PART OF THE TRUTH
Roger, with his rather long hair carefully brushed, sauntered downstairs
to the nicely furnished dining-room, where his mother was eating
breakfast. Mrs. Fairchild was a most attractive little woman. Like
Roger, she was blue-eyed and fair. She was taller, however, than Roger
and not nearly so wide.
"Good morning," said she, with a very pleasant smile. "I guess we're
both late this morning. Your father's been gone for twenty minutes."
"Good morning," shivered Roger.
"Dear me!" said Mrs. Fairchild, catching sight of her son's
remarkably sleek head. "I do wish you wouldn't put so much water on your
hair when you comb it. It isn't at all necessary and it looks
_horrid_--particularly when it's so long. Do be more careful next
time."
"I will," promised Roger, helping himself to an orange.
"It must have taken you a great while to dress. I thought I heard you
stirring about hours ago."
"Yes'm," returned Roger, looking anywhere except at his pretty mother.
"I'm glad you remembered to put on your old clothes, since it's
Saturday. But--why, _Roger_! What is that?"
"That" was a thin, brownish stream, scarcely more than an elongated
drop--trickling down the boy's wrist to the back of his plump hand.
Roger looked at it with horror. His drenched, fleece-lined underwear was
betraying him.
Mrs. Fairchild pushed up his coat sleeve, turned back the damp cuff of
his blue cotton shirt, and disclosed three inches of wet, close-fitting
sleeve. She poked an investigating finger up her son's arm. Then her
suspicious eye caught a curious change of color in the bosom of his
blue shirt. It had darkened mysteriously in patches. She touched one of
them. Then she reached up under his coat and felt his moist back.
"Roger, how in the world did your shirt get so wet? Surely you didn't do
all that washing yourself?"
"No'm."
"Have you been outdoors?"
"Yes'm."
"Watering the grass?"
"No'm."
"Hum--Katie says somebody dug a hole in my pansy bed last night. It's a
splendid place for worms. Have you, by any chance, been trying your new
pole?"
Silence.
"_Have_ you, Roger?"
"Ye--es'm," gulped Roger.
"Did you fall in?"
"Ye--es'm."
"How did you get out?"
"Jus--just climbed out."
"Roger Fairchild! You're _shivering_! And that window wide open behind
you! Come upstairs with me this instant and I'll put you to bed between
hot blankets. It's a mercy I discovered those wet clothes. I'll have
Katie bring you some hot broth the moment you're in bed."
Roger, under a mountain of covers, was thankful that he hadn't had to
divulge the important part Jeanne Duval had played in his rescue. All
that morning, when his mother asked troublesome questions, he shivered
so industriously that the anxious little woman fled for more hot
blankets or more hot broth. The blankets were tiresome and he already
held almost a whole boyful of broth; but _anything_, he thought, was
better than telling that he had been pulled out of the lake in a smelly
old fish net; and by a girl! A _small_ girl at that.
But, in spite of his care, the truth, or at least part of it, was to
come out. The very next day, a small red-headed, barefooted, and very
ragged boy appeared at the Fairchilds' back door. He carried a fish-pole
in one hand, a navy-blue cap in the other. Inside the cap, neatly
printed in indelible ink, were Roger's name and address; for Roger, like
many another careless boy, frequently lost his belongings.
"My sister," said Michael Duval, handing the cap and the pole to the
cook, "sent these here. She pulled 'em out of the lake--same as she did
the fat boy what lives here."
"How was that, now?" asked Katie, with interest.
"Wiv a fish net. It was awful deep where he fell in--way over _your_
head."
"Wait here, sonny. I'll tell the missus about it."
But when Katie returned after telling "Missus," she found no small
red-headed boy outside the door. Michael had turned shy, as small boys
will, and had fled. Neither Katie nor Mrs. Fairchild, gazing down the
street, could catch a glimpse of him.
But Mrs. Fairchild managed to extract a little more information from
Roger, now fully recovered from his unlucky bath.
Yes, the water was deep--ten miles deep, he guessed--because it took an
awful while to come up. Yes, he had been pulled out by _somebody_.
Perhaps it _might_ have been a girl. A _big_ girl. A perfectly
tremendous girl. A regular giantess, in fact. She had reached down with
a long, _long_ arm, and helped him up. A fishnet? Oh--yes (casually), he
believed there _was_ a fish net _there_.
"Where," asked Mrs. Fairchild, "_was_ that dock?"
"Oh, I dunno--just around anywhere. There's a lot of docks in
Bancroft--a fellow doesn't look to see which one he's _on_."
"But, Roger, where does the girl _live_? We ought to do something for
her. I'm _very_ grateful to her. You ought to be too. Can't you tell me
where she lives?"
"Didn't ask her," mumbled Roger. "I just hiked for home."
"And you don't know her name?"
"No," said Roger, truthfully. "I didn't ask her _that_, either. I'm glad
I got my pole back, anyhow."
"Roger," said his mother, earnestly, "hereafter, when you go fishing, I
shall go with you and sit beside you on the dock and hold on to you.
Another time there might not be a great big, strong girl on hand to pull
you out. We _must_ thank that girl."
"I _hate_ girls," said Roger, who had finally escaped from his
persistent mother. "And _small_ ones--Yah!"
The girl that he thought he hated most was eleven years of age, and
small at that. Yet, because of her carefree, outdoor life, she was wiry
and strong; as active, too, as a squirrel. Also, she did a great deal of
thinking.
Little Jeanne Duval loved the old wharf because it was all so beautiful.
She liked the soft blackness of the cindery soil that covered the most
sheltered portions of the worn-out dock. She liked the little sloping
grass-grown banks that had formed at the inner sides of the dock, where
it touched the Cinder Pond. She liked to lie flat, near the steep,
straight outer edge of the dock, to look into the green, mysterious
depths below. _Any_thing might be down _there_, in that deep, deep
water.
The Cinder Pond was different. It was shallow. The water was warmer than
that in the lake and very much quieter. There were small fish in it and
a great many minnows. And in one sunny corner there were pollywogs and
lively crawfish. Also bloodsuckers that were not so pleasant and a great
many interesting water-bugs.
Then there were flowers. Wherever there was a handful of soil, seeds had
sprouted. Each spring brought new treasures to the old dock; each year
the soil crept further lakeward; though the planking was still visible
at the Duval corner of the wharf.
The flowers near the shore were wonderful. Pink and white clover, with
roses, bluebells, ox-eyed daisies, black-eyed Susans, wild
forgetmenots, violets. And sometimes, seeds from the distant gardens on
the high bluff back of the lake were carried down by the north wind;
for, one summer, she had found a great, scarlet poppy; another time a
sturdy flame-colored marigold.
What she liked best, perhaps, was a picture that was visible from a
certain point on Lake Street. That portion of the so-called street, for
as far as the eye could reach, was _road_--a poor road at that. There
were no houses; and the road was seldom used. From it, however, one saw
the tall old smoke-stack, outlined against the sky, the long, low dock
with its fringe of green shrubbery reflected in the quiet waters of the
Cinder Pond; and beyond, the big lake, now blue, now green, or perhaps
beaten to a froth by storm. Jeanne _loved_ that lake.
Seen from that distance, even the rambling shack that her father had
built was beautiful, because its sagging, irregular roof made it
picturesque. Jeanne couldn't have told you _why_ this quiet spot was
beautiful, but that was the reason.
On the portion of the dock that ran eastward from the Duval house, there
were a number of the big reels on which fishermen wind their nets.
These, seen from the proper angle, made another picture. They were used
by her father, Barney Turcott, and Captain Blossom. Barney and "Old
Captain," as everybody called Captain Blossom, were her father's
partners in the fishing business. Two of them went out daily to the
nets, anchored several miles below the town of Bancroft. The third
partner stayed on or near the wharf to sell fish to the chance customers
who came (rather rarely indeed) on foot; in a creaking, leisurely wagon;
or perhaps in a small boat from one of the big steamers docked across
the Bay.
Jeanne's playfellows were her half-brothers Michael, aged eight, Sammy,
aged five, and Patsy, who was not quite two. Also her half-sister Annie,
whose years were three and a half. Jeanne and her father were French,
her stepgrandmother said. Her stepmother, Mollie, and all her children
were mostly Irish.
"But," said Jeanne, a wise little person for her years, "I love those
children just as much as if we were all one kind."