LIKE A MIRACLE.
Only for Osgood’s sustaining arm, Shultz would have collapsed
completely. Ned helped him to a chair, where he sat staring in dumb
amazement and doubt at Roy Hooker. It was a marvel of marvels, a miracle
beyond his understanding.
“I’m dreaming,” he thought. “It can’t be true.”
But Roy was there. Roy was speaking. Shultz heard him say:
“You look to be in worse condition than I am, old fellow. You’re all
broken up.”
Shultz was broken up indeed. Not a sound did he make, but he covered his
face with his hands, and tears began trickling through his fingers. Then
he felt some one touching him gently, reassuringly, and heard the husky
voice of Professor Richardson, the man he had scorned and sneered at,
saying gently, almost tenderly:
“There, there, my boy. It’s all right. You made a mistake, as we all do
sometimes, but you’ve been punished more than enough. I am sure no one
could wish you to receive further punishment.”
Then Hooker spoke again:
“Why, he wasn’t to blame any more than I was—not as much. I started it.
I lost my head and called him nasty names and tried to hit him. I’m the
one who is really to blame for everything.”
Somehow this made Charley’s tears flow the faster. He did not sob, he
did not speak, but he sat there with a great feeling of gratitude in his
heart and a yearning to say something to Roy Hooker which he knew he
never could say.
“We were all to blame,” asserted Ned. “No one fellow should try to take
it on himself; I’m dead certain other chaps in the bunch will agree to
that.”
“It will be a lesson to you all,” said the old professor. “Mrs. Hooker,
I congratulate you that your son is again in his normal mind and
apparently not much the worse for his experience. It has been a trying
time for us all, and we should be thankful indeed that it has turned out
so well.”
Through his tear-wet eyelashes Shultz was looking at Roy.
“I—I don’t understand,” he whispered. “I saw him fall into the old
quarry.”
“But you didn’t wait to see how far he fell,” said Ned. “I looked.
Perhaps twenty feet below the brink over which he ran, I saw him lying
on a wide projecting shelf of rock. He was stunned, and he lay perfectly
still, without answering when I called to him. I knew I must get him out
somehow, and in a minute or two I thought that I might find a rope in
one of the tool houses of the new quarry. I ran around there as fast as
I could, broke into one of those little shanties, found a rope and
hurried back. Making one end of the rope fast, I lowered myself to the
shelf on which Roy still lay. He was just coming to his senses, and when
he saw me he spoke. Of course, he had no idea where he was or how he
came to be there, for he could remember nothing that happened after his
head struck the mantelpiece in my room.”
“And I can’t remember now,” put in Hooker. “It’s all a blank.”
“When he had recovered and seemed to be pretty strong,” Osgood
continued, “I tied the rope about his body beneath his arms. Then I
climbed back out of the quarry and succeeded in pulling him up, almost
inch by inch. He could help me some by grasping the rough places in the
face of the rock and by getting a few footholds now and then. As soon as
he was safely out, we hoofed it for town.”
“It’s likely,” said Professor Richardson, “that Roy struck his head when
he fell, and that shock restored his lost memory.”
“And I’ve got my boy again,” said Mrs. Hooker, embracing her son and
kissing him. “That’s enough. I am satisfied and happy.”
“I don’t think anybody should kick up a big muss over this affair,” said
Roy’s father. “Now when I was a boy, I got into some scrapes myself. I
guess most men are too apt to forget the fool things they did when they
were youngsters.”
“That is very true,” agreed the professor. “Maturity cuts us off from
true sympathy with boyhood and youth, and we are almost certain to
become too exacting and too harsh toward lads who invariably find
experience the best teacher. I have tried not to forget this myself, but
I presume I am like others, in a measure, at least.”
“Say,” broke in Mr. Hooker suddenly, “while we’re chinning here, we’ve
forgotten something. We’ve forgotten there are parties of searchers out
looking for Roy this minute. It was agreed that the Methodist bell
should be rung when he was found. I think I’d better see about it that
that bell rings.”
“Yes,” nodded Professor Richardson, “and we’ve forgotten something else
as well. Charley has a sprained ankle, and I fear it is badly hurt, even
though he managed to get around on it for a long time after it was
injured. He should have the attention of a doctor as soon as possible.”
“Sure thing,” said Mr. Hooker. “I’ll send Dr. Grindle here right away.
I’ll have to pass his house on the way to tell them to ring the bell.”
Finding his hat, he hurried from the house, and it was not long before
the doctor appeared.
While the ankle was being bathed and bandaged, the church bell flung
forth to the scattering band of searchers the message that the one they
sought was found. Once before on that night Charley had listened to the
notes of that bell and trembled with terror. He trembled again, but it
was with great joy, and in the midst of good resolutions, which, though
unspoken then, he silently vowed should be faithfully remembered and
faithfully kept.