Divided Skates

“That’s very odd! The bell did certainly ring. Not once but several times. Well, whoever it was must have been in a hurry, and may have disappeared around Side Street corner.”

So she locked the door, extinguished the light she had turned on, and climbed the carpeted stairs toward her own apartment. Her slippered feet made no sound, and the stillness all over the house was profound; but, just as she turned the first landing, it was broken again. There came the same prolonged, insistent ringing, and fairly flying back to the door, Miss Lucy exclaimed:

“Well, I’ll be in time now, I think!”

Yet, just as before, she opened to silence and the moonlight only.

CHAPTER VI.

MYSTERIES

“Come, Master Lionel! It’s time to be stirring. Your bath’s ready and breakfast will be before you are dressed. Miss Lucy says you are not to delay, and to open your window when you leave your room, and to be in your place in the breakfast-room when she comes down to lead morning worship. Now, don’t go to sleep any more, that’s a good boy, and make me climb three flights of stairs again, just for nothing at all. Hear?”

“Yes, ma’am, I hear,” responded Towsley, sleepily. But he was much mixed in his ideas at that moment, and quite mistook Mary for her mistress; also that he had been instructed by his benefactress, during the past evening, as to his demeanor toward the servants of the house, whom he was to treat with all kindness, yet not to “ma’am” nor “mister,” as seemed natural to an Alley-trained boy.

“I can trust you, can I?” again demanded the voice outside the half-closed door.

“Yes. I’m awake. But, say, Mary!”

“Well, what is it?”

“Did you say bath? Have I got to wash myself again? They washed me at the hospital enough to kill. I won’t be dirty again this winter.”

Mary laughed. “The idea! Did you ever hear of a young gentleman as didn’t take his bath every day? Ridic’lous. Come, step lively. Here’s a bath-robe by the door used to belong to the other Lionel. Miss Lucy says, wear it.”

Towsley had seen such robes in the shop windows; and as he folded this one about him and thrust his feet into the warm little slippers, also provided, he had a curious feeling that he was thus investing himself with his new life.

But this made him very unhappy. Odd! that a boy who had never had a home should be homesick! Yet that was the real name of the miserable, sinking sensation at his heart; and as he crossed the hall to the bathroom, his face was the picture of woe.

However he had no idea of disobedience; and though it was with a shiver of repugnance that he stepped into the porcelain tub, his emotions underwent a sudden and radical change.

“Hi! this is nicer than swimming! And them towels – for me! Ain’t they prime! I wonder what Shiner would say if he could see ’em.”

This was an unfortunate suggestion. It almost, though not quite, overset the exhilaration of the bath, and as he stepped out upon the rug he seemed to see the reproachful face of his mate looking up at him and questioning:

“Why ain’t I in it, too?”

“Why wasn’t he? Why did I happen to be the one, just the only one, who should skate bang into Miss Lucy and be taken in and done for? And I couldn’t skate, either. I was just a-learning. Pshaw! I wish I hadn’t. I wish – I wish. ’Bout this time, I s’pose, the fellows have near sold out. There’ll be some running on the down-town cars, though, and the gents that go to business late; bankers and lawyers and such. I s’pose somebody’s got my route, already. If a chap gets out the line – there’s another hops into his place – spang! I wonder – ”

But just there Lionel Towsley’s reflections became so sombre that some very unusual tears crept into his eyes. This fact restored him to a sense of his own foolishness.

“Shucks! if I ain’t crying! I – Towsley! Well, that beats all. I ain’t never done it since I can remember, only now I’m adopted I ’pear to be losing all my snap. Is that the way with rich folks always? Am I a rich one, now, just because I stay in Miss Lucy’s house? Well, I can’t let myself get to be a girl, even if I do live like one.”

Then the lad remembered Doctor Frank and that, although the gentleman wore fine attire, he was the manliest person he knew. Yet he was evidently wealthy, since he could afford to give away, or advance – to penniless Towsley this seemed the same thing – a five-dollar suit of clothing. So he hurried himself and brushed his hair, as far as he could reach around; and he tried to use all the accessories of his toilet which Miss Lucy had provided and he could understand. In his efforts he forgot to be so lonely; and it was a really bright-faced little fellow who presented himself in the breakfast-room, where the house mistress sat waiting, and who addressed her very respectfully:

“Good-morning, Miss Armacost. Am I late? I guess I fooled ’round some. I – I ain’t got used to things yet.”

“Good-morning, my child. Did you rest well?”

“Prime. I hope you did, too,” he replied, sitting down upon a chair near her own.

Yet she did not look as if she had, and the child opened his lips to remark this; but she motioned him to be quiet, and immediately took up the Bible lying ready on a little stand beside her. He noticed that all the servants were present, sitting in an orderly row upon one side of the room, which was very still. Then Miss Lucy read a portion of the Word and offered a brief prayer, to which Towsley listened in a scared sort of way. For she mentioned him in her petition, asking for a blessing upon the new relation established between them.

This gave the matter a dignity and importance really startling to the waif. If he and what happened to him were worth mentioning to the Lord he had no right to grumble about them; and, during that few moments upon his knees, there was born in the boy’s heart a self-respect that was never after to forsake him.

But when they had taken their places at the table, and Mary was passing the food, he saw how Miss Lucy’s hand shook, and inquired, anxiously:

“Miss Lucy, are you sick? What makes you tremble so? Are you cold? Can I get you something?”

She was much pleased by his quick observation, yet shook her head in a way that made him understand he was to ask no more questions while Mary remained in the room. After she had served them and gone, he ventured again:

“Didn’t you sleep as nice as I did, Miss Lucy? You look awful tired.”

The little lady regarded him very attentively for a moment. Then she inquired:

“Lionel, if I tell you a secret, will you keep it?”

“Yes, indeed. I will. Hope to die if I don’t.”

“Needn’t say that. It wouldn’t be true. But there was something very queer going on here last night; and it kept me awake, and I’m all upset this morning.”

Even to herself it seemed strange that Miss Armacost should turn to this stranger child for sympathy, when she would not allow herself to do so toward any of the servants who had known her so long.

“What was it, Miss Lucy? P’raps I can find out what it was. I’d like to if I could. I’d like to, first rate. I heard what you said when you were praying, and I ain’t going to forget. I’d rather be back to my old place in the Square, with my papers under my arm, but if I can’t help myself – if the Lord’s took a hand in it – I’d like to be the next best thing I can. That’s to help you, ain’t it?”

The mistress of the mansion gasped. This was frankness, indeed, – a frankness most unflattering to herself, but it served to rouse and brace her jaded nerves. She replied, a little sharply:

“If you don’t like it you needn’t stay. That is, after you’ve given the matter a good trial, and I have. That’s fair for both sides. But – hark! There it goes again!”

At that instant, the electric door-bell rang in a peculiar, prolonged, and rather gentle fashion. Towsley couldn’t understand why Miss Lucy’s face paled still further; nor why, after Mary had answered the summons, she should slam the door viciously, and almost run back along the hall to her own quarters.

Miss Lucy touched the table bell and summoned her; then inquired, in as calm a voice as she could command:

“What was it, this time, Mary?”

“The same old story, ma’am; nothing.”

“Very well. You may go.”

“Yes, ma’am. I think I will. Cook and I are both talking of going. You see, we’ve been hearing it this two or three days, and we wouldn’t dare to stay in a house that had a ‘haunt.’”

“Nonsense. There is nothing of the sort. Some reasonable explanation will be found. You may return to your dusting.”

“Yes, ma’am. But if it happens again, just once, please, ma’am, I’d like to be let off, and I’ll try to find somebody to take my place if you want me to.”

Miss Armacost vouchsafed no response to this suggestion, and pretended to sip her coffee. Yet her hand shook so that she set the cup down, and, as soon as Mary had disappeared again, folded her arms and looked toward the eager-faced boy opposite, in a helpless sort of way.

“What did she mean by that, Miss Lucy?”

Then she told him. How for several days before she had herself heard it, there had been a most mysterious ringing at the front door-bell; that the servants had as often answered the summons, yet found nobody demanding admittance; that they believed there was some ghostly influence at work; that being superstitious, like all the colored race, they had decided it would be unsafe for them to remain in the house; that at frequent intervals, all last night and now this morning, as Lionel had himself observed, the ringing had again occurred.

“It’s very, very distracting and uncomfortable. I’m quite upset by it, and don’t know what to do.”

“It’s electric, ain’t it?”

“What? The bell? Yes, certainly.”

“Then I’d send for a ’lectrician. He’d find out the trouble in a jiffy. But, shucks! wouldn’t it be prime!”

“What would be prime?” Yet Miss Lucy sighed in relief, as she added: “What an extremely simple thing; and why didn’t I think of it before?”

“Don’t know, except ’cause you didn’t.”

“Hm’m. Immediately after breakfast I’ll send for a man. Now – my goodness! What’s all this?”

The glances of both flew to the windows which were on a level with the street. There were four of these lace-draped windows, two in front and two upon the side. At each was a small face peering in, and at some there were two faces.

Towsley forgot everything. All the changed conditions of his life, his determination to be very thoughtful of Miss Lucy, the gentlemanly behavior which belonged to a boy who lived in the finest house upon the Avenue. They were faces that he knew, – every one! They, were the faces of Shiner, and Battles, and Toothless, and Whistling Jerry. Behind these, Tom the Bugler, and Larry Lameleg.

His friends were they, his jolly little comrades; who had heard of what had befallen him and had come to condole with him. The mere sight of them brought back the atmosphere so familiar to him: of the alleys and their freedom, of Newspaper Square with its hurry and bustle and eager life! It was too much for Towsley, and with a shout of rapture he rushed to the basement entrance, out upon the street, into the very arms of his mates.

“Say, it was true, then, ain’t it?” demanded Tom the Bugler. “What was in our paper last night, and that our man saw up in the park? You dressed up in another boy’s clothes and lost yourself in the snow, didn’t you? Must been a dumb one to do that. Right here in Baltimore city where you’ve lived all your life. Say, was it bad in hospital? Be you goin’ to stay here? What’s the lady doin’? She looks – she looks kind of funny, don’t she?”

Lionel Towsley glanced back through the window into the room he had deserted, and his heart sank. Miss Lucy had pushed aside from the table and was watching him with a white, disappointed face. It had been such a little while that she had had him, and yet he had become so dear. She had been so ready, so eager to bestow every comfort and benefit upon him, and he had seemed so deserving; yet now, at a glance, he was back in the old ways among his rude companions, and she and her offered love were quite forgotten.

“Say, Tows, you’re a regular swell now, ain’t you? My! see them fine clothes! Look at the pockets of ’em. Money? Money in the pockets, Tows? Give us a nickel all round, you nabob, you. Rides in a sleigh every day, he does, and never thinks no more of Newspaper Square and nights on the old steam holes, he don’t!” gibed Battles fiercely.

But Lionel scarcely heard this taunt. A bitter struggle was tearing his manly, loving, loyal little heart – the claims of his old life and his own loneliness on the one side; the claims of Miss Lucy’s generosity and her loneliness upon the other. He didn’t need her, he thought; but she needed him. She needed him very much. It was his duty to be good to her; and, like many another child under similar circumstances, at that moment Towsley felt that the word “duty” was the most disagreeable one in the language. He took a second real good look at Miss Lucy still sitting, waiting, and this time he saw something in her face that made everything quite easy.

“She understands!” he thought, and then he nodded to her with a happy smile. A second later, with a hurried, “Wait a minute, fellows!” he had darted back into the breakfast-room and, now indifferent to the stares of his comrades, flung his arms about the lady’s neck, crying:

“It’s all right, dear Miss Armacost! I’m not a-going to run away with them. But I’ve just thought of something and I want it, I want it – oh! so much! It’s a little thing! But I want, I do want, before I give up the newspaper business to get just one ‘beat’ on th’ others. May I? May I just go down to the office, and before anybody else gets hold of it, get our ghost story in? It would make a whopper, it would! I’ll carry the boys away with me, and I won’t let on a bit, and I’ll come back surely. Just this once, may I? I never had a chance before?”

It struck even Towsley himself as an odd circumstance that he should ask this permission; he who had never before consulted anybody as to his goings or comings; or that he should wait so eagerly for her reply.

But Miss Lucy scarcely heard him. She was thinking of something else. The clasp of those young arms about her neck thrilled her with a joy unspeakable. With such an expression as it now wore, Towsley’s face seemed, indeed, that of the lost, innocent Lionel restored to life. She was ready and anxious to give him all he desired, even to the half of her kingdom; and she comprehended less of what he was just then saying, than what he had so greatly desired on the previous evening.

“Yes, my dear. You may. We will certainly hire the great stage, and give a ride to as many as it will hold. You shall tell me just what you want, and I will gratify you if it is possible.”

“Thank you – oh! thank you!” he cried, and dashed a kiss at her. At that moment, however, he was more loyal to his paper than generous to his friends, and he ran out hastily.

His mates beheld and construed this action after their own way.

“Pshaw! She’s give him the go-by. He ain’t no swell. Anybody could work the ’doption racket for just one night, he could. Let’s chase him. If she’s give him money, he must treat!” cried Battles contemptuously.

So, in a twinkling, the place was deserted, and Miss Lucy sat alone trying to understand just what had happened.

The silence about her was complete, and continued for a long time.

“What did he mean? Evidently not what I did, or had in mind,” pondered the perplexed mistress of the house on the Avenue; and, as if in answer to her unspoken question, again there fell upon the stillness that startling, inexplicable ringing of a bell.

“Oh oh! There is that uncanny sound again! What can cause it? I don’t wonder the servants are frightened. I am, myself; though I know, of course, there are no such things as ghosts. And yet – ”

As if in derision of her doubt, once more the bell pealed; this time both for long and violently.

CHAPTER VII.

THE END OF IT ALL

Breathless with haste and excitement, Towsley rushed into the editorial rooms of the Express office and sank into the nearest chair to recover himself.

For a moment the group of men in the place regarded him without recognition; then one reporter exclaimed:

“Why, it’s Tows! Little Towsley of ours!” and gayly extended his hand in greeting.

“Congratulations, young man!” cried another. “The hero of a snow-bank, an adoption, a rescue! The staff is proud to welcome you back!”

A third whipped out pencil and pad and demanded:

“The facts. Straight. First-hand notes keep the right color. Make another item for to-night.”

But the boy had regained his speech and held up a protesting hand.

“Don’t bother with that old stuff. The fellows said it had been in. Has it?”

“Yes.”

“Anybody else ’round – that don’t belong to us?” asked the newsboy cautiously, looking about the room for lurking strangers.

“Not a soul. What’s up?”

“Got a good one. A regular ghosty one. Up to the house where I’m livin’ now.”

“What’s that? Don’t swell so with pride, aristocrat!”

“Who’s a-swelling? If you don’t want it, never mind. I ain’t suffering to give it away. Don’t know as Miss Lucy’d like it, any way.”

It was rather late in the affair to think about that, however, and Towsley put the possibility out of mind; or, with the true spirit of newspaper enterprise, decided that private considerations should give precedence to the public good. Yet what possible good the mysterious ringing of an electric bell was to do the “public” it would be difficult to say.

“Come, you rising young journalist! Give it out. Wouldn’t go back on your own paper, would you?”

Whereupon, Towsley related his modern ghost story, with such embellishments as a very lively fancy could furnish; and the active reporter took it down verbatim. After which he tossed his “copy” to an office boy and put on his hat and top-coat.

“Come on, Tows. I’ll go up with you and see the thing for myself.”

“It’s just as I said,” remarked the lad, proudly.

“I’m not denying it. But if I can make two paragraphs go where one would do, you’re not the boy to hinder me, I suppose,” answered the other.

The cars had resumed their regular running, and the pair boarded one; but when they left it at the corner of the Avenue where Miss Lucy lived, the reporter looked about him and whistled.

“Well, I declare, boy! You’re in clover. I wouldn’t mind being adopted myself. See that you introduce me properly to the lady. Mention her name first, then present me. We want to do credit to our office, you see.”

Master Lionel Towsley had not before felt any personal proprietorship in the big mansion; but he now ran lightly up its marble steps with a new and delightful sense of returning to his home. To his touch upon the door-bell nobody responded, and after several such demands had failed to awake any response, the reason for it came to him.

“Maybe they’ve gone. Maybe they won’t answer it. I’ll run down to the basement entry and try that.”

So the reporter waited while the lad did so, and presently there came a sound of eager feet within the front hall, and the door was flung wide. It was Towsley, of course, and his face was flushed with excitement and indignation, as he exclaimed:

“Come right straight in. Quick’s you can. She’s had a terrible time, I guess, and they’ve done it!”

All that was clear to the reporter’s mind of this announcement was that he was desired to enter and follow his guide; which he did into the cheerful basement breakfast-room, where Miss Armacost still sat. She had not gone upstairs since first coming down that morning, and she was white and tremulous. The sight of her troubled face aroused not only all Towsley’s chivalry, but that of the reporter also. Instantly, he regretted that he had so promptly availed himself of the newsboy’s “ghost story,” and had thought more of furnishing “copy” than of a gentlewoman’s feelings.

“For she’s not the sort will like to have her private experiences made public gossip,” he reflected, ruefully. Also, that it was probably too late, even now, to remedy the evil of his haste. The best course left him was to apologize for his presence and offer his assistance in a case of need.

But, for once, Miss Lucy was too much disturbed to care about notoriety, and she eagerly accepted his offer of help.

“It’s very silly of me. I see and know it perfectly; but this inexplicable ringing has so infected my people that all, except Jefferson, have gone away. Each made a plausible errand, for the moment, yet each declared her intention of leaving for good and right away. As for Jefferson, he claims to be unusually busy at the stable, and only appears – even that very reluctantly – when I ring him up. I’m not much used to doing my own errands, but Lionel’s suggestion seems a good one. If I could get hold of an electrician, that dreadful bell might be made to keep still.”

“Well, madam, I am not much of an electrician, but I do understand a little about such matters. If you’ll allow me to examine your wires I may discover the difficulty. Meanwhile, if you wish, I’ll step to the nearest drug store and telephone our own man, who attends to the building in which we are.”

The color returned to Miss Lucy’s face and the courage to her voice.

“Oh! if you will be so good! It would be a great favor to me. My life runs so smoothly, in ordinary, that I find myself upset by the unusual circumstances of the last few days. The blizzard, Sir Christopher’s death, Lionel’s coming and terrible experience in the storm, and now this extraordinary ringing of my door-bell, which even the neighbors have heard and are inquiring about – altogether I – I am quite unstrung.”

Again the reporter thought regretfully of the item which would appear in that evening’s paper, and earnestly hoped she would not see it. He determined to caution Towsley to keep her from doing so, if possible; so he walked to the nearest drug store, rang up the electrician, returned to the house, and proceeded to do a little investigating on his own account.

Just then Molly arrived, for in her loneliness at the desertion of her “girls” Miss Lucy had sent Jefferson to ask her presence. She had come as soon as possible, which had not, however, been very promptly, because it was market morning for her mother, and a few of the to-be-expected accidents had befallen the twins.

“You see, Miss Armacost,” said Molly, in explanation, “I was just whisking down the kitchen to make all tidy for mother, and had put Ivanora on one side the table and Idelia on the other. I gave Idelia a bag of buttons to play with, and because Ivanora hadn’t eaten much breakfast I gave her a dish of molasses and some bread. I knew, of course, she’d mess herself, but I thought it would keep her contented. And it did!” she cried, going off into such a peal of laughter that the reporter had to join.

“What’d she do, Molly?” asked Lionel.

“Why, I happened to set her alongside of father’s chair. That has a feather cushion in it and I didn’t know there was a hole in its cover. But there was, and Ivanora found it. I would have known she’d do that if I’d suspected the hole. When I turned around to see if all was right – my sake! There was that precious child all stuck up with feathers till she looked like some big bird. The molasses on her hands had made them stick as tight as burrs. They were all over her curls, her face, her clothes – everything! Well! When I’d done laughing so I could, I took her straight to the bath-tub and put her in, clothes and all. It seemed the easiest way to keep other things clean. Of course, I had to dress her all over again; and when I got back to see to Idelia – she was in a state, too! She had her mouth full of buttons, and I don’t know how many she’d swallowed. I really don’t. She was tasting them to see if they were candy. There was a small cork in the bag, and I declare! if that child hadn’t put that up her nose! Such mischiefs! Over two years old, and ought to know better!

“So, that’s what kept me, Miss Armacost. I couldn’t leave things in such a fix for mother, so I stayed till I’d helped get everything right. Mother has so much to do, always.”

“I should think so, indeed. Your excuse is most reasonable and does you credit.”

The reporter had listened to the girl’s story, but hastened below stairs to examine the electric arrangements of the house. He could make no helpful discoveries, however, and presently returned to the breakfast-room and the company of the others.