All the moving-picture heroines that Phœbe loved were responsible for
her resolve to rescue Manila. The plan seemed an inspiration; and not in
the least degree blameworthy—on the contrary. When had she seen one of
her screen favorites do anything, however startling, that had brought
disaster, or punishment—even displeasure? Quite naturally, therefore,
Phœbe apprehended only success in her venture, happiness for Manila, and
praise for herself.
She thrilled with the excitement of the venture as she set off from the
Blair side-porch. Here was a real heart drama!
As she trotted across the lawn and through the garden, Phœbe made up her
mind as to how she would carry out her design. Once, in a book she had
read, a boy had stealthily attracted the attention of another boy by
throwing pebbles against a window. She determined to throw pebbles
against Manila’s window.
She knew which was the Botts house by beginning at the Shepard residence
and counting three. Manila’s home was of brick, with white trimmings and
green blinds. The window toward Miss Ruth’s was not high from the
ground, and it was just above a recently spaded flower-bed. When Phœbe
reached the fence that skirted the flower-bed, she gathered a handful of
small gravel, tossed it against the window-panes, and then crouched in
the lee of the fence. Her heart was pounding against her middy
blouse—pounding wildly. She was glad of it. In a matter of this kind
that was precisely what a moving-picture heroine’s heart should do!
More small gravel. Then a face appeared at the window—Manila’s face. And
Manila’s pale eyes looked out, and roved inquiringly. But only for a
moment. She had something in her hands—a pair of scissors; also some
paper. She was busy with these.
Phœbe felt disappointment. Manila was not living up to expectations, to
the possibilities of the drama. She should have come flinging against
the glass, glad and thankful of a rescuer. Her face should have been
very wan, and tear-stained. Her hair should have been free about her
shoulders. There should have been a long purple welt across one poor,
pitiful cheek.
Instead, Manila’s hair was braided, but very mussy. It stood up around
her forehead like a fiery fringe. Phœbe was reminded of savage girls
that she had seen at the showing of the Roosevelt South American
pictures.
“St! St!” she hissed. She stood up, but stooped. She was determined that
she, at least, would do _her_ share toward carrying out the whole thing
properly, to make it like a real picture.
Manila saw her, and hoisted the window. “Hullo,” she greeted, with one
eye on the work in her hands. “What’re you doin’ out there?”
“Manila Botts,” cried Phœbe, crossly, “I have come to save you!”
Manila, hanging upon the window-sill, thrust out her under lip
rebelliously. “But I’m cutting paper dolls,” she protested.
“Manila Botts!” scolded Phœbe, with a stamp of her foot. “Uncle Bob
means to take you away from your step-mother, and I’ve come to get you.
Now, are you going to act like this?”
Patiently Manila dropped scissors and paper. Then she disposed herself
sidewise, face down, upon the sill, let one leg drop over it leisurely,
next, another, and slipped quietly to the ground. A moment later Phœbe
drew her through a gap in the fence.
Manila seemed not only indifferent, but even reluctant, about being
rescued. As for gratitude, there was not a trace of it. As the two made
off together along the tradesmen’s dirt road that ran behind the row of
houses, she pointed out now one thing, and now another, in a way that
made Phœbe more irritated than ever.
“But haven’t you been locked up?” Phœbe wanted to know; “and in a room
without a bed?”
“Aw, well,” returned Manila, philosophically, “you betcha I wouldn’t let
Mrs. Botts know I cared.”
When the rear gate leading to the Blair house was reached, Manila began
to hang back. “Wisht I didn’t come,” she declared.
“Wha-a-at?” Phœbe stopped short.
“I’m scairt,” confided Manila.
“Scared nothing!” Phœbe said stoutly, slamming the gate behind them.
“You’re with us now.”
“Mrs. Botts told me, ‘Don’t you budge’.”
“You don’t have to mind her any more. After this you mind just me.”
“She won’t let me.”
“She can’t help herself. Because I’m going to adopt you. You’re going to
be—let me see! I don’t know which, my sister or my daughter.”
Manila halted and pulled back. “Phœbe, she’ll come after me.”
“Don’t you worry. I’ve seen lots worse than her.”
“_Worse’n_ her?” repeated Manila, incredulous.
“In the pictures. And I’ve noticed that the hero or the heroine always
comes out ahead.”
Manila allowed herself to be led across the rear lawn toward the Blair
house, but she was not convinced. “This ain’t no movie,” she reminded.
“It’s better than a movie,” asserted Phœbe, “because it’s
honest-to-goodness true!”
Manila looked back over a shoulder. Her concern was growing fast. “But
what if she seen us run away?”
Phœbe was turning a corner on her way to the library windows. The
library windows were low of sill. At this season of the year they were
wide open. Of course all the outer doors of the house were open, too,—at
least they were not locked. But Phœbe had no intention of entering her
home in any prosaic fashion. No, indeed. Heroines of the screen always
made their exits and entrances romantically. She meant to carry out this
drama in true moving-picture fashion.
She lowered her voice. “Who cares?” she demanded scornfully. “It was all
just perfect. There was the window, and the ladder——”
“Ladder?” challenged Manila.
“Well, what was better, you threw yourself out. You are the prisoner,
Manila, and I’m the heroine.—My, if only somebody could’ve come by with
a kodak!”
They crept along by the wall. Manila was sniffing. Phœbe eyed her
approvingly. This was better—the proper spirit.
“Sh! Sh!” cautioned Phœbe.
They arrived, bent over, under a window. Phœbe slowly straightened and
spied out the ground. The library was empty. Good! She gave a hop,
landed on mid-torso across the sill, gave a wriggle, and stood safely
within. “Now!” she whispered cautiously, putting forth a hand.
Manila was weeping in good earnest. “She told me, ‘Don’t you budge’.”
But she took Phœbe’s hand.
When the two were side by side once more, Phœbe was all tender sympathy.
She felt that Manila was really acting very well. At first the latter
had given the impression that, after all, Mrs. Botts was not so bad as
she had been painted. But of course she was! And this drama was
promising excitement.
Manila sought the nearest chair. “Wa-a-ah,” she wept.
“Poor little girl!” said Phœbe, stroking the red hair. “If only we had
our mothers—both of us. Manila, do you suppose our mothers are together
in Heaven?” Then with a glance at the woebegone figure, “Well, perhaps
not exactly together, but close by. Perhaps my mother is in a mansion
all of precious stones, and your mother—your mother is walking along the
streets of gold.”
Manila cast up one eye, the other being hidden under a damp fist. “How
do y’know?” she asked.
“Uncle John tells me,” condescended Phœbe. “Uncle John’s a clergyman,
and he knows all about Heaven. ‘The twelve gates of the City are twelve
pearls,’ he says. Oh, Manila, if you and I could only go to Heaven to
our mothers!”
Manila stood up. “Where _is_ Heaven?” she asked hopefully, as one who is
of a mind to set off forthwith.
“Where? Well, I don’t know exactly. That’s one thing I forgot to ask
Uncle John.”
Manila’s face fell. And her eyes, roving, lit upon the nearby globe. She
pointed. “Can’t y’ find it on the world?” she suggested.
“On _that_?” cried Phœbe.
“Look for it!”
Phœbe gave Manila’s arm a soothing pat. Then with a shake of the head,
“Poor little girl, don’t you know that Heaven isn’t on the globe? And
I’ve never even seen it in the movies.”
Manila sat down.
“I know what’s inside,” confided Phœbe. “That’s the bad place, where we
go if we kill anybody, and if we tell lies. It’s awful hot there, Uncle
John says, and we burn and burn. Oh, Uncle John knows everything
religious.”
There was something about all this that made Manila’s courage sink, for
once more she fell to weeping.
“Manila!” pleaded Phœbe. “Everybody says that Heaven is—look!” She
pointed ceiling-ward.
“Up in your house?” faltered Manila.
“No! Somewhere in the sky.”
“How do we get there? Airplanes?”
“The minute you die, Manila, you’re an angel, and you grow wings.”
“I don’t wanta die!”
Phœbe put her arms about the shaking figure. “There! There!” she
comforted. “What you need is mothering. _I_ know. It’s what I want when
I feel blue. Manila, I’m going to mother you.”
And then—! Up to now Phœbe had felt that from the standpoint of drama
there had been not a little lacking in this rescue of an imprisoned
stepdaughter. She was to feel this no longer. For the exciting now took
place.
Phœbe never did quite figure out how it happened. But first there was a
quick slamming of doors, and a shrilling of voices—Sophie’s, Grandma’s,
and another, a strange woman’s. Then as Manila leaped from Phœbe’s hold,
the door opened with a fling, so that the window-curtains billowed and
swung, and into the room, stamping and panting, with eyes bulging and
lips puffed out, and a very torrent of threatening cries, came the
Rat-Woman!
Phœbe knew her instantly, even before Manila cried “Mrs. Botts!” And
Phœbe faced her, bravely, with dislike and reproof in her look. Crouched
behind her was Manila, sobbing wildly.
“So-o-o!” cried the Rat-Woman, advancing upon Phœbe. “I find out if
someone can come into my house to steal!”
Uncle Bob had entered behind her. He was smiling, hands in pockets.
“Nonsense!” he retorted. “Who would steal Manila. You’ve been hard on
this poor child again, and she simply took to her heels.”
“I tell her, ‘Don’t you budge’,” cried Mrs. Botts. (Phœbe noted that
there was an accent, slight, but enough to give what Phœbe thought was
the perfect touch. This was no ordinary villain!)
“Phœbe,” said Uncle Bob, mildly, “how does Manila happen to be here?”
“Tell! Yes!” added Mrs. Botts, wrathfully. “I hear about this Phœbe. She
is smart. She knows everything.”
Phœbe drew herself up. “Well, I know _one_ thing,” she returned coolly.
“Ye-e-es! And what?” Mrs. Botts folded her arms and hung her weight on
one foot.
“I know that all step-mothers are cruel.”
Out leaped Mrs. Botts’s arms. She swept around upon the Judge. “You hear
it?” she demanded. “You hear it? She is permitted to insult me!”
It was not to be denied that Mrs. Botts was doing her part to make the
whole thing really dramatic. Phœbe had to give her credit for that.
“Phœbe?”—Uncle Bob was as mild as ever.
Phœbe wished that she might have had a different tale to tell. If only
she had thought to gag Manila, and tie her hands! If only she could tell
of, say, a kidnapping plot, of a great, black limousine, and Mexicans
with knives! But——
“Well, Uncle Bob,” she began calmly, “I did go over and get her. Miss
Ruth told us she was crying. Well, she wasn’t. She was cutting paper
dolls. Anyhow, I stole her, and she’s cried a lot since. Uncle John says
I’m too big for dolls, so I intend to adopt her.”
“Adopt her!” exploded Uncle Bob.
“Oh, just look at her!” implored Phœbe. “She’s had _such_ bad luck!—a
step-mother, and the awful name of Botts, and she’s red-haired, and
freckled, and she’s got adenoids!”
Mrs. Botts sprang forward. “So-o-o!” she answered. “She is like that.
But she can mind her own business. And she does not talk too much. She
might be worse—as bad as you!”
“Phœbe,” said Uncle Bob. He crossed to her, anxiously Phœbe thought.
“You are a little thief!” Mrs. Botts stuck a fist close to Phœbe’s nose.
“And I will have you arrested! The whole town knows about you. Miss
Simpson, she——”
Uncle Bob put a hand over each of Phœbe’s ears then, shutting out that
shrill voice. Once Phœbe heard “school,” and twice she heard “your
mother.” Then Mrs. Botts flung herself away and out.
“What did she say, Uncle Bob?” asked Phœbe. “What did you cover my ears
for? What did she say?”
Uncle Bob did not reply. He was white with rage. He went to the door and
looked through. “Sophie, put that vixen out!” he ordered.
Now that Mrs. Botts was gone, Manila was tearless once more. “My
goodness!” she mourned, “now we’ve done it!”
“What?” asked Phœbe.
“Why, don’t y’ see? The Rat-Woman come too soon.”
“Sure enough!” Phœbe agreed. “Oh, that’s too bad!”
“And your paw don’t git to see her,” Manila added.
“Phœbe, why did you want your daddy to see her?” asked Uncle Bob.
“Oh, just be-because,” Phœbe frowned at Manila, warning her to silence.
Uncle Bob sat down upon the couch. “Come here, old dumpling,” he bade.
And when Phœbe had gone to him, “Now, because why?”
“I don’t want to tell you,” she confessed frankly.
“But I’d really like to know.”
She hesitated. “If I tell you, you won’t laugh?” she asked.
“I won’t laugh,” promised Uncle Bob, gravely.
“Because I want Daddy to see how mean and terrible step-mothers are,”
explained Phœbe. “We were going to show him Mrs. Botts. And now the
whole plot is spoiled.”
“So you think step-mothers are mean and terrible,” said Uncle Bob. And
there was not even a glimmer of a smile in his eyes. On the contrary—he
looked actually troubled!
All that she had longed to say to her father now surged to Phœbe’s lips.
She dropped beside her uncle, and clung to him. “Oh, I don’t want a
step-mother!” she cried. “Oh, Uncle Bob, help me! Keep Daddy from
getting married again! You will, won’t you? A step-mother would whip me,
and wear Mother’s clothes, and make Daddy hate me! Oh, Uncle Bob, you
_don’t_ think Daddy will bring one home?”
“Darling baby,” he said tenderly, “I know your Daddy won’t bring one
home.”
“Oh, not a Peru woman!” pleaded Phœbe. “I don’t want one!”
“Don’t you worry. No Peru woman is going to get him.”
“But I don’t want _any_body,” she persisted. “Oh, Uncle Bob!”
That was all. Except that when Phœbe had gone to Miss Ruth’s with
Manila, and was nearing home again, Grandma came out to meet her. And
Grandma was particularly tender to her, for some reason, and that very
evening sat beside Phœbe’s bed for a little while, and chatted.
And from then on—Phœbe could not help but notice it—Grandma seemed to
take great interest in Phœbe, to be with her often, to make her little
presents, and buy her little things, and say so much to her that was
sweet. For which reason Phœbe came to understand Grandma better, and
daily their love for each other grew.