A Contrast in Fathers
Georgina was having a beautiful day. It was the first time she had ever
taken part in a Bazaar, and so important was the role assigned her that
she was in a booth all by herself. Moreover, the little mahogany chair in
which she sat was on a high platform inside the booth, so that all might
behold her. Dressed in a quaint old costume borrowed from the chests in
the Figurehead House, she represented "A Little Girl of Long Ago."
On a table beside her stood other borrowed treasures from the Figurehead
House--a doll bedstead made by an old sea captain on one of his voyages.
Each of its high posts was tipped with a white point, carved from the
bone of a whale. Wonderful little patchwork quilts, a feather bed and
tiny pillows made especially for the bed, were objects of interest to
everyone who crowded around the booth. So were the toys and dishes
brought home from other long cruises by the same old sea captain, who
evidently was an indulgent father and thought often of the little
daughter left behind in the home port. A row of dolls dressed in fashions
half a century old were also on exhibition.
With unfailing politeness Georgina explained to the curious summer people
who thronged around her, that they all belonged in the house where the
figurehead of Hope sat on the portico roof, and were not for sale at any
price.
Until to-day Georgina had been unconscious that she possessed any unusual
personal charms, except her curls. Her attention had been called to them
from the time she was old enough to understand remarks people made about
them as she passed along the street. Their beauty would have been a great
pleasure to her if Tippy had not impressed upon her the fact that looking
in the mirror makes one vain, and it's wicked to be vain. One way in
which Tippy guarded her against the sin of vanity was to mention some of
her bad points, such as her mouth being a trifle too large, or her nose
not quite so shapely as her mother's, each time anyone unwisely called
attention to her "glorious hair."
Another way was to repeat a poem from a book called "Songs for the Little
Ones at Home," the same book which had furnished the "Landing of the
Pilgrims" and "Try, Try Again." It began:
"What! Looking in the glass again?
Why's my silly child so vain?"_
The disgust, the surprise, the scorn of Tippy's voice when she repeated
that was enough to make one hurry past a mirror in shame-faced
embarrassment.
"Beauty soon will fade away.
Your rosy cheeks must soon decay.
There's nothing lasting you will find,
But the treasures of the mind."
Rosy cheeks might not be lasting, but it was certainly pleasant to
Georgina to hear them complimented so continually by passers-by.
Sometimes the remarks were addressed directly to her.
"My _dear_," said one enthusiastic admirer, "if I could only buy
_you_ and put you in a gold frame, I'd have a prettier picture than
any artist in town can paint." Then she turned to a companion to add:
"Isn't she a love in that little poke bonnet with the row of rose-buds
inside the rim? I never saw such exquisite coloring or such gorgeous
eyes."
Georgina blushed and looked confused as she smoothed the long lace mitts
over her arms. But by the time the day was over she had heard the
sentiment repeated so many times that she began to expect it and to feel
vaguely disappointed if it were not forthcoming from each new group which
approached her.
Another thing gave her a new sense of pleasure and enriched her day. On
the table beside her, under a glass case, to protect it from careless
handling, was a little blank book which contained the records of the
first sewing circle in Provincetown. The book lay open, displaying a page
of the minutes, and a column of names of members, written in an
exquisitely fine and beautiful hand. The name of Georgina's great-great
grandmother was in that column. It gave her a feeling of being well born
and distinguished to be able to point it out.
The little book seemed to reinforce and emphasize the claims of the
monument and the silver porringer. She felt it was so nice to be
beautiful and to belong; to have belonged from the beginning both to a
first family and a first sewing circle.
Still another thing added to her contentment whenever the recollection of
it came to her. There was no longer any secret looming up between her and
Barby like a dreadful wall. The letter telling all about the wonderful
and exciting things which had happened in her absence was already on its
way to Kentucky. It was not a letter to be proud of. It was scrawled as
fast as she could write it with a pencil, and she knew perfectly well
that a dozen or more words were misspelled, but she couldn't take time to
correct them, or to think of easy words to put in their places. But Barby
wouldn't care. She would be so happy for Uncle Darcy's sake and so
interested in knowing that her own little daughter had had an important
part in finding the good news that she wouldn't notice the spelling or
the scraggly writing.
As the day wore on, Georgina, growing more and more satisfied with
herself and her lot, felt that there was no one in the whole world with
whom she would change places. Towards the last of the afternoon a group
of people came in whom Georgina recognized as a family from the Gray Inn.
They had been at the Inn several days, and she had noticed them each time
she passed them, because the children seemed on such surprisingly
intimate terms with their father. That he was a naval officer she knew
from the way he dressed, and that he was on a long furlough she knew from
some remark which she overheard.
He had a grave, stern face, and when he came into the room he gave a
searching glance from left to right as if to take notice of every object
in it. His manner made Georgina think of "Casabianca," another poem of
Tippy's teaching:
"He stood
As born to rule the storm.
A creature of heroic blood,
A brave though ....... form."
"Childlike" was the word she left out because it did not fit in this
case. "A brave and manlike form" would be better. She repeated the verse
to herself with this alteration.
When he spoke to his little daughter or she spoke to him his expression
changed so wonderfully that Georgina watched him with deep interest. The
oldest boy was with them. He was about fourteen and as tall as his
mother. He was walking beside her but every few steps he turned to say
something to the others, and they seemed to be enjoying some joke
together. Somebody who knew them came up as they reached the booth of
"The Little Girl of Long Ago," and introduced them to Georgina, so she
found out their names. It was Burrell. He was a Captain, and the children
were Peggy and Bailey.
As Georgina looked down at Peggy from the little platform where she sat
in the old mahogany chair, she thought with a throb of satisfaction that
she was glad she didn't have to change places with that homely little
thing. Evidently, Peggy was just up from a severe illness. Her hair had
been cut so short one could scarcely tell the color of it. She was so
thin and white that her eyes looked too large for her face and her neck
too slender for her head, and the freckles which would scarcely have
shown had she been her usual rosy self, stood out like big brown spotches
on her pallid little face. She limped a trifle too, as she walked.
With a satisfied consciousness of her own rose leaf complexion, Georgina
was almost patronizing as she bent over the table to say graciously once
more after countless number of times, "no, that is not for sale."
The next instant Peggy was swinging on her father's arm exclaiming, "Oh,
Dad-o'-my-heart! See that cunning doll bathing suit. Please get it for
me." Almost in the same breath Bailey, jogging the Captain's elbow on the
other side, exclaimed, "Look, Partner, _that's_ a relic worth
having."
Georgina listened, fascinated. To think of calling one's father "Dad-o'-
my-heart" or "Partner!" And they looked up at him as if they adored him,
even that big boy, nearly grown. And a sort of laugh come into the
Captain's eyes each time they spoke to him, as if he thought everything
they said and did was perfect.
A wave of loneliness swept over Georgina as she listened. There was an
empty spot in her heart that ached with longing--not for Barby, but for
the father whom she had never known in this sweet intimate way. She knew
now how if felt to be an orphan. What satisfaction was there in having
beautiful curls if no big, kind hand ever passed over them in a fatherly
caress such as was passing over Peggy Burrell's closely-clipped head?
What pleasure was there in having people praise you if they said behind
your back:
"Oh, that's Justin Huntingdon's daughter. Don't you think a man would
want to come home once or twice in a lifetime to such a lovely child as
that?"
Georgina had heard that very remark earlier in the day, also the answer
given with a significant shrug of the shoulders:
"Oh, he has other fish to fry."
The remarks had not annoyed her especially at the time, but they rankled
now as she recalled them. They hurt until they took all the pleasure and
satisfaction out of her beautiful day, just as the sun, going under a
cloud, leaves the world bereft of all its shine and sparkle. She looked
around, wishing it were time to go home.
Presently, Captain Burrell, having made the rounds of the room, came back
to Georgina. He smiled at her so warmly that she wondered that she could
have thought his face was stern.
"They tell me that you are Doctor Huntingdon's little girl," he said with
a smile that went straight to her heart. "So I've come back to ask you
all about him. Where is he now and how is he? You see I have an especial
interest in your distinguished father. He pulled me through a fever in
the Philippines that all but ended me. I have reason to remember him for
his many, many kindnesses to me at that time."
The flush that rose to Georgina's face might naturally have been taken
for one of pride or pleasure, but it was only miserable embarrassment at
not being able to answer the Captain's questions. She could not bear to
confess that she knew nothing of her father's whereabouts except the
vague fact that he was somewhere in the interior of China, and that there
had been no letter from him for months and that she had not seen him for
nearly four years.
"He--he was well the last time we heard from him," she managed to
stammer. "But I haven't heard anything lately. You know my mother isn't
home now. She went to Kentucky because my grandfather Shirley was hurt in
an accident."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," was the answer in a cordial, sympathetic
voice. "I hoped to have the pleasure of meeting her and I wanted Mrs.
Burrell to know her, too. But I hope you'll come over to the Inn and play
with Peggy sometimes. We'll be here another week."
Georgina thanked him in her prettiest manner, but she was relieved when
he passed on, and she was freed from the fear of any more embarrassing
questions about her father. Yet her hand still tingled with the
friendliness of his good-bye clasp, and she wished that she could know
him better. As she watched him pass out of the door with Peggy holding
his hand and swinging it as they walked, she thought hungrily:
"How good it must seem to have a father like _that_."
Mrs. Triplett came up to her soon after. It was time to close the Bazaar.
The last probable customer had gone, and the ladies in charge of the
booths were beginning to dismantle them. Someone's chauffeur was waiting
to take Georgina's costume back to the Figurehead House.
She followed Mrs. Triplett obediently into an improvised dressing-room in
the corner, behind a tall screen, and in a very few minutes was about to
emerge clad in her own clothes, when Mrs. Triplett exclaimed:
"For pity sakes! Those gold beads!"
Georgina's hand went up to the string of gold beads still around her
neck. They also were borrowed from Mrs. Tupman of the Figurehead House.
"I was going to ask Mrs. Tupman to take them home herself," said Mrs.
Triplett, "but she left earlier than I thought she would, and I had no
chance to say anything about them. We oughtn't to trust anything as
valuable as gold beads that are an heirloom to any outsider, no matter
how honest. They might be lost. Suppose you just _wear_ them home to
her. Do you feel like doing that? And keep them on your neck till she
unclasps them with her own hands. Don't leave them with a servant."
Georgina, tired of sitting all day in the booth, was glad of an excuse
for a long walk. It was almost six o'clock, but the sun was still high.
As she went along, jostled off the narrow sidewalk and back on to it
again every few steps by the good-natured crowd which swarmed the streets
at this hour, she could smell supper cooking in the houses along the way.
It would be delayed in many homes because the tide was in and people were
running down the beach from the various cottages for a dip into the sea.
Some carried their bathing suits in bundles, some wore them under
raincoats or dressing gowns, and some walked boldly along bare-armed and
bare-legged in the suits themselves.
It was a gay scene, with touches of color in every direction. Vivid green
grass in all the door-yards, masses of roses and hollyhocks and clematis
against the clean white of the houses. Color of every shade in the caps
and sweaters and bathing suits and floating motor veils and parasols,
jolly laughter everywhere, and friendly voices calling back and forth
across the street. It was a holiday town full of happy holiday people.
Georgina, skipping along through the midst of it, added another pretty
touch of color to the scene, with her blue ribbons and hat with the
forget-me-nots around it, but if her thoughts could have been seen, they
would have showed a sober drab. The meeting with Captain Burrell had left
her depressed and unhappy. The thought uppermost in her mind was why
should there be such a difference in fathers? Why should Peggy Burrell
have such an adorable one, and she be left to feel like an orphan?
When she reached the Figurehead House she was told that Mrs. Tupman had
stepped out to a neighbor's for a few minutes but would be right back.
She could have left the beads with a member of the family, but having
been told to deliver them into the hands of the owner only, she sat down
in the swing in the yard to wait.
From where she sat she could look up at the figurehead over the portico.
It was the best opportunity she had ever had for studying it closely.
Always before she had been limited to the few seconds that were hers in
walking or driving by. Now she could sit and gaze at it intently as she
pleased.
The fact that it was weather-stained and dark as an Indian with the paint
worn off its face in patches, only enhanced its interest in her eyes. It
seemed to bear the scars of one who has suffered and come up through
great tribulation. No matter how battered this Lady of Mystery was in
appearance, to Georgina she still stood for "Hope," clinging to her
wreath, still facing the future with head held high, the symbol of all
those, who having ships at sea, watch and wait for their home-coming with
proud, undaunted courage.
Only an old wooden image, but out of a past of shipwreck and storm its
message survived and in some subtle manner found its way into the heart
of Georgina.
"And I'll do it, too," she resolved valiantly, looking up at it. "I'm
going to hope so hard that he'll be the way I want him to be, that he'll
just _have_ to. And if he isn't--then I'll just steer straight
onward as if I didn't mind it, so Barby'll never know how disappointed I
am. Barby must never know that."
A few minutes later, the gold beads being delivered into Mrs. Tupman's
own hands, Georgina took her way homeward, considerably lighter of heart,
for those moments of reflection in the swing. As she passed the antique
shop a great gray cat on the door-step, rose and stretched itself.
"Nice kitty!" she said, stopping to smooth the thick fur which stood up
as he arched his back.
It was "Grandpa," to whose taste for fish she owed her prism and the bit
of philosophy which was to brighten not only her own life but all those
which touched hers. But she passed on, unconscious of her debt to him.
When she reached the Gray Inn she walked more slowly, for on the beach
back of it she saw several people whom she recognized. Captain Burrell
was in the water with Peggy and Bailey and half a dozen other children
from the Inn. They were all splashing and laughing. They seemed to be
having some sort of a game. She stood a moment wishing that she had on
her bathing suit and was down in the water with them. She could swim
better than any of the children there. But she hadn't been in the sea
since Barby left. That was one of the things she promised in their dark
hour of parting, not to go in while Barby was gone.
While she stood there, Mrs. Burrell came out on the piazza of the Inn,
followed by the colored nurse with the baby who was just learning to
walk. The Captain, seeing them, threw up his hand to signal them. Mrs.
Burrell fluttered her handkerchief in reply.
Georgina watched the group in the water a moment longer, then turned and
walked slowly on. She felt that if she could do it without having to give
up Barby, she'd be willing to change places with Peggy Burrell. She'd
take her homely little pale, freckled face, straight hair and--yes, even
her limp, for the right to cling to that strong protecting shoulder as
Peggy was doing there in the water, and to whisper in his ear, "Dad-o-my-
heart."