Why had Miss Royle, sly reptile that she was, scuttled away without so
much as a good-by?
"Oh, dear!" sighed Gwendolyn; "just as soon as one trouble's finished,
another one starts!"
"We must get on her track!" declared the Policeman, patroling to and fro
anxiously.
"And let's hurry," urged the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. "It's coming night in
the City. And all these lights'll be needed soon."
Very soon, indeed. For even as he spoke it happened--with a sharp click.
Instantly the pink glow was blotted out. As suddenly thick blackness
shut down.
Except straight ahead! There Gwendolyn made out an oblong patch of sky
in which were a few dim stars.
"Never mind," went on the little old gentleman, soothingly. "Because
we're close to the place where there's light all the time."
"_All_ the time?" repeated Gwendolyn, surprised.
"It's where light grows."
"_Grows?_"
"Well, it's where _candle_-light grows."
"Candle-light!" she cried. "You mean--! Oh, it's where my fath-er
comes!"
"Sometimes."
"Will he be there now?"
"Only the Bird can tell us that."
Then she understood Jane's last gasping admonition--"Get you-know-what
out of the way! A certain person mustn't talk to it! If she does she'll
find--"
It was the Doctor's hand that steadied her as she hurried forward in the
darkness. It was a big hand, and she was able to grasp only two fingers
of it. But that clinging hold made her feel that their friendship was
established. She was not at all surprised at her complete change of
attitude toward him. It seemed to her now as if he and she had always
been on good terms.
The others were near. She could hear the _tinkle-tankle_ of the Piper's
pipes, the scuff of Puffy's paws, the labored breathing of the little
old gentleman as he trudged, the heavy tramp, tramp of the Policeman.
She made her bare feet travel as fast as she could, and kept her look
steadily ahead on the dim stars.
And saw, moving from one to another of them, in quick darts--now up,
now down--a small Something. She did not instantly guess what it
was--flitting across that half-darkened sky. Until she heard the wild
beating of tiny pinions!
"Why, it's a bird!" she exclaimed.
"A bird?" repeated the Policeman, all eagerness.
"Must be _the_ Bird!" declared the Man-Who-Makes-Faces, triumphantly.
It was. Even in the poor light her eager eyes made out the bumps on that
small feathered head. And saw that on the down-drooping tail, nicely
balanced, and gleaming whitely, was a lump.
Remembering what she had heard about that bit of salt, she ran forward.
At her approach, his wings half-lifted. And as she reached out to him,
pointing a small finger, he sprang sidewise, alighting upon it.
"Oh, I'm glad you've come!" he panted.
He was no larger than a canary; and seemed to be brown--a sparrow-brown.
Prejudiced against him she had been. He had tattled about her--_worse_,
about her father. Yet seeing him now, so tiny and ruffled and
frightened, she liked him.
She brought him to a level with her eyes. "What's the matter?" she asked
soothingly.
"I'm afraid." He thrust out his head, pointing. "_Look_."
She looked. Ahead the tops of the grass blades were swaying this way and
that in a winding path--as if from the passage of some crawling thing!
"She tried to get me out of the way!"
"Oh, tell me where is my fath-er!"
"Why, of _course_. They say he's--"
He did not finish; or if he did she heard no end to the sentence. Of a
sudden her face had grown almost painfully hot--as a great yellow light
flamed against it, a light that shimmered up dazzlingly from the surface
of a broad treeless field. This field was like none that she had ever
imagined. For its acres were neatly sodded with _mirrors_.
The little company was on the beveled edge of the field. To halt them,
and conspicuously displayed, was a sign. It read--
_Keep off The Glass._
"'Keep off the glass,'" read Gwendolyn. "And I don't wonder. 'Cause we'd
crack it."
"We don't crack it, we cross it," reminded the Man-Who-Makes-Faces. And
stepped boldly upon the gleaming plate.
"My! My!" exclaimed the Piper. "Ain't there a _fine_ crop this year!"
A fine crop? Gwendolyn glanced down. And saw for the first time that
the mirrored acres were studded, flower-like, with countless silk-shaded
candles!
What curious candles they were! They did not grow horizontally, as she
had imagined they must, but upright and candle-like. Above their sticks,
which were of brass, silver and decorated porcelain, was a flame, ruddy
of tip, sharply pointed, but fat and yellow at the base, where the soft
white wax fed the fire; at the other end of the sticks, as like the top
light as if it were a perfect reflection, was a second flame. These were
candles that burned _at both ends_.
And this was the region she had traveled so far to find! Her heart beat
so wildly that it stirred the plaid of the little gingham dress.
"Say! I hear a quacking!" announced Puffy, staring up into the sky.
Gwendolyn heard it, too. It seemed to come from across the Field of
Double-Ended Candles. She peered that way, to where a heavy fringe of
trees walled the farther side greenily.
She saw him first!--while the others (excepting the Bird) were still
staring skyward. At the start, what she discerned was only a faint
outline on the tree-wall--the outline of a man, broad-shouldered, tall,
but a trifle stooped. It was faint for the reason that it blended with
the trees. For the man was garbed in green.
As he advanced into the field, the chorus of quacks grew louder. And
presently Gwendolyn caught certain familiar expressions--"Oh, don't
bozzer me!" "Sit up straight, Miss! Sit up straight!" (this a rather
deep quack). "My dear child, you have no sense of time!" And, "What on
earth ever put such a question into your head!" She concluded that the
expressions were issuing from the large bell-shaped horn which was
pointed her way over one shoulder of the man in green. The
talking-machine to which the horn was attached--a handsome mahogany
affair--he carried on his back. It was not unlike a hand-organ. Which
made Gwendolyn wonder if he was not the Man-Who-Makes-Faces' brother.
She glanced back inquiringly at the little old gentleman. Either the
stranger _was_ a relation--and not a popular one--or else the quacking
expressions annoyed. For the Man-Who-Makes-Faces was scowling. And,
"Cavil, criticism, correction!" he scolded, half to himself.
He in green now began to move about and gather silk-shaded candles,
bending this way and that to pluck them, and paying not the slightest
attention to the group of watchers in plain view. But not one of these
was indifferent to _his_ presence. And all were acting in a most
incomprehensible manner. With one accord, Doctor and Piper, Bear and
Policeman, Face-maker and Bird, were rubbing hard at the palm of one
hand. There being no trees close by, the men used the sole of a shoe,
while Puffy raked away at one paw with the claws of the others, and the
Bird pecked a foot with his beak.
And yet Gwendolyn could not believe that it was really _he_.
The Policeman drew near. "You've heard of Hobson's choice?" he inquired
in a low voice. "Perhaps this is Hobson, or Sam Hill, or Punch, or Great
Scott."
The Man-Who-Makes-Faces shook his head. "You don't know him," he
answered, "because recently, when the bears were bothering him a lot in
his Street, I made him a long face."
The man in green was pausing where the candles clustered thickest.
Gwendolyn, still doubtful, went forward to greet him.
"How do you do, sir," she began, curtseying.
His face was long, as the Man-Who-Makes-Faces had pointed out--very
long, and pale, and haggard. Between his sunken temples burned his
dark-rimmed eyes. His nose was thin, and over it the skin was drawn so
tightly that his nostrils were pinched. His lips were pressed together,
driving out the blood. His cheeks were hollow, and shadowed bluely by a
day-old beard. He had on a hat. Yet she was able (curiously enough!) to
note that his hair was sparse over the top of his head, and streaked
with gray.
Nevertheless there was no denying that she recognized him dimly.
Something knotted in her throat--at seeing weariness, anxiety, even
torture, in those deep-set eyes. "I think I've met you before
somewhere," she faltered. "Your--your long face--" The Bird was perched
on the forefinger of one hand. She proffered the other.
He did not even look at her. "My hands are full," he declared. And
again, "My hands are full."
She glanced at them. And saw that each was indeed full--of paper money.
Moreover, the green of his coat was the green of new crisp bills. While
his buff-colored trousers were made of yellowish ones, carefully
creased.
He was literally _made of money_.
Now she felt reasonably certain of his identity. Yet she determined to
make even more sure. "Would you mind just turning around for a moment?"
she inquired.
"But I'm busy to-day," he protested, "I can't be bothered with little
girls. I'll see you when you're eight years old." Nevertheless he faced
about accommodatingly.
The moment he turned his back he displayed a detail of his dress that
had not been visible before. This detail, at first glance, appeared to
be a smart leather piping. On second glance it seemed a sort of
shawl-strap contrivance by which the talking-machine was suspended. But
in the end she knew what it was--a leather harness!--an exceedingly
handsome, silver-buckled, hand-sewed harness!
She went around him and raised a smiling face--caught at a hand, too;
and felt her own happy tears make cool streaks down her cheeks. "I--I
don't see you often," she said, "bu-but I know you just the same.
You're--you're my fath-er!"
At that, he glanced down at her--stooped--picked a candle--and held it
close to her face.
"Poor little girl!" he said. "Poor little girl!"
"Poor little _rich_ girl," she prompted, noting that he had left out the
word.
She heard a sob!
The next moment, _Rustle! Rustle! Rustle!_ And at her feet the
gay-topped candles were bent this way and that--as Miss Royle, with an
artful serpent-smile on her bandaged face, writhed her way swiftly
between them!
"Dearie," she hissed, making an affectionate half-coil about Gwendolyn,
"what _do_ you think I'm going to say to you!"
Gwendolyn only shook her head.
"_Guess_, darling," encouraged the governess, coiling herself a little
closer.
"Maybe you're going to say, 'Use your dictionary,'" ventured Gwendolyn.
"Oh, dearie!" chided Miss Royle, managing a very good blush for a snake.
But now Gwendolyn guessed the reason for the other's sudden display of
affection. For that scaly head was rising out of the grass, inch by
inch, and those glittering serpent eyes were fixed upon the Bird!
Unable to move, he watched her, plumage on end, round eyes fairly
starting.
"_Cheep! Cheep!_"
At his cry of terror, the Doctor interposed. "I think we'd better take
the Bird out of here," he said. "The less noise the better." And with
that, he lifted the small frightened thing from Gwendolyn's finger.
Miss Royle, quite thrown off her poise, sank hissing to the ground. "My
neuralgia's worse than ever this evening," she complained, affecting not
to notice his interference.
"Huh!" he grunted. "Keep away from bargain counters."
The Piper came jangling up. "That snake belongs in her case," he
declared, addressing the Doctor.
More than once Gwendolyn had wondered why the Piper had burdened
himself--to all appearances uselessly and foolishly--with the various
pieces of lead pipe. But now what wily forethought she granted him. For
with a few quick flourishes of the wrench, she saw him join them, end to
end, to form one length. This he threw to the ground, after which he
gave a short, sharp whistle.
In answer to it, the Bird fluttered down, and entered one end of the
pipe, giving, as he disappeared from sight, one faint cheep.
Miss Royle heard. Her scaly head glittered up once more. Her beady eyes
shone. Her tongue darted hate. Then little by little, that long black
body began to move--toward the pipe!
A moment, and she entered it; another, and the last foot of rustling
serpent had disappeared. Then out of the farther end of the pipe bounced
the Bird. Whereat the Piper sprang to the Bird's side, produced a nut,
and screwed it on the pipe-end.
"How's that!" he cried triumphantly.
The pipe rolled partly over. A muffled voice came from it, railing at
him: "Be careful what you do, young man! _I_ saw you had that bonnet of
mine!"
"Oh, can a snake crawl backwards?" demanded Gwendolyn, excitedly.
The Piper answered with a harsh laugh. And scrambling the length of the
lead pipe, fell to hammering in a plug.
Miss Royle was a prisoner!
The Bird bounced very high. "That's a feather in _your_ cap," he
declared joyously, advancing to the Piper. And suiting the action to the
word, pulled a tiny plume from his own wing, fluttered up, and thrust it
under the band of the other's greasy head-gear.
"Think how that governess has treated me," growled Puffy. "When I was in
your nursery, and was old and a little worn out, _how_ I would've
appreciated care--and repair!"
"The Employment Agency for her," said the Piper.
"I'll attend to that," added the Policeman.
Gwendolyn's father had been gathering candles, and had seemed not to see
what was transpiring. Now as if he was satisfied with his load, he
suddenly started away in the direction he had come. His firm stride
jolted the talking-machine not a little. The quacking cries
recommenced--
"Please to pay me.... Let me sell you...! Let me borrow...! Won't you
hire...! _Quack! Quack! Quack!_"
After him hurried the others in an excited group. The Piper led it, his
plumbing-tools jangling, his pig-poke a-swing. And Gwendolyn saw him
grin back over a shoulder craftily--then lay hold of her father and
_tighten a strap_.
She trudged in the rear. She had found her father--and he could see
only the candles he sought, and the money in his grasp! She was out in
the open with him once more, where she was free to gambol and shout--yet
he was bound by his harness and heavily laden.
"I might just as well be home," she said to Puffy, disheartened.
"Wish your father'd let me sharpen his ears," whispered the
Man-Who-Makes-Faces. He shifted the hand-organ to the other shoulder.
The Doctor had a basket on his arm. He peered into it. "I haven't a
thing about me," he declared, "but a bread-pill."
"How would a glass of soda-water do?" suggested the Policeman, in an
undertone.
"Why, of _course!_"
It had happened before that the mere mention of a thing brought that
dying swiftly. Now it happened again. For immediately Gwendolyn heard
the rush and bubble and brawl of a narrow mountain-stream. Next, looking
down from the summit of a gentle rise, she saw the smoky windings of the
unbottled soda!
The Doctor was a man of action. Though the Policeman had made his
suggestion only a second before, here was the former already leaning
down to the stream; and, having dipped, was walking in the midst of the
little company, glass in hand.
Gwendolyn ran forward. "Fath-er!" she called; "_please_ have a drink!"
Her father shook his head. "I'm not thirsty," he declared, utterly
ignoring the proffered glass.
"I--I was 'fraid he wouldn't," sighed Gwendolyn, head down again, and
scuffing bare feet in the cool damp grass of the stream-side--yet not
enjoying it! The lights had changed: The double-ended candles had
disappeared. Filling the Land once more with a golden glow were
countless tapers--electric, gas, and kerosene. She was back where she
had started, threading the trees among which she had danced with joy.
But she was far from dancing now!
"Let's not give up hope," said a voice--the Doctor's. He was holding up
the glass before his face to watch the bubbles creaming upon its
surface. "There may be a sudden turn for the better."
Before she could draw another breath--here was the turn! a sharp one.
And she, felt a keen wind in her eyes,--blown in gusts, as if by the
wings of giant butterflies. The cloud that held the wind lay just
ahead--a pinky mass that stretched from sky to earth.
The Bird turned his dark eyes upon Gwendolyn from where he sat, high and
safe, on the Doctor's shoulder. "I think her little journey's almost
done," he said. There was a rich canary note in his voice.
"Oo! goody!" she cried.
"You mean you have a solution?" asked the little old gentleman.
"A solution?" called back the Piper. "Well--?"
A moment's perfect stillness. Then, "It's simple," said the Bird. (Now
his voice was strangely like the Doctor's.) "I suppose you might call it
a salt solution."
His last three words began to run through Gwendolyn's mind--"A salt
solution! A salt solution! A salt solution!"--as regularly as the pulse
that throbbed in her throat.
"Yes,"--the Doctor's voice now, breathless, low, tremulous with
anxiety. "If we want to save her--"
"Am I _her?_" interrupted Gwendolyn. (And again somebody sobbed!)
"--_It must be done!_"
"There isn't anything to cry about," declared Gwendolyn, stoutly. She
felt hopeful, even buoyant.
It was all novel and interesting. The Doctor began by making grabs at
the lump of salt on the Bird's tail. The lump loosened suddenly. He
caught it between his palms, after which he began to roll it--precisely
as he had rolled the dough at the Pillery. And as the salt worked into a
more perfect ball, it slowly browned!
Gwendolyn clapped her hands. "My father won't know the difference," she
cried.
"You get my idea exactly," answered the Bird.
The Doctor uncovered the pill-basket, selected a fine, round, toasted
example of his own baking, and presented it to the Man-Who-Makes-Faces;
presented a second to Gwendolyn; thence went from one to another of the
little company, whereat everyone fell to eating.
At once Gwendolyn's father looked round the circle of picknickers--as if
annoyed by the crunching; but when the Doctor held out the brown salt,
he took it, examined it critically, turning it over and over, then
lifted it--and bit.
"Pretty slim lunch this," he observed.
He ate heartily, until the last salt crumb was gone. Then, "I'm
thirsty," he declared "Where's--?"
Instantly the Doctor proffered the glass. And the other drank--in one
great gasping mouthful.
"Ah!" breathed Gwendolyn. And felt a grateful coolness on her lips, as
if she had slaked her own thirst.
The next moment her father turned. And she saw that the change had
already come. First of all, he looked down at his hands, caught sight of
the crumpled bills, and attempted to stuff them hurriedly into his
pocket. But his pockets were already wedged tight with silk-shaded
candles. He reached round and fed the bills into the mahogany case of
the talking-machine. Next, he emptied his pockets of the double-ended
candles, frowned at them, and threw them to one side to wilt. Last of
all, he spied a bit of leather strap, and pulled at it impatiently.
Whereupon, with a clear ring of its silver mountings, his harness fell
about his feet.
He smiled, and stepped out of it, as out of a cast-off garment. This
quick movement shook up the talking-machine, and at once voices issued
from the great horn shrilly protesting into his ear--"_Quack!_ Quack!
_Kommt, Fraulein!_" "_Une fille stupider!_" "Gid-_dap!_" "_Honk! Honk!
Honk!_"--and then, rippling upward, to the accompaniment of dancing
feet, a scale on a piano.
He peered into the horn. "When did I come by _this?_" he demanded.
"Well, I shan't carry it another step!" And moving his shoulders as if
they ached, let the talking-machine slip sidewise to the glass.
There was a crank attached to one side of the machine. This he grasped.
And while he continued to stuff bills into the mahogany box with one
hand, he turned the crank with the other. Gwendolyn had often marveled
at the way bands of music, voices of men and women, chimes of clocks,
and bugle-calls could come out of the self-same place. Now this was made
clear to her. For as her father whirled the crank, out of the horn, in a
little procession, waddled the creatures who had quacked so
persistently.
There were six of them in all. One wore patent leather pumps; one had a
riding-whip; the third was in motor-livery--buff and blue; another
waddled with an air unmistakably French (feathers formed a boa about her
neck); the next advanced firmly, a metronome swinging on a slender
pince-nez chain; the last one of all carried a German dictionary.
Her father observed them gloomily. "_That's_ the kind of ducks and
drakes I've been making out of my money," he declared.
The procession quacked loudly, as if glad to get out. And waddled
toward the stream.
"Why!" cried Gwendolyn; "there's Monsieur Tellegen, and my
riding-master, and the chauffeur, and my French teacher, and my
music-teacher, and my Ger--!"
His eyes rested upon her then. And she saw that he knew her!
"Oh, daddy!"--the tender name she loved to call him.
"Little daughter! Little daughter!"
She felt his arms about her, pressing her to him. His pale face was
close. "When my precious baby is strong enough--," he began.
"I'm strong _now_." She gripped his fingers.
"We'll take a little jaunt together."
"We must have moth-er with us, daddy. Oh, _dear_ daddy!"
"We'll see mother soon," he said; "--_very_ soon."
She brushed his cheek with searching fingers. "I think we'd better start
right away," she declared. "'Cause--isn't this a rain-drop on your
face?"