Blue Robin, the Girl Pioneer Part 25

"Oh, no," returned shocked Nathalie. "Why, I think you are lovely, even if you are-" But the word was left unsaid, as Nathalie, with sudden impulse, stooped forward and kissed the red lips.

Before she could raise herself, frightened at her own boldness, two arms were flung around her neck and Nathalie was squeezed so hard that she thought she would smother. "Oh, I just love you!" said Nita's stifled voice from her shoulder, "and I'm going to keep you with me all the time. Oh, Mother," she wailed beseechingly, lifting her head, but still keeping Nathalie a prisoner, "won't you buy her?"

"Buy her!" repeated her mother, who during this affectionate outburst had stood silently by, a pleased smile struggling with an expression of dismay at the girl's rudeness. "Why, Nita, she is not a horse to be bought and sold."

"Well, I wish she was then," said the child, for she was but that, dropping her arms from Nathalie's neck and lying back with sudden exhaustion.

"Oh, she is going to faint," cried dismayed Nathalie, while the mother rushed to the dresser for the smelling salts. But when she attempted to hold the bottle to Nita's nose, she pushed her mother's hand away crying, "Take that horrid thing away, and get out of the room; I want Nathalie to myself!"

And the Mystic, the woman always shrouded in gray, who looked at her neighbors with a cold, formal stare of aversion, meekly obeyed. She went softly out of the room and closed the door after her in obedience to her daughter's sharp cry, "Do you hear? Shut the door!"

Something within Nathalie burst its bounds, she could not sit there another minute and hear the girl talk like that to her mother. "Oh, don't speak to your mother like that, she is so good to you!" the girl's voice trembled.

"How do you know she is good?" retorted Nita, after a short pause of surprise at this merited rebuke.

"Why-why-because her face shows it," stammered Nathalie, "and then, why she is your mother, and if I should talk to my mother like that, why-I should expect her to die then and there."

"Why?" persisted the voice.

"Because it would hurt her so,-" Nathalie labored, she hated to preach-"to think I could be so disrespectful to her, and ill-bred."

"Well, your mother isn't my mother; your mother didn't shut you up in a dark room so that you tried to get away."

"Nita!" came in a pain-stricken voice, "don't talk that way!"

Nathalie turned to see Mrs. Van Vorst standing in the doorway, her face drawn and lined. "I was coming in to ask-oh, Miss Page, will you come in here a moment? I should like to speak to you."

Nathalie arose quickly, her heart overflowing with pity for this poor mother who was only too surely paying the penalty of neglect and anger.

"Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst," she cried hastily, "do not mind your daughter, she doesn't mean to hurt you, she-I think she is just spoiled, you know."

By this time Nathalie had followed Mrs. Van Vorst into the adjoining room, a sun-parlor, whose gla.s.s windows looked down upon a terraced garden, green with trees and gorgeous with multicolored flowers, surrounded by low rolling hillocks or mounds.

Nita, as Nathalie left the room, began to vent her displeasure in shrill, angry shrieks, but her mother, with set, rigid lips, closed the door softly, and then turning towards Nathalie began to speak, brokenly, between deep-drawn breaths.

"Oh, I have been foolish-I am afraid-in letting you come to see Nita, but oh, it is so hard for her, shut up in this house, with only me and the servants. So when the doctor was telling us about you, Nita pleaded so to have you come, and I foolishly yielded. But oh, Miss Page, do not, I beg of you, repeat what you have seen or heard, don't mind what Nita says about me, it is not true; as you said she does not mean all she says." The tears were rolling down Mrs. Van Vorst's face.

"Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst," exclaimed Nathalie, tears misting in her eyes in sympathy with the lady's grief, "I know how you feel, but it is all right. I think you are both lovely, I am sure I have nothing to tell; of course, I know that your daughter does not mean what she says, she's just spoiled." A sudden thought came to the girl. "Don't you think if you were to let her see people-that is girls of her own age-that she would be better? Oh, I am sure she would," broke from the girl impetuously, "and it would make her so happy!"

"Do you really think so?" inquired Mrs. Van Vorst with a note of hope in her voice. "Would it not hurt her when people said rude things about her?"

"But no one would say rude things about her," persisted Nathalie determinedly. "Every one would love her-she's a dear, so sweet-looking-and then she would soon get over her spoiled ways; she would learn by seeing that other girls act differently." Nathalie felt that she had spoken incoherently, but oh, it did seem such a shame!

"I don't know about that," replied Mrs. Van Vorst, her face hardening again to the same impenetrable mask that had puzzled Nathalie the first time she met her. "Well, we will not discuss it now-we'll see how things turn out-only, Miss Page," she grew stiff and formal, although a note in her voice betrayed that she was battling with her emotion, "I should like to ask you again to keep silent a little longer, not to tell-how foolish I was-" she broke off suddenly, and then she added, "of course, you have a right to tell; but let me explain that what Nita says is not true, she likes to tease me into getting her way. Sit down-oh-she has fallen asleep." Mrs. Van Vorst opened the door softly and then closed it. "She always does when she cries that way."

"Yes, I have been foolish," she reiterated, "but I am not a criminal, and it is not altogether pride, because I have a deformed child, that makes me keep her secluded. It is because I want to save her, I would give my life for her happiness, but I can't-" there was a hopeless wail to her voice. "That is my punishment!" And then, as if reminded of what she wanted to tell Nathalie, she continued more calmly, "It is true that I shut Nita in a dark room. I punished her-she has always had those temper spells-I never knew what to do with her. Some one told me I was too easy with her, so I put her in the room and when she stopped crying I thought she had fallen asleep, but oh, she tried to get out, she said some one was chasing her, and climbed out on the shed and fell off the roof! She broke-her back!" Mrs. Van Vorst buried her face in her hands, but although no sounds came, Nathalie could see the convulsive shivers that shook her frame.

The girl was dumb. What could she say? It was awful! Oh, but if she didn't say something she would be boo-hooing herself in a minute. "But that was not your fault," she cried with sudden inspiration. "It was right for you to punish her. Oh, Mrs. Van Vorst, I should consider it just an accident that you could not help."

Mrs. Van Vorst lifted her face and gazed at the girl with wide, appealing eyes. "Oh, do you think that? If I could be led to believe I was not to blame! For years I have suffered the tortures of h.e.l.l, doing penance."

"Yes, and making yourself and your daughter miserable!" Nathalie spoke boldly, she couldn't help it, the words came of themselves as it seemed to her. "But, Mrs. Van Vorst, look at it in another way, perhaps I should not speak this way to you, for I am just a girl, but I feel so sorry for you, and Nita, it does seem such a shame to shut her off from all pleasure just because an unfortunate thing happened. Why, Mrs.

Morrow says we should regard trouble like clouds that we can't blow away unless we fill the atmosphere with sunshine." Nathalie came to a sudden stop, afraid she had gone beyond her depth. But in a moment she added, "Oh, if you would just think of it as an accident! Try to make Nita happy, and then you will be happy, and forget all about it!"

Mrs. Van Vorst's eyes grew moist as she cried impulsively, "Oh, you are a dear girl to talk to me this way. I shall always remember it, always.

Yes, you are right, I have been miserable and have been making my poor child so. Oh, I have been wrong!"

Before Nathalie could answer, Nita's voice was heard shrilly crying, "Mother, I want Nathalie!"

"I am coming," cried the girl, hurrying into the room and up to the couch. "Did you have a nice little nap?" she asked cheerily, as she patted the girl's hand that lay inertly on the coverlid.

"Oh, I just dropped off, I always get so tired when I cry."

"But why do you cry then?" questioned practical Nathalie.

"Why-oh, I cried because Mamma took you away from me, and now you will be going soon, and I won't have had time to talk to you at all."

"Oh, yes you will," replied her companion, glancing at the clock. "It is only eleven, I sha'n't go for another hour, so start right in and talk."

"But I don't want to talk," came the contrary answer. "I want to hear you talk. Please tell me about the Girl Pioneers. Did you go on the wild-flower hike?"

"Oh, yes!" was the answer; and then Nathalie's tongue flew as she told about the hike, the different things they did, how she had learned to blaze a trail, what a delightful companion Dr. Homer had proved, how she lighted the fire with only one match, about the Tike's escapade, and the flower legends.

"Oh, but the fire, I must tell you about the fire and the bucket brigade!" she cried, and then followed that exciting story with all its climaxes, and what fun it had proved, although, as the girl confessed, she had been tempted to run away several times.

"I just wish I could have seen it all!" exclaimed Nita regretfully, as Nathalie paused for a rest. "I should have liked to go on that flower hike, and the flower legends, can't you tell them to me? I just love flowers!"

"Why yes, perhaps I can," nodded the Story Lady. And then in a moment she was animatedly telling about the Forget-me-not lover, the Dandelion legend, and then last of all about the spring G.o.ddess who brought the arbutus.

"What are you going to do next?" inquired her listener as Nathalie's flower stories ended.

"We are all busy now getting up entertainments; that is, we are thinking up ideas for the Pioneer Stunts. You know, we are anxious to make money for our Camp Fund, and-"

"Camp Fund! what is that?" inquired the girl interestedly.

"Why, the Pioneers, that is the Bluebirds, the Bob Whites, and the Orioles, are going camping this summer, probably in August, or as soon as we can raise the money. There are sixteen Pioneers going. Oh, I am sure we shall have a dandy time! We are to sleep in tents, but there will be a house or something for the dining room and kitchen, that is, if we can get them."

"Where are you going to get the tents to sleep in?"

"Helen and I are to make our own tent, Fred Tyson is going to help us.

It will take an awfully long time, we are to begin next week. The other tents, well, some of the girls have their own and then we shall borrow one or two. Of course, you know, each girl will have to pay her expenses to camp and back, but all the other expenses are expected to come out of the Fund, so you see we shall have a lot of work to do. We are to charge admission to the Pioneer Stunts." And then Nathalie told of the novel way they were to get ideas, and how each girl was to keep her idea a secret until after the vote had been taken as to the best Stunt the night of the performance.

"Have you got your idea yet?" inquired Nita eagerly. "Oh, I just bet your idea will be the best one of all!"

"Oh, no," answered Nathalie modestly, "far from it! I am awfully worried for fear it will be a terrible failure." And then she told how she had lost her idea and was writing up another one.

"Well, after you have the Stunts, what are you going to have?" demanded Nita eagerly.

"We want to have a flag drill, that is, if we can get the ground for it, as we want to have it in the open. Oh, it will be the loveliest thing!