The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross Part 31

"Gee, Laura Belding!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young patient, seizing her hand with both his own when she appeared, "a sight of you is just a stop-station this side of eternity. Have they changed the hours? Aren't they twice as long as they used to be?"

"No, indeed, my poor boy," Laura said. "There are only sixty minutes in each. I wish I could shorten the time for you."

"Take it from me," growled Short and Long, having hard work to keep back the tears, "this being in bed is the bunk. Don't let anybody tell you different."

But Laura caught his attention the next moment with Purt Sweet's trouble.

What Chet had found out from Dan Smith, Hester Grimes' neighbor, interested the quick mind of Billy Long immensely.

"Gee! I knew it must be something like that. Sure! Purt is shielding somebody for Hester. That's it!"

"Have you no idea who it can be? The man who drove the car, I mean, or the one who possibly took the nine-ten express out of town that night? Hester has no brothers----"

"Say!" exclaimed Billy, "there is somebody who will know. If Purt was there at the party, so was Lil Pendleton."

"Lily!" exclaimed Laura. "I never thought of her."

"And if she is likely to be sore on Hester now, as you say you all are,"

Billy continued, "she won't be for shielding Hester or any of her friends or relatives. Let me tell you that!"

"I believe she must have been at the party. Hester invites her to everything of the kind she has; although she seldom invites any of the other girls of Central High."

"Go to it!" urged the patient "Ask Lil Pendleton. I'd like to have Purt cleared of this. I told that man from Alaska so. But, gee, Laura! I wish we could find some way of giving him the right steer."

"You mean you would like to help him find his name and ident.i.ty?"

"Yep. He says sometimes he feels that he is just going to remember--then it all dissipates in his mind like a cloud. He's bad off, he is!"

"I am going to see him now. I have an idea, Billy."

"You're always full of ideas, Laura," the boy said admiringly. "I've been raking my poor nut back and forth and crossways, without getting a glimmer of an idea how to help him. He says if we can show him how to find his memory, he'll do all he can for Purt," Billy added wistfully.

"You are very anxious to help Prettyman Sweet, aren't you, Billy?"

suggested the girl of Central High as she rose to go.

"You bet I am."

"Why? You boys never thought much of him before, you know."

Billy flushed, but he stuck to his guns. "I tell you," he said, "we never gave Purt a fair deal, I guess. He's all right. He isn't like Chet, or Lance, or Reddy b.u.t.ts, or the rest of the fellows, but there's good parts to Purt."

"You think he has proved himself a better fellow than you thought before?"

"You bet!" said Billy vigorously. "He's been mighty nice to me; and I always was playing jokes on him, and--Aw! when a fellow lies like I do in bed and has so much time to think, he gets on to himself," added the boy gruffly. "Sending dead fish to other fellows isn't such a smart joke after all."

"I am going to see your friend, the Alaskan miner, now," the girl said, squeezing the boy's hand understandingly.

"If you find out some way of jogging his memory, I'd like to be in on it,"

Billy cried.

"You shall," promised Laura, as she tripped away.

By this time Laura was so well known at the hospital that n.o.body stopped her from going to the unknown man's private room where he was now established with his particular nurse. He hailed the girl's appearance almost as gladly as Billy Long had done.

"Your bright young faces make you high-school girls--and the boys, of course--as welcome as can be," he said. "I'd like to do something when I get out of this hospital in return for all your kindness to me. But if I can't get a grip on what and who I am----"

"I have thought of a way by which we may help you to that," interjected Laura. "You know, you must have been doing something all these years since you won your fortune in Alaska."

"Surely! But what became of my wealth? That is a hard question."

"Perhaps we can help you find out what you have been doing. Then you will gradually remember it all. Have you those bank-notes they say you carried in your pocket when you were brought in?"

"Why, they are in the hospital safe. I haven't had to use much of my money yet," he said, puzzled.

"I want to look at that money--all of it," said Laura. "It is too late to-night, but to-morrow afternoon I will come with my brother, and I wish you would have those bank-notes here. I have an idea."

"I'll do just as you say, Miss Laura," said the man. "But I don't understand----"

"You will," she told him, laughing, as she hurried away.

There was, therefore, much puzzlement of mind in several quarters that night--and Laura Belding was partly at fault. She retained all her usual placidity, and even on the morrow, when she went to school and found the other girls so very despondent about the play, she refused to join in their prophecies of ill.

This was the day of the last rehearsal. Mr. Mann had told them that he wished the actors to rest between this dress rehearsal and the first public performance of "The Rose Garden" on the following evening.

"I just know it will be a dreadful fizzle," wailed Jess, before Mr. Mann called the rise of the curtain.

Everything was in readiness, however, for a perfect rehearsal. The curtain was properly manipulated and the scene shifters, the light man, and all the other helpers were at their stations, as well as the orchestra in the pit.

The girls had been excused from studies at one o'clock--of course, greatly to Miss Carrington's disapproval. Since her "run-in" with the Lockwood twins, as Bobby inelegantly called it, the teacher had been less exacting, although quite as stern-looking as ever.

Dora and Dorothy, being cheerful souls, had recovered from their excitement over the incident in history cla.s.s, and were so much interested in their parts in the play now that they forgot all about Gee Gee's ill treatment.

Indeed, when the curtain was rung up every girl in the piece was in a state of excitement. Although they felt that the failure of the part of "the dark lady of the roses" would utterly ruin some of the best lines and most telling points in the play, they were all ready to act their own parts with vigor and a real appreciation of what those parts meant.

Bobby, as the sailor lad, came on with a rolling gait that would have done credit to any "garby" in the Navy. Jess, as the swashbuckling hero, swaggered about the stage in a delightful burlesque of such a character, as the author intended the part to be played.

Then the lights were lowered for the evening glow and "Adrian" turned to point out the "dark lady"--that mysterious figure supposed to haunt the rose garden and for weal or woe influence the hero's house and his affairs.

Jess recited her lines roundly, pointing the while to the garden along the shadowy paths of which the dark lady of the roses was supposed to wander.

With incredible amazement--a shock that was more real than Jess could possibly have expressed in any feigned surprise--she beheld the dark lady as the book read, moving quietly across the garden, gracefully swaying as she lightly trod the fict.i.tious sod, stooping to pluck and then kissing the rose, and finally disappearing into the wings with a flash of brilliant eyes and the revelation of a charming countenance for the audience.

It was lucky that this signaled the curtain's fall on the first act, or Jess Morse would have spoiled her own good work by the expression of her amazement.

CHAPTER XXIV

MR. NEMO, OF NOWHERE