SOPHY WAYLAYS ROGER MADISON.
SEVERAL days elapsed before they dared tell Peter of the fate of Sirius.
The doctor’s orders that he should be kept very quiet must be obeyed, and
that was the excuse which they gave him when the boy begged that Sirius
might come to him.
The spring days, so beautiful in themselves, seemed to have brought much
care and anxiety to the Starrs. Honor was visibly depressed, but
Katherine had her music with Miss Madison to divert her, and Victoria’s
feelings, whatever they may have been, she was careful to hide. The
presence of Mrs. Wentworth Ward made a great change in the household, and
Peter’s accident a still more serious one.
There were many extra steps to be taken, and sometimes he was a difficult
patient. He did not mean to be exacting, but he felt it to be a greater
trial than he deserved, to be kept in bed with a broken leg when the days
out of doors were so beautiful, when trees and grass were daily growing
greener, and the creatures had awakened from their winter’s nap, when
“the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is
heard in our land.”
Peter did not express his feelings in just these words perhaps, but the
thought of all that was beautiful out of doors made him restless and his
pain hard to bear.
Honor and Katherine divided the teaching hours, one remaining with Peter
while the other superintended the school. The spring weather seemed to
affect the pupils also, for at times they became quite unmanageable.
Sometimes Honor wondered if her own impatience did not react upon
herself, influencing the children and making them more or less
refractory. Whatever the cause, the school had certainly never been so
irksome. She was anxious, too, about Mr. Abbott. He was still very much
of an invalid, and they had not seen him for several months.
In addition to all this, Peter’s illness would be a great expense to
them, and Honor wondered how they should meet the doctor’s bills. She
felt almost glad that her aunt was at Glen Arden; for, in spite of the
many inconveniences which her presence brought, it also meant an
increased income, and in the present state of their finances this was
most important. To be sure, Blanch, indignant with the newcomer in the
kitchen, had threatened more than once to leave, but that was one of the
smaller vexations which, perhaps, could be avoided.
The thought that was now filling the hearts of Peter’s sisters with
dread, was the fact that the time was rapidly approaching when they must
tell him that Sirius was dead. Each one wondered how and when it was to
be done and who should be the one to do it. They finally decided upon
Victoria.
And so with an anxious heart, one afternoon Victoria went to her
brother’s room. She knew that she should have no difficulty in
introducing the subject, for Peter’s first question was always in regard
to Sirius, and the sisters had found it almost impossible to answer him
without arousing his suspicions. As she supposed would be the case,
Victoria had scarcely crossed the threshold when she heard her brother’s
somewhat querulous voice.
“Vic, where is Sirius? It does seem very hard that I can’t see my own
dog. He wouldn’t excite me, and he wouldn’t jump on the bed if I told him
not to. It excites me a great deal more not to see him, than it would if
he were here.”
“I know, Peter dear!” said Victoria, going to the bed and sitting down
upon the edge of it. “And there is nothing we would rather do, than bring
Sirius to you. But we can’t. Will you try to bear it, Peter, when I tell
you something very sad?”
“What is it, Vic?” exclaimed Peter, in a low voice. “I know what you are
going to say! Is Sirius dead?”
Victoria nodded. Peter turned his face towards the wall.
“Please go away,” he said, still in the same low voice, and Victoria left
him.
She returned in a short time to find him still in the same position. When
she spoke to him he did not reply, and though she went again and again,
it was always with the same result.
“What are we to do with him?” she said later to her sisters. “He won’t
speak, and he just lies there with his face turned away. If he would only
cry about it!”
“Peter won’t cry,” said Sophy. “He thinks it’s babyish. He was awful fond
of Sirius, though. I’ve seen him kiss him often, on the top of his head,
and he never likes to kiss anybody else. Oh dear, I wish I could do
something to make him feel better!” The loving little sister’s eyes
filled with tears, and she hid her face in Honor’s shoulder.
“The trouble is,” said Victoria, “he thinks we’re only girls and so he
won’t talk to us. If father were here, or Mr. Abbott, it would be better.
I really believe Peter would speak to them. If we only had somebody!”
It was unusual for Victoria’s courage to desert her, but it had all been
very sad and depressing. Peter’s accident had unnerved her, and the
subsequent dread of breaking the news to him, and then the disclosure
itself, had been more of a strain than she realized.
“I wish we had an older brother!” she said, and then greatly to the
surprise of the others she too began to cry. “What a goose I am!” she
sobbed. “But I do feel so sorry for Peter and for all of us, and I wish
he would speak to us.”
“I wonder if Mr. Madison would come and talk to him,” suggested
Katherine.
“We can’t ask him to,” said Honor, quickly. “We must never ask him to do
a thing. He would be the very one, I’ve no doubt, for Peter likes him,
and he was the one who saved his life and was there when Sirius was
killed, but it would never do to ask him. If he were to come of his own
accord, it would be different.”
“It seems a great pity, then, that he can’t know how much he is needed,”
said Katherine. “He seems to be the kind of man who always knows exactly
what to say, and he is so good-natured he wouldn’t mind coming a bit. Do
you really think, Honor, that it wouldn’t do to ask him?”
Honor shook her head very decidedly.
“It wouldn’t do at all,” said she.
Sophy, who had been listening attentively, dried her eyes. She was
extremely disturbed by Victoria’s emotion, as were they all. It was so
unusual to see her cry that Sophy felt that something very serious must
be the matter. The little girl was ready to do anything to make her
happier or to help Peter. The girls all said that to talk to a grown-up
man would be the best thing for Peter, and that Mr. Madison would be the
one of all others. Why not get Mr. Madison, then? To be sure, Honor had
said that he must not be asked, but perhaps he would come without being
asked if he knew that Peter needed him. Sophy felt very confident that
Mr. Madison was a kind-hearted man, and if he were once told that he was
needed, he would not wait to be asked.
She tried to say something of this to her sisters, but they were talking
to each other and endeavoring to comfort Victoria, and she could not make
them hear, so she determined to act for herself. She heard the whistle of
one of the afternoon trains as it left the junction at Waterview. Perhaps
Mr. Madison was on it!
Without further delay, she ran downstairs and out the front door. Like a
young squirrel she scampered across the lawn and along the grassy path
that led to the little station, arriving there just as the train did. One
passenger only left it, and, greatly to her disappointment, it was not
Mr. Madison.
There would not be another train for a long time, she knew, but
nevertheless Sophy determined to wait for it. She was afraid that if she
went back to the house, something or, more probably, somebody, would
prevent her coming again, and she had made up her mind that the only way
to secure Mr. Madison was to meet him at the train. She sat down on the
edge of the platform,—there was no house here, only a little shed at
which the trains stopped,—and waited.
The sun, which was warm to-day, shone down upon her, the soft May breezes
played with the daisies that had sprung up about the railroad track,
little birds gathered courage from her stillness, and hopped nearer to
the small figure, looking at her with inquisitive glances, but Sophy
heeded nothing. Many serious thoughts were passing through her childish
mind in rapid succession. She wondered why Sirius had to die when they
all loved him so, and it made it so hard for Peter. She wondered if there
was anything in the world that she could do to make Peter happier.
And Victoria! She was so surprised to see real tears on Vic’s face. Was
Vic a baby to cry, as Peter always said that Sophy was? She had never
seen her do it before except when their father died. Then everybody had
cried. Where was her father now, she wondered? Did he know they were all
so sad and there was so little money? Where had he gone, and where had
they come from? How strange everything was, and how puzzling! Sophy
supposed that she should understand it all when she grew up.
In the meantime she wished that the train would come. She was tired of
waiting, and perhaps Vic was still crying, and Peter still lying so
strangely silent, with his face turned away from them, as they went one
by one to express their sympathy. Would the train never come?
And at last it did come, and, to her intense relief, Mr. Madison was on
it. He was the only passenger who left it, and he was greatly surprised
when a small and hatless figure danced up to him and seized his hand.
“I’m so glad to see you!” cried a lisping voice. “I’ve been waiting ever
and ever and ever so long!” Sophy’s face looked almost pretty in her
excitement. “I’m not going to ask you to come,” she continued, “for Honor
says you must never be asked to do anything; but we want a grown-up man
so dreadfully to talk to Peter. Peter won’t say anything, and he knows
Sirius is dead. He thinks we’re only girls, and if you were only our
brother, you would talk to him. I wish you were our brother!”
“But even if I am not, I can talk to Peter,” said Roger Madison, quickly,
“and that is what you would like, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed Sophy; “and I haven’t asked you, have I? Honor said,
you know, that you must never be asked to do anything. I don’t exactly
see why not. I wouldn’t mind asking you a bit, but I haven’t, have I?”
“Oh, no indeed! I’m coming entirely of my own free will. I want to talk
to Peter.”
“How lovely!” said Sophy, as, with her hand tightly clasped in his, she
skipped along at his side. “You are such a nice man. You would make a
lovely brother. You see, everything was dreadful this afternoon, and Vic
really cried!”
Sophy said this with the air of imparting a most unheard-of piece of
news. That Vic should cry was to her almost as important as Peter’s
broken leg.
“Come right upstairs,” said she, when they reached the house. “Come right
up to Peter’s room.”
“I think you had better say that I am here,” said Madison, hesitating.
“Oh, why?” exclaimed Sophy, impatiently; but seeing that he was firm in
regard to this, she ran upstairs and peeped into Peter’s room. He was
still lying with his face turned away, and she did not look far enough to
see that Victoria was sitting behind the door. She ran down again as
quickly as she had gone up and once more grasped Mr. Madison by the hand.
“It is all right,” she said. “Come right up.”
They mounted the stairs, and still hand in hand they entered Peter’s
room.
“Peter,” said the small sister, “here’s a grown-up man come to see you.
Here is Mr. Madison.”
Peter turned his head, and Sophy gave a sigh of relief. He had actually
moved and was looking at them. At the same moment an exclamation of
surprise came from some one else. Victoria rose to her feet and stood for
a moment in silence. She gave one glance at Mr. Madison, and then her
eyes fell, while the color came and went in her cheeks. She looked
precisely as she had looked in the picture shop and stood in almost the
same attitude. Madison recognized her at once, and he held out his hand.
“I’m glad to meet you again,” he said simply.
“Please don’t tell any one,” said Victoria. “No one knows it, and I’ve
tried not to meet you. Honor wouldn’t like it.”
“Very well,” said he, gravely, and Victoria could see that he was
surprised at her remark. “Just as you say, of course.”
Then she left the room, wondering if she had said the wrong thing. Was it
what Honor would call “unconventional”? She wished that she had never
tried to hide the fact that she had met Roger Madison before. It was such
a little thing in itself, and yet it was constantly leading her to do
rude and peculiar things. This was certainly a most trying afternoon, and
again Victoria shut herself into her room and cried, and though Sophy
came more than once and rattled the handle of the door, she would not let
her in.
Sophy, when Mr. Madison was safely shut into Peter’s room, lost no time
in making known the fact to her sisters.
“Why, Sophy!” exclaimed Honor. “How did he happen to come?”
“I met him at the station,” said she, “and I told him we wished we had a
grown-up man, and so he said he would come. I didn’t ask him to, Honor.
Really and truly I didn’t ask him to come. I only said we needed him.”
“But, Sophy dear, that amounted to the same thing, and don’t you remember
that I said we mustn’t ask him. I wouldn’t have had you do it for the
world.”
“I don’t see why, Honor. You asked Miss Madison to come the other day.
Why can’t we ask Mr. Madison?”
“The cases are very different,” said Honor, somewhat severely, “and you
ought not to have done what I told you not to.”
“Oh dear me,” cried Sophy, tears again trembling on her lashes, “I only
wanted to make Peter better, and I didn’t really ask him to come! I only
said I wished he was our brother, for then he’d be here.”
“You didn’t say that, surely, Sophy!” exclaimed Katherine.
“Why, yes!” said Sophy, surprise at Katherine’s vehemence drying her
tears. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“Never mind,” interposed Honor. “It is too late now, but another time,
Sophy, please be more careful to do exactly as I say. Isn’t it time for
you to go to your music lesson, Katherine? I am going to Aunt Sophia’s
room to see if she wants anything. Come, Sophy.”
But Sophy declined to accompany her. She sat on the top step of the
stairs, waiting for Vic to emerge from her locked room or for Mr. Madison
to leave Peter. She thought her sisters were all very peculiar to-day.
She had heard Victoria’s remark to Mr. Madison and she wondered what she
could have meant. She stored it away in the recesses of her memory,
intending to ask about it when a convenient opportunity should present
itself.
When Roger Madison was left alone with Peter, he quietly closed the door,
and drawing up the chair which Victoria had vacated he sat down near the
bed.
“I am sure you want to hear all about your brave, good dog,” said he;
“and so I have come to tell you. He saved his master’s life if ever a dog
did. If it hadn’t been for him, you wouldn’t be lying here now. Would you
like me to tell you about it?”
“Yes,” said Peter.
And then Mr. Madison described to him the scene on the bridge.
“It was a glorious end for Sirius,” said he, when he had finished. “I
know you feel badly enough about losing your dog. So should I. Indeed, I
went through very much the same experience myself once, when I was a
little younger than you—no, perhaps about your age. You are fourteen,
aren’t you? I lost a dog that I was very fond of, and if it hadn’t been
for my sister I should have been very selfish about it. She showed me how
I ought to take it.”
“Oh, it’s easy for girls to talk,” said Peter. “They’ve all been in here
this afternoon, telling me I ought to bear it, and make the best of it,
and all that. As if I could ever get over losing Sirius, the best dog
that ever lived! It is ridiculous for those girls to talk the way they
do.”
“My dear fellow,” said Roger Madison, “do you know that you are a very
lucky fellow to have those sisters? I’ve often wondered whether you
appreciated them. I have one sister, and I wouldn’t give her up for all
the money in the world. You have four, so you ought to be four times as
grateful.”
“For four sisters?” said Peter, incredulously. “They’re nice enough, of
course, but they order a fellow round too much, and they don’t
understand. They seem to think I oughtn’t to mind about Sirius a bit.”
“I don’t think they feel that way. They have been very much worried about
you, and they have felt pretty badly, I can tell you, about Sirius’s
death and the way you would feel it. I happen to know that, and I also
know that your sister Victoria has been crying about it this afternoon.”
“Vic crying?” Peter seemed to be as much impressed by this fact as Sophy
had been.
“They are about the pluckiest girls that I ever knew,” continued Madison.
“If they were my sisters, I should be mighty proud of them, I can tell
you. I’ve no doubt that you are too, and are doing all you can to help.”
“There is nothing I can do,” said Peter, gloomily. “Just lying here and
looking out at the trees and wishing I was out there. And I’ve been
wanting Sirius so much and wishing he could come to me, and now I’ll
never see him again.” He turned his face away as he had done before.
“Peter,” said his friend, “I like you and I think there’s good stuff in
you. Here’s a chance for you to show it. You can be a hero just as much
as Sirius was, though in a very different way. You have a good deal to
bear. A broken leg is no small matter, and the loss of your dog is a
great sorrow to you, but if you try to be brave about it all, and try to
make things easier for your sisters while you are laid up instead of
worrying them in any way, I think you will be doing a good deal. I know
it’s hard. We men are not very patient, and we don’t bear pain and
discomfort as well as women do. Do you know that?”
“No,” said Peter, scornfully; “that can’t be!”
“Indeed it is so. If one of your sisters had broken her leg and were
lying here, she would probably be three times as patient as either you or
I should be.”
“Honor or Vic, perhaps,” remarked Peter, “but not Katherine.”
“Well, I’m not able to judge of that, of course, but I wish you would
show that our sex occasionally does know how to behave under trying
circumstances. I wish you’d do your best to be a hero. I was ill once,
and when I got well, they told me I had nearly driven them all crazy,—I
was so impatient and exacting,—so you see I don’t exactly practise what I
preach. But that was a good while ago.”
“I wish you’d come to see me again,” said Peter, when his new friend rose
to take leave. “You may say that girls are so fine, and all that, but I’d
like to talk to you once in a while. I want to ask you something. I think
I’ll ask you now. Don’t you think it’s pretty mean that I’m so much
younger than the others, and that the girls have to work, when if I’d
been the eldest I could have taken care of them?”
“My dear boy,” said Roger Madison, “depend upon it, you are placed in the
family just where you are most needed. God knows better than we do about
such things, as He does about everything else, and He intended you to be
of use just where you are. And I think He means you to begin at once to
be of use; and you can be so by being as brave as Sirius was. There are
several kinds of courage and they are equally good. The courage to be
patient and cheerful and kind when you don’t feel like it counts for as
much in the eyes of God as the courage which saves a life. I don’t often
talk like this, but I’m interested in you, Peter, and I want you to be
the man I think you have it in you to be. Good-bye. I’ll come in again
to-morrow, if you like.”