FOLLOWING A CLUE
WHEN Jo Sampson came running with a glass of hot milk and her Aunt
Marion's instructions that Ethel Blue was to drink it at once, he said
that he was preparing the launch for an immediate return across the
lake. It was after they were packed into the boat and Ethel Brown had
squeezed the water out of Ethel Blue's bloomers, that she shrugged
herself comfortably into her father's coat and propped herself against
his shoulder and asked if anybody knew how it happened.
Nobody did, it seemed. Dicky had gone to walk with Helen and Mary and
when they came back and began to busy themselves about the luncheon he
had slipped away. It was not until Captain Morton, who had reached
Chautauqua a day earlier than he expected, and had followed them across
in another launch, suddenly arrived and asked for Ethel Blue that they
noticed that both Ethel Blue and Dicky were missing. The first point of
search was the neighborhood of the rowboat where Ethel Brown had left
her, and they must have come upon her only an instant after she had
collapsed, for Dicky complained tearfully that "The hurted me and then
the tumbled down."
Ethel Blue was the heroine of the day and not even her father was
prouder of her than Ethel Brown, who patted her and praised her without
stint.
So great was the disturbance created at home by Dicky's experience which
necessitated the calling of a doctor to make sure that he and Ethel Blue
were getting on safely, and so frequent were the runnings up and down
stairs with hot water and hot cloths and hot drinks and dry clothes that
it was nightfall before Mrs. Morton had a chance to ask her
brother-in-law how it happened that he had a furlough just at that time.
Ethel Blue had begged not to be sent to bed and she was lying in the
hammock, wrapped in a blanket and holding her father's hand as if she
were trying to keep him always beside her. The rest of the family had
gone to bed or to the Amphitheatre.
"Is my namesake asleep?" inquired Captain Morton. "Then sit down and let
me tell you why I am here. I asked for leave because something had
happened that made me think that we might perhaps be able to find Sister
Louise again."
"Oh, Richard! After all these years! Have you really a clue?"
"It seems to me a very good one. I was doing some inspection work at the
time General Funston cleaned up Vera Cruz. It necessitated my going into
a great many of the Mexican houses. In one of them--a rather small house
in a shabby street--I saw on the wall looking down on me a picture of my
sister."
"Of Louise! How could it have come there?"
"I was amazed. I stared at the thing with my mouth open. But I could not
be mistaken; it was a photograph of her that I was familiar with, taken
before she was married."
"Could you make the proprietor of the house understand that you knew
her?"
"Oh, yes; I've picked up enough Spanish to get on pretty well now. The
man said that the original of the picture, Dona Louisa, had boarded with
them several years ago. It took a lot of calculation to remember how
long ago, but he finally concluded that it was the year before his third
son broke his leg, and that was in 1907, as far as I could make out."
"Eight years ago that she was there. How extraordinary! What became of
her?"
"The story is a tragedy. Louise's husband--Don Leonardo, the Mexican
called him--was a musician, as you know. That was the chief reason for
Father's disliking him. It seems that he had wandered to Vera Cruz with
the orchestra of a theatrical company that stranded there. He was in
sore straits pretty often. 'The little girl used to cry from hunger,' my
man said."
"Poor little thing!"
"It was the first I knew of there being a child. The father finally got
work in the orchestra of a small theatre and managed to make a few
_pesos_ a week. That seems to have relieved the situation somewhat, but
it also brought on Leonard the anger of some of the other musicians in
town who had wanted the 'job' that he had secured."
"He probably needed it more than they."
"But he was a 'gringo' and they hated him. And"--with a glance toward
Ethel Blue, swinging gently in the darkness, "and he died suddenly."
"Oh, poor Louise!" exclaimed Mrs. Morton, and "Poor little girl!"
exclaimed Ethel.
"Somehow or other Louise managed to scrape together money enough to take
the child back to the States, but there was business to be attended to
and she left a permanent address with the Senor who had looked after
some legal matters for her in Vera Cruz."
"Did you find him? Did he tell you the address?"
"I found him, and when he understood why I wanted to know he gave me the
name of the Chicago lawyer whom she would always keep informed of her
whereabouts."
"So you got a furlough and you're on your way to Chicago now?"
"I've been to Chicago."
"And the man knew? Did he tell you?"
"He knew. He told me. Where do you suppose she is?"
"I haven't the remotest idea, Richard."
"At Chautauqua."
"At Chautauqua!" repeated Mrs. Morton in a stupefied tone.
"Here!" cried Ethel Blue, amazed.
"Her address is here until September first. I hustled right on here, as
you may imagine, to catch her before she left. Now the question is, how
do you find out where people are on these grounds?"
"There is a registration office where everybody is supposed to register.
Of course not every one does, but that is the first place to apply.
We'll go there early in the morning."
"Of course you come upon hundreds of Smiths everywhere, but in a place
of this size they may be present in scores instead of hundreds. Have you
met any?"
"Two or three. There is a Mrs. Smith in my C. L. S. C. class, and there
is one who has a cottage near the Hall of Philosophy, and there's
Mother's embroidery teacher at the art store--she's a Mrs. Smith."
"Do you know the first names of any of them?"
"I don't. Do you know Dorothy's mother's name, Ethel?"
"I don't know, Aunt Marion. I'll ask her to-morrow."
"We'll hunt every Smith to his lair," said the Captain seriously; "and
your lair is where you ought to be at this minute, young woman. Kiss me
'Good night.'"
The next morning immediately after breakfast, Mrs. Morton and her
brother-in-law started off on their quest of the Chautauqua Smiths. Both
Ethels were eager to go too, but the elders thought that the fewer
people there were about when the meeting took place the less
embarrassing it would be for their Aunt Louise.
"If you really do find her here," exclaimed Helen, "Roger will have to
acknowledge that there is some romance left in the world."
Mrs. Smith had not reached the art store when Captain and Mrs. Morton
stopped there on their way up the hill, so they went on to the
registration office and looked through the cards in the catalogue.
"Here are Smiths from every State in the Union, I should say. Warren,
Ohio; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Galena,
Illinois; Wichita, Kansas; Bartow, Florida--"
"You can't tell anything from those home addresses, for to tell you the
truth, I was so excited at getting this Chautauqua address from the
Chicago man that I forgot to ask him where she had been before."
"Let's try the first names, then. We want L's, whether we're looking for
'Louise' or 'Leonard.'"
"Here's 'Lucy,' 'Laura,' 'Lester,' and one, two, three with just 'L.'"
"Those will be the ones for us to try first I'll copy their Chautauqua
addresses," and Captain Morton drew out a notebook with a hand that
trembled.
In spite of the number being so reduced, the search was disappointing.
One Mrs. L. Smith lived near the College and proved to be a young woman
with a black-eyed baby who demanded her attention imperatively when her
callers asked about her acquaintances among the other Smiths of the
place.
A second Mrs. L. Smith lived near the fence back of Alumni Hall and was
as much too old as the first Mrs. Smith was too young. The third Mrs.
L. Smith was just enough a matter of doubt to Captain Morton for him to
begin his interview diplomatically.
"Have you ever been in Mexico?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered promptly, though evidently surprised.
"About how long ago?" ventured the Captain.
"It's nearly twenty years now. I was about twenty at the time."
The Mortons excused themselves and continued on their rounds.
"It's a rather doubtful experiment hunting up a person of middle age
whom you haven't seen since she was a young woman. With all respect to
the lady we just interviewed I'm glad she proves to be not my sister.
But I can depend on your affection, Marion, to meet Louise with love no
matter what sort of person she proves to be."
"You may, indeed. And I know she'll call out all my love. In the first
place she's the sister of the best possible husband and the finest sort
of brother-in-law, and in the next place she deserves love for the sake
of the hardships she has been through."
"I saw Brother Roger for an hour just before I left Vera Cruz and he
said that I could depend on you to be just as true to _his_ as you were
to _him_."
As they passed along the streets they stopped at two or three houses
where Mrs. Morton remembered that she had met Smiths or where she could
make inquiries about Smiths, but every call was fruitless.
"I believe we shall have to start a house to house search after dinner.
Helen and Roger can help."
"We might stop here at the art store again as we pass," suggested Mrs.
Morton.
Just at that moment Dorothy's mother came down the steps of the Arcade.
She nodded pleasantly to Mrs. Morton, and then glanced at her companion.
"Richard!" she gasped. "Oh, Richard!"
"Louise! Is it Louise? Your hair! It's white!"
Mrs. Morton slipped an arm around Mrs. Smith's waist and drew her across
the lawn to the shelter of the cottage.
"I'm so thankful it's _you_!" she exclaimed with a smile that relieved
the tension of the meeting. "I like you so much better than any of the
other Mrs. Smiths we have met this morning!"
"I guessed, of course, from your boys' names, that you were my brother's
wife," said the newly found sister, sinking into a chair; "but the
children said there was no chance of their father or their uncle coming
North this summer, and you never had seen me, so I took the risk of
staying on until the first of September when my engagement at the art
store ends."
"Why didn't you tell me, Louise? It would have been such a happiness to
me--to the children--to know. We've been defrauded of nearly two months'
joy."
"I shall be going in a week or ten days more," stammered Mrs. Smith,
looking at her brother.
"You can tell me your plans later," he answered, "but don't look at me
as if I were driving you. Why, I came up here from Vera Cruz to find you
and for no other purpose."
"You found a clue there?"
The slender woman seemed to shrink into her chair, her high-piled white
hair shining against its red back and her eyes gleaming with tears.
He told her how he had come upon her picture.
"Did the Mexican tell you that my husband was shot there? My little
Dorothy wakes even now in the night and thinks she hears voices
whispering in the _patio_ under her window, voices of the men that
called her father out to his death."
"We can all help make her happy enough to forget the hard days--and you,
too, dear Louise."
Mrs. Morton threw her arms around her sister as the Ethels and Dorothy
came rushing into the room from their morning on the bathing beach.
"Children, there's good news. Dorothy is your very own cousin."
"Our cousin?"
"Really our cousin?"
"Grandfather Emerson always said our noses were alike."
"Nothing so good ever happened to us," and the Ethels seized Dorothy and
the three went through the steps of the butterfly dance with joyous
smiles that reassured Dorothy's mother as to her child's welcome into
the family.
"I'm so glad it's _you_ who are the Aunt Louise we've wanted to know all
our lives," cried Helen softly, kissing her aunt.
Roger shook hands with her gravely, feeling himself the representative
of his father on an occasion of such family importance.
The Ethels rushed on to the porch when they heard Dicky coming up the
steps.
"Dicky, Dicky, we've got a new aunt! Come in and see her."
Dicky went slowly into the room for purposes of inspection.
"_That_ ain't a new aunt," he exclaimed; "that'th jutht my fire lady,"
and he curled up like a kitten in his Aunt Louise's lap.