Peggy Raymond's Vacation Part 12

demanded Claire, suppressing a yawn rather unsuccessfully. Claire found such topics of conversation far from entertaining, and was perfectly willing that Peggy should realize this fact. But Peggy herself was too interested to suspect that Claire was bored.

"Oh, I asked Mrs. Cole about him," she replied. "Graham, I wish you'd talk to him if you get a chance, and try to wake up his ambition. It's a shame for such a bright boy to grow up with the reputation of being a loafer."

Graham shook his head. "Guess I wouldn't be much of a success as a home missionary. You'd better try your hand on him yourself, Peggy."

"Me? Oh, I do," Peggy answered simply. "But, perhaps he'd think more of it coming from a boy." And Graham reaching for another fish, reflected that a girl like Peggy Raymond could not even go away for a summer vacation without framing innumerable little plots for helping people, with or without their cooperation. Ruth had told him of the berrying-bee, and mentioned casually that Peggy was going to give Lucy Haines lessons in algebra. At the same time she was puzzling her head over the possibility of turning the good-for-nothing of the community into a useful citizen. Humility was not Graham's dominant characteristic, but for the moment the popular young collegian had a queer and uncomfortable sense of amounting to very little.

Dorothy rescued him from this unwonted self-depreciation by bursting on the scene with eyes distended to their widest. "Aunt Peggy, your old hen's scolding--and scolding."

"Now, Dorothy, you mustn't go near her nest."

"I stood 'way off by the door and jus' looked at her an' she talked as cross as anything."

"Oh, I wonder--What day is it, anyway?" Peggy disappeared through the open door of the woodshed, to have her jubilant suspicions instantly confirmed. The yellow hen was in a mood of extreme agitation, and a shrill peeping from beneath her ruffled feathers furnished the explanation of her disquiet.

Peggy herself was hardly more composed, and her excitement was contagious. All plans for the remainder of the afternoon were instantly forgotten till Peggy's chickens should be ushered from their egg-sh.e.l.l prison-houses into the world of sunshine. Peggy had fortified herself against this hour by asking advice of Mrs. Cole and Joe, and all the other experts in the neighborhood, but now she realized the appalling gulf between theory and practise. The demeanor of the yellow hen convinced her that everything was going wrong, and she felt pathetically unequal to doing ever so little toward making it come right.

Yet, in spite of Peggy's forebodings, one chicken after another was rescued from beneath the wings of the perturbed foster-mother, and placed in a carefully prepared basket set behind the kitchen stove. The girls, eager for a peep at the new arrivals, failed to wax enthusiastic after their curiosity had been satisfied. Amy voiced the general disappointment when she said regretfully, "I hadn't an idea they looked like that to start with. I thought they'd be fluffy and cute, like the chickens on Easter cards." Peggy, who had herself found the appearance of the wobbly, shrill-voiced mites a distinct shock, said bravely that they would undoubtedly be prettier when they were older.

After six chickens had been placed in the basket, silence reigned in the nest. The yellow hen settled down on her remaining eggs, emitting, at intervals, an agitated cluck. Peggy vibrated between the woodshed and the covered basket behind the stove, like an erratic pendulum. The other girls, weary at last of waiting for more chickens, trooped to the living-room, and Graham, who like many young gentlemen of twenty, could on occasion conduct himself like a boy half that age, sought to create a diversion by tickling his sister.

Ruth was agonizingly sensitive to this form of torture. A forefinger extended with a threatening waggle was sufficient to rob her of every vestige of self-control, while the play of her brother's fingers over her ribs reduced her instantly to grovelling submission. To do Graham justice, he was quite unable to appreciate the fact that this pastime cost Ruth real suffering. He would have put his hand into the fire before he would have struck his sister, yet he frequently subjected her to misery compared to which a blow would have been welcome.

With a sudden freakish reversion to the prankishness of a growing boy, Graham pointed his finger at Ruth, who instantly screamed. The girls looking on, laughed, and there was some excuse for their amus.e.m.e.nt. The spectacle of the sensible Ruth, shrinking and shrieking over nothing more alarming than an agitated forefinger, was ridiculous enough to be funny. Graham, encouraged by the laughter, took a step toward his sister who instantly burst into incoherent appeals and protests.

"Oh, Graham, please, Graham! Oh, dear! Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Hobo, lying on the porch outside, leaped to his feet. Hobo keenly felt the responsibility of the family he had adopted. He subjected all new arrivals to a careful scrutiny which marked him sufficiently as the guardian of the household. But never before in his three weeks of domesticity, had the need for his services seemed as urgent as now.

Barking excitedly, Hobo ran to the nearest window, raised himself on his hind-legs, his forepaws resting on the outer sill, and looked in. The scene which met his eyes confirmed his worst suspicions. Ruth, standing in the middle of the room, cowered and pleaded, while the teasing brother prolonged the fun by touching her lightly now and then, finding her writhing protests eminently diverting.

Outside, Hobo barked his warning. The girls turned to the window and the laughter broke out afresh. The dog's eyes shone with a bluish light, like burnished steel. The hair on his neck bristled threateningly. As Graham looked up, Hobo's upper lip drew back in a menacing fashion, showing his teeth.

"That dog would be an ugly customer in a fight," remarked Graham casually, not averse to teasing a barking dog as well as a screaming girl. He caught Ruth by the arm as she edged away, and tickled her again. Ruth's responsive shriek was ear-splitting.

Hobo's head disappeared from the window. The dog ran back, crouching for a spring. Unluckily the screen had been removed from that particular window the previous day, when Peggy had discovered a break through which the flies were entering, and the window itself had been lowered till the necessary repairs could be made. Just as Graham was beginning to think that the fun was losing its zest, a heavy body launched itself against the gla.s.s.

Hobo was a large dog, and since he had become a member of the family at Dolittle Cottage the hollows of his gaunt frame had been filling out rapidly. With such a projectile hurled against a window, the result could not be in doubt. There was a startling crash. Pieces of gla.s.s flew in all directions, and Hobo, bleeding from several wounds, struggled through the splintered aperture made by the force of his spring, and leaped at the young man who had disturbed the peace of the cottage.

For all Hobo's injuries, there was plenty of fight in him yet, and the consequences might have been serious if Peggy had not arrived upon the scene at the critical moment. Her stern command, "Down, Hobo! Down, sir!" emphasized by stamps of her foot had a magical effect. The poor, bleeding, bewildered creature, who had stopped at nothing to protect a member of the household which commanded his fealty, recognized in Peggy the ultimate authority. The tense muscles, bent for a spring, instantly relaxed. The lip dropped over the bared teeth. With a whimper the poor brute crouched at Peggy's feet, and Peggy saw with sickened dismay that the blood was oozing from gashes in the dog's neck.

"Graham!" she gasped. "Oh, Graham! He's hurt! He's bleeding dreadfully!"

Graham's temporary lapse into the sins of his youth was over. He was again a young college man, and thoroughly ashamed of himself. The amus.e.m.e.nt he had found in teasing Ruth suddenly seemed inexplicable, in view of this tragic culmination. Flushing and awkward, he stood looking on while Peggy bent over the wounded dog, unable to restrain her tears.

But when she attempted to remove a splinter of gla.s.s from the gash for which it was responsible, Graham uttered a startled protest.

"I wouldn't try that, Peggy. He's likely to bite you."

"Oh, he won't bite me," Peggy returned confidently. "He knows I'm his friend, don't you, poor old fellow?" Hobo, realizing that the loved voice was addressing him, even though the trend of the question was beyond his comprehension, gave a feeble flop of his tail, and raised to Peggy's face eyes full of loyalty and trust.

The living-room became a hospital forthwith. Those of the girls who were affected with unpleasant qualms at the sight of blood, fled precipitately, while the others lent aid to Peggy, who had taken upon herself the double role of operating surgeon and chief nurse. Several ugly splinters of gla.s.s were removed from the bleeding neck, and the wounds bathed and bandaged. Graham's usefulness in the operation was confined to offering advice; for once, when he had extended his hand to a.s.sist Peggy, the light of battle had again kindled in Hobo's eyes, and a low, rumbling growl had voiced his objections to any ministrations from so objectionable a source.

When Peggy's patient was swathed in bandages, till he looked as if he might be suffering from a severe attack of sore throat, Peggy called him out into the woodshed, where an inviting bed had been made ready for him. Hobo stretched himself upon the folded rug with a groan startlingly human. It was clear that the loss of blood had weakened him, and his gaze directed to Peggy was full of pathetic questioning and dumb appeal.

"I believe I'll run over to the Coles, and ask them if there is anything more we can do," Peggy said, looking as unhappy as she felt. "They know so much about all kinds of animals. I've taken care of Taffy in his attacks of distemper, and once he had a dreadful fight with another dog, and came home all torn. But he didn't bleed like this."

"I'll walk over with you," said Graham, only too ready to show his penitence, and Dorothy, who had an innate antipathy to being left behind, also proffered her services as escort.

Accordingly the trio set forth, Dorothy declining to follow the path but circling around the others, like an erratic planet, revolving about twin suns. Graham, who felt personally responsible for the shadow clouding Peggy's bright face, lost no time in apologizing.

"Peggy, it's a shame for me to upset things so. You'll all wish that we had got discouraged over Mrs. Tyler's reception, and gone on without stopping."

"Why, no, Graham," Peggy protested. "n.o.body could have dreamed that anything like this would happen."

Graham was not in a mood to spare himself. "Perhaps not, but there wasn't any excuse for teasing poor Ruth almost into hysterics. It's the kind of fun a red Indian might be expected to enjoy."

Peggy was so inclined to agree with this diagnosis that she found it impossible to be as comforting as she would have liked. "I often wonder how it is that we all think teasing is fun," she said. "Girls are just as bad as boys. In fact, I think their kind of teasing is even more cruel sometimes. It's queer, when we stop to think of it, that anybody can get real satisfaction out of making some one else miserable, or even uncomfortable."

"It's beastly," Graham declared with feeling. "I'm going to stop teasing Ruth, that's sure. It seems so ridiculous to have her scream and wriggle if I point my finger at her, that I can't realize that it isn't all a joke. But, I suppose, it is serious enough from her point of view, and I'm going to quit."

The walk to Farmer Cole's, enlivened by similar expressions of penitence and good resolutions, was a very edifying excursion, and Peggy, in her sympathy for Graham, almost forgot her anxiety concerning Hobo. She was further relieved when the case was laid before Farmer Cole.

"Oh, he'll get over it all right," said that authority encouragingly.

"Being a cur dog, that way. Now, if you buy a highbred animal, and pay a fancy price, it goes under at the least little thing. Never knew it to fail. But to kill a cur, you've got to blow him up with dynamite."

"But they _do_ die," objected Peggy, who found it difficult to accept the farmer's optimistic view, much as she wished to.

"Old age," said Farmer Cole. "That's all. A few scratches like that ain't going to hurt a cur. But I paid through my nose for a blooded colt a few years back, and 'twarn't a week before he cut himself on barbed wire, and bled to death."

"It won't do any harm for her to use some of the salve," said Mrs. Cole, and went to her medicine closet in search of the remedy. Rosetta Muriel smoothed her hair, with a motion that set her bracelets jingling, and cast a provocative glance at Graham. Rosetta Muriel admired Graham extremely. In spite of his shabby clothing, there was about him the indefinable air which Jerry had recognized and which had led him to cla.s.sify the young man as a "city dude."

"I should have thought that Raymond girl would have put on something more stylisher," reflected Rosetta Muriel, casting a disapproving glance at Peggy's gingham. "I haven't seen her in a nice dress yet." Had she been in Peggy's place, she would have known better how to improve her opportunities, she felt sure.

Owing to Hobo's injuries, the event which up to the time of the accident had seemed to Peggy so tremendously important, had been quite cast in the shade. She recalled it as Mrs. Cole brought out the salve. "Oh, I didn't tell you. My chickens have hatched."

"Turned out pretty well, did they?" asked Mrs. Cole, smiling at Peggy benevolently. Peggy was an immense favorite with the good woman, a fact which Rosetta Muriel recognized with irritated wonder. She asked herself frequently why it was that folks got so crazy over that Raymond girl, "with no style to speak of."

"There's only six hatched yet. I've put them in a basket just as you said. The old hen is on the other eggs."

"Maybe six will be all," said Mrs. Cole. "That thunder-storm day before yesterday was pretty rough on eggs 'most ready to hatch."

Six chickens, instead of eighteen! An air-castle fell with such a crash that it almost seemed to Peggy as if the little group about her must be aware of its downfall. Then she took a long breath. "Well, even six, at forty cents a pound, won't be so bad for a start," said Peggy to herself.

Mrs. Cole looked admiringly after the young people as they took their departure, Dorothy and Annie racing on ahead. "They're what I call a handsome pair," she exclaimed.

Rosetta Muriel objected. "He's awful swell, but she ain't a bit. Look at her gingham dress."

"Seems to me that her gingham dress is just the thing for running around in the woods and fields," said Mrs. Cole, who did not often pluck up courage sufficiently to oppose her own opinions to her daughter's superior wisdom. "I've seen her fixed up in white of an evening, and looking like a picture. But, as far as that goes," she concluded resolutely, "there's so much to her face, just as if her head was crammed full of bright ideas, and her heart of kind thoughts, that you get to looking at her, and forget what she's wearing. An' I guess that young man thinks so, too."