WHEN A GIRL THINKS HARD
She just couldn’t get Nicky off her mind. Even the fun of sorting out
the old heirlooms was not enough to blot out her anxiety.
“I believe now,” she admitted, “that it isn’t the best thing for a
girl to get too interested in strangers: we can never understand them,
especially those of other nationalities.”
But Nicky was so interesting, and he seemed to be so abused. It was
this instinct of sympathy, so natural to all generous girls, that was
leading Barbara into tangled paths.
First, she had bought the old candlesticks, then Dudley Burke bought a
pair. That was on the day that Nicky hurt his hand and all the other
suspicious things happened, none of which had yet been explained.
But it was the fancy wood carving on the book-ends that Cara bought
that excited the most interest. The wood had been freshly carved, but
by whom? Who could be the artist and where was he hidden and why?
Barbara never suspected Nicky of any trickery, however, and she had
maintained perfect confidence in him until now. Now she too was being
forced to question. What did he mean by that plea for money made to
her this very afternoon? Why did he need five dollars so urgently? And
if he did need it, why could he not tell her what it was needed for?
She didn’t like the little boy sneaking around after her, and sneaking
was the only word applicable to his peculiar methods. Even generous
Cara was warning her these days that you can’t trust strangers too
far, especially those clever little boys.
The happenings of that afternoon were vividly pictured now to Barbara,
while she sat in her room, pondering. It was evening again, and with
quiet hours spread out before her a perfect race of happenings dashed
in and out of her perturbed mind.
Nicky, always Nicky, but why?
“Of course I’ve never had a sister or a brother,” she reasoned, “and
perhaps I’ve needed one. And Nicky is so interesting and so sort of
mysterious.”
But when he climbed over the rail of the back porch at the Community
House that afternoon, and managed, as only he could manage, to get
Babs’ attention, she was bothered. She didn’t want the girls to know
about that, and of course she did not know that Cara had overheard
anything. It was better for her that she did not, for that would have
added greatly to her anxieties.
It had all happened so quickly. He came back after she explained to
him why she could not exhibit the lovely candlesticks, and naturally,
he was heart-broken about that. But she insisted he would have to tell
who carved them if she put them in the show-room. He protested he
could not do that, no, never, not for anything, and so he had gone
away a very sorrowful little boy, taking back the precious pair of
candlesticks in the home-made oilcloth covering.
And the queerest part of it was he insisted they could not be sold, as
much as he and his folks needed money, he couldn’t sell those
candlesticks. They were beautifully carved and beautifully tinted, but
Barbara was too anxious to get rid of Nicky to examine them very
closely.
He came back a little later and begged that she would give him five
dollars. He said he simply had to have it, and strange to say he was
so excited he could not keep his voice down. It was then that Cara
overheard him sobbing and pleading, and it was then that Barbara tried
to scold and reason with him.
Why should he bother her so? Hadn’t she done all she could for him?
And from whom would or could she borrow five dollars at a few moments’
notice?
“But you’re my friend, ain’t you?” he pointed out reasonably enough,
“and I’ve got to have it.”
“Have you no other friends?” Barbara had asked him then.
“Sure,” was Nicky’s reply. “But I did borrow from them.”
“Do you borrow—a lot?”
“Have to,” Nicky had replied easily. “But I’m goin’-a pay it back
soon. I kin work soon, Captain Quiller says he’ll give me a job.”
“Captain Quiller?”
There had not been time there on the porch to recall Captain Quiller’s
interest in Nicky, but Barbara vividly remembered that night in the
storm, when the little boy had fallen by the roadside from his
broken-down “bike,” with that precious can of oil propped up against a
mudhill so that it couldn’t spill.
“And Nicky deserves recognition for that,” Barbara was now telling
herself. “I do wish I would get an answer to my letter from
Washington.”
Conflicting thoughts! First worry about the little Italian boy, then a
secret rejoicing in his bravery. Barbara didn’t realize that this was
unusual for a girl of her years, that most girls would not have given
a second thought to these matters. But she _was_ different, she had
been trained, or had trained herself, to think seriously, and so she
was but following her natural bent. She wasn’t old-fashioned, she was
simply wise.
Meanwhile the other girls were being frankly suspicious. Nothing could
persuade them that a criminal of some sort wasn’t being hidden in the
little shack that served to shelter Nicky’s family. That was, perhaps,
natural enough, when every one knew that the gate-keeper, Marcusi, had
been put in jail, and the girls had seen, with their own eyes, how
wildly excited those within the house acted when strangers approached.
Then this fine wood carving; who was doing that and why wouldn’t Nicky
tell?
Only the feeling of loyalty to Barbara kept the other girls subdued in
expressing _their_ opinions. She wouldn’t tolerate a word against
Nicky, and so they talked secretly, only.
But they watched, with keen interest, the course of events.
“I can’t see what she finds worth bothering with in those Italians,”
would likely be Louise’s answer.
Barbara’s attitude was defiant. She would have nothing said about
Nicky. Cara alone dared to suggest to her that one just can’t
understand strange children. But even Cara could not deter her. Nor
could her father, no, not even the bossy Dora, who had no business to
order Barbara to give up her interest in “those youngsters.”
But this afternoon something had happened that had influenced Barbara.
Nicky had run away from her. He must have seen her wave to him to come
up to the car, when Dr. Hale was driving her and Miss Davis home, and
he had scurried off behind those old boxes like a—like a—no, Babs
wouldn’t say it; she wouldn’t even think it. Nicky must have had some
good reason for that suspicious act.
Tonight she tried to read; there was her favorite magazine that had
just come by mail, but she could find nothing to interest her in its
usually fascinating pages.
“If I had had a little brother,” she was thinking, “I should have
liked his eyes to be like Nicky’s. They’re such an agate brown, like
my best marbles,” she concluded.
That gave her a new idea. Where was that bag of marbles? She had
always kept them, loved to count them and shoot them on the old
braided rug that Dora insisted was best in front of Barbara’s bed.
As the idea came to her she jumped up and she rummaged in the drawer
of her stand, where her things least in use were stored, and after
going to the very bottom several times she unearthed the little
gingham bag. The marbles in it seemed to caress her fingers as she
held them even through the gingham cover; she had always loved to play
marbles.
Down on the rug she squatted again and set the agates on the faded
blue line. Then, just as she used to do when she was ten years old,
and even as young as six years old, she began to play.
Knock! Knock! she hit the brown “real.”
It flew off the rug and rolled boldly over the wood floor but Babs
didn’t go after it. She picked another shooter from the little pool of
marbles she had spilled out and took aim at a little brown “migg.”
“Now Miggsy,” she said aloud, for no one could have heard her, “I’ve
got to get you.”
But her aim was not true and the “migg” never moved.
She tried again and hit the pretty blue “glassy.” Squatting back
against her heels Barbara laughed merrily.
“Just like Nicky,” she was thinking. “Little and brown and defiant.
That’s the reason he’s so interesting,” and she took another shot at
the migg.
Over the floor rolled noisily a number of the agates, but the smallest
one of all still escaped, that is, it took but a few turns and still
stuck to the rug.
“Guess I’ve forgotten how to shoot,” Barbara concluded, gathering up
the marbles and dropping them one by one into the bag. “I’ll give
these to Nicky.”
The jangling of the telephone disturbed her. She hurried down stairs
to answer the call.
“Yes, this is Babs. Hello Cara! What’s the excitement?” was what she
said into the transmitter.
After a very brief pause Babs’ voice was heard answering again.
“I couldn’t go up again tonight. No, I didn’t know they were going to
do anything tonight. Well, I’m glad you were there to represent us. I
got enough of it this afternoon.” Babs again.
It was Cara talking, of course, and she had told Babs that she had
just been down to the Community House. That some of the ladies went
down to fix things up, and when Cara and Dorothy Blair, one of the
older girls, were passing and saw the lights, they went in.
“And say, Babs,” Cara began again over the wire, in that way that
means something particular is going to be disclosed. “If I were you
I’d tell Nicky not to come around there any more. You know how fussy
those old ladies are about the family junk.”
“Oh yes, I know,” Babs readily agreed, and her toes working nervously
up and down in her slippers didn’t show over the telephone, of course.
“Not that _he_ isn’t all right,” continued Cara, thoughtfully, “but
just because he’s a small boy, you know.”
“I don’t want him to come around,” Babs quietly declared. “There are
too many little things there, and if anything gets mislaid the women
would be sure to blame it on the boys.”
“Coming down early in the morning?” Cara asked next.
“I suppose I’ll have to,” Babs answered. “We’ll be expected to do
everything from polishing furniture to darning Civil War socks, I
suppose,” she added laughing lightly.
“I’ll call for you about nine, shall I?” Cara asked.
“I’ll be ready, and thanks, Cara, for calling.”
“Anything happen after we left?” pursued Cara just to keep the wire
busy.
“No, that is not anything much.” The secret of Miss Davis’ ship model
could not be told over the phone, Babs had promptly decided. And
because of its importance and Miss Davis’ indecision concerning the
real displaying of the model, Babs felt the least said about it to any
one, the better. And that meant that she wouldn’t say anything about
it to any one.
So the girls talked a few minutes longer, and then reluctantly hung up
their respective receivers.
Cara always cheered Babs up. She had a way of dispelling the little
fears that would unconsciously steal in upon the other girl, and the
very sound of her laughing voice, the very indifferent, easy way in
which she so naturally pointed out that Nicky Marcusi shouldn’t be
seen around the Community House, unless he was with some one who might
later come in to see the exhibit, sort of broke up Babs’ unaccountable
fit of anxiety.
“I won’t have any little boys running around there while I’m in
charge,” she decided as she again reached her own room and prepared
for bed. “There’s no telling what youngsters might do and just think
it smart.”
But Nicky so seldom had any boys with him, or he was so seldom with
other boys that this newest argument didn’t seem quite sincere.
“And besides that,” Babs was thinking not exactly out loud but loud
enough for her own secret use, “I’m not going to take any more
responsibility there. It’s the women’s affair and they must manage it.
I feel as if I had done enough already with their old moth-eaten
delaine quilts,” and she took her bag of marbles from the center of
her bed where she had dropped them when the telephone rang, and after
tossing them up a few times to catch them like a bean bag, she finally
settled down to read the despised magazine.