NICKY AND VICKY
Nicky wasn’t a bit afraid of Dr. Hale. He scarcely flinched as the
deep cut was washed and dressed, Barbara acting as nurse and Dora
acting foolishly.
She couldn’t see why Barbara had to bother with those “young uns,” and
she didn’t see, anyhow, why Barbara had to leave the party “on account
of a boy’s cut hand.”
Because Dudley was present, although he was too well-bred to show his
amusement, for Dora did “take on” as no maid would be expected to do,
out of her place and all that, yet Barbara could not safely ask her to
desist. Such rashness, Barbara feared, might precipitate something
worse, as Dora was always “free with her tongue.”
Quiet and dignified, Dr. Hale took care of his little patient and what
Dora lacked in giving the home the stamp of order, surely he,
personally, supplied with his courtliness.
Dudley was keenly interested in the laboratory equipment, as Barbara
told him to look things over while he waited, and he expressed the
wish of coming in with Glenn some day, to see how things worked.
Finally the wound was all fixed up, and Dr. Hale asked Nicky how it
felt.
“Fine,” he replied, smiling now in evident relief.
“How did you do it?” Barbara asked.
“Duckin’,” replied Nicky.
“What for?” Dudley wanted to know.
“Fer the half-dollar you gim-me.”
“Oh, you lost your candlestick money?” Barbara exclaimed.
“Yes; Vicky wanted to see the picture on it and she dropped it in. I
got to be goin’.” Nicky was again getting anxious about the little
sister.
“Yes, we’re going,” Dudley told him, meanwhile saying good-bye to Dr.
Hale. But Barbara had suddenly disappeared.
She had dashed up to her own room, and was standing with her back to
the door, as if that would shut out everything else.
“I don’t want to go back,” she sighed. “I hate girls’ parties and——”
She never gave in to such emotion, she wouldn’t cry about anything so
unimportant and yet—her eyes were brimming!
“Clothes, clothes!” she fairly bit at the words. “All girls care for
is clothes.” And this was a frank confession that she too cared a lot
about clothes, else why was she being so upset over them?
“And they’ll probably say I just wanted to run off this way in
Dudley’s car.” Another unpleasant thought, but there might have been a
good reason behind it, for Louise and Esther had both called after
her. They had been joking of course, and while their words were
something about not “running away or going on too long a ride,” it
would have been stupid not to understand just what they meant. They
were teasing her about playing tennis, first, and going car riding,
second, with Dudley.
“I’ll just show them how much I care about their old party,” Barbara
pouted, sliding down into her comfortable arm chair. “Poverty suits
me—when it’s my own.”
Her eyes reluctantly swept the room with its uncompromising
shabbiness. Perhaps within her eyes the picture of those other rooms,
Cara’s, refused to be obliterated; at any rate, her things had never
before looked so ugly, so old, so faded, and so—so hateful. They
almost made her shiver. That dresser with brass handles, when they
might easily have been changed for glass. And a mantelpiece! As if a
mantel were of any possible beauty or use!
“Barbara! Babs!”
Her father calling. “Dear Dads!” This was not a sigh of self-pity. “It
isn’t his fault. I wonder why brains, real brains are sold so cheap?
Yes, Dad,” she answered, patting her face with the powder puff, “I’m
coming.” She was on her feet again and going back to the party. Of
course she would _have_ to go. Nicky’s accident had seemed like a
temporary release, but she must go back to Cara’s.
Nicky!
Why was he fearful of Dudley Burke or any stranger going to his place?
Yes, he must have something to hide.
“And I’ll just see that he hides it,” Barbara determined bitterly, as
if Nicky’s troubles were so like her own, and as if he too had a right
to protect himself from strangers’ interference.
But what was he hiding? She wondered, as she tried to cover up the
signs of her rebellion, tried to recapture the expression of happiness
which she had shed when she slammed the door of her room.
Well, she would go, but she was going to hate everything. Cara was
lovely and not really a “goody-goody,” patronizing kind of girl. She
did like Cara. And her brother too, was splendid. He could play
tennis; perhaps they would have a game after dinner.
But the other girls probably wouldn’t want to play. And she, Barbara,
must not ignore all the conventions.
“I’ll be down in one moment!” she called again.
Nicky was already out in the car. What a little fighter he was! How
the children of the poor do learn to fight for their own! He was bound
to go for little Vicky and to bring her home himself. No auto ride
would lure him from what he believed was his duty; not Nicky.
Another little squeezing hug for her father and a call to Dora and
Barbara sprang into the rumble seat of Dudley’s car.
“We’re going for little sister,” he told her, tossing his red head to
one side in that characteristic gesture with which she was already
familiar. “Guess she’ll have her ice-cream finished now. But Nicky
must have some too.”
“I couldn’t wait. I gotta hurry up. Never mind the ice-cream,” bravely
renounced the boy.
“We’ll put it in a—a pail,” declared Dudley laughingly. “You’ve got to
have some ice-cream after all your trouble, boy. We’ll see to that.”
“’T’aint no trouble. Don’t hurt hardly a bit,” he protested again, as
if ashamed of the trouble he was making for others.
“And I’ll bet you didn’t get the half-dollar?” Dudley pressed further.
“Nope, I didn’t.”
“Then we must fix that up, too. You ought to hear the stories of
deep-sea diving about some boys in other countries.” Dudley was trying
to be entertaining. “They just throw money in the water, folks do, to
see the fellows dive after it.”
“I know,” answered Nicky.
“Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of it in magazines,” ventured Barbara.
“Yeah, I did. My father used to get lots of magazines from the train
men.”
There was silence for a time after that. Likely both Barbara and
Dudley were blaming the state for having cut off even that opportunity
for poor little Nicky. It hadn’t been much; just cast-off magazines,
but they must have been educating, and they must have given real
pleasure to the Italian gate-keeper’s family. But now he was in
prison, just because he had been in company with bad men. But the
public must be protected, although Barbara was not reasonable enough,
just then, to think of that.
“We don’t have to ride home,” mumbled Nicky, as Dudley turned his car
in under the towering trees that arched the roadway to Billows. “We
can walk just as well.”
“But why not ride?” demanded Dudley. “That’s what this little bus is
for.”
“I’ll tell you,” chimed in Barbara. “We’ll drive you as far as the
tracks and you can walk home from there. Then, if your grandmother
sees you coming she won’t be frightened as she might be if she saw you
coming in a car.”
“Ye-ah, that’s right, that’ll be fine,” brightened Nicky, shifting
around in the seat and plainly showing by his general brightness of
manner what a relief that suggestion had brought him. “Ye-ah, that’ll
be fine,” he repeated more than once, kicking the car with his very
dirty bare feet, his joy seeming to affect his very toes.
“All right,” assented Dudley, “you’re boss. We’ll dump you anywhere
you say. And oh, wait,” he slipped his hand into his pocket, “here’s a
dollar to make up for your ducking and your cutting. And if you find
any more fancy junk let me know.”
Nicky’s good luck seemed to be increasing, and he smiled broadly as he
used his left hand to tuck the dollar bill into some sort of pocket.
Queer, Barbara thought, how little boys can depend upon pockets in
such tattered clothing, but somehow the pockets always did prove
reliable. Who ever heard of a real _boy_ losing money?
They found little sister ready to relinquish her hold on the ice-cream
spoon, and to open her other hand to allow the cake crumbs to trickle
through her brown fingers upon the plate Cara had set before her.
All the girls were gathered around the child, for Cara and Ruth had
managed to get her talking and she had furnished them with quite an
entertainment. They asked her all sorts of foolish questions, and even
the cynical Esther did find cause for a good laugh when Victoria, aged
four and a half years, tried to tell them what she learned at
school—in her one week’s attendance there, just before school closed.
It wasn’t anything like any one else had ever learned, according to
Vicky. And even this little tot also appeared worried about her home,
and kept asking for Nicky, constantly. When she finally understood
that he was back from the doctor’s and ready to take her home, no
amount of coaxing could get a reply from her.
“Goin’ home,” was her declaration. “Me and Nicky. Nobody else.”
Cara and the other girls had attached no significance to their
insistence that “nobody else” should go along, but when Dudley offered
to put her in the car she pulled back and shouted:
“You can’t go to our house!”
Even Barbara laughed and tried to assure her that only Nicky was to
take her home. Nicky called out that it was “all right, come along and
hurry up,” but even then it took considerable persuading to get her
into the auto.
“Hey there, Babs!” called Ruth good-naturedly, “why can’t some of the
rest of us play nurse?”
“Yes,” chimed in Louise, “why can’t we take a ride?”
“That’s the way with a girl who gets into a nice little sport car,”
Ruth continued to jokingly bewail, “she won’t get out. Here _I_ could
fit in there just as well as not.”
“Oh, come along,” interrupted Dudley. “I’ve got to get back.”
“And Babs might just as well finish the job,” Cara declared, perhaps a
little anxious to have the “job” finished, for it was certainly very
greatly interfering with her party.
Finally Dudley gave warning that he was ready and going to start, and
then they were off.
Barbara held little Vicky in the back seat and its box-like
arrangement at first appeared to frighten the child. She seemed to
think it would snap shut on them, but again her brother’s words of
assurance quieted her fears.
“Only to the track,” Nicky reminded Dudley as they neared the
crossing. “Ain’t far from there.”
“All right, kid,” replied the boy driving, “we’ll dump you wherever
you say.”
“And don’t worry,” said Barbara emphatically, “no one is going to your
house, Nicky. We don’t even know where you live.”
“Sure,” said Nicky, his face beaming happily, as his friend Barbara
Hale offered him the positive assurance that he might hide away from
her and from her well-meaning friends.