Jewel's Story Book Part 58

"Indeed?" the broker stroked his mustache. "Ladies especially, I suppose."

"Oh, no," returned Jewel seriously. "Everybody. Mother's just twenty years older than I am and that's so easy to remember, it's going to be hard to forget; but I've most forgotten how much older father is," and Jewel looked up with an expression of determination that caused the broker to smile broadly.

"I can understand your mother's being too self-respecting to pa.s.s thirty,"

he returned, "but just why your father shouldn't, I fail to understand."

"Why, it's error to be weak and wear spectacles and have things, isn't it?"

asked Jewel, with such swift earnestness that Mr. Evringham endeavored to compose his countenance.

"Have things?" he repeated.

Jewel's head fell to one side. "Why, even you, grandpa," she said lovingly, "even you thought you had the rheumatism."

"I was certainly under that impression."

"But you never would have expected to have it when you were as young as father, would you?"

"Hardly."

"Well, then you see why it's wrong to make laws about growing old and to remember people's ages."

"Ah, I see what you mean. Everybody thinking the wrong way and jumping on a fellow when he's down, as it were."

At this moment Jewel's father and mother entered the room, and she instantly forgot every other consideration in her interest as to what charming surprise might be bunched up under the tablecloth.

"Anna Belle can hardly wait to see my present," she said, lifting her shoulders and smiling at her mother.

"She ought to know one thing that's there, certainly," replied Mrs.

Evringham mysteriously.

Jewel held the doll up in front of her. "Have you given me something, dearie?" she asked tenderly. "I do hope you haven't been extravagant."

Then with an abrupt change of manner, she hopped up into her chair eagerly, and the others took their places.

The very first package that Jewel took out was marked--"With Anna Belle's love." It proved to be a pair of handsome white hair-ribbons, and the donor looked modestly away as Jewel expressed her pleasure and kissed her blushing cheeks.

Next came a box marked with her father's name. Upon opening it there was discovered a set of ermine furs for Anna Belle,--at least they were very white furs with very black tiny tails: collar and m.u.f.f of a regal splendor, and any one who declined to call them ermine would prove himself a cold skeptic. Jewel jounced up and down in her chair with delight.

"Winter's coming, you know, Jewel, and Bel-Air Park is a very swell place,"

said her father.

"And perhaps I'll have a sled at Christmas and draw Anna Belle on it," said the child joyously. "Here, dearie, let's see how they fit," and on went the furs over the blue cashmere wrapper, making Anna Belle such a thing of beauty that Jewel gazed at her entranced. The doll was left with her chubby hands in the ample m.u.f.f and the sumptuous collar half eclipsing her golden curls, while the little girl dived under the cloth once more for the largest package of all.

This was marked with her mother's love and contained handsome plaid material for a dress, with the silk to trim it, and a pair of kid gloves.

Jewel hopped down from her chair and kissed first her father and then her mother. "That'll be the loveliest dress!" she said, and she carried it to her grandfather to let him look closer and put his hand upon it.

"Well, well, you are having a nice birthday, Jewel," he said.

"Yes," she replied, putting her arm around his neck and pressing her cheek to his. "We couldn't put the boat under the tablecloth, but I'm thinking about it, grandpa."

After breakfast they all went out to the covered piazza to read the lesson.

It was a fine, still morning. The pond rippled dreamily. The roar of the surf was subdued. From Jewel's seat beside her grandfather she could see her namesake glinting in the sun and gracefully rising and falling on the waves in the gentle breeze.

They had all taken comfortable positions and Mrs. Evringham was finding the places in the books.

Mr. Evringham spoke quite loudly: "Well, this is a fine morning, surely, fine."

"It is that," agreed Harry, stretching his long legs luxuriously. "If I felt any better I couldn't stand it."

As he was speaking, a strange man in a checked suit came around the corner of the house.

Jewel's eyes grew larger and she straightened up.

"Oh, grandpa, look!" she said softly, and then jumped off the seat to see better. All the little company gazed with interest, for, accompanying the man, was the most superb specimen of a collie dog that they had ever seen.

"It's a golden dog, grandpa," added Jewel.

The collie had evidently just been washed and brushed. His coat was, indeed, of a gleaming yellow. His paws were white, the tip of his tail was white, and his breast was snowy as the thick, soft foam of the breakers. A narrow strip of white descended between his eyes,--golden, intelligent eyes, with generations of trustworthiness in them. A silver collar nestled in the long hair about his neck, and altogether he looked like a prince among dogs.

Jewel clasped her hands beneath her chin and gazed at him with all her eyes. He was too splendid to be flown at in her usual manner with animals.

"What a beauty!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Harry.

"It _is_ a golden dog," said Jewel's mother, looking almost as enthusiastic as the child.

"What have you there?" asked Mr. Evringham of the man. "Something pretty fine, it appears to me."

"Yes, sir, there's none finer," replied the man, glancing at the animal. "I called to see you on that little matter I wrote you of."

"Yes, yes; well, that will wait. We're interested in that fine collie of yours. We know something about golden dogs here, eh, Jewel?"

"But this dog couldn't dance, grandpa," said the child soberly, drawing nearer to the creature.

"I should think not," remarked the man, smiling. "What would he be doing dancing? I've seen lions jump the rope in shows; but it never looked fitting, to me."

"No," said Jewel, "this dog ought not to dance;" and as the collie's golden eyes met hers, she drew nearer still in fascination, and he touched her outstretched hand curiously, with his cold nose.

"Oh, well, but we like accomplished dogs," said Mr. Evringham coldly.

"Who says this dog ain't accomplished?" returned the man, in an injured tone. "Just stand back there a bit, young lady."

Jewel retreated and her grandfather put his hand over her shoulder. The man spoke to the dog, and at once the handsome creature sat up, tall and dignified, on his hind legs.

The man only kept him there a few seconds; and then he put him through a variety of other performances. The golden dog shook hands when he was told, rolled over, jumped over a stick, and at last sat up again, and when the man took a bit of sugar from his pocket and balanced it on the creature's nose, he tossed it in the air, and, catching it neatly, swallowed it in a trice.

Jewel was giving subdued squeals of delight, and everybody was laughing with pleasure; for the decorative creature appeared to enjoy his own tricks.

The man looked proudly around upon the company.