Grace Harlowe's Return to Overton Campus Part 5

"I was going to tell you this evening when we were all together, and Reddy promised to help me, but, somehow, I'd rather tell you now, while we are together on these dear old steps where we've had so much fun."

Something in Jessica's tone caused the eyes of her friends to search hers inquiringly. It carried with it unmistakable regret. It presaged parting.

"Reddy and I aren't going to live in Oakdale this winter. We--we--are going--to--Chicago to live."

"Oh!" Nora e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, drawing her breath sharply. "Oh, Jessica!"

A painful silence fell upon the row of girls, whose voices had only a moment since rung out so gayly.

Nora sat staring straight ahead of her with quivering lips. Of the three girls she would miss Jessica the most sorely. Grace, too, felt that dreadful sense of loss, of which she had complained earlier in the afternoon, stealing down upon her. Anne's face wore a look of loving concern, but an expression of resignation to destiny, which was likely to lead one to the ends of the earth, lurked in her somber eyes. She had learned young to bow with the best possible grace to the inevitable.

Suddenly a half-stifled sob broke the oppressive quiet.

"Nora, you mustn't," protested Jessica weakly, but Nora's curly head was already resting on Grace's comforting shoulder, and an instant afterward Jessica sought the consolation of the other shoulder.

"Girls, girls," soothed Grace, an arm around each, "you mustn't cry."

Nevertheless she experienced a wild desire to lift up her voice and lament with them. "I know you looked forward to being together this winter. It's terribly disappointing, but you can write letters and visit each other, and next summer, Jessica, you must arrange to come to Oakdale and stay all summer. Why didn't you tell us before?"

"Reddy didn't know it until yesterday," faltered Jessica. "His father has taken over a large business there and he wants Reddy to manage it for him. Reddy's mother doesn't want to live in Chicago, so Mr. Brooks wants Reddy to go."

"It's the real parting of the ways," said Grace softly to Anne.

Anne nodded. "Still, if we had our choice as to whether we would like to go back and live over our past or go on, I am sure we'd choose to go on," she said thoughtfully. "Don't you think so, Grace!"

"Of course we would," agreed Grace cheerfully. "Good gracious, girls!"

she exclaimed in sudden consternation. "Whose familiar figures are those coming across the field? It must be later than I thought."

Nora's and Jessica's mourning heads bobbed up from Grace's shoulders with simultaneous alacrity.

"Hippy!" gasped Nora. "Do I look as though I'd been crying? I wouldn't have him know it for the world."

"Reddy!" recognized Jessica. "Are my eyes a sight?"

"Also David and Tom," added Anne. "No, children, you haven't wept enough to permanently disfigure your charming faces. If the boys had not appeared we might now be weeping in a melancholy row. I had no idea that Jessica's secret was to be a positive tragedy."

"Neither had I," responded Grace soberly, laying an affectionate hand on Jessica's arm.

There was no time for further remarks on the subject, for the four young men were crossing the last field in record time. As they neared the row of young women Hippy Wingate picked up his coat and pirouetted toward them, a wide smile on his round face, as he chanted gayly in a high voice:

"Children go, to and fro In a merry pretty row; Faces bright, all alight, 'Tis a happy, happy sight.

Swiftly turning round and round, Do not look upon the ground; Follow me, full of glee, Singing merrily."

With each line of the song Hippy executed a most astonis.h.i.+ng figure, ending on "merrily" with a funny pas-seul that turned the sorrow of the lately disconsolate audience to laughter.

"How did you like that?" he inquired affably, as he landed directly in front of the steps. "Shall I sing the chorus now or would you prefer to hear it later."

"Later, by all means," flung back Nora.

"As you please. As you please," returned Hippy with a careless wave of his hand. "I am not chary of my art. I ask for but one recompense."

"There he goes," groaned Dave Nesbit.

"I'm not going," retorted Hippy, with dignity. "I'm standing perfectly still. However, I did not come away out here in this field to quarrel with you, David Nesbit. I came because I am a--"

"Nuisance," suggested Reddy.

"Precisely. No, I don't mean anything of the sort. I am not a nuisance.

A nuisance is a tall, thin, conceited person with flaming red hair, pale blue eyes, a freckled nose and a slanderous tongue. His name begins with R and he is--"

Without finis.h.i.+ng his sentence Hippy took to his heels and disappeared around the corner of the Omnibus House, with an agility worthy of a better cause.

"I'll see that he keeps at a safe distance from us till we start for Grace's," was Reddy's grim comment. "You'll see his head appear at that corner in a minute, and then, look out!"

They waited in mirthful silence. True to Reddy's prediction Hippy's round face was suddenly thrust into view. Reddy leaped toward him. There was a horrified, "Oh, dreadful!" from Hippy, and the sound of running feet.

"He's afraid of me," boasted Reddy in a purposely loud tone.

"Don't you ever believe it," contradicted Hippy's voice. "I like the view from this side of the Omnibus House. I think Nora would like it, too."

"Such thoughtfulness is rare," jeered David.

"'Tis better to have thought such thoughts, than never to have thought at all," retorted the voice plaintively.

"Let's eradicate him from the face of the earth, Reddy," proposed David.

"He's a blot upon the community."

"No-r-a," wailed the voice, "aren't you going to help your little friend!"

"Rescue him, Nora," declared David disgustedly. "That's the reason he created all this disturbance."

Nora dimpled, the pink in her cheeks deepening.

"Yes, do," urged Grace. "It is high time for us to start home. We must be there to receive Mrs. Gray."

"She sent me on ahead," informed Tom. "I wanted to wait and bring her over in my car, but she is going to have Haynes bring her over in the carriage."

Nora disappeared around the corner of the house, but reappeared immediately, leading by the hand a broadly smiling Hippy, who carried a huge bouquet of b.u.t.tercups and daisies in his free hand and cavorted at her side as joyously as the proverbial lambkin on the green.

"You can lead the way with him, Nora," directed David. "I wouldn't trust him to bring up the rear. Reddy and I want him where we can keep an eye upon him."

"Certainly we shall lead the way," flung back Hippy, "but not because you say so. Our superior rank places us in the front row of the procession. Come on, Nora. May I sing and dance? I haven't sung the chorus yet, you know."

Without waiting for permission Hippy pranced ahead of her on his toes, swaying from side to side and scattering the flowers from his bouquet, his voice rising in a falsetto chorus of:

"Singing merrily, merrily, merrily, Follow me, full of glee, Singing merrily."

"He'll never grow old," said Anne, as she watched Hippy's ridiculous performance.