Now it so happened that at the very moment when Bruce was lying on his
back in a ward of the New York hospital, a very pretty young girl, whose
name might have been on his lips at that painful point of his career,
was walking along a shady garden path, with her arms about the waist of
a young girl of her own age and equally pretty. One of these young
girls, as the least intelligent of my readers may guess, was Laura Van
Kuren; the other was her particular friend, Kitty Harriott. As they
walked they turned their heads toward one another and seemed engrossed
in an eager conversation.
“Hush!” exclaimed Kitty, as she laid a warning hand on her friend’s arm.
“Harry might be around somewhere, and I wouldn’t have him hear us for
the world.”
“Harry’s upstairs finishing his lessons, so you’ll have to put up with
me until Mr. Reed lets him loose. He got kept in to-day as usual, but I
dare say if he knew you were here he’d climb out of the window and come
down into the garden as he did last week.”
Kitty colored slightly at Laura’s words, and then observed with a show
of carelessness, “I’m sure it’s a matter of perfect indifference to me
whether I see him or not. Boys are nuisances anyway, and besides I
wouldn’t have him hear what we’re saying for all the money in the
world.”
What Laura and Kitty were talking about will probably never be known, at
any rate it does not materially concern the readers of this book. They
were discussing some affairs of their own, and there are no secrets or
mysteries in the world which are invested with the solemn importance
that young girls of fourteen or fifteen bestow upon those which they
whisper about as they walk through a garden arm and arm, and with heads
bent close together. They were so absorbed in their talk that they were
startled to hear a familiar voice calling to them from one of the upper
windows of the house, and they looked up to see Harry climb over the
sill and then descend like a young monkey to the ground, by means of the
wisteria vine, to the great terror of Kitty, who had no brothers of her
own and who fairly screamed with fright when Harry pretended to miss his
hold of the vine, dropped two or three feet and then caught himself
cleverly and slid down the rest of the way, with ease and rapidity.
“Mercy!” cried Kitty to Laura who had watched her brother with apparent
indifference, “I don’t see how you can stand there like that and look at
him. Suppose he should fall and break his head, how would you feel
then?”
“Pshaw!” exclaimed Laura carelessly, “he only does that to show off
because you’re here. I knew he’d be out here the minute he caught sight
of us. Got your lessons yet, Harry?” she continued, addressing herself
to her brother as he joined them.
“Bother the lessons!” was the boy’s reply, “I’ve got something a great
deal more interesting, that I might tell you about if I wanted to. It’s
something that you, particularly, Miss Laura, would be glad to know.”
“Well, what is it?” asked his sister indifferently, “is it anything very
important?”
“Important enough to be in the newspaper and for me to go right down
town to see about it,” rejoined her brother.
“Tell me, what it is, Harry, won’t you please?” said Kitty, in the
pleading way which she knew he could not resist, and in reply Harry
produced a copy of the New York _Herald_, which he had been hiding
behind his back, carefully folded it, and then, holding it in front of
the young girls’ faces, permitted them to read a single sentence before
he snatched the paper away again. What they read was: “The name of the
injured fireman is Bruce Decker. He was removed to the New York
hospital, where he now lies in a precarious condition.”
Kitty turned toward Laura, whose face was white and whose teeth were
tightly clinched. “Isn’t it dreadful?” she cried, as she threw her arm
about her friend’s waist.
“Let me see the rest of it, Harry!” cried Laura, imperiously, trying to
take the paper from her brother’s hand.
“No, you don’t!” cried the boy, resolutely, as he held the _Herald_ out
of her reach, “not until you find that ball of mine you said you lost
yesterday.”
“Harry!” called a stern voice near them, and the boy turned sharply
round to find his tutor, Mr. Reed, advancing rapidly toward him. “Go
back to your room at once, Harry!” said Mr. Reed, sternly; and before
the boy could reply his sister tore the paper from his grasp and ran off
with it at the top of her speed.
“Come back with that!” cried her brother, as he started in pursuit, but
the angry voice of his tutor recalled him before he had gone twenty
paces, and he marched into the house very red in the face, and casting
angry glances behind him at the two girls, who were now sitting in the
summer-house, eagerly reading the long account of the fire at which
Bruce had so nearly lost his life. When they had finished it Laura drew
a long breath, and then burst into tears.
“Don’t cry, dear,” said Kitty, as she wiped a tear or two from her own
face, “I’m sure he’s not badly hurt and will be all right again in a
very few days.”
“It would be dreadful if he were to die without ever finding out the
mystery of his birth,” wailed Laura. “Oh, dear, if I only knew where to
find him I would write him a letter or go down to see him.”
“The paper says he’s at the New York hospital,” said Kitty. “Why don’t
you go down there this very day? I think it would be just too romantic
and interesting for words.”
Laura sprang to her feet and wiped the tears from her eyes with a swift
movement of her hand. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I’ll find out where the
New York hospital is and how to get there, and I’ll start this very
minute. Harry thought he was so smart because he read it in the paper
first, and was going down there himself all so bold and gay, but he’ll
find out when he does get there that I’ve been there before him.”
Kitty’s face flushed with excitement. She thought it the most romantic
thing in the world that Laura should run the risk of displeasing her
father by making a long journey all by herself to an unknown part of the
town simply to sit by the bedside of a daring young fireman who had been
injured while going into a burning building to save a human life. The
paper said that he was lying in a “precarious condition,” but neither
one of the two girls knew what that long word signified, and they did
not dare to ask anyone.
“Come up to my room with me, I’m going to get ready now,” said Laura, as
she led the way into the house.
A quarter of an hour later Harry, who was moodily poring over his Latin
grammar and wondering whether Bruce had been severely hurt or not, saw
from his seat by the window the two girls crossing the garden and
disappearing through a side gate. He wondered idly where they were going
to, and then he fell to thinking about how to get even with his sister
for the trick she had played him that morning, and he was engaged in
this manner when Mr. Reed suddenly entered the room and asked him what
progress he was making with his lessons. The boy took up his book again
with a sigh that was so deep that the tutor asked him if he was sick or
if anything serious had happened.
“No,” he replied, “nothing has happened to me, but I’m afraid something
awful has happened to Bruce.” And then he told the tutor what he had
read in the _Herald_, and Mr. Reed becoming very much interested went
out and found the paper where the young girls had dropped it in the
summer house, and then returned to his pupil’s room and said, “I’m
afraid he’s badly injured and I’m very sorry for it, for he was a very
manly, polite young man, and I should judge from the account in the
newspaper that he had showed himself to be a brave one as well. I really
think you ought to go down to the hospital and see how he is getting
along.”
Harry leaped to his feet, but Mr. Reed restrained him by saying firmly,
“not until your lessons are finished. If you can recite them to me
within an hour, we will start at once.”
With this incentive to work, Harry returned to his task with such
industry and enthusiasm, that when his tutor returned at the close of
the hour he found his pupil able to recite his lessons without a single
mistake, which was altogether an unusual condition of things with him.
Then putting on his hat, Mr. Reed told Harry to accompany him and they
started for the elevated railroad together.