Chapter II.
Harry Cornwall ran out from the tent to watch the flight of Frank Hallock, who ran, frightened by the tiger, and as the boy disappeared from sight over the hilltop, Harry determined to try and find time enough that very evening to run up to the big house and tell all he knew about the necklace that somebody had tucked into the pocket of the waistcoat that fell to Jack Flibbit after the great fire. Harry could not persuade himself that two little girls in the land had put two necklaces, with the same mark, into pockets to go “Out West.” Harry’s name was called in a loud tone, and he ran to obey the call at about the same moment that Frank Hallock reached the cornfield and picked up his hoe.
Frank counted the hills and the rows, and scarcely looked up until the sound of the one o’clock train, on the New Haven Railroad, passing through the town, told to him how short the hour had been.
Then Neptune came home. Frank knew that Kate was on the carriage-road that ran past the field, but he would not look up, not even when he heard her cheery call to him; so Neptune and Kate went on their way, and presently the welcome sound of the dinner-horn was heard.
Frank did not throw down his hoe, but fell to work harder than ever. In five minutes’ time the horn was sounded again, and on looking up, Frank beheld Kate standing on the veranda—she was waving her hat to attract his attention. He was inclined to make a martyr of himself just then, so he waved his straw hat in return, and immediately resolved to “hoe away like a major.”
In fifteen minutes more Kate was making her way for the second time that day through Frank’s cornfield. As she drew near, she called out, “Frank! Frank! why in the world don’t you come to dinner? There is a gentleman at table who came to see papa on business, and I ran away after the soup—I couldn’t eat my dinner one bit, without you.”
“You’llhaveto, I reckon,” returned Frank; “a poor fellow, like me, who has to hoe corn all day, can’t stop to eat.”
“O, Frank Hallock!for shame!” cried Kate, putting down her indignant foot without being able to make noise enough about it to disturb an earthworm.
“It’strue,” responded Frank, pitching into the next hill with all his might.
“It isnottrue,” cried Kate; “and if just running off tolookat the circus pass by makes you say such things, I am glad you can’t go to see it.”
“Ofcourseyou are. Iknewyou was, the whole time! It’s just like a girl. Girls always have the best times, and its pretty easy work for them. Nobody ever sendsyouoff on errands in the sun and the coldand storms, and no one ever tellsyounot to sit on the nice chairs and things.”
“Now, Frank!” began Kate, who was not at all inclined to argue with him, “if you will not come in and get your dinner, you may go without it. I must go.”
Frank did not look up from his work, and Kate turned away and left him, feeling that he deserved to go without his dinner. Before she reached the house she began to feel very sorry for him, and by the time dinner was over she was ready to cry, with mingled pity and vexation.
“Poor fellow! he must be so hungry,” she thought, “and he has been hard at work in the hot sun so long. I’ll just go and carry him some dinner.”
Taking her dinner-basket she packed it quite full, and for the third time that day Kate trudged away to that absent brother of hers in the cornfield.
“Can’t stop to eat!” called Frank the instant he perceived what Kate carried. “I’ve got to work right on, night and day, till this is done.”
“O, Frank! do put that hoe down and eat this dinner! See how nice it is! Salmon, strawberries, and things! You never saw such nice strawberries in your life, I know. I saved half of mine for you, I knew you liked them so much.”
Holding forth the luscious berries, Kate pleaded with Frank thus:
“Now, Frank, please, won’t you eat them? Just the berries, if nothing more.”
“I can’t, Kate; ’twould take time.”
“You provoking fellow! I’ve a great mind to eat them myself.”
“Do! I know you want them.”
Kate’s eyes filled with tears. She stood silently during the time that Frank hoed four hills of corn. Then putting the basket down, and taking the dish of berries with its spoon, she followed down the furrow until she came to Frank.
“See!” she said, hiding her dim eyes behind an eager little laugh, “you hoe away, and I will feed you—a spoonful of berries at every hill. Take one now,” holding up her short white arm so that the spoon just touched his dusty lips. Frank caught back his face from contact with the berries. He was determined to be a martyr, and that Kate should have her pleasure marred by pity for him; and yet Frankwasvery hungry. He wanted his dinner as only a healthy, hungry boy can want it.
“Frank, won’t you eat these just to please me?” she said, finally.
“I can’t, Kate. You don’t appreciate a fellow’s situation, or you wouldn’t ask me.”
“I s’pose,” ejaculated Kate, “you appreciateminein bringing you your dinner.”
“I do, Kate.”
“Then eat it.”
“No,” rather faintly, as he caught sight of the tempting salmon, for Kate had taken up the basket.
“Good-bye, then. I’m going.”
“Good-bye. I hope you’ll have a good time at the circus.”
“I sha’n’t, I know; thinking of you here will make me very happy, won’t it?”
“It ought to.”
Kate stood irresolute for a moment, then she went away, leaving Frank’s dinner on the ground. He saw her put the basket down and poise the dish of berries on its top. He kept along the row he was hoeing until he reached the stone wall; then, instead of following it back, his hungry desire for the contents of the basket overcame his desire for martyrdom, and he went back, hoe in hand, to the place where Kate had left it, but no basket could he find.
It was gone.
Kate, growing more and more indignant at her brother’s ingratitude, as she went on her way toward the house, had yielded to the sudden temptation to return and pick it up. Frank had not looked around once, and thus had not seen Kate, nor heard her exclaim as she gathered it in her hands, “The bad, naughty boyshallnot have it at all.” And the “bad, naughty boy” did not get it at all.
As Kate, warm and panting from the haste she had made, reached the end of the field and was going by a bit of hedge, she saw a man sitting on the ground.
He looked to Kate very hungry. At all events she knew he must be very tired, for he was leaning his head against a tree trunk and was fanning himself with a straw hat. His eyes were closed, and as Kate moved along without making much noise, he did not hear a sound until she spoke to him.
“What is the matter with you? Are you sick?” shequestioned. She might quite as well have asked him if he was the man in the moon, for he did not comprehend one word of English. He reached forth his hands for the food she carried, doubtless thinking that Kate was the good angel who had been sent in answer to his great need.
The man had been very ill in a hospital at New Haven. As soon as he could walk a little, he had made his escape, without having strength enough to reach the place where he wished to be. Having seen Mr. Hallock’s house, he hoped to gain it before sitting down to rest, but had not been able to get there.
He devoured Frank’s dinner with such eagerness that Kate began to wonder whether or not he would leave the fork and spoon. She felt quite happy when at last he returned them to the basket, and asked, by signs, if he should carry it to the house for her. She shook her head, and took it from him. After going on a few steps, she turned to look at the man, and her kind heart-of-pity was touched by his sorrow, although she knew nothing of his sad story. Remembering that she had the money in her pocket that her father had given to her that she might go to the circus, she suddenly resolved that she would give it to him, and stay home. “I should not enjoy anything, thinking of poor Frank, anyway,” she thought.
The man had apparently fallen asleep when Kate returned. Her feet made no sound on the turf as she stole back to the spot. His head was against the tree at whose foot he sat; his hat lay upon the ground. Kate dropped the bit of paper currency into it, and went noiselessly away.
Dear Kate Hallock never knew what she did that day. The fifty cents that she gave enabled the poor fellow to be in time to find his sister, who, alone in a land that was new and strange to her, had lost her brother. No wonder that he had made his escape from the hospital, and was trying to get back to the place where he had left her. He was just in time: for she was about to start with a band of strangers for the “Great West,” not knowing what else to do; and she had with her all the money that the brother possessed.
It is so sweet to drop little acts of kindness as we pass along our daily round. They may fall seemingly into the ground, but God knows that not one of them ever fails to do its own bright work somewhere for some one.
Kate Hallock went home with the empty basket, wondering what she should do with herself all the June afternoon. She thought that she would go past the field where Frank was at work and on down the lane leading to the sea. It would be nice and cool down there, and maybe she could dig some clams with her own hands, just enough for Frank’s supper. Kate was quite certain that he would be hungry, so hungry that he would have to eat, by tea time.
When she went to find her mother, that lady was engaged in conversation with the strange gentleman. Kate overheard him say, “You must be extremely sorry to part with this place,” and she did not hear her mother’s reply.
“Part with this place?” thought Kate. “How funny that sounded! What did he mean, I wonder?”
But Kate soon forgot all about it, for the Glenns came for her to go to the circus with them. There were Mr. Glenn, Florence, Will, and Stacey. In vain Kate pleaded that she had used her money for something else. She was carried off in spite of herself, and so lost her pleasant time down by the sea. She went with tears close to her eyes and many a dim look back at the figure of her brother, toiling away in the field.
Mrs. Hallock also watched her boy with many misgivings. She knew the history of Kate’s endeavor, and quite approved of the disposition she had made of the contents of the basket.
Four of the clock came. The strange gentleman had taken his departure for that day. Frank had borne his martyrdom long enough. He could endure the terrible gnawing in his stomach no longer; so he dropped his hoe, and made his way to the house and the kitchen, and asked the cook for “something to eat.” “I’ll have it right here on your table,” he said; “some bread and milk, if you’ve nothing more.”
Frank’s manner and whole appearance was so wonderfully subdued, that the cook was impressed by it to bring forth her best stores for the tired boy.
“What’s the matter, Master Frank? What ails you, that you can’t eat a single morsel?” she cried: for Frank sat before the little dinner, and did not touch it.
“I don’t know,” said Frank; “I—I—can’thalf seeit!” and rising up, poor Frank tried to get from the kitchen to his mother.
The cook followed him, calling out “Mrs. Hallock! Mrs. Hallock! please make haste! It’s Frank!”
Mrs. Hallock met the boy in the hall. He staggered up to her, crying out “I’m so sick!so sick!My head! my head!”
Mrs. Hallock sat beside Frank, bathing his head, and trying her utmost to help him bear the pain and deadly feeling “a sick-headache” brings with it.
During the performance at the circus, the lad, Harry Cornwall, in attempting a difficult feat in riding, fell from his pony.
The sad-faced boy had been recognized by Kate Hallock. The instant he appeared, Kate was interested. She watched each movement he made, and when she saw him fall, she covered her face and uttered a cry of horror. The lad was gathered up by two men. They disappeared with him from the scene, and the performance went on.
After that, Kate could not bear to stay one moment longer. She was wondering where they had carried the hurt boy, and what they were doing for him, and whether or not he had a father, or a brother, there to take thought for him.
This new trouble, added to the vision of Frank at work in the field without any dinner, quite overcame Kate. She asked to go home so earnestly, that Mr. Glenn accompanied her outside of the tent, and then Kate went home alone.
“Hush-sh-sh-sh!” was the first whispered sound that she heard at the entrance door of her home.
“Master Frank’s took awful sick!” said Bridget, “and your mother’s with him, upstairs.”
Kate flew up the stairway, so sorry that she had run back and picked up the basket. She stole into the room, and for a moment could not see any one within it, it had been so carefully darkened.
“Quiet, Kate!” said Mrs. Hallock. “Frank has been working in the sun so long without eating anything, that he has an attack of sick-headache, but he is getting better now.”
“Kate, won’t you fetch a fellow a crust of bread?” asked Frank, throwing the napkin from his forehead.
“Of course I will, Frank. Don’t you want a piece of toast?”
“No! Bring me what I want—a crust—the brownest one you can find.”
Away ran Kate to fulfil his wish, and presently, having returned with it and watched its disappearance from sight, she said: “Something awful happened at the circus this afternoon.”
“What? Did the tiger mew?”
Kate laughed.
“You ridiculous fellow,” she cried. “A boy fell from the pony he was riding, and I guess he was awfully hurt, too, for some men sprang in and carried him off, and—”
“What boy, pray?” asked Frank, taking his head from the pillow and leaning it on his hand.
“How do I know?” cried Kate; “but don’t you remember the little fellow who was clear behind everything this morning?”
“Itwasn’thim, I hope, Kate,” with a catch in hisbreath that made Mrs. Hallock tell him to “lie down and keep still.”
“Yes it was, that very boy.”
“Mother,” spoke up Frank, “that poor fellow hasn’t a friend left in the world. Everybody belonging to him was burned up in the big fire in Michigan, you know. The circus,thiscircus, was going about through the state, and this boy was trying to get somewhere where he could live, when he found it, and has been going about with it ever since.”
“How do you know, Frank?”
Frank had counted the cost before he had spoken. He knew just what it involved to tell the whole truth, but he came out with it bravely, telling the story of the morning spent on the circus grounds, and what he had there learned from Harry Cornwall about himself. “Mother,” he said at the end of his statement, “they take up their tents and go away in the night. Won’t you please send Richard to find out if he is much hurt?”
“It’s just good and sweet and beautiful and everything in you, dear Frank,” said Kate, the instant her mother had gone to send Richard according to the boy’s request, adding, “I’ll forgive you everything naughty you may do all summer, for this, and I’ll love you always,dearly, Frank!”
“Of course you will, Kate. You couldn’t help it, if you tried!”
“Frank, you’ll have to give up the corn now,” said Kate.
“I know it. What of it?”
“Aren’t you awful sorry?”
“Maybe I am.”
“But youwill, you know. Father said it,” added Kate.
“You needn’t keep saying it over to a fellow, to make it worse.”
“I won’t; but I thoughtyouthought papa would let you have it yet.”
“No such thing. I know better!Iwouldn’t if I were in his place. I’d just stick to what I said and I wouldn’t budge an inch,” said Frank.
Then Mrs. Hallock entered the room.
“Did you send him, mother?” questioned Kate, eagerly.
“Yes, and I sent the carriage, too.”
Both children asked what for. Kate with eager, glistening eyes, and Frank, because he didn’t know what else to say.
“I gave Richard orders to fetch him home.”
Kate clapped her hands softly, kissed her mother half a dozen times, and then ran upstairs to the room adjoining Frank’s own, to see with her own eyes that Bridget made it properly ready for the coming boy.
Frank and Kate were greatly disappointed when Richard came back with the carriage. The doctor would not permit Harry Cornwall to be moved.
The next morning Frank was up “bright and early,” and for two hours before it was time for breakfast he worked away with right good will in the field, hoeing corn.
“Poor fellow!” said Mrs. Hallock, looking out fromher dressing-room upon the boy, “I’m afraid Frank thinks that if he works very hard, and finishes the work this week, that you will relent and let him have the corn.”
“No,” said Mr. Hallock; “he can’t think that. He knows better. But it is hard to take away all that he has done; for Frankhasworked well.”
“The best thing that he has done is the telling the truth,” said Frank’s mother, with glistening eyes. “It would have been very easy for Frank to have kept still, and then we need not have known where he spent the morning. I think he ought to know how thankful we feel for his manliness. We must prove it to him in some way.”
Soon after the above conversation, the family met in the breakfast-room. Frank entered bright and glowing, and with a face as happy as though he owned a hundred acres of growing corn.
“Good morning, Frank. How ismy cornthis morning? You know it is mine now,” said Mr. Hallock.
“Yes sir,” said Frank.
“O, papa, papa!” entreated Kate, “when Frank has been so good and everything!”
“O, you beseeching puss!” said her father, “you wish me to give it to you, I dare say.”
“Yes, sir—do; and I’ll give it to Frank right off.”
“Thank you; but Frank would not take it,” said the lad. “Papa’s bargain was square and fair, and I’m bound to stand by it.”
“What made you go and hoe, then, before breakfast?”cried Kate, looking blissfully proud of her bright-faced brother.
“Because I thought I would,” responded Frank.
“Frank,” spoke up Mr. Hallock, “what would you do, were you in my place, with that cornfield?”
“Me? I? O, I would give it to the hurt circusboy, Harry Cornwall.”
“It is Harry Cornwall’s,” said Mr. Hallock.
After breakfast something happened.