THE ACCIDENT
She should not have come. Somehow she didn’t seem to belong. For a
single second Barbara considered flight. A glance towards the freedom
of the road made the girl feel like a prisoner within those fairy-like
grounds.
Then: “How silly!” her better judgment prompted, “when you know Cara
wants you and the other girls—well, who could blame them for thinking
one different when one felt different, acted differently, and was
different?”
“Dad and Dora are just about now talking of the fun I’m having,” she
reflected, as a cynical little titter rippled over her lips. But
presently the racket again swung into action, and from the lake beyond
the grove floated back gales of laughter. Those girls knew how to have
a good time. _They_ knew how to play.
“Born that way, I suppose,” Barbara continued to reason, “while I was
born with a genius for a father and an angel for a mother. No wonder
I’m different,” she decided, her sense of humor at least being all of
its kind that any girl could wish for.
That so-called saving, sense of humor! Well, if it didn’t actually
save one it helped a lot. Barbara Hale was perfectly willing to admit
that fact at this very moment.
Bing! Biff! Bat! How the balls flew! And how her muscular young arm
served that delicately strung racket, as finely adjusted as a precious
violin and probably as well beloved by its proud possessor.
But the racket didn’t belong to Barbara. Cara had snatched it up from
a bench and handed it to her when they entered the court. Now, Barbara
paused to note the burnt-in letters the racket was marked with; Dudley
Burke. Yes, it belonged to Cara’s brother, Dud, and he had a local
reputation as a crack tennis player. Naturally interested in sports,
she was also interested in its advocates, and as if her thoughts had
gone by wireless, at this instant a boy’s whistle sounded through the
shrubbery.
Barbara started guiltily. Why? All alone in the strange grounds, a
stranger—what would the girls say if they should come along? Perhaps
that she had stayed behind them just for this chance. But she had not,
of course. The wish to be alone had prompted her, only that. But now,
here was Dudley Burke. She knew it before she saw him, and being
essentially honest she admitted, secretly, that she was glad he had
come!
“Hello!” came a cheery greeting from between the mulberry trees.
“Where’s Cara?”
“Gone to the lake,” Barbara replied easily, for the boy was not
exactly a stranger to her. She had met him with Glenn at the hotel
tennis match.
“Practicing?”
“With your racket——”
“Oh, help yourself. Plenty of them spoiling around here. Feel like a
little game?”
Barbara’s face was being transformed from that brooding serious
picture of a few moments ago, to the image of a pretty girl, blushing
happily and responding naturally to the comradeship offered her.
What if she did prefer boys to girls? Or if she thought she did?
Wasn’t Glenn the best playmate a girl ever had? So generously
understanding and so free from petty criticism, was Glenn.
“I’m afraid I shouldn’t be on the court in these shoes,” she answered
Dudley, while she thought of so many other things. “They have heels——”
“Never mind the heels,” he interrupted. “This will be rolled tomorrow,
besides those are little heels,” he finished, not knowing that the
better word might have been “low” for heels.
Dudley was like Cara, good-looking in a very general way and with that
same easy gracefulness that made Cara so attractive. But his hair!
Red! The very reddest-red, bleached a little now by the summer sun,
but red for all that. He should have had blue eyes, but Barbara wasn’t
wondering about the color of his eyes—although Cara always called them
green—she wasn’t wondering about anything, as a matter of fact, she
was just deciding.
Queer, how easy it was for her to fall into comradeship with a boy.
Dudley Burke wasn’t guessing at the price of her shoes, or her
stockings or wondering where she got “that rig.” But he was curious to
know how she sprinted like any fellow would, and how she put up such a
good game of tennis, anyway.
Tennis surely is the game for boys and girls, and these two were
throwing so much energy and enthusiasm into it they could not help
getting proportionate enjoyment from it. Time passed quickly, too
quickly for both of them. Then, suddenly Barbara remembered she had
promised to follow the girls to the lake.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to stop,” she said reluctantly, panting a
little. “This is lots of fun, but I promised to meet the girls——”
“Oh, yes,” drawled the boy, shaking his head in mockery. “This here
house party, of course——” He did a few tricks with his racket then
sprang around to get Barbara’s jacket which she had left on the bench.
“Oh, let me show you something,” he exclaimed, as he reached for his
own coat. “Mother’s ‘nuts’ on old junk, and look what I just bought!”
He was holding up an old candlestick.
“Why,” faltered Barbara, “isn’t that—wherever did you get that?” she
asked quickly altering the original form of her question.
“Couple of kids. It’s brass.” He was rubbing the tarnished metal with
his handkerchief. “Two funny little Dagoes waylaid me down the road.
Suppose they snibbied it——”
“Nicky and Vicky wouldn’t steal anything.”
“Nicky and Vicky! Do you know the youngsters?”
“They sell fresh eggs,” Barbara hastily explained, instantly
regretting her thoughtless defense of the two little Italians. But for
some reason, which she could not have named, she felt that the
children needed defending.
Dudley was toying with the queer old candlestick.
“Well, this isn’t so bad, and Mother has what Sis calls a junk
complex. Funny how those kids pick up things.”
“They really search in the dumps, you know,” Barbara interrupted. She
was just seeing Nicky and Vicky searching in the dump and how they
must have rejoiced when they had discovered the candlestick.
“Yes.” Dudley hesitated, then added: “I gave them a whole ‘buck’ for
this, but they only asked a half-dollar. They looked as if they needed
a lot more.” He tossed his head to one side boyishly as he said that.
“They do.” Barbara replied quickly. “Their father is—in prison, you
know. He used to be gate-keeper at the tracks over at Stonybend, and
he got in some trouble, which lots of people think he had nothing to
do with. Dad says it’s an outrage for the state to take a man from his
family and leave a poor woman to support them.” Her voice was seething
with indignation, as any reference to that story always made her
angry.
“So it is. The poor kids! No wonder they have to dig in the dumps. I
wish I’d given them more money——”
A sudden shrill of voices checked Dudley’s remarks. Along the winding
path a flutter of light dresses broke through the greenery. There
seemed to be some excitement.
“Here come the girls and—what’s the matter?” Barbara exclaimed, for
the girls were coming back and some one with them was crying!
“Some youngster——” Dudley barely said before he was hurrying to meet
Cara and her companions.
“Oh!” gasped Barbara. “It’s Nicky! And he’s hurt!”
Between Cara and Ruth, Nicky was being led along, splotches of ugly
red staining a bandage that had been wound around the little fellow’s
wrist. He was not crying, but his sister Vicky was. She was in the
charge of Louise and Esther, who vainly tried to assure the frightened
child that her brother would be all right, and that she shouldn’t cry
so.
“What happened?” Dudley asked as quickly as his question could be
heard, for every one seemed to be talking at once.
“He fell into the lake and cut his arm on some glass,” Cara replied.
“I’m glad you’re here, Dud——”
“Oh, it ain’t nauthin’” protested the boy bravely. “I often get cut——”
“But not like this,” Cara insisted. “He had better have it dressed. We
were just coming in when we saw him——”
“I’d be home now——”
“A good thing you didn’t go home, Nicky,” Barbara told him
authoritatively. “You might scare your granny to death with all that
blood.”
“Oh, she isn’t scary.” The boy was wincing with pain, and the pallor
of suffering made his dark eyes look strangely old and unreal in his
small sharp face.
Dudley sort of brushed the girls aside and now had his arm around
Nicky.
“We’ll see a doctor, kid,” he said kindly. “Then there’ll be no
come-back——”
“I don’t want no doctor,” the boy exclaimed excitedly.
“He won’t hurt you,” assured Dudley trying to inspire courage.
“’T’aint the hurt. I’m not afraid, but——”
Barbara guessed why the boy feared any one who might seem to be an
official; even a doctor had some authority, and she quickly understood
Nicky’s fear. His father had been taken away by officials, and he had
not been allowed to come back. How could the child be expected to
forget that dreadful scene that had left them worse off than if they
had been orphans?
“I’ll tell you,” Barbara exclaimed, “we’ll go see my dad. You know
him, Nicky, and he’s a good doctor——”
“But Dr. Landes is just at the corner,” Louise tried to suggest. “Why
not go to him?”
“It won’t take but a few minutes to run over to Dr. Hale’s,” Dudley
decided. “And my car is in the drive. What about Little Sister?” He
referred to Vicky who by now had ceased her wailing.
“I’m going to give Little Sister some ice-cream,” Cara announced
brightly. “Won’t that be nice?”
Vicky seemed to think it would be, so she allowed herself to be led
towards the house, while Dudley and Barbara took the wounded boy to
the auto.
“Sure I’m not goin’ to no strange doctor?” the child questioned before
he would set foot into the pretty little sport car with the “rumble
seat” in the back. Barbara was to occupy that place, while Dudley and
Nickolas rode in front.
“We’re going to my house,” Barbara answered him frankly. “You don’t
think I’d fool you?”
“No; I guess not, you wouldn’t. But this don’t hurt much. Who’s going
to brung Vicky home?”
“She’ll get a car ride too,” replied Dudley, supposing that would be
cheering news.
“But no strangers don’t dast fetch her home!” cried the boy quivering
with excitement.
“Why?” asked Dudley.
“Can’t no strangers go to our house,” the boy protested. His
excitement was alarming, for the bandage around his hand was now
dripping blood.
“Oh, look!” cried Barbara, “how your hand bleeds! You must keep quiet.
Here, take this——”
“Wait a minute: I have some cheesecloth in the back of the car,” said
Dudley, pulling into the curb so that he might stop the car. When he
stepped out to get the cheesecloth from under the rumble seat, he
whispered to Barbara:
“Seems to have something to hide at his house.”
“Oh, that’s because of the trouble—his father you know,” she also
whispered. The cheesecloth had already been cut in convenient duster
sizes so that it was no trouble to wind a few of the spotless pieces
around Nicky’s wounded hand.
Settled once more, upon Barbara’s assurance that they would go
straight back to Billows and get Vicky just as soon as the cut was
dressed, again Dudley turned his car towards the homestead and office
of Dr. Hale.