Dorothy's Travels Part 24

But he rode round to Auntie Lu, now coaxed within doors to an open window, and cheerily bade her:

"Keep stout heart, my woman dear. When you see my grizzled face again you shall see your Molly's bonny one beside it. I'm a Grimm. I mean it."

Then he bared his gray head, settled himself firmly in his saddle, called to his man: "Come on!" and rode as gallantly to the rescue as if his seventy winters had been no more than seventeen.

All this time where was Molly?

When she found that Anton had disappeared from that open spot in the forest she was at first terrified then comforted.

"Why, I reckon this must be mighty near that camp, after all. It's 'most clear of the little trees and bushes, like some of the farm-groves that anybody can play in and not be scared or--or get their dresses torn.

Queenie, you and I can rest a few minutes. Somehow I'm dreadful tired. I rode such a lot all morning and now away out here after that Anton. He's mean. He surely is dreadful ornery. When I see him again I'll just hold my head mighty high and take no notice. Indians aren't much better than negroes, I reckon. Anyhow he isn't half so nice. Catch one of our black 'boys' treating 'little missy' so! You hungry, too, Queenie? Well, you're luckier than I for you can get your dinner off the ground. Go ahead and nibble it. I'll wait for you;" she said, talking to the sorrel as if she were human and could understand, and slipping from her saddle to the ground.

After a moment's contemplation of the lovely place, where a little stream ran trickling and babbling over stones, and where the ferns were high as her head, looking to her like miniature trees themselves, she began to feel almost contented. Open places between the pines let the sunlight through and, where it fell, the wild roses which creep everywhere over that fair land had forced themselves into a home and bloomed away most bravely. Then she espied a scarlet patch of color underneath and found that they were the wild strawberries she loved so well. She cried, scrambling after these:

"Ah! Queenie! You're not the only one can get something to eat away out here in the woods. I suppose that's the kind of stream Papa fishes for trout. If I had a line and a hook and--and whatever I needed I could fish, too. But I wouldn't. I never would like to kill anything, though a trout that somebody else had killed would make a mighty nice dinner right now."

The berries were plenty, and "enough" of anything is "as good as a feast." At least they satisfied her immediate hunger as the water from the brook, caught in a little cup made of a big leaf, satisfied her thirst. Queenie slaked her own thirst at the same pool and was so quiet and content that she greatly helped to cheer her small companion.

Finally Molly remembered a maxim she had once taught Dorothy:

"When you're lost, stay right still in that spot till somebody comes and finds you." Not always the safest judgment, it may be, but consoling then to this small girl.

Then she continued to converse with the sorrel mare; a.s.suring that calm creature:

"That boy went away out of here, some place, and to go home again he'll have to come away back. That's plain enough. Now, you and I are real safe, Queenie, really perfectly safe; if some them mooses or caribous, or deers, or--or things--Let's not think about them, Queenie. Let's just wait. Let's--let's take a nap if we can, to make the time pa.s.s till--till Anton comes."

She wished she hadn't happened to think of any "wild beasts" just then and she was astonished to see Queenie take her advice so literally; for down upon that mossy ground dropped the sorrel, did its utmost to work the saddle off its back, and, failing in this, stretched itself on its side and did go to sleep.

Then for a time Molly busied herself in gathering flowers, wherever she caught sight of one, and, thrusting them into her blouse, told Queenie that "these are for that terrible flowery girl, Dorothy C. Oh! I wonder what she is doing now! If she isn't sc.r.a.ping away on that old fiddle I'll bet she's missing me. 'Tisn't polite for girls to 'bet,' Auntie Lu says. Oh! I wish I could see her now. Funny I should be so lonesome, right in the daylight with Queenie here. If I don't look out I'll be crying; for I'm getting that awful scared way I was when Anton first went. I'll lie down too on that pile of ferns and go to sleep--if I can. I hope there aren't any wigglers of any sort to get into my ears.

I'll put my handkerchief over them and my face on that. Let's play pretend it's bedtime, Queenie. Good night."

There was no response from the weary old horse who had jogged about nearly all that day and Molly waited for none. A merciful drowsiness stole upon her and when she woke again the night was really there.

Through the scattered tree-tops she could see the stars shining; close at her feet was the same gentle purring of the little stream, and overhead the soft rustle of pine needles moving lightly in the breeze.

But what had wakened her? Something had, she knew. Some sound other than that of the brook or the pines. Queenie too, had heard. She had got to her feet and was listening, was whinnying, as in no fear of whatever thing it was. Molly could dimly see the old horse against the background of gloom but her presence was vast comfort.

Hark! HARK!!

Molly was on her feet now, wider awake than in all her life before, hands clasped to her breast, head bent forward, listening--listening--listening.

"Toot! Toot! Tooty-ti-tooty-ti-toot!"

"A bugle! A bugle! The 'a.s.sembly!' First call to meals! Melvin's coming!

Melvin--MELVIN!"

Nearer and nearer it came. It was at hand. On the other side the murmuring stream. On this side. In her very ears; and screaming "Melvin!" with all the agony of fear that she had pent within her brave heart, Molly fell sobbing in the "Bashful Bugler's" arms.

A few minutes later she was in her father's; and not long thereafter sat upon his knee before the camp-fire with her head upon his breast and he clasping her close, close in an embrace that held within it almost an agony of joy, so fierce it was.

CHAPTER XV

MRS. CALVERT PLANS AN INFAIR

Instead of being scolded for her escapade Molly found herself a sort of heroine. Nothing could exceed the tenderness of her thankful father, nor the interest of all the campers. The signal shots had brought them all back to the camp, and there the two lads went immediately to work to cook for the girl the most wonderful of suppers. Monty had caught some of Melvin's deftness at the task and was most ambitious to show Molly his newly acquired skill. Also, at the first opportunity, when the Judge had for a moment released his darling's hand to rise and greet Farmer Grimm coming through the woods, the boy proudly pulled from his pocket a few small coins and displayed them upon his palm.

"See them, Miss Molly? Hmm. Those are mine. My own.

I--earned--them--myself!"

He paused so long to let this amazing statement sink into her mind that Melvin called:

"Come on, Mont! No loafing! Fetch another bit of wood and get on your hurry-up step! Merimee covered this fire so snug he nigh put it out, but wise enough, too. A fire in the forest isn't a laughing matter.

Look out! Don't poke it, you clumsy, else you'll tip over that coffee-pot. First time we've had a lady to visit us don't want to act the blunder-head, do you?"

"Oh! hush, Bugle! No call to bulldoze a fellow just because you happened to be first on the spot! What made you think of carrying that thing, anyway?"

Molly herself drew near to hear the answer. She was wondering at the fact of their jolly comradeship, which was now so evident; and at Monty's pride over a little money--he who had cared so little for it once. She was wondering at many things, and when Melvin did not at once reply she repeated Monty's question.

"Melvin, how did you happen to take the bugle?"

"Why--why--I don't know, but I fancy my mother would say that Providence put it into my mind. My mother believes that Providence has a Hand in everything, don't you know? Anyhow, I'm glad I did take it. Without it and you hearing it we might have wandered right past that very place--one spot looks so much like another in the woods at night."

"Melvin, would you sell me that bugle? It was that saved my life, maybe, if the animals I thought about had come or if--Would you?" asked Molly, softly, and with a pathetic clasping of her hands, which trembled again now, as she recalled past perils.

"No, Molly, I won't sell it to you. I'll give it to you, if you'll take it that way, and only wish it were a better one. It's the cheapest made.

It had to be, don't you know?"

For a moment the girl hesitated. She did not like to rob the lad of his only musical enjoyment and she felt that he could not afford the gift.

Then she remembered that there were other bugles in the world and that she had but to suggest to her father a sort of exchange for the better, and so satisfy both herself and Melvin. So she said simply:

"I shall prize it as the greatest treasure in the world, and I thank you, I--I can't say much--I can't talk when I feel most--but don't you know how I feel? About my teasing you whenever I had the chance and--and lots of things? I'll take the bugle if--if 'you'll call the slate washed clean,' as Dolly says, and we can begin all over again?" She held out her hand, entreatingly, and the shy lad took it for a moment, then dropped it as if its touch had burned. A sudden wave of his old bashfulness had swept over him, for though he had gained much self-confidence during those weeks in camp it would be a long time before he conquered the timidity of his nature, if he ever did.

Then she asked Monty how he had earned money in such a place as that and he answered proudly:

"Made myself generally useful. The Prex hired me to wait on him and keep his traps in order sometimes--when the other old 'Boys' would let him be 'coddled.' Every man for himself, you know, out here. But the Prex is odd. He wants his boots blacked, or shoes, that he puts on after he takes off his hunting ones and I've 'shined' 'em for him like any street bootblack that ever did my own. Fact! Fancy what my mother would say!

Master Montmorency Vavasour-Stark blacking shoes in order to get a bit of pocket-money! But I tell you what, Molly Breckenridge, I like it. I'm going to have one of these dimes made into a watch-charm and wear it always, just to remind me how fine I felt over the first, the very first, cent I ever honestly earned. And it's taught me one thing. I'll quit idling. I shall never be a scholar like long-legged Jim, but I'll _do_ things, I mean it. I'll find out what I can do best, and I think I can guess that, and then I'm going ahead to do it. I'm going to ask Papa to stop giving me money. I'm going to shock my mother by going to work.

But--that Prex is a wise old chap. He's taught hundreds, likely thousands, of boys to make decent men and he's trying to teach me. He says--"

"O, Monty! Quit! I've broiled that salmon steak to the Queen's taste and the coffee's settled as clear as that spring water and--Supper's ready, Miss Molly Breckenridge. Will your ladyship partake?" demanded Melvin, interrupting.

Such a supper that was! Odd, that all the campers who had fared so heartily just a little while before should suddenly be "taken hungry"

again and beg an invitation too. Even Farmer Grimm and his man waited to feast with the others before riding home to carry the good news; then departed, with the forgiven but shame-faced Anton riding between them and with the precious packet of letters transferred from his pocket to his master's for safe-keeping.

Molly stayed the night to rest; lying snug in her father's tent while he sat long awake thinking of many things; but mostly thankful for the safety of the little maid whose love and life meant all the world to him. The dear, repentant child; who had not gone to sleep till, all alone with him in the seclusion of his tent, she had clasped her arms about his neck and begged his pardon for all her thoughtlessness.

"It was terrible there in the dark woods when I woke and found I was lost, alone; but that wasn't half so terrible, it didn't make me feel half so bad in here," laying her hand upon her heart, "as it does knowing how unhappy I've made everybody and how much trouble given.

Seems if I never would be heedless and forget again, Papa dearest, seems if! But I'm just only Molly--and I haven't much faith in your Molly, Judge Breckenridge!"