Georgina of the Rainbows

Cousin James had reported that there was a fishing vessel in that morning with two enormous horse mackerel in the catch, which were to be cut up and salted at Railroad wharf. It was deliciously cool down on the wharf, with the breeze blowing off the water through the great packing shed, and the white sails scudding past the open doors like fans. With Mrs. Triplett busy with the affairs of the Bazaar, it would have been a wonderful opportunity for Georgina to have gone loitering along the pier, watching the summer people start off in motor boats or spread themselves lazily under flapping sails for a trip around the harbor.

But something of the grim spirit of their ancestors, typified by the monument looking down on them from the hill, nerved both Richard and Georgina one more time to answer to the stern call of Duty.

CHAPTER XVIII

FOUND OUT

"I DREAMED about that old pouch last night," said Richard in one of the intervals of rest which they allowed themselves.

"I dreamed that it belonged to a Chinese man with crooked, yellow finger-nails a foot long. He came and stood over my bed and said that because there was important news in that letter and we buried it, and kept it from going to where it ought to go, we had to be buried alive. And he picked me up like I was that nut and tossed me over his shoulder, and said, 'Brother, go find your brother.' And I began sinking down in the sand deeper and deeper until I began to smother."

Georgina made no answer. The dream did not impress her as being at all terrifying. She had swung her prism around her neck that morning when she dressed, and now while she rested she amused herself by flashing the bars of color across Captain Kidd. Richard resented her lack of interest.

"Well, it may not sound very bad out here in the daylight, but you ought to have had it. I yelled until Daddy shook me and told me I'd wake up the whole end of town with such a nightmare. If you'd have seen that old Chinaman's face like a dragon's, you'd understand why I feel that we've just got to find that pouch. It's going to get us into some kind of trouble, certain sure, if we don't."

Georgina rose to begin digging again. "It's lucky nobody ever comes this way to see all these holes," she began, but stopped with her shovel half lifted. A familiar voice from the circle of bushes at the top of the dune called down cheerily:

"Ship ahoy, mates. What port are you bound for now? Digging through to China?"

"It's Uncle Darcy!" they exclaimed in the same breath. He came plunging down the side of the dune before they could recover from their confusion. There was a pail of blueberries in each hand. He had been down the state road picking them, and was now on his way to the Gray Inn to sell them to the housekeeper. Leaving the pails in a level spot under the shade of a scrubby bush, he came on to where the children were standing, and eased himself stiffly down to a seat on the sand. It amused him to see their evident embarrassment, and his eyes twinkled as he inquired:

"What mischief are you up to now, digging all those gopher holes?"

Neither answered for a moment, then Georgina gulped and found her voice. "It's – it's a secret," she managed to say.

"Oh," he answered, growing instantly grave at the sound of that word. "Then I mustn't ask any questions. We must always keep our secrets. Sometimes it's a pity though, when one has to promise to do so. I hope yours isn't the burden to you that mine is to me."

This was the first time he had spoken to them of the promise they had made to him and Belle. With a look all around as if to make certain the coast was clear, he said:

"There's something I've been wanting to say to you children ever since that day you had the rifle, and now's as good a chance as any. I want you to know that I never would have promised what I did if it could have made any possible difference to Mother. But lately she seems all confused about Danny's trouble. She seems to have forgotten there was any trouble except that he went away from home. For months she's been looking for him to walk in most any day.

"Ever since I gave my word to Belle, I've been studying over the right and wrong of it. I felt I wasn't acting fair to Danny. But now it's clear in my mind that it was the right thing to do. I argue it this way. Danny cared so much about saving Emmett from disgrace and Belle from the pain of finding it out, that he was willing to give up his home and good name and everything. Now it wouldn't be fair to him to make that sacrifice in vain by telling while it can still be such a death-blow to Emmett's father and hurt Belle much as ever. She's gone on all these years fairly worshiping Emmett's memory for being such a hero."

Uncle Darcy stopped suddenly and seemed to be drawn far away from them as if he had gone inside of himself with his own thoughts and forgotten their presence. Georgina sat and fanned herself with her shade hat. Richard fumbled with the little compass, rolling it from one hand to the other, without giving any thought to what he was doing. Presently it rolled away from him and Captain Kidd darted after it, striking it with his forepaws as he landed on it, and thus rolling it still farther till it stopped at the old man's feet.

Recalled to his surroundings in this way, Uncle Darcy glanced at the object indifferently, but something strangely familiar in its appearance made him lean closer and give it another look. He picked it up, examining it eagerly. Then he stood up and gazed all around as if it had dropped from the sky and he expected to see the hand that had dropped it.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded huskily, in such a queer, breathless way that Richard thought his day of reckoning had come. His sin had found him out. He looked at Georgina helplessly.

"Yes, tell!" she exclaimed, answering his look.

"I – I – just played it was mine," he began. "'Cause the initials on it are the same as mine when we play pirate and I'm Dare-devil Dick. I was only going to keep it till we dug up the pouch again. We were keeping it to help find the pouch like Tom Sawyer did – "

It seemed to Richard that Uncle Darcy's hand, clutching his shoulder, was even more threatening than the Chinaman's of his nightmare, and his voice more imperative.

"Tell me! Where did you get it? That's my compass! I scratched those letters on that nut. 'D. D.' stands for Dan'l Darcy. I brought it home from my last voyage. 'Twas a good-luck nut they told me in the last port I sailed from. It was one of the first things Danny ever played with. There's the marks of his first little tooth under those letters. I gave it to him when he got old enough to claim it, for the letters were his, too. He always carried it in his pocket and he had it with him when he went away. For the love of heaven, child, tell me where you found it?"

The hand which clutched Richard's shoulder was shaking as violently as it had the day the old rifle gave up its secret, and Richard, feeling the same unnamable terror he had felt in his nightmare, could only stammer, "I – I don't know. Captain Kidd found it."

Then all three of them started violently, for a hearty voice just behind them called out unexpectedly:

"Hullo, what's all the excitement about?"

It was Captain James Milford, who had strolled down from the bungalow, his hat stuck jauntily on the back of his head, and his hands in his pockets. A few moments before he had been scanning the harbor through a long spy-glass, and happening to turn it towards the dunes had seen the two children digging diligently with shovel and hoe.

"Looks as if they'd started to honey-comb the whole Cape with holes," he thought. "Curious how many things kids of that age can think of. It might be well to step down and see what they're about."

He put up the spy-glass and started down, approaching them on one side as the Towncrier reached them on the other.

"Now for a yarn that'll make their eyes stand out," he thought with a smile as he saw the old man sit down on the sand.

"Wonder if it would sound as thrilling now as it did when I was Dick's age. I believe I'll just slip up and listen to one for old times' sake."

Uncle Darcy let go of Richard's shoulder and turned to the newcomer appealingly.

"Jimmy," he said with a choke in his voice. "Look at this! The first trace of my boy since he left me, and they can't tell me where they got it."

He held out the compass and Mr. Milford took it from his trembling fingers.

"Why, I remember this old trinket, Uncle Dan'l!" exclaimed Mr. Milford. "You let me carry it in my pocket one day when I was no bigger than Dicky, here, when you took me fishing with you. I thought it was responsible for my luck, for I made my first big catch that day. Got a mackerel that I bragged about all season."

Uncle Darcy seized the man's arm with the same desperate grip which had held the boy's.

"You don't seem to understand!" he exclaimed. "I'm trying to tell you that Danny is mixed up with this in some way. Either he's been near here or somebody else has who's seen him. He had this with him when he went away, I tell you. These children say they took it out of a pouch that the dog found. Help me, Jimmy. I can't seem to think – "

He sat weakly down on the sand again, his head in his hands, and Mr. Milford, deeply interested, turned to the children. His questions called out a confusing and involved account, told piecemeal by Georgina and Richard in turn.

"Hold on, now, let's get the straight of this," he interrupted, growing more bewildered as the story proceeded. "What was in the pouch besides the gold pieces, the other money and this compass?"

"A letter with a foreign stamp on it," answered Richard. "I noticed specially, because I have a stamp almost like it in my album."

On being closely cross-questioned he could not say positively to what country the stamp belonged. He thought it was Siam or China. Georgina recalled several names of towns partially scratched out on the back of the envelope, and the word Texas. She was sure of that and of "Mass." and of "Mrs. Henry – " something or other.

"But the inside of the letter," persisted Mr. Milford. "Didn't you try to read that?"

"Course not," said Georgina, her head indignantly high. "We only looked at each end of it to see if the person's name was on it, but it began, 'Dear friend,' and ended, 'Your grateful friend Dave.'"

"So the letter was addressed 'Mrs.,'" began Mr. Milford, musingly, "but was in a tobacco pouch. The first fact argues that a woman lost it, the last that it was a man."

"But it didn't smell of tobacco," volunteered Georgina. "It was nice and clean only where Captain Kidd chewed the string."

"I suppose it didn't have any smell at all," said Mr. Milford, not as if he expected anyone to remember, but that he happened to think of it. A slowly dawning recollection began to brighten in Georgina's eyes.

"But it did have a smell," she exclaimed. "I remember it perfectly well now. Don't you know, Richard, when you were untying it at the top of the steps I said 'Phew! that makes me think of the liniment I bought from the wild-cat woman last night,' I had to hold the bottle in my lap all the time we were at the moving picture show so I had a chance to get pretty well acquainted with that smell. And afterwards when we were wrapping the tin foil around the pouch, getting ready to bury it we both turned up our noses at the way it smelled. It seemed stronger when the sun shone on it."

"The wild-cat woman," repeated Mr. Milford, turning on Georgina. "Where was she? What did you have to do with her? Was the dog with you?"

Little by little they began to recall the evening, how they had started to the show with the Fayal family and turned aside to hear the patent medicine man sing, how Richard and Georgina had dared each other to touch the wild-cat's tail through the bars, and how Georgina in climbing down from the wheel had stumbled over Captain Kidd whom they thought safely shut up at home.

"I believe we've found a clue," said Mr. Milford at last. "If anybody in town had lost it there'd have been a notice put up in the post-office or the owner would have been around for you to cry it, Uncle Dan'l. But if it's the wild-cat woman's she probably did not discover her loss till she was well out of town, and maybe not until she reached her next stopping-place."

"There's been nothing of the sort posted on the bulletin board at the post-office," said the old man. "I always glance in at it every morning."

Mr. Milford looked at him thoughtfully as if considering something. Then he said slowly:

"Uncle Dan'l, just how much would it mean to you to find the owner of that pouch?"

"Why, Jimmy," was the tremulous answer, "if it led to any trace of my boy it would be the one great hope of my life realized."

"You are quite sure that you want to bring him back? That it would be best for all concerned?" he continued meaningly.

There was a silence, then the old man answered with dignity:

"I know what you're thinking of, and considering all that's gone before, I'm not blaming you, but I can tell you this, Jimmy Milford. If the town could know all that I know it'd be glad and proud to have my boy brought back to it."

He smote the fist of one hand into the palm of the other and looked about like something trapped, seeking escape.

"It isn't fair!" he exclaimed. "It isn't fair! Him worthy to hold up his head with the best of them, and me bound not to tell. But I've given my promise," he added, shaking his head slowly from side to side. "I s'pose it'll all work out for the best, somehow, in the Lord's own good time, but I can't seem to see the justice in it now."

He sat staring dejectedly ahead of him with dim, appealing eyes.

The younger man took a step forward and laid an arm across the bent shoulders.

"All right, Uncle Dan'l," he said heartily. "If there's anything under the sun I can do to help you I'm going to do it, beginning right now. Come on up to the house and I'll begin this Sherlock Holmes business by telephoning down the Cape to every town on it till we locate this wild-cat liniment wagon, and then we'll get after it as fast as the best automobile in Provincetown can take us."

CHAPTER XIX

TRACING THE LINIMENT WAGON

TO Wellfleet, to Orleans, to Chatham went the telephone call, to Harwichport and then back again to the little towns on the bay side of the Cape, for the wild-cat and its keepers did not follow a straight course in their meanderings. It was some time before Mr. Milford succeeded in locating them. At last he hung up the receiver announcing:

"They showed in Orleans last night all right, but it wasn't the road to Chatham they took out of there this morning. It was to Brewster. We can easily overtake them somewhere along in that direction and get back home before dark."

There was one ecstatic moment for Georgina when it was made clear to her that she was included in that "we"; that she was actually to have a share in an automobile chase like the ones that had thrilled her in the movies. But that moment was soon over.

"I hardly know what to do about leaving Mother," began Uncle Darcy in a troubled voice. "She's feeling uncommon poorly to-day – she's in bed and can't seem to remember anything longer than you're telling it. Mrs. Saggs came in to sit with her while I was out blueberrying, but she said she couldn't stay past ten o'clock. She has company coming."

"Couldn't you get some of the other neighbors to come in for the few hours you'd be away?" asked Mr. Milford. "It's important you should follow up this clue yourself."

"No, Mrs. Saggs is the only one who keeps Mother from fretting when I'm away from her. Her side window looks right into our front yard, and ordinarily it would be enough just for her to call across to her now and then, but it wouldn't do to-day, Mother not being as well as common. She'd forget where I was gone and I couldn't bear to have her lying there frightened and worried and not remembering why I had left her alone. She's like a child at times. You know how it is," he said, turning to Georgina. "Not flighty, but just needing to be soothed and talked to."

Georgina nodded. She knew, for on several occasions she had sat beside Aunt Elspeth when she was in such a mood, and had quieted and pleased her with little songs and simple rhymes. She knew she could do it again to-day as effectually as Mrs. Saggs, if it wasn't for giving up that exciting motor chase after the wild-cat woman. It seemed to her a greater sacrifice than flesh and blood should be called upon to make. She sat on the porch step, twirling her prism carelessly on its pink ribbon while she waited for the machine to be brought around. Then she climbed into the back seat with Uncle Darcy and the two pails of blueberries, while Richard settled himself and Captain Kidd in front with his Cousin James.

They whirled up to the Gray Inn to leave the blueberries, and then around down Bradford Street to Fishburn Court to attempt to explain to Aunt Elspeth. On the way they passed the Pilgrim monument. Georgina tried not to look at it, but she couldn't help glancing up at it from the corner of her eye.

"You must," it seemed to say to her.

"I won't," she as silently answered back.

"It's your duty," it reminded her, "and the idea of a descendant of one of the Pilgrim Fathers and one of the Minute-men shirking her duty. A pretty member of the Rainbow Club you are," it scoffed.

They whirled by the grim monster of a monument quickly, but Georgina felt impelled to turn and look back at it, her gaze following it up higher and higher, above the gargoyles, to the tipmost stones which seemed to touch the sky.

"I hate that word Duty," she said savagely to herself. "It's as big and ugly and as always-in-front-of-you as that old monument. They're exactly alike. You can't help seeing them no matter which way you look or how hard you try not to."

At the gate she tried to put the obnoxious word out of her mind by leaning luxuriously back in the car and looking up at the chimney tops while Uncle Darcy stepped out and went into the house. He came out again almost immediately, crossed the little front yard and put his head in at Mrs. Saggs' side window. After a short conversation with her he came out to the gate and stood irresolutely fingering the latch.

"I don't know what to do," he repeated, his voice even more troubled than before. "Mother's asleep now. Mrs. Saggs says she'll go over at twelve and take her her tea, but – I can't help feeling I ought not to leave her alone for so long. Couldn't you manage without me?"

And then, Georgina inwardly protesting, "I don't want to and I won't," found herself stepping out of the car, and heard her own voice saying sweetly:

"I'll stay with Aunt Elspeth, Uncle Darcy. I can keep her from fretting."

A smile of relief broke over the old man's face and he said heartily:

"Why, of course you can, honey. It never occurred to me to ask a little lass like you to stop and care for her, but you can do it better than anybody else, because Mother's so fond of you."

Neither had it occurred to him or to either of the others that it was a sacrifice for her to give up this ride. There was not a word from anyone about its being a noble thing for her to do. Mr. Milford, in a hurry to be off, merely nodded his satisfaction at having the matter arranged so quickly. Uncle Darcy stepped back to the window for a parting word with Mrs. Saggs.

"She'll keep an ear out for you, Georgina," he said as he went back to the car. "Just call her if you want her for any reason. There's plenty cooked in the cupboard for your dinner, and Mrs. Saggs will tend to Mother's tea when the time comes. When she wakes up and asks for me best not tell her I'm out of town. Just say I'll be back bye and bye, and humor her along that way."

And then they were off with a whirr and a clang that sent the chickens in the road scattering in every direction. Georgina was left standing by the gate thinking, "What made me do it? What made me do it? I don't want to stay one bit."

The odor of gasoline cleared away and the usual Sabbath-like stillness settled down over all the court. She walked slowly across the shady little grass plot to the front door, hesitated there a moment, then went into the cottage and took off her hat.

A glance into the dim bedroom beyond showed her Aunt Elspeth's white head lying motionless on her pillow. The sight of the quiet sleeper made her feel appallingly lonesome. It was like being all by herself in the house to be there with one who made no sound or movement. She would have to find something to do. It was only eleven o'clock. She tiptoed out into the kitchen.

The almanac had been left lying on the table. She looked slowly through it, and was rewarded by finding something of interest. On the last page was a column of riddles, and one of them was so good she started to memorize it so that she could propound it to Richard. She was sure he never could guess it. Finding it harder to remember than it seemed at first glance, she decided to copy it. She did not know where to look for a sheet of paper, but remembered several paper bags on the pantry shelves, so she went in search of one. Finding one with only a cupful of sugar left in it, she tore off the top and wrote the riddle on that with a stub of a pencil which she found on the table.

While searching for the bag she took an inventory of the supplies in the pantry from which she was to choose her dinner. When she had finished copying the riddle she went back to them. There were baked beans and blueberry pie, cold biscuit and a dish of honey.

"I'll get my dinner now," she decided, "then I'll be ready to sit with Aunt Elspeth when her tea comes."

As Georgina went back and forth from table to shelf it was in unconscious imitation of Mrs. Triplett's brisk manner. Pattering after that capable housekeeper on her busy rounds as persistently as Georgina had done all her life, had taught her to move in the same way. Presently she discovered that there was a fire laid in the little wood stove ready to light. The stove was so small in comparison to the big kitchen range at home, that it appealed to Georgina as a toy stove might have done. She stood looking at it thinking what fun it would be to cook something on it all by herself with no Tippy standing by to say do this or don't do the other.

"I think I ought to be allowed to have some fun to make up for my disappointment," she said to herself as the temptation grew stronger and stronger.

"I could cook me an egg. Tippy lets me beat them but she never lets me break them and I've always wanted to break one and let it go plunk into the pan."

She did not resist the temptation long. There was the sputter of a match, the puff of a flame, and the little stove was roaring away so effectively that one of old Jeremy's sayings rose to her lips. Jeremy had a proverb for everything.

"Little pot, soon hot," she said out loud, gleefully, and reached into the cupboard for the crock of bran in which the eggs were kept. Then Georgina's skill as an actor showed itself again, although she was not conscious of imitating anyone. In Tippy's best manner she wiped out the frying-pan, settled it in a hot place on the stove, dropped in a bit of butter.

With the assured air of one who has had long practice, she picked up an egg and gave it a sharp crack on the edge of the pan, expecting it to part evenly into halves and its contents to glide properly into the butter. It looked so alluringly simple and easy that she had always resented Tippy's saying she would make a mess of it if she tried to do it. But mess was the only name which could be given to what poured out on the top of the stove as her fingers went crashing through the shell and into the slimy feeling contents. The broken yolk dripped from her hands, and in the one instant she stood holding them out from her in disgust, all the rest of the egg which had gone sliding over the stove, cooked, scorched and turned to a cinder.

The smell and smoke of the burning egg rose to the ceiling and filled the room. Georgina sprang to close the door so that the odor would not rouse Aunt Elspeth, and then with carving knife and stove-lid lifter, she scraped the charred remains into the fire.