CHAPTER IX.
LEFT BEHIND.
EVERY evening for a week, at the Cuckoo's Nest, a fire had been kindledon the sitting-room hearth, for the autumn rains made the nights chilly.Here until half-past eight the boys could play any game they chose.Hop-scotch left chalk marks on the new rag carpet, and tag upset thefurniture as if a cyclone had swept through the room, but never a wordof reproof interrupted their sport, no matter how boisterous. Lloydwondered sometimes that the roof did not tumble in around their earswhen she and Betty and Molly joined the five boys in a game of blindman's buff.
"It is nice to have old furniture and stout rag carpets," she confidedto Betty, in a breathless pause of the game. "We couldn't romp in thehouse this way at Locust. I like the place now, it doesn't seem a bitqueah. I wouldn't care if mothah would write for us to stay heah anothahweek."
But the summons to leave came next day. A howl went up from all thelittle Appletons as the letter was read aloud. It had been the mostexciting week of their lives, for Betty and the Little Colonel were onthe friendliest terms with Molly, and the three together introduced newgames into the Cuckoo's Nest with an enthusiasm that made the eveningplaytime a delight. The charades and tableaux and private theatricalswere something to enjoy with keen zest at the moment, and dream of forweeks afterward.
"We will have one more jolly old evening together, anyhow," saidBradley. "I'll go out and get the firewood now." But when supper wasover, and the two trunks stood in a corner, packed and strapped fortheir morrow's journey, nobody seemed in a mood for romping. The boyssquatted on the hearth-rug as solemnly as Indians around a council-fire.As the shadows danced on the ceiling, Betty reached down from the lowstool where she sat, to stroke the puppy stretched across her feet.
"What do you all want me to bring you from Europe?" she asked,playfully. "Pretend that I could bring you anything you wanted. Onlyremember the story of Beauty and the Beast, and don't anybody ask for awhite rose. Molly, you are the oldest, you begin, and choose first."
Molly's gray eyes gazed wistfully into the embers. "Oh, you know thatthere is only one thing in the whole world that I ever wish for, andthat is Dot. But of course she isn't in Europe."
"You don't know," interrupted Lloyd. "I've read of stranger things thanthat. I have a story at home about a boy that was kidnapped, and yeahsaftah he was found strollin' around in a foreign country with a band ofgypsies. They'd taken him across the ocean with them."
"And there's a piece in my Fourth Reader," added Scott, eagerly, "abouta child that was stolen by Indians when she was so young that she soonforgot how to talk English. She grew up to look just like a squaw. Whenthe tribe was captured, her own mother did not recognise her. Her motherwas an old white-haired woman then. But there was a queer kind of scarthat had always been on the girl's arm, and when her mother saw that sheknew it was her daughter, and she began to sing a song that she used tosing when she rocked her children to sleep. And the girl remembered it,and it seemed to bring back all the other things she had forgotten, andshe ran up to her mother and put her arms around her."
"Dot has a scar," said Molly. "I could tell her anywhere by that markover her eye where the stick of wood hit her."
"S'pose Betty should find her somewhere abroad," said Lloyd, her eyesshining like stars at the thought. "S'pose they'd be driving along inParis, and a little flower girl would come up with a basket of violets,and Eugenia would say, 'Oh, papa, please stop the carriage. I want someof those violets.' And while they were buying them Betty would talk tothe little flower girl, and find out that she was Dot. Of co'se CousinCarl would take her right into the carriage, and they'd whirl away tothe hotel, and aftah they'd bought her a lot of pretty clothes they'dtake her travellin' with them, and finally bring her back to Americajust as if it were in a fairy tale."
"Or Eugenia might find her in New York before we leave," suggestedBetty. "You know she wrote that she is hunting, and that her fatherpromised to ask the police force to look, too."
"Joyce is lookin', too," said Lloyd. "Dot is as apt to wandah west aseast. There's so many people interested now in tryin' to find her. I dowondah who'll be the one."
"Godmother, most likely," said Betty. "Wouldn't it be lovely if sheshould? Suppose she'd find her about Christmas time, and she'd send wordto Molly to hang up two stockings, because she was going to send her apresent so big that it wouldn't go into one. And Christmas morning Mollywould run down here to the chimney where she'd hung them, and therewould be Dot standing in her stockings."
"Oh, _don't_!" said Molly, imploringly, with a little choke in hervoice. "You make it seem so real that I can't bear to talk about it anymore."
There was silence in the room for a little space, and only the shadowsmoved as the flames leaped and flickered on the old hearthstone. ThenLloyd, leaning forward, took hold of one of Betty's long brown curls.
"Tell us a story, Tusitala," she said, coaxingly. "It will be the lastone before we go away."
"Why did you call her that?" asked the inquisitive Bradley.
"Tusitala? Oh, that means tale-teller, you know. That is the name theSamoan chiefs gave to Robert Louis Stevenson when he went to live ontheir island, and that is the name we gave Betty when we thought she wasgoing blind, the time we all had the measles."
"Why?" asked Bradley again.
"Because mothah said Betty writes stories so well now, that she will beknown as the children's Tusitala some day. Besides, she told us thetale about the Road of the Loving Heart, and Eugenia gave us each a ringto help us remembah it. See? They are just alike."
She laid her hand against Betty's a moment, to compare the little twistsof gold, each tied in a lover's knot, and then slipped hers off, passingit around the circle, that each might see the name "Tusitala" engravedinside. "Tell them about it, Betty," she insisted.
"There isn't much to tell," began Betty, clasping her hands around herknees. "Only Stevenson was so good to those poor old Samoan chiefs,visiting them when they were put in prison, and treating them so kindlyin every way he could think of, that they called him their whitebrother. They wanted to do something to show their appreciation, forthey said, 'The day is not longer than his kindness.' They had heard himwish for a road across part of the island, so they banded together andbegan to dig. It was hard work, for the heat was terrible there in thetropics, and they were weak from being in prison so long; but theyworked for days and days, almost fainting. When it was done, they set upan inscription over it, calling it the Road of the Loving Heart thatthey had built to last for ever."
Betty paused a moment, twisting the little ring on her finger, and thenrepeated what she had confessed to Joyce, the afternoon that she thoughtshe must be blind all the rest of her life.
"I wanted to build a road like that for godmother. Of course I couldn'tdig one like those chiefs did, and she wouldn't have wanted it even if Icould; but I thought maybe I could leave a memory behind me of my visit,that would be like a smooth white road. You know, remembering things islike looking back over a road. The unpleasant things that have happenedare like the rocks we stumble over. But if we have done nothingunpleasant to remember, then we can look back and see it stretched outbehind us, all smooth and white and shining.
"So, from the very first day of my visit, I tried to leave nothingbehind me for her memory to stumble over. Not a frown or a cross word ora single disobedience. Nothing in all my life ever made me so happy aswhat she said to me the day I left Locust. I knew then that I hadsucceeded."
There was nothing preachy about Betty. She did not apply the story toher hearers, even in the tone in which she told it; but the silence thatfollowed was uncomfortable to one squirming boy at least.
Bradley remembered the fishing-worms, and was in haste to change thesubject. "Say, Betty, what are you going to do with Bob when you goaway?"
"I have been trying for some time to make up my mind," said Betty."First I thought I would take him back to Locust, and let him stay withhis brothers; but I'll be away so long that he won
't know me when I comeback, and this afternoon I decided to give him to Davy."
"Oh, really, truly, Betty?" cried the child, tumbling forward at herfeet in a quiver of delight, for he had loved the frolicsome puppy atfirst sight, and had kept it with him every waking moment since it came.
"Really, truly," she repeated, picking up the puppy and dropping himinto Davy's arms. "There, sir! Go to your new master, you rascal, andremember that your name isn't Bob Lewis any longer. It is Bob Appletonnow."
Davy squeezed the fat puppy so close in his arms that his beaming facewas nearly hidden by the big bow of yellow ribbon. He had never been sohappy in all his life. The road that Betty had left in her godmother'smemory was not the only one that stretched out white and shining behindher. No matter how long she might be gone from the Cuckoo's Nest, or howthe years might pile up between them, in Davy's heart she would be thedearest memory of his childhood. With Bob she had given him its crowningjoy, a reminder of herself, to live and move and frisk beside him; tokeep pace with every step, and to bring her to his loving remembrancewith every wag of its stumpy tail, and every glance of its faithfulbrown eyes.
Again it was early morning, with dew on the meadows, as it had been whenBetty first ventured out into the world. Now she fared forth on anotherand a longer pilgrimage, but this time there was no lonely sinking ofthe heart when she waved good-bye to the group on the porch. She wassorry to leave them, but the Little Colonel was with her, her godmotherwas to meet them at the junction, and just beyond was the wonderland ofthe old world, through which Cousin Carl was to be her guide.
It was one o'clock when they reached Louisville. The afternoon was takenup in shopping, for there were many things that Betty needed for hervoyage. But by six o'clock the new steamer trunk, with all the bundles,was aboard the suburban train, and Betty, with the check in her purse,followed her godmother and Lloyd into the car for Lloydsboro Valley.
Then there were three more nights to go to sleep in the white and goldroom of the House Beautiful; three more days to wander up and down thelong avenue under the locusts, arm in arm with the Little Colonel, or togo riding through the valley with her on Lad and Tarbaby; three moreevenings to sit in the long drawing-room where the light fell softlyfrom all the wax tapers in the silver candelabra,--and Lloyd, standingbelow the portrait of the white-gowned girl with the June rose in herhair, played the harp that had belonged to her beautiful grandmotherAmanthis. Then it was time to start to New York, for Mr. Sherman'sbusiness called him there, and Betty was to go in his care.
It seemed to the Little Colonel that the week which followed, that lastweek of September, was the longest one she had ever known. Since thebeginning of the house party she had not been without a companion. Nowas she wandered aimlessly around from one old haunt to another, notknowing how to pass the time, it seemed she had forgotten how to amuseherself. She was waiting until the first of October to start to school.
At last Betty's steamer letter came, and she dashed home from thepost-office as fast as Tarbaby could run, to share it with her mother.The letter was dated "On board the _Majestic_," and ran:
"DEAREST GODMOTHER AND LLOYD:--Everybody is in the cabin writing letters to send back by the pilot-boat, so here is a little note to tell you that we are starting off in fine style. The band is playing, the sun is shining, and the harbour is smooth as glass. I have been looking over the deck-railing, and the deep green water, rocking the little boats out in the harbour, makes me think of the White Seal's lullaby that godmother sang to us when we had the measles.
"'The storm shall not wake thee, Nor shark overtake thee, Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.'
"I know that I shall think of that many times during the passage, and am sure we are going to enjoy every minute of it. Eugenia sends lots of love to you both. She is writing to Joyce. The next time we write it will be from Southampton. If you could only be with us I should be perfectly happy. Good-bye, till you hear from me from the other side. "Lovingly, BETTY."
There was a hasty postscript scribbled across the end. "Be sure you letme know the minute you hear anything from Dot. If anybody finds her,Cousin Carl says cable the word '_found_,' and we will know what youmean."
For a few minutes after the reading of the letter, the Little Colonelstood by the window, looking out without a word. Then she began:
"I wish I'd nevah had a house party. I wish I'd nevah known Joyce orEugenia or Betty. I wish I'd nevah laid eyes on any of them, or been tothe Cuckoo's Nest, or--or _nothin'_!"
"What is the trouble now, Lloyd?" asked her mother, wonderingly.
"Then I wouldn't be so lonesome now that everything is ovah. I despisethat 'left behind' feelin' moah than anything I know. It makes me so_misah'ble_! They've all gone away and left me now, and I'll nevah be ashappy again as I've been this summah. I'm suah of it!"
"'Tis the last rose of summer left blooming alone. All her lovely companions are faded and gone,'"
sang Mrs. Sherman, gaily, as she came and put an arm around Lloyd'sdrooping shoulders. "Every summer brings its own roses, little daughter.When the old friends go, look around for new ones, and you'll alwaysfind them."
"I don't want any new ones," exclaimed the Little Colonel, gloomily."There'll nevah be anybody that I'll take the same interest in that I doin Betty and Joyce and Eugenia."
Yet even as she spoke, there were coming toward her life, nearer andnearer as the days went by, other friends, who were to have a large partin making its happiness, and who were to fill it with new interests andnew pleasures.
The Little Colonel's Holidays Page 12