Four Girls and a Compact Part 5

"That's T.O.! Girls, let's run!" she heard Billy say.

"Why doesn't _she_ run?" Laura Ann demanded severely. "That would be perfectly appropriate under the circ.u.mstances."

"'Tis queer, isn't it, that she didn't come to meet us?" Loraine added.

In another moment they had reached Emmeline Camp's little green-painted house and found the Talented One waiting impatiently at the gate. Things explained themselves rapidly. Exclamations of pity crowded upon exclamations of delight and welcome. Four happy young wage-earners sat down to T.O.'s hardly-prepared little supper and four tongues were loosed. Even Loraine did her part of the chattering.

"I feel so nice and _placid_ already!" enthused Billy.

"Oh, so do I!--so do I!" echoed Laura Ann. "It's such a comfort to get one's chains off!--I felt mine slip off back there at that dear, funny little station."

"Oh, was _that_ what I heard clanking?" offered quiet Loraine, and was promptly cheered.

The meal was a merry one. And afterwards there was exploring to be done about the little yard and orchard and up and down the road, in the dim, sweet twilight, with the Talented One at the gate calling soft directions.

"And I've got a blue pump for you," she laughed. "Just wait till daylight! Don't anybody feel of it in the dark to see if it's blue, because you'll find it's green! There's a story goes with the pump and one with its mother--I mean with the boy-who-painted-its mother! Placid Pond is full of stories."

"Nice, dozy, placid ones, I suppose," Laura Ann returned lightly. But the Talented One shook her head.

"Wait till you hear them," she said gravely.

"Give us some of the t.i.tles to-night," coaxed Billy. They were all back on the little doorsteps and the moon was rising, majestic and golden, behind the trees.

"Well--" she considered thoughtfully, "there's 'The Story of Amelia', and the story of 'The Boy Who Didn't Pa.s.s', and the one of 'Old '61'--",

"Oh, tell us--tell us!" Billy pleaded, and would not be refused. It was never easy to refuse Billy. She had her way this time, and there in the mellow night-light, with soft night-noises all about them, T.O. told her stories. She had never told a story before in her life, and her voice at first stumbled diffidently, but as she went on, a queer thing happened--she did not seem to be telling it herself, but the little old woman who loved Amelia seemed to be telling it! Then the Boy Who Didn't Pa.s.s, then Old '61, in his tremulous, halting old voice.

They listened in perfect silence, and even after the stories ended they said nothing. Billy, quite unashamed, was crying over poor Old '61.

"You'd have thought, wouldn't you," T.O. murmured after a while, "that places like this would be humdrum-y and commonplace? But I guess there are 'stories' everywhere. I'm beginning to find out things, girls."

The next day began in earnest the long-yearned-for time of rest. It was decided unanimously over the breakfast cups, to live and move, eat and all but sleep, out of doors. To devote four separate and four combined energies to having a good time. To abide by the rules and regulations of the Wicked Compact--long live the Wicked Compact! Laura Ann made an illuminated copy of it, framed it in a border of hurriedly-painted forget-me-nots and hung it on the screen door, where they could not help seeing it and "remembering their vows," Laura Ann said. It was a matter of gay conjecture with them who would be the first to break the Compact.

"And be driven out of the B-Hive--not I!" Billy said decisively. "I shan't have the least temptation to break it, anyway--I feel selfish all over! You couldn't drive me to do a good deed with a--a pitchfork!"

"Me either--not even with a darning-needle!" laughed Laura Ann. "If anybody asks me to lend her a pin, hear me say, 'Can't, my dear; it's against the rules.' Needn't anybody worry about losing me out o' the Hive!"

"Loraine will be the one--you see," T.O. said lazily. "And what I want to know is, how are we going to live without Loraine? I vote we append a by-law. By-law I.: 'Resolved, that we except Loraine--just Loraine.'"

"Second the motion," murmured Billy, on her back in the gra.s.s, nibbling clover heads.

"No," Loraine said severely, "I refuse to be put into a by-law."

The summer days were long days--lazy, somnolent days. The four girls spent them each in her own separate way. Sometimes the little colony met only at mealtimes--with glowing reports of the mornings' or afternoons'

wanderings.

Billy, it was noticed, although like the rest she wandered abroad, made no reports. Had she had a good time? Yes--yes, of course. Where had she been all the morning or all the afternoon? Oh--oh, to places. Woods?

Yes--that is, almost woods. And more than that they failed to elicit.

Nearly every day she started away by herself, and after awhile they noticed that she went in the same direction. She went briskly, alertly, like one with a definite end in view. Now, where did Billy go? Their vagrant curiosity was aroused, but not yet to the point of investigation.

Old '61 knew. Every morning since that first morning he had strained his dim old eyes to catch a glimpse of a little figure coming blithely up the road. On that first morning it had stopped in front of his little house and said pleasant things to him as he sat on the doorsteps. He remembered all the things.

"Good-morning! It's a splendid day, isn't it?"

And: "What a perfectly lovely place you live in! With the woods so near you can shake hands with them out of your windows!"

And: "Don't the birds wake you up mornings? I wonder what they sing about up here." Then she had glanced at his ancient army coat and added the Pleasantest Thing Of All: "I think they must sing Battle Hymns and Red, White and Blue songs and 'Marching Through Georgia,' don't they?"

"Not the last one," he had answered sadly. "They never sing that. If they did, I'd 'a' learnt it of 'em long ago."

"Do you like that one best--very best?" she had asked, and he liked to remember how she had smiled. He had stood up then and thrown back his old shoulders proudly.

"Why, you see, marm," he had said simply, "I _marched_ through Georgy!"

The next morning, too, she had stopped and talked to him. But it was not until the third time that he had ventured to ask her to whistle it. And then--Old '61, now peering down the road for the blithe little figure, thrilled again at the remembrance of what had happened. She had laughed gently and said she did not know how to whistle, but if he would like her to sing it--

There had been eight mornings all told, now, counting this morning, which was sure to be. Yes, clear 'way down there somebody was comin'

swingin' along--somebody little an' happy an' spry. Old '61 began to laugh softly. He could hardly wait for her to come and sit down on the doorstep and sing it. Two or three times--she would sing it two or three times.

He had a surprise for her this morning. With great pains he had dragged his cabinet organ out onto the little porch. It was all open, ready.

He went a little way down the road in his eagerness to meet her.

"Good-morning!" Billy called brightly. "Am I late to-day?"

"Jest a little--jest a little," he quavered joyously, "but I'll forgive ye! There's somethin' waitin' up there--I've got a surprise for ye!"

"Honest?" Billy stood still in the road, looking into the eager, childish old face. "Oh, goody! I love surprises. Am I to guess it?"

"No, no, jest to come an' play on it!" he quavered. Then a cloud settled over his face and dimmed the delight in it. "Mebbe you don't know how to?" he added, a tremulous upward lift to his voice.

"How to 'play on' a surprise!" cried Billy. "Well, how am I to know until I see it? I can play on 'most everything else!"

They had got to the little front gate--were going up the little carefully-weeded path--were very close to it now. Billy sprang up the steps.

"I can! I can!" she laughed. "Hear me!" Her fingers ran up and down the keys, then settled into a soft, sweet little melody. Another and another--

The old man on the lower step sat patiently listening and waiting. If she did not play it soon, he should have to ask her to, but he would rather have her play it without. Perhaps the next one--

The next one was beautiful, but not It--not _It_--not the Right One.

"There!" finished Billy with a flourish. "You see, I _can_ play on a surprise!" She stopped abruptly at sight of the disappointed old face below her. For an instant she was bewildered, then a beautiful instinct that had lain unused on some shelf of Billy's mind came to life and whispered to her what the trouble was.

"Oh!" she cried softly, "Oh, I'm sorry I forgot!" She turned back to the little organ and began to play again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD MAN SAT LISTENING AND WAITING.]

Up went the sagging old head, up the sagging old shoulders! Old '61 was back in "Georgy," marching through mud and pine-barrens, in cold and hunger and weariness--with the boys, from Atlanta to the sea. Hurrah!

hurrah! the flag that made them free!