CHAPTER VII
"THE TISHBITE"
COUSIN MEHITABLE was speaking to Mrs. Triplett, who seemed to besearching through bureau drawers for something. Georgina could tell whatshe was doing from the sounds which reached her. These drawers alwaysstuck, and had to be jerked violently until the mirror rattled.
"Oh, don't bother about it, Maria. I just made an excuse of wanting tosee it, because I knew you always kept it in here, and I wanted to getyou off by yourself for a minute's talk with you alone. Since I've beenin town I've heard so much about Justin and the way he is doing that Iwanted to ask somebody who knew and who could tell me the straight ofit. What's this about his leaving the service and going junketing off tothe interior of China on some mission of his own? Jane tells me he got ayear's leave of absence from the Navy just to study up some outlandishdisease that attacks the sailors in foreign ports. She says why shouldhe take a whole year out of the best part of his life to poke around thehuts of dirty heathen to find out the kind of microbe that's eating 'em?He'd ought to think of Barbara and what's eating her heart out. I'vetaken a great fancy to that girl, and I'd like to give Justin a piece ofmy mind. It probably wouldn't do a bit of good though. He always waspeculiar."
Georgina could hear only a few words of the answer because Tippy had herhead in the closet now, reaching for the box on the top shelf. Shestopped her search as soon as Cousin Mehitable said that, and the two ofthem went over to the fire and talked in low tones for a few minutes,leaning against the mantel. Georgina heard a word now and then. Severaltimes it was her own name. Finally, in a louder tone Cousin Mehitablesaid:
"Well, I wanted to know, and I was sure you could tell me if anyonecould."
They went back across the hall to the other guests. The instant theywere gone Georgina crawled out from under the bed with the big bonnetcocked over one eye. Then she scudded down the hall and up the backstairs. She knew the company would be going soon, and she would beexpected to bid them good-bye if she were there. She didn't want CousinMehitable to kiss her again. She didn't like her any more since she hadcalled her father "peculiar."
She wandered aimlessly about for a few minutes, then pushed the dooropen into Mrs. Triplett's room. It was warm and cozy in there for asmall fire still burned in the little drum stove. She opened the frontdamper to make it burn faster, and the light shone out in four longrays which made a flickering in the room. She sat down on the floor infront of it and began to wonder.
"What did Cousin Mehitable mean by something eating Barby's heart out?"Did people die of it? She had read of the Spartan youth who let the foxgnaw his vitals under his cloak and never showed, even by the twitchingof a muscle, that he was in pain. Of course, she knew that no live thingwas tearing at her mother's heart, but what if something that shecouldn't understand was hurting her darling Barby night and day and shewas bravely hiding it from the world like the Spartan youth?
Did _all_ grown people have troubles? It had seemed such a happy worlduntil to-day, and now all at once she had heard about Dan Darcy andBelle Triplett. Nearly everyone whom the guests talked about had bornesome unhappiness, and even her own father was "peculiar." She wished shehadn't found out all these things. A great weight seemed to settle downupon her.
Thinking of Barbara in the light of what she had just learned sherecalled that she often looked sorry and disappointed, especially afterthe postman had come and gone without leaving a letter. Only thismorning Tippy had said--could it be she thought something was wrong andwas trying to comfort her?
"Justin always was a poor hand for writing letters. Many a time I'veheard the Judge scolding and stewing around because he hadn't heardfrom him when he was away at school. Letter writing came so easy to theJudge he couldn't understand why Justin shirked it so."
Then Georgina thought of Belle in the light of what she had justlearned. Belle had carried her around in her arms when she was firstbrought to live in this old gray house by the sea. She had made acompanion of her whenever she came to visit her Aunt Maria, and Georginahad admired her because she was so pretty and blonde and gentle, andenjoyed her because she was always so willing to do whatever Georginawished. And now to think that instead of being the like-everybody-elsekind of a young lady she seemed, she was like a heroine in a book whohad lived through trouble which would "blight her whole life."
Sitting there on the floor with her knees drawn up and her chin restingon them, Georgina looked into the fire through the slits of the damperand thought and thought. Then she looked out through the little squarewindow-panes across the wind-swept dunes. It did not seem like summerwith the sky all overcast with clouds. It was more like the end of a dayin the early autumn. Life seemed overcast, too.
Presently through a rift in the sky an early star stole out, and shemade a wish on it. That was one of the things Belle had taught her. Shestarted to wish that Barby might be happy. But before the whisperedverse had entirely passed her lips she stopped to amend it, adding UncleDarcy's name and Belle's. Then she stopped again, overcome by theknowledge of all the woe in the world, and gathering all the universeinto her generous little heart she exclaimed earnestly:
"I wish _everybody in the world could be happy_."
Having made the wish, fervently, almost fiercely, in her intense desireto set things right, she scrambled to her feet. There was another thingthat Belle had told her which she must do.
"If you open the Bible and it chances to be at a chapter beginning withthe words, 'It came to pass,' the wish will come true without fail."
Taking Tippy's Bible from the stand beside the bed, she opened it atrandom, then carried it over to the stove in order to scan the pages bythe firelight streaming through the damper. The book opened at FirstKings, seventeenth chapter. She held it directly in the broad raysexamining the pages anxiously. There was only that one chapter head oneither page, and alas, its opening words were not "it came to pass."What she read with a sinking heart was:
"_And Elijah the Tishbite._"
Now Georgina hadn't the slightest idea what a Tishbite was, but itsounded as if it were something dreadful. Somehow it is a thousand timesworse to be scared by a fear which is not understood than by one whichis familiar. Suddenly she felt as bewildered and frightened as she hadon that morning long ago, when Jeremy's teeth went flying into the fire.The happiness of her whole little world seemed to be going to pieces.
Throwing herself across the foot of Tippy's bed she crawled under theafghan thrown over it, even burrowing her head beneath it in order toshut out the dreadful things closing down on her. It had puzzled andfrightened her to know that something was eating Barby's heart out, evenin a figurative way, and now the word "Tishbite" filled her with a vaguesense of helplessness and impending disaster.
Barbara, coming upstairs to hunt her after the guests were gone, foundher sound asleep with the afghan still over her head. She folded itgently back from the flushed face, not intending to waken her, butGeorgina's eyes opened and after a bewildered stare around the room shesat up, remembering. She had wakened to a world of trouble. Somehow itdid not seem quite so bad with Barbara standing over her, smiling. Whenshe went downstairs a little later, freshly washed and brushed, theTishbite rolled out of her thoughts as a fog lifts when the sun shines.
But it came back at bedtime, when having said her prayers, she joinedher voice with Barbara's in the hymn that had been her earliest lullaby.It was a custom never omitted. It always closed the day for her:
"_Eternal Father, strong to save, Whose arm doth bind the restless wave, Oh, hear us when we cry to thee For those in peril on the sea._"
As they sang she stole an anxious glance at Barbara several times. Thenshe made up her mind that Cousin Mehitable was mistaken. If her fatherwere "peculiar," Barby wouldn't have that sweet look on her face whenshe sang that prayer for him. If he were making her unhappy she wouldn'tbe singing it at all. She wouldn't care whether he was protected or not"from rock and tempest, fire and foe."
And yet, after Ba
rby had gone downstairs and the sound of the piano camesoftly up from below--another bedtime custom, Georgina began thinkingagain about those whispering voices which she had heard as she sat underthe bed, behind the bird-of-paradise valance. More than ever before themusic suggested someone waiting for a ship which never came home, or fogbells on a lonely shore.
Nearly a week went by before Richard made his first visit to the oldgray house at the end of town. He came with the Towncrier, carrying hisbell, and keeping close to his side for the first few minutes. Then hefound the place far more interesting than the bungalow. Georgina tookhim all over it, from the garret where she played on rainy days to theseat up in the willow, where standing in its highest crotch one couldlook clear across the Cape to the Atlantic. They made several plans fortheir treasure-quest while up in the willow. They could see a place offtowards Wood End Lighthouse which looked like one of the pirate placesUncle Darcy had described in one of his tales.
Barby had lemonade and cake waiting for them when they came down, andwhen she talked to him it wasn't at all in the way the ladies did whocame to see his Aunt Letty, as if they were talking merely to begracious and kind to a strange little boy in whom they had no interest.Barby gave his ear a tweak and said with a smile that made him feel asif they had known each other always:
"Oh, the good times I've had with boys just your size. I always playedwith my brother Eddy's friends. Boys make such good chums. I've oftenthought how much Georgina misses that I had."
Presently Georgina took him out to the see-saw, where Captain Kiddpersisted in riding on Richard's end of the plank.
"That's exactly the way my Uncle Eddy's terrier used to do back inKentucky when I visited there one summer," she said, after the plank wasadjusted so as to balance them properly. "Only he barked all the time hewas riding. But he was fierce because Uncle Eddy fed him gunpowder."
"What did he do that for?"
"To keep him from being gun-shy. And Uncle Eddy ate some, too, one timewhen he was little, because the colored stable boy told him it wouldmake him game."
"Did it?"
"I don't know whether that did or not. Something did though, for he'sthe gamest man I know."
Richard considered this a moment and then said:
"I wonder what it would do to Captain Kidd if I fed him some."
"Let's try it!" exclaimed Georgina, delighted with the suggestion."There's some hanging up in the old powder-horn over the dining-roommantel. You have to give it to 'em in milk. Wait a minute."
Jumping from the see-saw after giving fair warning, she ran to one ofthe side windows.
"Barby," she called. "I'm going to give Captain Kidd some milk."
Barbara turned from her conversation with Uncle Darcy to say:
"Very well, if you can get it yourself. But be careful not to disturbthe pans that haven't been skimmed. Tippy wouldn't like it."
"I know what to get it out of," called Georgina, "out of the bluepitcher."
Richard watched while she opened the refrigerator door and poured somemilk into a saucer.
"Carry it in and put it on the kitchen table," she bade him, "while Iget the powder."
When he followed her into the dining-room she was upon a chair,reaching for the old powder horn, which hung on a hook under the firearmthat had done duty in the battle of Lexington. Richard wanted to get hishands on it, and was glad when she could not pull out the wooden plugwhich stopped the small end of the horn. She turned it over to him toopen. He peered into it, then shook it.
"There isn't more than a spoonful left in it," he said.
"Well, gunpowder is so strong you don't need much. You know just alittle will make a gun go off. It mightn't be safe to feed him much.Pour some out in your hand and drop it in the milk."
Richard slowly poured a small mound out into the hollow of his hand, andpassed the horn back to her, then went to the kitchen whistling forCaptain Kidd. Not all of the powder went into the milk, however. Thelast bit he swallowed himself, after looking at it long andthoughtfully.
At the same moment, Georgina, before putting back the plug, paused,looked all around, and poured out a few grains into her own hand. If theTishbite was going to do anybody any harm, it would be well to beprepared. She had just hastily swallowed it and was hanging the hornback in place, when Richard returned.
"He lapped up the last drop as if he liked it," he reported. "Now we'llsee what happens."
Georgina of the Rainbows Page 7