SYLVIA'S STORY
"Katherine Adams, whatever has happened to you?" asked Gladys suddenly,
meeting her under the bright light in the hall that evening after dinner.
"Why?" asked Katherine, looking startled. "Is there any soot on my face?"
"No," replied Gladys with a peal of laughter, "I didn't mean anything
like that. I meant that you look different from the way you used to look,
that's all. You've changed since the days when I first knew you. What
have you done to yourself in the last year? You're the same old
Katherine, of course, but you're different, somehow. I noticed it when
you first came to Brownell last fall, but I've been too busy to give it
much thought. But since we've been here I've been watching you and I
can't help noticing the difference. Now stand right there under that
light and let me look at you."
Katherine laughed good humoredly and stood still dutifully while Gladys
inspected her with appraising eyes that took in all the little
improvements in Katherine's appearance. She was heavier than she used to
be; some of her angles were softened into curves. She now stood erect,
with her head up and her shoulders thrown back, which made her look
several inches taller. Her hair no longer hung about her face in stringy
wisps; the loose ends were curled becomingly around her temples and ears
and held in place with invisible hairpins. She wore a trim worsted dress
of an odd shade of blue, which was just the right shade to go with her
dull blonde hair and with the dark brown of her neat shoes. Her knuckles
were no longer red and rough; her fingernails were manicured; the sagging
spectacles of the old days had given way to intellectual looking nose
glasses with narrow tortoise shell rims.
"Well, what's the verdict?" asked Katherine, smiling broadly at Gladys.
"You're wonderful!" said Gladys enthusiastically. "You're actually
stunning! Whoever told you to get that particular shade of blue to bring
out the color of your hair?"
"Nobody told me," answered Katherine. "I bought it because it was a
bargain." But there was a knowing twinkle in her eyes which gave her dead
away, and Gladys, seeing it, knew that Katherine had at last achieved
that pride of appearance which she had struggled so long to instill into
her.
"However did you do it?" she murmured.
"It was your eleven Rules of Neatness that did it," replied Katherine,
laughing, "or was it seven? I forget. But I did do just the things you
told me to do, and it worked. There is no longer any danger of my coming
apart in public! What a trial I used to be to you, though!" she said,
flushing a little at the recollection. "How you ever put up with me I
don't know. How _did_ you stand it, anyway?"
"Because we loved you, sweet child," replied Gladys fondly, "and because
we all believed the motto, 'While there's life, there's hope.' We knew
you would be a paragon of neatness some day as soon as you got around to
it. You never _could_ think of more than one thing at a time, Katherine
dear!"
"O my, O my, look at them hugging each other!" exclaimed a teasing voice
from above. Looking up they saw Justice Dalrymple leaning over the
banisters at the head of the stairs. "You never do that to me," he
continued in a plaintive tone.
Katherine and Gladys merely laughed at him and walked on, arm in arm, and
Justice came down the stairs wringing mock tears out of his handkerchief
and singing mournfully,
"Forsaken, forsa-ken,
Forsa-a-a-ken a-m I,
Like the bones at a banquet
All men pass me-e-e by!"
"Do behave yourself, Justice," said Katherine with mock severity. "If you
disgrace me I'll never get you invited anywhere again. Why can't you be
good like the other two boys?"
"'Cause I'm a Junebug," warbled Justice, to the tune of "I'm a Pilgrim,"
"'Cause I'm a Junebug,
And I'm a beetul,
And I can't be no
Rhinoscerairus,
'Cause I'm a Junebug,
And I'm a beetul,
I can't be no,
Rhinoscerairus!"
He advanced into the drawing room, where Katherine now stood alone, and
drew out the last syllable of his absurd song into a long bleating wail
that sent her into convulsions of laughter till the tears rolled down her
cheeks.
"Tears, idle tears----"
began Justice, picking up a vase from the table and holding it under her
eyes, and then he stopped, as if struck by a sudden recollection. "I said
that to you once before," he said, "don't you remember? The first time we
really got acquainted with each other. You were standing by the stove,
weeping into the apple sauce."
"It was pudding," Katherine corrected him, with a little shamefaced laugh
at the remembrance, "huckleberry pudding. And I streaked it all over my
face and you nearly died laughing."
"Well, you laughed too," Justice defended himself, "and that's how we got
to be friends."
"That seems ages ago," said Katherine, "and yet it's only a little over a
year. What a year that was!"
Both stopped their bantering and looked at each other with sober eyes,
each thinking of what the trying year at Spencer had been to them.
Justice's eyes traveled over Katherine, and he, too, noticed that she was
much better looking than when he first knew her. Katherine noticed the
admiration dawning in his eyes and divined his thoughts. After Gladys's
spontaneous outburst of approval she knew beyond any doubt that her
appearance no longer offended the artistic eye. The knowledge gave her a
new confidence in herself, and a thrill of pleasure that she had never
experienced before went through her like an electric shock. At last
people had ceased to look upon her as a cross between a circus and a
lunatic asylum, she told herself exultingly.
"Well, what are you thinking about?" she asked finally, as Justice
continued silent.
"I was just thinking," replied Justice gravely, "about the difference in
plumage that different climates bring about."
"Whatever made you think about birds?" asked Katherine wonderingly. "You
jump from one subject to another like a flea. I don't see how you can
keep your mind on your work long enough to invent anything. By the way,
how is that thingummy of yours going? You're as mum as an oyster about
it."
"Pretty well," replied Justice. "I'm hampered though, by not having the
right kind of help, and not being able to get some of the things I need."
Katherine looked at him scrutinizingly. He looked tired and rather worn.
The nonsensical boy had vanished and a man stood in his place, a man with
a heavy responsibility on his shoulders. Justice had that way of changing
all in an instant from a boy to a man. At times he would go frolicking
about the house till you would have sworn he was not a day older than
Slim and the Captain; an instant later he was all gravity, and looked
every day of his twenty-six years.
Katherine always stood in awe of him whenever that change took place. He
seemed so old and wise and experienced then that she felt hopelessly
ignorant and childish beside him. She liked him best when he seemed like
the other boys.
"What do you think of my Winnebagos?" she asked him, leading him away
from the subject of his work. He always got old looking when he talked
about it.
"Greatest bunch of girls I ever saw," he replied heartily. "Never came
across such an accomplished lot in all my life. Each one's more fun than
the next. Hinpoha's a beauty, and Gladys is a dainty fairy, and Sahwah
looks like a brown thrush, and Migwan's a regular Madonna. And,
say--would you mind telling me how you do it, anyway?"
"Do what?"
"Stick together like that. I thought girls always squabbled among
themselves. I never thought they could do things together the way you
girls do."
"Camp Fire Girls can do things together!" Katherine informed him with
emphasis. "You boys think you're the only ones that know anything about
teamwork. Teamwork is our first motto."
"I guess it must be," admitted Justice. "You certainly are a team."
The rest of the "team" came in then, Sahwah and Gladys and Hinpoha, all
three arm in arm, and Migwan behind them, pushing Sylvia in her rolling
chair. They settled in a circle before the fireplace, and the talk soon
drifted around to Uncle Jasper and his blighted romance. Indeed, Hinpoha
had done nothing but talk about it all during dinner. Sylvia, too, was
completely taken up with it.
"I love Sylvia Warrington!" she exclaimed fervently. "I am going to have
her for my Beloved. I'm glad she had black hair. I adore black hair. And
I'm _so_ glad my name is Sylvia, too. I've been pretending that she was
my aunt, and that I was named after her. I've been pretending, too, that
she taught me to sing, 'Hark, hark, the lark!' Now, when I sing it I
always think of her. Wasn't it beautiful, what Uncle Jasper said about
her? 'She is like a lark, singing in the desert at dawning!' Oh, I can
see it all, the desert, and the sun coming up, and the lark soaring up
and singing. I just can't _breathe_, it's so beautiful. And my Beloved is
like that!"
A radiant dream light came into her eyes, and she seemed suddenly to have
traveled far away from the group by the fire and to be wandering in some
far-off land.
"Sylvia is a beautiful name," said Katherine. "For whom are you called?
Was your mother's name Sylvia?" It was the first time any of them had
spoken of Sylvia's mother, who they knew must be dead.
Sylvia's eyes lost their dreaminess and she looked up with a merry smile.
"I made it up myself," she said. "I don't know what my first real name
was, but when Aunt Aggie got me she named me Aggie, after herself. But
Aggie is such a hopelessly unimaginative sort of name. It doesn't make
you think of a thing when you say it. You might just as well be named
'Empty' as 'Aggie.' Then once we lived in the same house with a lady who
sang, and she used to sing, 'Who is Sylvia?' It was the most _tuneful_
name I'd ever heard, and I wondered and wondered who Sylvia was. But I
guess the lady never found out, because she kept right on singing, 'Who
is Sylvia?' So one day I said to myself, 'I'll be Sylvia!' Don't you
think it's a _fragrant_ name? When I say it I can see festoons of pink
rosebuds tied with baby ribbon. I made people call me Sylvia, and that's
been my name ever since."
"Oh, you funny child!" said Nyoda, joining in the general laugh at
Sylvia's tale of her name.
"But Sylvia," said Sahwah wonderingly, "you said you didn't know what
your _first_ real name was before you came to live with your aunt. Didn't
your aunt know it?"
"No," replied Sylvia. "You see," she continued, "Aunt Aggie isn't my real
aunt. She adopted me when I was a baby."
"Oh-h!" said the Winnebagos in surprise.
"But why do you call her 'aunt'?" asked Sahwah. "Why don't you call her
'mother'?"
"She never would have it," replied Sylvia. "She always taught me to call
her Aunt Aggie. I don't know why."
Sylvia moved restlessly in her chair, and from the folds of the loose
dressing gown which she wore a picture tumbled out. Katherine picked it
up and laid it back on her lap. It was a small colored poster sketch of a
red haired girl in a golf cape, which had evidently been the cover design
of a magazine some years ago.
"Why are you so fond of that poster, Sylvia?" asked Katherine curiously.
"You brought it along with you when you came here, and you keep it with
you all the time."
Sylvia's tone when she answered was half humorous and half wistful.
"That's my mother," she said.
"Your mother!" exclaimed Katherine, incredulously.
"Oh, not my really real mother," Sylvia continued quickly. "I never saw a
picture of her. But Aunt Aggie said my mother had red hair and was most
uncommonly good looking, so I found a picture of a beautiful lady with
red hair and called it my mother. It's better than nothing." The
Winnebagos nodded silently and no one spoke for a moment.
Then Katherine asked gently, "What else do you know about mother?"
Sylvia sat up and related the tale told her hundreds of times by Aunt
Aggie, in answer to her eager questioning about her mother. Unconsciously
she used Aunt Aggie's expressions and gestures as she told it.
"'Me an' Joe was coming on the steam cars from Butler to Philadelphy, and
in back of us sat a young couple with a baby about a month old. The
girl--she wasn't nothing but a girl even though she was a married
woman--was most uncommon good looking. She had bright red hair and big
grey eyes, and she wore a golf cape. Her husband was a big, red faced
feller, homely but real honest lookin'. They weren't either of them
twenty years old. Farmers, I could tell from their talk, and as well as I
could make out, the name on their bag was Mitchell. Well, well, along
between Waterloo and Poland there suddenly come a terrible bump, and then
a smash and a crash, and the next thing I was layin' under the seat and
Joe was trying to pull me out. When I did finally get out the car was
a-layin' over on its side all smashed to bits. Somehow or other when Joe
dug me out from under the seat I had ahold of the little baby that had
been in the seat in back of me. The young man and woman were under the
wreck. They were both killed, but the baby never had a scratch.
"'Nobody ever found out who the red headed woman and the man were,
because they were all burned up in the wreck, and all their luggage.
"'I had taken care of the baby, thinkin' I'd keep her until her people
were found, but they were never heard from, so I decided to keep her for
my own. That baby was you, Sylvia.'
"So that's all I know about my mother and father," finished Sylvia with a
sigh. "But I can think up the most _dazzling_ things about them!"
"Sylvia," said Katherine, "who was the man I saw on the stairs of your
house the night I came in and found you?"
Sylvia looked at her in wonder. "What man?"
"When I came into the hall there was a man leaning over the banisters
about half way up the stairs. When I came in he ran down the stairs and
out of the front door."
"I can't imagine," said Sylvia. "No man ever came to the house to see us.
I didn't hear anybody come in that day."
"But the front door stood open when I came up on the porch," said
Katherine. "That hadn't been standing open all day, had it?"
"No," replied Sylvia, "for Aunt Aggie was always careful about closing it
when she went out."
"Then he must have opened it," said Katherine.
"How queer!" said Sylvia. "What do you suppose he could have been doing
there? He never knocked on the inside door."
"Possibly he thought the house was empty, and went in to get out of the
cold," concluded Katherine. "Then he heard you singing, and it scared
him. He looked frightened out of his wits when I saw him. When I came in
he just ran for his life." Katherine laughed as she remembered her own
dismay at seeing the man and thinking that he was the owner of the house,
when he was only a stray visitor himself and worse frightened than she.
Here she had prepared such an elaborate apology in her mind, and he was
nothing but a tramp! The humor of it struck her forcibly, now that it was
all in the past, and she laughed over it most of the evening.
About nine o'clock Hercules came shuffling in, suffering from a bad cold,
and asked Nyoda to give him something for it. While Nyoda went upstairs
to the medicine chest Sahwah craftily asked the old man, "Hercules, did
you ever hear of there being a secret passage in this house?"
Hercules gave a visible start. "Whyfor you ask dat?" he demanded.
"Oh, for no special reason," said Sahwah casually. "I just thought maybe
there was one and that you might know about it. There always is one in
these old houses, you know."
"Well, dere ain't in dis!" answered the old man vehemently, and at the
same time looking relieved. "Marse Jasper he always useter say to me,
'Herc'les,' he useter say, 'dere's one good thing about dis house, and
dat is it ain't cluttered up wif no secrut passidges.' Secrut passidges
am powerful unlucky, Mis' Sahwah. Onct I knew a man dat lived in a house
dat had a secrut passidge an' one night de ole debbil got in th'u dat
secrut passidge an' run off wif him! Don' you go huntin' no secrut
passidges, Mis' Sahwah, if you knows what's good fer you. Dey suttinly am
powerful unlucky!"
Nyoda came down stairs and bore Hercules off to the kitchen, and the
Winnebagos and the boys had their laugh out behind his back. "How _can_
he tell such fibs in such a truthful sounding way!" remarked Justice. "If
I didn't know about that passage from Uncle Jasper's diary I'd be
inclined to believe every word he said. But I bet the old sinner knows
all about it, just as Uncle Jasper did. Even if he doesn't, how can he
invent such convincing speeches on the part of Uncle Jasper out of the
empty air? He's the most engaging old fibber I ever came across."
Nyoda came back and bore Sylvia off to bed and then she returned to the
library. "Sherry," she said thoughtfully, leaning her chin in her hand,
"Dr. Crosby was here this morning to return those binoculars he borrowed
the other day, and I talked to him about Sylvia. He said he had once been
called in to treat her for tonsilitis when she lived in Millvale, and had
examined her spine at the time. He said it was a splintered vertebra and
it could be fixed by grafting in a piece of bone. They're doing wonders
now that way. He said Dr. Gilbert, the famous specialist, could perform
an operation that would cure her. He hadn't had a chance to talk it over
with Sylvia's aunt because he had been called away suddenly and when he
returned to town the Deane's were gone. He had no idea what had become of
them. He only made a hasty examination, but he is positive she can be
cured. I know the Deane's can't afford to pay for such an operation, but
Dr. Crosby said he was sure he could persuade Dr. Gilbert to perform it
free, in his clinic. I told Dr. Crosby to bring Dr. Gilbert to Oakwood as
soon as he could. He said he thought it would be possible soon. I thought
as long as we are going to keep Sylvia in our care until her aunt is well
again we might as well have her fixed up in the meantime. I would like to
have the operation over before her aunt knows anything about it, say the
first week of the new year. What do you think?"
"Whew!" whistled Sherry, looking at his wife in astonishment. The
rapidity with which Nyoda got a project under way was a nine days' wonder
to Sherry, who usually spent more time in deliberating a course of action
than she did in carrying it out. "Go ahead!" was all he could say.
The Winnebagos gave long exclamations of joy. It had never occurred to
them that anything could be done for Sylvia.
"Does she know it?" asked Hinpoha.
"Not yet," replied Nyoda. "I thought we would keep it for a birthday
surprise. Her birthday is the twenty-ninth. I'll have Dr. Gilbert come
that day and let him tell her himself. Don't anybody mention it to her
until then."
"We won't," promised the Winnebagos, and trooped off to bed, heavy with
their delicious secret.