Billy's Memory
WHILE Mrs. Crane was supplying Dave with a bountiful meal, the
girls were telling Billy about Rosa Marie, Marjory, Aunty Jane, the
porcupine--in short, all the news of that eventful day. Billy, with
brightening eyes, was certainly enjoying it all, particularly the part
about Terrible Tim.
"Once," began Billy, reminiscently, "when I was a kid I saw----"
But what Billy had seen could only be guessed, for the brightness
slipped from his eyes and he pulled the corner of his blanket over his
face.
"I can't remember a blamed thing," he mumbled, with a catch in his
throat.
"Cheer up," teased Henrietta, gently. "Nobody 'd _want_ to remember
anything that looks like Terrible Tim. But when you see him, you'll
probably remember what you were going to say. Did they tell you that
you're to come outside to-morrow and lie in a hammock with soft-boiled
eggs? Oh, I mean you're to _eat_ the eggs. Aren't you glad?"
"I like eggs," said the boy, uncovering one eye. "Chicken, too, and
roast beef."
"Perhaps Dave will get you a partridge--Doctor Bennett said you could
eat that. Did you ever eat partridge?"
"Yes," returned Billy.
"Where?" demanded Bettie and Henrietta, with one voice.
"At--at--oh, it's gone!" wailed Billy, "when I had it right at the end
of my tongue."
"Don't worry," soothed motherly Jean. "You're a _lot_ better than you
were yesterday. We can all see that."
"Think so? Well, maybe I am. Is that--yes, it _is_ milk toast. Tastes
just like food. _Sure_ I'm ready for another bite."
"It's the good sweet cream those people brought," said Mrs. Crane.
"I hope," murmured Billy, between bites, "they'll come often."
"I don't," protested Mabel. "Visitors are a nuisance--they stir things
up too much."
"Her mother scrubbed her," laughed Henrietta, "and brushed a lot of
sand out of her hair--didn't you hear terrible wails? But Mabel was
glad to see her mother, just the same."
The threatening clouds that had so alarmed the two launch-men passed
harmlessly over Pete's Patch; and the next day proved so fine that
Billy was moved to a hammock under the trees, where the overlapping
leaves of huge maples formed a most attractive roof. The change agreed
with him; fortified with fresh eggs and fresh air he grew stronger with
astonishing rapidity; a rapidity that proved alarming to Mrs. Crane;
for, like Bettie, this new invalid was no sooner on his feet than he
made tracks for the alluring lake.
"If I had a bathing suit," said Billy, when Mrs. Crane had, for
the fourth time, forbidden him to wade in the lake, "I'd go in
_swimming_--then you couldn't pull me out so easily."
"But, Billy----"
"All right, I'll be good," promised Billy, "but that's a mighty fine
bunch of water--say, couldn't you _make_ some swimming tights for a
chap?"
"When you're strong enough to swim," agreed Mrs. Crane.
Physically, young Billy improved by leaps and bounds; but the stronger
he grew, the more he worried over his strange lapses of memory.
"Sometimes I dream things," complained Billy, one day. "And when I wake
up I wonder how much of it is true. Last night I thought I was falling
down, down out of an airship and I called 'Mother, mother! I can't find
my umbrella.'"
"Have you a mother?" asked Jean, quickly.
"I don't know. But I think so--I dream of some person who says: 'Now
don't do that, Lad--Lad----'"
"Laddie," supplied Bettie, promptly.
"Laddie!" shouted the boy. "That's it--it didn't get away _that_ time."
"Sometimes," said Laddie-Billy, another day, "when Dave comes into
sight, I _almost_ call him by another name; but the name doesn't quite
come--I think I've known somebody--in a boat, perhaps--that looked like
him."
There were many things, fortunately, that the boy had not forgotten. He
handled his knife and fork properly, ate his soup daintily, and proved
later that he had once been able to row a boat; though at first, of
course, his strength had been unequal to very strenuous efforts with
the oars. In spite of his unhappy experience with the lake, he seemed,
strangely enough, to be exceedingly fond of the water and to feel not
the slightest fear of it. Mrs. Crane, indeed, would have been glad to
find him more cowardly; for, long before the purposely delayed bathing
suit was ready, Billy had gone in swimming in his only clothes. Also,
it was next to impossible to keep him out of the boats.
Time proved, too, that the water-loving castaway was a bright lad. He
could read and write very readily in English, knew a little French,
and was rather clever at figures. Often, when glancing through the
advertising pages of magazines, his expressive face would light up
and Laddie-Billy (as the girls now called him to please Mabel) would
exclaim, joyfully: "I've seen _that_ picture before."
But the things that the curiously afflicted boy _wanted_ to remember
refused obstinately to come; and this grieved him sorely.
"I suppose," said Billy, one balmy evening, when all the youngsters
were roasting potatoes between two glowing logs, "I'm really well
enough to go home, but--but where _is_ my home?"
"You needn't worry about that," assured Mrs. Crane. "We're more than
willing to keep you right here--as long as you don't tumble out of
those boats."
"Yes," added Mr. Black, heartily, "we really need a boy to help us when
Dave is busy breaking the game laws. I'm only afraid that Saunders will
come along some day with an answer to that advertisement. You're well
worth keeping, my lad."
"I'm glad of that," smiled Billy, cheered by these kindly assurances.
"I'll try to be, anyway."
"We _all_ like you," declared Mabel, "even if you _are_ getting fat."
"Am I?" queried Laddie-Billy, anxiously. "Gracious! If I do, these
clothes--can it be that I'll come to wearing a blue plaid bathing suit
_all_ the time?"
For Mrs. Crane, for want of other material, was slowly converting her
biggest and most gorgeous gingham apron into a decidedly queer bathing
costume for her lively charge.
"The bagginess," Mrs. Crane explained, when the castaway suggested
mildly that part of the cloth might be saved for other purposes, "will
fill up with air and keep you from sinking."
And naughty Henrietta had added, under her breath: "Behold Billy
Blue-eyes, the Human Balloon."