IN THE KEEPING OF THE DUNES
SCARCELY had Georgina convinced herself by the calendar that it had been
only one short week since Barby went away instead of the endlessly long
time it seemed, than a letter was brought in to her.
"MY DEAR LITTLE RAINBOW-MAKER," it began.
"You are surely a prism your own self, for you have made a blessed
bright spot in the world for me, ever since you came into it. I read
your letter to papa, telling all about your birthday and the prism Uncle
Darcy gave you. It cheered him up wonderfully. I was so proud of you
when he said it was a fine letter, and that he'd have to engage you as a
special correspondent on his paper some day.
"At first the doctors thought his sight was entirely destroyed, by the
flying glass of the broken windshield, but now they are beginning to
hope that one eye at least may be saved, and possibly the other. Papa is
very doubtful about it himself, and gets very despondent at times. He
had just been having an especially blue morning when your letter was
brought in, and he said, when I read it:
"'That _is_ a good line to live by, daughter,' and he had me get out
his volume of Milton and read the whole sonnet that the line is taken
from. The fact that Milton was blind when he wrote it made it specially
interesting to him.
"He and mamma both need me sorely now for a little while, Baby dear, and
if you can keep busy and happy without me I'll stay away a couple of
weeks longer and help take him home to Kentucky, but I can't be
contented to stay unless you send me a postal every day. If nothing more
is on it than your name, written by your own little fingers, it will put
a rainbow around my troubles and help me to be contented away from you."
Georgina spent the rest of the morning answering it. She had a feeling
that she must make up for her father's neglect as a correspondent, by
writing often herself. Maybe the family at Grandfather Shirley's
wouldn't notice that there was never any letter with a Chinese stamp on
it, addressed in a man's big hand in Barby's pile of mail, if there were
others for her to smile over.
It had been four months since the last one came. Georgina had kept
careful count, although she had not betrayed her interest except in the
wistful way she watched Barby when the postman came. It made her throat
ache to see that little shadow of disappointment creep into Barby's
lovely gray eyes and then see her turn away with her lips pressed
together tight for a moment before she began to hum or speak brightly
about something else. No Chinese letter had come in her absence to be
forwarded.
Georgina wished her father could know how very much Barby cared about
hearing from him. Maybe if his attention were called to it he would
write oftener. If the editor of a big newspaper like Grandfather
Shirley, thought her letters were good enough to print, maybe her father
might pay attention to one of them. A resolve to write to him some day
began to shape itself in her mind.
She would have been surprised could she have known that already one of
her epistles was on its way to him. Barby had sent him the "rainbow
letter." For Barby had not drawn off silent and hurt when his letters
ceased to come, as many a woman would have done.
"Away off there in the interior he has missed the mails," she told
herself. "Or the messenger he trusted may have failed to post his
letters, or he may be ill. I'll not judge him until I know."
After Georgina's letter came she resolutely put her forebodings and
misgivings aside many a time, prompted by it to steer onward so steadily
that hope must do as Uncle Darcy said, "make rainbows even of her
tears."
Georgina wrote on until dinner time, telling all about the way she had
spent her birthday dollar. After dinner when the sunshine had dried all
traces of the previous night's rain, she persuaded Tippy that she was
entirely over the effects of the gas, and perfectly able to go down
street and select the picture postals with which to conduct her daily
correspondence.
Richard joined her as she passed the bungalow. They made a thrilling
afternoon for themselves by whispering to each other whenever any
strange-looking person passed them, "S'pose _that_ was the owner of the
pouch and he was looking for us." The dread of their sin finding them
out walked like a silent-footed ghost beside them all the way, making
the two pairs of brown eyes steal furtive glances at each other now and
then, and delicious little shivers of apprehension creep up and down
their backs.
Whether it was the passing of the unseasonable weather into hot July
sunshine again or whether the wild-cat liniment was responsible, no one
undertook to say, but Mrs. Triplett's rheumatism left her suddenly, and
at a time when she was specially glad to be rid of it. The Sewing
Circle, to which she belonged, was preparing for a bazaar at the Church
of the Pilgrims, and her part in it would keep her away from home most
of the time for three days.
That is why Georgina had unlimited freedom for a while. She was left in
Belle's charge, and Belle, still brooding over her troubles, listlessly
assented to anything proposed to her. Belle had been allowed to go and
come as she pleased when she was ten, and she saw no reason why
Georgina was not equally capable of taking care of herself.
Hardly was Mrs. Triplett out of sight that first morning when Georgina
slipped out of the back gate with a long brass-handled fire-shovel, to
meet Richard out on the dunes. He brought a hoe, and in his hand was the
little compass imbedded in the nut.
When all was ready, according to Georgina's instructions, he turned
around three times, then facing the east tossed the compass over his
shoulder, saying solemnly, "Brother, go find your brother." She stood
ready to mark the spot when it should fall, but Captain Kidd was ahead
of her and had the nut in his teeth before she could reach the place
where it had touched the ground. So Richard took the nut away and held
the agitated little terrier by the collar while Georgina went through
the same ceremony.
This time Richard reached the nut before the dog, and drew a circle
around the spot where it had lain. Then he began digging into the sand
with the hoe so industriously that Captain Kidd was moved to frantic
barking.
"Here, get to work yourself and keep quiet," ordered Richard. "Rats!
You'll have Cousin James coming out to see what we're doing, first thing
you know. He thinks something is the matter now, every time you bark.
Rats! I say."
The magic word had its effect. After an instant of quivering eagerness
the dog pounced into the hole which Richard had started, and sent the
sand flying furiously around him with his active little paws. Georgina
dragged the accumulating piles aside with the fire-shovel on one side,
and Richard plied the hoe on the other. When the hole grew too deep for
Captain Kidd to dig in longer, Richard stepped in and went deeper. But
it was unsatisfactory work. The shifting sand, dry as powder at this
depth, was constantly caving in and filling up the space.
They tried making new holes, to the north of the old one, then to the
south, then on the remaining sides. They were still at it when the
whistle at the cold-storage plant blew for noon. Georgina rubbed a
sleeve across her red, perspiring face, and shook the ends of her curls
up and down to cool her hot neck.
"I don't see how we can dig any more to-day," she said wearily. "The sun
is blistering. I feel all scorched."
"I've had enough," confessed Richard. "But we've got to find that
pouch."
After a moment's rest, leaning on the hoe-handle, he had an inspiration.
"Let's get Manuel and Joseph and Rosa to help us. They'd dig all day for
a nickel."
"I haven't one nickel left," said Georgina. Then she thought a moment.
"But I could bring some jelly-roll. Those Fayals would dig for eats as
quick as they would for money. I'll tell Belle we're going to have a
sort of a picnic over here and she'll let me bring all that's left in
the cake box."
Richard investigated his pockets. A solitary nickel was all he could
turn out. "Two cents for each of the boys and one for Rosa," he said,
but Georgina shook her head.
"Rosa would make trouble if you divided that way. She'd howl till
somebody came to see what was the matter. But we could do this way. The
one who gets the least money gets the most jelly-roll. We'll wait till
the digging is over and then let them divide it to suit themselves."
By five o'clock that afternoon, the compass had been sent to "hunt
brother" in a hundred different places, and the hollow circled by the
bayberry bushes and beach plums where the pouch had been hidden filled
with deep holes. Captain Kidd had responded to the repeated call of
"Rats" until the magic word had lost all charm for him. Even a dog comes
to understand in time when a fellow creature has "an axe to grind."
Finally, he went off and lay down, merely wagging his tail in a bored
way when any further effort was made to arouse his enthusiasm.
The Fayal children, working valiantly in the trenches, laid down arms at
last and strolled home, their faces streaked with jelly-roll, and
Georgina went wearily up the beach, dragging her fire-shovel after her.
She felt that she had had enough of the dunes to last her the rest of
her natural lifetime. She seemed to see piles of sand even when she
looked at the water or when her eyes were shut.
"But we won't give up," she said staunchly as she parted from Richard.
"We're obliged to find that pouch, so we've _got_ to keep hope at the
prow."
"Pity all this good digging has to be wasted," said Richard, looking
around at the various holes. "If it had all been in one place, straight
down, it would have been deep enough to strike a pirate's chest by this
time. I hope they'll fill up before anybody comes this way to notice
them."
"Somehow, I'm not so anxious as I was to go off 'a-piratin' so bold,'"
said Georgina with a tired sigh. "I've had enough digging to last me
forever and always, amen."
The Fayal children, surfeited with one afternoon of such effort, and not
altogether satisfied as to the division of wages which had led to war in
their midst, did not come back to the Place of the Pouch next morning,
but Richard and Georgina appeared promptly, albeit with sore muscles and
ebbing enthusiasm. Only stern necessity and fear of consequences kept
them at their task.
Cousin James had reported that there was a fishing vessel in that
morning with two enormous horse mackerel in the catch, which were to be
cut up and salted at Railroad wharf. It was deliciously cool down on the
wharf, with the breeze blowing off the water through the great packing
shed, and the white sails scudding past the open doors like fans. With
Mrs. Triplett busy with the affairs of the Bazaar, it would have been a
wonderful opportunity for Georgina to have gone loitering along the
pier, watching the summer people start off in motor boats or spread
themselves lazily under flapping sails for a trip around the harbor.
But something of the grim spirit of their ancestors, typified by the
monument looking down on them from the hill, nerved both Richard and
Georgina one more time to answer to the stern call of Duty.
[Illustration]