Glory and the Other Girl Part 4

"Wait," the Other Girl said quickly, "I hate to waste a minute, but I've got to say something. I want you to know what it may mean if you do this for me. It may mean luxuries for my sick mother and--a chance for my little 'Tiny Tim.' Do you know, my teachers said if I could only keep on I might get a place to teach. Think of it! Do you know, some doctors told mother once that there was a little chance of straightening Timmie's bad leg, if we had the money. Oh, do you know this _may_ mean things like that! Do you think I'm not thankful to you?"

The impetuous words flowed out in a hurried stream, and the eyes of the Other Girl, as they looked into Glory's, shone through a dazzle of happy tears. For a moment after the eager voice ceased neither girl made a sound. Then it was Glory who spoke.

"Why!" she cried with a long breath, "Why, I didn't know it could mean anything like that! I thought it would just mean getting a little learning. I didn't know there were things like that at the other end of it."

Glory had lived a little less than sixteen years, but they had been "different" from the years the Other Girl had lived. Aunt Hope had been all the suffering she had ever seen--Aunt Hope, smiling and brave, on her silken pillows. Until that sad little story the other night, she had scarcely connected anything sorrowful or hard to bear with Aunt Hope.

The beautiful autumn weeks multiplied to months, and Glory's plan prospered thriftily. The lessons went on steadily through the morning and afternoon rides. The Other Girl's face was set toward a possible, splendid time to come; Glory's was set toward patience and gentleness. For it was not always easy to give up the hour and a half each day to the distasteful work that she so cordially hated. At first, I mean; strangely enough, after a while things changed. Glory woke up one day to find herself keenly interested in a knotty problem. She could hardly wait to get her head beside the Other Girl's, to see if together they could not solve it.

"Think of it, auntie! Is it me, or am I somebody else?" she laughed, hurrying in to kiss Aunt Hope good-by. "Think of _me_ in a hurry to get an answer to a problem!"

"Yes, it's you, dear. It's Glory Glorified!" laughed back the sweet voice. Then she drew the girl's bright head down beside her. "It's gone, dear. The Ambition out of my heart. It's pa.s.sed to somebody else--to you, I think, Glory--yes, I'm confident! You've got it this minute!"

And Glory understood. She went away wondering if it could be true that she, Gloria Wetherell, had a real ambition in life.

"Auntie hasn't called me Disappointment for a long time," she mused happily, as she sped down the frosty street with the nip of keen air on her cheeks and the tonic of it in her lungs. Her mind hurried back to the knotty problem. She and the Other Girl were still at work on it that night, coming home. It happened that it had not been taken up in the recitation that day.

"It looks so easy and it isn't," sighed Glory.

"But we're bound to solve it," the Other Girl cried. The two heads were close together, and the Crosspatch Conductor smiled as he pa.s.sed them. He had been watching them with a good deal of interest for a long time. This time he turned and came back.

"Tough one, eh?" he said.

"Awfully!" laughed Glory.

"But we're going to get it," smiled the Other Girl, going back to the front. The Crosspatch Conductor stood regarding Glory gravely.

"Helping her along, eh?"

"No," answered Glory, "she's helping me."

Another wrestle with the problem, and still another--then an exciting moment when victory seemed in sight. Closer drew the brown heads--more earnest grew the eager voices. "We've got it!"

"Goody!" cried Glory. "Just in time, too, for here we are at--"

Her face sobered. She got to her feet in a sudden panic. What was this strange little place they were drawing into? Those woods, the houses and the trees--they were not Little Douglas.

"I've been carried by!" gasped Glory. "I wasn't noticing. There isn't any other train back to-night--I tell you I've been _carried by_.

This isn't my home!"

Chapter V.

As Glory stood on the desolate little platform, realizing that she had been carried by her own station, she presented a picture of dismay. For an instant the Other Girl stood regarding her with indecision. Then with a slight flush she stepped to Glory's side, and, placing her hand on her arm, said:

"You have been carried by your home, but you have not been taken by mine. Come with me; you will not mind much." There was a shy pleading in the Other Girl's tone. On the instant of offering hospitality to this dainty new friend, and acute perception of the barrenness of it overswept and dismayed her. In a flash she saw the patch on the seat of Tim's trousers, and instantly an array of mismatched cups, nicked plates and cracked pitchers, pa.s.sed before her vision. Had the dainty Glory in all her life eaten from a nicked plate?

But instantly she rallied and was her own sweet self.

"It is only a little way. We will try to make you comfortable," the Other Girl said hurriedly. Her thoughts seemed to have occupied a long time, and she feared her invitation might have seemed lacking in cordiality. Glory scanned her face, then said:

"There isn't any train back to-night--not one. I _can't_ go back. If you are sure it will not be a trouble-- But what will Aunt Hope do?

She will be so worried!"

The train was wriggling into motion, and Glory caught sight of the Crosspatch Conductor on one end of the platform. She ran toward him wrathfully.

"Goodness! You _here?_" he cried.

"You carried me by!" Glory cried. "I don't think it was very nice in you!" Then she laughed at the honest dismay in his grim face. The train was under way and she had to raise her voice to call after him.

"Never mind! I'm going with my friend. I'll--forgive--you!"

"Oh, I'm glad you said that!" the Other Girl exclaimed earnestly.

"I'm glad you said 'my friend.' Come, it's this way, just around one corner."

But Glory hesitated. "Is there any chance anywhere to telephone?" she asked. "I've _got_ to send word to auntie. She would worry all night long, I know she would. I never stayed away from her but once before, and that time I telephoned. There's a wire in our house, you know."

The Other Girl reflected. "There's one at the store," she said, "but it's quite a walk. I don't mind it myself. I love to walk. But you--"

"But I do, too!" Glory laughed, tucking her hand through the shabby jacket sleeve in the friendliest way. "And if I didn't, do you suppose it would matter? I'd walk to a telephone that had Aunt Hope at the other end of it, if I had to go on one foot!"

"Like Tiny Tim," the Other Girl smiled gently. "But Timmy can walk as fast as anybody. He makes that little crutch of his do almost anything but skip."

"Skip! Oh, how I used to skip when I was little! I can remember it as plain!"

"I don't believe I ever was young. At any rate, I never skipped,"

added the Other Girl thoughtfully.

"Never skipped! Then it's time you did. It's never to late to--skip.

Come on, I'll show you how."

Gayly they went skipping down the stretch of snowy roadway, with their arms around each other. The crisp air reddened the tips of their ears and patted their backs approvingly. For once, at any rate, the Other Girl was young.

At the "store," Glory telephoned to Aunt Hope. It was quite a while before she could make connections with the private wire, but she waited patiently.

"h.e.l.lo!" she called, her voice unnecessarily high-pitched. "I'm Glory.

Is this you, James? Well, tell auntie I got carried by--_carried by!_ What? Yes, I'm all safe. I'm with my fr-- Why, auntie, that's you! I hear your voice! You ought not to have walked out into the hall! Yes, I'm just as 'all right' as I can be. I'm going home with Diantha.

What? Oh, yes, I knew you'd feel safe about me, then. I sha'n't tell Diantha. It would puff her up! Yes, I wore my rubbers. Yes, I've got my m.u.f.fler. No, my cold's better. Take care of yourself, auntie; good-by. Oh, no, wait! You still there, auntie? Well, the reason I got carried by was because I was so buried up in a problem. Isn't that funny for Glory? Good-by."

Tiny Tim met them at the door of a little brown house near the station. His eyes widened with astonishment at sight of Glory. Then his glance traveled to his sister in evident uneasiness.

"My!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed slowly, "I've e't up the last cooky!"

Glory laughed out merrily. "Oh, I'm so glad!" she said, "for I don't like cookies unless there's a hole in them."

"These had holes. I've e't up the last hole, too."