Meg of Mystery Mountain Part 4

Somehow the expression in her brother's eyes made Jane unhappy. She did wish he would not look at her--was it wistfully, yearningly or what?

Rising, their father said, "The taxi is outside, children. Are you all ready?"

There was much confusion for the next few moments. The expressman had come for the trunks, and there were many last things that the father wished to say to the three who were going to his cabin on Mystery Mountain.

"Dan, my boy," Mr. Abbott held the hand of his eldest in a firm clasp and looked deep into his eyes, "let your first thought be how best you can regain your strength. If you need me, wire and I will come at once." Then putting his hand in his pocket, he drew out an envelope. "The pa.s.ses are in here. Put them away carefully." Then he turned to Jane. "Goodbye, daughter. You will be nearer. Come home when you want to. May heaven protect you all."

The two younger children gave "bear hugs," over and over again, to their dad and grandmother, and when at last all were seated in the taxi, they waved to the two who stood on the porch until they had turned a corner.

Dan smiled at Jane as he said: "This is indeed an exodus. That little old home of ours never lost so many of us all at once."

"Gee, I bet ye the apple orchard'll wonder where me and Julie are," the boy began, but Jane interrupted fretfully. "Oh, I do wish you would be more careful of the way you speak, Gerald. You know as well as any of us that you should say where Julie and I are."

The boy's exuberance for a moment was dampened, but not for long. He soon burst out with, "Say, Dan, you know that story Dad tells about a brown bear that came right up to the cabin door once. Do you suppose there's bears in those mountains now?"

"I'm sure of it, Gerry. Dozens of them, but they won't hurt us, unless we get them cornered."

"Well, you can bet I'm not going to corner any of them," Gerry confided.

"But I'd like to have a little cub, wouldn't you, Julie, to fetch up for a pet?"

The little girl was doubtful. "Maybe, when it grew up, it would forget it was a pet bear, and maybe you'd get it cornered, and then what would you do?"

Dan laughed. "The bear would do the doing," he said. He glanced at Jane, who sat looking out of the small window at her side. He did not believe that she really saw the objects without. How he wished he knew what the girl, who had been his pal all through their childhood, was thinking. As he watched her, there was again in his eyes that yearning, wistful expression, but Jane did not know it as she did not turn.

The little station at Edgemere was soon reached, the trunks checked for the big city beyond the river, and, after a short ride on the train and ferry, they found themselves in the whirling, seething ma.s.s of humanity with which the Grand Central Station seemed always to be filled.

The train for the West was to leave at 10, and after it was gone, Jane planned going uptown to buy a summer dress. Dad had told her to charge it to him. His credit was still good. As they stood waiting for the gates to open, Dan took from his pocket the envelope containing the pa.s.ses. For the first time he glanced them over, then exclaimed: "Why, how curious!

There are four pa.s.ses! I thought there were but three. Oh, well, they are only slips of paper, and do not represent money." He replaced them and smiled at Jane. The children raced to a stand to buy a bag of popcorn and Dan seized that opportunity to take his sister's hand, and say most seriously: "Dear girl, if I never come back, try to be to our Dad all that I have so wanted to be."

There was a startled expression in the girl's dark eyes. "Dan, what do you mean?" Her voice sounded frightened, terrorized. "If you never come back? Brother, why shouldn't you come back!" She clung to his arm. "Tell me, what do you mean?" But he could not reply for a time, because of a sudden attack of coughing. Then he said: "I don't know, little girl. I'm afraid I'm worse off than Dad knows. I----"

"All aboard!" The gates were swung open. Frantically, Jane cried: "Dan, quick, have my trunk checked on that other pa.s.s. I'm going with you."

Mr. Abbott smiled through tears as he handed his mother the telegram he received that afternoon. "I felt sure our Jane had a soul," he said. "Her mother's daughter couldn't be entirely without one."

"And now that it's awakened maybe it'll start to blossoming," the old lady replied.

CHAPTER VIII.

ALL ABOARD

There had been such a whirl at the last moment that it was not until they were on the train and had located their seats on the Pullman, that the children realized what had happened. Luckily Jane was too much occupied readjusting her own att.i.tude of mind, and trying to think hastily what she should do before the train was really on its way, to notice the disappointment which was plainly depicted on the faces of Julie and Gerald. They gazed at each other almost in dismay when they heard that their big sister was to accompany them, but the joy in their brother's face and manner was all that was needed to reconcile the younger boy.

In the confusion caused by pa.s.sengers entering the car with porters carrying their luggage, Gerald managed to draw Julie aside and whisper to her: "Don't let on we didn't want Jane, not on your life! Dan wanted her, and this journey's got just one object, Dad says, and that's to help Dan get well."

But Julie was too terribly disappointed to pretend that she was not. "I know all that," she half sobbed and turned toward the window across the aisle, "but I was so happy when I s'posed I was to cook for Dan, and when you and I were to be the ones to take care of him. But now Jane will get all the honor and everything, and we'll have to be bossed around worse than if we were at home, for Dad's there to take our part."

Gerald's clear hazel eyes gazed at his sister rebukingly. "Julie," he said, with an earnestness far beyond his years, "the train hasn't started yet and if you'n I are going to think of ourselves we'd better go back home. Shall we, Julie?"

The little girl shook her head vigorously. "No, no. I don't want to go home." She clung to the back of a seat as though she feared she were going to be taken forcibly from the train.

Gerald leaned over to whisper to her, but he first gave her a little kiss on the ear, then he said: "Julie, you'n I will have oodles of fun up there in the mountains. If Jane isn't too snappish, I'll be glad she's along, because, of course, she'll be able to take care of Dan better than we could." Then suddenly he laughed gleefully.

"I've got it!" he confided to the girl, who had looked around curiously.

She could not imagine how Gerald could laugh when such a tragic thing had happened. "You're dippy about pretending, Julie. You once said you could pretend anything you wanted to, and make it seem real. Well, here's your chance. Every time Jane is snappy, pretend she has said something pleasant. That'll be a hard one, but for Dan's sake, I'm willing to give it a try."

Julie's mania had always been "pretending," and she had often wished that Gerald would play it with her, but he was a matter-of-fact sort of a lad, and his reply had been that real things were fun enough for him. The little girl's face brightened. At last her brother was willing to play her favorite game.

"That will be a hard one," she agreed. Then, as she was lunged against the boy, she also laughed. "Oh, goodie!" she whispered. "Now the train is really started--n.o.body can send us back home. Honest, I was skeered Jane might want to. She thinks we're so terribly in the way."

Happy as Dan was, because the sister he so loved was to accompany him to the West, he did not forget the two who had been willing to go with him and care for him in the beginning, and, as soon as the train was well under way, he called to the children. "Come here, Julie. I've saved the window side of my seat for you, and I'm sure Jane will let Gerald sit by the window on her seat. Now, isn't this jolly?"

The children wedged into the places toward which he was beckoning them.

Julie glanced almost fearfully up at the older girl she had accidentally jostled in pa.s.sing, but Jane was gazing out of the window deep in dreams.

Dan noticed his sister-pal's expression. How he hoped she was not regretting her hasty decision.

His fears were soon dispelled, for Jane turned toward him with a tender light in her beautiful dark eyes. "Brother," she said, "I have just been wondering how I can communicate with Marion Starr. She expects to meet me at the Central Station at four. It is now nearly noon. I should have left some message for her."

"We must send a telegram to her home when we reach Albany, or sooner, if we make a stop. I'll ask the conductor. Suppose you write out what you wish to say." And so Jane took from her valise the very same little leather covered notebook in which, less than a week before, she had written a list of the things she would need for a wardrobe to be worn at the fashionable summer resort at Newport.

Of this Jane did not even think as she wrote, after a thoughtful moment, the ten words that were needed to tell her best friend that she was on her way West with her brother Dan, who was ill and who needed her.

The conductor took the message and said that he expected to have an opportunity to send a telegram in a very short time. The train soon stopped at a village, where it was evidently flagged, and the young people saw the station master running from the depot waving a yellow envelope. The conductor received it, at the same time giving him the paper on which Jane's message was written. "Please send this at once."

The sound of his voice came to them through Gerald's window. Then the train started again and had acquired its former speed when the kindly conductor entered their car. He was reading the telegram he had just received. Stopping at their seats, he asked: "Are you Daniel Abbott, accompanied by Jane, Julie and Gerald?"

"We are," the tall lad replied in his friendly manner. "Have you a message from our father?"

The conductor shook his head. "No, not that. This telegram is from the president of the railroad telling us that four young people named Abbott are his guests, and he wishes them to receive every courtesy, and now, as it is noon, if you will come with me, I will escort you to the diner."

"Oh, but I'm glad," Julie, who treated everyone with frank friendliness, smiled brightly up into the face of the man whom she just knew must be a father, he had such kind, understanding eyes. "I'm awful hungry; aren't you, Gerry?" she whispered, a moment later, as they filed down the aisle in procession, the conductor first, Jane next, with Dan at the end as rear guard. Julie t.i.ttered and Jane turned to frown at her. Gerry poked his young sister with the reminder, "Pretend she smiled."

But frowns could not squelch Julie's exuberance when they were seated about a table in the dining car, which was rapidly filling with their fellow travelers.

"Ohee, isn't this the jolliest? I'm going to pretend I'm a princess and----" But the small girl paused and listened. The head waiter was addressing Jane. "As guests of Mr. Bethel's," he told them, "you may select whatever you wish from the menu. Kindly write out your orders." He handed them each an order slip and a pencil and then went on to another table. Julie gave a little bounce of joy. The "_real_" was so wonderful, she would not have to pretend. She and Gerald bowed their heads over a typed menu; and then they began to scribble. Dan, glancing across at them, smiled good naturedly. "What are you doing, kiddies, copying the entire menu?" he asked. But Jane remarked rebukingly, "Julie Abbott, do you wish people to think that you have been starved at home? Tear those up at once. Here are two others. If you can't make them out properly, I'll do it for you."

Dan saw a rebellious expression in Julie's eyes, so he suggested, "Let them try once more, Jane. They can't learn any younger. Just order a few things at first, Gerry, and then, if you are still hungry, you can have more."

Such a jolly time as the children had! When the train turned sharply at a curve and the dishes slid about, Julie laughed outright. She purposely did not look at Jane. She could pretend her big sister was smiling easier, if she didn't see the frown. But their fun was just beginning.

CHAPTER IX.

TELEGRAMS