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. UncleDarcy was in the room, saying something about her riding home in themachine. He didn't want to hurry her off, but Mr. Milford was waiting atthe gate, and it would save her a long walk home----
While he talked he was leaning over Aunt Elspeth, patting her cheek, andshe was clinging to his hand and smiling up at him as if he had justbeen restored to her after a long, long absence, instead of a separationof only a few hours. And he looked so glad about something, as if thenicest thing in the world had happened, that Georgina rubbed her eyesand stared at him, wondering what it could have been.
Evidently, it was the honk of the horn which had aroused Georgina, andwhen it sounded again she sprang up, still confused by the suddenness ofher awakening, with only one thing clear in her mind, the necessity forhaste. She snatched her prism from the window and caught up her hat asshe ran through the next room, but not until she was half-way home didshe remember that she had said nothing about the eggs and had asked noquestions about the trip to Brewster. She had not even said good-bye.
Mr. Milford nodded pleasantly when she went out to the car, saying, "Hopin, kiddie," but he did not turn around after they started and she didnot feel well enough acquainted with him to shout out questions behindhis back. Besides, after they had gone a couple of blocks he beganexplaining something to Richard, who was sitting up in front of him,about the workings of the car, and kept on explaining all the rest ofthe way home. She couldn't interrupt.
Not until she climbed out in front of her own gate with a shy "Thankyou, Mr. Milford, for bringing me home," did she find courage andopportunity 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 thathad to do with the shifting of the gears, and he answered while heinvestigated, without looking up.
"Yes, but she couldn't remember where the letter was from, so we're notmuch wiser than we were before, except that we know for a certainty thatDan was alive and well less than two months ago. At least Uncle Dan'lbelieves it is Dan. The woman calls him Dave, but Uncle Dan'l vowsthey're one and the same."
Having adjusted the difficulty, Mr. Milford, with a good-bye nod toGeorgina, started on down the street again. Georgina stood looking afterthe rapidly disappearing car.
"Well, no wonder Uncle Darcy looked so happy," she thought, recallinghis radiant face. "It was knowing that Danny is alive and well that madeit shine so. I wish I'd been along. Wish I could have heard every thingeach one of them said. I could have remembered every single word to tellRichard, but he won't remember even half to tell me."
It was in the pursuit of all the information which could be pumped outof Richard that Georgina sought the Green Stairs soon after breakfastnext morning. Incidentally, she was on her way to a nearby grocery andhad been told to hurry. She ran all the way down in order to gain a fewextra 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 crystalpaperweight which he had picked up from the library table. Its roundsurface had been cut into many facets, as a diamond is cut to make itflash the light, and the spots of color it threw as he turned it in thesun were rainbow-hued.
"See," he explained. "Instead of tagging Captain Kidd with my hand Itouch him with a rainbow, and it's lots harder to do because you can'talways make it light where you want it to go, or where you think it isgoing to fall. I've only tagged him twice so far in all the time I'vebeen trying, because he bobs around so fast. Come on, I'll get youbefore you tag me," he added, seeing that her prism hung from the ribbonon her neck.
She did not wear it every day, but she had felt an especial need for itscomforting this morning, and had put it on as she slowly dressed. Thedifficulty of restoring the eggs loomed up in front of her as a realtrouble, and she needed this to remind her to keep on hoping that someway would soon turn up to end it.
It was a fascinating game. Such tags are elusive, uncertain things. Thepursuer can never be certain of touching the pursued. Georgina enteredinto it, alert and glowing, darting this way and that to escape beingtouched 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 afew moments the color spots flashed across each other like flocks ofdarting birds. Suddenly Georgina stopped, saying:
"Oh, I forgot. I'm on my way to the grocery, and I must hurry back. ButI wanted to ask you two things. One was, tell me all about what thewoman said yesterday, and the other was, think of some way for me toearn twenty cents. There isn't time to hear about the first one now, butthink right quick and answer the second question."
She started down the street, skipping backwards slowly, and Richardwalked after her.
"Aw, I don't know," he answered in a vague way. "At home when we wantedto make money we always gave a show and charged a penny to get in, or wekept a lemonade stand; but we don't know enough kids here to make thatpay."
Then he looked out over the water and made a suggestion at random. A boygoing along the beach towards one of the summer cottages with a pail inhis hand, made him think of it.
"Pick blueberries and sell them."
"I thought of that," answered Georgina, still progressing towards thegrocery backward. "And it would be a good time now to slip away whileTippy's busy with the Bazaar. This is the third day. But they've done sowell they're going to keep on with it another day, and they've thoughtup a lot of new things to-morrow to draw a crowd. One of them is a kindof talking tableau. I'm to be in it, so it wouldn't do for me to go andget my hands all stained with berries when I'm to be dressed up as apart 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 theprism and a cry of "last tag," Georgina turned and started on a run tothe grocery. Richard and the paperweight followed in hot pursuit.
Up at one of the front windows of the bungalow, two interestedspectators 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 thenight before. He was the Mr. Locke who was to take Richard and hisfather and Cousin James away on his yacht next morning. He was also afamous illustrator of juvenile books, and he sometimes wrote the rhymesand fairy tales himself which he illustrated. Everybody in this town ofartists who knew anything at all of the world of books and picturesoutside, knew of Milford Norris Locke. Now as he watched the gracefulpasses of the two children darting back and forth on the board-walkbelow, he asked:
"Who's the little girl, Moreland? She's the child of my dreams--the veryone I've been hunting for weeks. She has not only the sparkle and spiritthat I want to put into those pictures I was telling you about, but thegrace and the curls and the mischievous eyes as well. Reckon I could gether to pose for me?"
That is how it came about that Georgina found Richard's father waitingfor her at the foot of the Green Stairs when she came running back fromthe grocery. When she went home a few minutes later, she carried withher something more than the cake of sweet chocolate that Tippy had senther for in such a hurry. It was the flattering knowledge that a famousillustrator had asked to make a sketch of her which would be publishedin a book if it turned out to be a good one.
With a sailing party and a studio reception and several otherengagements to fill up his one day in Provincetown, Mr. Locke could giveonly a part of the morning to the sketches, and wanted to begin as soonas possible. So a few minutes after Georgina went dancing in with thenews, he followed in Mr. Milford's machine. He arrived so soon after, infact, that Tippy had to receive him
just as she was in her gingham housedress and apron.
After looking all over the place he took Georgina down to the garden andposed 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 inthe King's garden," he said. "You're trying to find some trace of thebeautiful Princess who has been bewitched and carried away to a castleunder 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 sheloved. 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 mymind, so you see it isn't all quite clear yet. There'll be lily pads inthe fountain. Maybe you can hear what they are saying, or maybe thegold-fish will bring you a message, because you are a little mortal whohas such a kind heart that you have been given the power to understandthe 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 thegreat Milford Norris Locke. She was entering with him into the spirit ofhis game of "pretend" as if he were Richard.
"No, I'll tell you," she suggested. "Have it a frog instead of a fishthat brings the message. He can jump right out of that lily pad on tothe edge of the fountain where I am sitting, and then when you look atthe picture you can see us talking together. No one could tell what Iwas doing if they saw me just looking down into the fountain, but theycould tell right away if the frog was here and I was shaking my fingerat him as if I were saying:
"'Now tell me the truth, Mr. Frog, or the Ogre of the Oozy Marsh shalleat you ere the day be done.'"
"Don't move. Don't move!" called Mr. Locke, excitedly. "Ah, that'sperfect. 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 ideabesides. It will give the fairy tale an entirely new turn. If you canonly hold that position a bit longer, then you may rest."
His pencil flew with magical rapidity and as he sketched he kept ontalking in order to hold the look of intense interest which showed inher glowing face.
"I dearly love stories like that," sighed Georgina when he came to theend and told her to lean back and rest a while.
"Barby--I mean my mother--and I act them all the time, and sometimes wemake them up ourselves."
"Maybe you'll write them when you grow up," suggested Mr. Locke notlosing a moment, but sketching her in the position she had taken of herown accord.
"Maybe I shall," exclaimed Georgina, thrilled by the thought. "Mygrandfather Shirley said I could write for his paper some day. You knowhe's an editor, down in Kentucky. I'd like to be the editor of amagazine that children would adore the way I do the _St. Nicholas_."
Tippy would have said that Georgina was "running on." But Mr. Locke didnot think so. Children always opened their hearts to him. He held themagic key. Georgina found it easier to tell him her inmost feelings thananybody else in the world but Barby.
"That's a beautiful game you and Dicky were playing this morning," heremarked presently, "tagging each other with rainbows. I believe I'llput it into this fairy tale, have the water-nixies do it as they slideover the water-fall."
"But it isn't half as nice as the game we play in earnest," she assuredhim. "In our Rainbow Club we have a sort of game of tag. We tag a personwith a good time, or some kindness to make them happy, and we pretendthat 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 youmany members?"
"Just Richard and me and the bank president, Mr. Gates, so far, but--butyou can belong--if you'd like to."
She hesitated a trifle over the last part of her invitation, having justremembered what a famous man she was talking to. He might think she wastaking 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 canlive up to the requirements."
"Oh, you already have," she cried. "Think of all the happy hours youhave made for people with your books and pictures--just swarms andbevies and _flocks_ of rainbows! We would have put you on the list ofhonorary members anyhow. Those are the members who don't know they aremembers," she explained. "They're just like the prisms themselves.Prisms don't know they are prisms but everybody who looks at them seesthe beautiful places they make in the world."
_Coming across a Sea of Dreams_]
"Georgina," he said solemnly, "that is the very loveliest thing that wasever said to me in all my life. Make me club member number four and I'llplay the game to my very best ability. I'll try to do some taggingreally 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 walkedover to take a look at his work. He had laid aside the several outlinestudies he had made of her, and was now exercising his imagination insketching a ship.
"This is to be the one that brings the Princess home, and in a minute Iwant 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 agowhen you were talking about looking off to sea."
Georgina brought her hands together in a quick gesture as she saidimploringly, "Oh, _do_ put Hope at the prow. Every time I pass theFigurehead House and see Hope sitting up on the portico roof I wish Icould see how she looked when she was riding the waves on the prow ofa gallant vessel. That's where she ought to be, I heard a man say. Hesaid Hope squatting on a portico roof may look ridiculous, but Hopebreasting the billows is superb."
Mr. Locke was no stranger in the town. He knew the story of thefigurehead as the townspeople knew it, now he heard its message as UncleDarcy knew it. He listened as intently to Georgina as she had listenedto him. At the end he lifted his head, peering fixedly throughhalf-closed eyes at nothing.
"You have made me see the most beautiful ship," he said, musingly. "Itis a silver shallop coming across a sea of Dreams, its silken sails setwide, and at the prow is an angel. 'White-handed Hope, thou hoveringangel girt with golden wings,'" he quoted. "Yes, I'll make it withgolden wings sweeping back over the sides this way. See?"
His pencil flew over the paper again, showing her in a few swift strokesan 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 andappreciative listener, she told him the many things she would have takento Barby had she been at home. Especially, she talked about herdifficulties in living up to the aim of the club. In stories there arealways poor people whom one can benefit; patient sufferers at hospitals,pallid children of the slums. But in the range of Georgina's life thereseemed to be so few opportunities and those few did not always turn outthe 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 norunderstood. And there was the time only yesterday when she stayed withAunt Elspeth, and got into trouble with the eggs, and now had a debt onher conscience equal to eight eggs or twenty cents.
It showed how well Mr. Locke understood children when he did not laughover the recital of that last calamity, although it sounded unspeakablyfunny to him as Georgina told it. In such congenial company the timeflew so fast that Georgina was amazed when Mr. Milford drove up to takehis distinguished guest away. Mr. Locke took with him what he had hopedto get, a number of sketches to fill in at his leisure.
"They're exactly what I wanted," he assured her gratefully as he shookhands at parting. "And that suggestion of yours for the ship will makethe most fetching illustration of all. I'll send you a copy in oils whenI 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 lookfor the little blank book in which she had started to keep her two listsof Club members, honorary and real. The name of Milford Norris Lockeshe wrote in both lists. If there had been a third list, she would havewritten him down in that as the very nicest gentleman she had ever met.Then she began a letter to Barby, telling all about her wonderfulmorning. But it seemed to her she had barely begun, when Mr. Milford'schauffeur came driving back with something for her in a paper bag. Whenshe peeped inside she was so astonished she nearly dropped it.
"Eggs!" she exclaimed. Then in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Saggs, sheadded, "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 wasscribbled the words, "Last tag."
It was a pity that the new member could not have seen her face at thatinstant, its expression was so eloquent of surprise, of pleasure and ofrelief that her trouble had thus been wiped out of existence.
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