COLONEL DALE OF DALECOURT.
It is hardly possible to describe the joy that reigned in Dalecourt on
that last night of the year. Colonel Dale and Miss Hatty, and Mrs. Allen
Dale, her mother, all asked Arthur questions at once; and petted, and
fed, and pitied, and praised him, until the poor, tired, happy little
fellow, worn out with excitement, could no longer keep his eyes open,
and was carried off to bed. Nor would it be possible to convey any idea
of what a hero dear old Uncle Phin became in the eyes of the dusky
assembly, who thronged the kitchen, to see him eat his much needed
supper, and to hear of his marvellous adventures while bringing the “lil
Marse” to his own home. All these things can be imagined a great deal
better than they can be described. At the same time it does seem to be
necessary to tell something about the Dales and Dalecourt, and how
Colonel Dale’s niece, Miss Harriet, happened to be the same beautiful
lady who presented Arthur with an illustrated copy of Andersen’s “Fairy
Tales,” in the oil region of Pennsylvania, some months before that happy
New Year’s Eve.
She was the only daughter of Colonel Dale’s youngest brother Allen, and
was therefore own cousin to Arthur’s mother. At the death of her father,
who left them penniless, she and her mother went to Dalecourt to live,
and to keep house for her lonely uncle.
One of the very dearest of Miss Hatty’s school friends lived in the oil
region of Pennsylvania, and during the previous summer she paid this
friend a visit. It was at the conclusion of this visit, and while
driving from her friend’s house to the distant railway station, that she
encountered Arthur and little Cynthia, just as their search for
adventures had led them into trouble.
With her first glance at the boy’s face she was struck by a certain
familiar expression in it, and when he told her his name she wondered if
he might not be her little cousin whom she had never seen. She was not
quite sure of the Dustin part of his name, as it was never allowed to be
mentioned at Dalecourt, so she decided to wait until she could make
further inquiries before claiming the relationship.
As she had barely time to reach the railway station and catch her train,
she was not able to pursue these inquiries just then. She, however, bade
the coachman find out what he could about the Dustins, and also wrote to
her friend for what information she could obtain concerning the child,
in whom she had become so greatly interested. From her mother she
learned that Dustin was the name of the young Northerner whom her cousin
Virginia had married; and when she received an answer to her letter, it
assured her that she had discovered, in that far-away region, her
uncle’s only grandson.
Now came what she feared would prove the most difficult part of her
task. Colonel Dale had forbidden the name of Dustin to be mentioned in
his house, nor had Miss Hatty ever heard him speak as though aware that
he had a grandson living. She at first tried to approach the subject
cautiously, but finding that she was liable to be misunderstood, she at
length told her uncle frankly all that she knew and suspected. To her
great surprise he listened to her willingly and with an eager interest.
Colonel Arthur Dale had been a very selfish man, though he called his
selfishness “family pride.” He had also been a very self-willed one,
though this he would have said indicated strength of character.
Of late years, however, both of these faults had been dealt heavy blows.
The losing of his beautiful daughter Virginia was the first blow. Then
his wife died, and then the war came. It left him a poor man, with a
large but unproductive estate on his hands, and no opportunity, that he
could discover, for going into business and retrieving his shattered
fortunes.
Instead of hardening his nature, these trials softened it. His pride was
broken. He no longer thought of himself alone. His stubbornness
disappeared and he longed for human love and sympathy. His once princely
estate was now so encumbered by mortgages that they promised soon
completely to overwhelm it. In spite of its owner’s efforts to keep the
place in order, it showed evidences of decay and ruin in every
direction. Many of the old family servants still clung to Dalecourt, and
the Colonel was too kind-hearted to turn them away. Thus there was
always a large number of mouths to feed, and each year brought less to
feed them with.
Of late the lonely man had thought much of his dead daughter, and
wondered if her son, the grandson whose existence he had never openly
acknowledged, was still alive, and what sort of a boy he was. Thus, when
his niece began to speak to him on this very subject, he proved an eager
listener to all that she had to say.
“He is one of the very dearest, sweetest, and bravest little fellows I
ever saw,” she cried impulsively. “When I met him he was making believe
to be a prince, and was defending a child, younger than himself, from
what he thought was the savage attack of a big dog. He was so covered
with dust when I picked him up out of the road, that I called him
‘Prince Dusty,’ and the title of ‘Prince’ seems somehow exactly to suit
him. Although he was ragged and barefooted, he was every inch a little
gentleman, and the last I saw of him he was lifting his tattered straw
hat to me, as I drove away.”
The result of this conversation, and of several similar ones that
followed it, was that, toward the end of October, Colonel Dale set out
for the oil region of Pennsylvania, determined to bring his dead
daughter’s child home with him, and thereafter to treat him as his own
son.
He had, by this time, so set his heart upon having the boy to love and
to care for, and had centred so many plans for the future about him,
that to learn, from the Dustins, of Arthur’s absolute and mysterious
disappearance, was a grievous disappointment, for which he was not
prepared. He could not believe that the boy was not still in that
vicinity, and insisted that a search should be made for him throughout
all the surrounding country, though the runaways had been gone for
nearly a month.
Colonel Dale read and re-read the rudely pencilled note that Arthur had
left for Cynthia, and asked to be allowed to keep it: but the child
would not give it up. It was her most treasured possession, and though
he bribed her with money, and candy, and toys, she could not be induced
to part with it.
Brace Barlow, the only person who knew how and in what direction Arthur
and Uncle Phin had gone, was in a distant part of the oil region, so
that he heard nothing of Colonel Dale’s arrival, nor of the eager search
for the little fellow who used to call him “dear giant.”
Arthur’s grandfather even visited the farm that had belonged to his
unacknowledged son-in-law, Richard Dustin, with the faint hope that his
grandson might have sought shelter there.
Finally, after obtaining John Dustin’s promise to telegraph the first
bit of information that he should gain concerning the missing boy, and
also to relinquish all claims upon him in favor of the grandfather, the
disappointed man turned his face homeward. He was not only disappointed
at the unexpected result of his journey; but he was as heavy-hearted as
though death had robbed him of some loved one, and he were now on his
way to bear the sad tidings to those who waited at home.
It was such thoughts as these that drove sleep from his eyes, while the
Keystone express, on which he was a passenger, climbed the western slope
of the Alleghanies, and barely escaped destruction from the runaway
caboose of a freight train, through the prompt action of a boy. If the
sleepless man could only have known that this boy was his own grandson,
how quickly would his sorrow have been changed to joy and pride. As it
was, he was filled with admiration for the brave lad, merely from
listening to the sleeping-car porter’s imperfect account of the affair,
and wished he might have seen and known him.
When he reached home he related this incident to his niece and her
mother as the most thrilling of his trip, and again regretted that he
had not made the acquaintance of its hero.
Now, the fact that his grandson and this young hero were one and the
same boy, and that this boy had voluntarily sought a home under his
roof, was a continual source of joy and pride to Colonel Dale, that he
was at no pains to conceal.
Becomingly dressed, well cared for, and, above all, surrounded by an
atmosphere of love and gentleness, “Prince Dusty” was now such a
handsome, merry little fellow, that he not only completely won the
hearts of his grandfather and the Dalecourt household, but of every one
who came in contact with him.
Now, more bitterly than ever, did Colonel Dale regret his lost fortune,
and shrink from the ruin that, staring him in the face, could not much
longer be averted. The financial difficulties of the family had not been
kept from Arthur, for he was wise beyond his years, and his grandfather
thought it best that he should know exactly how matters stood with them.
It was a great grief to the boy to see his grandpapa and his Cousin
Hatty, both of whom he had learned to love dearly, so troubled; and, in
his wise young way, he pondered deeply over the situation.
At last, one evening as he was bidding them all good-night, he said:
“Grandpapa, I think I have almost thought of a way for us to get a great
deal of money.”
“Have you, my boy?” said the colonel. “That’s good; what is it?”
“Well I haven’t quite thought it all out yet; but I will finish thinking
and tell you what it is in the morning,” replied the boy, smiling
brightly down upon his grandfather, as he bounded up the broad stairway.