As I suggested, Howard took Don, the old darkey, and hurried off to
Georgia to put his reacquired property in working shape, utilizing the
waste stumps, and cleaning the best cotton land in the world. His
parting injunction was that he would return on an hour's notice, and
for me to see little Jim as soon as I could find time. He would spend
Christmas with her, as he had from infancy taught her the significance
of it and had never failed to celebrate. He wanted her to be very
happy that day.
I met Charlie Haines. He was still chasing moonshiners. I asked him if
he had heard anything lately of Mrs. Byng. I knew he would easily
recall her.
"Only once, Wood," he replied. "I believe she was on her way to
Europe--to study. But for the life of me I can't recall just
what--music, I think. That was--let me see--yes, it was a year or two
before the war began and she may have been stuck there. No, she had
not married, and I wonder why. I believe she was the most beautiful
woman I ever saw. She was simply wonderful."
In a day or two I started out to see little Jim. I had to coach her
for the witness stand and make good my promise to Howard.
I had been losing sleep and decided to go in the chair car and have a
couple hours' rest while riding, and for the first time I got a full
view of myself in the big mirror in the end of the car. I was quite
unable to recognize myself, and wondered how the change would affect
little Jim.
You know it seems a belief among persons who should have better sense
that men in our work can make a lightning change by the use of false
beards, wigs and the like, when, as a matter of fact, such flimsy
attempts to camouflage exist only in the poor minds of story writers
and can be practiced only on the stage and in the movies; in life such
a thing would be an advertisement. Even a wig is so rare that it
attracts instant attention, and is utterly useless as a disguise.
When it seems necessary to make a change in our appearance it takes
from two to three months, and as I had been undergoing such a change
preparatory for something special it was a wonder Howard recognized
me. It was a distinct shock when I saw myself in the mirror at the end
of the car, from head to shoes.
My red wire-grass had been clipped to the skin and a broad-brimmed,
low-crowned hat of a Quaker or Mennonite planted there. My beard had
grown like weeds until I had a three-inch brush on my face, with the
exception of my shaven upper lip. A limp, white shirt, celluloid
collar and black tie, and a black Prince Albert covered my bones well
below my shins, where baggy black trousers joined rough brogans laced
with leather strings. Anyone could recognize in me a mountebank
medicine vender, a lying horse trader or horse thief--there is not
much difference between the two--or leader of some crazy religious
cult, a Greenwich Village Bolsheviki or anyone who at first sight
could be depended on to be tricky and irrational on serious things.
I was afraid little Jim would not recognize me. She had developed
wonderfully fast, and with a sense of humor was able to recall her
first experience with me as a salesman of ship chandlery. When they
sent her to me in the private office of the registrar it was hard to
tell who was the more surprised. She hesitated at the door with a
delightful naïvetté, thinking some mistake had been made when she
first saw me.
"Come in, little Jim, I want to see you."
Her face changed to mystified interest, as she closed the door and
came toward me, trying her best to recognize a familiar voice who knew
her as little Jim.
"It cannot be--yes, it is--oh, it is you, Mr. Wood. I never would have
known you without hearing your voice," she said, giving me her hand
cordially, "but you always come in such a funny way. Why didn't you
bring Daddy with you? He has been promising to come for ever so long,
but I am almost as glad to see you."
"How do you like it here, little Jim?" I asked, after she was seated
near me.
"I never thought there was such a fine place. The girls here are so
nice and all the teachers are very kind to me--I am making splendid
progress, but tell me about Daddy--where is he and how did everything
turn out?"
I took great pains to detail all that happened after she left and the
success of her father. By this means I prepared her to testify in a
natural way and told her he had bought a big plant in Georgia where he
was now, but that he would return before Christmas. She asked a great
many questions in open-eyed wonder, her early training in practical
business enabling her to understand easily, but when through she
lapsed into manifest disappointment.
"Then I will never go back to the Keys to live? And I won't have my
boat _Titian_, and won't Daddy have the _Sprite_? And Don--what will
become of old Don?"
"You will either live in New York or down in Georgia, but he has kept
your _Titian_, and made the _Sprite_ over for his own use. Don went
South with him."
"But, then, I will never see my flowers, or Nereid, or hear the music
among the beautiful plants and forests at the bottom of the Gulf? Oh,
I would like to hear the sweet music of the sea again. Do you know
that sometimes our music instructress plays for me so delightfully I
can almost go to sleep as I wanted to down in the water? She is
wonderful and has been so kind to me; I wonder why I never had a
mother? I have asked Daddy about my mother, and asked him to take me
to where she is buried. All the other girls here have mothers they
love so much, and if I saw where she was buried I would love her,
too, as they do their living mothers. You have known Daddy a long
time. Did you know my mother, too?" she asked sorrowfully.
"Yes, I knew your mother long before you were born."
"Oh, Mr. Wood, tell me--what was she like. I have always wanted to
know. Daddy never liked to talk about it. One of my teachers, the one
I room with, who is so good to me when I get lonesome, has asked me.
Tell me, Mr. Wood," she asked, leaning toward me impulsively, her eyes
shining like bright stars.
"Little Jim," I began, rising and looking out on the beautiful winter
scene, "when you were about a year old your father lived here in New
York and had a great deal of trouble and to get away from it all he
took you and Don in the schooner _Canby_ and went out to sea. After
many days you were wrecked on the Keys and went by the name of Canby
ever since."
"Then my real name is not Canby? What is it? Was that when my mother
died?" she asked, all at once, coming to my side at the window and
timidly taking hold of my hand. "And you have not told me what she was
like," she added, though apparently assured there was nothing
dishonorable.
"No--little Jim--I think it is right for you to know that your mother
did not die then, and it is not certain that she is dead. She was a
very beautiful woman."
"But Daddy told me she was dead," looking up confidingly, her eyes
large with inquiry.
"He meant she was dead to him, and did not feel able to explain. Can
you understand it?"
"Daddy is my only wonderful Daddy and would not tell me anything if it
was not best, but I am older now and can know more. Tell me, Mr.
Wood."
"Little Jim, I have told you enough now. You will have to come down to
New York pretty soon to this trial as I explained; then I may tell
you more," I said, laying my hand on her head convincingly.
"Will Daddy be there, too?"
"Yes; he will be there, too, and also remember to talk to no one about
this matter; the school authorities understand. It is nearly time for
me to go and I must see the registrar and bid her good-bye," I said,
leading her out of the office into a sort of a big hall or rotunda.
She ran at once to someone across the big room who had apparently been
hovering about waiting for her and who scanned me mercilessly. I knew
instantly it was the teacher to whom she referred so often, and the
sight of her made my heart jump.
"Yes," said the registrar when I found him, "I will send her down any
time you want her with this teacher who, under my instructions, has
shared her room ever since she came. They have grown to be great
friends; she is perfectly safe with her."