A BOND IN COMMON
"What's your name?" asked Jacqueline.
The little girl in gingham blushed and kept her eyes fixed on Mildred's
buttons.
"Caroline," she said, in a small voice. "For my grandmother."
"My name's Jacqueline Gildersleeve," cut in her companion. "At school
they call me Jackie. I'll let you."
Caroline smiled shyly.
"I like Jacqueline better," she said. "It's like trumpets and red
sunsets."
Jacqueline turned in the plush seat and looked at her, much impressed.
"You're a funny kid," she said. "How can anybody's name be like a
trumpet?"
"But names are all music and things," the little girl in gingham
insisted. "That's why I don't care for Caroline. It's like a bushel of
wheat. Muzzy always called me Carol. That's a nice name--like Christmas
trees, and snow outside, and yellow candles."
"Is your mother with you?" asked Jacqueline.
"No," Caroline answered, and made herself very busy with Mildred's
nightdress. "My mother is--dead."
"Oh!" said Jacqueline blankly, and seemed for a moment unable to think
of anything else to say.
"She died last winter," Caroline went on, in her patient little voice.
"That's why I'm going to my half-aunt Martha. Have you--lost somebody,
too? I see you're wearing black."
"Oh, that's just not to show dirt," Jacqueline explained. "But I haven't
any mother nor father. They died ages ago. Aunt Edie takes care of me,
and Judge Blair is my guardian. Have you got a father?"
Caroline shook her head.
"Daddy died three years ago when everybody had the flu. He was on a
newspaper. My mother gave music lessons. We had a room with the piano in
it, and a gas flat we cooked breakfast on, and a couch that pulled out
and made a bed for us both."
It was very clear that Caroline was talking against time. Equally clear
that the brown eyes that she kept obstinately fixed on Mildred were
filling fast with tears.
Jacqueline tumbled out of her seat, just missed a stout old lady as she
caromed down the aisle, and vanished into the drawing-room. Before
Caroline had dried her eyes--and Caroline was not slow about it,
either!--Jacqueline was back, and in her hand was a big satin-covered
box.
"Have some chocolates?" she urged, as she slid into the seat beside
Caroline. "Those big whales are scrumptious, only they're full of goo.
Hold your hanky under your chin when you bite into them! Here, I'll take
your doll."
Jacqueline took Mildred on her lap, very carefully, to Caroline's great
relief. She examined the trimming of her small, clean nightgown and
tenderly slipped her into the little flowered crêpe kimono, while
Caroline still struggled with the gooey chocolate.
"What cunning little ducky clothes!" cooed Jacqueline.
"My mother made 'em," Caroline spoke thickly because of the chocolate.
"She could make most anything. She made my dress, too--it was for best
last summer, but I've grown since then. She knitted my sweater, too."
Caroline bent her head and stroked the red sleeve dumbly.
"Have another chocolate," coaxed Jacqueline. "Have a lot! Try the one
that's like a porcupine! Have a gummy one!"
"I dassen't," said Caroline. "I've got a hole in my tooth, and caramels
always make it ache."
"That's too bad," agreed Jacqueline. "I've got braces in my mouth so I
can't eat caramels at all. Oh, well, I'll give 'em to the Fish."
Caroline looked at her questioningly.
"I mean Miss Fisher," said naughty Jacqueline mincingly. "The piece of
cheese I'm traveling with."
"You mean the lady in the blue dress?" asked Caroline.
Jacqueline nodded and cuddled Mildred to her. She looked quite gentle
until she smiled, and then the imps of mischief crinkled in her eyes.
"Auntie Blair changed at Chicago for Montreal, and I'm to go East with
Miss Fisher that she knew ages ago in college. She's a fuss. She didn't
want me to speak to you. And she's not my aunt or anything. I shall talk
to you as long as I want to."
Caroline longed to say: "Please do!" She was fascinated with this bold
little girl, who used words her mother had never let her utter, and was
afraid of nobody, not even the black porter or the august conductor. But
she hardly dared say: "Please do!" She only smiled vaguely and picked a
small chocolate-covered nut from the satin box.
"Do you go to school?" Jacqueline asked abruptly.
"Oh, yes," stammered Caroline. "I'll go into the sixth grade in
September. That is, I would have gone into it. I don't know what school
I'll be in, where I'm going."
"Do you like school?"
Caroline looked dubious.
"I like the reading lessons and the history," she said. "I can't do
arithmetic. I'd rather play the piano."
"Play the piano!" Jacqueline repeated, as if she couldn't believe her
ears. "You mean you _like_ to practice?"
"Oh, yes!" said Caroline from her heart.
"Good _night_!" said Jacqueline.
"Don't--don't you?" faltered Caroline.
Jacqueline, like the skipper in "The Wreck of the Hesperus," laughed a
scornful laugh.
"But I'm going to get out of it this summer," she boasted darkly. "I'll
tell my Great-aunt Eunice I've sprained my thumb, or something. She
hasn't seen me for years and years. I suppose she thinks I'm a little
goody-goody. Well, she's going to get the surprise of her life."
Jacqueline tossed her head defiantly, and Caroline fairly glowed with
admiration.
"You're not a bit afraid of strangers, are you?" she quavered.
Jacqueline smiled in a superior way, as if to challenge: "Bring on your
strangers!"
"I _am_," admitted Caroline. "And I don't know any of them. I never saw
my half-aunt Martha, and I don't know anything about my half-cousins,
but I do hope they have a piano, and that there aren't too many babies."
"Don't you like 'em?" queried Jacqueline.
"I--I'm kind of tired of them," Caroline confessed shamefacedly. "I
stayed with Cousin Delia after Muzzy died, and she had twins besides two
odd ones, and when one fretted, the others always kept him company."
"You ought to shake 'em," counseled Jacqueline. "Shake 'em good and
hard. I would! You're too meek. Don't you let your old half-aunt go and
boss you."
"But--but she's giving me a home," persisted Caroline. "That is, if we
get along. If we don't----"
"Well?" said Jacqueline, with shameless curiosity.
"I suppose I'll go to an--an Institution," whispered Caroline. "You
know--orphan asylum."
"Oh!" said Jacqueline, again blankly. There seemed nothing more to say.
But she did have the inspiration to put Mildred into Caroline's arms,
and Caroline hugged her dumbly, with her dark little head bent low over
Mildred's sleek gold curls.
"You'd better keep the chocolates," said Jacqueline, in a brisk little
voice. "I always have lots, and the box will be nice to put your doll's
clothes in."
"I--I oughtn't to," gasped Caroline, overcome with the glory of the
gift.
"The box is mine," snapped Jacqueline. "I can give it away if I want to,
can't I? I'd like to see the Fish stop me."
Suddenly the hard little termagant softened. She put her arm round
Caroline and Mildred.
"Of course your half-aunt will like you," she said, "and you'll stay
with her, and maybe there's a piano. Does she live in Boston?"
"No," answered Caroline, nestling close to her new friend. "She lives on
a farm in a place called Longmeadow."
"Longmeadow?" parroted Jacqueline.
"And I get off at a place called Baring Junction."
Jacqueline suddenly squeezed Caroline in a hug that really endangered
Mildred.
"Can you beat it?" she cried. "I get off at Baring Junction, and I'm
going to Longmeadow, just the same as you!"