Georgina of the Rainbows
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"But this is only circumstantial evidence, Uncle Dan'l," said Mr. Milford, soothingly. "You haven't any real proof that this Dave is your Danny."
"Proof, proof," was the excited answer. "I tell you, man, I've all the proof I need. All I ask for is the address in that letter. I'll find my boy quick enough."
"But I don't know," was all the woman could answer. "The only way in the world to find it is to dig up that pouch."
"But even if you can't remember the new address tell me one of the old ones," he pleaded. "I'll take a chance on writing there and having it forwarded."
But the woman could not recall the name of a single city. South America, Australia, New Zealand, she remembered he had been in those countries, but that was all. Richard, upon being cross-questioned again, "b'leeved" the stamp was from Siam or China but couldn't be certain which.
"Here comes Henry!" exclaimed the woman in a relieved tone. "Maybe he'll remember."
Henry, a tall, raw-boned man with iron-gray hair under his Texas sombrero, in his shirt sleeves and with his after-dinner pipe still in his mouth, came leisurely out of the woods, leading the horses. They were already harnessed, ready to be hitched to the wagon. He backed them up to the tongue and snapped the chains in place before he paused to give the strangers more than a passing nod of greeting. Then he came around to the side of the wagon nearest the machine, and putting one foot up on a spoke of his front wheel, leaned over in a listening attitude, while the whole story was repeated for his benefit.
"So you're his father," he said musingly, looking at Uncle Darcy with shrewd eyes that were used to appraising strangers.
"Who ever would a thought of coming across Dave Daniels' tracks up here on old Cape Cod? You look like him though. I bet at his age you were as much alike as two peas in a pod. I never did know where he hailed from. He was a close-mouthed chap. But I somehow got the idea he must have been brought up near salt water. He talked so much sailor lingo."
"Put on your thinking-cap, Henry," demanded his wife. "The gentlemen wants to know where that last letter was written from, what the postmark was, or the address inside, or what country the stamp belonged to. And if you don't know that, what are some of the other places he wrote to us from?"
"You're barking up the wrong tree when you ask me any such questions," was the only answer he could give. "I didn't pay any attention to anything but the reading matter."
Questions, surmises, suggestions, everything that could be brought up as aids to memory were of no avail. Henry's memory was a blank in that one important particular. Finally, Mr. Milford took two five-dollar gold pieces out of his pocket and a handful of small change which he dropped into the woman's lap despite her protests.
"We'll square up the damage the children did as far as possible," he said with a laugh. "But we can't get the letter back until the wind is ready to turn the dunes topsy-turvy again. That may be in years and it may be never. Let me have your address and if ever it is found it shall be sent directly back to you, and the children can inherit the money if I'm not here to claim it."
The man made a wry face at mention of his address. "We sort of belong to what they call the floating population now. Home with us means any old place where Mother happens to set her rocking chair. We've turned the ranch over to my daughter and her husband while we see something of the world, and as long as things go as smoothly as they do, we're in no great shakes of a hurry to get back."
"But the ranch address will always find us, Henry," she insisted. "Write it down for the gentlemen. Ain't this been a strange happening?" she commented, as she received Mr. Milford's card in return with the Towncrier's name penciled on the back. She looked searchingly at Richard.
"I remember you, now," she said. "There was such a pretty little girl with you – climbed up on the wagon to touch Tim's tail through the bars. She had long curls and a smile that made me want to hug her. She bought a bottle of liniment, I remember, and I've thought of her a dozen times since then, thought how a little face like that brightens up all the world around it."
"That was Georgina Huntingdon," volunteered Richard.
"Well, now, that's a pretty name. Write it down on the other side of this piece of paper, sonny, and yours, too. Then when I go about the country I'll know what to call you when I think about you. This is just like a story. If there was somebody who knew how to write it up 'twould make a good piece for the papers, wouldn't it?"
They were ready to start back now, since there was no more information to be had, but on one pretext or another Uncle Darcy delayed. He was so pitifully eager for more news of Danny. The smallest crumb about the way he looked, what he did and said was seized upon hungrily, although it was news eight years old. And he begged to hear once more just what it was Danny had said about the Englishman, and the work they were doing together. He could have sat there the rest of the day listening to her repeat the same things over and over if he had had his wish. Then she asked a question.
"Who is Belle? I mind when he was out of his head so long with the fever he kept saying, 'Belle mustn't suffer. No matter what happens Belle must be spared.' I remembered because that's my name, and hearing it called out in the dead of night the way a man crazy with fever would call it, naturally makes you recollect it."
"That was just a friend of his," answered Uncle Darcy, "the girl who was going to marry his chum."
"Oh," was the answer in a tone which seemed to convey a shade of disappointment. "I thought maybe – "
She did not finish the sentence, for the engine had begun to shake noisily, and it seemed to distract her thoughts. And now there being really nothing more to give them an excuse for lingering they said good-bye to their wayside acquaintances, feeling that they were parting from two old friends, so cordial were the good wishes which accompanied the leave-taking.
CHAPTER XXII
THE RAINBOW GAME
WITH her arm stiff and cramped from being held so long in one position, Georgina waked suddenly and looked around her in bewilderment. Uncle Darcy was in the room, saying something about her riding home in the machine. He didn't want to hurry her off, but Mr. Milford was waiting at the gate, and it would save her a long walk home —
While he talked he was leaning over Aunt Elspeth, patting her cheek, and she was clinging to his hand and smiling up at him as if he had just been restored to her after a long, long absence, instead of a separation of only a few hours. And he looked so glad about something, as if the nicest thing in the world had happened, that Georgina rubbed her eyes and stared at him, wondering what it could have been.
Evidently, it was the honk of the horn which had aroused Georgina, and when it sounded again she sprang up, still confused by the suddenness of her awakening, with only one thing clear in her mind, the necessity for haste. She snatched her prism from the window and caught up her hat as she ran through the next room, but not until she was half-way home did she remember that she had said nothing about the eggs and had asked no questions about the trip to Brewster. She had not even said good-bye.
Mr. Milford nodded pleasantly when she went out to the car, saying, "Hop in, kiddie," but he did not turn around after they started and she did not feel well enough acquainted with him to shout out questions behind his back. Besides, after they had gone a couple of blocks he began explaining something to Richard, who was sitting up in front of him, about the workings of the car, and kept on explaining all the rest of the way home. She couldn't interrupt.
Not until she climbed out in front of her own gate with a shy "Thank you, Mr. Milford, for bringing me home," did she find courage and opportunity to ask the question she longed to know.
"Did you find the woman? Was it her pouch?"
Mr. Milford was leaning forward in his seat to examine something that had to do with the shifting of the gears, and he answered while he investigated, without looking up.
"Yes, but she couldn't remember where the letter was from, so we're not much wiser than we were before, except that we know for a certainty that Dan was alive and well less than two months ago. At least Uncle Dan'l believes it is Dan. The woman calls him Dave, but Uncle Dan'l vows they're one and the same."
Having adjusted the difficulty, Mr. Milford, with a good-bye nod to Georgina, started on down the street again. Georgina stood looking after the rapidly disappearing car.
"Well, no wonder Uncle Darcy looked so happy," she thought, recalling his radiant face. "It was knowing that Danny is alive and well that made it shine so. I wish I'd been along. Wish I could have heard every thing each one of them said. I could have remembered every single word to tell Richard, but he won't remember even half to tell me."
It was in the pursuit of all the information which could be pumped out of Richard that Georgina sought the Green Stairs soon after breakfast next morning. Incidentally, she was on her way to a nearby grocery and had been told to hurry. She ran all the way down in order to gain a few extra moments in which to loiter. As usual at this time of morning, Richard was romping over the terraces with Captain Kidd.
"Hi, Georgina," he called, as he spied her coming. "I've got a new game. A new way to play tag. Look."
Plunging down the steps he held out for her inspection a crystal paperweight which he had picked up from the library table. Its round surface had been cut into many facets, as a diamond is cut to make it flash the light, and the spots of color it threw as he turned it in the sun were rainbow-hued.
"See," he explained. "Instead of tagging Captain Kidd with my hand I touch him with a rainbow, and it's lots harder to do because you can't always make it light where you want it to go, or where you think it is going to fall. I've only tagged him twice so far in all the time I've been trying, because he bobs around so fast. Come on, I'll get you before you tag me," he added, seeing that her prism hung from the ribbon on her neck.
She did not wear it every day, but she had felt an especial need for its comforting this morning, and had put it on as she slowly dressed. The difficulty of restoring the eggs loomed up in front of her as a real trouble, and she needed this to remind her to keep on hoping that some way would soon turn up to end it.
It was a fascinating game. Such tags are elusive, uncertain things. The pursuer can never be certain of touching the pursued. Georgina entered into it, alert and glowing, darting this way and that to escape being touched by the spots of vivid color. Her prism threw it in bars, Richard's in tiny squares and triangles.
"Let's make them fight!" Richard exclaimed in the midst of it, and for a few moments the color spots flashed across each other like flocks of darting birds. Suddenly Georgina stopped, saying:
"Oh, I forgot. I'm on my way to the grocery, and I must hurry back. But I wanted to ask you two things. One was, tell me all about what the woman said yesterday, and the other was, think of some way for me to earn twenty cents. There isn't time to hear about the first one now, but think right quick and answer the second question."
She started down the street, skipping backwards slowly, and Richard walked after her.
"Aw, I don't know," he answered in a vague way. "At home when we wanted to make money we always gave a show and charged a penny to get in, or we kept a lemonade stand; but we don't know enough kids here to make that pay."
Then he looked out over the water and made a suggestion at random. A boy going along the beach towards one of the summer cottages with a pail in his hand, made him think of it.
"Pick blueberries and sell them."
"I thought of that," answered Georgina, still progressing towards the grocery backward. "And it would be a good time now to slip away while Tippy's busy with the Bazaar. This is the third day. But they've done so well they're going to keep on with it another day, and they've thought up a lot of new things to-morrow to draw a crowd. One of them is a kind of talking tableau. I'm to be in it, so it wouldn't do for me to go and get my hands all stained with berries when I'm to be dressed up as a part of the show for the whole town to come and take a look at me."
Richard had no more suggestions to offer, so with one more flash of the prism and a cry of "last tag," Georgina turned and started on a run to the grocery. Richard and the paperweight followed in hot pursuit.
Up at one of the front windows of the bungalow, two interested spectators had been watching the game below. One was Richard's father, the other was a new guest of Mr. Milford's who had arrived only the night before. He was the Mr. Locke who was to take Richard and his father and Cousin James away on his yacht next morning. He was also a famous illustrator of juvenile books, and he sometimes wrote the rhymes and fairy tales himself which he illustrated. Everybody in this town of artists who knew anything at all of the world of books and pictures outside, knew of Milford Norris Locke. Now as he watched the graceful passes of the two children darting back and forth on the board-walk below, he asked:
"Who's the little girl, Moreland? She's the child of my dreams – the very one I've been hunting for weeks. She has not only the sparkle and spirit that I want to put into those pictures I was telling you about, but the grace and the curls and the mischievous eyes as well. Reckon I could get her to pose for me?"
That is how it came about that Georgina found Richard's father waiting for her at the foot of the Green Stairs when she came running back from the grocery. When she went home a few minutes later, she carried with her something more than the cake of sweet chocolate that Tippy had sent her for in such a hurry. It was the flattering knowledge that a famous illustrator had asked to make a sketch of her which would be published in a book if it turned out to be a good one.
With a sailing party and a studio reception and several other engagements to fill up his one day in Provincetown, Mr. Locke could give only a part of the morning to the sketches, and wanted to begin as soon as possible. So a few minutes after Georgina went dancing in with the news, he followed in Mr. Milford's machine. He arrived so soon after, in fact, that Tippy had to receive him just as she was in her gingham house dress and apron.
After looking all over the place he took Georgina down to the garden and posed her on a stone bench near the sun-dial, at the end of a tall, bright aisle of hollyhocks. There was no time to waste.
"We'll pretend you're sitting on the stone rim of a great fountain in the King's garden," he said. "You're trying to find some trace of the beautiful Princess who has been bewitched and carried away to a castle under the sea, that had 'a ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl.'"
Georgina looked up, delighted that he had used a line from a poem she loved. It made her feel as if he were an old friend.
"This is for a fairy tale that has just begun to hatch itself out in my mind, so you see it isn't all quite clear yet. There'll be lily pads in the fountain. Maybe you can hear what they are saying, or maybe the gold-fish will bring you a message, because you are a little mortal who has such a kind heart that you have been given the power to understand the speech of everything which creeps or swims or flies."
Georgina leaned over and looked into the imaginary fountain dubiously, forgetting in her interest of the moment that her companion was the great Milford Norris Locke. She was entering with him into the spirit of his game of "pretend" as if he were Richard.
"No, I'll tell you," she suggested. "Have it a frog instead of a fish that brings the message. He can jump right out of that lily pad on to the edge of the fountain where I am sitting, and then when you look at the picture you can see us talking together. No one could tell what I was doing if they saw me just looking down into the fountain, but they could tell right away if the frog was here and I was shaking my finger at him as if I were saying:
"'Now tell me the truth, Mr. Frog, or the Ogre of the Oozy Marsh shall eat you ere the day be done.'"
"Don't move. Don't move!" called Mr. Locke, excitedly. "Ah, that's perfect. That's exactly what I want. Hold that pose for a moment or two. Why, Georgina, you've given me exactly what I wanted and a splendid idea besides. It will give the fairy tale an entirely new turn. If you can only hold that position a bit longer, then you may rest."
His pencil flew with magical rapidity and as he sketched he kept on talking in order to hold the look of intense interest which showed in her glowing face.
"I dearly love stories like that," sighed Georgina when he came to the end and told her to lean back and rest a while.
"Barby – I mean my mother – and I act them all the time, and sometimes we make them up ourselves."
"Maybe you'll write them when you grow up," suggested Mr. Locke not losing a moment, but sketching her in the position she had taken of her own accord.
"Maybe I shall," exclaimed Georgina, thrilled by the thought. "My grandfather Shirley said I could write for his paper some day. You know he's an editor, down in Kentucky. I'd like to be the editor of a magazine that children would adore the way I do the St. Nicholas."
Tippy would have said that Georgina was "running on." But Mr. Locke did not think so. Children always opened their hearts to him. He held the magic key. Georgina found it easier to tell him her inmost feelings than anybody else in the world but Barby.
"That's a beautiful game you and Dicky were playing this morning," he remarked presently, "tagging each other with rainbows. I believe I'll put it into this fairy tale, have the water-nixies do it as they slide over the water-fall."
"But it isn't half as nice as the game we play in earnest," she assured him. "In our Rainbow Club we have a sort of game of tag. We tag a person with a good time, or some kindness to make them happy, and we pretend that makes a little rainbow in the world. Do you think it does?"
"It makes a very real one, I am sure," was the serious answer. "Have you many members?"
"Just Richard and me and the bank president, Mr. Gates, so far, but – but you can belong – if you'd like to."
She hesitated a trifle over the last part of her invitation, having just remembered what a famous man she was talking to. He might think she was taking a liberty even to suggest that he might care to belong.
"I'd like it very much," he assured her gravely, "if you think I can live up to the requirements."
"Oh, you already have," she cried. "Think of all the happy hours you have made for people with your books and pictures – just swarms and bevies and flocks of rainbows! We would have put you on the list of honorary members anyhow. Those are the members who don't know they are members," she explained. "They're just like the prisms themselves. Prisms don't know they are prisms but everybody who looks at them sees the beautiful places they make in the world."
"Georgina," he said solemnly, "that is the very loveliest thing that was ever said to me in all my life. Make me club member number four and I'll play the game to my very best ability. I'll try to do some tagging really worth while."
He had been sketching constantly all the time he talked, and now, impelled by curiosity, Georgina got up from the stone bench and walked over to take a look at his work. He had laid aside the several outline studies he had made of her, and was now exercising his imagination in sketching a ship.
"This is to be the one that brings the Princess home, and in a minute I want you to pose for the Princess, for she is to have curls, long, golden ones, and she is to hold her head as you did a few moments ago when you were talking about looking off to sea."
Georgina brought her hands together in a quick gesture as she said imploringly, "Oh, do put Hope at the prow. Every time I pass the Figurehead House and see Hope sitting up on the portico roof I wish I could see how she looked when she was riding the waves on the prow of a gallant vessel. That's where she ought to be, I heard a man say. He said Hope squatting on a portico roof may look ridiculous, but Hope breasting the billows is superb."
Mr. Locke was no stranger in the town. He knew the story of the figurehead as the townspeople knew it, now he heard its message as Uncle Darcy knew it. He listened as intently to Georgina as she had listened to him. At the end he lifted his head, peering fixedly through half-closed eyes at nothing.
"You have made me see the most beautiful ship," he said, musingly. "It is a silver shallop coming across a sea of Dreams, its silken sails set wide, and at the prow is an angel. 'White-handed Hope, thou hovering angel girt with golden wings,'" he quoted. "Yes, I'll make it with golden wings sweeping back over the sides this way. See?"
His pencil flew over the paper again, showing her in a few swift strokes an outline of the vision she had given him.
And now Tippy would have said not only that Georgina was "running on," but that she was "wound up," for with such a sympathetic and appreciative listener, she told him the many things she would have taken to Barby had she been at home. Especially, she talked about her difficulties in living up to the aim of the club. In stories there are always poor people whom one can benefit; patient sufferers at hospitals, pallid children of the slums. But in the[241][242] range of Georgina's life there seemed to be so few opportunities and those few did not always turn out the way they should.
For instance, there was the time she tried to cheer Tippy up with her "line to live by," and her efforts were neither appreciated nor understood. And there was the time only yesterday when she stayed with Aunt Elspeth, and got into trouble with the eggs, and now had a debt on her conscience equal to eight eggs or twenty cents.
It showed how well Mr. Locke understood children when he did not laugh over the recital of that last calamity, although it sounded unspeakably funny to him as Georgina told it. In such congenial company the time flew so fast that Georgina was amazed when Mr. Milford drove up to take his distinguished guest away. Mr. Locke took with him what he had hoped to get, a number of sketches to fill in at his leisure.
"They're exactly what I wanted," he assured her gratefully as he shook hands at parting. "And that suggestion of yours for the ship will make the most fetching illustration of all. I'll send you a copy in oils when I get time for it, and I'll always think of you, my little friend, as Georgina of the Rainbows."
With a courtly bow he was gone, and Georgina went into the house to look for the little blank book in which she had started to keep her two lists of Club members, honorary and real. The name of Milford Norris Locke she wrote in both lists. If there had been a third list, she would have written him down in that as the very nicest gentleman she had ever met. Then she began a letter to Barby, telling all about her wonderful morning. But it seemed to her she had barely begun, when Mr. Milford's chauffeur came driving back with something for her in a paper bag. When she peeped inside she was so astonished she nearly dropped it.
"Eggs!" she exclaimed. Then in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Saggs, she added, "Can you beat that!"
One by one she took them out and counted them. There were exactly eight. Then she read the card which had dropped down to the bottom of the bag.
"Mr. Milford Norris Locke."
Above the name was a tiny rainbow done in water colors, and below was scribbled the words, "Last tag."
It was a pity that the new member could not have seen her face at that instant, its expression was so eloquent of surprise, of pleasure and of relief that her trouble had thus been wiped out of existence.
CHAPTER XXIII
LIGHT DAWNS FOR UNCLE DARCY
FOR some time the faint jangle of a bell had been sounding at intervals far down the street. Ordinarily it would have caught Georgina's attention long before this, but absorbed in the letter to which she had returned after putting the eggs down cellar, she did not hear the ringing until it was near enough for the Towncrier's message to be audible also. He was announcing the extra day of the Bazaar, and calling attention to the many new attractions it would have to offer on the morrow.