TOMMY went to the station to meet the four o’clock train from Paulding.
Not finding the girls, he walked out of the village a little way over
the familiar highway between the village and the town. He caught sight
of them, but his heart sank. They were walking arm-in-arm. And though
Betty saw him, there was no change in Rose’s manner until the other
girl had had time to apprise her of his presence. It looked as if her
blindness were inveterate!
He didn’t hurry until he saw that Betty’s face was bright. Then he
bounded towards them as eagerly as awkwardly.
“What luck?” he asked.
Betty was prepared to meet him, but it was hard to speak.
“Tommy, I am just awfully sorry, but we can’t tell you anything, we
can’t say one single thing,” she said soberly. “And please don’t say a
word to anyone about the advertisement in the paper nor the doctor. It
might be--O, perfectly dreadful, the very worst thing you could think
of if you did. But it’s all right. Rose and I are--not excited as we
were, but happy.”
“All right. Mum’s the word!” said the disappointed Tommy bravely. “I’ll
never mention the paper nor anything. But--you are glad I found it?”
“Sure, Tommy,” said Rose.
“More than glad. We’re thankful beyond words,” Betty added solemnly.
“You got through early, Tommy,” observed Rose. “You said your father
would keep you at it till the six o’clock whistle blew.”
“Wonders will never cease,” remarked Tommy. “Dad not only let me off
early, but he even praised me for the way I’d worked--something he
never did before within the memory of man. Not that he made any great
splurge. He had to be grudging about it, or it wouldn’t have been dad.”
“Well, how did you work?” questioned Rose.
“I worked like a dog. I never worked so hard in my life before,”
Tommy owned ingenuously. “You see my mind was on--other things. I
kept wondering where you were and what you were doing and what was
happening, and all the time, without thinking what I was doing, I kept
working harder and faster. It ain’t that way at all when I think of
magic. That doesn’t speed up work, and I don’t care. Gee! I don’t want
to work at the rate I have to-day. Not on your tin-type. But I ain’t so
sorry to-day.”
“Why, Tommy?” Betty asked soberly. For she feared his disappointment
was so great that he welcomed physical weariness to offset it.
“Well, I’ll tell you. Seeing dad in such a pleasant frame of mind, says
I to myself, ‘Here’s your chance, Finnyfish!’ So I up and proposed to
him that he give me my car-fares I save by walking next term, same as
your father and Rose’s do. And by gee! he up and promised! I’m weak yet
from the shock!”
“O, Tommy! how splendid! You’ll be buying a book on magic about every
other week, won’t you?” asked Betty gaily.
“Who knows? I’m so used to going on with a mere pittance that I may
become a miser,” returned Tommy musingly. As a matter of fact an
explanation of the girls’ apparently unsuccessful return had flashed
through his mind. Perhaps it cost a lot more than Betty had thought of
to be cured of blindness. Specialists were very expensive, he knew, and
like as not ten dollars wasn’t so much to this be-decorated Vandegrift
as a dime was to him. Quite likely his fee for this cure, which was
of course at the top of his list, was as much as twenty-five or fifty
dollars. That evening he dropped into the Poganys’ and, the moment Aunt
Sarah went out into the kitchen to make bread, turned to Betty.
“I told you this afternoon how I was so used to going without that
railroad money that I hardly know what to do with it,” he said. “Well,
it’s the truth that I don’t care a mite about it except for the
satisfaction of getting it out of dad. If you and Rose have any use for
it, you can have the whole ninety cents every week.”
“O, Tommy, what a true, true friend you are!” cried the girl with tears
in her soft eyes. “We don’t need it right now, but if we should later,
it would be such a comfort to know that we might have it.”
“When in doubt, consult Finnyfish,” quoth Tommy. He said no more, but
decided secretly to save the money each week and have it ready in case
of emergency.
As for Betty, this made it only seem the harder that they couldn’t
confide in Tommy. But of course he knew in part. He couldn’t help
guessing something very like the truth. They couldn’t discuss this
visit and others with him and he couldn’t ask questions. But he
couldn’t help knowing the meaning of their weekly secret visits to
Millville. And he would realize that there was hope for Rose, but that
the cure would take time.
But Mr. Meadowcroft wouldn’t know one thing. He hadn’t had an inkling
and wouldn’t have. No one would be more gratified, more sympathetic
than he; and yet he could know nothing about it. He must not even know
that they had a secret. And that secret must be kept from him for six
months.