and didn't want him to leave him. The Admiral had befriended him in so many ways when he first went into the service that there was nothing else for your father to do but stay with him as long as he was needed. You were only six then, and I was afraid the long, hot trip might make you sick, so I left you with mamma while I went on for several weeks. Surely you remember something of that time."
"No, just being in Kentucky is all I remember, and your going away for a while."
"And the next time some business affairs of his own kept him in Washington, something very important. You were just getting over the measles and I didn't dare take you, so you stayed with Tippy. So you see it wasn't your father's fault that he didn't see you. He had expected you to be brought down to Washington."
Georgina pondered over the explanation a while,then presently said with a sigh, "Goodness me, how easy it is to look at things the wrong way."
Soon after her voice blended with Barby's in a return to the long neglected bedtime rite:
"Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,For those in peril on the sea."
Afterward, her troubles all smoothed and explained away, she lay in the dark, comforted and at peace with the world. Once a little black doubt thrust its head up like a snake, to remind her of Melindy's utterance, "When a manwantsto write, he's gwine to write, busy or no busy." But even that found an explanation in her thoughts.
Of course, Melindy meant just ordinary men. Not those who had great deeds to do in the world like her father. Probably Saint George himself hadn't written to his family often, if he had a family. He couldn't be expected to. He had "other fish to fry," and it was perfectly right and proper for him to put his mind on the frying of them to the neglect of everything else.
The four months' long silence was unexplained save for this comforting thought, but Georgina worried about it no longer. Up from below came the sound of keys touched softly as Barby sang an old lullaby. She sang it in a glad, trustful sort of way.
"He is far across the sea,But he's coming home to me,Baby mine!"
Lying there in the dark, Georgina composed another letter to send after her first one, and next morning this is what she wrote, sitting up in the willow tree with a magazine on her knees for a writing table:
"Dearest Father: I am sorry that I wrote that last letter, because everything is different from what I thought it was. I did not know until Barby came home and told me, that you are just as brave as St. George was, clad in bright armor, when he went to rescue the people from the dragon. I hope you get the monster that comes up out of the sea every year after the poor sailors. Barby says we are giving you to our country in this way, as much as if there was war, so now I'm prouder of having a St.-George-and-the-dragon-kind of a father than one like Peggy Burrell's, even if she does know him well enough to call him 'Dad-o'-my-heart.' Even if people don't understand, and say things about your never coming home to see us, we are going to 'still bear up and steer right onward,' because that's our line to live by. And we hope as hard as we can every day, that you'll get the mike-robe you are in kwest of. Your loving little daughter, Georgina Huntingdon."
THE DOCTOR'S DISCOVERY
IN due time the letter written in the willow tree reached the city of Hong-Kong, and was carried to the big English hotel, overlooking the loveliest of Chinese harbors. But it was not delivered to Doctor Huntingdon. It was piled on top of all the other mail which lay there, awaiting his return. Under it was Georgina's first letter to him and the one she had written to her mother about Dan Darcy and the rifle. And under that was the one which Barbara called the "rainbow letter," and then at least half a dozen from Barbara herself, with the beautiful colored photograph of the Towncrier and his lass. Also there were several bundles of official-looking documents and many American newspapers.
Nothing had been forwarded to him for two months, because he had left instructions to hold his mail until further notice. The first part of that time he was moving constantly from one out-of-the-way place to another where postal delivery was slow and uncertain. The last part of that time he was lying ill in the grip of the very disease which he had gone out to study and to conquer.
He was glad then to be traveling in the wake ofthe friendly old Englishman and his party. Through their interpreter, arrangements were made to have him carried to one of the tents of a primitive sort of a hospital, kept by some native missionaries. The Englishman's young assistant went with him. He was a quiet fellow whom Mr. Bowles had jokingly dubbed David the silent, because it was so hard to make him talk. But Doctor Huntingdon, a reserved, silent man himself, had been attracted to him by that very trait.
During the months they had been thrown together so much, Dave had taken great interest in the Doctor's reports of the experiments he was making in treating the disease. When the Doctor was told that Mr. Bowles had gone back to the coast, having found what he wanted and made his notes for his next book, and consequently Dave was free to stay and nurse him, he gave a sigh of relief.
Dave stopped his thanks almost gruffly.
"There's more than one reason for my staying," he said. "I've been sick among strangers in a strange country, myself, and I know how it feels. Besides, I'm interested in seeing if this new treatment of yours works out on a white man as well as it did on these natives. I'll be doing as much in the way of scientific research, keeping a chart on you, as if I were taking notes for Mr. Bowles."
That was a long speech for Dave, the longest that he made during the Doctor's illness. But in the dayswhich followed, one might well have wondered if there was not a greater reason than those he offered for such devoted attendance. He was always within call, always so quick to notice a want that usually a wish was gratified before it could be expressed. His was a devotion too constant to be prompted merely by sympathy for a fellow-country-man or interest in medical experiments.
Once, when the Doctor was convalescing, he opened his eyes to find his silent attendant sitting beside him reading, and studied him for some time, unobserved.
"Dave," he said, after watching him a while—"it's the queerest thing—lately every time I look at you I'm reminded of home. You must resemble someone I used to know back there, but for the life of me I can't recall who."
Dave answered indifferently, without glancing up from the page.
"There's probably a thousand fellows that look like me. I'm medium height and about every third person you see back in the States has gray eyes like mine, and just the ordinary every-day sort of features that I have."
The Doctor made no answer. It never would have occurred to him to tell Dave in what way his face differed from the many others of his type. There was a certain kindliness of twinkle in the gray eyes at times, and always a straightforward honesty ofgaze that made one instinctively trust him. There was strength of purpose in the resolute set of his mouth, and one could not imagine him being turned back on any road which he had made up his mind to travel to the end.
Several days after that when the Doctor was sitting up outside the tent, the resemblance to someone whom he could not recall, puzzled him again. Dave was whittling, his lips pursed up as he whistled softly in an absent-minded sort of way.
"Dave," exclaimed the Doctor, "there's something in the way you sit there, whittling and whistling that brings little old Provincetown right up before my eyes. I can see old Captain Ames sitting there on the wharf on a coil of rope, whittling just as you are doing, and joking with Sam and the crew as they pile into the boat to go out to the weirs. I can see the nets spread out to dry alongshore, and smell tar and codfish as plain as if it were here right under my nose. And down in Fishburn Court there's the little house that was always a second home to me, with Uncle Darcy pottering around in the yard, singing his old sailors' songs."
The Doctor closed his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath.
"Um! There's the most delicious smell coming out of that kitchen—blueberry pies that Aunt Elspeth's baking. What wouldn't I give this minute for one of those good, juicy blueberry pies of hers, smokinghot. I can smell it clear over here in China. There never was anything in the world that tasted half so good. I was always tagging around after Uncle Darcy, as I called him. He was the Towncrier, and one of those staunch, honest souls who make you believe in the goodness of God and man no matter what happens to shake the foundations of your faith."
The Doctor opened his eyes and looked up inquiringly, startled by the knocking over of the stool on which Dave had been sitting. He had risen abruptly and gone inside the tent.
"Go on," he called back. "I can hear you."
He seemed to be looking for something, for he was striding up and down in its narrow space. The Doctor raised his voice a trifle.
"That's all I had to say. I didn't intend to bore you talking about people and places you never heard of. But it just came over me in a big wave—that feeling of homesickness that makes you feel you've got to get back or die. Did you ever have it?"
"Yes," came the answer in an indifferent tone. "Several times."
"Well, it's got me now, right by the throat."
Presently he called, "Dave, while you're in there I wish you'd look in my luggage and see what newspapers are folded up with it. I have a dim recollection that aProvincetown Advocatecame about the time I was taken sick and I never opened it.
"Ah, that's it!" he exclaimed when Dave emerged presently, holding out the newspaper. "Look at the cut across the top of the first page. Old Provincetown itself. It's more for the name of the town printed across that picture of the harbor than for the news that I keep on taking the paper. Ordinarily, I never do more than glance at the news items, but there's time to-day to read even the advertisements. You've no idea how good those familiar old names look to me."
He read some of them aloud, smiling over the memories they awakened. But he read without an auditor, for Dave found he had business with one of the missionaries, and put off to attend to it. On his return he was greeted with the announcement:
"Dave, I want to get out of here. I'm sure there must be a big pile of mail waiting for me right now in Hong-Kong, and I'm willing to risk the trip. Let's start back to-morrow."
Several days later they were in Hong-Kong, enjoying the luxuries of civilization in the big hotel. Still weak from his recent illness and fatigued by the hardships of his journey, Doctor Huntingdon did not go down to lunch the day of their arrival. It was served in his room, and as he ate he stopped at intervals to take another dip into the pile of mail which had been brought up to him.
In his methodical way he opened the letters in the order of their arrival, beginning with the one whosepostmark showed the earliest date. It took a long time to finish eating on account of these pauses. Hop Ching was bringing in his coffee when Dave came back, having had not only his lunch in the dining-room, but a stroll through the streets afterward. He found Doctor Huntingdon with a photograph propped up in front of him, studying it intently while Hop Ching served the coffee. The Doctor passed the photograph to Dave.
the Town Crier and his lass
"Take it over to the window where you can get a good light on it," he commanded. "Isn't that a peach of a picture? That's my little daughter and the old friend I'm always quoting. The two seem to be as great chums as he and I used to be. I don't want to bore you, Dave, but I would like to read you this letter that she wrote to her mother, and her mother sent on to me. In the first place I'm proud of her writing such a letter. I had no idea she could express herself so well, and secondly the subject matter makes it an interesting document.
"On my little girl's birthday Uncle Darcy took her out in his boat,The Betsey. The name of that old boat certainly does sound good to me! He told her—but wait! I'd rather read it to you in her own words. It'll give you such a good idea of the old man. Perhaps I ought to explain that he had a son who got into trouble some ten years ago, and left home. He was just a little chap when I saw himlast, hardly out of dresses, the fall I left home for college.
"Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth were fairly foolish about him. He had come into their lives late, you see, after their older children died. I don't believe it would make any difference to them what he'd do. They would welcome him back from the very gallows if he'd only come. His mother never has believed he did anything wrong, and the hope of the old man's life is that his 'Danny,' as he calls him, will make good in some way—do something to wipe out the stain on his name and come back to him."
The Doctor paused as if waiting for some encouragement to read.
"Go on," said Dave. "I'd like to hear it, best in the world."
He turned his chair so that he could look out of the window at the harbor. The Chinese sampans of every color were gliding across the water like a flock of gaily-hued swans. He seemed to be dividing his attention between those native boats and the letter when the Doctor first began to read. It was Georgina's rainbow letter, and the colors of the rainbow were repeated again and again by the reds and yellows and blues of that fleet of sampans.
But as the Doctor read on Dave listened more intently, so intently, in fact, that he withdrew his attention entirely from the window, and leaning forward,buried his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. The Doctor found him in this attitude when he looked up at the end, expecting some sort of comment. He was used to Dave's silences, but he had thought this surely would call forth some remark. Then as he studied the bowed figure, it flashed into his mind that the letter must have touched some chord in the boy's own past. Maybe Dave had an old father somewhere, longing for his return, and the memory was breaking him all up.
Silently, the Doctor turned aside to the pile of letters still unread. Georgina's stern little note beginning "Dear Sir" was the next in order and was in such sharp contrast to the loving, intimate way she addressed her mother, that he felt the intended reproach of it, even while it amused and surprised him. But it hurt a little. It wasn't pleasant to have his only child regard him as a stranger. It was fortunate that the next letter was the one in which she hastened to call him "a Saint-George-and-the-dragon sort of father."
When he read Barbara's explanation of his long silence and Georgina's quick acceptance of it, he wanted to take them both in his arms and tell them how deeply he was touched by their love and loyalty; that he hadn't intended to be neglectful of them or so absorbed in his work that he put it first in his life. But it was hard for him to put such things into words, either written or spoken. He had left too much tobe taken for granted he admitted remorsefully to himself.
For a long time he sat staring sternly into space. So people had been gossiping about him, had they? And Barbara and the baby had heard the whispers and been hurt by them——He'd go home and put a stop to it. He straightened himself up and turned to report his sudden decision to Dave. But the chair by the window was empty. The Doctor glanced over his shoulder. Dave had changed his seat and was sitting behind him. They were back to back, but a mirror hung in such a way the Doctor could see Dave's face.
With arms crossed on a little table in front of him, he was leaning forward for another look at the photograph which he had propped up against a vase. A hungry yearning was in his face as he bent towards it, gazing into it as if he could not look his fill. Suddenly his head went down on his crossed arms in such a hopeless fashion that in a flash Doctor Huntingdon divined the reason, and recognized the resemblance that had haunted him. Now he understood why the boy had stayed behind to nurse him. Now a dozen trifling incidents that had seemed of no importance to him at the time, confirmed his suspicion.
His first impulse was to cry out "Dan!" but his life-long habit of repression checked him. He felt he had no right to intrude on the privacy which theboy guarded so jealously. But Uncle Darcy's son! Off here in a foreign land, bowed down with remorse and homesickness! How he must have been tortured with all that talk of the old town and its people!
A great wave of pity and yearning tenderness swept through the Doctor's heart as he sat twisted around in his chair, staring at that reflection in the mirror. He was uncertain what he ought to do. He longed to go to him with some word of comfort, but he shrank from the thought of saying anything which would seem an intrusion.
Finally he rose, and walking across the room, laid his hand on the bowed shoulder with a sympathetic pressure.
"Look here, my boy," he said, in his deep, quiet voice. "I'm not asking you what the trouble is, but whatever it is you'll let me help you, won't you? You've given me the right to ask that by all you've done for me. Anything I could do would be only too little for one who has stood by me the way you have. I want you to feel that I'm your friend in the deepest meaning of that word. You can count on me for anything." Then in a lighter tone as he gave the shoulder a half-playful slap he added, "I'mforyou, son."
The younger man raised his head and straightened himself up in his chair.
"You wouldn't be!" he exclaimed, "if you knewwho I am." Then he blurted out the confession: "I'm Dan Darcy. I can't let you go on believing in me when you talk like that."
"But I knew it when I said what I did," interrupted Doctor Huntingdon. "It flashed over me first when I saw you looking at your father's picture. No man could look at a stranger's face that way. Then I knew what the resemblance was that has puzzled me ever since I met you. The only wonder to me is that I did not see it long ago."
"You knew it," repeated Dan slowly, "and yet you told me to count you as a friend in the deepest meaning of that word. How could you mean it?"
The Doctor's answer came with deep impressiveness.
"Because, despite whatever slip you may have made as a boy of eighteen, you have grown into a man worthy of such a friendship. A surgeon in my position learns to read character, learns to know an honest man when he sees one. No matter what lies behind you that you regret, I have every confidence in you now, Dan. I am convinced you are worthy to be the son of even such a man as Daniel Darcy."
He held out his hand to have it taken in a long, silent grip that made it ache.
"Come on and go back home with me," urged the Doctor. "You've made good out here. Do the brave thing now and go back and live down the past. It'll make the old folks so happy it'll wipe out theheart-break of all those years that you've been away."
Dan's only response was another grasp of the Doctor's hand as strong and as painful as the first. Pulling himself up by it he stood an instant trying to say something, then, too overcome to utter a word, made a dash for the door.
Doctor Huntingdon was so stirred by the scene that he found it difficult to go back to his letters, but the very next one in order happened to be the one Georgina wrote to her mother just after Belle had given her consent to Barby's being told of Emmett's confession. He read the latter part of it, standing, for he had sprung to his feet with the surprise of its opening sentence. He did not even know that Emmett had been dead all these years, and Dan, who had had no word from home during all his absence, could not know it either. He was in a tremor of eagerness to hurry to him with the news, but he waited to scan the rest of the letter.
Then with it fluttering open in his hand he strode across the hall and burst into Dan's room without knocking.
"Pack up your junk, this minute, boy," he shouted. "We take the first boat out of here for home. Look at this!"
He thrust Georgina's letter before Dan's bewildered eyes.
WHILE THEY WAITED
"THERE comes the boy from the telegraph office." Mrs. Triplett spoke with such a raven-like note of foreboding in her voice that Georgina, practising her daily scales, let her hands fall limply from the keys.
"The Tishbite!" she thought uneasily. What evil was it about to send into the house now, under cover of that yellow envelope? Would it take Barby away from her as it had done before?
Sitting motionless on the piano stool, she waited in dread while Mrs. Triplett hurried to the door before the boy could ring, signed for the message and silently bore it upstairs. The very fact that she went up with it herself, instead of calling to Barby that a message had come, gave Georgina the impression that it contained bad news.
"Acablegramfor me?" she heard Barby ask. Then there was a moment's silence in which she knew the message was being opened and read. Then there was a murmur as if she were reading it aloud to Tippy and then—an excited whirlwind of a Barby flying down the stairs, her eyes like happy stars, herarms outstretched to gather Georgina into them, and her voice half laugh, half sob, singing:
"Oh, he's coming home to meBaby mine!"
Never before had Georgina seen her so radiant, so excited, so overflowingly happy that she gave vent to her feelings as a little schoolgirl might have done. Seizing Georgina in her arms she waltzed her around the room until she was dizzy. Coming to a pause at the piano stool she seated herself and played, "The Year of Jubilee Has Come," in deep, crashing chords and trickly little runs and trills, till the old tune was transformed into a paen of jubilation.
Then she took the message from her belt, where she had tucked it and re-read it to assure herself of its reality.
"Starting home immediately. Stay three months, dragon captured."
"That must mean that his quest has been fairly successful," she said. "If he's found the cause of the disease it'll be only a matter of time till he finds how to kill it."
Then she looked up, puzzled.
"How strange for him to call it thedragon. How could he know we'd understand, and that we've been calling it that?"
Georgina's time had come for confession.
"Oh, I wrote him a little note after you told me the story and told him I was proud of having a Saint-George-kind of a father, and that we hoped every day he'd get the microbe."
"You darling!" exclaimed Barbara, drawing her to her for another impulsive hug. She did not ask as Georgina was afraid she would:
"Why didn't you tell me you were writing to your father?" Barbara understood, without asking, remembering the head bowed in her lap after that confession of her encounter with the prying stranger in the bakery.
Suddenly Georgina asked:
"Barby, what is the 'Tishbite?'"
"The what?" echoed Barby, wrinkling her forehead in perplexity.
"TheTishbite. Don't you know it says in the Bible, Elijah and the Tishbite——"
"Oh, no, dear, you've turned it around, and put the and in the wrong place. It is 'AndElijah the Tishbite,' just as we'd say William the Norman or Manuel the Portuguese."
"Well, for pity sakes!" drawled Georgina in a long, slow breath of relief. "Isthatall? I wish I'd known it long ago. It would have saved me a lot of scary feelings."
Then she told how she had made the wish on the star and tried to prove it as Belle had taught her, by opening the Bible at random.
"If you had read on," said Barby, "you'd have found what it meant your own self."
"But the book shut up before I had a chance," explained Georgina. "And I never could find the place again, although I've hunted and hunted. And I was sure it meant some sort of devil, and that it would come and punish me for using the Bible that way as if it were a hoodoo."
"Then why didn't you ask me?" insisted Barby. "There's another time you see, when a big worry and misunderstanding could have been cleared away with a word. To think of your living in dread all that time, when the Tishbite was only a good old prophet whose presence brought a blessing to the house which sheltered him."
That night when Georgina's curls were being brushed she said, "Barby, I know now who my Tishbite is; it's Captain Kidd. He's brought a blessing ever since he came to this town. If it hadn't been for his barking that day we were playing in the garage I wouldn't be here now to tell the tale. If it hadn't been for him I wouldn't have known Richard, and we'd never have started to playing pirate. And if we hadn't played pirate Richard wouldn't have asked to borrow the rifle, and if he hadn't asked we never would have found the note hidden in the stock, and if we hadn't found the note nobody would have known that Danny was innocent. Then if Captain Kidd hadn't found the pouchwe wouldn't have seen the compass that led to finding the wild-cat woman who told us that Danny was alive and well."
"What a House-That-Jack-Built sort of tale that was!" exclaimed Barby, much amused. "We'll have to do something in Captain Kidd's honor. Give him a party perhaps, and light up the holiday tree."
The usual bedtime ceremonies were over, and Barby had turned out the light and reached the door when Georgina raised herself on her elbow to call:
"Barby, I've just thought of it. The wish I made on that star that night is beginning to come true. Nearly everybody I know is happy about something." Then she snuggled her head down on the pillow with a little wriggle of satisfaction. "Ugh! this is such a good world. I'm so glad I'm living in it. Aren't you?"
And Barby had to come all the way back in the dark to emphasize her heartfelt "yes, indeed," with a hug, and to seal the restless eyelids down with a kiss—the only way to make them stay shut.
Richard came back the next day. He brought a picture to Georgina from Mr. Locke. It was the copy of the illustration he had promised her, the fairy shallop with its sails set wide, coming across a sea of Dreams, and at the prow, white-handed Hope, the angel girt with golden wings, which swept back over the sides of the vessel.
"Think of having a painting by the famous MilfordNorris Locke!" exclaimed Barby. She hung over it admiringly. "Most people would be happy to have just his autograph." She bent nearer to examine the name in the corner of the picture. "What's this underneath? Looks like number IV."
"Oh, that means he's number four in our Rainbow Club. Peggy Burrell is number five and the Captain is number six. That's all the members we have so far."
"Aren't you going to count me in?" asked Barby.
"Oh, youarecounted in. You've belonged from the beginning. We made you anhonarymember or whatever it is they call it, people who deserve to belong because they're always doing nice things, but don't know it. There's you and Uncle Darcy and Captain Kidd, because he saved our lives and saved our families from having to have a double funeral."
Barby stooped to take the little terrier's head between her hands and pat-a-cake it back and forth with an affectionate caress.
"Captain Kidd," she said gaily, "you shall have a party this very night, and there shall be bones and cakes on the holiday tree, and you shall be the best man with a 'normous blue bow on your collar, and we'll all dance around in your honor this way."
Springing to her feet and holding the terrier's front paws, she waltzed him around and around on his hind legs, singing: