The Camerons of Highboro Part 23

"No, cry away," said Bruce. "A girl has to cry sometimes."

After a while the racking sobs spent themselves. "There!" she said, sitting up. "I never thought I'd let a boy see me cry. Now I must go in and help Trudy get supper."

She dabbed at her eyes with a wet little wad of linen. Bruce plucked a clean handkerchief from his pocket and tucked it into her fingers.

"Yours doesn't seem quite big enough for the job," he said.

She took it gratefully. She had never thought of a boy as a very comforting person, but Bruce was. "Oh, Bruce, you _know_!"

"Yes, I know."

"It's so--so lonely. Dad's all I've got, of my really own, in the world."

He nodded. "You're gritty, all right."

"Why, Bruce Fearing! how can you say that after the way I've acted?"

"That's why I say it."

"But I'm scared all the time. If I did what I wanted to, I'd be a perpetual fountain."

"And you're not."

She stared at him. "Is being scared and trying to cover it up what you call grit?"

"The grittiest kind of grit."

For a sophisticated girl she was singularly nave, at times. He watched her digest the idea, sitting up on the hay, her chin cupped in her two hands, straws in her hair. Her eyes were swollen and her nose red, and his handkerchief was now almost as wet as her own. "I thought I was an awful coward," she said.

A smile curved his firm lips, but the steady gray eyes were tender. "I shouldn't call you a coward."

She shook herself and stood up. "Bruce, you're a darling. Now, will you please go and see if the coast is clear, so I can slide up-stairs without being seen? I must wash up before supper."

"I'd get supper," he said, "if I didn't have to milk to-night.

Promised Henry."

She shook her head positively. "I'll let you do lots of things, Bruce, but I won't let you get supper for me--not with all the other things you have to do."

"Oh, all right! I dare you to jump off the hay."

"Down there? Take you!" she cried, and with the word sprang into the air.

Beside her the boy leaped, too. They landed lightly on the fragrant ma.s.s in the bay of the barn.

"Oh," she cried, "it's like flying, isn't it! Why wasn't I brought up on a farm?"

There was a little choke still left in her voice, and her smile was a trifle unsteady, but her words were ready enough. In the doorway she turned and waved to the boy and then went on, her head held high, slender and straight and gallant, into the house.

CHAPTER XII

HOME-LOVING HEARTS

Mother Jess and Laura were coming home. Perhaps Father Bob had dropped a hint that their presence was needed in the white house at the end of the road; perhaps, on the other hand, they were just ready to come.

Elliott never knew for certain.

Father Bob met the train, while all the Cameron boys and girls flew around, making ready at home. The plan had developed on the tacit understanding that since they all wished to, it was fairer for none of them to go to the station.

Priscilla and Prince were out watching. "They're coming!" she squealed, skipping back into the house. "Trudy, Elliott, everybody, they're coming!" And she was out again, darting in long swallow-like swoops down the hill. From every direction came Camerons, running; from house, barn, garden, young heads moved swiftly toward the little car chug-chugging up the hill.

They swarmed over it, not giving it time to stop, jumping on the running-board, riding on the hood, almost embracing the car itself in the joy of their welcome. Elliott hung back. The others had the first right. After their turns--

Without a word Aunt Jessica took the girl into her arms and held her tight. In that strong, tender clasp all the stinging ache went out of Elliott's hurt. She wasn't frightened any longer or bewildered or bitter; she didn't know why she wasn't, but she wasn't. She felt just as if, somehow or other, things were going to be right.

She had this feeling so strongly that she forgot all about dreading to meet Laura--for she had dreaded to meet Laura, she was so sorry for her--and kissed her quite naturally. Laura kissed Elliott in return and said, "Wait till I get you up-stairs," as though she meant business, and smiled just as usual. Her face was a trifle pale, but her eyes were bright, and the clear, steady glow in them reminded Elliott for the first time of the light in Aunt Jessica's eyes. She hadn't remembered ever seeing Laura's eyes look just like that. How much did Laura know, Elliott wondered? She wouldn't look so, would she, if she had heard about Pete? But, strangely enough, Elliott didn't fear her finding out or feel nervous lest she might have to tell her.

And after all, as soon as they got up-stairs, it came out that Laura did know about Pete, for she said: "I'm glad, oh, so glad, that wherever Pete is now, he got across and had a chance really to do something in this fight. If you had seen what I have seen this last week, Elliott--"

The s.h.i.+ning look in Laura's face fascinated Elliott.

All at once she felt her own words come as simply and easily as Laura's. "But will that be enough, Laura--always?"

"No," said Laura, "not always. But I shall always be proud and glad, even if I do have to miss him all my life. And, of course, I can't help feeling that we may hear good news yet. Now--oh, you blessed, blessed girl!"

And the two clung together in a long close embrace that said many things to both of them, but not a word aloud.

How good it seemed to have Mother Jess and Laura in the house! Every one went about with a hopeful face, though, after all, not an inch had the veil of silence lifted that hung between the Cameron farm and the world overseas. Every one, Elliott suspected, shared the feeling she had known, the certainty that all would be well now Mother Jess was home. It wasn't anything in particular that Mother Jess said or did that contributed to this impression. Just to see her face in a room, to touch her hand now and then, to hear her voice, merely to know she was in the house, seemed enough to give it.

They all had so much to say to one another. The returned travelers must tell of Sidney, and the Camerons who had stayed at home had tales of how they had "carried on" in the others' absence. Tongues were very busy, but no one forgot those who weren't there--not for a minute. The sense of them lived underneath all the confidences. There were confidences _en ma.s.se_, so to speak, and confidences _a deux_.

Priscilla chattered away into her mother's ear without once stopping to catch breath, and Bruce had his own quiet report to make. Perhaps Bruce and Priscilla and the rest said more than Elliott heard, for when Aunt Jessica bade her good-night she rested a hand lightly on the girl's shoulder.

"You dear, brave little woman!" she said. "All the soldiers aren't in camp or over the seas."

Elliott put the words away in her memory. They made her feel like a man who has just been decorated by his general.

She felt so comforted and quiet, so free from nervousness, that not even the telephone bell could make her jump. It tinkled pretty continuously, too. That was because all the next day the neighbors who didn't come in person were calling up to inquire for the returned travelers. Elliott quite lost the expectation that every time the telephone buzzed it meant a possible message for her.

She had lost it so completely that when, as they were on the point of sitting down at supper, Laura said, "There's the telephone again, and my hands are full," Elliott remarked, "I'll see who it is," and took down the receiver without a thought of a cable.

"This is Elliott Cameron speaking.... Yes--yes. Elliott Cameron. All ready." A tremor crept into the girl's voice. "I didn't get that....

Just received my message? Yes, go on.... Repeat, please.... Wait a minute till I call some one."

She wheeled from the instrument, her face alight. "Where's Bruce?

Please, somebody, call--oh, here you are!" She thrust the receiver into his hands. "Make them repeat the message to you. It's from Father. Pete was a prisoner. He's escaped and got back to our lines."

Then she slipped into Aunt Jessica's waiting arms.