Nicky saw Babs quickly as she stepped out from the shrubbery, and he hailed her joyfully, running towards her.
“Hello, Miss Barbara!” he called gaily, which was pretty good for Nicky. He had never called her “Miss Barbara” before. “Come on over! It’s all right. You can come. Cap Quiller told my folks all about you.”
He was saying this as he came towards Barbara, and now he saw the doctor and Cara.
“They can come too,” he said, grinning happily. “Tell them to come along.”
But there was no need to do so for Cara was already hurrying up to Barbara, and the doctor was not far behind her.
“Are you sure your mother won’t mind?” Babs asked, anxiously.
“Nope; she’s glad. We’re glad to have a doctor,” said Nicky wagging his head.
“Anybody sick?” asked Dr. Hale.
“Not very. Come on. Mother sees us,” said Nicky. He was very busy with his social duties, and seemed a little excited.
But a few minutes later all three strangers were in front of the camp. The old grandmother, recognizing Barbara, was busy getting them boxes to sit on, and she appeared pleased to receive the visitors. Little Vicky instantly ran over to Cara and grabbed her hand. Perhaps she was remembering the ice-cream so bountifully served her at Cara’s party.
Barbara, considering herself spokesman for the delegation, had stepped up nearer the tent, when some one crossed before the open space inside the canvas.
Her heart jumped! Who could that be? It was a man, or a big boy! Could he be Nicky’s father?
The shadow appeared again, and this time it stopped directly in the center of the door way.
“Oh,” gasped Babs. “I didn’t know——”
But she could not utter another syllable, for there stood before her a young Italian, a young man or at least a full-grown boy. He was handsome, that should be said at once, for Barbara had instantly decided the point, and he was wearing a blouse of brilliant blue, and a tam-o’-shanter hat of black velvet. So picturesque!
More important than all this, he was holding in his hand an unfinished wooden ship model!
“Oh!” gasped Babs again. “I beg your pardon.”
“It is all right,” replied the young man in splendid English. “We must get Nickolas to introduce us. I hope your friends will come up to our poor quarters.” He put the model down carefully and looked about for Nicky.
The boy was there beside them almost instantly, and Dr. Hale with Cara had also come up to the tent.
“He’s my cousin Ben,” began Nicky. But his mother interrupted him.
“He is our cousin Benato,” she said, “and he is an artist. You see, he was sick.” She too spoke English carefully, and now as she stood beside the young man in the artist’s costume it was easy to decide that he was her relation, for they looked much alike.
“Sit down, sit down,” begged the polite old grandmother. She was not going to have her boxes empty when company came like that.
“And have you been ill, young man?” Dr. Hale asked, filling in a rather embarrassed pause.
“Yes, Sir,” replied Benato. “And I had to hide away. They told me I should be sent back to Europe if I did not get cured in six months,” the artist said. “I could not get well by the railroad, but I am better since I came here. Would you tell me, Sir?” he asked, indicating he wanted to know from Dr. Hale just what his condition actually was.
It was a relief to both Babs and Cara when Benato and Dr. Hale entered the tent and left them to talk with Nicky.
“The ship model——” began Babs.
“He can make anything,” the boy interrupted proudly, “and when I told him about the other, Miss Davis’ you know” (he stumbled over that), “he got out his books and copied one. He is making it for you,” Nicky told Barbara, just a little shyly.
“For me?” exclaimed Barbara, in surprise.
“Yes, he knows you are our friend,” attested Nicky manfully.
“What did you say his name was? Isn’t he perfectly stunning?” Cara coupled her questions without waiting for an answer.
“His name is Benato Sartello, but I call him Ben,” said Nicky. “He was awful sick at first and used to hide away. ’Fraid they would come and take him away like they did——”
“I know,” Barbara stopped him. She could never let the boy refer directly to his father in jail.
“Yes,” chimed in Cara, “they do send folks back to other countries if they are not well when they come here. Dad had a wonderful chemist and he was deported.”
“But Ben is like well now,” declared Nicky quickly.
“He no more sick ever,” added the grandmother clasping her hands prayfully. They seemed very positive that Benato was now cured.
“This camping is very healthy for you all,” said Babs to Nicky’s mother. She felt ill at ease among them now, as if she had penetrated their sanctuary without invitation, and so she couldn’t talk naturally.
“Yes,” said the mother, “the wood is good always, clean and—” she looked about her gratefully—“we could be happy here if——”
“Didn’t Nicky tell you about Washington? The government, you know?” Babs asked eagerly then.
“Oh, yes. That is good,” said Mrs. Marcusi. “My man did no wrong. They take him away——”
“But you’ll see them bring him back again,” interrupted Babs, unwilling to let even Mrs. Marcusi talk of their trouble. “You have a splendid boy in Nicky,” she attested fondly.
“A very good boy. He tells me how good you are——”
“Oh, say, Mother,” objected the boy. “That’s no good.” (He meant the compliments, of course.) “They want to know about Ben, don’t you?” Nicky was wiser than he realized.
“He does such beautiful work,” began Cara immediately introducing that interesting subject.
“Vera fine. He could sell many pieces but he’s afraid. So Nicky take it to you,” the mother explained. “When he’s well he can make plenty of money.” She had wonderful brown eyes like Vicky’s, and her hair fell about her face as in the Madonna’s pictures. Both Babs and Cara looked at her in admiration, and wondered how it was that some women were so beautifully brave.
Dr. Hale was emerging from the tent now, and his face, as well as the smile that was spread over Benato’s, told the good news before a word was spoken.
“Sound as a dollar,” said the doctor. “No trouble here at all.” He swept his hand across the young man’s chest. “And this fresh air out here is the very thing.” He was talking to Mrs. Marcusi now. “This is good for all of you. Where ever did you get those?” he asked Nicky, indicating the maimed automobiles being used as the family quarters.
“We have a friend who keeps a graveyard,” said the boy. “You know, they call them dead ones and they take all the good parts out. He gave us the tops and—” (he turned to Babs sharply) “that was what I had to have the five dollars for. To buy the canvas for Ben’s tent. He had to have it,” he insisted, apparently happy that Barbara, his friend, could understand at last about that trying complication.
“We could get you lots of orders for carved pieces,” Cara told Benato, “if you could make them up.” She had not addressed him directly before, and seemed a little embarrassed at doing so now.
“Thank you, Miss,” answered the artist. “I love to work. I came to America to work and now I shall go out, perhaps to New York.” His handsome face was alight with happiness.
“Oh, no, no, no!” exclaimed both women.
“Not to New York, Benato,” implored Mrs. Marcusi. “They might take you away on the ship.”
“Madam,” said Dr. Hale in his best professional tone, “I shall give him a certificate, a paper, you know, that will protect him from interference.”
At that the older woman fell upon her knees and grasped the doctor’s hand to press it to her lips.
“T’ank you! T’ank you!” she sobbed. “Benato is vera good boy. He work hard. He must stay——”
“He will, he will,” Dr. Hale checked her outburst, “and we are going to see about bringing your son back, also,” he told the old mother. This occasioned another shower of kisses for the doctor’s hands; and their words piled up like little firecrackers that kept popping from Italian into a kind of English, the only kind excited old Italian women could give utterance to.
Benato was talking quietly to Nicky. He had his hand affectionately upon the boy’s shoulder, and he kept urging him to do something that Nicky was objecting to.
Cara and Babs were watching them while Dr. Hale was talking to the women. Finally Benato spoke.
“Did you know that Nicky can carve also?” he asked the girls, smiling broadly as he spoke to them.
“Nicky carve!” both exclaimed.
“He has talent. He helps me and he works like a man; all night if we must hurry,” declared the cousin proudly. He seemed very fond of his small cousin Nicky.
“Lov-ell-ly!” breathed Cara, to whom the news brought a vision of little Nicky as an artist. Nicky, the obscure Italian boy, whom they had been talking about adopting. How absurd! And this splendid young man, Benato, was the person who had been hiding behind the poverty of the Marcusi home. And the girls talked of “black handers!”
She could not help smiling when she thought of it all. How unfair it is to judge people merely by appearances? What a bright future might be in store for these two cousins! Obscure indeed!
“And you don’t need to be afraid of the health authorities,” Dr. Hale told Benato, turning from his talk with the women. “They are fair, you know. They would examine you and they would find you sound. You have done wonders with your exercise and diet. Keep it up and live out here. When you do go to the city spend all the time you can in the parks,” the doctor advised. “We all need the air but a boy like you must have it,” he urged most emphatically.
“Yes sir,” replied the artist deferentially. “And I thank you. We did not know how to reach a doctor until Nicky told us you were our friend. You have made us all happy,” he declared, gratefully.
There was more hand-kissing from the women, and Cara whispered to Babs that they had better be going when she noticed the old grandmother mopping her brown face with her browner apron. She, Cara, didn’t want both her cheeks kissed the way foreigners do it.
And now Babs was talking to Nicky. Of course she had to know about Miss Davis’ model.
“You can come right along with us,” she told the boy. “There’s plenty of room in the car, and, Nicky, I just must tell Miss Davis as quickly as you tell me. She has been so good to wait, and you don’t know what it has meant to her,” she pointed out sensibly.
“Yes, I do,” the boy declared. “But I couldn’t help it. A feller’s got to keep his word, ain’t he?”
Babs admitted that he had, while she included in her hopes for Nicky’s artistic training, some good, plain education in the simple lines of grammatical English.
Amid a perfect shower of protestations of their gratitude, the Italians finally allowed the Americans to get into their car, while Nicky went along to tell them about the lost ship model. For this was Friday, and Friday he could tell.