PUZZLING ENCOUNTERS.
“Thanks, Dick; I’m recovered,” laughed Shirley, waving away the
magazine. “Besides I have this little fan in my ‘under-arm’ bag. It is
rather hot today. We are not near enough to the electric fan to get any
good of it.”
“We have a fine location, Shirley, in the very center of the car. Your
uncle Dick saw to that! I made the reservations, but I can’t vouch for
all that are ahead of us. We go from one line to another, you know.”
Shirley did not know. With a bland indifference to detail, for all that
would be looked after by somebody, she was ready for all adventure and
surprises. “All right,” she said. “I’m perfectly content to let my
‘uncle Dick,’ with some little help from his parents, no doubt, look
after all these things, without bothering about any of them myself.
But I may as well say at the start that I am perfectly happy, grateful
to you all, and every other nice thing that I ought to be! Why, I can
hardly believe it, Dick, honestly!”
“It’s a big chance for me, too, Shirley, and remember that you are
going to keep the account of what we see for me, too.”
“Indeed I will, always provided that you keep the bandits away.”
“Did I forget to promise Cousin Anne? But she was just joking, the way
she does. Say, Shirley, I’m going to see who’s on this train. I was too
busy with family affairs to see if anybody got on that I knew, and the
taxi made it anyway.”
“Who knows? Somebody may be going as far as Chicago at least.”
Shirley was beginning to look through her pretty new pocketbook that
held so much and was so complete inside and out. She was rather glad to
be alone for a little. Dick had settled them all comfortably, doing the
little things that a well brought up young man can do.
Now with the male enjoyment of freedom he would stroll through the cars
at his own sweet will and Shirley dismissed her cousin’s doings, for
her own happy thoughts. Father and Mother were off and on the way to
great things. Dear Auntie, to whom she owed this trip, would really not
be lonesome, for she, too, had pleasant plans for the summer. It was
just wonderful how it had all come about.
Professors in colleges have to plan for trips like this one, for great
sums of money do not grow on bushes in universities. Dr. Harcourt’s
resources would be strained to finance the European trip, to say
nothing of Shirley’s expenses. But Aunt Anne had been heart and soul
with the matter from the start. It would be of professional importance
for Dr. Harcourt to take the trip, join the expedition in which the
university was interested, and get material for the book on which he
was working. At once Miss Dudley told them that she would undertake the
care or plans for Shirley and it was by her advice that the decisions
were made. The Lyttons were going on this long western trip and would
be only too glad to have Shirley with them. Arrangements were made
almost a year ahead of the time for Shirley’s entrance at the girls’
school.
Thoughtfully Shirley drew out her little black note-book, in which she
was going to keep an account of expense as well as little notes of the
trip, to be filled in by herself or Dick when they wrote letters. She
was thinking what a fortunate girl she was. Cousin Molly had given her
the new pocketbook. Her “lovely” new blue coat and the pretty, becoming
hat Aunt Anne had selected, with her approval. Shirley’s eyes rested
on the coat hanging beside her. Here came the porter with bags for the
hats, and Shirley took off hers, fluffing out her golden locks with a
glance at the little long mirror.
Shirley Harcourt had enjoyed very little travel, though a short trip
somewhere was not unusual in the summer vacations. But Dr. Harcourt
was hampered by a modest income and then he liked to stay around home,
working in his library at the writing, reading books which were beyond
Shirley’s comprehension, or interest.
Mr. Lytton enjoyed far more means, though the Lyttons, too, had
responsibilities which kept them from travel. This was a trip long
planned, one which would take almost the entire summer, with the stay
that they intended in various places.
Richard Lytton was almost twenty and entering the junior year at the
university in the fall. Shirley, who knew him as well as a sister
would know a boy, was always deeply interested in such of his doings
as he confided to her. She knew the pretty sophomore girls whom he
took to the class affairs and the coquettish freshman girl of the year
before, who was such a “peach,” but who left school at the close of
the freshman year. Shirley wondered if Dick still wrote to her; but
like a little lady, Shirley never asked questions. It was fine to have
a cousin in the university and she was glad to think that Dick would
still be in school when she entered. He could tell her such things as
she ought to know, matters which were entirely outside of her father’s
knowledge, or so she thought.
But Shirley did not know that the professors, whose minds are supposed
to be upon the subjects they teach,--and they are, indeed,--are fully
aware of other problems connected with the social relations and the
discipline as well as the privileges of the young people in their care.
To Shirley, “Dad” was just a “dear dad,” who knew “a lot” and worked
“terribly hard” and was always having to see some student about lessons
or his private affairs, concerning which the professor was annoyingly
secretive.
Mrs. Lytton glanced at Shirley, after Dick had disappeared, but she
saw that Shirley was fully occupied. After an approving survey of her
pocketbook’s contents, a few scribbles in the new note-book, and a
comfortable adjustment of the pillow which had been given her, Shirley
was watching the rapidly flying landscape with great interest. Dick
would be back when it was time for dinner in the dining car. Then it
would grow dark after a while, she would have the new experience of
being in a berth in a sleeper, and in the morning they would be in
Chicago.
It must be said that Shirley, though keen about the coming thrills of
the parks and the Rockies, had anticipated perhaps most eagerly of all
seeing this huge and interesting city. It was the biggest thing in its
line that she had yet seen, for Shirley’s visit to New York was yet to
come.
They took rooms, engaged beforehand by Mr. Lytton, in a modest but very
neat and respectable place. Part of the time with Mr. and Mrs. Lytton,
part of the time with Dick, part of the time with all three of the
Lyttons, Shirley saw Chicago. The banging cars, the conductors, some
of them, so foreign that they could scarcely pronounce intelligently
the names of the streets; the roar of the elevated trains and the fun
of finding how to take them, climbing high above the surface cars
and stepping hurriedly off the platform to the car that glided up so
quickly; the big sight-seeing ’busses,--everything was new to Shirley.
Dick liked to go around by himself part of the time, but he also
enjoyed taking Shirley around when his parents were either tired or
preferred some other amusement than that which the young people chose.
They would drop in to hear one of the concerts at Lyon and Healy’s, or
find a popular eating place that looked attractive in between times.
They visited the Art Institute together, and the museum in Grant Park,
though that was too much for them. “We’ll have to take that by degrees,
Dick,” said Shirley. “I can’t carry so much in my feeble mind at one
time. I imagine that Mother and Father will have an awful time taking
in so much in a short visit to the foreign galleries.”
“Best way is to pick out what you are interested in for details,” said
Dick, “and then take a casual look through at the rest. Let’s go to
Lincoln Park this afternoon.”
“All right, and remember that I have to see the Lake every day. Oh, I
just dread going across Michigan boulevard again. I didn’t know that
there were so many machines in the world as there are in Chicago!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll see you safely over. It’s somewhat worse than our
little town at Commencement time, isn’t it?”
“Yes. To think that I thought that congestion!”
Wherever they went Dick noticed that Shirley drew the eyes of people.
That, to be sure, was not so unusual, for even at home, Shirley was
considered a very pretty girl. But there was a look almost like one of
recognition that he noticed several times. Once, on the top of a ’bus,
as they stood, undecided, in the aisle because there were no two seats
together, a gentleman rose from an aisle seat, next to which another
was vacant. Smiling at Shirley and tipping his hat, he moved to where
a single seat gave him room and made it possible for Shirley and Dick
to sit together. Shirley, standing with that air of detached poise
which was natural to her, thought it only a pleasant courtesy, smiled a
little in return and took the inside seat.
Dick glanced after the gentleman. “That chap thinks that he knows you,
Shirley,” he said.
“Oh, no; he couldn’t,” replied Shirley, “unless he is some graduate of
our school.”
“That might be,” Dick assented. “We meet ’em everywhere.”
But the next encounter puzzled Shirley a little. She and Dick had
dropped into a very attractive cafeteria for lunch, on one of their
trips downtown. After they had finished their lunch Shirley moved
toward the door, standing aside, out of the way of people, while Dick
was paying for their checks.
While Shirley stood there, interested in the scene, but not feeling a
little apart from it, a short, slim little person came hurrying past,
and stopped short upon seeing her. “Hello!” she said. “Seeing how the
_hoi polloi_ do it? I thought you had gone for the summer. Passed the
house today and it’s all shut up. Nice looking young man you are with.
Have a good time for me. Little Ollie has to earn her wages now. So
long.”
Shirley stood smiling during this address, delivered rapidly, for the
girl seemed to be in a great hurry. There was no chance to tell her
that she must be mistaken, though Shirley’s evident surprise at being
addressed might have suggested it, Shirley thought afterward.
Dick joined her immediately. “_Who’s_ the old friend?” he asked,
looking after the prettily dressed girl who was now mingling with the
rest of the hurrying noon crowds on the sidewalk.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Dick, some one that thought she knew me. She
stood right in front of me and never stopped to wonder if I were the
right one. I must look a good deal like some one she knows.”
Then Shirley repeated the girl’s speech. “She asked me if I were seeing
how the _hoi polloi_ do it; so the girl I look like can’t be in the
habit of frequenting cafeterias. And this one is a nice one, too.”
“Well, just look out that some one doesn’t try to scrape an
acquaintance with you on the strength of your resemblance to somebody.”
“I don’t see how that could be done, Dick.”
The next episode, however, was very harmless and occurred the next
day. Shirley was alone, stepping out of a candy shop not far from where
they were staying. A handsome car drew up to the curb and permitted
a lad of possibly twelve years to hop out, then drove rapidly away.
The boy was well dressed, his knickers, stockings, shoes,--the whole
outfit, in the latest style for boys. He started to run across the
pavement toward one of the doors in the tall building, when he caught
sight of Shirley.
“Oh, that’s funny,” he said. “I thought that you were out seeing the
Indians by this time. Mother said,--” but here the child broke off, for
some one called him from the door. “Goodbye,” he called back, as he
started on after his brief halt, with a touch of his cap.
“A sweet little gentleman,” thought Shirley, who had enjoyed the
friendly little speech and looked with pleasant acknowledgment at the
lad when he spoke to her.
“Whoever my double is, Dick,” said Shirley, after she returned to the
hotel and found Dick in the lobby, “she is due out where the Indians
are, I’ve just discovered. I hope that I run across her. No, I don’t
either. I’d rather there were just one of me!”
“I don’t blame you, Shirley. But you will probably never see her,
especially if she has gone on West ahead of us. Besides we may not be
going to the same places at all.”
“It is not very important, Dick. I’ll probably forget all about it.”
Shirley was with Mrs. Lytton later in the day, when they went with a
guide through the great store of Marshall Field’s and afterward had
lunch together there and shopped. Shirley wanted to send her Aunt Anne
something from this particular store, just because Miss Dudley had
spoken of liking it so much. It must be something nice, from her own
little private fund.
For any purchase of her own, Shirley would have sought bargains, but
for Miss Dudley she looked among many things far in advance of what she
could pay and she rather wondered that the clerks took so much pains.
It was an evident disappointment to a clerk who sold her a delicate
handkerchief that she bought nothing else, and when Mrs. Lytton asked
to see something less expensive than an article which was offered her,
the young woman behind the counter looked decidedly surprised, giving
Shirley a glance which she could scarcely interpret. But all through
the store they were treated with a little more than even the customary
courtesy. “I should almost think,” said Mrs. Lytton, “that they knew
us.”
Shirley had not mentioned to her cousin the little encounters with
those who seemed to think that they knew Shirley, and it did not seem
worth while to comment upon it. But she did wonder if the resemblance
had anything to do with the very particular courtesy of the clerks. She
was accustomed to much the same consideration at home, for her father’s
position and personality commanded the respect of his fellow townsmen.
But the Harcourts by no means were expected to buy the most expensive
articles upon a trip to the home shops.
The last occurrence which could be attributed to a fancied resemblance
took place at the hotel, just as they were all waiting in the lobby,
preparatory to leaving. A porter was standing by their luggage. Mr.
Lytton was paying the bill at the desk. Dick was buying a paper. Mrs.
Lytton was sitting in one of the big chairs and Shirley was standing
by her, a little back of the chair, with one hand and her pocketbook
resting on its well padded top.
A gentleman, conservatively dressed and looking like a prosperous
Chicago business man, had previously passed them on his way from the
entrance to the desk, where he talked with one of the clerks a moment
and turned to make his way as rapidly out. Seeing Shirley, he paused a
moment, with a look of surprise. Then he left the straight path to the
door and walked briskly toward her. Mrs. Lytton, who was watching her
husband from this distance, did not see him. But Shirley saw him coming
and wondered what next. It might be some one whom she ought to know.
In consequence, when the gentleman offered his hand, Shirley extended
hers. This might be an “old grad,” and it would never do not to
remember him. There were hosts of folks who were entertained at her
father’s table every Commencement and she could not always remember
them.
As in the other instances, this stranger was in a hurry. Not yet had
Shirley had an opportunity to say, “You are mistaken!” Nor yet had one
mentioned the name of her “double!”
But this was not an “old grad.” It was evident at once as the gentleman
addressed her. “Why, my dear, it is pleasant to see you in town yet. I
thought that you had gone with your father. We shall miss all of you,
though I expect to be in and out all summer. Mrs. Scott and the girls
have gone on up to Wisconsin, you know. May you have a very delightful
trip. You are looking very much better than you did when you returned
at the close of school. Goodbye, my child, I must hurry back to the
bank.”
Tipping his hat, this kind-looking, fatherly man sped on with true
Chicago hurry. Twice Shirley had thought that she might get in a
protesting word, and got no further than an apparent stammer. For
Shirley was not supposed to interrupt older people and it would not
have been possible to stop this rapid speech without an interruption.
Mrs. Lytton had turned, but with the confusion, inside and out, she did
not catch what was said. Mr. Lytton and Dick were joining them now, the
porter was gathering up the bags and in a moment they were in a taxi,
on their way to the station to catch their train.