MR. WIZARD
Doris had taken a sudden and unaccountable predilection for morning
strolls. The family did not understand it, for she had always been
partial to her final morning nap. She did not neglect her work, no
indeed, she was getting up early, very ridiculously early--at five
o'clock!--and then going around for a jaunt all by herself wherever
fancy prompted.
To herself Doris admitted candidly that she wanted to see that awfully
aggravating Curious Cat, as she called him to herself, though she
reproved the twins very seriously for the disrespectfulness of it. But
she did not see him. She walked east, west, north and south, but he
remained hidden from view.
She did not forget that twice he had appeared to the girls in the
neighborhood of the erstwhile Haunted House. But it was too far--she
could not walk there, however much she wished to do so. Then came a
sudden idea. She would take a morning drive, instead of a stroll--and
she might, if necessary, walk along the creek herself in search of wild
flowers-- Of course, it was too late for wild flowers, far too late--but
anyhow one never could tell what one might find.
So the very next morning, dimply with the delight of it, she took the
car and drove gleefully out to the lovely hickory grove, and ran the
car deliberately up beside the road, and waited. No Mr. Wizard gloomed
on the horizon. Not even a Corduroy Crab came crashing through the
fallen leaves which blanketed the ground around her. So she got out of
the car, climbed through the fence, and sauntered comfortably along by
the creek, under the big bare trees. Still no angry keeper dashed out
upon her. She took small pebbles and tossed them into the trees to see
the squirrels go scampering--nobody minded in the least. It was very
annoying--like everything else connected with that Curious Cat.
She was very near the Haunted House now, so near she could not go any
farther. Even a wilful and deliberate trespasser could not walk right
into the very doors of an irate proprietor.
She was quite vexed. Why did he claim to be a wizard, and boast of
fairy powers, if he could not see there was a damsel out in search of
him? She turned and walked briskly back down the creek toward the road.
Putting her hands on the top rail of the low fence, she vaulted lightly
over, and cried out in surprise and fear.--The car was gone.
She had left it there, not fifteen minutes ago. She could not be
dreaming--there were the broad smooth tracks in the dust. Some one had
stolen the dear, darling little car.
"Now every one will say I should have chosen the cow," she thought
bitterly.
Doris was several miles from home, and it was breakfast time. They
would know that she was out for her silly morning walk--and when father
found the car gone it would be apparent she had gone for a drive
instead. Oh, dear--it was a long way, and very hot, and dusty--and
she was so unhappy. And it was only natural to blame it all on that
perfectly disgusting Curious Cat, who should have been there, and was
not.
Because she was angry, the first mile passed quickly. But neither anger
nor grief shortened the second mile, nor the third, nor the fourth.
Then she got a ride with a friendly farmer, who openly marveled at
her being in the country so early in the morning. But Doris was not
communicative. They were preachers, of course, but if they wanted to be
in the country, they could be--and the whole neighborhood did not need
to know the wherefore. At eight o'clock she marched grimly into the
manse, and found the family at breakfast.
"Oh, you runaway," laughed Rosalie. "I had a terrible time getting
breakfast. Aren't you a good housekeeper--not a bit of flour in the
house and the cream sour."
"Give me coffee," said Doris, sitting down wearily and resting her
elbows on the table. "Black coffee, strong coffee, lots of it, no sugar
and no cream."
"Why, you poor dear, you are tired," said Rosalie in her softest, most
gurgly voice. "Let me make some fresh toast."
"No toast--just coffee--but lots of it."
"I always said it was silly, walking around without breakfast. I told
you that before. You look positively yellow."
"Dust."
"At the least, you should choose a cool and shady street," said her
father. "You look jaded, dear. I am afraid it is too much for you."
"I _am_ jaded. Father, my poor dear father, be prepared for a bitter
blow."
"What is it?"
"The car, the beautiful red car that dear Mr. Davison left you, is
stolen."
"Stolen!"
"The car?"
"Oh, Doris, I'll bet you had a wreck."
"What happened?"
"I went for a drive instead of a walk, and I left the car just to walk
through the woods a little--and when I came back it was gone."
"Gone!"
"Oh, Doris! You would not let us ride for three weeks, and now it is
gone and we can never ride again--the dear darling precious little car."
"Never mind, girls, if it is gone, no use to worry."
"Every one said we were foolish not to take the cow in the first place."
"Oh, Rosalie, please don't throw that up to me," said Doris tearfully.
"I loved it too much, I was just crazy about it, I thought of it day
and night. Maybe it is a punishment, I suppose it is. And it is all my
fault, for I did adore it."
"Oh, no, Doris. I am sure that had nothing to do with it. You know we
preachers do not have many of these physical, sensational joys--and the
car has been an ecstasy for every one of us. I am sure an understanding
Providence has rejoiced in our pleasure, and not begrudged us a second
of it."
"Why should _our_ car be stolen?" wailed Zee. "Why couldn't it have
been a banker's, who could buy another? Or a bad man's, who did not
deserve one anyhow? Or a sick man's, who couldn't enjoy it? Why is it
always we preachers who get the raw deal?"
"Oh, Zee!"
"I had several perfectly lovely things I wanted to do with the car,"
said Rosalie regretfully. "I am sorry I put them off from day to day."
Treasure slipped away from the table and out of the room. She had
uttered no protest. She had made no complaint. But she crept sadly out
to the garage--she wanted to sit down in the dust where the dear red
car had been of yore, and weep over the spot, as at the passing of a
dear companion.
She opened the door with hands that trembled--and stopped aghast. Her
lips parted several times, and she uttered a curious sputtering gasp.
The red car was right there where it belonged--it was not stolen at
all. Doris was out of her mind!
She walked slowly, dimly back to the manse, her eyes swimming. Poor
Doris--she had walked too far and too fast. Treasure entered the
dining-room, pale, with eyes still clouded.
"I am so sorry," Doris was saying. "I know you are all very angry at
me, and I do not blame you."
"Where did you leave the car?"
Doris blushed. She could not admit to keen-witted Zee that she had
deliberately gone to their Haunted House in the hickory grove.
"Oh, out in the country about six miles--along the Emery Road."
Treasure threw out both hands, and her lips parted spasmodically.
"She is having a nightmare," said Zee, staring at her sister.
"Is the garage gone, too?" demanded Rosalie.
Treasure's lips parted again, but no sound came.
"Shake her, father. She is having a spell or something."
"Out of her mind," said Treasure, at last, with a violent effort.
The family gazed upon her, speechless.
"Car's in the garage," she stammered. "Isn't gone--at all."
With one accord they arose from their chairs and made a united dash on
the garage. It was quite true, the car was there, shiny and serene, in
its accustomed place. They gazed on it silently as Treasure had done,
and then they turned to Doris, wide-eyed and horrified.
"You're off," said Zee succinctly.
"It was a dream, dearest," said Rosalie, slipping a tender arm around
her sister's shoulders. "You haven't been well lately."
"Never mind, Doris. It must have been a dream."
"It was not a dream. I was away out in the country by the hickory
grove of the twins' Haunted House--I left the car and walked along the
creek--"
"Did you see the Corduroy Crab?" asked Treasure eagerly.
"Maybe he lammed her on the head," said Zee, touching her own curly
brow suggestively.
"I did not see any one. And I went right back to the road-- You know I
couldn't go way out there on foot, father."
"You must have been walking in your sleep, dear," said Rosalie. "Maybe
you only dreamed you were there. You are home now, anyhow, and the car
is here, and everything is all right."
"Rosalie, do you think I am out of my head?" demanded Doris sharply.
"I think it was a bad dream, dearest."
"Come on back to the house," said their father pleasantly. "Be glad the
car is here."
"I'll bet the old place _is_ haunted, and they've put a spell on Doris.
Maybe it was the Curious Cat--he says he can put charms," suggested Zee.
Doris smiled at that. As far as she could see, it was the only
explanation possible--the Curious Cat had certainly put his charm upon
her.
She was very cross at Rosalie--for Rosalie insisted that Doris lie
down, and she herself stayed at home from school to do the work, and
father sat by the cot all morning--it was perfectly infuriating. They
looked at her with tender solicitude, and Rosalie made more hot
coffee for her, and bathed her brow every few minutes, and Doris fumed
impotently. For she was helpless. Father had said, "I think you'd
better, dearest," and when father said things in that quiet settled
voice even the General refrained from argument.
But to lie there like an invalid--when she had only been on the trail
of mystery and-- She had found mystery, though! She could swear by her
life's blood that she had driven the car out to the hickory grove. And
she had certainly walked home. But how in the world came the car safely
back in the manse garage? It was more than Doris could understand.
When the girls came home to lunch they kissed Doris tenderly and spoke
to her in a softly soothing way that made her long to shake them. When
they were eating their lunch Zee was called to the telephone, and she
crossed the room on tiptoes, and whispered "Yes," very softly, and then
she gave a little scream.
"You--did?--Mercy! Well, thank goodness! Oh, you horrible thing, won't
Doris rage?--Why, no, Mr. Curious Cat, your charm did not work worth
a cent. It was not Treasure and I at all. It was Doris, and the poor
thing had to walk all the way home, and she is in bed, and we thought
she was out of her mind, and she said the car was stolen." She hung up
the receiver abruptly, and did not hear the sharp exclamations at the
other end of the wire.
Doris rose from the cot, and the family rushed from the table.
"Tell it, and talk fast," commanded the General.
Zee flung herself into a big chair and rocked and screamed with
laughter. "Oh, Treasure, we are even with the Curious Cat at last."
Then wiping her eyes, and between bursts of laughter, she explained.
"He began talking in that sarcastic smart little way he has, and he
said, 'Say, Miss Zee, the next time I find that red car of yours stuck
in front of my house I am going to take it as a gift from Heaven, and
keep it. But this time, just to be friendly and keep you out of a
scrape, I drove it home for you and left it in your garage. I suppose
you were playing hooky, and got stuck. Did I save you? I shall never do
it again.'"
How they all laughed, even Doris, and how heartily she ate of the
luncheon Rosalie had prepared, and what a splendid joke it was-- Only
Doris did wish she had just remained in the car instead of strolling up
the creek--he was such a funny Curious Cat--maybe--Oh, then he did own
the Haunted House, after all!
"He was teasing you girls again," she cried. "The Crab and the
Courteous Coon must be his servants, for he said you left the car in
front of _his_ house."
Then the girls were freshly indignant--pretending he was getting tea
from the Crab, when it was his own tea, and he could give it away if he
wished! But it was funny anyhow, and now he was a more Curious Cat than
ever.
That afternoon, when the girls had gone to school, deciding that Doris
could safely be left alone now--and when father had gone calling,
Doris hurried up-stairs and arranged her hair in most enticing little
curls around her forehead, and put on her very daintiest, bluest,
floweriest dress--because he was in honor bound to call her up and
make apology. Oh, of course, he would not see the enticing curls,
and the dainty blue flowery dress--but it was a great moral support
to know that she looked irreproachable, even when none was there
to see. And she wanted to be very clever and interesting over the
telephone--because--he really had done a very disagreeable thing, and
she wanted to make him sorry.
And then he did not telephone at all. He came himself--in person--and
Doris knew some kindly angel had been guiding her actions that
day. When she heard the ring she went to the door so lightly, so
unconcernedly, sure it was something trivial and some one unimportant.
And there he stood, smiling at her, regret in his eyes.
"I brought my apology with me. May I come in and deliver it?"
"Yes, please do. I know where you live, and that is a beginning, isn't
it?"
"How did you learn that?"
"You said the car was in front of your house. And it was the Haunted
House," she cried gleefully.
"Did you really have to walk home?"
"Four miles and a half." Somehow it did not seem half so long and weary
a way now as it had been seeming all the day. "And I was sure the car
was stolen. And when we found it in the garage they thought I was ill
and put me to bed, and Rosalie stayed home from school to nurse me."
"I am sorry. It was terribly stupid of me. I was sure the girls were in
another scrape, and when the car stuck on them had got a ride back to
school. It was a terrible blunder."
"I am glad of it now, because it brought you to visit me."
And he seemed in not the least bit of hurry, but settled back and
talked, and he had a wonderful basket of fruit, apples and grapes
and golden pears, and he hoped Doris would accept them in token of
forgiveness.
"But when you tell your father, will he ask who brought them?"
"I shall just say the Curious Cat brought them to apologize--and father
is not a bit inquisitive. He will think it is quite all right--he has
the dearest way of thinking things are quite all right."
Doris did long to know how old he was--of course she could not ask--he
surely was not nearly so old as father, yet he did not look young. The
college men of Rosalie's favor looked like children beside him. And he
talked like a man who knew things. But he could not be old--he laughed
so readily, and teased so constantly, and his eyes were so friendly and
warm. Father was forty-three, and forty-three is very terribly old when
one is twenty.
They had tea together--on the Endeavor china. He was much more fun
than the bishop. And in spite of the very-close-to-gray-hairs at
his temples, he had a dear boyish way of settling back in a chair
and getting himself comfortable and happy. And when you see another
thoroughly comfortable and happy right at your side, you are bound to
feel the same way yourself. And Doris did.
After she had watched his departure from the shelter of the front
window, she came back into the room, and there on the card tray--how in
the world it got there she could not imagine--but she knew instantly it
was his card--and she pounced upon it eagerly.
"Mr. Daniel Amberton MacCammon."
After all, the name meant nothing. And there was so much she wished to
know. His age, and who he was, and why he came there, and what in the
world he was doing in the Haunted House, and--oh, a thousand things.
But Doris looked at the card in a friendly companionable way, and said,
in her softest and chummiest voice:
"Honestly, I like you."