Tracy Park Part 27

'Cherry,' he said at last, using the pet name he often gave her, 'you _are_ some like Gretchen as she must have been when of your age. Oh, if you only were hers and mine! But there was no child; and yet--and yet--'

He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment, and then going to a drawer in his writing desk, which Jerry had never seen open before, he took out a worn, yellow letter, and ran his eye rapidly over it until he found a certain paragraph, which he bade Jerry read.

The paragraph was as follows:

'I have something to tell you when you come, which I am sure will make you as glad as I am.'

Jerry read it aloud slowly, for the handwriting was cramped and irregular, and then looked up questioningly to Arthur, who said to her:

'What do you think she meant by the something which would make me glad as she was?'

'I don't know,' Jerry answered him. 'Who wrote it? Gretchen?'

'Yes, Gretchen; it is her last letter to me, and I never went back to see what she meant, for the bees were bad in my head and I forgot everything, even Gretchen herself. Poor little Gretchen! What was the idea which came to me like a flash of lightning, in regard to this letter, when I heard you sing? It is gone, and I cannot recall it.'

There was a worried, anxious look on his face as he put the letter away, and went on talking to himself of Gretchen, saying he was going to write her again, or her friends, and find out what she meant.

The next day Jerry met Frank in the Tramp House, as we have described, and gave him the promise to bring him any letter directed to Germany which Arthur might entrust to her. But the promise weighed heavily upon her as she walked slowly on towards the field where Harold was at work, and where she found him resting for a moment under the shadow of a wide-spreading b.u.t.ternut. He looked tired and pale, and there were great drops of sweat upon his white forehead, and an expression on his face which Jerry did not understand.

Harold was not in a very happy frame of mind. Naturally cheerful and hopeful, it was not often that he gave way to fits of despondency, or repining at his humble lot, so different from that of the boys of his own age, with whom he came in daily contact, both at school and in the town.

d.i.c.k St. Claire, his most intimate friend, always treated him as if he were fully his equal, and often stood between him and the remarks which boys made thoughtlessly, and which, while they mean so little, wound to the quick such sensitive natures as Harold's. But not even d.i.c.k St.

Claire could keep Tom Tracy in check. With each succeeding year he grew more and more supercilious and unbearable, pluming himself upon his position as a Tracy of Tracy Park, and this wealth he was to inherit from his Uncle Arthur. For the last year he had been at Andover, where he had formed a new set of acquaintances, one of whom was spending the vacation with him. This was young Fred Raymond, whose home was at Red Stone Hall, in Kentucky, and whose parents were in Europe. Between the two youths there was but little similarity of taste or disposition, for young Raymond represented all that was n.o.ble and true, and though proud of his State and proud of his name, never a.s.sumed the slightest superiority over those whom the world considered his inferiors. He was Tom's room-mate, and hence the intimacy between them which had resulted in Fred's accepting the invitation to Tracy Park. If anything had been wanting to complete Tom's estimate of his own importance this visit of the Kentuckian would have done it. All his former friends were cut except d.i.c.k St. Claire, while Harold was as much ignored as if he had never existed. Tom did not even see him or recognize him with so much as a look, but pa.s.sed him by as he would any common day laborer whom he might chance to meet. All through the summer days, while Harold was working until every bone in his body ached, Tom and his friend were enjoying themselves in hunting, fis.h.i.+ng, driving, or rowing, or lounging under the trees in the shady lawns.

That afternoon when Jerry joined him in the hayfield, Tom and the Kentuckian had pa.s.sed him in their fanciful hunting-suits with their dogs and guns, but though Harold was within a few yards of them, Tom affected not to see him, and kept his head turned the other way, as if intent upon some object in the distance.

Leaning upon his rake, Harold watched them out of sight, with a choking sensation in his throat as he wondered if it would always be thus with him, and if the day would never come when he, too, could know what leisure meant, with no thought for the morrow's bread.

'I am Tom's superior in everything but money, and yet he treats me like a dog,' he said, as he seated himself upon the gra.s.s, where he sat fanning himself with his straw hat.

When Jerry appeared in view he brightened at once, for in all the world there was not anything half so sweet and lovely to him as the little blue-eyed girl who seated herself beside him, and, nestling close to him, laid her curly head upon his arm.

'I've come to help you rake the hay,' she said, 'for grandma told me you had a headache at noon, and couldn't eat your huckleberry pie. I am awfully sorry, Harold, but I ate it myself, it looked so good, instead of saving it for your supper. It was nasty and mean in me, and I hope it will make me sick.'

But Harold told her he did not care for the pie, and would rather that she would eat it if she liked it. Then he questioned her of the park house and of Arthur; asking if the bees were often in his head now, or had she driven them out.

'No, I guess I haven't. They were awful yesterday and to-day,' Jerry replied. 'He was talking of Gretchen all the time. I wonder who she was.

Sometimes I look at her until it seems to me I have seen her or something like her, a paler face with sadder eyes. How he must have loved her, better than you or I could ever love anybody; don't you think so?'

Harold hesitated a moment, and then replied:

'I don't know, but it seems to me I love you as much as a man could ever love another.'

'Phoo! Of course you do; but that's boy love; that isn't like when you are old enough to have a beau!' and Jerry laughed merrily, as she sprang up, and, taking Harold's rake, began to toss the hay about rapidly, bidding him sit still and see how fast she could work in his place.

Harold was very tired, and his head was aching badly, so for a time he sat still, watching the graceful movements of the beautiful child, who, it seemed to him, was slipping away from him. Constant intercourse with a polished man like Arthur Tracy had not been without its effect upon her, and there was about her an air which with strangers would have placed her at once above the ordinary level of simple country girls.

This Harold had been the first to detect, and though he rejoiced at Jerry's good fortune, there was always with him a dread lest she should grow beyond him, and that he should lose the girl he loved so much.

'What if she should think me a clown and a clodhopper, as Tom Tracy does?' he said to himself, as he watched her raking up the hay faster, and quite as well as he could have done himself. 'I believe I should want to die.'

It was impossible that Jerry should have guessed the nature of Harold's thoughts, but once, as she pa.s.sed near him, she dropped her rake, and going up to him, wiped his forehead with her ap.r.o.n, and, kissing him fondly, said to him:

'Poor, tired boy, is your head awful? You look as if you wanted to vomit? Do you?'

'No, Jerry,' Harold answered, laughingly. 'I am not as bad as that. I was only thinking and wis.h.i.+ng that I were rich and could sometime give you and grandma a home as handsome as Tracy Park. How would you like it?'

'First-rate, if you were there,' Jerry replied; 'but if you were not I shouldn't like it at all. I never mean to live anywhere without you; because, you know, I am your little girl, the one you found in the carpet-bag, and I love you more than all the world, and will love and stand by you forever and ever, amen!'

She said the last so abruptly, and it sounded so oddly, that Harold burst into a laugh, and taking up the rake she had dropped, began his work again, declaring that the headache was gone, and that he was a great deal better.

'Forever and ever, amen!' The words kept repeating themselves over and over in Harold's mind as he walked homeward in the gathering twilight with Jerry hip-pi-ty-hopping at his side, her hand in his, and her tongue running rapidly, as it usually did when with him.

She would 'love and stand by him forever and ever, amen!' It was a singular remark for a child, and in after years, when his sky was the blackest, the words would come back to the man Harold like so many stabs as he whispered in his anguish:

'She has forgotten her promise to "stand by me forever and ever, amen!"'

CHAPTER XXI.

MRS. TRACY'S DIAMONDS.

Mrs. Tracy was going to have a party--not a general one, like that which she gave when our readers first knew her, and Harold Hastings stood at the head of the stairs and bade 'the ladies go this way and the gentlemen that.' Since Dolly had become so exclusive and a leader of fas.h.i.+on, she had ignored general parties and limited her invitations to a select few, which, on this occasion, numbered about sixty or seventy.

But the entertainment was prepared as elaborately as if hundreds had been expected, and the hostess was radiant in satin and lace, and diamonds, as she received her guests and did the honors of the occasion.

The September night was soft and warm, and the grounds were lighted up, while quite a crowd collected near the house to hear the music and watch the proceedings.

Mrs. Tracy would have liked to have had Jerry in the upper hall, where Harold had once stood.

'It would help to keep the child in her place,' she thought, 'for she is getting to feel herself of quite too much consequence, with so much attention from Arthur.'

But her husband promptly vetoed the proposition, saying that when Jerry Crawford came to the park house to an entertainment it would be as a guest, and not as a waiter. So a colored boy stood in the upper hall, and a colored boy stood in the lower hall, and there were colored waiters everywhere, and Dolly had never been happier or prouder in her life: for Governor Markham and his wife, from Iowa, were there, and a judge's wife from Springfield--all guests of Grace Atherton, and, in consequence, bidden to the party.

Another remarkable feature of the evening was the presence of Arthur in the parlors. He had known both Governor Markham and his wife, Ethelyn Grant, and had been present at their wedding, and it was mostly on their account that he had consented to join in the festivities. Jerry, it is true, had done a great deal toward persuading him to go down, repeating, in her own peculiar way, what she had heard people say with regard to his seclusion from society.

'You just make a hermit of yourself,' she said, 'cooped up here all the time. I don't wonder folks say you are crazy. It is enough to make anybody crazy, to stay in one or two rooms and see n.o.body but Charles and me. Just dress yourself in your best clothes and go down and be somebody, and don't talk of Gretchen all the time! I am tired of it, and so is everybody. Give her a rest for one evening, and show the people how nice you can be if you only have a mind to.'

Jerry delivered this speech with her hands on her hips, and with all the air of a woman of fifty; while Arthur laughed immoderately, and promised her to do his best not to disgrace her, and to appear as if he were not crazy.

Jerry's anxiety was somewhat like that of a mother for a child whose ability she doubts; and, after her supper was over she took her way to the park house to see that Arthur was dressed properly for the occasion.

'It would be like him to go without his neck-tie and wear his every-day boots,' she thought.

But she found him as faultlessly gotten up as he well could be in his old-fas.h.i.+oned evening dress, which sat rather loosely upon him, for he had grown thinner with each succeeding year.

Jerry thought him splendid, and watched him admiringly as if he left the room and started for the parlors, with her last injunction ringing in her ears: