Concerning Sally Part 26

she went on. "I read Doctor Beatty what Doctor Galen said about him, and you ought to have seen him. He looked pleased as he could be and he smiled--he tried not to--and he positively blushed. Then he began to talk about my foot, but my foot is not worth talking about now. It is almost well. I go about quite easily with my crutches and Uncle John takes me for a walk every morning, before he goes downtown. It makes him late in getting down, but he doesn't seem to mind. Uncle John and I have got quite fond of each other. Really, Fox, Uncle John is the best person here. He is so kind and thoughtful and, Fox, so polite! His politeness seems to be a part of him. Yes, I am very fond of Uncle John. Of course, I am fond of Cousin Patty, too, but I like Uncle John more.

"And there are other ways I have of going out. d.i.c.k Torrington has come in every afternoon since I hurt my foot, and, now that I can get about so well, he takes me for a walk. It's very slow business for him, of course, but he doesn't seem to mind, either. It's astonishing how many people don't seem to mind. d.i.c.k is _very_ nice and kind and satisfying. He reminds me of you in many ways. He always treats me like a person,--as if I were as old as he is,--not as if I was only a little girl and of no consequence, as Everett Morton seems to think.

d.i.c.k seems to _like_ to take me out. He is going to take his examinations for Harvard this June, and he is a little afraid he won't pa.s.s. He failed in a good many of his preliminaries--is that spelled right?--last year. He isn't very quick at his studies. He says so himself, so he knows it. I hope he will pa.s.s and I wish I could help him. Uncle John says d.i.c.k's all right. Uncle John takes me to walk again when he gets back, so that I have walking enough for a little girl with crutches. I shan't need them very much longer, but Doctor Beatty wants me to be careful and not to climb trees for quite a while. There aren't any good trees here.

"I hope you know, Fox, that I am very glad you and Henrietta are living in our house and that I appreciate it. Write me about all the old places, will you?"

Fox smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt at himself to find that he felt a distinct pang at Sally's account of d.i.c.k. If d.i.c.k was good to her there was no reason in the world why he should not take her walking as much as he would. But he, Fox, missed her companionship. Sally was one to be missed.

d.i.c.k did not succeed very well with his examinations. He had as many conditions as it is permitted to a boy to have, and he had to study hard all that summer. So the walks with d.i.c.k became less and less frequent until they ceased altogether. d.i.c.k is not to be blamed. Sally was only twelve and he could not have known how much his daily companionship meant to her. If he had known, he would have managed, out of the goodness of his heart, to see her oftener than once a week.

d.i.c.k was the only intimate friend that Sally had.

Uncle John did not desert her merely because d.i.c.k had done so. They became almost inseparable; so much so that old Cap'n Forsyth, chancing to meet Mr. Hazen alone, one afternoon, cried out in astonishment.

"h.e.l.lo, John!" he cried in his great bluff voice, a voice that had been heard, often, above the roaring of the wind in the rigging and the hissing of the seas. "h.e.l.lo, John! Where's the other one? Anything the matter with her?"

Uncle John smiled quietly. "I hope not, Stephen. I sincerely hope not.

I haven't been home yet, or you wouldn't find me alone, I trust."

"I believe you're in love, John," Cap'n Forsyth cried again. He might have been heard a block away.

The smile had not left Mr. Hazen's face. "I believe I am, Stephen. I believe I am."

"She's worth it, is she?" roared Cap'n Forsyth.

Mr. Hazen nodded. "She's worth it, Stephen."

"I'm glad to hear it, John," Cap'n Forsyth shouted. No doubt he thought he was whispering. "It's getting to be as common a sight--you and Sally--as those Carling nuisances. And Patty's just as bad with that little boy brother of hers. I hope he's worth it, too. Good-bye, John."

There was some doubt in Uncle John's mind as to Charlie's being worth it. He and Patty were inseparable, too, and Charlie was not improved.

He was in imminent danger of being spoiled, if the mischief was not already done. Uncle John sighed and turned homeward. He found Sally sitting on the front steps, waiting for him.

After d.i.c.k went, in the fall, Sally had nothing to do but to try to play by herself and devote herself to her studies and miss d.i.c.k. She found that she missed him almost as much as she had missed Fox. As for playing by herself, she had had that to do nearly all summer; for, although she had tried, conscientiously, she could not feel any interest in the other girls of her own age. They were uninteresting, somehow. Uncle John was better, and she got into the habit of going down to his office in the afternoons and coming home with him. Miss Patty was very glad to have her do it. It relieved her mind; in case, you know, he should stumble or slip or--or anything else should happen. She felt that Sally was to be relied upon, and so she was; but Miss Patty was putting a rather grave responsibility upon her and she was a little too lonely. It is not good for little girls to be lonely.

She was unaware of the responsibility.

Sally's school was a diversion. Diversion seems to be the right word.

There were about seventy scholars in the school; and, with six cla.s.ses, that makes about a dozen scholars to a cla.s.s, more or less.

The lower cla.s.ses had more and the upper cla.s.ses, by natural processes of elimination, had less. Sally's cla.s.s had fourteen; and Sally had no trouble at all in standing at the head of a cla.s.s of fourteen. It had made d.i.c.k envious--no, not envious, for d.i.c.k was never that; but it was a constant wonder to him that any one should be able to stand first in fourteen with so little work.

In the great schoolroom, where all the scholars sat when they had no cla.s.ses to go to, the boys sat on one side and the girls sat on the other. They were given seats according to their rank, the first cla.s.s at the back of the room and the sixth cla.s.s right under the eye of the princ.i.p.al, almost under his very hand. In general, this was a good arrangement. It happened, however, that the worst behavior was not in the lowest cla.s.s, but in the fourth, which was Sally's cla.s.s. So Sally, from her seat in the fourth row from the front, saw Eugene Spencer, commonly called "Jane," suddenly haled from his seat at her side--Sally sat next to the boys and Jane next to the girls--and, after a severe lecture, a.s.signed a desk within touch of the desk of the princ.i.p.al, Mr. MacDalie.

Jane was a boy of immaculate and ladylike appearance. He listened respectfully to the lecture and received the a.s.signment of the desk with a bow of thanks; all of which behavior was, in itself, un.o.bjectionable. Jane had a knack at that. But it drove the princ.i.p.al, who was a man of irascible temper, into a white-hot rage, which Jane respectfully sat through, apparently undisturbed. A suppressed excitement ran along the rows of boys, who were as if on tiptoe with expectation of what might happen. Sally, herself, was trembling, she found; for it seemed, for a few minutes, as though the princ.i.p.al would do Jane bodily harm. But nothing happened. The white-hot rage cooled quickly, as such rages do; and the princ.i.p.al smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt, changing in a moment, as such men change, and went on with his hearing of the cla.s.s in Civil Government.

Sally was very glad that Jane was gone from his seat beside her, for he had almost convulsed her by his pranks on countless occasions and had very nearly made her disgrace herself by laughing aloud. She had fears, however, still; for Jane's new desk was between the princ.i.p.al and the cla.s.ses that he was hearing, and was on the floor, while the princ.i.p.al's desk was on the platform. Jane, therefore, was, in a measure, concealed from the view of the astute MacDalie, but in full view of the cla.s.s, which occupied benches a few feet behind him.

Moreover, the desks on either side of Jane's--there were three of them in a row, of which Jane occupied the middle one--were occupied, respectively, by the Carlings. The Carlings always occupied those desks. They had got to feeling a sort of proprietorship in them. Jane, however, knew too much to continue his mischief on that day. He was filled to the brim with it, that was all, and it was only a question how long before it would run over.

Sally was glad when the bell called her to a cla.s.s downstairs; and she sat as if in a trance and watched Jane Spencer gravely fishing in the aquarium tank with a bent pin on the end of a thread. He kept on fishing all through the cla.s.s hour, unhindered. The single little fish in the tank tugged at the pin occasionally, without result; and, when the bell sounded again, Jane folded up his line and put it in his book.

"No luck," he observed, bowing to the teacher.

"Too bad!" said the teacher sympathetically.

"Yes, isn't it?" said Jane; and he withdrew in good order, leaving the teacher smiling to himself. What was he smiling at, I wonder?

Jane never descended to such behavior as sitting with his feet in his desk, as Oliver Pilcher did. No doubt he considered it undignified and generally bad form, which unquestionably it was. Moreover he would thereby run the risk of getting caught in a situation which he regarded as unprofessional. Oliver Pilcher was caught several times, for it is somewhat difficult to get one's feet out of one's desk as quickly as is necessary to avoid that humiliation. If you do not believe it, try it.

Jane may have tried it or he may not. He preferred a different sort of misbehavior; it was especial balm to his soul to be thought to be misbehaving and then to prove that he was not, for that was a joke on the teacher which was apt, for reasons unknown, to make him hopping mad, and Jane's end seemed to have been attained when he had made the teacher hopping mad. He was apt to appear to be very inattentive in cla.s.s, thinking--but I do not know what he was thinking. Even Mr.

MacDalie was deceived occasionally. Jane would be sitting, looking out of the window, perhaps, with his book face down beside him, while the Latin translation dragged by painful jerks along the other end of the cla.s.s. Mr. MacDalie would have noted Jane's att.i.tude, as he noted everything, and would call upon him suddenly and, as he supposed, unexpectedly. And Jane would take up his book, deliberately, and, rising, begin at the very word and give a beautiful and fluent translation until he was stopped. Sally saw that happen four times that half-year.

The last time, the princ.i.p.al smiled broadly and lowered his book.

"Well, Eugene," he said,--he almost called him "Jane,"--"you fooled me nicely. That translation was very nearly perfect."

"Thank you, sir," Jane replied gravely; and he sat down and placed his book, face down again, upon the bench beside him and resumed his gazing out of the window.

One day during d.i.c.k's Christmas vacation there was a great sleighing party. There was no reason in the world why Sally should have expected to be asked or wanted to be. She told herself so, many times; but she was disappointed, grievously. Mr. Hazen saw it,--any one could see it plainly,--and, because he could not bear that Sally should feel so, he asked her if she wouldn't oblige him by going sleighing with him. And because she couldn't bear to disappoint Uncle John, Sally went. She was grateful to him, too. So it happened that two people, who would have much preferred going anywhere on their own feet, were wrapped in a buffalo robe,--one of the last of them; a robe of which Mr. Hazen was very proud,--and, thus protected against the cold, were being drawn easily behind the stout horse.

At the bottom of her heart, Sally despised sleighing only a degree less than she despised driving in a carriage. She thought she should like riding, but of riding a horse she knew nothing. She had never in her life been on a horse's back. As for sleighing, she thought, as they drove along, that they might as well be in her room, sitting in a seat that was not wide enough for two, with a buffalo robe tucked around their knees. With the window wide open and bells jingled rhythmically before them and an occasional gentle bounce, the effect would not be so very different. As she thought of this, she began to chuckle at the humor of it. You may not see any humor in the idea, but Sally did.

A sleigh turned the next corner suddenly, and a look of anxiety came into Mr. Hazen's face. "That's Cap'n Forsyth," he said. "A most reckless driver. It's best to give him the road if we can."

Sally recognized the captain, in an old blue sleigh, very strongly built. The captain had need of vehicles that were strongly built and he had them built to his order, like a ship. He was standing up in the sleigh and urging on his horse, which was on the dead run. Captain Forsyth kept the middle of the road and made no attempt to turn out.

Perhaps he could not.

"h.e.l.lo, John," he roared, waving his whip. "h.e.l.lo, Sally."

The horse must have considered that the waving of the whip was an indication that the captain wanted more speed, and he put on an extra burst of it. Captain Forsyth sat down suddenly. It only amused him.

"What d'ye think o' that, John?" he shouted.

"Turn out, turn out, Stephen!" Mr. Hazen called anxiously. He had not succeeded in getting completely out of the road.

"Can't do it, John," replied the captain, regaining his feet. The old blue sleigh struck the other on the port quarter with a crash. It was not the captain's sleigh that was injured.

"Charge it to me, John," the captain roared. He did not turn even his head. "By the sound I've carried away your after davits. Charge it to me." And Captain Forsyth was borne swiftly away.

That "Charge it to me" rang in Sally's ears as it died away upon the breeze. She picked herself up, laughing. Mr. Hazen was not thrown out and was unhurt. The horse stood quietly.

"Are you hurt, Sally?" asked Uncle John anxiously.

"Not a bit; and you aren't, are you? Now, what shall we do?"

"I think there is enough of the sleigh left to carry us both if we go slowly. If not, we'll have to walk."

Presently Sally burst out into a new fit of chuckling. "How funny Captain Forsyth is! What shall you do, Uncle John? Shall you charge it to him, as he said to do?"

"Oh, yes," Uncle John replied. "It would hurt his feelings, if I didn't. He would consider it unfriendly. He has a good many to pay for."