"Now, what? Can you play cat's cradle, or casino?"
"No; I want to talk to you of Harold. You love him very much?"
"Oh, a hundred bushels—him and grandma, too."
"And he is very kind to you?"
"Yes, I guess he is. He never talks back, and I am awful sometimes, and once I spit at him, and struck him; but I was so sorry, and cried all night, and offered to give him my best doll 'cause it was the plaything I loved most, and I went without my piece of pie so he could have two pieces if he wanted," Jerry said, her voice trembling as she made this confession, which gave Arthur a better insight into her real character than he had had before.
Hasty, impulsive, repentant, generous, and very affectionate, he felt sure she was, and he continued:
"Does Harold go to school?"
"Yes; and I, too—to the district; but I hate it!" Jerry replied.
"Why hate it?" Arthur asked. "What is the matter with the district school?"
"Oh, it smells awful there sometimes when it is hot," Jerry replied, with an upward turn to her nose. "And the boys are so mean, some of them. Bill Peterkin goes there, and I can't bear him, he plagues me so. Wants tokiss me. A-a-h, and says I am to be his wife, and he's got warts on his thumb!"
Jerry's face was sufficiently indicative of the disgust she felt for Bill Peterkin with his warts, and, leaning back in his chair, Arthur laughed heartily, as he said:
"And so you don't like Bill Peterkin? Well, what boys do you like?"
"Harold and Dick St. Claire," was the prompt response, and Arthur continued:
"What would you have in place of the district school?"
"A governess," was Jerry's answer. "Nina St. Claire has one, and Ann Eliza Peterkin has one, and Maude Tracy has one."
Here Jerry stopped suddenly, as if struck with a new idea.
"Why Maude is your little girl isn't she? You are her rich uncle, and she is to have all your money when you die. I wish I was your little girl."
She spoke the last very sadly, and something in the expression of her face brought Gretchen to Arthur's mind, and his voice was choked as he said to her:
"I'd give half my fortune if you were my little girl."
Then, laying his hand on her bright hair, he questioned her adroitly of her life at the cottage, finding that it was a very happy one, and that she had never known want, although Mrs. Crawford was unable to work as she once had done, and was largely dependent upon the price for Jerry's board, which Frank paid regularly. Of this, however, Jerry did not speak. She only said:
"Harold works in the furnace, and in folks' gardens, and does lots of things for everybody, and once Bill Peterkin twitted him because he goes to Mrs. Baker's sometimes after stuff for the pig, and Harold cried, and I got up early the next morning and went after it myself, and drew the cart home. After that grandma wouldn't let Harold go for any more, and so I s'pose the pig will not weigh as much. I'm sorry, for I like sausage, don't you?"
Arthur hated it, but he did not tell her so, and she went on:
"Harold studies awful hard, and wants to go to college. He is trying to learn latin, and recites to Dick St. Claire; but grandma says its up-hill business. Oh, if I'sonly rich I'd give it all to Harold, and he should get learning like Dick. Maybe I can work some time and earn some money. I wish I could."
Arthur did not speak for a long time, but sat looking at the child whose face now wore an old and troubled look. In his mind he was revolving a plan which, with his usual precipitancy, he resolved to carry into effect at once. But he said nothing of it to Jerry, whose attention was diverted by the entrance of Charles and the preparations for luncheon, which, on the little girl's account, was served with more care than usual.
Jerry who had a great liking for everything luxurious, had taken tea once or twice at Grassy Spring with Nina St. Claire, and had been greatly impressed with the appointments of the table, prizing them more even than the dainties for her to eat. But what she had seen there seemed as nothing compared to this round Swiss table, with its colored glass and rare china, no two pieces of which were alike.
"Oh, it is just like a dream!" she cried, as she watched Charles' movement and saw that there were two places laid. "Am I to sit down with you?" she said, in an awestruck voice, "and in that lovely chair? I am glad I wore my best gown. It won't dirty the chair a bit."
But she took her pocket-handkerchief and covered it over the satin cushion before she dared seat herself in the chair, which had once been brought out for Gretchen, and in which she now sat down, dropping her head and shutting her eyes a moment. Then, as she heard no sound, she looked up wonderingly, and asked:
"Ain't you going to say 'for Christ's sake,' grandma does?"
Arthur's face was a study with its mixed expression of surprise, amusement and self-reproach. He never prayed, except it were in some ejaculatory sentences wrung from him in his sore need, and the thought of asking a blessing on his food had never occurred to him. But Jerry was persistent.
"You must say 'for Christ's sake,'" she continued, and with his weak brain all in a muddle, Arthur began what he meant to be a brief thanksgiving, but which stretched itself into a lengthy prayer, full of the past and ofGretchen, whom he seemed to be addressing rather than his Maker.
For a while Jerry listened reverently; then she looked up and moved uneasily in the chair, and at last when the prayer had continued for at least five minutes she burst out impulsively:
"Oh, dear, do say 'amen.' I am so hungry!"
That broke the spell, and with a start Arthur came to himself, and said:
"Thank you, Jerry. Praying is a new business for me, and I do believe I should have gone on forever if you had not stopped me. Now what will you have?"
He helped her to whatever she liked best, but could eat scarcely anything himself. It was sufficient for him to watch Jerry sitting there in Gretchen's chair and using Gretchen's plate which every day for so many years had been laid for her. Gretchen had not come. She would never come, he feared, but with Jerry he did not feel half as desolate as when alone, with only his morbid fancies for company. And he must have her there, at least a portion of the time. His mind was made up on that point, and when about four o'clock, Jerry said to him:
"I want to go now. Grandma said I was to be home by five," he replied:
"Yes, I am going with you. I wish to see your grandmother. I am going to drive you in the phaeton. How would you like that?"
Her dancing eyes told him how she would like it, and Charles was sent to the stable with an order to have the little pony phaeton brought round as soon as possible as he was going for a drive.
ARTHUR'S PLAN.
"WHY, the madam is going to drive, too, and I've come to harness; there'll be a row somewhere," John said.
"Can't help it," Charles replied. "Mr. Arthur wants the phaeton, and will have it for all of madam."
"Yes, I s'p'o' so. Wall, I'll go and tell her," was John's rejoinder, as he started for the house, where Mrs. Tracy was just drawing on her long driving gloves and admiring her new hat and feather before the glass.
Dolly looked almost as young, and far prettier, than when she came to the park, years before. A life of luxury suited her. She had learned to take things easily, and the old woman with the basket might now come every day to her kitchen door without her knowing it. She aped Mrs. Atherton, of Brier Hill, in everything, and had the satisfaction of knowing that she was on all occasions quite as stylish-looking and well-dressed as that aristocratic lady whom she called her intimate friend. She had also grown very proud and very exclusive in her ideas, and when poor Mrs. Peterkin, who was growing, too, withhermillion, ventured to call at the park, the call was returned with a card which Dolly's coachman left at the door. Since the night of her party, and the election which followed, when Frank was defeated, she had ignored the Peterkins, and laughed at what she called their vulgar imitation of people above them, and when she heard that Mary Jane had hired a governess for her two children, Bill and Ann Eliza, she scoffed at the airs assumed bycome-uppeople, and wondered if Mrs. Peterkin had forgotten that she was one of Grace Atherton's hired girls. Dolly had certainly forgotten the Langley life, and was to all intents and purposes the great lady of the park, who held herself aloof from the common herd, and taught her children to do the same.
She had seen Jerry enter the house that morning with a feeling of disapprobation, which had not diminished asthe day wore on and still the child staid, and what was worse, Maude was not sent for to join her.
"Not that I would have allowed it, if she had been," she said to herself, for she did not wish her daughter intimate with one of whose antecedents nothing was known, but Arthur might at least have invited her. He had never noticed her children much, and this she deeply resented. Maude, who knew of Jerry's presence in the house, had cried to go and play with her, but Mrs. Tracy had refused, and promised as an equivalent a drive in the phaeton around the town. And it was for this drive Dolly was preparing herself, when John came with the message that she could not have the phaeton, as Mr. Arthur was going to take Jerry home in it.
Usually Arthur's slightest wish was a law in the household, for that was Frank's order; but on this occasion Dolly felt herself justified in rebelling.
"Not have the phaeton! That's smart I must say," she exclaimed. "Can't that child walk home. I'd like to know? Tell Mr. Tracy Maude has had the promise of a drive all day, and I am ready, with my things on. Ask him to take the Victoria; he never drives."
All this in substance was repeated to Arthur, who answered, quietly:
"Let Mrs. Tracy take the Victoria. I prefer the phaeton myself."
That settled it, and in a few moments Jerry was seated at Arthur's side, and skimming along through the park, and out upon the highway which skirted the river for miles.
"This is not going home, and grandma will scold," Jerry said.
"Never mind grandma—I will make it right with her. I am going to show you the country," Arthur replied, as he chirruped to the fleet pony who seemed to fly along the smooth road.
No one who saw the tall, elegant-looking man, who sat so erect, and handled the reins so skillfully, would have suspected him of insanity, and more than one stopped to look after him and the little girl whose face looked out from the white sun bonnet with so joyous an expression.On the homeward route they met the Victoria, with John upon the box, and Mrs. Tracy and Maude inside.
"There's Maude! Hallo, Maude—see me! I'm riding!" Jerry called out, cheerily, while Maude answered back:
"Hallo, Jerry!"
But Mrs. Tracy gave no sign of recognition, and only rebuked her daughter for her vulgarity in saying "Hallo," which was second class and low.
"Then Nina St. Claire is second class and low, for she says 'Hallo,'" was Maude's reply, to which her mother had no answer.
Meanwhile the phaeton was going swiftly on toward the cottage, which it reached a few minutes after the furnace whistle blew for six, and Harold, who had been working there, came up the lane. There were soiled spots on his hands, and on his face, and his clothes showed marks of toil, all of which Arthur noticed, while he was explaining to Mrs. Crawford that he had taken Jerry for a drive, and kept her beyond the prescribed hour. Then, turning to Harold, he said:
"And so you work in the furnace?"
"Yes, sir, during vacation, when I can get a job there," Harold answered, and Mr. Tracy continued:
"How much do you get a day?"
"Fifty cents in dull times," was the reply, and Arthur went on:
"Fifty cents from seven in the morning to six at night, and board yourself. A magnificent sum, truly. Pray, how do you manage to spend so much? You must be getting rich."
The words were sarcastic, but the tone belied the words, and Harold was about to speak, when his grandmother interrupted him, and said:
"What he does not spend for us he puts aside. He is trying to save enough to go to the High School, but it's slow work. I can do but little myself, and it all falls upon Harold."
"But I like it, grandma. I like to work for you and Jerry, and I have almost twenty dollars saved," Harold said, "and in a year or two I can go away to school, and work somewhere for my board. Lots of boys do that."
Arthur was hitching his pony to the fence, while a new idea was dawning in his mind.
"Fifty cents a day," he said to himself, "and he has twenty dollars saved, and thinks himself rich. Why, I've spent more than that on one bottle of wine, and here is this boy, Amy's son, wanting an education, and working to support his grandmother like a common laborer. I believe Iamcrazy."
He was in the cottage by this time—in the clean, cool kitchen where the supper table was laid with its plain fare, wholly unlike the costly viands which daily loaded his board.
"Don't wait for me, Harold must be hungry," he said, adding quickly: "Or stay if you will permit me, I will take a cup of tea with you. The drive has given me an appetite, and your tea smells very inviting."
It was a great honor to have Arthur Tracy at her table, and Mrs. Crawford felt it as such, and was very sorry, too, that she had nothing better to offer him than bread and butter and radishes, with milk, and a dish of cold beans, and chopped beets, and a piece of apple pie saved for Harold from dinner. But she made him welcome, and Jerry, delighted to return the hospitality she had received, brought him a clean plate and cup and saucer, and asked if she might get the best sugar-bowl and the white sugar. Then, remembering the beautiful flowers which had adorned the table at Tracy Park, she ran out, and gathering a bunch of June pinks, put them in a little glass by his plate.
When all was ready and they had taken their seats at the table, Mrs. Crawford closed her eyes reverently and asked the accustomed blessing which in that house preceded every meal. Jerry's amen was a good deal louder and more emphatic than usual, while she nodded her head to Arthur, with an expression which he understood to mean, "You know now what you ought to say, instead of that long prayer," and he nodded back that he did so understand it.
Arthur enjoyed the supper immensely, or pretended that he did. He ate three slices of bread and butter; he drank three cups of tea; he even tried the beans and the beets, but declined the radishes, which, he said, would give him nightmare.
When supper was over and the table cleared away, hestill showed no signs of going, but asking Mrs. Crawford to take a seat near him, he plunged at once into the business which had brought him there, and which, since he had seen Harold in his working-dress and heard what he was trying to do, had grown to be of a two-fold nature. He was very lonely, he said, and the little taste he had had of Jerry's society had made him wish for more, and he must have her with him a part at least of every day.
"In short," he said, "I should like to undertake her education myself until she is older, when I will see that she has the proper finishing. She tells me she hates the district school, with Bill Peterkin and his warts—"
"Trying to kiss me," Jerry interrupted, as, open-eyed and open-mouthed, she stood, with her hand on his shoulder, listening to him.
"Yes, trying to kiss you, though I do not blame him much for that," Arthur said, with a smile, and then continued: "She is ambitious enough to want a governess like Ann Eliza Peterkin and my brother's daughter, but I am better than a dozen governesses. I can teach her all the rudiments of an English education, with French and German, and Latin, too, if she likes; and my plan is, that she shall come to me every day, except Saturdays and Sundays, at ten in the morning, get her lessons and her lunch with me, and return home at four in the afternoon. Would you like it, Cherry?"
"Oh-h-oh!" was all the answer Jerry could make for a moment, but her cheeks were scarlet, and tears of joy stood in her eyes, until she glanced at Harold; then all the brightness faded from her face, for how could she accept this great good and leave him to drudge and toil alone?
"What is it, Cherry?" Mr. Tracy asked; and, with a half sob, she replied:
"I can't go without Harold. If I get learning, he must get learning, too," and leaving Arthur, she crossed over to the boy, and putting her arm around him, looked up at him with a look which in after years he would have given half his life to win.
"I shall not forget Harold," Arthur hastened to say, "and I have something better in store for him than reciting his lessons to me. When the High School opens in September, he is going there, and if he does well he shallgo to Andover in time, and perhaps to Harvard. It will all depend upon himself, and how he improves his opportunities. What! crying? Don't you like it?" Arthur asked, as he saw the tears gathering in Harold's eyes and rolling down his cheeks.
"Yes, oh, yes; but it don't seem real, and—and—I guess it makes me kind of sick," Harold gasped, as, freeing himself from Jerry's encircling arm, he hurried from the room, to think over this great and unexpected joy which had come so suddenly to him.
With his naturally refined tastes and instincts the dirty furnace work was not pleasant to him, neither were the many menial duties he was obliged to perform for the sake of those he loved. How to get an education was the problem he was earnestly trying to solve, and lo! it was solved for him. For a moment the suddenness of the thing overcamehim, and he sat down upon a block of wood in theyard, faint and bewildered, while Arthur made his plan clear to Mrs. Crawford, saying that what he meant to do was partly for Jerry's sake and partly for the sake of the young girl who had been his early love.
"I always intended to take care of you," he said; "but things go from my mind, and I forget the past as completely as if it had never been. But this will stay by me, for I shall have Cherry as a reminder, and if I am in danger of forgetting she will jog my memory."
For a moment Mrs. Crawford could not speak, so great was her surprise and joy that the good she had thought unattainable was to be Harold's at last. And yet something in her proud, sensitive nature rebelled against receiving so much from a stranger, even if that stranger were Arthur Tracy. It seemed like charity, she said. But Arthur overruled her with that persuasive way he had of converting people to his views; and when at last he left the cottage it was with the understanding that Jerry should commence her lessons with him the first week in September, and that Harold should enter the High School in Shannondale when it opened in the autumn.
THE WORKING OF ARTHUR'S PLAN.
AS Arthur was wholly uncommunicative with regard to his affairs, and as Mrs. Crawford kept her own counsel, and bade Harold and Jerry do the same, the Tracy's knew nothing whatever of the plan until the September morning when Jerry presented herself at the park house, and was met in the door-way by Mrs. Frank, who was just going out. Very few could have resisted the bright little face, so full of childish happiness, or the clear, assured voice, which said so cheerily:
"Good-morning, Mrs. Tracy. I'm come to school."
But, prejudiced as she was against the girl, Mrs. Tracy could resist any thing, and she answered, haughtily:
"Come to school! What do you mean! This is not a school-house, and if you have any errand here, go round to the other door. Only company come in here."
"But I'm company. I'm going to get learning; he told me to come," Jerry answered, flushed and eager, and altogether sure of her right to be there.
Before Mrs. Frank could reply, a voice, distinct and authoritative, and to which she always yielded, called from the top of the stairway inside:
"Mrs. Tracy, if that is Jerry to whom you are talking, send her up at once. I am waiting for her."
Jerry did not mean the nod she gave the lady as she passed her to be disrespectful, but Mrs. Frank felt it as such, and went to her own room in a most perturbed state of mind, for which she could find no vent until her husband came in, when she stated the case to him, and asked if he knew what it meant.
But Frank was as ignorant as herself, and could not enlighten her until that night, after he had seen his brother, and heard from him what he was intending to do.
"God bless you, Arthur. You don't know how happy you have made me," Frank said, feeling on the instant that a great burden was lifted from his mind.
Jerry was to be educated and cared for, and would probably receive all that the world would naturally concede to her if the truth were known. He believed, or thought he did, that Gretchen had never been his brother's wife, though to believe so seemed an insult to the original of the sweet face which looked at him from the window every time he entered his brother's room. Jerry was a great trouble to him, and he would not have liked to confess to any one how constantly she was in his mind, or how many plans he had devised in order to atone for the wrong he knew he was doing her. And now his brother had taken her off his hands, and she was to be cared for and receive the education which would fit her to earn her own livelihood, and make her future life respectable. No particular harm was done her after all, and he might now enjoy himself, and cast his morbid fancies to the winds, he reflected, as he went whistling to his wife's apartment, and told her what he heard.
For a moment Dolly was speechless with astonishment, and when at last she opened her lips, her husband silenced her with that voice and manner of which she was beginning to be afraid.
It was none of their business, he said, what Arthur did in his own house, provided, they were not molested, and if he chose to turn schoolmaster, he had a right to do so. For his part, he was glad of it, as it saved him the expense of Jerry's education, for if Arthur had not taken it in hand, he should, and Dolly was to keep quiet and let the child come and go in peace.
After delivering himself of these sentiments, Frank went away, leaving his wife to wonder, as she had done more than once, if he, too, were not a little crazy, like his brother. But she said no more about Jerry's coming there, except to suggest that she might at least come in at the side door instead of the front, especially on muddy days when she was liable to soil the costly carpets. And Jerry, who cared but little how she entered the house, if she only got in, came through the kitchen after the second day, and wiped her feet upon the mat; and once, when her shoes were worse than usual, took them off, lest they should leave a track.
It is not our intention to linger over the first fewmonths of Jerry's school days at Tracy Park, but rather to hasten on to the summer four years after her introduction to Tracy Park as Arthur's pupil. During all that time he had never once seemed to be weary of the task he had imposed upon himself, but, on the contrary, his interest had deepened in the child who developed so rapidly under his training that he sometimes looked at her in astonishment, marveling more and more who she was, and from whom she had inherited her wonderful memory and power to grasp points which are usually far beyond the comprehension of a child of ten, or even twelve, and which Maude Tracy could no more have mastered than her brother, the stupid Jack, whose intellect had not grown with his body.
There was a tutor now at Tracy Park for Jack, but Maude had been transferred to Arthur's care. This was wholly due to Jerry, who alone could have induced him to let Maude share her instruction. Arthur did not care for Maude. She was dull, he said, and would never have her lessons. But Jerry coaxed so hard that Arthur consented at last, and when Jerry had been with him about three years, Maude became his pupil, and that of Jerry as well, for nearly every day when the lessons were over, the two little girls might have been seen sitting together under the trees in the park, or in some corner of the house, Maude puzzled, and perplexed, and worried, and Jerry anxious, decided, and peremptory, as she went over and over again with what was so clear to her and so hazy to her friend.
"Oh, dear me, suz, what does ail you?" she said one day, with a stamp of her foot, after she had tried in vain to make Maude see through a simple sum in long division. "Can't you remember first to divide, second multiply, third subtract, and fourth bring down?"
"No, I can't. I can't remember anything, and if I could, how do I know what to divide or what to bring down? I am stupid, and shall never know anything," was Maude's sobbing reply, as she covered her face with her slate.
Maude's tears always moved Jerry, who tried to comfort her with the assurance that if she tried very hard, she might some time know enough to teach a district school. This was the height of Jerry's ambition, to teach a district school and board around; but Maude's aspirations weredifferent. She was rich. She was to be a belle and wear diamonds and satins like her mother; and it did not matter so much whether she understood long division or not, though it did hurt her a little to be so far outstripped by Jerry, who was younger than herself.
To Arthur, Jerry was a constant delight and surprise, and nothing astonished or pleased him more than the avidity with which she took up German. This language was like play to her, and by the time she was ten years old she spoke, and read, and wrote it almost as well as Arthur himself.
"It takes me back somewhere, I can't tell where," she said to him; "and I seem to be somebody else than Jerry Crawford, and I hear music and see people, and a pale face is close to me, and my head gets all confused trying to remember things which come and go."
Only once after her first day at the park had she enacted the pantomime of the sick woman and the nurse, and then she had done it at Arthur's request. But it was not quite as thrilling as at first; thehimfor whom the dying woman had prayed was omitted, and the whole was mixed with the Tramp House, and the carpet-bag, and Harold, who was now a youth of seventeen, and a student at the high-school in Shannondale, where he was making as rapid progress in his studies as Jerry was at the park.
But Harold's life was not as serene and happy as Jerry's, for it was not pleasant for him to hear, as he often did, that he was a charity student, supported by Arthur Tracy. Such remarks were very galling to the high-spirited boy, and he was constantly revolving all manner of schemes by which he could earn money and cease to be dependent. All through the long summer vacations, he worked at whatever he could find to do, sometimes in people's gardens, sometimes on their lawns, but oftener in the hay-fields, where he earned the most. Here Jerry was not unfrequently his companion. She liked to rake hay, she said; it came natural to her, and she had no doubt she inherited the taste from her mother, who had probably worked in the fields in Germany.
One afternoon, when Jerry knew that Harold was busy in one of Mr. Tracy's meadows, she started to join him, for he had complained of a headache at noon, and had expresseda fear that he might not be able to finish the task he had imposed upon himself. The road to the field was by the Tramp House, which looked so cool and quiet, with its thick covering of woodbine and ivy over it, that Jerry turned aside for a moment to look into the room which had so great a fascination for her, and where she spent so much time. Indeed, she seldom passed near it without going in for a moment and standing by the old table which had once held her and her dead mother. Things came back to her there, she said, and she could almost give a name to the pale-faced woman who haunted her so often.
As she entered the damp, dark place now, she started with an exclamation of surprise, which was echoed by another, as Frank Tracy sprang up and confronted her. It was not often that he visited the Tramp House, and he would not have confessed to any one his superstitious dread of it, or that, when he was in it, he always had a feeling that the dead woman found there years ago would start up to accuse him of his deceit and hypocrisy. Could he have had his way he would have pulled the building down; but it was not his, and when he suggested it to Arthur, as he sometimes did, the latter opposed it, saying latterly, since Jerry had been so much to him;
"No, Frank; let it stand. I like it, because, but for it, Jerry might have perished with her mother, and I should not have had her with me."
So the Tramp House stood, and grew damper and mustier each year, as the moss and ivy gathered on the walls outside, and the dust and cobwebs gathered on the walls within. These, however, Jerry was careful to brush away, for she had a play-house in one corner, and a little work-bench and chair, and she often sat there alone and talked to herself, and the woman dead so long ago, and to others whose faces were dim and shadowy, but whom she felt sure she had known. Very frequently she went through the process of cleaning up, as she called it, and her object in stopping there now was, in part, to see if it did not need her care again.
"Oh, Mr. Tracy! are you here? How you scared me! I thought it was a tramp!" she said, as he came toward her.
"Do you come here often?" he asked, as he offered her his hand.
"Yes, pretty often. I like it, because mother died here, and sometimes I feel as if she would make it known to me here who she was. I talk to her and ask her to tell me, but she never has. Oh, don't you wish she would?"
Frank shuddered involuntarily, for to have Jerry told who she really was, was the last thing he could desire, but as a criminal is said always to talk about the crime he has committed and is hiding, so Frank, when with Jerry, felt impelled to talk with her of the past and what she could remember of it. Seating himself upon the bench with her at his side, he said:
"And you really believe the woman found here was your mother?"
"Why, yes. Don't you? Who was my mother, if she wasn't?" and Jerry's eyes opened wide as they looked at him.
"I don't know, I am sure. Does my brother talk of Gretchen now?" was the abrupt reply.
"Yes, at times," Jerry answered; "and yesterday, after I sang him a little German song, which he taught me, he had them pretty bad—the bees in his head, I mean; that is what he calls it when things are mixed; and he says he is going to write to her, or her friends."
"Write to her! I thought he had given that up. I thought he——Did he say, 'Write to her friends?'" Frank gasped, as he felt himself grow cold and sick with this threatened danger.
Arthur had seemed so quiet and happy with Jerry, and had said so little of Gretchen, that Frank had grown quite easy in his mind, and the black shadow of fear did not trouble him as much as formerly. But now it was over him again, and grew in intensity as he questioned the child.
"Have you ever tried to find out who Gretchen is?" he asked, at last.
"No," she replied, "but I guess she is his wife."
"Yes," Frank said, falteringly, "his wife; and where do you think she lived?"
"Oh, I know that. In Wiesbaden. He told me so once, and it seems as if I had been there, too, when he talked about it, and I hear the music and see the flowers, and a white-faced woman is with me, not at all like mother, who, they say, was ugly and dark; black as anigger, Tom told me once, when he was mad. Was she black?"
Mr. Tracy made no reply to this, but said, suddenly:
"Jerry, do you like me well enough to do me a great favor?"
"Why, yes, I guess I do. I like you very much, though not as well as I do Harold and Mr. Arthur. What do you want?" was Jerry's answer.
After hesitating a moment, Mr. Tracy began.
"There are certain reasons why I ought to know if my brother writes to Gretchen, or her friends, or any one in Germany, especially Wiesbaden. A letter of that kind might do me a great deal of harm; if he should write to any one in Germany, you would, perhaps, be asked to post the letter, as he never goes to town?"
He said this interrogatively, and Jerry answered him, promptly:
"I think he would give it to me, as I post nearly all his letters."
"Yes, well; Jerry, can you keep a secret, and never tell any one what I am saying to you?" was Frank's next remark, to which Jerry responded:
"I think I should tell Harold, and, perhaps, Mr. Arthur."
"No, no, Jerry, never!" and Frank laid his hand half menacingly upon the little girl's shoulder. "I have been kind to you, have paid for your board to Mrs. Crawford ever since you have been there"—
He felt how mean it was to say this, and did not at all resent Jerry's quick reply:
"Yes, but Mrs. Peterkin says you do not pay enough."
"Perhaps not," he continued; "but if Mrs. Crawford is satisfied, it matters little what Mrs. Peterkin thinks. Jerry, youmustdo this for me," he went on rapidly, as his fears kept growing. "You must never tell any one of our conversation, and if my brother writes that letter soon, or at any time, you must bring it to me. Will you do it? Great harm would come if it were sent—harm to me, and harm to Maude, and"—
"To Maude!" Jerry repeated. "I would do anything for Maude. Yes, I will bring the letter to you if he writes one. You are sure it would be right for me to do so?"
Frank had touched the right chord when he mentioned his daughter's name, for during the years of close companionship the two little girls had learned to love each other devotedly, though naturally Jerry's was the stronger and less selfish attachment of the two. To her Maude was a queen who had a right to tyrannize over and command her if she pleased; and as the tyranny was never very severe, and was usually followed by some generous act of contrition, she did not mind it at all, and was always ready to make up and be friends whenever it suited the capricious little lady.
"Yes, I will do it for Maude," she said again; but there was a troubled look on her face, and a feeling in her heart as if, in some way, she was false to Arthur in thus consenting to his brother's wishes.
But, she reflected, Arthur was crazy, so people said, and she herself knew better than any one else of his many fanciful vagaries, which, at times, took the form of actual insanity. For weeks he would seem perfectly rational, and then suddenly his mood would change, and he would talk strange things to himself and the child, who was now so necessary to him, and who alone had a soothing influence over him. Only the day before, he had been unusually excited, after listening to a simple air which he had taught her, and which, at his request, she sang to him after Maude had gone out and left them alone.
"I could swear you were Gretchen, singing to me in the twilight, and across the meadow comes the tinkle of the bells where the cows and goats are feeding," he said to her, as he paced up and down the room.
Then, stopping suddenly, he went up to her, and pushing her hair from her forehead, looked long and earnestly into her face.
"Cherry," he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, "youaresome like Gretchen as she must have been when of your age. Oh, if you only were hers and mine! But there was no child; and yet—and yet—"
He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment, and then, going to a drawer in his writing-desk which Jerry had never seen open before, he took out a worn, yellow letter, and ran his eye rapidly over it until he found a certain paragraph, which he bade Jerry read.
The paragraph was as follows:
"I have something to tell you when you come, which I am sure will make you as glad as I am."
Jerry read it aloud slowly, for the handwriting was cramped and irregular, and then looked up questioningly to Arthur, who said to her:
"What do you think she meant by the something which would make me glad as she was?"
"I don't know," Jerry answered him. "Who wrote it? Gretchen?"
"Yes, Gretchen. It is her last letter to me, and I never went back to see what she meant, for the bees were bad in my head and I forgot everything, even Gretchen herself. Poor little Gretchen! What was the idea which came to me like a flash of lightning, in regard to this letter, when I heard you sing? It is gone, and I cannot recall it."
There was a worried, anxious look on his face as he put the letter away, and went on talking to himself of Gretchen, saying he was going to write her again, or her friends, and find out what she meant.
The next day Jerry met Frank in the Tramp House, as we have described, and gave him the promise to bring him any letter directed to Germany which Arthur might entrust to her. But the promise weighed heavily upon her as she walked slowly on toward the field where Harold was at work, and where she found him resting for a moment under the shadow of a wide-spreading butternut. He looked tired and pale, and there was an expression on his face which Jerry did not understand.
Harold was not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and hopeful, it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency, or repining at his humble lot, so different from that of the boys of his own age, with whom he came in daily contact, both at school and in the town.
Dick St. Claire, his most intimate friend, always treated him as if he were fully his equal, and often stood between him and the remarks which boys make thoughtlessly, and which, while they mean so little, wound to the quick such sensitive natures as Harold's. But not even Dick St. Claire could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew more and more supercillious and unbearable, pluming himself upon his position as a Tracy of Tracy Park, and the wealth he was to inherit from his Uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover, where he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe. Between the two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition, for young Raymond represented all that was noble and true, and though proud of his State and proud of his name, he never assumed the slightest superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors. He was Tom's room-mate, and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted in Fred's accepting the invitation to Tracy Park. If anything had been wanting to complete Tom's estimate of his own importance this visit of the Kentuckian would have done it. All his former friends were cut except Dick St. Claire, while Harold was as much ignored as if he had never existed. Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as a look, but passed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he might chance to meet. All through the summer days, while Harold was working until every bone in his body ached, Tom and his friend were enjoying themselves in hunting, fishing, driving, or rowing, or lounging under the trees in the shady lawns.
That afternoon, when Jerry joined him in the hayfield, Tom and the Kentuckian had passed him in their fanciful hunting-suits, with their dogs and guns, but though Harold was within a few yards of them, Tom affected not to see him, and kept his head turned the other way, as if intent upon some object in the distance.
Leaning upon his rake, Harold watched them out of sight, with a choking sensation in his throat, as he wondered if it would always be thus with him, and if the day would never come when he, too, could know what leisure meant, with no thought for the morrow's bread.
"I am Tom's superior in everything but money, and yet he treats me like a dog," he said, as he seated himself upon the grass, where he sat fanning himself with his straw hat.
When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once, for in all the world there was nothing half so sweet and lovely to him as the little blue-eyed girl who sat down beside him, and, nestling close to him, laid her curly head upon his arm.
"I've come to help you rake the hay," she said, "for grandma told me you had a headache at noon, and could'nt eat your huckleberry pie. I am awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it will make me sick."
But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and was glad that she ate it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the park house and of Arthur, asking if the bees were often in his head now, or had she driven them out.
"No, I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday," Jerry replied. "He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was. Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don't you think so?"
Harold hesitated a moment, and then replied:
"I don't know, but it seems to me I love you as much as one could ever love another."
"Phoo! Of course you do; but that's boy love; that isn't like when you are old enough to have a beau!" and Jerry laughed merrily, as she sprang up, and, taking Harold's rake, began to toss the hay about rapidly, bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place.
Harold was very tired, and his head was aching badly, so for a time he sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child, who, it seemed to him, was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls. This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much.
"What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy does?" he said to himself, as he watched her raking up the hay faster, and quite as well as he could have done himself. "I believe I should die."
It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's thoughts, but once, as she passed near him, she dropped her rake, and going up to him, wiped his forehead with her apron, and, kissing him fondly, said to him:
"Poor, tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to vomit! Do you?"
"No, Jerry," Harold answered, laughingly. "I am not as bad as that. I was only wishing that I were rich and could give you and grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like it?"
"First-rate, if you were there," Jerry replied; "but if you were not I shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you; because, you know I am your little girl, the one you found in the carpet-bag, and I love you more than all the world, and will love and stand by you forever and ever, amen!"
She said the last so abruptly, and it sounded so oddly, that Harold burst into a laugh, and taking up the rake she had dropped, began his work again, declaring that the headache was gone, and that he was a great deal better.
MRS. TRACY'S DIAMONDS.
MRS. TRACY was going to have a party—not a general one, like that which she gave when our readers first knew her, and Harold Hastings stood at the head of the stairs and bade "the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that." Since she had become a leader of fashion, she had ignored general parties and limited her invitations to a select few, which, on this occasion, numbered about sixty or seventy. But the entertainment was prepared as elaborately as if hundreds had been expected, and the hostesswas radiant in satin, and lace, and diamonds, as she received her guests and did the honors of the occasion.
The September night was soft and warm, and the grounds were lighted up, while quite a crowd collected near the house to hear the music and watch the proceedings.
Mrs. Tracy would have liked to have Jerry in the upper hall, where Harold had once stood.
"It would help to keep the child in her place," she thought.
But her husband promptly vetoed the proposition, saying that when Jerry Crawford came to the park house to an entertainment it would be as a guest, and not as a waiter. So a colored boy stood in the upper hall, and a colored boy stood in the lower hall, and there were colored waiters everywhere, and Dolly had never been happier or prouder in her life; for Governor Markham and his wife, from Iowa, were there, and a judge's wife from Springfield—all guests of Grace Atherton, and, in consequence, hidden to the party.
Another remarkable feature of the evening was the presence of Arthur in the parlors. He had known both Governor Markham and his wife, Ethelyn Grant, and had been present at their wedding, and it was mostly on their account that he had consented to join in the festivities. Jerry, it is true, had done a great deal toward persuading him to go down, repeating, in her own peculiar way, what she had heard people say with regard to his seclusion from society.
"You just make a hermit of yourself," she said, "cooped up here all the time. I don't wonder folks say you are crazy. It is enough to make anybody crazy, to stay in one or two rooms and see nobody but Charles and me. Just dress yourself in your best clothes and go down and be somebody, and don't talk of Gretchen all the time! I am tired of it, and so is everybody. Give her a rest for one evening, and show the people how nice you can be if you only have a mind to."
Jerry delivered this speech with her hands on her hips, and with all the air of a woman of fifty; while Arthur laughed immoderately, and promised her to do his best not to disgrace her.
Jerry's anxiety was something like that of a mother for a child whose ability she doubts; and, after her supper was over, she took her way to the park house to see that Arthur was dressed properly for the occasion.
"It would be like him to go without his neck-tie and wear his every-day boots," she thought.
But she found him as faultlessly gotten up as he well could be in his old-fashioned evening dress, which sat rather loosely upon him, for he had grown thinner with each succeeding year.
Jerry thought him splendid, and watched him admiringly as he left the room and started for the parlors, with her last injunction ringing in his ears:
"Not a word out of your head about Gretchen, but try and act as if you were not crazy."
"I'll do it, Cherry. Don't you worry," he said to her, with a little reassuring nod, as he descended the stairs.
And he kept his promise well. There was no word out of his head about Gretchen, and no one ignorant of the fact would ever have suspected that his mind was unsettled as he moved among the guests, talking to one and another with that pleasant, courtly manner so natural to him. A very close observer, however, might have seen his eyes dilate and even flash with some sudden emotion when his brother's wife passed him and her brilliant diamonds sparkled in the bright gas-light. The setting was rather peculiar, but Mrs. Tracy liked it for the peculiarity, and had never had it changed. She was very proud of her diamonds, they were so large and clear, and she had the satisfaction of knowing that there were no finer, if as fine, in town. She seemed to know, too, just in what light to place herself in order to show them to the best advantage, and at times the gleams of fire from them were wonderful, and once Arthur put his hand before his eyes as she passed him, and muttering something to himself moved quickly to another part of the room. This was late in the evening, and soon after he excused himself to those around him, saying it was not often that he dissipated like this, and as he was growing tired he must say good-night.
The next morning Charles found him looking very pale and worn, with a bad pain in his head. He had not slept at all, he said, and would have his coffee in bed, afterwhich Charles was to leave him alone and not come back until he rang for him, as he might possibly fall asleep.
It was very late that morning when the family breakfasted, and as they lingered around the table, discussing the events of the previous night, it was after eleven o'clock when at last Mrs. Tracy went up to her room.
As she ascended the stairs, she caught a glimpse of Harold disappearing through a door at the lower end of the hall, evidently with the intention of going down the back stairway and making his exit from the house by the rear door, rather than the front. Mrs. Tracy knew that he was sometimes sent by his grandmother on some errand to Arthur, and giving no further thought to the matter went on to her own room, which her maid had put in order. All the paraphernalia of last night's toilet was put away, diamonds and all. Contrary to her usual custom, for she was very careful of her diamonds, and very much afraid they would be stolen, she had left them in the box on her dressing bureau. But they were not there now. Sarah, who knew where she kept them, had put them away, of course, and she gave them no more thought until three days later, when she received an invitation to a lunch party at Brier Hill.
"I shall wear my dark blue satin and diamonds," she said to her maid, who was dressing her hair, but the diamonds, when looked for, were not in their usual place.
Sarah had not put them away, nor in fact had she seen them at all, for they were not upon the bureau when she went to arrange her mistress' room the morning after the party. The diamonds were gone, nor could any amount of searching bring them to light, and Mrs. Tracy grew cold, and sick, and faint, and finally broke down in a fit of crying, as she explained to her husband that her beautiful diamonds were stolen. She called it that, now, and the whole household was roused and questioned as to when and where each had last seen the missing jewels. But no one had seen them since they were in the lady's ears, and she knew she had left them upon her bureau when she went down to breakfast. She was positive of that. No one had been in the room, or that part of the house, except Tom, Fred Raymond, Charles, and Sarah. Of these the first two were not to be thought of for a moment, while the last twohad been in the family for years, and were above suspicion. Clearly, then, it was some one from outside, who had watched his or her opportunity and come in.
"Had any one been seen about the house at that hour?" Frank asked, and Charles remembered having met Harold Hastings coming out of the rear door; "but," he added, "I would sooner suspect myself than him."
And this was the verdict of all except Mrs. Tracy, who now recalled the fact that she, too, had seen Harold "sneaking through the door as if he did not wish to be seen."
That was the way she expressed herself, and her manner had in it more meaning even than her words.
"What was Harold doing in the house? What was his errand? Does any one know?" she asked, but no one volunteered any information until Charles suggested that he probably came on some errand to Mr. Arthur; he would inquire, he said, and he went at once to his master's room.
Arthur was sitting by his writing desk, busy with a letter, and did not turn his head when Charles asked if he remembered whether Harold Hastings had been to his room the morning after the party.
"No, I have not seen him for more than a week," was the reply.
"But he must have been here that morning," Charles continued. "Try and think."
"I tell you no one was here. I am not quite demented yet. Now go. Don't you see you are interrupting me?" was Arthur's rather savage response, and without having gained any satisfactory information, Charles returned to the group anxiously awaiting him.
"Well?" was Mrs. Tracy's sharp interrogatory, to which Charles responded:
"He does not remember what happened that morning; but that is not strange. He was very tired and unusually excited after the party, and when he is that way he does not remember anything. Harold might have been there a dozen times and he would forget it."
"Bring the boy, then. He will know what he was doing here," was Mrs. Tracy's next peremptory remark, and her husband said to her, reproachfully:
"Surely you do not intend to charge him with the theft?"
"I charge no one with the theft until it is proven against him; but I must see the boy and know what he was doing here. I never liked this free running in and out by those people in the lane. I always knew something would come of it," Mrs. Tracy said, and Charles was dispatched for Harold.
He found him mowing the lawn for a gentleman whose premises joined Tracy Park, and without any explanation told him that he was wanted immediately at the park house.
"But it is noon," Harold said, glancing up at the sun. "And there is Jerry coming to call me to dinner."
"Better come at once. Jerry can go with you, if she likes," Charles said, feeling intuitively that in the little girl Harold would find a champion.
Harold left his lawn mower, and explaining to Jerry that he had been summoned to the park house, whither she could accompany him if she chose, he started with her and Charles, whom he questioned as to what was wanted with him.
"Were you in the park house the morning after the party? That would be Tuesday," Charles asked.
"Yes, I went to see Mr. Arthur Tracy, but could get no answer to my knock," Harold promptly replied, while his face flushed scarlet, and he seemed annoyed at something.
He could not explain to Charles his motive in going to see Arthur, as, now that the first burst of indignation was over, he felt half ashamed of it himself. On the afternoon of the day of the party he had been at Grassy Spring, helping Mrs. St. Claire with her flowers, and after his work was done he had gone with Dick into the billiard-room, where they found Tom Tracy and his friend, young Raymond. They had come over for a game, and the four boys were soon busily engaged in the contest. Harold, who had often played with Dick, and was something of an expert, proved himself the most skillful of them all, greatly to the chagrin of Tom, who had not recognized him even by a nod. Dick, on the contrary, had introduced him to Fred Raymond with as much ceremony as if he had been theGovernor's son, instead of the boy who sometimes worked in his mother's flower garden. And the Kentuckian had taken him by the hand and greeted him cordially, with a familiar:
"How d'ye, Hastings? Glad to make your acquaintance."
There was nothing snobbish about Fred Raymond, whose every instinct was gentlemanly and kind, and Harold felt at ease with him at once, and all through the game appeared at his best, and quite as well bred as either of his companions.
When the play was over Dick excused himself a moment, as he wished to speak with his father, who was about driving to town. As he staid away longer than he had intended doing, Tom grew restless and angry, too, that Fred should treat Harold Hastings as an equal, for the two had at once entered into conversation, comparing notes with regard to their standing in school, and discussing the merits of Cicero and Virgil, the latter of which Harold had just commenced.
"We can't wait here all day for Dick," Tom said. "Let us go out and look at the pictures."
So they went down the stairs to a long hall, in which many pictures were hanging—some family portraits and others copies of the old masters which Mr. St. Claire had brought from abroad. Near one of the portraits Fred lingered a long time, commenting upon its beauty, and the resemblance he saw in it to little Nina St. Claire, the daughter of the house, and whose aunt the original had been. The portrait was not far from the stairway which led to the billiard-room, and Harold, who had remained behind, and was listlessly knocking the balls, could not help hearing all that was said:
"By the way, who is that Hastings? I don't think I have seen him before; he is a right clever chap," Fred Raymond said, and Tom replied, in that sneering, contemptuous tone which Harold knew so well, and which always made his blood boil and his fingers tingle with a desire to knock the speaker down:
"Oh, that's Hal Hastings, a poor boy, who does chores for us and the St. Claires. His grandmother used to workat the park house, and so Uncle Arthur pays for his schooling, and Hal allows it, which I think right small in him. I wouldn't be a charity student, anyway, if I never knew anything. Besides that, what's the use of education to chaps like him. Better stay as he was born. I don't believe in educating the masses, do you?"
Of himself, Tom could never have thought of all this, but he had heard it from his mother, who frequently used the expression "not to elevate the masses," forgetting that she was once herself a part of the mass which she would not have elevated.
Just what Fred said in reply Harold did not hear. There was a ringing in his ears, and he felt as if every drop of blood in his body was rushing to his head as he sat down, smarting cruelly under the wound he had received. He had more than once been taunted with his poverty and dependence upon Mr. Tracy, but the taunts had never hurt him so before, and he could have cried out in his pain as he thought of Tom's words, and knew that in himself there was the making of a far nobler manhood than Tom Tracy would ever know.
Was poverty, which one could not help, so terrible a disgrace, an insuperable barrier to elevation, and was it mean and small in him to accept his education from a man on whom he had no claim? Possibly; and if so, the state of things should not continue. He would go to Arthur Tracy, thank him for all he had done, and tell him he could receive no more from him; that if he had an education, he must get it himself by the work of his own hands, and thus be beholden to no one.
Full of this resolution, he went down the stairs and out into the open air, which cooled his hot head a little, though it was still throbbing terribly as he went through the leafy woods toward home.
In the lane he saw Jerry coming toward him, with her sun-bonnet hanging down her back. The moment she saw him she knew something was the matter, and, hastening her steps to a run, asked him what had happened, and why he looked so white and angry.
Harold was sure of sympathy from Jerry, and he told her his story, which roused her to a high pitch of indignation.
"The miserable, nasty, sneaking Tom!" she said, stopping short and emphasizing each adjective with a stamp of her foot, as if she were trampling upon the offending Tom. "I wish I had heard him. I'd have scratched his eyes out; talking of you as if you were dirt! I hate him, and I told him so the other day, and spit at him when he tried to kiss me!"
"Kiss you! Tom Tracy kiss you!" Harold exclaimed, forgetting his own grief in this insult to Jerry; for it seemed to him little less than profanity for lips like Tom Tracy's to touch his little Jerry.
"No he didn't, but he tried, right before that boy from Kentucky; but I wriggled away from him, and bit him, too, and he called me a cat, and said he guessed I wouldn't mind ifyouor Dick St. Claire tried to kiss me, and I shouldn't; but I'll fighthimand Bill Peterkin every time. I wonder why all the boys want to kiss me so much!"
"I expect it is because you have just the sweetest mouth in the world," Harold said, stooping down and kissing the lips which seemed made for that use alone.
This little episode had helped somewhat to quiet Harold's state of mind, but did not change his resolve to speak to Mr. Tracy, and tell him that he could not receive any more favors from his hands. He would, however, wait until the morrow, as Jerry bade him do.
"You will worry him so that he will be crazier than a loon at the party," she said, and so Harold waited, but started for the park the next morning as soon as he thought Mr. Tracy would see him.
He had rung at the door of the rear hall, but as no one heard him he ventured in, as he had sometimes done before, when sent for Jerry if it rained, and ascending the stairs to the upper hall, knocked two or three times at Arthur's door, first gently, and then louder as there came no response.
"He cannot be there, and I must come again," he thought, as he retraced his steps, reaching the door at the lower end of the hall just as Mrs. Tracy came up the broad staircase, on her way to her room.
As that day wore on, and the next, and the next, Harold began to care less for Tom's insult, and to think that possibly he had been hasty in his determination to decline Arthur's assistance, especially as he meant to pay back everydollar when he was a man. He would at all events wait a little, he thought, and so had made no further effort to see Mr. Tracy, when Charles found him, and told him he was wanted at the park house.