Glory swung about on her toes and marched away to the Centre Town
ticketman, whom she knew a little.
"Mr. Blodgett," she cried, "what do you do when you get off the train
and your books don't?"
The pleasant old face twinkled at her out of the little window. Mr.
Blodgett's acquaintance with Glory had been enlivened by a good many
such crises as this. In his mind he had always separated her from the
other Douglas young misses as "The Fly-away One."
"Forgot 'em, eh? Got carried off, did they? Well, that's a serious
case. You'll have to engage a counsel, but I ain't sure you'll get
your case. Looks to me as if the law was on the other--"
"Mr. Blodgett," laughed Glory, "I don't want to get my 'case'--I want
my books! What do folks do when they leave things--umbrellas or
something--in their seats?"
"Never left an umbrella yourself, of course?"
"Ye-es--three," admitted Glory, "but I never _did_ anything--just let
'em go. This time it's my school-books, you see. It's different. I
don't see how I'm going to school without any books."
"Sure enough. Well, I'll see what I can do for you, my dear. I'll
telegraph to the conductor to take 'em in charge and deliver 'em to
you at your place, in the morning. How's that?"
"Oh, thank you, Mr. Blodgett. You're a regular dear--I mean you're
very kind."
"Don't change it, my dear. The first is good enough for me," the old
man laughed. He was thinking what a refreshing little picture his
small window framed in. Was it like this his little girl would have
looked if she had grown into girlhood? He gazed after the Flyaway One
wistfully.
It was still early in the morning, and Glory loitered about in the
crisp September sunshine with an hour of time to "kill." There was
but one early train to Centre Town, and that left Douglas at seven.
It had not been so bad, of course, when the other girls came, too,
but now!--Glory sighed pensively. So many things were bad now. The
sun might just as well be snuffed out like a candle and it be raining
torrents, for all the joy there was in living!
"That was my fourth Latin lexicon," Glory exclaimed suddenly, with a
vivid vision of Aunt Hope's grieved face. "I left two out in the
rain, and lost a lot of leaves out of another, and now this one's
gone on a tour! Poor auntie! I guess she might as well keep right on
calling me Little Disappointment."
It was an unpropitious beginning for the new term. Glory was obliged
to refuse three times to recite, on the plea of her lost books, and
double lessons loomed ahead of her dismally. But not for long--Glory
never allowed "making up" to dispirit her unduly. Studying, anyway,
was a nuisance, and the less time you let it give you the blues, the
better. If you hadn't any books you couldn't study--naturally. Then
why gloom over it a whole day?
"Well, dear?" Aunt Hope said that night, as they sat in the twilight
together; "well, the beginning and the ending are the first day. How
has it been? You look happy enough--I can feel the corners of your
mouth, and they turn up!" The slender, cool fingers traveled over the
girl's face in their own privileged fashion.
Glory remembered the books and drew down her lips hastily.
"I've been naughty, auntie," she confessed softly.
"Oh, Glory!--again?"
"Yes'm, I'm afraid so. I'm afraid I've--lost something."
Aunt Hope drew a long, patient breath before she spoke. Her fingers
still lingered on the smooth cheeks and then wandered slowly to the
tangle of soft hair. The little girl half hidden from her by the dusk
was so dear to her!
"Tell me about it, Little Disappointment," Aunt Hope said at length.
And Glory told her story penitently.
"But I think it will come out all right, auntie, truly," she ended.
"I shall get them again to-morrow morning. Mr. Blodgett said
he'd telegraph to have the Crosspatch Conduc--I mean the
_conductor_--bring them with him to-morrow. It isn't likely anybody
would steal a school satchel of books!" The bright voice ran on,
quite gay and untroubled again. But Aunt Hope put up her hand and
felt about for the laughing lips, to hush them. It had grown dark in
the room.
"Glory, I am going to tell you a story," Aunt Hope said quietly. "You
are to sit a little closer to me and listen like a good little girl.
Don't speak, dear."
"I won't, auntie."
"There was another girl once," began Aunt Hope's gentle voice. "She
had two things she loved especially--an Ambition and a Brother. She
spelled them both with capitals, they were so dear to her. Sometimes
she told herself she hardly knew which one she loved the better. But
there came a time when she must choose between them, and then she
knew. Of course it was the Brother. She put the Ambition away on a
high shelf where she could not go to it too often and cry over it.
'Stay there awhile,' she said. 'Some day I shall come and take you
down and live with you again. Just now I must take care of my
Brother.'
"For the girl and her Brother were all alone in the world, and she
was the older. He was a little thing, and she was all the mother he
had. For fifteen years she took care of him, and then one day she
found time to take the Ambition down from the high shelf--she had not
had time before. She took it down and clasped it in the old way to
her breast. 'Oh, ho!' she laughed--she was so glad!--'Oh, _now_ I
have time for you! You and I will never part again.' And she was as
happy as a little child over a lost treasure. It did not seem to
dismay her because she was not a girl any longer. Women could have
Ambitions, she said. And what did she do but get out her study books
and wipe off the dust of years! It lay on them discouragingly thick
and white, but she laughed in its face.
"That was because she did not know. Sometimes it is better not to
know. Do you think it would have been kind to let her know on that
first sweet day? At any rate she never lost that day. She had it with
her always afterward--the one beautiful, long day she and her
Ambition spent together again, after she took it down from the shelf.
They spent it all among the dusted books.
"The next day there was a terrible accident, and when it was over and
this other girl, who had grown to a woman, was lying in a dark room
that somehow seemed to be full of a dull pain, she heard her Brother
and a doctor talking outside. She heard every word. Then she knew
what was coming to her. She could tell what to expect.
"Well, she put the Ambition back, away back in her heart, and it has
been there ever since. She lets it come to the front sometimes--but
only once in a very great while."
The quiet voice ceased speaking, and Glory, with a little stifled
sob, hid her face in the pillows. She understood.
"Oh, I forgot something in the story," Aunt Hope went on presently,
her cheek against Glory's hair. "I forgot the best part! The Brother
took care of the girl after that. He was the mother then. Even after
he had a home of his own and a little baby, it was just the same. But
he had to go away for years at a time, and the baby's mother was
dead, so it came about that the girl--or rather woman; she is a woman
now--had the little baby almost always to herself. It was beautiful,
beautiful, until the little mischief took it into her head to grow
up. Even then it wasn't so very bad! For, don't you see, she would
fall heir to the Ambition by and by? So the woman was always hoping.
And she hasn't quite given up hoping yet."
There was silence in the big, dark room. Glory got to her feet. Her
voice trembled as she began to speak, and she hurried over the words
as if she were afraid she might cry.
"I'm going down to Judy's to--to get her books. Then I'm coming home
and--and study, auntie. Good-by," she stumbled.
"Good-by, dear," said Aunt Hope, softly.
"It was hard to tell her the story like that," she thought, half
repenting. "Glory understands things instantly, and they hurt. But
she is so precious--I had to tell it!"
That night Glory's light burned a good deal later than it ever had
before, and Glory's bright head bent doggedly over Judy's books.
Glory and Aunt Hope's beloved Ambition were so close that night that
they almost touched each other. Not quite.
It was dull and bleak next day, and Glory was tired. The fierce
little spark of energy seemed to have flickered out altogether.
"Don't say 'good-by, dear,'--say, 'Good-by, Disappointment,'" she
said at Aunt Hope's couch the last moment.
"Good-by, _dear_," said Aunt Hope.
The early morning train was in the little station when Glory got
there. She had just time to whisk up the steps on to the platform.
The Crosspatch Conductor swung himself up after her. Glory eyed his
empty hands with distinct disappointment.
"Haven't you got my books?" she panted, out of breath with her
hurrying.
"Nary a book," the conductor said shortly. "Couldn't find 'em. Went
through the whole train. _Weren't_ any books. You'll have to hang on
to 'em next time, young lady."
"I don't see how I can if I can't find 'em," sighed the "young lady."
She went into the car and sat down heavily. Oh, it was too bad! She
had been so sure the conductor would have them for her. She didn't
want to lose them--not now, after that story. Oh, poor auntie!
There were not many early morning passengers. Among others Glory
noticed an old man and two young men with dinner pails, and old lady
without one, and a girl in a shabby jacket. She hadn't any dinner
pail in sight, anyway. She sat in the seat ahead of Glory and pored
over a book. She seemed buried--lost--in it.
Glory sat on the edge of her seat with her elbow on the window-sill
and her chin in her hand. Her glance wandered gloomily around the car
and came to rest at last on the open page of the Other Girl's book.
What--_What!_ Glory leaned forward and gazed intently at the
open page. On the margins were words scrawled carelessly
in--her--handwriting! The odd, perked-up letters were unmistakable.
Who else ever wrote like that? Who ever made M's and capital S's like
that?
Glory got suddenly to her feet. That was her book the Other Girl was
poring over--_hers!_