Kitabı oku: «Glory and the Other Girl», sayfa 4

Chapter IV

Two things prevented the immediate divulging of Glory's plan. She chafed at them both impatiently. On the way to the train the next morning Judy Wells waylaid her. That was one.

“I'm going, too,” Judy announced cheerfully. “Of course you're delighted – I knew you would be! You see, I was taken violently homesick for the old Seminary, so I thought I'd run along with you and spend the day. I tried to work up a little enthusiasm in the other girls, but it was no use.”

At any other time Glory would have been delighted enough at Judy's lively company, but to-day she wanted to propose her new plan to the Other Girl in the threadbare clothes. Judy would be dreadfully in her way about doing that. She would have to put it off a day. Glory never liked to put things off.

The other thing that interfered was the tiny boy she found sitting beside the Other Girl when she got on the train. He was almost too small to interfere with anything! Such a bit of a creature, in trousers almost too short to deserve the name! And beside him was tilted a tiny crutch that instantly suggested Tiny Tim to Dickens-loving Glory. Then she remembered that the Other Girl had spoken of a “Tiny Tim” the day before. So the Other Girl must have read Dickens, too.

“Here's a good seat,” Judy said, dropping into the one just ahead of the two shabby figures.

Glory nodded cordially as she passed them, but how could she do any more? She could not introduce Judy when she didn't know the Other Girl's name herself! And, besides – well, Judy was not the – the kind to introduce to her. Instinctively Glory recognized that.

In between Judy's gay chatter, bits of child-talk crept to Glory's ears from behind, with now and then a quiet word from the Other Girl. She found herself listening to that with distinctly more interest than to Judy.

“No let's play it, Di,” the child-voice piped eagerly, and there was a little clatter of the tiny crutch as it was tucked away out of sight under the seat.

“Can't see it now, can you?”

“Not a splinter of it, Timmie.”

“I guess not! An' you wouldn't ever s'pose anybody was lame, would you? Not me!”

“You! The idea, Timmie!”

The child-voice broke into delighted laughter.

“Well, then let's begin. Play I'm very big, Di – oh, 'normous! You playin' that? An' play both my legs are twins – of course you must play that. An' that I could run down this car if I wanted to, faster'n – oh, faster'n ever was! Just lickety-split, you know! You playin' it?”

Glory could not hear the low reply, but the child-voice was clear enough.

“Now s'posin' that man 'cross the car got up an' came back here – play he did – an' said up real loud, ‘See here, boy, you 'mind me of when I was young. I was big an' straight an' had twin legs, too!’ Oh, my! s'posin' that, Di! Play it! You playin' it?”

The Other Girl's voice rang out, sharp with wistfulness.

Glory's eyes filled suddenly with tears. It must be such a hard play to play with Tiny Tim!

“Play I wear ve-ry big boots an' my mother has a dreadful time keepin' my pants up with my legs. ‘Oh, how that boy does grow!’ she keeps a-sighin' an' a-sighin', while she's lettin' 'em down. Play once she cried, he grew so fast! – Diantha Leavitt, you're lookin' right straight out the window! I don't believe you're playin' at all, one speck. I'm goin' to get my crutch an' be lame again, so there!”

“Mercy! what are we sitting here in the sun for!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “I say we go over there on the shady side. It'll burn us all up.”

“Let it,” said Glory. “I like it. But go over there, dear. I'll stay here and get a nice pinky-brown! Good-by till Centre Town.”

She was glad when Judy was gone. In an instant she had wheeled about toward the two behind her, nodding at the tiny boy in a friendly way.

“Is that your little brother?” she asked of the Other Girl.

Tiny Tim answered for himself.

“I'm her little brother now, but I was big a little speck of a while ago. Di went an' stopped playin',” he said in an aggrieved tone. The Other Girl laughed tenderly.

“He's the greatest boy for ‘playin' things,’ aren't you, Timmie? Yes, he's my brother. I bring him with me once in a great while for a change. He likes the ride on the cars and he takes care of himself beautifully while I'm at work. Then at nooning we play picnic, don't we, Timmie?”

There was no time for further talk then.

When the return trip came, Judy filled all the home ride with her lively spirits. So it was not until the next morning that Glory found her opportunity to broach her new idea to the Other Girl. She came breezily into the car and sat down beside the quiet figure with a sigh of relief.

“I'm glad my friend Judy isn't homesick for the Seminary to-day, as she was yesterday,” she laughed. “And I'm a little glad you didn't bring your brother. You see, there's something I want to talk about, and, if you don't mind, I'll begin this minute.”

Mind! – the Other Girl mind how soon this dainty, beautiful girl “began”! She stole an admiring look at the natty costume and upward into the bright, sweet face. But what was this that her companion was saying? A gasp of astonishment came to her as she sensed the words that were being spoken rapidly.

“I thought it all out in bed, night before last. Oh, I hope you'll like it! I think it's a lovely plan. You see, we'll have two three-quarters – an hour and a half a day. We can study together going down, and coming back I'll tell you all I learned in my classes – don't you see? You don't speak. I'm afraid you don't like it.”

“Like it? – oh, if it's what I think! If it's —that! But I'm afraid I don't quite understand. I don't dare to understand!”

Glory clapped her hands gayly.

“It's plain as a b c,” she said. “You long to go to school and can't – I don't long to and can! Now here's my idea that I evolved with my thinking-cap – I mean night-cap – on! Let's go to school together. We can pore over the horrid old books on the train, mornings and nights, and I can try and remember all the teachers tell me at the Seminary during the day. Aunt Hope will be overjoyed to have me try to remember anything! And, don't you see, anybody who worships history and can't let a Latin book alone, could keep up easy enough with a dull thing like me.”

Glory paused for breath. She was still laughing with her eyes. But at sight of the radiance in the lean, brown face of the Other Girl, she sobered in sudden awe. To be as glad as that for a chance to learn!

“You understand all right now, don't you?” Glory said gently, and her gloved fingers stole across to the Other Girl's uncovered ones and rested on them reassuringly.

“Yes, now I dare to – but oh, it takes my breath away!” the Other Girl cried. “It's such a beautiful, beautiful thing for you to do! Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I won't do my very best? Why, I can study in the rubber factory, too! I mean I can carry the geometry propositions in my head – I know I should remember every line and every letter – and work them out noontimes and in all the betweens.”

“You needn't do that,” Glory said, “you could copy the lesson off on a piece of paper – no, I'll tell you! I'll get Judy's books for you. Oh, there are plenty of ways to manage. Now let's begin. There's time left to make a start, anyway.”

“Wait,” the Other Girl said quickly, “I hate to waste a minute, but I've got to say something. I want you to know what it may mean if you do this for me. It may mean luxuries for my sick mother and – a chance for my little ‘Tiny Tim.’ Do you know, my teachers said if I could only keep on I might get a place to teach. Think of it! Do you know, some doctors told mother once that there was a little chance of straightening Timmie's bad leg, if we had the money. Oh, do you know this may mean things like that! Do you think I'm not thankful to you?”

The impetuous words flowed out in a hurried stream, and the eyes of the Other Girl, as they looked into Glory's, shone through a dazzle of happy tears. For a moment after the eager voice ceased neither girl made a sound. Then it was Glory who spoke.

“Why!” she cried with a long breath, “Why, I didn't know it could mean anything like that! I thought it would just mean getting a little learning. I didn't know there were things like that at the other end of it.”

Glory had lived a little less than sixteen years, but they had been “different” from the years the Other Girl had lived. Aunt Hope had been all the suffering she had ever seen – Aunt Hope, smiling and brave, on her silken pillows. Until that sad little story the other night, she had scarcely connected anything sorrowful or hard to bear with Aunt Hope.

The beautiful autumn weeks multiplied to months, and Glory's plan prospered thriftily. The lessons went on steadily through the morning and afternoon rides. The Other Girl's face was set toward a possible, splendid time to come; Glory's was set toward patience and gentleness. For it was not always easy to give up the hour and a half each day to the distasteful work that she so cordially hated. At first, I mean; strangely enough, after a while things changed. Glory woke up one day to find herself keenly interested in a knotty problem. She could hardly wait to get her head beside the Other Girl's, to see if together they could not solve it.

“Think of it, auntie! Is it me, or am I somebody else?” she laughed, hurrying in to kiss Aunt Hope good-by. “Think of me in a hurry to get an answer to a problem!”

“Yes, it's you, dear. It's Glory Glorified!” laughed back the sweet voice. Then she drew the girl's bright head down beside her. “It's gone, dear. The Ambition out of my heart. It's passed to somebody else – to you, I think, Glory – yes, I'm confident! You've got it this minute!”

And Glory understood. She went away wondering if it could be true that she, Gloria Wetherell, had a real ambition in life.

“Auntie hasn't called me Disappointment for a long time,” she mused happily, as she sped down the frosty street with the nip of keen air on her cheeks and the tonic of it in her lungs. Her mind hurried back to the knotty problem. She and the Other Girl were still at work on it that night, coming home. It happened that it had not been taken up in the recitation that day.

“It looks so easy and it isn't,” sighed Glory.

“But we're bound to solve it,” the Other Girl cried. The two heads were close together, and the Crosspatch Conductor smiled as he passed them. He had been watching them with a good deal of interest for a long time. This time he turned and came back.

“Tough one, eh?” he said.

“Awfully!” laughed Glory.

“But we're going to get it,” smiled the Other Girl, going back to the front. The Crosspatch Conductor stood regarding Glory gravely.

“Helping her along, eh?”

“No,” answered Glory, “she's helping me.”

Another wrestle with the problem, and still another – then an exciting moment when victory seemed in sight. Closer drew the brown heads – more earnest grew the eager voices. “We've got it!”

“Goody!” cried Glory. “Just in time, too, for here we are at – ”

Her face sobered. She got to her feet in a sudden panic. What was this strange little place they were drawing into? Those woods, the houses and the trees – they were not Little Douglas.

“I've been carried by!” gasped Glory. “I wasn't noticing. There isn't any other train back to-night – I tell you I've been carried by. This isn't my home!”