Peggy-Alone Part 35

"The roof? Whereabouts? Where is she, I say? Where were you?" She took hold of their shoulders as if to shake the answers out of them.

Alas, when they spoke her worst fears were confirmed! The children had climbed the four flights of steps to the tower room, where Lois had crawled out upon the roof; they called to her and in trying to turn she had slipped out of sight over the edge.

Laura ran moaning toward the foot of the tower, dreading to find a little crushed body lying there inert, but no! the crowd was gazing upward horror-stricken, and she caught a glimpse of a white object clinging to a swinging ladder high up in the air.

Between the second story and the sloping tower roof a scaffold had been erected by workmen who were repairing the walls. Fearing possible injury to the children by falling stones, Mr. Dawson had instructed them not to work on the day of the picnic and they had secured the scaffold from the reach of mischievous boys, placing it fortunately just in position to arrest the child's fall.

"If only she doesn't get dizzy!" a voice was saying and Laura for the first time noticed that a boy was scaling the wall. Favored by the thick vines and uneven stones up he went with the agility of an acrobat. He was bareheaded and the sun shone on his face, reddened with exertion, and on his sandy hair and Laura recognized him as one of the Stony Road boys, the one she had talked with on the gla.s.s-boat.

"It's Bud Waters--the rest of us were too heavy to try it, and he was off like a squirrel, soon as he saw the child," explained Mat hurriedly. He was with a crowd of boys, among whom were Mark, Hugh, and Jed, carrying a coil of rope.

"We're going up to the roof--if she only holds out that long!"

"Mat, Mat, it's our Lois!" wailed Laura. She saw Mat's face blanch, and the crowd pa.s.sed, leaving her half crazed. She knew that Alene and Ivy were standing beside her with tears in their eyes, murmuring half audible prayers, but she did not see them. Her gaze turned steadily upon the little hanging figure, and on the boy who went climbing up the wall.

Ah, he has almost reached the goal--he has grasped the ladder--a thrill went through the crowd--he is holding the little one safe from harm!

Then, seated beside her on the ladder, he gave a whoop of joy that was answered by the crowd's enthusiastic cries. A moment later the other boys were seen at the narrow windows above and the rope came gliding over the roof.

Then everything became a blur to Laura; she heard a shout of many voices and knew no more until she found herself sitting on a bench with Mrs. Major fanning her, Miss Marlin demanding fiercely from everybody why she had forgotten to bring her lavender salts, Kizzie dancing round with a gla.s.s of water, and Ivy and Alene kneeling on the gra.s.s chafing her hands, and then, oh blessed sight, Uncle Fred coming across the lawn with Lois safe in his arms!

On seeing her big sister, she stuck a tiny finger into her mouth half abashed.

"Lawa, don't cwy! I didn't mean to go so far down the woof!" she cried, cuddling into Laura's arms.

"Oh, girls! I could kneel to that boy! I'd go and kiss him now only I know boys hate to be fussed over!" declared Laura.

"I'll give him a bushel of kisses!" cried Lois rapturously, whereupon they kissed her all round while Nettie looked on enviously at the stir the little maid was making.

"I wonder why when I'm naughty I get a scolding instead of kisses," she confided to Claude.

"I suppose it's because you've never been quite that naughty, though you've been pretty bad," he said, which latter a.s.surance consoled his chum.

CHAPTER XXVII

IN THE TOWER

Later in the evening when the smaller children had gone home, some of the others proposed a visit to the tower room to view the sunset, and a gay crowd scurried up the stairs.

Ivy, who could climb the stairs almost as nimbly as her mates, lingered in the rear with Jack Lever.

"It's pretty hard lines," he remarked smilingly, answering her sympathetic expression.

"Yes, indeed, but you will be all right in no time! Just be thankful it won't last for years and years!"

"The brave little gipsy!" thought Jack. He gave her a kindly glance, noting with an insight gained by his late acquaintance with pain, the marks of suffering always so pathetic on a childish face.

"Things like this teach us a lot, don't you think? I feel as if I'd become quite old, tied so long to a sofa, like a thing-um-bub--those lace affairs the girls make, you know--"

"A tidy?"

"Untidy I call 'em, always sticking to a fellow's coat! If it wasn't for the Torchlights, I'd have gone all to pieces."

Ivy started, but curbing her curiosity and profiting by Laura's experience she merely repeated,

"The--the Torchlights?"

"Yes, our club, you know."

Ivy felt that Jack was ready and willing to enlarge upon the theme; she chuckled inwardly, gleefully antic.i.p.ating the tale she would have for the other girls.

Alas, at that moment Jed came up the stairs with a large pitcher of lemonade and gla.s.ses on a tray, and Kizzie followed with a huge frosted cake.

"We thought you would like this, along with the sunset," she said.

Together they climbed the fourth and last flight of stairs and received a noisy greeting from the others on entering the tower room.

Jack gave them an elaborate bow.

"I a.s.sure you, my friends, we feel flattered by this demonstrative welcome."

"We don't want to throw cold lemonade on your joy, me boy, but your credentials are excellent," returned Mat, taking the cake from Kizzie.

Jed and the little maid, a.s.sisted by the boys, proceeded to pour out lemonade and to cut cake amid the clinking of gla.s.ses and merry talk.

The tower room was of octagon shape; crimson tapestry curtains edged with tarnished gilt fringe hung at the eight narrow windows, and a rug of faded crimson velvet half covered the painted floor. A heavy walnut table and a revolving bookcase graced the centre of the room, and an old fas.h.i.+oned wooden settee and several ancient chairs stood round, now occupied by the young people who ate and drank and chattered, the majority quite unmindful of their journey's object--Old Sol, in his departing splendor, glorifying the clouds with prismatic color, ere he sank beyond the far-reaching hills.

"You look quite uplifted," cried Alene, when Ivy, one of the few onlookers, turned from the window.

She gave an expressive glance backward toward the fast-fading sky.

"It's that and something Hugh just told me. He spoke to Dr. Medway--"

"Yes, I know, and oh, I'm so glad!"

"And I too!" cried Laura, joining them.

"I like Dr. Medway; he never once called me 'an interesting case' but talked as if I were just a little girl he would like to see cured.

When I think of it I feel so queer, I have to keep tight hold of my crutches, to keep from floating away into the air, like a balloon!"

Ivy glanced across the room. "Things seem to be upside down, for there I imagine I see Hugh and Mark Griffin buzzing together like two old gossips!"

"It's not imagination; all the boys are as amiable as the children when they play Mrs. Come-to-See! They were tottering on the brink of friends.h.i.+p and Lois toppled them over into each other's arms."

"You Happy-Go-Luckys look to your laurels; Hugh and I belong to a club of our own now!" called Mat.

"What, the Torchlights?" chorused the three.