A BAD DAY FOR JOHN GILPIN
What had happened!
Those who were sliding down that icy incline could not stop to see,
and those who were on the ground below covered their eyes that they
might not. Yet opened them again to stare helplessly at the dangling
figure of a girl outside that terrible slide. For in a moment, when
the clutching fingers must unclose, the poor child must drop to
destruction. That was inevitable.
Then they saw it was Dorothy, who hung thus, suspended between life
and death. Dorothy in her white and pink, the daintiest darling of
them all, who had so enjoyed her first--and last!--day at this sport.
Fresh shudders ran through the onlookers as they realized this and the
Lady Principal sank down in a faint. Then another groan escaped
them--the merest possibility of hope.
Behold! The girl did not fall! Another's small hand reached over the
low side of the toboggan and clutched the blanket-covered shoulder of
the imperiled child. Another hand! the other shoulder, and hope grew
stronger. Someone had caught the falling Dorothy--she and her
would-be-rescuer were now moving--moving--slowly downward along the
very edge--one swaying perilously with the motion, the other wholly
unseen save for those outstretched hands, with their death-fast grip
upon the snowy wool.
Down--down! And faster now! Till the hands of the tallest watchers
could reach and clasp the feet, then the whole precious little body of
"Miss Dixie," their favorite from the Southland.
But even then, as strong arms drew her into their safe shelter, the
small hands which had supported her to safety clung still so tight
that only the Bishop's could loose their clasp.
"Gwendolyn! You brave, sweet girl! Let go--let go. It's all right
now--Dorothy did not fall--You saved her life. Look up, my daughter.
Don't faint now when all is over. Look up, you noble child, and hear
me tell you: Dorothy is safe and it is you who saved her life. At the
risk of your own you saved her life."
Clasped close in his fatherly arms, Gwendolyn shuddered but obeyed and
looked up into the Bishop's face.
"Say that again. Please. Say that again--very slow--if it's the--the
truth."
[Illustration: "SOMEONE HAD CAUGHT THE FALLING GIRL." _Dorothy at Oak
Knowe._]
"Gwendolyn, I tell you now, in the presence of God and these
witnesses, it has been your precious privilege to save a human life,
by your swift thought and determined action you have saved the life of
Dorothy Calvert, and God bless you for it."
"Then we are quits!"
For another moment after she had said those words she still rested
quietly where she was, then slowly rose and looked about her.
Dorothy had been in the greater peril of the two, yet more unconscious
of it. She had not seen how high above the ground she hung, nor how
directly beneath was the lake with the thinly frozen spots whence the
thicker ice had been cut for the ice-houses; nor how there were heaped
up rocks bordering the water, left as nature had designed to beautify
the scene.
She was the quickest to recover her great fright and she was wholly
unhurt. Her really greater wonder was that poor Miss Muriel should
happen to faint away just then.
"I'm glad she did, though, if it won't make her ill, 'cause then she
didn't see me dangling, like I must have, and get scared for that.
Likely she stayed out doors too long. She isn't very strong and it's
mighty cold, I think."
So they hurried her indoors, Gwendolyn with her, yet neither of them
allowed to discuss the affair until they were both warmly dressed in
ordinary clothes and set down to a cute little lunch table, "all for
your two selves," Nora explained: "And to eat all these warm things
and drink hot coffee--as much of it as you like. It was Miss Muriel
herself who said that!"
This was a treat indeed. Coffee at any meal was kept for a special
treat, but to have unlimited portions of it was what Dolly called "a
step beyond."
Curious glances, but smiling and tender, came often their way, from
other tables in the room, yet the sport, and happily ended hazard of
the morning had given to every girl a fine appetite, so that, for
once, knives and forks were more busily employed than tongues.
Neither did the two heroines of the recent tragic episode feel much
like speech. Now that it was all over and they could think about it
more clearly their hearts were filled with the solemnity of what had
happened; and Gwendolyn said all that was needed for both, when once
laying her hand on Dorothy's she whispered:
"You saved my life--the Bishop says that I saved yours. After that
we're even and we must love each other all our lives."
"Oh! we must, we must! And I do, I shall!" returned Dorothy, with
tears rising.
Then this festive little lunch dispatched, they were captured by their
schoolmates and led triumphantly into the cheerful library, the scene
of all their confabs, and Winifred demanded:
"Now, in the name of all the Oak Knowe girls, I demand a detailed
history of what happened. Begin at the beginning and don't either of
you dare to skip a single moment of the time from where you started
down the old toboggan alongside of John Gilpin and that boy. I fancy
if the tale were properly told his ride would outdo that of his
namesake of old times. Dorothy Calvert, begin."
"Why, dear, I don't know what to say, except that, as you say, we
started. My lovely toboggan went beautifully, as it had all the time,
but theirs didn't act right. I believe that the old man was scared so
that he couldn't do a thing except meddle with Robin, who doesn't know
much more about sliding than I do, or did. He--"
"I saw he was getting on the wrong side, right behind you two, as we
shot past on ours," interrupted Serena Huntington, "and we both called
out: 'steer! steer right!' but I suppose they didn't hear or
understand. We were so far down then that I don't know."
"Gwen, dear, you tell the rest," begged Dorothy, cuddling up to the
girl she now so dearly loved.
It wasn't often that Gwendolyn was called to the front like this, but
she found it very pleasant; so readily took up the tale where Dorothy
left it, "at the very beginning" as "Dixie" laughingly declared.
"It seems as if there was nothing to tell--it was all so quick--it
just happened! Half way down, it must have been, the farmer's sled hit
ours. That scared me, too, and I called, just as Serena had, and as
everybody on the slide was doing as they passed: 'Steer right!' I
guess that only confused the poor old man, for he kept bobbing into us
and that hindered our getting away from him ourselves.
"Next I knew, Dolly was off the sled and over the edge of the slide,
clinging to it for her life. I knew she couldn't hold on long and so I
rolled off and grabbed her. Then we began to slide and I knew somebody
was trying to help by pushing us downward toward the bottom. I don't
know who that was. I don't know anything clearly. It was all like a
flash--I guessed we would be killed--I shut my eyes and--that's all."
To break the too suggestive silence which followed with its hint of a
different, sorrowful ending, Florita Sheraton exclaimed:
"I know who did that pushing! It was our little Robin Adair, or
whatever his name is. Fact. That home-made toboggan of his came to
grief. The old man has told me. He's out in the kitchen now warming up
his bruises. You see, there wasn't anything to hang on by, on the
sides. He had scorned Robin's advice to nail something on and he
nearly ground his fingers off holding on by the flat bottom. It went
so swift--his fingers ached so--he yanked them out from under--Robin
screeched--they ran into you--they both tumbled off--Robin lodged
against you but John Gilpin rode to the bottom--thus wise!"
Florita illustrated by rolling one hand over and under the other; and
thus, in fact, had John Gilpin taken his first toboggan slide.
Laughter showed that the tension of excitement which had held these
schoolgirls all that day had yielded to ordinary feelings, and now
most of them went away for study or practicing, leaving Dorothy and
Gwendolyn alone. After a moment, they also left the library, bound
kitchenwards, to visit old John and see if Robin were still
thereabouts.
"I wish there were something I could do for that boy," said Gwen. "I
feel so grateful to him for helping us and he looked so poor. Do you
suppose, Dolly, if Mamma offered him money for that new coat he jested
about, that he would be offended."
"Of course, Gwen, I don't know about _him_. You never can tell about
other folks, but Uncle Seth thinks it's a mighty safe rule 'to put
yourself in his place'; and if I were in Robin's I'd be 'mad as a
hatter' to have money offered me for doing a little thing like that.
Wouldn't you?"
"Why, yes, Dorothy, of course I would. The idea! But I'm rich, or my
people are, which is the same thing. But he's poor. His feelings may
not, cannot, be the same as our sort have."
"Why can't they? I don't like to have you think that way. You ought
not. Gwen you must not. For that will make us break friendship square
off. I'm not poor Dawkins's niece, though I might be much worse off
than that, but once I was 'poor' like Robin. I was a deserted baby,
adopted by a poor letter carrier. Now, what do you think of that?
Can't I have nice feelings same as you? And am I a bit better--in
myself--because in reality I belonged to a rich old family, than I was
when I washed dishes in Mother Martha's kitchen? Tell me that, before
we go one step further."
Dorothy had stopped short in the hall and faced about, anxiously
studying the face of this "Peer," who had now become so dear to her.
Gwendolyn's face was a puzzle; as, for a time, the old opinions and
the new struggled within her. But the struggle was brief. Her pride,
her justice, and now her love, won the victory.
"No, you darling, brave little thing, you are not. Whatever you are
you were born such, and I love you, I love you. If I'd only been born
in the States I'd have had no silly notions."
"Don't you believe that, Gwen. Aunt Betty says that human nature is
the same all the world over. You'd have been just as much of a snob if
you'd been 'raised in ol' Ferginny' as you are here. Oh! my! I didn't
mean that. I meant--You must understand what I mean!"
A flush of mortification at her too plain speaking made Dorothy hide
her face, but her hands were swiftly pulled down and a kiss left in
their place.
"Don't you fret, Queenie! It's taken lots of Mamma's plain speaking to
keep me half-way decent to others less rich than I, and I'm afraid
it'll take lots of yours, too, to put the finishing touches to that
lesson. Come on. We love each other now, and love puts everything
right. Come on. Let's find that Robin and see what we can do for him
without hurting his feelings."
"Oh! yes, come, let's hurry! But first to the Lady Principal. Maybe we
can help them both. Won't that be fine?"
But they were not to help Robin just then. A groan from the servants'
parlor, a pleasant room opening from the kitchen, arrested their
attention and made them pause to listen. Punctuated by other sounds,
a querulous voice was complaining:
"Seems if there warn't a hull spot left on my old body that ain't
bruised sore as a bile. Why, sir, when I fell off that blamed sled
we'd tinkered up"--groan--"I didn't know anything. Just slid--an'
slid--an' rolled over and over, never realizin' which side of me was
topmost till I fetched up--kerwhack! to the very bottom. Seemed as if
I'd fell out o' the sky into the bottomless pit. Oh! dear!"
Dawkins's voice it was that answered him, both pitying and teasing him
in the same breath:
"I'm sure it's sorry I am, Mr. Gilpin, for what's befell; but for a
man that's lived in a tobogganing country ever since he was born, you
begun rather late in life to learn the sport. Why--"
"Ain't no older'n the Bishop! Can't one man do same's t'other, I'd
like to know, Mis' Dawkins?"
"Seems not;" laughed the maid. "But, here, take this cup of hot
spearmint tea. 'Twill warm your old bones and help 'em to mend; an'
next time you start playin' children's game--why don't! And for
goodness' sake, John, quit groanin'! Takin' on like that don't help
any and I tell you fair and square I've had about all the strain put
on my nerves, to-day, 't I can bear. What was your bit of a roll down
that smooth ice compared to what our girls went through?"
"Has you got any nuts in your pockets? Has you?" broke in
Millikins-Pillikins, who had been a patient listener to the confab
between the farmer and the nurse till she could wait no longer. Never
had the old man come to Oak Knowe without some dainty for the little
girl and she expected such now.
"No, sissy, I haven't. I dunno as I've got a pocket left. I dunno
nothing, except--except--What'll SHE say when I go home all lamed up
like this! Oh! hum! Seems if I was possessed to ha' done it, and so
she thought. But 'twas Robin's fault. If Robin hadn't beset me so I'd
never thought of it. Leastwise, not to go the length I did. If
I'd--But there! What's the use? But one thing's sure. I'll get shut of
that boy, see if I don't. He's well now an' why should I go to
harboring _reptiles_ in my buzzum? Tell me that if ye can! _Reptiles._
That's what he was, a-teasin' an' misleadin' a poor old man into
destruction. Huh! I'll make it warm for him--trust John Gilpin for
that!"
Dawkins had long since departed, unable to bear the old man's
lamentations, and leaving the cup, or pot, of hot tea on the table
beside him. But little Grace couldn't tear herself away. She lingered,
first hoping for the nuts she craved, and later in wonder about the
"_reptile_" he said was in his bosom. There were big books full of
pictures in the library, that Auntie Prin sometimes let her see. She
loved to have them opened on the rug and lie down beside them to study
them. She knew what "reptiles" were. That was the very one of all the
Natural History books with the blue bindings that she liked best, it
was so delightfully crawly and sent such funny little thrills all
through her. If a picture could do that what might not the real thing
do!
"Show it to me, please, Mr. Gilpin. I never saw a reptile in all my
whole life long! Never!"
The farmer had paid scant attention to her chatter; indeed, he
scarcely heard it, his mind being wholly engrossed now with
what his dame would say to him, on his return home; and in his
absent-mindedness he reached out for the drink good Dawkins had
left him and put the pot to his lips taking a great draught.
An instant later the pot flew out of his hand and he sprang to his
feet, clutching frantically at his bosom and yelling as if he were
stung. For the contents of the pot were boiling hot and he had scalded
his throat most painfully.
But wide-eyed little Grace did not understand his wild action, as,
still clutching his shirt front, he hurled the pot far from him. Of
course, the "reptile" was biting! That must be why he screeched so,
and now all her desire for a personal acquaintance with such a
creature vanished. She must get as far away from it as possible before
it appeared on the surface of his smock and, darting doorward, was
just in time to receive the pot and what was left in it upon her curly
head. Down she dropped as if she had been shot, and Dorothy entering
was just in time to see her fall. The scene apparently explained
itself. The angry face of the old man, his arm still rigid, in the
gesture of hurling, the fallen child and the broken pot--who could
guess that it was horror at his uncalculated deed which kept him in
that pose?
Not Dorothy, who caught up little Grace and turned a furious face upon
poor John, crying out in fierce contempt:
"Oh! you horrible old man! First you tried to kill me and now you have
killed her!"