Just David Part 36

Then, as before, he saw her chin lift determinedly, as she began to talk faster than ever.

"Now, listen," she admonished him, earnestly.

And David listened.

CHAPTER XXIV

A STORY REMODELED

The pretended Halloween was a great success. So very excited, indeed, did David become over the swinging apples and popping nuts that he quite forgot to tell Mr. Jack what the Lady of the Roses had said until Jill had gone up to bed and he himself was about to take from Mr.

Jack's hand the little lighted lamp.

"Oh, Mr. Jack, I forgot," he cried then. "There was something I was going to tell you."

"Never mind to-night, David; it's so late. Suppose we leave it until to-morrow," suggested Mr. Jack, still with the lamp extended in his hand.

"But I promised the Lady of the Roses that I'd say it to-night,"

demurred the boy, in a troubled voice.

The man drew his lamp halfway back suddenly.

"The Lady of the Roses! Do you mean--she sent a message--to ME?" he demanded.

"Yes; about the story, 'The Princess and the Pauper,' you know."

With an abrupt exclamation Mr. Jack set the lamp on the table and turned to a chair. He had apparently lost his haste to go to bed.

"See here, David, suppose you come and sit down, and tell me just what you're talking about. And first--just what does the Lady of the Roses know about that--that 'Princess and the Pauper'?"

"Why, she knows it all, of course," returned the boy in surprise. "I told it to her."

"You--told--it--to her!" Mr. Jack relaxed in his chair. "David!"

"Yes. And she was just as interested as could be."

"I don't doubt it!" Mr. Jack's lips snapped together a little grimly.

"Only she didn't like the ending, either."

Mr. Jack sat up suddenly.

"She didn't like--David, are you sure? Did she SAY that?"

David frowned in thought.

"Well, I don't know as I can tell, exactly, but I'm sure she did n't like it, because just before she told me WHAT to say to you, she said that--that what she was going to say would probably have something to do with the ending, anyway. Still--" David paused in yet deeper thought. "Come to think of it, there really isn't anything--not in what she said--that CHANGED that ending, as I can see. They didn't get married and live happy ever after, anyhow."

"Yes, but what did she say?" asked Mr. Jack in a voice that was not quite steady. "Now, be careful, David, and tell it just as she said it."

"Oh, I will," nodded David. "SHE said to do that, too."

"Did she?" Mr. Jack leaned farther forward in his chair. "But tell me, how did she happen to--to say anything about it? Suppose you begin at the beginning--away back, David. I want to hear it all--all!"

David gave a contented sigh, and settled himself more comfortably.

"Well, to begin with, you see, I told her the story long ago, before I was sick, and she was ever so interested then, and asked lots of questions. Then the other day something came up--I've forgotten how--about the ending, and I told her how hard I'd tried to have you change it, but you wouldn't. And she spoke right up quick and said probably you didn't want to change it, anyhow. But of course I settled THAT question without any trouble," went on David confidently, "by just telling her how you said you'd give anything in the world to change it."

"And you told her that--just that, David?" cried the man.

"Why, yes, I had to," answered David, in surprise, "else she wouldn't have known that you DID want to change it. Don't you see?"

"Oh, yes! I--see--a good deal that I'm thinking you don't," muttered Mr. Jack, falling back in his chair.

"Well, then is when I told her about the logical ending--what you said, you know,--oh, yes! and that was when I found out she did n't like the ending, because she laughed such a funny little laugh and colored up, and said that she wasn't sure she could tell me what a logical ending was, but that she would try to find out, and that, anyhow, YOUR ending wouldn't be hers--she was sure of that."

"David, did she say that--really?" Mr. Jack was on his feet now.

"She did; and then yesterday she asked me to come over, and she said some more things,--about the story, I mean,--but she didn't say another thing about the ending. She didn't ever say anything about that except that little bit I told you of a minute ago."

"Yes, yes, but what did she say?" demanded Mr. Jack, stopping short in his walk up and down the room.

"She said: 'You tell Mr. Jack that I know something about that story of his that perhaps he doesn't. In the first place, I know the Princess a lot better than he does, and she isn't a bit the kind of girl he's pictured her."

"Yes! Go on--go on!"

"'Now, for instance,' she says, 'when the boy made that call, after the girl first came back, and when the boy didn't like it because they talked of colleges and travels, and such things, you tell him that I happen to know that that girl was just hoping and hoping he'd speak of the old days and games; but that she could n't speak, of course, when he hadn't been even once to see her during all those weeks, and when he'd acted in every way just as if he'd forgotten.'"

"But she hadn't waved--that Princess hadn't waved--once!" argued Mr.

Jack; "and he looked and looked for it."

"Yes, SHE spoke of that," returned David. "But SHE said she shouldn't think the Princess would have waved, when she'd got to be such a great big girl as that--WAVING to a BOY! She said that for her part she should have been ashamed of her if she had!"

"Oh, did she!" murmured Mr. Jack blankly, dropping suddenly into his chair.

"Yes, she did," repeated David, with a little virtuous uplifting of his chin.

It was plain to be seen that David's sympathies had unaccountably met with a change of heart.

"But--the Pauper--"

"Oh, yes, and that's another thing," interrupted David. "The Lady of the Roses said that she didn't like that name one bit; that it wasn't true, anyway, because he wasn't a pauper. And she said, too, that as for his picturing the Princess as being perfectly happy in all that magnificence, he didn't get it right at all. For SHE knew that the Princess wasn't one bit happy, because she was so lonesome for things and people she had known when she was just the girl."

Again Mr. Jack sprang to his feet. For a minute he strode up and down the room in silence; then in a shaking voice he asked:--

"David, you--you aren't making all this up, are you? You're saying just what--what Miss Holbrook told you to?"

"Why, of course, I'm not making it up," protested the boy aggrievedly.