THE DEVELOPMENTS OF SEVERAL YEARS.
A full week passed before Mr. Huntress heard anything further from Dr.
Scherz, and it was a week of anxiety and unrest for him.
At the end of that time the physician went again to see the Huntress
_protege_, taking a noted hospital surgeon with him.
After another protracted and critical examination, the two gentlemen
decided to undertake the operation together.
The boy was removed to a hospital where diseases of the brain were
treated, and there the delicate and hazardous operation was performed.
The result proved that Dr. Scherz had thoroughly understood the
case—that his theory was the correct one.
A severe blow upon the head, years previous, fractured the skull, a
portion of which was crowded in upon the brain, the pressure causing
temporary paralysis and idiocy, also loss of energy in the hypoglossal
or lingual nerve.
This piece of bone was removed, the brain relieved of the unnatural
pressure, and the result was both wonderful and startling.
Before the patient had fully recovered from the effects of the ether
which had been administered to him, memory and speech both reasserted
their functions by completing a sentence which had evidently been
interrupted at the time of the accident which had deprived the boy of
their use.
“——tell my papa!” were the words which fell upon the ears of the
startled surgeons, while the large blue eyes of their patient slowly
unclosed and gazed up into the faces bending over him, the light of
reason once more gleaming in their azure depths.
“What will you tell papa?” asked Dr. Scherz, in a quiet tone, while the
other surgeon drew quickly out of sight.
“Jack struck Margery,” was the instant reply.
“Who is your papa, my boy?”
“Why, he’s papa; don’t you know?—my good papa,” was the response, while
a puzzled look shot over the lad’s pale face.
Dr. Scherz knew from his manner of speech that he must have been very
young—not more than five years of age—at the time of his injury, and
when that great darkness had so suddenly enveloped him.
“Yes, your good papa,” said the doctor, soothingly. “Now go to sleep
like a man.”
“I’m Margery’s little man—where is Margery?” he questioned, drowsily,
and closing his eyes, he was soon in a profound slumber.
The two physicians watched him in silence for a few moments, then they
looked up into each other’s face; eye held eye for an instant with an
eloquent glance, the next their hands met in a prolonged and hearty
clasp across their patient, for they knew that, if all went well, they
had succeeded in an operation that would give them a famous reputation
for all time.
When the boy awoke again he called lustily for “Margery,” and a kind and
motherly nurse was at once appointed to care for him.
He seemed to know, however, that she was not “Margery,” although he
appeared to take to her and was content to have her attend him.
“Where’s Jack?” he asked of Dr. Scherz, who still remained with him,
determined to watch him most carefully.
“Jack who?” he asked.
“Why, Margery’s Jack; but he isn’t good like Margery,” from which the
physician inferred that “Jack” must have been Margery’s husband, and not
an over kind one either.
“Oh, Jack has gone away,” he answered, carelessly. “What is your name,
my boy?”
“I’m Geoffrey, sir.”
“Geoffrey what?”
“Why, Geoffrey Dale—don’t you know? I’m papa Dale’s own boy.”
“Where is papa?”
“Gone away off,” was the reply, accompanied by a grieved look, “and he
won’t come again for ever so long.”
Dr. Scherz would not press him further; he knew that they must be
patient. Memory had lain dormant for so long, and the child had been so
young at the time of losing it, that it was doubtful if they could ever
learn very much regarding his history.
Weeks passed, and Geoffrey was at last pronounced well enough to return
to the beautiful home awaiting him in Brooklyn.
He had recovered without a single drawback. The light of reason gleamed
in his eyes, and he had the full use of all the organs of speech.
But, although the doctors had decided that he must be fully fifteen
years of age, notwithstanding his growth had been somewhat stunted by
the effects of his injury, mentally he was little better than an infant.
He talked like a child of five years, and acted like one.
But very little could be learned of his previous life. It was evident
that he had been living with a woman named Margery—who, probably, was
his nurse—and a man named Jack, possibly the woman’s husband.
Margery he had loved, and he often called for her now. Jack he had
feared, and looked frightened whenever his name was mentioned.
Of the injury which had deprived him of his memory he seemed to be able
to tell nothing, although he affirmed that Jack had struck and tried to
choke Margery, and he wanted to “lick the naughty man.”
Of his mother he knew absolutely nothing; his father was not much more
than a name to him, although he spoke of him as his “good papa,” while
he could not tell anything whatever about the place where his former
home had been, and knew nothing of the circumstances of his being in New
York.
He was very quick to comprehend, however, now that he once more had his
reason, and readily adapted himself to his new surroundings.
Mr. Huntress resolved to adopt him legally, and do all in his power to
atone for the long interval of darkness and mental incapacity to which
he had been so strangely doomed.
Geoffrey began at once to regard his new friends with the greatest
confidence and affection, while toward Gladys he manifested the most
devoted love.
She, on her part, regarded him with tenderest compassion and sympathy,
for, in spite of his remarkable beauty and natural ability, he was truly
a pitiable object, with the simple mind and manners of a child five
years of age in a body of fifteen; for he soon began to develop rapidly,
physically, after his restoration, and bade fair to be a man of splendid
physique.
He was not long in realizing that he was far from being like other boys
of his age, and he began to be very sensitive over the fact—to grow
grave and thoughtful, and sometimes positively unhappy.
“Why can’t I be like other boys?” he once asked of Mr. Huntress, with a
perplexed look on his fine face, and the gentleman kindly explained
that, when he had been very young, some one or something must have
struck him a blow on the head which had injured his brain, so that for
years it had been the same as if sound asleep, and had only just waked
up again; that his body had grown, but his mind had not.
“Oh, I know,” Geoffrey returned, with a startled look, a new light
coming into his eyes. “Jack threw a great stick of wood at me.”
“What made him do that?” Mr. Huntress asked, eagerly.
The boy bent his head, and seemed trying to recall the events of that
dim past.
“He came into the kitchen with a dreadful red face,” he said, “and he
was very ugly to Margery—I can’t think about what. He put his hands
around her neck, and she screamed. I ran up and struck him, and told him
I’d tell my papa, and—that’s all I know,” he concluded, with a sigh.
Mr. Huntress could imagine that the man was intoxicated, and being in a
frenzy, he had perhaps seized a stick of wood from the hearth, thrown it
at the child, and knocked him senseless.
“What was Jack’s other name?” he asked.
“Jack—Jack—” Geoffrey began, then shook his head hopelessly. “I can’t
tell,” he concluded; and Mr. Huntress felt that it only annoyed him, and
it would be useless to try to find out anything definite from him, so he
let the matter drop.
One day, after Geoffrey had been with the family some three months, he
came in from the street looking flushed and angry.
Seeking Gladys he besought her most piteously to teach him to read.
Upon inquiring what prompted the request, she found that Geoffrey had
been attracted by a glaring placard that had been pasted up somewhere on
a building, and had asked some boys what it was.
This had at once betrayed his woeful ignorance, for if he had even known
his letters, he could at least have made out something of the nature of
the bill, and they had tormented him unmercifully for being a simpleton.
Gladys at once procured a primer and set herself at work to teach him.
He proved to be a most diligent pupil, with great perseverance and a
wonderful power for memorizing, for in a month he had mastered the whole
of its contents.
Mr. Huntress was astonished at his progress, and wanted to put him at
once into school.
But Geoffrey, who was developing rapidly in every way, shrank from the
proposal, and begged his Uncle August, as he had been taught to call Mr.
Huntress, to allow him to study at home.
“They will laugh at me at school, for I shall have to go into classes
with little boys only five or six years old,” he pleaded, with a crimson
face.
“But you must go to school some time, and you will have to begin with
boys younger than yourself,” Mr. Huntress replied.
“Won’t you keep on teaching me, Gladys?” Geoffrey asked, appealingly. “I
will study hard and never trouble you by not having my lessons, and
perhaps I can catch up with big boys by and by.”
Gladys said she would keep on with him. But she was not allowed to do
so, although she often gave him help in many ways.
She had her own studies to attend to and was working hard at them,
therefore Mr. Huntress would not allow her to tax herself any further,
and so a tutor was engaged to come to the house every day to attend to
Master Geoffrey’s lessons.
The boy was true to his promise. He studied diligently, and his tutor
never had occasion to utter a word of complaint over ill-prepared
lessons. Geoffrey seemed to realize more and more how far behind other
boys of his own age he was, and with his pride and ambition thus
aroused, no task seemed too difficult to accomplish, if it would only
serve to help him to overtake them.
Another thing troubled him exceedingly. He had learned that Gladys was
two years younger than himself, and yet she was nearly half through the
high school, while he was simply learning his alphabet. The thought
overwhelmed him with shame and pain.
“Gladys is a girl younger than I, and I am years and years behind her,
when I should be ever so far beyond her,” he said one day to Mrs.
Huntress, when he had become almost discouraged over one of his lessons,
and had gone to her for help and sympathy.
“But Gladys has always been at school and you have not, Geoff,” returned
his aunt, kindly. “Go and ask her to show you about these problems; she
can help you much better than I, for they are fresher in her mind.”
But the proud boy had all at once grown keenly sensitive, and would not
seek the young girl’s aid. He preferred to fight the battle out by
himself, rather than be coached by a girl younger than he was.
Of course this was the better way; he gained in mental strength and
self-reliance by it, and he accomplished more in three years than the
ordinary school-boy would in six.
Aside from his pride and sensitiveness in this respect, he was ever
ready and eager to be with Gladys.
Wherever she went, after school hours, he was her constant and devoted
attendant, and no service was too hard or disagreeable to be performed
for her.
And she enjoyed having him with her. He was outgrowing the delicate,
almost effeminate look which he had had when he first came to them; an
air of manliness and strength had taken its place, while there was a
natural gallantry and manliness about him that made him a very agreeable
escort.
Another year passed, and he made even more rapid strides in his studies
than before; still it was a great trial to him that he had only
completed the studies of the second year of the high school course, and
Gladys was ready to graduate.
He was present at her examination, and also at the exercises of the
class when it graduated, and it was evident, from his flushed cheek and
glittering eye, that some bitter struggle was going on within him.
He watched the beautiful girl’s every movement, he eagerly drank in
every word that she uttered, and was as proud of her as he could be, yet
all the time miserably conscious of his own deficiency.
That evening he shut himself within his own room and fought a terrible
battle out with his pride and wretchedness.
“I am nineteen years old, and she is seventeen,” he said, bitterly. “I
am two years behind her, and I should be two years in advance—there are
four years of my life lost; no, not lost, either,” he added, with sudden
energy, “for I will make them up, I will gain them. Can I do six years
work in four? Harder work, too, than I have ever done before? Yes, I
will!”
He sat down to his table and began to look over his books, making
calculations as to how much ground he could get over in a given time,
while every few moments he would consult some catalogues that lay beside
him.
The next morning he walked down to the Fulton Ferry with Mr. Huntress,
and on the way he remarked, with more than his accustomed gravity:
“Uncle August, Gladys is going to Vassar next year, isn’t she?”
“Yes; she is ambitious to take an advanced course, and there is no
reason why she should not do so, if she desires.”
“Will you allow me to continue my studies during the summer with Mr.
Rivers, and enter some institute in the fall where I can advance more
rapidly?”
Mr. Huntress turned and looked searchingly into the young man’s flushed
face, as he asked this question.
He was a tall, manly fellow of nineteen, strong and stalwart of frame,
his fine, massive head crowned with waving hair a few shades darker than
it was when we first saw him; his eyes full of fire and intelligence,
his whole face glowing with strength of character, and a certain
something which gave one an idea of great reserve power, and it was no
wonder that the countenance of Mr. Huntress lighted with a look of
pride, as he realized that, under God, he had been instrumental in
giving to the world this noble specimen of manhood.
Then a sudden smile broke over his face.
“Why, Geoff, are you envious of Gladys, because she is going to
college?” he asked, in a bantering tone.
A deeper flush suffused the young man’s handsome face. Then he replied,
in low but intense tones:
“I hope I am not envious of any good that comes to her; I am more proud
of her than I can express, and I would not have her anything but just
what she is, the kindest, the smartest, and loveliest of girls; but I
can’t quite stand it to be so far behind her, to have her look down upon
me and despise me for being so ignorant.”
“I do not think that Gladys would ever be guilty of anything so unkind.
Geoff; she loves you far too well for that,” returned Mr. Huntress,
gravely, but still closely watching his _protege_, for he could well
understand the pain he was suffering.
Geoffrey’s face kindled, and his companion could see his temples
throbbing as the blood coursed more quickly through his veins at his
words.
“Thank you, Uncle August, for assuring me of Gladys’ affection; but I
want her respect as well,” he said, with a slight quiver in his tone.
August Huntress started at that reply, for it betrayed a great deal.
It told him that the devotion and affection which he had manifested for
Gladys from the first had now grown into a strong, deep passion, which
would either make or mar his whole future, and he was strangely moved by
this discovery.
How would it be with Gladys if she should discover it? Would her heart
respond to this wealth of love? Would she ever be willing to link her
fate with his?
She was far in advance of Geoffrey, mentally, but he was making such
rapid and resolute strides after her, that, at the rate he had been
gaining on her of late it could not be very long before he would reach
the plane on which she was standing, even if he did not distance her
altogether.
Well, well, it would be a romantic ending to the story of their lives,
he thought, if these two, so strangely thrown upon his care—with so much
of mystery surrounding their birth and parentage, and likely always to
envelope them—should some day unite their fates and wed each other.
But he allowed nothing of all this musing to appear; he simply said,
with his accustomed kindness and genial smile:
“You are worthily ambitious, Geoff, but I don’t know how you will stand
it to apply yourself so closely all summer and then go right on in the
fall. I cannot allow you to sacrifice your health to your love for
study.”
“But I am well and strong as a giant; will you let me try, sir?” he
pleaded, earnestly.
“Yes, indeed, with all my heart. It is a pleasure to give you advantages
when you improve them so eagerly. I will make it an object to Mr. Rivers
to remain with you during the vacation, and then we can decide later
where you will go in the fall.”
“Thank you, Uncle August, you are like a dear father to me, and I could
not love you better if you really were. I hope some day to prove, in
some tangible way, how grateful I am for your goodness,” Geoffrey said,
with deep feeling.
“Tut, tut, my boy, don’t burden yourself with any sense of obligation. I
am getting my pay as I go along, in the enjoyment I get out of having a
fine, manly fellow like yourself in the house. I don’t believe I could
be prouder of my own son than I am of you, and, taking us all in all, I
imagine there isn’t a happier family in all Brooklyn than the one
residing at No. —— Clinton avenue. Eh, Geoff?”