The very next day, when Old Captain and Jeanne were coming away from the hospital, they met Mrs. Fairchild going in to visit a sick friend. The impulsive little lady pounced upon Jeanne.
"Please don't think that I'm crazy," said she, in a voice that Jeanne considered decidedly pleasing, "but you're just the person I wish to see. One day, more than two years ago, my son Roger fell into Lake Superior and was almost drowned. He says that you know the girl—a very large girl, Roger said she was—that saved his life. Just think! Not a word of thanks have I ever been able to give her. I am so anxious to meet that brave girl."
"Well," said Old Captain, with a twinkle in his eye, "you're meetin' her right now. She tore a hole two feet across that there net o' mine savin' your boy. That's how I come to know about it."
"Not this little girl!"
"It was mostly the net," said Jeanne, modestly. "I just threw it over the place where he went down. His fingers had to grab it. I lived right there, you know, and I had pulled my little brother Sammy out ever so many times. He was always tumbling in."
"My dear," declared Mrs. Fairchild, "I'm going home with you. I want to see the exact spot. Roger has always been so vague about it. Get into my car—it's just outside the gate—and I'll drive you there. I must run in here first, but I won't stay two minutes."
It was Old Captain's first ride in an automobile, and he was surprised to find himself within sight of his own home in a very few minutes after leaving the hospital.
"This here buggy's some traveler," said he, admiringly.
They escorted Mrs. Fairchild to the end of the dock, to show her the spot from which Roger had taken his dangerous plunge. She looked down into the green depths and shuddered.
"Ugh!" she said, "it looks a mile deep. Oh, I'm so thankful you happened to be here."
Next, she inspected the shack on the dock; after that, the Captain's old freight car.
"And you live here!" she said, seating herself on the bench outside and drawing Jeanne down beside her. "I want you to tell me all about it and about you. I want your whole history."
By asking a great many questions (she had lived with Roger long enough to learn how to do that) she soon knew a great deal about Jeanne, her life on the wharf, her two years with the Huntingtons, her father's wishes for her. Jeanne found it not only easy but pleasant to chatter to her sympathetic new acquaintance.
"This is a beautiful spot in summer," said Mrs. Fairchild, when she had the whole story, "but it is no place for a girl in winter. The minute cold weather comes, unless your people have already sent for you, I am going to carry you off to visit me. Of course, if you didn't happen to like us, you wouldn't have to stay; but I do want you to try us. You know who Mr. Fairchild is, Captain Blossom—the lawyer, you know—so you see you can trust us with her. At any rate, my dear, you can stay with me until your people send for you. You see, neither Mr. Fairchild nor I will be able to rest until we've had a chance to know you better and to thank you—to really thank you. I'm very grateful to you. Roger's our only child; you saved him for us. I've had you on my conscience for more than two years. You will come, won't you?"
"If I could think about it just a little," said Jeanne, shyly.
"You must persuade her, Captain Blossom. You know she'd be better off with me—so much nearer school and other nice girls of her own age. I shall simply love to have her—I'm fond of her already."
Mrs. Fairchild was a pretty little woman, impulsive, kind-hearted, and very loyal in her friendships. One had only to look at her to know that she was good. Not a very wise woman, perhaps; but a very kind one. Her son Roger—she had lost her first two babies—was undoubtedly rather badly spoiled. Had her other children lived, Roger would certainly have been more severely disciplined.
"I'm coming tomorrow afternoon," said she, at parting, "to take this little girl for a ride."
"That'll be lovely," returned Jeanne.
After that, Mrs. Fairchild made a point of borrowing Jeanne frequently. Her comfortable little open car often stopped in the road above the Captain's old freight car to honk loudly for Jeanne, and she often carried the Cinder Pond child home with her, and kept her to meals. Mrs. Fairchild was the nearest approach to a girl companion that Jeanne had ever had. Jeanne liked the pretty, fair-haired lady, who was so delightfully young for her thirty-seven years. She also liked Mr. Fairchild child, whose clothes were quite as good as those of her Uncle Charles, while his manners were certainly better—at any rate, far more cordial.
"I'm crazy about dolls," confessed Mrs. Fairchild, one day, when she had Jeanne beside her in the little car. "I've promised to dress a whole dozen for the church guild. I want you to help me buy them right now. Won't that be fun? And we'll dress them together. You shall choose the dresses for six of them. Isn't it a shame I never had any little girls of my own?"
Of course sympathetic Mrs. Fairchild heard all about Sammy, Annie, and Patsy, and how disappointed Jeanne had been to find them missing.
"I'm worried about them," confessed Jeanne. "Their new uncle may be good to them, but I'd like to know for certain. I'm bothered most about Annie. She's such a good, gentle little thing and Mrs. Shannon was always awfully cross to her."
"While we're dressing our other dolls," said Mrs. Fairchild, "we might make a little dress for Annie."
"She's almost six," sighed Jeanne. "I do wish I could watch her grow up—and teach her to be nice. But, of course, making a dress for her will help a little!"
Of Roger, Jeanne saw but little. At first he avoided her; still, he did speak, when they met face to face; and, in the course of time, he was even able to say, "Hello, Jeanne!" without blushing.
Jeanne went to school. It was a long walk and she hated to miss a single moment of the outdoor life on the old dock; but going to school was something that she could do for her father. Her clothes were beginning to trouble her a little. Some were wearing out, others seemed to be getting smaller. Jeanne, you see, was growing and her garments were not. Still, the other pupils were far from suspecting that Jeanne was a motherless, fatherless waif from the Cinder Pond. She was always neat; and even daintier than many of her classmates; but the washing, ironing, and mending necessary to insure this daintiness, meant considerable work on Jeanne's part.
One evening, when she had taken off her dress to replace a button, it occurred to Jeanne to feel in the pockets of her father's old coat—the coat that still hung behind the door of Léon Duval's room. She found in the pocket a letter that he had written. Except for a stamp, it was all ready to be mailed to her. She read it greedily.
There was the usual home news; but one paragraph stood out from all the others: "Be patient and learn all you can, my Jeanne. You, in turn, can teach it all to Annie and your brothers. Even the hated arithmetic you must conquer."
"Oh," sighed Jeanne, "I'm so glad I found this. I will conquer those mathematics, and I will teach those children, some day. Perhaps I'll have to teach kindergarten after all, so as to earn money enough to go after them. And dear me, they're growing older every minute. But, no matter how hard it is for me, I'm going to look after those children the very first minute I can."
While Jeanne was waiting for the first cold weather or else for news from the Huntingtons—one couldn't tell which would come first—she studied to such purpose that her first month's marks surprised even herself, they were so good.
Another night, when she had gone early to the shack in order to mend a long rent in her petticoat, she found herself with half an hour to spare before bedtime. She had left her books on Old Captain's table and the kittens were also in the Captain's car. For once, now that her mending was finished, she had nothing to do unless she were to dress, and go up the dock to Old Captain's. And that, she decided, was too much trouble for so short a time. She was obliged to stand on a box to reach the nail she liked best for her dress. As she did so this time, the lamplight fell upon a crack in the wall that was level with her eyes, and contained something that suddenly glittered. She fished the small object from its hiding-place; and recognized in it the key to her father's little old trunk. She looked at it thoughtfully. Perhaps, since she was so very lonely for her father, he wouldn't mind if she opened that trunk to see what articles he had handled last.
She moved the lamp to a box beside the trunk, turned the key, and lifted the cover. Her father's best suit was there, very neatly folded, and his shoes. From under these came a gleam of something faintly pink. Jeanne carefully drew it forth.
"My old pink dress!" she exclaimed.
Jeanne slipped it on. It was much too short.
"Why," said she, "what a lot I've grown!"
Upright in one corner of the trunk, Jeanne found a green bottle. It held a withered stalk to which two dried pink petals still clung.
"I left that bottle with a rose in it on father's table when I went away," said Jeanne. "He must have found it there when he got back and kept it. And this dress. He didn't give it to Annie. He kept it. And I'm glad. Sometimes, when I was so awfully lonesome at Aunt Agatha's, I used to wonder if my father really did love me. But now I know he did—every single minute. I'll put this dress back where I found it."
Another thing that came to light was her father's bankbook. She showed that, the next day, to Old Captain, who studied it carefully.
"I'm glad," said Jeanne, "that there's a little money. It may be needed for Mollie."
It was. One day, early in October, Mollie failed to waken from one of her comfortable naps. Thanks to Léon Duval's modest savings, poor Mollie was decently buried. Mrs. Fairchild took Jeanne and Old Captain and all the flowers from Mrs. Schmidt's little greenhouse to the very simple funeral.
"I've got to be a mother to Mollie's children just as soon as ever I can," said Jeanne, on the way home. "I was going to do it for daddy, anyway; but now I want to for Mollie, too."