Lost and Found at the Liniment Wagon
With Mrs. Triplett back in bed again on account of the rheumatism which
crippled her, and Belle going about white of face and sick of soul, home
held little cheer for Georgina. But with Mrs. Triplett averse to company
of any kind, and Belle anxious to be alone with her misery, there was
nothing to hinder Georgina from seeking cheer elsewhere and she sought it
early and late.
She had spent her birthday dollar in imagination many times before she
took her check to the bank to have it cashed. With Richard to lend her
courage, and Manuel, Joseph and Rosa trailing after by special
invitation, she walked in and asked for Mr. Gates. That is the way Barby
always did, and as far as Georgina knew he was the only one to apply to
for money.
The paying teller hesitated a moment about summoning the president of the
bank from his private office at the behest of so small a child, so small
that even on tiptoe her eyes could barely peer into the window of his
cage. But they were entreating eyes, so big and brown and sure of their
appeal that he decided to do their bidding.
Just as he turned to knock at the door behind him it opened, and Mr.
Gates came out with the man with whom he had been closeted in private
conference. It was Richard's Cousin James. The children did not see him,
however, for he stopped at one of the high desks inside to look at some
papers which one of the clerks spread out before him.
"Oh, it's my little friend, Georgina," said Mr. Gates, smiling in
response to the beaming smile she gave him. "Well, what can I do for you,
my dear?"
"Cash my check, please," she said, pushing the slip of paper towards him
with as grand an air as if it had been for a million dollars instead of
one, "and all in nickels, please."
He glanced at the name she had written painstakingly across the back.
"Well, Miss Huntingdon," he exclaimed gravely, although there was a
twinkle in his eyes, "if all lady customers were as businesslike in
endorsing their checks and in knowing what they want, we bankers would be
spared a lot of trouble."
It was the first time that Georgina had ever been called Miss Huntingdon,
and knowing he said it to tease her, it embarrassed her to the point of
making her stammer, when he asked her most unexpectedly while picking out
twenty shining new nickels to stuff into the little red purse:
"All of these going to buy tracts for the missionaries to take to the
little heathen?"
"No, they're all going to--to----"
She didn't like to say for soda water and chewing gum and the movies, and
hesitated till a substitute word occurred to her.
"They're all going to go for buying good times. It's for a sort of a club
we made up this morning, Richard and me."
"May I ask the name of the club?"
Georgina glanced around. No other customer happened to be in the bank at
the moment and Richard had wandered out to the street to wait for her. So
tiptoeing a little higher she said in a low tone as if imparting a
secret:
"It's the _Rainbow_ Club. We pretend that everytime we make anybody
happy we've made a little rainbow in the world."
"Well, bless your heart," was the appreciative answer. "You've already
made one in here. You do that every time you come around."
Then he looked thoughtfully at her over his spectacles.
"Would you take an old fellow like me into your club?"
Georgina considered a moment, first stealing a glance at him to see if he
were in earnest or still trying to tease. He seemed quite serious so she
answered:
"If you really _want_ to belong. Anybody with a bank full of money
ought to be able to make happy times for the whole town."
"Any dues to pay? What are the rules and what are the duties of a
member?"
Again Georgina was embarrassed. He seemed to expect so much more than she
had to offer. She swung the red purse around nervously as she answered:
"I guess you won't think it's much of a club. There's nothing to it but
just its name, and all we do is just to go around making what it says."
"Count me as Member number Three," said Mr. Gates gravely. "I'm proud to
join you. Shake hands on it. I'll try to be a credit to the organization,
and I hope you'll drop around once in a while and let me know how it's
getting along."
The beaming smile with which Georgina shook hands came back to him all
morning at intervals.
Cousin James Milford, who had been an interested listener, followed her
out of the bank presently and as he drove his machine slowly past the
drug-store he saw the five children draining their glasses at the soda-
water fountain. He stopped, thinking to invite Richard and Georgina to go
to Truro with him. It never would have occurred to him to give the three
little Portuguese children a ride also had he not overheard that
conversation in the bank.
"Well, why not?" he asked himself, smiling inwardly. "It might as well be
rainbows for the crowd while I'm about it."
So for the first time in their lives Manuel and Joseph and Rosa rode in
one of the "honk wagons" which heretofore they had known only as
something to be dodged when one walked abroad. Judging by the blissful
grins which took permanent lodging on their dirty faces, Cousin James was
eligible to the highest position the new club could bestow, if ever he
should apply for membership.
If Mrs. Triplett had been downstairs that evening, none of the birthday
nickels would have found their way through the ticket window of the
moving picture show. She supposed that Georgina was reading as usual
beside the evening lamp, or was out on the front porch talking to Belle.
But Belle, not caring to talk to anyone, had given instant consent when
Georgina, who wanted to go to the show, having seen wonderful posters
advertising it, suggested that Mrs. Fayal would take her in charge. She
did not add that she had already seen Mrs. Fayal and promised to provide
tickets for her and the children in case she could get permission from
home. Belle did not seem interested in hearing such things, so Georgina
hurried off lest something might happen to interfere before she was
beyond the reach of summoning voices.
On the return from Truro she had asked to be put out at the Fayal
cottage, having it in mind to make some such arrangement. Manuel had seen
one show, but Joseph and Rosa had never so much as had their heads inside
of one. She found Mrs. Fayal glooming over a wash-tub, not because she
objected to washing for the summer people. She was used to that, having
done it six days out of seven every summer since she had married Joe
Fayal. What she was glooming over was that Joe was home from a week's
fishing trip with his share of the money for the biggest catch of the
season, and not a dime of it had she seen. It had all gone into the
pocket of an itinerant vendor, and Joe was lying in a sodden stupor out
under the grape arbor at the side of the cottage.
Georgina started to back away when she found the state of affairs. She
did not suppose Mrs. Fayal would have a mind for merry-making under the
circumstances. But, indeed, Mrs. Fayal did.
"All the more reason that I should go off and forget my troubles and have
a good time for a while," she said decidedly. Georgina recognized the
spirit if not the words of her own "line to live by." Mrs. Fayal could
bear up and steer onward with a joyful heart any time she had the price
of admission to a movie in her pocket. So feeling that as a member of the
new club she could not have a better opportunity to make good its name,
Georgina promised the tickets for the family even if she could not go
herself. She would send them by Richard if not allowed to take them in
person.
It was still light when Georgina fared forth at the end of the long
summer day. Richard joined her at the foot of the Green Stairs with the
price of his own ticket in his pocket, and Captain Kidd tagging at his
heels.
"They won't let the dog into the show," Georgina reminded him.
"That's so, and he might get into a fight or run over if I left him
outside," Richard answered. "B'leeve I'll shut him up in the garage."
This he did, fastening the door securely, and returning in time to see
the rest of the party turning the corner, and coming towards the Green
Stairs.
Mrs. Fayal, after her long day over the wash-tub, was resplendent in
lavender shirt-waist, blue serge skirt and white tennis shoes, with long
gold ear-rings dangling half-way to her shoulders. Manuel and Joseph were
barefooted as usual, and in over-alls as usual, but their lack of gala
attire was made up for by Rosa's. No wax doll was ever more daintily and
lacily dressed. Georgina looked at her in surprise, wishing Tippy could
see her now. Rosa in her white dress and slippers and with her face
clean, was a little beauty.
Mrs. Fayal made a delightful chaperon. She was just as ready as anyone in
her train to stop in front of shop windows, to straggle slowly down the
middle of the street, or to thrust her hand into Richard's bag of peanuts
whenever he passed it around. Cracking shells and munching the nuts, they
strolled along with a sense of freedom which thrilled Georgina to the
core. She had never felt it before. She had just bought five tickets and
Richard his one, and they were about to pass in although Mrs. Fayal said
it was early yet, when a deep voice roaring through the crowd attracted
their attention. It was as sonorous as a megaphone.
"Walk up, ladies and gentlemen. See the wild-cat, _Texas Tim,_
brought from the banks of the Brazos."
"Let's go," said Richard and Georgina in the same breath. Mrs. Fayal, out
for a good time and to see all that was to be seen, bobbed her long
earrings in gracious assent, and headed the procession, in order that her
ample form might make an entering wedge for the others, as she elbowed
her way through the crowd gathered at the street end of Railroad wharf.
It clustered thickest around a wagon in which stood a broad-shouldered
man, mounted on a chair. He wore a cow-boy hat. A flaming torch set up
beside the wagon lighted a cage in one end of it, in which crouched a
wild-cat bewildered by the light and the bedlam of noisy, pushing human
beings. The children could not see the animal at first, but pushed nearer
the wagon to hear what the man was saying. He held up a bottle and shook
it over the heads of the people.
"Here's your marvelous rheumatism remedy," he cried, "made from the fat
of wild-cats. Warranted to cure every kind of ache, sprain and misery
known to man. Only fifty cents, ladies and gentlemen, sure cure or your
money back. Anybody here with an ache or a pain?"
The children pushed closer. Richard, feeling the effect of the gun-powder
he had eaten, turned to Georgina.
"I dare you to climb up and touch the end of the wild-cat's tail."
Georgina stood on tiptoe, then dodged under someone's elbow for a nearer
view. The end of the tail protruded from between the bars of the cage, in
easy reach if one were on the wagon, but those furtive eyes keeping watch
above it were savage in their gleaming. Then she, too, remembered the
gun-powder.
"I'll do it if you will."
Before Richard could put the gun-powder to the test the man reached down
for a guitar leaning against his chair, and with a twanging of chords
which made the shifting people on the outskirts stand still to see what
would happen next, he began to sing a song that had been popular in his
youth. Or, rather, it was a parody of the song. Georgina recognized it as
one that she had heard Uncle Darcy sing, and even Tippy hummed it
sometimes when she was sewing. It was, "When you and I were young,
Maggie."
"They say we are aged and gray, Maggie,
As spray by the white breakers flung,
But the liniment keeps us as spry, Maggie,
As when you and I were young."
Several people laughed and passed on when the song was done, but the
greater part of the crowd stayed, hoping to hear another, for the voice
was a powerful one and fairly sweet.
"Anybody here with any aches or pains?" he called again. "If so, step
this way, please, and let me make a simple demonstration of how quickly
this magic oil will cure you."
There was a commotion near the wagon, and a man pushed his way through
and climbed up on the wheel. He offered a stiff wrist for treatment. The
vendor tipped up the bottle and poured out some pungent volatile oil from
the bottle, the odor of which was far-reaching. He rubbed the wrist
briskly for a moment, then gave it a slap saying, "Now see what you can
do with it, my friend."
The patient scowled at it, twisting his arm in every possible direction
as if skeptical of any help from such a source, but gradually letting a
look of pleased surprise spread across his face. The crowd watched in
amusement, and nearly everybody laughed when the patient finally
announced in a loud voice that he was cured, that it was nothing short of
a miracle and that he'd buy half a dozen bottles of that witch stuff to
take home to his friends.
The vendor began his speech-making again, calling attention to the cure
they had just witnessed, and urging others to follow. As the subject of
the cure stepped down from the wheel Richard sprang up in his place.
Georgina, pressing closer, saw him lean over the side of the wagon and
boldly take hold of the end of the beast's tail.
"There. I did it," he announced. "Now it's your turn."
Georgina gave one glance at the wild-cat's eyes and drew back. They
seemed to glare directly at her. She wondered how strong the bars were,
and if they would hold the beast in case it rose up in a rage and sprang
at her. But Richard was waiting, and she clambered up on the hub of the
wheel. Luckily its owner was turned towards the other side at that moment
or she might have been ordered down.
"There! I did it, too," she announced an instant later. "Now you can't
crow over me."
She was about to step down when she saw in the other end of the wagon,
something she had not been able to see from her place on the ground under
the elbows of the crowd. In a low rocking chair sat an elderly woman,
oddly out of place in this traveling medicine show as far as appearance
was concerned. She had a calm, motherly face, gray hair combed smoothly
down over her ears, a plain old-fashioned gray dress and an air of being
perfectly at home. It was the serene, unconscious manner one would have
in sitting on the door-step at home. She did not seem to belong in the
midst of this seething curious mass, or to realize that she was a part of
the show. She smiled now at Georgina in such a friendly way that Georgina
smiled back and continued to stand on the wheel. She hoped that this nice
old lady would say something about the virtues of the medicine, for it
cured two more people, even while she looked, and if she could be sure it
did all that was claimed for it she would spend all the rest of her
birthday money in buying a bottle for Tippy.
The placid old lady said nothing, but her reassuring presence finally
made Georgina decide to buy the bottle, and she emptied the red purse of
everything except the tickets. Then the man embarrassed her until her
cheeks flamed.
"That's right, little girl. Carry it to the dear sufferer at home who
will bless you for your kindness. Anybody else here who will imitate this
child's generous act? If you haven't any pain yourself, show your
gratitude by thinking of someone less fortunate than you."
Georgina felt that her blushes were burning her up at thus being made the
centre of public notice. She almost fell off the wheel in her haste to
get down, and in doing so stumbled over a dog which suddenly emerged from
under the wagon at that instant.
"Why, it's Captain Kidd!" she exclaimed in astonishment. "How ever did he
get here?"
"Must have scratched under the door and trailed us," answered Richard.
"Go on home, sir!" he commanded, sternly, stamping his foot. "You know
they won't let you into the show with us, and you'll get into trouble if
you stay downtown alone. Go on home I say."
With drooping tail and a look so reproachful that it was fairly human,
Captain Kidd slunk away, starting mournfully homeward. He sneaked back in
a few minutes, however, and trailed his party as far as the door of the
theatre. Somebody kicked at him and he fled down the street again,
retracing the trail that had led him to the wagon.
A long time after when the performance was nearly over he went swinging
up the beach with something in his mouth which he had picked up from near
the end of the wagon. It was a tobacco pouch of soft gray leather that
had never been used for tobacco. There was something hard and round
inside which felt like a bone. At the top of the Green Stairs he lay down
and mouthed it a while, tugging at it with his sharp teeth; but after he
had mumbled and gnawed it for some time without bringing the bone any
nearer the surface, he grew tired of his newfound plaything. Dropping it
in the grass, he betook himself to the door-mat on the front porch, to
await his master's return.