BEHIND THE PALMS.
Ensconced behind some palms, Dick and June were enjoying a delightful
chat. They had a hundred things to tell each other, and June was vainly
trying to tell it all at once. From their nook they could see Buckhart
happily occupied with Mabel Ditson, and apparently satisfied for the
time being that he had stolen a lap on Claxton. Chester Arlington seemed
to be a favorite with the girls, and he appeared happiest with several
of them near.
“Don’t you think my brother is looking well, Dick?” asked June.
“Never saw him looking finer in my life,” was the answer. “The West must
have done him good.”
“Oh, I know it did, but Chester says he owes all the benefit he has
received to your brother Frank. He has told me of the most wonderful
adventures in company with Frank. You know he was seriously wounded down
in Mexico. A bullet grazed his skull, and he was out of his mind for
some time. Frank took care of him and brought him back to Wellsburg.
Chester has been training in Frank’s athletic school, and I feel
confident now that he’s finally succeeded in breaking away from his old
bad habits.”
“I sincerely hope he has.”
“He says you, Dick, were the one who started him on the right road that
summer, up in the Blue Hills. Oh, that summer in the Blue Hills! I’ll
never forget it!”
“Nor I,” said Dick. “It was jolly and strenuous and exciting enough to
satisfy the most adventurous tastes. How is Madge Morgan?”
“I knew you’d ask. That was almost the first question Dale Sparkfair had
for me. Madge is fine. She’s attending school in Bloomfield, you know.
We have rooms together. Oh, she’s a splendid girl, Dick. She’s so kind
and thoughtful toward her poor old blind father. He’s there living
quietly in a home provided for him by some good people. Madge sees him
almost every day. She’s the only person he has to live for now, and I
know his one fear is that he will lose her somehow. That fear is
groundless, though. She’ll never be parted from him in the world.”
“Not if I understand her as I think I do,” nodded Dick.
“Wasn’t it the greatest fortune that Chester and I succeeded in inducing
father to let us come on with him? We planned to surprise you in New
Haven, but when we met Casper Steele, and he found we knew you so well,
he made arrangements for this surprise party.”
“A surprise it was,” laughed Dick. “The greatest surprise and the most
delightful one of my life. Why, I really thought I must be dreaming when
we stopped at the door and I saw you there on the steps. I wish you
could have seen yourself beneath the light of those Japanese lanterns,
June. I used to think you pretty, but I declare when I saw you to-night
you looked a thousand times——”
“Now stop—please stop!” she protested, quickly placing a soft palm over
his lips. “Don’t try to flatter me like that, Dick.”
“The truth may never be called flattery. I had the queerest feeling as I
stared at you. I don’t wonder Sparkfair said I was asleep.”
“But you weren’t, were you?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Dick. “I’m afraid I was. I’m almost afraid I’m
still slumbering.”
“Then you’d better wake up,” laughed the girl.
“I will!” he suddenly exclaimed, and, screened by the palms, he kissed
her.
She caught her breath with a little gasp.
“If that’s the way you wake up, hadn’t you better go to sleep again?”
she said.
“I don’t think so, for that is the realization of my dreams, June.”
They both tingled with an unspeakable, undefinable pleasure that was
wholly innocent and harmless. Tommy Tucker, with a tall, dark-haired
girl, peered in upon them.
“Peekaboo!” cried Tommy. “Caught you. Say, Dick, what makes you
monopolize the only secluded retreat there is in this room? Can’t you
give a fellow a show?”
“Mr. Tucker!” exclaimed the tall brunette reprovingly.
“Call me Tommy, Janette—please call me Tommy,” pleaded the little chap.
“And don’t for the love of decorum hitch Mister onto my name. I have to
stop and think who you mean when you do. Nobody ever calls me Mister.
All my friends insult me by calling me ‘Runt’ and ‘Shaver’ and
‘Sawed-off,’ and offensive names like that. I’ve threatened vengeance on
them a thousand times, but it doesn’t seem to frighten them a bit. I
wish I was seven feet tall.”
“There’s a chap in Chicago, Tommy, who advertises to increase a person’s
height from an inch to two inches,” said Dick.
“Well, if I can’t put on more than an inch or two,” declared Tucker,
“I’ll let myself remain a sawed-off. What’s the good of stretching one’s
self for a paltry inch of stature? Say, Dick, won’t you give me the
signal when you decide to move? I have a secret which I wish to whisper
in the shell-like ear of Janette. It can’t be told where the morbidly
curious would be liable to overhear a word.”
“We’ll move at once,” laughed Dick.
“Don’t permit Mr. Tucker to disturb you,” said Janette. “I think his
secret will keep a while.”
“Ah, cruel maiden!” cried Tommy dramatically. “Would you keep the
pent-up emotion of my heart burning itself out with a lambent flame?
Gee, but that was a good one! Wonder how I happened to think of it? I
can’t always trace these brilliant ideas which occasionally flash from
the bubbling fountain of my intelligence. They’re really going, Janette.
Let’s rest. Let’s ensconce ourselves. Let’s modestly retire from the
public gaze.”
But the tall brunette was obdurate, and Tommy could not inveigle her
behind the palms.
“I must look like a dangerous devil,” said Tucker fiercely. “Never saw a
girl that wasn’t scared to death to get out of sight with me for ten
seconds.”
“I’ll give you a pointer,” smiled Janette. “Don’t let them know you’re
so dreadfully anxious to get out of sight with them.”
“Never thought of that,” confessed the little chap. “Say, Janette, let’s
stand under the chandelier a while. I’m awfully timid, you know. I
wouldn’t go behind those palms for the world.”
Then, in a mock whisper, he murmured to himself:
“I wonder if it will work?”
“Oh, you’re the silliest little chap!” exclaimed the amused girl. “I
suppose, now, you expect me to seize you bodily and drag you behind the
palms. You’ve got a lot to learn, Tommy.”
“Bless you! bless you!” panted Tucker, beaming with gratitude. “You
didn’t say mister.”
Again he resorted to an aside in a hoarse stage whisper:
“I’ve got her coming. She’s mine if I don’t make a misstep.”
Janette began to laugh, and her merriment increased until she almost
gasped for breath. Indeed, she seemed to lose her strength to such an
extent that Tucker hurried to offer his support, and a moment later they
found themselves on the secluded seat behind the palms.