presents. My birthday is past; and besides I wanted nice editions, and I
really think I’ve made the money go as far as anybody could!”
“It is very sweet of you, honey,” I said; “but we will share that
Longfellow. Aren’t Mary and the other girls delighted?”
“Indeed they are,” admitted Ernie, with an ingenuous little skip. “I’m
quite the Heroine of their young hearts! It’s lots of fun, Elizabeth.
Only, I’m sorry for Lulu. It must be horrid for her to look back and
think how mean she has been,—and all for nothing, too!”
Wednesday, February 11.
Our precious Robin has been far from well, lately. For some time now he
has almost given up trying to walk. His crutches seemed to tire him more
and more, and his left side has become so helpless that when he did
attempt to get about it reminded one of a little lame bird trailing a
broken wing.
The greater part of the day he has passed propped up with pillows in the
big rocker in the window, or lying in his little crib, because he was
“too tired” to sit up. And the deepening shadows beneath his eyes have
quite wrung our hearts.
Dr. Porter has been very kind and attentive, but far from satisfied; and
last week the stern edict went forth. Robin was to go to bed and stay
there for no less a period than six weeks, with a heavy weight attached
to his little thin leg.
Well, there is one comfort. Our darling baby seems more like himself
since he has been forced at last to give up. He has lost some of the
languor and gentle indifference that seemed to be growing on him. His
merry grin flashes forth with reassuring frequency, followed by the deep
dimple high in his cheek.
“He is resting,” said the doctor, “and he needs it. That boy is grit
clear through,—a quality of which I don’t approve in patients, Miss
Elizabeth.”
“Would you rather have them whine?” I asked.
“Yes,” returned the doctor, uncompromisingly. “I would.”
But Robin will never do that. In the first place, everybody is too good
to him;—Mrs. Burroughs, Miss Brown, and the three Lysles. Indeed, Mr.
Lysle is kind as kind can be. He has brought fruit for Bobsie several
times, and seems quite distressed because “the little invalid” has not a
better appetite. To-day he declared that he really did not see “how the
child managed to survive on such a small amount of sustenance.” Whereat
Ernie giggled, and I had some difficulty controlling my countenance, for
it was at the table the observation was rumbled forth, just as the kind
“Hippopotamus” was finishing his third helping of turkey.
Yes, turkey! if you please; though certainly it did seem some weeks ago
as if the little Grahams could never again claim even so much as a
bowing acquaintance with that royal bird. And after the turkey came ice
cream and mince pie, served by Rose in a spotless cap and apron, while
Rosebud purred upon the warm hearth in the kitchen, waiting his turn to
lick the plates! For no sooner did plenty begin to smile again upon our
household than Ernie (naughty Indian-giver!), demanded back her pet.
“Mary would just as soon have one of the grocer’s new kittens,” she
affirmed. “I’ve asked him about it, and he says we may take our pick.”
So the compromise was effected. Rosebud, sleek and debonair as ever,
returned to grace our home,—and such a welcome as the children gave him!
Indeed, we were all glad. Things have not been so comfortable for
months,—which reminds me of Robin’s poem.
It was this morning, while I was washing his face, that Bobs repeated it
to me. A little soap got into his eyes. He screwed them up, and then
remarked,—
“You must be more careful, Elizabeth, when you wash me, else my poem
won’t stay true.”
“Your poem, Bobsie?” I repeated. Though, certainly, by this time I
should be accustomed to the family weakness.
“Yes,” answered Robin, shyly. “Ernie wrote one, you know, and Haze,
too,—so I thought I would. Shall I say it?”
And, without waiting to be pressed, he graciously began:—
“Oh, what a lucky child am I,
As here upon my bed I lie
With all my needs and wants supplied,
My food, and everything beside;—
Clams, and white mice, and kittens, all!
And when I’m cold my mother’s shawl.”
“Isn’t that pretty?”
“Indeed it is, honey,” I answered. “How did you come to think of it?”
“Well,” confessed Robin, “I’d been crying just a little yesterday,
Ellie, because I wanted to pertend to play tag and I couldn’t see out
the window, and so I had to blow my nose; and I felt for my hankersniff
under the pillow, and _there_ it was! I didn’t have to ring or anything!
And that made me think how lucky I am, and so I made up the poem. Is it
nice enough to be written down?”
“It certainly is,” I answered. “I will put it in my diary, and some day
when you are a big fat man Ellie will read it aloud to you, and we will
both laugh.”
“Why will we laugh, Ellie dear?” asked Robin, innocently.
“Because we will be so glad that the little sick boy who composed it
grew up strong and well,” I answered.
And so I have written “the poem” here, that I may be able to fulfil my
part of the prophecy.
But now I want to talk a little of Geoffrey, for we are really anxious
about him. There is no doubt the boy is very much changed.
Yesterday afternoon he dropped in to see Ernie nearly an hour before
school was out.
“Why, Geof,” I said, “what are you doing here so early? It is scarcely
two o’clock. Ernie isn’t home yet. Did you have a half-holiday?”
Geoffrey looked confused. “’Guess your clocks are wrong,” he answered.
“Can you give a fellow a bit of lunch, Elizabeth?”
“I thought you got your lunch at school,” I returned. “But, of
course,—if you are hungry. Rose has just finished baking. Isn’t that
luck?” And I ran down to the kitchen, where a glass of milk, a couple of
bananas, and a plate of hot ginger-bread were quickly collected.
Geof ate in silence, crumbling his ginger-bread over the tray cloth on
the library table.
“Geoffrey!” I remonstrated. “That’s too good to waste. What you don’t
want I am going to take up to Robin.”
“All right,” answered Geof, pushing his plate indifferently toward me.
“How is the kid?” Then he broke into a short chuckle. “I say,
Elizabeth,” he remarked, “there’s a trained bear out at the zoo that
would tickle Bobs most to death. I’ve been feeding it peanuts all the
morning. It’s gentle as a kitten, the keeper says,—jolly good sort he
seems, too,—and——”
“Geoffrey!” I accused, in sudden shocked enlightenment. “You have been
playing hookey.”
Geof flushed angrily, and bit his lip. “Well, and if I have?” he
blustered. “It’s nobody’s business but my own, I suppose!”
“It certainly is somebody’s business,” I answered, decidedly. “And you
ought to be ashamed of yourself. After all the trouble you were in last
term over hockey and athletics, I should think you would have learned
that such foolishness doesn’t pay.”
Geof sprang to his feet. “Now see here, Elizabeth,” he said, “I’m not
going to be jawed by you. I get enough of that sort of talk at home. If
you can’t be pleasant, I’ll go somewhere else. There are plenty of other
places where a chap can spend the afternoon, and Hollister and Sam
Jacobs are glad enough to show ’em to me.”
“Very well, Geoffrey,” I answered. “If you choose to treat the matter
so! Only, I warn you frankly, in that case I shall go directly upstairs
and tell mother,—I shan’t feel that I have any choice,—and she will tell
Uncle George, I know.”
Geof turned on me incredulously. “You sneak!” he cried. “If that doesn’t
sound exactly like Meta!”
“Oh, Geof dear!” I expostulated, hurt and shocked by his violence.
“Don’t let’s quarrel, or misunderstand each other. You know very well I
don’t want to get you into trouble. But Sam Jacobs and Jim Hollister are
not the sort of fellows you ought to associate with. I don’t believe you
really enjoy the places they take you to, either,—and in the end it
can’t help but be found out. You are doing yourself an injustice,
Geoffrey,—truly you are! Come, let’s sit down and talk things over
quietly.”
I laid my hand on his arm. He tried to shake it off,—but the next
instant his face changed.
“Hang it all, Elizabeth!” he blurted out. “If I had sisters like you and
Ernie,—or a mother!”
And the first thing I knew big, strong, manly Geof had broken down, and
was sobbing like a baby, his head buried in his arms on the library
table.
And presently the whole wretched story came out. It seems that things
have been going from bad to worse ever since last September. It was only
by unusual pressure brought to bear by Aunt Adelaide, and equally
unusual acquiescence on the part of the school authorities, that Geof
managed to be promoted with his class this year, and he entered the new
grade heavily conditioned in nearly all his studies. This, in itself,
was bad; but what made the matter still harder was that in his case a
weekly report has been substituted for the customary monthly one; he
tutors three afternoons a week; and his progress is kept under rigid
supervision.
“So if I’m not nagged about French, I am about Latin,” said poor
Geoffrey; “and I tell you, Elizabeth, the schedule I’m carrying this
year is enough to daze a Solomon.”
“But do you really try to study, Geof?” I asked. “Have you made one
honest effort to set things right?”
Geof flushed. “Yes; I have,” he answered, sullenly. “But nobody believes
it. And recently I’ve had so many headaches, and I don’t sleep well
nights, and——”
“If Aunt Adelaide knew that?” I suggested.
“She’d think I was faking,” concluded Geof, hardily. “And I don’t know
that I blame her much,” he admitted, the next minute. “You see, we never
have gotten along. I was seven when my own mother died, and nine when
the governor remarried,—just old enough to resent it. I remember for
three weeks I wouldn’t call her ‘mamma,’ till finally the matter was
taken to headquarters, and I had to. And then Meta didn’t make things
any easier. We fought from the very start. And they’ve managed to set
the governor against me, till now—Well, the latest threat is, if my
March reports don’t show ‘marked improvement’ I’m to be packed off to
the Catskills for the summer to a little tin soldier camp, where the
fellows wear toy uniforms and tutor all through vacation. Pleasant
prospect!”
“Then, Geoffrey, why in the world play hookey,” I asked, “and throw away
your last possible chance of avoiding it?”
Geof was silent.
“Come, be sensible,” I urged. “Things do look black, I admit, but if for
the next few weeks you learn the lessons set each day, and look neither
forward nor back——”
“That’s just it,” interrupted Geof. “You’ve hit the nail on the head.
There’s too much behind me, Elizabeth. I can’t learn what we are having
now, because I didn’t last term, or the year before. And,—and, you
haven’t any idea how hard it is when everybody is down on a chap. Now
that I’m out of athletics the fellows I used to go with have no further
use for me; I never did get along with the grinds; and Hollister,
Jacobs, and their set are always cordial and pleasant, at least. I’ve
got to associate with somebody, I suppose? You don’t know what you are
talking about,—that’s all.”
“Yes, I do, Geoffrey,” I replied. “It won’t be easy to turn round, I
know;—but what is the use of complicating matters still further? Right
is right, and wrong wrong; and hookey never paid yet. Will you give me
your word that you will go to school to-morrow?”
Again Geof was silent, and I waited. It seemed hard, unsympathetic,—yet
what was I to do? “Will you give me your word, Geof?” I reiterated.
“All right,” he muttered, sullenly, at last. “You have the whip-hand.
I’ll go to school to-morrow and the day after. I won’t promise more than
that. And Saturday, if I haven’t seen the governor myself, you are
welcome to go and tell him anything you please. Does that satisfy you?”
It did not, entirely; but in Geof’s stubborn mood it was the best I
could hope for, and at least he will have time to think things over till
the end of the week. Poor, foolish fellow! I hope I shan’t be obliged to
tell!
Saturday, February 14.
Geoffrey has run away! So that was what he meant by promising to go to
school till Saturday! Oh, I feel as if I were partly responsible;—and
yet, how could I have suspected?
He was over here late yesterday afternoon. I did not have a chance to
see him, as mother was out, and Robin rather feverish and fretful; but
Ernie and he talked together in the workshop for nearly a couple of
hours, and after he went Ernie came down to dinner with such red eyes.
“What is it, dear?” I asked, at last, when she and I were undressing
together in our little room. “Was Geof in one of his moods again?” For
Ernie had been on the verge of tears all the evening.
She dropped upon the bed then, with a little wail, and buried her face
in the pillows. “I should say he was,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t do a
thing with him. That hateful military camp! It’s enough to drive anybody
to desperation!”
“Is it settled?” I asked. “Must Geof really go?”
“Oh, don’t bother, Elizabeth,” returned Ernie, almost crossly. “He’s
going to talk to Uncle George to-night. He gets his allowance Fridays,
you know; and to-morrow we’ll hear.”
Then she turned her face to the wall and pretended to go to sleep; but
she was restless for hours, and once she cried out wildly in her dreams:
“Geoffrey! you mustn’t! You mustn’t, I tell you!”
No wonder she was anxious, poor child; for it seems that Geoffrey, after
having first obtained a promise of secrecy, confided his plans to her
yesterday afternoon. She is the only person who knows where he is now,
and entreaties and arguments are equally of no avail. We simply cannot
get her to tell.
The first alarm reached us this morning, just as we had risen from the
breakfast table. There was a sharp ring at the door-bell; and Rose,
answering the summons, found Maria, one of Aunt Adelaide’s maids,
outside.
“Is Master Geoffrey here?” asked Maria, rather breathlessly. And, upon
receiving Rose’s denial, she cried out:
“Then Lord-a-mercy knows what’s become of him! For he ain’t been home
all the morning, not even to his breakfast, and missis and the boss,
too, are in a great taking!”
Mother and I, who were on our way upstairs, overheard the exclamation
and turned back.
“What is it, Maria?” asked mother, after having sent Rose down to the
kitchen again. “Master Geoffrey has not been here since yesterday. You
say he was not home to breakfast?”
“No, ma’am,” answered Maria; and proceeded to pour forth her tale. It
seems that Geoffrey has been in the habit of over-sleeping recently,
which indulgence greatly irritated Aunt Adelaide.
“Mrs. Graham thinks it’s only manners for the family to sit down to
meals together,” Maria explained. “So this morning when Master Geoffrey
did not come, she sent Jennie up to knock at his door, and Jennie, she
knocked, and knocked again, and got no answer. So after a bit she came
down, and said she could not make Master Geoffrey hear, and Mr. Graham
jumped up.
“‘I’ll wake him myself,’ he says. ‘We’ve had enough of this sort of
nonsense.’ And he went and called very angry-like at the foot of the
stairs; but still there was no reply;—and I was rather sorry for Master
Geoffrey when his pa snatched off one of his slippers and ran upstairs
and threw open the bedroom door.
“‘He’s going to catch it, sure enough, like any babby,’ I thought; but
he didn’t, because the room was empty. The bed had not even been slept
in.
“‘Hello!’ says Mr. Graham, in a disturbed sort of way. And he put on his
slipper and came downstairs again; and directly breakfast was over they
sent me here.”
“Can Ernie know anything of this?” asked mother, turning to me. “She is
Geoffrey’s usual confidante. Run upstairs and get her, Elizabeth. I
believe she has taken Robin his tray.”
All the colour died out of Ernie’s face when she saw me enter the
nursery; but it flooded back again in a crimson wave as she listened to
mother’s message. However, she settled Bobsie to his breakfast, and
quietly followed me downstairs.
“Have you any idea where Geoffrey is, Ernie?” asked mother, gravely.
Ernie’s long lashes swept her cheeks. “Isn’t he at home?” she returned,
in a tone that was intended to sound innocent.
Mother smiled, just a little. “Don’t be foolish, dear,” she replied. “If
you know anything about Geoffrey it is only right for you to tell us. We
are not his enemies.”
For a moment Ernie stood silent; then she said, very low, “I know, but I
can’t tell. I’ve promised.”
At that instant there sounded a second peal at the bell. This time it
was Uncle George. Never before in my life have I seen him so upset,
though it was evident he tried to appear indifferent.
His first words were addressed to Maria.
“Go home to your mistress, my good girl,” he said.
Then, turning to mother,—“It does not answer to send servants on such
errands. They simply stand and gossip.”
Mother flushed a little. “Maria is quite blameless,” she replied. “I
desired to hear all she knew in regard to Geoffrey. Have you any further
news?”
Uncle George laid his hat carefully upon a chair, and felt in his coat
pocket.
“It seems the young scamp left a note,” he said, in a voice that was
husky, despite his assumption of unconcern. “It was not in his room, or
we would have found it earlier. He gave it to Georgie last night,
telling him to give it to me this morning as soon as he had finished
breakfast in the nursery.” And Uncle George handed mother a folded sheet
of paper.
“_Dear father_,” we read,—I was looking over her shoulder,—
“I find that I shall have to go away for I ment what I said
wen you gave me my money tonight. It would be beastly to go
to that miletary-camp and I cant studdy and keep things up
in the way that is expected it makes my headache. Perhaps
there is something the matter with that part of my bran wich
I have inherited from you. But dont worry this will not keep
me from being a good bizness man wich has always been the
fate I have most wished for. I am sorry to have made so much
trubble and Ill come back some day. Dont let Georgie forget
me and dont you forget me either
“Your loving son
“Geoffrey Meadows Graham.”
I wanted to cry as I read it. Poor, blundering, affectionate Geof, with
his atrocious spelling and his “inherited bran.”
Mother handed the note to Uncle George again, without a word.
“Well?” he asked, shortly.
“It is very like Geoffrey,” she said; “though I never could have
supposed he would run away. What are you going to do?”
“I, myself,” returned Uncle George, “would prefer to wait and give the
young beggar a chance to grow tired of his experiment. That’s the
medicine he needs. A chap who can throw over a good home such as
Geoffrey has, ought to be made to rough it a bit. But the women folk
won’t hear of it. Meta and her mother are in a great taking. They
imagine all sorts of foolishness, and it’s on account of them, more
especially, that I have come over to interview your Ernie. Come, young
woman! What have you got to say for yourself? Do you know anything of
Geoffrey’s whereabouts?”
Again Ernie flushed crimson, lowered her eyelids, and remained silent.
“I have already questioned Ernestine,” said mother. “She undoubtedly
knows certain facts which would be very useful. I hope that I shall be
able to convince her it is her duty to tell us.”
Uncle George looked from mother to Ernie in blank amazement. “Do you
mean to say she won’t tell?” he demanded. “Then there is only one way
out of it. She must be made to.”
“I shall try to show Ernie that it is the only way in which she can be
of any help to Geoffrey,” answered mother, quietly.
Uncle George frowned impatiently.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, after a moment’s thought. “I’ll give her
a five-dollar gold piece for the first bit of information she has to
give us. What’s more, I’ll make it twenty-five dollars, if it leads to
Geoffrey’s capture before night. What do you say to that, my girl?”
It would be impossible to describe the look of horror depicted in
Ernie’s features. Betray Geof, her dear chum, her more than brother, for
a sordid money reward! If Uncle George had only known it, our last
chance of winning Ernie was lost when he uttered those hateful words.
But he did not know, and it would have been impossible to make him
understand. On the contrary, he picked up his hat with a satisfied
expression of having set things on the right track, at last, and after a
final injunction “to keep him informed,” left us.
Mother and I looked hopelessly at one another as the front door closed
behind him.
“Ernie, dear,” said mother, very gently, “setting aside all thought of
Uncle George’s offer, for, of course, it is out of the question that you
should accept any money,—I expect you to tell me at once all you know in
regard to Geoffrey’s plans. It may be the means of saving him great
hardship, and discomfort.”
“Yes, Ernie,” I urged. “And everybody is agreed that it is much better
to break a bad promise than to keep it. Doesn’t your own common-sense
tell you that?”
But reason, command, entreat as we might, Ernie remained obdurate.
She sat on the top stair leading down to the basement, the big tears
welling in her blue eyes and trickling along her nose till they dropped
from the tip with a little splash into her lap; listening plaintively to
all we said, replying nothing,—a moving picture of stubborn misery.
At last mother desisted.
“Ernie,” she said, “I want you distinctly to understand that I am both
disappointed and displeased with you. You are the one person who can be
of any help to Geoffrey; but I shall ask you no further questions. When
your own good feeling and sense of right prompt you to follow my wishes,
I shall be ready to listen to you.”
Then mother dressed and went to see Aunt Adelaide; I ran up to the
nursery to Robin; and Ernie locked herself in the workshop, where she
set to work painting a gorgeous family of Japanese paper dolls for Mary
Hobart’s birthday,—spattering their beflowered kimonos ever and again
with a salty drop. She was very forlorn, poor darling;—distressed beyond
measure to feel that her family disapproved of her. Yet she had given
her word to Geof.
So the morning passed. Lunch time came, and still there was no news. The
afternoon dragged even more heavily; and when Hazard came home from the
office in the evening he told us that Uncle George had three detectives
looking for Geof, but as yet they had found no clue.
Dinner was somewhat of an ordeal. I had the head of the table, as mother
did not feel she could leave Aunt Adelaide, who is in a very
apprehensive and nervous state. We tried to keep the conversation to
general topics, but the anecdotal vein of the boarders was not to be
stemmed. It seems that Geoffrey’s escapade reminded everybody of some
long-forgotten incident in his or her own family, or the family of a
friend, or even a friend’s friend.
Nothing was too far-fetched to be appropriate, every possible climax to
the adventure was predicted, and the same heartening conversation
continued when we gathered in the parlour after dinner to wait for news.
Till, finally, about half-past ten or so, the boarders began to disperse
to their rooms;—yet not before Mr. Lysle had made a brief, though
painful, effort to win Ernie’s confidence; for she is a favourite with
the kind “Hippopotamus,” and it grieved him to know her in disgrace.
Therefore, interrupting his sister, who was condoling with Miss Brown
over the sad fate of a nephew of the latter’s mother’s aunt, who eloped
with a sea captain’s daughter some sixty years ago, and was finally
eaten up by whales off the Cape of Good Hope (I believe it was thus the
thrilling story ran), Mr. Lysle, with a sly wink at his wife over the
top of his newspaper, began:
“Miss Ernie! ahem!”
Ernie looked up from her “home-work,” and the “Hippopotamus” continued
ponderously:
“I suppose you are familiar with the famous anecdote of George
Washington and his hatchet? How, when still a young boy, the Father of
Our Country found it impossible, even with the fear of stern
chastisement before him, to tell a—er—a—lie?”
Ernie cautiously refusing to commit herself to any previous acquaintance
with the incident, Mr. Lysle continued blandly:—
“Now, my dear child, a similar opportunity is presented to you,—an
opportunity such as you may never meet again—a grand opportunity! a
great one! The path of truth is a path of roses, for all that it has its
thorns,—even, if I may say so, because of them!”