Judy Part 12

"It isn't those things that make you love the sea, Tommy," cried Judy.

"It is the smell of it, and the wind, and the wide blue water and the wide blue sky. It is something in your blood. I don't believe you really love it at all, Tommy Tolliver."

She got up from the couch and began to gather up her wet hair, and only Launcelot saw that she did it to hide her tears.

But Tommy was blind to her emotion. "Yes, I do," he a.s.serted, stoutly.

"I do love it, and I bet I could find a treasure island if I tried."

Judy stamped her foot impatiently. "Oh, you couldn't," she blazed, "you couldn't, Tommy Tolliver; you could just go to work like a common seaman and get your tobacco and your grog, and be frozen and stiff in the winter storms and hot and weary in the summer ones. But if you really loved the sea you wouldn't care--you wouldn't care, just so you could be rocked to sleep by it at night, and wake to hear it ripple against the sides of the boat--"

"Gee--" said Tommy, open-mouthed at this outburst.

"Tommy," said Launcelot, with a glance at Judy's excited face and at the trembling hands that could scarcely fasten her hair, "you don't know a sailboat from a scow."

"I do," cried the indignant Tommy, switching his attention from Judy to Launcelot, with whom he was deep in the argument when the carriage came.

The Judge read Tommy a little lecture as he welcomed him back, and then he ordered Perkins to give the runaway something to eat, and thereby tempered justice with mercy. And as Tommy had expected the scolding and had not expected the good things, it is to be feared that the latter made the greater impression.

"And how is my girl?" asked the Judge, beaming on Judy.

"All right," said Judy, and tucked her hand into his, "only I am a little tired, grandfather."

"Of course you are. Of course you are," said the Judge. "We must go right home. Perkins and I will sit on the front seat, and you can all crowd in behind--I guess there will be room enough."

"Oh, I say," said Launcelot, as Tommy and Anne sat down on the floor at the back, with their feet on the step, "that won't do. You sit with Judy, Anne."

But Anne shook her head.

"Tommy and I are going to sit here," she said. "He wants me to tell him all the news."

But that was not all that Tommy wanted, for when they were alone and unseen by those in the front of the wagon, he opened a handkerchief which he had carried knotted into a bundle.

"I brought you some things. They ain't much, but I thought you would like to have them."

There were a half-dozen pink and white sh.e.l.ls, a starfish, and a few pretty pebbles.

"I picked them up on the beach," said Tommy, "and I thought you might like them."

"It was awfully good of you to think of me," said little Anne, gratefully.

"I wanted to buy you something," apologized Tommy. "There was some lovely jewelry made out of fish-scales, but I didn't have a cent to spare."

"I would rather have these, really, Tommy," said Anne, with appreciation, "because you found them yourself."

She tied them up carefully in her little clean white handkerchief, and then she folded her hands in her lap and told Tommy everything that had happened since he left home.

The sky was red with the blaze of the setting sun when the carriage started. Overhead the crows were flying in a straight black line to the woods to roost. As Anne talked on, the fireflies began to shine against the blue-gray of the twilight; then came darkness and the stars.

"It seems awfully good to be at home," confessed Tommy, as the lights began to twinkle in the nearest farmhouse, "if only father won't scold."

"I think he will scold, Tommy--he was awfully angry--but your mother will be so pleased."

"It was horrid sleeping out at night and tramping days." Tommy was unburdening his soul. It was so easy to tell things to gentle, sympathetic Anne. "And the men around the wharf were so rough--"

"I am sure you won't want to go again," said little Anne, "not for a long time, Tommy."

Tommy looked around cautiously. He didn't want Judy to hear, somehow.

He was afraid of her teasing laugh. Then he leaned down close to Anne's ear:

"I'll stay here for awhile, Anne."

"I'm so glad, Tommy," said Anne, with a sigh of relief.

But as they drove into the great gateway, and the lights from the big house shone out in welcome, Tommy sighed:

"But I would like to find a treasure island, Anne," he said.

CHAPTER VIII

A WHITE SUNDAY

Anne was feeling very important. She was wrapped in a pale blue kimona of Judy's, and she had had her breakfast in bed!

Piled up ten deep at her side were books--a choice collection from the Judge's bookcases, into which she dipped here and there with sighs of deep content and antic.i.p.ation.

At the end of the room was a mirror, and Anne could just see herself in it. It was a distracting vision, for Judy had done Anne's hair up that morning, and had puffed it out over her ears and had tied it with broad black ribbon, and this effect, in combination with the sweeping blue robe, made Anne feel as interesting as the heroine of a book--and she had never expected that!

Judy in a rose-pink kimona lay on the couch, looking out of the window.

The peace of the Sabbath was upon the world; and the house was very still.

Suddenly with a "click" and a "whirr-rr," the doors of the little carved clock on the wall new open and a cuckoo came out and piped ten warning notes.

"Goodness," cried Anne, and shut her book with a bang, "it is almost church time, and we aren't dressed."

But Judy did not move. "We are not going to church," she said, lazily.

Not going to church! Anne faced Judy in amazement. Never since she could remember had she stayed away from church--except when she had had the measles and the mumps!

"I told grandfather last night that we should be too tired," explained Judy, "and he won't expect us to go."

"Oh," said Anne, and picked up her book, luxuriating in the prospect of a whole morning in which to read.

She wasn't quite comfortable, however. She was not a bit tired, and she had never felt better in her life--and yet she was staying away from church.

But the book she had opened was a volume of d.i.c.kens' Christmas stories, and in three minutes she was carried away from the little town of Fairfax to the heart of old London, and from the warmth of spring to the bitterness of winter, as she listened with Toby Veck to the music of the chimes that rang from the belfry tower.

It seemed only a part of the tale, therefore, when the bell of Fairfax church pealed out the first warning of the Sunday service to all the countryside.