Girls of Highland Hall: Further Adventures of the Dandelion Cottagers by Carroll Watson Rankin - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXVII—SALLIE’S PRESENT

Three days later, Henrietta, her eyes bright with excitement, rushed to the dining room and fell upon Mary, one of the neat maids.

“Lend me your cap and apron, quick!” demanded Henrietta, helping herself to the needed articles. “Don’t say a word. There’s a hack coming up from the station and I want to answer the doorbell—Doctor Rhodes said I could. Sallie’s in her room—I locked her in. I’m just getting even with her for something. I’ll bring your things back in just a few minutes and tell you the rest.”

Henrietta did answer the doorbell. The visitor was ushered to the library. Then away sped Henrietta up three flights of steps and through a tiresome number of corridors until at last she reached Sallie’s room on the top floor. She unlocked the door noiselessly, rapped on the panel and then announced, in a very good imitation of Sallie’s own voice:

“A gentleman in the library to see Miss Sallie Dickinson.”

“But there couldn’t be,” said Sallie. “I don’t know any gentleman.”

“But you do—or if you don’t, go down and get acquainted. Come on—you look all right.”

“It—it isn’t one of those Theologs—”

“Come on,” laughed Henrietta, “I’ll race you to the first floor.”

“It’s against the rules—”

“There’s nothing in the by-laws against sliding down the banisters. These nice black walnut ones were just made for that purpose. Down you go.”

“If I must, I must,” said resigned Sallie, meekly lying flat on the broad banister. “I know you’re playing some trick on me.”

“I thought you knew how to slide,” laughed Henrietta, following suit.

“Yes,” confessed Sallie, tackling the last banister, “I’ve helped polish them all—it’s a wonderful saving of legs.”

“Go on in,” urged Henrietta, at the library door. “Nobody’s going to eat you.”

Sallie saw a man standing by the table. A man who smiled pleasantly. She looked at him. Suddenly her heart began to thump wildly.

“Is it—Is it—”

“Yes, it is,” cried Henrietta. “Your father.”

Sallie’s face was turning from white to pink and momentarily growing brighter, but still she seemed unable to move. Henrietta gave her a gentle shove toward her father’s outstretched arms.

“I found him in London,” said Henrietta. “He’ll tell you all about it. Good-by, I’ll see you later.”

It happened to be a warm day, so the girls had left their rooms and were wandering in the grove, under the sheltering hickory trees where earlier in the season, Charles had placed a number of benches. At sight of Henrietta waving her arms wildly, the girls moved toward her.

“Help yourselves to the benches,” said Henrietta, seating herself on the ground. “I have a tale to tell. How would you like to be just awfully surprised?”

“I guess we could stand it,” drawled Miss Wilson, who, as usual, had a large box of chocolates under her arm. “Have some candy?”

“You wouldn’t try to stop my mouth with candy,” reproached Henrietta, “if you knew what you are bottling up thereby. Something’s happened—something wonderful. Something perfectly grand.”

“Tell us,” pleaded Jean, who could see that Henrietta was fairly bubbling over with news, “Come on, girls. Here’s a story.”

“Well,” began Henrietta, “once there was a man who was always moving around from one town to another looking for work. When he had work he wasn’t always satisfied with it. Sometimes he gave up a fairly good job and just went some place else because he happened to feel like it.”

“One of those rolling stones,” suggested Maude.

“Yes, a regular rolling stone. Well, after awhile he rolled out West. He tried ranching at first; but he didn’t care much about that. But there was a sort of cowboy chap that he did like—a young Englishman—and they decided to be partners. They tried mining for awhile but that didn’t pan out so they went down to Texas. They worked for an old man down there who was sick. They did something really worth while for him—something about saving a lot of cattle for him—and he was so grateful that he died and left his ranch to them.”

“Oh, Henrietta!” teased Hazel, “that was gratitude.”

“Well, I mean that when he died, he left his ranch to those two men. But the ranch wasn’t very much good—there was something wrong with the soil and nothing would grow—not even grass. But now pick up your ears, girls. One day, in one of the fields where the soil was particularly bad, the older man stepped into something soft and some queer greasy stuff oozed up out of the hole. It was oil. Experts came and tested it. They really had oil.

“Well, even when they had sold all their cattle they hadn’t money enough to develop their oil mine—”

“Oil well,” corrected Miss Wilson. “My father has them—but go on.”

“Yes, oil well. So the cowboy suggested going home to England where he had a lot of wealthy relatives and friends, to borrow the money. He wanted, for one thing, to let his own relatives reap some of the benefit if there was any. Well, that cowboy was—and is—sort of a distant cousin of my father’s; and my father was one of the men he wanted especially to see.

“Now, here’s the exciting part. His partner, the rolling stone, was with him when he went to my father’s rooms in London. And I was there. And when the cowboy introduced the other man to Father, I sat right up and looked at him—he looked like somebody I knew.

“Then Father introduced them both to me—he’s always careful about things like that, you know. And then I spoke right up and said:

“‘Mr. Dickinson, is your first name John? And did you ever have a little girl named Sallie?’ My goodness! You should have seen that little man’s face! All lit up with joy.”

“But,” cried Jean, “you don’t mean our Sallie! You don’t mean that that was Sallie’s father!”

“I do,” assured Henrietta. “Of course it seemed awfully nervy to speak right out like that to a strange man, right before my proper father and Cousin George. I never could have done it, if I hadn’t known myself how horrible it was to be a school orphan. After that, I told him all about Sallie. And he said that after he got out of the hospital he had hunted for her just as long as he had had any money; but the poor old man who had left Sallie at the wrong school couldn’t remember anything at all about it. Without money, and so weak that he could hardly crawl, Mr. Dickinson couldn’t do very much toward hunting Sallie up—and there were so many girls’ schools in this part of the country. And after he had drifted out West, he was always too poor to come back. This is the first bit of luck he’s had. But it’s a big bit. The oil well is all right—he had to stop in New York to attend to some part of the business—telegrams to and from Texas and things like that. That’s why he didn’t come when I did. Sallie’s father and the cowboy, too, will be very rich men. Of course he was going to begin to search for Sallie just as soon as things were settled; but I saved him a lot of time and trouble. But, oh! Such a time as I’ve had keeping this tremendous secret.”

“Where’s Sallie’s father now,” demanded Mabel.

“In the library with Sallie.”

“I’m glad about the money,” said Jean, earnestly, “but Henrietta, is—is he going to be a nice father for our Sallie?”

“Yes, he is,” returned Henrietta. “I watched him all the way over on the boat and there isn’t a single thing the matter with him.”

“That’s great,” breathed Mabel. “But what is he like?”

“Well, he has pleasant eyes and a good face and nice, gentle manners—and he doesn’t eat with his knife. Just after I found him I began to tremble for fear he mightn’t be the kind of father we’d want for our Sallie; but he is—just exactly. Perhaps he isn’t one of those terribly strong characters like Daniel Webster or Oliver Cromwell or John Knox—but who’d want a father like that! But I’m sure he’ll be a comfortable person to live with and Cousin George—the cowboy, you know—likes him; and Father says George is mighty particular about his friends. And of course he’ll pay up everything Sallie owes this school and give her everything she needs.”

At dinner time that night, Sallie’s father sat in the place of honor at Doctor Rhodes’s table. And Sallie, such a radiant Sallie, with her head high and her eyes bright, sat beside him, listening hungrily to his words.

And when Sallie’s clear young voice was lifted in song at the Commencement Day exercises, it didn’t come from behind a tree. Lovely Sallie didn’t need to hide behind a tree or to burrow down in the long grass; for her Commencement Day gown was quite as new and beautiful as anybody’s and certainly no other girl wore a happier expression.

“But it’s her father she’s the gladdest about,” explained Mabel. “She just loves him.”

“I’m glad of that,” said Bettie, who was sitting on her suitcase on the baggage strewn veranda. “It wouldn’t be much fun to go to Texas with a father you didn’t love. And isn’t it great! He’s going to let her visit Henrietta in Lakeville in August and go back to school with her afterwards so we aren’t going to lose every bit of our Sallie after all.”

“And,” said Jean, “Mabel is going to spend a week with me and then her own people will be home. And there’s Charles coming now to take us all to the station. Good-by, old Highland Hall. You’re going to be a big, lonesome place without us.”

“A year is a funny thing,” commented Bettie, with her last backward glance at the tall building. “While it’s happening, it seems to be a million miles long; and then, the very next minute, it’s all gone.”

“By this time tomorrow,” breathed Marjory, “we’ll be home; and all the days will have wings. But Mabel, what in the world are you doing?”

“I’m—kuk—crying,” gulped Mabel.

“You funny old baby,” laughed Henrietta. “You’re too tender hearted.”

“It isn’t that at all,” sobbed Mabel, “but something just terrible has happened. I forgot to label them and I kuk—kuk—can’t remember which lock of hair is Maude’s and which is Cora’s—and I just loved them both.”

“Well,” soothed Marjory, “both girls are far from bald—you can easily write for more hair.”

“Cheer up,” comforted Jean, “I did label mine and I can identify anybody’s hair. And—and we all hate to part with those girls; but we must look respectable when we get to the station; and when Mr. Black meets us in Chicago—”

“We’ll be mighty glad to see him,” said Mabel, smiling bravely through her tears, “and this time I’ll try not to get lost.”

“Climb out, everybody,” said Charles, stopping his car. “Here’s the station, right in the same old place. And there’s your train, right on time. And I hope I don’t see another girl or another trunk for the next four months. So long and good luck.”

THE END