Kitabı oku: «Aunt Jane's Nieces out West», sayfa 5

CHAPTER IX
DOCTOR PATSY

Next morning Uncle John and the Weldons – including the precious baby – went for a ride into the mountains, while Beth and Patsy took their embroidery into a sunny corner of the hotel lobby.

It was nearly ten o'clock when A. Jones discovered the two girls and came tottering toward them. Tottering is the right word; he fairly swayed as he made his way to the secluded corner.

"I wish he'd use a cane," muttered Beth in an undertone. "I have the feeling that he's liable to bump his nose any minute."

Patsy drew up a chair for him, although he endeavored to prevent her.

"Are you feeling better this morning?" she inquired.

"I – I think so," he answered doubtfully. "I don't seem to get back my strength, you see."

"Were you stronger before your accident?" asked Beth.

"Yes, indeed. I went swimming, you remember. But perhaps I was not strong enough to do that. I – I'm very careful of myself, yet I seem to grow weaker all the time."

There was a brief silence, during which the girls plied their needles.

"Are you going to stay in this hotel?" demanded Patsy, in her blunt way.

"For a time, I think. It is very pleasant here," he said.

"Have you had breakfast?"

"I took a food-tablet at daybreak."

"Huh!" A scornful exclamation. Then she glanced at the open door of the dining-hall and laying aside her work she rose with a determined air and said:

"Come with me!"

"Where?"

For answer she assisted him to rise. Then she took his hand and marched him across the lobby to the dining room.

He seemed astonished at this proceeding but made no resistance. Seated at a small table she called a waitress and said:

"Bring a cup of chocolate, a soft-boiled egg and some toast."

"Pardon me, Miss Doyle," he said; "I thought you had breakfasted."

"So I have," she replied. "The breakfast I've ordered is for you, and you're going to eat it if I have to ram it down your throat."

"But – Miss Doyle!"

"You've told us you are doomed. Well, you're going to die with a full stomach."

"But the doctor – "

"Bother the doctor! I'm your doctor, now, and I won't send in a bill, thank your stars."

He looked at her with his sad little smile.

"Isn't this a rather high-handed proceeding, Miss Doyle?"

"Perhaps."

"I haven't employed you as my physician, you know."

"True. But you've deliberately put yourself in my power."

"How?"

"In the first place, you tagged us here to this hotel."

"You don't mind, do you?"

"Not in the least. It's a public hostelry. In the second place, you confided to us your disease and your treatment of it – which was really none of our business."

"I – I was wrong to do that. But you led me on and – I'm so lonely – and you all seemed so generous and sympathetic – that I – I – "

"That you unwittingly posted us concerning your real trouble. Do you realize what it is? You're a hypo – hypo – what do they call it? – hypochondriac!"

"I am not!"

"And your doctor – your famous specialist – is a fool."

"Oh, Miss Doyle!"

"Also you are a – a chump, to follow his fool advice. You don't need sympathy, Mr. A. Jones. What you need is a slapstick."

"A – a – "

"A slapstick. And that's what you're going to get if you don't obey orders."

Here the maid set down the breakfast, ranging the dishes invitingly before the invalid. His face had expressed all the emotions from amazement to terror during Patsy's tirade and now he gazed from her firm, determined features to the eggs and toast, in an uncertain, helpless way that caused the girl a severe effort to curb a burst of laughter.

"Now, then," she said, "get busy. I'll fix your egg. Do you want more sugar in your chocolate? Taste it and see. And if you don't butter that toast before it gets cold it won't be fit to eat."

He looked at her steadily now, again smiling.

"You're not joking, Miss Doyle?"

"I'm in dead earnest."

"Of course you realize this is the – the end?"

"Of your foolishness? I hope so. You used to eat like a sensible boy, didn't you?"

"When I was well."

"You're well now. Your only need is sustaining, strengthening food. I came near ordering you a beefsteak, but I'll reserve that for lunch."

He sipped the chocolate.

"Yes; it needs more sugar," he said quietly. "Will you please butter my toast? It seems to me such a breakfast is worth months of suffering. How delicious this egg is! It was the fragrance of the egg and toast that conquered me. That, and – "

"And one sensible, determined girl. Don't look at me as if I were a murderess! I'm your best friend – a friend in need. And don't choke down your food. Eat slowly. Fletcherize – chew your food, you know. I know you're nearly famished, but you must gradually accustom yourself to a proper diet."

He obeyed meekly. Patsy's face was calm, but her heart beat fast, with a thrill of fear she could not repress. Acting on impulse, as she had, the girl now began to consider that she was personally responsible for whatever result might follow this radical treatment for dyspepsia. Had she been positive it was dyspepsia, she would never have dared interfere with a doctor's orders; but she felt that the boy needed food and would die unless he had it. He might die from the effect of this unusual repast, in which case she would never forgive herself.

Meantime, the boy had cast aside all fear. He had protested, indeed, but his protests being overruled he accepted his food and its possible consequences with philosophic resignation and a growing satisfaction.

Patsy balked on the third slice of toast and took it away from him. She also denied him a second cup of chocolate. He leaned back in his chair with a sigh of content and said:

"Bless the hen that laid that egg! No dainty was ever more delicious. And now," he added, rising, "let us go and inquire the address of a good undertaker. I have made my will, and I'd like to be cremated – it's so much nicer than the old-fashioned burial, don't you think?"

"I'll attend to all that, if you wish," she replied, trying to repress a shudder as she followed him from the room. "Do you smoke?"

"I used to, but the doctor forbade it; so I gave it up entirely."

"Go over to that stand and buy a cigar. Then you may sit beside Beth and me and smoke it."

The girl did not wholly approve of smoking and had often chided Uncle John and her father and Arthur Weldon for indulging in the habit; but this advice to young Jones was given in desperation, because all the men of her family stoutly affirmed that a cigar after a meal assisted digestion. She resumed her former seat beside Beth, and her cousin quickly read the anxiety on her face.

"What did you do, Patricia?"

"I fed him."

"Did he really eat?"

"Like a starved cat."

"Hm-m-m," said Beth. "What next, I wonder?"

Patsy wondered, too, the cold shivers chasing one another up and down her back. The boy was coming toward them, coolly puffing a cigar. He did not seem to totter quite so much as before, but he was glad to sink into an easy chair.

"How do you feel?" asked Beth, regarding him curiously.

"Like one of those criminals who are pampered with all the good things of life before being led to the scaffold."

"Any pains?"

He shook his head.

"Not yet. I've asked the clerk, whenever I signal him, to send someone to carry me to my room. If I'm not able to say good-bye to you, please accept now my thanks for all your kindness to a stranger. You see, I'm not sure whether I'll have a sudden seizure or the pains will come on gradually."

"What pains?" demanded Patsy.

"I can't explain them. Don't you believe something is bound to happen?" he inquired, nervously removing the ash from his cigar.

"To be sure. You're going to get well."

He made no reply, but sat watching Beth's nimble fingers. Patsy was too excited to resume her embroidery.

"I wonder if you are old enough to smoke?" remarked Beth.

"I'm over twenty-one."

"Indeed! We decided you were about eighteen."

"I suppose I look younger than my age. At home, in Sangoa, I am still regarded as a mere child. That is because I had no brothers and sisters, and my father never could realize that I was growing up. The people still call me – "

He paused, in an embarrassed way, till Patsy asked:

"Call you what?"

"By my old childish name."

Both the girls were distinctly disappointed. But bluff Patsy Doyle would not be denied the satisfaction of her curiosity. Within the last hour she had felt as if she had adopted this friendless boy, and some information concerning him was her due.

"Your name is A. Jones?" she aid.

"Yes."

"What does the 'A' stand for?"

There! The question was out, at last. He hesitated, flushing read. Then he replied slowly:

"It stands for one of my father's peculiarities. I think I have told you how proud he was that we are direct descendants of John Paul Jones. 'John Paul,'" he would often say, 'has ennobled the name of Jones, so that to be a Jones is to bear the proudest name known to mankind.' When I was born they were undecided what to name me. 'There is no hurry about it,' said my father; 'whatever we call him, he is a Jones.' My mother must have been something of a humorist. She kept referring to her baby as 'a Jones' until father caught the absurd idea of letting it go at that, and had me christened merely 'A. Jones.'"

"How delightful?" cried Patsy, clapping her hands gleefully. "Then 'A' doesn't stand for anything at all?"

"Oh, yes; it stands for a Jones," said the boy, making a wry face. "I think it is dreadful."

"But what did they call you, afterward? What was the childish name you referred to?"

"Another of my mother's humorous fancies. She called me 'Ajo,' and others quickly caught up the horrid nickname. It is merely a contraction of A. Jones, and in Sangoa I am called nothing else."

"Ajo," repeated Beth, her sweet voice giving the title a pleasant sound.

"In Spanish it would be pronounced 'Ah-ho.'"

"But we are not Spanish in Sangoa."

"What are your people?"

"Formerly all Americans. The younger generation are, like myself I suppose, Sangoans by birth. But there isn't a black or yellow or brown man on our island."

"How many inhabitants has Sangoa?"

"About six hundred, all told."

There was silence for a while.

"Any pains yet?" inquired Beth.

"Not yet. But I'm feeling drowsy. With your permission I'll lie down and take a nap. I slept very little last night."

He threw away his cigar, which he had smoked nearly to the end, and rising without assistance, bowed and walked away.

"Will he ever waken, I wonder?" said Beth softly.

"Of course," declared Patsy. "He has crossed the Rubicon and is going to get well. I feel it in my bones!"

"Let us hope," responded Beth, "that Ajo also feels it in his bones, rather than in his stomach."

CHAPTER X
STILL A MYSTERY

The day advanced to luncheon time and Uncle John and the Weldons came back from their mountain trip. Hollywood is in the foothills and over the passes are superb automobile roads into the fruitful valleys of San Fernando and La Canada.

"Seen anything of the boy – A. Jones?" inquired Arthur.

"Yes; and perhaps we've seen the last of him," answered Beth.

"Oh. Has he gone?"

"No one knows. Patsy fed him and he went to sleep. What has happened since we cannot tell."

The girls then related the experiences of the morning, at which both Uncle John and Arthur looked solemn and uncomfortable. But Louise said calmly:

"I think Patsy was quite right. I wouldn't have dared such a thing myself, but I'm sure that boy needed a square meal more than anything. If he dies, that breakfast has merely hastened his end; but if he doesn't die it will do him good."

"There's another possibility," remarked Uncle John. "He may be suffering agonies with no one to help him."

Patsy's face was white as chalk. The last hour or two had brought her considerable anxiety and her uncle's horrible suggestion quite unnerved her. She stole away to the office and inquired the number of Mr. Jones' room. It was on the ground floor and easily reached by a passage. The girl tiptoed up to the door and putting her ear to the panel listened intently. A moment later a smile broke over her face; she chuckled delightedly and then turned and ran buck to her friends.

"He's snoring like a walrus!" she cried triumphantly.

"Are you sure they are not groans?" asked Arthur.

"Pah! Can't I recognize a snore when I hear it? And I'll bet it's the first sound sleep he's had in a month."

Mr. Merrick and Arthur went to the door of the boy's room to satisfy themselves that Patsy was not mistaken, and the regularity of the sounds quickly convinced them the girl was right. So they had a merry party at luncheon, calling Patsy "Doctor" with grave deference and telling her she had probably saved the life of A. Jones for a second time.

"And now," proposed Uncle John, when the repast was over, "let us drive down to the sea and have a look at that beautiful launch that came in yesterday. Everyone is talking about it and they say it belongs to some foreign prince."

So they motored to Santa Monica and spent the afternoon on the sands, watching the bathers and admiring the graceful outlines of the big yacht lying at anchor a half mile from the shore. The boat was something of a mystery to everybody. It was named the "Arabella" and had come from Hawaii via San Francisco; but what it was doing here and who the owner might be were questions no one seemed able to answer. Rumor had it that a Japanese prince had come in it to inspect the coast line, but newspaper reporters were forbidden to scale the side and no satisfaction was given their eager questioning by the bluff old captain who commanded the craft. So the girls snapped a few kodak pictures of the handsome yacht and then lost interest in it.

That evening they met Mrs. Montrose and the Stanton girls at dinner and told them about the boy, who still remained invisible. Uncle John had listened at his door again, but the snores had ceased and a deathlike silence seemed to pervade the apartment. This rendered them all a trifle uneasy and when they left the dining room Arthur went to the hotel clerk and asked:

"Have you seen Mr. Jones this evening?"

"No," was the reply. "Do you know him?"

"Very slightly."

"Well, he's the queerest guest we've ever had. The first day he ate nothing at all. This morning I hear he had a late breakfast. Wasn't around to lunch, but a little while ago we sent a meal to his room that would surprise you."

"Indeed!"

"Yes. A strange order it was! Broiled mushrooms, pancakes with maple syrup and ice cream. How is that for a mix-up – and at dinner time, too!" said the clerk, disgustedly.

Arthur went back and reported.

"All right," said Patsy, much relieved. "We've got him started and now he can take care of himself. Come, Uncle; let's all go down town and see the picture that drove Mr. Goldstein crazy."

"He was very decent to us to-day," asserted Flo Stanton.

"Did he ask any explanation about Maud's appearing in the picture of a rival company?" inquired Arthur.

"No, not a word."

"Did he mention Mr. Jones, who conquered him so mysteriously?" asked Beth.

"Not at all. Goldstein confined himself strictly to business; but he treated us with unusual courtesy," explained Maud.

They were curious to see the films of the rescue, and the entire party rode to the down-town theatre where the Corona picture was being run. Outside the entrance they found the audacious placard, worded just as Goldstein had reported, and they all agreed it was a mean trick to claim another firm's star as their own.

"I do not think the Corona Company is responsible for this announcement," said Uncle John. "It is probably an idea of the theatre proprietor, who hoped to attract big business in that way."

"He has succeeded," grumbled Arthur, as he took his place at the end of a long line of ticket buyers.

The picture, as it flashed on the screen, positively thrilled them. First was shown the crowd of merry bathers, with Patsy and Maud standing in the water a little apart from the others. Then the boy – far out beyond the rest – threw up his arms, struggling desperately. Maud swam swiftly toward him, Patsy making for the shore. The launching of the boat, the race to rescue, Maud's effort to keep the drowning one afloat, and the return to the shore, where an excited crowd surrounded them – all was clearly shown in the picture. Now they had the advantage of observing the expressions on the faces of the bathers when they discovered a tragedy was being enacted in their midst. The photographs were so full of action that the participants now looked upon their adventure in a new light and regarded it far more seriously than before.

The picture concluded with the scene where Uncle John lifted the body into the automobile and dashed away with it to the hospital.

Maud Stanton, used as she was to seeing herself in motion pictures, was even more impressed than the others when observing her own actions at a time when she was wholly unconscious that a camera-man had his lens focused upon her.

"It's a great picture!" whispered Flo, as they made their way out of the crowded theatre. "Why can't all our films be as natural and absorbing as this one?"

"Because," said her sister, "in this case there is no acting. The picture carries conviction with a force that no carefully rehearsed scene could ever accomplish."

"That is true," agreed her Aunt Jane. "The nature scenes are the best, after all."

"The most unsatisfactory pictures I have ever seen," remarked Uncle John, "were those of prominent men, and foreign kings, and the like, who stop before the camera and bow as awkwardly as a camel. They know they are posing, and in spite of their public experience they're as bashful as schoolboys or as arrogant as policemen, according to their personal characteristics."

"Did you notice the mob of children in that theatre?" asked Patsy, as they proceeded homeward. "I wish there were more pictures made that are suitable to their understandings."

"They enjoy anything in the way of a picture," said Arthur. "It isn't necessary to cater to children; they'll go anyhow, whatever is shown."

"That may be, to an extent, true," said Beth. "Children are fascinated by any sort of motion pictures, but a lot of them must be wholly incomprehensible to the child mind. I agree with Patsy that the little ones ought to have their own theatres and their own pictures."

"That will come, in time," prophesied Aunt Jane. "Already the film makers are recognizing the value of the children's patronage and are trying to find subjects that especially appeal to them."

They reached the hotel soon after ten o'clock and found "Ajo" seated in the lobby. He appeared much brighter and stronger than the day before and rose to greet Patsy with a smile that had lost much of its former sad expression.

"Congratulate me, Dr. Doyle," said he. "I'm still alive, and – thanks to your prescription – going as well as could be expected."

"I'm glad I did the right thing," she replied; "but we were all a little worried for fear I'd make a mistake."

"I have just thrown away about a thousand of those food-tablets," he informed her with an air of pride. "I am positive there is no substitute for real food, whatever the specialists may say. In fact," he continued more soberly, "I believe you have rescued me a second time from certain death, for now I have acquired a new hope and have made up my mind to get well."

"Be careful not to overdo it," cautioned Uncle John. "You ordered a queer supper, we hear."

"But it seemed to agree with me. I've had a delightful sleep – the first sound sleep in a month – and already I feel like a new man. I waited up to tell you this, hoping you would be interested."

"We are!" exclaimed Patsy, who felt both pride and pleasure. "This evening we have been to see the motion picture of your rescue from drowning."

"Oh. How did you like it?"

"It's a splendid picture. I'm not sure it will interest others as much as ourselves, yet the people present seemed to like it."

"Well it was their last chance to observe my desperate peril and my heroic rescue," said the boy. "The picture will not be shown after to-night."

"Why not?" they asked, in surprise.

"I bought the thing this afternoon. It didn't seem to me quite modest to exploit our little adventure in public."

This was a new phase of the strange boy's character and the girls did not know whether to approve it or not.

"It must have cost you something!" remarked Flo, the irrepressible.

"Besides, how could you do it while you were asleep?"

"Why, I wakened long enough to use the telephone," he replied with a smile. "There are more wonderful inventions in the world than motion pictures, you know."

"But you like motion pictures, don't you?" asked Maud, wondering why he had suppressed the film in question.

"Very much. In fact, I am more interested in them than in anything else, not excepting the telephone – which makes Aladdin's lamp look like a firefly in the sunshine."

"I suppose," said Flo, staring into his face with curious interest, "that you will introduce motion pictures into your island of Sangoa, when you return?"

"I suppose so," he answered, a little absently. "I had not considered that seriously, as yet, but my people would appreciate such a treat, I'm sure."

This speech seemed to destroy, in a manner, their shrewd conjecture that he was in America to purchase large quantities of films. Why, then, should Goldstein have paid such abject deference to this unknown islander?

In his own room, after the party had separated for the night, Mr. Merrick remarked to Arthur Weldon as they sat smoking their cigars:

"Young Jones is evidently possessed of some means."

"So it seems," replied Arthur. "Perhaps his father, the scientific recluse, had accumulated some money, and the boy came to America to get rid of it. He will be extravagant and wasteful for awhile, and then go back to his island with the idea that he has seen the world."

Uncle John nodded.

"He is a rather clean-cut young fellow," said he, "and the chances are he won't become dissipated, even though he loses his money through lack of worldly knowledge or business experience. A boy brought up and educated on an island can't be expected to prove very shrewd, and whatever the extent of his fortune it is liable to melt like snow in the sunshine."

"After all," returned Arthur, "this experience won't hurt him. He will still have his island to return to."

They smoked for a time in silence.

"Has it ever occurred to you, sir," said Arthur, "that the story Jones has related to us, meager though it is, bears somewhat the stamp of a fairy tale?"

Uncle John removed his cigar and looked reflectively at the ash.

"You mean that the boy is not what he seems?"

"Scarcely that, sir. He seems like a good boy, in the main. But his story is – such as one might invent if he were loath to tell the truth."

Uncle John struck a match and relit his cigar.

"I believe in A. Jones, and I see no reason to doubt his story," he asserted. "If real life was not full of romance and surprises, the novelists would be unable to interest us in their books."