The Cromptons Part 20

Jack looked doubtfully at Eloise, who shook her head.

"No," she said, "I shall tell her you have been here. It would be a deception not to."

"As you like. And it's too late now, for here she comes!" Howard said, as Mrs. Biggs pa.s.sed the window and stooped to find the key.

It was not there. Turning the mat upside down, she failed to discover it. The key was gone!

"For goodness' sake, what can have happened?" they heard her say, as she pushed the door open and entered the room, where the two young men stood, one on either side of Eloise, as if to protect her. "Well, if I ain't beat!" the widow exclaimed, dropping into a chair and beginning to untie her bonnet strings as if they choked her. "Yes, I am beat. Hain't you been to meetin'?" she asked rather severely, her eyes falling on Howard, who answered quickly, "Yes, I have, and on my way home called to inquire for Miss Smith, and found this rascal here before me. He had unlocked the door and taken possession. You ought to have him arrested as a burglar, breaking into your house on Sunday."

"I s'pose I or'ter," Mrs. Biggs said, "and I hope none of the neighbors seen you come in. Miss Brown acrost the way is a great gossip, and there hain't a speck of scandal ever been on my house in my life, and I a-boardin' schoolma'ams for fifteen years!"

Mrs. Biggs was inclined to be a little severe on the two young men invading her premises, but Jack was equal to the emergency. She was tugging at her bonnet strings, which were entangled in a knot, into which the cord of her eyegla.s.ses had become twisted.

"I can swear that neither Mrs. Brown, nor any one else was looking from the window when I came in. She was probably at church," Jack said, offering to help her, and finally undoing the knot which had proved too much for her. "There you are," he said, removing the bonnet, and setting her false piece, which had become a little askew, more squarely on her head. "You are all right now, and can blow me up as much as you please.

I deserve it," he added, beaming upon her a smile which would have disarmed her of a dozen prejudices.

Jack's ways were wonderful with women, both young and old, and Mrs.

Biggs felt their influence and laughed, as she said, "I ain't goin' to blow, though I was took aback to see two men here, and I'd like to know how you knew where to find the key."

"I told him," Eloise answered rather shamefacedly.

Mrs. Biggs shot a quick glance at her, and then said, with a meaning nod, "I s'pose I'd of done the same thing when John and me was courtin', and young folks is all alike."

Eloise's face was scarlet, while Jack pretended suddenly to remember the lateness of the hour, and started to leave the room. As he did so his eyes fell upon a table on which a few books were lying.

"You must find these lively," he said, turning them over and reading their t.i.tles aloud. "'Pilgrim's Progress,' 'Foxe's Martyrs,'

'Doddridge's Rise and Fall,' 'Memoir of Payson,' all solid and good, but a little heavy, 'United States History,' improving, but tedious,--and,--upon my word, 'The Frozen Pirate'! That is jolly! Have you read it?"

Before Eloise could reply Mrs. Biggs exclaimed, "Of course she hasn't, and I don't know how under the sun it got in here, unless Tim put it here unbeknownst to me. I never read novels, and that is the wust I ever got hold of, and the biggest lie. I told Tim so."

She took it from the table and carried it from the room, followed by the young men, who laughed as they thought how the widow, who never read novels, betrayed the fact that she had read "The Frozen Pirate."

CHAPTER XII

THE MARCH OF EVENTS

"I say, Howard," Jack began, when they were out upon the road, "that girl ought to have something besides 'The Frozen Pirate' and 'Foxe's Martyrs' to brighten her up,--books and flowers, and other things. Do you think she'd take them?"

Howard's head was cooler than Jack's, and he replied, "She would resent gifts from us, but would take them from Amy. Anyhow, we can try that dodge."

"By Jove, you are right! We can send her a lot of things with Mrs. Amy's compliments," Jack exclaimed. "Flowers and books and candy, and--"

He did not finish what was in his mind, but the next morning, immediately after breakfast, he pretended that he had an errand in the village, and started off alone, preferring to walk, he said, when Howard suggested the carriage, and also declining Howard's company, which was rather faintly offered. Howard never cared to walk when he could drive, and then he had a plan which he could better carry out with Jack away than with him present. He was more interested in Eloise than he would like to confess to Jack or any one, and he found himself thinking of her constantly and wishing he could do something to make her more comfortable than he was sure she could be even in Mrs. Biggs's parlor.

He was very fastidious in his tastes, and Mrs. Biggs's parlor was a horror to him, with its black hair-cloth furniture, and especially the rocker in which Eloise sat, and out of which she seemed in danger of slipping every time she bent forward. He had thought of his uncle's sea chair on the occasion of his first call, and now he resolved to send it in Amy's name. Something had warned him that in Eloise's make-up there was a pride equal to his own. She might receive favors from Amy, as she had the hat, and although a chair would seem a good deal perhaps, he would explain it on the ground of Amy's great desire to help some one when he saw her. He'd send it at once, he thought, and he wrote a note, saying, "Miss Smith: Please accept this sea chair with the compliments of Mrs. Amy, who thinks you will find it more comfortable than the hair-cloth rocker, of which I told her. As she seldom writes to any one, she has made me her amanuensis, and hopes you will excuse her. Yours, very truly, Howard Crompton, for Mrs. Amy."

It was a lie, Howard knew, but that did not trouble him, and calling Sam, he bade him take it with the chair and a bunch of hothouse roses to Miss Smith. Sam took the chair and the note and the roses, and started for Mrs. Biggs's, stopping in the avenue to look at the shrub where Brutus had received the gouge in his shoulder, and stopping again at a point where some bits of gla.s.s from the broken window of the carriage were lying. All this took time, so that it was after eleven when he at last reached Mrs. Biggs's gate, and met a drayman coming in an opposite direction with Jack Harcourt on the cart, seated in a very handsome wheel chair, and looking supremely happy.

Jack had been very busy all the morning visiting furniture stores and inquiring for wheel chairs, which he found were not very common. Indeed, there were only three in the town, and one of these had been sent from Boston for the approval of Col. Crompton when his rheumatic gout prevented him from walking. Something about it had not suited him, and it had remained with the furniture dealer, who, glad of a purchaser, had offered it to Jack for nearly half the original price. Jack did not care for the cost if the chair was what he wanted. It was upholstered with leather, both the seat and the back, and could be easily propelled from room to room by Eloise herself, while Jack thought it quite likely that he should himself some day take her out for an airing, possibly to the school-house, which he had pa.s.sed on his way to the village. There was a shorter road through the meadows and woods than the one past the school-house, but Jack took the latter, hoping he might see Tom Walker again, in which case he meant to interview him. Nor was he disappointed, for sauntering in the same direction and chewing gum, with his cap on the back of his head and his hands in his pockets, was a tall, wiry fellow, whom Jack instantly spotted as Tom Walker, the bully, who was to terrorize Eloise.

"Now is my time," Jack thought, hastening his steps and soon overtaking the boy, who, never caring whether he was late or early at school, was taking his time, and stopping occasionally to throw a stone at some bird on the fence or a tree. "Hallo, Tom!" Jack said in his cheery way as he came up with the boy, whose ungracious answer was, "How do you know my name is Tom?"

At heart Tom was something of an anarchist, jealous of and disliking people higher in the social scale than he was, and this dislike extended particularly to the young gentlemen from the Crompton House, who had nothing to do but to enjoy themselves. He did not like to be patronized, but there was something in Jack's voice which made him accompany his speech with a laugh, which robbed it of some of its rudeness.

"Oh, I know you, just as, I dare say, you know me, Jack Harcourt, from New York, visiting at present at the Crompton House," was Jack's reply, which mollified Tom at once.

If Jack had called himself Mr. Harcourt Tom would have resented it as airs. But he didn't; he said _Jack_, putting himself on a par with the boy, who took the gum from his mouth for a moment, looked at it, replaced it, and began to answer Jack's questions, which at first were very far from Eloise. But they struck her at last as they drew near the school-house.

"I'm late, as usual," Tom said, rolling his gum from side to side in his mouth. "I presume I'll catch thunder, but I don't care. I'm not afraid of any schoolmarm I've ever seen, and I mean to carry the new one out on a couple of chips if she tries to boss me."

There was a look on Tom's face which Jack did not like, but he said pleasantly, "No, you won't, when you see how helpless she is, and how she needs a young gentleman like you to stand by her."

"I ain't a gentleman," Tom answered, but his voice was a good deal softened. "I'm just Tom Walker, who they lay everything to, and who the boys expect to do all their dirty work for them."

"I see," Jack answered; "you pick off the hot chestnuts. _I_ used to do that when a little shaver, till I got my fingers blistered so badly I decided to let some one else get burned in my place."

"Did you ever cut up at school?" Tom asked, with a growing interest in and respect for Jack, who replied, "Oh, yes, I was pretty bad sometimes, and am ashamed of it when I remember how I annoyed some of my teachers.

I have asked pardon of one or two of the ladies when I have chanced to meet them, but I never could have annoyed Miss Smith, nor will you when you know her. You haven't seen her yet?"

"Nope!" Tom answered. "I hear she ain't bigger than my thumb, and awful pretty, Tim Biggs says, and he is threatening to thrash anybody who is mean to her. I'd laugh to see him tackle me!"

"He'll have no occasion to, for I predict you will be the warmest champion Miss Smith has. See if you are not," Jack said, offering his hand to Tom, as they had now reached the school-house.

"He is certainly a good deal of a ruffian," Jack said to himself as he went on his way, while Tom was not quite so sure of the two chips on which he was to carry Eloise out if she tried to boss him. He'd wait and see. That city chap from Crompton Place had certainly been very friendly, and had not treated him as if he was sc.u.m; and after taking his seat and telling Ruby Ann, with quite an air when she asked why he was so late, that he had been detained by Mr. Harcourt, who wanted to talk with him, he took from his desk his slate and rubbed out the caricature he had drawn the day before of a young girl on crutches trying to get up the steps of the school-house. He was intending to show it to Tim Biggs and make him angry, and to the other scholars and make them laugh, and thus ferment a prejudice against Eloise, for no reason at all except the natural depravity of his nature.

The word "champion" kept sounding in his ears, and he wrote it two or three times on his slate, where the girl on crutches had been. "I always supposed champion belonged to prize-fighters, but Mr. Harcourt didn't mean that kind. He meant I was to stand up for her and behave myself.

Well, I'll see what kind of craft she is," he thought.

With this decision Tom took up his lessons, and had never been more studious and well behaved than he was that day.

Meanwhile Jack had gone on his way to the village and bought his chair, with some misgivings as to how Eloise would receive it, even from Mrs.

Amy. "I guess I'd better go with it, and make it right somehow," he thought, getting into the chair and riding along in state, while the people he met looked curiously at him. It was recess again when they reached the school-house, where, as usual, Tom Walker was leading the play. At sight of the dray he stopped suddenly, and then went swiftly forward to the cart, and said to Jack, "Goin' to take her out in that?"

Jack reddened a little, but answered pleasantly, "Perhaps."

"Well, I guess she'll like it better than the chips I told you about.

I've thrown 'em away."

A ring from Ruby Ann's bell told the boys their recess was over, and with a bow Tom hurried off, while Jack and his chair went on till they reached Mrs. Biggs's door, just as Sam came up with the sea chair. That good woman was washing in her back kitchen, but in response to the drayman's knock she came hurriedly, wiping the soap-suds from her arms as she came, and holding up both hands as she saw the two chairs deposited at the door, while Sam held the note and roses, and Jack stood looking a little shamefaced, as if he hardly knew what to say.

"For the pity sakes and the old Harry, are you moving a furniture store, or what?" she asked.

Jack began to explain that Mrs. Amy thought, or he thought--He could not quite bring himself to lie as glibly as Howard would have done, had he been there, and he stammered on, that he thought Miss Smith would soon be able to get round in a wheel chair, which he hoped she would accept with the compliments of--He didn't say Mrs. Amy, but Mrs. Biggs understood, and nodded that she did, helping him out by saying it was just like Mrs. Amy, and adding that it looked a good deal like the chair the Colonel had for a spell and then returned to Lowell & Brothers, where she saw it a few days ago in the window.

Jack made no reply, and Mrs. Biggs continued, "I s'pose t'other chair is Mrs. Amy's compliments, too. I'm sure I'm greatly obliged to her, and Miss Smith will be. She is quite peart this morning. Come in and see her."