Georgina of the Rainbows

CHAPTER XX

DANCE OF THE RAINBOW FAIRIES

GEORGINA, intent on washing the frying-pan and cleaning the last vestige of burnt egg from the top of the stove, did not hear Mrs. Saggs come in at the front door with Aunt Elspeth's dinner on a tray. Nor did she hear the murmur of voices that went on while it was being eaten. The bedroom was in the front of the house, and the rasping noise she was making as she scratched away with the edge of an iron spoon, kept her from hearing anything else. So when the door into the kitchen suddenly opened it gave her such a start that she dropped the dishcloth into the woodbox.

Mrs. Saggs sniffed suspiciously. There was something reproachful in the mere tilt of her nose which Georgina felt and resented.

"I thought I smelled something burning."

"I s'pect you did," Georgina answered calmly. "But it's all over now. I was getting my dinner early, so's I could sit with Aunt Elspeth afterward."

Mrs. Saggs had both hands full, as she was carrying her tray, so she could not open the stove to look in; but she walked over towards it and peered at it from a closer viewpoint, continuing to sniff. But there was nothing for her to discover, no clue to the smell. Everything which Georgina had used was washed and back in place now. The sharp eyes made a survey of the kitchen, watching Georgina narrowly as the child, having rinsed the dishcloth after its fall, leaned out of the back door to hang it on a bush in the sun, as Uncle Darcy always did.

"You've been taught to be real neat, haven't you?" she said in an approving tone which made Georgina like her better. Then her glance fell on a work-basket which had been left sitting on top of the flour barrel. In it was a piece of half-finished mending. The sharp eyes softened.

"I declare!" she exclaimed. "It's downright pitiful the way that old man tries to do for himself and his poor old wife. It's surprising, though, how well he gets along with the housework and taking care of her and all."

She glanced again at the needle left sticking in the clumsy unfinished seam, and recognized the garment.

"Well, I wish you'd look at that! Even trying to patch her poor old nightgown for her! Can you beat that? Here, child, give it to me. My hands are full with this tray, so just stick it under my arm. I'll mend it this afternoon while I'm setting talking to the company."

She tightened her grip on the bundle which Georgina thrust under her arm, and looked down at it.

"Them pitiful old stiff fingers of his'n!" she exclaimed. "They sure make a botch of sewing, but they don't ever make a botch of being kind. Well, I'm off now. Guess you'd better run in and set with Mis' Darcy for a spell, for she's waked up real natural and knowing now, and seems to crave company."

Georgina went, but paused on the way, seeing the familiar rooms in a new light, since Mrs. Saggs' remarks had given her new and illuminating insight. Everywhere she looked there was something as eloquent as that bit of unfinished mending to bear witness that Uncle Darcy was far more than just a weather-beaten old man with a smile and word of cheer for everybody. Ringing the Towncrier's bell and fishing and blueberrying and telling yarns and helping everybody bear their trouble was the least part of his doings. That was only what the world saw. That was all she had seen herself until this moment.

Now she was suddenly aware of his bigness of soul which made him capable of an infinite tenderness and capacity to serve. His devotion to Aunt Elspeth spread an encircling care around her as a great oak throws the arms of its shade, till her comfort was his constant thought, her happiness his greatest desire.

"Them pitiful, old, stiff fingers of his'n!" How could Mrs. Saggs speak of them so? They were heroic, effectual fingers. Theirs was something far greater than the Midas touch – they transmuted the smallest service into Love's gold.

Georgina, with her long stretching up to books that were "over her head," understood this without being able to put it into words. Nor could she put into words the longing which seized her like a dull ache, for Barby to be loved and cared for like that, to be as constantly and supremely considered. She couldn't understand how Aunt Elspeth, old and wrinkled and childish, could be the object of such wonderful devotion, and Barby, her adorable, winsome Barby, call forth less.

"Not one letter in four long months," she thought bitterly.

"Dan'l," called Aunt Elspeth feebly from the next room, and Georgina went in to assure her that Uncle Darcy was not out in the boat and would not be brought home drowned. He was attending to some important business and would be back bye and bye. In the meantime, she was going to hang her prism in the window where the sun could touch it and let the rainbow fairies dance over the bed.

The gay flashes of color, darting like elfin wings here and there as Georgina twisted the ribbon, pleased Aunt Elspeth as if she were a child. She lifted a thin, shriveled hand to catch at them and gave a weak little laugh each time they eluded her grasp. It was such a thin hand, almost transparent, with thick, purplish veins standing out on it. Georgina glanced at her own and wondered if Aunt Elspeth's ever could have been dimpled and soft like hers. It did not seem possible that this frail old woman with the snowy-white hair and sunken cheeks could ever have been a rosy child like herself. As if in answer to her thought, Aunt Elspeth spoke, groping again with weak, ineffectual passes after the rainbows.

"I can't catch them. They bob around so. That's the way I used to be, always on the move. They called me 'Bouncing Bet!'"

"Tell me about that time," urged Georgina. Back among early memories Aunt Elspeth's mind walked with firm, unfailing tread. It was only among those of later years that she hesitated and groped her way as if lost in fog. By the time the clock had struck the hours twice more Georgina felt that she knew intimately a mischievous girl whom her family called Bouncing Bet for her wild ways, but who bore no trace of a resemblance to the feeble old creature who recounted her pranks.

And the blue-eyed romp who could sail a boat like a boy or swim like a mackerel grew up into a slender slip of a lass with a shy grace which made one think of a wild-flower. At least that is what the old daguerreotype showed Georgina when Aunt Elspeth sent her rummaging through a trunk to find it. It was taken in a white dress standing beside a young sailor in his uniform. No wonder Uncle Darcy looked proud in the picture. But Georgina never would have known it was Uncle Darcy if she hadn't been told. He had changed, too.

The picture made Georgina think of one of Barby's songs, and presently when Aunt Elspeth was tired of talking she sang it to her:

After that there were other songs which Aunt Elspeth asked for, "Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast," and "Robin Adair." Then came a long tiresome pause when Georgina didn't know what to do next, and Aunt Elspeth turned her head restlessly on the pillow and seemed uneasy.

Georgina wished with all her heart she was out of the stuffy little bedroom. If she had gone with the others, she would be speeding along the smooth, white road now, coming home from Brewster, with the wind and sunshine of all the wide, free outdoors around her.

Aunt Elspeth drew a long, tired sigh.

"Maybe you'd like me to read to you," ventured Georgina. She hesitated over making such an offer, because there were so few books in the house. Nothing but the almanac looked interesting. Aunt Elspeth assented, and pointed out a worn little volume of devotions on top of the bureau, saying:

"That's what Dan'l reads me on Sundays."

Georgina opened it. Evidently it had been compiled for the use of sea-faring people, for it was full of the promises that sailor-folk best understand; none of the shepherd psalms or talk of green pastures and help-giving hills. It was all about mighty waters and paths through the deep. She settled herself comfortably in the low rocking-chair beside the bed, tossed back her curls and was about to begin, when one of the rainbow lights from the prism danced across the page. She waited, smiling, until it glimmered away. Then she read the verses on which it had shone.

"All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me, yet the Lord will command His loving kindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me."

The sweet little voice soothed the troubled spirit that listened like music.

"When thou passeth through the waters I will be with thee, and through the rivers: they shall not overflow thee… Thus saith the Lord which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters."

Aunt Elspeth reached out a groping hand for Georgina's and took the soft little fingers in hers. Georgina didn't want to have her hand held, especially in such a stiff, bony clasp. It made her uncomfortable to sit with her arm stretched up in such a position, but she was too polite to withdraw it, so she read on for several pages.

"He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. So He bringeth them into their desired haven."

Attracted by the sound of heavy breathing, she looked up. Aunt Elspeth was asleep. Georgina laid the book on the table, and slowly, very slowly began to raise herself out of the chair, afraid of arousing the sleeper who still held her hand. As she stood up, the board in the floor under her squeaked. She was afraid to take another step or to try to pull her hand away. She had come to the end of her resources for entertainment, and she was afraid Aunt Elspeth's next awakening might be to a crying, restless mood which she could not control. So she sat down again.

It was very still in the bedroom. A fly buzzed on the outside of the window screen, and away off on another street the "accommodation" was going by. She could hear the bells jingling on the horses. As she sat thus, not even rocking, but just jiggling the chair a trifle, the words she had read began to come back to her after a while like a refrain: "So He bringeth them into their desired haven. So He bringeth them into their desired haven." She whispered them over and over as she often whispered songs, hearing the music which had no tone except in her thought.

And presently, as the whispered song repeated itself, the words began to bring a wonderful sense of peace and security. She did not realize what it was that was speaking to her through them. It was the faith which had lived so long in these lowly little rooms. It was the faith which had upborne Uncle Darcy year after year, helping him to steer onward in the confidence that the Hand he trusted would fulfil all its promises. She felt the subtle influence that goes out from such lives, without knowing what it was that touched her. She was conscious of it only as she was conscious of the nearness of mignonette when its fragrance stole in from the flower-bed under the window. They were both unseen but the mignonette's fragrance was wonderfully sweet, and the feeling of confidence, breathing through the words of the old psalm was wonderfully strong. Some day she, too, would be brought, and Barby would be brought into "their desired haven."

Georgina was tired. It had been a full day, beginning with that digging in the dunes. Presently she began to nod. Then the rocking chair ceased to sway. When the clock struck again she did not hear it. She was sound asleep with her hand still clasped in Aunt Elspeth's.

CHAPTER XXI

ON THE TRAIL OF THE WILD-CAT WOMAN

MEANWHILE, the pursuing party had made the trip to Brewster and were on their way home. At the various small towns where they stopped to ask questions, they found that the patent-medicine vendors had invariably followed one course. They had taken supper at the hotel, but after each evening's performance had driven into the country a little way to camp for the night in the open. At Orleans an acquaintance of Mr. Milford's in a feed store had much to say about them.

"I don't know whether they camp out of consideration for the wild-cat, or whether it's because they're attached to that rovin', gypsy life. They're good spenders, and from the way they sold their liniment here last night, you'd think they could afford to put up at a hotel all the time and take a room for the cat in the bargain. You needn't tell me that beast ever saw the banks of the Brazos. I'll bet they caught it up in the Maine woods some'rs. But they seem such honest, straightforward sort of folks, somehow you have to believe 'em. They're a friendly pair, too, specially the old lady. Seems funny to hear you speak of her as the wild-cat woman. That name is sure a misfit for her."

Mr. Milford thought so himself, when a little later he came across her, a mile out of Brewster. She was sitting in the wooden rocking chair in one end of the wagon, placidly darning a pair of socks, while she waited for her husband to bring the horses from some place up in the woods where he had taken them for water. They had been staked by the roadside all night to graze. The wild-cat was blinking drowsily in its cage, having just been fed.

Some charred sticks and a little pile of ashes by the roadside, showed where she had cooked dinner over a camp-fire, but the embers were carefully extinguished and the frying pan and dishes were stowed out of sight in some mysterious compartment under the wagon bed, as compactly as if they had been parts of a Chinese puzzle. Long experience on the road had taught her how to pack with ease and dexterity.

She looked up with interest as the automobile drew out of the road, and stopped alongside the wagon. She was used to purchasers following them out of town for the liniment after a successful show like last night's performance.

Despite the feedman's description of her, Mr. Milford had expected to see some sort of an adventuress such as one naturally associates with such a business, and when he saw the placid old lady with the smooth, gray hair, and met the gaze of the motherly eyes peering over her spectacles at him, he scarcely knew how to begin. Uncle Darcy, growing impatient at the time consumed in politely leading up to the object of their coming, fidgetted in his seat. At last he could wait no longer for remarks about weather and wild-cats. Such conversational paths led nowhere. He interrupted abruptly.

"I'm the Towncrier from Provincetown, ma'am. Did you lose anything while you were there?"

"Well, now," she began slowly. "I can't say where I lost it. I didn't think it was in Provincetown though. I made sure it was some place between Harwichport and Orleans, and I had my man post notices in both those places."

"And what was it you lost?" inquired Mr. Milford politely. He had cautioned his old friend on the way down at intervals of every few miles, not to build his hopes up too much on finding that this woman was the owner of the pouch.

"You may have to follow a hundred different clues before you get hold of the right one," he warned him. "We're taking this trip on the mere chance that we'll find the owner, just because two children associated the pouch in their memory with the odor of liniment. It is more than likely they're mistaken and that this is all a wild-goose chase."

But Uncle Darcy had built his hopes on it, had set his heart on finding this was the right clue, and his beaming face said, "I told you so," when she answered:

"It was a little tobacco pouch, and I'm dreadfully put out over losing it, because aside from the valuables and keep-sakes in it there was a letter that's been following me all over the country. It didn't reach me till just before I got to Provincetown. It's from some heathen country with such an outlandish name I couldn't remember it while I was reading it, scarcely, and now I'll never think of it again while the world wags, and there's no way for me to answer it unless I do."

"Oh, don't say that!" exclaimed Uncle Darcy. "You must think of it. And I must know. How did this come into your hands?"

He held out the little watch-fob charm, the compass set in a nut and she seized it eagerly.

"Well, you did find my pouch, didn't you?" she exclaimed. "I made sure that was what you were aiming to tell me. That's a good-luck charm. It was given to me as much as eight years ago, by a young fellow who was taken sick on our ranch down in Texas. He'd been working around the docks in Galveston, but came on inland because somebody roped him in to believe he could make a fortune in cattle in a few months. He was riding fences for Henry, and he came down with a fever and Henry and me nursed him through."

Always talkative, she poured out her information now in a stream, drawn on by the compelling eagerness of the old man's gaze.

"He was a nice boy and the most grateful soul you ever saw. But he didn't take to the cattle business, and he soon pushed on. He was all broke up when it came to saying good-bye. You could see that, although he's one of your quiet kind, hiding his real feelings like an Indian. He gave me this good-luck charm when he left, because he didn't have anything else to give, to show he appreciated our nursing him and doing for him, and he said that he'd make it bring us good luck or die a-trying and we'd hear from him some of these days."

"And you did?"

The old man's face was twitching with eagerness as he asked the question.

"Yes, about five years ago he sent us a nice little check at Christmas. Said he had a good job with a wealthy Englishman who spent his time going around the world discovering queer plants and writing books about them. He was in South America then. We've heard from him several times since. This last letter followed me around from pillar to post, always just missing me and having to have the address scratched out and written over till you could hardly make head or tail of what was on it.

"He asked me to write to the address he gave me, but whether it was in 'Afric's sunny fountain or India's coral strand,' I can't tell now. It was some heathenish 'land in error's chain,' as the missionary hymn says. I was so worried over losing the letter on account of the address, for he did seem so bent on hearing from us, and he's a nice boy. I'd hate to lose track of him. So I'm mighty thankful you found the pouch."

She stopped, expecting them to hand it over. Mr. Milford made the necessary explanation. He told of Captain Kidd finding it and bringing it home, of the two children burying it in play and the storm sweeping away every trace of the markers. While he told the story several automobiles passed them and the occupants leaned out to look at the strange group beside the road. It was not every day one could see an old lady seated in a rocking chair in one end of an unattached wagon with a wild-cat in the other. These passing tourists would have thought it stranger still, could they have known how fate had been tangling the life threads of these people who were in such earnest conversation, or how it had wound them together into a queer skein of happenings.

"And the only reason this compass was saved," concluded Mr. Milford, "was because it had the initials 'D. D.' scratched on it, which stands for this little boy's name when he plays pirate – Dare-devil Dick."

The motherly eyes smiled on Richard. "If you want to know the real name those letters stand for," she said, "it's Dave Daniels. That's the name of the boy who gave it to me."

Richard looked alarmed, and even Mr. Milford turned with a questioning glance towards Uncle Darcy, about to say something, when the old man leaned past him and spoke quickly, almost defiantly, as a child might have done.

"That's all right. I don't care what he told you his name was. He had a good reason for changing it. And I'm going to tell you this much no matter what I promised. I scratched those initials on there my own self, over forty years ago. And the boy who gave it to you is named Daniel, but it's his first name, same as mine. Dan'l Darcy. And the boy's mine, and I've been hunting him for ten long years, and I've faith to believe that the good Lord isn't going to disappoint me now that I'm this near the end of my hunt. He had a good reason for going away from home the way he did. He'd a good reason for changing his name as he did, but the time has come now when it's all right for him to come back and," shaking his finger solemnly and impressively at the woman, "I want you to get that word back to him without fail."