The Cricket Part 26

"Why is it wicked for me to play Indian with the boys?" she demanded of Miss Watts.

"It isn't playing Indian; it's--little girls can't spend the night in the woods with boys," she replied.

"But why not? They were my regular friends."

"Didn't your mother tell you why it is wrong?"

"No."

"Then I must speak to her, Isabelle, before we discuss it."

It was only the beginning of the revelation of her ignominy. She was not allowed to go anywhere or to see her friends. Once when she saw Margie Hunter on the road, and waved to her, Margie looked the other way and did not wave back. She smuggled off a letter to Herbert and he smuggled one to say that he was not allowed to see her, or write to her--that he was being sent away to school.

When she questioned Miss Watts she met with pained reticence--no frank explanation. The girl felt that she was a prisoner, under sentence for something which she could not understand. She turned hither and thither in her appeal for help and understanding, and everybody turned aside as if she were an outcast. The iron of injustice began to enter her soul.

She was at the impressionable age, when she felt deeply every injury done her. She thought much of Ann Barnes and Martin Christiansen, her two friends. They would have understood. They would have answered the questions, told her the truth which her mother hinted at yet failed to explain. It was a period of bitterness and revolt, of enforced inaction and isolation. It was to bear fruit in her whole life, and no one guessed it--or cared.

But it so happened that Christiansen, all unknown to her, was to help her. He happened to meet Mrs. Bryce, full of maternal anxiety about the school question, and he immediately suggested The Hill Top School, conducted by some friends of his who were Quakers. They accepted only a few children, but they accomplished wonders with them. Max listened and took note. He offered to write a letter in Isabelle's behalf. Mrs. Bryce accepted this help gratefully, and in the end it was arranged that Isabelle was to be sent there. But the little girl knew nothing of this.

Events marched. She was taken to town and a school outfit bought for her. She was allowed no word of choice in her things. Max, coldly distant, and Miss Watts, nervously conciliatory, accompanied her during this ordeal of fitting and ordering. A month earlier, she would have worked up a plan of revolt and carried it through, but now, it did not seem worth while. Their att.i.tude toward her struck in on her spirit. She hated the thought of the school, but she was glad she was going away.

"What's the name of this place they're sending me?" she asked Miss Watts one day.

"The Hill Top School."

"Where is it?"

"In Ma.s.sachusetts. It is a very nice school, and I think you will be happy there."

"Won't I? Just!"

Miss Watts frowned. There was a queer streak of cynicism growing in the child that gave her pause. She was fond of her, in her way, but she was glad that her responsibility for her was soon to cease. She had been induced by Mrs. Bryce to deliver Isabelle at the school, as the day of her departure fell in horse-show week, and The Beeches was to be full of house guests.

It was a ripe, mellow, September day when they left. A day on which Isabelle longed to fling herself into the saddle and gallop and gallop through the red and yellow world. Instead, for some heinous but incomprehensible crime, she was being sent to prison. That was the att.i.tude of mind in which she viewed it.

"All right, now, Isabelle; the motor is here. Have you said good-bye to your mother?" inquired Miss Watts, all a-flutter.

"Yes," lied Isabelle, and hurried down to the car.

Wally was at the wheel.

"Are you driving us to the station, Wally?" she asked.

"I thought I would," he answered, embarra.s.sed.

She got in and sat beside him. Her attempt at a smile worried him. After all, she was just a kid, being bundled off in disgrace. He felt a vague regret that he meant so little to her. He wondered if she really loved any one. Then her search for "regular parents" came back to haunt him.

Funny business this, having kids. Not so simple----

"All right, kid?" he asked her, as they waited for the train.

"Oh, yes," she said, with an effort at her old _insouciance_.

"Good-bye," he said jocosely, adding, as the train came in, with an effort to avoid any emotion: "Write if you need money."

He kissed her, and she clung to him.

"You're a good old thing, Wally," she said, hoa.r.s.ely; and then, silently, she followed Miss Watts into the train.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The little G.o.d of Chance must have sat smiling on his throne when Mrs.

Wally Bryce decided upon Hill Top School as the spot to which her daughter should be banished. She felt that Christiansen's recommendation was enough, together with the list of girls who attended it, so she did not trouble to visit the place. The few necessary letters which pa.s.sed between herself and Adam Benjamin, the head of the school, were formal business communications, in regard to terms, books, equipment, and such details. Mr. Benjamin's insistence upon the simplest clothes suited her exactly. The girl had to be put somewhere until she could be admitted to a fashionable New York finishing school where she had been entered as a baby. This Hill Top place would do as a stop gap.

As for Isabelle, in the bitterness of her spirit, her only thought was that, whatever the place proved to be, she would hate it.

She and Miss Watts arrived in the afternoon of a perfect autumn day. The train was late, so that Miss Watts was forced to hand over her charge to Mr. Benjamin, who met them at the station, with only a few minutes' wait for her train back to New York.

"I'm sorry not to have taken you to the school, and seen your room, Isabelle," she said.

"That's all right."

"We will look after her," Mr. Benjamin said with a genial smile.

Isabelle looked at him again. He was a big man, strong and bronzed, as if he lived in the open. When he smiled, his very blue eyes smiled too, and many little wrinkles appeared about them, as if his smile sent out rays, like the sun. He wore loose, snuff-coloured clothes, and a broad-brimmed hat.

Miss Watts's train thundered in. There was a moment of confusion, of exhortation to be a good girl, of farewell; and then the train was gone.

The last member of Isabelle's world had deserted her, and she choked back a sob of loneliness, of rebellion. It was all mirrored in her tell-tale face. A big strong hand suddenly enclosed her own, and she looked up into Mr. Benjamin's wrinkly smile.

"Thee must not feel lonely, little girl," he said, gently. He led her away to a wide, low surrey, with two fat dappled horses. Isabelle tried to s.n.a.t.c.h her hand away, but Mr. Benjamin seemed unaware of it.

"If thee will get into the front seat with me, we will put thy trunk in the back."

Without any reply she got in. Presently they were off at a good pace, through lovely country, mellow in the late afternoon sunshine. Mr.

Benjamin talked to the horses in a friendly way, but he left Isabelle to herself. After a little they were among the hills. The sumac flamed everywhere, and bronze oak trees smouldered in the sun. Once Mr.

Benjamin drew up and pointed to a flower beside the road.

"Does thee see that flower, Isabelle?"

She nodded.

"It is very interesting," he mused, and he unfolded the tale of this plant. How exacting it was, how its seed germinated in only a certain soil, how it bloomed in only certain seasons under special weather conditions. Isabelle's quick imagination kindled at the tale. It was hard to hate this man, whom she had visualized as her jailer.

"Why do you say 'thee' instead of 'you'?" she asked as her first remark.

"Because I am a Quaker, and we use the Friends' speech."