Peggy Raymond's Vacation Part 17

Dorothy was not certain, but it was evident that the diversion had been tried on several occasions and Peggy's heart almost stood still, realizing the peril to which the children had exposed themselves.

Without doubt their immunity was due to their very audacity. Apparently the boar had not connected these fearless mites with human beings whom he knew to be vulnerable, but had fancied them sportive elves, against whom his tusks would be powerless. Peggy registered a vow not to let Dorothy out of her sight again while the summer lasted.

"Why didn't you tell Aunt Peggy what you and Annie were playing?"

The candid Dorothy had an instant reply. "'Cause I didn't want you to make me stop." It was clear that the sin had not been one of ignorance.

Peggy resolved to act upon Dorothy's counsel.

After the two reached home, the story had so many tellings that there seemed a little danger of Dorothy's penitence evaporating in self-importance. "I had the last turn, anyway," she boasted; "and he runned faster with me on his back, too."

"Oh, if I'd only been there with my camera," lamented Amy. "Think what a snap-shot it would have made." Then as Peggy frowned at her behind Dorothy's shoulder, she subsided with a grimace of comprehension.

As Dorothy climbed the stairs to bed, it was understood that the hour of retribution had arrived. Dorothy wept softly while undressing, and uttered agonizing shrieks as she underwent her chastis.e.m.e.nt. Down-stairs the girls looked at one another aghast, and Hobo whined uneasily, as if asking permission to interfere. Then the uproar ended abruptly, and Dorothy climbing upon Peggy's knee, pledged herself solemnly never again to ride boar-back, a promise which stands more than an even chance of being religiously kept.

Altogether Peggy was inclined to regard her methods of discipline as highly successful. It was not till a penitent and altogether adorable Dorothy had been tucked into bed, and kissed uncounted times, that doubt a.s.sailed her. She was moving toward the stairs, when a small voice arrested her steps.

"Aunt Peggy," Dorothy said dreamily, "you don't spank as hard as my mamma does. You whipped me just the way Hobo whips himself with his tail."

CHAPTER XII

THE NEW LUCY

In the week that followed, the education of Lucy Haines progressed rapidly. After that first afternoon when the time had slipped away without her knowing it, she kept her eye on the clock and was careful not to over-stay the hour. But as she came every day, and her enthusiasm for learning fully matched Peggy's enthusiasm for teaching, the results were all that could be wished.

Then one afternoon her pupil failed to appear, and Peggy wondered. A second afternoon brought neither Lucy nor an explanation of her absence.

"I'm afraid she's sick," said Peggy, who never thought of a discreditable explanation for anything till there was no help for it.

"Sick of algebra, more likely," suggested Claire. "I thought such zeal wouldn't last."

"She doesn't seem like that sort of a girl," declared Amy, who was developing a tendency to disagree with Claire on every possible pretext.

"She's one of the stickers, or I don't know one when I see it."

A little a.s.senting murmur went the rounds, and Claire glanced reproachfully at Priscilla, who had sided against her. "Two souls with but a single thought," represented Claire's ideal of friends.h.i.+p. That two people could love each other devotedly, and yet disagree on a variety of subjects, was beyond her comprehension. She was ready at a moment's notice to cast aside her personal convictions, and agree with Priscilla, whatever stand the latter cared to take, and it seemed hard, in view of such unquestioning loyalty, that Priscilla should persist in having opinions of her own.

But Claire's hour of triumph was on its way. When Jerry Morton came in the morning with a string of freshly caught fish, he produced from the depths of an over-worked pocket a folded paper, which, to judge from its worn and soiled appearance, had served as a hair-curler or in some equally trying capacity. This he handed to Peggy, who regarded it with natural misgiving.

"That Haines girl sent it," Jerry explained. "I put it in the pocket where I carry the bait, but I guess the inside is all right."

Thus encouraged, Peggy unfolded the dingy sc.r.a.p, but the changes of her expressive face did not bear out Jerry's optimistic conjecture that the "inside" was all right. Judging from Peggy's crestfallen air, it was all wrong. The note was not written in Lucy's usual regular hand. The letters straggled, the lines zig-zagged across the page, and the name signed was almost an unintelligible scrawl. But Peggy thought less of these superficial matters than of the unwelcome news communicated.

"Dear Friend:--I shan't come to study algebra any more. I've given up the idea of going to school any longer. I thank you very much for trying to help me, but it's no use.

"Yours truly, "Lucy Haines."

"I thought it was something like that," Claire remarked triumphantly when the note was read aloud, and she reflected with some satisfaction that she alone had suggested the rightful explanation of Lucy's action.

"I must say I'm disappointed in that girl," declared Peggy, absently smoothing out the crumpled paper. Her bright face was clouded.

"Wednesday she was just as interested and ambitious as she could be. And now she's given up. It doesn't seem like her."

"I must say she doesn't show a great deal of grat.i.tude," exclaimed Ruth, always ready to rush to Peggy's defence. "Here you've been using your vacation to teach her, when you might have been enjoying yourself, and then all at once she gets tired of it. It doesn't seem to occur to her that if you were like most girls, you'd be the one to give up."

The expression of Peggy's face suggested that she was rather absorbed in her own thoughts, and giving but scant heed to the words of her champion.

"Do you know, girls," she said slowly, "I'm going over to see Lucy and find out what this means."

There was a chorus of protests. "Don't you do it, Peggy," Amy cried indignantly. And Priscilla remarked, "I wouldn't tease her into accepting a kindness that she hadn't the sense to appreciate."

"It was too much for you to do anyway," Ruth chimed in. "I think it's a good thing she's tired of it, myself." But Peggy was not to be dissuaded from her purpose. Under the uncompromising statements of the bald little note, there was something that claimed her sympathy. Even the straggling lines, so little suggestive of the Lucy Haines she knew, carried the suggestion of appeal. "I'm not going to coax her into doing anything,"

Peggy explained. "But--" and this with unmistakable firmness--"I'm going to find out."

After dinner, when the other girls were indulging in afternoon naps, or lounging on the porch, Peggy donned a broad-brimmed shade hat, and with Hobo at her heels, started toward Lucy's home. The zig-zag path crossing the pastures was both shorter and pleasanter than the road, and Peggy rather enjoyed getting the better of such obstacles as snake fences and brooks that must be crossed on stepping stones. Such things gave to an otherwise prosaic ramble the fine flavor of adventure.

She was flushed and warm, and looking, had she known it, unusually pretty, with her moist hair curling in rings about her forehead, when she came in sight of Lucy's home, a straggling cottage which would have been improved by paint and the services of a carpenter. Both lacks were partially concealed by vines which climbed over its sagging porch, and tall rows of hollyhocks, generously screening with their showy beauty its weather-beaten sides. A girl was in the back yard chopping wood, a rather slatternly girl with disordered hair. Peggy descended on her briskly to ask if Lucy were at home.

Hatchet in hand, the girl faced about. Peggy's head whirled. She made a confused effort to recall whether Lucy had ever mentioned a sister, a sister considerably older, and not nearly so nice. Then her momentary confusion pa.s.sed, and she realized she was facing Lucy herself. The shock of her discovery showed in her voice as she exclaimed, "Why, it's you!"

"Of course," said Lucy a little coldly, but she cast a half-apologetic downward glance at her untidy dress, and her color rose. With obvious reluctance she asked, "Won't you come in?"

Peggy was conscious of a thrill of righteous indignation. She stood very straight and her eyes met those of the other girl squarely. "Lucy, are you angry with me?"

Lucy Haines did not answer immediately. Her bared throat twitched hysterically and all at once the eyes which looked into Peggy's brimmed over.

"Don't, please!" she said in a choked voice. "Me angry! Why, you're the kindest girl I ever dreamed of. Till I'm dead I'll love to think about you and how good you are. But it's no use."

Peggy seated herself on the woodpile. Her native cheerfulness had returned with a rush.

"Now, Lucy Haines, let's talk like two sensible people. If I'm as nice as all that, you ought to be willing to trust me a little. What's the reason it's no use? What's made all the difference since Wednesday?"

Lucy's silence was like a barrier between them. If it had not been for the tears upon her cheeks, Peggy would have been inclined to distrust her memory of that momentary softening. The girl's confidence came at last reluctantly, as if dragged from depths far under the surface, like water raised in buckets from a well.

"My money's gone."

Peggy had an uncomfortable feeling that she must grope her way. "Your money's gone?" she repeated, to gain time.

"Yes, the money I've been saving up. The money that was to help me get through school next year. You know how I've worked this summer. And there isn't a thing to show for it."

"How much was it?"

"Forty dollars."

All at once Peggy felt an insane desire to laugh. The impulse was without doubt, purely nervous. For though there seemed to her a surprising discrepancy between the sum named and the despair for which it was responsible, the humorous aspect of the case was not the one which would naturally appeal to a disposition like Peggy's. Desperately she fought against the impulse, coughed, bit her twitching lips, and finally acknowledged defeat in a little hysterical giggle. Lucy stared at her, too astonished to be angry.

"There!" Now that the mischief was done, Peggy felt serious enough to meet all the requirements of the case. "I've laughed and I'm glad of it.

For it's a joke. Forty dollars! A girl as bright as you are, ready to sell out for forty dollars. It's enough to make anybody laugh."