The Boy's Name
AN hour later, with a splendid lot of glistening mushrooms, Mabel and
Henrietta returned to camp. As they neared the clearing, Mrs. Crane
could be seen in the doorway of her tent, frantically waving a large
towel.
"Oh," cried Mabel, quickening her pace, "the boy's awake! She wants
_me_--I'm to be first--I'm to be----"
"If you plunge in that way," admonished Henrietta, running lightly
beside Mabel, "you'll scare him to death. Do stop long enough to wash
your face--he'll think you're a murderous young squaw coming with
another dose of Dave's medicine."
Five minutes later, when Mabel, very red and very shining from a hasty
application of laundry soap and cold water, looked in at the tent door,
a pair of big, bright blue eyes smiled at her from the low, balsam bed.
"Hello!" said the boy, "are you the kid they call Mabel? They tell me
you picked me up on the beach, along with some driftwood, when I was
drowned."
"Yes," admitted Mabel, bashfully. "And I guess you _were_ drowned,
too--almost. I'm glad you've come to, at last. When are you going to
get up?"
"I tried to just now, but my head's made of lead--it won't come up."
"I guess your neck's weak--Bettie's was. What's your name?"
The laughter and the light suddenly faded from the boy's eyes.
"I don't know," said the boy, blankly. "I--it's queer, isn't it? That
lady with the broth asked me once before, I think----"
"I asked you yesterday," corroborated Mrs. Crane. "But don't worry, my
dear. You've been very ill and your mind is as weak as your body, no
doubt. They'll both be stronger in a few days. All you need to remember
is that we are your friends."
"And your real name doesn't matter, anyway," added Mabel, noting the
troubled expression that still clouded the boy's countenance. "I'm
going to call you Billy Blue-eyes--I used to know a goat----"
The boy's expressive face suddenly brightened, the blue eyes actually
twinkled with fun.
"The very thing," cried Mrs. Crane. "We'll call him Billy Blue-eyes. I
told him this morning that, when he came out of the lake, he must have
brought some of the color with him. His eyes are certainly blue. Shall
we call you Billy?"
"Sounds all right to me," agreed the boy; "but--but I _hope_ I wasn't
that goat."
"You weren't," assured Mabel, earnestly. "_I_ liked him, but he butted
so many people that Grandma Pike--he belonged to her--had to have him
chloroformed and stuffed. The stuffed-animal man wanted him. They
didn't have any real glass goat eyes to put in him so they used blue
glass marbles. But how did you get in the lake--or out of it, Mr.
Billy?"
Again the boy looked troubled.
"I don't know," said he, after a long pause.
"Don't ask any more questions," warned Mrs. Crane. "There'll be plenty
of time for that later. Mr. Black sent a notice to the Lakeville paper,
by Dave, so his folks'll know he's alive--we described him as well as
we could. I even measured him with my tape-measure. He isn't as wide as
he ought to be for his length, poor lamb."
"He'll get fat on camp fare," promised Mabel. "Look at me!"
Billy Blue-eyes looked and the troubled expression gave way to one of
amusement.
"Phew!" said he, "I'd better not be fed so often--I guess I'll wait
awhile for that broth--I've only one suit of clothes, the broth lady
says. If I outgrow that----"
"You can borrow mine," laughed Mabel. "My gray sweater would fit you
splendidly."
"He'll need it, too," said Mrs. Crane, "when he sits up to-morrow. That
is, I _think_ I'll let him sit up to-morrow--he hasn't had a scrap of
fever for quite awhile."
"Perhaps," suggested Mabel, "Dave's medicine really did cure him. Did
you taste it, Billy?"
"Once," said Billy, "but I don't know when, I drank something like
red-hot coals, flavored with tobacco and vinegar and ink--was that it?"
"Yes," laughed Mabel, "that must have been it."
"There's a queer taste in my mouth yet," declared the boy. "It's all
puckered up--like choke-cherries."
"I guess you'd better run along, Mabel," advised Mrs. Crane, noting
that the boy's eyes, in spite of his best efforts, were closing
wearily. "He doesn't stay awake very long at a time."
"Good-by," said Mabel, cheerfully.
"Come again," breathed the boy, sleepily.
Of course Mabel felt very important indeed when the other youthful
castaways, waiting impatiently just outside the tent, seized her and
wanted to know all about it.
"He's awfully thin," said Mabel, condescending finally to answer some
of the eager little girls' questions. "And his eyes are perfectly huge
and sort of twinkly. And blue; yes, bluer than Marjory's. I think we're
going to like him; but he can't remember his own name."
"Can't remember his own name!" exclaimed Henrietta. "Perhaps he doesn't
_want_ to. Perhaps he's an escaped convict trying to hide from the
police. Perhaps he's a burglar----"
"He isn't either," snorted Mabel, indignantly. "Do you s'pose I'd
rescue anybody like that? Besides, you can tell. He _wants_ to remember
and can't."
"But what," demanded sympathetic Bettie, "will that poor child do for a
name? Are we to call him 'that boy' forever? And shout 'Say, Boy' when
we want him?"
"Of course not," said Henrietta, promptly. "We'll name him ourselves.
Vincent de Manville Holmes would be nice--or Neptune something, because
he came out of the sea."
"That was Venus," corrected Jean.
"Oh, well," amended Henrietta, cheerfully, "Ulysses might be better.
Still, I always did like Reginald. Or Percival--Percival Orlando de
Courcy."
"You go home," blurted indignant Mabel, no longer able to listen in
triumphant silence. "His name's Billy. He's my boy and I named him; and
that's enough."
"What?" demanded Marjory. "Just Billy?"
"Billy Blue-eyes."
"My!" teased Marjory. "Just like a paper doll!"
"Never mind," soothed tactful Jean, "I think Billy's a beautiful name."
"For a goat," scoffed Henrietta.
There's no knowing what would have happened if Mr. Black, gently
shooing a strange object before him, had not appeared just then, from
the woods back of the clearing.
"Hi there, girls," he shouted, "I'm bringing you a pet!"
At that the girls, all differences forgotten, raced toward Mr. Black.
"Stop! Stop!" he shouted. "You'll scare him away. Stand where you are.
That's right. Now, Marjory, you run for the clothesline--we'll try to
get a noose about his neck."
"Goodness!" gasped Henrietta, backing away as the pet waddled toward
her; "what is it? It looks just like a bad dream."
"I know," laughed Jean. "It's a porcupine. Just see how his quills
stick out--Mercy! Look out, Bettie!"
"Ouch!" squealed short-skirted Bettie, as the clumsy beast hurtled past
her. "My legs!"
"Why!" cried Mabel, "there's quills in your stockings!"
"In _me_, too," giggled Bettie. "I guess nobody'll pet _that_ pet very
much."
"Perhaps we don't want him," said Mr. Black, rather apologetically;
"but I thought you might enjoy studying a porcupine at close quarters."
"Not _too_ close," laughed Bettie, rubbing her shin.
"They're easily tamed," said Mr. Black, "and they'll eat most anything.
I found this one on the river bank. He seemed willing enough to run,
but it took quite a while to get him going in the right direction."
Mr. Black succeeded presently in getting a noose fastened about the
porcupine's neck. Then, because there happened to be a convenient tree
at that point, the other end of the rope was made fast to a sturdy
maple near the path that led to the beach.
"We'll name _him_ Percival Orlando de Courcy," declared Henrietta.
"No," said Mr. Black, "this is Terrible Tim, the watchdog. Stationed at
this point, he'll keep all intruders at bay."
Terrible Tim, however, looked the mildest of beasts by this time, for
with quills lowered, he was cowering bashfully among the shrubbery.