The Project Gutenberg EBook of Judy, by Temple Bailey
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Title: Judy
Author: Temple Bailey
Release Date: March 14, 2006 [EBook #17982]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK JUDY ***
Produced by Al Haines
JUDY
BY
TEMPLE BAILEY
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS -------- NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT 1907
by Little, Brown & Company
To my father
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. THE JUDGE AND JUDY
II. ANNE GOES TO TOWN
III. IN THE JUDGE'S GARDEN
IV. "YOUR GRANDMOTHER, MY DEAR"
V. TOO MANY COOKS
VI. A RAIN AND A RUNAWAY
VII. TOMMY TOLLIVER: SEAMAN
VIII. A WHITE SUNDAY
IX. A BLUE MONDAY
X. MISTRESS MARY
XI. THE PRINCESS AND THE LILY MAID
XII. LORDLY LAUNCELOT
XIII. A FORTUNE AND A FRIGHT
XIV. A PRECIOUS PUSSY CAT
XV. THE SPANISH COINS
XVI. THE WIND AND THE WAVES
XVII. MOODS AND MODELS
XVIII. JUDY KEEPS A PROMISE
XIX. PERKINS CLEANS THE SILVER
XX. ANNE HEARS A BURGLAR
XXI. CAPTAIN JUDY
XXII. THE CASTAWAYS
XXIII. IN A SILVER BOAT
XXIV. "HOME IS THE SAILOR FROM THE SEA"
XXV. LAUNCELOT BUYS A COW
XXVI. JUDY PLAYS LADY BOUNTIFUL
XXVII. THE SUMMER ENDS
JUDY
CHAPTER I
THE JUDGE AND JUDY
There was a plum-tree in the orchard, all snow and ebony against a sky
of sapphire.
Becky Sharp, perched among the fragrant blossoms, crooned soft nothings
to herself. Under the tree little Anne lay at full length on the
tender green sod and dreamed daydreams.
"Belinda," she said to her great white cat, "Belinda, if we could fly
like Becky Sharp, we would all go to Egypt and eat our lunch on the top
of the pyramids."
Belinda, keeping a wary eye on a rusty red robin on a near-by stump,
waved her tail conversationally.
"They used to worship cats in Egypt, Belinda," Anne went on, drowsily,
"and when they died they preserved them in sweet spices and made
mummies of them--"
But Belinda had lost interest. The rusty red robin was busy with a
worm, and she saw her chance.
As she sneaked across the grass, Anne sat up, "I'm ashamed of you,
Belinda," she said. "Becky, go bring her back!"
The tame crow fluttered from the tree with a squawk and straddled
awkwardly to the stump, scaring the robin into flight, and beating an
inky wing against Belinda's whiteness.
Belinda hit back viciously, but Becky flew over her head, and by
several well-delivered nips sent the white cat mewing to the shelter of
her mistress' arms.
"I suppose you can't help it, Belinda," said Anne, as she cuddled her,
"but it's horrid of you to catch birds, horrid, Belinda."
Belinda curled down into Anne's blue gingham lap, and Becky Sharp
climbed once more to the limb of the plum-tree, from which she
presently sounded a discordant note.
Anne raised her head. "There is some one coming," she said, and rolled
Belinda out of her lap and stood up. "Who is it, Becky?"
But Becky, having given the alarm, blinked solemnly down at her
mistress, and said nothing.
"It's Judge Jameson's horse," Anne informed her pets, "and there's a
girl with him, with a white hat on, and they'll stay to lunch, and
there isn't a thing but bread and milk, and little grandmother is
cleaning the attic."
She picked up her hat and flew through the orchard with Belinda a white
streak behind her, and Becky Sharp in the rear, a pursuing black shadow.
"Little grandmother, little grandmother," called Anne, when she reached
a small gray house at the edge of the orchard.
At a tiny window set in the angle of the slanting roof, a head
appeared--a head tied up just now in a clean white cloth, which framed
a rosy, wrinkled face.
"Little grandmother," cried Anne, breathlessly, "Judge Jameson is
coming, and there isn't anything for lunch."
"There's plenty of fresh bread and milk," said the little grandmother
calmly.
"But we can't give the Judge just that," said Anne.
"It isn't what you give, it's the spirit you offer it in," said the
little grandmother, reprovingly. "It won't be the first time that
Judge Jameson has eaten bread and milk at my table, Anne, and it won't
be the last," and with that the little grandmother untied the white
cloth, displaying a double row of soft gray curls that made her look
like a charming, if elderly, cherub.
"You go and meet him, Anne," she said "and I'll come right down."
So Anne and Belinda and Becky Sharp went down the path to meet the
carriage.
On each side of the path the spring blossoms were coming up, tulips and
crocuses and hyacinths. Against the background of the gray house, an
almond bush flung its branches of pink and white, and the grass was
violet-starred.
"Isn't that a picture, Judy," said the Judge to the girl beside him, as
they drove up, "that little old house, with the flowers and Anne and
her pets?"
But Judy was looking at Anne with an uplifting of her dark, straight
eyebrows.
"She must be a queer girl," she said.
"This is my granddaughter, Judy Jameson," was the Judge's introduction,
when he had shaken hands with Anne. "She is going to live with me now,
and I want you two to be great friends."
To little country Anne, Judy seemed like a being from another world;
she had never seen anything like the white hat with its wreath of
violets, the straight white linen frock, the white cloth coat, and the
low ribbon-tied shoes, and the unconscious air with which all these
beautiful things were worn filled her with wonder. Why, a new ribbon
on her own hat always set her happy heart a-flutter!
She gave Judy a shy welcome, and Judy responded with a self-possession
that made Anne's head whirl.
"My dear Judge," said the little grandmother from the doorway, "I am
glad you came. Come right in."
"You are like your grandmother, my dear," she told Judy, "she and I
were girls together, you know."
Judy looked at the little, bent figure in the faded purple calico.
"Oh, were you," she said, indifferently, "I didn't know that
grandmother ever lived in the country before she was married."
"She didn't," explained the little grandmother, "but I lived in town,
and we went to our first parties together, and became engaged at the
same time, and we both of us married men from this county and came up
here--"
"And lived happy ever after," finished the Judge, with a smile on his
fine old face, "like the people in your fairy books, Judy."
"I don't read fairy books," said Judy, with a little curve of her upper
lip.
"Oh," said Anne, "don't you, don't you ever read them, Judy?"
There was such wonder, almost horror, in her tone that Judy laughed.
"Oh, I don't read much," she said. "There is so much else to do, and
books are a bore."
Anne looked at her with a little puzzled stare. "Don't you like
books--really?" she asked, incredulously.
"I hate them," said Judy calmly.
Before Anne could recover from the shock of such a statement, the Judge
waved the young people away.
"Run along, run along," he ordered, "I want to talk to Mrs. Batcheller,
you show Judy around a bit, Anne."
"Anne can set the table for lunch," said the little grandmother. "Of
course you'll stay, you and Judy. Take Judy with you, Anne."
Belinda and Becky Sharp followed the two girls into the dining-room.
Becky perched herself on the wide window-sill in the sunshine, and
Belinda sat at Judy's feet and blinked up at her.
"Belinda is awfully spoiled," said Anne, to break the stiffness, as she
spread the table with a thin old cloth, "but she is such a dear we
can't help it."
Judy drew her skirts away from Belinda's patting paw. "I hate cats,"
she said, with decision.
Anne's lips set in a firm line, but she did not say anything.
Presently, however, she looked down at Belinda, who rubbed against the
table leg, and as she met the affectionate glance of the cat's green
orbs, her own eyes said: "I am not going to like her, Belinda," and
Belinda said, "Purr-up," in polite acquiescence.
Judy had taken off her hat and coat, and she sat a slender white figure
in the old rocker. Around her eyes were dark shadows of weariness, and
she was very pale.
"How good the air feels," she murmured, and laid her head back against
the cushion with a sigh.
Anne's heart smote her. "Aren't you feeling well, Judy?" she asked,
timidly.
"I'm never well," Judy said, slowly. "I'm tired, tired to death, Anne."
Anne set the little blue bowls at the places, softly. She had never
felt tired in her life, nor sick. "Wouldn't you like a glass of milk?"
she asked, "and not wait until lunch is ready? It might do you good."
"I hate milk," said Judy.
Anne sat down helplessly and looked at the weary figure opposite. "I
am afraid you won't have much for lunch," she quavered, at last. "We
haven't anything but bread and milk."
"I don't want any lunch," said Judy, listlessly. "Don't worry about
me, Anne."
But Anne went to the cupboard and brought out a precious store of peach
preserves, and dished them in the little glass saucers that had been
among her grandmother's wedding things. Then she cut the bread in thin
slices and brought in a pitcher of milk.
"Why don't you have some flowers on the table?" said Judy. "Flowers
are better than food, any day--"
Like a flame the color went over Anne's fair face. "Oh, do you like
flowers, Judy?" she said, joyously. "Do you, Judy?"
Judy nodded. "I love them," she said. "Give me that big blue bowl,
Anne, and I'll get you some for the table."
"Wouldn't you like a vase, Judy?" asked Anne. "We have a nice red one
in the parlor."
Judy drew her shoulders together in a little shiver of distaste. "Oh,
no, no," she shuddered, "this bowl is such a beauty, Anne."
"But it is so old," said Anne, "it belonged to my great-grandmother."
"That is why it is so beautiful," said Judy, as she went out of the
door into the garden.
When she came in she had filled the bowl with yellow tulips, which, set
in the center of the table, seemed to radiate sunshine, and to glorify
the plain little room. "I should never have thought of the tulips,
Judy," exclaimed Anne, "but they look lovely."
There was such genuine admiration in the tender voice, that Judy looked
at Anne for the first time with interest--at the plain, straight figure
in the unfashionable blue gingham, at the freckled face, with its
tip-tilted nose, and at the fair hair hanging in two neat braids far
below the little girl's waist.
"Do you like to live here, Anne?" she asked, suddenly.
Anne, still bending over the tulips, lifted two surprised blue eyes.
"Of course," she said. "Of course I do, Judy."
"I hate it," said Judy. "I hate the country, Anne--"
And this time she did not express her dislike indifferently, but with a
swift straightening of her slender young body, and a nervous clasping
of her thin white fingers.
"I hate it," she said again.
Anne stood very still by the table. What could she say to this strange
girl who hated so many things, and who was staring out of the window
with drawn brows and compressed red lips?
"Perhaps I like it because it is my home," she said at last, gently.
Judy caught her breath quickly. "I am never going back to my home,
Anne," she said.
"Never, Judy?"
"No--grandfather says that I am to stay here with him--" There was
despair in the young voice.
Anne went over to the window. "Perhaps you will like it after awhile,"
she said, hopefully, "the Judge is such a dear."
"I know--" Judy's tone was stifled, "but he isn't--he isn't my
mother--Anne--"
For a few minutes there was silence, then Judy went on:
"You see I nursed mother all through her last illness. I was with her
every minute--and--and--I want her so--I want my mother--Anne--"
But so self-controlled was she, that though her voice broke and her
lips trembled, her eyes were dry. Anne reached out a plump, timid
hand, and laid it over the slender one on the window-sill.
"I haven't any mother either, Judy," she said, and Judy looked down at
her with a strange softness in her dark eyes. Suddenly she bent her
head in a swift kiss, then drew back and squared her shoulders.
"Don't let's talk about it," she said, sharply. "I can't stand it--I
can't stand it--Anne--"
But in spite of the harshness of her tone, Anne knew that there was a
bond between them, and that the bond had been sealed by Judy's kiss.
CHAPTER II
ANNE GOES TO TOWN
"Grandfather," said Judy, at the lunch-table, "I want to take Anne home
with us."
A little shiver went up and down Anne's spine. She wasn't sure whether
it would be pleasant to go with Judy or not. Judy was so different.
"I don't believe Anne could leave Becky and Belinda," laughed the
Judge. "She would have to carry her family with her."
"Of course she can leave them," was Judy's calm assertion, "and I want
her, grandfather."
She said it with the air of a young princess who is in the habit of
having her wishes gratified. The Judge laughed again.
"How is it, Mrs. Batcheller?" he asked.
"May Anne go?"
The little grandmother shook her head.
"I don't often let her leave me," she said.
"But I want her," said Judy, sharply, and at her tone the little
grandmother's back stiffened.
"Perhaps you do, my dear," was her quiet answer, "but your wants must
wait upon my decision."
The mild blue eyes met the frowning dark ones steadily, and Judy gave
in. Much as she hated to own it, there was something about this little
lady in faded calico that forced respect.
"Oh," she said, and sat back in her chair, limply.
The Judge looked anxiously at her disappointed face.
"Judy is so lonely," he pleaded, and Mrs. Batcheller unbent.
"Anne has her lessons."
"But to-morrow is Saturday."
"Well--she may go this time. How long do you want her to stay?"
"Until Sunday night," said the Judge. "I will bring her back in time
for school on Monday."
Anne went up-stairs in a flutter of excitement. Visits were rare
treats in her uneventful life, and she had never stayed at Judge
Jameson's overnight, although she had often been there to tea, and the
great old house had seemed the palace beautiful of her dreams.
But Judy!
"She is so different from any girl I have ever met," she explained to
the little grandmother, who had followed her to her room under the
eaves, and was packing her bag for her.
"Different? How?"
"Well, she isn't like Nannie May or Amelia Morrison."
"I should hope not," said the little grandmother with severity. "Nan
is a tomboy, and Amelia hasn't a bit of spirit--not a bit, Anne."
Anne changed the subject, skilfully. "Do you like Judy?" she
questioned.
"She is very much spoiled," said the little grandmother, slowly, "a
very spoiled child, indeed. Her mother began it, and the Judge will
keep it up. But Judy is like her grandmother at the same age, Anne,
and her grandmother turned out to be a charming woman--it's in the
blood."
"She says she is going to live with the Judge." Anne was folding her
best blue ribbons, with quite a grown-up air.
"Yes. I have never told you, Anne, but the Judge's son was in the
navy, and four years ago he went for a cruise and never came back."
"Was he drowned?"
"He was washed overboard during a storm, and every one except Judy
believes that he was drowned. Even Judy's mother believed it in time,
but Judy won't. She thinks he will come back, and so she has lived on
in her old home by the sea, with a cousin of her father's for a
companion--always with the hope that he will come back. But the cousin
was married in the winter, and so Judy is to live with the Judge. He
has always wanted it that way--but Judy clung desperately to the life
in the old house by the sea. The Judge will spoil her--he can't deny
her anything."
"What pretty things she has," said Anne, looking down distastefully at
the simple gown and neat but plain garments that the little grandmother
was packing into a shiny black bag.
The little grandmother gave her a quick look. "Never mind, dearie,"
she said, "just remember that you are a gentlewoman by birth, and try
to be sweet and loving, and don't worry about the clothes."
But as she tied the shabby old hat with its faded roses on the fair
little head, her own old eyes were wistful. "I wish I could give you
pretty things, my little Anne," she whispered.
Anne gave a remorseful cry. "I don't mind, little grandmother," she
said, "I don't really," and for a moment her warm young cheek lay
against the soft old one.
A tiny mirror opposite reflected the two faces. "How much we look
alike," cried Anne, noticing it for the first time. Then she sighed.
"But my hair doesn't curl like yours, little grandmother," and in that
lament was voiced the greatest trial, that had, as yet, come to Anne.
"Neither does Judy's," said Mrs. Batcheller, and Anne brightened up,
but when she went down-stairs and saw Judy's bronze locks giving out
wonderful lights where they were looped up with a broad black ribbon
she sighed again.
When the carriage drove around, Anne caught Belinda up in her arms.
"Good-bye, pussy cat, pussy cat," she cried, "take care of grandmother,
and don't catch any birds."
Belinda crooned a loving song, and tucked her pretty head under her
little mistress' chin.
"You're a dear, Belinda," said Anne, "and so is Becky," and at the
sound of her name the tame crow flew to Anne's shoulder and gave her a
pecking kiss.
"Oh, come on," said Judy, impatiently, and the Judge lifted the shiny
bag and put it on the front seat; then they waved their hands to the
little grandmother and were off.
It was five miles to town, but the ride did not seem long to Anne. She
pointed out all the places of interest to Judy.
"That is where I go to school," she said, as they passed a low white
building at the crossroads, and later when the setting sun shone red
and gold on two low glass hothouses set in the corner of a scraggly
lawn, she explained their use to Judy.
"That's where Launcelot Bart raises violets," she said.
"What a funny name!" was Judy's careless rejoinder.
"Launcelot is a funny boy," said Anne, "but I think you would like him,
Judy."
"I hate boys," said Judy, and settled back in the corner of the
carriage with a bored air.
But Anne was eager in the defence of her friend. "Launcelot isn't like
most boys," she protested, "he is sixteen, and he lived abroad until
his father lost all his money, and they had to come out here, and they
were awfully poor until Launcelot began to raise violets, and now he is
making lots of money."
"Well, I don't want to meet him," said Judy, indifferently, "he is sure
to be in the way--all boys are in the way--"
Anne did not talk much after that; but when they reached the Judge's
great red brick mansion, with the white pillars and with wistaria
drooping in pale mauve clusters from the upper porch, she could not
restrain her enthusiasm.
"What a lovely old place it is, Judy, what a lovely, lovely place."
But Judy's clenched fist beat against the cushions. "No, it isn't, it
isn't," she declared in a tense tone, so low that the Judge could not
hear, "it isn't lovely. It's too big and dark and lonely, Anne--and it
isn't lovely at all."
As the Judge helped them out, there came over Anne suddenly a wave of
homesickness. Judy was so hard to get along with, and the Judge was so
stately, and after Judy's words, even the old mansion seemed to frown
on her. Back there in the quiet fields was the little gray house, back
there was peace and love and contentment, and with all her heart she
wished that she might fly to the shelter of the little grandmother's
welcoming arms.
Perhaps something of her feeling showed in her face, for as they went
up-stairs, Judy said repentantly, "Don't mind me, Anne. I'm not a bit
nice sometimes--but--but--I was born that way, I guess, and I can't
help it."
Anne smiled faintly. She wondered what the little grandmother would
have said to such a confession of weakness. "There isn't anything in
this world that you can't help," the dear old lady would say, "and if
you're born with a bad temper, why, that's all the more reason you
should choose to live with a good one."
But Anne was not there to read moral lectures to her friend, and in
fact as Judy opened the door of her room, the little country girl
forgot everything but the scene before her.
"Oh, Judy, Judy," she cried, "how did you make it look like this? I
have never seen anything like it. Never."
From where they stood they seemed to look out over the sea--a sea
roughened by a fresh wind, so that tumbling whitecaps showed on the
tops of the green waves. Not a ship was to be seen, not a gull swept
across the hazy noon-time skies. Just water, water, everywhere, and a
sense of immeasurable distance.
"It's a mirror," Judy explained, "and it reflects a picture on the
other wall."
"It seems just as if I were looking out of a window," said Anne. "I
have never seen the sea, Judy. Never."
"I love it," cried Judy, "there is nothing like it in the whole
world--the smell of it, and the slap of the wind against your cheeks.
Oh, Anne, Anne, if we were only out there in a boat with the wind
whistling through the sails." Her face was all animation now, and
there was a spot of brilliant color in each cheek.
"How beautiful she is," Anne thought to herself. "How very, very
beautiful."
"You must have hated to leave it," she said, presently.
"I shall never get over it," said Judy with a certain fierceness. "I
want to hear the 'boom--boom--boom' of the waves--it is so quiet here,
so deadly, deadly quiet--"
"How sweet your room is," said tactful little Anne, to change the
subject.
"Yes, I do like this room," admitted Judy reluctantly.
There were pictures everywhere---here a dark little landscape, showing
the heart of some old forest, there a flaming garden, all red and blue
and purple in a glare of sunlight. In the alcove was an etching--the
head of a dream-child, and a misty water-color hung over Judy's desk.
"I did that myself," she said, as Anne examined it.
"Oh, do you paint?"
"Some," modestly.
"And play?" Anne's eyes were on the little piano in the alcove.
"Yes."
"Play now," pleaded Anne.
But Judy shook her head. "After dinner," she said. "The bell is
ringing now."
Dinner at Judge Jameson's was a formal affair, commencing with soup and
ending with coffee. It was served in the great dining-room where
silver dishes and tankards twinkled on the sideboard, and where the
light came in through stained-glass windows, so that Anne always had a
feeling that she was in church.
The Judge sat at the head of the table, and his sister, Mrs. Patterson,
at the foot. Judy was on one side and Anne on the other, and back of
them, a silent, competent butler spirited away their plates, and
substituted others with a sort of sleight-of-hand dexterity that almost
took Anne's breath away.
Anne and the Judge chatted together happily throughout the meal. The
Judge was very fond of the earnest maiden, whose grandmother had been
the friend of his youth, and his eyes went often from her sunny face to
that of the moody, silent Judy. "It will do Judy good to be with
Anne," he thought. "I am going to have them together as much as
possible."
"Why don't you get up a picnic to-morrow?" he suggested, as Perkins
passed the fingerbowls--a rite which always tried Anne's timid,
inexperienced soul, as did the mysteries of the half-dozen spoons and
forks that had stretched out on each side of her plate at the beginning
of the meal.
"You could get some of Anne's friends to join you," went on the Judge,
"and I'll let you have the three-seated wagon and Perkins; and Mary can
pack a lunch."
Judy raised two calm eyes from a scrutiny of the table-cloth.
"I hate picnics," she said.
Then as the Judge, with a disappointed look on his kind old face,
pushed back his chair, Judy rose and trailed languidly through the
dining-room and out into the hall.
Anne started to follow, but the hurt look on the Judge's face was too
much for her tender heart, and as she reached the door she turned and
came back.
"I think a picnic would be lovely," she said, a little surprised at her
own interference in the matter, "and--and--let's plan it, anyhow, and
Judy will have a good time when she gets there."
"Do you really think she will?" said the Judge, with the light coming
into his eyes.
"Yes," said Anne, "she will, and you'd better ask Nannie May and Amelia
Morrison."
"And Launcelot Bart?" asked the Judge. For a moment Anne hesitated,
then she answered with a sort of gentle decision.
"We can't have the picnic without Launcelot. He knows the nicest
places. You ask him, Judge, and--and--I'll tell Judy."
"We will have something different, too," planned the Judge. "I will
send to the city for some things--bonbons and all that. Perkins will
know what to order. I haven't done anything of this kind for so long
that I don't know the proper thing--but Perkins will know--he always
knows--"
"Anne, Anne," came Judy's voice from the top of the stairway.
Anne fluttered away, rewarded by the Judge's beaming face, but with
fear tugging at her heart. What would Judy say? Judy who hated
picnics and who hated boys?
"Don't you want to come down and take a walk?" she asked coaxingly,
from the foot of the stairs. It would be easier to break the news to
Judy out-of-doors, and then the Judge would be in the garden, a
substantial ally.
"I hate walks," said Imperiousness from the upper hall.
"Oh," murmured Faintheart from the lower hall, and sat down on the
bottom step.
"I won't tell her till we are ready for bed," was her sudden conclusion.
It was getting dark, but Judy hanging over the rail could just make out
the huddled blue gingham bunch.
"Aren't you coming up?" she asked, ominously.
"Yes," and with her courage all gone, Anne rose and began the long
climb up the stately stairway.
CHAPTER III
IN THE JUDGE'S GARDEN
The Judge's garden was not a place of flaming flower beds and smooth
clipped lawns open to the gaze of every passer-by.
It was a quiet spot. A place where old-fashioned flowers bloomed
modestly in retired corners, veiled from curious stares by a high hedge
of aromatic box.
There was a fountain in the Judge's garden, half-hidden by an
encircling border of gold and purple fleur-de-lis, where a marble cupid
rode gaily on the back of a bronze dolphin, from whose mouth spouted a
stream of limpid water.
There was, too, in summer, a tangled wilderness of
roses--hundred-leaved ones, and little yellow ones, and crimson ones
whose tall bushes topped the hedge, and great white ones that clung
lovingly to the old stone wall that was the western barrier of the
garden. And there was a bed of myrtle, and another one of verbenas,
over which the butterflies hovered on hot summer days, and another of
pansies, and along the wall great clumps of valley lilies. And at the
end of the path was a lilac bush that the Judge's wife had planted in
the first days of bridal happiness.
For years it had been a lonely garden, as lonely as the old Judge's
heart--for fifteen years, ever since the death of his wife, and the
departure of his only son to sail the seas, the darkened windows of the
old house had cast a shadow on the garden, a shadow that had fallen
upon the Judge as he had walked there night after night in solitude.
But this evening as he sat on the bench under the lilac bush, a broad
bar of golden light shone down upon the gay cupid and the sleeping
flowers, and from the open window came the lilt of girlish laughter and
the rippling strain of the "Spring Song," as Judy's fingers touched the
keys of the little piano lightly.
Presently the music changed to a wild dashing strain.
"It's a Spanish dance," Judy explained to Anne. She was swaying back
and forth, keeping time with her body to the melodies that tinkled from
her fingers.
"I can dance it, too," she added.
"Oh, do dance it, Judy--please," cried Anne. She was living in a sort
of Arabian Nights' dream. Hitherto the girls that she had known had
been demure and unaccomplished, so that Judy seemed a brilliant
creature, fresh from fairyland.
With a crash the music stopped, as Judy jumped up from the bench, and
went into the hall.
"Move the chairs back," she directed over her shoulder, and Anne
bustled about, and cleared a space in the centre of the polished floor.
In the meantime Judy bent over a great trunk in the hall.
"Oh, dear," she cried, as she piled a bewildering array of things on
the floor--bright hued gowns, picturesque hats, and a miscellaneous
collection of fans and ribbons. "Oh, dear, of course they are at the
very bottom."
"They" proved to be a scarlet silk shawl and a pair of high-heeled
scarlet slippers. Judy wound the shawl about her in the Spanish
manner, put on the high-heeled slippers, stuck an artificial red rose
in her dark hair, and stepped forth as dashing a señorita as ever
danced in old Seville.
"Oh, Judy," was all that Anne could say. She plumped herself down in a
big chair, too happy for words, and waved to Judy to go on, while she
held her breath lest she might wake from this marvelous enchantment.
Out in the garden, the Judge heard the click of castanets and the tap
of the high heels.
"What is the child doing," he wondered.
As the dance proceeded, the sound of the castanets grew wilder and
wilder, and the high heels beat double raps on the floor. Then,
suddenly, with one sharp "click-ck" the dance ended, and there was
silence.
Then Anne cried, "Do it again, do it again, Judy," and the Judge
clapped his applause from the garden below.
At the sound the girls poked their heads out of the window.
"You ought to see her, Judge," Anne's tone was rapturous, "you just
ought to see her."
"Shall I come down?" Judy asked. She was glowing, radiant.
"Yes, indeed. Come and dance on the path."
Five minutes later Judy was whirling, wraithlike in the white light of
the moon, which turned her scarlet trappings to silver. Anne sat by
the Judge and made admiring comments.
"Isn't it fine?" she asked.
The Judge nodded.
"I saw the Spanish girls do it when I was young," he said, beating time
with his cane, "and Judy lived in Spain with her mother for a year,
you'd think the child was born to it," and he chuckled with pride.
But when Judy came up after the last wild dash, he was more moderate in
his praises. The Judge had been raised in the days when children heard
often the rhyme, "Praise to the face, is open disgrace," and at times
he reminded himself of the merits of such early discipline.
"I don't know what your grandmother would have thought of it, my dear,"
he said, with a doubtful shake of his head, "in her days, young ladies
didn't do such things."
"Didn't grandmother dance?" asked Judy.
"Indeed she did," said the Judge with enthusiasm. "Why, Judy, there
wasn't a couple that could beat your grandmother and me when we danced
the Virginia reel."
Judy threw herself down on the bench beside him, and fanned herself
with the end of her shawl.
"Can you dance," she asked, "can you really dance, grandfather? I'm so
glad. Some day I shall give a party, and have all the people of the
neighborhood, and we will end it with the reel. May I, grandfather?"
"You may do anything you wish," was the Judge's rash promise, and with
a quick laugh, Judy saw her opportunity and took advantage of it.
"Then let's go down to the kitchen," she said, "and get something to
eat now. I didn't eat much dinner, and I am starved. Aren't you,
Anne?"
But Anne had been trained in the way she should go. "I--I haven't
thought of being hungry," she hesitated. "I never eat before I go to
bed."
"Oh, I do," said Judy, scornfully. "And dancing makes me ravenous."
"But Perkins has retired, and Mary, and everybody--" expostulated the
Judge.
"Who cares for Perkins?" asked Judy with her nose in the air.
"Well," said the Judge, who was hopelessly the slave of his servants,
"he might not like it--"
"Judge Jameson," said Judy, shaking a reproachful finger at him, "I
believe you are afraid of your butler."
"Well, perhaps I am, my dear," said the Judge, weakly, "but Perkins is
an individual of a great deal of firmness, and he carries the keys, and
I don't believe you will find anything, anyhow. And if you eat up
anything that he has ordered for breakfast, you will have an unpleasant
time accounting for it in the morning. I know Perkins, my dear--and he
is rather difficult--rather difficult. But he is a very fine servant,"
he amended hastily.
"You leave him to me in the morning," said Judy, "I'll make the peace,
grandfather, and I simply can't be starved to-night."
"But Perkins--"
"Perkins won't say a word to you," said Judy, "and if he does, you can
say you were not in the kitchen, because you are to stay right here,
and Anne and I will bring things up, and make you a receiver of stolen
goods."
She was very charming in spite of her wilfulness, and when she ended
her little speech, by tucking her hand through the Judge's arm, and
looking up at him mischievously, the old gentleman gave in.
The two girls were gone for a long time, so long that the Judge nodded
on his bench.
He was waked by a shriek that seemed to come from the depths of the
earth.
"What--is the matter, what's the matter, my dear?" he cried, starting
up.
There was another subdued shriek, then a hysterical giggle.
"Judy is shut up in the ice-box," announced Anne, hurrying up from the
basement.
"Bless my soul," ejaculated the Judge.
"We hunted around and found the key," explained Anne, as the Judge
stumped distractedly through the lower hall, "and Judy unlocked the
door of the ice-box and got inside, and she still had the key in her
hand, and I hit the door accidentally and it slammed on her, and it has
a spring lock and we can't open it."
"Bless my soul," said the Judge again.
The ice-box was a massive affair, almost like a small room. It was in
a remote corner of the lower hallway, and its walls were thick and
impenetrable.
"Let me out, oh, let me out," came in muffled tones, as the Judge and
Anne came up.
"My dear child, my dear child," said the Judge, "how could you do such
a thing?"
"I shall freeze. I shall freeze," wailed Judy.
"Are you very cold, Judy?" shivered Anne, sympathetically.
"It's so dark--and damp. Let me out, let me out," and Judy's voice
rose to a shriek.
"Now, my dear, be calm," advised the Judge, whose hands were shaking
with nervousness, "I shall call Perkins--yes, I really think I shall
have to call Perkins--" and he hurried through the hall to the speaking
tubes.
"Is there anything to eat in there?" Anne asked through the keyhole.
"Lots of things," said Judy. "I lighted a match as I came in, and
there are lots of things. But I don't want anything to eat--I want to
get out--I want to get out."
"Don't cry, Judy," advised Anne soothingly, "the Judge has called
Perkins and he is coming down now."
Perkins emerged into the light of the lower hallway in a state of
informal attire and unsettled temper. His dignity was his stock in
trade, and how could one be dignified in an old overcoat and bedroom
slippers? But the Judge's summons had been peremptory and there had
been no time for the niceties of toilet in which Perkins' orderly soul
revelled.
"There ain't no other key," he said, severely. "I guess we will have
to wait until mornin', sir."
"But we can't wait until morning," raged the Judge, "the young lady
will freeze."
"Oh, no, sir," said Perkins, loftily, "oh, no, sir, she won't freeze.
Nothing freezes in that there box, sir."
"Well, she will die of cold," said the Judge. "Don't be a blockhead,
Perkins, we have got to get her out now--at once--Perkins."
"All right, sir," said Perkins, "then I'll have to go for a locksmith,
sir--"
"Can't you take off the lock?" asked the Judge.
Perkins drew himself up. "That's not my work, sir," he said, stiffly,
"no, sir, I can't take off no locks, sir," and so the Judge had to be
content, while the independent Perkins hunted up a locksmith and
brought him to the scene of disaster.
It was a white and somewhat cowed Judy that came out of the ice-box.
"Make her a cup of strong coffee, Perkins," commanded the Judge, as he
received the woebegone heroine in his arms, "and take it up to her
room, with something to eat with it."
"I don't want anything to eat," Judy declared. "There's everything to
eat in that awful box--enough for an army--but I don't feel as if I
could ever eat again," in a tone of martyr-like dolefulness.
"Them things in there is for the picnic, miss," said Perkins. "It's
lucky you and Miss Anne didn't eat them," and he cast on the culprit a
look of utter condemnation.
At the word "picnic," Anne's soul sank within her. She had forgotten
all about the picnic in the excitement of the evening, all about Judy's
anger and the confession she was to make of the plans for Saturday.
She and the Judge eyed each other guiltily, as Judy sank down on the
bench and stared at Perkins.
"What picnic?" she demanded fiercely.
"The Judge said I was to get things ready, miss," said Perkins,
dismally, and looked to his master for corroboration.
"Didn't you tell her, Anne?" asked the Judge, helplessly.
Anne felt as if she were alone in the world. Perkins and the Judge and
Judy were all looking at her, and the truth had to come.
"We decided to have the picnic to-morrow, anyhow, Judy," she said. "We
thought maybe you would like it after it was all planned."
Judy jumped up from the bench and began a rapid ascent of the stairway.
Half-way up she turned and looked down at the three conspirators. "I
sha'n't like it," she cried, shrilly, "and I sha'n't go."
"Judy!" remonstrated the Judge.
"Oh, Judy," cried poor little Anne.
But Perkins, who had lived with the Judge in the days of Judy's lady
grandmother, turned his offended back on this self-willed and unworthy
scion of a noble race, and marched into the kitchen to make the coffee.
CHAPTER IV
"YOUR GRANDMOTHER, MY DEAR"
Judy had reached the door of her room when the Judge called her.
"Come down," he said, "I want to talk to you."
"I'm tired," said Judy, in a stifled voice, and Anne, who had followed
her, saw that she was crying.
"I know," the Judge's voice was gentle, "I know, but I won't keep you
long. Come."
Judy went reluctantly, and he led the way to the garden bench.
It was very still out there in the garden--just the splash of the
little fountain, and the drone of lazy insects. The moon hung low, a
golden disk above the distant line of dark hills.
"Judy," began the Judge, "do you know, my dear, that you are very like
your grandmother?"
Judy looked at him, surprised at the turn the conversation was taking.
"Am I?" she asked.
"Yes," continued the Judge, "and especially in two things." His eyes
were fixed dreamily on a bed of tall lilies that shone pale in the half
light.
"What things?" Judy was interested. She had expected a lecture, but
this did not sound like one.
"In your love of flowers--and in your temper--my dear."
Judy's head went up haughtily. "Grandfather!"
"You don't probably call it temper. But your grandmother did, and she
conquered hers--and I am going to tell you how she did it, because I
know she would want me to tell you, Judy."
Judy sat sulkily as far from her grandfather as she could get. Her
hands were clasped around her knees and she stared out over the dusky
garden, wide-eyed, and it must be confessed a little obstinate. Judy
knew she had faults, but if the truth must be told, she was a little
proud of her temper--"I have an awful temper," she had confessed on
several occasions, and when meek admirers had murmured, "How dreadful,"
she had tossed her head and had said, "But I can't help it, you know,
all of my family have had tempers," and as Judy's family was known to
be aristocratic and exclusive, her more plebeian friends had envied and
had tried to emulate her, generally with disastrous results.
She was not quite sure that she wanted to conquer it. It often gave
her what she wanted, and that was something.
"The first time I had a taste of your grandmother's temper," the Judge
related, "we had had an argument about a gown. We had been invited to
a great dinner at the Governor's, and she had nothing to wear. She
took me to the shop to see the stuff she wanted. It was heavy blue
satin with pink roses all over it, and there was real lace to trim it
with. It was beautiful and I wanted her to have it, but when they
named the price it was more than I could pay--I was a poor lawyer in
those days, Judy--so I said we would think it over, and we went home.
All the way there your grandmother was very quiet and very white, but
when we reached home and I tried to explain, she simply would not
listen. She would not go to the Governor's, she said, unless she could
have that gown. You can imagine the embarrassment it caused me--it was
as much as my career was worth to stay away from that dinner, and I
couldn't go without her.
"'I won't go. I won't go,' she said over and over again, and when I
had coaxed and coaxed to no effect, I sat down and looked at her
helplessly, and troubled as I was, I could not help thinking that she
was the loveliest creature in the world--with her rose red cheeks and
her flashing eyes.
"She said many cutting things to me, but suddenly she stopped and ran
out of the room, and presently I saw her in the garden, this garden, my
dear, and she was flying around the oval path, as if she were walking
for a wager, her thin ruffles swirling around her, and the strings of
her bonnet fluttering in the wind.
"Around and around she went, and I just sat there and stared. When she
started in there was a deep frown on her forehead, but as she walked I
saw her face clear, and when she had completed the round a dozen times
or more, I saw her throw back her head in a light-hearted way, and then
she ran into the house.
"She came straight to me and threw her arms around my neck. 'John,'
she said, 'John, dear,' and there was the tenderest tremble in her
voice, 'John Jameson, I was a hateful thing.' I tried to stop her, but
she insisted. 'Oh, yes, I was. And I don't want the dress, I will
wear an old one--and I'll make you proud of me--'
"Then all at once she began to sob, and her head dropped on my
shoulder. 'Oh,' she cried, 'how could I say such things to you--how
could I--?'
"'What made you change, sweetheart?' I asked, and she whispered, 'Oh,
your face and the trouble in it.'
"'I made up my mind that I wouldn't say another word until I could get
control of my temper, and so I went into the garden and walked and
walked, and do you know, John Jameson, that I walked around that oval
sixteen times before I could give up that dress.'
"It wasn't the last time she walked around that oval, Judy," the Judge
finished, with a reminiscent smile on his old face, "and so perfectly
did she conquer herself, that when she left me, it was just an angel
stepping from earth to the place where she belonged."
Judy had listened breathlessly. So vivid had been the description,
that she had seemed to see on the garden walk, the slender, imperious
figure, the intent girlish face, and out of her knowledge of her own
nature, she had entered into the struggle that had taken place in her
grandmother's heart, as she flew around the oval of the old garden.
"Oh, grandfather," she said, when the Judge's quavering voice dropped
into silence, "how lovely she was--"
"She was, indeed, and I want you to be as strong."
Judy tucked her hand into his. "I'll try," she said, simply, "thank
you for telling me, grandfather."
"I want you to be happy here, too," said the old man wistfully, and
then as she did not answer, "do you think you can, Judy?"
Judy caught her breath quickly. With all her faults she was very
honest.
She bent and kissed the Judge on his withered cheek. "You are so good
to me," she said, evasively, and with another kiss, she ran up-stairs
to Anne.
Anne was in bed and Judy thought she was asleep, but an hour later as
she lay awake lonely and restless, with her eyes fixed longingly on the
great picture of the sea, a soft seeking hand curled within her own,
and Anne whispered, "I didn't mean to make you unhappy, Judy," and
Judy, clear-eyed and repentant in the darkness of the night, murmured
back, "I was hateful, Anne," and a half hour later, the moon, peeping
in, saw the two serene, sleeping faces, cheek to cheek on the same
pillow.
CHAPTER V
TOO MANY COOKS
In spite of herself Judy was having a good time.
"I know you will enjoy it," had been Anne's last drowsy remark, and
Judy's final thought had been, "I'll go, but it will be horrid."
But it wasn't horrid.
There had been Anne's happiness in the first place. Judy had wondered
at it until she found out that Anne's picnic experiences had been
limited to little jaunts with the children of the neighborhood, and an
occasional Sunday-school gathering. The Judge had lived his lonely
life in his lonely house, and except when Anne and her little
grandmother had been invited to formal meals, he had not interested
himself in any festivities.
There had been the early start, the meeting of the queer boy at the
crossroads--the boy with the lazy air and the alert eyes; the crowding
of the big carriage with two rather dowdy little country girls, one of
whom was, in Judy's opinion, exceedingly pert, and the other
exasperatingly placid; the laughter and the light-heartedness, the
beauty of the blossoming spring world, the restfulness of the dim
forest aisles, the excitement of the arrival on the banks of the
stream, and the arrangement of the camp for the day.
And now Judy, having declined more active occupation, was in a hammock,
swung in a circle of pines. The softened sunlight shone gold on the
dried needles under foot, and everywhere was the aromatic fragrance of
the forest. Now and then there was a flutter of wings as a nesting
bird swooped by with scarcely a note of song. A pair of redbirds came
and went--flashes of scarlet against the whiteness of a blossoming
dogwood-tree. Far away the squalling of a catbird mingled with the
mellow cadences of the mountain stream.
There was the sound of laughter, too, and the chatter of gay voices in
the distance, where the young people fished from the banks.
Judy could just see them through an opening in the pines. The three
girls perched on the bent trunk of an old tree, which hung over the
water, were dangling their lines and watching the corks that bobbed on
the surface. The Judge, with a big hat pushed away from his warm, red
face, held the can of bait and discoursed entertainingly on his past
angling experiences.
Perkins in the foreground was opening the lunch-hampers, and just
outside of Judy's circle of pines, a brisk little fire sent up its
pungent smoke, and beside the fire, Launcelot Bart was cutting bacon.
Judy watched him with interest. He was tall and thin, but he carried
himself with a lazy grace, and in spite of his old corduroy suit, there
was about him a certain air of distinction.
He was whistling softly as he put the iron pan over the coals, and
dropped into it a half-dozen slices of the bacon.
"Watch these, Perkins," he called, "I'll be back in a minute," and he
started towards the hammock.
As he came up, Judy closed her eyes, with an air of indifference.
"Asleep?" asked Launcelot, a half-dozen steps from her.
Judy opened her eyes.
"Oh--is that you?" she asked.
"Yes. Don't you want to come and help me cook?" He was smiling down
at her pleasantly.
"I hate cooking." Judy's voice was cold. She hoped he would go away.
Launcelot leaned against a tree to discuss the question.
"Oh," he said. "I don't hate it. It's rather a fine art, you know."
"Anybody can cook," murmured Judy with decision.
"H-m. Can you, little girl?"
Judy sat up at that. "I'm fourteen," she flashed.
Launcelot laughed, such a contagious laugh, that in spite of herself
Judy felt the corners of her lips twitch.
"That waked you up," he said, "you didn't like to have me call you
'little girl.' Well, am I to say Miss Jameson or Judy?"
Judy pondered.
"Neither," she said at last.
"Then what--?" began Launcelot. "Oh, by Jove, the bacon's burning.
I'll be back in a minute."
When he had taken the bacon out of the pan, and had laid the fish in a
corn-mealed symmetrical row in the hot fat, he again turned the pan
over to Perkins and came back to Judy.
"Well?" he asked, as he came up.
"Call me Judith," said the incensed young lady. "Judy is my pet name,
and I keep it for--my friends."
Launcelot gave a long whistle.
"Say, do you talk like this to Anne?" he asked.
"Like what?"
"In this--er--straight from the shoulder sort of fashion?"
"No. Anne is my friend."
Launcelot shook his head. "You can't have Anne for a friend unless you
have me."
"Why not?"
"She was my friend first."
"Oh, well," Judy shrugged her shoulders and shut her eyes again, "it is
too hot to argue."
There was a long silence, and then Launcelot said: "Don't you want to
fish?"
"I hate fishing."
"Or to pick wild flowers?"
"I hate--" Judy had started her usual ungracious formula, before she
recognized its untruth. "Well, I don't want to pick them now," she
amended, "I'd rather stay here."
"But you are not going to stay here."
"Why not?"
"You are going to help me cook those fish."
"I won't."
"Oh, yes you will. Come on."
"Oh, well. If you won't let me alone."
She slipped out of the hammock and picked up her hat. There was a
tired droop to her slender young figure. "No, I am not going to let
you alone," said Launcelot quietly. "You poor little thing."
She looked at him, startled.
"Why?" she breathed.
"You are lonely. That's why. You've got to do something. You just
think and think and think--and get miserable--I know--I've been there."
It came out haltingly, the boyish expression of sympathy and
understanding. And the sympathy combined with a hitherto unmet
masterfulness conquered Judy. For a moment she stood very still, then
she turned to him an illumined face.
"You may call me--Judy," she said shyly, then slipped past him and ran
to the fire.
When he reached her, she was bending over the pan.
"How nice they look," she said, as Launcelot turned the fish, and they
lay all crisp and brown in an appetizing row.
"You shall do the next," said Launcelot, smiling a little as he glanced
at her absorbed face.
So while he made the coffee, Judy fried more bacon, and they slipped
six fish into the big pan.
"Mine don't seem to brown as yours did," she told him, anxiously.
"Perhaps the fat wasn't hot enough," was Launcelot's suggestion. "It
has to be smoking."
"Oh, dear," sighed Judy, "mine are going to look light brown instead of
lovely and golden like yours."
"Put on some more wood." Launcelot's tone was abstracted. He was
measuring the coffee, and it took all of his attention.
Judy poked a stick into the centre of the fire. For a moment it seemed
to die down, then suddenly the big black pan seemed held aloft by a
solid cone of yellow flame.
The grease in the pan snapped, and little burnt bits of corn-meal flew
in all directions.
"Now they are cooking all right," and Judy shielded her face with her
hand, as she held the long handle and watched complacently.
Suddenly Launcelot dropped the coffee-pot.
"Take them off, take them off," he cried.
Judy, with her fork upraised, stared at him as if petrified.
"Why?" she stammered.
He snatched the pan from the fire.
"They're burning," he cried, and turned the fish up one by one.
They were as black as coals down to the very tips of their crisp little
tails!
CHAPTER VI
A RAIN AND A RUNAWAY
At her cry of dismay, Perkins strolled over to take a look.
"They're burnt, Miss," he announced, bending over the pan.
"Of course they are," snapped Judy, "any one could see that, Perkins."
Perkins looked over her head, loftily.
"Yes, Miss, of course," he said, "but it's mostly always that way when
there are too many cooks. I'm afraid there won't be enough to go
around, Miss."
"Are these all?" asked Judy, anxiously.
"Yes," said Launcelot, "I cooked four and you burned six, and there are
the Judge and Anne and Nannie and Amelia and Perkins and you and I to
be fed."
"You needn't count me, sir," said Perkins. "I never eats, sir."
With which astounding statement, he carried away the charred remains.
"Does he mean that he doesn't eat at all?" questioned Judy, staring
after the stout figure of the retiring butler.
Launcelot laughed. "Oh, he eats enough," he said, "only he doesn't do
it in public. He knows his place."
"I wish he did," said Judy, dubiously. "Oh, dear, what shall we do
about the fish?"
"There will be one apiece for the others," said Launcelot. "I guess
you and I will have to do without--Judy--"
He spoke her name with just the slightest hesitation, and his eyes
laughed as they met hers.
"And I said any one could cook!" Judy's tone was very humble. "What a
prig you must have thought me, Launcelot."
"Oh, go and get some flowers for the table and forget your troubles,"
was Launcelot's off-hand way of settling the question, and as Judy went
off she decided that she should like him. He was different from other
boys. He was a gentleman in spite of his shabby clothes, and his
masterfulness rather pleased her--hitherto Judy had ruled every boy
within her domain, and Launcelot was a new experience.
It was a hungry crowd that trooped to the great gray rock where the
table was spread.
"How beautiful you have made it look, Judy," cried Anne, as she came
up, blissfully unconscious of a half-dozen new freckles and a burned
nose.
Nannie May sniffed. "Fish," she said, ecstatically, "our fish, oh,
Amelia, don't things look _good_."
Amelia surveyed the table solemnly. She was a fat, rather dumpy girl
of twelve. She was noted principally for two things, her indolence and
her appetite, and it was in deference to the latter that she sighed
rapturously as she surveyed the table. She had never seen anything
just like it. The country picnics of the neighbors always showed an
amazing array of cakes and pies and chicken, but these were here, and
added to them were sandwiches of wonderful and attractive shapes,
marvelous fruits, bonbons, and chocolates, and salads garnished with a
skill known to none other in the village but the accomplished Perkins.
As her eyes swept over the table, they were arrested by the platter of
fish. In spite of Perkins' overplentiful border of cress and sliced
lemon--put on to hide deficiencies, the four fish looked pitifully
inadequate.
"I caught four myself," said Amelia, heavily, pointing an accusing
finger at the platter, "and Anne caught three and Nan three--there were
ten."
Launcelot groaned. "I wish you weren't quite so good at arithmetic,
Amelia," he said, "we shall have to confess--we burned the rest up--and
please ma'am, we are awfully sorry."
They all laughed at the funny figure he made as he dropped on his knees
before the stolid Amelia--but into Judy's cheeks crept a little
flush--"I--" she began, with a tremble in her voice; but Launcelot
interrupted; "we will never do it again," he promised, and then as they
laughed again, he rose and stood at Judy's side.
"Don't you dare tell them that you did it," he whispered, and once more
she felt the masterfulness of his tone. "I should have watched the
fire--it was as much my fault as yours," and with that he picked up a
pile of cushions, and went to arrange a place for her at the head of
the table.
Amelia ate steadily through the menu. She was not overawed by Perkins,
nor was her attention distracted by the laughter and fun of the others.
It was not until the ice-cream was served--pink and luscious, with a
wreath of rosy strawberries encircling each plate--that she spoke.
"Well," she said, "I don't know's I mind now about those fish being
burned," with which oracular remark, she helped herself to two slices
of cake, and ate up her ice in silence.
Nannie May was thirteen and looked about eleven. She was red-haired
and fiery-tempered, and she loved Anne with all the strength of her
loyal heart. As yet she did not like Judy. It was all very well to
look like a princess, but that was no reason why one should be as stiff
as a poker. She hoped Anne would not love Judy better than she did
her, and she noted jealously the rapt attention with which Anne
observed the newcomer and listened to all she said.
Judy was telling the episode of the ice-box. She told it well, and in
spite of herself Nannie had to laugh.
"When I went in there were salads to right of me, cold tongue to the
left of me, and roast chicken in front of me," said Judy, gesticulating
dramatically, "and I was so hungry that it seemed too good to be true
that Perkins should have provided all of those things. And just then
the door slammed and my match went out--and there I was in the cold and
the dark--and I just screamed for Anne."
"Why didn't you put the latch up when you went in?" asked Nannie,
scornfully. "It seems to me 'most anybody would have thought of that."
Anne came eagerly to her friend's defence.
"Neither of us knew it was a spring latch," she said, "and I was as
surprised as Judy was."
"Why didn't you eat up all the things?" asked Amelia, as she helped
herself to another chocolate.
"I didn't have any light--" began Judy.
"Well, I should have eaten them up in the dark," mused Amelia, as
Perkins passed her the salted almonds for the sixth time.
"It was a good thing I didn't," laughed Judy, "or you wouldn't have had
anything to eat to-day. Would they, Perkins?"
For once in his life Perkins was in an affable mood. The lunch had
gone off well, there had been no spiders in the cream or red ants in
the cake. The coffee had been hot and the salads cold, and now that
lunch was over he could pack the dishes away to be washed by the
servants at home, and rest on his laurels.
"I should have found something, Miss," he said, cheerfully; then as a
big drop splashed down on his bald head, he leaned over the Judge.
"I think it is going to rain, sir," he murmured, confidentially.
"By George," gasped the Judge, as a bright flash of light and a low
rumble emphasized Perkins' words, "by George, I believe it is.
"Oh, oh, oh," screamed Amelia, and threw her arms frantically around
Nannie.
"Don't be silly," said Nannie, and gave her a little shake.
"We shall have to run for it," said Launcelot, gathering up wraps and
hats, as a sudden gust of wind picked up the ends of the tablecloth and
sent the napkins fluttering across the ground like a flock of white
geese.
"You'd better get the young ladies to the carriage, sir," said Perkins,
packing things into hampers in a hurry.
"They will get wet. It's going to be a heavy wind storm," said the
Judge with an anxious look at Judy.
"Let's run for the Cutter barn," cried Anne, with sudden inspiration.
"Good for you, Anne," said Launcelot, "that's the very thing."
"Where is the Cutter barn?" asked Judy.
"Across that stream and beyond the strip of woods. Over in the field."
"Come on, Anne, come on. Oh, isn't this glorious. I love the wind. I
love it, I love it." Judy's cry became almost a chant as she led the
way across the little bridge and through the fast-darkening bit of
woodland. The wind fluttered her white garments around her, her long
hair streamed out behind, and her flying feet seemed scarcely to touch
the ground.
Behind her came Anne, less like a wood-nymph, perhaps, but fresh and
fair, and not at all breathless, then Nannie, bareheaded and with her
best hat wrapped carefully in her short skirts, then Amelia, plunging
heavily.
Launcelot waited to help Perkins with the horses and hampers and then
he followed the girls.
The rain came before he was half-way across the stream, and the world
grew dark for a moment in the heavy downpour that drenched him. There
was a blaze of blue-white light, and a crash that seemed to shake the
universe.
"They will be scared half to death," was Launcelot's thought as he
forged ahead.
Just at the edge of the woods he came upon Anne and Judy. Judy had
dropped down in a white huddled bunch, and Anne was bending over her.
"She ran too fast," she explained, while the rain beat down on her fair
little head, "and she can't get her breath. Nannie and Amelia got to
the barn before the rain came, but I couldn't leave Judy."
"I'm all right," gasped Judy, "you run on, Anne. I'm all right."
"Yes, run on, Anne," commanded Launcelot. "I'll take care of Judy, and
you must not get wet," and with a protest Anne disappeared behind the
curtain of driving rain.
Judy staggered to her feet and attempted to walk two or three steps.
"Stop it," said Launcelot, firmly, "you must not."
"But I can't stay here," cried poor Judy, desperately.
Her lips were blue and her cheeks were white, so that Launcelot wavered
no longer. Without any warning, he picked her up as if she had been a
child, and ran with her across the field.
"Put me down, Launcelot. Put me down." Judy's tone was imperious.
But she had met her match. Launcelot plodded on doggedly.
"I shall never forgive you," she sobbed, as they reached the door of
the Cutter barn.
"Yes, you will," said Launcelot, and his lips were set in a firm line.
"I had to do it, Judy."
He laid her on a pile of hay in the corner.
Her eyes were closed, and her dark lashes swept across her pallid
cheeks.
"She isn't strong," whispered the worried Anne, her tender fingers
pushing back Judy's wet hair.
"No," said Launcelot, his deep young voice softening to a gentler key
as he looked down at her, "she isn't. Poor little thing!"
Judy heard, and her lashes fluttered. "How good they are," she
thought, remorsefully, and then she seemed to float away from realities.
When she came to herself, Launcelot had gone, and the three little
girls were rubbing her hands and trying to get her to drink some water.
"Oh, Judy, do you feel better?" Anne whispered; "we were so frightened."
"Yes," murmured Judy, and the color began to come into her face.
"Launcelot went to see if he could get something from Perkins for you
to take," said Anne; "he told us to build a fire in the old stove, but
we have been so worried about you that we haven't done anything."
"Is there a stove?" asked Judy, listlessly.
"Yes. Mr. Cutter put it in here to heat milk for the lambs, and once
when we had a picnic we made our coffee here."
"There isn't any wood," said Amelia, hopelessly.
"There is some up in the loft," said Nannie, "Don't you remember the
boys put it there, so that no one but ourselves could find it?"
She went swiftly up the narrow steps, but came flying back in a panic.
"_There's some one up there_," she whispered, all the color gone from
her face.
"Hush," said Anne, with her eyes on Judy.
Judy was not afraid. She was still weak and wan, but she was braver
than the little country girls, and not easily frightened.
"It is probably a pussy cat," she scoffed.
"Or a hen," giggled Amelia.
Anne said nothing. The darkness, the crashing storm outside, and
Judy's illness had upset her, and she shivered with apprehension.
"No," Nannie flared, with a scornful look at Amelia and Judy, "it isn't
a cat and it isn't a hen. IT sneezed!"
"Ask who's there," advised Judy from her couch.
"I don't dare," said Nannie.
"I don't dare," said Amelia.
So that it was little timid Anne, after all, who gathered up her
courage and went to the foot of the stairs and said in a trembling
voice:
"Please, who is up there?"
For a moment there was silence, and then some one said in sepulchral
tones:
"You won't ever tell?"
The girls stared at each other.
"What shall we say?" whispered Anne.
"Say 'never,'" suggested Judy, wishing she were well enough to manage
this exciting episode.
"NEVER," said the little girls all together.
There was a rustling in the hay in the loft, then cautious steps, and a
figure appeared at the top of the stairs.
At sight of it, Amelia shrieked and Nannie giggled, but Anne ran
forward with both hands out, and with her fair little face alight with
welcome.
"Why, Tommy Tolliver, Tommy Tolliver," she said, "is it really you, is
it really, really you?"
CHAPTER VII
TOMMY TOLLIVER: SEAMAN
Tommy shook hands with Anne, then sat down disconsolately on the bottom
step.
"Yes," he said, "it's me."
After a moment's uncomfortable silence, Anne asked, "Didn't you like
it, Tommy?"
Tommy looked gloomy.
"Aw," he burst out, "they thought I was too young--"
"Did you go as far as China?" questioned Amelia, eagerly.
"Of course he didn't, Amelia," said Nannie with a superior air; "he has
only been away three weeks."
"Then you didn't get me any preserved ginger," pouted Amelia.
"How could I?" But Tommy looked sheepish, as the memory of certain
boastful promises came to him.
"Anyhow," he announced suddenly, "I'm not going to give up. I am going
to be a sailor some day--if I have to run away again."
At that Judy sat up and fixed him with burning eyes.
"Did you go to sea?" she asked, intensely.
"I tried to."
"How far did you get?"
"To Baltimore."
"And they wouldn't have you?"
"No. And I had used up all my money, so I had to come back."
"Have you ever been on the ocean?"
"No. Have you?"
"Yes. My father was in the navy."
"Gee--" Tommy drew near to this fascinating stranger.
"The next time you want to run away, you tell me," said Judy, and sank
back on the hay, "and I'll help you."
"But, Judy," said horrified little Anne, "he isn't going to run away
any more--he is going to stay here, and please his father and go to
school--aren't you, Tommy?"
Tommy looked from the fair little girl to the dark thin one. Hitherto
Anne had been his ideal of gentle girlhood, but in Judy he now found a
kindred spirit, a girl with a daring that more than matched his own--a
girl who loved the sea--who knew about the sea--who could tell him
things.
"Aw--I don't know," he said, uncertainly. "I guess I can run away if I
want to, Anne."
"No, you can't," cried Anne. "You ought not to encourage him, Judy."
"I'm not encouraging him," said Judy, but there was a wicked sparkle in
her eyes.
Tommy saw it and swaggered a little. He had returned home in the
spirit of the prodigal son. He was ready to be forgiven. To eat of
the fatted calf--if he should be so lucky. If not, to eat humble pie.
The sight of the familiar fields and roads had even brought tears to
his eyes. But now--!
"A fellow can't be tied to a little old place like this all his life,"
he said, toploftically, "you can't expect it, Anne."
"I don't expect it," said little Anne, quietly, "but if you had seen
your mother after you ran away, Tommy--"
At that Tommy lowered his head.
"I know--" he stammered, huskily, "poor little mother."
"Tell me about her," he said. And now he turned his back on the dark
young lady on the hay.
But Launcelot's voice broke in on Anne's story. He came in all wet and
dripping.
"How's Judy?" he began, then stopped and whistled.
"Hello," he exclaimed, "hello, Bobby Shafto."
"Oh, I say," said Tommy, very red.
"I thought you were on the high seas by now," said Launcelot.
"Well, I wanted to be," said Tommy, resentfully.
"I am glad you're back. We have missed you awfully, old chap," and
Launcelot slapped him on the shoulder in hearty greeting.
"How is Judy?" he asked.
"Better, thank you," said the young lady in the corner. "Tommy was a
tonic and came just in time."
"Well, I am glad you found some kind of tonic. Perkins didn't have a
thing but some mustard and red pepper, and I was feeling for you if we
had to dose you with either of those."
Judy started to laugh, but stopped suddenly.
"I forgot," she said, "I am mad at you--"
"Oh, no, you're not."
"But I am--"
"Because I carried you across the field when you didn't want me to?"
"Yes."
"My child," advised Launcelot, "don't be silly."
"Oh," raged Judy, and turned her back to him.
Launcelot looked down at her for a moment.
"You know that tree where you fainted?" he asked.
A little shrug of Judy's shoulder was the only answer.
"Well, it was struck by lightning before I got back--"
"Really--?" Judy was facing him now, breathless with interest.
"Really, Judy." His face was very grave.
"Oh, oh," she wailed, softly, "oh, and I might have been there--"
"Yes."
She shivered and sat up. Her wet hair, half braided, trailed its dark
length over her shoulder. Her eyes were big, and her face was white.
"What a baby I was," she said, nervously, "what a baby, Launcelot--not
to see the danger--"
"You trust to your Uncle Launcelot, next time, little girl, and don't
get fussy," was the big boy's way of stopping her thanks.
"I will," she promised, and the smile she gave him meant more than the
words.
"It has stopped raining," said Anne from the door.
The cool spring air blew across the fields softly, bringing with it the
fresh smell of the sodden earth and the scent of the wet pines.
"The Judge will be here in a minute," said Launcelot; "he stayed in the
carriage, and Perkins put up the curtains, so that they managed to keep
pretty dry.
"I wonder if there will be room for me to ride home?" Tommy asked. "I
am dead tired."
"I guess so. The Judge has the big wagon with the three seats. Pretty
long tramp you had, didn't you?" and Launcelot looked at the boy's
dusty shoes.
"Awful," said Tommy, with a quiver in his voice at the remembrance.
"Hungry?" questioned Launcelot, briefly.
"Awful," said Tommy again. "I haven't had a square meal for a week,"
and now the quiver was intensified.
Amelia clasped her hands tragically. "Oh, Tommy," she asked in a
stricken tone, "didn't you almost die?"
But just then Tommy caught Judy's eye on him, and was forced to
continue his character of bold adventurer.
"Oh, a man must expect things like that," he asserted. "Suppose it had
been a desert island--"
"Or a shipwreck," said Amelia, "with bread and water for a week."
"Or pirates," ventured Nannie.
"Oh, pirates," sniffed the dark young lady on the hay; "there aren't
any pirates now."
"Well, there are shipwrecks," defended Tommy.
"Yes, but they are not half as interesting as they used to be."
"And desert islands."
"A few maybe. But it is such an old story to hear about Robinson
Crusoes."
Tommy looked blank. He had always implicitly believed the marvelous
tales of yarn spinners, and his soul had been fired by the thought of a
life of adventure on the deep. He had talked to the little girls until
they had accounted him somewhat of a hero and looked to him to perform
great feats of bravery.
"I don't see any fun in going to sea, then," he said, dolefully, "if
there ain't any pirates and shipwrecks and things like that--"
"It isn't those things that make you love the sea, Tommy," cried Judy.
"It is the smell of it, and the wind, and the wide blue water and the
wide blue sky. It is something in your blood. I don't believe you
really love it at all, Tommy Tolliver."
She got up from the couch and began to gather up her wet hair, and only
Launcelot saw that she did it to hide her tears.
But Tommy was blind to her emotion. "Yes, I do," he asserted, stoutly.
"I do love it, and I bet I could find a treasure island if I tried."
Judy stamped her foot impatiently. "Oh, you couldn't," she blazed,
"you couldn't, Tommy Tolliver; you could just go to work like a common
seaman and get your tobacco and your grog, and be frozen and stiff in
the winter storms and hot and weary in the summer ones. But if you
really loved the sea you wouldn't care--you wouldn't care, just so you
could be rocked to sleep by it at night, and wake to hear it ripple
against the sides of the boat--"
"Gee--" said Tommy, open-mouthed at this outburst.
"Tommy," said Launcelot, with a glance at Judy's excited face and at
the trembling hands that could scarcely fasten her hair, "you don't
know a sailboat from a scow."
"I do," cried the indignant Tommy, switching his attention from Judy to
Launcelot, with whom he was deep in the argument when the carriage came.
The Judge read Tommy a little lecture as he welcomed him back, and then
he ordered Perkins to give the runaway something to eat, and thereby
tempered justice with mercy. And as Tommy had expected the scolding
and had not expected the good things, it is to be feared that the
latter made the greater impression.
"And how is my girl?" asked the Judge, beaming on Judy.
"All right," said Judy, and tucked her hand into his, "only I am a
little tired, grandfather."
"Of course you are. Of course you are," said the Judge. "We must go
right home. Perkins and I will sit on the front seat, and you can all
crowd in behind--I guess there will be room enough."
"Oh, I say," said Launcelot, as Tommy and Anne sat down on the floor at
the back, with their feet on the step, "that won't do. You sit with
Judy, Anne."
But Anne shook her head.
"Tommy and I are going to sit here," she said. "He wants me to tell
him all the news."
But that was not all that Tommy wanted, for when they were alone and
unseen by those in the front of the wagon, he opened a handkerchief
which he had carried knotted into a bundle.
"I brought you some things. They ain't much, but I thought you would
like to have them."
There were a half-dozen pink and white shells, a starfish, and a few
pretty pebbles.
"I picked them up on the beach," said Tommy, "and I thought you might
like them."
"It was awfully good of you to think of me," said little Anne,
gratefully.
"I wanted to buy you something," apologized Tommy. "There was some
lovely jewelry made out of fish-scales, but I didn't have a cent to
spare."
"I would rather have these, really, Tommy," said Anne, with
appreciation, "because you found them yourself."
She tied them up carefully in her little clean white handkerchief, and
then she folded her hands in her lap and told Tommy everything that had
happened since he left home.
The sky was red with the blaze of the setting sun when the carriage
started. Overhead the crows were flying in a straight black line to
the woods to roost. As Anne talked on, the fireflies began to shine
against the blue-gray of the twilight; then came darkness and the stars.
"It seems awfully good to be at home," confessed Tommy, as the lights
began to twinkle in the nearest farmhouse, "if only father won't scold."
"I think he will scold, Tommy--he was awfully angry--but your mother
will be so pleased."
"It was horrid sleeping out at night and tramping days." Tommy was
unburdening his soul. It was so easy to tell things to gentle,
sympathetic Anne. "And the men around the wharf were so rough--"
"I am sure you won't want to go again," said little Anne, "not for a
long time, Tommy."
Tommy looked around cautiously. He didn't want Judy to hear, somehow.
He was afraid of her teasing laugh. Then he leaned down close to
Anne's ear:
"I'll stay here for awhile, Anne."
"I'm so glad, Tommy," said Anne, with a sigh of relief.
But as they drove into the great gateway, and the lights from the big
house shone out in welcome, Tommy sighed:
"But I would like to find a treasure island, Anne," he said.
CHAPTER VIII
A WHITE SUNDAY
Anne was feeling very important. She was wrapped in a pale blue kimona
of Judy's, and she had had her breakfast in bed!
Piled up ten deep at her side were books--a choice collection from the
Judge's bookcases, into which she dipped here and there with sighs of
deep content and anticipation.
At the end of the room was a mirror, and Anne could just see herself in
it. It was a distracting vision, for Judy had done Anne's hair up that
morning, and had puffed it out over her ears and had tied it with broad
black ribbon, and this effect, in combination with the sweeping blue
robe, made Anne feel as interesting as the heroine of a book--and she
had never expected that!
Judy in a rose-pink kimona lay on the couch, looking out of the window.
The peace of the Sabbath was upon the world; and the house was very
still.
Suddenly with a "click" and a "whirr-rr," the doors of the little
carved clock on the wall new open and a cuckoo came out and piped ten
warning notes.
"Goodness," cried Anne, and shut her book with a bang, "it is almost
church time, and we aren't dressed."
But Judy did not move. "We are not going to church," she said, lazily.
Not going to church! Anne faced Judy in amazement. Never since she
could remember had she stayed away from church--except when she had had
the measles and the mumps!
"I told grandfather last night that we should be too tired," explained
Judy, "and he won't expect us to go."
"Oh," said Anne, and picked up her book, luxuriating in the prospect of
a whole morning in which to read.
She wasn't quite comfortable, however. She was not a bit tired, and
she had never felt better in her life--and yet she was staying away
from church.
But the book she had opened was a volume of Dickens' Christmas stories,
and in three minutes she was carried away from the little town of
Fairfax to the heart of old London, and from the warmth of spring to
the bitterness of winter, as she listened with Toby Veck to the music
of the chimes that rang from the belfry tower.
It seemed only a part of the tale, therefore, when the bell of Fairfax
church pealed out the first warning of the Sunday service to all the
countryside.
"Ding dong, din, all come in, all come in," the bell had said to Anne
since childhood, and now it called her, until it silenced the crashing
voices of the bells of old London, and she had to listen.
She laid down her book. "The church bell is ringing," she said to Judy.
"I hear it," said Judy, indifferently.
Anne stood up--with a sidelong glance at the enchanting vision in the
mirror. "I think I ought to go," she hesitated.
Judy turned to look at her.
"Don't be so good, Anne," she said, with a teasing laugh; "be wicked
like I am, just for one day--"
"You are not wicked."
"Well, I haven't a proper sense of duty."
"You have too. You just like to say such things, Judy, just to shock
people."
Which shows that in two days, wise little Anne had found Judy out!
"Well, I'm not going to church, anyhow," and Judy settled back and
closed her eyes.
Anne's book was open at the fascinating place where Toby Veck eats his
dinner on the church steps; the deep rose-cushioned chair opened its
wide arms in comfortable invitation. It was the little girl's first
taste of the temptation of ease,--and she yielded. But as she picked
up her book again, she soothed her conscience with the righteous
resolve--"I will go to service this afternoon."
As she settled back, the girl reflected in the mirror looked at her.
"Your hair looks beautiful," said the reflection.
Anne dropped her eyes to her book.
Presently she raised them.
"If only the people in church could see," said the charming reflection.
Anne imagined the sensation she would make as she walked up the aisle.
None of the girls in Fairfax or the country around had ever worn their
hair puffed over their ears or tied with broad black ribbon. There
would be a little flutter, and during church time the girls would look
at nothing else, and it would be delightful to feel that for once she,
little plain Anne Batcheller, was the center of attraction.
She dropped her book. "I think I will go, after all," she said
virtuously, and Judy, not knowing her motive, looked at her with envy.
"You are a good little thing, Anne," she said, and at the praise Anne's
face flamed.
She dressed hurriedly, in her one white dress, with a sigh for the
becomingness of the blue kimona. When she was ready to tie on her old
hat, she went to the mirror.
"It is because your hair is so pretty that you are going to church,"
said the reflection, accusingly.
"It is because of my conscience," defended Anne, but she did not dare
to meet the eyes in the mirror, and she turned away quickly.
"You look awfully nice," Judy assured her, as Anne said "Good-by."
"Take my blue parasol. It is on the parlor sofa. Go and be good for
both of us, Annekins."
Anne ran down-stairs to the great dim room. There were four mirrors in
the parlor, and each mirror seemed to say to the little girl as she
passed, "It is because of your hair," and when she had picked up the
pretty parasol, the mirrors said again, as she passed them going back,
"It is because of your hair, oh, Anne, it is because of your hair that
you are going to church!"
The hands of the big clock in the hall were on eleven as Anne opened
the front door--and as she stepped out into the glare of sunshine, the
church bell rang for the last time.
Anne loved the sweet old bell. Even when she had been ill, she had
been able to hear just the end of its distant peal--like the ringing of
a fairy chime, and when she was very little, the time she had the
mumps, she had thought of it as being up in the clouds, calling the
angels to worship.
She listened to it for a moment, standing perfectly still on the path,
then she went back into the house, and laid the parasol carefully on
the sofa. After that she ran quickly upstairs, untying her hat-strings
as she went.
"What in the world are you doing?" asked Judy in amazement, as Anne
pulled out hairpins, and took the big black bow from her looped-up hair.
"I was thinking too much about it," said Anne, soberly. "I shouldn't
have heard a word of the sermon if I had worn my hair that way," and
she went on braiding it into its customary tight and unbecoming
pigtails.
"Well, of all things," ejaculated Judy, gazing at her spellbound.
But when Anne had gone, Judy stood up and watched her from the window.
"What a queer little thing she is," she murmured, as the bobbing figure
went up and down the village path, "what a queer little thing she is."
But somehow the actions of the queer girl distracted her mind so that
she could not go back to her attitude of lazy indifference. She had
thought Anne a little commonplace until now; but it had not been a
commonplace thing, that changing from prettiness to plainness. She
even wondered if Anne had not done a finer act than she could have done
herself.
"She is a queer little thing," she said again, thoughtfully, and after
a long pause, "but she is good--"
She went to her wardrobe and took out a white dress. Then she got out
her hat and gloves and laid them on the bed. And then she sat and
looked at them, and then she began to dress.
And so it came about that Fairfax church had that morning two
sensations. In the first place Anne Batcheller came in late for the
only time in her life, and in the second place, when the service was
half over, a slender, distinguished maiden in a violet-wreathed white
hat, slipped along the aisle, flashing a glance at Anne as she passed,
and smiling at the delighted Judge as she entered the pew.
She fixed her eyes on the minister--and straightway forgot Anne and the
Judge and Fairfax, for the minister was reading the 107th Psalm, and
the words that fell on Judy's ears were pregnant with meaning to this
daughter of a sailor--"They that go down to the sea in ships--"
Dr. Grennell was a plain man, a man of rugged exterior--but he was a
man of spiritual power--and he knew his subject. His father had been a
sea-captain, and back of that were generations of Newfoundland
fishermen--men who went out in the glory of the morning to be lost in
the mists of the evening--men who worked while women wept--men to whom
this Psalm had been the song of hope--women to whom it had been the
song of comforting.
To Judy the sea meant her father. It had taken him away, it would
bring him back some day, and was not this man saying it, as he ended
his sermon, "He bringeth them into their desired haven--"?
Dr. Grennell had never seen Judy, but he knew the tragedy in the
Judge's life, and as she listened to him, Judy's face told him who she
was.
She went straight up to him after church.
"I am Judy Jameson," she said, "and I want to tell you how much I liked
the sermon."
The doctor looked down into her moved young face. "I am the son of a
sailor," he said, "and I love the sea--"
"I love it--" she said, with a catch of her breath, "and it is not
cruel--is it?"
"No--" he began. But with a man of his fiber the truth must out; "not
always," he amended, and took her hands in his, "not always--"
"And men do come back," she said, eagerly; "the one you told about in
your sermon--"
He saw the hope he had raised. "Yes, men do come back--but not always,
Judy."
Her lip quivered. "Let me believe it," she pleaded, and in that
moment, Judy's face foreshadowed the earnestness of the woman she was
to be. "Let me believe that my father will come some day--"
"Indeed, I will," said the doctor, and there was a mist in his eyes as
he clasped her hand, "and you must let me be your friend, Judith, as I
was your father's."
"I shall be glad--" she said, simply, and then and there began a
friendship that some day was to bring to Judy her greatest happiness.
That afternoon the Judge and Judy drove Anne home.
"It seems just like a dream," said Anne, as they came in sight of the
little gray house, with Belinda chasing butterflies through the clover,
and Becky Sharp on the lookout in the plumtree. "It seems just like a
dream--the good times and all, since Friday, Judy."
"A good dream or a bad dream, Annekins?" asked Judy.
"Oh, a good one, a lovely dream, and you are the Princess in it, Judy,"
said the adoring Anne.
"Well, you are the good little fairy godmother," said Judy. "Isn't she
good, grandfather?"
"Oh, I am not," said Anne, greatly embarrassed at this overwhelming
praise, "I am not--"
"I never could have changed my hair," affirmed Judy.
"What's that?" asked the Judge.
"Oh, a little secret," said Judy, smiling. "Shall I tell him, Anne?"
"No, indeed," Anne got very red, "no, indeed, Judy Jameson."
There was a little pause, and then the Judge said:
"I am sorry the picnic was such a failure."
"Oh, but it wasn't," cried Judy, "it wasn't a failure."
Anne and the Judge stared at her. "Did you enjoy it, Judy?" they asked
in one breath.
"Of course I did," said the calm young lady.
"But the rain," said the Judge.
"That was exciting."
"And your fainting--" said Anne.
"Just an episode," said Judy, wafting it away with a flirt of her
finger-tips.
"And Amelia, and Nannie, and Tommy, did you like them?" asked Anne.
"Oh, Amelia is funny, and Nannie is clever, and Tommy is a curiosity.
Oh, yes, I liked them," summed up Judy.
"And Launcelot--"
Judy smiled an inscrutable smile, as she pulled her hat low over her
sparkling eyes.
"He's bossy," she began, slowly, "and we are sure to quarrel if we see
much of each other--but he is interesting--and I think I shall like
him, Anne."
And then Belinda and Becky discovered them, and made for their beloved
mistress, and conversation on the picnic or any other topic was at an
end.
CHAPTER IX
A BLUE MONDAY
There was a noisy scrambling in the vines outside of Anne's window
early on Monday morning, and the little maid opened her eyes to see
Belinda's white head peeping over the sill, and Belinda's white paws
holding on like grim death to the ledge.
"You darling," cried Anne, sitting up, "come here," and Belinda with a
plaintive mew made one last effort, pulled herself into the room, and
flew to her mistress' arms.
"Where's Becky?" asked Anne, wondering why the tame crow did not
follow, for in spite of their constant feuds, the two pets were
inseparable.
Belinda blinked sagely, while from a shadowy corner of the room came a
sepulchral croak.
"Are you there, Becky?" called Anne, peering into the darkness, and
with a flap and a flutter, Becky swooped from the top of the bookcase,
where she had been perched for a half-hour, waiting for Anne to wake.
Anne's bookcase was the one thing of value in the little house. It was
of rich old mahogany, with diamond-shaped panes in its leaded doors,
and behind the doors were books--not many of them, but very choice
ones, culled from a fine library which had been sold when ruin came to
Anne's grandfather and father one disastrous year.
It happened, therefore, that Anne had read much of poetry and history,
and the lives of famous people, to say nothing of fairy-tales and
legends, so that in the companionship of her books and pets, she had
missed little in spite of her poverty and solitary life.
"How good it is to be at home," she said, as the sunlight, creeping
around the room, shone on the green cover of a much-thumbed book of
French fairy-tales, and then slanted off to touch the edge of a blue
and gold Tennyson; "how good it is to be at home."
"How good it is to be at home," she said again, as followed by Belinda
and Becky, she came, a half-hour later, into the sunlit kitchen, where
the little grandmother, smiling and rosy, was pouring the steaming
breakfast food into a blue bowl.
"I was afraid you might find it dull," said the little grandmother, as
she kissed her, "after the good times at the Judge's."
"Oh, I did have such lovely times," sighed Anne, blissfully. She had
sat up late in the moonlight the night before, telling her grandmother
of them. "But they didn't make up for you and Becky and Belinda and
the little gray house," and she hugged the little grandmother tightly
while Belinda and Becky circled around them in great excitement,
mingled with certain apprehensions for the waiting breakfast.
"But I do hate to start to school again," said Anne, when she finished
breakfast, and had given Belinda a saucer of milk and Becky a generous
piece of corn bread.
"Are the children going to speak their pieces this week?" asked Mrs.
Batcheller, as Anne tied on her hat and went out into the garden to
gather some roses for the teacher.
"Yes, on Saturday," said Anne; "it's going to be awfully nice. I have
asked Launcelot and Judy to come to the entertainment, and they have
promised to."
"I am going to be 'Cinderella' in the tableaux," she went on, as her
grandmother brought out the tiny lunch-basket and handed it to her,
"and Nannie and Amelia are to be the haughty sisters. We haven't found
any boy yet for the prince. I wish Launcelot went to school."
"He knows all that Miss Mary could teach him now," said the little
grandmother; "his father is preparing him for college, if they ever get
money enough to send him there."
"Well, if Launcelot's violets sell as well next winter as they did
this, he can go, 'specially if his mother keeps her boarders all
summer. He told me so the other day, grandmother."
"But he would make a lovely prince," she sighed. "Judy is going to
lend me a dress. She has a trunk full of fancy costumes."
"I hope you know your lessons," said the old lady, as Anne, escorted by
her faithful pets, started off.
"Oh, I studied them on Friday, before Judy came--how long ago that
seems--" and with a rapturous sigh in memory of her three happy days,
and with a wave of her hand to the little grandmother, Anne went on her
way.
Tommy Tolliver came to school that morning in a chastened spirit. He
had been lectured by his father, and cried over by his mother, and in
the darkness of the night he had resolved many things.
But it is not easy to preserve an attitude of humility when one becomes
suddenly the center of adoring interest to twenty-five children in a
district school. From the babies of the A, B, C, class to the big boys
in algebra, Tommy's return was an exciting event, and he was received
with acclaim.
Hence he boasted and swaggered for them as on Saturday he had boasted
and swaggered for Judy's admiration.
"You ought to go," he was saying to a small boy, as Anne came up, but
when he caught her reproachful eye on him, he backed down, "but not
until you are a man, Jimmie," he temporized.
During the morning session he was a worry and an aggravation to Miss
Mary. The little girls could look at nothing else, for had not Tommy
been a sailor, and had he not had experiences which would set him apart
from the commonplace boys of Fairfax? And the boys, a little jealous,
perhaps, were yet burning with a desire to be the bosom friend of this
bold, bad boy, while the luster of his daring lasted.
And so they were all restless and inattentive, until finally Miss Mary,
who had a headache, lost patience.
"You are very noisy," she said, "and I am ashamed of you. I am going
to put a list of words on the board, and I want you to copy them five
times, while I take the little folks out into the yard for their
recess. The rest of you don't deserve any, and will have to wait until
noon."
That was the first piece of injustice to Anne. She had been as quiet
as a mouse all the morning, and Miss Mary should have seen it and not
have punished the innocent with the guilty. But Anne was a cheery
little soul and never thought of questioning Miss Mary's mandates, and
so she went on patiently writing with the rest.
Miss Mary stopped in the door long enough to issue an ultimatum.
"I shall put you on your honor," she said, "not to talk. And any one
who disobeys will be punished."
And she went out.
For a little while there was perfect decorum. Then Tommy grew
restless. Six weeks out of school had made sitting still almost
impossible. He wiggled around in his seat, and began to whistle, "A
Life on an Ocean Wave."
That was a signal for general disorder among the boys. Without
speaking a word, and so preserving the letter of the rule, if not the
spirit, they, with Tommy as leader, went through various pantomimic
performances. They hitched up their trousers in seamanlike fashion,
they pretended to row boats, they spit on their hands and hauled in
imaginary ropes, and as a climax, Tommy danced a hornpipe on his toes.
And then Anne spoke right out--"Oh, Tommy, _don't_," she said, in an
agony of fear lest Miss Mary should come in and catch him at it.
But Miss Mary did not come, and the little girls giggled and the boys
capered, and Anne in despair went on writing her words.
When Miss Mary came back finally, with the little people trooping in a
rosy row behind her, twenty-five virtuous heads were bent over
twenty-five papers.
"Did any one speak while I was out?" asked the teacher.
A wave of horror swept over Anne. She had not meant to do it, but she
had spoken, and to try to explain would be to condemn Tommy and the
rest of the school.
"Did any one speak?" asked Miss Mary again.
Anne stood up, her face flaming.
"I--I--did--" she faltered.
"Oh, Anne--" said Miss Mary, while the girls and boys dropped their
eyes for very shame. "Oh, Anne, why did you do it--"
"I just did it--" stammered Anne, who would rather have died than have
blamed Tommy, and Nannie, and Amelia, and the rest of her friends.
"Well, then," said Miss Mary, firmly, "I'm sorry, but you will have to
sit on the platform the rest of the morning, and I can't let you take
part in the Saturday's entertainment. I must have order and I will
have it."
And that was Miss Mary's second piece of injustice. But then she had a
headache, and children on Monday mornings are troublesome.
For one hour Anne sat with her head held high and her fair little face
flushed and burning. But she did not cry. And Tommy, bowed to the
ground by his sense of guilt in the matter, did not dare to look at the
patient, suffering martyr.
It was thus that Launcelot Bart, coming in just before twelve o'clock
to see Tommy, found her.
As soon as he got Tommy outside of the schoolroom he collared him.
"What's the matter with Anne?" he demanded.
"She talked in school," said Tommy, doggedly.
"I don't believe it."
"Well, she did, anyhow."
"Whose fault was it?"
"Hers, I suppose."
"You don't suppose anything of the kind. Anne Batcheller never broke a
rule in her life willingly, and you know it, Tommy Tolliver."
The children were coming out of the schoolroom in little groups of twos
and threes--the girls discussing Anne's martyrdom sympathetically, the
boys with hangdog self-consciousness.
Inside the room, Anne, released from her ordeal, had gone to her desk
and was sitting there with her head up. Her face was white now, the
little lunch-basket was open before her, but the cookie and the apple
were untouched.
Launcelot looked in through the window.
"Poor little soul," he murmured.
And then Tommy blubbered.
"It was really my fault, Launcelot," he confessed.
"What!"
Tommy explained.
"And you let Anne bear it--you let Anne be punished--oh, you
miserable--little--little--cur," said the indignant squire of dames, in
a white heat.
"Aw, what could I do?" whimpered Tommy.
"Go in and tell Miss Mary," said Launcelot.
"Aw--Launcelot--"
"_Go in and tell Miss Mary!_"
Tommy went.
But Miss Mary did not wish to be bothered.
"I made a rule and Anne broke it," she said, when Tommy tried to
straighten things out, "and that is all there is to it. Don't talk
about it any more, Tommy," and she dismissed him peremptorily.
When Tommy told Launcelot the result of the interview, the big boy set
his lips in a firm line, and started off down the dusty road.
He went straight to town and to Judy.
"Oh, oh," said Judy, when she had listened to his tale of woe, "what a
mean old thing she is--I hate her--" and her dark eyes flashed.
"I don't think Miss Mary is mean," said Launcelot, "but the children
_are_ restless, and she isn't very strong, and when she feels badly she
takes it out on the scholars."
"But to punish Anne," said Judy, and her voice trembled, "dear little
Anne--"
"She might at least have listened to Tommy's explanation," said
Launcelot.
After a pause he said: "I came to you because I thought you might go
and see Anne after school. It would do her a lot of good. She will be
all broken up."
"I will go to school and get her," cried Judy, eagerly. "Is it very
far?"
"I am afraid you couldn't walk," said Launcelot, doubtfully.
"I'll drive over in the trap," said Judy. "Grandfather says I can use
Vic whenever I want to."
"It was pretty mean of Miss Mary to pile it on, I must say," said
Launcelot, as he rose to go. "She might have let Anne be in the
entertainment."
"What?"
"She isn't going to let Anne be in it."
"Not be 'Cinderella'?" Judy's tone was ominous.
"No."
"Oh, oh, oh." Judy's hands were clenched fiercely. "I'll get even
with her, Launcelot. I'll get even with that teacher yet."
Launcelot smiled at her vehemence.
"But you can't," he said.
"Can't I?" with a shrug of her shoulders.
"No."
"Wait," said Judy, and not another word could he get out of her on the
subject.
The afternoon dragged along its interminable length, and Anne, with
bursting head, thought that it would never end.
"Tick, tock," proclaimed the old school clock, as the hands crept
slowly to one, to two, to three.
"In five minutes I can go," thought poor little Anne wildly, and just
then the school-room door opened, and on the threshold appeared a
self-contained young lady in pale violet gingham, and the young lady
was asking for Anne Batcheller!
"Judy!" said Anne's heart, with a bound, but her lips were still.
Miss Mary had seen the Judge's grand-daughter at church the day before,
and had been much impressed, and now when Judy asked sweetly if Anne
could go, she gave immediate consent.
"Of course she may," she said. "Anne, you are dismissed."
But her eyes did not meet Anne's eyes as she said it, for Miss Mary's
head was better, and she was beginning to wonder if she should not have
investigated before she condemned Anne so harshly.
Twenty-four heads turned towards the window as Anne and Judy climbed
into the fascinating trap with the fawn cloth cushions, and twenty-four
pairs of lungs breathed sighs of envy, as Judy picked up the reins, and
the two little girls drove away together in the sunshine.
CHAPTER X
MISTRESS MARY
No one ever knew how Judy managed to get the Judge's consent, but on
Wednesday, when the children on their way home from school called at
the post-office for the mail, they found small square envelopes
addressed to themselves, and each envelope contained a card, and on the
card was written an invitation to every child to be present at a lawn
party to be given at Judge Jameson's on the following Saturday, from
one until five o'clock.
But this was not all. For during the evening, rumors, started by the
wily Launcelot, leaked out, that never in the history of Fairfax had
there been such a party as the one to be given by Judge Jameson in
honor of his grand-daughter, Judith, and her friend, Anne Batcheller.
"For it is as much Anne's party as Judy's," Launcelot stated, as one
having authority.
After the first jubilation, however, the young people looked at each
other with blank faces.
"It is the same afternoon as the school entertainment," wailed Amelia
Morrison.
"An' we've got to speak our pieces," said little Jimmie Jones.
But Nannie May cut the Gordian knot with her usual impetuosity.
"I am going to Judy's party," she declared, "and I am going to get
mother to write a note to Miss Mary."
Many were the notes that went to Miss Mary that day. All sorts of
excuses were given by the ambitious mothers, who would not have had
their offspring miss the opportunity of seeing the inside of the most
exclusive house in Fairfax for all the school entertainments in the
world!
And Miss Mary!
She had invited the school board and a half-dozen pedagogues from
neighboring districts. She had trained the children until they were
letter perfect. She had drilled them in their physical exercises until
they moved like machines, and now at the eleventh hour they were
fluttering away from her like a flock of unruly birds, and she
recognized at once that Judy had championed Anne's cause, and that in
her she had an adversary to be feared.
In vain she expostulated with the mothers.
"Saturday isn't a regular school-day, you know, Miss Mary," said Mrs.
Morrison, sitting down ponderously to argue the question with the
teacher, "and of course the Judge couldn't know that it would interfere
with your plans."
Miss Mary was convinced that the Judge _did_ know, but she didn't quite
dare to argue the question with him. She was conscious that she had
been over-severe, and that the Judge, who believed in justice first,
last, and all the time, would not uphold her.
And so the plans for the party went on.
"We will have games," said Judy, "and we won't have anything old like
'Cinderella.' Has anybody got an idea?"
She and Anne and Launcelot were in the Judge's garden, and it was
Thursday evening, and there wasn't a great deal of time to get ready
for Saturday's festivities.
"We might have some one read poems, and have living pictures to
illustrate them," suggested Anne.
"What poems?" asked Judy, not quite sure that she liked the idea.
"There are some lovely things in Tennyson," said the little girl;
"there's the Sleeping Beauty for one. You could be the Beauty, Judy,
and Launcelot could be the prince--it would be just lovely--we could
have little Jimmie Jones for the page, and Nannie and Amelia for
ladies-in-waiting, and you could be asleep on the couch, while some one
read:
"Year after year unto her feet,
She lying on her couch alone,
Across the purple coverlet,
The maiden's jet-black hair has grown."
Anne quoted with ease, for the little blue and gold volume in her
bookcase had yielded up its treasures to her, and she knew the loved
verses better than she knew her "Mother Goose."
"Oh," Judy's eyes were alight, "how lovely that is--I never read that,
Anne."
"Well, you hate books, you know," and Anne dimpled at her retort.
"I shouldn't hate that kind," and Judy resolved that she would know
more about that princess.
"And we could have the arrival of the prince, and the awakening, and
their departure:
"And o'er the hills and far away,
Beyond their utmost purple rim,
Beyond the night, across the day,
Through all the world she followed him,"
chanted Anne like one inspired.
Then she blushed and blushed as the astonished Launcelot and Judy
praised her.
"I never dreamed that you knew so much poetry," cried Launcelot, seeing
her in a new and more respectful light.
"Oh, it just sings itself," said Anne. "When you read it a few times
you can't help reciting it."
"But I am not going to be the only one," said Judy. "What part will
you take, Anne?"
"I don't know."
"Who's your favorite heroine in Tennyson, Anne?" asked Launcelot.
"Elaine."
"Then Elaine it shall be--"
"And you must be Lancelot," cried Anne, eagerly.
"But he _is_ Launcelot," said puzzled Judy.
Anne and Launcelot laughed. "Well, you see," said Anne, "in the poem
Elaine is in love with a knight named Lancelot, and he doesn't love
her, and she dies, and when she is dead they put her on a barge and
send her to the court of King Arthur, where Lancelot is one of the
knights, and there is a letter to him in her hand, and a lily, and it's
lovely," she finished breathlessly.
"We shall have a hard time to build a barge," said Launcelot, with a
shake of his head.
"But we must have that scene, Launcelot," insisted Anne.
"Never mind," said Judy, who believed that all difficulties could be
surmounted in this line, "we will find something. How many pictures
shall we have for 'Elaine,' Anne?"
"We could have her giving him the 'red sleeve broider'd with pearls,'
and then we could have him ill in the cave, and the scene in the
garden, and at her window when he rides away, and then on the barge."
"We'll have to outline the story," said Launcelot; "the poem would be
too long."
"But we could get in some of it, like the little song about Love and
Death," said Anne, anxiously, for being too young to know tragedy or
love, she was yet enamoured by that which was beyond her comprehension.
It took all the next day for them to get things ready, but everything
went beautifully. Dr. Grennel promised to read the poems. Perkins,
though depressed at the prospect of more undignified gayety, gave
permission to use the dining-room for the tableaux, and the little
grandmother promised to spend all of Saturday with the Judge and his
sister, thus giving Anne a crowning delight.
And then, at the last minute, Anne spoiled everything!
"I can't bear to think of poor Miss Mary," she sobbed, late on Saturday
morning, when Judy found her crouched up in the window-seat overlooking
the garden.
"What?"
"I can't bear to think about poor Miss Mary," repeated Anne, dabbing
her eyes with her wet handkerchief.
"What's the matter?" asked Launcelot, as Judy stood speechless. He was
outside of the window, where he was helping Perkins place the tables
and arrange the chairs in the garden.
Anne's woebegone face bobbed up over the window-sill.
"I can't bear to think of Miss Mary. All alone while we shall be
having such a good time," she wailed. "I wish we could invite her."
Judy stamped her foot. "Anne Batcheller," she cried, tempestuously,
"you are too good to live," and she went out of the room like a
whirlwind.
She went straight to the Judge and Mrs. Batcheller, who were chatting
together in the dimness and quiet of the great parlor.
"I sha'n't have anything to do with the lawn party, grandfather," she
blazed, after she had told her story, "if that teacher is to be
invited!"
But the Judge's eyes were dreamy. "Dear little tender-heart," he said.
"She teaches us a lesson of forgiveness," said Mrs. Batcheller, who
with the Judge had deeply resented the treatment accorded Anne on that
fateful Monday morning.
"Perhaps it would be best to ask Miss Mary," ventured the Judge.
"If she would come," said Mrs. Batcheller, doubtfully.
But Judy would not listen to reason or argument.
"Do you think we ought to back down now," she demanded of Launcelot,
who, with Anne, had followed her to the parlor to talk things over.
"No," he said, slowly, "I don't think we ought to back down. But I
guess we shall have to."
"Why?"
Launcelot's eyes went to the sobbing figure in the little grandmother's
arms.
"We can't make her unhappy," he said in a low voice.
"Anne?"
"Yes."
"Everything is spoiled now," said Judy, chokingly, "everything. And I
took such an interest. I think it's mean--mean--mean--"
Her voice grew very shrill, and her face was red. Mrs. Batcheller
started to speak, but the Judge raised his hand to stop the untimely
lecture.
"Wait!" he said.
Something in his kind old face reminded Judy suddenly of the story he
had told her just a week before--of her grandmother and how she had
conquered her temper.
With a strong effort she kept back the words of furious disappointment
that she had intended to hurl at these weak-spirited people. Then she
whisked out of the room and down the hall, and presently Launcelot, who
had followed her, came back laughing but mystified.
"She is walking around the oval in the garden," he said, "as fast as
she can go, and she won't stop."
The Judge slapped his hand on his knee. "By George," he said, with a
sigh of relief, "she's done it!" But when Anne asked him to explain,
he shook his head. "That's a secret between Judy and me," he said,
"and I can't tell it," and over her head he smiled at Mrs. Batcheller,
who knew the story, and had often laughed with Judy's grandmother over
it.
Judy came in, finally, rosy and breathless.
"Oh, invite your Miss Mary if you want to," she panted, as she kissed
the tear-streaked face. "But don't expect me to act too saint-like. I
am not made of the same stuff that you are, Anne."
"You are a brick," Launcelot pronounced later, when they were alone in
the dining-room superintending the putting up of the stage; "it was
harder for you to give up than for Anne."
"No, I'm not a brick." said Judy, a little wearily, "I am just hateful.
But I do try," and his praise meant much to her, and helped her
afterwards.
Miss Mary sat alone and discouraged when the note of invitation was
handed to her. She had sent letters to the school board and the other
teachers, pleading "unavoidable postponement," and now she was
correcting papers with an aching head.
"Dear Miss Mary,"--said Anne's little note,--"Please come to our party
to-day. It is going to be very nice, and we are sorry we set the same
day as the school entertainment, and we won't be happy if you are not
here. Please forgive us, and come. Your affectionate scholar, Anne."
And below the Judge had added, "I am anxious to supplement Anne's
invitation and apology and to say with her, 'Please forgive us and
come.'"
"I won't go," said Miss Mary at first, bitterly.
But when she had read the little letter again, she changed her mind.
"She is a dear child," she said.
And she washed her face and combed her hair, and put on her best white
dress and her new summer hat with the roses in it, and went out looking
young and pretty and with her headache forgotten.
And when she arrived at the Judge's she was escorted to a seat of honor
in the front row, with the Judge on one side, and the little
grandmother on the other, and with the astonished children smiling
welcomes to her as she went up the aisle.
CHAPTER XI
THE PRINCESS AND THE LILY MAID
As the children arrived they were shown at once into the great
dining-room, where at one end a stage had been erected and a curtain
hung, from behind which came the sounds of hammering and subdued
directions, given in Launcelot's voice.
"Amelia Morrison and Nannie May are in it," explained Tommy who had
yearned for an important part, but Judy had declared against him.
"You shouldn't have been asked at all," she said, witheringly, "if it
hadn't been that Anne begged that you might. You acted dreadfully the
other day. Anne wouldn't have been punished if you had spoken right
out, Tommy, and had said that it was your fault."
"Aw--yes, she would, too," stammered Tommy.
"I never could stand a coward," was Judy's fling, and at that Tommy
subsided.
Behind the scenes Anne, in an entrancing trailing gown of pale blue
with pearls wound in her long fair braids was trying to get Jimmie
Jones to shut his eyes without opening his mouth.
"But I always sleep with my mouth open," persisted Jimmie, who, in
spite of his yellow curls and his page's costume of green satire was at
heart just plain boy.
"Well, you shouldn't," scolded Anne, as she tripped over her train.
"You will simply spoil the picture. Just see how nice Judy and Amelia
and Nannie look."
On the couch lay Judy all in soft, shining, satiny white, her dark hair
spreading over the pillow, and one hand under her cheek; and at each
end, Nannie and Amelia, in rose color and in violet, blissfully happy,
and, though their eyes were closed, wide awake to the charms of the
situation.
"Now--ready," whispered Anne, as Dr. Grennell's fine voice rolled out
the last lines of the "Prologue." "Now--" and the curtain went up on
"The Sleeping Princess."
Jimmie's mouth flew open and Amelia smiled, but little cared the gaping
audience for such trifles. Breathless they stared as one scene
followed another. Launcelot was a Prince that set all the little
girls' hearts a-flutter, as he knelt beside the couch, with a great
bunch of dewy roses in his arms, which, in the next picture, lay all
scattered over Judy, when she waked and gazed at him dreamily. Jimmie
came out strongly at this point, with a prodigious yawn that almost
broke him in two, and was so expressive of great weariness that little
Bobbie Green, his bosom friend, was carried away by the realism of it,
and asked in awe, "Did he really sleep a hundred years?" and was not
quite brought back to earth by Tommy Tolliver's exclamation, "Why you
saw him awake this morning, Bobbie, didn't you?"
The Prince and the Princess went away together at last; she with a long
velvet cloak covering the whiteness of her gown, and a hat with white
plumes, and he with a sword at his side, that made Tommy Tolliver turn
green with envy.
Jimmie Jones came down and sat by Bobbie Green during the intermission,
in which lemonade was passed and the pictures discussed.
Bobbie gazed upon him as one who has come from a strange country.
"Say, say," he whispered eagerly, "how could you sleep when we was
makin' all that noise, Jimmie--clappin'?"
Jimmie took a long blissful gulp of lemonade, and then fished out the
strawberry from the bottom of the glass. "Ho," he said, "that wasn't
nothin'. It wasn't really me that was asleep, it was just my eyes,"
and Bobbie, though still hazy, accepted the explanation and fished for
his strawberry in imitation of his distinguished friend and actor,
Jimmie Jones!
Most of the children had read parts of "Elaine" at school, and they
"Oh-ed" and "Ah-ed" as the fair-haired heroine appeared.
Anne was very sweet, very appealing, as she went through the sad little
scenes, and when at last she sat at the window. Dr. Grennell did not
read Elaine's song, but Anne sang it, to Judy's accompaniment, played
softly behind the scenes.
"Sweet is true love, tho' given in vain, in vain;
And sweet is death who puts an end to pain:
I know not which is sweeter, no, not I."
And all the little girls wept into their handkerchiefs, while the boys
sniffed audibly.
"Bless their hearts," said Mrs. Batcheller to Miss Mary, "it's too bad
to have them cry."
But the Judge, who was a keen observer of human nature, shook his head.
"A little sadness now and then won't hurt them," he said. "It is the
shadows that make us appreciate the sunshine, you know."
There was a long wait before the curtain was raised on the last picture
in the poem: "The dead steer'd by the dumb."
The barge had been a problem, until Judy solved it by placing an
ironing-board across two chairs, and draping the whole into the
semblance of a boat-like bier.
Perkins, under protest, was pressed into service as the dumb boatman,
and with a long beard of white cotton, and a cloak and hood of funereal
black, he was a picturesque and pessimistic figure.
"It's so wobbly," said Anne, powdered with corn-starch to an
interesting paleness and draped all in white. "It's so wobbly, Judy,"
and she shrieked softly, as she laid herself flat on the ironing-board.
"Steady," advised Launcelot, as he shifted her carefully to the center,
"now for the lily and the letter, Judy," and he threw over the
prostrate Anne a yellow silk shawl of Judy's which was to serve as
cloth of gold.
"Now, Perkins," and Perkins climbed to the high stool, which had been
set in an armchair and formed the bow of the boat.
"If I falls, I falls," said Perkins, classically, "and my blood be on
your head, sir," and while Judy writhed in agonies of laughter,
Launcelot turned off the lights and adjusted the great lantern, which
was to throw on the barge the effect of moonlight, while all else was
to be in shadow.
The illusion from the front was perfect. Even the green piano cover
with its dots of white cotton foamed up around the barge like real
waves.
"How lovely she is," whispered all the children, as Anne lay there so
still and quiet, with her fair hair streaming over the blackness of the
bier.
"I don't like it. I don't like it," whimpered Bobbie Green, whose
imagination was a thing to be reckoned with. "I don't like it. Anne,
oh, Anne--"
And Anne's tender heart could not withstand that cry of fear.
"I'm all right, darling," she said, right out, and then the tension was
broken, and all the children laughed, with relief, as Elaine sat up
smiling and waving her hand to them.
"Bobbie Shafto" came next and was a dig at Tommy.
Judy's great marine picture made the background, and on the shore
little Mary Morrison bade little Jimmie Jones "Good-bye" with
heartrending sobs. But this Bobbie Shafto never went to sea. As
picture followed picture, he was shown pulling at a rowing machine,
sailing toy ships in a tub, fishing in a pail, and digging for treasure
in a tiny sand pile--and after each funny scene, the curtain would
drop, and tiny Mary Morrison would come to the front and wail:
"_Tommy_ Shafto's gone to sea,
Silver buckles on his knee,
He'll come back and marry me,
Pretty _Tommy_ Shafto!"
It brought down the house, but Tommy got very red and murmured in
Bobbie's ear that "They might think it was funny, but _he_ didn't,"
which Bobbie Green did not understand in the least.
"That's all," and Launcelot gave a sigh of relief, as Mary and Jimmie
made their bows amid uproarious applause. He had been stage manager as
well as actor, and he was tired.
"No, no," whispered Judy, as she came on the stage dressed as a
fishermaid, and dragging a great net behind her. "No, no. Dr.
Grennell is going to read 'Break, break, break.' I sha'n't need any
change of scene. Just leave the big picture, and put this net and the
shells around, and smooth out that sand to look like the beach."
She was making a rock out of two boxes covered with a gray mackintosh
as she spoke. "Now, if you could just whistle like the wind," she
said. "Do you think you could, Launcelot?"
"I'll try," and he did whistle, so effectively, that he did not get his
breath for five minutes.
Judy had read the poem one day when she was helping Anne to plan the
pictures, and it had, like all songs of the sea, sung itself into her
heart.
Again the big picture with its stretch of sea made the background, and
Judy sat on the rock looking at it. The plaid lining of her mackintosh
showed, and the wind sounded wheezy, but the pathos in Judy's face, the
tragedy in her eyes as the third verse was read:
"And the stately ships go on,
To the haven under the hill,
But oh, for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!"
made the Judge wipe his eyes, and Mrs. Batcheller say hurriedly, "She
should not have done it. She should not."
And behind the dropped curtain Judy was saying to Dr. Grennell, "I want
to go back to the sea. I hate the country. I want to go back to the
wind and waves. I can't stand it here."
But the doctor put his hand on her shoulder and looked down into her
troubled face with grave eyes.
"Not now," he said, quietly, "not while your grandfather needs you,
Judy."
Judy drew a long breath, then she put out her hand as if to make him a
promise.
"No, not while grandfather needs me," she said, "not while he needs me,
Doctor."
CHAPTER XII
LORDLY LAUNCELOT
The children of the town of Fairfax never forgot that afternoon at
Judge Jameson's. For years they had peeped through the hedge at the
fascinating Cupid of the Fountain, but never had one of them put foot
in the old garden, with its mysterious nooks and formal paths, which
lay in the shadow of the Great House.
But to-day with its gipsy band playing wild music, with its gaily
decorated tables, its awe-inspiring Perkins,--who with his satellites
offered food fit for the gods,--with its riot of spring color, it was
beyond their wildest dreams.
Before they went home they all assembled again in the great dining-room
from which the chairs had been taken, and on the polished floor every
one, old and young, danced the Virginia Reel, the Judge leading with
Miss Mary, and Mrs. Batcheller bringing up at the end of the line with
Jimmie Jones.
"It was a success, wasn't it," said Launcelot, when the children had
trooped away, and Anne and Mrs. Batcheller and the smiling Miss Mary
had been driven home in the Judge's carriage.
"Yes," said Judy, abstractedly, watching the musicians, who were having
their refreshments under the lilac bushes.
"What handsome faces they have," she said, "so dark and wild. And
their lives are so free--grandfather says they just roam around from
place to place, living in the woods and picking up a little money here
and there. He says their camp is just outside, and when he was driving
yesterday, he saw one of them playing and asked them if they wouldn't
come here to-day."
When the gipsies had finished they rose and went down the path towards
the gate. They were talking and laughing with a vivacious play of
feature and a recklessness of gesture that proclaimed them the
unconscious children of nature.
"How I wish I could go with them," said Judy, impulsively, as the young
leader of the band took off his hat and waved them a debonair
"good-bye." "How I wish I could go!"
But Launcelot shook his head. "It's all very romantic from the
outside," he said, "but the women don't have a very good time. They
tramp the dusty roads in summer and almost freeze in their open wagons
in the winter, and they bear most of the burdens. Those men are
handsome, all right, but some of them are brutes."
As he spoke the leader of the band came back up the path.
"Come to our camp, pretty lady," he said, flashing his dark eyes upon
Judy, "and our queen will tell your fortune. For a piece of silver she
will tell you the things that are past and the things that are to come."
"Oh, will she?" asked Judy, eagerly. "Will you be at the camp next
Saturday?"
"We will be there until you come," said the gipsy with a glance of
admiration at her vivid face.
But Launcelot's hand was clenched at his side. He did not like that
fellow's face or his manner, he told himself, and Judy should not go
near that camp if he could help it.
"You don't want to have your fortune told, Judy," he said, a little
roughly.
Judy's eyebrows went up in surprise. "I do," she said. "It's fun."
"It's silly," contended Launcelot, doggedly.
The gipsy's eyes flashed from one to the other.
"You will come," he urged, ignoring Launcelot, and addressing his
question to Judy.
"Yes."
"On Saturday?"
"Yes."
"Good; we will welcome you, pretty lady." And with a defiant glance at
the big angry boy, the dark Hungarian swung down the path, singing as
he went.
"You are not going," said Launcelot, when the man was out of sight.
"I am."
"Then I shall tell the Judge."
"Telltale."
Launcelot stood up and glowered at her.
"Who do you think will go with you?"
"You." There was a laugh in Judy's eyes, as she made the impertinent
answer.
"I won't."
"Not if I ask you?"
"Not under any circumstances. It isn't the place for you, Judy."
Then he sat down beside her. "Look here," he said, in a wheedling
tone, "if I were really your big brother, I wouldn't let you go. Can't
you let me order you around a little, just as if I were--?"
Judy caught her breath. Why would he use that tone? It always made
her feel as if she wanted to give in--but she wouldn't.
"I am going," she said, slowly, although she did not look at him, "if I
have to go alone."
"Then I shall tell the Judge."
"Oh," Judy's tone was cutting, "I always did hate boys."
For a moment Launcelot's face flamed, then most unexpectedly he laughed.
"You don't hate me, Judy," he said, "you know you don't."
"I do."
"No, you don't," he went on, and there was no anger in his voice, only
good-natured tolerance that made Judy's temper seem very childish.
"You are angry now. But you are not that kind of girl--"
"What kind of girl?"
"Changeable."
"Oh, I don't know."
But Launcelot insisted. "You are not changeable, Judy, and you know
it."
And finally Judy gave in. "No, I'm not, and I don't hate you, but I
hate to be told I can't do things."
"You will have to get used to it--" daringly.
"Oh--you needn't think _you_ can order me around, Launcelot, in that
lordly way--"
She faced him defiantly. Her eyes were glowing with excited feeling.
She looked like a young duchess in her anger. After the pictures, she
had twisted her hair on top of her head in shining coils, and the dress
she wore was a quaint mull that had been her grandmother's, a thing of
creamy folds and laces that swept the floor. Launcelot felt suddenly
very crude and impertinent to be dictating to this very stately young
lady. But her next remark made her a child again, and brought him
confidence.
"I have always had my own way--and I shall do as I please."
Launcelot got up lazily. "All right," he said, and held out his hand,
"good-bye. I promised mother that I wouldn't be late."
But Judy did not seem to see the hand. She leaned against one of the
big pillars indifferently, and looked out over the garden, Launcelot
waited a moment, and then his hand dropped.
"Oh, I suppose you and I will have to quarrel now and then," he said,
"we are both so obstinate," and he smiled to himself as Judy frowned
darkly at the word, "but I don't see any use in doing it now, when we
have had such a nice day--"
With one of her quick changes of mood Judy beamed on him. "Oh, hasn't
it been nice," she said. And then she held out her hand. "Good-bye,"
she smiled.
But as he went down the path she called after him.
"If you meet Tommy Tolliver, tell him I want to see him."
He stopped. "What do you want him for?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.
"I sha'n't tell you."
"You needn't think you can get him to take you to the gipsy camp," said
Launcelot.
"He will take me if I ask him."
"No, he won't."
"Why not?"
"Because I shall tell him beforehand that if he takes you out there I
shall thrash him within an inch of his life."
"What?" gasped Judy.
"I shall do it," said Launcelot, and as he swung down the path, Judy,
looking after the straight, strong figure, knew that his threat was not
an idle one.
And yet, after all, if it had not been for Launcelot, Judy would never
have gone to the camp. She had debated the question and had decided
that the game was not worth the candle. She had approached Tommy
Tolliver, and his numerous excuses convinced her that Launcelot had
been before her. She had hinted her wishes to Anne, only to be met by
that virtuous maiden with "Oh, Judy, I should be afraid--they look so
dark and wild--and besides we ought not to go--" She even suggested a
drive to the camp to the Judge, but he had said: "It is not a place for
you, my dear," as if that settled the question.
Then, too, she had other plans for Saturday, for Launcelot planned to
drive his mother and Judy and Anne to Lake Limpid, and they were to
take an early boat for a little resort where they were to meet some of
Mrs. Bart's friends.
Judy stayed with Anne all night, so as to be as near the Barts as
possible, for there was a drive of five miles, and the boat left at
eight o'clock.
"Do get up, Judy," begged Anne, on Saturday morning, as she stood in
front of her little mirror, her hair combed, her shoes polished, and
her last bow tied.
But Judy dug her rumpled head deeper into the pillow.
"'If you're waking, call me early, call me early, mother, dear,'" she
murmured, having improved her acquaintance with Tennyson during the
week.
"Well, it isn't early," said Anne, sharply. "You will be late, Judy,
and we must catch the boat."
Judy sat up rubbing her eyes. "Oh, it won't hurt Launcelot to wait a
little. He thinks he can manage everybody--but he can't dictate to me,
Anne. I am not as meek as you are."
"I'm not meek," flared Anne, whose usually sweet temper had been
somewhat ruffled in her efforts to wake Judy. "But Launcelot is a very
sensible boy."
"Oh, sensible," groaned Judy. "I _hate_ sensible people."
"What kind of people do you like?" demanded Anne, indignantly.
"Unsensible ones?"
"Yes. Dashing people and lively people and funny
people--and--and--romantic people--but sensible people, oh, dear," and
she buried her head again in the pillow.
"Judy, _get up_."
"I'll be ready in time."
"No, you won't. And breakfast is ready. Judy, get up."
A gentle snore was the only answer.
"Oh," and Anne flung herself out of the room, "if you are late, Judy
Jameson, I can't help it."
She went down-stairs and ate her breakfast. But no sign of Judy.
"Judee--ee!" she called up the stairway, and "Judee--ee!" she called
again from the garden, where, with Belinda and Becky, she stood
awaiting the arrival of the carriage.
"Judith, my dear," expostulated the little grandmother, climbing the
stairway slowly, "Judith, my dear, you really must hurry. You will
have to go without any breakfast--I--"
She opened the door of the little bedroom and stopped short.
The bedclothes had been thrown over the foot-board, the pillows were on
the floor, Judy's clothes were gone, and the room was empty!
CHAPTER XIII
A FORTUNE AND A FRIGHT
"She is hiding," said Anne.
But though they hunted and called, not a sign of the missing girl could
they find.
When Launcelot came, Anne was almost in tears.
"She must be here somewhere," she said. "It's too bad. We shall be
late."
"No, we won't," said Launcelot, who had listened without a word to the
tale of Judy's shortcomings and final disappearance. "We will not be
late, Anne, for if Judy doesn't come in just three minutes, we will go
without her."
"Oh, no, no, no," protested Anne, all her grievances against Judy
forgotten in the face of such a calamity. "We can't leave her behind."
"She will leave herself behind," said Launcelot, "for mother can't miss
the boat. She has promised her friends that she will meet them."
"But my dear," protested gentle Mrs. Bart, "we can surely wait until
the last minute. Judy only intends it as a joke, and it is too bad to
leave her."
But Launcelot was in an explosive mood. The morning had been a trying
one for him. He had hurried through a half-day's work in an hour and a
half, he had eaten hardly any breakfast for fear he should keep the
girls waiting, and now--to be treated like this!
"We can't wait any longer," he said, looking at his watch. "I am
sorry, Anne, but we shall just have to leave Judy behind."
Again Anne started to protest, but the little grandmother shook her
head. "Judy deserves it," she said. "She is too old to be so
childish."
"Maybe she is waiting down the road somewhere," said Anne, hopefully.
"I think she is trying to fool us."
But Judy was not waiting down the road. She was in the orchard behind
the plum-tree.
"It won't hurt Launcelot to wait," she had, thought as she hid herself,
"I will make him think I am not going--"
But she had not dreamed that they would go without her, and when she
saw Anne climb in and the carriage start off, she ran forward wildly.
"Wait," she called, "wait for me."
But the carriage whirled on in a cloud of dust, and her voice echoed on
the empty air.
By the time Judy reached the house Mrs. Batcheller had gone in, and so
the little girl ran down the road unseen. "Perhaps they will stop for
me," she thought, and her eyes were strained after the flying vehicle.
But it did not stop, and at last warm and tired Judy dropped down by
the roadside, a forlorn figure.
"I didn't think they would leave me," she thought disconsolately.
After a while she got up and started towards the house. She dreaded to
face Mrs. Batcheller, however, and she sat down again to decide upon a
plan for spending the day.
She would not stay in the little gray cottage, that was a sure thing,
and to go back to the Judge's meant a dull day by herself.
As she mused, a cheery whistle sounded down the road. "A Life on the
Ocean Wave" was the tune and Judy started to her feet.
"Oh, Tommy Tolliver, Tommy Tolliver," she called, "come here."
Tommy rounded the curve in the road and stared at her.
"Say, I thought you were going with Anne," he said. "They just passed
me down the road."
"Did they?" asked Judy, indifferently. "Well, at the last minute I
thought I wouldn't go."
"Well, you missed it," said Tommy, aggravatingly. "Lake Limpid's
great--and Launcelot can sail a boat like anything."
"Oh, can he?" said Judy, faintly. She loved to sail, and Tommy's words
brought before her a vision of the pleasure she had forfeited.
There was silence for several minutes, then Judy said:
"Tommy, do you know where the gipsies are camping?"
Tommy waved her away.
"I can't take you there," he said, "I have promised I won't."
"'Nobody asked you, sir, she said,'" Judy's tone was withering. "I
asked you where it was."
"Oh."
"Well, tell me."
Tommy wriggled.
"Are you going there?"
"Perhaps."
"Well, you'd better not. Launcelot won't like it."
"Oh, Launcelot, Launcelot." Judy's voice was scornful. "I don't care
what Launcelot likes, Tommy Tolliver."
"Oh, don't you?" cried Tommy, brightening. "Well, then--"
But he stopped suddenly. "No, I can't tell you," he said, miserably.
"Why not?"
"I can't.
"Oh, well, you needn't," said Judy. "But I can find out. And I'm
going."
"You'd better not," warned Tommy, yet hoping she would do it.
"I'll go with you," he agreed, "if you will promise not to tell."
"I don't want you to go," asserted Judy. "I want you to tell me how to
get there."
Tommy told her as well as he could.
"That doesn't seem very clear," said Judy, when he had finished. "But
I guess I can find it--and Tommy"--she fixed him with a stern
glance--"don't you tell any one where I am--not any one--or I sha'n't
ever speak to you again--"
"All right," said Tommy. "And don't you let on to Launcelot that I
told you which way to go."
"Good-bye," said Judy.
"Good-bye," said Tommy.
And off they started in different directions, feeling like a pair of
conspirators.
For the first half-mile Judy enjoyed her walk. The sky was blue, and
the air was soft, and there were violets on the banks and
forget-me-nots in the field, and the orchards were pink with bloom.
There were birds everywhere, from the great black crows, strutting over
the red hills of newly planted corn, to the tiny gray sparrows, that
slipped through the dusty grass at the roadside.
And in spite of the fact that she had started on a forbidden quest,
Judy was happy. For the first time since she had come to the Judge's
she was alone and free--with no reckoning to come until evening.
She stepped along lightly, but after a while she went more slowly, and
by the time she reached the thick piece of woodland where the gipsies
were encamped, she was tired out. They were not far from the road, for
she could hear the thrum of the guitars, and voices raised as if in a
quarrel.
The voices were stilled as Judy's white-gowned figure appeared under
the over-arching oaks.
The dark young leader, who had been at the Judge's, uttered something
in a warning voice to a sullen young woman who lounged against a pile
of bright-colored rugs, and with whom he had been having evidently a
fierce argument. She wore a soiled, silken cap, loaded with gilt
coins, and her dress was in tawdry reds and yellows, yet picturesque
and becoming to her dark beauty. She stared insolently at Judy as the
latter came forward, but the young leader was smiling and profuse in
his welcome.
"You have come," he said, "and alone?"
Something in his tone made Judy draw away from him.
"Yes," she said, and then, peremptorily, "I want my fortune told."
"I will speak to the queen," he said, and left her, with another of his
flashing smiles.
The camp life as Judy looked upon it presented an alluring picture to
one of her romantic turn of mind. Back in the darkness and dimness of
a cave-like opening in the rocks, an old woman bent over a charcoal
brazier. Her hair, gray and grizzled, fell over a yellow face that,
lighted by the blue flames, took on a hag-like aspect. Her skinny
hands moved as if in incantations, and Judy shivered with the mystery
of it until the strong and unmistakable odor of beef and onion stew
rose on the air and relieved her mind as to the nature of the brew
which might have been of "wool of bat and tongue of dog" for all she
knew to the contrary.
A group of swarthy men lounged under the trees and down by the stream a
half-dozen children played with a half-dozen dogs. The children were
fat and rosy, and the curs lean and cadaverous, and the dozen of them
had stared at Judy as she came into the camp in animal-like curiosity,
and then had gone on with their playing.
From one of the two big wagons drawn up near the road came the wailing
of an infant, and in the other a woman, half-hidden by the curtain, sat
weaving a bright-colored basket.
"Do you all work at basket weaving?" Judy asked the silent girl on the
rugs.
"I do not work," was the answer. Then she tossed her head, defiantly.
"I will not work. They cannot make me."
She started to say more, but she stopped as the dark young leader came
back.
He had spoken to the old woman who presided at the fire, and Judy saw
her wipe her hands and make for a dilapidated tent under an oak.
It was to this tent that she was directed, and when she was once within
and her eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, she saw the old hag,
looking more witch-like than ever, with her head tied up in a flaming
yellow bandanna, and her shoulders wrapped in a great cloak covered
with cabalistic signs.
"Cross my hand with silver," she murmured, and Judy took out the only
piece of money she had with her--a silver quarter of a dollar.
The old woman looked at it with dissatisfaction. "That is not enough,"
she said. "I can tell you nothing for that."
"But I haven't any more," said Judy, in dismay. "I didn't expect to
come, and it is all I have."
"Oh, well," grudgingly, "I will tell you a little."
She took Judy's hand in hers and studied the palm.
"You will live to be old," she said, monotonously. "There are double
rings around your wrist. You will marry a man with wealth and with
gray eyes."
"I don't want to know that--" said Judy, impatiently, to whom such
matters were as yet unimportant. "Tell me about--about--other things."
"Hush," said the gipsy, "I must say, what I must say. You will go on a
long journey. It will be on the sea. You will look for one who is
lost. You are a child of the sea--" She flung Judy's hand away from
her. "That is all," she said, heavily, "I can tell you no more without
more money."
"Oh, oh," cried Judy, breathlessly, "how did you know it. How did you
know that I was a child of the sea--"
"What I tell, I know," crooned the old woman, theatrically. "I can
tell nothing without silver."
"But I haven't any more money," cried poor Judy.
"But a ring, a pin, they will do as well,"' the old woman looked at her
greedily.
"I don't wear jewelry," said Judy, "I don't care for it."
"A chain, a charm, then," urged the old woman, whose eagle eyes had
caught the outline of something that glittered beneath the thin lace
collar of Judy's gown.
"I have nothing."
"There, there,--what have you there?" and the yellow finger tapped
Judy's throat.
Judy drew back with a little shudder, and shook her head as she showed
the thin gold chain with a pearl clasp on the end of which was a quaint
silver coin.
"I couldn't let you have this," she said. "My mother always wore it.
It is a Spanish coin. My father found two of them on the beach near
our home, and he gave mother one, and he kept the other--they are just
alike. Oh, no, I couldn't give you that--"
"I will tell you many things--about one who has gone away," tempted the
old woman.
For a moment Judy wavered. "Oh, I can't," she decided. "I can't let
you have this."
The old woman got up. "Then go," she said roughly.
All at once there came over Judy a feeling of fear. She turned quickly
and saw the young leader in the door behind her. There was something
sinister in his looks, and between the two she felt trapped.
"Let me out," she panted. "Let me out."
With a smile, the man in the door drew aside, and she stepped out into
the daylight. As she did so, he whispered to the old woman, "What did
you get?"
"Nothing. But the girl has on a chain with a pearl in it that would
buy us food for a year."
"Oh!"
He followed Judy quickly.
"Stay, and we will play for you," he urged.
But her nerves were shaken.
"No, no," she said, hurriedly, "I must go home."
"You must stay until we play," he insisted, and called the men
together, and Judy, still trembling from the moment of dread in the
dark tent, sank down once more beside the sullen girl on the rugs.
But the leader called the girl away for a moment, and when she came
back she sat closer to Judy than before, and her hand was busy with the
fastening of the chain at the back--but so lightly, so deftly, that
Judy sat unconscious.
And in the intervals of the music the girl laughed and chatted, telling
Judy of the life on the road, of anything to hold her attention.
"You would look like one of us," she said, "if you wore one of these,"
and she threw across Judy's shoulders a scarf of red silk.
"I believe I am half gipsy," said Judy, trying to be agreeable, but
shrinking with a feeling of repulsion from the untidy creature so near
her.
The girl drew away the scarf with a loud laugh and a triumphant nod and
a wink to the leader, and presently the music stopped.
"I must go," said Judy, more and more in dread of these strange people.
Once more the old woman bent over the blue flames; but the children had
gone deeper into the wood, and the place was silent except for the
occasional guttural remark of one of the men, or a wail from the baby
in the wagon.
"I must go," she said again, and started off.
But when she reached the road, the young leader caught up with her.
"You are beautiful," he said, when he was beyond the hearing of the
others.
Judy hurried on in silence, but he kept by her side. "You are
beautiful," he said again, and laid his hand on her arm.
Then Judy whirled around on him. "Don't speak to me that way again,"
she said, imperiously. "I may be alone and helpless, and I know now
that I was very foolish to come. But my grandfather is a Judge. If
anything happens to me, he will call you to account. Go back to the
camp. Go back and let me alone."
The man stopped short and gazed at her.
"You are brave," he said, in a more respectful tone.
"None of my family have ever been cowards," said Judy, who was herself
again. "I am not afraid of you."
His bold eyes dropped before the fearlessness in hers.
"Good-bye," he said, humbly, and when he reached the edge of the camp
he turned and looked after her, and there was a shadow on his swarthy
face.
The girl on the pile of rugs called him.
"I got it," she said.
"Give it to me," he ordered, roughly. But she held the necklace away
from him with a teasing laugh. "It is mine, it is mine," she cried,
then shrieked, as he wrenched it out of her hand, twisting her wrist
cruelly.
Judy, alone once more and with her courage all gone, so that she was so
weak that she could hardly stand, ran on and on, blindly. She dared
not go back the way she had come for fear of meeting again some of the
hated band.
"I will keep ahead," she thought. "There must be a house somewhere,
and I can get them to drive me home."
But though she walked on and on, no house appeared. She was faint with
fatigue and hunger, and at last, as she came to the end of a road and
found herself stranded in a great pasture, a sob caught in her throat.
She sat down on a rock and looked around. There seemed to be nothing
in sight but rocks and scrubby bushes, and already twilight was
descending over the land.
"I believe I am lost," she owned at last, "and if some one doesn't find
me pretty soon, I shall have to stay out all night."
CHAPTER XIV
A PRECIOUS PUSSY CAT
The moon was out and the stars when Judy discovered a flock of sheep in
the middle of the great pasture.
They were gathered together in a close woolly bunch as she came upon
them, and they turned to her their mild white faces, but did not get up
from the ground. It was nice to be near something alive, even if it
was only such meek, silly creatures, and Judy sat down on a stone near
them.
"I will stay here," she decided. "I simply cannot walk another step."
It was very lonely and she was very frightened. The moon lighted the
world with a white light, but the shadows were black under the trees;
somewhere in the distance a whippoorwill uttered a plaintive note, and
from the gloomy woods beyond came the mournful hoot of an owl.
Judy slipped down to the softer grass, and resting her head on her arm
gazed up at the sky, and gradually her fear went from her in the
silence of the perfect night. A line marked in one of her father's
books came to her:
"God's in his heaven
All's right with the world."
Judy did not know that Browning had said that--she didn't care who had
said it, but it comforted her. If everything had seemed to go wrong in
her own little world, it was because she had made it wrong. Here under
the wonderful sky was peace, and if she was afraid and out of harmony
it was her own fault.
"If I hadn't gone where I ought not to have been, nothing would have
happened," was her rather mixed, if perfectly correct, summing up.
The little lambs bleated now and then:
"Maa-a-a, Maa-aa-a."
And the old ewes responded comfortingly,
"Baa-aa--" which Judy interpreted as meaning, "I am here, little one,
don't be afraid."
"I won't be afraid either, you dear old thing," said Judy to the
motherly creature near her, who had turned upon her now and then
inquiring gentle eyes. "I won't be afraid, and I am going to sleep."
She did go to sleep, and when she waked, the world was dark. The moon
had sailed away like a golden boat, and the stars seemed very far off.
Judy sat up and shivered. A cool wind had risen, but that was not what
had roused her.
She had heard something!
Something that just at the right of the flock of sheep moved silently,
something blacker than the darkness that enveloped it!
She thought of wild animals, of tramps, of everything natural that
might invade a pasture; then as a sepulchral cry broke once more upon
the air, she remembered all the tales she had ever heard of Things that
visited one in the night.
"Judy Jameson, you know you don't believe in ghosts," she tried to
reassure herself, "you know you don't, Judy Jameson," but all the same
her heart went "thumpety-thump."
She cowered back against the rock as a white figure appeared beside the
black one, and the two bore down upon her.
There was a sudden bewildering chorus:
"Caw--caw--caw--"
"Purr--rr--meow--"
And then Judy screamed, joyfully, "Oh, Belinda, Belinda, you precious
pussy cat," and in her relief she hugged the great white animal, as if
she were not the same girl who, not many days before, had said, "I hate
cats."
Becky walked around in a circle and inspected Judy.
"So it was you, Becky, was it?" asked Judy, "that I saw first? But
what made you look so tall?"
She went to the place where she had first seen the apparition, and
found the slender stump of a tree, on top of which Becky had been
perched.
"What are you doing here, so far from home, Belinda," asked Judy, as
she sat down and took the purring, gentle creature in her lap.
But Belinda could not talk, although she patted Judy's hand with her
paw and curled down with her head in the crook of Judy's arm.
"My, it's good to have you here," said Judy, "but I wonder how it
happened."
She gathered the big cat close to her, grateful for the warmth of the
soft body, and with Becky perched up on a rock behind, she sat very
still, comforted by the sound of Belinda's sleepy song, and by Becky's
sentinel-like watchfulness.
It was in the black darkness that precedes the dawn that she was roused
by a lantern flashing across her eyes.
"Grandfather," she said, sleepily, as a haggard old face bent above
her. "Grandfather."
"Judy," he said, with a break in his voice.
Wide-awake now, she saw that his hands trembled so that he had to set
the lantern down.
"Oh," she said, remorsefully, as she sat up, "how tired you look,
grandfather."
"We have hunted for you all night," he said, and the dim rays from the
lantern showed the droop of his figure and the lines in his face.
"Oh, grandfather," she said again, and clung to him, sobbing softly.
"Hush," he said, holding her close. "Hush, Judy. You are all right
now."
"Oh, I am all right," she sobbed, despairingly, "but it is you,
grandfather, you are all tired out, and just because I was
such--such--a silly goose--"
"Never mind, never mind," said the Judge, hastily, "I have found you
now."
"I am not worth finding," said Judy, miserably, "I am not, grandfather."
But the Judge laughed at that, and smoothed her hair away from her
forehead with a loving touch. "You are always my dear little girl," he
assured her, "whatever you do--you know that, don't you?"
"Yes," she whispered, and laid her face against his sleeve.
"Now we will go back," he said presently, and with Belinda and Becky in
close attendance, they went up the hill together.
At the top Judy gave a cry of astonishment, for right in front of her,
on the other side of the hill, was the little gray house, ablaze with
light.
"And I have been right back of it all night. If I had just walked a
few steps farther," exclaimed Judy. "I must have gone in a circle, and
I thought I was miles from here--"
As they came to the door the little grandmother met them, and Anne, and
in the background Tommy Tolliver.
"We didn't know you were lost," explained Anne as she received the
returned wanderer in her arms, "until we got back from Lake Limpid.
Grandmother thought you had joined us down the road, and we thought you
had stayed at home, and the Judge, of course, thought you were with me,
and so none of us worried until we came back to-night and found you had
been gone all day."
"And then Tommy told us that you had gone to the gipsy camp," went on
Anne.
At Judy's reproachful glance Tommy burst out:
"I couldn't help telling, Judy. Launcelot made me."
"I should say I did," said a voice from the doorway, and Launcelot came
in with Dr. Grennell. "I was sure he knew something about it."
Judy greeted them from the big rocking chair--where she sat big-eyed
and weary, but a most interesting spectacle.
"Launcelot went to the camp and found that the gipsies had gone, so we
knew you couldn't have seen them--" began the Judge, and at that Judy
interrupted him.
"But I _did_ see them, grandfather," she said, "I went to the camp."
"And were they there?" asked Launcelot
"Yes."
"Were they packing while you were there?"
"No."
"I wonder what made them leave so suddenly," and Launcelot and the
Judge and Dr. Grennell looked at each other.
"Did you give them anything, Judy?" asked the Judge.
"Nothing but twenty-five cents. They were horrid, and the old woman
wanted me to give my chain and Spanish coin. She knew an awful lot and
I was crazy to hear the rest of my fortune, but I couldn't give away my
coin."
"What coin, Judy?" asked Tommy, curiously.
"This one--" Judy put her hand to her neck, then she screamed:
"It's gone, grandfather. Launcelot, it's gone."
"What?" They all bent forward in excitement.
"I thought so," said the Judge, settling back in his chair, "when she
said she had seen them, and then they disappeared before we could get
to them. I thought they had been up to something."
"It was my chain with the pearl in it," said Judy, "the one you gave
mother."
"Yes, and the rascals knew that the pearl was worth more than their
whole outfit."
Launcelot picked up his hat. "I'm going to get it for you," he said,
"they can't play any tricks like that."
"I'll go with you," said Dr. Grennell, "you may need an older man to
help you. I think we can catch them with good horses."
He bent over Judy before he went out. "I wish you had come to me to
have your fortune told," he said, "I could have told you more than that
old hag."
"How?" asked Judy, puzzled.
"I should have told you that life is what we make it. And your fortune
will be good or bad as you live it. It will not be a gipsy queen but
Judy Jameson who shall decide the final issue."
"But, doctor, she knew that I loved the sea, and--and--that I had lost
some one that I loved--"
"Oh, Judy," Launcelot's tone was impatient, "didn't you tell that
fellow that you were coming, and didn't they have lots of time to find
out about you."
"I didn't think of that." said Judy meekly.
But as he went out of the door, she had a little flash of temper.
"If you had waited for me this morning, I shouldn't have gone to the
camp."
"If you had been ready, I shouldn't have left you," was Launcelot's
reply, as his quiet eyes met Judy's stormy ones.
"Oh," she said, helplessly, and turned her gaze away, feeling that, as
usual, he had the best of it.
And at that he whispered, "But I didn't have a good time, Judy--we--we
missed--you--" and he followed Dr. Grennell.
"And now," said the little grandmother, "every one go home, and let me
put this naughty girl to bed," but she smiled at Judy as she said it,
and the tired little maid put her arms around her, and buried her face
in the motherly bosom, and shook in a sudden chill.
"I am afraid she is going to be ill," said the Judge, anxiously, but
the little grandmother tried to cheer him.
"She will be all right when she is rested," she said, with a confidence
she did not really feel.
But when Anne was fast asleep, and Judy lay awake, tossing restlessly
in the gray light of the dawn, the little grandmother came in, in a
flannel wrapper, with her curls tucked away under a hand-made lace
nightcap.
"Can't you sleep, dearie?" she whispered, as she sat down beside the
bed.
"No. I think, and think, and think--about grandfather, and what a
worry I am--" and Judy gave a great sigh.
"He has so many cares." The little grandmother's tone was gentle but
it carried reproof, and Judy sat up and looked at her with troubled
eyes.
"But I can't help my nature," she cried, tempestuously. "I can't bear
to do things like other people, and when I get restless it seems as if
I must go, and when I am angry I just have to say things--"
But the little grandmother shook her head. "You don't have to be
anything you don't want to be, Judy," she said.
"But it seems so easy for Anne to be good," pursued Judy, "and so hard
to me."
"It isn't always easy for Anne," said the little grandmother.
"Isn't it?" with astonishment.
"No, indeed. Anne has fought out many little fights of temper and
wilfulness right here in this little room--she is a dear child."
"Indeed she is," agreed Judy, glancing at the serene face on the pillow.
"But Anne has learned to think for others. That is the secret, dearie.
Think of your grandfather, think of your friends, and it will be
wonderful how little time you will have to think of Judy Jameson."
"If I had my mother." Judy's lip quivered.
The little grandmother laid her old cheek against the flushed one.
"Dear heart," she said, "I can't take her place, but if you will try to
talk to me as Anne does, maybe I can help--"
"I will," said Judy, and kissed her; but when the little grandmother
had gone away, Judy could not sleep, and finally she got up and put on
her red dressing-gown and sat by the window and looked out upon the
waking world.
The robins were up and out on the dewy lawn, safe for once from
Belinda, who was curled up sound asleep on the foot of Anne's bed.
Becky with her head under her wing was on top of the little bookcase,
and the house was very quiet.
Suddenly through the mists of the morning Judy saw a carriage coming
down the road.
It stopped at the gate and Launcelot leaped out.
Judy spoke to him from the window. "Hush," she said, "every one is
asleep. I will come down."
As she met him at the lower door, he swung something bright and shining
in front of her eyes.
"We found it," he whispered, excitedly, as Judy took her chain with a
cry of delight. "We came across the gipsies on the Upper Fairfax road.
The man tried to bluff it out, but the girl gave him away. While he
was talking to Dr. Grennell she told me that he had it. I think she
was mad at him about something, but she said he would kill her if he
knew she told. So I just went on about the Judge and how he intended
to put the police on the case if we didn't bring back the chain, and
that he would be willing to hush it up if we got it, and so he handed
it out--said it had been found on the ground after you left."
"Where is Dr. Grennell?" asked Judy.
"I dropped him at the manse," said Launcelot, "but I couldn't wait to
bring this to you. I thought you would want to know about it."
"I couldn't sleep," explained Judy, "I was so afraid I had lost it."
"It's a funny coin, isn't it," said Launcelot. "Dr. Grennell knows a
lot about such things, and he says it is a very old one."
"Yes," she told him. "Father found two of them on the beach in front
of our house, 'The Breakers.' There have been others found on the
Maryland coast near it, and they say that a Spanish vessel was
shipwrecked off there years ago, and that now and then some of the
money washes in. The fishermen along the shore dig holes in the sand,
and occasionally they find one of these."
"Well, you had better leave it at home the next time you go on a wild
goose chase."
"There won't be any next time," said Judy, with a sober face.
Launcelot looked up from the coin with a quick smile, which faded as
she gave a hoarse little cough.
"Go into the house, child," he ordered, "you will take cold out here--"
"Oh," in that moment Judy was herself again, tempestuous, defiant,
"don't be so bossy, Launcelot."
"Go in," he said again, but she threw up her head and lingered.
"What a beautiful morning it is," she said. "Look, Launcelot, the sun,
it is like a ball of gold through the mist."
But Launcelot was looking at her--at the melancholy little figure in
the trailing red gown, with the dark hair braided down on each side of
the white face, and hanging in a long braid at the back.
"Go in," he said, for the third time, peremptorily. "You are tired to
death, and you will be sick--"
CHAPTER XV
THE SPANISH COINS
Three weeks after Judy's exciting experience at the gipsy camp, an
interesting party of travellers were gathered on the platform at
Fairfax station.
There was a stately old man, imposing in spite of a tweed cap and sack
coat. By his side stood a slender girl in gray, who coughed now and
then, and near them, perched on a brand-new trunk, which bore the
initials "A. B." was a small maiden, resplendent in a modish blue
serge, a scarlet reefer, a stiff sailor hat of unquestionable
up-to-dateness, and tan shoes!
And the resplendent maiden was Anne!
"You must let her go to the seashore with us," the Judge had said to
Mrs. Batcheller. "Judy hasn't been well since she took that heavy cold
the night she stayed out in the pasture--and I know the child pines for
the sea, although she doesn't say a word. And I don't want her
separated from Anne. She needs young company."
The little grandmother consented reluctantly. She was very proud, and
although for years the Judge had tried to do something substantial to
help his old friend in her poverty, he had so far been unsuccessful in
breaking down the barrier of independence which she had set up.
One promise he had wrung from her, however, that when Anne was old
enough, he was to send her away to school, where she would be fitted to
take her place worthily in a long line of cultured people. This he had
demanded and obtained by virtue of his friendship for her father and
grandfather, and for the "sake of Auld Lang Syne."
"But Anne's things will do very well," said Mrs. Batcheller, when the
Judge tried tactfully to suggest that he be allowed to send Anne's
order with Judy's.
"No, they won't," the Judge had insisted, bluntly, "Judy's old home at
The Breakers is somewhat isolated, but there will be trips that the
girls will take together, and friends will call, and I can't have
little Anne unhappy because she hasn't a pretty gown to wear."
"Oh, well," sighed Mrs. Batcheller, "if you look at it that way. Now
in my day, if a girl had a sweet temper and nice manners, that was all
that was necessary."
"Hum--" mused the Judge. "But I remember somebody in a little white
gown with green sprigs, and a hat with pink roses under the brim."
"Judith and I had them just alike," smiled the blushing little
grandmother.
"And you looked like two sweet old-fashioned roses," said the old man,
"and you knew it, too. The world hasn't changed so very much, or girl
nature."
"Perhaps not," confessed the little grandmother, her eyes still bright
with the memories of youthful vanities; "perhaps not, and you may have
your way, Judge, only you mustn't spoil my little girl."
"She can't be spoiled," said the Judge promptly, and went away
triumphant.
And so it came about that in the trunk on which Anne sat were five
frocks--two white linen ones like Judy's; a soft gray for cool days, an
organdie all strewn with little pink roses, and an enchanting pale blue
mull for parties.
No wonder that Anne sat on that trunk!
It was a treasure casket of her dreams--and with the knowledge of what
it contained, she did not envy Cinderella her godmother, nor Aladdin
his lamp!
"Amelia and Nannie are coming to say 'good-bye,'" said Anne, as two
figures appeared far up the road, "they'd better hurry."
"Tommy is coming, too," said Judy. "I wish I could take them all with
me."
"Why not invite them all down to The Breakers," suggested the Judge,
who was eager to do anything for this fragile, big-eyed granddaughter,
who was creeping into his heart by gentle ways and loving
consideration, so that he sometimes wondered if the old, tempestuous
Judy were gone for ever.
"Not now," said Judy, thoughtfully. "I just want you and Anne for a
while, but I should love to have them some time--and Launcelot, too."
"Can you?" she asked Launcelot, as he came out of the baggage room with
their checks in his hand, followed by Perkins with the bags.
"Can I what?" he asked, standing before her with his hat in his hand, a
shabby figure in shabby corduroy, but a gentleman from the crown of his
well-brushed head to the soles of his shining boots.
"Will you come down to The Breakers sometime?--I am going to ask Amelia
and Nannie and Tommy, and I want you, too--"
"Will I come? Well, I should say I would--" but suddenly his smile
faded. "I am awfully afraid I can't, though. There is so much to do
around our place, and father isn't well."
Now in spite of the affectionate dutifulness with which of late Judy
treated her grandfather, she still showed her thorny side to Launcelot.
"Oh, well, of course, if you don't want to come"--she snapped, tartly,
and went forward to meet the young people, who were hurrying up, Amelia
puffing and out of breath, Nannie with her red curls flying, and Tommy
laden with a parting gift of apples, an added burden for the martyred
Perkins.
Far down the road the train whistled. Anne was surrounded by a little
circle of sorrowing friends. Even Launcelot was in the group, and Judy
and the Judge stood alone.
"How they love her," said Judy, with a little ache of envy in her heart.
"How she loves them," said the wise old Judge. "That is the secret,
Judy."
Amelia had brought Anne a box of fudge, Nannie a handkerchief made by
her own stubby and patient fingers, and Launcelot made her happy with a
book of fairy-tales, worn as to cover, but with rich things within--a
book of his that she had long coveted.
"By-by, little Anne," he said, with a brotherly pat on her shoulder.
Then he shook hands with the Judge. "I hope you will have a fine time,
sir," he said. Then as he and Judy stood together for a moment, he
handed her something wrapped carefully in tissue-paper.
"These are for you," he said, a little awkwardly.
She unwound the paper and gave a little cry of delight.
"Violets, oh, Launcelot--how did you know I loved them?"
"Guessed it--you had them on your hat, and I liked that violet colored
dress you wore."
"And they are so sweet and fragrant. Where could you get them this time
of year?"
"In my little hothouse. I forced them for you."
But he did not tell her of the hours he had spent over them.
She was silent for a moment. "It was lovely of you," she said, at
last, with a little flush and with a sweetness that she rarely
revealed. "It was lovely of you--and I was so hateful just now."
She reached out her hand to him, and his grasp was hearty, reassuring.
"It wouldn't seem natural if you and I didn't fuss a little, would it,
Judy?" and then the train pulled in.
"All aboard!" shouted the conductor.
Anne and Judy went through the Pullman, and came out on the observation
platform.
"Tell little grandmother to take good care of Belinda and Becky,"
called Anne, whose heart yearned for her pets.
"And all of you come and see me," cried Judy, hoping that she might win
some of the love that was extended to Anne.
"We will," they cried, "we will."
"We will," echoed Launcelot, with his eyes on the violets pinned on
Judy's gray coat, "we will if we have to sit up nights to do it."
A flutter of handkerchiefs, a blur of gray coat and red one, a trail of
blue smoke, and the train was gone, and life to those left in Fairfax
seemed suddenly a monotonous blank. As Launcelot turned away from the
station, he ran into Dr. Grennell, who was rushing breathlessly up the
steps.
"Has the train gone?" panted the minister.
"Yes."
Dr. Grennell wiped his heated forehead.
"I am sorry for that," he said, "I wanted especially to see the Judge."
He had a letter in his hand, and he stood looking at it perplexedly.
"To tell the truth, Launcelot," he began slowly, "I have something
strange to tell the Judge, and I didn't want him to get away before I
saw him. It isn't a thing to write about--and oh, why did I miss that
train--"
Launcelot waited while the minister stared wistfully down the shining
track.
"Look here, Launcelot," he asked, suddenly, "do you remember that
Spanish coin of Judy's?"
"Well, I should say I did," replied the boy.
"It's the strangest thing--the strangest thing--oh, I'm going to tell
you all about it, and see if you can help me out. Is there any place
that we can be quite alone? I want to read this letter to you."
"There isn't a soul in the waiting-room," said Lancelot, "we can go in
there. You'd better run on without me, Tommy," he called, "the doctor
wants me. You can catch up with the girls if you hurry," and Tommy,
who had eyed the pair with curiosity, departed crestfallen.
"I received this letter this morning," explained Dr. Grennell, as they
sat down in the stuffy little room. "Read it. It's from an old friend
of mine in Newfoundland--a physician."
The letter opened with personal matters, but the paragraph that the
minister pointed out to Lancelot read thus:
"We have had a rather unusual case here lately. You know how often we
have men brought to the hospital who have been shipwrecked, and as a
rule there is little that is interesting about them--most of them are
the type of ordinary seamen. Our latest case, however, was entered by
the captain of a sailing vessel, who reported that they had picked the
man up from a raft. That he was delirious then, and had never been
able to tell them who he was or whence he came. He is still very ill
and unconscious, and there is not a paper about him of identification.
He is a gentlemen--I am sure of that, for his broken sentences are
uttered in perfect English, and his hands tell it, too. As I have
said, there isn't a letter or a paper about him, but around his neck on
a silver chain we found the coin which I enclose. I know your fancy
for odd coins, and so I send it, thinking perhaps you may give us some
clue to our patient's identity."
Launcelot's eyes were bright with excitement as he finished reading.
"Let me see the coin," he begged, eagerly, and as the doctor handed it
to him, he jumped to his feet.
"I thought so," he shouted, "it's a Spanish coin, like Judy's."
"Well," said the minister, quietly, but his hand beating against his
knee showed that his agitation matched Launcelot's--"What then?"
"Why, the man must be Judy's father!" said Launcelot, and when he had
thus voiced the doctor's thought, the two stared at each other with
white faces.
"She always believed he was alive," said Launcelot at last.
"Pray God that it is really he?" said Dr. Grennell, reverently.
"And now what can we do?" asked the boy.
"We must not say a word to Judy yet. In fact I don't know whether we
ought to tell the Judge. We musn't raise false hopes."
"Have you ever seen Captain Jameson?"
"We were at college together," said Dr. Grennell; "that is the way I
happened to come to Fairfax. I got my appointment to this church
through Captain Jameson and his father."
"Then couldn't you go on and see if he is really Judy's father?"
"By George," said the doctor, "of course I can. I can make the excuse
that I want to visit my old friends. I need an outing, too."
"I wish I could go with you," said Launcelot, wistfully, as the two
walked down the road, after having perfected plans for the doctor's
trip. "I am getting awfully tired of this place, doctor. You see my
life abroad was so different, and I feel as if I ought to be doing
something worth while."
"Just now the thing that is worth while is for you to be a good son and
stay here," said Dr. Grennell. "You can be nothing greater than that.
And you are doing it like a hero," and his hand dropped affectionately
on the boy's shoulder.
"Well, it's deadly dull," said the hero resignedly, as he thought of
Anne and Judy speeding away to the coolness of the sea. But presently
he cheered up. "It will be great if it does happen to be Captain
Jameson," he said, "and just think if Judy hadn't run away we wouldn't
have seen her coin, and if I had waited that morning she wouldn't have
run away, and if I hadn't been cross I would have waited--how about
that for a moral, Doctor."
"There is no moral," said the minister, "but all bad tempers don't turn
out so well."
"It sounds like,
"'Fire, fire burn stick,
Stick, stick beat dog,
Dog, dog bite pig--'
doesn't it?" said Launcelot with a laugh, as they parted at the
crossroads.
CHAPTER XVI
THE WIND AND THE WAVES
It was dark and raining when the travellers reached The Breakers, but a
light streamed out from the doorway, and Mrs. Adams, the caretaker, met
them on the step.
"I couldn't get any maids to help me," she explained to the Judge, as
she led the way in, "but my sister is coming over in the morning, and
Jim will build the fires--and I've set out supper in the hall."
"That's all right, Mrs. Adams," said the Judge, heartily, "Perkins will
serve us, and you needn't stay up. I know you are tired after hurrying
to get the house ready for us."
"Being tired ain't nothin' so that things suits," said Mrs. Adams, with
an awed glance at the expert Perkins, who having relieved the Judge of
his hat and raincoat was carrying the bags up-stairs under the guidance
of Mr. Adams.
"Everything is just right, Mrs. Adams," said Judy, with eyes aglow. "I
am so glad you set the supper-table in front of the big fireplace--we
used to sit here so often."
Her voice trembled a little over the "we," for the sight of the little
round table with its shining glass and silver had unnerved her. But
she had made up her mind to be brave, and in a minute she was herself
again, leading the way to her room, which Anne was to share, and doing
the honors of the house generally.
The Breakers was a cottage built half of stone and half of shingles.
It was roomy and comfortable, but not as magnificent as the Judge's
great mansion in Fairfax. To Judy it was home, however, and when she
came down again, she sighed blissfully as she dropped into a chair in
front of the blazing fire.
"Listen, Anne," she said to the little fair-haired girl, "listen--do
you hear them--the wind and the waves?"
Anne was not quite sure that she liked it--the moaning of the wind, and
the ceaseless swish--boom, crash of the waves.
"I wish it was daylight so that I could see the ocean," she said,
politely, "I think it must be lovely and blue and big--"
"It is lovely now," said Judy, and went to the window and drew back the
curtain.
"Look out here, Anne--"
As Anne looked out, the moon showed for an instant in a ragged sky and
lighted up a wild waste of waters, whose white edge of foam ran up the
beach half-way to the cottage.
"How high the waves are," said little Anne.
"I have seen them higher than that," exulted Judy. "I have seen them
so high that they seemed to tower above our roof."
"Weren't you afraid?"
"They couldn't hurt me, and it was grand."
"Supper is served, miss," announced Perkins, coming in with a
chafing-dish and a half-dozen fresh eggs on a silver tray.
"I thought you might like something hot, sir," he said to the Judge
with a supercilious glance at the cold collation which Mrs. Adams had
provided, and with that he proceeded on the spot to make an
omelette--puffy, fluffy, and perfect.
It was a cozy scene--the old butler in his white coat bending over the
shining silver dish with the blue flame underneath. The polished
mahogany of the table giving out rich reflections as the ruddy light of
the fire played over it. The sparkling glass, the quaint old silver,
Judy's violets all fragrant and dewy in the center, and at the head of
the table the Judge in a great armchair, and on each side the two
girls, the dark-haired and the fair-haired, in white gowns and crisp
ribbons.
But Judy ate nothing, although Perkins tempted her with various offers.
"I'm not a bit hungry," she said, over and over again, and Anne, who
was ravenous, felt positively greedy in the face of such daintiness.
"You are tired," said the Judge at last, as Judy sat with her chin in
her hand, gazing at a picture of her father which hung over the
fireplace--a full-length portrait in uniform. "Go to bed, dear." And
in spite of protests, as soon as Anne had finished her supper, he
ordered them both to bed.
"What are we going to do about her, Perkins?" the Judge asked in a
worried tone, when he and the old servant were alone.
"Miss Judy, sir?"
"Yes. She isn't well, Perkins."
"She will be better down here, sir," said Perkins. "She is like her
father, you know, sir--likes the water--"
"Perkins--" after a pause.
"Yes, sir."
"Do you think--he is alive?"
It was the first time in years that the Judge had spoken of his son.
Perkins stopped brushing the crumbs from the table, and came and stood
beside his master, looking into the fire thoughtfully.
"Miss Judy thinks he is, sir," he said at last.
"I know--"
"And I find that it's the women that's mostly right in such things,"
went on Perkins. "A man now only knows what he sees, but, Lord, sir, a
woman knows things without seein'. Sort of takes them on faith, sir."
"The uncertainty is bad for Judy," said the Judge, the deep lines
showing in his care-worn face.
Perkins laid a respectful hand on the back of his chair. "You'd best
go to bed yourself; sir," he said, gently, "you're tired, sir."
"Yes--yes." But he did not move until Perkins had drawn the water for
his bath and had laid out his things, and had urged him, "Everything is
ready, sir." Then he got up with a sigh, "I wish I knew."
"I wish I knew," he said, a half-hour later, as the careful Perkins
covered him with an extra blanket. "I wish I knew where he
is--to-night."
Outside the wind moaned, the rain beat against the windows and the
waves boomed unceasingly. Perkins drew the curtain tight, and laid the
Judge's Bible on the little table by the bed, where his hand could
reach it the first thing in the morning; then he picked up the lamp and
went to the door.
"I think wherever he is, he's bein' took care of, sir," he said,
comfortingly, and with an affectionate glance at the gray head on the
pillow, he went out and closed the door.
In the morning Anne slept soundly, but Judy slipped out of bed early,
put on her bathing-suit and a raincoat, and with a towel in her hand
went down-stairs.
She found Perkins in the lower hall.
"You are early, Miss," he said.
"Yes, I am going to take a dip in the waves," said Judy.
"You're sure it's safe, Miss?" asked Perkins anxiously.
"I have done it all my life," asserted Judy, "and it gives me an awful
appetite for breakfast."
Perkins brightened. "Does it now, Miss," he asked. "Is there anything
you would like cooked, Miss Judy--I could speak to Mrs. Adams."
But Judy shook her head. "I am not hungry now," she said gaily, as she
went off, "but I know I shall have an appetite when I come in."
She tripped away to the bath-house, and as she came out of the door
looking like a sea-nymph in her white-bathing suit and white rubber cap
she saw Anne, also towel laden and rain-coated, flying down towards her.
"Why didn't you wake me up," scolded the younger girl. "Oh, Judy,
isn't it lovely," and she dropped down on the beach, panting.
The morning sun cast rosy shadows over the sea, there was a touch of
amethyst in the clouds, and the waves as they curled over the golden
beach were gray-green in the hollows and silver-white on their crests.
"I just know I sha'n't dare to stick my toes into the water," said Anne
with a shiver. "It is so--so big, Judy."
"You look just dear," declared Judy, as Anne dropped her raincoat and
came forth in a scarlet suit, "that red suits you."
Anne clasped her hands. "Oh, Judy, does it," she sighed rapturously.
"Yes."
"You don't think I am getting vain, do you, Judy?" inquired Anne,
anxiously, "but I do love pretty things."
"I think you are a goosie," said Judy with a little laugh, then she
caught hold of Anne with impatient hands. "Come on in, little red
bird," she urged, "it's lovely in the water."
Anne squealed and struggled, and finally waded in until the water came
up to her knees.
"Don't take me any farther, Judy," she begged, and when Judy saw her
frightened face, she let her go.
"Sit on the sand, then, and watch me, Annekins," she advised. "You
will get used to this after a while and enjoy it as much as I do."
She was off with a run and a leap, and for fifteen minutes or more she
was over and under and up and down on the waves like a snowy mermaid.
"And now for breakfast," said the young lady in white, as she dashed up
the sands, with raincoat flying and towel fluttering in the breeze.
Ten minutes later two red-cheeked, wet-haired damsels rushed into the
dining-room and kissed the Judge, who sat at the head of the table with
his newspaper propped up in front of him.
"Bless my soul," he said, gazing at them over his spectacles, "are you
really up?"
"We have been up for an hour," gurgled Anne, happily, "and in bathing."
But Judy did not stop for explanations, "Oh, waffles, waffles.
Perkins, I love you. How did you know I wanted waffles?"
"You said you would have an appetite, Miss," said the beaming Perkins,
"and there's nothing that touches the spot on a cool morning like
waffles."
He exchanged satisfied glances with the Judge as Judy finished her
sixth section, having further supplemented the waffles with a dish of
berries and a lamb chop.
"We are going down to the bay after breakfast," announced Judy.
"And I am going to take a book and read on the sand," planned Anne.
"Books, nothing," said Judy, slangily. "We are going to sail and catch
crabs."
"Little red crabs?" asked Anne with interest.
"No, big blue ones, you goosie, and then Perkins will cook them for us.
Won't you, Perkins?"
"Anything you say, Miss," said Perkins, resignedly.
But it rained the next day, and after that they went sailing in Judy's
own sailboat "The Princess," which she could manage as well as any man,
and after that they drove to town with the Judge, so that it was over a
week before the crabbing expedition came to pass.
The Breakers stood on a strip of land between the bay and the ocean.
It was on a peninsula, but the connecting link with the mainland was
many miles away, so that for all practical purposes the house was on an
island, with the ocean in front and the bay behind, and all the
pleasures that both made possible.
Anne was entranced with the delights of crabbing. It was very exciting
to get the great rusty fellows on the line, tow them up to the top of
the water, where the competent Perkins nabbed them with the crab-net.
Perkins caught crabs as he did everything else, expertly, and with
dignity. His only concession to the informality of the sport was a
white yachting cap and a white linen coat, and it was a sight worth
going miles to see, to watch him officiate at a catch. The great
vicious fellows might clash their claws in vain, for Perkins subdued
them with a scientific clutch at the back that rendered them helpless.
"We are going to cook them as soon as we get home," Judy told Anne.
"Perkins knows all about fixing them, and Mrs. Adams is going to give
up the kitchen to us--it's lots of fun to eat the meat out of the
claws."
"Do you want them--devilled, Miss?" and Perkins coughed discreetly
before the word.
"Yes. In their shells, with parsley stuck in the top. They are
delicious that way, Anne."
Anne had her doubts as to the deliciousness of anything so
spidery-looking as those strange fish, but she said nothing.
"Is there anything Perkins can't do?" she asked Judy, as Perkins went
on ahead, bearing the great basket of crabs, and the net.
"I don't believe there is," laughed Judy. "He is supposed to be
grandfather's butler, but he won't let any one do a thing for
grandfather, and he plays valet and cook half the time when the other
servants don't suit him."
Once in the kitchen, Anne eyed the big basket shiveringly. The fierce
creatures stared at her with protruding bead-like eyes, and in a way
that seemed positively menacing.
"If they should get out," she thought, as she was left alone with them
for a moment.
She never knew how it happened, but Perkins must have left the basket
too near the edge of the chair on which he had placed it, for as she
took hold of the cover to shut it, the basket tipped, and down came the
living load, and in another moment, the desperate shell-fish were
scuttling across the floor in all directions.
With a shriek Anne took refuge on top of the stationary wash-tubs.
"Come up here, Judy," she cried, frantically, and Judy who had reached
the middle of the room, and was surrounded by pugilistic creatures
before she realized the catastrophe, drew herself up beside Anne, and
together they shrieked for Perkins.
Perkins came and saw and conquered as usual. The girls laughed until
the tears ran down their cheeks to see the battle. One by one the
crabs were picked up and dropped into a big kettle until at last it was
full.
"And now you young ladies had best go out," said Perkins, firmly,
"while I cook them."
It is well to draw a veil over the tragic fate of the kettleful of blue
crabs, but when Anne next saw them they were beautifully boiled, and
red--red as the scarlet of her bathing-suit.
All the afternoon the little girls, under Perkins' skilful guidance
learned a lesson in expert cookery, and at last, as a dozen perfectly
browned and parsley-decorated beauties were laid on a platter, Judy
breathed an ecstatic sigh. "Aren't they beautiful?" she murmured.
"Yes, Miss, that they are," and Perkins surveyed them as an artist lets
his glance linger on a finished masterpiece. He raised the platter to
carry it to the dining-room, but as he turned towards the door he
stopped and set it down quickly.
"What's the matter, sir," he asked sharply, "has anything gone wrong?"
The Judge stood on the threshold, his face white with excitement. In
his hands was a letter, and his voice shook as he spoke.
"It's nothing bad, Perkins," he said, and Judy, as she faced him, saw
that his eyes were bright with some new hope. "It's nothing bad. But
I've had a letter--a strange, strange letter, Perkins--and I must go on
a journey to-night--a journey to the north--to Newfoundland, Perkins."
CHAPTER XVII
MOODS AND MODELS
Anne and Judy were almost overcome by the mystery of the Judge's
departure. Not a word could they get out of the reticent Perkins,
however, as to the reasons for the sudden flitting, and the Judge had
simply said when pressed with questions: "Important business, my dear,
which may result rather pleasantly for you. Mrs. Adams will take care
of you and Anne while I am gone, which I hope won't be long."
The day that he left it rained, and the day after, and the day after
that, and on the fourth day, when the sea was gray and the sky was gray
and the world seemed blotted out by the blinding torrents, Judy, who
had been pacing through the house like a caged wild thing, came into
the library, and found Anne curled up in the window-seat with a book.
"I came down here with all sorts of good resolutions," she said,
fiercely, as she stood by the window, looking out, "but if this rain
doesn't stop, I shall do something desperate. I hate to be shut in."
Anne did not look up. She was reading a book breathlessly, and not
until Judy had jerked it out of her hand and had flung it across the
room did she come to herself with a little cry.
"I shall do something desperate," reiterated Judy, stormily. "Do you
hear, Anne?"
Anne smiled up at her--a preoccupied smile.
"Oh, Judy," she said, still seeing the visions conjured up by her book.
"Oh, Judy, you ought to read this--"
"You know I don't like to read, Anne." Judy's tone was irritable.
"You would like this," said Anne, gently, as she drew Judy down beside
her. "It's about the sea." She opened the despised book at the place
where she had been reading when Judy plucked it out of her hand.
"Listen."
Judy did listen, but with her sullen eyes staring out of the window and
her shoulders hunched up aggressively. When Anne stopped however, she
said: "Go on," and when the chapter was finished, she asked, "Who wrote
that?"
"Robert Louis Stevenson. He was a lovely man, and he wrote lovely
books, and he died, and they buried him in Samoa on the top of a
mountain. He wrote some verses called 'Requiem.' I think you would
like them, Judy."
"What are they?"
Anne quoted softly, her sweet little voice deep with feeling, and her
blue eyes dark with emotion.
"'Under the wide and stormy sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
"'This be the verse you grave for me:
"Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor--home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."'"
"'Home is the sailor, home from the sea--'" echoed Judy, under her
breath. "How fine that he could say it like that, Anne. Tell me about
him."
All the discontent had gone from her face, and she lay back among the
cushions of the window-seat quietly, while Anne told her of the young
life that had ended in a land of exile. Of a singer whose song had
been stilled so soon, but who would not be forgotten as long as men
honor a brave heart and a gentle spirit.
"Let me see the book," and Judy stretched out her hand, and Anne gave
her "Kidnapped" unselfishly, glad to see the softened look in Judy's
eyes, and as the morning passed and the two girls read on and on, they
did not notice that the rain had stopped and that the parted clouds
showed a gleam of watery sun.
And when lunch was announced, Judy laid her book down with a sigh, and
after lunch, in spite of clearing weather, she read until twilight, and
having finished one book, would have started another, if Anne had not
protested.
"You will wear yourself out," she said, as the intense Judy looked up
with blurred eyes and wrinkled forehead. "Let's have a run on the
beach."
Judy never did anything by halves, and after her introduction to books
that she liked, she outread Anne. And as time went on it was her books
that soothed her in her restless moods, and because there were in her
father's library the writings of the greatest men and the best men who
have given their thoughts to the world, Judy was gradually molded into
finer girlhood, finer womanhood, than could have come to her by any
other association.
She read Stevenson through in a week, and then began on Ruskin; for her
thoughtful mind, starved so long of food that it needed, craved solid
things, and Judy, who knew much of pictures and paintings, found in
Ruskin's theories a great deal that delighted and interested her.
"You'll never get through," said Anne, with a dismayed glance at the
long rows of brown volumes high up on the shelves. "I don't like
anything but stories, and Ruskin preaches awfully."
"You ought to like him, then," said Judy, wickedly, "you good little
Anne."
"Oh, don't," protested Anne, reproachfully, "don't call me that, Judy."
"Well, bad little Anne, then," said Judy, composedly, from the top of
the step-ladder, where she was examining the titles of the books and
enjoying herself generally.
"You're such a tease," said Anne with a sigh.
"And you are so serious, little Annekins," and Judy smiled down at her.
"I like Ruskin," she announced, later. "He's a little hard to
understand sometimes, but he knows a lot about art. I am going to take
up my drawing again. He says that youth is the time to do things, and
a girl ought not to fritter away her time."
"No, indeed," said Anne, virtuously. "Only don't get too tired, Judy."
But it was Anne who was tired, before Judy's enthusiasm wore itself
out, for she was pressed into service as a model, and she served in
turn as A Blind Girl, A Dancing Girl, A Greek Maiden, Rebecca at the
Well, Marguerite, and Lorelei.
The last was an inspiration. Anne perched on a rock around which the
breakers dashed appropriately, with her hair down, and with filmy
garments fluttering in the wind, combed her golden locks in the heat of
the blazing sun.
"It's broiling hot out here, Judy," she complained as that
indefatigable artist sat on the beach with her easel before her, in a
blue work-apron, and with a dab of charcoal on her nose.
"Oh, you look just lovely, Anne," Judy assured her, with the cruel
indifference of genius. "You're just lovely. I think this is the best
I have done yet. Think what a picture you will make."
"Think how my nose will peel," mourned Anne, forlornly.
"Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar,
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr gold'nes Haar."
sang Judy, whose residence abroad had made her familiar with many
folk-songs.
Sie kämmt es mit gold'nem Kamme,
Und singt ein Lied dabei;"
"--Anne, you have the loveliest hair," she interrupted her song to say.
But Anne was tired. "I don't think that the Lorelei was very nice,"
she said, "to make men drown themselves just because she wants to comb
her hair on a rock--"
"She didn't care," said Judy, sagely. "The men didn't have to let
their old boats be wrecked."
"But her voice was so wonderful they just had to follow--"
"No, they didn't," declared Judy. "You just ask your grandmother. She
says nobody has to go where they don't want to go, and I think she is
right, and if those sailors had sailed away the minute they heard the
Lorelei begin to sing they would have been safe."
"Well, maybe they would," agreed Anne, hastily, for Judy had stopped
work to talk. "Judy, I shall fall off this rock if you don't finish
pretty soon."
"All right, Annekins, just one minute," and Judy dashed in a drowning
sailor or two, fluffed the heroine's hair into entrancing curliness,
added a few extra rays to the sparkling comb, and held up the sketch.
"There," she said, triumphantly.
Anne slid from the rock, and waded in to look.
"It isn't a bit like me," she criticized, holding up her wet and
flowing draperies.
"Well, you see I couldn't put in your dimples and your chubbiness, for
although they are dear in you, Anne, they are not suitable for the
purposes of art," and Judy stood back with a grown-up air and gazed
upon her masterpiece. Then she caught Anne around the waist and danced
with her on the beach.
"Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei gethan."
"You wicked little Lorelei," she panted, as they sat down on the sand.
"I'm not wicked," said Anne, composedly, "and the next time you use me
for a model, Judy, I wish you would get an easier place than on that
old rock."
"You shall be Juliet in the tomb," promised Judy, "and you can go to
sleep if you want to."
But she let Anne rest for awhile, and used Perkins as a model.
Her first sketch of him was very clever--a sketch in which the stately
butler posed as "The Neptune of the Kitchen." He sat on a great
turtle, with a toasting-fork instead of a trident, with a necklace of
oyster crackers, a crown of pickles, and a smile that was truly
Perkins's own.
That sketch taught Judy her niche in the temple of art. She was not
destined to be a great artist, but she had a keen wit, and a knack of
discovering fun in everything, and in later years it was in caricature,
not unkind, but truly humorous, that Judy made her greatest successes,
and achieved some little fame.
CHAPTER XVIII
JUDY KEEPS A PROMISE
"What's your talent, Anne?" asked Judy, one evening, as she lay on the
couch reading "Sesame and Lilies." It was raining again outside, but
in the fireplace a great fire was blazing, and rosy little Anne was in
front of it, popping corn.
"Haven't any," said Anne, watching the white kernels bob up and down.
"I can't draw and I can't play, and I can't sing or converse--or
anything."
Judy looked at her thoughtfully. "Well, we will have to find something
that you can do," she said, for Judy liked to lead and have others
follow, and having decided upon art as her life-work, she wanted Anne
to choose a similar path. "I wish I could take up bookbinding or
wood-carving, or--or dentistry--"
"Why, Judy Jameson." Anne turned an amazed hot face towards her.
"Why, Judy, you wouldn't like to pull teeth, would you?"
"It isn't what we like to do, Ruskin says," said Judy, calmly, "it's
usefulness that counts."
"Oh, well, I can wash dishes and dust and take care of old people and
pets," said placid Anne, opening the cover of the popper and letting
out delicious whiffs of hot corn.
Judy shuddered. "I hate those things," she said. "I couldn't wash
dishes, Anne. It is so dreadful for your hands."
She went back to her book, and Anne poured the hot corn into a big bowl
and salted it.
"Have some?" she asked the absorbed reader.
Without taking her eyes from her book, Judy stretched out her hand,
then all at once she flashed a glance into the rosy face so close to
her own.
"Anne," she said, almost humbly, "do you know you are more of a Ruskin
girl than I am? He says that every girl, every day, should do
something really useful about the house--go into the kitchen, and sew,
and learn how to fold table-cloths, and things, like that. And you
know all of those things--and how to help the poor--and I--I am always
trying to do some great thing, and I never really help any one. Not
any one, Anne--not a single soul--"
"But you are so clever," said little Anne.
"But people don't love you just because you are clever, and it isn't
clever people that make others the happiest," and Judy dropped her book
and gazed deep into the flames as if seeking there an answer to the
problems of life.
"People love you, Judy."
"Sometimes they do, and some people--but my awful temper, Anne," and
Judy sighed.
"You don't flare up half as much as you used." Anne's tone was
consoling. She had finished popping the corn, and she sat down on the
floor beside the couch on which Judy lay, and munched the crisp kernels
luxuriously.
"No, I don't," confessed Judy, "but it's an awful fight, Anne. You
have helped me a lot."
"Me?" asked the rosy maiden in astonishment. "Why, how have I helped
you, Judy?"
"By your example, Annekins," said Judy, sitting up. "You're such a
dear."
At which praise the rosy maiden got rosier than ever, and shook her
loosened hair over her happy eyes.
The firelight flickered on the beautiful dark face on the cushions, and
on the fair little one that rested against Judy's dress.
"We are such friends, aren't we, Judy?" whispered Anne, as she reached
up and curled her plump hand into Judy's slender fingers. "Almost like
sisters, aren't we, Judy?"
"Just like sisters, Annekins," said Judy, dreamily, with a responsive
pressure.
Outside the wind moaned and groaned, and the rain beat against the
panes. "I have never seen such a rainy season," said Judy, as a blast
shook the house. "But I rather like it when we are so cozy and warm
and happy, Anne."
The pop-corn was all eaten, and Anne was gazing into the fire, half
asleep, when suddenly she started up.
"What's that, Judy?" she cried.
Judy raised her eyes from her book.
"What?" she asked, abstractedly.
"That sound at the window."
"I didn't hear anything."
"It was like a rap."
"It was the rain."
"Well, maybe it was," and Anne settled back again. Presently her hand
slipped and dropped, and Judy, feeling the movement, looked down and
smiled, for little Anne was asleep.
Judy tucked a cushion behind the weary head, and was settling back for
another quiet hour with her book, when all at once she sat up straight,
listening.
Then she rolled from the couch quickly, without waking Anne, and went
to the window and peered out. She could see nothing but the driving
rain, but as she turned to leave there came again the sound that had
startled her.
The window was a French one, opening outward. Very softly she
unlatched it.
"Who's there?" she asked, wondering if she should have called Perkins.
"Come to the door," said a voice, and a dripping figure appeared within
the circle of light. "Come out a minute. It's me--Tommy Tolliver."
Anne slept on as Judy went out and closed the door behind her.
"Why, Tommy," she said, trying to see him in the darkness, "how in the
world did you get down here?"
"I have run away again," said Tommy, defiantly, "and I've come to you
to help me, Judy."
"What!"
"You said you would help me, Judy. That's why I came."
"But--"
"Oh, don't try to get out of it," blazed Tommy, who was wet and tired
and shivering, "you said you would. And if you back down now--well--"
He left the sentence unfinished and his voice broke.
"_When_ did I promise, Tommy?" asked poor Judy, in a dazed way.
"The day I came back to Fairfax."
It seemed like a dream to Judy, that day in the woods when she had
first met the children of Fairfax,--Launcelot and Amelia and
Nannie,--and she had entirely forgotten her reckless promise.
"Sit down," she faltered, "and tell me what you want me to do."
At the side of the house where they were sheltered somewhat from the
rain Tommy outlined his plan.
"I want you to take me down the bay in your sailboat. I had money
enough to get here, and if you can help me to get to the Point, a
friend of mine has promised me a place on one of the ocean liners."
"But Tommy--"
"Don't say 'but' to me, Judy," and Judy recognized a new note in
Tommy's voice. There was less of the old, weak swagger, and more
determination. "I am going, and that's all there is to it."
"When do you want to start?" she asked, after a pause.
"The first thing in the morning, if you can get away," said Tommy.
"I can't go until evening. We are to spend the day with some friends
of ours, the Bartons. But I can take you down by moonlight. It's a
couple of hours' ride. I suppose we shall have to tell Anne."
"I hate to," said Tommy.
"Why?"
"Oh, Anne is such a good little thing--and--and--she believes in
me--Judy."
"But if it is right for you to go, you shouldn't care--"
"I don't know whether it is right or not," said Tommy, doggedly, "and
what's more, I don't care, Judy. I am going and that's the end of it."
"Well!" Judy stood up, shivering. "It's awfully cold out here, Tommy;
you'd better come in."
"Are you going to help me?" demanded Tommy. "I sha'n't go in unless
you are."
"What will you do?"
"Tramp on. Guess I can manage for another day. I've only had a slice
of bread and a tomato to-day."
"Tommy Tolliver!" said Judy, shocked. "Why, you must be starved. I'll
go right in and get you something."
"Are you going to help me to get away?" he insisted.
"I must think about it."
"But you promised."
"I am not sure that I exactly promised," hesitated Judy.
"You're afraid."
"I am not."
"Aw, you are--or you'd do it."
That was touching Judy on a tender point. She was proud of her
courage--none of her race had ever been cowards.
Besides, as she stood there with the wind and the waves beating their
wild song into her ears, all the recklessness of her nature came
uppermost. It would be glorious to sail down the bay. The water would
be rough, and the wind would fill out the white sails of the little
boat, and they would fly, fly, and the goal for Tommy would be freedom.
"I'll do it," she said, suddenly. "I'll do it, Tommy. We Jamesons
never break a promise, and I'm not afraid."
They decided not to tell Anne.
"It would just worry her," said Judy, decidedly, "and I can get some
food and things out to you after Anne goes to bed, and you can sleep in
the boat-house. We can start in the morning."
It was a wild scheme, but before they had finished they felt quite
uplifted. In their youth and inexperience, they imagined that Tommy's
last dash for liberty was positively heroic, and Judy went in, feeling
like one dedicated to a cause.
She found Anne rubbing her eyes sleepily.
"Why, have you been out, Judy?" she gasped, wide awake. "You are all
wet."
"It's fine on the porch," said Judy, putting her soaked hair back from
her face. "I--I was tired of the heat of the room, and--it was
stifling. Let's go to bed, Anne."
"Aren't you going to finish your book?" Anne asked, wondering, for Judy
was something of a night-owl, and hated early hours.
Judy picked up "Sesame and Lilies," which lay open on the couch, and
shut it with a bang.
"No," she said, shortly, "I am not going to finish it to-night--I don't
know whether I shall ever finish it, Anne. I'm not Ruskin's kind of
girl, Anne. I can't 'sit on a cushion and sew a fine seam,' and I
don't think it is any use for me to try."
Anne stared at the change that had come over her. "Well, you are my
kind of girl," she said at last, and as they went up-stairs together,
she slipped her hand into Judy's arm. "I love you, dearly, Judy," she
said.
But Judy smiled down at her vaguely, for her mind was on Tommy,
crouched out there in the rain, and in imagination she was not Judy
Jameson, commonplacely going to bed at nine o'clock, but a heroine of
history, dedicated to the cause of one Thomas, the Downtrodden.
CHAPTER XIX
PERKINS CLEANS THE SILVER
All the next day, Tommy skulked in the shadow of the pier and in the
boat-house, whence during the morning Judy made her way laden with
mysterious bundles and various baggage. At noon she departed for Lutie
Barton's, leaving Anne, who had a cold, at home.
After Judy's departure, Anne wandered listlessly about the house. She
tried to read, to sew a little, to pick out some simple tunes on Judy's
piano, but thoughts of the little gray house, of the little
grandmother, of Becky and Belinda, came between her and her
occupations, so that at last, late in the afternoon, she sought the
society of Perkins, who was in the dining-room cleaning silver.
"I believe I am homesick, Perkins," said Anne, perching herself in a
great mahogany chair opposite him.
"Well, it ain't to be wondered at," said Perkins, as he picked up a
huge cake-dish and began to work on it, energetically. "It ain't to be
wondered at. You ain't ever been away from home much, Miss Anne."
"It is lovely not to have anything to do," said Anne. "That is, it is
nice in a way, but do you know, Perkins, I sometimes just wish there
were some rooms to dust or something, but you and the maids keep
everything so clean," and Anne sighed a sigh that came from the depths
of her housewifely soul.
"You might dip these cups in hot water and wipe them as I gets them
finished," suggested Perkins, handing her several quaint little mugs,
which he had placed in a row in front of him.
"Aren't they dear," Anne said, enthusiastically. "Why this one says
'Judith.' Is it Judy's, Perkins?"
"No, Miss, that was her great-grand-mother's, and that one with 'John'
on it is the Judge's, and the one with 'Philip' is Miss Judy's
father's--they are christening cups, Miss--six generations of them."
"Oh, how lovely," said Anne, and she handled them lovingly, dipping
them into clear hot water, and polishing them until they shone.
"Judy never speaks of her father, lately," she said, as she placed the
"Philip" cup on the sideboard.
"No, Miss, but she thinks of him a lot," said Perkins, with a shake of
his old head. "I saw her this morning, Miss, standing in front of his
picture in the hall, and there were tears in her eyes, Miss, and then
all at once she whirled around and ran away, and her face had a wild
look on it, Miss."
"Do you know, Perkins," said little Anne, stopping work for a minute
and speaking earnestly, "do you know that I think Judy would be
different if she only knew something about him. The uncertainty makes
her unhappy, and then she does reckless things just to get away from
herself."
"Yes, Miss," said Perkins, "and there ain't a morning that she don't
put fresh flowers in front of that there picture, and there ain't a
night that she don't kiss her hand to it from the top of the stairs."
"I know," sighed Anne. "Poor Judy."
"When will the Judge be back?" she asked after awhile.
But at that Perkins shut up like a clam. "I don't know, Miss," he
snapped. "It's best for you not to ask too many questions, Miss."
Anne flushed. "Oh, of course I won't, Perkins," she said, "if you
don't like to have me--" and she was very quiet, until the old butler,
with a glance at her troubled face, said, "I don't care how many
questions you axes, Miss, but the Judge might."
And Anne smiled at him, with radiant forgiveness.
"Isn't all this silver a lot of care, Perkins?" she asked, to clear the
air.
"It is that," answered Perkins, "and yet there isn't half as much of it
as there is at the Judge's in Fairfax. Only the Judge keeps his locked
up in a safe, all except the things we uses every day. But here they
just puts it on the sideboard, where it is a temptation to
burglars--with them long windows opening out on the porch, and the
curtains drawn back half the time. I don't call it safe, Miss, I
surely don't."
"But there aren't any burglars around here, are there, Perkins?" and
Anne stopped rubbing the cups to look at him anxiously.
"Nobody knows whether there is or not," grumbled Perkins. "There might
be for all they know. It ain't fair to the servants, Miss, for to let
them lie around loose this way. Mrs. Adams says so, too, but the Judge
don't pay no attention to things since the Captain left, and Miss Judy
is too young to bother."
"They wouldn't like to lose these cups," said Anne, as she finished the
last one, and arranged them in a squat little row on the shelf.
"They wouldn't like to lose any of it," returned Perkins, putting a
great soup-ladle back into its flannel bag. "It's all old and it's all
family silver, and people ought to take care of it, and when the Judge
comes back I am going to tell him so, Miss."
"Anne," said Judy, peeping in at the door, "I'm back, and Lutie Barton
is with me. Come on in and see her."
"Oh, dear," said Anne, with a dismayed glance at her spattered apron,
"I look like a sight."
"Run up the back way and fix up," said Judy, "and I'll talk to her
until you come down."
Lutie Barton brought with her the gossip of the town. There had been a
dance at the big hotel the night before, a sailing party down the bay
in the afternoon had been caught in a thunder shower, and all the
girls' hats had been ruined, and there had been a burglary at one of
the cottages in an outlying district.
Anne jumped when they said that. "What did they steal?" she faltered,
with her conversation with Perkins fresh in her mind.
"_Everything_, my dear," said Lutie, who did everything by extremes,
and who wore the highest pompadour, and the highest heels, and who had
the smallest waist and the largest hat that Anne had ever seen, and who
always used the superlative when telling a tale.
"They stole _every single thing_ down to the very shoes, and the kitten
from the rug."
"Oh," said Anne, thinking of Belinda, "the dear little kitten. What
did they want with it?"
"It was a Persian, and this morning it came back, but the silver collar
was gone from its neck, and they took even a thimble from a
work-basket, and a box of candy and a cake!"
"Did they get anything valuable?" asked Anne.
"All of Mrs. Durant's diamonds and the family silver," said Lutie. "My
dear, Mrs. Durant is ill, _absolutely ill_, and the worst of it is that
she saw the burglar, and it frightened her so that she hasn't gotten
over it yet."
"How dreadful," said little Anne, thinking of the great sideboard and
all of the Jameson silver that she and Perkins had cleaned. "Oh, Judy,
suppose they should come here!"
But Judy was standing by the window, watching a figure that slipped
from the boat-house to the wharf with a bundle on his shoulder, the
figure of a small boy, with his cap pulled low.
"Such things are like lightning; they never strike twice in the same
place," she said, indifferently. "Don't go, Lutie."
"Oh, I _must_," gushed Lutie. "I was just _dying_ to see you, Anne,
for a minute, so I came with Judy. But I _must_ go. They will think I
am _dead_."
But she stopped to ask a giggling question. "Tell me about Launcelot
Bart, Anne," she begged. "Judy happened to mention him, but she
wouldn't tell me a _thing_. I think they must have an _awful_ case,
for she is too quiet about him for _anything_. Is he nice?"
"He is the nicest boy I know," said Anne, enthusiastically.
"Oh, oh," gurgled silly Lutie, shaking her finger at the two girls as
they stood together on the top step of the porch. "Don't get jealous
of each other, you two."
"Jealous?" asked Anne's innocent eyes.
"Jealous?" blazed Judy's indignant eyes.
"Don't be a goose, Lutie." Judy was trying to control her temper.
"Anne and I aren't grown up yet, and I hope we never will grow up and
be horrid and self-conscious. Launcelot is our friend, and I didn't
talk about him because I had plenty of other subjects."
"Oh," murmured Lutie, subdued for the moment; but she recovered as she
went down the walk. "Oh, _good-bye_," she gushed; "let me know when it
is to be, and I will dance at your wedding."
"Anne," said Judy, darkly, as the high heels tilted down the beach, and
the feathers of the big hat fluttered in the breeze, "Anne, she hasn't
talked a thing to-day but boys--and she reads the silliest books and
writes the silliest poetry, about flaming hearts and Cupid's darts.
Oh," and Judy stretched out her arms in a tense movement, "I don't want
to grow up--I want to stay a little girl as long as I can and not think
about lovers or getting married, or--or--anything--"
"You are lover enough for me," said Anne.
"And you for me," said Judy.
And arm in arm they went into the house. But as they went through the
darkening hall, Anne clung tightly to Judy.
"Wouldn't it be dreadful, Judy, if burglars should come here," she
quavered.
But Judy laughed. "I think it would be fun," she jested. "Bring on
your burglars, Anne. I'm _dying_ for excitement, as Lutie Barton would
say." And then she touched a button, and the lights flared up, chasing
away the shadows, and chasing away with them, for the moment, the fears
of little Anne.
CHAPTER XX
ANNE HEARS A BURGLAR
Anne was wakened that night by a sense of utter loneliness.
"Judy," she called, softly.
No answer.
"Judy."
Anne reached over and found that the covers of the little white bed
that stood beside her own had not been disturbed.
"She hasn't come up-stairs," thought Anne, who had left Judy reading in
the library when she went to bed.
There was no light in the room, and as little Anne lay there, trembling
and listening, her breath came quickly, for she was a timid little
soul, and the talk of burglars that day had upset her; and without the
wind howled, and within the house was very, very still.
At last she heard a sound. "She's coming," she thought, thankfully,
but all at once she became conscious that the sound was not in the
upper hall, but down-stairs on the porch.
There was the quick patter of little feet, and then an appealing whine.
"Why, it's a dog," said Anne, sitting up straight, "It's a dog."
She got up and looked out of the window. A little short-eared,
stubby-tailed Boston terrier was running back and forth on the sand,
anxiously.
Anne was a tender-hearted lover of animals, and his apparent distress
appealed to her.
"I'll go down and see what's the matter with him," she decided,
thrusting her feet into her slippers and tying the ribbons of her pink
dressing-gown.
She flew down the long dark hall to the top of the steps that led
below, and there she stopped still, with her hand on her heart.
The fire in the hall was still burning, and the flames wavered fitfully
over the great picture above the mantel, and on the jar of red roses in
front of it. The rest of the hall was in the shadow, and darker than
the shadows, Anne had made out the figure of a man standing on the
threshold.
As she gazed, he crossed the room and stood in front of the fire, his
eyes raised to the great picture. Suddenly he leaned forward and took
one of the red roses from the jar.
"He is even stealing the roses," thought Anne, indignantly, but then,
what could you expect of a man who would carry off boxes of candy and
thimbles and kittens?
She was sure it was the Durant burglar, and she dropped to the floor
cautiously, and crouched there. Outside she could still hear the whine
of the dog, but she had no thought of going to him now--she could not
pass that silent figure on the rug.
Then, all at once, she thought of Judy. She was in the library, and
there was just one room between her and the burglar!
Anne wasn't brave, and never had been, but in that moment she forgot
herself, forgot everything but that Judy was not well and must not be
frightened at any cost. Judy must not see the burglar.
As the man moved across the hall Anne staggered to her feet, feeling
along the wall for the electric button, and then suddenly the lights
flared up, and the little girl, a desperate pink figure clinging to the
stair-rail, looked down into the upraised face of the man below.
"Don't," she said, with white lips, "don't--go--in--there--"
As she stared at him in a blur of fright she was conscious of wondering
if all burglars looked so gentlemanly--if--why, _where had she seen his
face_?
"Judy," breathed the man, and his whisper seemed to thunder in her ears
as he came up the stairway two steps at a time.
Anne gave a little scream, half fright, half delight.
"Oh--" Why, his face was familiar--it was the face of the man in the
picture over the fireplace!
"Judy," he said, again, as he reached her and caught her in his arms.
But as her yellow hair flowed over his coat, he laughed excitedly and
put her from him. "I beg pardon," he apologized. "I thought you were
Judy."
"And I thought you were a burglar," quavered Anne, as she sat down on
the top step weakly.
Her fair little face was alight with joy as she held out her hand.
"Oh," she said, "you are Judy's father, and you are alive, you are
really alive!"
"And you are Anne," said the Captain.
"How did you know?" wondering.
"The Judge told me."
"Where did you see the Judge?" she asked.
"He has been with me ever since he left here," said the Captain. "Dr.
Grennell discovered me in a hospital in Newfoundland, and I was very
ill, and he sent for father, and he has been with me ever since. And
he has gone straight to Fairfax, for he isn't very well. But I had to
see my girl. Did I wake you?"
"I heard the dog."
"Terry? I brought him to Judy, and left him outside so he wouldn't
startle the house. Where is my girl--where is she, Anne?"
"Oh, she's in the library," said Anne. "I'll call her. Oh, how happy
she will be! How happy she will be!" She sang it like a little song,
as she flitted through the hall.
At the same moment the electric bell of the front door thrilled through
the house, and the Captain opened the door quickly.
Preceded by a blast of wind, and the scurrying Terry-dog, Launcelot
Bart came in. He stood irresolute as he saw the strange man on the
rug, and before either could speak, Anne came running back.
Her face was white and her hands were shaking. She did not seem to see
Launcelot, but went straight up to Captain Jameson.
"Oh, where is Judy, where is Judy?" she wailed, "she isn't there."
"And where is Tommy Tolliver?" demanded Launcelot Bart.
CHAPTER XXI
CAPTAIN JUDY
"Gee, Judy, but you can sail a boat."
Judy with the salt breeze blowing her hair back from her face, with her
hand on the tiller, and with her eager eyes sweeping the surface of the
moonlighted waters, smiled a little.
"I ought to," she declared, "father taught me. He said that he didn't
have a son, so he intended that I should know as much as a boy about
such things."
"It's mighty windy weather." Tommy was hunched up in the bottom of the
boat--and his face had the woebegone look of the inexperienced sailor.
"It's going to be windier," said Judy, wisely, "it's coming now. Look
at those clouds."
Back of the moon a heavy bank of clouds was crested with white, and the
waters of the bay heaved sullenly.
Tommy, ignorant little landlubber that he was, began to wish that he
had stayed at home, but Judy was exalted, uplifted by the thought of a
coming battle with wind and waves. She had fought them so often in the
little white boat, but one thing she forgot, that she was not as strong
as she had been, and that Tommy was not as helpful as her father.
The start had been very exciting. Judy had pretended to read in the
library, and little Anne had gone to bed, and then when the house was
still she had crept out, and had met Tommy, and together they had
gotten "The Princess" under sail.
But more than once that day Judy's heart had failed her. The Cause had
looked rather silly on second thoughts, and Tommy was _so_
commonplace--but, oh, well, she had promised, and that was the end of
it.
Tommy was dreadfully awkward about a boat, too. In spite of his
eagerness for a life on the ocean wave, he had never had any practical
training and Judy grew impatient more than once at the slow way in
which he followed out her orders.
"I would do it myself," she scolded finally, "only I must save my
strength for the trip back. I shall be all alone then, you know."
Tommy sat down suddenly. "Gracious," he gasped, "I never thought of
that. Oh, we will have to go back. You can't take this boat home
alone, Judy."
Judy's head went up. "I am captain of this ship, Tommy Tolliver," she
declared, "and I am going to sail into port and put you ashore. Then I
shall do as I like."
"Aw--" said Tommy, appalled at this display of nautical knowledge,
"aw--all right, Captain Judy."
The wind came as Judy had said it would, filling the little sail until
it looked like a white flower, and carrying "The Princess" along at a
pace that made Tommy feel weak and faint.
"Isn't it fine," cried Judy, leaning forward, and drinking in the
strong air with delight. "Isn't it glorious, Tommy?"
"Yes," said Tommy, doubtfully. He was pale, and presently he lay down
in the bottom of the boat.
"Suck a lemon," suggested Judy, practically, "there are some in that
little locker," and after following her advice, Tommy recovered
sufficiently to sit up, and in the lulls of the gale he and Judy
shrieked at each other, and sang songs of the sea.
They ate a little lunch, intermittently--a bite of sandwich while Tommy
pulled at the ropes or adjusted the sail, or a wing of chicken as Judy
swung the boat with her head to the wind. It was all very exciting and
Judy forgot care and the worried hearts that she had left behind, and
Tommy, reckless in a new-found courage, felt that he was a true sailor
and a son of the sea.
But as the night wore on, and the wind settled into a steady blow, it
took all Judy's science and Tommy's strength to keep the little boat in
her course. The waves ran higher and higher, and Judy grew quiet, and
her face was pale with fatigue.
Tommy began to have doubts. A life on the ocean wave wasn't all that
it was cracked up to be, and anyhow, Judy was only a girl!
"How long before we get there," he shouted amid the tumult.
"We ought to reach the Point in a little while," said Judy, "but--but I
am not quite sure where we are, Tommy. I have always kept within sight
of land before--"
There was no land to be seen now. The moon was hidden by the clouds,
and on each side of them black water stretched out to meet black sky,
broken only by leaping lengths of white foam.
But they were not fated to reach the Point that night, for the wind
changed, and in spite of all efforts to keep on their way, the little
boat was blown farther and farther out into the great, wide waters of
the bay.
"Is there any danger?" questioned Tommy as the foam boiled up on each
side of the boat, drenching both himself and Judy, whose face, white as
a pearl, showed through the gloom.
But Judy did not answer at once. She waited until she could make
herself heard in a lull of the wind, and then she admitted, "We shall
have to stay out all night, I am afraid."
"All night," gasped Tommy. "Oh, Judy, ain't it awful."
"No," said Judy, calmly, "not if we are not silly and afraid."
"Oh, I'm not afraid," swaggered Tommy, "only I wish we hadn't come," he
ended, weakly, as the boat swooped down into the trough of a wave, and
then rose high in the air.
"You should have told me it wasn't safe," he complained presently, "you
knew it was going to storm, didn't you?"
"Well, I like that--" Judy stared at him. "Oh, try to be a man,
Tommy, if you are a coward."
Tommy winced. "I'm not afraid," he defended.
"Perhaps not," said Judy, slowly, "but--but--if you had been a man you
would have said, 'I am sorry I asked you to bring me, Judy.'"
"But--"
"Oh, we won't argue." Judy raised her voice as another blast came.
"I--I'm too tired to--to argue--Tommy--"
She swayed back and forth, holding on to the tiller weakly.
"I--I am so--tired," she tried to laugh, but her face was ghastly.
"I--I guess I wasn't very nice just now, Tommy,--but I--am--so tired.
You will have to steer, Tommy."
"But I don't know how," blubbered Tommy.
"You will just have to do it. I can't sit up--" and Judy tumbled down
into the bottom of the boat, completely worn out from the unaccustomed
strain.
Tommy whimpered in a frightened monotone as he grasped the tiller with
inexperienced hands. What if Judy were dead? What--? "I'll never do
it again. I'll never run awa--" but Judy did not hear, for she lay
with her eyes shut in a sort of stupor in the bottom of the boat.
She was waked by a bump and the wash of the waves over the boat.
"We've struck somewhere, Tommy," she shrieked.
"Oh, oh," howled Tommy, "we'll drown, Judy!"
"We won't," she said, tensely. "Hush, Tommy. _Hush_--do you hear?
Can you swim?"
"No," and he clutched hold of her as another wave broke over the boat.
"There's a life-belt here somewhere," and Andy threw things out in
frantic haste. "Here. Take hold of it, Tommy."
"But--what are you going to do?"
"I can swim. Don't mind about me, and if you keep quiet I will tow you
in if we are near land."
She said it quietly, but in her heart she wondered where she would tow
him.
"Don't take hold of me," she insisted, peremptorily, as she felt Tommy
grab her arm, "or we shall both go under--oh--"
In that moment the boat keeled over, and when Judy came to the top of
the water, she knew that between her and death in the green depths
beneath, there was nothing but the strength of her frail limbs.
"Tommy," she called, as soon as she could get the salt water out of her
mouth.
"Here," came shiveringly over the face of the waters.
"Are you all right?"
"No, no, it's horrid. Oh, I wish I was home--I wish I was
home"--wailed Tommy, clinging to the belt for dear life.
The clouds had parted and one little star showed in the blackness, in
the dim light Judy could just see Tommy's eyes glowing from out of his
pallid face.
"He is afraid," she thought to herself, curiously. She was not afraid.
She had never been afraid of the water--poor Tommy.
She felt strangely weak, however, and all at once there came to her the
knowledge that she could not keep up any longer. The strength of the
old days was not hers--and she was tired--so tired--
She caught hold of the life-belt, and as she did so Tommy screamed,
"Don't, Judy. It won't hold us both. Don't--"
"He is afraid," she thought again, pityingly, "and I am not, and we
can't both hold on to that belt--"
Tommy babbled crazily, bemoaning his danger, sobbing now and then--but
Judy was very still.
"I can't keep up much longer. I mustn't try to hold on with Tommy. He
is afraid--poor Tommy--" she looked up at the little star, "and I'm not
afraid--I love the sea," she thought, dreamily. Then for one moment
she came out of her trance.
"Tommy, Tommy!" she cried sharply.
"What?"
"Don't let go of the belt. Hold on, no matter how tired you are. In
the morning--some one--will save you--"
"But you--wh-wh-at are you going to do, Judy?"
"Oh, I--?" she laughed faintly. "Oh, I shall be all right--all right,
Tommy," and her voice died away in an awful silence.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CASTAWAYS
"Judy--" shrieked Tommy, and suddenly the answer came in a choking cry
of joy.
"I can touch bottom, Tommy, I thought I was sinking, but it isn't over
our heads at all. We must be near shore."
Tommy put his feet down gingerly. He had hated to think of the untold
fathoms beneath him--depths which in his imagination were strewn with
shipwrecks and the bones of lost mariners.
So when his feet came in contact with good firm sand, he giggled
hysterically.
"Gee, but it feels good," he said. "Are you all right, Judy?"
But Judy had waded in and dropped exhausted on the beach.
"I don't know," she said, feebly, "I guess so."
"Where are we?" asked Tommy, splashing his way to her side.
He surveyed the land around them. In the moonlight it showed nothing
but wide beach and back of that stiff rustling sea-grass and mounds of
sand like the graves of sailors dead and gone. Not a house was in
sight--not a sign of life.
"I don't know where we are," Judy raised her head for a second, then
dropped it back, "but we are safe, Tommy Tolliver, and that's something
to be thankful for.
"I knew the sea wouldn't hurt me," she went on--a little wildly,
perhaps, which was excusable after the danger she had escaped. "I knew
it wouldn't hurt me."
"Oh, the sea," whined Tommy, disgustedly, "this isn't the ocean, and if
just an old bay can act like this, why, I say give me land. No more
water for me, thank you. I am going home and plow--yes, I am, I am
going to plow, Judy Jameson, and take care of the cows--and--and weed
the garden," naming the thing he hated most as a climax, "and when I
get to thinking things are hard, I will remember this night--when I was
a shipwrecked mariner."
In imagination he was revelling in the story he would tell at home. Of
the adventures that he would relate to the eager ears of the youth of
Fairfax. "Yes, indeed, I will remember the time when I was a
shipwrecked mariner," he said with gusto, "and lived on a desert
island."
"Oh, Tommy," in spite of faintness and hunger and exhaustion, Judy
laughed. "Oh, Tommy, you funny boy--this isn't a desert island."
"How do you know it isn't?" asked Tommy, stubbornly.
"There aren't any desert islands in the bay."
"I'll bet this is one."
"I hope not."
"Why?"
"We haven't anything to eat."
"Oh, well, we will find things in the morning."
"Where?"
"On the trees. Fruit and things."
"But there aren't any trees."
"Oh, well, oysters then."
"How will you get them--"
"And fish," ignoring difficulties.
"We haven't any lines or hooks."
"And things from the wreck."
"The boat tipped over," said Judy, with a little sobbing sigh for the
capsized "Princess," "and anyhow there was nothing left to eat but some
lemons and a box of crackers."
"Don't be so discouraging," grumbled Tommy, "you know people always
find something."
They sat in silence for a time, and then Judy said:
"I hope they are not worrying at home."
"Gee--they will be scared, when they wake up in the morning and find
you gone," said Tommy, consolingly.
"I left a note for Anne in the library, telling her where I had
gone--but I thought I would get back before she found it," said
Judy--"poor little Anne."
"I think it is poor Tommy and poor Judy," said the cause of all the
trouble.
"But we deserve it and Anne doesn't. And that's the difference," said
Judy, wisely.
"Aw--don't preach."
"Couldn't if I tried," and Judy clasped her hands around her knees and
gazed out on the dark waters, and again there was a long silence.
"Well, what are we going to do?" demanded Tommy as the night wind blew
cold against his wet garments and made him shiver.
"Do?"
"Yes. We can't sit like this all night."
"Guess we shall have to."
Another silence.
"Gee, I'm hungry."
"So am I."
"But there isn't anything to eat."
"No."
Silence again.
"Gee--I'm sleepy."
"Find some place out of the wind and go to sleep. I'll watch."
"All night?"
"Perhaps. You go to sleep, Tommy."
"Won't you be lonesome?"
Judy smiled wearily. "No," she said, "you go to sleep, Tommy."
And Tommy went.
But it was not until the cold light of dawn touched the face of the
waters, that the sentinel-like figure on the beach relaxed from its
strained position, and then the dark head dropped, and with a sigh Judy
stretched her slender body on the hard sand, and she, too, slept.
CHAPTER XXIII
IN A SILVER BOAT
The tide coming in the next morning brought with it on the blue surface
of the waves two bobbing lemons. Many times the golden globes rolled
up the beach only to be carried back by the under-wash of the waters,
but finally one wave rolling farther than the rest left them high and
dry on the sand, and the same wave splashing over an inert and huddled
up figure waked it to consciousness.
Judy sat up stiffly and stared around her. "Oh," she sighed, as she
remembered all that had happened in the darkness of the night.
She clasped her hands around her knees and gazed out forlornly over the
empty waters. Not a sail, not a trail of smoke broke the blueness of
the bay. With another sigh, this time of disappointment, she turned
her gaze landward, and beheld there nothing but lank marsh grass and
sand and driftwood.
And then at her feet she spied the lemons. She picked them up--they
were the only salvage from the sunken boat. She looked around for
Tommy. On the other side of a mound of sand, she could just see the
top of his head, and as he did not move she decided that he was still
asleep.
Her eyes twinkled, as with stealthy steps she crept up the beach until
she reached a low bush with scrubby sage-green foliage. On its spiky
branches she stuck the lemons, and then ran swiftly back.
Tommy was still sleeping, so she dipped her hands into the cold water,
took off her stiffened shoes and bathed her swollen feet. Her dress
had dried in the night winds, and when she had combed her hair she
looked fairly presentable.
Barefooted she tripped over the cool wet sands, glorying in the broad
expanse of blue, with white gulls dipping to it from a bluer sky.
"Tommy," she called, "Tommy."
A towsled head appeared over the top of the mound.
"Oh, dear," said Tommy, lugubriously, as he saw her sparkling face,
"you act as if being shipwrecked was a good joke, Judy."
"The sun is shining and it is perfectly fine."
"It's perfectly horrid," said Tommy.
Judy looked at him for a moment, and a lump came in her throat.
"Well, it seems so much better to laugh over our troubles than to cry.
Don't you think so, Tommy?" she said, wistfully, and tears welled up
into her brave eyes.
"Oh, don't cry, Judy," begged Tommy, who felt that all the world would
grow dark if Judy's staunch heart should fail. "Don't cry, Judy." She
brushed away her tears and smiled at him. "Well, get up, lazy boy,"
she said.
"I'm hungry."
"Well, go and hunt for something to eat."
"Don't know where to look."
"Neither did Robinson Crusoe."
"Oh, well, what are you going to do?"
"Watch for some one to come and take us off."
It began to be exciting. If Tommy had not been so hungry, he really
believed that he might have appreciated the adventure. But his soul
yearned for hot cakes and maple syrup, or beefsteak and waffles--or at
least for plain bread and butter.
"Gee, but it would taste good," he said aloud.
"What?"
"I was thinking of breakfast," said poor Tommy, "hot rolls and things
like that, Judy."
"O-o-oh," said Judy, "how about some hot biscuit, with one of Perkins'
omelettes--and--creamed potatoes?"
"Oh, don't," groaned hungry Tommy, and fled.
He came back in about two minutes, swaggering with importance.
"This island isn't so barren as it looks," he said, pompously. "You
don't know everything, Judy."
"Don't I?"
"No. Now what do you think of these," and he produced the two lemons
triumphantly.
"Where did you find them?"
"Growing over there," and he pointed to the scrubby, sage-green spiky
bush.
"Who would have believed it?" Judy's eyes were round and solemn, but
the expression in them should have warned Tommy.
"You see there are some things you don't know. I'm going to look for
oysters now."
"Oysters--"
"Yes. To eat with our lemons."
"You might find some cracker fruit, and a coffee vine, and maybe there
will be a salt and pepper tree somewhere--and Tommy, _please_ discover
a Tabasco bush--I never could eat my oysters without Tabasco."
Tommy looked at her wrathfully. "Aw, Judy," he said, with a red face,
"you're foolin'--and I think it's mean."
Then a thought struck him, and he examined the lemons carefully.
"You stuck them on that bush," he accused, excitedly. "There are holes
in them. You did it to fool me, didn't you, Judy?"
She nodded.
"An' you think it's a joke--I--I--" He could think of nothing
sufficiently crushing to say. "Well, I don't," he finished sulkily,
and plumped himself down on the sand, with his face away from her.
"Tommy," she said, after a long silence, "Tommy."
"Huh?"
"Please be good-natured."
"Be good-natured yourself," said Tommy, with a half-sob.
"I'm--I'm--perfectly mis'able, Judy Jameson--"
It was then that Judy showed that she could be womanly and sympathetic.
"I'm sorry I teased you, Tommy," she said, softly. "Let's make
ourselves comfortable here on the sand, and I'll tell you about when I
used to live in Europe."
Tommy liked that, and all the morning Judy talked, although she was so
tired, that her head felt light, and her eyes blurred, but Tommy was
happy and she tried to forget about herself.
She made him suck both of the lemons.
"I don't want any," she said, although her throat was so dry that she
could hardly speak. "I don't want any."
"Whew, but they are sour," said Tommy, and made a wry face, but he did
not insist upon her having one.
That was the worst of it, the thirst, for there was no fresh water.
"Let's explore," said Tommy, as the afternoon waned and no relief came.
"Maybe we will find a house back there somewhere."
But Judy shook her head. "No," she said, "we are on the end of the
peninsula, between the bay and the ocean. It is just salt marshes from
one end to the other, and no one lives on them. The best thing we can
do is to hail a boat."
"But there ain't any boats."
"There will be," said Judy, stoutly. "There are lots of little
schooners that take fruit and vegetables to the markets. Not many of
them come this way, but some of them do, and if we wait they will
rescue us."
After that they saw several sails, and waved Tommy's coat frantically,
but no one responded. As the twilight darkened into the night, a
steamer went by, her lights shining like jewels against the purple
background--red and green and yellow.
"If we only had a lantern," groaned Judy, as Tommy shouted himself
hoarse, and the steamer kept on her majestic way, leaving them
hopelessly behind.
"Maybe some one will see us in the morning." Judy was trying to
encourage Tommy, who had dropped down on the sand with his back to her,
but not before she had seen his working face, and his knuckles rubbing
his red eyes.
"I'm going to sleep," he muttered, still with his face away from her,
and with that he curled himself up against the big mound, as he had
done the night before, and forgot his troubles.
Judy lay on the sand watching the waves roll in, and thinking long
thoughts. She thought of her father, living, perhaps, on some such
lonely beach as this, but farther away from the haunts of men--alone,
looking at the same stars, searching a vaster expanse for the ship that
never came. She thought, too, of her mother, the gentle mother, whose
guarding presence she seemed to feel in the wonderful stillness. She
thought of their plans for her; that she might grow to gracious
womanhood, following in the footsteps of the women of her race, and
here she was--a runaway, reckless little girl, away from home at
midnight, chaperoned only by the wind and the waves, and with no roof
above her but the sky!
Under the solemn canopy of the night she made many resolves, cried a
little, and lay there with her eyes shut, but not asleep, feeling very
wicked, and very forlorn, and very, very hopeless.
When she opened her eyes again, the night was glorious. The moon had
risen, and its light made a silver pathway across the darkness of the
waters, and sailing straight towards her, its sails set to the fair
winds of heaven, came a little boat, dark against the shining
background.
Some one stood in the bow, straight and strong and young, and as Judy
watched in a half-dream, she remembered an opera she had seen once upon
a time; where a knight in silver armor had come on the back of a silver
swan to the lady he loved. She had hoped, mistily, that when she was
old enough for such things, that Love might come to her like that--over
the sea in silver armor, and sail away with her in a silver boat to the
end of the world!
The boat came nearer, the boat with the silver sails! She stood up to
watch, and as her slim figure was etched sharply against the background
of white sand, there came to her upon the wings of the night the cry--
"Judy!"
Her hand went to her heart. Was it real? Where did he come from, that
youth in the silver boat. But even as she wondered, the cry went back
to him, an answering cry, joyous, welcoming--
"Launcelot, oh, Launcelot."
CHAPTER XXIV
"HOME IS THE SAILOR FROM THE SEA"
Judy's cry did not wake Tommy, and still in a half-dream she went down
to the edge of the water and stood ghost-like in the moonlight,
waiting. There was another figure in the boat, half-hidden by the
shadowy sails, but it was Launcelot who, when the shallow water was
reached, jumped out and waded to shore.
"Judy, Judy," he said, as he came up to her, "I knew I should find you."
She looked at him with wide eyes. "Where--where did you come from,"
she whispered, while her white hands fluttered across his coat sleeve
as if to see that he was real.
There was sympathy and tenderness in his boyish face, but seeing her
condition, he spoke cheerfully. "I came down to The Breakers after
Tommy. His mother was ill, and his father had to stay with her, so
they sent me. And when I got there I found Anne and--and--" he checked
himself hurriedly, "I found Anne almost frantic because you had gone,
and then when she found your note I started out, for I knew I should
find you, Judy. I knew I should sail straight to you."
For one little moment as they stood together in the moonlight, he
looked down at her with the eyes of the lover he was to be, but as yet
they were only boy and girl and the moment passed.
"Where's Tommy?" asked Launcelot, coming out of his dream.
He was answered by a shout as Tommy came plunging over the sand.
"Why didn't you wake me, Judy?" he complained, bitterly, "when you
first saw the boat."
"Stop that," commanded Launcelot. "Why weren't you keeping watch?
What kind of sailor do you call yourself, Tommy?"
"Oh, well," Tommy excused, "I was sleepy."
"And so you let a girl watch," was Launcelot's hard way of putting it,
and Tommy's eyes shifted.
"Oh, well," he began again.
"I made him let me watch, Launcelot," Judy interrupted, feeling sorry
for the small boy, "and I told him to go to sleep."
"Oh, of course you did," said Launcelot, shortly, "and of course he
went, he's a nice sort of sailor."
"I'm not going to be a sailor," Tommy announced, sulkily. "I'm going
home--"
"Right-o," agreed Lancelot, "and the quicker the better."
"Miss Judy," came a sepulchral voice from the boat, "Miss Judy, we
thought you were drownded."
"Oh, Perkins," cried Judy, "is that you, Perkins?"
"What's left of me, Miss," and Perkins' bald head came into view as he
stood up in the boat.
Judy and Tommy climbed in, amid excited questions and explanations,
which presently settled into a continuous monotone of complaint from
Tommy. "I'm half-starved. Haven't you anything to eat, Perkins?"
Now Tommy grated on Perkins' nerves. The old butler had always been
treated by the Jamesons with the gentle consideration due his age and
long and faithful service, in the light of which Tommy's dictation
seemed nothing less than impertinent.
And so it came about that Judy was served with good things first, while
Tommy was made to wait.
"Oh, Perkins, can't you hurry," growled the small rude boy.
And then Judy turned on him. "You may be hungry, Tommy," she blazed,
"but don't speak to Perkins that way again."
"Oh, Miss," deprecated Perkins, although in his old heart he was glad
of her defense.
"Perkins has been out all night hunting for us," Judy's voice quivered,
"and--and--he is just as tired as we are, Tommy Tolliver."
But Tommy had his sandwich, and blissfully munching it, cared little
for Judy's reproof. After he had finished he went to sleep comfortably
in the bottom of the boat, his troubles forgotten.
There was about Launcelot and Perkins an air of subdued excitement that
finally attracted Judy's attention.
"What's the matter with you all?" she asked, curiously, as she looked
up suddenly from her pile of comfortable cushions, and caught Perkins
smiling at Launcelot over her head.
"Oh, nothing, Miss, nothing at all," coughed Perkins.
"Has anything happened?"
Launcelot, who was steering, smiled down at her.
"Miss Curiosity," he teased.
"I'm not curious. I just want to know."
"Oh, well, that's one way to put it."
"Tell me. Has anything happened?"
"Yes."
"What?"
"Something splendid."
Judy sat up. "Tell me," she begged.
But Launcelot was inflexible. "Not now," and Judy sank back with a
sigh, for she was getting to know that when the big boy said a thing he
meant it.
"When will I know?" she asked after a while.
"When you get to The Breakers."
"Oh."
She was silent for a little, then she said:
"I know you think it was awful for me to run away with Tommy--"
"It would have been better if you had sent him home."
"But I wanted to help him--he has such a hard time."
"He would have a harder time if he went to sea, Judy. He isn't like
you, he doesn't like the sea for its own sake. He has read a lot of
stuff about sailors and adventures, and his head is full of it. He
isn't the kind that makes a brave man."
"I know that," said Judy, for the little voyage had proved Tommy and
had found him wanting.
"He ought to stay at home and fight things out," said Launcelot, "as
the rest of us have to."
Judy looked up at him, surprised. "Are you fighting things out?" she
asked.
"Oh, yes. I want to go to college, and I can't and that's the end of
it," and Launcelot's lips were set in a stern line.
"Why not?"
"Father's too sick for me to leave--I've got to run the farm," was
Launcelot's simple statement of the bitter fact.
"I am always trying to do great things," mourned Judy, with a sigh for
the Cause of Thomas the Downtrodden, from which the romance seemed to
have fled, "but they just fizzle out."
"Don't be discouraged. You'll learn to look before you leap yet,
Judy," and Launcelot laughed, his own troubles forgotten in his
interest in hers.
"What are you going to take up for a life work?" asked Judy,
remembering Ruskin.
"I am going to be a lawyer," announced Launcelot, promptly, "and a good
one like the Judge. My grandfather was a Judge, too, but father chose
business, and failed because he wasn't fitted for it, and that's why we
are on the farm, now."
"I'm going to be an artist," announced Judy, toploftically, "and paint
wonderful pictures."
But Launcelot looked at her doubtfully. "I'll bet you won't," he said
with decision. "I'll bet you won't paint pictures and be an artist."
"Why not?"
"Because you'll get married, and--"
Judy shrugged an impatient shoulder. "I am never going to marry," she
declared.
"Why not?"
"Because I want my own way," said wilful Judy.
"Oh," said "bossy" Launcelot.
The waves were twinkling in the gold of the morning sun when the tired
party sighted the beach below The Breakers.
Judy standing up in the boat with her dark hair blowing around her
spied a little waiting group.
"There's Anne--dear Anne--and, why, Launcelot, there's a dog."
"Is there?"
"Yes, and--and--a man--"
"Yes." Launcelot's voice was calm, but his hand on the tiller trembled.
She turned on him her startled eyes. "Do you know who it is?" she
demanded.
"Yes."
"Who?"
"Look and see."
The man on the beach was gazing straight out across the bay, and in the
clearness of the morning air, Judy made out his features, the pale dark
face, the waving hair.
She clutched Launcelot's arm. "Who is it?" she demanded, looking as if
she had seen a spirit. "Who is it, Launcelot?"
And then Launcelot gave a shout that woke Tommy.
"It's, oh, _who_ do you think it is, Judy Jameson?"
And Judy whispered with a white face, "It looks like--my father. Is it
really--my father--Launcelot?" and Launcelot let the tiller go, and
caught hold of her hands, and said: "It really is, it really and truly
is, Judy Jameson."
Judy never knew how the boat reached the wharf, nor how she came to be
in her father's arms. But she knew that she should never be happier
this side of heaven than she was when he held her close and murmured in
her ear, "My own daughter, my own dear little girl."
It was an excited group that circled around them--Perkins and
Launcelot, and the dog, Terry, and last but not least, Anne, red-eyed
and dishevelled.
"Oh, Judy, Judy," she sobbed, when at last Judy came down to earth and
beamed on her. "We thought you were drowned, and I have cried all
night."
And at that Judy cried, too, and they sat down on the sand and had a
little weep together, comfortably, as girls will, when the danger is
over and every one is safe and happy.
"I'm all right," gasped Judy at last, mopping her eyes with a clean
handkerchief, offered her by the ever-useful Perkins. "I'm all
right--but--but--Anne was such a goosie,--and I am so happy--" And
with that she dropped her head on Anne's shoulder again and cried
harder than ever.
"Dear heart, don't cry," begged the Captain.
"She is tired to death," explained Launcelot.
"She needs her breakfast, sir," suggested Perkins.
"So do I," grumbled Tommy Tolliver, who stood in the background feeling
very much left out.
But even as they spoke, Judy slipped into her father's arms again, and
lay there quietly, as she murmured, so that no one else heard:
"'Home is the sailor from the sea'--oh, father, father, I knew you
would come back to me--I knew you would come back some day."
CHAPTER XXV
LAUNCELOT BUYS A COW
Never had Fairfax seen so many interesting arrivals as during that
second week in August.
On Monday came Dr. Grennell, mysterious and smiling; on Tuesday, Judge
Jameson, pale but radiant; on Wednesday, Tommy and Launcelot, bursting
with important news; on Thursday, Captain Jameson, with a joyful dark
maiden on one side of him, and a joyful fair maiden on the other; on
Friday, Perkins, beaming with the baggage, and on Saturday, the
Terry-dog, resignedly, in a crate.
And every one, except Terry, the dog, had a story to tell, and the
story was one that was to become a classic in the annals of Fairfax.
How Captain Jameson had been washed overboard in southern seas, how he
had been rescued by natives and had lived among them; how he had been
found by a party searching for gold; how he had started with them for
home, had become ill as soon as they put to sea, and because of his
illness had been the only one left when the ship caught on fire; how
the fire had gone out, and he had floated on the deserted vessel until
picked up by a fishing-boat, and how he had been brought to
Newfoundland and how Dr. Grennell had discovered him by means of the
Spanish coins.
But in the eyes of the children of Fairfax his adventures paled before
those of Tommy Tolliver. To a gaping audience that small boy talked of
the things he had done--of shipwrecks, of desert islands, of hunger and
thirst until the little girls gazed at him with tears in their eyes,
although the effect was somewhat spoiled by Jimmie Jones' artless
remark, "But you were only away four days, Tommy!"
All Fairfax rejoiced with the Judge and Judy, but only little Anne knew
what Judy really felt, for in the first moment that they were alone
together after that eventful morning at The Breakers, Judy, with her
eyes shining like stars, had thrown her arms around the neck of her
fair little friend, and had whispered, "Oh, Anne, _Anne_, I don't
deserve such happiness, but I am so thankful that I feel as if I should
be good for the rest of my life."
And no one but Anne knew why Judy put everything aside to be with her
father, to anticipate every desire of his, to cheer every solitary
minute.
"I must try to take mother's place," she confided to her sympathetic
listener in the watches of the night. "He misses her so--Anne."
Anne went back to the little gray house, where the plums were purple on
the tree in the orchard, and where Becky on her lookout limb was hidden
by the thickness of the foliage. The robins were gone, and so was
Belinda's occupation, but she had more important things on hand, and
after the first joy of greetings, the little grandmother led Anne to a
cozy corner of the little kitchen, where in a big basket, Belinda sang
lullabies to four happy, sleepy balls of down as white as herself.
"Oh, the dear little pussy cats," gurgled Anne, as Belinda welcomed her
with a gratified "Purr-up," "what does Becky think of them,
grandmother?"
"She takes care of them when Belinda goes out," said the little
grandmother. "It's too funny to see them cuddle under her black wings."
"I wonder if she will make friends with Terry, Judy's dog," chatted
Anne, as she cuddled the precious kittens. "He's the dearest thing,
and he took to Judy right away, and follows her around all the time."
The little grandmother sat down in an old rocker with a red cushion and
took off her spectacles with trembling hands. "Belinda will have to
get used to him, I guess," she said.
"Of course," said Anne, not looking up, "Judy will bring him here when
she comes."
"I don't mean that," said the little grandmother.
Something in the old voice made Anne look up.
"What's the matter, little grandmother?" she asked, anxiously.
"I mean that we are going to leave the little gray house, Anne, you and
I and Belinda and Becky," and with that the little grandmother put on
her spectacles again, to see how Anne took the news.
Anne stared. "Leave the little gray house," she said, slowly. "Why
what do you mean, grandmother?"
"We are going to live at the Judge's," and at that Anne's face changed
from dismay to happiness, and she turned the kittens over to Belinda
and flung her arms around the little old lady's neck.
"Oh, am I really going to live with Judy?" she shrieked joyfully, "and
you and Becky and Belinda--oh, it's too good to be true."
"We really are," said Mrs. Batcheller. "The Judge and I had a long
talk together, the day he came down, and he wants you to go away to
school with Judy, and have me come and help Aunt Patterson to manage
his house. He says she is too feeble for so much care and that it will
be an accommodation to him."
But Mrs. Batcheller did not tell how the Judge had argued for hours to
break down the barriers of pride which she had raised, and that he had
finally won, because of his insistence that Anne must have the
opportunities due one of her name and race.
"You are to go to Mrs. French's school in Richmond, with Judy. She is
a gentlewoman, a Southerner, and an old friend of the Judge's and mine,
and we think it will be exactly the place for you two for a time."
"It will be lovely," cried little Anne, as the plans for her future
were unfolded, but late that evening when she was ready to say "good
night" she stood for a moment with her cheek against her grandmother's
soft old one.
"I shall miss you and the little gray house, grandmother," she
whispered, "I was hungry for you at The Breakers, although it was
lovely there, and every one was so kind."
"I shall miss you too, dear heart," said the little grandmother, but
she did not say how much, for she wanted Anne to go away happily, and
she felt that she must not be selfish.
It was wonderful the planning that went on after that. Anne spent many
days at the big house in Fairfax, and each time she went it was a
tenderer, dearer Judy that welcomed her.
"Father will stay with grandfather this winter. I begged to stay, too,
but they both think the schools here are not what I need, and so I am
to go away," she explained one morning as she and Anne were getting
ready to go with a party of young people to pick goldenrod.
"Yes," said Anne, putting her red reefer over her white dress, and
admiring the effect.
"I hate school," began Judy, sticking in a hat-pin viciously, then she
stopped and laughed, "No, I don't, either. I don't hate anything since
father came back."
"Not even cats?" asked Anne, demurely.
"No. You know I love Belinda."
"Nor picnics?"
"Not Fairfax ones."
"Nor books?"
"I just love 'em--thanks to you."
"Nor--nor boys--?" mischievously.
"Oh, do stop your questions," and Judy put her hands over her ears.
But Anne persisted, "Nor boys, Judy?"
"I like Launcelot Bart--and--little Jimmie Jones, but I am not sure
about Tommy Tolliver, Anne."
And then they both laughed light-heartedly, and tripped down-stairs to
find Amelia and Nannie and Tommy waiting for them.
"Launcelot couldn't come," explained Tommy. "He had to go to Upper
Fairfax, and he said he was awfully sorry, but he didn't dare to take
so much time away from the farm."
"Poor fellow," sighed tender-hearted little Anne. "He is always so
busy."
"I don't think he is to be pitied," said Judy, with a scornful glance
at Tommy. "He has work to do and he does it, which is more than most
people do."
There was gold in the sunshine, and gold in the changing leaves, and
gold in the ripened grain in the fields, and gold in the goldenrod
which they had come to pick.
Tommy gathered great armfuls of the feathery bloom, and the girls made
it into bunches, while Terry, who had come with them, whuffed at the
chipmunks on the gray fence-rails.
"What do you want it for?" asked Tommy, sitting down beside the busy
maidens and wiping his warm forehead.
"To-morrow is Judy's birthday," said Anne, "and we are going to
decorate the house."
"Oh, is it?" asked Amelia and Nannie together.
"Yes," said Judy, "and I want you to come to dinner and spend the
evening with us. I am not going to have a party, because father isn't
feeling as if he wanted to join in any gay things yet, but we can have
a nice time together, and it may be the last before Anne and I go away
to school."
"_Go where?_" gasped Nannie and Amelia and Tommy.
Judy explained. "We leave the first week in September," she ended.
"Oh, oh," cried the stricken three, "what shall we do. All winter--and
we can't have any fun--if Anne isn't here, nor you, Judy, and we had
planned so many things."
"Will you really miss _me_?" Judy asked a little wistfully, and at that
Nannie's hand was laid on hers, as the little girl murmured, "We shall
miss you awfly, Judy," while Amelia sighed a great, gusty sigh, as she
said, "Oh, dear, now everything's spoiled!"
"Do you want me to come to your birthday dinner, too?" asked Tommy,
anxiously, when the first shock of the coming separation was over, "or
ain't you goin' to have any boys."
"Yes, I want you and Launcelot," said Judy, who had debated the
question of being friendly with Tommy, for he hadn't seemed worth it,
but Anne had pleaded for him. "He really means well, Judy," she had
protested, "and I think he is going to turn over a new leaf."
"Well, I hope he will," said Judy, and forgave him.
When the big gate was reached, Nannie and Amelia and Tommy went on, and
as Judy and Anne went into the old garden, they found the Judge and the
Captain, both still semi-invalids, sitting there, amid a riot of late
summer blossoms.
As he greeted them, Captain Jameson's eyes went from the rosy, fair
face of little Anne to the pale but happy one of his daughter. "Father
is right," he thought, "Anne does her good."
"Isn't it lovely here," said Judy, dropping her great golden bunch with
a sigh as she sat down on the bench under the lilac bush. "It's so
cool."
"What a lot of goldenrod," said the Judge. "Aren't you tired?"
"A little," said Judy, as she took off her hat.
"Launcelot couldn't go," Anne started to explain, when Terry, who had
been investigating the hedge, barked.
"What's the matter with him?" asked Judy, as the small dog growled in
what might be called a perfunctory fashion, for he was so good natured
that he was in a chronic state of being at peace with the world.
She went to the gate and looked over.
"Why, it's a cow," she cried, "a beautiful little brown-eyed cow."
Terry barked again, and then a voice outside the hedge said: "Yes, and
I've just bought her."
"Launcelot," screamed both of the girls, delightedly, and opened the
gate wide.
CHAPTER XXVI
JUDY PLAYS LADY BOUNTIFUL
"Down, Terry," commanded the Captain, as the little dog went for the
mild-eyed cow, but the mild-eyed cow seemed perfectly able to take care
of herself, and as she lowered her horns, Terry retired discreetly to a
safe place between the Captain's knees, where he wagged an ingratiating
tail.
Launcelot and the cow stood framed in the rose-covered gateway.
"Yes, I've bought a cow," explained the big boy, who was dusty but
cheerful, "and we are going to have our own butter and milk, and if
there is any over, I'll sell it."
"You have my order now," said the Judge, handsomely.
"Thank you, sir," said Launcelot, and Anne cried:
"Oh, Launcelot, make it in little pats stamped with a violet, and label
it, 'From the Violet Farm.'"
"That's not a bad idea," commended the Captain, "novelties like that
take, and if the butter is good, you may get a market for more than you
can make."
"Then I will get another cow and enlarge my hothouse, and between the
butter and the violets I guess I can bring up my college fund," and
Launcelot looked so hopeful that they all smiled in sympathy.
"Where did you get her?" asked Judy, as she patted the pretty creature
on the head.
"I bought her a mile or so out in the country, and I tell you I hated
to take her after I had paid the money."
"Why?" asked Anne.
"Oh, they were so poor, and the cow was the only thing they had. There
is a widow, named McSwiggins, with six children, and I guess they have
had a pretty hard time, and now their taxes are due and the interest
and two of them have had the typhoid fever, and are just skin and bone,
and they had to sell the cow, and they cried, and I felt like a thief
when I carried her off."
"Oh, poor things," cried Judy, when Launcelot finished his breathless
recital, "poor things."
"I didn't want to take her, after I found out, but Mrs. McSwiggins said
that they needed the money awfully, and that I was doing them a
favor--only it was hard, and then she cried and the children all cried,
too."
"Why haven't they told some one before this?" asked the Judge, wiping
his eyes.
"I guess the mother is too proud. They are from the South and they
haven't been in this neighborhood long, and she don't know any one."
"What's the cow's name?" asked Anne, whose eyes were like dewy
forget-me-nots.
"Sweetheart. The biggest girl named her, and when I went out of the
gate she just sat down on the step and looked after us, and her eyes
hurt me, they were so sad."
The little cow moved restlessly. "I guess I'll have to go," sighed
Launcelot, standing like a Peri outside the gates of Paradise, and
contrasting the coolness and quiet of the old garden with the heat and
dust of the long white road. "I guess I'll have to take Sweetheart on."
But just then down the path came Perkins, dignified in white linen, and
in his hand he bore a tray on which a glass pitcher, misty with
coolness and showing ravishing glimpses of lemon peel and ice, promised
delicious refreshment.
"You come and have some lemonade, Mr. Launcelot," said Perkins, as he
set the tray on the table, "I'll hold the cow."
And, as they all insisted, Launcelot came in, and Perkins went without
the gate.
But, alas, Sweetheart was a cow of many moods, and as the gay little
party in the garden sipped the cooling drink in the shade of the trees,
the little cow, growing restive out there in the sun with the flies
worrying her, suddenly ducked her head and ran.
And after her, still holding the rope, went the immaculate Perkins, to
be dragged hither and thither by her erratic movements, while he
shouted desperately, "Whoa."
And after Perkins went the excited Terry-dog, and after Terry went
Launcelot, and after Launcelot went Judy, and then Anne, and then far
in the rear, the Judge, while Captain Jameson, too weak to run, stood
at the gate and watched.
It was a brave race. Perkins had grit and he would not let go of the
rope, and Sweetheart wanted to go home and she would not stop running,
and so the procession went up the dusty road and down a dusty hill, and
then up another dusty hill, and down a cool green bank, where seeing
ahead of her a murmuring limpid stream, Sweetheart dashed into it,
stood still, and placidly drank in long sighing gulps.
Perkins went in after her, and was rescued by Launcelot, while Judy and
Anne stood on the bank and laughed until the tears ran down their
cheeks.
Perkins laughed, too, as he emerged wet and dripping, but beaming.
"I didn't let her go," he chuckled, a little proud of his agility in
his old age, and Launcelot said admiringly, "I didn't think you had it
in you, Perkins," and at that Perkins chuckled more than ever.
They went back in a triumphal procession, and then Lancelot took
Sweetheart away with him, and the little girls went up-stairs to dress.
The Captain and the Judge were left alone, and presently the former
said:
"Why can't we put Launcelot through college, father? It's a shame he
should have to work so hard."
But the Judge shook his head. "He is having something better than
college, Philip," he said. "He is learning self-reliance and he will
get to college if he keeps on like this and be better for the struggle.
I've told Grennell a half-dozen times that I would put up the money,
for I like the boy--but there is one very good reason why we can't pay
his way."
"What's that?" asked the Captain, with interest.
"He won't take a cent from anybody," said the Judge, "and I like his
independence."
"So do I," said the Captain, heartily, "but we will keep an eye on him,
father, and help him out when we can."
An hour later as the Captain sat alone under the lilac bush, Judy came
down with white ruffles a-flutter and with her brown locks beautifully
combed and sat beside him.
"To-morrow is my birthday," she said, superfluously.
"My big girl," smiled the Captain, "you make me feel old, Judy mine."
She smiled back, abstractedly. "Are--are you going to give me a
present, father?" she stammered.
It was a queer question, and the Captain was not sure that he liked it.
Birthday presents were not to be talked about beforehand.
"Of course I am," he said, finally. "Why?"
"Will it--cost--as much as--Launcelot's cow?" asked Judy, still
blushing.
"As Launcelot's cow?"
He stared at her. "Why do you want to know?" he asked.
"Well," she patted his coat collar, coaxingly, "I want you to give me
the money, and let me buy back the McSwiggins cow.
"I'll buy it myself."
But she shook her head. "No, I want to give it myself. I
feel--so--so--thankful, father, for my happiness, that I want to do
something for somebody else, who isn't happy."
He put his hand under her chin and turned her face with its earnest
eyes up to him. "You are sure you would rather have that than any
other birthday present, Judy mine?" he asked, thinking how much she
looked like her mother.
"I am very sure, father."
They sent for Launcelot that evening, and he entered into the plan with
enthusiasm. "I can get another cow," he said, "and if they have the
money and the cow both they will get along all right."
"I don't want them to know who gives it," said Judy. "I hate that way
of giving. I don't want to go and stare at them and talk to them about
their poverty. I think it would be nice to tie a note to Sweetheart's
horns and just leave her there."
The next day about noon, a mysterious party, with a strange and unusual
looking cow in their midst, crept to the back of the McSwiggins barn.
Sweetheart lowed softly, as she recognized the familiar surroundings.
"Gracious, I hope they won't hear," said little Anne, "that would spoil
it all."
Perkins set a heavy basket down and wiped his forehead.
"You go and look, Mr. Launcelot," he said, "and if there ain't any one
around you tie her to the hitching-post, and then bring the ends of
those pink ribbons back with you."
When that was accomplished, the Mysterious Four hid themselves in some
bushes by the side of the road to await developments.
Presently Johnny McSwiggins, trailing listlessly towards the barn, gave
one look and rushed back into the house.
"They's somethin' out thar," he said, with his eyes bulging.
Mary McSwiggins, the oldest girl, looked at him hopelessly. "I don'
care ef they is. We alls too po' fer anythin' to hurt."
"But hit looks lak Sweetheart's ghos'," declared Johnny, "an' hit's got
pink ribbin on. I declar' hit look lak Sweetheart's ghos', Sistuh
Ma'y."
At that beloved name, Mary rushed out, while the family trailed behind,
Mrs. McSwiggins bringing up the rear with the wan baby in her arms.
Tied to the post was Sweetheart, but such a cow had never been seen
before in the history of Fairfax, for Judy was nothing if not original,
and with the help of Anne and Launcelot she had decked the little cow
gorgeously.
Around her neck was a huge wreath of roses, pink ribbons were tied to
her horns, and two long pink streamers like reins went over her back
and across the path and around the barn, where the ends were hidden.
"Gee," said Johnny McSwiggins, but the rest of them were silent, gazing
at this transformed and glorified Sweetheart, while Mary laid her head
against the sleek neck and murmured love names to her dear little cow.
"They's somethin' at the end of them ribbins," said Mrs. McSwiggins,
after awhile, "you all go an' look."
And when they looked they found two huge baskets, one filled with
wonderful things all ready to eat (Perkins had packed that), and the
other filled with fruits and vegetables (Launcelot had raised them),
and on top of one basket was a box of candy (Anne sat up to make it),
and on the other a package of raisin cookies (from the little
grandmother).
The little McSwiggins squealed and gurgled with delight, and then ate
as only people can who have seen the gaunt wolf of starvation at the
door, and as they ate they asked the question unceasingly:
"Who sent it?"
"They's a letter tied to her horn," volunteered Johnny McSwiggins after
he had devoured two cookies and three sandwiches and a chicken leg. "I
seen it."
They found it under the roses, and when they opened it, there dropped
out two yellow-backed bills (from the Judge and the Captain), and a
note (and that was from Judy), and the note said:
"I waved my wand and commanded that Sweetheart be brought back to you.
Also these other gifts. If you wish to keep them, and to keep my
favor, you must never ask whence they came.
"Your guardian fairy,
"JUANNLOT."
Then all the little McSwiggins stared, and the littlest
McSwiggins--except the baby, asked, "Was it really a fairy, mother?"
and Mrs. McSwiggins wiped her eyes and sobbed, "I reckon it was,
honey," but Mary McSwiggins with her eyes shining as they had never
shone before in her sad little life said softly to her mother, "I'll
bet it was them girls and that Bart boy. I'll bet it was--"
"What girls?" asked Mrs. McSwiggins.
"Them girls down at the Judge's in the big house. They wears white
dresses, and one's got yaller hair and the other's got brown, and I was
behin' the fence yustiddy when they was pickin' flowers, and that's how
I foun' out they names--the dark one's Judy, and the light one's
Anne--and the boy's named Launcelot. And that's how they got that
fairy name--you look here," and she held up the note to her mother,
"'Ju--ann--lot'--it's jes' them names strung together."
"Well, now," said Mrs. McSwiggins, "if that ain' bright, honey. But I
don't know's we ought to take all them things."
"Sweetheart ain't goin' away from yer no more," said Mary, firmly, "and
they'd feel mighty bad if we didn't take the other things."
"Well, mebbe they would," said Mrs. McSwiggins, "and anyhow they's
saved us from the po'house, and that's a fact, Mary, and don' you
forgit it when you say yo' prayers."
Far down the road the Mysterious Four gloated over their success.
"Wasn't it fun?" gasped Anne.
"Here's to the fairy Juannlot," cried Launcelot.
"May she never cease to do good," cried Judy, beaming on her fellow
conspirators.
But Perkins merely nodded approval. For had not all the good ladies of
the house of Jameson played the role of Lady Bountiful, and was not
Judy thus proving herself worthy of their name and fame?
CHAPTER XXVII
THE SUMMER ENDS
In the softened light of the candles, the big mirrors reflected that
night four misty groups of happy people.
A blur of pink down at one end, was Anne in rosy organdie, playing
games with Tommy and Amelia and Nannie; a little fire flickered in the
open grate, for the evening was cool, and one side of it sat the little
grandmother and her old friend, the Judge, and on the other Dr.
Grennell and Captain Jameson, engaged in an animated discussion; while
in the window-seat, Judy and Launcelot gazed out upon the old garden.
"I shall miss it awfully," said Judy, with a little sigh.
Launcelot turned on her a startled glance.
"Why?" he asked, "where are you going?"
"Away to school," said Judy, "didn't Anne tell you?"
"Oh, I say--oh, I say, you're not, really?" Launcelot's voice had a
queer break in it, that made Judy say quickly:
"We are coming back for Christmas."
"Well, this is my finish," said Launcelot, moved to slang, by the
intensity of his feelings. "I thought it was bad enough to be cut out
of going to college, but if you and Anne go away, I will give up."
"No, you won't," said Judy, quickly.
"Why not?"
"Because I should be so disappointed in you, Launcelot."
For a moment they looked at each other in silence. The light wind came
in through the open window and stirred the laces of Judy's dress, and
blew a wisp of dark hair across her earnest eyes, which shone with a
depth of feeling that Launcelot had never seen there before, and as he
looked, the boy was suddenly possessed with the spirit that animated
the knights of old who yearned to prove themselves worthy of their
ladies.
"Would you be disappointed, Judy?" he asked, very low.
"Yes," she leaned forward, speaking eagerly. "You--you don't know what
this summer has meant to me, Launcelot. I came here so miserable, so
unhappy, and I found you and Anne--and because you were both so brave
when you have so many things to make life hard, I think it made me a
little braver, and I could bear things better, because of you, and
Anne, Launcelot.
"And so--I want always to think of you as brave," she went on, "I want
to feel though there are cowards in the world, that you aren't one;
though there are boys who fail and boys who are not what they ought to
be, that you are really brave and true and good, Launcelot--always
brave and true and good--"
For a moment he could not speak, and then he said in a moved voice:
"Do you really think that, Judy?"
"Really, Launcelot."
"It helps me to know it--it will help me all my life," he said, simply,
and for a moment his hand touched hers, as if a promise were given and
taken.
All his life he carried the picture of her as she sat there with the
silver light of the moon making a halo for her head--and though after
that she was many times her old tempestuous self, yet the vision of
little St. Judith, as he named her then, stayed with him, and led him
to the heights.
Judy went out to dinner on Dr. Grennell's arm. She looked very grown
up with her long white dress, with her hair twisted high, with pearl
sidecombs that had belonged to her grandmother, and with a bunch of
violets--Launcelot's birthday gift to her, in her belt.
"How old are you, little lady?" asked the doctor, as they took their
seats at the table.
"As old as I look," flashing a demure glance.
"Then you are ten," he decided, "in spite of your hair on top of your
head. Your eyes give you away. They are child-eyes."
"I hope she will always keep child-eyes," said the Judge, who at the
head of the table was serving the soup from an old-fashioned silver
tureen, with Perkins at his elbow to pass the plates. "I don't want
her to grow up."
"I shall always be your little girl, grandfather," and Judy nodded
happily to him from the foot of the table, where she was taking Aunt
Patterson's place, "even when I am forty."
"Aw, forty," said Tommy Tolliver, unexpectedly, "that's awful old.
You'll be an old maid, Judy."
"That's what I intend to be," said that independent young lady. "I am
going to be an artist."
"Oh, Judy," said little Anne, "you know you won't. You will marry
Prince Charming and live happy ever after, as the fairy books say, and
it will be lovely."
But Judy shrugged her shoulders, as they all laughed.
"We will see," she said, "and anyhow I am too young to think about such
things," and at that the little grandmother nodded approval.
Tommy, having made his one contribution to the general conversation,
ate steadily through the menu, accompanied by Amelia, whose sigh when
the last course of ice-cream was served in little melons with candied
cherries on top was expressive of great bliss.
But the crowning surprise of the dinner was the birthday cake.
Perkins brought it in on a great silver platter, and placed it in front
of Judy with a flourish.
"Oh, oh, isn't it lovely," cried all the little girls.
"That's great," from Launcelot and Tommy.
"Perkins' _chef d'oeuvre_," was the Captain's comment, and the Judge
and the doctor and Mrs. Batcheller added their praises.
It really was a beautiful cake. The icing foamed up all over it like
waves, and on the very top of the sugary billows was placed a little
candy sailboat, as nearly like the lost "Princess" as Perkins could
procure.
"Oh, how perfectly beautiful," said Judy. "How did you think of it,
Perkins?" and she smiled at him in a way that set his old heart
a-beating.
"You're to cut it, Miss," he said, handing her a great silver-handled
knife. "There's a ring in it, and a thimble and a piece of money."
"Oh, I hope I'll get the ring," said little Anne, then blushed as
Perkins said: "That means you'll get married, Miss."
"And the one who gets the thimble will work for a living, and the one
who gets the money will be rich, isn't that it?" asked Judy, as she
stuck the knife in. "Oh, it seems a shame to cut it, Perkins. It is
so pretty."
Launcelot found the thimble in his slice, the money--a tiny gold
dollar--was in Nannie's, while to Judy came the turquoise ring.
"You see you can't escape," said Launcelot, softly, as she turned the
blue hoop on her finger. "Fate doesn't intend you for an artist."
"Well, I intend to be, whether fate does or not," she insisted. "I
guess I can do as I please."
"Anne, you can have the thimble," said Launcelot, rolling it across the
table-cloth to her. It was a beautiful little gold affair, and she
loved to sew.
"I shouldn't mind being an old maid and working for a living," she
said, surveying it contentedly, "if I could have Becky and Belinda to
live with me."
"I'm glad I am going to be rich," said Nannie. "I shall travel and
have a new dress every week."
"Huh," boasted Tommy, "I am going to get rich, if I didn't find the
money in the cake."
"Sailors don't get rich," said the Captain. "It's a poor profession."
"Aw, a sailor," stammered Tommy, getting very red, "I'm not going to be
a sailor. I'm going to learn typewriting, and go to the city in an
office."
And thus ended the Cause of Thomas, the Downtrodden!
But Amelia's plans proved the most interesting.
"I'm going to write," she announced, placidly. "I wrote a poem for
Judy's birthday."
"Read it," they demanded, and Amelia, feeling very important, delivered
the following:
"Oh, candy, oh, sugar, oh, cake, and oh, pie,
Are not half so sweet as dear J-U-D-Y."
It brought down the house, and Amelia was overcome by the honors heaped
upon her.
"It isn't very good poetry," she confessed modestly, "but it means a
lot."
And then the Captain made a little speech, in which he thanked Judy's
friends for the happy summer she had spent among them. And then
Launcelot made a speech and thanked Judy for the good times she had
given them. And while Launcelot's speech wasn't as polished as the
Captain's, it was so earnestly spoken that Judy was proud of her boy
friend.
And after that they filed out to the old garden, the Judge and Mrs.
Batcheller, and the Captain and Judy, Launcelot with his fair little
friend Anne, and behind them the smaller fry, and Perkins--the
wonderful Perkins at the end, with the coffee.
And there we will leave them, there in the old garden, where Judy had
found hope and happiness, and where the little fountain sang
ceaselessly to the nodding roses, of life and love, and of the things
that had been and of the things that were to be.
THE END.
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