"But where are you going, Hu?"
"What?"
"Where are you going?"
Hubert crooked his hand at the back of his ear.
"Speak a little louder, please. I'm deef."
Phebe flew at him and caught his arm.
"Hubert McAlister, tell me where you are going."
"Oh, is that what you said?"
"You knew it perfectly well. Where are you going to?"
"Over to Billy's."
"Then I'm going, too."
"No, you aren't."
"But I will. Why not?"
"Because I don't want you. You're so noisy you tire Billy."
"No, I don't. Boys don't get tired so easy. Besides, he asked me to
come."
He shook himself free from her hands. She ran around him and danced down
the walk before him, laughing like a mocking elf. All at once, she found
herself in Hubert's strong arms.
"Now, Babe, you must go back. I don't want you."
"What can I do?" she whined. "Everybody's gone. Mamma has gone to ride
with Mrs. Farrington, Hope's away, Teddy's away, and you're going."
"But mamma told you to stay and play with Allyn."
"I don't like Allyn. I want to go with you."
"You can't."
"I will."
She struggled to free herself. Hubert was tall and strong for his years,
so that his sister was powerless in his grasp. He stood for a moment,
holding her, while he pondered what to do; then a sudden amused light
came into his eyes. Turning, he went away to the barn where, still
holding Phebe with one hand, with the other he rolled an empty barrel
into the middle of the floor and brought out a bushel basket. Then,
before his astonished sister could fathom his intention or rebel, he
had popped her into the barrel, covered her with the basket which made
a firm, close lid, and walked away to the Farringtons' house.
It was the last of the golden Indian summer, and cold weather was at
hand. By this time, the two households were living on a most informal,
friendly basis. Mrs. Farrington and Mrs. McAlister had dropped back into
the old intimacy of their college days, and the young McAlisters were
fast finding out that a boy was a boy, in spite of a crippled back and a
wheeled chair. Hubert and Billy were good friends, and Hope treated the
invalid with a gentle, serious kindness which won his heart as surely as
her dainty beauty appealed to his eyes. And yet, after all, it was Teddy
for whom he cared the most, Teddy who coddled him and squabbled with him
and ordered him about by turns. For the sake of her bright, breezy
companionship, of her original, ungirl-like way of looking at things, he
endured the ordering and the coddling, and, in spite of the halo of
sanctity which should have surrounded his semi-invalidism, it must be
confessed that he bore out his own part in the squabbles.
Even the coddling, as time went on, came to be rather enjoyable. There
was nothing sentimental about it; it was only the natural result of the
strong instinct of motherhood which belongs to such natures as
Theodora's. Moreover, there were days and days when the old pain came
back to Billy and racked him until he was too weak for the wheeled
chair, and he could only lie on the sofa and endure the passing hours as
best he might. In those days, Theodora never failed him. She learned to
know the flush of his cheeks, the glitter in his eyes, and her brisk
step grew gentle, her clear, glad voice grew low. Strange to say, it was
on those days that Billy wanted her. He seemed to gain rest from her
exuberant strength; and Hope he regarded as the pleasant companion for
his better days, when he could laugh and talk with her, and treat her
with the chivalry which her delicate prettiness appeared to him to
demand. It mattered less about Theodora, he told himself. She was only
another fellow, and she could be treated accordingly.
Hubert had made his call upon Billy and departed again, and Phebe had
freed herself by tipping over the barrel, turning herself about, and
kicking away the basket; and still Theodora sat in the Farringtons' cosy
library, beside the open fire. Billy delighted in reading aloud, and he
had been reading to her for an hour, while she sat dreamily watching the
fire. Then he dropped the book face downward on his knee, and little by
little their desultory conversation stopped. All at once, Theodora
started up.
"Oh, dear, I forgot. I told papa I'd do an errand for him, and I must
go."
Billy yawned.
"Wish I could go, too."
She looked at him suddenly.
"Why don't you?"
"As how?"
"In your chair, of course. You needn't think you can walk yet, even if
papa does say you are gaining, every day."
"Really, do you want me to go, too?"
"Of course. Shall I call Patrick to bring the chair?"
"I've my whistle, you know." He played with it irresolutely. "Are you
sure I won't be in the way?"
"What nonsense!"
She stood leaning on the mantel while Patrick made ready the chair.
Then, moved by some sudden sense of delicacy, she busied herself with
her own wraps when the man bent down and lifted his young master in his
strong arms. Since the first day of their meeting, she had never seen
Billy moved, and she was struck more keenly than at first with the
contrast between the utter limpness of his lower limbs and the bright
activity of the rest of the boy. For an instant, her heart gave a quick
thump, half of pity, half of loyalty and protecting affection. Then she
laid her hands on the bar of Billy's chair.
"That's all, Patrick," she said, nodding up at the tall man beside her.
Patrick surveyed her approvingly. He was critical by nature, and his
smiles were rare; but he liked Theodora for her kindness to his young
master, and he unbent something of his majesty before her, rather to the
surprise of Mrs. Farrington, who was quite accustomed to seeing her
guests quail before the glance of her serving-man.
"Sha'n't I be going with you, Miss Theodora?" he asked.
"Of course. What do you suppose I am going to do without you?" Billy
answered.
But Theodora interposed.
"You needn't come, Patrick. I am going to take Mr. Will, myself."
"Oh, I say, Teddy!" Billy straightened up in his chair.
"That's all right," she said gayly, as she pushed the chair away from
the steps. "Let me do it, Billy; it's much nicer to go by ourselves
without any Patrick, and I promise not to upset you."
"But you oughtn't to do it; 'tisn't the sort of thing a girl ought to
do," he urged. "Truly, Teddy, I don't feel as if I could stand it,
somehow."
Looking into his eyes, as he turned to face her, Theodora read his
sensitive reluctance to receive a service of this kind from a girl, and
a friend of but a few weeks' standing. She let go the handle of his
chair and came forward to his side, where she bent over him, under the
pretext of settling one of the cushions which had slipped aside.
"I wish you'd let me do it for you, Billy," she said, looking honestly
down into his appealing eyes. "I know girls don't usually do this sort
of thing for boys; but it isn't for always, you know, and there isn't
much that I can do for you. If we're going to be real, true friends, you
oughtn't to mind it a bit. You'd do ten times as much for me. Please say
I can take you out often, till you are so you can run away from me. You
know you'd rather go with me than with Patrick." And she looked down at
him with a merry frankness which took away the last shade of
sensitiveness which Billy was ever to know in her company.
It was the first of many similar expeditions. The chair was so light,
and Theodora was so strong for her years, that it never tired her, while
Billy soon discovered that "a walk" with Theodora was quite another
thing from the dull and decorous outings when Patrick tooled him along
through the town, in a solemnly respectful silence. With Teddy's hand on
the bar of his chair and Teddy's chatter in his ears, in a week he
learned more of the town than he had done in the past three months, and
he came home, hungry and eager as a boy could be, full of blithe gossip
and fun, to enliven his mother over the dinner-table.
"Tell you what, it was a good day for us when we came here," he
remarked, one night in December, when he and his mother were settled by
the open fire in the library.
His mother looked up from her book.
"How do you mean?"
"Everything, especially the Macs. There's Mrs. Mac for you, and Teddy
for me. What more can you want?"
"What about Hope?"
"Hope is a stunner, only there's a sort of Sundayfied flavor to her.
Theodora is better for every day. Hope goes with my best necktie;
'tisn't always that I am able to live up to her. Ted doesn't care
whether I am sick or well, dressed up or rolled in a blanket; she sticks
to me just the same. I say, mother?"
"Well?"
"Are we going down to New York, this winter?"
"Not till later, unless you want to go. Aren't you feeling as well,
Will?" This time, Mrs. Farrington threw aside her book and came forward
to her son's side.
Billy looked up at her with merry eyes which were the duplicate of her
own.
"How you do worry about me, mother!" he said. "I'm gaining, every day,
and you ought to know it. I shall be walking soon. But you've been
saying that we'd go down, some time after Christmas, and I wondered why
we couldn't take Teddy along with us. I can't discover that she's ever
been anywhere, and it's time she had a chance. Don't you think so?"
Mrs. Farrington looked thoughtful.
"I don't know but you're right, Will. I've been thinking I'd like to
give her a little treat, if only because she has been so loyal to you. I
had thought of something else; but if you think she'd like this better,
we'll see about it. Would you rather have Teddy than Hubert?"
"Yes, I like Ted better, even if she is a girl. Hubert has more variety,
too, and wouldn't care so much about it."
"Very well; I will see about it," Mrs. Farrington repeated.
Her son looked up at her gratefully.
"What a trump you are!" he said.