Carey had been working quite steadily at the garage and giving
money to his father and Cornelia every week. It really made things
much easier in the home. Word had come that the mother was steadily
progressing toward health, and everybody was much happier. It seemed
that Carey was happier, too. He was not away so much at night, which
relieved his sister and his father tremendously.
Nothing had been said about Clytie Dodd. Carey had thanked his sister
for the party and for taking so much trouble to make a pleasant
evening, but he utterly ignored the presence of the girl who had been
the cause of the whole affair. It was as if she had not been there.
Mr. Copley had asked as he sat down to dinner the next evening after
the birthday: “Where did you pick up that queer Dodd girl you had
here?” and Cornelia had answered quite casually, as if it didn’t
matter at all, “Oh, she was just a girl I thought perhaps we ought to
know,” and slipped back into the kitchen to get the potatoes just as
Carey entered the dining-room. He must have heard the conversation,
and heard his father’s reply: “Well, I guess she’s not quite our
sort, is she? I guess we can get along without her, can’t we?”—he
made no comment, and began to talk at once eagerly about the new
stone porch he was going to build. It appeared that he had discovered
a lot of stone that was being dug from the street where they were
putting down new paving, and it was to be had for little more than
the carting away. Pat would let him have his truck at night, and he
was going to bring the first load that very evening. Brand was coming
around to help. Brand wanted to have a hand in the building.
Brand appeared soon after, coming breezily out to the dining-room
without an invitation and sitting down for a piece of lemon pie as
if he were a privileged friend of long standing. There was nothing
backward about Brand. Yet somehow they all liked him, and Cornelia
could see that Carey was pleased that they did. She felt a glow of
thankfulness in her heart that it was possible to like one of Carey’s
friends when the other one was so unspeakably impossible.
Brand took off his coat, and put on an old sweater of Carey’s; and
they went off together after the truck. In a little while they were
back with the first load of cobblestones, and worked till long after
dark, load after load, piling them neatly between the sidewalk and
the curb, till they had a goodly lot. Brand seemed as interested in
that porch as if it were his own. After they took the truck back
Brand came in again, and wanted to sing. They sang for nearly an
hour; and, when he left, Cornelia felt as if they had fully taken
over Brand as a part of their little circle. She couldn’t help
wondering what his society mother and elegant sister would say
if they knew where he had spent the last two evenings. Then she
reflected that there were much worse places where he might spend
them, and probably often did; and she began to take Brand into her
thoughts and plans for the future with almost the same anxious care
as she gave to Carey. Brand was a nice boy, and needed helping. He
was too young to spend his time running around with girls like Clytie
Dodd and taking joy rides with a gay crowd. She would make their
little home a haven where Carey and his friends would at least be
safe and happy. She could not give them anything elaborate in the way
of entertainment; but there should always be a welcome, plenty of
music, and something to eat.
Cornelia could see her father visibly brighten day by day as the week
went by, and Carey seemed to stick to his task and spend his evenings
at home. Brand had bought a pair of overalls and made blisters on
his hands digging for the foundation of the stone porch; and every
afternoon Carey came home from the garage at five o’clock and worked
away with a will.
At this rate it did not take long for the wall to rise. It was level
with the front door-step now, and Carey had put a plank across and a
few stones for steps to go up and down.
It was late on Thursday afternoon, and Carey was hard at work trying
to finish the front wall before dark. Brand’s racing-car was standing
by the curb with the engine throbbing, and Brand himself was standing
with one foot on the wall talking to Carey.
Cornelia had just come out with a plate of hot gingerbread for them,
and was standing a moment watching them enjoy it when another car
suddenly came down the hill and stopped in the road just in front of
Brand’s car. A wriggling child in the front seat peered out curiously
from beside the driver, and Cornelia had a glimpse of a fretful
elderly woman’s face in the back seat. Then the door on the driver’s
side of the car was opened and some one got out and came around. She
hadn’t thought of its being Maxwell until he was in full view, and a
soft flush came into her cheeks with the welcome light in her eyes.
“Come in and have a piece of hot gingerbread!” she called, holding
out the plate.
He came springing up the plank, and stood beside her.
“Oh, thank you! Isn’t this wonderful?” he said, taking a piece
eagerly. “But I’m afraid I must eat and run. I’m taking my chief’s
aunt and her grandchild down to the train, and mustn’t delay. I just
stopped to say that I’m leaving for the mountains tomorrow afternoon
about three o’clock, and will stop here for Harry. Do you think that
will be too early for him?”
“Oh, no, indeed. He can come home from school at noon and be all
ready for you. It is wonderful of you to take him. He has talked of
nothing else since you were here, and father and I appreciate your
kindness, I’m sure.”
“No kindness about it. It will be great to have a kid along. I hate
to go anywhere alone. Say, this gingerbread is luscious! No, really I
mustn’t take another bite. I must go this minute. I’ve left my engine
going, and the lady is inclined to be easily annoyed. I—”
He happened to look up at that moment and saw to his horror that his
car had begun to move slowly on down the hill. The child on the front
seat had been doing things to the brakes and clutch. She had no idea
what she was doing, but she always did things to everything in sight.
If it was an electric bulb, she unscrewed it; if it was openable,
she opened it; if it was possible to throw anything out of gear, she
always could be depended upon to throw it. She was that kind of a
child. She once threw a pair of heavy sliding doors off the track and
almost down upon her, and was saved from a timely death only by the
presence of some elderly rescuer. Had Maxwell known the child, he
never would have left her alone in that front seat. She had wriggled
herself into the driver’s seat, and her fat hands were manipulating
the wheel. As the car began to move she gave a shout of horrid glee.
A scream from the woman on the back seat, and Maxwell turned sick
with the thought of the possibilities, and sprang down the wall
toward the street.
But, quick as he was, Brand and Carey were ahead of him. At the very
first sound, even before the car had been really in motion, Carey
looked up over the wall he was building, gave a low whistle, and
cried: “Hey there! Brand! Your car! Get a hustle!”
Brand turned, and needed not an explanation. He dashed across the
intervening space to his own car, sprang to the driver’s seat,
and was off. Carey, though handicapped by the wall he had to leap
over, was scarcely a hair’s breadth behind, and alighted on the
running-board after the car had started.
“We’ve got to catch her before she reaches the corner,” he shouted
above the noise of the racing engine. “There’s a trolley coming
around the curve at the foot of the hill, and you can’t tell what
that kid’ll do. It’s a cinch she never ran a car before; look at her
wabble. She’s getting scared now. Look! The fool in the back seat has
dragged her away from the wheel! Hey there! Give her plenty of room!
Now curve her around, and give me space to jump her!”
Maxwell was running frantically and vainly down the street after his
car, which was now going at a wild pace. From either direction on
the cross street at the foot of the hill he could see cars speeding
along. Who would know that the oncoming car was managed by a child
who had never run a car in her life, a child who knew nothing
whatever about cars, was too young to know, had never even been
accustomed to ride in one, but lived in a little country village
where cars were scarce articles? All this he knew because the
grandmother had talked much to the youngster on the way down, and the
child had said she had never been in a car but once before, but she
wished she had one; she knew she could run it.
Horror froze in his veins as he remembered all these little details.
He had made running a specialty when he was in college athletics,
but now, although his way was downhill, his feet were like lead and
his knees weak as water. He saw himself a murderer. Every possible
detail of disaster rose and menaced his way as he sped onward,
determined to do all in his power for rescue. The blood was pounding
through his head so that he could scarcely see or hear. His breath
came painfully, and he wondered blindly how long this would last.
Then suddenly he saw the long, clean body of the racing-car slide
down the hill like a glance of light, glide close to the runaway car,
then curve away and cross the street just in front of the oncoming
trolley. He looked to see his own car smash into the trolley-car; but
instead it swept around in a steady, clean curve that just cleared
the trolley-car and veered away to the right. It crossed the car
track behind the trolley-car, and circled around and back up the
hill again, a steady hand at the wheel. An instant more, and the car
stopped before him where he stood in the middle of the road, his face
white, his eyes staring, unable to believe that the catastrophe had
really been averted. He looked up and there sat Carey in the driver’s
seat as coolly as if he had been taking a pleasure trip.
“Shall I turn her around?” asked Carey nonchalantly, “or do you want
to go back to the house?”
“How did you do it?” asked Arthur Maxwell, grasping Carey’s grimy
hand eagerly. “I didn’t see you catch her.”
“Oh, just jumped her from Brand’s running-board. Dead easy. Guess she
gave you a little start though. That kid ought to be spanked. I guess
the lady’s pretty badly scared.”
The lady and the “kid” were bathed in tears and wrapped in each
other’s arms in the back seat. The child was experiencing a late
repentance, and the grandmother was alternately scolding and petting
and in a fair way to make the little criminal feel she had done a
smart thing. Maxwell gave them a withering glance, and turned to
Carey, who had swung out over the door and was standing in the road,
looking at the car like a lion tamer who has just subdued a wild
creature.
“I shall never forget this, Copley,” said Maxwell, grasping his
hand once more in the kind of a grip a real man gives to another.
“I’ll talk about it later when I’ve taken these people to the train.
Meantime accept my thanks for yourself and your friend. You’re both
princes, and I’ll see that everybody knows it.”
“Forget it!” chanted Carey, and swung himself like a thistledown to
the running-board of Brand’s car as he swept slowly, scrutinizingly
up.
“Got her all right, didn’t you, old man?” said Brand admiringly. “Any
scratches? You had a mighty close shave!”
“Yep! She’s all right. Well, so-long Maxwell; we gotta beat it back
to work,” and with a great whizzing and banging of joyful celebration
the racer shot its way back uphill, and the two jumped out quite
casually as if they had been off to get a soda and come back to work
again.
Cornelia, white, and trembling from the horror of the thing, tried to
praise, to question, to exclaim; but, failing to make an impression
on the two indifferent workers, went upstairs, fell on her knees,
and cried. Somewhere in the midst of her tears her crying turned into
a prayer of thanksgiving, and she came down with an uplifted look on
her face. Now and then as she went about her duties she stole to the
front window, and looked out on the two sturdy workers. She could
have hugged them both she was so proud of them—they were so cool, so
capable, and so indifferent! Just regular boys!
Maxwell came back that evening. She had somehow known he would. He
was filled with gratitude to the two who had so gallantly saved him
from a catastrophe which would have shadowed his whole life. He still
shuddered over the thought of what might have happened.
“I will never again leave a child alone in an automobile,” he
declared. “That girl was a little terror. I never saw one so spoiled
and disagreeable in my life. She was determined to be allowed to run
the car from the minute she got in, and she annoyed me constantly by
playing with the electric buttons and getting her hands constantly
on the wheel. I never dreamed she would have the strength to start
the car, although she is large and strong for her age. But she has
all kinds of nerve and impudence, and I might have known better than
to stop here at all when I had such a passenger. Her grandmother is
a nervous wreck; but she doesn’t blame me, fortunately, although I
blame myself decidedly. It is my business to know men, and I should
have known that child well enough to realize it was a risk to leave
her.”
“Kid ought to be spanked!” declared Carey gruffly. “Know what she
did? When she saw she was going to run into that car, she lost every
bit of nerve, and began climbing over the back of the seat. Some kid
that! Just bad all through. Any nervy kid I know would have stuck it
out and tried to steer her somehow, but that kid had a yellow streak.”
“You’re right there,” declared Maxwell with watchful eyes upon the
young man. “But you had your nerve with you all right, I noticed.
When you swung off that running-board, it was an even chance you
took. If you had missed your calculation by so much as a hair’s
breadth, you would have been smashed up pretty badly, crushed between
the cars, probably.”
Carey gave his shoulders a slight shrug.
“It’s all in a lifetime,” he said lightly. “But, say, that’s a peach
of a car you’ve got. Had it long?” and they launched into a lengthy
discussion of cars in general and Maxwell’s in particular. Cornelia
noticed that all the time Maxwell was watching her brother keenly,
intently. As he got up to leave, he asked casually:
“Are you still working with the garage people?”
Carey colored, and lifted his chin a trifle haughtily.
“Yes. I—_yes_!” he answered defiantly.
“Stick to it till something better comes along,” advised Maxwell. “It
isn’t a bad line, and you get a lot of good dope about machines that
won’t do you any harm in the future. You’re a good man, and there’s
a good job waiting for you somewhere”; and with that he said, “Good
night.”
Mr. Copley came in presently with a late edition of the evening
paper. He had been called to the home of his manager, who was ill, on
a business consultation. He looked tired but exalted. He spread the
paper out on the table under the lamp, and called the children.
“See!” he said. “Do you know who that is?”
They all gathered around, and behold there was Carey looking at them
from the pages of the _Evening Bulletin_. Carey! Their brother! They
stared and stared again.
The picture had him in football garb, with one eye squinting at the
sun, and a broad grin on his lips. It was Carey two years ago, on the
high school football team; but it looked like him still. Beneath from
a border looked forth the bold, handsome features of Brand Barlock,
and to one side another border held the round, fat, impertinent face
of the child who had started the car that afternoon. The article
below was headed in large letters:
“FOOTBALL HERO SAVES TWO LIVES.
Carey Copley Jumps From Moving Car And Saves Child and Grandmother!”
“Now, isn’t that the limit? How did that thing get in _there_?”
demanded the young hero angrily. “And say! How’d they get my picture?
Some little fool reporter went around to school, I suppose. Wouldn’t
that make you mad? How’d they find that out I’d like to know? Brand
never told; that’s one thing sure. Brand knows how to keep his mouth
shut. You don’t suppose that guy Maxwell would give it to them, do
you?”
“He said he was going to see that everybody knew about it,” chuckled
Louise happily. “I think it oughtta be known, don’t you, Daddy? When
a boy—that is a _man_—does a big thing like saving two lives, I think
everybody oughtta know how brave he is.”
“Nonsense!” said Carey. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,
kid. That wasn’t anything to do.” But his tone showed that he was
pleased at the general attitude of his family. Nevertheless, he
slammed around noisily in the dining-room, pretending not to hear
when his father read aloud the account of the accident in the paper,
and went whistling upstairs immediately after. At the top he called
down:
“Say, I’m mighty glad they were fair to Brand in that ad. Brand’s a
great fellow. I couldn’t have done a thing without him and his car.
He knew just what to do without being told, and he can drive, I’ll
say. Brand deserves all they can say of him. He’s a good fellow.”
Altogether, the household slept joyously that night, and Harry
dreamed of going to the mountains in an airship, and flying back tied
to the tail of a kite.
When Maxwell came to get Harry the next afternoon, he asked Cornelia
one question that made her wonder a little. It seemed almost
irrelevant.
“Did your brother ever have anything to do with handling men?” he
said looking thoughtfully at the neat masonry that was growing
steadily longer and wider and higher.
“Why—I—hardly know,” she replied, laughing. “I’ve been away so much
from home.”
“Captain of the basketball team in high school,” announced Harry
shrewdly, “and captain of a local baseball team they had out the
other side of the city last summer. Some team it was, too; licked
everything in sight and then some. Carey had ’em all right where he
wanted ’em; and when a team treated ’em mean once, Kay just called
the fellows off, and they wouldn’t play one of ’em till he got a
square deal with the ump!”
Harry’s eyes sparkled. He made an earnest young advocate.
“Fine! I must hear more about that. I foresee I’m going to have a
thrilling trip. There’ll be lots to talk about. Well, Miss Copley,
we’ll bid you good-bye and get on our way. I want to get on well this
afternoon in case we have bad weather tomorrow. But it looks clear
now. We’ll travel late tonight. There ought to be a wonderful moon.
I wish you were going along.” He gave her a wistful glance, and she
flushed with pleasure.
“Thank you,” she said appreciatively. “If I were only a little boy
with nothing to do!”
“Sister!” protested Harry. “I’ve lots to do. I guess I work every day
after school!”
“You’re not a little boy, Harry; you’re almost a man,” answered his
sister lovingly. “I wasn’t meaning you at all; I said, if _I_ were
a little boy with nothing to do, then I could go along. I meant you
could take care of me, see?” She gave a dear little smile at him, and
he grinned.
“Aw! Quit yer kiddin’. So-long, Cornie! Be back Monday. Take ker o’
yerself!”
Maxwell’s eyes met hers; they laughed together at the boyishness of
it, and Maxwell said good-bye, and departed. Cornelia, as she went
into the house, wondered why the brief conversation had seemed to
lighten the monotony of the day so much, and then fell to wondering
why Maxwell had asked that question about Carey.
Five minutes later the door-bell rang; and, when she opened the
door, there stood Clytie Dodd, a brilliant red feather surrounding a
speck of a hat, and her face painted and powdered more wickedly than
ever. She was wearing a yellow organdie dress with scallops on the
bottom and adornments of colored spheres of cloth attached with black
stitches at intervals over the frock. She carried a green parasol
airily, and there was a “man” with an incipient and tenderly nursed
mustache waiting for her at the gate. She greeted Cornelia profusely,
and talked very loudly and very fast.
“Is Kay here? I’m just dying to see him and kid him about having his
picture in the paper. He always said he’d never get his there. But
isn’t it great, though? Some hero, I’ll tell the world! Who was the
kid? Anybody belonging to the family? The paper didn’t state. Oh,
darn! I’m sorry Kay isn’t here. I wanted him to meet my friend,”
nodding toward the man at the gate. “We’ve got a date on for tonight,
and we want him and his friend Mr. Barlock. Some girl friends of mine
are coming, and we’re going to have a dance and a big feed. It’s just
the kind of thing Kay likes. When’ll he be back? Where is he? At the
garage? We stopped there, but Pat said he’d went off with a car for
some high muckymuck. I thought p’raps he’d stopped off here to take
you a ride er something. Well, I s’pose I’ll have to leave a message.
Say, Ed, what time we going to start? Eight? Oh, rats! we oughtta
start at half past seven. It’s a good piece out to that Horseheads
Inn I was tellin’ you ’bout. We’ll start at half past seven. Say, you
tell your brother to call me up soon’s he gets here. He often phones
from the drug-store. Tell him I’ll give the details. But in case he
don’t get me tell him we’ll stop by here for him at half past seven.
Tell him not to keep us waiting. I gotta go on now ’cause we gotta
tell two other people, a girl and a man. It’s awful annoying not
having telephones everywhere. I don’t know what we’d ever do without
ours. S’-long! Don’t forget to tell Kay!” and she flitted down the
steps and out the gate to her “man.”