Who's going to win the Lincoln Award?
That question was on every tongue at Highacres. That interest rivaled even the excitement of Class-day and its honors; of the Senior reception, Commencement itself. It shadowed the accustomed interval of alarm that always followed examinations. Everyone knew that the contest was close; no one could conjecture as to whom the honor would fall, for, though one student be a wizard in trigonometry, he might have failed dismally in the simple requirement of setting-up exercises or drinking milk.
I've eaten spinach until I feel just like a cow out at pasture, declared Pat Everett disgustedly, "and what good has it done! For I was only eighty-five in English!"
But think of all the iron in your system, comforted Peggy Lee. "I hope Jerry wins the prize, but I'm afraid it is going to Ginny Cox. She was ninety-nine in Cicero. I wish I had her brains----"
And her luck! Ginny says herself that it is luck--half the time.
Look how she got out of that scrape last winter---- spoke up another girl.
The Ravens, who were in the group, suddenly looked at one another.
It won't be fair if Ginny wins the Award, was the thought they flashed.
The records for the contest were posted the day before Class-day--the last day of the examinations. A large group of boys and girls, eagerly awaiting them, pressed and elbowed about the bulletin board in the corridor while Barbara Lee nailed them to the wall. Gyp's inquisitive nose was fairly against the white sheet.
Vir-gin-i-a Cox! she read shrilly. "Jerauld Travis only two points behind! And Dana King third----"
An uncontrollable lump rose in Jerry's throat. She had hoped--she had dared think that she was going to win! She was glad of the babble under which she could cover her moment's confusion; she struggled bravely to keep the disappointment from her face as she turned with the others to congratulate Ginny.
The plaudits of the boys and girls were warm and whole-hearted. If any surprise was felt that it had been Ginny Cox and not Jerry Travis who had won the Award it was carefully concealed.
We might have known no one could beat you, Coxie.
It was that ninety-nine in old Cicero.
Hurrah for Ginny!
Dana King trooped up a yell. "Lincoln--Cox! Lincoln--Cox!"
Through it all Ginny Cox stood very still, a flush on her face but a distressed look in her eyes. The Ginny Cox whom her schoolmates had known for years would have accepted the hearty congratulations with a laughing, careless, why-are-you-surprised manner; the Ginny Cox whom Jerry had glimpsed that winter afternoon preceding the basketball game was honestly embarrassed by the turn of events. She had not dreamed she could win--it had been that ninety-nine in Cicero.
Ginny Cox, you don't look a bit glad, accused one clear-sighted schoolmate.
Alas, Ginny was not brave enough to clean her troubled soul with confession then and there; she tried to silence the small voice of her conscience; she made a desperate effort to be her own old self, evoking the homage of her schoolmates as she had done time and time again. She answered, uneasily, with a smile that took in Jerry and Dana King:
I hate to beat anyone like Jerry and Dana. It's so close----
Whereupon the excited young people yelled again for "Travis" and again for "King." The crowd gradually dispersed; little groups, arm-in-arm, excitedly talking, passed out through the big door into the spring sunshine. A buoyance in the very air proclaimed that school days were over.
In one of these groups were Ginny Cox, Gyp, Jerry, Pat Everett, Peggy Lee and Isobel. Among them had fallen a constraint. Isobel broke it.
Ginny Cox, you haven't any more right to that Award than I have! You know you built the snowman and Jerry took the blame so's you could play basketball. She's the winner!
Each turned, surprised, at Isobel's defence of Jerry's right, marveling at the earnestness in her face.
Oh--don't, implored Jerry. "I'm glad Ginny won it."
Ginny stamped her foot. "I'm not--I wish I hadn't. I never dreamed I would--honest. What a mess! I wish I'd just turned and told them all about it, but I didn't have the nerve! I'm just yellow." That--from Ginny Cox, the invincible forward! Breathless, the girls paused where they were on the grassy slope near the entrance of Highacres. A great elm spread over them and through its shimmering green a sunbeam shot across Ginny Cox's face, adding to the fire of its sternness.
Girls---- she spread out her hands commandingly, "I don't know what you think--but I think Jerry Travis is the best ever at Lincoln! She's made me show up like a bad old copper penny 'longside of her. A year ago I could have taken this old Award without a flicker of my littlest eyelash, but just knowing her makes it--impossible! Now--what shall we do?"
Jerry's remonstrance--a little quivery, because she was deeply moved by Ginny's unexpected tribute--was drowned out in a general assent and a clamorous approval of Ginny's words.
I know---- declared Isobel, feeling that, because she was a Senior, she must straighten out this tangle. "Let's tell Uncle Johnny all about it." Uncle Johnny--to whom had been carried every hurt, every problem since baby days.
The others agreed--"He's a trustee, anyway," Gyp explained--though just how much a trustee had to do with these complicated questions of school honor none of them knew.
And, as though Uncle Johnny always sprang up from the earth at the very instant his girls needed him, he came up the winding drive in his red roadster. They hailed him. He brought the car to a quick stop.
Uncle Johnny, we want you to decide something for us! Please get out and come over here.
He stared at the serious faces. What tragedy had shadowed the customary gladness of the last day of school? He let them lead him to the old elm.
If you'll please sit down and--and pretend you're not--our uncle but sort of a--a judge--and listen, we'll tell you.
Dear me, Uncle Johnny murmured weakly, sitting down on the slope. "This is bad for rheumatism and gray trousers but--I'll listen."
Isobel began the story with the building of the snowman; Gyp took it up. Dramatically, with an eloquence reminiscent of that meeting of the Ravens when the ill-fated lot had fallen to Jerry, she explained how "for the honor of the school" Jerry had shouldered Ginny's punishment. Peggy Lee interrupted to say that she thought Miss Gray had made an awful fuss about nothing, but Ginny hushed her quickly. Then the story came to the winning of the Award.
Two points--Jerry only needed two points. And she lost ten as a punishment about the snowman. Don't you see--she's really the winner?
Uncle Johnny had listened to the story with careful gravity; inwardly he was tortured with the desire to laugh. But he could not affront these girls so seriously bent on keeping unsullied that pure white thing they called honor. "Oh, youth--youth!" he thought, loving them the more for their precious earnestness.
And--it's such a mix-up, we don't know what to do. If I knew who had given the prize I'd go straight to him, exclaimed Ginny bravely.
Uncle Johnny straightened his immaculately gray-trousered legs and laid his straw hat down on the grass.
If that'll help things any--I'm he, he explained with a little embarrassment.
You? You? Really--Uncle Johnny? came in an excited chorus.
Yes, me, with a fine scorn for grammar. "I'm the one who's to blame for all the carrots," pinching Gyp's cheek. "But you have sort of mixed things up."
But we had to win that basketball game, cried Gyp, "and we couldn't unless Ginny played."
Yes--you had to win the basketball game, he nodded with a judicious appreciation.
You see, Lincoln got the cup for the series.
And Jerry paid the price--yes.
For the honor of the school!
Then--I'm afraid this is the last payment. You see, girlies, everything we do--no matter what it is--is fraught with consequences. If I were to go over to yonder lake and throw in a pebble--what would we see? Little ripples circling wider and wider--further and further. That's like life--our everyday actions are so many pebbles--we have to accept the ripples. It's sometimes hard--but I guess Jerry sees the truth.
There was no doubt from the expression of Jerry's face but that she saw the truth--Uncle Johnny's homely simile had made it very clear.
But I won't take it--that wouldn't be fair. It was the new Ginny who spoke. "So it'll go to Dana King."
Yes, it will go to Dana King. Uncle Johnny was serious now. "Ginny should not have accepted Jerry's sacrifice. Girls, there's a simple little thing called 'right' that we find in our hearts if we search that's finer than even the precious honor of your school--and Gyp, you speak very truly when you say that that is something you must valiantly always uphold. Now if you'll let me tell this story of yours to the committee I think it can all be straightened out--and we'll feel better all around."
And I'm glad it's Dana King, exclaimed Peggy Lee. "Garrett said he had had to give up his plans to go to college next fall and he was terribly disappointed and now maybe he won't have to----"
Jerry and Ginny linked arms as they walked away with the others behind Uncle Johnny. The shadow dispelled--in youth the sun is always so happily close behind all the little clouds--the girls' spirits went forth, joyously, to meet the interests of the moment, the class oration, the class gift, the class song, Isobel's graduating dress, the Senior bouquets--the hundred and one exciting things about the proud class of girls and boys who were, in a few days, to pass forever from the school life--graduates.
Uncle Johnny watched his girls join others and troop away, with light step, heads high. He chuckled, though behind it was a little sigh.
Doc, my boy, you were right--it has made me ten years younger to mix up with these youngsters.
As he turned to go into the building he met Barbara Lee coming out. He suddenly remembered that the business of the Award had to do with Barbara Lee--somehow, he almost always had, nowadays, to consult her about something! Very sweetly she went back with him to her office. He told her what the girls had told him. She listened with triumph in her face.
I knew Jerry Travis did not do that. But, oh, aren't they funny? However, her tone said that these "funny" girls were very dear to her. "It will take something very real out of my life when I leave Lincoln."
What do you mean? John Westley's voice rang abruptly.
Of course--you haven't heard. I have had a wonderful offer from a big export house in San Francisco. It's the same firm to which I expected to go last summer--before I came here. You see the road I chose to climb to the stars wasn't entirely along--physical training. My last year in college I specialized in export work. There was a fascination in it to me--it's such a growing thing, such a challenging work, and it carries one into new and untried fields. There's an element of adventure in it---- her eyes glistened. "I shall spend a year at the main office, then they're going to send me into China--because I can speak the Chinese language."
John Westley stared at her--she seemed like such a slip of a girl.
And mother is so much better now that there is no reason why I cannot go.
Though they had yet to straighten out the matter of the Award she quite involuntarily held out her hand as she spoke, and John Westley took it in both of his.
I hope this--is the road to the stars. That did not sound properly congratulatory, so he added, lamely: "I'm glad--if you want to go. But what will we do without you here?"
Commencements---- declared Gyp, wise with her fifteen years, "are like weddings--all sort of weepy."
What do you know of weddings, little one? from Graham.
I guess I've been to five, Graham Westley! And some one is always crying at them. Why, when Cousin Alicia Stowe was married she cried herself!
Did you cry, mother? asked Tibby curiously.
Mrs. Westley laughed. "I did--really. And I cried at my Commencement. There were only twelve of us graduated that spring from Miss Oliver's Academy and none of us went to college, so you see it really was the end of our school days. I was very happy until it was all over--then, I remember, as I walked down the aisle in my organdie dress--we wore organdie then, too, girls--with a big bouquet of pink roses on my arm and everyone smiling and nodding at all of us, it came over me with a rush that my school days were all over and that they'd never come back. So I cried--for a very weepy half-hour I wanted more than anything else to be a little girl again with all childhood before me. I was afraid--to look ahead into life----"
But there was father--you knew him then, didn't you?
A pretty color suffused Mrs. Westley's cheeks. "Yes--there was father. I said I only cried for half an hour. Two years afterward I was married--and I cried again. Of course I was very, very happy--but I knew I was going away forever from my girlhood."
Mother---- protested Isobel. "You make me feel dreadfully sad. I wanted to cry yesterday when Sheila Quinn spoke at the Class-day exercises. Wasn't she wonderful when she said how Lincoln School had given us our shield and our armor and that always we must live to be worthy of her trust! I thrilled to my toes. But if it makes one cry to be married----"
Darling--and Mrs. Westley took Isobel's hand in hers--"we leave our childhood and again our girlhood with a few tears, perhaps, but always there is the wonder of the bigger life ahead. I think even in dying there must be the same joy. And though we do shed tears over the youth we tenderly lay aside, they are happy tears--tears that sweeten and strengthen the spirit, too."
Well, I'm glad I have two more years at Highacres, cried Gyp, looking with pity at Isobel's thoughtful face.
And I'm glad, Isobel added, slowly, "that I decided to go to college. It must be dreadful to know that school is all over. I wouldn't be Amy Mathers for anything. It sounds so silly to hear her talk of all she's going to do next winter--such empty things!" Isobel, in her scorn, had forgotten that only a few weeks back she had wanted to do just what Amy Mathers was planning to do!
Well,--Graham stretched his arms--"school's all right but I'm mighty glad vacation has come."
Through their talk Jerry had sat very still. To her the Class-day exercises of the school had opened a great well of sentiment. All through her life, she thought, she would strive to repay by worthiness the great debt of inspiration she owed to the school. She had not thought of it in just that grand way until she had heard Sheila Quinn, until Dana King had given the class prophecy, until Ginny had read the school poem, until Peggy Lee had presented the class gift to the school. A young alumna of the preceding class had welcomed the proud graduates. Dr. Caton had presented the Lincoln Award--to Dana King. A murmur had swept the room when he announced that, through a mistake in the records, the Award went to Dana King instead of either Miss Cox or Miss Travis. Jerry sat next to Ginny and, as Dr. Caton spoke, she squeezed Ginny's hand in a way that said plainly, "If I had it all to do over again I'd do the same thing!" Afterward Dana King had shaken her hand warmly and had declared that he "couldn't understand such good fortune and it meant a lot to him--for it made college possible."
It seemed to Jerry as though they were all standing on a great shining hill from which paths diverged--attractive paths that beckoned; that precious word college--Isobel, Dana King, Peggy Lee were going along that path; Sheila Quinn was going to study to be a nurse. Amy Mather's had chosen a more flowery way. Would her happiness be more lasting than the pretty flowers that lured her? Jerry's own path was a steep, narrow, little path, and led straight away from Highacres--but it led to Sunnyside! So with the little ache that gripped her when she thought that she must very soon leave Highacres forever, was a great joy that in a few days now she would see her precious Sweetheart--and Gyp and Isobel would be with her.
The whole family was in a flutter over the Commencement. Graham's class was to usher; the undergraduates were to march in by classes, the girls in white, carrying sweet-peas, the boys wearing white posies in the lapels of their coats.
Mrs. Westley inspected her young people with shining eyes.
You look like the most beautiful flowers that ever grew, she cried in the choky way that mothers have at such moments. "I wish I could hug you all--but it would muss you dreadfully."
Thank goodness, mammy, that you don't find any dirt on me, exclaimed Graham, whose ruddy face shone from an extra "party" scrubbing.
Am I all right, mother? begged Isobel, pirouetting in her fluffy white.
Uncle Johnny rushed in. He was very dapper in a new tailcoat and a flower in his buttonhole. He was very nervous, too, for he was to give the address of the day. He pulled a small box from his pocket.
A little graduating gift for my Bonnie. It was a circlet pin of sapphires. He fastened it against the soft, white folds of her dress. "You know what a ring is symbolic of, Isobel? Things eternal--everlasting--never ending. That's like my faith in you." He lifted the pretty, flushed, happy face and kissed it. "Come on, now--everybody ready?"
If they had not all been so excited over the Commencement they must have noticed that there was something very different in Uncle Johnny's manner--a certain breathless exaltation such as one feels when one has girded one's self for a great deed.
He had made up his mind to something. The day before, while he had been preparing the Commencement address, all kinds of thoughts had haunted him--thoughts concerning Barbara Lee. That half-hour with her in her little office, when she had told him she was going away, had opened his eyes. He had cried out: "What will we do without you?" He had really meant, "What will I do without you?"
Absurd--he tried to reason the whole thing calmly--absurd that this slip of a girl, who knew Chinese, had become necessary to his happiness! How in thunder had it happened? But there is no answer to that--and he was in no state of mind to reason; she was going away--and he could not let her go away.
So all the while he was dashing off splendid things about loyalty (John Westley had won several oratorical contests at college) his brain was asking humbly, "Will she laugh at an old bachelor like me--if I tell her?" He had hated the face he saw in the mirror, edged above his ears with closely-clipped gray hair. Thirty-six years old; he had not thought that so very old until now; contrasted with Barbara Lee's splendid youth it seemed like ninety.
I'll tell her--just the same, was his final determination; she was on her way to the "stars," but he wanted her to know that he loved her with a strength and constancy the greater for his thirty-six years.
From the platform he stared out over the sea of serious young faces--and saw only the one. He stood before them all, speaking with an earnestness and a beauty of thought that was inspired--not by the detached group of graduates, listening with shining eyes, but by Barbara Lee, sitting with a rapt expression that seemed to separate herself and him from the others and bring them very close.
Loyalty was his theme; "loyalty to God, loyalty to one's highest ideals, loyalty to one's country, to one's fellowmen."
After he had finished there was the stir which always marks, in a gathering of people, a high pitch of feeling. Then someone sang, clear, soprano notes that drifted through the room and mingled with the spring gladness. The air was fragrant with the sweetness of the blossoms which decked the big room; through the long windows came the freshness of the June world outside. It was a day, an hour, sacred to the rites of youth. More than one man and woman, worn a little with living, sat there with reverence in their hearts for these young people who, strong with the promise of their day, stood at the start----
Then the school sang their Alma Mater--the undergraduates singing the first two verses, the graduates singing the last. The dear, familiar notes rang with a truer, braver cadence--one voice, clearer than the others, broke suddenly with feeling.
Wasn't it all perfectly beautiful? cried Gyp as the audience moved slowly after the files of graduates. "You couldn't tell which was best of the program and it was sad, wasn't it? Wasn't Uncle Johnny splendid? And didn't the girls look fine? You know Sheila Quinn was just sick over her dress--it was so plain--and she looked as lovely as any of the others. Oh, goodness, think how you'd feel if we were graduating. But I hope our Commencement will be just as nice! There's Barbara Lee, let's hug her--think how dreadful to have her go away. And Dana King's just waiting for you, Jerry----" Gyp ended her outburst by rushing to Miss Lee and throwing her long arms about her shoulders.
John Westley advanced upon them--with the strange new look still in his eyes.
Gyp--you're wrinkling Miss Lee's pinkness. He tried to make his tone light. "Will you come into the library for a moment, Miss Lee? There's a book I want you to find for me." His eyes pleaded. Wondering a little, Barbara Lee walked away with him.
Well, I never---- declared Gyp, disgusted. Then, in the stress of saying good-by to some of her schoolmates, she forgot Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee.
John Westley had felt that the library would be quite deserted. Standing in the embrasure of the window through which the June light streamed, he told Barbara Lee in awkward, earnest words all that was in his heart. There was a humility in his voice, as he offered her his love, that brought a tender smile to the corners of her lips.
I wanted you to know, he finished, simply. "I don't suppose--what I can offer--can find any place in your heart alongside of your splendid dreams--but, I wanted you to know that you have----"
There's more than one way to the stars---- she interrupted, lifting glowing eyes to his.
Gyp had said good-by to everyone she could lay a finger on. Then she remembered Uncle Johnny.
Do you s'pose they're in the library yet?
She and Jerry tiptoed along the corridor and peeped in the door. To their embarrassed amazement Uncle Johnny and Barbara Lee were standing looking out of the window--with their hands clasped.
Gyp coughed--a cough that was really a funny sputter.
Did--did you find your book, Uncle Johnny?
Uncle Johnny turned--without a blush.
Hello, Gyp! (As though he'd never seen her before!) "I didn't find the book--because I wasn't really after a book. But I did find what I wanted. What would you say, Gyp and Jerry, if I told you that your Barbara Lee is not going away?"
Ka-a-a-a-a-a-a echoed through the wooded slopes of Kettle. Startled, birds winged away from the treetops, little wild creatures skurried through the undergrowth, yet in the care-free, silvery tinkle of those merry voices there was no note to alarm.
Jerry was leading Isobel and Gyp down the trail from Rocky Top. Baskets, swinging from their shoulders, told of the jolly day's outing. Isobel and Gyp were dressed in khaki middies and short skirts; Isobel's hair was drawn back simply from her face and bound with a bright red ribbon; Gyp's cheeks were tanned a ruddy brown, against which her lips shone scarlet. Jerry wore the boyish outfit in which John Westley had found her. Three happier, merrier girls could not have been found the world over.
A week--a week of hourly wonders, had passed since the girls had arrived at Sunnyside with Uncle Johnny. To Jerry the homecoming was even sweeter than she had dreamed. And to find her precious mother "exactly" the same, she whispered in the privacy of a close hug, dispelled a little fear that had tormented her.
Why, darling, did you think I'd be different?
I don't know---- Jerry had colored, but tightened the clasp of her arms. "It's been so dreadfully long! I thought maybe--I'd forgotten----"
And Little-Dad had not changed a bit, nor the house, nor the garden, nor Bigboy--not a thing, Jerry had found on an excited round. The old lilac bushes were in full leaf, the syringas were in blossom, there were still daffodils in the corner near the fir-tree gate; glossy, spiky leaves marked a row of onions just where her onions had always grown--Little-Dad had put in her seed; the sun slanted in gold-brown bars across the bare floor of the familiar, low-ceilinged living-room, softening to a ruddy glow the bindings of the familiar books everywhere. Her own little room was just as she had left it. Oh, the wonder, the joy of coming back! How different it would have been if there had been any change. What if Sweetheart--she rushed headlong to hug her mother again.
Then there was the fun of taking Gyp and Isobel everywhere. They were genuinely enraptured with all her favorite haunts; the magic of Kettle caught them just as it had caught Uncle Johnny that day he ran away from his guide. Every morning they were up with the birds and off over the trail to return laden with the treasures of Kettle, wild strawberries, lingering trillium, wild currant blossoms, moist baby ferns. Together these girls brought to quiet Sunnyside a gaiety it had not known before. To Mrs. Westley, after her lonely winter, it was as though a radiant summer sun had flooded suddenly through a gray mist.
And Jerry had to tell her mother everything that had happened all through the winter. She saved it all for such moments as she and her mother stole to wander off together; it was easier to talk to mother alone, and then there were so many things she wanted only mother to know--concerning most of them she had written, to be sure, but she liked to think it all over again, herself--those first days of school, the classes, the teachers, the Ravens, basketball and hockey and that never-to-be-forgotten day at Haskin's Hill, the Everett party, the two "real plays," the great vaulted church where music floated from hidden pipes--only concerning the debate and that stormy evening when she had discarded her "charity" clothes did she keep silent. School, school, school; Mrs. Westley, listening intently, smiling wistfully at her big girl, in spirit lived with her through each experience, happy or trying, rejoicing that she had had them. And yet in her eyes there lingered a furtive questioning. Jerry, reveling in her own happiness, did not realize that her mother was watching her every expression with the anguishing fear that her Jerry might have changed. And she had changed; she had grown, though she was still as straight as one of Kettle's young fir trees; her winter's experience had left its mark on her sunny face in a new firmness of the lips, a thoughtfulness behind the shining eyes.
Will these new friends, Jerry, these fine times you have had make you love Sunnyside less--or be discontented here? Her mother had interrupted her flood of confidences to say.
Jerry stared in such astonishment that her mother laughed, a shaky laugh, and kissed her.
Because, my dear, remember you are only Jerauld Travis of Kettle Mountain, and your life must lie just here. Oh, my precious, I thank God I have you back! she added with an intensity of emotion that startled and puzzled Jerry.
Why, mother, honest truly there's never been a moment when I wasn't glad I was only Jerauld Travis, and I wouldn't trade places with a soul, only---- and Jerry could not finish, for she did not know just what she wanted to say. She was oddly disturbed. Did her mother begrudge her those happy weeks at Highacres? Had she been afraid of something? And was she the same Jerry who had wished on the Wishing-rock to just see the world which lay beyond her mountain? Didn't she want to go away again--sometime, to college? And what would her mother say if she told her that?
Jerry managed to lock away these tormenting thoughts while she and the girls were roaming Kettle. Certainly there was not a shadow in the face she lifted now to the caress of the mountain breeze nor in the voice that caroled its "Ka-a-a-a-a" and laughed as the echoes answered.
From the Witches' Glade where the trail sloped down between white birches, the girls ran fleetly, leaped the little gate through the fringe of fir trees and, laughing and panting, tumbled upon the veranda of the bungalow straight into Uncle Johnny's arms!
Uncle Johnny had only stopped at Kettle long enough to unload his girls and their baggage, then he had hurried on to Boston to consult the lawyers who were tracing Craig Winton. He had not expected to return for three or four weeks. "Not until I have this thing off my mind," he had explained to Isobel and Gyp.
Isobel, though she now looked at it from another angle, still thought it very foolish to pursue the search for this Craig Winton. The Boston men had reported that their search had led them to a blank wall and that there was little use spending more money on it. But in spite of this, Uncle Johnny had persisted in going ahead on some clue of his own and wasting precious time away from Barbara Lee. Both Isobel and Gyp, from thinking that no woman in the world was good enough for Uncle Johnny, had now veered around to the happy conviction that heaven had patterned Barbara Lee especially for Uncle Johnny's pleasure. They beamed upon the engagement with such approval that even Uncle Johnny, head over heels in love as he was, grew a little embarrassed by their enthusiasm. Gyp also became reconciled to the school library as a setting for the proposal and declared that, thereafter, the library at Highacres would be enshrined in her heart as something other than a room to "make one's head ache." But both girls were disgusted that Uncle Johnny could cheerfully leave the lady of his choice and go off on a search that appeared so useless! It was contrary to all their rules of romance.
Something in Uncle Johnny's face and his unexpected appearance drew an exclamation from each of the girls. Almost in the same voice, with no more greeting than to vigorously grasp him by shoulder and arm, they cried: "Did you find her? Have you come to stay?"
He hesitated just a moment and glanced questioningly at Mrs. Travis. Then for the first time the girls noticed that Mrs. Travis was very pale, that her eyes burned dark against the whiteness of her skin as though she had been racked by a great agitation and her hands clasped tightly the back of a chair. She nodded to John Westley.
Yes, my search is ended. You see I had the right clue--though it was only the mention of a pair of eyes. Do you remember in Uncle Peter's letter about Craig Winton's eyes? 'They were glowing like they were lighted within.' Well, have you ever seen a pair of eyes like that? I have--only where Craig Winton's were sad with disappointment, these others glow from the pure joy of being alive----
Jerry? interrupted Gyp, in a queer, tangled voice.
Yes--Jerauld.
Oh-h!
The girls stared at Jerry and Jerry stared at John Westley. Was he just joking? How could it be? She turned to her mother. Her mother nodded again.
Yes, dear, you are Jerauld Winton. But--we gave you your stepfather's name--he was so good to us!
In that moment of unutterable surprise Jerry's loyal little heart went out quickly to Little-Dad.
Oh, even if he is a stepfather I love him just the same! she exclaimed, wishing he was there that she might hug him.
You see, beginning at this end made my search quicker. It was hindered a little, though, because the county courthouse at Waytown, where the records of Jerry's birth and Craig Winton's death were filed, burned a few years ago with everything in it. But I stumbled on an old codger who used to be postmaster at Waytown and he told me more in a few moments than all the Boston detectives had found in months. I went on to Boston to interview those old friends the lawyers there had found and then came back.
There was a puzzled look on each face. Hesitatingly, Jerry put the question that was in each mind.
But, mother, why didn't you ever tell? Were you--ashamed?
Her mother's face flared with color. She stepped forward and laid an entreating hand on Jerry's. "Oh, no--no!" she cried. "You must not think that--no one must. He--your father--was the finest man that ever lived. But he made me promise, when you were a wee, wee baby, that I would try to protect you from the bitterness of the world that had--broken his heart. Oh, he died of a broken heart, a broken spirit. He lived in his dreams, his inventions were a part of him--like his right arm! When they failed he suffered cruelly. Then he had one that he knew was good. But----" she stopped abruptly, remembering that these people were Westleys. "But he could never have been happy. He was not practical or--or sensible. His brain wore out his body--it was always, always working along one line. And before he--died, he seemed to have the fear that you might grow up to be like him--'a puppet for the thieves to fleece and feed upon,' he used to say. After he--died, we stayed on in Dr. Travis' cabin, where he had sheltered and cared for your father. He moved down into the village but, oh, he was so good to us! When, two years later I married him and we built this home, I vowed that I would keep only the blessed peace of Sunnyside for you. So I never told you of your own father and those dreadful years of poverty. But I was not ashamed!"
Jerry, not knowing exactly why, put one arm around her mother's shoulder in a protecting manner. "Poor, brave Sweetheart," she whispered, laying her cheek against her mother's arm.
Isobel and Gyp were held silent by a disturbing sense of embarrassment. That it should have been Jerry's father whom their Uncle Peter had "fleeced"--the horrible word which had slipped reminiscently from Mrs. Travis' lips burned in their ears! But a sudden delight finally broke loose Gyp's tongue.
Oh, Jerry, isn't it exciting to think we've been hunting everywhere and all the time it's you! I'm glad--'cause it sort of makes you a relation. And her logic was so extremely stretched that everyone laughed.
I'd rather you got the money than anyone in the world, added Isobel.
The money--Jerry had not thought of that! Her face flushed scarlet, then paled.
Oh, I don't want it, she cried. "You've done so much for me."
My dear, Uncle Johnny's voice was very business-like. "It is something you have not the right to decline, because it was given by a dying man to purchase a peace of mind for his last moment on earth. And now let me look you over, Jerry-girl." He tilted her chin and studied her face. Then he glanced approvingly down her slim length, smiling at her boyish garments. "I guess my experiment hasn't hurt you," he said, though no one there knew what he meant.
The evening was very exciting--why would it not be when Jerry had found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow right in her very own lap? Uncle Johnny stayed on overnight; some repairs to a tire were necessary before he started homeward.
Do you remember what you said once, Jerry, when I asked you what you would do if you had a lot of money? Gyp had asked as they sat out on the veranda watching the stars. "And you said you'd go to school as long as ever you could and then----"
Jerry had raised suddenly to an upright position from the step where she was curled.
Oh--she cried, her voice deep with delight--"now I can go back to Highacres----"
Then, at the very moment of her ecstasy, she was strangely disturbed by the quick touch of her mother's hand laid on her shoulder.
Sometime after she had gone to sleep, Jerry wakened suddenly with the disturbing conviction that someone needed her. At the same moment her ear caught a sound that made her slip her bare feet quickly to the floor and stand, listening. It had been a soft step beneath her window--a little sigh.
In a flash Jerry sped down the narrow stairway, past the open door of the room where Little-Dad lay snoring, and out across the veranda. In the dim light of the moon that hung low in the arc of the blue-black sky, Jerry made out the figure of her mother, standing near the rough bench that overlooked the valley.
Mother!
Jerry, child, and in your bare feet!
I heard you out here. Isn't it dreadfully late? Can't you sleep? Mother, look at me, for Mrs. Westley had kept her face averted. "Mother, darling, why do you look so--sort of--sad?" Jerry's voice was reproachful. "We're so happy now that we are together, aren't we? And it will be nice to have lots of things and Little-Dad won't ever have to worry and----"
Mrs. Travis lifted her hand suddenly and laid it across Jerry's lips. "Child, I am not sad. I have been out here fighting away forever the foolish fears that have stalked by my side since you were a very little girl. Some day, when you're a mother, you'll know how I've felt--how I've dreaded facing this moment! How often I've sat with you and watched the baby robins make their first flight from the nest and have laughed at the fussy mother robin scolding and worrying up in a nearby branch----"
But, mamsey, you've always told me how the mother robin pushes the little ones out of the nest to make them know that they can fly!
Mrs. Travis accepted the rebuke in silence. Jerry slipped her hand into her mother's. Her mother held it close.
Jerry, dear, I've never told you much about myself because I could not do that without telling you of your own father. I was a very lonely little girl; I had no brothers or sisters--no near relatives. My mother died when I was eight years old, and a housekeeper--good soul--brought me up. My father was a professor of chemistry in Harvard, as you know, and he was a queer man and his friends were peculiar, too--not the sort that was much company for a young girl. But I was very fond of my father and I was very content with my simple life until I met Craig Winton. He was so different from anyone else who had ever crossed our threshold that I fell in love with him at once. My father died suddenly and Craig Winton asked me to marry him. It was the maddest folly--he had nothing except his inventive genius and he should never have tied himself to domestic responsibilities; they were always--such as they were--like a dreadful yoke to his spirit. But we were happy, oh, we were happy in a wonderful, unreal way. Sometimes we didn't have enough to eat, but he always had so much faith in what he was going to do that that somehow, kept us going. But when his faith began to die--it was dreadful. It was as though some hidden poison was killing him, right before my eyes.
What made his faith die? asked Jerry, curiously.
Because he grew to distrust his fellowmen. That second visit to Peter Westley---- Mrs. Travis spoke quickly to hide her bitterness. "He was so sure that what he had made was good--an inventor has always, my dear, an irrational love for the thing he has created--and to have it spurned! He was supersensitive, super--everything. Then my own health went to pieces. I suppose I simply was not getting enough to eat to give me the strength to meet the mental strain under which I had to live--and you were coming. From his last visit to Peter Westley he returned with a little money, but he was as a crushed, broken man--his bitterness had unbalanced his mind. He said that it was for my health that he came away with me, but I knew that it was to get away from the world that he hated--and to hide his failure! Your Little-Dad took us in. He knew at once that your father was a very sick man and he brought him to his cabin here on Kettle. But even here your father suffered, and after you were born he feared for you. He was obsessed with the thought that you had all life to face----"
How dreadfully sorry you must have felt for him, whispered Jerry, shyly, trying to make it all seem true.
I felt sorry for him, child, not that he had been so disappointed but because he had not the strength to rally from it. I don't believe God made him that way; I think he sacrificed too much of himself to his genius. This world we live in demands so much of us--such different things, that, if we are to meet everything squarely, we cannot develop one side of our minds and let the other side go. I am telling you all this, Jerry, that you may understand how I have felt--about you. The months after your father died were sort of a blank to me--I lived on here because I had nowhere else to go. Gradually my gratitude to John Travis turned to real affection--not like what I had given your father, but something quite as deep. And the years I have lived with him here have been very happy--as though my poor little ship had found the still waters of an inland stream after having been tossed on a stormy sea. And I've tried to make myself think that in these still waters I could keep you always, that you would grow up here and--perhaps--marry someone---- she laughed. "Mothers always dream way ahead, darling. But as you grew older I could see that that was not going to be easy. You've so quickly outgrown everything I can give you--or that anyone--here--can; you have grown so curious, your mind is always reaching out. What is here, what is there, what is this, where is that--questions like these always on your tongue! And you are like your father--very."
Jerry shivered the least little bit, perhaps from the night air, warm as it was, perhaps from the thought that she was like poor, poor Craig Winton, who did not seem at all like a real father.
In a moment her mother had wrapped her in the soft shawl she carried. Something in the loving touch of her hands broke the spell of unreality that had held Jerry.
I don't understand, mamsey, she whispered, cuddling close, "if you felt like--that--and worried, why did you let me go away?"
Because, my child, there was something triumphant in her mother's voice, "some inner sense made me believe that though you look like your father and act like him in many ways, you have a nature and a character quite of your own. I tried to put away the fears I had had which I told myself were foolish and morbid. John Westley's arguments helped me. I knew immediately that he was related to the Peter Westley who had crushed your father, but I felt certain he knew nothing of it--and I was glad; to bury the past entirely was the only way to bury forever the bitterness that had killed your father. And when John Westley made the offer to give you a year of school, I thought it was only justice! I had known school life in a big city where I had many schoolmates and I lived for several years in the shadow of a great university, though the life in it only touched me indirectly, and when the opportunity opened, I wanted you to have the same experience; I felt it might solve the problem that confronted me. And I told myself that I was sure of you that you could go away to school, go anywhere, and come back again and be my same girl! Jerry, these people have been very, very good to you; out of pure generosity they have given you a great deal, do you now--now that you know the truth--feel any bitterness toward them?"
Never had Jerry associated Uncle Johnny and Mrs. Westley, nor the younger Westleys, nor the charming, hospitable home, with the Peter Westley she had pictured from Gyp's vivid descriptions. And, too, remembering the pathetic loneliness of the old man's last days, she felt nothing but pity.
Oh, no, she answered, softly, decidedly. "Anyway, he made up for everything he'd done when he gave beautiful Highacres to Lincoln School," she added, loyally.
Then Jerry fell silent. "I was sure of you," her mother's words echoed. Had she not glimpsed more, in those months at Highacres, than her mother dreamed? A promise of what college might hold for her--new worlds to conquer?
Mother, am--am I the--same girl? She put the question slowly.
No, Jerry--and that's what I've been fighting out here--all by myself. For I realize that it was only selfishness made me dread finding a change! A mother's selfishness! That you should grow and go on and forward, even though you leave me behind, darling, I know must be my dearest wish. But oh, my dear, I understand how the poor mother robin feels just before she shoves her babies out of the nest! For don't you think she hates an empty nest as much as any human mother? Do you remember the little story I used to tell you when you were small enough to cuddle your whole self on my lap? How yours and my love was a beautiful, sunny garden where you dwelt and that the garden had a very high wall around it?
I love that story, mamsey. I told it once to Mrs. Westley and she loved it, too. And you used to say that there was a gate in the wall with a latch but the latch was quite high so that when I was little I could not find it!
And then you grew bigger and your fingers could reach the latch--you wanted to open it to go out and see what was outside. I had made the little garden as beautiful as I knew how and it was very sunny and the wall was so high that it shut out all trouble--but you wanted so much to open the gate that I knew I must let you!
And then I went away to Highacres---- put in Jerry, loving the story as much as ever.
And I was alone in the garden our love had built, but I was not lonely--I will not be lonely, for--wherever you go--you are my girl and I love you and you love me! Nothing can change that. And I shall leave the gate open--it will always be open! She said it slowly; her story was finished.
Jerry's face was transfigured. "You mean--you mean"--she spoke softly--"that--if I want to go--back to Highacres--you'll let me? I can go to college? Oh, mamsey, you're wonderful! Mothers are the grandest things. And the gate will always be open so's I can always come back? And you won't be lonely for I'll always love you most in the world of anybody or anything. And when I'm very grown-up and can't go to school any more we'll travel, won't we? You and me and Little-Dad--won't we, mamsey?"
Yes, dear. But the mother's eyes smiled in the darkness--she was thinking of the empty nest.
Jerry laid her cheek against her mother's arm. She drew a long breath.
The world's so wonderful, isn't it? It's dreadful to think of anyone in it, like my--father, who's set his heart so hard on just one thing that he can't see all the other things he might do! I shall never be like that! And it's dreadful--she frowned sorrowfully out over the starlit valley--"to think of girls who haven't mothers and who can't go to school. Why, I'm the very, very richest girl in the world!" Then she blushed. "I don't mean that money, mamsey, I mean having you and--Sunnyside and Kettle and just knowing about--our garden!"
Three girls sat on the Wishing-rock, beating their heels against its mossy side. And the world stretched before them. It was the end of a momentous day--momentous because so many things had been decided and such nice things! First, Uncle Johnny had said that he'd "fix" it with Mrs. Westley that Isobel and Gyp should remain at Kettle a month longer, then Mrs. Allan had driven over from Cobble and announced that she was going to have a house-party and her guests were going to be Pat Everett, Renee La Due and her brother, and Peggy and Garrett Lee, and Garrett Lee was going to bring Dana King. And Jerry and Uncle Johnny had prevailed upon Little-Dad to accept an automobile.
You can keep Silverheels for just fun and work in the automobile and then we can go over to Cobble and to Wayside and----
Little-Dad had not liked the thought at first. Somehow, to bring a chugging, smelling, snorting automobile up to Sunnyside to stay seemed an insult to the peace and beauty and simplicity of his little tucked-away home. But when Jerry pleaded and even Mrs. Travis admitted it would be nice and reminded him that Silverheels was growing old, he yielded, and Uncle Johnny promised to order one immediately--he knew just the kind that would climb Kettle and run as simply as a sewing-machine.
But the best of all that had been "decided" since sunrise was that Jerry should go back to Highacres----
Pinch me, Gypsy Editha Westley--pinch me hard! she cried as she sat between Gyp and Isobel. "I don't believe I'm me. And really, truly going back to Highacres! I can't be Jerauld Clay Travis who used to sit on this rock and watch the little specks come along that silver ribbon road down there and disappear around the mountain and hate them because they could go and I couldn't. But it used to be fun pretending I knew just what the world was like."
Isobel stared curiously at Jerry. "Hadn't you really ever been anywhere?"
Oh, yes, in books I'd been everywhere. But that isn't the same as being places and seeing things yourself.
Gyp laid her fingers respectfully on the rough brown surface of the great rock.
Do you suppose it really is a 'wishing-rock'?
Goodness, no. But when I was little I used to play here a lot and I pretended there were fairies--fern fairies and grass fairies and tree fairies. We'd play together. And when I grew older and began to wish for things that weren't--here, I'd come and tell the fairies because I did not want my mother to know, and, anyway, just telling about them made it seem as nice as having them. So I got to calling this my wishing-rock. Sometimes the wishes came true--when they were just little things.
Well, it's funny if it wasn't some sort of magic that made Uncle Johnny get lost on Kettle and slip right down here in the glade when you were wishing! And your wish came true. And if he hadn't--why, you'd never have come to Highacres and we'd probably never have found that secret stairway nor the Bible nor the letter and wouldn't have known that you were really Jerauld Winton. Oh, it has magic!
Neither Isobel nor Jerry answered, nor did they smile--after all, more than one name has been given to that strange Power that directs the little things which shape our living!
So, I say, girls, let's wish now, each one of us! A great big wish! It's so still you could 'most believe there were fairies hiding 'round. I'll wish first.
Gyp sprang to her feet and stood in the exact centre of the flat top of the rock. She stretched her arms outward and upward in ceremonial fashion. She cleared her throat so as to pitch a suitably sepulchral note.
I wish, she chanted, "I wish to make the All-Lincoln basketball team--I wish that dreadfully. I wish that I can get through the college entrance exams.--I don't care how much. I wish to get through college without "busting." Then I wish that I'll have a perfectly spliffy position offered to me somewhere which I shall refuse because a tall man with curly yellow hair and soulful, speaking gray eyes has asked me to marry him. Then I'll marry him and have six children and I'll bring them to the mountains to live. Then"--she paused for breath--"if I'm not asking too much I wish that my hair'll get curly."
Did I remember everything? she asked anxiously, jumping down from the rock. "Who's next?"
Jerry politely waved Isobel to the top.
Isobel laughed in her effort to frame all that she wanted to wish.
I just want to be the most famous decorator in the country. I want to have women coming to me from all over, begging me to do their houses. And if the women are cross and ugly I'll make everything pink to cheer them up and if they're smug and conceited I'll make their houses dull gray, and if they are too frivolous I'll make things a spiritual blue. Oh, it will be fun! And I want to go to Paris to study just as soon as I get through college, and I don't want to get married for a long, long time, maybe never.
It was Jerry's turn. Isobel and Gyp stood aside. Jerry's eyes were shining--it was fun to pretend that, maybe, a shadowy, spectral Fate waited there in the valley to hear what they were saying!
I wish--oh, it seems as though just going back to Highacres is all anyone could wish! I want to go to school as long as ever I can and then I want to go all around the world, and then I want to study to be a doctor like Little-Dad and take care of sick people and make them well, so they can enjoy things. And I want to marry a man who's jolly and always young-acting and loves dogs and has light brown hair and a very straight nose and----
Jerry Travis, that's just like Dana King, cried Gyp, accusingly.
Jerry flushed scarlet. "It isn't anything of the sort! I mean--can't there be lots of men with light brown hair and straight noses--hundreds of them? And anyway," loyalty blazed, "Dana King is the nicest boy I've ever known!"
And he thinks you're the nicest girl, Gyp laughed back. "I know it--he told Garrett Lee and Garrett told Peggy. So there----"
You've interrupted my wish and I don't know where I left off, Jerry rebuked. "Oh, I wish most of all that I can always, no matter where I am, come back to Sunnyside and Sweetheart and Little-Dad and--my garden! There, I've wished everything!"
The distant tinkle of a cowbell sounded faintly; a thrush sang; the sun, dropping low toward the wooded crest of the opposite mountain, cast a golden glow over valley and slope. The air was filled with the drowsy hum and stirring of tiny unseen creatures, the birches that fringed the glade leaned and whispered. The three girls sat silent, staring down into the valley, each visioning a golden future of her own. But a thoughtfulness shadowed the radiance of Jerry's face. Yesterday she had been just Jerry Travis of Kettle, now she was another Jerry; on a page far back in her life's book, opened to her, she had glimpsed the tragedy of disappointment, of blighted hope, of defeat--her own young, undaunted spirit cried out that none of this must come into her life! Or, if it did, she must be strong to meet it----
Gyp roused. For her the golden spell was broken. She yawned and stretched.
Isn't school funny? You think you hate it and then when vacation comes you keep thinking about going back. And you bury geometry and Caesar forever and try to forget them and then first thing you're thinking about what you're going to take next year and whom you'll get and what new girls will come and what sort of a team we'll have! We've just got to train a forward who'll be as good as Ginny when she graduates and I believe, Jerry Travis, you're it.
Jerry and Isobel turned promptly from their dreaming.
I wonder who'll take Miss Gray's place--and Barbara Lee's----
And, oh, Jerry hugged them both. "I'll be there! I'll be there! I hated to think of your all going on without me. It would have broken my heart! Dear old Highacres!"
"To thy golden founts of wisdom, Alma Mater, guide our step----
"caroled the young voices, softly.
The End