ARABELLA
Clouds were now bespreading the sky, obscuring the myriad stars, and
bringing with them a freshening breeze. The boy who thought they would
not want him in the scouts stood upon the wall, his shirt blowing and
flapping against his slender form. He was just a dash of white in the
enveloping blackness.
Some day a sculptor will carve a statue of a scout. But it will not be
the figure standing there that night in the darkness, his hair blowing,
his spotless white shirt agitated by the heightening wind. It was
ironical that this fine, heroic picture with its touch of wildness and
impending recklessness, was in the darkness, and isolated where it could
not be seen. For that was the way it was with Emerson; no one saw him,
no one really knew him. And so the stirring picture was wasted....
Should he hurry to the nearest house for aid?
He gazed around but there was no light anywhere in that forsaken
neighborhood. He looked below into the enclosure, then away again, and
for a moment, several moments, seemed uncertain, fearful, bewildered.
Then the monitor of the spelling books, knight of the lead pencils,
Arabella, the teacher’s pet, fixed his eyes upon the projecting end of
board for whatever doubtful safety it might afford him, and leaped
straight for it into the black, watery hole.
A sudden, painful contact, a splash, a frantic grasping for something,
anything; a warm, wet feeling on his throbbing forehead, a tingling in
his finger-tips, a sinking, sinking——
Then oblivion.
* * * * *
When he came to his senses, the stars were looking down at him, silent
watchers known to scouts, the only comrades who saw what he had done.
The clouds had cleared for Emerson Skybrow and he saw the light. These
stars would guide him many times and oft; they seemed even now to be
waiting for him.
He was lying half-submerged on rocks and mud. The plank which he had
alighted on was floating. One of his eyes was glued shut and he had to
use a trembling hand to open it. He stretched his arms and legs and
found that he was not helpless. He felt of his forehead and it was
shocking to the touch, as if something terrible had happened there. But
this was only a cut, extensive rather than deep, and incrusted with
blood. But it had ceased to bleed. He felt strange and his head ached
cruelly and when he got to his feet, he found that he was weaker than he
had supposed.
For a moment, he reeled and caught himself just in time to keep from
falling. He glanced about bewildered, pressing his wounded forehead and
wondering where he was. “I think I must be dreaming, I—I don’t—I seem to
have lost my bearings completely,” he said in his nice way.
But soon he was in full possession of his wits; he remembered leaping,
and he realized why he did not have his jacket on. He wondered how long
he had lain unconscious. Long enough for the clouds to have passed and
for the friendly stars to resume their watch in the sky, at any rate.
“This is certainly a predicament,” he said, looking about. From sheer
force of habit he brought his left hand up to his bedraggled scarf and
pinched it into proper adjustment in the opening of his soiled, wilted
collar.
Suddenly it came to him in a flash why he was there. One misgiving was
dispelled; the water was not deep. If it had been, he certainly would
have been in a “predicament” for he did not know how to swim.
He stumbled through the shallow water, encountering rocks and sinking
almost knee-deep in mud, and sat upon the little hubble of fallen
masonry which was the only dry spot in that horrible prison. He lowered
his throbbing forehead to his hands and sat thus for a few moments to
regain possession of his fitful senses. Then he was startled into
activity by sudden recollection of the urgency of his errand.
He seemed quite himself now, but weak and shaky. Tremblingly, in a panic
of fearful apprehension, he looked for the dash of color which he had
seen from above. There it was, a mud-stained sleeve, almost at his feet.
He could not bear to touch the white hand that projected from it. Rather
than do that, he felt of the other little spot of color near it, which
also he had seen from above. It was a mass of disordered hair upon the
water close to the debris. If the head which it covered lay face down
then his reckless plunge and suffering had gone for naught.
He could not bring himself to move that spreading, undulating mass of
hair. He found it easier to feel of the mud-smeared hand. If the one to
whom that mud-stained hand belonged could have known that it was
“Arabella” Skybrow clasping it, she would have been the most astonished
little girl in the world.
Would she ever know? Or was she past all knowing? Was even she, the
little red-headed subject of his heroism, not to see him as he really
was?
He felt of the little hand where it lay upon the stones and it was cold.
For a moment he hesitated, breathing in quick, spasmodic, panicky
breaths. He was prepared for what he expected to see. But he must pause
just a moment to calm his nerves and muster the courage to look—to face
it. Then he reached down and lifted the mass of hair which rested like a
clump of seaweed on the shallow water. Meanwhile, the friendly stars
smiled down upon him.