n.“- Pf{5<) ’TZ3\OY Till-J mm mm; PI‘BLH‘ LIBRARY ASTOR. .LDY‘JX AND TILLII'IN FMTNIDATIUNS R 3 L PR®?ERTY OF T 21'? NEW ‘1‘“? Smarty -" 5"! bl' T! I STOOD LOOKING AT IT BARBARA OF BALTIMORE KATHARINE HAVILAND TAYLOR __ _._.. .--i THE SEW YORK PFHLH' LIBRARY A'frflk. mex mm ’l'leN FulZNlIATluh's It ASK ED BARBARA. LY U 99, “WHAT IS THE MATTER PSET. 4 I SUPPOSE I LOOKED FEARFUI BARBARA OF BALTIMORE BY KATHARINE HAVILAN D AUTHOR OF “cmmm or THE PINK ROSES," ETC. ‘ ILLUSTRATED BY FRANCES ROGERS NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY °IM Qo Tffiili :‘tt'. QR“— ‘ PFBUC 11131111117 1445341} ,'\- 'f L' “I: h ' .‘ . \ E 7- I. Cvfyfight, 1919, By George H. Doran Company P12? ."i'itz'r'f OF T‘ F NET-7 ' ’ smm'rv e .1"! v! Printed in the United States of America §U' TO JOYCE AND CONSTANCE DEAR SISTERS _._- “J. II III IV VI VII VIII IX XI XII XIII XIV XVI XVII XVIII CONTENTS THE PINK AND GREY FROCKs THE PLAN SHOOTING, ANCIENT AND MODERN THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW PATRICK AND A BURGLAR . LITTLE FRIEND . LUNCH? SUSPICIONS A TALK WITH MOTHER TRUNKS, BEADs AND THE FIGURE WHITE IN EXPLORING STOLEN WHISKERS . THE STORY PATRICK TOLD THE SLIP OF PAPER ANOTHER GUEST A PYJAMA PARTY WHAT WAS FOUND AT THE END OF THE CHASE . . THESPY.......... PAGE 13 23 3 I 4I 52 62 74 87 96 107 123 133 158 I73 I87 I97 204 vii Viii CONTENTS m PAGE XIX A PARTY . . . . . . . . . . 216 XX WHAT WAS HEARD AND FOUND . . . 229 XXI SEARCHING . . . . . . . . . 239 ,XXII FINDING . . . . . . . . . . 25o 'XXIII GETTING WELL . . . . . . V. . 26o XXIV Gnowmc YOUNG . . . . . . . 272 q" ~ > A“ BARBARA OF BALTIMORE l i\li 1 ‘ 1\ ‘1‘ ‘ \‘iWIllll, BARBARA OF BALTIMORE CHAPTER I THE PINK AND GREY FROCKS A: told by the oldest daughter of the Crane house, Alix, age twenty-one. HINGS all happen at once, exciting things, I mean, and I often wonder why this is so. I think it is rather disgusting that it has to be this way. Months go by sometimes with us, with nothing much happening, and then all the parties will happen in one week and the following week will seem frightfully flat and stale. But the most ex- citing month of my life has just passed. The excite- ment came because of our being so poor. Daddy is a doctor and he has a practice which is largely a charity one. I, frankly, think that is a mistake, because the poor are so dirty and uninter- esting; but Daddy does not think so and has often become really angry with me when I say so. Some- times his and my temperaments clash. We are 13 14 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE really not alike at all. I am not like any of the family, really, except possibly Aunt Louise Pem- broke-Smith who lives just outside of Boston. I often wish she would ask me to visit her. I cannot help knowing that I would be a great satisfaction to her, for I am pretty—I might as well acknowl- edge it—and have a manner. However, I think she resents poor relations; for she never has asked any of us to visit her, although she sends us trunks and trunks of clothes, some of which are really beautiful. On the afternoon of the day when things started, a trunk had just come from her, and as usual Bar- bara was saying, “I just know Alix will take every- thing good! She always does!" “Isn’t it suitable that I should?” I said. (I am out and Barbara is only seventeen and a half.) “It may be,” she answered, “but it’s also piggish.” Barbara has a very trying way of speaking, a blunt way which is far from polished! Mother, who was sitting by the window in my room and darning stockings, sighed and said, “Please, dears ” and of course we stopped. “Well, unstrap it,” said Barbara, who was sitting on the bed and trimming a last year’s hat which she had just shoe-blacked. “You seem to be the only lady of leisure present. I do hope she hasn’t sent on any more green velvet things! The last one you sat down all shiny in the back and then I had to wear THE PINK AND GREY FRQCKS 15 it a year, looking as if Josephus had licked me.” josephus is our cat. Her name is Josephus Daniels. I simply raised my eyebrows (I find that raising eyebrows does lots, sometimes when speech would not) and proceeded to unstrap Auntie’s trunk. It was quite a large one and had foreign labels all over it (she uses her old ones to send us things) and they do give a person thrills—Venice, Milan, Paris, be- sides hundreds of other places which are not at all usual to tourists. . . . I wouldn’t care about going to those. I’d much rather go where I could wear good clothes and dress for dinner every night. . . . I’ve always thought Venice would be wonderfully ro- mantic, combining, happily, the comfortable with the picturesque, and I have planned to go there on my honeymoon. Frankly, I am going to be able to; for, although I shall not marry primarily for money, I am not going to marry without it. I have seen too much scrimping and saving to want to do it always. But to go back, I threw back the lid of the trunk, opened the tray and began to inspect. . . . On top was a print dress which wasn’t especially good look- ing and I realised immediately that it would be suitable for Barbara. I can’t think why Aunt bought it! “That is exactly what you need!” I said, holding it up. "It is simple enough for your years, and " “All right, Mrs. Methuselah,” said Barbara, I’ll 16 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE wear it. It certainly is a mess, isn’t it? Is the next suitable for my years, or is it too pretty ?” As I said before, Barbara lacks polish and tact. I went on without noticing her. And Mother sighed again. She hates us to quarrel. “What next, Alix?” asked Mother after a moment. “There is a pink lawn,” I answered, “with a large white collar.” “Oh——” breathed Barbara. She is especially fond of pink. “It’s just what I need,” I said. “I haven’t a thing to wear I” “You don’t have to divide them now,” said Mother hurriedly, “go on and see what else there is.” “Some blouses,” I said, “one with real Irish" (I haven’t a decent waist!) “and a checked blue and white with blue lawn collar and cuffs, and—” I paused, because I really do adore clothes and this frock was a beauty—“a grey silk,” I ended. I held it up. I knew how I would look in it, but I had had the last silk frock and I was afraid Bar- bara would think this one hers by right. Then I went on, still thinking of the grey silk and the pink lawn, both of which I wanted fearfully. There were some underclothes, but nothing especially pretty; some silk stockings and a garden hat; two pairs of shoes (Barbara gets all those because she has the shortest feet in the house) and some gloves. Then THE PINK AND GREY FROCKS 17 there was some material for which I didn’t especially care and some handkerchiefs with L marked on the corner which, of course, was aggravating. “Lay them on the bed, dear,” said Mother, and I did. Barbara hardly looked at them, but sewed awfully hard on her hat. She was putting a wreath of faded daisies on it and covering their limpness with yellow chiffon, which I thought clever of her. It was really a pretty hat and I’d hardly thought it worth the rag bag when I gave it to her. “Which do you want?” I asked. “I don’t think it makes much difierence,” she an- swered, so low that I could hardly hear her. “But it does,” I contradicted. “You know per- fectly well that we must divide. We always do. Please say what you want and let’s consider it. . . ." “I don’t care,” she answered shortly, and sewed even faster than ever. Her hands shook too. She is very uncontrolled. “Oh, well—” I said, “since you’re going to act that way ” And then she got up and left the room, Mother looking after her. “Go see what’s wrong,” Mother said, laying aside her mending. She looked worried as she al- ways does when Barbara and I disagree. I’m ashamed to say we do often. “Very well,” I said with a last look toward the 18 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE grey and pink wonders on the bed, “I will; but I' don’t think there’s any occasionfor this sort of thing ” And then I went down the hall toward Barbara’s room. Our house is huge, I may as well say here. It would be perfectly beautiful, if it weren’t so run down. . . . As it is, one enters a perfectly wonder- fully proportioned hall, looks up to see the loveliest sort of family portraits lining the walls, and down—— to see that the floor is uneven, full of huge cracks and that the paint is peeling in every other spot. . . . From that you go to the yellow drawing room and again are confronted with the echo of money once spent and the lack of its spending to-day. . . . Bar- bara loves the house with a perfect passion, but to me it is only an aggravation. I hate shabbiness and lack of finish. Well, as I said, I went down the long hall, down three steps, for the wings are on different levels from the main house, and paused at Barbara’s door. I tapped. “What do you want?” she said. “I want to speak to you, dear,” I answered. “Don’t ‘dear’ me!” she responded crossly. “You know it makes me sick. . . . Especially when you— you———-” She floundered and I thought it was a. good time to go in and start—before she did. “Why didn’t you say what you wanted?" I asked, THE PINK AND GREY FROCKS 19 sitting down on her dress box, which, as usual, was strewn all over with stockings, petticoats, Chemises and even an odd shoe. Barbara didn’t answer immediately and I saw that she had one of her cross streaks. I waited and after a moment she laid aside her hat and began. “It’s this way, Alix,” she said, trying awfully hard to be calm. “You know our disagreeing bothers Mother frightfully and I don’t wonder. . . . It is hateful. And—and when I do state my wants we disagree. You always get the prettiest frocks and the nicest things from Aunty’s trunks. I always fuss, and make a noise and come out behind—wear- ing something ‘suitable for my years’ and which makes me look odious! . . . Do you remember," she questioned, “the day we fought over Clarabelle” (Clarabelle was a doll) “and I held on and screamed with all my might and you held on, gritted your teeth and smiled—and GOT Clarabelle? Well, an old lady came along afterwards and said, ‘Stop crying, you naughty little girl! Look at that dear little girl over there with the doll! She isn’t crying! . . . I’ve always remembered it, because it has been—— just so. And I’m through. You can have all those things, I don’t want one, only please don’t be hypo- critical and come around asking me what I want, when you mean to smile and hold on I” I said, “Why, Barbara I” I was surprised at her. 20 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE Barbara only nodded. “Some day,” she said, after she’d threaded a needle, “you’ll meet something you can’t have— and it’ll be the making of you! Until then ” and she finished her sentence with a wave of her new hat. “I intend to have everything I want—” I said slowly. Barbara only smiled. “What shall I say to Mother?" I asked. “Tell her I want the ones you don’t—anything, nothing! I don’t care. But—not the truth. She’s too worried and she works too hard to be bothered. That really is the reason I’m giving up. I’m not a jelly fish. . . . You’ll look very pretty in that grey, Alix, and the pink too, although it makes you a little sallow.” I thought that was spiteful. “That hurt worse than any remark about your character, or lack of it—didn’t it?” she asked. “Oh, no!” I answered, “what you think doesn’t trouble me. I hardly—heard you. Was that the telephone ?” Barbara didn’t think it was and I went back to my room. Somehow I didn’t feel very happy. “Well, dear?” said Mother as I came in. She had put aside her work and was standing by the trunk, holding up the blue and white checked waist. THE PINK AND GREY FROCKS 21 “Barbara doesn’t care,” I said and, strange as it may seem, I felt as guilty as if it had been a lie, although Barbara really had said she didn’t care. “I thought she’d want the pink——-—” said Mother in a wondering way. “She looks very sweet in pink. . . . Unusual too, for a blonde. But—you’ll look nice in it too, clear, that is if you decide to take it.” “I’d thought I would,” I said carelessly. “Slip it on,” said Mother, and I did, and then she got a pin tray and began the work of fitting, her mouth full of pins and talking through them as she always does. I hate that. It makes me nervous and half the time I can’t get what she says. “Can you finish it by to-morrow afternoon?” I asked. I wanted it then terribly for I was going to a real tea. “00g twy——” she answered, which I took to mean, “I’ll try.” “That makes me so nervous!” I complained, and she took the pins out, sighing a little after she did it. I dislike sighing so intensely. It’s so depressing. There was a noise at the doorway and I looked away from the mirror to see Barbara. She looked on, smiling in the most trying way. “It was dear of you to be so willing that Alix Should have the pink and grey,” said Mother. Barbara looked down at her hands and then mut- 22 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE tered something that sounded like, “Oh, that wasn’t anything—” “I’m sure you’re a very dear little girl," said Mother. Then, when Mother was down on her knees, taking the length, Barbara looked at me. Her eyes were full of tears and she almost never cries. I considered it very selfish of her to do that, for it made me very unhappy. “I’ll hem that for you—Mother,” said Barbara. “I’d be so glad if you would,” said Mother. “I have a good deal to do to it. The waist will have to come off the skirt. . . . Is that too short? Bar- bara, tilt the mirror, will you, dear? Thank you.” CHAPTER II THE PLAN Written by Alix a S I said, we are fearfully, miserably, incon- veniently poor. Every time I need a new hat, or new shoes, or a corset, I find it out, and as for having summer furs or anything logical or necessary like that—why I simply have been denied those natural cravings all my life! I may say, with perfect truth, that my life has been full of sacrifice, not that I speak of it often, or at least 'very often; but it is true. The day of the trunk-coming started our excite- ment. Daddy did it because of money. The most sensible move he ever made, I think. We have, in our family, a habit of calling discussions “clinics.” And we all sit about ever so solemnly in the yellow drawing room, while Father, at the table, brings out the points of the case and asks our opinions, what treatment we would suggest and so on, quite as if we were consulting physicians, and as if the trouble as 244 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE were a patient. . . . It started way back when we were tiny, and bad, and when Daddy and Mother treated our faults as if they were the measles, mumps, or chicken-pox. At supper that night Father said, “A clinic at eight, please,” and we all wondered what we’d done, Billy, who is fifteen, especially. He is Barbara’s especial pal and always doing something impossible. He is really worse than the smallest of us, Mary Elinor, who is twelve. . . . And that, by the way, is all of us. Alix (myself), 21, Barbara, 17%, Billy, I5, Mary Elinor, 12. And of course Mother and Father, and there you are. . . . Well, as I said, Billy was nervous for I think he’d smoked a piedmont out back of the ga- rage and knew Father would be fearfully annoyed if it were found out. He reached for the cottage cheese in his usual, unrestrained way and his cuil caught in the silver and a knife went clattering to the floor. Aunt Eliza, who was coming in (she is our col- oured cook, we’ve had her for years) said, “A gent’man done come. Sure sign a gent’man done come—” And Father looked at Mother and said, “Well, this time Eliza’s sign isn’t so far wrong,” THE PLAN 25 and every one immediately connected it with the clinic and looked relieved. “Has he whiskers?” asked Mary Elinor. And Father said he didn’t think so. “Oh, dearl” she answered, “must I die without meeting a man with long, fuzzy whiskers!” Of course we all laughed. We do a good deal at Mary Elinor anyway. She is a cunning thing and ever so funny. After dinner we fooled around the yard a little while, Barbara and Billy walking the back fence, which I consider dangerous as well as childish, and Mary Elinor up in the seat Billy built to study Ger- man in. . . . It is way up in a tree. He doesn’t want to be caught studying German, for he thinks it unpatriotic; but Father made him keep it up be- cause he’s going to be a doctor and a good many scientific books are written in German. At last it was eight and we all filed in to the yel- low drawing room and found Father and Mother waiting for us. . . . Mother was working on my pink dress which I was glad to see as I really needed it. However, Barbara said, “Oh, Mother! Can’t you stop working!” which was quite like her. “Be seated,” said Father and we all settled. Mary Elinor at Mother’s feet on a tiny stool, Billy on the 26 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE sofa, Barbara by him and I in an early Italian chair which I feel fits my especial type. “It’s money,” said Father, looking down at a little bust of Dante which he had picked up, “rather ——the lack of it. I realise that you children are young to be bothered with this; but—your mother and I have always gone on the principle of talking things over with you—giving you a choice in the way of helping and a chance to help. We may be wrong, but that is our method ” Barbara raised her hand. “Oh, no, Daddy,” she said, “you’re not wrong Barbara speaks too intensely always. Her sentences sometimes sound like a song, they are so up and down. Father smiled at her—she is his favourite, I know—and went on: “And so—to-night we’re going to tell you of a plan we have thought of to make things easier, and ask you to help. It may not be pleasant—person- ally I’m sorry to ask you to give up—and to help in just this way, but it seems the only one—it’s this ” and then he told us. I’m not going to quote because it was drawn out unnecessarily. They had decided, Mother and he, to turn our big house into a place where semi-sick people, ner- vous people, especially, could come to get well. It would mean our giving up the family life, that our I" THE PLAN 27 meals would always be company afiairs, and that we couldn’t roller skate in the ball room any more. When she heard that, Mary Elinor objected. “Can’t we keep pigs?” she said. “They’re so cute and Alix could stay home and wash them in- stead of going to the Red Cross." “Where would we keep them?” asked Father. He always treats all her suggestions as if they were entirely sensible. “In the ball room,” she said, “or the East wing. Little pigs are so sweet and dear, and we could name them for our friends—-—” And then she sat down. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t do ” he said. “Have you any other suggestions?” rrChickens,” she said, getting up again. “We could build a coop on the garage roof and use rope ladders to feed them with ” “No chicken could digest a rope ladder,” said Billy. “You know what I mean!” she said, getting frightfully excited. “One could go up to feed them on the ladders——as you go up to study German, and the high air is better anyway. Don’t consumptives always go to a high climate? Our chickens would probably become world-famous because of the alti- tude and their lungs and everything and ” “I never met a rooster that hadn’t good 28 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE lungs,” said Billy. “Come again, Mary E. Your suggestions are downed.” Mary Elinor looked at Father, who shook his head, and she settled again, crestfallen. “Never mind, baby,” said Mother, “some day we’ll move to the country and keep chickens and pigs and everything in the world and keep them just Where you want to!” Mary Elinor moved nearer Mother, and laid her check against Mother’s knee. “Mothers always say things like that,” she said. “I guess that’s what they’re for.” To be brief, Father told us that he had arranged to do this one thing—for it seemed the only thing to do, and—because he felt as if he could be a real help in doing it. Barbara, of course objected even when she heard who was to be the first guest. “Couldn’t we turn this place into apartments?” she asked, her voice none too steady. “I want to help. I hope you and Mother know that I’d do anything for you; but—to have some one else here and never be just ‘family’—it’s—I’d rather raise money any other way!” “The price of labour and materials prohibits that,” said Father. “I’d thought of it, but— Barby, I thought you were the house-worshipper of the place?” 80 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE try to get well. And I hope my family are going to help me make him so. Are they ?” I said, “Certainly, F ather!” For I must say I took an interest immcdiately. Barbara tried to look happy and failed. “I’ll try,” she said slowly. “Is he whisker age ?” asked Mary Elinor. “Bet he’ll be a sis!” said Billy. And then we got up, there was a scraping of chairs and the clinic was disbanded. I was ever so glad I’d taken both frocks. It was really important that I had. It didn’t matter how Barbara looked and it might matter a great deal—a very great deal—how I did. I went upstairs singing. CHAPTER III SHOOTING, ANCIENT AND MODERN Told by Barbara Heath Crane HATE a pig, and a liar. There are no polite words in my vocabulary for either. I think in those terms so I might as well write them. I think it’s quite as bad to think things as to say them anyway. . . . So, after Alix had told Mother that I didn’t want any of those beautiful duds, I went down to the shooting gallery and worked Off my temper. The shooting gallery is in the furnace cellar and Billy and I use light air rifles. “Hello,” said Billy, as I came down the stairs. “What’s up? You look ‘all het up.’ Scrapped with Alix ?” “Don’t want to talk about it,” I answered shortly. “You have my gun. I don’t like yours.” He handed it over and I took a pop at the bull’s- eye, hit it and began to feel better. “Got a trunk from Senora Got-Rocks, didn’t you ?” asked Billy. I’m ashamed to say it, but that’s 31 32 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE the way Billy alludes to our pompous and wealthy aunty of Boston town. I said, “Yes.” “Um . .i .” said Billy, and then, “I say, Barby, you’re a dandy girl. Clothes don’t make the man, you know. Buck up!” I said I’d try to and then suddenly I sat down and did something of which I am, even yet, ashamed to think, for I don’t very often weep. I plunked down, —“plunked” is the word—on a grape fruit crate and began to whimper. “All my life ” I sobbed, “I have wanted a pink lawn dress—a—a—thin one w-with a white collar!” Billy put his arm around me, a thing he almost never does. “She’s a pig!” he said. I squeezed his hand, tried to laugh, failed and wept again. “It’s—it’s Mother ” I said, “she gets so nervous when Alix and I scrap—and we do, unless I don’t. . . . Some day she’ll meet something she—she can’t have and it’ll do her—good.” “You bet it will,” agreed Billy. “Determination is good in reason,” I said after a moment filled with my sniffs. “Um ” said Billy. He and Daddy are a good deal alike that way. They “um—” a lot when they’re thinking. SHOOTING 33 “Don’t tell any one I cried, will you, Billy?” I said. “Did I ever ?” he said shortly. And he never has, so I apologised. After that I got up and shot, and I guess I was excited, for something horrible hap- pened. I am not, really and truly, a had shot, but I was all blinky with tears and shaky from madness (I have a very bad temper) and the first thing I knew there was a funny little “ping,” and then a stream of water and Billy shouting, “By golly, you’ve done it this time! You’ve shot the water pipe. Where do you turn it off 1” “Let me hold it!” I said, my teeth shut; but that is more easily said than done. It was a sixty pound pressure and it wouldn’t be held. It simply went on. I never saw so much water all at once in captivity. You could have floated a canoe easily and we were wading in no time. “Wilhelmina at the dykel” shouted Billy from another cellar, but I couldn’t see the joke. Then the water began to slow down and then it stopped and Billy came back, laughing terribly. I guess I did look funny, for I certainly was drenched. And after that I went upstairs, confessed and begged Father not to tell Alix; for she thinks my shooting unladylike anyway. Daddy said he wouldn’t, Billy went for a plumber, and I went to change my clothes. Of course I bumped into callers. I would. That’s the sort of luck I have. 34 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE I didn’t even have presence of mind enough to ex-_ plain. I simply held out a dripping hand, and then went sloshing up the stairs, my shoes making funny suction noises at each step. Upstairs I found Mary Elinor in the tub, all over soap and not rinsed. She was angry and said bathing was foolish and if Mother hadn’t made her do it she wouldn’t have been in that mess and that she’d had a bath only yesterday, anyway. She also said it weakened one and was abother and a waste of time beside being hard on the pigment. Mary Elinor really has quite a medical turn. She hangs around Daddy’s office, which is in the East Wing, quite a lot and is always telling Mother the meals are not well balanced. But this isn’t important to the story at all, and I must get on; I must explain my attitude about friend- ship, so that may explain why I helped Patrick Fran- cis Goven Deems all through that awful time and why after it—but that is getting ahead of my story. My great great Aunt was named Barbara Heath and she was an ardent friend of the girl whom Fran- cis Scott Key married. Through her I became very much interested in him, and he has been, all my life, my ideal. And now—since every one in the world is learning to love our flag as they should—I love him more than ever for the song he wrote about it. Especially do I love him for the way he wrote that poem which has become so justly honoured and SHOOTING 35 famous. . . . All my life I have dreamed, I sup- pose because I am shy, and this is the way I dreamed it. You know in the War of 1812-1814. the British came over here and were determined to conquer the States, as they called them, and break our stiff wills. . . . And I think they especially hated Baltimore because of the sailing and trading the Baltimorians did—they called our city a “nest of Pirates.” So after they burned Washington they came sailing up the Chesapeake, very confident, I’m sure, that they would easily conquer Baltimore. . . . I can hear them laugh loudly—big, heavy men of strength from their out-door, sailing life—and almost sneer over the way their guns would wipe out our tiny fort and leave us beaten. . . . Probably they drank a little too much too, just on the strength of the excitement, and swaggered about, talking of the plunder they would take, the loud-mouthed rebels they would string up and the trophies they would take back to their King. Well, at this time a little skifi pulled up alongside the boat and from itktwo men crawled on the British ship. “You have a friend of mine here as prisoner,” said one, a handsome young man whose stock was beautifully laundered and whose clothes were well put on. . . . His brows were arching, dark and set 36 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE above a dreamer’s eyes, his nose was long and straight, his mouth was sympathetic, and enough full to show the ready lips of an orator, which he was, for he was Francis Scott Key, born in Frederick County, educated at Annapolis, and a lawyer of some renown. “I have permission from Secretary of State Mon- roe,” he went on, “permission to plead for the life of my friend, your prisoner, Doctor William Beanes.” “Hum!” said the Captain, a very red-faced man, and he scowled fearfully. “Did you know that he threw three British refu- gees in jail, my man?” he asked after his scowl. Francis Scott Key said he did know this, but that —and then he began to use his good voice, his law- yer’s tricks and his romantic mind, and all for one purpose: and the purpose was made by friendship, straight friendship, the biggest and best thing in the world. The Captain looked at another man who stood near and they considered. Mr. Key’s arguments had been good, his pleadings well done, and they had' made their mark. “We can’t let you go to-day,” said the Captain, “nor your friend—you see,” he waved his hand and Francis Scott Key did see, for the decks were being cleared for action and sailors, some of them wearing SHOOTING 37 blazing red handkerchiefs about their heads, clus- tered around the guns. It was a picture, the Fort in the distance, the browned men with strained faces, the little country town on the shore, but it made no pleasant impress on Francis Scott Key. . . . “Fort McHenry,” he thought. “How can it stand against this?” And the bombardment started—started Septem-~ ber 13, 1814, and lasted all that day and almost all of the night. . . . To Key it seemed impos- sible that the Fort could hold and he walked the deck in an agony of doubt, wringing his hands, pray- ing, perhaps—men do, you know—and thinking a lot, I suspect about certain people whom he loved in the besieged city. . . . Think of having your home town laid low by an enemy’s guns! And think of having people whom you love in that city, being unable to help them and standing by—watching. That is the hardest part. Daddy says so, and he knows. He has a great deal of it in his business. Doctor Beanes walked by Francis Scott Key, now and again saying something, but neither had any hope nor any real conviction that the right could be. But—they waited for the dawn, Key and Beanes, waited with what they supposed almost an absurd hope. . . . “If the flag still flies ” said Francis Scott Key. Doctor Beanes did not answer. He could only shake his head. 38 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE And then the dawn came. A grey, misty dawn which was full of fog and through which no one could see. The men, bitterly disappointed, stared in the direction of the Fort, stared, straining their eyes and trying to pierce the dense fog for the sight of the dearest thing in any true American’s life. . . . Suddenly there was a rift in the mist—just a little streak of clearing and through that they saw the “Star-Spangled Banner” blowing over the walls. of the brave old Fort! Francis Scott Key stood gazing at it, and because he was very much relieved, because his friend was doubly sure to be safe, because everything was as it should have been—and possibly because he had had no sleep, his eyes filled with tears. “I say, Beanes,” he said, “have you got a piece of paper?” “ ’F raid not,” answered Doctor Beanes, fumbling about in his pockets, “no, I haven’t. I imagine the Captain has those all in his safe. . . . Doesn’t trust his guests, you know. Searches them.” “Well,” said Francis Scott Key, and from his own pocket drew an envelope, shook out its contents, and scribbled on the back: “Oh, say can you see, By the dawn’s early light_” SHOOTING 39 now and then looking up at the flag as he did it. After he finished he passed it over to his friend. “What do you think of it?” he asked in an em- barrassed way. Doctor Beanes read it carefully. “Why, Key, that’s not bad!” he said; “you know, come down to it, it’s good! Didn’t know you wrote poetry.” “Some people think I can,” said Francis Scott Key, while he studied his pencil point intently. Per- haps he was thinking of Chief Justice Taney’s sister, (she became Mrs. Francis Scott Key) for perhaps she thought he could write poetry. Lots of women think their husbands can, you know, (before they marry them, and Mr. Key really could so perhaps she thought so even after) and some years after his death, a volume of his poems was printed. But to go back, he polished that poem in the Balti- more hotel that night. It was struck OH on handbills the next day, circulated through the city, and then it was set to music. And truth compels me to state that it was set to an old English drinking song which had been used before for a political song, entitled “Adams and Liberty.” . . . After that it was sung in a theatre and became immediately very popular ‘ and, I suppose, a very best seller. But—I don’t suppose that Francis Scott Key ever realised what he had really done, that there would be memorials to him in many, many places. From Golden Gate 40 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE Park, a great statue in his memory looks out upon the Pacific; but I love our dear Baltimore monument of him best, that one that stands at Eutah Place and Lanvale Street. There are two men in a boat; Key standing and looking up at a woman who holds a flag . . . I love it. When I was tiny, Daddy put me in the boat one day, and even then I felt some- what as I do now, and I kissed the hand of the man who stood looking up. . . . And now to think that each day when the flag is lowered—each sunset, rather—that that song is played on every American Battleship at each Fort and Garrison in our country —it seems wonderful. And it all came through friendship and loyalty, and a firm resolve to help one’s friends, and do everything in the world one could for them. And that, as I said before, is why I stuck to Pat- rick Francis Goven Deems and did all I could to help him. I had told him I would be his friend. And to me friendship means more than a grip of hands in pleasant weather; it means holding the other fellow, keeping him from slipping, when the going is bad. Alix always said the reason I stuck to him when every one else didn’t was because I was interested in him in a silly way—but it wasn’t—then. And isn’t now, for nothing that is true or real is ever silly. CHAPTER IV THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW A: Related by Patrick Francis Gowen Deems MUST acknowledge now that my ideas of the States were somewhat wild, you know. Not that I believed you met the red skins at New- port, but I didn’t expect real civilisation in a country which, after all, but ranks with our colonies. I didn’t even think of taking my evening clothes, but had Dodson put them away in a cedar box, all jolly tight to keep until my return. I was all for taking a folding bath too, but Uncle wouldn’t permit it. “Patrick,” he rumbled, (Uncle rumbles, he is very much the man) “don’t be a stuffy ass. Don’t decide what your neighbours are before you meet them. Don’t form preconceived opinions. Not good for a man to back down, you know.” “Very well, sir,” I answered, and got up to help myself from the joint. I remember it all with keen- ness. It was breakfast time at Glenarm, one of those moist mornings which I think can’t be dupli- 41 THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW 43 hills. . . . It was all green, loudly, shoutingly green, I remember, and there were sheep grazing afar among some rocks which Uncle had let stand— thinking their greyness in the green was a pretty contrast. . . . After I’d gazed at this a while I turned back to it .and looked at Glenarm Castle. And I looked at that heap of grey, those stern walls and crumbling chimneys, as a man looks at his Mother. . . . Mine died when I was a wee chap, and to me the castle has meant something of what I lost. I had a sudden qualm about leaving it, and then that faded. I didn’t much care. I didn’t care Whether I lived or died—or what came next. I was through with it—through with it all. Uncle joined me on the terrace and stood smoking, puffing the smoke out short and quick. “My boy,” he said after several moments of nervous silence, “now will yuh try to get well?” I picked a bit of lichen from the stone wall be- fore I answered. Then I said, “Uncle, I can’t promise you that.” “The devil!” said Uncle very loud. Then he puffed some more and after his puffings spoke again. “What is troubling you now?” he asked in a wheedling tone. “Tell me, is it the brother who died for the cause of France and our England?” I shook my head. I missed Breathmead, I sor- 44 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE rowed for him, but it was not his loss that made my sickness. “Is it the arrum?” said Uncle, meaning my arm. Sometimes he rolls his r’s in the jolly, true Irish way. The way I once did, before I was laughed at for it at Oxford. “No,” I answered, “it is not the arrrrum.” Then I looked up, after my little joke, saw that Uncle was smoking at a beastly pace and that his eyes were full of tears. I said, “Does it matter as much as that to you? My being well—and happy?” He answered, “It is the only peace.” Then he knocked the ashes from his pipe on the wall, and spoke slowly, and solemnly, in a way in which he rarely speaks. “When my wife died,” he said, “and there was no little chap to hold—and keep all this, I thought I should go mad from the double loss. . . . I knew that a Deems can love but once truly, it’s in the blood, and I knew the woman I loved had come and -—gone. . . . Then when you and your .brother came here to live I tried to rise and make the best of it, bring myself to an interest in the place for his sake. But you—you were the one who felt the spirit of the place, you were the one that should have owned it. . . . When he died I sorrowed, you know well; but in spirit and love you were Glenarm’s true THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW 45 owner. I cannot help the happiness of my soul when I know it is coming to you!” ' “Thank you, Uncle,” I said, not looking at him. He coughed. “What if it should—happen to come to those Aus- tralian cousins?” I asked sharply. “Never!” he said, thumping his big hand down on the wall. “Never! They have no claim! . . . Let me see a claim.” “There’s that missing Baptismal certificate,” I said. “The one of my great great grandfather. . . . If they knew that ” “’Tis not missing!” said Uncle, growing very red, “ ’tis mislaid!” “Are you sure?” I asked, looking at him side- wise. “Are you sure I am not—stealing this from some other man?” “Sure!” said Uncle. “I am sure, and if I wasn’t I would be!” And I thought that was about the way of it. As I said, I recall that morning vividly and it stands out a picture in emotion colours. But the fol- lowing weeks were a jumble. I went to London where I bought some new clothes, having them cut especially for my dead arm. It’s my left one, and all feeling has left it since a shell caught in my shoul- der in Flanders. And then I bought some heavy 46 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE underwear and things which I thought suitable for a rigorous climate and between times generally swanked.‘ I saw a lot of American girls who were working for different War objects and I saw some American regiments and I jolly well took off my hat to them. They were fine looking fellows. And I should have enjoyed mySelf, and—I didn’t. Then I took passage from Liverpool and sailed to the States. And I began to feel more and more superior to- ward the genera! run of Americans and I almost resented my Uncle’s forcing the beastly trip upon me, but I really didn’t care enough about anything to quite resent it. There were lots of Americans on board and they put in their time playing a game called rum and poker and chafiing us Britishers. They told us that the mosquitoes in New Jersey were so large that they served them on toast. . . . Mos- quitoes’ legs were far more delicious than frogs’ legs, and then they nearly kicked off laughing when an elderly spinster of London said, “Only fancy, I shall try some. Merely ask for mosquitoes’ legs on toast?” and they said yes and hugged each other _all over the deck in glee. Rotten bad form, you know, pulling a person’s leg that way! Then going up the Delaware they had us all out looking for Indians in the shrubbery. I did, too, so I thought them jolly cads of course. THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW 47 And in due time I reached Baltimore. And then I heard the news that knocked me cold. I arrived there Saturday night, rather late, and took a taxi to Doctor Crane’s. I was a bit sur- prised at the house, for it was a huge place of Colo- nial design which I had not expected to find in the States. . . . There was a fan window above the door, a queer old knocker on the panel of the door, and some strange twisted iron arrangements by the door step for my muddy boots, I judged. To be brief, I knocked and the door swung open. I was a bit overcome by the glare of light and asked for Doctor Crane uncertainly. The woman, who had a sweet voice, but whom I took to be a servant, replied that his office hours were over and that she was sorry. Then I told her who I was, as I should have at first, and she held out both her hands. . . . And it gave me a deucedly tight feeling about the throat, you know. “Why, Mr. Patrick Deems,” she said, “how glad I am to see you. Are you tired, poor boy?” And I said, “Not a bit,” and I stood holding her hands (she had given both) like the greatest silly. “Well, come in,” she said with a smile, “and we’ll have a little talk and something to eat, and then I’ll take you upstairs—unless you’d rather wash up now?” I replied that I felt in first class shape, the Pull- 48 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE mans having such jolly little wash rooms, and that I’d have a bite to eat first, if it wouldn’t trouble. I honestly felt a little hungry. “Then come this way, please,” she said, and I fol- lowed her down the great hall, which was, after all, but dimly lit. “The Doctor’s out,” she went on. “There was a sudden call, I think some one was burned or something of that sort. We’re nearing the dining room. Isn’t this a big place? But I sup- pose you are used to them.” “Yes,” I answered, “but this is deceptive. On the outside, you know—it doesn’t look half so grand.” “These city places run back,” she explained. “Have you a match?” I fumbled around with my good arm and gave her one. She lit the gas in a crystal-hung gas jet and I had to let her. “I’m a bit still in the joints,” I said in apology, after I said I wished I could do it for her. “I’m so sorry,” she said, and then went toward the kitchen, I judged, saying that she’d get the lunch as Aunt Eliza was in bed. I thought it was a queer one to have an Aunt serving, you know, but I kept mum, not knowing the customs of the States. Soon she came back with the loveliest sort of a lunch all on a tray. There were round cakes with a hole in the middle—dashed if I see how they put them in—which she called “doughnuts.” A beastly THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW 49 name but they were good. And some milk in a tall, creamy ware pitcher which was sprinkled with bits of rose buds. . . . She had some tip-top sandwiches and a bit of cold joint too. I ate as I had not for months. After it I told her so. She looked pleased and smiled at me gently and I thought her the sweetest thing I’d ever met and I wondered if, perhaps, my mother wouldn’t have been something of her sort. While I was thinking this and that women were nice, when they got past a certain age, the blow fell. “I have three daughters,” she said, “two of whom are the age for you to play with. They’re looking forward so to meeting you. . . . And I’m afraid my boy will bore you to death with hero worship. They’re all in bed now, but they’ll be on tap to- morrow morning and very anxious to see you.” I could only stammer and gulp. “You’ll want to go up now?” she asked, and I nodded, rose and pushed my chair under the table. Then I followed her again, through a yellow room, down the big hall and up the wide staircase. She took me well to the back of the house, said the bathroom was three doors from mine, and showed me my apartment. Then she said good night, wished me happy dreams and vanished, and I sank into a big, soft, wing chair, and thought—or tried to, although I was pretty nearly dazed. 50 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE You see I am afraid of girls. I always step- on their feet when I dance with them and say the wrong things when we talk. I blush when they speak to me and stammer when they don’t. To be frank, I would rather go over the top eight times a day than to meet and talk to a girl once. Two daughters! My age ! I was darned well ready to swoonl All suddenly I looked up and about my rooms and somewhat forgot the annoyance of the news. They were jolly rooms, two; my bedroom and from it a sitting room. The sitting room had rose coloured walls and white panelling and was as pretty as one could wish. It had comfortable chairs, a little hearth, but no hob, and a big table on which lay some magazines and at the end of which were writing ma- terials. And on this table was a bunch of pink pop- pies. Now Uncle’s and my home is a man-run place and there aren’t often any of the soft touches on top. Flowers—never. I stood looking at those flowers. In the centre of the bunch was a card and I read it. On it was written, “Welcome to Crane’s Nest, Mr. Patrick Francis Goven Deems. We do hope you will like us!” I stood looking at that for a long time—my ideas about Americans were changing—and then I laid it down, picked it up, slipped it in my card case and proceeded to get ready for the night. THE KNOCK-OUT BLOW 51 The bed had four posts and was a beauty, but it was so high one had to leap into it. However I did and, once in, slept as I have not for years——.no, for a year. CHAPTER V PATRICK AND A BURGLAR d: Told by Barbara E all went upstairs early Saturday night be- cause Mr. Deems was expected sometime Sunday and we had a few final touches to give his rooms and I had some clean collars and cuffs to sew in my blue dress and Alix had some fussing to do, too. Before we went up I went out to the poppy bed and picked some, for although I never know what to say to men and boys and don’t really like flowers especially, I did feel sorry for Mr. Deems. I am always sorry for sick people and especially when they must be away from home. So I ar- ranged a bouquet and put a little card in it saying I hoped he’d like us and be happy or something like that. I don’t quite remember. Well, after we’d given the place a last dust we went toward our rooms. “Bring your sewing over to my room, Barby,” said Alix. “I’d like to talk.” “All right,” I said, “I’d love to,” and hurried oftr . 52 PATRICK AND A BURGLAR 53 for my work bag and things. Mary Elinor had been making tents in the bed clothes and wasn’t asleep and she wanted to come over too, and Alix said she could if she didn’t kick on the bed. Mary Elinor settled on the window seat, I sat down at the foot of the bed where the light was good and Alix moved around doing various things. It takes her a long time to get to bed as she always puts vaseline on her eyebrows to make them thick and massages her neck and does exercises to keep her waist slender and all sorts of things she doesn’t need at all. She was just at the slender waist exercise when Billy stopped at the door. “Can a poor bach come in?” he asked; and then, “My hat, Alix, if you exercised your brain as much as you do your body you might get a little strength in that.” “This is my room!” said Alix, glaring at him and intimating that she could order him out. “Put me out, Amazon!” he answered and came to sit on the foot of the bed where he swung his legs and surveyed us all with a sort of masculine supe- riority which even younger brothers sometimes air. “What have you been doing?” said I, anxious to divert the conversation. “Pressing my pants “Trousers!” said Alix sharply. Billy grinned at her. H 54 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “I put an iron down on one knee and it shows. I’ve gen]? and branded myself with the burnt, flatiron mark for six months. Didn’t tell Mother.” “I should think not!” said Alix. You are the most careless boy!” Billy didn’t answer, but whistled “Joan of Arc” through his teeth and began to count his change. I knew he was awfully sorry about the trousers, but that he just couldn’t say so. And—I was ever so sorry for him too. When Alix wasn't looking I leaned over and patted his knee and then he hit me with a boudoir pillow, an awful wallop right across the head, and I knew he under- stood and was signalling appreciation. That’s the way brothers do it, I’ve found. “I hawe to give ten cents in church,” said Billy, “although it’s in an envelope and a cent would look just the same, but Dad makes me. Gee, I wish I were a millionaire.” “You can be anything you want to be,” said Alix, who had begun her hundred strokes of brushing on her hair, “and have anything you want,” she added. “Hum?” said Billy. ‘ “It’s true—I am going to marry a man with a good deal of money.” “Does he know it?” asked Billy. Alix ignored this. “What are you going to do?” she asked him. PATRICK AND A BURGLAR 55 “I am going to be a doctor, that is if I’m not killed off in France before that.” “You’re going across when you’re old enough?” I asked, and Billy said “of course” in the most everyday tone, and he looked just like Daddy when he said it. Sometimes he does, awfully. “What about you ?” he asked of me. “Well, I’m going to stay single,” I began. “Naturally,” broke in Alix; “you don’t attract men.” “And I think probably I’ll take a nurse’s training course, that is if I can be spared here; and after that —work, I suppose.” “Sounds thrilling,” said Alix, after shrugging her shoulders. I knew she was disgusted with me for that prosaic outlining of my ambitions, but I’m con- stantly disappointing her. I can’t help it. We simply don’t boil at the same point, which makes liv- ing on the same stove sometimes a little diiiicult. Also Alix has so little respect for me. She considers herself very experienced for she has been engaged to a Freshman of Pennsylvania; but, inasmuch as he had only a dollar a week spending money, they natu- rally couldn’t marry, and when Father found it out he forbid it. Alix acted awfully broken hearted for ages after, and didn’t eat much—at meals, but you’d find her filling up in the pantry at almost any hour. After Father gave her the most horribly bitter medi- 56 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE cine to improve her appetite she began to eat with the family once more. “Well,” said Billy, rising, “since we have disposed . of our futures—and find that a brilliant marriage lies in store for the flower of the family, I think I shall wend my way bedward. Night ” We all called good-night after him, that is all ex- cept Alix, who was rolling around the floor. That exercise does something to your hips. He popped his head back in the door to say, “Look here, don’t you think some one ought to warn the lucky boy with the millions of money? Maybe he’d like to enlist and be shot.” And then he did go and so did we, for it was quite late and Mother had asked us all please to be on time for breakfast. The next morning was the most exciting I’ve ever experienced and I found I was really at heart a coward. I woke quite early and saw that it was a nice day for the sun was on the ivy leaves which cover the next house and the wind was making gentle little ripples in them. It was pretty, and I lay looking with a half awake feeling which is pleasant I think. I had quite forgotten the coming of Mr. Deems and remembered only that it was Sunday and I liked that for we always have lunch out in the back yard when the shadows begin to grow long, and Daddy has only morning office hours so, if we’re lucky, we .ili...to..\$£.ur.lvf:f i l. a! . . i .sKRI on I..I.JP.!7AI§IJ~...< lili- e» sills. .. .1 . .iiIlllIl ll BY TIIAT TIDIE SHE \‘VAS PRETTY “’IDE AWAKE AND I TOI. D HER L~ THE NEW YORK PI’BHF LNHYHW ASTOR. LENOX AW) THAN-TN FUUNIIA’I’ION'S R , I) "in 1 1 1' , f, . 1 \ 5 ~53!!- 1‘5"? a: Ir“! "" rm PATRICK AND A BURGLAR 57 see a little more of him. When I remembere. Mr. Deems, I’ll acknowledge I felt badly, for I love just being by ourselves; we do have such beautiful times. However, I thought perhaps he’d stay in his room quite a lot and I am afraid I hoped so. Then I remembered that the collars and cuffs were in my dress and I liked that, for I hate sewing them in, and I smiled up at the ceiling until I heard a noise at the door and looked up to see Mary Elinor. Mary Elinor was the whitest little girl I have ever seen in my life and the tears were running steadily down her cheeks, although she wasn’t mak- ing a sound. I love her to pieces and something hurt near my heart and I said, “Dear, what is it?” “Hush—” she said fearfully, with a backward look, and then stumbled across the room, crawled in bed and lay shivering in my arms. “What is it?” I asked again after she had some- what quieted and then, between broken little gasps, she told me this. She had awakened early, she nearly always does, and had thought she would have a circus in bed be- fore any one was up. So she took a parasol for the middle pole and made a tent over it and then got out and got her dolls to have them see the performance. Mother doesn’t like this circus game because Mary Elinor pokes holes right in the middle of the sheets, 4 58 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE but—to go back—she crawled inside and then she heard her door open and a step across the floor. She was so frightened she couldn’t move, for she knew none of us would come in in that stealthy, queer way, and when at last she did move she saw her cupboard door slowly, slowly closing as if the person who was closing it wanted to be very sure that he was not heard. Then she waited—largely because she was too frightened to move, poor little thing! And— heard a noise like two boards grating together—0r, as she said, “a canoe b-being pulled up on the d-dock.” “I’ll get Alix to go down and call Daddy,” I said. “Tell him to bring h-his instruments. That long one that he p-pokes appendixes with ” she whim- pered. I said I would, of course, and hurried down the hall to Alix’ room. Alix wasn’t awake and really she is the most beautiful thing asleep that any one could imagine—even in that exciting and worried time I thought of it. “Alix,” I said, shaking her. “Oh, what is it?” she answered crossly. “I hate to get up—perfectly loathe it! What do you want ———what is it ” By that time she was pretty wide awake and I told ‘ her. Then she woke quite up and slipped out of bed. “Go get Billy,” she said, and I went to his room, PATRICK AND A BURGLAR 59 but he was gone, and I realised some one would have to go down the long passage, past Mary Elinor’s room, and downstairs. I knew Alix wouldn’t and I supposed I would have to and I did feel shaky. And I hated myself, especially my knees, for acting so. When we got back to Mary Elinor, Alix advised my wearing a bath towel about my head, so if the burglar, or whatever he was, should slip up behind me and hit me, I wouldn’t be so easily stunned. I thought it was a good idea and tied one on. “You need a weapon,” she said next, looking around wildly and picking up the button hook, “a weapon of defence!” “There’s nothing here but the whisk broom,” I answered. “Take a bed slat,” said Mary Elinor, and I thought it was a splendid idea. I even decided to take two. Alix helped me with the mattress and soon I was on my way, down the narrow passage which led past Mary Elinor’s door, at last in the hall and then down the broad stairs. I hurried toward the dining room, in my nightie, carrying two bed slats, no bedroom slippers and my head swathed in a turkish towel. At the door I paused, I even for- got the burglar, for I found myself looking into the eyes of a perfectly strange man whose mouth was open and who looked as if he was ready to faint. 60 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE I dropped one of the bed slats and Daddy turned around. “There’s a burglar in Mary Elinor’s cupboard,” I said, quite as one would say, “Nice day,” or, “We need rain.” “She thought perhaps you’d bet- ter chase him—” (then I thought of that silly sug- gestion about the instruments and, I suppose because I was fussed, I added) “with an appendix knife.” The young man swallowed so hard that his Adam’s apple wiggled. I wasn’t looking at him directly, but I could see that and positively feel his astonishment. After that I disappeared. How I did, I’ll never know. I simply faded. I never even thought of fear as I passed Mary Elinor’s room again. That was all swallowed up in confusion and mortification. I thought I would die if I ever had to meet that man again. I thought I couldn’t stand it. And then I heard Daddy and him coming up the stairs and go in Mary Elinor’s room. And I went back to Alix and Mary Elinor. “Have they caught him?” asked Alix. “I don’t know,” I answered and sank down on the bed. “What is it?” asked Alix, and then I told her. “That is just like you, Barbara,” she said, “just like you. That unconventional sort of thing of course antagonises an Englishman. They think PATRICK AND A BURGLAR 61 we’re all little better than wild Indians anyway. What will he think of me since you did that? I do wish you were more restrained and—and womanly._ Oh, dear!” “You made me wear the towel!” I said—but weakly. “You could have stopped on the stairs and ar~ ranged your hair—taken the towel off you know—- and you really have a pretty bath robe and slippers.” “I forgot to take my vanity case,” I said, in an effort to be funny, but Alix would not forgive me. “I am being constantly humiliated,” she said, “con- stantly humiliated by the entire family. Why a per- son of my fineness is thrown among ” I couldn’t stand that because, whatever I am, the rest are dears and I was just ready to remonstrate when Billy burst into the room without so much as a knock. “What do you think?” he shouted, “there must have been some one there—Dad found a cigarette on the cupboard floor, an unusual one ” CHAPTER VI LITTLE FRIEND Written by Patrick HAD fancied, you know, that the person whom Mrs. Crane called Aunt was in reality an Aunt. And going down to breakfast Sunday morning I prepared a neat little speech to say on meeting her. I am apt to get rattled over anything in the petticoat line and I jolly well didn’t want to do it before the chorus of whom I had heard the night before. So I got it dowh pat and after a deep breath went toward the dining room. I was surprised and, I must admit, pleased when I saw only Mrs. Crane sitting, sweet as could be, behind the coffee urn. “Good morning!” she said; “how did Mr. Deems sleep in the new bed? And did you dream of Lord Baltimore? He is said to have often slept in that four posted affair.” I answered, “Really?” and I am afraid rather non- committally, for the name meant nothing to me. I 62 LITTLE FRIEND 63 supposed he was connected with Baltimore’s found- ing, but could suppose nothing more. “Yes,” she answered, “he was an Irishman too, Mr. Deems. And—a charming scamp, I believe. He owned quite all of the country until the Revolu— tion, when naturally things changed. This place is full of history, not the general scalping history of the most part of America, but real, romantic, silver- buckles and yellow-lace history. I believe Anne Howard, daughter of Lord Arundel, for whom Anne Arundel County is named, said that Baltimore was a piece of Ireland, started by Calvert-Lord-Bal- timore-yeast. . . . Do you like old houses?” I said I did. “You’ll like some of ours then,” she said. “There’s ‘Flag House,’ the little house where Mrs. Mary Pickersgill made the Star-Spangled Banner which inspired Key’s immortal song. (Barbara will show you that, I’ll wager!) There’s Homewood, built by Charles Carroll, the signer, for his son, a really beautiful old place which has hordes of mem- ories tied up in it. The Carroll Mansion, where this Charles Carroll lived the last years of his life and died, is still standing, too. There is Mount Clare, built by Charles Carroll, barrister, the oldest house in Baltimore; and then, too, the house where Jerome Bonaparte and his Baltimore bride spent the year 64 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE of their fated married life. We’ll have to have a sight-seeing tour. Would you like it?” Of course, I said I would, immensely, although I didn’t care a whit about it. That’s the kind of lying women make you do—even the sweetest of them. I have only known one with whom I could be square— (she’s not really a woman) but that’s getting a bit ahead of my own tale. I had finished my fruit by then and Mrs. Crane said she would ring for her Aunt—only fancy sum- moning one’s Aunt in that manner! I swallowed hard and waited, trying to remember my speech which had gone somewhere—Lord knows where— and hoping that none of the daughters would turn up before I’d finished my meal. A door behind me swung open and most naturally I arose, turned—and confronted an Afro-American of the most pro- nounced type, quite the colour of Peter’s Chocolate. I jolly well swallowed my tonsils, then! “I understood you to say, ‘Aunt,’ ” I said. turning beet colour. Mrs. Crane laughed and so did the servant. She was ever so fat and shook like a jelly trife when she caught the joke. “Me, aunt to you all?” she said between shaking, “Lordy, lordy!” and then she set down some thin looking cakes and departed. “It’s a custom,” said Mrs. Crane—“You see she’s "been with us for years, and the children called her LITTLE FRIEND 65 ‘Aunty’ always—oh, by the way—you don’t eat those with your hands, Mr. Deems. They are so thin-— I suppose you don’t know what they are?” I said I did not, inspecting one with suspicion. “They’re griddle cakes,” she explained, “and if you lay them on your plate and use a fork you’ll find that they are more easily managed.” I wiped my fingers which were well greased and attacked the horrid thing. Mrs. Crane smiled at me, not at me, rather with me. I liked her fearfully. She said, “Did you ever hear of what Matthew Arnold said about griddle cakes?” I, being pretty well filled with one at that moment, shook my head. “He was travelling over here with his daughter,” she went on, “and met some griddle cakes. He bravely attacked one, and then looking at his daugh- ter, drawled, ‘Try one, Mamie, they’re not so nahsty as they look!’ I heard that the American soldiers served them to the King and Queen the other day. Wasn’t that interesting? Served them as the most characteristically American food. The papers said that royalty liked them. . . . There’s the maple syrup by you, that is put on for a trim- ming.” I reached for it and doused them well. Mrs. Crane then picked up an illustrated news- paper which lay near and pointed out the picture of LITTLE FRIEND 67 girls? Should be spanked, always late—Alice, tell Aunty to give us some hot coffee. Going to be a nice day.” I agreed, it looked unusually fair to me. “Can you run a Ford, Pat?” he asked. I said that I supposed I could, that I’d run a; Lancia and one of the American cars, a Packard. “A Ford isn’t quite the same,” said the Doctor, “but maybe you can do it. Going to put you to work, Pat. I won’t have any embroidering gentleman in my house. I suppose you’re willing to turn the wash- ing machine, and hang up clothes. His eyes were twinkling like anything. “I’ve done washings in Flanders,” I said. “but I’m afraid I omitted the blueing.” And just when we were having that jolly good time the first young one turned up. I have found since it was Barbara. There was a noise at the doorway and I looked up. And I never in all my mortification-filled life wanted to duck as I did then. . . . I could have crawled under the table and stayed there for life happily. I’m not used to girls anyway and to see one in her nightgown—and her little feet quite bare, and have her stand and look at you. . . . Then to think suddenly that pretty little kiddy was probably raving mad—(she carried two bed slats and a turkish towel was wrapped around her head) and then to hear Pf“. r. “Y OF l';.'._~ ’k 1"; "‘4'! 50,. -, a “'jfil’Y-Ln A; " 1:81". 70 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE him frightfully and all that sort of thing. Then I began to think of Glenarm Castle and I pushed aside my writing and sat with my face hidden against my dead arm and feeling—frightfully down. I made an impatient move with my right hand at one time— When things seemed too bitter to bear—and almost knocked over the little vase of poppies. That brought me to and I sat up—and just then, before the tap on my door, I hoped the little Barbara kiddy had picked those flowers. Then it came, the tap, and I called “Come.” , Barbara opened the door and stood in it. “Oh-er-won’t you come in?” I asked, and she did, picking out the largest chair in the room to sit in. Her feet dangled from it and she looked about lost, but cunning? My eye! (She about reaches my second waist co-at button.) “I came up to tell you about lunch—” she said, after a gasp. And I realised, with a big leap of my heart, that she was more afraid of me than I of her. That gives a bashful person lots of confidence. To meet another member of the stutterous, stum- bleous tribe. I did want to help her fearfully and I was just ready to squawk out something about the weather when she drew another deep breath and said, “A—Alix wanted me to tell y0u t-that we never come down to breakfast in turkish towels and bed slats and—and ” Then she stopped. LUNCH? 75 as mine is bound to meet it. However, I am now grateful to Father as Jimmy’s income was not large and I realise that marriage cannot be based on love alone—although Barbara says she would marry be- cause she loved, and for nothing else. Poor Barbara! Her one redeeming quality is her humbleness. She does not, fortunately, expect anything but work in life. As I said, I knew something was wrong, so with a shrug of my shoulders I went back to the drawing room where Sidney Jackson, Barbara’s especial pal, and her New York cousin Fra‘nk were waiting. Barbara was in the kitchen helping Mother and some one had to entertain them. Soon Barbara came in looking ever so perplexed and asked if they’d excuse me a moment. Of course they said yes and I followed her out in the dining room. “Have you seen the lunch?” she asked in a whis- per. I shook my head. I hadn’t at all. Barbara had made the sandwiches and stuffed the eggs early in the afternoon at the hour when I always take my rest. “Well,” she said, “I put it up, all in a basket and got it ready to take out in the yard. Everything was in it—cake—eggs, sandwiches ” “Oh, yes,” I interrupted, “go on! I’m not to- tally devoid of imagination and we’ve had the same lunch for years. What is it?” 76 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “It’s gone—” she said. “Where did you put it?” I asked. “In the same place it’s been put for years,” she answered (spitefully, I thought) “in the refrigera- tor. What do you suppose—where ” I shook my head. Of course I recalled Mr. Deems fooling around out in the kitchen and his rush. ing away, but I did not speak of it. I had other plans. “What are you going to do?” I asked nervously. It was the first time Sidney’s cousin had ever met us and it was natural that I wanted to have the lunch at least respectable. “I don’t know—” said Barbara. “There’s some cheese ” Her voice trailed off in the way it does when she’s thinking and I could have shaken her. “Well, for heaven’s sake, do something,” I said over my shoulder and went back to the drawing room. You can imagine my disgust when Mary Elinor trailed in carrying that disgusting old doll, Clarabelle, and saying, “Mother says won’t you all come out to the kitchen? She’d love to have you. She’s making welsh rarebit and we’re going to have orange ice and some ginger bread because the cake and lunch is stolen, but I like welsh rarebit anyway, do you? And it is rich in protein.” “Do you really want to?” I asked of Frank Jack- son, who, like his cousin Sidney, is not at all my style. LUNCH? 77 “Of course,” he answered bluntly. “I think it Would be great.” Sidney had gone ahead with Mary Elinor and I followed with Frank. As we reached the hall, Mr. Deems came down the stairs and I threw him a re-\ assuring look. He does have nerve, I’ll admit that. He didn’t even acknowledge my look. He even managed to look puzzled! “Mr. Deems,” I said, introducing them, “Mr. Jackson. We’re all going out to the kitchen. Orig- inal, is it not?” “Some one stole the lunch,” Frank Jackson blurted out, and even at that Mr. Deems’ face didn’t change. Nice to be ‘took’ in the family this way, isn’t it? You from England?” Frank went on. “Ireland,” answered Patrick Deems. “Been fighting?” asked Frank. "‘Yes,” answered Patrick, and again in that laconic way. I will say be interested me. A repressed nature always does. I feel that there is a depth of feeling below the outer restraint. The scene in the kitchen I shall pass overhur- riedly. It was all too crude. Every one talked at once, every one worked. Barbara even had the ef- frontery to put an apron on Mr. Deems, who some- day will be a man of title, and he seemed to like it. Then she made him squeeze lemons and, after he did, felt them and made him do it again. I suppose he 78 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE admired her cheek, because he grinned at her like a Cheshire cat. Frank Jackson cut bread and Barbara made the punch and got the silver and china ready to go out in the yard,—for those, with the other things which had been ready, had disappeared too. Mother made the welsh rarebit and Mary Elinor toasted the crackers to go under it. She burnt her fingers and cried a little and Patrick Deems and Barbara fin- ished them. “I say, this is jolly!” I heard Mr. Deems say to Barbara as they stood by the stove. “Isn’t it?” she answered. “I just love it. Some- times I think it’s more fun to be poor! Imagine hav- ing all your meals shoved at you by a servant. Wouldn’t it be tiresome?” She had forgotten his circumstances evidently. 'His is one of the wealthiest inheritances in Ireland. I heard Father tell Mother. Not that they would do anything rational, like getting me some new clothes, after they heard that. They, like Barbara, are entirely without finesse or thought about ways and means. I sometimes don’t at all blame Aunt. “Are you poor?” I heard Patrick Deems ask. He was playing, but she answered in the frankest way, “Oh, yes! and sometimes it isn’t nice. I have to wear all Alix’ old clothes shortened, or used to; and now, since they’re so short, they’re unsuitable for a child of my age and have to be lengthened. LUNCH? 79 And the tucks always show what’s wrong or the hem always shows Where it was before—in the good old days.” He laughed as I didn’t dream he could laugh. “You jolly little kiddy!” he said. “But you look nice,” he added. ' “To-day,” she said, “is Sunday." Then she paused, “You ought to see me in the paint dress!” she added. “The what?” he asked and she told him all about it. I could have died of shame. The “paint dress” is the one we wear while we paint—Barbara’s always doing the porch furniture, or the window boxes and last Spring she and Billy even did the laundry roof—and you can imagine what the frock looks like! It was originally lavender, but now when Barbara wears it Billy calls her Jacob because of his coat of many colours. She was beginning to tell him that she was think- ing of painting the Ford and asking him if he’d like to help when Billy came in and, thank heaven, interrupted. Then we all carried things out in the garden, down under the farthest apple tree where the table stands, and soon we were seated and eating. I must say in spite of their simplicity, that our garden lunches are nice. . . . They started years back when we were tiny and adored picnics and when Sunday night was 80 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE the only time that Daddy ever seemed to be at home, even for a little while. We used to put on our hats and take baskets and wander all around the yard, thinking we were going miles and then settle down, perhaps under the dining room windows, to cat. That was a little hard on Daddy and Mother, that sitting on the ground; so they had the old table built, one end of it resting on a tree stump and the other against the apple tree nearest the wall, and since that time we always eat outdoors on Sunday nights ex- cept in winter and when it rains. Our garden is a good deal like the house. It has beautiful possibilities, neglected from the want of money. There is a red brick wall around the back against which hollyhocks grow and in front of them are larkspur, sweet William, canterbury bells (pink and blue) and millions of Johnny-jump-ups. The whole place is, I’ll acknowledge it, sweetly peaceful and with a certain charm; but I positively ache when I think of what it might be. If I had my way—and money—I’d dig out all the old trees, put in a sunken garden and have marble benches. As it is, we sit on a bench made of one board resting on two piles of bricks, or on the dilapidated furniture, every one avoiding the chair that lets you down to Mother Earth with more suddenness than politeness. Then, of course, the place is frightfully marred by the ab- surd houses and seats Billy built in the trees. The LUNCH? 81 “tree house” is attractive when you get in it—it is very high in the apple tree outside of Mr. Deems’ room and you can look way down the garden through fluttering leaves, but of course the rough look of it from below is distressing—but to get back to the awful proof of my suspicions. We had lunch; every one, as usual, talking at once, and Billy more than once with his mouth full. Then Father had a call and came back from the telephone saying that Dave Lummel’s wife had convulsions and he “guessed” he’d have to go see her. He pocketed a few sandwiches (he hadn’t finished his lunch) kissed all of us and went off whistling “If a body meet a body comin’ through the rye.” . . . At the garage he called back to Mary Elinor and asked her if Clarabelle wanted to take a ride and if so, would she, Mary Elinor, consent to chaperone her? Mary Elinor screamed, “Yes, yes, Daddy!” and left after making a grab at the ginger bread. “Don’t you take her in there with you, Ted!” called Mother. “Yes!” said Mary Elinor, “please do! I love con- vulsions. Love them!” And then she and Daddy went chugging away, Mary Elinor waving. “She’s going to be a doctor,” said Barbara, ex- plaining Mary Elinor’s weird love. “She thinks so,” I amended. “She’s too young to know what she will do, if anything. She has a 82 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE gift at nursing,” I acknowledged, “but—you must think us perfectly wild,” I continued, with a look to- ward Mr. Deems. “Our lack of manner and re- straint is from circumstance. A doctor has no home life and I’m afraid we have become rather lax about little conventions.” Barbara got up at that moment and reached, way across the table and right in front of Mr. Deems, for the ginger bread. “That,” I said, “is an illustration of what I mean.” “Well, I wanted it,” she said. “Why didn’t you ask?” I inquired. “My mouth was full,” she answered. “I had al- most all of an egg in it.” I dismissed the subject with a shrug of my shoulders. What was the use of pursuing it? After that there was a little more talk and then I saw my chance to slip away, and I did. I went up the back stairs that go up from the pas- sage outside the dining room—there are three stair- cases in the back of the house—and my knees did shake. I was afraid that some one would follow and I knew my position would be awkward to explain, but I hurried up. The back of the house upstairs is just as confusing as can be. There have been so many additions made to the old place, so much re- modelling done, that it twists about like a Chinese puzzle. You arrive in a queer old room that has a bathtub set in an alcove, and I noticed that a trickle of Water came from it and went to turn it off. It LUNCH? 83 was cold water and going in quite a stream. Im- agine, if you please, my further bafllement when, in the bottom of the tub, I saw the end of a cigarette! Now Billy doesn’t smoke; or if he does, he’s pre- cious careful not to leave anything like a proof of it lying around; and Daddy smokes an awful, smelly old pipe. I looked at that cigarette end for some time and then, taking out my handkerchief, picked it up. (Afterwards I was VERY glad I’d done that.) Then, with a backward look, I hurried toward the passage that leads to the main hall and the middle of the house. Our house is shaped like an H. Only the middle bar is longer than an H middle bar and the front is almost on a line. It is like an H that is very long waisted. We hardly use the wings at all; upstairs not at all, and downstairs only for the kitchen and on the other side, the right, a conserva- tory which Barbara fills up with the most inane plants. But that’s beside the point. The fact is, a great deal of the house is unused, so it is especially easy for any one to slip about stealthily and unob- served. That realisation made me feel very crawly; I hurried on. Mr. Deems’ bedroom door was closed and the sitting room door, which I tried, was locked. I lis- tened a moment, tried the bedroom door and found that, too, to be locked. Then I remembered the narrow, old twisted iron balcony and stepped out on 84 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE it and hurried along. His windows were open, thank heaven, and I saw what I had supposed I would— - the empty basket which had once held the lunch, ly- ing on the floor. It was very carelessly tossed there and I realised he had thought he must get down to lunch in a hurry or excite suspicion. I stood looking at it. Then I looked at the grate and saw that he had burnt something. And I think any one would say I was justified in spying. I went to look what he had burnt, or try to find out what it had been, and I did—cigarettes! The same kind that Daddy had found in Mary Elinor’s cupboard and that I had found in the bathtub of the staircase-wing room. He had been careless about burning the box and just one charred bit of the pasteboard was left with the let- ters standing out in silvered grey—the way they do in burnt things—Herbert Tareyton. I picked that up and wrapped it in my handkerchief with the end of the cigarette which I 'had found in the tub and then I turned my attention to the basket. The silver was inside and the picnic plates (we usually use paper ones out in the garden) but none of the food, and so I decided to tie the things in. I had nothing to do it with, so I hurried over to the bureau and selected a grey tie that looked strong, hoping to return it before Mr. Deems reached his room. I had my plan formed and my mind made up and I worked quickly, but, it turned out, not quickly LUNCH? 85 enough. I shook a good deal too, for my decision laid a tremendous responsibility on my shoulders. I knew that I couldn’t get the basket downstairs without discovery and I also knew that it would be better for it to be found in the yard. It would argue that the thief had probably only helped him- self to a good lunch and then gone on and was, since the basket was out doors, certainly not in the house. Well, shaking a good deal, I tied and securely fas- tened the things in the basket and, going to the win- dow, flung them out. Every one was way in the back of the yard and the jutting out of the garage which comes between protected me. Then I turned back. I had to hurry down and detach that tie. Just as I thought everything was fixed and that I’d made a really good job of it the door opened. Mr. Deems stood in it looking at me. I smiled, I am afraid somewhat shakily, and went past him out in the hall. He merely bowed as I passed, bowed from the waist line and with the most cold look on his face that I have ever witnessed. At the door I said, “I—came up to tidy your room—for the night.” And he bowed again and did not speak. That made me furious. I went back, quite as if I was afraid I hadn’t done everything, turned back his covers with the utmost precision and picked up a silly little bouquet Barbara had put on his table. 86 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “These are past the decorative stage, I think,” I said. “Did you put them there?” he asked, his face softening. I didn’t answer, but dropped my eyes. And it wasn’t a lie; I didn’t say anything. “That was kind of you,” he said, but again his face had changed. He looked disappointed. “I’ll go on,” I said airily. “Do join us when you feel like it! We’re going to sing, and my little Cin- derella sister (she enjoys work, Mr. Deems. It isn’t really necessary for her to paint furniture or any- thing of that sort) will sing for us. It’s her one talent. She really doesn’t sing badly.” “Really?” he said. “I’ll be down.” And again bowing, but less formally, he let me out and I hur- ried down the broad stairs and out in the garden. I got the tie and stuck it in the front of my waist. I thought I had it fixed there securely. Somehow I began to hate Mr. Deems, really hate him, but my plan didn’t waver. For while money isn’t everything, it is a good deal. One realises that only when one lacks it. . . . And so, that is why I planned to gain it, and why I protected Patrick Deems. CHAPTER VIII SUSPICIONS By Patrick KNEW I hadn’t locked my door, because I’d considered doing it so carefully. After the loss of my fountain pen, I naturally wondered and rather thought of locked doors. And then I reflected on the more than kind way they were all treating me and pushed the idea aside; it simply did not seem de- cent. But, when I went upstairs to find the photo- graph of Glenarm Castle that Barbara wanted to see and found my doors tight closed and well locked, I was a bit puzzled; and, when I opened the door and saw the oldest daughter of the Crane house stand- ing in the centre of the room, I was all but knocked flat—I simply gasped, you know. I hope I’m not suspicious, but I could not and do not believe that she was tidying up my rooms as she said. In the first place why should one do that after high tea? It seems a rum time to do it, don’t you know, and then I know my little Barbara friend 87 88 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE makes the beds in the morning for she told me so— I’m afraid the Cranes are sadly short on funds—but, to go back, she stood there giving me that dazzling smile that makes me long to bolt into the underbrush, and then passed out with a word about the bouquet. At that I plucked courage, asked the question and found that she had put it there. I tore that card up on short notice after she left. Then I tried to dismiss the whole nasty business, found my photo- graph and hurried down to the yellow drawing room once more. I could have forgotten it, I think, if the tie hadn’t appeared—it was my tie I am positive, for while it was quite ordinary with nothing dis- tinctive about it, it did have the mark of the shop in the Burlington Arcade, where I bought it, and that I saw plainly. We all sat about down there, the littlest kiddy on Mrs. Crane’s knee (the doctor and she had returned from their convulsion hunt), the doctor in a big chair, Miss Alix and the visiting young man on a sofa and Barbara and her friend near the piano. And then Barbara began to sing. My word, she has a sweet voice! After she finished a little thing about a long lane that had no turning I said, “Oh, I say—l” and she turned to me in the dearest way and said, “Oh, do you like it?” And I replied, “Oh, I say! Well, yes, rather!” which was, I fancy, just a bit stupid, but I had no 90 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE triangular red trade mark of the Burlington Arcade shop. I simply gave up. I’d trust that little kiddy to Kingdom Come, but I’m frank to say that I was filled with wonder. Why she should wear my tie under her blouse—if she’d worn it on the left side in front, I’d have been out jolly well shooting up the town and scalping the first families, just for joy— but she isn’t that sort. I imagine (oh!) if she ever did give a hang for a chap that she’d tell him so, quite as she would say good morning, and not go plastering his ties against her heart! I tried to forget the tie business and the visit of Alix and the rest of the evening was pleasant. But, when I reached my rooms, I found my desk drawer wide open and myself the loser of two pounds six which I had hidden below the paper lining of the drawer. I stood looking at the empty drawer and suddenly I heard footsteps on the iron balcony, sneaking, softly-padding steps. I hurried to the window post haste, but no luck; the thief had dis- appeared. I stood at the window, peering out for several seconds, and then from down the balcony I heard the soft closing of a window and after that only quiet. For a moment I thought of rousing the family—if I only had! But again I reflected and decided not to. I was afraid that I might implicate one of the girls and for various reasons I couldn’t SUSPICIONS 91 bear doing that, even Alix of whom I am not es- pecially fond. I stood at the window thinking double quick time and could decide nothing. Down below was the gar- den, all milky White and black in the moonlight and shadow, and somewhere, not so very distant, a cat howled dismally. Why a cat always manages to be present and bowl when you have creeps up your spine anyway, I don’t know, but it does. Then something dropped, down in the garden, probably a bough of a tree, and then a board in my sitting room creaked. . . . After that there was silence, that beating, throbbing silence to which you listen and shiver. I waited a moment or so more at the window (those moments seemed years) and then turned back to my room, pulled the shades down smartly, decided to dismiss all my worries and go to bed. And I did. When I next knew anything I was standing in a girl’s bedroom, it turned out to be Alix’, facing Doc- tor Crane who wore a night shirt and carried a flash light. “It’s all right—Pat,” he said soothingly. “Don’t be worried, boy, it’s all right—all right—(Be quiet, Alix I) now we’ll go back to bed and go to sleep, . . . Come on ” and he put his hand on mine and led me as if I were a baby or not to be trusted -to walk alone. I went with him, as miserably mortified as any SUSPICIONS 93 it got there and did not wish to be troubled about it. Only—it all seemed deucedly queer. I crawled in bed and Doctor Crane sat down by the window and smoked. At about four when the sky was just beginning to lighten and silver in one streak near the horizon, he arose and tip-toed out. I hated his sitting with me when his days are so full of work. I had protested, but it had done no good. After that I turned over and went to sleep. When I arose, rather late, I thought of the thing which has troubled me since. How—since I went to bed with my windows locked (I had been enough frightened by the theft to turn coward and lock them) had I gotten on the balcony? One cannot, even in sleep walking, go through a locked window and leave it locked. I thought of it a good deal and spoke to Doctor Crane about it—rather I started to. He patted my shoulder in that fatherly way he has and dismissed the subject before I had fairly begun. “Look here, Patrick, my son,” he said, “if I hear one word more about sleep walking, balconies or mysterious flights, I’ll take off my shoe and paddle yuh! It’s all explained—all explained—and if you’ll try to forget it, you’ll help me to help you get well.” ' I said I would, of course. Who wouldn’t? And then he offered me a cigar from the case that he had picked up from the floor inside my window. . . . 94 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE It was a queer old case which, he said, had belonged to one of the descendants of the Baltimore’s—Cecil Calvert’s branch of the family, I believe. He had found it in a pawn shop, it had the family crest on it, and I judged he was fond of things of history. He asked me if I cared for the old and I replied that I did. It always has touched a streak of ro- mance in my nature. “Then,” said he, “go rummage in the garrets. Barbara will show you around and you’ll find diversion. I want you to forget your- self. . . . Forget everything that troubles you. Think you can?” “No, sir,” I answered promptly. - “Why not?” he questioned sharply, his eyes, grown very piercing, on me. “I cannot say,” I replied. And I added, “I’m sorry, Doctor.” “Very well, son,” he answered. “That’s all right. We can’t all tell our troubles. . . . But, if you ever feel like it, I’m ready, more than ready, to listen, give advice and do what I can to help you.” I thanked him and we shook hands. True to my word, I tried to forget the night’s hap- penings and the mystery of my getting out on the balcony, but once and again the question would crop up. It’s difficult, I’ve found, to discipline one’s mind. Anything once put in will come back. That ought to teach a fellow care about how he fills it, what? SUSPICIONS \ 95 One would never fill a jug full of poisoned water, so why a mind? I’ve known lots of decent chaps to scream out frightful things in battle—things that have lain under the surface for years, perhaps, and come out under stress—which is too bad. I think it’s rather better to be careful about what you put in the pitcher for one is always liable to spoil the flavour of the brew by a little layer of slime. All of which is moralising, and beside the point. I spoke to Doctor Crane about the footsteps on the balcony. He patted my shoulder. I spoke to him about my two pounds ten, not that it mattered much, for money is the least of my troubles, but I felt he should know. Again he patted me on the shoulder. “It’ll turn up,” he said. “Don’t worry, Patrick,” and he looked at me in that searching, kind way. There is a mystery in this house, a mystery which I think Doctor Crane thinks he understands. I don’t ' —I don’t begin to. But it has done this much for me; it has made me a little forget my worry and taken me out of myself, for which I am grateful! CHAPTER IX A TALK WITH MOTHER 1s Related by Alix UNDERSTOOD what the trouble was with Patrick Deems, understood it pretty well, even before I wormed it out of Father; but I sup- pose I’d better tell the whole thing. Sunday night, after a nice but, on my part, ner- vous evening, we all went to bed. Barbara and Billy were feeling silly and he came over and turned sommersaults on my dress box, which annoys me frightfully, and Barbara started a pillow fight. They would have kept it up all night, for they were feeling that way, but Mother came along and ordered them to bed. After they had gone I un- dressed slowly and tried to compose myself. I had made a great decision. I meant to stick to that decision for through it I would get all I wanted in the world—and, as I have said, often and often, one can get anything one wants, if only one is determined 96 98 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE up his bag and hurried out. He slammed the door as he always does and then I went upstairs. Barbara and Billy had been sent off before he came in. I heard Barbara call to Daddy, as he came up the stairs. “What was the matter with the man?” she yelled. She did yell,.there is no other description. “He had a rose cold and a boil,” answered Daddy, and then I heard him go in Barbara’s room. He often goes in there when he comes in, even though it’s ever so late, and they sit in there talking until all hours of the night. The next morning she usually looks dragged out too. Frankly, I don’t think a talk with any one is worth that! I feel with some one—I don’t recall who—that a woman owes it to the world to look her best; and I always try to do so. I crawled in bed after that and had the fright of my life. Mary Elinor had put her white furs in the foot of my bed and I thought I’d met a polar bear. Of course I jumped out, entirely unstrung. Then I got in once more and slipped my hand under the pillow as I always do and found she’d stuffed a glove with cold mush. That time I got out, abso- lutely shaking. It was not a good start for that horrible night. I was completely unnerved. I took the glove and furs and went down the hall to Barbara’s room which, from the doorway, looked A TALK WITH MOTHER 99 as if it were on fire. Daddy had his pipe and the place was grey with smoke. “These were in my bed 1” I said, holding them out. I tried to keep my voice firm and low. “Hum?” said Father with a rising inflection. He blinked over his glasses. “To stuff his glove with cold mush and wear it next to her heart!” sang Billy, who came along from the bathroom wearing little more than a turkish towel. “How romantic!” “Mary Elinor put them there,” I said, “and, Father, I wish you would speak to her. It is too hard on my nervous temperament.” “And Barby wearing a gent’s tie in her blouse,” said Billy. “My, we are getting saccharine.” “I don’t know how it came there!” said Barbara, getting pink. “I haven’t the slightest idea! I have Wondered and wondered! I was undressing and suddenly the thing fell at my feet and when I looked at it I found it came from London. . . . I——” “Well,” said Daddy, knocking the ashes from his pipe into one of those crocheted baskets which are stiffened with starch, “I wouldn’t worry. Probably it would be better to forget it. I imagine it belongs to Mr. Patrick Deems, because of the London mark. . . . Might put it back in his rooms to-morrow when you make his bed.” “All right,” said Barbara, “I will.” She’d jump 1445343 100 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE off the roof without question, if Father told her to! After that, I added a word about the advisability of Mary Elinor’s having a spanking and went back to my rooms. . . . I heard them laugh as I went down the hall and something hurt inside. . . . Their ideals and mine are so different that we are divided; their ideas of a good time and mine so dif- fer that we graze in fun pastures that lie far apart. To be sure they ask me to come with them—but—I can’t and sometimes it leaves me lonely. I knew that Daddy and Billy and Barbara would probably sit up awfully late, Barbara curled up on the foot of the bed, her shabby pink kimono twisted around her legs; that Billy would sit in her deep chair and that Daddy would lie down on the bed, four pillows bol- stering him up, and laugh and talk to Barbara and Billy as if he were their age. I stopped at Mother’s door, hoping that she would make me feel better, but she didn’t. She had on a horrible wrapper that she has worn for at least ten generations. It changes colour with every washing and has shrunk and stretched until it looks as if it were a reflection in one of those funny mirrors one looks in at fairs and amusement parks. “Oh, Mother!” I said, “must you wear that frightful thing!” “It’s so comfortable,” she said apologetically, “and I never do seem to get time to make up an- A TALK WITH MOTHER 101 other. . . . Won’t you come in, dear? I have to do a little mending. I hate to on Sunday, but Mary Elinor pulled off a garter and she has only one Ferris waist with all the buttons on it—she’s very hard on things, but I’m so glad she’s well and strong.” I sighed. It seemed to me that the family would never get above mending or food. “She put these in my bed,” I said, holding out the glove and furs. “Aren’t those put away yet?” said Mother, grow- ing suddenly alive. “There’ll be moths in them. . . . Let me see them, Alix.” Then she took them and bent above them with complete absorption. “Oh, dear!” I wailed. Mother looked up. Her expression had changed; she actually forgot moth balls. “What is it, Alix?” she asked. “I am so unhappy!” I said. “This horrible, shabby house! Barbara’s lack of manner; Billy’s talking with his mouth full; Mary Elinor’s brand of humour—that bathrobe of yours—Our awful, scrappy meals. . . . Sometimes I think I shall die!” I stopped because Mother’s eyes had filled with tears. She’s like Barbara in that. She always man- ages to make you feel mean without a word. “Sit down,” she said after a moment, “I want to talk to you.” I sat down on a chair that had three rungs gone and a lop sided tendency. A TALK WITH MOTHER 103 is so nice to have, I know it; the poor always do. But, Alix, that is the least part of happiness.” She stopped speaking and clasped her hands, leaning for- ward. “I think,” she said, “if you want to get over being unhappy—if you want to get through with discon- tent I can give you the receipt. . . . It is, ‘Forget Yourself.’ . . . Do what you can, everything you can, for others. . . . Once upon a time there was a very silly girl whom a dear and good man loved. How he happened to, I don’t know, but—he did. And she married him. He was a doctor and he was away a great deal and she hadn’t enough to do. She was a selfish little piece anyway and she thought a great deal of her loneliness; of the family who had gotten through with her when she married the dear- est man in the whole world; of the carriages in which she once rode—and of all the glories: and she thought of these things so very much that she some- times quite forgot the biggest thing in the world that had come to her. . . . And her husband, who was wise and dear, understood and was patient; but new wrinkles came about his eyes and he sighed often and looked at her when he thought she didn’t know it. . . . And then she had a daughter, a dear little daugh- ter with fuzzy yellow hair and the bluest eyes, and the doctor sat by her bedside one day and looked down at her. . . . ‘Now,’ he said, ‘dear, I think A TALK WITH MOTHER 105 and happiness is through forgetting yourself and lov- ing the other person. . . . No one is happy who keeps the centre of the stage, but if they are con- tented to be in the chorus and forget that the spot light should play alone on them ” she paused, her eyes on mine. “I’ll think it over,” I answered, and then went off toward my room. “No one understands,” I said aloud, as I slipped olI my kimono. “No one l” And then I put out the light and crawled in bed, thinking of the picture of Glenarm Castle which Patrick had shown us early in the evening. . . . I thought of the parties I could have on the terrace; I thought of motoring through the lovely country. . . . I thought of the lovely frocks and hats and last I thought of the key to this, Patrick Deems, and when I did I shivered. And then I think I went to sleep. When I awoke I saw Patrick and father standing in the centre of my room and I screamed. , “Hush!” said Father crossly, I thought. “You’ll frighten him. . . . Now, Patrick, we’re going back to bed.” And they went out, father leading Pat- rick. After that, I got up. . . . My bureau was in frightful shape, a small box in which I keep my trinkets was completely upset, the lock broken, the cover torn. . . . From it was taken almost every- thing I owned—nothing of much value, but valuable 106 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE to me—a signet ring, a bracelet; two pins, one a friendship wreath, one a Pennsylvania seal; a chain of silver and some pink beads which really were Bar- bara’s, but which I had worn recently because I thought them a little old for her. I turned over the box. On the bottom was scratched “Pat” as if some one had done it with a pin. . . . Then I knew, but even then my decision did not waver. I had protected him because of my fear, about the basket. . . . I would protect him as I could now, for, if Father realised his really bad condition, I would have no chance to fulfil my plans and be a lady of title, a woman of wealth, and through these two things find real life and happiness. 108 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE in the tree house and talk when it began to pour. It was one of those rains that look as if it would last for ages. “Why don’t you go upstairs and rummage in the attics?” said Mother, when she saw how disappoint- _ ed we were. (We had planned to eat out in the tree house. We had a lunch packed.) “And,” she added, “I’ll send your lunch up later, or you can come down and eat it in the yellow room and make some chocolate over the spirit lamp—do just as you like.” Frank said he thought it would be great! And Sidney liked it too. Of course Alix wouldn’t come because she considers hide-and-seek childish. . . . I think she misses a lot because of her dignity. It really is a barbed wire fence between her and lots of good times. Mary Elinor and Billy were coming, of course, and Mother suggested that I ask Mr. Deems whether he wouldn’t care to come up and look at some of the old plunder. So I went ahead while the rest stopped to talk a little more to Mother. I tapped at Pat’s door and he let me in. It was the first time I’d been near him for a week, for I had been little enough to be hurt by something he’d done. Alix told me of it, kindly, of course. It seemed that he tore up the card that I had put on that silly little bouquet, tore it all to pieces after TRUN KS AND BEADS 109 she’d told him that I’d written it. . . . I found it in the waste basket next morning. I confronted her with the pieces and asked her if he knew who’d written it and she admitted that he’d asked . . . I don’t mean that I expected him to keep the card; I’m not silly. But I thought that sudden disposal queer. And Alix knew more than she told me; her manner said so. I imagine she didn’t want to hurt me. To be frank, she admitted that too and asked me not to question her. But, to go back, he let me in. “Why, hello!” he said, and he did seem glad to see me. “Come in?” he asked. I said I would and went to settle in a great big chair which I adore. I saw that the picture of Glenarm Castle was propped up on the desk and that he’d been sitting before it. . . . A smashed sofa pillow and the posi- tion of the chair told me that—and I began to feel little and mean. I thought perhaps he’d been home- sick. “That must be a lovely place!” I said, looking to- ward the picture. He looked at it too and drew a deep breath. Then he looked down at his hands and I did too. They were clenched tightly, the way movie actors do when they register despair. “You’re not happy!” I said, really before I knew I was going to say it. “I’m so sorry!” 110 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE At that he looked at me. “Kiddy,” he said, “why have you avoided me all of this last week?” And I saw that he hadn’t meant to say that any more than I had what I’d said. “Why?” he repeated, flushing. “Alix said ” I blurted out and then stopped. That was just like me to do that! And, oh, how I hated myself after it had come out. It was I who flushed then; I simply burned; sunset at sea wasn’t in it. I looked at him and added, “She didn’t say any- thing mean about you. . . . I—I’ve been stupid. I can’t explain.” He nodded. “Very well,” he said, “lots in this world can’t be explained. I know that—but please believe that I wouldn’t intentionally hurt you. You know you said we were going to be friends—that you’d take me in that capacity.” And that made me feel ashamed too, for I feel sure that Francis Scott Key would have stuck to a friend through anything, even doubt. . . . But it was just like me. My character is frightfully thin in some places and lumpy in others. I mean to do well and then find myself stubbing my toe and fall- ing fiat. “I’m so sorry!” was all I could say. “Will you forgive me?” “Oh, don’t!” he said and almost sharply, and l TRUNKS AND BEADS 111 then, in a different way, “But we will be friends once again?” I held out my hand and he took it, clasped it longer than most people do and then let it go very suddenly. And then I told him about the after- noon’s plan. I said I supposed he wouldn’t want to come but if he did we’d love to have him—but he did want to come and a half hour later found us all up in the garret, counting out. The rain pattered on the roof and swished on the window panes. The place was dark, shadowed and mysteriously interest- ing. I thought it would be a wonderful day for hide-andfseek and that one could even grow almost afraid and crawly—I was right. We did—too much; I never in my life was quite so frightened. I don’t understand it, even now——’but I never will for- get the way I felt when that trunk lid lifted slowly and that white-draped figure crawled out. . . . But to start where one should, at the beginning, Frank was “It” first. He thought it unfair, be- cause he didn’t know the attics at all, and it was in a way; but we made him stick to his job and so he stayed in the cedar room and counted five hundred by tens which is the way we have always played. I took Pat with me because he didn’t know any good hiding places and seemed to want a guide and it was thrilling to sneak around with the pattering, swishing rain noise above us, the deep, deep shadows 112 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE on every side and the feeling of suspense that one has in hide-and-seek. I took him in the biggest store room and we climbed over trunks and up on a mantel and from there in an awfully dusty little cupboard that is five feet high in the wall. Why it is set up there I never knew. It is near a mantel and a blank wall which seems to be about four feet _ thick. I suppose there is a hollow space beneath. We just about got up there when Frank called, “Are you ready?” and began to come. And just then, right below us, we heard the funniest sliding noise. I grabbed Pat’s cqu and hung on to it too. “What’s that?” I whispered in a regular stage effect. I think you could have heard it in the yellow room! “Rats, probably,” he answered in the same way. And of course Frank heard us and began to use a flash light he carried, which wasn’t fair. Pat hadn’t been able to get his feet in the cupboard and so of course we were caught. And although I tried to make him hurry he wouldn’t, and let me get ahead, so he was “It” for the next time. I hid with Sidney this time and we hurried into the spinning room and in a corner which was shadowed and so was easy to escape from. As we slipped in that corner I stepped on something which broke like glass and imagine my surprise when I leaned over and found I was stepping on my own pink beads which I thought safely locked in Alix’ jewel box! TRUNKS AND BEADS 113 I showed them to Sidney and she was quite as per- plexed as I. “I wouldn’t let her wear them anyway!” she squeaked. “If she gets the habit, she’ll borrow everything you own. She went out in your best hat just as we came up. Did you know it?” I whispered “No!” and I was mad, for it is a lovely hat and I was afraid she’d get it wet and mash the chiffon, beside making the shoe blacking run. “Well, she did,” said Sidney, and looked trium- phant. She thinks I am sort of spineless and I could see she had a satisfaction in catching Alix with the goods. Then because Sidney got a cramp in her leg she wiggled and knocked over the portrait of Aunt Sophie Beam and Pat caught us. “Go on, Kiddy,” he said, shoving me. “You can get in free if you put on a bit of speed, you know,” which I thought was dear of him; but I didn’t; it Wouldn’t have been fair. So, I was “It.” Just at that time it began to rain harder than ever. It simply poured and you could hardly hear yourself think. The noise on the roof was really like stage rain, which, as you know, is more rainy than real rain ever is. It thundered a little too and A Mary Elinor decided to hide with Sidney for she is A"; a little afraid of thunder and lightning. The boys “separated, I found afterwards. And I counted five 114 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE hundred by tens as we always do——my head hidden in my arm. While I counted I heard a noise back of me, but I thought nothing of it for‘I supposed it Was one of the company. And of course I didn’t look, for I was “It.” Then I turned and began to hunt. I must say they had hidden well, for I know every corner in those rooms, and yet I found no one for the first few minutes.- Then I began to creep silently, think- ing I could surprise some one who would think I had gone. I slipped through the big store room, into the spinning room and hid behind the door, and then my eye was caught by something moving. . i. . It was the lid of the biggest trunk—a trunk which had been empty for ages because Mary Elinor liked to pretend it was a boat and go to sea in it—that lid was rising. “I have you now,” I thought, and slipped out so quietly that whoever it was didn’t hear me. Then I waited. Something draped in a sheet arose which I didn’t think square, for we have to yell whom we’ve caught when we tag goal. I said, “That’s no fair!” and then I began to feel crawly—frightfully crawly. I knew that wasn’t any of our party! . . . It seemed like some one whom I had never seen. If you can understand, I felt a dif- ferent person. “Who are you?” I said unsteadily, but I got no answer. However, I suppose because my voice TRUNKS AND BEADS 115 shook the thing wasn’t frightened and it waved its arms and came toward me. . . . Well, I simply faded. I never made such good time. I couldn’t scream because, it is just as Mary Elinor says, when you are really frightened the scream gland is closed. I just gasped and ran. When I reached goal I found Frank and Sidney there, feeling ever so pleased that they’d gotten in free and Mary Elinor rushed right in under my nose and began to jeer. I couldn’t speak for a moment and then I said, “There’s some one in a sheet in the trunk room and it waved its arms—I’m—I’m terribly frightened!” “It was Pat!” said Frank. .I swallowed hard and shook my head. “Come on!” he said, taking my arm. “No one’s going to eat you. You wouldn’t make a meal. You aren’t big enough to enter anything by the squab class. What’s the matter with you? Maybe it was Billy!” “No ” I answered breathlessly. It was silly to be sure, but I did feel so at the time. And then we went back. We met Billy coming through a passage and then, as we turned in the big store room, we met Pat. He had a sheet in his hand. “See ?” said Frank, feeling awfully pleased with himself. “Did you have that on ?” I asked. Pat shook his head. “Found it on the floor,” he answered. 116 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Oh, come off!” said Frank. “You scared her to death. Own up or we’re liable to have a case of hysterics on our hands.” “I jolly well never saw it until I stumbled over it a moment ago!” said Patrick. He was a little indignant. Frank’s tone had made him so. “Where’d you hide ?” asked Frank. “In a trunk,” Pat answered. I sat down on a broken backed chair and wished we’d never come up to the attic. . . . I hated the whole business and it began to crystallise a feeling of uneasiness I’d had for the last few days. It seemed, all the time, as if something unusual, something queer, were hap- pening! “Well,” said Frank, with a wave of his hand, “that’s where our fair bantam found her ghost. Wasn’t it, Barbara?” “N o,” I heard myself answering, “my figure came out of a closet. . . . The one near the door . . . Idaresay I saw nothing. . . . Let’s go down- stairs and have our tea. I think every one’s tired and it’s raining so hard—and—” “All right,” said Frank and I knew he thought I was a coward and I hated that! Sidney looked puzzled and everything seemed a little flat and stale and all our good time, silly. Frank thought me a coward, which I probably am, and he thought Pat untruthful, which, however TRUNKS AND BEADS 117 things may look, I know he isn’t! And we went downstairs. Mother was mending in front of a tiny fire and she had a table spread and standing near it. It had grown chilly from the long rain and things did look cosy and dear. Alix came in (without a hat; I imagined she’d shed it in the hall) and we all ate sandwiches and drank chocolate and talked. It was very pleasant. “This is my ideal of happiness,” said Patrick— “tea in front of a jolly little blaze, you know, and a mother pouring it.” And then he looked into the fire rather solemnly. I suppose he misses his mother. I, personally, don’t see how any one lives without one! Mother smiled at him gently, and then, to turn the talk, said to Mary Elinor, “What’s your ideal of happiness, Chicky Bird?” and Mary Elinor replied, “I live to meet a man with long, fuzzy whiskers!” She has whiskers on the brain. Of course we laughed. “Yours?” said Pat to me. “Oh—fixing up this dear place—staying with Mother and Daddy and having enough money so they wouldn’t have to work so hard—and buying enough hats for Alix so she wouldn’t wear mine out in the rain 1” “Mine first!” she said, laughing. “Mine by right of shoe blacking and hard 118 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE labour!” I contradicted. “Did it run?” She said it hadn’t and Patrick looked on, smiling. “I want to build bridges,” said Frank, “but first I want to string up the Kaiser. I want a wife who adores me and worships the ground I walk onl” Every one laughed and Alix said she supposed he’d only need to stand out and whistle to get one. Alix is a little sarcastic at times. “What is yours?” Pat asked of Alix. Alix smiled at him and answered, oh, so softly, “To be necessary to some one’s happiness—to help some one to be happy!” I never was so fiabbergasted! She’d never said that before. Billy said, “Oh, Rats!” and Mary Elinor said, “Why, Alix! Just yesterday you said you wanted nothing in the world so much as to have enough money to wear silk underclothes every day! Blue for Sunday and evenings and pink for mornings. Didn’t she, Barby? Right up in the window seat in your room. She said it was hateful to be poor, she did—and ” “That will do, dear,” said Mother. Alix’ face was flaming and every one felt sorry for her but suddenly Billy began to laugh—and, as he said after, “Then the darn burst.” We all giggled terribly. Then Alix did something foolish. She should have been a sport and laughed too, but she got up and left the room, her head high and wearing what Billy calls her “Queen Mary” expression. 120 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE .every one else had reached goal or was accounted for. Frank thought he was not truthful, but—I’d rather think he is sick for—I do think he is so nice.” “He is nice, Barbara,” said Daddy. “I think-— I’m pretty sure he’s a good boy . . . I won’t say anything except that perhaps you are pretty nearly right—and if you can divert him—and help him— you’ll be helping me to make him well.” After that I slipped my arm through Daddy’s, told him there was hot chocolate, company and a fire and we went toward the drawing room. I thought a good deal about a thing called “dual per- sonality,” as I went—that curious twist of a mind which makes people do things without the real part of them knowing what they do; rather like sleep walking, only awake. I know Daddy to be inter- ested in it—to know a good deal about it and to be not a little famous for his knowledge. And so I remembered Francis Scott Key, decided to do every- thing in the world I could for Patrick, and began to feel, oh, so sorry for him! There was a place for real friendship, I decided, and with all my heart I made up my mind to give it. When we reached the drawing room Patrick asked me to sing. Of course I was very glad to and went toward the piano. A “May I sit on the bench by you?” he asked, and I TRUNKS AND BEADS 121 nodded as he slipped down. Right in the middle of “Love the Pedlar” my voice almost stopped, for I had looked toward Patrick and out of his coat pocket was sticking one of Grandmother Beams’ solid silver spoons. When he turned aside to speak to Mother I took it out. I don’t know how I did it. I slipped it in my waist and hoped it was safe, but when I got up Billy saw it. Billy would. I love him, but it was like him to let it out. “Great hat!” he said, “Barbara’s wearing a tea spoon next to her heart to-day! Last week it was a tie!” Suddenly he paused, his eyes riveted on Pat’s collar. “Suffering Moses!” he went on, “Pat’s got on that tie to-day! I know the trade mark; a little of it shows. Kleptomaniacs I have known! Where’s the doctor?” I laughed, but I felt myself burning up with a rising colour. Patrick simply looked at me in a baffled questioning way. That look made me be- lieve in him, believe in him with all my heart—and thinking of that poor boy fighting himself, hurting himself every hour, hurt me frightfully. My eyes filled with tears and I slipped my hand in his. . . . It was the hands between us on the piano bench, so no one saw, which was well for they wouldn’t have understood. “Why, little Kiddyl” he said unsteadily and he squeezed my hand ever so tightly. CHAPTER XI EXPLORING By Patrick HAVE always had a particular interest in the Carrolls of Baltimore because one Charles Carroll studied law in Temple Court at the same time that my great great grandfather did, and I have many of his letters which I found in a queer, old, strong box. They are yellowed with age, bitten- edged, and show the flowing, slanting writing of that time. When I heard from Mrs. Crane that it was he who built “Homewood” for his son Charles, I immediately wanted to see it. “I’ll take you,” said Barbara, eagerly. “I’d love to! I like history, too; and it’s so beautiful.” “So he lived here?” I asked. “The father? Not in ‘Homewood,’ ” answered Mrs. Crane. “It is he for whom Carrollton, Mary- land, was named, but he built this house in 1809 for his son, who, rumour states, was something of a— well, sport. From letters that are left, we know [23 124 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE father was at least never bored. Charles Senior built and lived in Doughoregan Manor, Carrollton. I wish you could see that; it is a wonderful old American home and would almost make you see the fine old American gentleman who built it. There is a fascinating painting there of him, as a child, standing on the shore watching one of the many- masted ships of the time put out to sea. ‘Home- wood’ doesn’t compare in size with Doughoregan Manor, but it is one of the most interesting places in Baltimore.” “Oh, we have lots of links with England about here,” said Barbara, who was putting on the shoe- blacked hat in front of a long, gold framed mirror. “You know the Caton sisters, for whom Catonsville is named, were this Charles Carroll’s grand- daughters and they all married nobility and went sailing back to England, heads held high!” “Would you like to do that?” I asked. I could have bitten out my tongue after I’d said it. Barbara shook her head. “No,” she said, “I’m afraid I haven’t the manner. I’m really very gauche . . . Alix is the one for that! Think how she would adore driving about the estates and ad- vising the poor! And she would be quite as much at home entertaining the upper crust too. . . .” My Barbara kiddy stopped and sighed and then went on, “She is really wonderful!” After that she said, “Is EXPLORING 125 my hat on straight, Mother darling, and do I look beautiful and will you miss me and shall I send you a picture post card with ‘Greetings from Balti- more’ written on it in speckly silver?” And after that we went out of the house and down the broad, elm-shaded street. I found myself with- out consciousness although, honest truth, it was the first time I’d ever taken a jaunt with a girl quite without chaperonage. She fitted in my moods so jolly well and seemed so happy—and I—I felt as I never had before; happiness doesn’t cover it. “I like that hat!” I said, leaning way over to look under it. “Oh, Patrick!” she answered. “I think I have heard vague rumours concerning a stone that is kissed in Ireland. Have you ever met it? “Do you want one of those jolly soda drinks?” I asked next, as we passed a chemist’s shop. “I could get away with one without choking,” she answered, smiling up at me. We turned in, don’t you know, and sat down on some seats that slip under a table unless one weights them down out- side. She ordered a chocolate soda and I a lemon squash, which the clerk didn’t seem to understand. Barbara put in and helped me out and I got a beastly fluke of drink which made me want to sneeze from the vapours it sent up my nostrils. “I say,” 126 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE I said, “I don’t think this so jolly. Now what is it?” But I forgot my question for on reaching in my pocket I found myself quite without funds. “What is the matter?” asked Barbara. I sup- pose I looked fearfully upset. “I—” I stammered and hunted around post haste in all my pockets, but to no avail. “Forget your change?” she said quite naturally. I nodded and she shoved her little purse across the table to me. “Don’t be silly,” she said, “you might do worse things, and I’m charmed to buy you a drink; but, Pat, don’t expect one at every corner!” I said I wouldn’t and pocketed her little purse, feeling grateful to her, but silly and annoyed. . . . In the first place I had put change in my pockets. I had a pound in change, a two dollar bill which Doctor Crane had warned me not to pass out for one, and silver and coppers. . . . I had slipped that in my pocket before I dressed and then I had left the room to shave. . . . When I came back I found the time had gone on remarkably and I had to speed a bit. I never thought of proving that I had put money in my pockets a half hour before. Why I slipped it in then, I hardly know. Perhaps be- cause, since my other little losses, I had been care- ful about laying things out on the bureau. A great many strange things have happened in the Crane house recently. The day we played hide- EXPLORING 127 and-seek in the attic, Miss Sidney Jackson lost her mesh bag of which she was really fond. It was in the room where we had goal and Barbara heard some one creep in there stealthily as she was count- ing out, but she thought it one of us. And, search as we might, that bag could not be found. . . . Then my Barbara kiddy was frightfully put out be- cause she said Alix had broken her pink beads up in the attic and hadn’t even bothered to pick them up. She said she would have restrung them and if Alix must borrow her things all the time, she would at least like them returned when they were broken. She was really quite tart. I didn’t think she had it in her, but I loved it. Alix said she hadn’t worn those beads near the attic, that she never went there as every one well knew. And, like a lot of other happenings, there was no solution. I feel, perhaps I may be quite wrong, that there is another personality in that house. Perhaps a double set of persons in one; like orange icing on a chocolate cake—two quite different flavours you know, bound together. . . . I see my tie in Bar- bara’s blouse and at another time a silver spoon. . . . Well, I’d risk my soul on the real Barbara, my soul and my heart and my life, but it makes me wonder. . . . And it makes me feel frightfully pro- tecting and tender toward her. She’s a wee bit of a cunning thing anyway and somehow—well—I can’t 128 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE at all explain it, but since I’ve known her life has quite changed. It’s—it’s simply become vastly dif- ferent. Even my trouble has somewhat faded al- though the solution of that is no nearer than the solution of the thefts in the Crane house. . . . I imagine I have realised that there are things which are bigger than a much loved home and things which could bring immeasurably more happiness. “Things” is not right, but I find I am even more stupid about expression than ever. We took a tram and went toward the spot where “Homewood” grows. All the way little Barbara told me history and I listened, half the time not really hearing—which sounds deucedly strange, but it was true. . . . It seemed that little Barbara liked Doughoregan Manor best. She said it was a won- derful place. . . . “To think,” she said, “that it is probably the only house in America which has its own chapel, I mean a big one where the family is buried and where the family sit in the chancel and enter the chapel through a passage from the house. . . . It is like a bit of your country, Pat! And the family portraits are so splendid! The men so hand- some, the women so beautiful! There is one of the beautiful Caton sisters who married Englishmen; one of them became the Marchioness of Wellesley, another Duchess of Leeds and another the wife of Lord Stafford and they were known in England as EXPLORING 129 ‘The Three American Graces.’ And there’s a por- trait of Charles Carroll of Homewood, son of the signer, and, oh, millions of others.” “Any one live there now?” I asked. “Oh, yes,” she answered. “More Carrolls. I believe there’s a Charles Carroll the ninth who isn’t so 'very old. . . . They’re so kind to sightseers. We must go out there ” Just at that moment she moved, the tram stopped and we got off. We walked a small way and saw some pretty little houses which not inharmoniously surround Homewood. It, the place itself, is a jewel; said to be the most perfect example of Georgian Archi- tecture in America which I can well believe. “Governor John Lee Carroll was born at Home- wood,” said Barbara, “but to my thinking the Father’s house, Doughoregan Manor, has more in- teresting memories. The Cardinal’s room there was slept in by Lafayette, by John Carroll, cousin of the signer and first Archbishop of Baltimore and by Cardinal Gibbons. ,. . . Pat, what a pretty tie that is!” > “Thank you!” I said with a bit of a bow. Then suddenly she must have remembered my grey one which had disappeared, been seen in her blouse and reappeared, without a word of explanation from any one, on my bureau. She flushed prettily and looked away. I found myself absolutely stopped. It al- 132 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE any troubles and think I might help, will you let me try to, give me the chance?” \ “Oh, yes!” she answered in that lilting way she does. “I will, Pat. And will you treat me in that way too ?” Suddenly I found I had a confidante, some one to whom I could—and safely pour out my troubles. “I’m going to tell you about it . . . you know, it must be our secret. . . . You can keep them?” “Oh, yes,” she answered. “I knew that,” I said, looking down at her; “I’m ashamed to have said that, you know. I say, Bar- bara, it’s this way—it all starts with the great great grandfather who was a friend of this Charles Car- roll who signed that beastly little slip of paper—-—” “I hate you,” she said and put up her chin an inch. “Right-o,” I said, “keep it up there. I can see you. now without breaking my neck.” (My stars, what has happened to me? Six months ago, if I had so much as thought of this trouble I would have been meditating suicide. It is still very real, but ) “I say, Barbara, you know I am something of a thief; I cannot get away from it; it follows me. It is this wa ” CHAPTER XII STOLEN WHISKERS Told by Alix HE second of July was fearfully hot, and Mother, upset a little by the weather, I sup- pose, said we’d absolutely have to put some buttons on our own clothes and we decided to go out in the tree house to do it. Barbara took a lot of stockings that were full of spider ladders and even Mary Elinor brought some doll clothes to mend. . . . I had not been up in the tree house since I was nine- teen, as I considered it unsuitable after that age; but lately, for various reasons, I have been cultivating the simple. So, with the others, I crawled up the rickety ladder and settled. It was nice up there I will admit. There was a breeze and the leaves all pranced in the sun and made the garden into a sea of dancing, sunlight waves. ' “Isn’t it nice?” said Barbara. I nodded. I dis- like people who make you acknowledge your mis- takes. 133 134! BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “I think so,” she ended in a less blatant way, and then turned to her darning. Of course she dropped the darning egg, she would; that’s Barbara. And of course it hit a big nigger on the head, one whom Daddy had found to mow the lawn. It didn’t hurt him, but he made it an excuse to go off and lie down, saying it had “wounded him.” Barbara made a lot of fuss about it and went to get Aunt Eliza to bring out ice water and some bandages, but Aunt Eliza wouldn’t budge. Barbara found her with her apron over her head moaning. It seemed she’d heard noises in the west wing and, going up there, had found a chocolate cake she’d just baked sitting right in the middle of the grey room bed with a quarter broken out of it. She said it had “done got legs” and that she was “ready for de Lord to take her home,” and that she wished the dad-fetched spirit would “hant” the ga- rage if it had to “hant.” Barbara was surprised. Things in the eating line had disappeared remark- ably, but Mother had supposed Aunt Eliza had guests at her home, or that her coloured minister needed help. It is usually that way. I was not sur- prised! I only looked for chocolate on- Patrick Deems’ fingers, or traces of it on the handkerchief he carries up his cuff. I will say right now that I-hate him, hate him because he so evidently dislikes me. But I still be- STOLEN WHISKERS 135 lieve that I can conquer if my purpose never wavers. And it doesn’t; I don’t let it—at least not often. After about a half hour’s running about, Barbara came back up. She looked hot and tired and said the man found he Ought to go off home and go to bed and that she knew Father would be disappointed because the lawn was only mowed in streaks, and then, sighing, she set to work. “Oh, I wish something romantic would happen!” said Mary Elinor. “Nothing ever does. If the door bell rings and I hope it is a present it is al- ways a little boy passing around a swamp root bitters advcrtisement.” . “Or else a woman selling a dustless duster or silver polish,” said Barbara, who was over-and-over- ing a long rip in pink silk stockings. “I agree with you, Mary Elinor! I wish something romantic Would happen, too!” “You!” I said to her. Barbara is the last person whom one would associate with romance. “Yes,” she answered, flushing a little, “I—I sup- pose I don’t look it, but I do dream. Every one does, especially the people who don’t seem the dreaming type. I wish we lived in the days of Fran- cis Scott Key.” “Oh,” I protested, “don’t!” Every one of us stops Barbara when she begins on that! “I’d rather live when they wore feathers in their 136 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE bonnets,” said Mary Elinor, “even the men. Iv think it would be so romantic to have your husband wear feathers and lace and ribbons!” . “I don’t,” answered Barbara. “I think it would be horrid and most inconvenient! Every time you wanted a ribbon to string in your chemise you’d find your husband was out walking and had it tied aroundv his left knee.” Mary Elinor sniffed. “I have the first line of a poem about Lord Balti- more,” she said, staring down at the ground. Mary Elinor makes poems occasionally, especially when Mother asks her to do any dusting. She’s always attacked with “the Muse” then and asks for quiet and solitude and just to be let alone! She began to recite her effort, looking up and with her hands clasped. “Calvert, Lord Baltimore, stalwart and brave-—” “Wore chicky feathers and needed a shave!” we heard from below. It was Billy, of course. He came up, shaking the tree house fearfully, and sat down on a sofa cushion on the floor. After that he was silent. ~ “I almost caught romance the other day,” I said. “I thought I’d found something entirely delight- ful.” STOLEN WHISKERS 137 “Where?” asked Barbara. “In the store roOm,” I replied. I was up there go- ing through the trunks—wondering whether there wasn’t something that could be made into a cape— and I found the dearest, peach coloured satin dress with a high waist and little puffy sleeves. It had little orange velvet roses on the skirt and lace and—” “Where’s the romance?” asked Billy. “I slipped it on,” I continued, not heeding the in- terruption, “and found that one of the sleeves seemed much stiffer and perkier than the other. It had been crushed, you know, and most of it was rather limp. Well, I looked and found there was a piece of paper in the sleeve. I thought perhaps it was a love letter and I ripped the sleeve a little with a hair pin to find out ” “Hair pins and curiosity,” said Billy. “If those aren’t the first things that crop out. What do you bet Eve didn’t shed a hair pin to open Adam’s mail?” “Was it a letter?” asked Mary Elinor. “No,” I answered, “it was half of a Baptismal certificate. . . . The name of the baptised person wasn’t on it either, but it was headed most interest- ingly, a seal, you know, and a crushed blue ribbon and—wasn’t it strange, in one part the name Deems showed.” 138 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Where is it?” asked Barbara, rising, and then she sat down just as suddenly and tried to act as if she weren’t excited, but her hands shook as she mended. I could see that. “In the store room,” I replied. “I said I’d found it in the store room.” “All right,” she answered, rolling up a blue and pink stocking together and tossing them in the bas- ket. She was really so excited she couldn’t tell colours apart. “I have news,” said Billy, after a pause. “Nice?” said Mary Elinor. “I hope so,” he answered. . . . “I’ve gotten a job for the summer down at Sparrows’ Point for one thing. . . . I’m going to look like a nigger. Alix won’t know me but—I’m going to help Dad.” “Oh, Billy!” said Barbara, “that’s so dear of you! I’m so glad!” “Couldn’t you have gotten an ofiice position?” I asked. “I think the other is so—well, unfortunate. The association with common people and dirt——” Billy did not reply, but simply looked at me and smiled in a trying way he has. Barbara patted his shoulder. I suppose she’d thought I’d hurt him. They all side against me. And—it is useless to try to uplift them. Barbara and Billy would think there was something glorious in getting covered with soot and working among the lower classes. In fact they STOLEN WHISKERS 139 will not even recognise them as such. I am badly misplaced! “And news number two,” went on Billy, “we are to have another sick guest. A professor of Egyp- tology, I believe, a most learned person who needs a rest. His nephew came to see Daddy this noon. Nice looking chap, he was too. He’s a teacher in some college. . . .” “Has he whis——” Mary Elinor began and then stopped. “For heaven’s sake,” I said, “don’t you begin to have a mystery. I can’t stand it. We are simply surrounded by the things. Did you find the opera glasses?” I ended, turning to Billy. Billy shook his head. They had vanished a few nights before —after we had all been talking of the Government’s need for lenses. . . . The most unfortunate part of the business was that Patrick had grown quite ex- cited over my keeping them (they were mine) and he’d said that he didn’t see how any one could keep even the tiniest thing that might help the fighting men. He had grown quite heated and almost rude -—in fact he was rude. He stood up and said, “You say you wish you might do more ” (I had said that and, if I do say it, with real pathos and feeling showing in my voice.) “Well, here’s a way to help. And yet—you keep them. My uncle had a deucedly fine collection of glasses and every one went to the 140 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE Army. . . . Lord, if you people could just see—- just for a moment see—a corner of a trench after battle—or the trucks bringing up the smiling men to battle and the men—after it. Or a first aid depot just a bit back of the trenches—” and then he stopped. He won’t talk of it much. “It’s not my business, Miss Alix,” he ended. “And I fear I’ve been rude. You must excuse me if you can.” And of course I said I would and added, “You have shown me the truth! I am going to send them off to-night.” But to be honest, I had no intention of really doing so. I simply meant to disappear them, for the time; for they were beautifully mounted in mother of pearl and gold and I wasn’t going to part with them! And I took them upstairs with me. That was all there was to it. Like many other things, they disappeared. Much has vanished since the entrance of Mr. Patrick Deems in our family circle. “I don’t understand it,” said Billy. “Are you sure you left them on your bureau?” “Sure!” I answered. “You might have mislaid them,” said Barbara, her face flushing. “No one can be really sure. . . . You just can’t be! Only very stupid people are en- tirely sure of their motives and actions. You know, the hateful kind who think they are never in the wrong.” 144 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE he wore a long beard. I found that he mislaid words and used a wave of his hand in their place. His method of speech was really most interesting. “My nephew,” he said—then waved his hand to- ward the main part of the house—“me here.” It was a good deal like playing Peter Coddle. One had to supply the missing word. I judged it was “brought.” I smiled at him, said we were glad to have him, and asked him if he’d seen the evening papers. He shook his head. “Don’t like———” he said with a wave. “All that you read to-day is”—-wave—“to- morrow.” (I supplied “denied.”) “One day Hin- denberg iS”—wave—“next day”—wave—“alive.” I said that was certainly true and went upstairs feeling a little diverted. But the next morning at break- fast, when he appeared, we did have a shock! He was absolutely shorn of his long, white beard and he resented it. He stood in the dining room door and said, “Some one has”—-wave—“my-—” and then another wave. “Cut—whiskers,” said Barbara aloud. She was too excited to realise that it is better to supply the words inside. “Always wore ” he went on with a wave. “Protected the—--—” another wave—“tonsilitis un- known!” and he ended with a positive windmill- whirl of his arms. ' STOLEN WHISKERS 145 Patrick Deems’ mouth was open, Barbara’s eyes were open at least three feet and Mary Elinor alone seemed calm. And like everything else, the whiskers had disappeared, absolutely disappeared, but I found a long, white hair tangled in the handle of Patrick Deems’ manicure scissors, which, by the way, did not in the least surprise me! THE STORY PATRICK TOLD 147 that belonged to Barbara Heath. Then he told me a story. This is the story. It was very lovely that day and we walked slowly around the grounds while he talked. There weren’t many people around for which I was grateful, be- cause poor Patrick was excited and unhappy and positively shouted his Englishly pronounced words; and once he lost his wrist watch—that was when he waved his arms in describing his cousin. “You know,” he shouted, “he’s a bounder, a cad! That’s what hurts I” Then his wrist watch flopped on the path and the crystal broke. But—this is the story. The Great-great-grandfather who studied in Temple Court at the same time that Charles Carroll did lived much of the time in Italy and France. In fact he travelled a good deal and was home little. His cousin, who was a more settled type, stayed at home and married and had a large family. He died and his boys went to different parts of the country, most of them to Australia. Patrick’s own Great-great-grandfather returned from Italy with an Italian wife and a small boy who was sick much of the time. The small boy had none of the Deems characteristics. . . . And in here I couldn’t just understand it, but Patrick wasn’t sure he was really heir to the title, or to the estates. He wasn’t even sure that his Great-great-grandfather 148 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE hadn’t simply picked up some little Italian ragamufiin in order to keep the estate from his cousin and his heirs, because Patrick’s Great-great-grandfather hated them all so much. . . . And in that spot the line was uncertain. There wasn’t a scrap of proof that the small boy had really been the Great-great- grandfather’s son. It was before the day of birth registrations and, so far as Patrick knew, there was no baptismal certificate; he could find none of the Italian family into whom his Great—great-grand- father had married—I suppose they had all died off —and his uncle was quite as doubtful inside, Pat said, as he. “Why does it especially worry you?” I asked. “Because I am acting the liar and the cheat,” he answered, “those cousins of mine haven’t an idea of this. . . . My Great-grandfather wasn’t the sort one doubted or questioned, I have heard. . . . If they had an idea, my world would be made over in six seconds. They’d love to have the place—not because they love it, but because they love to swank.” Patrick paused (we had stopped walking) and dug some dirt out of a crack in the sidewalk with a stick he’d picked up. “One of those cousins blew in two months ago,” he continued. “Had his blighty, you know. Stopped with us a bit and I got to know him pretty well . . . Barbara, you love Crane’s Nest, don’t you?” THE STORY PATRICK TOLD 149 I nodded. “Well, I love Glenarm . . . I love it in the way many chaps love mothers. . . . I wouldn’t take any one to Glenarm that I wouldn’t introduce to my mother, if she were living. I wouldn’t have the old place see me drunk. Understand? . . . A great many good men have grown up there—men of my blood; the women whom they loved have had their children there. . . . I—but what’s the use! I can’t explain.” “I understand,” I said; “you feel that it’s alive.” “Yes, quite so,” he answered, “and then—this chap came. He said, ‘Oh, I say, what a rotten old place! Why don’t you swish her up a bit? Put in some bright lights and knock out these old iron candelabra? Ripping you know to have red glass roses with electrics inside. Saw that in a saloon in Melbourne.’ ” PatriCk stopped. “Suppose some one came up to your house,” he said, after he’d done some more dirt poking, “and said, ‘Vile window over your door!’ and then threw a brick through the fan window, and put in a stained glass affair that made you sick to look at. . . . And then I knew that if he came the people who would come would not be the Glenarm sort. . . . Think of the—the—you wouldn’t understand, dear, but I can’t dream of that sort being there !” (Patrick sometimes calls me “Dear.” He seems 150 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE to think, as Alix does, that I am a perfect child.) Well, I told him that I did understand, for I did —absolutely, but I began to understand entirely why Patrick didn’t want to live; why he didn’t eat, doesn’t sleep (some mornings he looks very wan and tired) and why his eyes seem to show something that aches beneath. I put my hand on his arm because I am very fond of him and his worries made me very un- happy- I said, “Does your uncle dislike these cousins?” “Yes,” he answered, “that’s another thing . . . I’d fight to keep it during his life time—(of course it isn’t mine until he dies)—but I mean to seem to have a claim. . . . Sometimes I think it would be easier to let it go and then I think of him. It would kill him.” “Why don’t you say nothing more about it,” I said, “think nothing more about it, and decide that vou will turn it over after he goes?” “Give it up?” he almost screamed. I said, “Yes.” “Why, Barbara,” he said, his voice awfully un- steady, “you don’t know what it means to me—you —-you-—I jolly well counted on you to understand it!” He’d grown reproachful, and it hurt, but I went on. “You aren’t very happy now,” I said. He groaned. THE STORY PATRICK TOLD 151 “It’s the tenants, too,” he broke in; “this chap wouldn’t help them! . . . And I—why, my heavens, since I was a kiddy two feet high I’ve tramped those grounds and stopped at Uncle Jep’s for a bowl of tea, or at Granny Milligan’s for a bit of a chat— think of what would come to them. And the old place—smashed up, lit up with a hundred ghastly lights. And I—turned out! Oh, my God!” I had never had a man say that before me, but I "understood that Patrick didn’t mean to be profane. I was so sorry for him. I slipped my hand in his and it seemed to help him. I think it does a lot, when people understand. For a few moments we walked on slowly, Patrick looking down and hold- ing my hand very closely between both of his. “You’re-—the dearest thing in the world!” he said, in a queer, jerky way. I realised he must have had very little understanding or sympathy to appre- ciate mine so much and Ilsqueezed his hand in an- swer. After that, he didn’t speak again for some moments, and I did some thinking. I thought of my love for Crane’s Nest and of how I would feel if it were taken away and given to some one who didn’t understand it. . . . Then I thought of cheating day by day and I began to realise that that would be worse—and I was more sure than ever that that was the reason Patrick was sick. “Patrick dear,” I said. 152 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Kiddy?” he whispered. “If I were you, I’d plan to give it up after your uncle goes—don’t tell him, for it will make him un- harps” “Don’t you think he’ll know?” he said. I said I did, but that probably he’d understand better then, for I have always had the idea that people’s understanding of each other grows up in heaven, just the way your reason and knowledge do here. . . . I am truly sure that there must be much more real understanding and much more real love. . . . And then I went on to paint the glories. I did work hard! “You’ll never enjoy it for a second,” I said, “if you steal it.” (I saw him wince.) “But you can be awfully happy again—and love life once more if you plan to do the square . . . Have you some money, Patrick, or does that all go with the place?” He said he had more than was good for him, independ- ently of the Glenarm inheritance; but that didn’t bother him; and anyway he’d be jolly sick if he couldn’t earn his way, that is, if he had to. “Well,” I said, “if you have enough money to buy a cunning little cottage over there, what are you kicking about? You can make your own traditions. . . . I know how you feel, but, Pat! Think of those dear little cottages! I’d love to live in one!” He turned to me and I was so happy to see that THE STORY PATRICK TOLD 153 I’d made him look happier. Really the change was astounding. “Would you, now?” he questioned. “I’d adore it!” I said. I tried to put all the en- thusiasm in my tone that I could, for everybody’s spirits need a cheer-leader. “Think of the cunning dotted swiss window curtains,” I went on, “and a tiny rose garden and a hedge and a little vegetable plot; and dear little windows that open out, with diamond-shaped panes of glass; and a little dining room in blue with willow china and a gate legged table; and pink and blue chintzes in the bedrooms and—0h, it would be wonderful!” He drew an awfully deep breath and said, “Wouldn’t it?” Then I took away my hand becausei I thought he didn’t need that kind of sympathy any more; he was so much cheered up. It is really wonderful what a little understanding will do! Going in, he told me what he’d decided. “You’re right, you know,” he said. “I’ll chuck it when Uncle goes. I haven’t the faintest idea that I have a claim. In fact I have a pretty good idea that I haven’t. . . . I found the diary of this miss- ing link, if I may call him so. The poor chap had heard some gossip which had floated about among the tenants and he thought he hadn’t a bit of a claim or that—that—well, he wasn’t a bit happy—one wouldn’t be, believing oneself a fraud—(I know 154i BARBARA OF BALTIMORE that) and he wrote a great many of his thoughts down in a queer old book with a rusty leather clasp and a rusty lock. . . . I read it the afternoon of my first blighty and I went back fighting, not caring whether I lived or died; for then I thought to lose Glenarm was to lose everything. . . . Think of por- ing up in an attic on a rainy day and finding that. . . Heavens! . . . But now ” He stepped and looked at me and I realised that something had changed him. “Now you want to live?” I said. “Rather!” he answered. “Well, rather! I say—I” And I was so happy that I’d helped him! After we’d been in the tree house that day and I’d heard Alix say she’d found half of an old baptismal certificate with Deems on it, I began to wonder—- believe and grow terribly excited. I’d promised Pat not to tell a soul and it didn’t seem as if I’d ever have a chance to tell him what I’d heard. The interruptions were really funny. First I followed him in the drawing room, but Professor Winthrop was sitting in there with an um- brella up. He’d been out, it had begun to mist a little and he’d brought his umbrella in the house open and had forgotten to put it down. It did look funny. Pat tried awfully hard not to laugh, but we had to. However, it didn’t bother the Professor THE STORY PATRICK TOLD 155 any. He simply said, “Young people are al- ways ” then 'he waved the umbrella like every- thing and I judged it was a signal for “laughing.” After that he picked up “Crile’s Mechanistic Theory of the War” and began to read it, the um- brella still up. Pat and I had to giggle and we went out in the hall to do it, of course. I think it is most impolite to laugh at people in any case but if you must you want to be very careful not to be seen. “Pat,” I said after we’d somewhat sobered, “I have news—it’s really wonderful—Alix said ” and then the door swung open and Daddy came in. He was very tired because he’d just removed three appendixes, set an arm, taken a stitch in a man’s cheek and used a stomach pump on a dog that had been poisoned. He had to do that because the dog’s owner is one of his nervous patients who can’t be excited. The dog had bitten him after it too, and Daddy was quite annoyed. “Wish I’d made street sweeping my life work, Pat,” he said. “This is the limit. Nasty little beast took a piece out of my shin and its owner sat there calling it ‘poor lambie!’ ” “If she’d called you that, I should have resented it,” said Mother, who had come in just in time to hear Daddy’s tirade. “Have you time for dinner?” she added. “I say, do you think the dog will have hydro- 156 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE phobia?” said Pat, and Father hit him across the shoulders and then they began to box. It seems Pat is quite a boxer. It was a lovely fight. Even Pro- fessor Winthrop came to see it, still carrying the umbrella. It ended When Pat stepped on one of the little rugs and it slid, and he with it, way across the floor. He sat down at the end of his journey and of course every one laughed. It was funny. Then Daddy told Mother he believed he had time to wait for dinner and they went toward the drawing room, Professor Winthrop went back to his reading and again -I had a chance. “Pat,” I said, “I have something to tell you—— something wonderful—” And then at that moment Mary Elinor burst in. I knew the moment I saw her that she’d been play- ing “Germany” with the Morgan children with whom she isn’t supposed to play. They are rough and she always comes home with half her clothes off and covered with bruises. She was quite a wreck. “I had to be the enemy once,” she said defiantly, as I looked at her,“ “every one else was. But Willy Morgan got so excited he turned the hose on me, and Susy threw the tomato. She said it was a ‘Big Bertha’ shell. I guess maybe I’ll go change my clothes.” “I think you’d better,” I said. THE STORY PATRICK TOLD 157 “Good-bye, Hindenburg,” said Pat, and waved at her as she went up the stairs. “It was about the—” I started once more, and then Alix came in, followed by Reggie Alistairs, whom I can’t help loathing. (She likes him.) Pat went to meet him and I, after a word, went to see whether I could help Mother or Aunt Eliza. . . . I didn’t have another chance that day to speak to Pat about what I heard. Reggie stayed for dinner, and after it we had charades and sang and played the piano until late, and then I took a glass of ice water up to Mary Elinor (she always wants drinks when she knows something is going on, she likes to hear the latest news) and when I came back Pat had gone upstairs. If I had had a chance to tell him and we’d gone up to the attic to hunt, perhaps this story would be a different one—but I didn’t and now I blame my- self frightfully—and hate myself for not making the chance—when I think of what I may have made him lose. . . . And I don’t understand it, it makes me crawl and feel so miserably, shakily afraid! He was lovely about it, but I can never forgive myself, never! CHAPTER XIV THE SLIP OF PAPER Told by Patrick HETHER the pink silk frock which held the paper also tangled itself about the curate’s neck, or whether Alix was, in her usual manner, telling a bit of a stretcher, I don’t know. But here are the facts: I came down to-breakfast late on Friday, for I had had a frightfully off night. . . . Things all creaked in the room; a wicker chair which stands in my sitting room snapped until I thought it must be doing the tango; and once, positively, I heard a step on the stair. That was at about three and I crawled out of bed with all cautiousness and opened my door slowly, and quite as quietly as I could, to peer forth. I saw nothing, but in the wing, the left wing, I heard a door close. . . . Rather unpleasant, you know, what? Then I went back to bed and turned and twisted until light began to show in the East and somewhere a whistle blew and I knew that an- 158 THE SLIP OF PAPER 159 other day was coming. And, of course, when it was positively too late to do any good to sleep, I did. I went down stairs, a bit draggingly, at something past ten. The Professor was sitting in the hall wrapped in Alix’ grey cape. It has a puss wool collar and a hood, and the hood was over his head. “Felt the—~—” he said with a wave and I judged he meant the draft. I grinned at him, forI jolly well couldn’t help it. He did make a picture! “Nephew ” he said with another wave, “at eleven. . . . Pennsylvania, trains all ” I knew his nephew was coming and that everything on wheels was tardy so I understood. . . . How- ever, I agree with Barbara that the Professor, like motion pictures which one begins to see in the middle, sharpens one’s wits. There is a great deal left to the imagination. In the dining room I found Mrs. Crane, who was working on a grey frock for Alix, Mary Elinor, who was fanning the most dilapidated looking puss I ever saw, and Alix sitting near. “You poor boy,” she said when she saw me, “you’ve slept badly!” I thought that was kind of her. Sometimes she is so kind and so evidently anxious for my comfort and happiness that I do feel a rotten bounder! I replied, “Oh, no! Just a bit off. How’s every one?” 160 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE I went over to stand by Mrs. Crane with my ques- tion, and she reached up, straightened my tie with that lovely mother-touch of hers and then let her hand rest on my arm. “I’ll paddle you,” she said in a moment, “if you don’t look better than this to-morrow!” “I’m going to name my cat after you, Pat,” said Mary Elinor; “I found him half dead in an ash barrel and he has no fur on his hind legs at all, but he looks just a little like you, especially in the eyes. Did you notice it, Mother?” Of course, every one laughed. Then Alix went to get my breakfast because it seemed Aunty was making a cake for a Red Cross Bazaar. I hated like everything to put her to the trouble, but she said it was none and was really deucedly kind about it. “You know we’re going to have another guest?” said Mrs. Crane. “Yes,” I answered, “the Professor’s nephew. What’s up with him? Nerves or eliminated conver- sation ?” “Neither,” answered Mrs. Crane, laughing; “he simply loves Professor Winthrop, has a vacation and wants to be near him. He teaches chemistry in some college and I imagine he’s a brilliant young chap. He’s coming at eleven something.” “So I judged,” I answered. “I met the Professor 162 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE ings sometimes. She’s a little sentimental, Pat, and just now you are the object of pity. Remember how she took Peter Murray under her wing?” Mrs. Crane nodded. That gave me something to think about! . . . I realised I had had a bad night, for the day seemed so dull, so lifeless, and I felt so infinitely dreary. And if she didn’t like my company at all and it were only pity-— I pushed aside my breakfast. I’d lost my appetite. “I say,” I said, rising, “I think I’ll go for a bit of a walk. It may brisken me up. Ripping breakfast, Alix. Thank you.” “Let me go with you,’ said Alix, dropping her knitting. “That is, if I won’t bother. I’d love to go I?! “Why don’t you and Alix go down the Bay?” said Mrs. Crane. “The breeze will put new life in you and there’ll be music on the boats and there’s nothing to do here to-day. . . . Then you and Alix ought to get acquainted.” I wondered suddenly if I’d been boring Barbara. I could hardly think so because she is too truthful to disguise it, if I had—but—perhaps the others thought I had and perhaps I had and she was too sweet to acknowledge it. “That would be splendid,” I heard myself say. “Shall I take a steamer rug?” 7 164 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Quite so, Uncle,” he said. “Ah—you’re going out?” “Down the Bay,” said Alix, arranging her tie. It was red and she wore a red sailor, somewhat dar- ingly tilted. I will acknowledge that she was lovely. “If you haven’t been there, Mr. Winthrop, we must have a picnic while you’re here. That is, if you’d like it.” He nodded. “I would!” he said, fervently. “We’ll do it next week,” said Alix, smiling at him, and I thought she looked kinder and more attractive than I’d ever seen her. As we went down to the docks, Mary Elinor and I did the talking. Alix was silent, a rare thing, and once and again I wondered What she was thinking of; she looked so far away and not entirely happy. . . . But I wondered more about little Barbara. The day was lovely. A sunny one that made the waves seem silver when they broke. The air was cool and salty and made one breathe deep and feel unwound—let-down and rested. I began, in spite of everything, to feel much more myself. And we had a jolly dinner with sea things cooked up in a most delicious way. Then there was music and Mary Elinor to make foolish little remarks which made laughter easy and Alix became natural and nice and I felt that I’d done her the greatest kind of injustice. THE SLIP OF PAPER 165 “I say,” I said, in the middle of the afternoon, after we’d been sitting silent for some time, “I think I haven’t been quite square to you. . . . I think I’ve misjudged you frightfully. . . . To be frank, Miss Alix, I thought you weren’t quite sincere, that you sometimes said more than you meant—or less. I’m frightfully sorry!” And I was broken up when I saw her eyes fill with tears and that she bit her lips. “Oh,” I said, “I’m so sorry! I know I’m quite wrong! Please say you’ll forgive me. You know I wouldn’t have spoken unless I’d seen my error!” And then two big tears slipped out and rolled down her cheeks. I did feel a brute. “Alix!” I said, and wished I knew what to do. If it had been Barbara I should have known, but—it wasn’t. I always know what to do with Barbara. We fit so well that I never think. I just do what seems natural. “Don’t,” she said, “I’m horrid! I’m—just what you think me!” I reflected on my stolen things—on the queer happenings in the old house, and of what Alix must be suffering if she realised even half of what I did about Barbara. I liked her better than I ever had. I put my hand over hers (and the moment I did it, I don’t know why, but I was sorry—really, terribly sOrry!) and she seemed comforted. Then Mary 166 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE Elinor came skipping along, seemingly from no where, and saw the hands. How could I say to that bit of a child, “Your sister was crying, this spells comfort,” or, “I did this because I’m a fool of a man and I had no words”? I couldn’t, of course. The day went on, but after that it was spoiled. And we reached home fearfully late, Barbara had gone to bed and I felt as if the whole day had been wasted. The next morning Barbara and Alix went to the Red Cross. They came home separately, and I was so rippingly glad to see Barbara that I could hardly keep from shouting. “Barbara!” I positively yelled, greatly to the amazement of Professor Winthrop, who was trying to read the “Yale Review” upside down. “Good morning,” she said, and my temperature went down fifteen degrees. “You had a nice morning?” I went on, somewhat lamely. She nodded and turned away. “Oh, Pat,” she said, after she’d laid her hat on the table and put down a package in brown paper, “I want to speak to you. Come to the drawing room; I think there’s no one there.” I followed her, perplexed and as unhappy as I have ever been. THE SLIP OF PAPER 167 She sat down on a stiff chair and I on the broken old sofa where she usually curls up. I could only look at her and wonder. I couldn’t say a word. “It’s about a paper Alix found in the attic. It was hidden in the sleeve of a pink silk frock, and it was half of a baptismal certificate with the name Deems on it. . . . Of course it may be nothing, but it’s worth looking at.” “Rather!” I said, wondering what I had done. “Alix will take you up this afternoon. She knows where it is, I don’t. It was she who found it.” “Thank you,” I said, “I’m no end grateful.” “It’s Alix you should thank,” she answered, and got up, picked up a bowl of wilted roses, gathered up the fallen petals in the other hand, and left with never a word or look toward me. Well, I tried to smoke, but the bally thing tasted like jimpson weed. I decided I’d clear out if we couldn’t be friends; that I couldn’t stand it other- wise and then—right in the middle of the worst blue funk that has ever come my way, I was diverted. Passing through the hall, I stopped to speak to Mrs. Crane and Alix came in, raising Cain. Positively she was raging! “Anything more humiliating!” she said, “than to be driven home in a Pierce Arrow, by people whom you have just met, and to have them look up and see your pink pyjamas swinging from the 168 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE front window, all stuffed out like Fatty Arbuckle. (Mary Elinor must have done it!) Mr. Franklin, who is the most entire gentleman, Mother, and so sophisticated, asked if I ran a tea room. ‘At the Sign of the Pink Pyjama,’ he said, which I thought was clever of him and kind—it was so frightfully embar- rassing! Even the chauffeur grinned. You could see it way round on the back of his neck. . . . Is my life to be one series of humiliations through that child?” She paused and I realised she would have been wonderful in motion pictures. She was stand- ing in the centre of the hall, gesturing like anything, and just then the Professor entered. “There are”—he said, waving like all get out—— “above the door. . . . Quite a crowd has ” I staid in the hall, not wanting to miss anything, and looked on. “That must have been the reason,” said Mrs. Crane, looking baffled, “that the red stocking fell on the Curate. He called this morning and was so sorry to miss you, Alix, and when he left a red stocking fell from above and tangled around his neck. I supposed you’d hung them out the window to dry. . . .” “The front window!” said Alix witheringly. There was nothing of her yesterday manner showing then! “He—he looked up,” went on Mrs. Crane, “and THE SLIP OF PAPER 169 grew quite pink, but I thought nothing of it ” “Then those things have been out there for hours?” said Alix. “My pyjamas! Exposed to every germ that is blown about. . . . You know those frightful pictures of germs in the book Bar- bara and I used to look at Sunday afternoons? Probably I shall die, but no one will mind!” Just then Gus Winthrop blew in, wearing over- shoes (he’s the kind who would because it looked as if we might have rain next week). He was grinning like everything. “Come out front, Mr. Deems,” he said, “it’s worth a trip.” Alix heard him and turned from half-way up the stairs to glare. “What have I done?” he said. “They’re hers,” I said. He mopped his forehead and sat down. “Have I offended her?” he asked in a hoarse whisper. “It looks it,” I answered. I was sorry for him, but there was no use to lie. Then I went out. I saw a pair of gorgeously pink pyjamas dangling above the front door. They were well stuffed and there was a garden hat set on a round wad which was meant to be the head. One red foot was absent, but the other was toeing out very beautifully. I saw Mary Elinor sitting on a fire plug down at the corner eyeing the crowd with the pleased expression of a showman. Suddenly the figure was THE SLIP OF PAPER 171 H “I took some clothes from here this morning she said, “I hadn’t enough—to—” “Stuff that miserable figure,” Alix finished sharply. “Well, where are they?” “In the thing, I suppose," said Mary Elinor meekly, “that is, unless you’ve unpacked him—” We hurried down, almost tripping over ourselves in our haste, and into Alix’ room. Alix said she had thrown the figure on her cupboard floor. She said it had given her actual pain to look at it, and she’d put off the unloading it until she could look at it with less fury—and—the thing, the whole thing was GONE! We searched high and low; we ransacked the house; not a bit of it was anywhere—at least not a bit except the other red silk stocking which was caught on a nail in Mary Elinor’s cupboard. “You’ve hidden this!” said Alix, shaking her. I hated that. I wanted the paper—no one knows how I wanted it! But I believed the kiddy and that she was quite as anxious as any one to bring the thing to light. “I haven’t!” she answered. “I haven’t, really I haven’t, Alix!” “Will this teach you something?” said Alix, shak- ing her again, “teach you not to meddle and not to touch my things—the idea of your hanging out that thing. I don’t believe you anyway, that stocking CHAPTER XV ANOTHER GUEST Related by Barbara DON’T know why Fall makes you feel like the morning after a particularly nice party, but it always does me. . . . Somehow the dropping of the leaves is sad and I’m always glad when snow comes to cloak the trees and make them less for- lorn. But there is one nice thing about it, and that is the huge fireplace in the “winter room” in the left wing, called that because it is quite neglected in sum- mer and forgotten until it is time to burn logs and roast chestnuts and pop corn. We always sit around the fire and curl up on the built-in settle which is an- chored at one' side. . . . And in the real winter Daddy comes there when he gets in, tracking snow, and Mother is always there with her mending and Alix with her company and Mary Elinor with some of the doll family. . . . And, of course, this win- ter there will be the Professor, for he has decided o 173 1741 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE to stay on with us a little longer. His nephew is teaching near Baltimore, and I think he is doing so because he likes Alix awfully, and I am so sorry for him. For—I think Alix and Pat like each other. I began to realise it way back in the summer, the time I left a note for Pat when I went to spend the day with Sidney who had a toothache. He never mentioned it nor the invitation I’d given him to go see the Flag House. Nor did he mention the little following note I sent him the next day by way of Alix, who said she’d tidy his room that morning. I suppose he had grown a little bored with me, which isn’t remarkable, for I am not clever nor pretty, and a man seldom appreciates usefulness unless he is married to it. Alix has often said I didn’t attract men, and to do her justice she tried to save me from doing lots of things I look back on now with shame. . She told me frankly that I was boring Patrick, but I was too silly and utterly idiotic to believe it. But this is a lot about me. The October day when we heard about Aunt Louise was a lovely one. The air was so thin that it looked as if you were looking at the world through a newly washed window, and everything in the dis- tance stood out as if it were outlined in pencil against the sky. I was alone in the “winter room” reading “Doris of Dobbs Ferry,” which is a very ANOTHER GUEST 175 exciting detective story, when something fell down the chimney. Of course I jumped, for just at that moment Doris was seeing a ghost. Fortunately it had been too warm for a fire and imagine my sur- prise when I got up and picked up a gold fountain pen, marked with Patrick’s initials. I looked at it quite a while the way a girl or woman will stare at a mystery, and then wiped the soot from it and slipped it in my blouse. I thought Patrick would be awfully glad to get it and decided to lay it by his place at the table. Then I went back to my book. Alix and Mary Elinor were down meeting Patrick, who had been visiting Niagara Falls, and Mother was out in the laundry washing silk sweaters. Daddy was sewing the Murphy button in some one, an oper- ation he loves. I knew we would hear all about it at dinner. Suddenly there was a noise at the door and Alix, Mary Elinor and Patrick came in, followed by Mother, who had on a blue-checked apron which was flecked with wet, and still bubbly, soap suds. “What do you think ” said Alix, waving a telegram, her eyes wide and her cheeks unusually flushed. “Get my glasses,” said Mother. “Pat brought me a doll,” said Mary Elinor. I shook hands with Pat, said we were glad to have 176 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE 6 him back once more, and then Alix read the telegram aloud. ‘ ' “Expect me Friday, 10:20. Boiled eggs for lsareakfast three minutes. Tea. Louise Pembroke- mith.’ “She always has eggs and tea,” said Mother, wip- ing her glasses on her apron. “I suppose this means I am reinstated. You girls will have to scurry around and help me upstairs. I don’t believe I have enough blankets. . . . If I had only washed the pink set last week when I wanted to, but Mary Elinor, go see if your Father’s around. Why, Pat! My dear boy, in all this excitement—” and then Mother kissed him and he seemed ever so pleased that she did. “Nice time?” she said after she had ordered us all around generally and told us what room to fix and what pillows to take and to hunt the linen cases with the C’s on them. He said he had, but not very convincingly. I think it is rather stupid travelling alone, and I suppose 'he finds it so too. Well, Alix and I went upstairs and into the green- room which is just at the head of the change in floor levels, down the longest passage. “She has bags of money,” said Alix, whacking the pillows; “she married it, you know. . . . Simply bags of it. And no children. Some one has to get ANOTHER GUEST 177 it. If she were to take a fancy to one of us it would be fortunate ” “Oh, don’t!” I said. I don’t know why it is, but I hate the idea of look- ing for help from any one, or wanting it. I’d rather be frightfully poor always than to deliberately plan to make some one give me something. I always think of beggars with tin cups, and it isn’t so very different. But I made no impression on Alix. “And then,” she went on, “we could do just as we liked ” “I am now,” I answered. “Oh, you,” she said, “of course you are. You haven’t any more thought for the future than a guinea pig.” “I have,” I broke in, “I’ve planned to be able to support myself. If Father can get me in somewhere —next spring, I’m going to begin my training. Of course I’m under age. That makes it awkward, and I may have to wait. I do hope she won’t be fussy.” “I intend to do everything I can to make her love us and to appreciate the fact that we are worthy of help,” said Alix, pulling a chair over a worn spot in the carpet. “She is probably quite a polished per- son and will feel the lack of that in you all, but I shall ” “Try your society manner on her,” I snapped, 178 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “and read aloud to her when you should be doing the dusting for Mother. . . . I know.” “Your remarks are unworthy of notice,” said Alix, and began to sing, which I hate. Singing or hum- ming is so irritating from a person you’d love to thump. I saw Alix had tom the front of her skirt, and that annoyed me too. I knew I was to get it soon when she got a new one. “How’d you tear that?” I asked. “On a fence. . . . I was out walking in the country with Augustus.” “When?” I asked. “Sunday,” she answered, and coloured. Then she stood by the window a moment looking out, her hands moving restlessly on the curtain edge. . For a long time Alix has not been herself. . Something, some wall, is dividing us. We’ve always scrapped, but we’ve been truly tight sisters; and after and between the scraps were confidential times, and the make-up times which usually had their repentant tears. . . . And those have gone. Now we only scrap in a surface manner, and the disagree- ments are never serious enough for real making up. I miss them. “Alix,” I said, going up to her, “what is wrong between us? I do miss you so! If it’s anything I’ve done I’m sorry! So sorry, Alix!” She didn’t answer, but shook her head. 180 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE her I would do anything, absolutely anything, if she would stop, and that no matter what it was that was troubling her I was sorry. . . . And then she cried harder than ever. Nothing helped. After awhile she got up. “Alix,” I said, “whatever hurts you hurts me. We’re sisters, you know.” “Yes,” she answered in a stifled voice. “I would die rather than hurt you!” I went on. I do love her lots, of course. Sometimes we dis- agree about clothes and sometimes I call her a pig, but that is only superficial. Underneath is that great big love which comes from being in the same family and playing dolls together and wearing each other’s clothes and—well, any one who has ever had a sis- ter will understand. Again she picked at the curtain edge, and after several moments spoke. “You make it so hard,” she said, “I know I am acting wisely—but ” And then, all over again she began to cry. She cried even harder this time, with great, big, deep sobs that made her shake. “Oh, Alix!” I said, “don’t! Please let me help, please!” But she only shook her head. She went to her room and I followed her, feeling stiff and awkward about speaking, and, oh, so miserable! She asked me to run the bathtub full for her, and I did, ANOTHER GUEST 181 and then when I went back to her evidently Mary Elinor appeared in time for her usual trick. I went over to the bathroom with Alix, for she asked me to come over and talk while she scrubbed, and we found Mary Elinor had put eight cakes of Life Buoy soap in the tub (Alix hates the smell), all the bath sponges, the water bottle, the soap dishes, Daddy’s shaving brush, the drinking glass and every one’s wash cloths. Of course Alix was mad. She said she wouldn’t wash in water that had rinsed every one’s wash cloths, and I knew very well what germs looked like from that book we used to look at on rainy Sunday afternoons, and oughtn’t Mary Eli- nor to be spanked sometimes, and she wished Father would let her do it! And all the time she was fishing things out and drying them and shuddering over the Life Buoy soap. It was funny. Suddenly I giggled, and then Alix joined, and that melted us and we hugged each other and I cried a little. “Alix,” I said, snifling, “it doesn’t matter what you do, I love you, always!” And then I was afraid she was going to cry again, but a cake of soap flew out of her fingers (she was fishing in the tub once more), and skated under the tub, collecting hairs and dust, and it made her mad again, and that made her forget crying, for which I was grateful. 182 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Well,” she said in her home manner, which made me feel much better, for although it is sharp it is the natural Alix, “if you mean that, help me impress Aunt Louise. I’m the only one who could, I know. She is probably used to persons of some manner, and while you’re all good, well, you know ” her voicetrailed off. “Yes,” I agreed. “She might as well leave her money to real rela- tives, mightn’t she?” Alix went on. I admitted she might. “And you’ll agree I’m the most likely to impress a woman of position and social experience?” “Oh, yes, Alix,” I said, for I did agree with that. “Very well!” said Alix triumphantly; and then, “Rub my back, will you? But not too hard. . . . Oh, Barbara! I’m not made of cast iron! Heavens, I’ll bet you took the skin off! . . . I wish you’d go get out my clothes. You’ll find a crepe de chine chemise hanging in the cupboard with no ribbon in it. . . . Put in a blue ribbon. The bobbin’s gone; you can use a safety'pin—put a towel on the floor so I can step out to lock the door, will you? Thank you. . . . I want my lace petticoat and my grey dress.” “All right,” I said, and went out. “Barbara!” she called after me. 184 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE cause you once did. . . . If you’d like to send it to Alix, you know, just for a change ” “Would you like me to?” he asked. “I’d like you to do just as you like,” I answered, and then, with a nod, went on. Patrick stood at the head of the stairs until I disappeared. He has a queer way of looking at me which I don’t understand. And I will acknowledge, it makes me unhappy. For his eyes hold a hurt—and, because my heart holds one, I know how miserable they can be. Aunt Louise Pembroke-Smith came the next morn- ing. Alix was all ready with her most impressive manner, and we were all a little fixed up. . . . I never was so surprised as when she appeared. Mother cried and Aunt Louise sniffed vigorously twice and then said, “Stuff and nonsense !” and about that time I began to take in the picture she made. She had a bonnet on that she never bought any later than 1900. It was really a 'very strange look- ing thing! She wore black silk gloves, long ones, the sleeves of which were in rolls about her wrists. She Wore congress gaiters, and her skirt was up in front and down behind, and I am sure the dressmaker never intended a train. I stood next to Alix, and I felt sure Aunt Louise would hear her gasp. Alix had expected something quite different! Aunt Louise’s face was as wrinkled as a little winter 186 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE we’ll do that too. . . . But I hope by that time I’ll be through wearing out your old frocks. . . . Poor Mother isn’t. . . .” “Mother,” said Alix, “doesn’t care. . . . Some people don’t, you know. I wish—oh, I wish I—had been built that way! Barbara—I am not happy!” CHAPTER XVI A PYJAMA PARTY By Alix HE first night Aunt Louise was in the house the most terrible thing happened! There was evidently a burglary. Before she came I, wishing to make her feel as at home as possible, and thinking she’d appreciate some sweet little thought, went way down town, bought some mignon- ette for her and put it in a vase on her bureau. When I took her up to her room she pounced on it and said: “Take it away! Eats up the air!” and then snifled in that way she does. Of course I took it. After that she inspected the curtains, sniffed and ordered me out. At the door I paused and asked, as pleasantly as I could, if I couldn’t read her to sleep.. She fairly barked at me. “Read me to sleep?” she said, “read me to sleep'! Tut, you chit! When I want to sleep I go to sleep and stay asleep too. Get along!” And naturally, after that crude dismissal, I withdrew. I went r87 188 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE downstairs and through the empty part of the house toward the “winter room.” . . . I heard some- thing drop in the yellow drawing-room, turned back, but could see nothing. Thinking that perhaps it was only the rambler, which grows over the window, beat- ing against the pane (the wind had been strong), I went on. Every one was around the hearth in the “winter room.” Mary Elinor was popping corn, Mother was reading “The Amazing Interlude” aloud, Bar- bara sat at her feet on a hassock, Patrick was on the settle and Father was lying on the lounge. “Why didn’t you tell me,” I broke in, “what she was like!” Every one laughed. . “Alix expected to stroke her brow,” said Barbara in that silly way she has when she thinks the joke is on you. “She was all ready for a single rose on the breakfast tray and to play the comforter r61e.” Father began to shake. “I’ll give you five dol- lars,” he said, “if you will put a rose on her tray. I’d like to hear what she’d say.” “Mother,” I said, “she isn’t a bit like you.” “She’s a dear,” said Mother warmly, “a dear. . I’m so glad it’s fixed. She was always the most stubborn thing that ever lived. If she couldn’t have just what she wanted, she wouldn’t play. Your father was not the husband she wanted for me. How- A PYJ AMA PARTY 189' ever, I believe we’re forgiven, and if she stays around here long enough to see your father and know him—it will be quite fixed up!” Father turned over and looked at Mother. He started to speak, and just then a brick fell from the chimney and, following it, something which glit- tered. Pat jumped up and began to poke with the hearth brush and dragged out the thing—after he’d set fire to the brush. It was those opera glasses which had disappeared early in the summer. “I jolly well thought you’d sent those to Uncle Sam!” said Pat, staring down at them. “I thought you’d ” I began, and then, very suddenly stopped, for I thought he’d taken them; but why if he did he’d stuck them up there, I don’t know. “Why,” said Barbara, “isn’t that nice! I’d like to go to see ‘Hearts of the World’ next week, if my allowance isn’t all gone. If I do, may I borrow them?” “Of course,” I said, as I polished them with a handkerchief which Daddy had very evidently used in the operating room. “Haven’t there been mysteries?” said Patrick in the most bland and open way imaginable. “Yes,” said Mother slowly, “so many. . . . 190 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE The worst was the whiskers. . . ,._ But fortunately they grew quickly.” “He has quite a nice fall crop, what?” said Pat- rick. “I say, that nephew is a nice chap, deucedly nice. You like him, Alix? Think he’s a bit A I ?” I answered just as casually as I could, but I’m afraid my voice wasn’t natural. “Oh,” I said, “he’s rather nice, I imagine, although I haven’t noticed him particularly.” And then Father got up and began to poke around up in the chimney. He has the surgeon’s touch even with the poker which he was using. He began to look interested and very hot, for the fire was still fairly warm. Sud- denly three bricks, just over the middle of the fire- place, fell down. . . . It is a very old fireplace, and after they fell we realised what had weakened it, for there was a hollow in the thing made by the removal of two bricks. . . . And this was full of all sorts of things. . . . My silver button hook which had disappeared; Grandmother’s silver spoons; the silver top of a cut-glass salve jar which I thought had been thrown out with the waste paper; Mother’s gold chain; Patrick’s cigarette case; some broken bits of old silver which I had laid away wait- ing to go to the jeweller’s—all sorts of things. “Well,” said Father, “where the dickens—now, 194 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE Remember, dwell on what—just now cannot—earned happily—except—by work.” I went upstairs. I was so furious, I cried. At about three the noise started. To begin with, Aunt Louise heard a noise and saw a man, and get- ting up, stole out of her room and then—fell down those five steps which were just outside her door. She was simply furious! Then she opened a door which she thought led into my room and shut her- self in a closet which has one of those knobs that are only on the outside; and then she began to pound with the nearest thing she could lay hands on, which happened to be a thermos flask. (Of course there wasn’t much left of it.) When I awoke I heard it, at the worst. I went down to William’s room and roused him. “There’s a burglar in the cupboard l” I whispered, and he got up immediately, and grabbed his fishing pole. I don’t know what he expected to do with it, but he grabbed it. By that time every one was up, and we all collected in the hall, and as I look back on it, it was a funny party. Barbara has a pretty kimono, but she had draped herself in an old parasol cover!!! It was one she’d ripped off a good frame before she took it to be recov- ered. Daddy had on Mother’s awful grey wrap- per, and she had slipped into his rain coat, which he had worn upstairs——he had come in very late. Pat- Money A PYJ AMA PARTY 195 rick had on an awfully short red bath robe, and William was without anything but his pyjamas. Then we all collected in front of the door. “We outnumber you!” yelled Father sternly. Will you surrender peacefully?” " That was too much for Aunt Louise. She was speechless. She threw the flask against the door and it bounded back on a tin trunk on the top shelf. It clattered frightfully! “He’s having a fit from lack of air!” said Mary Elinor, who had drawn near. Then Father opened the door. . - “Idiots-—fools!” said Aunt Louise! “Am I to be killed? You chit, stop simpering!” This was to me. I was laughing a little, mainly from relief. I sobered after that. “Well, you numbskulls,” she said, surveying’us all with scorn, “I’ll tell you this! You’ve been robbed this evening! There was a man in my room. . . . A man with stubble all over his face. I have a pocket flash light. . . . He stole my amethysts. Tall, lank thing, with stubble on his face. Probably he’s waiting around the corner of the hall to stab us now. . . . You might put bank notes on your fishing line, young man, and try to catch him. . . .” Then the men decided to make a thorough search, and sent us women to Barbara’s room. Daddy left 196 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE Barbara a revolver, and she knows how to use it, so We felt safe. I went out in the hall to call after them as they left, and I met Professor Winthrop, who had just awakened and was hurrying after the party. Im- agine my surprise when I saw that he was wearing the pink pyjamas I’d lost early in the summer, those that Mary Elinor had stuffed in that silly way! They have ruflles and lace and blue birds on them, so I knew them at once. The professor did look funny! I nearly fainted when I recognised them, but I have begun to think that anything is possible, and that anything may happen in Crane’s Nest. CHAPTER XVII WHAT WAS FOUND AT THE END OF THE CHASE A s Narrated by Patrick WILL acknowledge that I was rottenly crawly; the whole thing was so mysterious. It took real nerve, even after my experiences at the Marne, to follow Doctor Crane downstairs, and to separate and each to go our various ways, stealthily, you know, in the hope that we might bag the vil- lain. I drew the cellars, and Doctor Crane gave me a bit of an electric nightlight and told me to watch my steps, as the place was full of hollows and unevenly laid boards. Shaking a good bit, I crept down the stairs. At the bottom, I took a good look about and then extinguished my light, for something bad snapped in the cellar ahead of me, and then I had heard some one trip. . . . I reached out, felt for the wall, and began to creep along. Cob- webs tangled on my hands; once something with' legs fell down on my pyjama sleeve, but I only 197 198 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE clapped my hand on it, smashed it, and hurried on. Once and again I paused to listen, and each time I heard, or thought I heard, some one ahead of me. At the door I stopped and then I heard some one breathing heavily. “We’ve got him, Jim!” I heard, and then I felt hands on my throat, a tightening, then a sick sinking and then everything went blacker than the black of the cellar and I forgot—life and the chase and every- thing—even Barbara. When I woke up I was lying on the bumpy old sofa in the yellow-room, and every one, with the ex- ception of Professor Winthrop, stood about looking at me. Also there were two strange men, one stand- ing at the head of the sofa looking down at me, one turning the leaves of a small note book. “We’ve been looking for him for some time,” said the note-book one. “But I know this is a mistake,” said Doctor Crane, who was looking white and a bit tight about the mouth. “How do you know?” said the man at my head. “Why—the boy’s Irish,” said Doctor Crane, “he’s no more a German sympathiser than I. . . . He fought at the beginning of the War. Fought until a shot fixed his gun arm.” “Hum,” said the chap who stood looking down at me. “Nice story. Do you happen to know that END OF THE CHASE 199 Karl Hollisbad has evaded the draft, disappeared, and that there is much information about regiments which leave Camp Meade sifting about? All sorts of information, true and untrue, but all the sort which Uncle Sam wants kept quiet. . .” “I am aware that in a country of mixed peoples there must be spies, but as for Patrick Deems,” said Doctor Crane. I sat up. “I say,” I broke in, “I’m not a German. You know I’d jolly well shoot myself if I were!” “Bum imitation!” said the man who had been turning the leaves of the note-book. “You’re almost had enough to do an English comedian in vaudeville. Don’t get excited, little brother. It won’t do no good.” I lay back again. I felt frightfully ill and my throat still ached. I found that the yellow walls were whirling like anything! “For months,” said the man with the note-book, after a moment of silence, “there have been flicker- ing lights all over this house—at queer times for lights. Dempsey, who’s on this heat, noticed it first. But—he thought maybe you’d had a late call, or something of that sort. . . . Then almost every night some one creeps along the balcony. Dempsey thought it was one of the young ladies until it grew so cold. Did any one meet this young man in New END OF THE CHASE 201 him to the station in those. Feel well enough for a ride, Fritz?” I sat up. “I assure you I am innocent!” I said. “I’ll prove it! You—you ” and then I relapsed into silence. There was nothing strong enough to say. “Cut it,” said the man at the head of the lounge, and laid his fingers on my shoulder. He was strong, I’ll admit. I sat up, still feeling ill and shaky. “There are hundreds of charges against him,” said the man who stood near the table, “and he is a slick one. (I’ll give you that, Son.) Taken us weeks to find him, and we knew he was in Baltimore too. . . . Nice lot of information leaking out from this place. . .. . Suppose he’s shown a great interest in the War and the Government, between nervous treatments; and taken many long, solitary walks, haven’t you ?” “I’ll admit I have,” I said. (I had, especially since Barbara had grown wearied of me.) It tires me and makes me sleep when I otherwise wouldn’t. “Like to walk around Fort McHenry,” went on the bounder, “and talk to any soldier or sailor you happened to meet, didn’t you? We’ve been watch- ing you!” “I was a fighting man,” I answered; “I feel the pull of it—it helps to talk to those chaps, for I can never go back.” 202 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “You’re dead right,” said the fellow with the note-book. “Your uniform will be on the pyjama cut and the stripes will go around, all around, not around the sleeves. Get up, brother, we’re going on. Nice little cell waiting for you.” “I’ll get this straightened out,” said Doctor Crane, hurriedly, in an aside to me. “But you’ll have to go. I’m sorry. It’ll all be straightened out; there’s no cause for worry.” “How did you happen to be in my cellar?” he went on, turning to the men. “Hoping to catch him in his prowlings,—with some news on him. . . . Say, Jim, look in that pocket.” The man who stood at the head of the lounge, and who evidently was Jim, leaned over and took a paper from my pyjama pocket. It was a soiled affair written on the back on an envelope ad- dressed to Uncle—in my writing. On it was a series of numbers. “Hum!” said the man, looking at it. “These are the regiments which left Camp Meade last Thurs- day. Get up, Fritz. You’re strong enough to walk now. . . . That’s the way with ’em, they fool everybody.” I got up and stood, trying not to sway. I was still rottenly dizzy. “If this is true,” I said, “I am crazy!” Doctor Crane looked suddenly frightfully worried. I felt END OF THE CHASE 203 so. The notes on my envelope had made it. . How had they gotten there ? “This way,” said one of my captors, and I fol- lowed him out in the hall. At the top of the stairs, I saw Alix. “Quick,” she said, breathlessly, “come—hurry up! Some one has killed the Professor!” 206 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE he did I hit him on the back of the head with Alix’ door-stop and he dropped. I never will forget that feeling when he went down. . . . How any one can deliberately be a criminal, I don’t know. . . . I never was so sick in my life. I simply lost all my strength. I clung to the door and felt just as you do when you fall over the back of a chair and it catches you in the ribs; I hadn’t any breath at all. In a moment the doorknob which I was still grip- ping turned under my hand. I felt the perspiration break out on my forehead. If it was another, I felt that I was gone. . . . I slipped against the wall, crouched there and waited. The door opened. “Barbara!” said Mother, and then I began to cry. She looked at me and at the prostrate figure, then at the Professor. “We’d better call the men,” she said as she grew white. “Dear, are you hurt?” I shook my head. “I hit him with Fido!” I whim- pered. (“Fido” is what we call Alix’ door-stop.) “I suppose I’ve killed him. What shall I do? Oh, Mother! I didn’t know Fido was so hard! Oh, Mother!” She put her arms around me, sheltered me from the sight of that terrible room, and led me away. In the hall we met Billy. “Pat’s a sp-——” began Billy, and then stopped. “Go call your Father,” said Mother, then: “No, THE SPY 209 Mary Elinor was so surprised that she did stop weeping, and together we went to Aunt Louise’s room and then downstairs. There were voices from the yellow-room, and I went there to find a man whom I’d never seen and Patrick. The rest were upstairs. “Hello,” said Patrick, “it seems I’m a spy “You’re not!” I said. My teeth were set I was so angry. “He’s not,” I went on to the man. “He’s Irish. He’s—he’s been a splendid soldier and lost the use of one arm and ” and then I hid my face in my arm. I had gone prettly nearly the limit on excitement. . I heard Patrick catch his breath. I suppose it was wonderful to have any one believe in him. Very evidently Billy and Alix had not. . . . Because I was shaky again I went over and sat down on the lounge by him. “So that’s it?” said the strange man. “Well, poor little girl!” I didn’t understand him. “I’ve killed a man,” I said in a moment, “at least I’m afraid I have—I—I—he was in the Professor’s room and had tied him in bed. I hit him on the head with a—a iron dog—I ” but I couldn’t go on. The strange man dropped a note-book. “Great hat !” he said, staring at Patrick, and just then there H 210 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE was a whistle and he ran out and up the stairs, Mary Elinor and Aunt Louise following. “I guess he was the real spy,” I said, and then I saw Pat’s neck, which was frightfully red and bruised. “Oh, Pat!” I said, “they hurt you!” “What did I do,” he said, “that made you hate me so?” “I didn’t,” I answered hotly. “I never did! I bored you. . . . Alix said—I—I mean.--—” “What do you mean?” he said, and I had never heard him speak that way before. It was very seri- ous and grown-up, and made me realise he was older than I, a thing I never do while we are play- ing. And all over again I began to cry. Pat put his arm around me and I cried harder. “Oh, I say, Kiddy,” he said after a moment, and his voice made me think that he felt like crying too. “Oh, I say, don’t. I can’t stand much more!” I wiped my eyes and tried to sit up and out of Pat’s arm, but I didn’t succeed so very well. “Alix told you,” said Pat, looking down at the rug, “that you bored me. . . . That I had held her hand going down the bay. . . . That I was a little sentimental, that she couldn’t just recall what I’d said, but that—well, I evidently had a ‘case’ on her?” I didn’t speak, but it was all true. “And she told me,” he went on, “that you, little Kiddy, THE SPY 211 were constantly hooking things, when you didn’t know it. . . .” “She never did,” I said, “I will never believe it!” “She implied it,” he answered in a short-clipped way. “What was her game? It, that lie, made no difference to me. Anything that hurts you would only make me love you more. I suppose you know I do.” I sat very erect. I was so startled. I had never thought of that, never! “I didn’t know it,” I said, “I never did, really. Alix said I didn’t attract men—~and—when you didn’t answer my notes ” “What notes?” said Patrick. I looked at him, knew he’d never gotten them, and felt, oh, so sorry for Alix! “None,” I faltered, “I’m all mixed up.” He smiled down at me; he is very much taller than I, even sitting. And then he put out a hand and tilted my chin, looking at me too closely. “I under- stand, dear,” he said softly. “You’re the truest, sweetest little———” Suddenly I jumped and dislodged Pat’s hand, for there was a noise at the doorway. "Sweetest pussy cats!” said Aunt Louise with a sniff. “Murders to your right, slush to your left. . . . People fainting in bathtubs,” (I found out, afterward, that Alix had fainted as she leaned over 212 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE the tub to get a towel to sponge Professor Win- throp’s forehead) “spies hiding under your bed. Well, young people, you’d better put a sofa cushion between you, for the spy has awakened and they’re all coming down here. Don’t you need the iron pup for this young man?” she ended with a look at Pat- rick. I shook my head. Patrick took hold of my hand and kissed it, right before Aunt Louise! And he held it under a Phi Gamma Delta sofa cushion all through the trial. Patrick has a very strong grip. The trial, for so we called it, was interesting. They all filed in, that is all except Professor Win- throp and Mother, who had stayed up to take care of him. Billy had hold of his fishing rod again, and Alix was carrying her door-stop; why, I don’t know. We all settled and the man began to talk. “I’m glad to meet you, gentlemen,” he said, bow- ing politely to the detectives, “glad! Of all the meals I’ve had in this house, of all the luck! Every little keepsake I’d pick up and hide was found— every time I’d get sound asleep in the attic, the young fools would come up and play. One day I had to hide in a trunk, nearly caught—if I hadn’t played ghost I would ’a been.” “Where’s Sidney’s purse?” I asked. “Up in a bunch of herbs. That string of beads busted when I hung ’em there.” 214 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE had gone as I hoped it w0uld, I’d have collected them from the waste basket to-morrow; he would have tossed them in. Used to finding spoons, pins, and so on, in his clothes. Victim of dual personality, doctor says so—who should know better?” The spy grinned at Daddy, who got red. “Well, lead me to the coop, gentlemen,” he said after a sigh. “I’d like a meal. That was a pretty cigarette case, young man,” he said to Pat. “1 wish I’d kept it, and your fountain pen too. . .” Then he turned to me. You’re smart,” he said, “smart. You should go in the business. Who taught you to land an upper cut like that?” “It was a door-stop,” I said. “It stopped me,” he answered. “Of all the fools in this house! Don’t even know their own secret passages. I could have lived here for years, but I had an engagement to-night and met those amethysts on the road—now everything’s spoiled! And so, good-bye! Good-bye!” He bowed low with his last words, and then between the two detectives left us—I hope forever. “He didn’t seem like a German,” I said at length. “Reared over here,” said Father, lighting his pipe. “Clever chap—planted stuff on Pat, he said, to make us suspect him.” “How’s the Professor?” I asked. A PARTY 217 that they must have had a talk and I didn’t know how much they’d said, but somehow—I didn’t care. I felt absurdly happy, for no particular reason. Of course we all talked at once and all about the spy. “He said be hooked the Professor’s pyjamas right along,” said Billy, who had made the night an ex- cuse for dodging school; “that at first he’d worn those blue bird things of yours, Alix, but then when he saw how absent minded the Professor was, he put them in the bottom of his bureau and took some regular pyjamas. . . . Pass the syrup, will you, Barby? Gee, don’t I wish we had a spy here every night and breakfast at eleven every day! Isn’t this a party!” Then Aunt Eliza came waddling in, her eyes about six times larger than ever and gleaming white. She grumbled about the cakes the spy had taken and admitted she’d thought she was “bewitched.” “I suppose he took the pink frock when he took the pyjamas,” said Patrick. “Probably took the things, stuffing and all.” “I suppose so,” answered Mother, as she ran her hand in a stocking and then tossed it aside as too far gone to darn. “I wonder where those things are?” said Barbara. “In the secret passage,” said Billy. “There’s one somewhere around. Told the detectives he slept 218 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE there. Complained of the ventilation. Wouldn’t that knock you cold? Suppose he wanted hot and cold water and a shower.” “It was most—” said the Professor with a wave, “when I awoke and struggled that . Who knows what lies in wait for ?” I “Quite so,” said Patrick. He puts himself out to be polite to older people. Both he and Barbara seem rather artificial about it, at least to me. “I would like another cup of——” said the Pro- fessor, waving like everything. “But with no——” Barbara got up to get it, but she looked baffled. She didn’t know whether it was sugar or cream he wanted omitted. “It won’t make any difference,” I whispered, “he won’t know.” “I have a suggestion,” said Billy, with his mouth full of biscuit, “let’s hunt the secret passage to-day and give a prize to the fellow who finds it.” “Who’ll give the prize?” asked Mary Elinor. “I will,” said Aunt Louise from the doorway, in that short-clipped manner of hers. “Can you stay?” I asked of Augustus, who sat next to me. He considered it and then nodded. “When do you people want dinner?” said Mother. “You’ll hardly want any lunch after this breakfast hour.” “Four,” said Barbara, “and we’ll pull down the shades and have candles and make it a real party.” A PARTY 219 “And I’ll buy the sweets,” said Patrick, “and some of those ices that come to your door in a motor. Jolly idea, bringing them that way, you know.” “Macaroons ?” said Mary Elinor, coming to stand near him. “Yessum !” said Patrick, who is trying desperately to acquire American expressions. Then he lifted her to his knee, gave her some coffee on the sly (she adores it and isn’t supposed to have it) and they whispered about what they would get down town for “the party.” . . . And then, all over again, I began to feel the ache. I hated Patrick for having money when Augustus didn’t. Hated him because Augustus would always have to work and slave and because he, Patrick, could be idle, could travel, could have motors of every description and everything good in the world that money could buy. And I looked at Augustus and hated him a little for working so patiently at Work which was paid for so poorly—and for not complaining. _The sunlight grew cold and I found the day wasn’t half so lovely as I’d thought it. Mother’s working in the bay window ceased to be pretty. I saw not her contented face, her graceful hands, but the endless piles of darning and the poverty they meant. “Did you get any sleep?” asked Augustus. 220 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “I suppose I got as much as any one else,” I answered coldly. Then he turned away and I hated myself too. . . . Nothing was right. “Let’s have a programme,” said Billy, “and make this a bang-up day! Say we secret-passage hunt from twelve to two and then have some music and danc- ing.” “And charades,” said Patrick. “We always play charades at home, choose sides and every one acts. . . . I want the Professor on my side.” “I shall be ” said the Professor, and I sup- pose he meant, “charmed.” Patrick grinned at him and then arose, excused himself, and he and Mary Elinor went off hand in hand and whispering. They had a half hour before the start of the hunt. Just after they left the room the Professor looked at Aunt Louise, pushed back his chair and got up. “I did not—remember names, but not—Louise !” “Present!” she snapped. “Never forgot,” said the Professor, waving his coffee cup which was still inconveniently full, “true to my first ” “Set that down!” snapped Aunt Louise. He did. And they talked furiously; the Professor looking like a combination of a windmill and a re- volving door, and Aunt Louise smiling all the time she snapped out her short little sentences. It was 'A PARTY 221 like a play. I think they would have talked all day if the big clock in the hall hadn’t boomed and Billy hadn’t blown his basket ball whistle for the start and reminded Aunt Louise of the prize. She went off to get it just as Patrick and Mary Elinor came in, positively loaded with packages. Then every one rounded up in the hall and we started out. Augustus went with me because he doesn’t know the house at all, but every one else started out sepa- rately. It was an hour before anything was heard and then a whistle blew and we knew that some one had found it. We hurried to the hall where Mary Elinor was standing wearing a very important ex- pression. “I found it,” she said. “Wait,” said Billy, “you can tell your story when they all come,” and gradually they sifted in. Then some one stood Mary Elinor on the table and she told her tale. “It starts in my cupboard,” she said, “I suppose he was going in it that day Patrick came, when I heard him, and it goes pretty nearly everywhere, even to the attic and cellar.” “You’re a brave little girl,” said Mother warmly. “I let Patrick go along with me,” admitted Mary Elinor, “to hold the flash light. . . . There are steps and it starts back of that panel which seems to board up a hole in the chimney. It runs right 222 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE through the chimney and you can go up to the attic to that funny cupboard that is set so high up in the wall. It opens in one place on the balcony and it goes into Pat’s sitting room cupboard too. That has a teeny, weeny panel that slides, on the very top shelf. In the dark you could see little lines of light. Would you like to see it?” Of course every one wanted to and we all hurried upstairs and crowded around the five foot hole in the cupboard in Mary Elinor’s room, peering into the musty, dusty black of the queer old passage. Then one by one we stepped in and went as far as we liked. I didn’t go very far, for even with a bright electric flash I found it crawly and I hated the hang- ing cobwebs, but Barbara went in and came out dragging the peach coloured satin frock which Pat- rick had so wanted to find. “I suppose it was his bed,” she said. “There’s a recess in the wall along a little side branch and there were lots of things piled in there. That gingham apron you thought the laundry’d lost is in there, Mother.” And then she held out the frock to Patrick and they began to look at the sleeves. . . . What I said was there, they found, the slip of paper with “Deems” on it. “I’d have to find the other half to make this vgood,” said Patrick. A PARTY 223 “Perhaps we can,” said Barbara, hopefully. And then, as every one had had enough taste of the pas- sage, we went downstairs. In the hall we paused again. Billy was going to award the prize. When Aunt Louise produced it, he looked somewhat lost; it was a shining apple with a blue ribbon around the stem. Mary Elinor looked disgusted until Barbara bol- stered her up. “What a beautiful apple!” she said, “and you like them so, Mary Elinor. Isn’t that lovely!” “Yes,” said Mary Elinor, doubtfully. “I thank you, Aunt Louise.” “Eat it,” said Aunt Louise, and then, because one usually dOes what she says, Mary Elinor began. After she’d taken three bites she stopped and rolled something around in her mouth. When she took it out she found she’d been chewing a five dollar gold piece. “Well,” she said, “I’ve heard of them, but I never expected to see one—and as for owning one -—what shall I do with all that, Mother?” I have always regarded charades as childish, but I must admit that we had a good time the rest of the afternoon. We rigged up a curtain across the double doors that led from the yellow room into the hall and had a stage in the yellow room and the 224 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE audience sat in the hall. Pat and Augustus chose sides and half of us would act and half go audience. We acted names of cities and counties and lakes, fruits and flowers, and the funniest was Washington, in which Professor Winthrop drew the role of the wash woman, donned a gingham apron and a pink sunbonnet and did a wash in a bright red jardiniere. Pat was his little daughter, Lizzie, and hung the wash up on a line they had strung from the piano to the gas jet. Pat wore a coat of Barbara’s and Mary Elinor’s hat and sung in a very high voice, “They call me Buttercup, sweet little Buttercup,” all the time he strung up the wash, to throw us off the track, so that we wouldn’t guess the first syllable too easily. When they acted the “elope” part of cantaloupe, Aunt Louise and Augustus had a frightful wreck. They’d rigged up a balcony on the lounge, forgetting that one of the front legs was rickety, and Aunt Louise stood up there leaning from a window and listening to Augustus’ passionate plea to run away with him, to be his. She had forgotten to take off her glasses and she wore them, as usual, way down on her nose and squinted at him over them. She had on my drooping Sunday hat and cape and held a rose. Really, it was funny! Just as he said, “Ah, fairest star of my heaven, sweetest of flowers—” the front leg of the sofa A PARTY 225 went and she simply yelled, “I won’t!” as she tumbled into his arms. Of course they had to act it over, because it had to be shown clearly that she refused, must refuse, in- asmuch as it was “can’t” they were acting. A cruel father made this, but Aunt Louise wouldn’t be Juliet after her fall and Billy took that r61e and she went the Father. Billy made a better Juliet than she did anyway, and she made quite a strong interference. Well, we played at that all of the afternoon, with dancing and singing between acts, and before we knew it Mother came in, looking a little warm, and said dinner was on. Patrick had gotten lovely trimmings! I will say that. There were pink roses in the centre of the table and Mother had Great Aunt Barbara Heath’s silver candlesticks on with pink candles in them. There were ducky little paper baskets with roses on their handles and salted nuts in the baskets. He’d gotten some lovely candy, although Barbara already had two boxes he’d sent her. And Mother had ar- ranged a beautiful dinner. We started with a clear bouillon with salted whipped cream on top and then we- had chicken and Pat had ordered some cran- berry ice in addition to the ice cream and it did taste so good. Aunt Eliza makes the best candied sweet potatoes on earth and, while it isn’t nice to do—or say—I know every one ate too much! 226 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE The climax was the cake which was one which Pat had gotten from a confectioner’s and which was decorated with the loveliest icing loops and wreaths and which set on a bed of paper lace. There was spun sugar under the ice cream and then after-dinner coffee and even Mary Elinor had a cup. “The young man feels like celebrating!” said Aunt Louise, looking at Pat sharply over her glasses. He grew red, laughed and answered, “Guilty!” “He has no cause to celebrate,” said Father sharply. Barbara, who was next to Daddy, slipped her hand in his. “Don’t be cross!” she whispered. Daddy coughed and put his arm around her. Then Barbara looked down the table and smiled at Pat- rick. He didn’t answer her smile with another, but the way he looked at her made me realise why Father was cross, what had happened, and that all my plans had gone wrong. After dinner we had some more music, Barbara singing and Patrick playing. And then Barbara went and cuddled down next to Daddy and leaned her head against his shoulder. “Do you remember,” she said, “how in this very room we heard about the guest plan—and how we hated it?” Every one laughed when they thought of it. A PARTY 227 “Well, it turned out very nicely, didn’t it?” she went on dreamily. “I think so,” said Mary Elinor. “I do love macaroons! And those mints were lovely, and the cake—that cake was awfully expensive, but Pat said it didn’t matter—that he—” “Mother always said that doing things for other people and forgetting yourself made you happy,” said Barbara. “I believe it’s true.” “You’d better do something for them right away,” said Mother, who came in laughing. “Do you know there hasn’t been a bed made in this place all day?” “Let’s all tidy our own rooms!” said Pat, getting up, but we wouldn’t hear of that and Barbara and I went off. Barbara slipped her arm around me going up- stairs, but I couldn’t return her affection. It has always hurt me to miss that for which I aimed, hurt me and made me hard. I wanted to hurt her, really wanted to. Something cold and sharp and bright like ice inside of me made me ache and want to make some one else ache too. “I suppose you’re satisfied,” I heard myself say with a sneer. “You’ve cheated and stolen the only thing that would make me happy. What could you do with position—or money?” “Nothing is settled,” she answered unsteadily. “Father said I was too young if—if you really cared 228 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE and Pat did—you know I love you, Alix—that I’d do anything for you—and give anything to you!” “Give me!” I echoed, “how sweet of you!” And then I flung aside her arm and went in my room. I shut the door, locked it, and lay face down on my bed. I cried, cried hard, but the thing that hurt me most was Augustus’ patience and happiness in life—when he had—nothing! 230 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE wondered. Aunt Louise had not seemed especially taken with Alix. I suppose they are too much alike to get along, for in spite of Alix’ beauty and Aunt Louise’s brusque, sharp way of speaking they are alike. In some queer way you feel it. I spoke to Mother, who said, “They once were. I don’t know how you knew it, Barbara, for they’re not now—but once they were.” And it was that I felt. But, to go back, I finished Mary Elinor’s room, and then went to the Professor’s. After I had fin- ished his and as I was nearing Alix’ room once more, on the road to mine, the door opened. Aunt Louise stood in it, back to me, speaking. “Ten thousand dollars, young woman,” I heard her say, “ten thousand dollars. A lot of money for a chit like you. . . . Well invested, it will bring you six hundred a year at least. . . . And all that for using your sense and not marrying that impover- ished no-good nephew of Professor Winthrop.” “He’s not no-good!” I heard Alix answer. “It is no disgrace to be poor.” “It’s inconvenient!” snapped Aunt Louise. “Money doesn’t mean happiness!” answered Alix and I was surprised. I’d never heard her say any- thing like that before! “Hum!” snorted Aunt Louise, and then, “ten thousand if you do as I say. If not, not a penny!” and then she closed the door firmly and—began to WHAT WAS HEARD AND FOUND 231 laugh. I turned and hurried into Mother’s room for I knew I wasn’t supposed to hear. I was awfully sorry I had heard. The whole thing seemed so strange. Aunt Louise did not seem designing, nor the sort who would let money spoil a romance, and yet—what I’d heard made me do a good deal of questioning. But in spite of all of it, I found no answer. Why had she laughed? The whole thing made a question mark a mile high. By the time I finished the beds and got down- stairs, it was quite. late. Mary Elinor was be- ginning to yawn behind her hand, blink, and say she wasn’t a bit sleepy and Barbara and Alix and Billy stayed up and why shouldn’t she? Pat and Billy were by the fire talking about the spy. “What the dickens did he want of Professor Win- throp’s whiskers ?” asked Billy. “Perhaps he wanted to bale them and pack muni- tions in them,” said Daddy. “Theodore!” said Mother, reprovingly. Just then the telephone bell rang, Daddy went to it and “I heard him sigh and then say he’d look in later in the evening. When he came back Patrick stood up. “I say, Barbara, Kiddy,” he said, “I’ve promised your old Dad to be good for a year.” “One year,” said Father, pufling hard at his pipe, “then if you still feel the same way ” 232 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE D Patrick laughed at that. “Although,” went on Father, “you’re both too young—Here Alix—much older than you, Barbara —isn’t even thinking about marriage.” “Isn’t she?” said Billy. “You bet she is. She’d be sore as all get out if Barby got ahead of her. She has pictures of herself all draped up with yards of that white stuff you can spit through ” “That will do, William,” said Mother. “And orange blossoms,” continued Billy, “and a groom with enough money to buy a Pierce-Arrow for every little coon in Baltimore. Not that she’d let him do it. She’d use that for herself ” “William!” said Mother again, and Billy stopped. “You know,” said Patrick, “there is some ques- tion about my right to the title and Barbara doesn’t want me to keep my inheritance, feeling that it is not mine. . . . If I can prove that the slip of paper I found to-day is genuine, I shall not voice my doubts; if not, I shall let the old place go—shan’t I, Barbara?” “I believe you’d be happier,” I answered. Then Patrick told the people the story he told me that day I took him to see dear “Homewood.” . . . They were all interested and felt just as I had about it, that even the loveliest possession in the world would bring no happiness unless it was truly owned and rightfully held. WHAT WAS HEARD AND FOUND 233 “And if it goes,” ended Patrick, “I’m going to buy a cottage on a rolling moor with a little gate-legged table in the dining room and blue dishes on the walls. . . . And my American in-laws are all coming over each summer. Aren’t they?” “You scamp I” said Father, holding his pipe tightly between his teeth. “And we’ll have macaroons even for breakfast,” said Patrick, turning to Mary Elinor, “that is, Mary Elinor, if you approve of me for a brother?” “Oh, yes,” answered Mary Elinor, “I think it would be nice! Really, would we have them for breakfast?” “Really,” said Patrick, and then he grew sober. He turned to me. “Your Father is quite right, you know,” he said, looking down at me, “you are such a bit of a kiddy. . . . And to-night is my last fling. Hereafter I’m going to do a ripping imitation of one of those wooden Indians that stand in front of tobacconists. That is, I am for one year. Then— but I musm’t begin on that. I wanted, frightfully, to buy you a ring, but your father thinks I’d best not. However, I do want you to have something of mine to make you remember me during the year ” “You’re not going away?” I said. “I’ll have to skip back to Ireland for a little while pretty soon,” he answered; “I’m afraid my sick 236 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE that there are evil designs upon me from one of my own strain, I guard with all my power the most con- vincing proof I have of my son’s ri ht to title, since he was come to earth in a foreign and and among those who were strange. “He was born at Fiesole in the Convent on the hillside where is a hospital of no little renown. A record is there made by Sister Angela in the blue book which holds all records of import: date and circumstances therein. “His baptism certificate is in the hands of Charles Carroll of Carrollton, of Maryland, who is guard- ing it against the destructive hands of my enemy. “In the tenth ear of my son’s life, I shall tell him of his beautiful mother who left this earth as he entered it and of the disposal of his records; and until then the information is herein locked by me. Being sixth day, eleventh month, Year of Our Lord 1789. GOVEN, LORD Deems.” I looked at it a long time and then I hurried down stairs. I met Patrick in the hall. “Look!” I said breath- lessly. Together we sat down on the first step and read the words, turned brown by age. “I say ” said Patrick. . . . “It proves it rather—entirely to me; but for my own satisfaction, I want that certificate, all of it. Barbara, we’ll find it, won’t we?” “Of course,” I answered. “And we might go to Italy later to hunt up the CHAPTER XXI SEARCHING Related by Alix T seems to me that all my life I have hunted things to make me happy and, to be honest, I have seldom had a really peaceful or happy inside feeling. At least, when I have had that feel- ing it has just been temporary and it felt like a new cloak or bonnet that must come off when one got in the house. Barbara has seetned to wear her happi- ness even every day and she has never hunted it. It seemed strange until I spoke to Augustus about it. “It’s not a thing you can capture with a butterfly net, Alix,” he said. “It comes only incidentally and it comes on the boomerang principle, I believe. As you throw it, or try to throw it, to some one else then it is liable to come back to you; I’ve seen it.” “Do you mean to say,” I demanded, “that be- cause Barbara mends and dusts for Mother, and makes mayonnaise for her when she’s tired, that that is why Barbara is contented?” 239 242 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE offered you?” said Aunt Louise, “that money I offered you to keep you from making a young goose of yourself?” “I haven’t decided,” I answered faintly. “Ten thousand,” said Aunt Louise, rocking back and forth as if her life depended on it, “ten thou- sand!” I set my teeth. I almost said, “I’ll take it”—but -—I saw Augustus’ face. Augustus is wonderfully handsome. No one could fail to see it. I realise that Patrick Deems is fair looking, but I am so often glad that Augustus looks like Augustus and not like Patrick. “Homer lump too,” said Aunt Louise quite as if she knew I was thinking of Augustus’ looks. “I can’t see that!” I said hotly. “Can’t?” shouted Aunt Louise. “Shoulders shaped like a champagne bottle, over-high forehead, mole on his chin—” “I can’t stand this!” I said, getting up. “Sit down!” she said. I sat. One always does what Aunt Louise orders. “Wears overshoes if the sun isn’t glaring,” she went on, “bow ties.” “I—I like them,” I said, “and any one could be cured of overshoes.” “No,” she said, rocking viciously, “no! Profes- sor wore them when he was young, always will. SEARCHING 243 Told me he put them on before he went to bed the other night, absent minded. Such is the power of habit. . . . Now, young woman, go over to the bureau, look at that pretty thing on the pin cushion and then kite along! Kite along!” I did, standing there quite a few seconds and looking at that hateful slip of paper through my tears. . . . It blurred and wavered and, covering my face with my arm, I hurried from the room. I went to my room, lay down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. This is what ran before me. . . . Mother’s work-worn hands, her grey wrapper which is faded and shrunken and old. . . . Father’s tired- ness and the lack of money. . . . The shabbiness in which I’d always lived. Then I thought of some- thing else. The HAPPINESS. Aunt Louise had lots of money, but no one but a person who was mad would say that she was hap- pier than Mother; beside Mother she was pitiful and—poor! Then I thought of Father, the tired wrinkles about his eyes: but the light in them made you forget his always working so hard, his saving and scrimping, and giving his services for nothing in so many cases, for that light meant the largest wealth in the world—heart contentment. And—I had never seen these things before! I sat up in bed. I was beginning to see myself 2494.! BARBARA OF BALTIMORE grow old, as Aunt Louise. I smiled as I thought of the check. It seemed so little. Then, just as I was ready to go to Aunt Louise, I heard a noise out- side my door, and Barbara’s voice. “Anything more disgusting,” she was saying, “than to look up in a street car and see your little sister cowering in a corner, wearing your best hat which you didn’t wear because of the slush and rain——-” “It didn’t get in the slush,” said Mary Elinor. “And it doesn’t look well on you anyway, poke bonnets are never becoming to ,snub noses! All the velvet looking cat-licked! I’m going to speak to Daddy about it, Mary Elinor.” “Tattle tale.” “That rose is ruined! I paid forty-five cents for it at Hochschild Kohns. It was a real bargain.” “Alix wears your clothes,” said Mary Elinor, “and you don’t care.” “I do,” said Barbara, “but I don’t dare—that is 17 “She makes a fuss if you do, doesn’t she?” “Yes, she does,” answered Barbara sharply, “and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of everything. Nothing is going as it should. . . . Something is up with Alix, something that is making her unhappy! Aunt Louise is in it too, I believe. And Alix doesn’t care 246 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Trying to wake her up. She’s a designing minx. Did you know it?” “Not really,” disagreed Barbara, “not deep in- side. It’s just the outside Alix that’s that. She likes pretty things you know—and good times—” “And would do almost anything to get them.. Yes. Tried to marry your young man. Know that?” Barbara laughed. “No,” she answered, “I don’t; for if she had, she would; she’s much more fascinat- ing thanI . . .” “Tell that to Patrick,” said Aunt Louise after a disdainful sniff. “I don’t imagine he’ll entirely agree with you. Humble young person, Barbara, like your Mother. Look here. I am trying to in- fluence Alix, and for her good. I was one just like her! Make yourself comfortable, long story.” “You know your mother was much younger than I and when I was in my first season she was off at boarding school. That is the reason she never heard of my affair with the Profesor. Yes, Winthrop. . . . Nice chap, lovable. Just like this young man, his nephew! . . . Asked me to marry him, I loved him, said yes. . . . Wanted to marry him too, but another young man blew in with lots of money and my parents made a grave mistake! They refused the house to this young man of money because of SEARCHING 247 some story of an unpleasant character which had been circulated about him. “Enough for me! I eloped with him in two weeks. “Just like Alix, stubborn minx. . . . So I decided to bring her to terms. I bribed her. I said, ‘You marry this young nincompoop with the wart on his chin, and I’ll cut you out of my will ’ " “But she loves money!” said Barbara. “That would keep her from it! And he does care for her so. Any one can,see it! I feel so sorry for him.” “Loves her obstinacy better,” said Aunt Louise. “Funny? Every day she comes in here and looks at that check. Then I give a lecture on the worth- lessness of her young man and she leaves weeping. She’ll toss up the money and be noble, just because she’s too stubborn to do as I advise. I know; just like her. Hated this man I married, but my Father said, ‘Let me never see you speak to Henry Smith. I have forbidden him the house.’ Immediately went out on the step for I knew Henry Smith walked by at that hour every day on the way to his club. Threw him a rose. . . . Had a life of it, my dear. Paid for my folly! Paid for my folly!” Then Barbara began to laugh. “I believe you’ll do it!” she said, “I do! Isn’t it funny! To think of any one getting the better of Alix that way! Wouldn’t she be furious!" FINDING ‘ 251 bara was worried because Patrick was outdoors with- out overshoes and I was worried because Augustus was in doors with them. . . . I kept wondering if it was a habit you couldn’t break, although I knew that needn’t trouble me any more. He was half sitting on the table, a huge checked apron tied around his neck and holding a cook book. I went over to him. “Augustus,” I said, “why do you always wear overshoes ?" “Oh,” he said, holding out a foot, I forgot. Meant to take them 05 as I ” and then he waved the cook book. “Don’t you begin that!” I said sharply. “Why, I was just imitating my dear and much- loved uncle,” he said. “Aunt says he was just like you, at this age.” “I’m glad of it,” said Augustus, turning back to his book, “I’d rather be like him than like any one else. However, he always left out words. I’ve heard stories about it, countless ones. Why when he was six he———” I turned away. Augutus shut the cook book with’ something that approached a slam and followed me to the window, the one at the end of the kitchen which looks out on the garage. “Without doubt,” he said slowly in a low voice FINDING 253' “Where’s Barbara !” he yelled. We told him and he went to the door and standing with it wide open, the snow drifting in, he scolded her frightfully for going out without a coat. “Cross thing!” she said as she passed him, with her cooled fudge held ahead of her. “I won’t have it!” he went on. “First thing you’ll be quite done up with influenza, you know, and me running, like a mad monkey, all over town for M. D.’s.” Of course every one laughed, every one always does at Pat and his funny way of saying things, but he doesn’t mind. He just followed her about the kitchen scolding. Then he remembered a package he held under his arm and shoved it at her. “For me?” said Barbara, “Oh, I can’t believe it!” She was laughing at him, of course, because he’s so lovely to her about sending her everything he dares. It was a big heart-shaped box of candy. “Mine,” said Patrick, looking in a frightfully mushy way at Barbara. “Going to tell Daddy on you!” screamed Mary Elinor, jumping around him. “You do and the macaroon market will close!” said Pat. She subsided. “I really wouldn’t, Pat,” she said. “I was just joking—and I have a present for you. I meant to give it to Mother for her birth- 254 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE day—and then, I just sort of decided not to. I’ll get it.” _ “Oh, do !” said Patrick, pretending to be anxious, “I can hardly wait!” “By the way,” he said, smiling widely and his eyes growing excited, “I have something to tell you— something wonderful. . . . It happened to-day. I’ve been to ‘Homewood’ . . . and this time I went inside.” “Isn’t it lovely?” said Barbara, “and doesn’t it thrill you to think that your Great-great-grand- father’s friend was there so often? We grew up on that history, you know, and when we were tiny we felt that we almost owned the place because we love it so. . . . Quite as I feel that I know Francis Scott Key better than any one else, because I so admire him and because I’ve read everything in the world I could about him.” “It is lovely,” said Patrick after Barbara’d fin- ished. “But—it’s more than that to me. It has given me the other half of the Deems’ baptismal certificate, and I wanted it so much. . . . My, it was exciting. As I stood talking to Doctor F rank- lin whom your father had asked to show me the place, some one came tearing down the hall. The chap was carrying a cane through his arm and was putting on some yellow gloves. His cane, held at a beastly unsafe angle for any one running, caught in a FINDING 255 hat rack, threw him a bit and he plunged, cast out the cane-arm against the wall, saved himself and scraped six inches of paper from the plaster. Then we saw it—an envelope, yellowed with age and ad- dressed to ‘Goven Deems.’ I jolly well felt sick! I nearly flopped. I said, ‘I say, that chap was my Great-great-grandfathcr.’ Of course it sounded like a Whopper and those chaps didn’t believe me until your father was telephoned and then—here it is.” Patrick reached in his pocket with his last words and drew forth the queer, yellowed envelope which was made by folding a square sheet of paper to- gether as we’d done in kindergarten. It was plainly home-wrought and did look so strange. “Open it, please, Barbara,” said Patrick, and she did so. In it was a half of the certificate and another yel- lowed sheet. Beside these at least a dozen queer old letters fell out on the kitchen table. “Read that,” said Patrick, spreading out the yellow sheet. Barbara bent nearer and did so. “I, Charles Iimson Beson, servant of Charles Carroll, do herein make my confession with the hope that in so doing I make my entrance to heaven the more assured. Being as I approach the state where heaven and the other life is, as it rightly should be, of much thought, I do herein confess my sin. “I have been guilty of accepting money from the 256 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE cousin of one Lord Deems, who hopes to outwit the true heir and bag for himself the vast estates which do lie in Ireland. For this money have I spied upon the mail of my master’s father, Charles Carroll, and taken from it all information which that gentle- man would send the present Lord Deems, a wee chap of thirteen. I have not destroyed these letters, as God is my witness, and herein will seal them. “I have also a half of the baptismal certificate which the cousin of Lord Deems would give much to own. I have prayed me to a strength to refuse the money I might get this way, and also seal that herein. “And from this day, I do no more spying of mails and will pray for my soul. I have also caused to be placed on the altar at Doughoregan Manor Chapel many candles of much expense in the hope that the Virgin will favour me. “Were I of education I would find a way to right this wrong, but being but a poor fellow whose place in life is a low one, I will trust in the Virgin, who rights all wrongs, and slip this beneath the new paper of tapestry pattern which is being put on by a papering artist from Boston way. “I sign myself a servant of “Charles Carroll, owner of ‘Homewood.’ ” “Oh!” said Barbara as she finished, “Pat!” “Oh, Kiddy!” he answered. Then, together they began slitting the old en- velopes. “I have cut the certificate, corner to cor- ner,” read Patrick from one old piece of paper, “feeling that somewhere near me is treachery and FINDING 257 one who is not true. Half of this I have given Barbara Heath, a friend of my son’s who is a beauti- ful woman and one in whom trust is well placed. She assured me that the paper would receive good care and disposal.” “Just think,” said Barbara, “Barbara Heath, for whom I was named!” Patrick smiled'down at her. “It doesn’t surprise me,” he said, “I’d expect help from any one named Barbara.” Then again he turned to his letters, not looking as if he wanted to turn away from Barbara, but as if he thought he’d better. “The night I did give the half of the certificate to Mistress Barbara Heath,” read Patrick, “she did sicken, marvellous quick, and die. I have no clue to where she hid the slip of paper, nor can a body help me. I have a search on, and I pray me I have done no great wrong in my foolish fear of what might be. Mayhap I am but a foolish old man, but I think often that things are not as they should be else would I hear from you. Are you lettered and receiving of a proper education? A man of estates must learn his Greek and Latin and be a fencer and sit well upon a horse. Your father and I 1’ Patrick stopped. “Well,” he said, there it is, all solved. Every- thin ” CHAPTER XXIII GETTING WELL By Barbara HILE it isn’t exactly nice to be sick, it is lovely to get well! And every one was so dear to me. It made me feel like a little green apple worm—I was and am so unworthy of all their love! . . . I couldn’t think of it very much, because you cry so easily when you’re getting well. And thinking of how you love your family and how they love you makes you want to cry any time. At least if they’re as nice as my family is! So of course I had to think in a restrained way. One day in the early part of March when the air had grown very warm and lovely and the sun was beginning to get really summer gold I had an im- promptu reception. Miss White, who is the nicest nurse, said I really must be quite quiet and that she was going to leave me all alone to be so. She said she’d stand Pat’s pink roses over where I could see them and that she 260 GETTING WELL 261 depended on me to try to be a good little girl and relax. . . . Then she stood the roses on a pie crust table near my bed, pulled the shades lower and de- parted. I looked at the roses and thought a little about Pat. Then there was a noise at my door. It opened slowly, very slowly, and Mary Elinor came in. She had a package in her hand. “It’s a present,” she whispered hoarsely. “First I thought I’d give it to Mother and I sort of—decided not to. Then I thought I’d give it to Pat, but he hasn’t done anything but sit around with his head in his hands and stare at the rugs since you’ve been sick—and now I think I’ll give it to you.” I thanked her, of course. “It’s a pin cushion,” she announced importantly, as she undid it herself. “And, Barbara, I guess I’ll take back the ribbon I’ve tied it with to use on Daddy’s next Christmas present.” I said that would be perfectly all right and waited for her to bring it over to the bed. She did and I began to make an awful fuss, when suddenly I saw some of the stufiing. She’d sewed the thing up rather loosely and whatever was inside stuck out. . . . What stuck out was white and just the colour of Professor Winthrop’s whiskers! I nearly fainted. “It’s beautiful,” I said. “What’s inside?” “Oh,” she said, “I just can’t remember,” and she GETTING WELL 265 know I tried in every way I could to marry Patrick Deems?” Patrick jumped, Aunt Louise nodded, and Mother grew white. “I didn’t care about him,” went on Alix, “but I hated being poor. So twice I tore up notes Barbara sent him, and I lied about him to her and about her to him—millions of times! I thought he stole things, and protected him because I thought if Daddy knew he wouldn’t let me marry him. I let him think that little eight year old Peter Murray was a beau of Barbara’s. I said she was ‘taken with him’ and it hurt you, Pat, didn’t it, and made a difference?” “It hurt,” said Pat, and again he put his hand over mine. “Then when I was in tight places I made Barbara take the blame. . . . I slipped that grey tie in her waist when I saw it showed through mine. . . . I took ten thousand dollars from Aunt Louise who bribed me not to marry Augustus—rather she tried to, but that doesn’t matter—fortunately it isn’t spent, or even invested. . . . No decent man would want me, but I won’t take a cent of that money. . . . Now you all know what I am . . . I’m going! Here’s your money,” she said, absolutely flinging the check at Aunt Louise. I sat up and began to cry; I was awfully excited. “Don’t you dare go!” I said. “We all forgive 266 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE you, if there is anything to forgive. If they don’t I won’t get well!” “I told Pat you stole things, that you were a kleptomaniac,” she said, through set teeth. I shook my head. I was past saying it didn’t make any difference. I couldn’t speak because I was so afraid I would cry harder than ever. I held out my arms to her. Then she sort of crumpled up and lost her hardness and crept nearer to me on the bed. And when she was quite near she hid her face on my knees and began to sob so deeply that it frightened me terribly. “Don’t, dear!” I whispered, “don’t!” But noth- ing made any difference. Then I turned to the peo- ple. “Can’t you say something to her?” I demanded irritably. “All sitting there like bumps on logs! Can’t you tell her you’d just as soon have married her, Pat?” He shook his head. “’Fraid not, Kiddy,” he answered. I glared at him, I was so mad! “How about you?” I demanded of Augustus. “If you like her at all, you might say you’d be friends again and that you’ll never think of this again ” “Not before an audience!” he said with a gulp. “But—give me a chance!” Then every one laughed and Alix sat up. “If you’ll put me on trial,” she said, “I’m going to try to be—a different person. . . . I’ve learned in these 268 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE ceiling. Then Mother hurried off; I don’t know why; she usually says good-bye when she leaves me. “Why did she hurry off?” I said. ‘ “Telephone rang,” said Father gruflly. I hadn’t heard it. He blinked a lot too. Something had upset him, but I was still too weak to wonder much about it; I only squeezed his hand. And I turned to Patrick and he was in the same shape. “What—” I began, when Miss White came in. “How much have you rested?” she said; and then to Daddy, “You ought to know better than this. I’ll wager the whole crowd has been in here sitting on the bed.” “That makes me get well!” I said. “In due measure,” she answered. “Now, gentle- men, move !” Miss White is eVer so decided. They moved. Daddy threw me a kiss from the doorway, and Patrick followed suit although he isn’t supposed to do anything like that for several months. Then Daddy put his hand on Pat’s shoulder and shook him and they disappeared. “Mrs. Pembroke-Smith,” said Miss White, “I’m sorry but we must have a little quiet ” Aunt Louise arose. “I want to speak to her, just a mo- ment—alone, please—” Miss White went in the hall and Aunt Louise leaned over me. “Barbara,” she said, “I like you. Nice child. Buy your trousseau, prettiest one an earth. . . . 270 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “I wish she could be, poor child,” said Miss White. “I want to see him!” I screamed, and he came in a moment and kissed me when Miss White had gone to get me a drink. Then he told me he was glad I felt better, that he’d torn the knee out of his serge trousers and that he had a new tie and then Miss White came back and cut him off. Then there was ten minutes’ more peace. After that Alix burst in. Miss White looked frightfully tried. “I’ve got to see her!” said Alix, “I’m engaged!” Miss White let her come over to the bed. “It’s dugustus!” she said. “Well, I didn’t think it was the ash man,” I an- swered, and then she kissed me. “You’re going to be the bride’s maid,” she said, “the only one. We’re going to be married in the garden next June, very simply. I only want simplicity for the rest of my life. Money and things are NOTHING!” “I know it,” I answered, “but, Alix, since you’ve learned that—go face your ghost. Go look on the pin cushion as you used to for Aunt Louise. . . .” “You’re foolish,” she answered. “Please!” I begged. She went. “What——” she gasped, and then she came walk- ing back, a piece of paper in her hands. It was the GETTING WELL 271 check, of course. . . . On the envelope Aunt Louise had written: “For a girl who has learned the value of love and lies.” “Who—who put it there?” she gasped. “Aunt Louise,” said I. After she had gone, I lay thinking for some time, really quietly. Everything seemed right. Alix had shed all her mistaken ideas as if they’d been clothes, badly fitting clothes of horrid colours. . . . Mother was to have enough money to make the house pretty —and less work. Daddy wouldn’t have to slave so either. Augustus was happy; Patrick could keep his treasured home. And I—well, it seemed to me I had everything in the world that a girl could want- of loveliness and love. . And then I turned over and looked at Patrick’s roses through the blur of my tears. For I’ve found that when you’re really awfully happy, you’re apt to cry! ma..mw. "w". w, _ CHAPT ER XXIV GROWING YOUNG By Mrs. Crane SUPPOSE I should be thinking about getting I old, but I’m not. I really haven’t had time. With a big family around who always need a button attached or a tuck put in, or a little loving put on, one doesn’t think much of one’s self. You’re al- ways busy and it’s made me grow younger—or feel it—each year. I needed to think of some one else. I was a very selfish young woman and although I am still somewhat so, my family have made me much nicer. I can’t think how I came to have such won- derfully dear daughters and so fine a son. This morning just after I’d paid the milk man and given him a few of the green cough pills (he’s had a bad cold all fall) I had a special delivery from Alix. It seems so queer to think of Alix with a little daughter who wears my name! Here is what she wrote: 272 GROWING YOUNG 273 “Mother darling: Baby sneezed twice yesterday. Do ask Father whether that was all right. She seemed quite normal after it, except for ‘spitting up,’ but I imagine her Daddy caused this by picking her up too soon after her nine course dinner. I wish you were nearer, (so often, dear, and for so many reasons) but I suppose it is better that you aren’t. I’d be bothering you all the time. You taught me to, you know! “This morning I had a lovely present from Aunt Louise. Some material for my daughter’s frocks and twenty dollars. I want Augustus to put the money with some more and buy an overcoat, but he wants me to buy a hat. Isn’t that like him? . . . And I once thought I would hate saving, and plan- ning and scrimping! Mother, isn’t it wonderful how romance can tangle up with coal and ordering milk and putting on buttons and buying soap? I think if more girls would only realise this that they would be so much happier! And I think if you mix the ingredients everything is just as it should be; otherwise it is like one of Daddy’s medicines, (a should-be-shaken, unshwken) with everything mis- erable staying in one large dose at the bottom.” And Alix’ realisation of that did please me so much, for it is the secret of the happiness in life— that mixing laughter with the stupid things and love with every day. Barbara always knew it, but few people do. I had a letter from Barbara this morning, too, but I GROWING YOUNG 275 as a ” And then, as Pat said, he tried to out- shine a semaphore. My dear sister replied, “Stuf, you fool! Your tie’s lying in the strawberry bed!” After which she turned and flounced off, but I knew she was pleased. We had the samovar taken out on a table under the arbour and little cakes and fancily shaped ices which looked better than they tasted. And there were toasts and laughter and talk and some tears. Dear old Black Aunty disappeared behind her apron and sobbed aloud every time she looked at Alix. . . . Alix was her first baby. The way she loved her made her almost as much hers as mine. . . . I understood and I felt so too, but I thought of all the child was going to and what love could teach her, as it had me, and I tried not to let any one see what I felt inside. Then Alix went off and “her sisters (and her Mother) and her cousins and her aunt” helped her get into a demure grey travelling suit and a little grey toque banded with pink panne velvet roses, and we went down. . . . On the landing she paused to throw her bouquet of course, and Barbara caught it. But we didn’t know then how soon after the first the second wedding would be. There was a little rice, some slippers, a lot of white ribbon, noise, laughter, kissing, and then— they were gone! 276 BARBARA OF BALTIMORE “Well,” said Barbara, a trifle unsteadily, from the front door where she still stood, “I have a queer feeling near my heart and I don’t think it’s indi- gestion. . . . I—I suggest we have lots of music and dance hard!” And we did. ' After Alix and Augustus came back from their wedding trip he was offered a splendid position by a Pennsylvania college and they are happily situated and happy, thank heaven! But to get on—Patrick decided he would not leave Barbara. He said, if I recall correctly, that he’d be “dashed if he’d go loping across the Atlantic” leav- ing her unguarded for “some jolly cad to carry off!” And he set his chin and we began to realise that Patrick has determination; and I love him for it, but more for the way he loves Barbara. Then one morning he had a cablegram from his uncle and it held bad news. The uncle was not well and he wanted to see Patrick. He urged him to hurry home and not to worry; but Patrick, looking very unhappy, explained that his uncle was a “dead game sport” and so he couldn’t tell just how bad it was. “I—I care for him the deuce of a lot!” he blurted out, looking down at the message and then Barbara took her stand. “Pat,” she said, “if you’re going, I am too. GROWING YOUNG 277 '( Daddy, don’t look like that!) Pat really needs me along and I think I need to go if I’m needed. Don’t you, Patrick Goven ?” “Do I?” said Patrick. He laid down the cable- gram and put his arm around Barbara. Then he looked at Barbara’s father, who was not, it must be confessed, entirely reaonable about the afiair. “You can trust me to take the best of care of her,” he said slowly, and he has. They were married soon and sailed the day after the wedding. At that time Ireland seemed a long way off, but now—somehow, with peace and the close feeling that it has brought . . . things like distance seem changed. . . . The English are more truly our cous- ins and their land our neighbour’s home. . . . It is wonderful that so many great things may grow from anything so terrible as war, things like love and a great deal more charity, more reasonable spending of much money, a more useful using of time—and greatest, a closer world feel. Barbara said in her to-day’s letter, but I must quote: “Mother dearest: I can hardly wait for you and Daddy and William and Mary Elinor to come! Pat is going to send a draft to-day and I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting accommodations. Most people have made their three-day inspection of the battlefields, I think, by this time. f--