Sally paused a moment to digest that phrase. Then she sighed.
"You know more about it than I do. I"ll do just what you say, Fox."
The gate clicked and they both looked around.
"Here comes Henrietta," said Fox. "Now we"ll all go out in the shade and play. But, Sally," he added hastily, "have you got any rich relatives?"
"Rich relatives!" Sally exclaimed. "Not that I know of. Or, wait.
There"s Miss Hazen--Martha Hazen. She"s a cousin of father"s, but I don"t know how rich she is. I"ve never seen her."
"Where does she live?"
"Up in Ma.s.sachusetts, somewhere. I think she"s queer."
"The queerer the better. Your father"s cousin, is she? It wouldn"t be strange. Can you find out where she lives, Sally?"
Sally thought she could. "And, Fox," she reminded him,--she was afraid he might forget,--"you see if you can"t come here to live. Will you, Fox?"
He nodded. Henrietta was at the piazza steps. "I"ll ask Doctor Galen about it."
"What"ll you ask Doctor Galen about, Fox?" inquired Henrietta. "Are you and Sally talking secrets?"
"I"ll ask the doctor what should be done with a very troublesome little sister," he answered, smiling at her.
"You might get rid of her by sending her off to boarding-school,"
Henrietta remarked. "Not that she wants to go."
"No boarding-school for you yet, young lady. There are one hundred reasons why, and the first is--is so important that the ninety-nine others don"t matter."
Fox had caught himself just in time. He had intended to say that he didn"t have the money. Well, he hadn"t; but he didn"t mean to tell Sally so.
"I suppose that first reason," said Henrietta, "is that you can"t spare me."
"Wrong. That is the second. And the third is that you are too young.
Never mind the others. We are going out to play now, Henrietta." Sally darted into the house. "Where are you going, Sally?"
"After Charlie," she called softly. "I"ll be right back. And let"s be sauruses!"
"Sauruses it is," Fox returned. "I say, Henrietta, can you climb trees as well as Sally?"
"Well, not quite"--hesitating--"but I"m learning."
"You live in a cave with Charlie," he said decidedly.
CHAPTER XII
To tell the truth, the question of money had been troubling Fox somewhat, for he did not have an "awful lot," to use Sally"s words.
There was enough for him and Henrietta to live upon in great comfort; but when the amount which will support two people in comfort has to take care of five, it needs to be spread pretty thin. To be sure, there was no particular reason why Fox should have felt obliged to look out for the Ladues. One wonders why he did it. That question had occurred to him, naturally, but only to be dismissed at once, unanswered. He could not leave that little family in their misfortunes without visible means of support, and that was the end of it.
These considerations will serve to explain Fox"s state of mind: why he felt it to be necessary to provide for Sally"s future; to see to it that she should have a future of any kind. They may also explain his inquiries about rich relatives. Not that he had, at the moment, any definite idea as to his course of action in the event that she had such desirable and convenient appendages. In fact, it remained to be seen whether they were either desirable or convenient. And he wished very much that it might be considered no impropriety for him and Henrietta to live at the Ladues". It would simplify many matters.
Doctor Galen, to whom he spoke, with some hesitation, of this wish of his, rea.s.sured him.
"I should say that it would be a very wise move," said the doctor, smiling. "Where is the impropriety?"
Fox murmured something about Professor Ladue and about his seeming to take the management of his family out of the professor"s hands. He felt a little delicate about making any further move in the same direction.
"Pouf!" the doctor exclaimed scornfully. "Ladue has relinquished all right to management, and it"s a very fortunate thing that he has. Mrs.
Ladue will be very much of an invalid for a number of years, unless all signs fail. There may be some prying people--but there are always.
You had better tell Sally that you will come at once. I think it most necessary."
Fox was distinctly relieved. He went on to tell the doctor of his conversation with Sally. "And the other children--except Henrietta--have fought shy of coming to see her since that day of the party," he continued. "I suppose they were frightened. They have scarcely been near her. Not that Sally seems to care. I think she is glad when she thinks of them at all. But she has too much care. She takes life too seriously. Why, that party was on her eleventh birthday, and she wants to go out scrubbing or selling papers.
Anything to earn money. We can"t let her feel so, Doctor; we just can"t."
"Bless her!" said the doctor; "of course we can"t. She needn"t worry about my bill, and you needn"t. Between us, Sanderson, we must look out for these three babes in the wood."
"Thank you, Doctor."
"And, Sanderson," the doctor pursued confidentially, "if you find yourself short of money,--you might, you know,--just let me know. But don"t tell anybody, or the a.s.syrians will be upon me, like the wolf on the fold; and their cohorts won"t be gleaming with purple and gold.
Not of mine, they won"t."
Fox laughed. "Thank you again, Doctor. Thank you very much. But I think I shall be able to carry my end, on that basis."
Fox did carry his end. He and Henrietta moved to the Ladues" as soon as they could, Fox into the professor"s old room, with the skeleton of the professor"s little lizard on the floor, under the window, and with the professor"s desk to work at. He seemed to have been pushed by chance into the professor"s shoes, and he did not like it, altogether. He made a faint-hearted protest at the room.
Sally"s eyes filled. "Why, Fox," she said, "it"s the best room we"ve got. Isn"t it good enough?"
"It"s much too good, Sally. I don"t expect or want such a good room."
"Oh, is that all!" Sally was smiling now. "If it"s good enough, I guess you"ll have to be satisfied. It"s ever so much convenienter to give you father"s room."
So Fox had to be satisfied. Henrietta had the room next Sally"s own.
That arrangement was "convenienter," too.
One of the first things he did at the professor"s desk was to write a letter to Miss Martha Havering Hazen. Sally had succeeded in finding her address.
"She lives in Whitby, Ma.s.sachusetts," she announced. "I don"t know the name of the street, and I don"t know how rich she is."
With this, the affairs of Miss Martha Havering Hazen pa.s.sed from Sally"s mind. She had other things to attend to. Fox wrote Miss Hazen a letter in which he set forth, in a very business-like way, the plight in which the Ladue family found themselves, his desire, and Sally"s, that Sally"s future should be provided for, and the manner in which it was proposed to provide for the aforesaid future. He finished with the statement that the funds at his command were insufficient for all the purposes which it was desired to accomplish, and he inquired whether she were disposed to give any aid and comfort. Then, having posted this, he waited for the answer.
He waited for the answer so long that he began to fear that his letter might not have reached Miss Hazen; then he waited until, at last, he was convinced that she never received it, and he had begun to think that she must be a myth. When he reached this conclusion, he was sitting on the piazza and Sally and Henrietta and Doctor Galen were coming up the path together. Sally had her hands behind her. She came and stood before Fox, her eyes twinkling.
"Well," she began.