Only an Incident Part 9

"Let us see," said Denham, ruminatingly. "Miss Delano's pleasure against Miss Vernor's displeasure, or _vice versa, Miss Vernor's pleasure against Miss Delano's displeasure. Yes; the balance of pleasure remains quite the same whichever lady has it. Apart from principle, the logic is unanswerable."

"It is admirable," commented De Forest. "I always did like logic so much better than moral philosophy. h.e.l.lo, what's the matter now?"

There was a wail of distress somewhere in the distance.

Gerald turned her shapely head and listened a moment. "It's only Olly,"

she said, composedly. "I recognize the cry. He isn't hurt. Oh, you needn't go, Mr. Halloway; Olly never comes to any harm. He's only quarrelling with some one."

De Forest raised himself on his elbow to listen, while Halloway walked off in the direction of the outburst. "There are possibilities lurking in picnics, you know," he remarked, resuming his rec.u.mbent position, "mad bulls, and rabbit traps, and fine chances for a drown now and then. But I suppose we needn't trouble ourselves, Mr. Halloway'll see to it. Besides, Olly bears the charmed life of the wicked. Miss Masters, I hope you remember to give daily thanks that you haven't any small brothers."

"I do devoutly give thanks that I haven't any sisters," said Bell, with an unaffectionate glance toward Gerald. "I should hate them."

And so the desultory talk rambled on, the little group growing larger by degrees as the approaching luncheon hour brought back the stragglers, and with them Olly, trotting contentedly along, clinging to Halloway's hand, meek as any lamb.

"What were you doing when you cried out so a little while ago?" asked Gerald, going up to the child.

Olly looked at her with instant defiance in his eyes. "I hurt my foot."

"You know perfectly well you can't deceive me, Olly. Tell me the truth.

What mischief were you at?"

"I tell you I hurt my foot, and it hurt like mischief, and that's all the mischief there was. I wish it had been _your_ foot, and I wouldn't have cried a bit."

Halloway was turning aside, but Gerald appealed to him. "Is he telling the truth?"

"Yes," answered Denham, dryly. "He was racing with the Anthony boys and fell, but, as you see, he's right enough now."

"Ya-ah!" said Olly, and leered into her face with brotherly disrespect.

"I'll tell you a lie next time if you'd rather. Ya-ah!"

Gerald looked as if she were going to shake him on the spot, and to prevent any such catastrophe Denham suddenly seized the little fellow and put him through a number of acrobatic feats in breathless succession, till he was fairly hustled into good temper and everybody around was laughing, even Gerald. Jake Dexter was instantly incited to display some marvellous limber-jointed powers of his own, and had just demonstrated to the a.s.sembled company, to his and their entire satisfaction, that the impossible is after all sometimes possible, when luncheon was announced by the ringing of a cow-bell, and a gay onslaught upon the usual picnic table, rich in luxuries and poor in necessities, superseded for the nonce all less material forms of amus.e.m.e.nt.

Later in the afternoon Halloway wandered off from the rest for one of the solitary strolls that he preferred to companionship as being less lonely,--a feeling often experienced when fate and not choice appoints one's comrades,--and returning leisurely along the banks of the lake, he came upon a little group of picnickers, and stopped unperceived beyond them, to enjoy for a while that comfortable sense of being in the world yet out of it, which is the birthright of all spectatorship. Gerald and Phebe were skipping stones, thoroughly absorbed in energetic enjoyment of the simple game; their two contrasting figures, Gerald dark and tall and slim, and Phebe so round and fair and supple, making a pretty-enough picture for any artist. Olly, little Maggie Dexter, and an a.s.sortment of st.u.r.dy urchins known throughout Joppa only as the Anthony boys, were dancing and chattering aimlessly around, and near by was drawn up a clumsy old boat where Phebe had made a comfortable niche for Miss Delano, who every day at about this hour was afflicted with a remarkable disorder which had grown upon her wholly of late years, and whose symptoms, so far as she was willing to admit them, consisted of a painful heaviness of the eyelids, a weakness in the nape of the neck, and an irresistible tendency to retire for a brief season within herself. A little farther off still, having taken fortune at the flood and secured De Forest at last, Bell Masters was embarked on another kind of craft, a thorough-going, fully-freighted flirtation, all sails set; and through the trees were glimpses of lazily moving figures beyond, generally in twos and twos, following some occult rule of common division peculiar to picnics. By degrees the children wandered off up the bank, and presently there came a shout, followed by an evident squabble. Phebe looked around uneasily.

Gerald kept on with her sport.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven times, Phebe. Now do better than that."

At this juncture little Maggie ran up, her pretty brown eyes wide and her red lips quivering. "Oh! Miss Vernor, Olly shan't do it, shall he? Do say he shan't!"

"Do what?" asked Gerald, pausing in the act of searching for another pebble.

"Put it in the water to swim like a duck. It isn't a duck, it's a little, little young bird he's found in a nest, and it can't swim, it can't hardly fly. Oh, don't let him!"

"Let him!" echoed Gerald sharply. She sprang toward the children with a bound, almost lifting Olly off his feet as she drew him back from the water's edge. "You cruel boy!" she cried. "Give it to me directly."

"I won't!" answered Olly, trying to shake himself free from her grasp.

"It's mine, I found it."

But the small hands held him in a grip as strong as a man's, and in another moment Gerald had taken the poor little half-feathered creature from him, and bidden Maggie restore it carefully to its nest.

"It's mine! It's mine! I'll have it back!" shouted Olly, angrily, after the little girl.

Gerald took hold of him by the shoulders and turned him round toward her.

There was a great deal of hatred for the sin, and not overmuch love for the sinner, in her face, as she looked down at him. "If you dare touch that bird again, Olly, I'll find a punishment for you that you will not soon forget, do you hear?"

A hidden thought of revenge for the spoiled sport came into Olly's mind.

He twisted himself away from his sister with a little grunt, and stood peevishly playing a moment with a couple of marbles; then suddenly darting aside, seized the boat in which Miss Delano was established, still struggling, but more feebly, with the mysterious trouble that held her in thrall; and with a strength with which one would hardly have credited his slight form, he pushed it off into the water. There was, of course, not a particle of real danger for Miss Delano, even though this chanced to be the only boat at that point, and she was no oarswoman; but the poor little old lady, thus suddenly roused from the strange hallucinations (as she called them) which were the most marked feature of her complaint, and finding herself afloat upon the unstable deep, instantly supposed that her last hour was come. She sprang up, too terrified to scream, with a look of deadly horror in her face, and then sank again all in a heap in the bottom of the boat. Olly gave a fiendish laugh, but before any one else could move to the rescue, Gerald, with one fierce, unutterable look at her brother, and no thought but how soonest to end Miss Delano's speechless agony, quick as a flash, caught hold of an overhanging bough and swung herself on to a rock quite far out in the water, and thence, with a light, bold spring, landed safely in the middle of the boat as it drifted past.

"All right, Miss Delano," she said, briskly, seating herself and laying hold of the oars with accustomed hands; "I'm a born sailor, and we'll have a little row first before we go back."

Had an angel visibly descended from heaven to a.s.sume the helm, Miss Delano could not have been more grateful and overcome. "Oh, my dear, my dear!" she said, and, in the intensity of her relief, began to cry a little softly. Gerald pretended not to notice her emotion (she was very awkward as a comforter, and as shy before tears as a man), and rowed around for a while in utter silence; and then feeling that conversation might aid in quieting her companion's unnecessarily excited nerves she began abruptly charging her with questions as one loads a gun with cartridges, dropping down one after another with cruel directness into the harmless vacancy of Miss Delano's brain. How many inhabitants had Joppa in precise figures? what was the height of those farther hills to the left? upon what system was the village-school governed? what was the mineral nature of the soil? what was the fastest time ever made by that bay mare of Mr. Upjohn's with the white hind foot? etc. etc., etc., on all which points poor Miss Delano could only a.s.sure her timidly: "I don't know, dear; it would be well if I did," and relapsed into an alarmed and most uncharacteristic silence.

Phebe stood watching the boat as Gerald rowed off, then, as if recollecting some neglected duty, turned suddenly, and found herself face to face with Mr. Halloway.

"No farther," he said, playfully barring her pa.s.sage.

"Oh, but I must! I want to find Olly and talk him into a better frame of mind before Gerald comes back."

"Leave Olly to me, please. I am a perfect child-tamer, and guarantee to exorcise his seven evil spirits in less than no time. Meanwhile, sit you down and rest."

"Oh, I don't need rest. If you'll undertake Olly I'll help put back the lunch things. Picnics are quite like the Biblical feasts: five loaves and two fishes somehow always make twelve basketfuls to take up."

"And you are always a true disciple at the feast, Miss Phebe, intent only upon ministering to others."

Phebe laughed her own peculiarly light-hearted, gay laugh. "That is a much prettier way of putting it than Gerald's. She says I make myself maid-of-all-work."

"Miss Gerald, of course, doesn't approve of such service."

"But you do. So I needn't mind her blame."

"But I shall blame too, Miss Phebe, when you overdo yourself. I don't see why others' recreation need be all work for you. Let each take his share of both the pleasure and the toil."

"But you see this _is_ my share, Mr. Halloway, because I can't help in any better way. I don't know enough to entertain people's guests just by talking to them, as Gerald does. You forget how dull I am."

"So I do," said Denham, gravely. "I forget it all the time. Indeed, the forgetfulness has quite become chronic. Now I'll find Olly, and we'll all go at the dishes together and make a game of it."

Certainly Denham Halloway must have possessed some secret charm in his management of children, for by the time Gerald turned her boat to the sh.o.r.e, he stood at the bank to meet them, with Olly by his side, as amiable a little fellow as any Sunday-school-book hero ever born.

"I am glad your sail turned out such a success, Miss Delano," said Halloway, cheerily, as he lifted the little old lady carefully out on to the pebbles. "You have been envied of us all. But here is a little boy come to tell you all the same how sorry he is that he gave you such a fright. Olly, my lad, I think Miss Delano looks as if she had forgiven you through and through."

"Oh, indeed, indeed yes," answered Miss Delano, hurriedly. "It was only my silly way of being scared, particularly when I'm roused up so sudden out of one of those turns of mine. And it's all right, my dear, all right."

"But I'm sorry, real and honest," declared Olly, stoutly, looking squarely in Miss Delano's kindly face. "And I didn't mean to scare you."

"You meant it for a revenge on me, I suppose," said Gerald, in a low, harsh voice. She took hold of his arm as she spoke. "Give me those marbles of yours."

Olly looked at her, hesitated, and then reluctantly produced three very handsome agates from some outlying storehouse of his jacket.