“I thought you’d never come,” grumbled Dora, holding the letter expectantly towards Barbara. “Here.”
“Why Dora, you didn’t have to stand waiting for me just because a letter came, did you?” Babs could not refrain from that much of a rebuke.
“Oh, no, of course I didn’t,” sighed Dora. “But that’s me, always worrying about other folks’ business.”
“What is there to worry about?” again Babs questioned. She was purposely holding that soiled envelope without attempting to open it. The scrawl on its flap was positive proof that the message, whatever it might be, was sent by Nicky.
“Worry about?” repeated the maid sourly. She was watching furtively and, there wasn’t a doubt of it, she expected to find out what was in that letter. “The way them Eytalians run around this place——”
“What Italians?” asked Babs impatiently. She too was anxious to know what was in the letter, but she had no idea of opening it just then.
“Them children, that old Nick, or what ever it is you call him. He raced up that path——”
“Running?”
“Runnin’?” Dora would repeat every word. “’Course not, runnin’, but on an old forlorn bicycle that he let drop right on my cucumber vines.”
“That’s too bad,” said Babs meaning it.
“And it’s no easy job to raise cucumbers and keep them from the bugs, let alone to get a cuke off them, and then have some one ‘bust’ in and destroy them.” Dora was mad.
Barbara was on her way upstairs now, but she turned around sharply.
“Did he really destroy your cucumber vine, Dora?” she asked sharply.
“No, he didn’t. Do you think I’d be fool enough to let him? But it wasn’t his fault. I just caught him in time. And I guess I gave him a piece of my mind that he won’t forget in a hurry——”
But Barbara didn’t wait for all that. She was in her room, the little brass bolt slipped across the door, and she was now opening the letter.
Scrawled over the front was the address:
“Miss Barbara Hail” ... She laughed at that, “Hail”, she repeated. “I’ll have to show that to Cara.”
And like one so anxious to learn something that he dreads to know, she was hesitating. Finally she thrust a nail file under the much befingered envelope flap and took out the page of old-fashioned, heavily lined paper. She read: “Dear Friend, Wear goin’ away, gotta go. I’ll tell you later. I didn’t steal the boat, and can’t tell you that either just now. Thank you, Nickolas Marcusi Junior.”
“He didn’t steal the boat! I knew he didn’t,” she rejoiced. “Oh, I am so glad——”
Again and again she read the scrawled, badly spelled lines. But he didn’t steal the boat and that was all she cared about.
Instinctively she went over to her dressing table, pulled out the small drawer in which she kept all her best beloved letters, and was about to place Nicky’s welcome news in there, when she looked again at the dirty smudges upon the paper.
“But it’s precious,” she decided, taking a clean plain envelope from her own box and slipping the other into it. Then she placed the newest addition to her important collection in with the others.
What a weight had suddenly been lifted from her heart! She had not realized it was so heavy until it was gone, and now she felt so different, so happy, so light hearted! She would almost have told Dora the news, only, of course, Dora would not have understood it.
But she must tell Cara at once. Down to the telephone she flew, and in a way that only she and Cara could have understood, she promptly managed to transmit the wonderful news.
“And I must go over to Miss Davis just as soon as we can after lunch,” she panted. “I knew he didn’t,” she repeated again, guarding her words so that no other listener than Cara could have understood them.
“I never thought so either,” Cara was answering. “Yes, I’ll call for you early. Good-bye, I’m awfully glad.”
But the girls were so rejoiced to receive those scant, scrawled words, that they had not realized how little they could really mean to any one but themselves. Nicky said he hadn’t stolen the boat and that was enough for Barbara, but who else would believe him? Would Miss Davis?
And he had plainly intimated that he knew all about it being stolen; how did he know that? And why couldn’t he tell why they had moved away so secretly?
Just a glimmer of this phase of the situation slowly devolved upon Babs, as she flew about happily, taking up her tasks which she had so suddenly allowed to accumulate. Even her room had not been made up, when Miss Davis came early that morning with the bad news. But now Babs was fixing things up, without really knowing she was doing anything. It was no trouble at all to straighten her row of books—they always seemed to fall over without having been touched—and she even dusted the mirror and the hand mirror, folded her towels. Oh, she could do anything now, she felt so much better.
But how did he know that model had been stolen?
Babs took the letter from the drawer and read it again, as if she could thereby penetrate the mind that had written those words.
“Can’t tell you that either just now,” she read after having read the previously written sentence, about his not having stolen the boat. And she wondered and wondered why he couldn’t tell? Why could he not have dropped a hint? But, of course, he must have been in a great hurry, and it was good of him to make that attempt to reach her, Barbara tried to satisfy herself.
“One would think I had stolen the old boat,” she laughed ever so lightly. “And imagine the girls thinking that we would want to adopt a little Italian boy! How quaint! as Lida would say,” and Barbara’s thoughts raced from one end of the subject to the other, but never did they seem willing to take up a different subject.
At lunch Dr. Hale had something to say.
“Do you know, Babs,” he began gently, “that you have been neglecting me?”
“Why, Dads!” she exclaimed, affection pouring out with the words.
“Yes. You know I suggested that you dig up something for us to show in that fair, or whatever it is you are holding, and I haven’t heard a word about your digging.”
“I know, Dads,” Barbara replied quickly. “But I’ve been—so busy.” She was very meek now.
Dora’s faded eyes were alive enough to flash her a significant challenge at that, but Babs pretended not to have seen.
“Oh, I know you have been busy,” her father agreed. “But you see, Babs dear, we should be represented. So I got up there in the attic myself this morning, and I found something,” he proclaimed proudly.
“You did, Daddy? What?”
“You shan’t know until you have finished your lunch. You ought to eat that nice fresh egg,” he reminded the girl who had pushed the egg aside.
“I don’t think it is fresh, that is not very fresh,” Babs stated. “But I don’t care for eggs anyhow,” she added.
“Not fresh?” Dora was on hand now, “Why they’ve just came,” she declared, as if her kitchen pride had been greatly insulted.
“Don’t we get any more from Babs’ little Michael Angelo?” the doctor asked playfully, meaning Nicky, of course.
“No,” Babs answered. “Nicky’s folks have moved away,” she felt constrained to add.
And that brought on a discussion into which Dora forced her opinions. Dr. Hale was not very much interested, but he tolerated the others as they hit back and forth in their retorting remarks, for Dora could not be expected to speak pleasantly of the “Eytalians.”
Not that the maid was always disagreeable; indeed she was not. She was as “good as gold,” almost always. Even Barbara would be glad to testify to that. But what “riled her” was Barbara stooping to bother with those foreigners.
But finally Babs arose from the table, and the doctor followed.
“What did you find in the attic, Dads?” she begged to know, as arm in arm they went, as they did after every meal however humble, into the sitting-room.
“Guess?” he teased.
“Oh, how could I?” murmured the girl. She gave his arm an extra tug and fell upon the arm of his big chair as he dropped into it.
“Well,” he drawled, just to tantalize her, “it’s small and it’s square——”
“A little footstool, the worsted embroidered one?” she guessed.
“Nopey. It’s something to hang up.”
“An old picture, of course. I knew we had some Currier and Ives prints,” she continued, “and I should have looked them up. Where did you hide it, Dad?”
“Not a picture, dear, but what they called a sampler. I suppose it means a sample-er because it’s made up of sample letters.”
“A sampler? Really Dad! Where is it?” Babs demanded impatiently. “I have never seen one in the attic.”
“Well, it was there. In an old trunk; the one with the hobbed-nail cover, you know. But you don’t spend as much time in the attic as I imagine some girls do, Babby. Guess your old dad keeps you too busy with his bugs,” the doctor murmured.
“You don’t either Dad. Where is that sampler?”
“Just give me a chance and I’ll get it,” the doctor answered, as if he had not had plenty of chance.
But at last he left his chair and went over to the old walnut bookcase. From the bottom, where the stained-glass door hid the big shelves, he drew out the old heirloom.
“It was your great-great grandmother’s,” he told his daughter, “and it’s pretty old. I wonder it hasn’t fallen apart,” he reasoned, as he held the little mahogany frame at arm’s length for his daughter’s inspection.
“How quaint!” she exclaimed, without realizing she was using the term the girls always joked Lida about. “Isn’t it finely embroidered?”
“I thought you would like it,” her father said, a ring of satisfaction in his tone. “Well, I was talking to David Hunt this morning, our honorable mayor you know, and he’s all keyed up over your Community House show. He says there isn’t a doubt but the place will be given to the borough now. I guess Mary-Louise Trainor knew what she was doing when she started her Old Home Week. She got all the women interested with their patchwork quilts,” the doctor chuckled, “and then she got you girls busy. What this old beach doesn’t know about heirlooms and family skeletons when the show is over won’t be worth knowing,” he finished jokingly.
But Barbara was looking intently at the sampler. So this had been the delicate handwork of the great-great grandmother. The faded silks and worsteds still held enough color to show the glory that had been woven into the letters, the symbols, and the flaring peacock.
“And I hate to sew or embroider,” Barbara said aloud, “so I guess I don’t take after grandmother. Here’s her name in the corner. ‘Mary Nelson, age 16 years 1831,’” she read. “That’s almost one hundred years ago.”
“Yes. The Nelsons were proud old stock, Babs,” her father told her. “And I always thought you were about one hundredth of one per cent Nelson,” he laughed. “But go get slicked up. I’m going over to that show myself this afternoon, and we can both take the sampler. I promised Dave Hunt I’d look in, and he asked me to be there at two-thirty this afternoon. Seems he expects some other old settlers to go there and greet the ladies, and he wants to include me.”
“Oh, that will be fine,” said Barbara, feeling that it wouldn’t be anything of the kind. For proud as she was of her professional father, and glad and happy as she might be to bring that sampler to the Community House, she had other plans for the afternoon. She was going out with Cara to Miss Davis’ house to tell her that Nicky hadn’t stolen the ship. After that they were both going down to the lighthouse to see Captain Quiller, and they hoped he might know something of the Marcusis’ whereabouts.
But how could Barbara refuse to go to the Community House with her father when he was so sure she would be delighted to go?
He saw her hesitate. “Unless you have some better plans,” he said then. “If you have, of course——”
“Nothing could be better than going with you, Dad,” she told him, “but I did promise to go—some place with Cara.”
“Oh, that’s all right, of course,” the doctor quickly replied. “I’m always glad to have you go any place with Cara,” he added. “She’s a fine girl and she has done you a heap of good.” He ran his hand under her chin at that, in a way he had of bringing her face up to look into his own.
“You’re better this afternoon,” he continued. “Thought you had something on your mind this morning but I see it’s all right now,” he ended, in that unerring way some fathers and all mothers seem to possess. “Then, you’ll turn in the sampler, of course?” he questioned. “It wouldn’t look just the thing for a doctor of bacteriology to contribute, would it?”
“Certainly I’ll take it, Dad. And I’ll get there before you leave, I hope,” said Barbara, feeling guilty that she was failing him in his laudable pride, while she was following her own selfish interest in trying to ferret out the suspicion that had fallen upon an obscure Italian boy.
She knew it wasn’t just being generous to Nicky; that her interest in him was a gratification of her love of adventure.
And she realized again that as a girl she was—different.