THE COMFORTING OF EUDORA FLEMING
“YOU can’t guess where I’ve been to─day.” Tillie Shook began, unfolding
the towel that held her knitting, and arranging the pile of wool in her
lap.
“Oh, what a pretty pink!” cried Doodles, wheeling himself nearer.
“I think so,” she smiled, carefully picking up a dropped stitch. “It’s
my mother’s Christmas present. I knew if I didn’t start it early
’twouldn’t be done. I thought you wouldn’t mind my bringing it along
this evening,” she apologized. “I can talk better when I’m knitting,
except when I have to count, and that ain’t often. Mother’s been wanting
a shawl for ever so long—it’s so cold in the country. ’T don’t look much
yet.” She held up the narrow strip. “The stitch is pretty,” showing the
intricate pattern.
“But this ain’t my news,” she laughed; “you didn’t guess where I’ve
been! Sakes! you never would, so I’ll have to tell.”—She paused to
emphasize her words.—“Out to the Flemings’!”
“Not Daphne Fleming’s?” Blue caught at the name excitedly.
“Yes! I knew you’d want to hear about it; that’s why I came up so early.
I couldn’t hardly wait to eat my supper.
“You see, Miss Wallace—she’s head fitter—sometimes she goes out to fit a
special customer, and Miss Fleming’s special. Now she’s got nervous
prostration, and couldn’t come to be fitted. They say—that is, Louise
Petrie does—it’s a love affair. I don’t know whether her father wouldn’t
let her marry him, or what; but, anyway, he’s abroad somewhere, writing
music and playing on the piano, and all that, and she’s just gone to
pieces. Louise says she’s a musician, too, and they used to play and
sing together at lots of parties and charity entertainments and church
affairs, and so they got awfully well acquainted. Too bad! she’s a
lovely girl. She had to lie down between gowns—she couldn’t have ’em all
fitted right along. Oh, I wish you could see ’em!—such beautiful colors!
I got a little snip of the blue silk one—why, I thought I put it under
this wool! Oh, here ’t is! Ain’t that sweet? But you can’t imagine how
it looks on. That pale blue, all embroidered in silver, is just the
thing for her—makes her seem a regular princess! She is light, with
almost golden hair, and such darling blue eyes! They say Daphne was just
so before those rascals stained her skin. It hasn’t come off yet. And
they dyed her hair, too. I don’t see how you ever knew her by that
picture. She wasn’t round much—bobbed in once or twice. Her mother won’t
hardly let her go out of her sight since she’s got her back. They all
worship her!
“It’s so funny! I’d been planning to walk over past there—some Sunday
afternoon I thought—ever since you found her; but I never had. And to
think I should go right inside and see it all, and see them! I can’t
hardly believe it! The house is just lovely, kind o’ like a palace, I
guess. I said to myself as I was going up those stairs, I didn’t see how
heaven could be any nicer—and I don’t! But I s’pose it will—sakes! don’t
you get to wondering, sometimes, how it will look? Well, I ain’t
hankering to find out. It’s pretty good here when you have work, and
things come along as they have to─day. Oh, I am so glad Miss Wallace
took me! She has to have somebody, you know, to baste and such. Gen’ally
she takes Marie Étienne, but Marie’s sick—lucky for me! That sounds
nice, don’t it? Of course, I do’ want anybody sick; but I do love to go
into pretty houses! I never did much.”
Tillie Shook made good her statement that she could talk while she was
knitting, for her tongue ran nimbly from the Flemings round among other
patrons of Miss Meagher’s; but with rare delicacy of selection not once
did it touch a bit of scandal or a disagreeable item. When the clock
reached nine, she promptly rolled up her work.
“No late hours for me,” she laughed, declining Blue’s appeal to stay
longer. “I do’ want to feel sleepy to─morrow morning when it’s breakfast
time, do you, little man?” She laid her hand caressingly on Doodles’s
head. “Oh, I’m so glad you got all that money!” she went on, with a
comprehensive glance towards the others. “I wanted to come right up and
tell you so; but, sakes! I’ve had to work ’most every evening since, and
this is the first chance I’ve caught. I see you’ve got a new stove, and
that looks as if you were going to stay on. I was so ’fraid you
wouldn’t. I don’t see much of you, but I know you’re up here, and it’s a
comfort.”
“We have decided not to move at present,” Mrs. Stickney told her.
“Winter in The Flatiron is better than summer.”
“Yes, ’t is,” Miss Tillie agreed, “and I think you are sensible not to
hustle to spend your money all at once. Why, one woman said to me, ‘Mrs.
Stickney won’t have to do another stitch of work as long as she lives,
with that thirty hundred dollars of theirs!’ I didn’t contradict her,
but I kind o’ guessed you knew better. I’ve noticed money melts away
pretty fast, if you don’t keep putting something on top of the pile.”
In two days came Saturday, and Doodles asked Blue how far it was out to
the Flemings’.
“Oh! I do’ know, maybe a couple o’ miles. Thinkin’ of making ’em a
call?” Blue’s merry eyes met the serious ones of Doodles.
The small boy shook his head with a gravity that made the brother feel
his little joke to be ill─timed.
“I am very sorry for Miss Fleming,” Doodles said, “and I’ve been
wondering what I could do to comfort her.”
“You?” broke out Blue, scenting difficulties ahead.
“Yes, and I think the best way is to let Caruso do it. If he’d sing for
her as he did for me this morning, while you were gone, I am sure she
would feel happier. And then it would be very nice for you to go there
and see the beautiful house,” he went on artlessly. “You’d like that,
wouldn’t you?”
Blue shivered inside. “Oh, I don’t believe he’d sing!” he cried
irrelevantly.
“I think he will, for I’ve told him all about it, and I’m sure he
understands.”
“Well, sometime, maybe,” yielded Blue.
“Won’t this afternoon be a good time?” asked Doodles wistfully.
“Cracky!” ejaculated the elder boy in dismay.
Doodles laughed. “Didn’t you s’pose I meant to─day?”
“No, I didn’t,” was the dry answer.
“But you’d like to go, wouldn’t you?” persisted the other.
Blue groaned silently. “What you want me to do?” he parried.
Doodles bent forward in his eagerness. “Why, just take Caruso, and let
him sing for Miss Fleming—that’s all!”
All! Blue hunted desperately for a solid objection.
“Why, kiddie,” he began in haste, “don’t you worry about her! She’s
rich, rich as _Cæsar_—” he broke off abruptly at sight of his brother’s
hurt face. “You know,” he started again gently, “she could have a dozen
birds to sing for her if she wanted ’em.”
“Yes, but she couldn’t have Caruso unless I sent him!” chuckled the
small boy. “And, besides,” he went on gravely, “I want to do something
for God, to show Him I appreciate the stove and the money He sent. I
think He would like me to comfort Miss Fleming, don’t you?”
Poor Blue! he nestled uneasily in the old rocker, and muttered, “I guess
so.”
Then, suddenly, a fresh argument came in sight. It looked plausible.
“I don’t see the sense of her bein’ sick anyway, with all she’s got,—a
dandy house to live in, and new clothes, and an automobile, and nothin’
to do, and—everything! I guess if all that can’t cure her, you can’t!”
But Doodles smiled, undaunted.
“Caruso is better than anything she has! She can’t help loving Caruso!”
“Well,—” Blue got up. If he must, the sooner it was over with, the
better. He disappeared in the bedroom, to make ready for the dreaded
errand.
Doodles listened with a smile that soon lost itself in anxious lines.
Blue was making a good deal of noise—a good deal even for him.
“Oh, wait a minute!” cried the small brother, as Blue dashed out and
caught up the cage without a word.
He halted.
“You—want to go, don’t you?”
“Sure!” was the grinning answer. “As if I didn’t always enjoy callin’ on
young ladies!”
There were merry good─byes, yet after the footsteps on the stairs were
lost in other sounds, Doodles wondered if Blue had really disliked to
go.
“I’d love it,” he whispered softly—“if I only could!” He closed his
eyes, but the tears pressed through. “O God,” he murmured, “do let me
walk sometime—do!—do! But if I can’t—ever,” he added tremulously, “oh,
help me to bear it so nobody will guess how much I care!”
Caruso found it hard to keep on his perch, Blue strode along at so swift
a pace. Finally the boy discovered how it was with the little singer,
and he slackened his steps.
A dozen times during that long walk he told himself he was a fool for
going. Once he actually started back; but the remembrance of his
brother’s face, beautiful, eager, appealing, rose before him and seemed
to block his way. Resolutely he turned again and went forward. If they
would not let him in, why, he should then be able to meet Doodles with
clear eyes,—he would have done all that he could.
He kept on with more heart. Why should he be afraid? Probably “that
Fleming girl” had never in all her life heard so good a singer as
Caruso, and maybe, just maybe, the songs would do her good, as Doodles
hoped.
Near the house he hesitated. Should he go to the front door, or to the
side, or should he go round to the back? He boldly decided on the front.
A maid answered his ring.
“I should like to see Miss Fleming,” he said politely.
“She can see no one to─day.”
The door was beginning to close.
“Oh, well, then Miss Daphne!” cried Blue in desperate haste.
“Miss Daphne is out.”
The great door came together promptly, with a soft little thud.
So it was over—all need of worrying about what he should say to the rich
girl who looked like a princess!—all Doodles’s bright anticipations! At
the moment Blue felt equal to an interview with anybody—anybody but the
small boy waiting happily in the wheel chair—for this! How could he bear
to see the light fade out of the fair little face!
“Huh,” he muttered, “she’d ’a’ let me in fast enough if I’d been dressed
up stylish! I know ’em! They’re all alike!”
With a heavy sigh he went slowly down the stone steps.
A soft south breeze ruffled the bird’s feathers, and he let go a gay
trill.
“Shut up!” snapped the boy. “Don’t give ’em a note! They ain’t worth
it!”
He took the road towards home with long strides.
Up the hill rolled an open motor car. A woman and a little girl were on
the back seat. As they whirled by, Blue recognized Daphne Fleming; but
he made no sign.
“Oh, there is Blue Stickney!” exclaimed the child in sudden excitement.
“And he has the sweet bird!” She rose to look back. “Simon, Simon! stop!
quick!”
But by the time the order had been obeyed the boy was far behind.
“We will go back!” was the authoritative decision, and accordingly, a
moment after, Blue was surprised to see the big car draw up to the
sidewalk just ahead.
He lifted his cap in response to Daphne’s smile.
“How do you do?” asked the little one. “And how is the beautiful Caruso?
I wish you would go home with me, and let him sing for my mother and
sister. Will you?”
“That’s what I came for,” Blue admitted. “I thought—that is, Doodles
thought—p’raps she’d like to hear him; but the girl said she couldn’t
see anybody, and you were out, and so—I didn’t stay,” he ended lamely.
“Then you will come?” She opened the door.
For an instant he hesitated.
“He can sit with Simon,” suggested the attendant.
“There is plenty of room here,” asserted Daphne, moving aside with a
cordial smile.
The boy stepped lightly in, and Simon reached back and shut the door.
Presently the ride was at an end, and Blue was following his young
hostess into the wide hall, and passing the maid with head held high.
Then he was seated in a small, luxurious room where parti─colored
shadows played over the floor. The flickering lights seemed to inspire
Caruso to a song, for he broke the stillness with a few startling notes.
The boy hushed him at once, whereupon he retreated to the farther end of
his perch, mopish as a reproved child.
Light feet came running along the hall, and Daphne appeared.
“Will you come upstairs? Mother is not at home, but Eudora would like to
hear the bird. Wasn’t he singing a minute ago?”
“Yes,” nodded Blue. “I shut him up as quick as I could,” he added
apologetically.
“Why did you?” was the surprised query.
The boy only gave a soft laugh.
The room into which Blue was ushered the little dressmaker might well
have called “heavenly”; but he did not bestow upon it a second glance.
The “princess” sister held his eyes—and his heart.
She was all and more, far more than Tillie Shook had pictured her, and
he found himself wondering how “any feller could go off to Europe” and
leave so beautiful a girl languishing for his love.
“Will he sing best in the sunshine?” Daphne’s question brought Blue back
to the errand in hand.
“I do’ know. He don’t sing so much now as he did.—Caruso!”
The boy whistled softly the opening strain of “Annie Laurie,” but the
bird continued to preen a ruffled feather or two. The air ended, yet
Caruso was still silent.
“It takes my brother to set him going,” Blue explained, somewhat nettled
at the bird’s indifference.
Livelier tunes were tried, and then, just as the boy was beginning to
wonder if, after all, Caruso were going to disappoint than, he burst
into a torrent of song, ending, as often, with the beloved “Annie
Laurie.”
Blue was so interested in the way the mocker was “showing off,” that he
did not at first notice the very evident excitement of Miss Fleming. But
as soon as the singing ceased, she darted across to the cage with a
murmured word which the boy did not catch. Then she turned to him,
questioning almost sharply:—
“Where did you get this bird?”
“I bought him of a girl who bid him off at an auction.”
“The very one!” she cried in soft, joyful tones. “I know! I know!”
bending closer to scrutinize the singer.
“What is it, Eudora?” Daphne ran over to her sister.
The girl hesitated, while a pretty color flushed her cheeks.
“I think,” she began, “it must be the mocker that—that a friend of mine
lost a year—no, a year and a half ago.” She turned to the boy whose
heart had suddenly gone sick. “How long have you had him?”
“About a year,” was the automatic answer.
She nodded musingly.
“I think there is no doubt of it,” she went on. “Mr. Selden used to say
that he should know Jacky anywhere by the nick in his bill. And he sang
‘Annie Laurie’ just as this bird does. There! perhaps he will remember
his name—Jacky! Jacky!” she coaxed.
Caruso cocked his pretty head, and returned a soft, sweet whistle.
“It is Jacky!” she exclaimed delightedly, “and he has not forgotten!”
“Mr. Selden?” questioned Daphne. “The one that used to sing and play
when he came to see—”
“Yes, yes!” her sister hurriedly answered, adding something in a half
whisper, the most of which Blue did not hear.
The child at once left the room, though with reluctance in her face.
The boy wondered why she had been sent away.
Miss Fleming came and took a chair near. Her face was very white, but
red spots burned on her cheeks. Her dark blue eyes shone softly.
“My friend, Mr. Selden, is abroad,” she said in a low voice; “but he
ought to know about Jacky at once. He will be glad—oh, so glad!—that he
is safe. He loves Jacky!”
“But it’s my brother’s bird,” Blue broke out in blunt defiance. “It
would kill Doodles to give up Caruso!”
“Oh, I did not mean that! No, no! Mr. Selden never would take him from
your brother. He is the best man in the world—and the most sympathetic.
But it would please him greatly to know that his pet is in kind hands.”
[Illustration: “IT WOULD KILL DOODLES TO GIVE UP CARUSO”]
For a moment she was silent, while the red in her cheeks stole up to her
fluffy yellow hair.
“I wonder,” she resumed, “if you would be willing to write and tell him
about it. I will give you his address and paper and stamps and all, if
you will be so good,” she added eagerly.
“Why, I suppose I can,” answered Blue, somewhat abashed by the
unexpected request; “but I don’t write very well—”
“That makes no difference whatever! He will not care how the letter is
written. He is not critical.”
“It seems as if you would be the best one to do it,” Blue boldly
suggested.
“Oh, no!” with a deepening blush. “You will write,” she nodded
coaxingly.
The boy gave a rather backward assent. He did not feel sure that Mr.
Selden would not want his bird again, and what could he say to ward off
such a catastrophe? Before he had recovered from the realization that he
had actually agreed to write the letter, a maid entered with a tray, and
Daphne came dancing after.
“I stayed to see Johanna fill the tarts,” she chuckled. “They are red
raspberry jam ones! You will like them!” she told Blue, over her
shoulder.
That was a luncheon like none the boy had ever seen: tiny buttered
rolls; slips of cold chicken; raspberry tarts; and coffee in beautiful
china cups, with whipped cream floating on top.
“What may Caruso eat?” asked Daphne, pausing for Blue’s answer before
offering the bird any of the dainties.
“Just a mite of roll,” he said.
“No, a tart!” she begged.
The lad shook his head smilingly.
“You might run and fetch a lettuce leaf,” suggested her sister. “That
will not hurt him.”
The child was off and back again in a trice, and they all laughed to see
the bird catch bit after bit from her fingers. Even the tarts had no
further interest for Daphne until the last piece of green was in
Caruso’s bill.
When Blue reached home there was much to tell, so much, indeed, that the
writing of the message to Mr. Selden was put off till evening and
Doodles was in bed. Mrs. Stickney was the boy’s ready reference on
spelling; but the rest of the letter, except for a few periods and
commas, was his own, and it cost him two hours of hard work. He copied
and recopied, until the supply of paper that Miss Fleming had given him
came to an end, and he was obliged to use a sheet from his mother’s
meager stock, which, of course, did not match his dainty envelope. So
the question arose whether it would not be better to wait until Monday,
when he could buy what was needed. But Blue repeated what Miss Fleming
had said about the importance of Mr. Selden’s hearing of the matter at
once, and it was finally decided that so small a thing as the
dissimilarity of paper and envelope would not be regarded by a man who
was “not critical,” and, at last, the boy went to bed with the
consciousness that he had done his best.
Ten days later, when Morton Selden read the superscription in the stiff,
untrained hand, there was puzzlement in his eyes; but the postmark of
his home town hastened his hand, and he cut open the letter. He read it
carefully, stopping now and then to reread a phrase before going on.
DEAR MR. SELDEN:—
I bought a mocking─bird a year ago for twenty─five cents, because a
girl who had bid it off at an auction was scaring it to death and
didn’t want it. Now Miss Eudora Fleming says it is your bird. I
bought it for my brother who can’t walk. He loves the bird something
fierce. It would sure kill Doodles to have to let it go. Miss
Fleming says you will not take it away from him, because she says
you are the best man in the world. So I hope you won’t. I took
Caruso out to her house this afternoon for Doodles, because he
thought Caruso would comfort her. He sings fine. She has got nervous
prostration, though she does not look sick. She is the prettiest
girl I ever saw. I tried to have her write to you, for she said
Caruso was sure your Jacky, and you ought to know right away. But
she wouldn’t, and I had to. I hope you will excuse my bad writing.
She could do it a great deal better, but she said, oh, no, she
couldn’t, and made me promise I would. She was glad as if it was her
bird, and said you loved Jacky and would be so glad to know he was
safe. I wish you could have seen her when she was talking about it,
she did look something beautiful. Her eyes shone so it most took my
breath away. I guess she’s a princess all right, just as Tillie
Shook says she looks like. She said she knew you wouldn’t take it
from Doodles, because you are so sympathetic. Please let him keep
it.
Hoping you are well, I am
Yours very truly,
BLUE STICKNEY.
In less than a fortnight Blue received the following:—
MY DEAR FRIEND:—
Your letter brought me more pleasure than had come to me since I
left America. I congratulate you on knowing how to interest a
correspondent.
As for Caruso—which name, by the way, is a vast improvement on
Jacky—I am mighty glad that he has fallen into such kind hands, and
you can assure your brother, from me, that he may keep the little
fellow as long as he wants him, provided he will let me come to see
him once in a while when I am at home again.
This mail will carry a letter to Miss Fleming also, still you may
give her my thanks and my regards when you see her.
With best wishes for you and Doodles and Caruso,
Most cordially yours,
MORTON K. SELDEN.
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