Strawberry Acres Part 32

Alec and Bob eagerly echoed Max's plea.

"Bachelors' hall? Well, I don't know that I mind, since my stuff hasn't gone back yet. Mother and Jo have company asked for next week, and will expect me to help entertain, but I can be out at Strawberry Acres more or less. Come up to the house in the car with me, while I explain; then we'll drive out. Al and Bob can ride on the running boards, if they like."

They jumped on, feeling that to stay together was to mind things less.

It was odd how low of spirit they all were already. Surely, one would think that four strapping fellows might contemplate getting on for a s.p.a.ce without one slim young person who was accustomed not only to humour them, but to make three of them toe certain well-defined marks in the matter of clean linen, fresh cravats, and carefully parted hair. Yet not one of them was really willing to go home till the others should be coming along too.

In front of the fireplace, later, when Joanna had given them so good a dinner that it would seem as if their content could hardly be preyed upon by any contemplation of the future, Bob suddenly voiced the general sentiment. He was lying on his side upon the hearth-rug, his round face fiery from his proximity to the blaze.

"Why does it feel so different when you know people are miles away and getting farther every minute than when you know they've just gone to town for a party?" he queried, thoughtfully. "They're away just the same--they aren't here, I mean. Why isn't being away the same thing as _being away_?"

At any other time this somewhat involved statement of conditions would have provoked jeers from the company. But no jeers were forthcoming. Max grunted, lying flat on his back on the couch--whose pillows Joanna had carefully plumped up--his heels on the arm at the end. Alec, standing at the window with his hands in his pockets, staring out into the frosty night, turned about and remarked that on a train averaging sixty to seventy miles an hour Sally must already be out of the state.

"Wonder if she's asleep," speculated Bob. "She used to like sleeping on sleepers, when father and mother used to take us around so much. Say, she had a whole section to herself--at least till we left, and n.o.body was coming aboard then. Hope she has the luck to keep it. Funny! The car was crowded, and so was the next one. I looked in."

"Plenty of people may get on before midnight." reflected Alec.

Jarvis picked up a magazine. "Suppose I read aloud this article on railroading," he proposed. The company consented and he began. He had not read two pages before he ran, so to speak, into a series of frightful railway wrecks. But, wishing he had chosen something else, he kept on till suddenly Bob interrupted with a fierce: "Cut it! I've got her knocked into five thousand pieces now--I'll dream of those confounded smash-ups and Sally in the midst of 'em, if you don't drop that magazine."

The others murmured a somewhat sheepish a.s.sent, and Jarvis turned willingly enough to a tale of adventure at sea. A snore from the couch interrupted him in the middle of a most thrilling crisis, and only the appearance of Joanna with a big dish of shiny apples prevented Bob from following suit.

"Jove, Joanna, you're a good one. How did you come to think of it?" asked Alec, selecting a beauty and setting his teeth into it with a sense of refreshment.

"Miss Sally said I was not to forget anything she usually did, Mr. Alec,"

replied Joanna.

"If you remember everything she usually does you'll be a brick, Joanna,"

cried Bob, rousing to his opportunity and getting up on his knees to accept his apple.

"There's one thing she does, that n.o.body can possibly do for her,"

thought Jarvis as, consuming the crisp, cool specimen Joanna had bestowed upon him with a motherly smile for the boy she had known so long, he paced up and down the room, pa.s.sing the piano at the end with a vivid recollection of how Sally was accustomed to play what she called "little tunes" upon it in the firelight.

"And that's to fill one small corner of her place in the home she has made here."

CHAPTER XVII

THE SOUTHBOUND LIMITED

Sally's first letter home was a short one, stating merely that Uncle Timothy was very ill, very glad to see her, and that she was extremely thankful she had come. The second letter, two days later, showed strong anxiety. The illness was pneumonia, although not in its severest form; but Mr. Rudd's age was an important factor in the case. For a week bulletins were brief, then came a long letter, telling of improvement.

"The minute he is well out of danger she ought to come home," was Max's opinion.

"She won't, though," Alec predicted. "She'll stay till she can bring him with her."

"Not if she listens to me," and Max set about writing a reply which would indicate to his sister in no uncertain terms the course he thought she should pursue.

Her answer was prompt. "I want to come home just as much as you want to have me, Max dear, but it is so much to Uncle Timmy to have me with him I can't think of leaving."

Max frowned over this. "She seems to consult me precious little about anything lately," he observed to Jarvis.

"You must admit she's grown up and can think for herself. Besides, much as I'd like to see her back, I think she's right," was Jarvis's opinion.

"Of course you'd side with her against me every time. But I think her brothers are a trifle nearer to her than her uncle."

"She'd undoubtedly think so too, if you were in bed with pneumonia. Since you're all in vigorous health she imagines you can get on without her.

But she's not having a very jolly time of it, I should judge. Cheer her up with a lively letter, not a peevish one," was Jarvis's advice.

"You can do that."

"I'm not writing."

"Not?" Max was surprised. "You and Sally haven't quarrelled, have you?"

"Not at all. But I've no reason to think she would care to hear from me.

You fellows are undoubtedly telling her all the news."

Jarvis flung a fresh log on the fire as he spoke, then took his place on the hearth-rug with his back to the blaze and his face in the shadow.

Max stared at him interestedly, and was about to begin a discussion of the subject when his companion abruptly opened up a new line of conversation, in relation to plans for the farm, and the moment for asking certain questions did not occur again.

The days went by, brief letters from Sally arriving at frequent intervals. They reported very slow improvement in the invalid, with a return of strength so tardy that she still felt she should not leave him.

The home in which they were was not that of relatives, and she was unwilling to leave the responsibility of Mr. Rudd's care to those who had expected to have him with them only for a brief visit. A month pa.s.sed, and then, just as her brothers were making up their minds that the limit had certainly been reached and her duty done, came a letter which gave a blow to their hopes. It read:

"DEAREST FAMILY:

"Doctor Wood has ordered Uncle Timmy South. The doctor says he positively must get out of this wretched climate, and he must not think of coming back before spring--and spring well advanced. If you could see what a shadow of himself the poor dear is you would understand that I simply must do what I have agreed to do--go with him. He will pay all my expenses. I think he must have quite a bit more property than we have known of, the matter of finances seems to trouble him so little. Of course I know how you will feel about this--and I want you to believe that I feel a thousand times sorrier than you possibly can. But I know there is nothing else to do. He can't possibly go alone, and I can't see mother's only brother have to hire some stranger to be with him when he has a niece who loves him dearly and owes him for a deal of love he has always lavished on her. It isn't as if you needed me in ways that Joanna couldn't supply--for actual food and drink, I mean. Of course I hope--I know--you all miss your little sister. I'm afraid I should feel very badly if I thought you didn't!

"We plan to start Thursday evening, December third. We can't make quite as good connections as I did in coming, so, according to Doctor Wood's figuring with the time-tables, we shall go through the home city at one o'clock on Sat.u.r.day morning. We shall be in the station twenty minutes, being switched around, and--well, I don't like to ask anybody to stay up till that hour, but--I shall be up, and looking out--and--and--I'm almost afraid that if I didn't see anybody, I should shed just a tear or two!

You see I haven't really cried once yet--and I don't want to break my record.

"Your Sally."

It really is not necessary to report what was said in Sally's home upon the receipt of this announcement. There was a good deal of excited talking done, and a number of statements were made to the effect that it was out of the question for Sally to be spared all winter, that she should have waited for the consent of her family before deciding on such an absence, and that it absolutely must not be allowed. Yet, after all, when it came to forbidding it, n.o.body seemed to have quite the authority to do that. Even Max, protesting that the thing was out of all reason, and going so far as to take his pen in hand to write his refusal to permit it, found himself brought to a halt by the remembrance that Sally was showing more and more evidences of possessing a will of her own, and of being perfectly competent to carry out its dictates when they seemed to her right. Clearly she did not want to go South with Uncle Timothy--or with anybody else. There was a homesick touch in more than one line of the stoutly written letter--unquestionably Sally would not be doing this thing if she were not persuaded of her duty.

At one o'clock in the morning of Sat.u.r.day a party of people stood in the great electric-lighted station. Again the offices of Mr. Jarvis Burnside had taken the group past the usual hindrances and established them on a certain platform, nearly in the centre of the rows of tracks, where the Southbound Limited would come in. This time their numbers were considerably augmented by the presence of Mrs. Burnside and Josephine, Donald and Janet Ferry. Various packages enc.u.mbered the arms of each member of the party, and appearances certainly boded well for the reception of the young traveller who at the moment was watching eagerly, as the train rolled through the familiar streets, for the first sign of approach to the station.

"Here she comes!" Bob was the first to cry, pointing to a brilliant headlight just rounding into view on the distant track. "Jolly, I'll bet Sally's wide awake, if she ever was in her life!"

"I expect we're going to find out now how dreadfully short twenty minutes can be," said Janet Ferry to Jarvis, beside whom she stood, an attractively put-up basket of hot-house grapes in her hand.

He nodded, watching the great headlight grow all too slowly bigger and bigger. "Even the twenty minutes will probably be cut short. The train's considerably overdue now."

The long line of sleepers came to a stand-still beside them, and they scanned the cars anxiously for the first sign of Sally. Far down the track could be seen a coloured porter waving in their direction, and the next instant a girl in dark blue jumped off the step of the Pullman and ran toward them. They ran to meet her, Bob and Alec outstripping the rest, and when the others arrived all that could be seen of Sally Lane was the top of a bright head on Bob's shoulder, both blue arms about his neck, his affectionate hand patting her back.

Then they had her in their midst, and everybody was trying to greet her at once. Josephine's arm was about her, and Sally was regarding the group with a radiant smile, crying girlishly; "Oh, how good you people do look!

How dear of you all to come down! If I only could stay just a little longer! We don't stop but ten minutes, instead of twenty, the train is so late. Uncle Tim doesn't know you are here--I was afraid he would be too excited to sleep the rest of the night, and he's only just dropped off.

Oh, how are you all? You look perfectly fine--I don't believe you've pined away a bit, missing me! Let me look at you."