A SLIGHT ACCIDENT.
When it is summer-time, and you are engaged to the most perfect man
in the world, and you are at a lovely seaside cottage with him,
and are boating, and playing tennis, and trying to play golf, and
cycling, and it is a little too early for any of all those people
who are going to visit you really to arrive,--when such conditions
prevail, you don't expect time to drag.
And time did not drag with Carolyn Ffolliott,--it flew.
A week had gone when one day at breakfast Mrs. Ffolliott remarked
that she had almost a good mind to worry.
Her daughter looked at her questioningly, and Leander, with his mouth
full, said that "Marmer'd rather give a dollar any time than miss a
worry."
But marmer took no notice of her son; she continued to gaze at
Carolyn, with her brows wrinkled.
"Prudence, you know," she went on. "She said she might come any
minute."
"I suppose she changed her mind."
"Perhaps. But I've been dreaming about her; I thought she was
drowned, and when I told you, Caro, you laughed, and said it was a
good thing. I was so shocked I--but, good heavens! Caro, what makes
you look like that?"
"Like what?"
"Why, just as you did in my dream,--that same light in your eyes--"
"Mamma!" broke in the girl, angrily. But she did not say anything
more.
At that moment a servant came into the room with a salver in her
hand, and on the salver lay a yellow telegraph envelope.
Carolyn half rose from the table, then she sat down, for she saw the
servant was coming to her.
To these people a telegram was little different from an ordinary
note. Everybody telegraphed about everything. Notwithstanding this,
the girl could not keep her hand quite steady as she tore open the
cover.
Her mother watched her face; she was still thinking of her dream.
Immediately Carolyn began to smile. She read aloud:
"Please send your wheel over to station for 11.40 train.
"PRUDENCE FFOLLIOTT."
The elder woman stirred her coffee desperately. "She isn't drowned,
then," she said.
"Apparently not, since she wants my wheel."
"Shall you send it?"
"Yes."
"Sha'n't you drive over to meet her?"
"No."
"Well," said the elder lady, forcibly, "I call it ridiculous, coming
home from Europe on a bicycle! I don't see when she learned, either.
I thought she had been giving her mother mud baths, and all that sort
of thing, and being devoted and--and what not."
"As for that," responded Carolyn, "I don't know but Prue would be
able to learn to ride a wheel in a mud bath itself."
"Bully for Prue!" cried Leander.
"My son!" said his mother, at which he grinned, but kindly refrained
from repeating the remark.
Carolyn had risen from the table. She held the message crumpled in
her hand.
"Sha'n't you meet her anyway?"
"How can I if I send my wheel?--but I have an idea that she doesn't
care. I don't precisely know what she does mean, so I shall wait."
"I sha'n't wait," suddenly announced Leander. "I shall spin down
there myself."
"And when is Rodney coming back, did you say?"
"Not until to-morrow."
Mrs. Ffolliott indulged in some remarks on the ways of young people
at the present time, to which no reply was made.
So it happened that when the eleven-forty train steamed up to the
little station, there were on the platform but two people, the agent
and a small boy in a suit so close and abbreviated as to be almost no
suit at all.
This boy was standing by his own wheel, and another bicycle leaned
against the wall of the building.
Leander was scowling along the steps of every car, and saying to
himself:
"I'll bet she hasn't come. Women never do anything right. I wanted to
race her home."
Three men and a small girl had alighted. It was no use looking any
more. There, the train was moving.
"Oh, thunder!" said the boy.
He was turning away, when something touched his shoulder, and
somebody asked:
"Leander, why are you saying 'thunder?'"
He flung about quickly. He snatched off his atom of a cap and looked
up at the tall girl beside him.
"Now, that's O. K.," he said, "and I'll race you home. How de do? You
do look grand, though. And you can't ride a bike in _that_ suit,--no
more'n a bose."
"Can't I? We'll see. Let us kiss each other, Leander."
"All right. I ain't no objections."
The two kissed. Then Leander put on his cap.
Prudence Ffolliott was dressed with extreme plainness in a perfectly
fitting suit of brown with a white hat, and she had on gloves like
those which a few girls can find, and which most girls pass all their
lives trying to find. And yet it might seem an easy matter to get
rather loose brown gloves like these. She had a small leather bag in
one hand.
She glanced up and down the platform. The train had sped away. The
long waste of track lay desolate beneath the brilliant sun. The woods
came up close on the other side of the rails. On this side a country
road wound up a slight acclivity. There was one "open wagon," drawn
by a sorrel horse, slowly ascending this hill. In the wagon sat three
men very much crowded on the one seat. In the still air was a low,
continuous sound.
Prudence listened; she sniffed the air.
"I hear the waves," she said. "The tide is coming in; and the wind is
east."
"Yes," said Leander, "I should have gone perchin' if I hadn't come
down here. And I might as well have gone, for you can't ride. Just
look at all the pleats and pipes 'n' things on your skirt! It's too
bad! And sis sent her bike down. You wired for it, you know."
"Yes," said the girl, "I know I wired for it. Wait for the
transformation scene. How is Caro?"
"She's well enough," said the boy, shortly.
"And Aunt Letitia?"
"Well's ever."
"Any company yet?"
"Only Rodney."
It was an instant before the girl asked:
"Is Mr. Lawrence there?"
"Yep. 'N' he 'n' sis are such spoons that they ain't either of 'em
any fun."
"Spoons, are they?" Prudence laughed slightly.
"Yep. 'N' I found Rod's ring, and marmer 'n' sis raised a most awful
row 'bout my takin' the reward. They said it wasn't gentlemanly of
me, bein' a friend and relation, to take it. Still they did let Rod
give me two ten spots. But I didn't get marmer any present out of
that, you bet!"
"What ring was it?"
While Prudence was talking she opened her bag and selected from its
contents a leather strap.
Leander was so absorbed in watching her, and in wondering what she
would do, that he did not hear her question.
He already began to have faith that she would be equal to any
emergency,--that is, as nearly equal as anything feminine could be.
"What ring did you find?" she repeated.
As she spoke, she took a pair of white gloves from the bag, and
extended them to the boy.
"Please hold them," she said. His little brown fingers closed over
the gloves.
"Why," he answered, "that red stone, you know, with the head cut into
it."
"Oh!"
She made no other remark for some time. The boy continued to watch
her. He rather admired the deft way in which her hands removed
something which made her belt slip from its place, and the next
moment her skirt, which he had derided, dropped down to the floor
of the platform, her jacket was flung off, and there Miss Ffolliott
stood in a full bicycle suit of white flannel. It was then that
Leander noticed that her shoes and hat were white, as he said, "to
begin with."
He jumped up and down. "Hurray!" he cried, in his thin, sharp voice.
"I guess you c'n do it."
"I guess I can," she answered. "Now I want to strap up this skirt,
and we'll take it and the bag along. Are you good on a bike?" She
turned and looked at her companion with a laugh in her eyes. She had
just now so lithe and active an appearance that the boy wanted to
clap his hands. She took the white gloves from him, and began to put
them on.
"Good on a bike?" he repeated. "Well, you just wait. Are you good on
one yourself? I ought to be; marmer says she's expectin' every minute
to see me brought in with all my bones smashed. But I don't take
headers nigh so often's I used to. Ready?"
Leander gallantly brought forward his sister's wheel, and held it.
Within the station the agent was peering out from his window at the
girl in white. He was shocked, but he was extremely interested, and
he did not wink in his gaze until the boy and woman had wheeled out
of sight along the lonely country road.
Leander immediately found that his small legs were called upon to
do their utmost, but he kept on bravely. And he would not pant; he
assumed an easy appearance. He even tried to whistle, but he had to
give that up.
He glanced covertly at his companion. She sat up straight, and her
figure showed very little movement.
Presently she asked, "Why didn't Caro come to meet me?"
"She kinder thought you didn't care to have her, as you sent for her
wheel."
No answer. Then, "Perhaps she's gone somewhere with Mr. Lawrence."
"No, she ain't, either. Rodney's off just now--comin' back to-morrow.
I say!"
"Well?"
"Slow up a bit. I can't stand this. I give in. I guess my legs
ain't long enough. You're stunnin' on a bike. Caro's rather good,
but--Hullo! what's that ahead, anyway? Let's put in 'n' get to it."
So they put in. In another moment they saw that the something was
a man; then that he was lying flat on his face; then that it was
Rodney Lawrence. It was the girl who discovered who it was. Instead
of shrinking back a little, as Leander had done in spite of himself,
when they found that it was a man lying there, Prudence forced her
wheel up to the prostrate body, jumped off, and looked down at him.
She stood perfectly still for an instant. Then she turned towards
Leander.
"It's Rodney," she said, in a low voice.
"I don't believe it!" cried the boy.
He felt that it was impossible for Rodney to be hurt so that he would
lie as stiff and dreadful as that. Some other man might be hurt thus,
but not Rodney. With this rebellious disbelief in his fast-beating
heart, Leander dismounted; he stood a little behind Prudence, and
peered round her at the object on the ground.
"It is Rodney," repeated the girl.
Her face was quite white, and her eyelids, as she looked down,
fluttered as if they would close over her eyes and thus shut out the
sight of the senseless man. But she was calm enough as she turned to
the boy.
She did not immediately speak. She glanced around the place. There
was a wood on each side of the road. They might be there half a day,
she knew, and no one would come along. It was not the main road,
which itself was not much travelled.
She seemed to give up her intention of speaking. She pulled off a
glove and knelt down in the gravel. She put out one hand, and gently
turned the head so that the face was a little more visible. She
shuddered as she did so. The vertical sun struck on a diamond on her
hand, and made it send out sharp rays of light.
With a swift motion the girl turned the stone inward. Then she
shuddered again. She rose.
"I'll go on to the first house," she said, "and get help."
"No, I'll go," exclaimed Leander, quickly, and in an unsteady voice.
"I can go in much less time than you could do the distance. You don't
know how fast I can ride. It's almost three miles to the next house.
Are you afraid to stay here and wait?"
The boy trembled and hesitated. Then he was ashamed to say he was
afraid.
"I'll wait here," he said, huskily.
Prudence sprang on her wheel and started off. Leander watched her.
For an instant he forgot everything else in admiration as he saw her
whiz out of sight.
"By George!" he said to himself.
Then he looked back at that still figure. He braced himself up. He
remembered that he was a boy instead of a girl.
He sat down on a stone by the wayside. He leaned his chin on his
hands and stared at Rodney. Was that Rodney? If the man were dead,
why, then it was not anybody; it was--oh, what was it?
And how could Rodney, so full of life and health and strength, be
there so helpless?
A great many strange and solemn thoughts came to the boy's mind as he
sat there.
And all the time he was listening for wheels, hoping that a carriage
would come along.
The mosquitoes buzzed about his face and stung him unheeded.
He noticed that Rodney wore corduroys and leather leggings, and that
a whip lay on the ground a few yards off. Leander went and picked up
the whip, which he knew very well.
But how strange even the whip seemed! So Rodney had been riding; and
he had come home sooner than he had been expected.
If he should be really dead, Leander supposed that his sister would
mourn herself to death. He supposed his sister was in love with this
long, still figure of a man.
All at once the little watcher felt the tears springing up and
blinding him. He rubbed his fists into his eyes, but the tears would
come. It was while he was doing this that he thought he heard a
sound; as he could not distinguish what the sound was, he dared not
take his hands from his face, and he dared not move.
Was it really a groan?
His curiosity overcame his terror. He looked at the man in the road.
Lawrence had raised himself on his elbow, but he immediately sank
back again.
Leander ran to him.
Lawrence gazed in a blind sort of way at the boy. Then he half
smiled, and said, feebly, "I suppose you're dead too, Lee, and we're
both in heaven."
"I ain't dead, for one," answered the boy. And then he sobbed
outright in the intensity of his relief.
"Then perhaps I'm not."
A long silence, during which Lawrence stared rather stupidly at
nothing, and Leander stared at him.
After a little the boy bethought himself to ask if he couldn't help.
"I don't know. I thought I'd wait until my mind cleared more."
He raised his head again.
"What's that?" he asked.
He was looking at a white glove that lay near him on the ground.
He dropped his head and slowly reached forth his hand till he grasped
the glove.
"It's hers," was the answer.
"Hers? Caro's?" he asked, eagerly.
But as he spoke the faint odor of iris came to him from the bit of
leather in his grasp. He knew that odor of iris; it had always been
inseparable from anything belonging to Prudence Ffolliott.
"No," replied Leander; "it's Prue's."
Lawrence lay silent. His face was dull and clouded.
"Oh, I do wish I could do something!" exclaimed Leander. "She's gone
on for help."
"Who's gone on?"
"Why, Prue, of course."
Lawrence lifted himself up on his elbow again.
"I had a nasty fall," he said. "I thought I was done for. Where's my
horse?"
"I ain't seen any horse."
"It was one I was trying. Luckily, he'll go home to his own stable,
and the stablemen won't break their hearts with anxiety."
The young man spoke quite like himself; and his face began to gain in
color. He pressed his hand to his head. He laughed a little. "I must
have a thick skull of my own," he said.
He turned and twisted, and then he rose to a sitting posture.
The glove had dropped to the ground. He looked down at it, made a
slight motion as if he would take it, then turned away.
"I'm sorry I've made such a scene as this," he said. "It's unlucky
that you should have happened along here now. You see I should have
come to myself all right, and nobody been frightened. Give me a hand,
Lee. There! The deuce! I can't do it, though!"
Lawrence sank back on the ground, and again lay quiet.
Leander could prevent himself from wringing his hands only by
remembering that he was a boy. He recalled how in all the stories of
adventure he had read the right person always had a bottle of whisky
or brandy to produce at the right moment. But he had nothing. He
hadn't even a string in his pocket. He "went in" for the lightest
possible weight when on his wheel.
Thank fortune, there was Prue coming back. She had made good time,
even to his anxious mind.
The girl's wheel glided up, and she alighted from it as swiftly as a
bird would have done.