THE TELEGRAM THAT TOOK BARBY AWAY
THE painting of Richard's portrait interfered with the quest for buried
treasure from day to day; but unbeknown either to artist or model, the
dreams of that quest helped in the fashioning of the picture. In the
preliminary sittings in the studio at home Richard's father found it
necessary always to begin with some exhortation such as:
"Now, Dicky, this has _got_ to be more than just a 'Study of a Boy's
Head.' I want to show by the expression of your face that it is an
illustration of that poem, 'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the
thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' Chase that Binney Rogers and
his gang out of your mind for a while, can't you, and think of something
beside shinny and the hokey-pokey man."
So far the portrait was satisfactory in that it was a remarkably good
likeness of an unusually good-looking boy, but it was of a boy who
seemed to be alertly listening for such things as Binney's cat-call,
signaling him from the alley. Here by the sea there was no need for such
exhortations. No sooner was he seated before the easel in the loft
which served as a studio, with its barn-like, double doors thrown open
above the water, than the rapt expression which his father coveted,
crept into his dark eyes. They grew big and dreamy, following the white
sails across the harbor. He was planning the secret expedition he and
Georgina intended to undertake, just as soon as the portrait was
finished.
There were many preparations to make for it. They would have to secrete
tools and provisions; and in a book from which Georgina read aloud
whenever there was opportunity, were descriptions of various rites that
it were well to perform. One was to sacrifice a black cock, and sprinkle
its blood upon the spot before beginning to dig. Richard did not
question why this should be done. The book recommended it as a practice
which had been followed by some very famous treasure hunters. If at
times a certain wide-awake and calculating gleam suddenly dispelled the
dreaminess of expression in which his father was exulting, it was
because a black Orpington rooster which daily strayed from a nearby
cottage to the beach below the studio window, chose that moment to crow.
Richard had marked that black cock for the sacrifice. It was lordly
enough to bring success upon any enterprise.
In the meantime, as soon as his duties as model were over each morning,
he was out of the studio with a whoop and up the beach as hard as he
could run to the Huntingdon house. By the time he reached it he was no
longer the artist's only son, hedged about with many limitations which
belonged to that distinction. He was "Dare-devil Dick, the Dread
Destroyer," and Georgina was "Gory George, the Menace of the Main."
Together they commanded a brigantine of their own. Passers-by saw only
an old sailboat anchored at the deserted and rotting wharf up nearest
the breakwater. But the passers-by who saw only that failed to see
either Dare-devil Dick or Gory George. They saw, instead, two children
whose fierce mustachios were the streakings of a burnt match, whose
massive hoop ear-rings were the brass rings from a curtain pole, whose
faithful following of the acts of Captain Quelch and other piratical
gentlemen was only the mimicry of play.
But Barbara knew how real they were, from the spotted handkerchief tied
around the "bunged eye" of Dare-devil Dick, under his evil-looking
slouch hat, to the old horse pistol buckled to his belt. Gory George
wore the same. And Barbara knew what serious business it was to them,
even more serious than the affairs of eating and drinking.
Tippy scolded when she found that her half-pint bottles which she kept
especially for cream had been smuggled away in the hold of the
brigantine. But without bottles how could one give a realistic touch to
the singing of "Yo ho, and the rum below"?
And Tippy thought it was heathenish for Barbara to let Georgina dress up
in some little knickerbockers and a roundabout which had been stored
away with other clothes worn by Justin as a small boy. But her
disapproval was beyond words when Barbara herself appeared at the back
door one morning, so cleverly disguised as a gypsy, that Mrs. Triplett
grudgingly handed out some cold biscuits before she discovered the
imposition. The poor she was glad to feed, but she had no use for an
impudent, strolling gypsy.
"Don't be cross, Tippy," pleaded Barbara, laughing till the tears came.
"I _had_ to do it. I can't bear to feel that Georgina is growing away
from me--that she is satisfied to leave me out of her games. Since she's
so taken up with that little Richard Moreland I don't seem as necessary
to her as I used to be. And I can't bear that, Tippy, when I've always
been first in everything with her. She's so necessary to me."
Mrs. Triplett made no answer. She felt that she couldn't do justice to
the occasion. She doubted if the Pilgrim monument itself could, even if
it were to stretch itself up to its full height and deliver a lecture on
the dignity of motherhood. She wondered what the Mayflower mothers would
have thought if they could have met this modern one on the beach, with
face stained brown, playacting that she was a beggar of a gypsy. How
could she hope to be one of those written of in Proverbs--"Her children
rise up and call her blessed. Her own works praise her in the gates."
Tippy ate her dinner alone that day, glancing grimly through the open
window from time to time to the sand dunes back of the house, where an
old hag of a gypsy in a short red dress with a gay bandanna knotted over
her head, broiled bacon and boiled corn over a smoky campfire; and two
swaggering villains who smelled of tar and codfish (because of the old
net which half-way filled the brigantine), sucked the very cobs when the
corn was eaten from them, forever registering that feast high above all
other feasts in the tablet of blessed memories.
The interruption to all this came as unexpectedly as a clap of thunder
from a clear sky. A messenger boy on a wheel whirled up to the front
gate with a telegram. Tippy signed for it, not wanting the boy to see
Barbara in such outlandish dress, then carried it out to the picnickers.
She held it under her apron until she reached them. Telegrams always
spelled trouble to Mrs. Triplett, but Barbara took this one from her
with a smiling thank you, without rising from her seat on the sand. Her
father often telegraphed instead of writing when away on his vacations,
and she knew he was up at a lake resort in Michigan, at an Editors'
Convention. Telegrams had always been pleasant things in her
experience. But as she tore this open and read she turned pale even
under her brown stain.
"It's papa," she gasped. "Hurt in an automobile accident. They don't say
how bad--just hurt. And he wants me. I must take the first train."
She looked up at Mrs. Triplett helplessly, not even making an effort to
rise from the sand, she was so dazed and distressed by the sudden
summons. It was the first time she had ever had the shock of bad news.
It was the first time she had ever been called upon to act for herself
in such an emergency, and she felt perfectly numb, mind and body.
Tippy's voice sounded a mile away when she said:
"You can catch the boat. It's an hour till the _Dorothy Bradford_ starts
back to Boston."
Still Barbara sat limp and powerless, as one sits in a nightmare.
Georgina gave a choking gasp as two awful words rose up in her throat
and stuck there. "_The Tishbite._" Whatever that mysterious horror might
be, plainly its evil workings had begun.
"Tut!" exclaimed Tippy, pulling Barbara to her feet. "Keep your head.
You'll have to begin scrubbing that brown paint off your face if you
expect to reach the boat on time."
Automatically Georgina responded to that "tut" as if it were the old
challenge of the powder horn. No matter how she shivered she must show
what brave stuff she was made of. Even with that awful foreboding
clutching at her heart like an iron hand and Barby about to leave her,
she mustn't show one sign of her distress.
It was well that Georgina had learned to move briskly in her long
following after Tippy, else she could not have been of such service in
this emergency. Her eyes were blurred with tears as she hurried up to
the garret for suitcase and satchel, and down the hall to look up
numbers in the telephone directory. But it was a comfort even in the
midst of her distress to feel that she could take such an important part
in the preparations, that Tippy trusted her to do the necessary
telephoning, and to put up a lunch for Barby without dictating either
the messages or the contents of the lunch-box.
When Mr. James Milford called up, immediately after Richard had raced
home with the news, and offered to take Mrs. Huntingdon to the boat in
his machine, he thought it was Mrs. Huntingdon herself who answered him.
The trembling voice seemed only natural under the circumstances. He
would have smiled could he have seen the pathetic little face uplifted
towards the receiver, the quivering lip still adorned with the fierce
mustachios of Gory George, in strange contrast to the soft curls hanging
over her shoulders now that they were no longer hidden by a piratical
hat. She had forgotten that she was in knickerbockers instead of skirts,
and that the old horse-pistol was still at her belt, until Barbara
caught her to her at parting with a laugh that turned into a sob,
looking for a spot on her face clean enough to kiss.
It was all over so soon--the machine whirling up to the door and away
again to stop at the bank an instant for the money which Georgina had
telephoned to have waiting, and then on to the railroad wharf where the
_Dorothy Bradford_ had already sounded her first warning whistle.
Georgina had no time to realize what was actually happening until it was
over. She climbed up into the mammoth willow tree in the corner of the
yard to watch for the steamboat. It would come into view in a few
minutes as it ploughed majestically through the water towards the
lighthouse.
Then desolation fell upon her. She had never realized until that moment
how dear her mother was to her. Then the thought came to her, suppose it
was Barby who had been hurt in an accident, and she Georgina, was
hurrying to her as Barby was hurrying to grandfather Shirley, unknowing
what awaited her at the journey's end. For a moment she forgot her own
unhappiness at being left behind, in sympathetic understanding of her
mother's distress. She wasn't going to think about her part of it she
told herself, she was going to be so brave----
Then her glance fell on the "holiday tree."
The holiday tree was a little evergreen of Barby's christening if not
of her planting. For every gala day in the year it bore strange fruit,
no matter what the season. At Hallowe'en it was as gay with
jack-o-lanterns and witches' caps as if the pixies themselves had
decorated it. On Washington's birthday each branch was tipped with a
flag and a cherry tart. On the fourteenth of February it was hung with
valentines, and at Easter she was always sure of finding a candy rabbit
or two perched among its branches and nests of colored eggs. It seemed
to be at its best at Christmas, but it was when it took its turns at
birthday celebrations that it was most wonderful. Then it blossomed with
little glass lanterns of every color, glowing like red and green and
golden stars. Last year it had borne a great toy ship with all sails
set, and nine "surprise" oranges, round, yellow boxes, each containing a
gift, because she was nine years old. In just two more days she would be
ten, and Barby gone!
At that instant the boat whistle sounded long and deep, sending its
melodious boom across the water. It seemed to strike some chord in the
very center of her being, and make her feel as if something inside were
sinking down and down and down. The sensation was sickening. It grew
worse as the boat steamed away. She stood up on a limb to watch it.
Smaller and smaller it seemed, leaving only a long plume of smoke in its
wake as it disappeared around Long Point. Then even the smoke faded, and
a forlorn little figure, strangely at variance with the fierce pirate
suit, she crumpled up in the crotch of the willow, her face hidden in
her elbow, and began to sob piteously: "Oh, Barby! Barby!"
[Illustration]