A GOOD NEIGHBOR
Miss Benslow was wont to refer to her weather-beaten house, woefully in
need of paint, as "the homestead." In her grandfather's time the place
had been a small farm, but Cy Benslow had sold all of it but a couple
of acres to Portland people who had put up cheap summer cottages.
The house was set back some two hundred feet from the sea and a few
Balm-of-Gilead trees relieved the monotony of the wind-swept landscape.
Madge Lindsay had found places for a couple of hammocks, which Fred
Whitcomb observed with satisfaction on his arrival with his charge.
"You're perfectly welcome to them," Miss Lindsay assured him. "Did you
ever play the rôle of a head of cabbage for six weeks?"
"Is it anything like a blockhead?" inquired Whitcomb. "I've played that
all my life."
"Yes, they're ever so much the same," drawled Madge. Perhaps she had
affected a drawl to offset her devoted mother's snappy, nervous manner.
At any rate, it was second nature now. "You're not allowed to have an
idea when you're assigned the rôle of cabbage head; so it amounts to
the same thing as your limitation."
"Thanks awfully," returned Whitcomb. "It's worth everything to discover
sympathy." He was establishing King in a steamer chair on the piazza
while they were talking: a precarious piazza it was, with a list to
leeward.
Mrs. Lindsay looked on solicitously and held ready a steamer rug.
"These slanting boards used to make me seasick at first," she said,
"but after a while you don't mind anything here, the air is so divine
and there's so much of it." She extinguished King's evident shiver with
her rug.
"Thank you, Mrs. Lindsay," he said. "Do you guarantee that in a short
time I shall act and feel less like a shaky old woman? Or, perhaps,
I'm more like a baby. Whitcomb's brought everything along but a
nursing-bottle, and his beefiness makes me feel like a rattling
skeleton."
"Oh, just be a cabbage, Mr. King," advised Madge, "and you'll come out
all right. You know how much stress is laid on _thinking_ these days.
Don't think a shaky old woman, and don't think a baby, but think a
cabbage. It's the most restful thing in the world; and there's nothing
and nobody here to inspire a thought."
"You have neighbors," said King, "according to Whitcomb. A cousin of
mine, Mrs. Porter, is staying here with Miss Barry. Mrs. Porter is the
sort to inspire even a cabbage."
"Not when she's being one herself," returned Madge. "She's a music
teacher! Who can blame her? I know if I were one, I'd be a murderess
too.--Yes, they are over there, and so is Linda Barry. I hope neither
of you is attached to her, for I think she's the coldest, most
impossible girl I ever met."
"Surely you know of her sorrow?" said Whitcomb, and his expression was
a reproach to the girl's drawling speech.
"Oh, so you _are_ attached! Forgive me, won't you? All the same, if
I'm ever in mourning I'm determined not to freeze my sister-woman and
slink away from her into by-ways."
"Madge, dear," warned Mrs. Lindsay.
"Oh, Mother and Miss Barry have had some traffic over ferns; and Mrs.
Porter's offishness is different from Linda Barry's. She's a queen,
Mrs. Porter is. I'd take lessons of her just for the companionship,
only that she'd think _I_ thought I had a voice."
"And so you have, a very nice one," chirped Mamma.
"Her goose is such a swan," exclaimed Madge, with a lazy smile. "No one
should be without a mother."
"Shoo, all of you," said Whitcomb, motioning with his hands. "I want
King to go to sleep."
The convalescent's eyes closed as his head rested against the pillow of
his reclining chair. "There goes Whitcomb, again," he announced through
his nose. "Baby always goes to sleep in his carriage when he hits the
oxygen, you know."
"No, no, Mr. King. Cabbage, cabbage," exclaimed Madge in reminder, as
she jumped off the rickety steps.
Her acquaintance with Whitcomb had been very casual heretofore. There
had been a few hours in New York and a few hours in Chicago at various
times when cousinly amenities were exchanged; and now, as her youthful
vitality had reasserted itself, the rôle of vegetable was becoming a
frightful bore, and this invasion of the two young men restored an
interest in life.
There was a level plain back of Miss Benslow's house and Madge had
discovered signs that previous boarders had essayed to play tennis
there. She led Whitcomb to it now.
"Don't you think we might fix it up?" she asked.
He looked dubiously at the tufts of grass. "And crack a few tendons
over these hummocks?" he suggested. "Do you play much?"
Her dark eyes gave him a provocative glance. "I might surprise you,"
she drawled.
"Good enough. It will be better than nothing."
"Which? A girl antagonist or the court?"
"I'll tell you that later."
"Then go and ask Luella for a scythe and a lawn mower. Let's begin
right off. I'm aching to play."
"Don't believe I can this afternoon," returned Whitcomb, rather
consciously. "I ought to go over to Miss Barry's and call the first
thing."
"Oh, yes. I forgot the attachment." Madge's dark, tanned face lighted
brilliantly with a gleam of white teeth. She feigned a shiver. "Be
careful that she doesn't freeze you. To call on Linda Barry seems an
intrepid act to me."
"You didn't grow up with her."
"I suppose she's really charming when one knows her," said Madge, as
they turned away from the potential court and strolled toward the
house. Whitcomb's manner as he replied had suggested danger. "She's
certainly lovely to look upon."
"You haven't seen her yet in a normal condition," he replied, somewhat
mollified. "People can't get over shocks like hers in a minute. This
must have been a great place for her, though."
Whitcomb's eyes swept the vastness of sea and sky.
"If you don't find her much improved, tell her of the cabbage stunt,"
said Madge. Then she pointed out to her companion the low, broad,
shingled cottage, clinging to the rocky shore, and turned away toward
the house.
"To-morrow morning for the tennis court," said Whitcomb gayly as he
left her.
"How tiresome," she thought. "That Barry iceberg will never like me,
and now Fred will want to drag her into everything. If only Mr. King
had his sea legs."
She looked disapprovingly toward the piazza, where the convalescent's
clear-cut face showed, sleeping against the blue chintz pillow.
"Where has Fred gone, dear?" asked her mother's voice at her elbow. The
sharp eyes had witnessed her child's desertion.
"Gone over to call on Linda Barry. I think that's all he came here for."
"H'm. Shows Fred's not mercenary. Still, you know, things aren't going
to turn out so badly as people expected. I had a talk with Fred this
morning and he's quite optimistic. It seems that that Mr. King is the
hero of the whole affair. I'll tell you about it sometime. Hasn't he
an aristocratic face!" added Mrs. Lindsay, with an approving snap of
her eyes toward the steamer chair.
"I wanted to fix the tennis court. I wish that human Thermos bottle was
in Kamchatka."
Mrs. Lindsay laughed. "They retain heat as well as cold, remember.
Perhaps Fred knows what is inside that one better than you do."
Madge yawned and put an arm around her mother as they walked toward the
house. They were excellent friends.
The following morning, when Whitcomb had finished ministering to the
convalescent's needs, and had placed him comfortably in the hammock, he
was ready for the tennis court proposition.
It proved that Luella's lawn mower was an antique whose working days
were over; and she indicated to the young people a house where one
could be borrowed. It was not Miss Barry's cottage!
When they had traversed some distance across the field on the errand, a
demurely stepping figure approached them. It was a very young girl in
a blue frock, bareheaded, and carrying with great solicitude a bowl
covered with a napkin.
As she approached, Whitcomb recognized her, and it was with some relief
that she recognized him, bareheaded, and in khaki trousers and sweater,
with a general appearance of being long for this world. He was laughing
and talking with Luella's boarder in a reassuring manner, and when his
eyes fell upon her, he spoke. "Why, good-morning, Blanche Aurora."
"Good mornin', Mr. Whitcomb," she responded loudly in her best manner
and with a sharp glance at the dark young lady in the rose gown.
"Whither away, Blanche Aurora?"
"I'm carryin' jell to the king," she announced.
"What's this?" Fred's eyes lighted curiously on the snowy napkin.
"Something nice for King, eh? Bertram the first?"
"Lemon jell," announced Blanche Aurora, with a proud accession of lung
power, and an evident desire not to be delayed.
"Well, Mr. King's over there in a hammock," said Whitcomb, looking
doubtful. "I don't believe I need to go back."
"Go back? Of course not!" cried Madge.--"Ask for Mrs. Lindsay when you
get to Miss Benslow's and she'll see to it. Come on, Fred."
Blanche Aurora gave the young lady one look, as cold and impersonal as
china-blue optics are capable of bestowing, and moved on her way. Call
for Mrs. Lindsay! Not likely, now that she knew the king was easy prey
in a hammock.
"But poor King," protested Whitcomb, as he followed Madge's determined
march. "Is it fair? No cotton for his ears."
"Oh, she probably won't see him at all. The young one will give the
jelly to Mother and she'll attend to it."
Little Madge Lindsay knew of the swelling heart beneath the blue
gingham frock. Blanche Aurora's confused and excited meditations had
conferred royalty upon the mysterious stranger, and should she find him
informally wearing a crown in his hammock, it would not astonish her in
the least.
Arriving at the Benslow house, she cast glances askance toward piazza
and windows, fearing that some one might inquire her business; but it
was ten-thirty in the morning, a busy time for housekeepers, and she
proceeded unmolested toward the Balm-of-Gilead trees.
One hammock hung empty, its fringes stirring but lightly in the
protected nook to which the trees owed their life.
The visitor caught sight of fair hair on the pillow of the second
swinging couch, and continuing from the head a long black chrysalis.
She approached eagerly. King, glancing around at a sound, suddenly saw
beside him a blue-clothed figure with long, white, pipe-stem legs, and
white sneakers. The newcomer's red braided hair glinting in the sun was
surmounted by a voluminous blue bow.
As he turned his head, the better to see his visitor, she burst forth
in one breath: "I'm Miss Belinda Barry's help, Blanche Aurora Martin,
Blanche Aurora for short, and I've brought you a snack, O King."
The invalid turned, chrysalis and all, the better to view the bowl
being extended to him.
"Why--why"--he said, exhibiting broadly the teeth Linda had
commended,--"somebody is being very kind to me."
"It's Miss Barry; but I made the jell and she sent it with her
compliments. Snacks is good for folks that's sick and delicate."
As she spoke, the visitor was devouring the royal features with
intent to verify her suspicion concerning the new photograph, and to
understand the great man's influence on Miss Linda.
"What did you say was your name?"
"Blanche Aurora."
"Well, you're a very kind little girl. Do you say that jelly is for me?"
"Yes, and you'd better eat it right off, O King, 'cause the middle o'
the mornin' is the time for snacks. I've got a spoon in here,"--she
took off the napkin and revealed it. "If you eat it now, you see, I can
take the bowl back; 'cause if it once gits in with Luella's things, no
tellin' when we'd ever see it again."
King's gray eyes twinkled. "Blanche Aurora, you're a joy," he declared
mildly, "and never in my life have I seen anything look so good as that
jelly."
"It is good, O King," admitted the visitor, stentorianly modest. "It's
got orange juice in it, too."
"Then, get that chair over there under the tree, and bring it here
where you'll be more sociable; and would you mind getting the pillow
out of the other hammock so I can be royally propped up. If I'm a king,
nothing's too good for me, eh?"
"Of course, nothin's too good for you," declared Blanche Aurora
solemnly, as she carried out his directions.
"I'm afraid somebody has been--well--stringing you, to put it
informally, concerning myself," remarked the invalid when his visitor
had propped his shoulders to her liking. "If my head should lie any
uneasier if it wore a crown, the game wouldn't be worth the candle.
Could you pull that pillow a little higher--there, that's fine. Now,
then, for the jelly."
The visitor took it from the chair, and handing it to him, seated
herself, with her demurest company manner.
"One thing more, you good child. Can you tuck the end of that rug under
my feet?"
"Is your feet cold?" asked Blanche Aurora sharply as she jumped up and
complied. "Do you wish you had a hot-water bag?"
"I dare say Whitcomb brought one."
"But the hens can lend you all you want," declared Blanche Aurora
earnestly. "They don't need 'em this weather."
"The hens? What sort of a place have I got into?"
So the visitor explained Luella's invention, and King laughed till he
was weak, while the little girl eyed him solemnly.
"Do stop," he begged. "Spare me this last humiliation of being in the
old hen's class. Now, Blanche Aurora, here goes." And he began an
appreciative attack on the jelly.