SALLIE’S PRESENT
Three days later, Henrietta, her eyes bright with excitement, rushed to
the dining room and fell upon Mary, one of the neat maids.
“Lend me your cap and apron, quick!” demanded Henrietta, helping herself
to the needed articles. “Don’t say a word. There’s a hack coming up from
the station and I want to answer the doorbell—Doctor Rhodes said I
could. Sallie’s in her room—I locked her in. I’m just getting even with
her for something. I’ll bring your things back in just a few minutes and
tell you the rest.”
Henrietta did answer the doorbell. The visitor was ushered to the
library. Then away sped Henrietta up three flights of steps and through
a tiresome number of corridors until at last she reached Sallie’s room
on the top floor. She unlocked the door noiselessly, rapped on the panel
and then announced, in a very good imitation of Sallie’s own voice:
“A gentleman in the library to see Miss Sallie Dickinson.”
“But there _couldn’t_ be,” said Sallie. “I don’t _know_ any gentleman.”
“But you _do_—or if you don’t, go down and get acquainted. Come on—you
look all right.”
“It—it isn’t one of those Theologs—”
“Come on,” laughed Henrietta, “I’ll race you to the first floor.”
“It’s against the rules—”
“There’s nothing in the by-laws against sliding down the banisters.
These nice black walnut ones were just made for that purpose. Down you
go.”
“If I must, I must,” said resigned Sallie, meekly lying flat on the
broad banister. “I know you’re playing some trick on me.”
“I _thought_ you knew how to slide,” laughed Henrietta, following suit.
“Yes,” confessed Sallie, tackling the last banister, “I’ve helped polish
them all—it’s a wonderful saving of legs.”
“Go on in,” urged Henrietta, at the library door. “Nobody’s going to eat
you.”
Sallie saw a man standing by the table. A man who smiled pleasantly. She
looked at him. Suddenly her heart began to thump wildly.
“Is it—Is it—”
“Yes, it _is_,” cried Henrietta. “Your father.”
Sallie’s face was turning from white to pink and momentarily growing
brighter, but still she seemed unable to move. Henrietta gave her a
gentle shove toward her father’s outstretched arms.
“I found him in London,” said Henrietta. “He’ll tell you all about it.
Good-by, I’ll see you later.”
It happened to be a warm day, so the girls had left their rooms and were
wandering in the grove, under the sheltering hickory trees where earlier
in the season, Charles had placed a number of benches. At sight of
Henrietta waving her arms wildly, the girls moved toward her.
“Help yourselves to the benches,” said Henrietta, seating herself on the
ground. “I have a tale to tell. How would you like to be just awfully
surprised?”
“I guess we could stand it,” drawled Miss Wilson, who, as usual, had a
large box of chocolates under her arm. “Have some candy?”
“You wouldn’t try to stop my mouth with candy,” reproached Henrietta,
“if you knew what you are bottling up thereby. Something’s
happened—something wonderful. Something perfectly _grand_.”
“Tell us,” pleaded Jean, who could see that Henrietta was fairly
bubbling over with news, “Come on, girls. Here’s a story.”
“Well,” began Henrietta, “once there was a man who was always moving
around from one town to another looking for work. When he _had_ work he
wasn’t always satisfied with it. Sometimes he gave up a fairly good job
and just went some place else because he happened to feel like it.”
“One of those rolling stones,” suggested Maude.
“Yes, a regular rolling stone. Well, after awhile he rolled out West. He
tried ranching at first; but he didn’t care much about that. But there
was a sort of cowboy chap that he _did_ like—a young Englishman—and they
decided to be partners. They tried mining for awhile but that didn’t pan
out so they went down to Texas. They worked for an old man down there
who was sick. They did something really worth while for _him_—something
about saving a lot of cattle for him—and he was so grateful that he died
and left his ranch to them.”
“Oh, Henrietta!” teased Hazel, “that _was_ gratitude.”
“Well, I mean that _when_ he died, he left his ranch to those two men.
But the ranch wasn’t very much good—there was something wrong with the
soil and nothing would grow—not even grass. But now pick up your ears,
girls. One day, in one of the fields where the soil was _particularly_
bad, the older man stepped into something soft and some queer greasy
stuff oozed up out of the hole. It was _oil_. Experts came and tested
it. They really had oil.
“Well, even when they had sold all their cattle they hadn’t money enough
to develop their oil mine—”
“Oil _well_,” corrected Miss Wilson. “My father has them—but go on.”
“Yes, oil well. So the cowboy suggested going home to England where he
had a lot of wealthy relatives and friends, to borrow the money. He
wanted, for one thing, to let his own relatives reap some of the benefit
if there _was_ any. Well, that cowboy was—and is—sort of a distant
cousin of my father’s; and my father was one of the men he wanted
especially to see.
“Now, here’s the exciting part. His partner, the rolling stone, was with
him when he went to my father’s rooms in London. And _I_ was there. And
when the cowboy introduced the other man to Father, I sat right up and
looked at him—he looked like somebody I _knew_.
“Then Father introduced them both to me—he’s always careful about things
like that, you know. And then I spoke right up and said:
“‘Mr. Dickinson, is your first name John? And did you ever have a little
girl named Sallie?’ My goodness! You should have seen that little man’s
face! All lit up with joy.”
“But,” cried Jean, “you don’t mean _our_ Sallie! You don’t mean that
that was Sallie’s _father_!”
“I _do_,” assured Henrietta. “Of course it seemed awfully nervy to speak
right out like that to a strange man, right before my proper father and
Cousin George. I never could have done it, if I hadn’t known myself how
horrible it was to be a school orphan. After that, I told him all about
Sallie. And _he_ said that after he got out of the hospital he had
hunted for her just as long as he had had any money; but the poor old
man who had left Sallie at the wrong school couldn’t remember anything
at all about it. Without money, and so weak that he could hardly crawl,
Mr. Dickinson couldn’t do very much toward hunting Sallie up—and there
were so _many_ girls’ schools in this part of the country. And after he
had drifted out West, he was always too poor to come back. This is the
first bit of luck he’s had. But it’s a _big_ bit. The oil well is all
right—he had to stop in New York to attend to some part of the
business—telegrams to and from Texas and things like that. That’s why he
didn’t come when I did. Sallie’s father and the cowboy, too, will be
very rich men. Of course he was going to begin to search for Sallie just
as soon as things were settled; but I saved him a lot of time and
trouble. But, oh! _Such_ a time as I’ve had keeping this tremendous
secret.”
“Where’s Sallie’s father now,” demanded Mabel.
“In the library with Sallie.”
“I’m glad about the money,” said Jean, earnestly, “but Henrietta, is—is
he going to be a _nice_ father for our Sallie?”
“Yes, he is,” returned Henrietta. “I watched him all the way over on the
boat and there isn’t a single thing the matter with him.”
“That’s great,” breathed Mabel. “But what is he like?”
“Well, he has pleasant eyes and a _good_ face and nice, gentle
manners—and he doesn’t eat with his knife. Just after I found him I
began to tremble for fear he _mightn’t_ be the kind of father we’d want
for our Sallie; but he _is_—just exactly. Perhaps he isn’t one of those
terribly strong characters like Daniel Webster or Oliver Cromwell or
John Knox—but who’d _want_ a father like that! But I’m sure he’ll be a
comfortable person to live with and Cousin George—the cowboy, you
know—likes him; and Father says George is mighty particular about his
friends. And of course he’ll pay up everything Sallie owes this school
and give her everything she needs.”
At dinner time that night, Sallie’s father sat in the place of honor at
Doctor Rhodes’s table. And Sallie, such a radiant Sallie, with her head
high and her eyes bright, sat beside him, listening hungrily to his
words.
And when Sallie’s clear young voice was lifted in song at the
Commencement Day exercises, it didn’t come from behind a tree. Lovely
Sallie didn’t _need_ to hide behind a tree or to burrow down in the long
grass; for her Commencement Day gown was quite as new and beautiful as
anybody’s and certainly no other girl wore a happier expression.
“But it’s her father she’s the gladdest about,” explained Mabel. “She
just _loves_ him.”
“I’m glad of that,” said Bettie, who was sitting on her suitcase on the
baggage strewn veranda. “It wouldn’t be much fun to go to Texas with a
father you _didn’t_ love. And isn’t it great! He’s going to let her
visit Henrietta in Lakeville in August and go back to school with her
afterwards so we aren’t going to lose every bit of our Sallie after
all.”
“And,” said Jean, “Mabel is going to spend a week with me and then her
own people will be home. And there’s Charles coming now to take us all
to the station. Good-by, old Highland Hall. You’re going to be a big,
lonesome place without us.”
“A year is a funny thing,” commented Bettie, with her last backward
glance at the tall building. “While it’s happening, it seems to be a
million miles long; and then, the very next minute, it’s all gone.”
“By this time tomorrow,” breathed Marjory, “we’ll be home; and all the
days will have wings. But Mabel, what in the world _are_ you doing?”
“I’m—kuk—crying,” gulped Mabel.
“You funny old baby,” laughed Henrietta. “You’re too tender hearted.”
“It isn’t that at all,” sobbed Mabel, “but something just terrible has
happened. I forgot to label them and I kuk—kuk—can’t remember which lock
of hair is Maude’s and which is Cora’s—and I just loved them both.”
“Well,” soothed Marjory, “both girls are far from bald—you can easily
write for more hair.”
“Cheer up,” comforted Jean, “I _did_ label mine and I can identify
_anybody’s_ hair. And—and we _all_ hate to part with those girls; but we
must look respectable when we get to the station; and when Mr. Black
meets us in Chicago—”
“We’ll be mighty glad to see him,” said Mabel, smiling bravely through
her tears, “and this time I’ll try not to get lost.”
“Climb out, everybody,” said Charles, stopping his car. “Here’s the
station, right in the same old place. And there’s your train, right on
time. And I hope I don’t see another girl or another trunk for the next
four months. So long and good luck.”
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's Girls of Highland Hall, by Carolyn Watson Rankin