CHAPTER XXII
WASHINGTON ANSWERS
“We certainly are meeting difficulties,” remarked Cara as they left the road to the lighthouse behind them. “Ruth would call them snags, difficulties are different, aren’t they?”
“But imagine the Marcusis camping in the woods,” said Babs, ignoring frivolity. “What did the captain say about some one being sick?”
“He didn’t say it, he caught himself in time. Seems as if there’s a mystery in that somewhere,” said Cara more seriously.
“Why ever should there be a mystery in a person being sick? How silly!”
“Well, we’ll soon know,” Cara assured her. “You can count on Captain Quiller. We impressed him the night he scrambled in on my roof. Wasn’t that too funny?”
“And we had on those absurd things!” Babs recalled. “You in your bridal robes!”
“And you in your college robes! Say Babs, I wish you would sell me that outfit,” Cara said suddenly. “I’d love to wear it once in a while. I never intend to go to college, you know,” Cara admitted indifferently, “so I’d like to pretend I had been there.”
“Sell it to you! You can have it, I don’t want it. I always feel as if I do want to go to college— But then,” Babs checked herself, “I may go to a special school for science. Dad says I have a scientific turn of mind,” she declared, laughing heartily at the very idea.
“And now that you’ve gone in for heirlooms, samplers, etc., that proves it,” remarked Cara dryly.
“And gone in for twin cousins. Do you suppose Miss Davis is a sort of shadowy cousin to me?” asked Babs.
“Shadowy anyhow. She’s thin enough. But she’s nice. If only we can lay hold of that miserable little Nicky and wring out of him the story of the boat model.”
“Cara Burke!” exclaimed Babs, rebukingly. “You stop making fun of my adopted brother. Didn’t you say I should adopt him?”
“Looks right now as if he would be the adopted son of Captain Quiller,” went on Cara, for both girls were in that mood that made them feel like saying silly things and laughing at them, as if they were the very best jokes they had ever heard.
“I’m glad you have nothing more important to do than to drive me around, Cara,” Babs remarked as she jumped out of the car. This was Babs’ way of thanking her chum for her continuous attention.
“So am I,” chirped Cara. “Think what fun I’d miss if I did have something more important to do.”
But presently she was gone, and Babs was running up the little patched stone walk, a walk made of pieces of stone just scattered in the grass at step lengths, so that one always wanted to play a game as she raced along them. Babs called them her broken trail, and she always jumped hardest on the big pointed stone that looked like a gray shawl in the thick green grass.
She was almost happy. Things were promising to clear up. She and Cara were going to the lighthouse exactly at eight o’clock. It would still be daylight at that time, but Captain Quiller said Nicky would come then to light his lamp, so high up in the tower that the glow could be seen like a little candlelight’s flicker, to warn seamen away from the dangerous point of sand. Once touching that sand-bar a craft would be aground, and the light was to mark this danger and save it from such peril.
Babs, hurrying on, had not quite reached the porch of her own home now, but she could plainly see the inescapable Dora standing waiting for her.
And she held another letter in her hand!
“What?” exclaimed Babs, ready to roar at the humor of it, “not another letter, Dora?”
“Yes,” replied Dora solemnly, holding out a big envelope, “and it even hasn’t a stamp on it. Marked ‘official business.’” One would think it were a death notice the way Dora intoned that.
“Oh!” cried Babs grabbing the paper from her hands. “Quick, give it to me! I know——”
“Don’t scratch me like that,” snapped Dora. “Surely, your old Aunt hasn’t died and left you that money——”
“What Aunt? What money?” Babs didn’t know what she was saying, and she didn’t care. She had the letter and was making tracks for the secrecy of her own room.
Poor Dora! Disappointed again! Barbara Hale was not the girl she used to be. There had been a time when she read her letters under Dora’s very eyes. But now——
Up in her room Barbara was reading that letter from Washington, in a perfect spasm of excitement. The spasm kept her still, and she made her eyes read the words in spite of their rebellion. They wanted to blink, to wink, to flicker, to flirt with the words. Eyes will act like that when you press them too hard.
Babs was reading. And the “letter head” was from the secretary of the United States. It informed Miss Barbara Hale that her letter recommending Nickolas Marcusi for bravery had been received, and an account of the incident had been fully investigated. The little boy was certainly worthy of official commendation, the letter stated, for not only had he done a brave act and suffered physical pain in doing it, but he had set an example of bravery and nobility such as boys of this great country would do well to appreciate. “Therefore——”
Barbara stopped reading. She wanted to know it all so badly she just feared to find it out; she hated to have the secret a secret no longer. Raising her violet eyes to her ceiling, always such a homely ceiling but now seemingly heavenly, she drew in a sharp breath.
“Nicky!” she whispered ecstatically, “you do deserve it. You have worked so hard!”
Again she followed the precious words. Yes, Nicky would be recommended for bravery and the whole affair was to be brought to the attention of the President.
“The President!” cried out Barbara. “Hooray! Daddy! Dora! Listen!” and now the anxiously waiting maid was to hear the news at last.
“And Daddy isn’t home yet! Oh, dear!” wailed the excited girl. “How shall I wait to tell him? Listen Dora.”
“I’m listenin’,” Dora reminded her dryly. “Whatever is it? Who’s dead?”
“Dead? Who said any one was dead? It’s Nicky——”
“What’s happened to him now, Nick-kee,” Dora was contemptuous.
“Now, if you sneer at him like that I’ll not tell you a single word!” threatened Babs, her cheeks flaming indignantly.
“Who’s sneering, I’d like to know?” retorted Dora, just as if she didn’t know already.
“Well,” began Barbara, “when the government of the United States thinks a boy is good enough and brave enough to be noticed, it seems to me you and I,” she added this last when she remembered the overdue wages, “you and I,” she repeated emphatically, “should at least respect him.”
“Yes,” said Dora, and the word really meant no.
“Oh, all right, you don’t need to bother,” decided the excited one. “I’m in a hurry anyhow. I hope supper is ready. I’m starved too. I’ve got to phone Cara.” She was going toward the phone.
“I can’t see what good a fair is if you come home starved to death from it,” snapped Dora. “Of course, your supper is ready. Am I ever late? Not that there ain’t enough to hinder one——”
But Barbara was at the phone.
“Cara, Cara!” she could be heard to exclaim. “The most wonderful news! From Washington! About Nicky. Oh, do hurry around——”
“Yes, a letter. It was here when I came home. Oh, here comes Dads. I must tell him. See you in a few minutes? Yes, do hurry,” and Babs banged the receiver on the hook and flew to the door.
Her father was just coming up the Trail but he didn’t dance over the stones as Babs would have done. Yet, he too liked that distracting stone walk. One could never think of trouble when treading it; just stones. They demanded one’s entire attention.
Babs swung herself around her father’s neck—by her arms, of course—in a way she had not lately been indulging in.
“Oh, Daddykinks!” she gurgled, lips pressed to his kindly cheeks. “News from Washington. They answered my letter——”
“Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they?” the doctor interrupted dryly. “Look who you are! Didn’t you get proud at the Community House this afternoon?” He pressed her close to his mohair coat. “I did,” he declared frankly. “With our sampler and our new relations——”
“But this. You see this isn’t for us; it’s for Nicky. And he hasn’t anything else. Just sit down and read it,” she begged. “Do daddy, please.”
“That supper you was talking about is pretty well spoiled,” put in the grouchy Dora. “And it isn’t my fault. You understand that, I hope.”
“Yes, we understand that and it’s all right, thank you, Dora,” spoke up the doctor authoritatively.
Then he and his daughter settled down deep into the big chair to enjoy the news from Washington.