CHAPTER XIV.
Forsome days after this affair, the “pickles” remained quietly in their “jar,” as Octave laughingly called the great house, wherein they were all gathered at nightfall, no matter how widely they scattered themselves by day.
Content had a fine camera, and considerable skill in using it; so that on all possible occasions she was away over the mountains, taking “views” of this or that place, which her father had described to her as being dear to him in his boyhood. Bulky letters were regularly sent to Osaka, and in each there was some new glimpse of familiar scenes, which the missionary welcomed eagerly.
But this delightful occupation, as well as Paula’s “art” work, Christina’s lessons, and Melville’s “experiments,” were discontinued while the child who was the “life of the house” remained drooping, and showing any effects of his accident.
Octave had nearly recovered the use of her nimble feet, and had, long before the doctor advised it, begun to use the broken arm. The one thing which was impossible to the active girl was quiet; and one morning she announced to the physician that her arm was “mended better than the original,” and that she was going to “help Melville do up some beetles.”
Christina was at that very hour assisting Rosetta to “do up” gooseberries; and the difference in the choice of occupations showed perfectly the difference in the sisters.
Doctor Winslow smiled. He had congratulated himself upon having kept his uneasy charge still as long as he had; and, indeed, he would have found this far more difficult had not the condition of Fritz engrossed all their thoughts. However, that very morning the little fellow had come down to breakfast with the rest, and insisted upon it that “Paula should stop making believe he was sick when he wasn’t no such thing, so there; and he was going out to have a tussle with Don.”
“’Twon’t hurt him a mite,” remarked Rosetta,when Christina had reported Fritzy’s daring proposal to her. “Thar ain’t ben nothin’ the matter with him, anyhow, ’cept his losin’ his senses. I’ve ben a thinkin’ this couple o’ days ’at ye’d all make the child sick with your cossetin’ him an’ feedin’ him trash. Let him try the donkey; he won’t get fur, ner overheat hisself a-ridin’.”
So Fritz marched boldly up to the aged burro, and essayed to saddle him. All offers of aid in this matter had been haughtily rejected, and nothing could so easily have convinced them all that their darling was quite himself again as his amusing little swagger.
“Pooh! Must think I’m nobody! Here I have been a-drivin’ that mare of mine away down the mountain, and back; an’ you folks think I can’t saddle a silly old donk! Pooh! I’ll show you!”
The show that he did afford them was certainly a funny one, though not of the kind the little lad himself intended.
From his lonely room, Melville heard the fun, and distinctly recognized the voice of his smallcousin. The sound of it in happy activity again was sweet to his ears, for he had never ceased to regret his unintentional injury of the child. Octave had noticed this change more than any of the others, and wondered at first what “had come over Melville to be so like other folks”; and, being of a nature opposed to secrecy, had promptly asked him.
“Well, I tell you, Octave; I had a big scare. What if—no matter, he’s all right again, you say; and one thing I mean to do: I mean to think more about other people and less about myself.”
He had said this shamefacedly, as if he did not feel sure of himself, but did feel sure of her ridicule.
It came swiftly on the heels of his confession.
“That’s all nonsense, Melville Capers. ‘You are no saint, and you needn’t pose for one.’ You have worried everybody about you ever since you were born, and you will go on worrying somebody to the end. I don’t take any stock in your talk. You’re a little scared over what you’ve done; but soon as Fritzy is all right again you’ll be just as disagreeable as ever.”
“You’re a hateful girl!”
“There! I told you so! Don’t, for goodness’ sake,—yes, for goodness’ real sake,—don’t ever tell anybody that you mean to be ‘unselfish.’ He or she won’t believe you, to begin with; and if they suspect your intention they will watch you to see the miracle. Talk is the most inexpensive thing in the world. I used to tell how good I would be, and then Paula would fix her big eyes on me and stare, every time I did any mean little thing. Even Fritzy Nunky would put me all out by taking me at my word. He’d look so surprised when I wasn’t a saint right away quick. Then I’d get mad, and the last state of that girl was worse than the first. If Content heard me quote that, she’d look at me in pious horror; and yet I mean it. No, Melville; take the advice of one who has had experience, don’t lay that sweet unction of ‘going to be’ to your soul. ‘Going to be’ never comes. It’s like the poetry talk about ‘there is no to-morrow.’ And there isn’t.”
“Ancient maiden, what would you recommend?” asked the invalid, his anger disarmedby finding Octave so promptly ready to embark in the same boat of shortcomings with himself.
“The only thing I have ever found amounted to anything was just keeping busy, as busy as busy! If I keep doing something, I don’t have so much time to be bad.”
“Yes, but”—objected the repulsed aspirant after unselfishness.
“Here, I’ll roll your lounge over there by the window. Then you can see the fun. That’ll be better for you than moping over your own ‘goings to be!’”
Octave set to work; but her arm was not so strong as she thought it, and her lame ankle interfered with her freedom of movement. Suddenly she stumbled and sat down on the floor, “with a pretty conside’ble of a bang,” as Rosetta would have said.
“I’m sorry, Octave. Don’t try again. I don’t mind.” The tone was so genuine that the girl opened her eyes which she had closed in a comical grimace of pain.
“Why—why, Melville!”
“Why what?” asked he, testily.
“I believe you mean it!”
“I—but you said something about talk being cheap.”
“Inexpensive, dear. I’m trying to form myself after an approved model, of polysyllables. Paula has really been so faithful to little Fritz that I thought she would be pleased with me if I was correct. She wasn’t, though. When I put on my prettiest airs she looked at me and said,—as only Paula can say things,—‘Octave, don’t be foolish!’ It was a disappointment: but with your example before me I’ll persevere.”
The girl had rattled on in her nonsense talk till the pain in her ankle abated so that she could pull herself up, and make a fresh effort. Another burst of gayety sounded through the window, and, with a final push, she sent Melville’s heavy lounge rolling across the room, to bring up against the wall with a crash.
“I meant to do it, ‘er bust,’ as Abry-ham says. What do you think he calls me now?”
“‘Octavy—why, Octavy!’” promptly replied her cousin.
“Wrong! I am now ‘Hoppity-pat.’ That’swhat I call making sport of one’s infirmities.” The girl perched herself upon the window-ledge and watched the scene out of doors with keen enjoyment, that was enhanced by the thought that her bed-ridden cousin could also witness it.
Early in their acquaintance Fritz had tried cajolery with the ancient burro who lived at his ease on the rich pastures of The Snuggery farm, and had made many attempts to ride him; but the overtures had not been met in a friendly spirit. Then Fritz’s temper had aroused.
“I will ride that homely old thing with a head as big as its body, so there! He looks like grandmother’s old hair-trunk, up in the attic, with sticks for legs.”
But appearances are often deceitful. Don’s look of dejection did not cover a meek or subdued spirit. He opposed his “won’t” to Fritzy’s “will” with a persistence that was discouraging. On the boy’s part, however, fresh attempts were as persistently made; and on this occasion seemed to promise success.
Fritz had achieved a mount. He sat with fat little legs extending at right angles from theburro’s sides, trembling, but flushed with victory.
Suddenly, Don raised his hind quarters.
Fritz would have gone over the animal’s head but for the firm hold he had of his neck.
Don tried sitting down. Fritz stood up, but still astride of the donkey, and still holding on with all his might.
Then the quadruped turned his head and—so Fritz ever afterward believed—actually winked at his determined rider; immediately rising on all fours and setting off on a trot such as his venerable limbs had not attempted for years.
Around and around the grass plot he raced, till all at once he appeared to collapse; then he sunk down on the ground, rolled over on his side, and uttered a pathetic bray, as if his last hour had come.
“I did! I did! I did ride the old thing!” exulted the excited conqueror, and sped away to boast of his achievement to Abraham.
After this amusing conclusion of the set-to between her little brother and his victim, Octave’s laughter was checked by an unmistakable sigh from the boy beside her. She looked quickly around.
“Why, Melville! What is it?”
“To think that I can never do anything that any one else can!”
“Because you are to do that which nobody else can do.”
Melville looked up eagerly; but almost instantly his eye fell again, and, with the gloom of hopelessness, upon the group without.
“Yes, it is so. I know it. I have thought a way out,” said Octave, answering his depressed look. “I came in here to make you promise that you would try it.”
“I shall never try any more experiments after that experience.”
“Not with babies, of course. With a man of science you would.”
“How am I to meet a man of science, here on Deer Hill Mountain, and I a—cripple?” demanded the other, bitterly.
“Two ways are open: one, the poorest, by correspondence; the other I can help you to if you will trust me.”
“You?” said Melville; and, in his sincere liking for Octave, he tried not say it contemptuously.
“Yes—I, young lord of creation; you think I don’t know anything, don’t you? Well, I don’t, much, and it doesn’t matter, as long as I know enough to answer your purpose, and besides have the tremendous honor to be your—cousin! However, I can yet do things to further your ideas. If I bring you this man of science will you talk with him, or will you be cantankerous? Mind you, I don’t do it just for you—but for the good of the world at large. I’m a philanthropist, in general. I always felt that I was ‘cut out’ for something unusual; but I didn’t dream it was to be scientific till I became your assistant. Say, will you?”
“You don’t know any man of science; and—he would laugh at my ‘cheek.’”
“All right. I’ve always sighed for adventure, and now I shall have it. I feel like a conspirator—and it’s a perfectly exquisite sensation. Hurrah!”
“Octave Pickel! Are you crazy?”
“No. To prove it I will make you promise me something. I—I had a letter from Fritzy Nunky to-day.”
The lad’s face changed color. Then he asked:
“Well, what did he say?”
“He is in constant correspondence with the doctor; and that gentleman hopes to see you within a month.”
Octave’s voice, saying this, was very distinct and firm. It was what she had really come into the room to say, but after it was spoken she trembled.
Melville lay with his dark eyes fixed on hers as if he could scarcely credit his own ears. He was terrified, and yet glad; he depended upon her to stand by him, and yet he almost hated her for what she had done. All this Octave read with that keen intuition of hers, and if her face flushed a little her steadfast gaze did not cease to encourage him. “O Octave, have you really done it?”
“Really, Melville. The great doctor, the great healer, is surely coming.”
“I—I cannot bear it!” Melville hid his face in his hands and a shudder passed over his thin frame.
A feeling of contempt for his weakness rose inthe girl’s breast, but was quickly stifled. She forced herself to think of all he had endured, and that he had never known the happiness of activity. She, herself, could bear anything, any amount of torture, to be restored to health, were she in his stead; but Melville had suffered so much! It was a sign that her own womanly nature was developing in the right direction that she did remember all this, and that her next words should have been as wise.
“You can bear it bravely. I know you are no coward. Besides, it will not be suffering to you, but success. Think, Melville; you said the other day that you wished for nothing so much as fame. Well, then, if you are true to yourself in this, all the world will talk of you with wonder and gratitude. Listen—this is my plan.” The girl pitched her voice too low for any possible overhearing; but what she said produced a marvellous effect upon her cousin.
“Oh, if it could be true! But it is too grand, too wonderful!”
“You won’t be ashamed of poor ‘Hoppity-pat,’ then, will you?” asked Octave, a bit wistfully.
“It is nonsense. It will prove to be good for nothing.”
“Come, you doubter. It’s about as hard to pull you up the hill of faith as—I don’t know what! Didn’t our last experiment work ‘as slick as grease?’à laAbry-ham. Do you suppose I’d have handled all those frogs and hop-toads, and nasty, slimy other things, if after the first time I hadn’t had supreme faith in the—unnameable?”
Melville began to catch her enthusiasm. “Octave, if—if—it should be true, wouldn’t it be glorious?”
“Wouldn’t it? The best of it is that I feel it is. ‘It’s borne in on me,’ as Rosetta said when she forgot to put any sugar in the jam, and it wouldn’t jam. Say, Melville, let’s just hurrah!”
“I can’t hurrah, yet. But, Octave, you’re smart! It doesn’t seem as if you could be a girl, you think of things so.”
“So grandma said, when I rode the kicking horse, bareback, and forgot to mend my stockings. Which wasn’t ‘thinking of things so,’ it seems to me. But, remember, if I am so bright, I shall expect my reward—”
“‘To the half of my kingdom!’” interrupted Melville.
“Humph! Worse than that: you are not to tell a single soul, till the whole thing is settled. I’d like to be of some importance, for once in my life.”
“All right. I’ll not breathe a single syllable.”
“Even if I do something you cannot understand?”
“Even so.”
“Good enough! Isn’t it delightful to be—conspirators?”
“I don’t kn-ow,” said the lad, doubtfully.
“Pshaw! I just believe you’d like to let the cat out of the bag now!”
“What difference would it make, any way? If I say I’ll do it, I will. I won’t back out.”
“It makes all the difference in the world to me. For once I’m in a Mystery! Right in the very heart of it, spelled with a capital M! Generally I’m ‘only Octave’; now I’m somebody. I have sighed all my life long for a romance or something out of the common; now I’ve attained it. Don’t balk me of my sweet revenge. Thinkof Paula Pickel’s face when she hears that ‘only Octave,’ was the very identical damsel that went—but no matter! Remember that without me there is no ‘man of science.’”
Melville did remember; and “wild goosey” as the whole affair did appear, even to him, he was so thoroughly in earnest, now, about it, and so uplifted by Octave’s adventurous spirit, that he readily maintained the silence she required.
When, that night, at locking-up-time, Octave had not appeared, and Paula went to the room the sisters shared in common, hoping to find the wild-cap safe in bed, although the sheets had been turned down and then shaken, as if the well-grown lassie could by any possibility be hiding within them, there was great consternation in the household.
“She is always up to pranks, but she does not generally treat us unkindly,” said the aggrieved elder girl, feeling somehow that the house was not a “Snuggery” without the sharpest of the “pickles.”
“Oh, here is a note!” cried little Christina; who sometimes read a love-story surreptitiously,and was akin to Octave in her desire for a “romance.” “I’ve heard Octave say lots of times that sometime she’d run away, and now I do believe she’s done it! Read it, quick! I found it on her pincushion. That’s the very place run-awayers always put notes.”
“Pray, small one, how do you know that?” demanded Content, demurely. “I believe you’ve been reading Luke’s ‘Story Paper’ again!”
“Well, read it any way,” urged the little girl, in her excitement paying less heed than usual to Content’s gentle reprimand.
This was the note,——
Friends and Relatives, especially Paula:I’ve gone, but not for good. I mean I have gone for good, as you will all know at some future to come. I haven’t gone yet, but I’m going. I shall come to no harm, and you need not worry about me. When I return HE will be with me. That is, I hope HE will. HE will if my persuasions can prevail. I have money enough. Having none of my own,—as you all well know, I spent it for confections,—I have been supplied with funds by the OTHER CONSPIRATOR in the case. I do not know when I shall return, but I shall return; for I am the “bad penny” of the family. Don’t sit up nights, and don’t worry about me. I am all right, and I shall “continner on.” Don’t be silly enough to write to Aunt Ruth, for even she would have no terrorsfor me, since I go to seek HIM. So don’t worry about me. Bother! that’s the third time I have written that perfectly unnecessary sentence, since she who writes is“Only Octave.”P. S. I am in a perfect heaven of delight. I was never a conspirator before, and I was never in a MYSTERY till now. I hope I can hatch up one every few days hereafter, it’s so enchanting. Just think! I, Octave Pickel, am a heroine!Good-bye—farewell—addio!
Friends and Relatives, especially Paula:
I’ve gone, but not for good. I mean I have gone for good, as you will all know at some future to come. I haven’t gone yet, but I’m going. I shall come to no harm, and you need not worry about me. When I return HE will be with me. That is, I hope HE will. HE will if my persuasions can prevail. I have money enough. Having none of my own,—as you all well know, I spent it for confections,—I have been supplied with funds by the OTHER CONSPIRATOR in the case. I do not know when I shall return, but I shall return; for I am the “bad penny” of the family. Don’t sit up nights, and don’t worry about me. I am all right, and I shall “continner on.” Don’t be silly enough to write to Aunt Ruth, for even she would have no terrorsfor me, since I go to seek HIM. So don’t worry about me. Bother! that’s the third time I have written that perfectly unnecessary sentence, since she who writes is
“Only Octave.”
P. S. I am in a perfect heaven of delight. I was never a conspirator before, and I was never in a MYSTERY till now. I hope I can hatch up one every few days hereafter, it’s so enchanting. Just think! I, Octave Pickel, am a heroine!
Good-bye—farewell—addio!
When the note was carried to Melville, and his opinion asked, he burst into the merriest laugh that the astonished household had ever heard from him.
“I believe that you know all about it! You two have been together a great deal of late. If you do, you must tell us. Where is Octave?” cried poor Paula, all in a tremble of fright and eagerness.
But all the answer Melville gave, though he did it with the same unwonted mirthfulness was, “I don’t know.”