CALLED HOME
“Let me do it, Doro,” cried Tavia. “It won’t do any good for you to sit
there trembling like a leaf!”
She held out her hand for the telegram, but for answer Dorothy quickly
tore open the envelope.
“It is from Ned,” she cried, as Tavia looked over her shoulder. “He says
Joe has not been found and there has been no word from him. Oh, I can’t
bear it any longer,” she cried desperately. “What _shall_ I do?”
Tavia put an arm about her chum again, but, as though the contact had
galvanized her to action, Dorothy rose swiftly to her feet.
“I must go home at once,” she cried, turning toward the front door. “I
will go in and pack my bag if you will ’phone for a taxi, Nat.”
Tavia caught hold of her skirt, holding her back.
“But what good will it do you to go to North Birchlands, Doro?” pleaded
the latter, unwilling to have Dorothy’s visit so rudely interrupted.
“You can keep in constant touch with North Birchlands by telephone and
telegraph.”
“But—don’t you see—I must be there, right on the spot!” cried Dorothy,
shaking off Tavia’s detaining hand. “Please don’t stop me, Tavia. I hate
to go, but it isn’t my fault. Will you tell that taxi man to hurry,
Nat?”
Nat promised, and in a few minutes Dorothy, hatted and cloaked and bag
in hand, returned to the porch, ready to go. What was her surprise then,
to find Tavia there before her. And Tavia also carried a bag!
“Wh-where are you going?” stammered Dorothy, and Tavia chuckled.
“With you, you ridiculous Doro,” she said. “Do you suppose for a moment
I would let you go without me?”
“But your mother——”
“Oh, Ma will let me do anything I want to,” retorted Tavia, with a
careless shrug of her shoulders. “She is lying down, so I didn’t even
ask her. Just left a note pinned to the pincushion. When she sees that
she will think for sure I have eloped.”
Dorothy hesitated, a tiny frown on her forehead. She could never become
quite accustomed to the queerness of the Travers household. Everything
in her own home had always been so orderly and comfortable and normal.
But with Tavia it was different, had always been different, and probably
always would be different. For Tavia’s mother was extravagant, lazy, and
often actually untidy. Tavia, left to the guidance of her mother, might
have had a hard time of it.
But Mr. Travers was different, and though he had never made a great
success of himself financially, he was genial, good-tempered and
lovable. In fact, Dorothy had often, without wishing to be unfair in the
least, attributed Tavia’s good traits to her father.
But now this action of Tavia’s leaving home at a moment’s notice to
return for an indefinite stay at North Birchlands with only a scrawled
note pinned hastily to a pincushion to announce her intention, seemed
all wrong.
“But I want to say good-bye to your mother and tell her how sorry I am
that I have to cut my visit short,” she protested.
Tavia shot her a laughing glance that was still shrewd and far-seeing.
“She wouldn’t thank you for it, Doro, my dear,” she said, with a hint of
sadness underlying the light words. “Ma never allows any one to
interrupt her afternoon siesta. Anyway,” she added, dismissing the
subject as a taxicab rolled up to the door, “I left word about you in
the note—said you left regrets and all that sort of thing. Come on,
Doro, make it snappy.”
Dorothy sighed as she handed her grip to Nat and slowly followed the
flyaway Tavia to the cab. There were times when she wished Tavia would
not use so much slang and always be in such a tremendous hurry. It wore
on one’s nerves occasionally.
Once in the cab Dorothy sank back in a corner while Nat and Tavia
conversed in low tones. She was thinking of Joe and what must be her
first action upon reaching The Cedars.
She would go down town, of course, to inspect Haskell’s store, or what
remained of it. She would talk to people in the neighborhood and find
out if any one had seen Joe in that vicinity at the time of the fire.
But surely no one could have seen him! Joe could have had nothing to do
with that catastrophe! Dorothy thrust the horrid thought from her mind,
only to have it return again with the question: Then how explain Joe’s
mysterious disappearance, and just at that time, too?
Perhaps the boy had been hurt. Perhaps they had taken him to a hospital
where they had been unable to identify him.
She spoke this thought aloud, and Nat immediately put her fears to rest,
on that score at least.
“The first thing the Major did was to ’phone the North Birchlands
Hospital and two or three others in the vicinity,” he said. “They had
brought in no one remotely answering Joe’s description.”
“Then where is he?” cried Dorothy desperately.
It was just as well that they reached the station at that moment and
that they were forced to run for the train. The hustle and excitement
served temporarily to divert Dorothy’s mind from her trouble.
Tavia kept up a lively chatter for the major part of the train trip to
North Birchlands so that Dorothy had little time to indulge her unhappy
thoughts.
It was only when they entered the living room of The Cedars and faced
the Major and Mrs. White that Dorothy felt the full gravity of the
situation.
She kissed her Aunt Winnie on the cheek and then went over to her
father, kneeled down beside him and took his hand between her own.
Tavia’s eyes softened as she took in the tableau, and with a significant
gesture she turned to Nat. The two left the room and Mrs. White softly
followed them. Father and daughter were left alone.
“You haven’t heard anything, Daddy?” asked Dorothy, anxious eyes upon
her father’s face. It seemed to her that the Major looked strangely old
and haggard.
Major Dale shook his head. He had brightened at sight of his daughter,
but at the mention of Joe his face clouded heavily again.
“I don’t understand it, Dot,” he replied. “Joe was always such a
straightforward, dependable lad, despite the little pranks he was always
playing. Wouldn’t be a boy if he didn’t have some mischief in him. But a
good boy at that—a good boy——” His voice trailed off and his eyes sought
the window restlessly.
Dorothy became truly alarmed. Her father was ill, she could see
that—although the Major would be the last man to admit such a thing. His
health had not been robust for some time and now the shock of this thing
had been too much for him.
With an effort Dorothy pulled herself together and spoke encouragingly.
“Of course he’s a good boy, the best in the world,” she said. “Wherever
he has gone, we can be sure it isn’t very far. We will have him back in
a day or two. You just watch and see!”
The Major smiled and rested his hand for a moment on Dorothy’s bright
hair.
“I hope so, Dorothy,” he said, adding with an unconscious wistfulness
that touched Dorothy deeply: “Everything seems more hopeful now that we
have you back, my dear. I can’t seem to do without my little daughter
any more.”
“You won’t have to do without me ever, Daddy dear,” said Dorothy, and
there were tears in her eyes and in her voice. Then, fearing that she
had betrayed her anxiety over his changed appearance, she went on in her
ordinary tone: “Don’t you think you could snatch a little rest, dear? I
imagine you haven’t been sleeping very well lately.”
Major Dale stirred impatiently and again his restless glance sought the
window.
“I don’t want to sleep,” he said on a querulous note that Dorothy had
never heard before. “I won’t close my eyes again until we have found
that boy.”
With a heavy heart Dorothy left the room and went in search of Roger,
the youngest of the family and Joe’s shadow. The two boys were almost
always together, for Roger worshiped his older brother and followed
unquestioningly wherever he led.
Roger was in Joe’s abandoned room staring moodily out the window, and
when he saw Dorothy he flung his arms about her neck and wept wildly
despite a manful effort to control his grief.
Dorothy patted his small shoulder and waited until he shamefacedly wiped
away the tears with a grubby hand, leaving a track of dirt from the
corner of one blue eye to the opposite corner of his still-tremulous
mouth.
Then she drew the lad down on Joe’s bed and gently questioned him.
“Joe wouldn’t let me go downtown with him that last day,” said the
little lad, his lip trembling as if with an old grievance. “He said he
was going to meet Jack Popella——”
“Jack Popella! That boy!” cried Dorothy, springing to her feet. “Oh,
Roger, are you sure?”