Comings and Goings
Out towards the cranberry bogs went the Towncrier. No halting step this
time, no weary droop of shoulders. It would have taken a swift-footed boy
to keep pace with him on this errand. He was carrying the news to Belle.
What he expected her to say he did not stop to ask himself, nor did he
notice in the tumultuous joy which kept his old heart pounding at
unwonted speed, that she turned white with the suddenness of his telling,
and then a wave of color surged over her face. Her only answer was to
lead him into the room where the old net-mender lay helpless, turning
appealing eyes to her as she entered, with the look in them that one sees
in the eyes of a grateful dumb animal. His gaze did not reach as far as
the Towncrier, who halted on the threshold until Belle joined him there.
She led him outside.
"You see for yourself how it is," was all she said. "Do as you think best
about it."
Out on the road again the Towncrier stood hesitating, uncertain which
course to take. Twice he started in the direction of home, then retraced
his steps again to stand considering. Finally he straightened up with a
determined air and started briskly down the road which led to the center
of the town. Straight to the bank he went, asking for Mr. Gates, and a
moment later was admitted into the president's private office.
"And what can I do for you, Uncle Dan'l?" was the cordial greeting.
The old man dropped heavily into the chair set out for him. He was out of
breath from his rapid going.
"You can do me one of the biggest favors I ever asked of anybody if you
only will. Do you remember a sealed envelope I brought in here the first
of the summer and asked you to keep for me till I called for it?"
"Yes, do you want it now?"
"I'm going to show you what's in it."
He had such an air of suppressed excitement as he said it and his
breathing was so labored, that Mr. Gates wondered what could have
happened to affect him so. When he came back from the vault he carried
the envelope which had been left in his charge earlier in the summer.
Uncle Darcy tore it open with fingers that trembled in their eagerness.
"What I'm about to show you is for your eyes alone," he said. He took out
a crumpled sheet of paper which had once been torn in two and pasted
together again in clumsy fashion. It was the paper which had been wadded
up in the rifle, which Belle had seized with hysterical fury, torn in two
and flung from her.
"There! Read that!" he commanded.
Mr. Gates knew everybody in town. He had been one of the leading citizens
who had subscribed to the monument in Emmett Potter's honor. He could
scarcely believe the evidence of his own eyes as he read the confession
thrust into his hands, and he had never been more surprised at any tale
ever told him than the one Uncle Darcy related now of the way it had been
found, and his promise to Belle Triplett.
"I'm not going to make it public while old Potter hangs on," he said in
conclusion. "I'll wait till he's past feeling the hurts of earth. But Mr.
Gates, I've had word that my Danny's coming home. I can't let the boy
come back to dark looks and cold shoulders turned on him everywhere. I
thought if you'd just start the word around that he's all right--that
somebody else confessed to what he's accused of--that you'd seen the
proof with your own eyes and could vouch for his being all right--if
_you'd_ just give him a welcoming hand and show you believed in him
it would make all the difference in the world in Danny's home-coming. You
needn't mention any names," he pleaded. "I know it'll make a lot of talk
and surmising, but that won't hurt anybody. If you could just do that----"
When the old man walked out of the president's office he carried his head
as high as if he had been given a kingdom. He had been given what was
worth more to him, the hearty handclasp of a man whose "word was as good
as a bond," and the promise that Dan should be welcomed back to the town
by great and small, as far as was in his power to make that welcome
cordial and widespread.
* * * * *
Dan did not wait in Washington while Doctor Huntingdon made his report.
He came on alone, and having missed the boat, took the railroad journey
down the Cape. In the early September twilight he stepped off the car,
feeling as if he were in a strange dream. But when he turned into one of
the back streets leading to his home, it was all so familiar and
unchanged that he had the stranger feeling of never having been away. It
was the past ten years that seemed a dream.
He had not realized how he loved the old town or the depth of his longing
for it, until he saw it now, restored to him. Even the familiar, savory
smells floating out from various supper tables as he passed along, gave
him keen enjoyment. Some of them had been unknown all the time of his
wanderings in foreign lands. The voices, the type of features, the dress
of the people he passed, the veriest trifles which he never noticed when
he lived among them, thrilled him now with a sense of having come back to
his own.
Half a dozen fishermen passed him, their boots clumping heavily. He
recognized two of them if not as individuals, as members of families he
had known, from their resemblance to the older ones. Then he turned his
head aside as he reached the last man. He was not ready to be recognized
himself, yet. He wanted to go home first, and this man at the end was
Peter Winn. He had sailed in his boat many a time.
A cold fog was settling over the Court when he turned into it. As
silently as the fog itself he stole through the sand and in at the gate.
The front door was shut and the yellow blind pulled down over the window,
but the lamp behind it sent out a glow, reaching dimly through the fog.
He crept up close to it to listen for the sound of voices, and suddenly
two blended shadows were thrown on the blind. The old man was helping his
wife up from her rocking chair and supporting her with a careful arm as
he guided her across to the table. His voice rang out cheerfully to the
waiting listener.
"That's it, Mother! That's it! Just one more step now. Why, you're doing
fine! I knew the word of Danny's coming home would put you on your feet
again. The lad'll be here soon, thank God! Maybe before another
nightfall."
A moment later and the lamp-light threw another shadow on the yellow
blind, plain as a photograph. It was well that the fog drew a white veil
between it and the street, for it was a picture of joy too sacred for
curious eyes to see.
_Danny had come home!_
* * * * *
It was the tenth of September. The town looked strangely deserted with
nearly all the summer people gone. The railroad wharf was the only place
where there was the usual bustle and crowd, and that was because the
_Dorothy Bradford_ was gathering up its passengers for the last trip
of the season.
Richard was to be one of them, and a most unwilling one. Not that he was
sorry to be going back to school. He had missed Binney and the gang, and
could hardly wait to begin swapping experiences with them. But he was
leaving Captain Kidd behind. Dogs were not allowed in the apartment house
to which his father and Aunt Letty intended moving the next week.
There had been a sorry morning in the garage when the news was broken to
him. He crept up into the machine and lay down on the back seat, and
cried and cried with his arms around Captain Kidd's neck. The faithful
little tongue reached out now and then to lap away his master's tears,
and once he lifted his paw and clawed at the little striped shirt waist
as if trying to convey some mute comfort.
"You're just the same as folks!" sobbed Richard, hugging the shaggy head,
laid lovingly on his breast. "And it's _cruel_ of 'em to make me
give you away." Several days had passed since that unhappy morning,
however, and Richard did not feel quite so desolate over the separation
now. For one thing it had not been necessary to give up all claim on
Captain Kidd to insure him a good home. Georgina had gladly accepted the
offer of half of him, and had coaxed even Tippy into according him a
reluctant welcome.
The passengers already on deck watched with interest the group near the
gang-plank. Richard was putting the clever little terrier through his
whole list of tricks.
"It's the last time, old fellow," he said implor-ingly when the dog
hesitated over one of them. "Go on and do it for me this once. Maybe I'll
never see you again till I'm grown up and you're too old to remember me."
"That's what you said about Dan's coming home," remarked Georgina from
under the shade of her pink parasol. That parasol and the pink dress and
the rose-like glow on the happy little face was attracting even more
admiration from the passengers than Captain Kidd's tricks. Barbara,
standing beside her, cool and dainty in a white dress and pale green
sweater and green parasol, made almost as much of a picture.
"You talked that way about never expecting to see Danny till you were
grown," continued Georgina, "and it turned out that you not only saw him,
but were with him long enough to hear some of his adventures. It would be
the same way about your coming back here if you'd just keep hoping hard
enough."
"Come Dicky," called Mr. Moreland from the upper deck. "They're about to
take in the gang-plank. Don't get left."
Maybe it was just as well that there was no time for good-byes. Maybe it
was more than the little fellow could have managed manfully. As it was
his voice sounded suspiciously near breaking as he called back over his
shoulder, almost gruffly:
"Well you--you be as good to my half of him as you are to yours."
A moment or two later, leaning over the railing of the upper deck he
could see Captain Kidd struggling and whining to follow him. But Barby
held tightly to the chain fastened to his collar, and Georgina, her
precious pink parasol cast aside, knelt on the wharf beside the
quivering, eager little body to clasp her arms about it and pour out a
flood of comforting endearments.
Wider and wider grew the stretch of water between the boat and the wharf.
Richard kept on waving until he could no longer distinguish the little
group on the end of the pier. But he knew they would be there until the
last curl of smoke from the steamer disappeared around Long Point.
"Here," said the friendly voice of a woman stand ing next to him. She had
been one of the interested witnesses of the parting. She thrust an opera-
glass into his hands. For one more long satisfying moment he had another
glimpse of the little group, still faithfully waving, still watching. How
very, very far away they were!
Suddenly the glass grew so blurry and queer it was no more good, and he
handed it back to the woman. At that moment he would have given all the
pirate gold that was ever on land or sea, were it his to give, to be back
on that pier with the three of them, able to claim that old seaport town
as his home for ever and always. And then the one thing that it had
taught him came to his help. With his head up, he looked back to the
distant shore where the Pilgrim monument reared itself like a watchful
giant, and said hopefully, under his breath: "Well, _some day!_"
* * * * *
Georgina, waking earlier than usual that September morning, looked up and
read the verse on the calendar opposite her bed, which she had jead
every, morning since the month came in.
"Like ships my days sail swift to port,
I know not if this be
The one to bear a cargo rare
Of happiness to me.
"But I _do_ know this time," she thought exultingly, sitting up in
bed to look out the window and see what kind of weather the dawn had
brought. This was the day her father was coming home. He was coming from
Boston on a battleship, and she and Barby were going out to meet him as
soon as it was sighted in the harbor.
She had that quivery, excited feeling which sometimes seizes travelers as
they near the journey's end, as if she herself were a little ship,
putting into a long-wished-for port. Well, it would be like that in a
way, she thought, to have her father's arms folded around her, to come at
last into the strange, sweet intimacy she had longed for ever since she
first saw Peggy Burrell and the Captain.
And it was reaching another long-desired port to have Barby's happiness
so complete. As for Uncle Darcy he said himself that he couldn't be
gladder walking the shining streets of heaven, than he was going along
that old board-walk with Danny beside him, and everybody so friendly and
so pleased to see him.
Georgina still called him Danny in her thoughts, but it had been somewhat
a shock the first time she saw him, to find that he was a grown man with
a grave, mature face, instead of the boy which Uncle Darcy's way of
speaking of him had led her to expect. He had already been up to the
house to tell them the many things they were eager to know about the
months he had spent with Doctor Huntingdon and their long trip home
together. And listening, Georgina realized how very deep was the respect
and admiration of this younger man for her father, and his work, and,
everything he said made her more eager to see and know him.
Uncle Darcy and Dan were with them when they put out in the motor boat to
meet the battleship. It was almost sunset when they started, and the man
at the wheel drove so fast they felt the keen whip of the wind as they
cut through the waves. They were glad to button their coats, even up to
their chins. Uncle Darcy and Dan talked all the way over, but Georgina
sat with her hand tightly locked in her mother's, sharing her tense
expectancy, never saying a word.
Then at last the little boat stopped alongside the big one. There were a
few moments of delay before Georgina looked up and saw her father coming
down to them. He was just as his photograph had pictured him, tall,
erect, commanding, and strangely enough her first view of him was with
his face turned to one side. Then it was hidden from her as he gathered
Barby into his arms and held her close.
Georgina, watching that meeting with wistful, anxious eyes, felt her last
little doubt of him vanish, and when he turned to her with his stern lips
curved into the smile she had hoped for, and with out-stretched arms, she
sprang into them and threw her arms around his neck with such a welcoming
clasp that his eyes filled with tears.
Then, remembering certain little letters which he had re-read many times
on his homeward voyage, he held her off to look into her eyes and whisper
with a tender smile which made the teasing question a joy to her:
"Which is it now? 'Dear Sir' or 'Dad-o'-my heart?'"
The impetuous pressure of her soft little cheek against his face was
answer eloquent enough. As they neared the shore a bell tolled out over
the water. It was the bell of Saint Peter, patron saint of the fisher-
folk and all those who dwell by the sea. Then Long Point lighthouse
flashed a wel-come, and the red lamp of Wood End blinked in answer. On
the other side Highland Light sent its great, unfailing glare out over
the Atlantic, and the old Towncrier, looking up, saw the first stars
shining overhead.
Alongshore the home lights began to burn. One shone out in Fishburn Court
where Aunt Elspeth sat waiting. One threw its gleam over the edge of the
cranberry bog from the window where Belle kept faithful vigil--where she
would continue to keep it until "the call" came to release the watcher as
well as the stricken old soul whose peace she guarded. And up in the big
gray house by the break-water, where Tippy was keeping supper hot, a
supper fit to set before a king, lights blazed from every window.
Pondering on what all these lights stood for, the old man moved away from
the others, and took his place near the prow. His heart was too full just
now to talk as they were doing. Presently he felt a touch on his arm.
Georgina had laid her hand on it with the understanding touch of perfect
comradeship. They were his own words she was repeating to him, but they
bore the added weight of her own experience now.
"It _pays_ to keep Hope at the prow, Uncle Darcy."
"Aye, lass," he answered tremulously, "it does."
"And we're coming into port with all flags flying!"
"_That_ we are!"
She stood in silent gladness after that, the rest of the way, her curls
flying back in the wind made by the swift motion of the boat, the white
spray dashing up till she could taste the salt of it on her lips; a
little figure of Hope herself, but of Hope riding triumphantly into the
port of its fulfillment. It was for them all--those words of the old
psalm on which the rainbow had rested, and which the angel voice had
sung--"_Into their desired haven_."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Georgina of the Rainbows, by Annie Fellows Johnston