They escorted Billy home. It was rather a silent walk until the end.
Loraine spoke first.
"One less in the B-Hive," she said sadly.
"Yes, I suppose I'm dropped now," responded Billy, not uncheerfully.
"Of course I've got to take the consequences of my--my crime. But I don't
care!" she added with vivacity. "I'd rather live alone in a ten-story
house than have missed that Exhibition!"
"Yes," mused Laura Ann thoughtfully, "it was a beautiful one. I'm glad
_I_ didn't miss it. When I think of what it stood for--"
She broke off suddenly and slipped her hand into Billy's arm. Another
short silence. Then Laura Ann finished: "All the work and patience it
stood for, day after day--girls, when I think of that I feel--"
"I know--all of us know," T.O. hastily interposed. "That's about the way
we all feel, I guess. No use talking about it, though. Billy's broken
the Compact and we're under oath to drop her."
"Not till we go back to work," Loraine put in emphatically, "and then
she can live next door and come in every night to tea! There's nothing
in the Compact against that, is there? Well, then, I invite you, Billy,
for the very first tea!"
"I accept!" laughed Billy. She did not seem at all depressed. In her
ears rang the pounding refrain of Old '61 marching through Georgia.
Nothing more was said on this subject. A little picnic had been planned
for the afternoon, and they went briskly about making preparations for
it, as soon as they got back to Mrs. Camp's little green house. While
they worked they discussed Amelia.
"If she hadn't gone with her mother we'd have taken her to the picnic
with us," the Talented One said, over her egg-beating. "I wonder if
Amelia likes picnics?"
"Don't! You make me feel creepy," Laura Ann laughed. "What _I_
wonder is how she'd have looked if she'd ever been born. I lay awake one
night trying to imagine Amelia."
"Blue eyes and golden hair," Loraine chimed in dreamily, "and a little
dimple in her chin."
"You needn't any of you lie awake nights imagining. I can tell you," the
Talented One said. "She has blue eyes, but her hair is brown and the
dimples are in her cheeks. Her hair just waves a little away from the
parting--it is always parted. She sits very still, sewing patchwork--her
mother told me," added the Talented One quietly. "She said she wished
she knew how to paint so she could paint Amelia's picture. She told me
where she'd like to have it hung--here in the dining-room, between the
windows. Amelia'd always been very real, she said, but the picture would
make her realer."
"Did she ever say what kind of dresses Amelia wears?" asked Laura Ann
without looking up from her stirring.
"No, I never asked, but they must be white dresses, I think,--Amelia is
such an innocent little thing," laughed T.O. softly. It was odd how they
always laughed or talked softly when it was about little make-believe
Amelia.
The picnic was in the woods, in a lovely little spot Loraine had
discovered in her wanderings. A brook babbled noisily through the spot.
They spread their lunch at the foot of a forest giant and ate it
luxuriously to the tune the brook sang. It was hard to believe they had
ever been toilers in a great city.
"There never were any public schools," murmured Loraine, lying back and
gazing into the thick mesh of leaves overhead. "Nobody ever said
'Teacher! Teacher!' to me."
"There never were any negatives to be 'touched up'--nobody ever had
their pictures taken," Laura Ann murmured, dreamy, too. "I've always
been here beside this brook, lying on my back--what a beautiful world
it's always been!"
The Talented One sat rigidly straight. "There have always been
handkerchiefs," she sighed, "and there always will be. I shall have to
go back there and sell them. When I look at all these leaves, it reminds
me--there are leaves on handkerchiefs, straggling round the
borders--ugh!"
It was foolish talk, perhaps, but it was the place and the time for
foolish talk. After a little more of it they drifted apart, wandering
this way and that in a delightful, aimless way. So little of their four
lives had been aimless or especially delightful that they reveled in the
sweet opportunity. Loraine wandered farthest. She came after awhile to a
clearing where a small pond glimmered redly with the parting rays of the
sun. A great boy lounged beside the pond dangling a pole. Loraine
recognized him as Jane Cotton's Sam.
"Oh!" she said, "now I've made a noise and scared away your fish!"
"Ain't any fish," muttered the boy. He did not turn around. The pole
slanted further and further, till it lay on the bank beside the boy.
"Oh, maybe there are, if you wait long enough--and nobody comes crashing
through the bushes! I don't suppose--I mean if you are not going to use
it any more yourself--" Loraine looked toward the idle pole. "I never
fished in my life," she explained. The boy understood with remarkable
quickness.
"You mean you'd like to try it?" he asked, and this time turned round.
It was not at all a bad face on close inspection, Loraine decided. The
veil of sullenness had lifted a little.
[Illustration: "I NEVER FISHED IN MY LIFE," SHE EXPLAINED.]
"Oh, but I just would! Only if I should have an accident and catch
anything, whatever would I do! They--they are always cold and clammy,
aren't they?"
Jane Cotton's Sam laughed outright, and Loraine decided that it was a
very good face.
"I'll 'tend to all you catch," the boy said. He was busily baiting the
hook; now he extended the pole to her.
"Wiggle it--up and down a little, like this," he directed, "and don't
make any more noise than you can help. If you feel a bite, let me know."
"But I don't see how I can feel a bite unless they bite me--"
Again the boy laughed wholesomely. They were getting acquainted. The
fishing began, and for what seemed to her a long time Loraine sat
absolutely still, dangling the pole. Nothing happened for a discouraging
while. Then Loraine whispered: "I feel a bite, but it's on my wrist! If
it's a mosquito I wish you would 'shoo' it off."
Another wait. Then a real bite in the right place. In another moment
Loraine landed a wriggling little fish in the grass. She did not squeal
nor shudder, but sat regarding it with gentle pride.
"Poor little thing! I suppose I ought to put you back, but you're my
first and only fish, and I've _got_ to carry you home for the girls
to see. You'll have to forgive me this time!" She turned to the boy.
"I suppose he ought to be dressed, or undressed, or something, before
he's fried, oughtn't he? I thought I'd like to fry him for breakfast,
to surprise the girls--"
"I'll dress him for you," Jane Cotton's Sam said eagerly, "and bring
him over in the morning in plenty o' time."
"Thank you," Loraine said heartily. "Now you'll have to let me do
something for you. 'Turn about is fair play.' Couldn't I--" She
hesitated, looking out over the still reddened water rather than at the
boy's face. "Couldn't I help you in some way with your studies? That's
my business, you know. It would really be doing me a kindness, for I may
get all out of practice unless I teach somebody something!" Had Loraine,
too, forgotten the Compact on the screen door?
The boy fidgeted, then burst out angrily: "I s'pose they've all been
telling you I failed up in my exams? They have, haven't they? You
_knew_ it, didn't you?"
"Yes," Loraine answered quietly. "But I've heard a good many worse
things in my life. I've heard of boys that smoked and drank and--and
_stole_. What does missing a few examinations amount to beside
things like those?" But the boy did not seem to have been listening to
anything except his own angry thoughts. All his sun-browned young face
was flooded with red; he had run his fingers through his hair till it
stood up fiercely.
"They needn't trouble themselves 'bout me, nor you needn't, nor anybody
needn't!" he declaimed loudly. "Anybody'd think they were saints
themselves!"
"And _I_ was a saint and everybody was saints!" laughed Loraine
softly. But Jane Cotton's Sam did not laugh. He went striding away into
the woods, his head flung up high. Loraine and the little dead fish were
left behind. Oddly the girl was not thinking of the boy's rudeness in
return for her kind offer of help, but of the flash of spirit in his
eyes. It augured well for him, she was thinking, for spirit was spirit,
although "gone wrong." In the right place, it should spur him on to a
second attempt to get into college. What if she were to persist in her
offer--were to work with him, urge him to work with her?
But he had chosen to spurn her advances. She shook her head sadly. On
his own head be it. She turned her attention to the little dead fish.
"You poor dear, you look so dead and forlorn--what am I going to do with
you? Someway you've got to go home with me and be fried." She took him
up gingerly, but dropped him again--he was so slippery and damp! Wrap
him in her handkerchief? But she had no pocket and she could never,
never carry him in her sleeve which she had adopted as a pocket. So then
she must leave him, must she? Poor little useless sacrifice!
Back at the picnic spot the girls were waiting for her. They went home
in the late, sweet twilight.
A letter was tucked under the screen door where some friendly neighbor
had left it. "Miss Thomasia O. Brown," Billy read aloud, and waved the
letter in triumph, for the secret was out. The 'T' in T.O. stood for
Thomasia!
"Well?" bristled the Talented One, "it had to stand for something,
didn't it? It's awful, I know, but _I'm_ not to blame--I didn't
name myself, did I? I wish people could," she added with a sigh.
"Is it for a _Thomas?_" questioned Laura Ann curiously.
Thomasia nodded: "There was always a Thomas in the family until they got
to me. They did the best they could to make me one." She was opening the
letter with careful precision. "Why, of course, it's from Mrs. Camp!"
she cried delightedly.
"My dear, I hope you are well and your friends have come, and Jane
Cotton's Sam has not forgotten to paint the pump. I arrived here safely
after a very long journey--my dear, I never dreamed the world was so
big! This part of it is well enough, but give me Placid Pond! Now I am
going to tell you something, and you may laugh all you're a mind to--I
sha'n't hear! What I'm going to tell is, _Amelia came_, too. After
I'd got good and settled down on the cars I looked up and knew she was
sitting right opposite, on the seat I'd turned over. She seemed
_there_--and you may laugh, my dear. I laughed, I was so pleased to
have Amelia along. John doesn't know she came--Amelia never makes a mite
of trouble! But everywhere I go she goes, my dear. I shouldn't tell you
if I didn't feel you'd understand. If he hasn't painted it yet, the blue
paint is on a shelf in the woodhouse, and you can paint it. I'm afraid
Jane Cotton's Sam won't ever amount to much. Poor Jane!"
Thomasia read the letter aloud, and at this point Loraine interposed
warmly: "Jane Cotton's Sam is abused! It's a shame everybody groans over
him--_I_ like him. If there isn't a lot of good in him, then I don't
know how to read human nature, that's all."
The next morning very early someone knocked at the kitchen door. It was
Laura Ann's turn to make the fire, and she answered the knock. Jane
Cotton's Sam stood on the steps outside. He had a mysterious little
package in his hand. He looked up eagerly, but it was evident from the
disappointed look on his face that Laura Ann was the wrong girl. And he
did not know the right one's name!
"Good-morning!" nodded Laura Ann, sublimely unconscious of the
soot-patch over her nose.
"Good-morning. I'd like to see--I've brought something for the one that
teaches school."
"Loraine? But she isn't up yet--"
"Yes, I am up, too," called a voice overhead, "but I won't be long! I'll
be _down_."
It was a little fish, dressed and ready to fry, that was in the tiny
bundle. The boy extended it blushingly. Then his eyes lifted to
Loraine's in frank petition for pardon.
"I was mighty rude," he said. "I went back to the pond to say so, but
you were gone. I beg your pardon."
She liked the tone of his voice and his good red blushes. "That's all
right," she nodded reassuringly. But he did not go away. There was
something else.
"If--you know what you said? If you'd offer _again_--"
Loraine glanced over her shoulder. Laura Ann was rattling stove-lids at
the other end of the kitchen. "I offer _now_," Loraine said in a
low voice.
"Then I accept." The boy's voice was eager. "I'll study like everything!
I thought about it in the night--I thought I'd like to surprise my
mother. If I could get into college next year--" His eyes shone. "Oh I
say, I'd do 'most anything for that!"
The little plan was hurriedly made, in low tones, there on Emmeline
Camp's little doorsteps. The boy was to take his books to the pond where
Loraine had caught her fish. He was to study there alone for a time
every day, and in the afternoon she was to stroll that way and go over
the work with him and set him right in all the wrong places.
"It was in Latin and mathematics I failed up," Jane Cotton's Sam
explained.
"It's Latin and mathematics we'll tackle!" softly laughed Loraine.
"You wait--you see--you _grind!_"
He strode away, whistling, and the tune was full of courage and
determination. Loraine smiled as she listened. She stood a moment, then
opened the screen door and went in. The "Compact" swung and tilted with
the jolt of her energetic movements. She adjusted it with a queer little
smile.
For summer days on summer days the covert, earnest lessons went on
beside the bit of sunny water. Teacher and pupil pored intently over the
problems and difficult passages, and steadily the pupil's courage grew.
The old sullen look had vanished--Jane Cotton's Sam put on manliness and
a splendid swing to his shoulders. In her heart Loraine exulted. What if
she were disobeying the Compact--death to the Wicked Compact!
Laura Ann suspected, but for reasons of her own kept her own counsel.
She had begun to suspect, when Jane Cotton's Sam brought the little
fish. At that time the "reasons of her own" had begun to influence her
and she had omitted to mention to Billy and T.O. that the boy had stood
on the doorsteps in earnest conversation with Loraine. Mentioning it to
Billy might not, indeed, have mattered, since Billy was already an
"outsider." But Loraine might not want T.O. to know, anyway.
It was significant that Laura Ann, in going in and out, now chose to
ignore the gayly-illuminated placard that swung on the door--that she
herself had adorned and hung there. But she did not go in and out as
much now; for whole mornings she slipped away to a little attic room
upstairs and busied herself alone.
It was getting grievously near the time to go back to the great city
again. Emmeline Camp was coming back then.
All but T.O. mourned audibly the rapidly lessening days, but T.O. made
no useless laments. One day she surprised them.
"Girls, I _want_ to go back!" she announced. "I shall be ready when
it's time--now anybody can say what anybody pleases. Scoff at me--do.
I expect it! But I'm getting homesick to see a street-car and a--a
policeman! It's lovely and peaceful here, but I've had my fill of it
now--I want to go home and bump into crowds and hear big, stirry noises.
It's different with you girls--you weren't born in the city; you didn't
play with street-cars and policemen and get sung to sleep by the noises!
I was tired--tired--and now I'm rested. I've had a perfectly beautiful
time, but I shall be ready to go back. Honestly, girls, it would break
my heart not to!"
It was so much like T.O., Billy said, to keep all her feelings to
herself and then suddenly spring them on people like that, and take
people's breath away. Billy did not keep things to herself.
* * * * *
Jane Cotton came up the kitchen path one day when all but Loraine were
sitting on the doorsteps--Loraine had strolled nonchalantly down the
street as her afternoon habit was.
"Well, I've found out!" announced Jane Cotton. She was beaming; her
sallow face was oddly cleared and lighted--her lips trembled with
eagerness to deliver her news. "I've _found out_! Where's the rest
o' you?" She counted them over. "It's the rest o' you I want--well, you
tell her I've found out. Tell her I hardly slept a wink last night,
I was so happy! Tell her I _bless_ her, and I know the Lord will.
They didn't want me to know yet but I couldn't help finding out. And
they won't mind when they know how happy it's made me--oh, I ain't
afraid but he'll pass this time! I know he will--I know it! You tell her
she's saved my boy." And without further delay the slender figure turned
and walked jubilantly down the path. It was as if she marched to the
melody of the joy in her heart.
They looked at each other silently, then at the Wicked Compact behind
them. There did not seem any explanation needed.
"Another one dropped," murmured T.O. sighingly. But Laura Ann said
nothing.