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[Illustration: “There you are!” said Gloria.]
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GLORIA: A GIRL AND HER DAD
By
LILIAN GARIS
ILLUSTRATED
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Made in the United States of America
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Copyright, 1923 By
GROSSET & DUNLAP
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CONTENTS
I Companions
II Tommy-Lad
III Shadows
IV Nancy Trivett
V The Forecast
VI At Turtle Cove
VII The Hunt
VIII Nanny’s Return
IX Love’s Golden Shadows
X Meet Ben Hardy Junior
XI Part Payment
XII Uncle Charley
XIII The Quest of a Tweed Coat
XIV At Crystal Springs
XV Tommy’s Token
XVI A Revelation
XVII A Serious Predicament
XVIII The Emergency Case
XIX That Crowded Day’s End
XX Misgivings
XXI Echo Park
XXII Trapped
XXIII The Rescue
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GLORIA: A GIRL AND HER DAD
CHAPTER I
COMPANIONS
The boy was taller than the girl, this could be noticed from quite a
distance, but other marks of difference, such as Gloria’s red cheeks and
Tom’s brave freckles, her black eyes flashing while Tom’s were meek,
blue and shadowy; these distinct and contrary characteristics were only
observable when one looked under Gloria’s floppy white hat, or glimpsed
Tom’s quaint, boyish person at a little distance.
There was that about Gloria which compelled a close scrutiny, under the
brim of her hat seemed the very point of vantage, while Tom—one would
hate to scrutinize Tom. Even the friendliest notice would seem rude if
too closely given. He was not bashful, really, nor was he in any way
stupid, on the contrary, his alert mind that only flashed out in moments
of unchecked enthusiasm was the magnet that held Gloria Doane to his
companionship, ever since they had both toddled off to their first
battle with learning, in the back room of Miss Mary Drake’s Fancy Store.
But few others understood Tom, they were generally too busy condemning
Gloria’s lack of discrimination in her selection of such a companion.
Besides those shadowy blue eyes Tom also had freckles—a real saddle of
them across his nose; splendid, healthy, ginger brown freckles. They
were rather unfair to the nose, however, destroying what might have been
an aristocratic outline; but freckles are like that—ruthless when once
they get a footing. Being tall, having freckles and possessing a
musically liquid voice, gave Tom his chief claim to personality, but his
own mother called him Tommy-lad and declared he was a fine, upstanding
little youngster.
Just as Gloria Doane had a father and no mother, so Tom Whitely had a
mother and no father. This similarity of parental privation may have
forged the bond of companionship stronger; at any rate, Gloria and Tom
were chums.
All the joys of country life ever piped in poet’s tunes would be flat
and monotonous if unshared by a chum. You may talk of the music of the
birds and the magic of the running brook, even of the glory of wild
daisy fields and the beauty of sovereign sunsets, but to youth, to the
eager young and even to childhood, these would be all rather stupid in
solitude. There is no solitude in the city—that can be said in its
favor. Even a sick boy or girl may be shut up in narrow quarters there,
but somehow the hum of companionship will reach in and sometimes cheer.
But in the country it is very different.
Without a chum would be like being without a roof, or even without a
family dog. That life around a fishing village is not apt, however, to
be so solitary as is found inland, and it was in the seaside town of
Barbend that our interesting little friends lived.
Vacation had been particularly merry; picnics, lawn parties, launch
trips and even city scouting parties filled the days with continual
change and thrilling variety. Tom had earned more than ever before in
any vacation, and Gloria felt like a pinwheel revolving in golden
sprayed breezes of good times and surprise adventures. Only a few weeks
remained now, then the new adventure of fresh school days, with brand
new programmes and mysterious possibilities in new teachers (two were
due at Barbend this year), these delights, in spite of dreaded routine
and perhaps hated studies, beckoned every girl and boy in the township;
to say nothing of the hurried last stitches being put in new blouses for
the boys and into new dresses for the girls, by anxious mothers.
The launch Finnan-Laddie was lapping the dock just after Gloria had
stepped ashore, and Tom happened to be passing from the swamp with a
great basket of pond lilies for his next day’s sales. Automatically they
fell into step, if that could be said of their peculiar motion, Gloria
sort of easing into Tom’s shuffle with a queer little grace note trick
that kept the tempo going.
No greetings were exchanged. Would one say hello to the sun, or to the
moon or even to some familiar star?
“How did you make out?” asked Gloria, eagerly.
“All right,” replied Tom.
“Can it be fixed?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”
Tom grinned. “That wasn’t anything.”
“It wasn’t!” Gloria’s voice boomed. “Well, if it wasn’t, then I don’t
ever want to see another bicycle spill.”
“Not even at the races?”
“No. I hate spills anyhow. They make you gulp and you can’t see anything
but dust.”
“You saw my basket go, didn’t you?”
“I should say I did. I thought it would never stop bumping over the
stones until it went straight into the brook. But, Tom, honest, you
ought to be more careful.”
“Oh, listen who’s talking!”
“Just the same, I never ride over that hill with a clothes basket full
of pond lilies and an arm full of papers.”
“But you do ride over there with trees full of blossoms—”
“Oh, well. That was only when we had to get the school decorated—”
“And this was only when I had a big order—”
They laughed, gave in and changed the subject.
“What if your mother finds out?” persisted Gloria.
“She won’t.”
“A lot of folks saw you. They were down waiting for the launch.”
“Well, ’twasn’t anything.”
“Tom Whitely! You almost rolled over on the railroad track and Mrs.
Trivett nearly had a heart spell.”
“Oh, Mrs. Trivett!”
“But she talks more than half of the town.”
“Who listens to her?”
“Folks can’t help it. She’s so—pesky.” Gloria dropped a spray of golden
rod.
“My mother never bothers with her.”
“But you know, Tom, others listen to her, and then—then. Just suppose
someone tells your mother you rolled down that hill when the Flyer was
whistling—”
“Say, Glo. Who’s been stringing you?”
“Tom Whitely, that’s no way to talk.” Gloria’s nose seemed to sniff her
hat brim, and her black eyes flashed at the willows they were passing.
“Oh, I didn’t mean it.” Tom’s voice was caressing now. His eyes blinked
and he changed his big basket to the other arm in spite of Gloria’s blue
gingham dress and her own armful of sweet-flag roots being on that side.
There was plenty of room now, however, for she had edged off toward the
stone wall.
The road turned at the creek—Tom would go one way and Gloria the other,
but before they separated they had made up the momentary difference.
Just as it began it ended. Neither boy nor girl was subject to any
nonsensical apologies or explanations over such silly little trifles.
“If I were you, Tom, just the same, I’d tell my mother I had a spill and
that your bike is broken. Then—”
“Oh, yes, I know, Gloria. That’s easy enough to say. But you don’t know
my mother.”
“I do so.”
“I mean, like I know her.”
“Of course I don’t know her as well as you do.”
“Then you can’t know how she fusses. I don’t want her to know I had that
spill, Gloria, and if you hear folks talking about it just hush them up.
I didn’t get hurt—”
“You did, too, Tom Whitely!”
“Oh, that!” scoffed Tom. “I don’t call that getting hurt.”
“Just the same, I’ll bet you don’t swim for a week.”
“I don’t have to.”
“All right,” conceded Gloria with a show of impatience. “Of course you
don’t have to—”
“Say, Glo!” Again Tom’s voice mellowed. “You know I’m not—not forgetting
your kindness. I always count on that,” he said a little awkwardly. “But
you see how it is. If mother ever hears I spilled I’ll have the
awfullest time getting her to believe that I don’t spill every day just
for fun, you know. Mother’s a brick, but gosh! She can stew.”
“I know, Tom, and you’re just a brick, too, trying to save her.” Gloria
always talked very slowly when a parent was under discussion. “I know
how it is with my dad—”
“Oh, you’re dad is a peach.”
“He sure is. A perfect peach.” Every word was beautifully rounded and
just rolled from Gloria’s lips like solid balls of tone. “I often think
how your mother has to be father and mother, and my dad has to be both,
just the same.” She stopped and almost sighed, but Gloria Doane was not
the sighing kind. “Anyhow, Tom, we’ve got a wonderful pair between us,”
she boomed.
“That’s right.” Tom shifted the basket again and the effect of the much
discussed spill was not completely hidden in the frown that scattered
with the effort, his freckles. “That’s why, Glo, I hate to worry
mother.”
“Then take my advice.” Gloria laughed that she should indulge in advice.
“Tell her about it.” Tom attempted to speak but the girl hurried on.
“That is, tell her something about it.”
“Well, maybe.”
“And, Tom,” her sweet-flag roots were shedding their damp grains of
earth over her checked gingham, “how are you going to get the bike
fixed?”
“Got to wait—till I earn it, extra.”
“Then you’ll have to walk.”
“That’s nothing.”
“It will take twice as long.”
“I know. But the chain’s broke.”
“Where is it?”
“Up at Nash’s.”
“How much will it cost?”
“How much do you think?”
“I couldn’t guess. Millie had hers overhauled and the bill was ten
dollars.”
“Gee whiz! Glad mine won’t be that much. But it will be three dollars,”
said Tom ruefully.
“I’ll tell you, Tom. I’ve got five dollars—”
“As if I’d borrow money from a girl!”
“It isn’t borrowing. I’m just offering it to you till you earn it,”
insisted Gloria. “It doesn’t make one bit of difference to me.”
Tom looked thoughtfully far ahead—clear past the blackberry clump. He
needed that wheel. He was earning something worth while. He carried all
the orders for the vegetable store in his handle-bar basket. Gloria saw
his indecision and eagerly followed it.
“Go ahead, Tom. This is my own money—”
“Oh, I know that. You wouldn’t offer anyone else’s.”
“And I’ve just got it along with me. The folks who had our launch out
just paid—”
“Wouldn’t that be your dad’s?”
“No. He owes it to me and said I was to collect it.”
“Of course, I know,” agreed Tom affably.
“But I can earn it—”
“If you don’t take it, Tom, perhaps you will never get another chance to
refuse.”
“Why? Going up in the air?”
“No, not up in the air—but perhaps,” Gloria’s face suddenly became a
mysterious casket of secrets, “I’ve got a big thing to tell you.”
Tom looked at his companion eagerly. It was as if his boyish sense of
alarm had sounded a gong some place around his indefinite heart. “Going
away?” he asked very slowly.
“It’s more than that.” Girls love to tease boys. “But I won’t tell you
one word now. Are you going to take this money?”
She was holding out her brown hand; on its palm rested two green bills.
Tom set his basket down and looked very serious. He kicked his sneakers
into the soft earth, he swung his uninjured arm like a pendulum, he
opened and closed his lips a number of times. Then he put out his hand
and took the money over.