Mr. Lloyd Pryor thought very deeply after he read Mrs. Richie's letter.
He sat in his office and smoked and reflected. And as he reflected his
face brightened. It was a handsome face, with a mouth that smiled
easily. His heavy-lidded eyes behind astonishingly thick and curling
lashes were blue; when he lifted them the observer felt a slight shock,
for they were curiously motionless; generally, however, the heavy lids
drooped, lazily good-humored. He read Mrs. Richie's letter and tapped
the edge of his desk with strong, white fingers.
"Nothing could be better," he said.
Then suddenly he decided that he would go to Old Chester and say so in
person. "I suppose I ought to go, anyhow; I haven't been there for six
weeks. Yes; this child is just what she needs."
And that was how it came about that when he went home he pulled his
daughter Alice's pretty ear and said he was going away that night. "I
shall take the ten-o'clock train," he said.
His girl--a pleasant, flower-like young creature--scolded him
affectionately. "I wish you wouldn't take so many journeys. Promise to
be careful; I worry about you when I'm not with you to take care of
you," she said, in her sweet, anxious young voice. Her father, smiling,
promised prudence, and for the mere joy of watching her let her pack
his bag, lecturing him as she did so about his health. "Now that you
have undertaken all this extra business of the Pryor-Barr people, you
owe it to your stockholders to be careful of your health," she told
him, refusing to notice his smile when he solemnly agreed with her.
"What would happen to the Company if anything happened to you?" she
insisted, rubbing her soft cheek against his.
"Ruin, of course."
But she would not laugh. "And what would happen to _me_?"
"Ah, well, that's a different matter," he admitted, and kissed her and
bade _her_ be careful. "What would happen to me if anything happened to
you?" he teased.
She hung about him, brooding over him like a little mother dove with a
hundred questions. "Are you going anywhere except to Mercer?"
"Well, yes; possibly."
"Where?"
"Oh, to a place called Old Chester."
"Who are you going to see there?"
"Nobody you know, Gas-bag! I never heard of such curiosity!"
"Ah, but I like to think about you when you are away, and know just
where you are and what you are doing every minute of the time."
At which he laughed and kissed her, and was off to take the night train
for Mercer, which made it possible for him to catch the morning stage
for Old Chester.
There was one other passenger in the stage--a little boy with a soft
thatch of straight, yellow hair that had been chopped short around the
bowl of some domestic barber. He sat on the opposite seat and held a
bundle in his arms, peering out over the top of it with serious blue
eyes.
"Well, young man, where are you bound?" inquired Mr. Pryor. When the
child said "Old Chester," Lloyd Pryor tossed a quarter out of the
window to a hostler and bade him go into the stage-house and buy an
apple. "Here, youngster," he said, when the man handed it up to him,
"take that.--Keep the change, my man."
When it did not involve any personal inconvenience, Mr. Lloyd Pryor had
a quick and cordial kindliness which most people found very attractive.
The child, however, did not seem much impressed; he took the apple
gravely, and said, "Thank you, sir;" but he was not effusive. He looked
out of the window and hugged his bundle. Half-way to Old Chester he
began to nibble the apple, biting it very slowly, so that he might not
make a noise, and thrusting it back into his pocket after each bite
with an apprehensive glance at the gentleman in the corner. When he had
finished it and swallowed the core, he said, suddenly:
"Mister, have you any little boys and girls?"
His companion, who had quite forgotten him, looked over the top of his
newspaper with a start. "What? What did you say? Oh--boys and girls?
Yes; I have a girl." He smiled as he spoke.
"Is she as big as me?"
Lloyd Pryor put down his paper and twitched his glasses off. "About
twice as big I should think," he said kindly.
"Twice as big! And twice as old?"
"How old are you?"
"I'm seven, going on eight."
"Well, then, let's see. Alice is--she is twice and five years more as
old. What do you make of that?"
The child began to count on his fingers, and, after looking at him a
minute or two with some amusement, Mr. Pryor returned to his paper.
After a while the boy said, suddenly, "In the flood the ducks couldn't
be drowned, could they?"
But Lloyd Pryor had become interested in what he was reading. "You talk
too much, young man," he said coldly, and there was no further
conversation. The old stage jogged along in the uncertain sunshine;
sometimes Mr. Pryor smoked, once he took a nap. While he slept the
little boy looked at him furtively, but by and by he turned to the
window, absorbed in his own affairs.
As the stage pulled into Old Chester, Mr. Pryor roused himself. "Well,
my boy, here we are," he said.
The child quivered and his hands tightened on his bundle, but he said
nothing. When they drew up at the tavern, there was Danny and Goliath
and Dr. Lavendar.
"Mary gave me some gingerbread for him," Dr. Lavendar was saying to Van
Horn. "I've got it tied up in my handkerchief. Why," he interrupted
himself, screwing up his eyes and peering into the dusk of the old
coach--"why, I believe here's Mrs. Richie's brother too!"
As the horses came to a standstill, Dr. Lavendar was in quite a flutter
of eagerness. But when the very little boy clambered out, the old
minister only shook hands with him, man fashion, with no particular
display of interest.
"I'm glad to see you, David. I am Dr. Lavendar." Then he turned to say
"How do you do?" to Mr. Pryor. "Why, look here," he added in a cheerful
after-thought, "I'm going up your way; get out and come along in my
buggy. Hey! Danny! Stop your snarling. The scoundrel's temper is
getting bad in his old age. Those snails Jonas drives can't keep up
with my trotter."
"But you have one passenger already," Mr. Pryor protested. "I'll just
go on up in the stage, thank you."
"Oh," Dr. Lavendar said, "David's bundle is the biggest part of him,
isn't it, David? We'll leave it with Van Horn and get it as we come
back. Come along, Mr. Pryor. There, David, tuck yourself down in front;
Danny can tag behind." There was a moment's hesitation, and then Mr.
Pryor did as he was bid. Dr. Lavendar climbed in himself and off they
jogged, while Jonas remarked to Van Horn that the old gentleman wasn't
just the one to talk about snails, as he looked at it. But Mr. Pryor,
watching the April sunshine chased over the hills by warm cloud shadows
and bursting into joy again on the low meadows, reflected that he had
done well for himself in exchanging the dark cavern of the stage for
Dr. Lavendar's easy old buggy and the open air. They stopped a minute
on the bridge to look at the creek swollen by spring rains; it was
tugging and tearing at the branches that dipped into it, and heaping up
rocking lines of yellow froth along the banks.
"In summer that's a fine place to wade," Dr. Lavendar observed. David
glanced up at him and then down at the water in silence.
"Well, Goliath! at this rate Jonas could beat us," said Dr. Lavendar,
and smacked a rein down on the shaggy old back. David looked around at
Mr. Pryor with sudden interest.
"Is your name Goliath?" he asked.
Lloyd Pryor was greatly amused. "I hope you haven't such a thing as a
sling with you, David?" he said.
The little boy grew very red, but made no reply.
"It's my horse's name," Dr. Lavendar told him, so kindly that David did
not hear the chuckle in his voice. But the color was hot in the child's
face for many minutes. He had nothing to say for the rest of the pull
up the hill, except briefly, "'Bye," when Mr. Pryor alighted at the
green gate of a foot-path that led up to the Stuffed Animal House.
"I'm very much obliged for the lift, Dr. Lavendar," he said in his
coldly courteous voice, and turned quickly at an exclamation behind him.
"Lloyd!"
"I've brought your brother home, Mrs. Richie," said Dr. Lavendar.
Helena Richie was standing inside the hedge, her face radiant.
"Oh, Lloyd!" she said again breathlessly.
Mr. Pryor laughed and shook hands with her in somewhat formal greeting.
"Do you see my other passenger?" Dr. Lavendar called out. "He came with
your brother. David, suppose you shake hands with Mrs. Richie? I
generally take my hat off, David, when I shake hands with a lady."
"I don't, sir," said David, gently, putting a hand out across the
wheel. Mrs. Richie had not noticed the little boy; but when she took
his hand her eyes lingered on his face, and suddenly she drew him
forward and kissed him.
David bore it politely, but he looked over her head at Mr. Pryor.
"Mister, Alice is nineteen."
"_What?_" Mr. Pryor said, his heavy-lidded eyes opening with a blue
gleam; then he laughed. "Oh yes, I'd forgotten our sum in arithmetic;
yes, Alice is nineteen."
"Well," Dr. Lavendar said, "g'long, Goliath!" and the buggy went
tugging on up the hill. "David, if you'll look in my pocket you'll find
some gingerbread."
David thrust a hand down into the capacious pocket and brought up the
gingerbread, wrapped in a red silk handkerchief. He offered it silently
to Dr. Lavendar.
"I don't believe I'll take any. Suppose you eat it, David?"
"No, thank you, sir."
Dr. Lavendar shook his head in a puzzled way.
David swallowed nervously. "Please, sir," he said, "was that lady that
gentleman's sister?"
"Yes," Dr. Lavendar told him cheerfully.
"But if she is his sister," the little boy reasoned, "why didn't she
kiss him? Janey, she--she always gave me forty kisses."
"Just forty?" Dr. Lavendar inquired, looking at the child over his
spectacles.
David was silent for a moment, then he said, earnestly: "I never
counted. But Janey, she always said 'forty kisses.'" His whole face
quivered. A very large tear gathered, trembled, then rolled over; he
held his hands together under the lap-robe and looked the other way;
then he raised one shoulder and rubbed his cheek against it.
"I guess Janey was a pretty nice sister," Dr. Lavendar said.
David's hands tightened; he looked up speechless, into the kind old
face.
"David," said Dr. Lavendar in a business-like way, "would you mind
driving for me? I want to look over my note-book."
"Driving?" said David. "Oh, _my!_" His cheeks were wet but his eyes
shone. "I don't mind, sir. I'd just as lieves as not!"