Dorothy came back and was overjoyed at the changed program for her holiday afternoon. All along she had longed to go with the postman, to help him, but had not been permitted. Now it was not only a relief that her mother knew their secret and that they could talk it over together, but she had formed a scheme by which she believed everything could go on very much as before.
So with a cane in one hand and his other resting on her shoulder, John Chester made his last "delivery." Fortunately, the late mail of the day was always small and the stops, therefore, infrequent. Most of these, too, were at houses fronting directly on the street, so that the postman could support himself against the end of the steps while Dorothy ran up them and handed in the letters.
It was different at Bellevieu, which chanced to be the end of that trip, and the long path from the gateway to the mansion looked so formidable to father John that he bade Dorothy go in alone with the pouch, emptied now of all matter save that addressed to Mrs. Cecil.
She sped away, leaving him leaning against the stone pillar of the eagle-gate--so called because each column guarding the entrance was topped by a ma.s.sive bronze eagle--and waved a smiling farewell to him as she disappeared beneath the trees bordering the driveway.
As usual, Mrs. Cecil was on her piazza, wrapped in shawls and protected by her hooded beach-chair from any possible wind that might blow. Old though she was, her eyes were almost as brown and bright as Dorothy"s own, and they opened in surprise at the appearance of this novel mail-carrier.
"How-d"ye-do, Mrs. Cecil? Here"s such a lot of letters and papers all for you!" cried Dorothy, bowing, as she swept her hand through the pouch which she had slung over her shoulder in the most official manner.
"Where shall I put them? I reckon there are too many for your lap."
"What--who--Where"s Johnnie?" demanded the lady, leaning forward and first smiling, then frowning upon the girl.
"Oh! he--he"s at the gate," she answered, and was about to explain why he had not come himself. Then a sudden remembrance of how closely he had guarded his secret, even from her mother, closed her lips, leaving the other to infer what she chose; and who promptly exclaimed:
"Well, of all things! Do you know, does he know, that between you the law is broken? n.o.body, except a regularly sworn employee has a right to touch the United States mail. How dare he send you? Huh! If I do my duty as a good citizen I shall report him at once. This single breach of faith may cost him his place, even though he has been in the service so long."
Mrs. Cecil"s manner was harsher than her thought. For some time she had observed that "Johnnie" looked ill and was far less active than of old and she had intended that very afternoon to offer him a kindness. She would send him and his wife away on a long vacation, wherever they chose to go, till he could recover his health. She would pay all his expenses, including a subst.i.tute"s salary. Even more generous than all, she would invite that girl, Dorothy C., whom they had so foolishly adopted, to pa.s.s the interval of their absence at Bellevieu. She dreaded the infliction of such a visit. She always had insisted that she hated children--but--Well, it was to be hoped the postman would have sense enough to speedily recuperate and take Dorothy off her hands. In any case, she must be gotten rid of before it was time for Mrs. Cecil herself to seek recreation at her summer home in the Hudson highlands.
Now her mood suddenly changed. She had desired to befriend the postman but, if he had taken it into his hands to befriend himself, it was quite another matter. Let him! Why should she bother with anybody in such a different state of life? Disappointment, at having her prospective kindness returned upon her thus, made her sharply say:
"It takes all kinds of fools to fill a world, and I"m sorry to find Johnnie one of them. Don"t stare! It"s rude, with such big eyes as yours. Drop the mail. Carriers shouldn"t loiter--that"s another crime.
Your father must come himself next time, else----"
She seemed to leave some dire threat unspoken and again Dorothy was just ready to tell this strange old lady, whom the postman had often called "wise," the truth of the trouble that had come to him; when around the corner of the house dashed Peter and Ponce, the two Great Dane dogs which Mrs. Cecil kept as a menace to intruders. They had just been loosed for their evening exercise and, wild with delight, were hurrying to their mistress on her broad porch.
At the sight of their onrush Dorothy caught up the pouch she had dropped and started to retreat--too late! The animals were upon her, had knocked her downward and backward, striking her head against the boards and, for the moment, stunning her. But they had been more playful than vicious and were promptly restrained by Mrs. Cecil"s own hand upon their collars; while the brief confusion of the girl"s startled thoughts as quickly cleared and she leaped to her feet, furiously angry and indignant.
"Oh! the horrid beasts! How dare you--anybody--keep such dangerous creatures? I"ll tell my father! He"ll--he"ll--" tears choked her further speech and, still suspiciously eyeing the Danes, she was edging cautiously down the steps when she felt herself stopped.
Mrs. Cecil had loosed her hold of Peter to lay her hand upon the girl"s shoulder and she was saying, kindly but sternly:
"They are not dangerous but playful. They attack n.o.body upon whom they are not "set." It was an accident; and if any further apology is necessary it is from a little girl to the old gentlewoman--for an insolent suspicion. Now go. The dogs will not follow you."
Dorothy did not see how she had done wrong, yet she felt like a culprit dismissed as she lifted the pouch she had again dropped and started gateward, still keeping a wary eye upon the beautiful dogs, now lying beside their mistress in her beach-chair.
As she neared the entrance she cried:
"Here I am at last, father! I didn"t mean to stay so long but that dreadful old woman--Why, father, father! Where are you, dearest father?"
He was nowhere to be seen. Nor anybody, either on the broad avenue or the narrow street around the corner; and when she came breathlessly to the dear home in which she hoped to find him it was empty.
CHAPTER III
AT JOHNS HOPKINS HOSPITAL
The door of No. 77 Brown Street stood wide open. Any of the burglars for whom its mistress was always on the watch might have raided the tiny parlor or made off with father John"s Sunday overcoat, hanging upon the hat-rack. Now also, while Dorothy hurried from room to room of the six which were all the house contained, the wind of a rising thunderstorm whistled through them and their open windows. Nor was there any reply to her anxious calls:
"Mother! Father! Anybody--somebody! Oh! where are you? What has happened? Mother--dearest mother Martha! Won"t you answer?"
Certainly, this was a strange, a terrifying state of things. It was amazing that so careful a housewife as Martha Chester should leave her home in this unprotected condition, but it was quite natural for the well-trained girl, even in the midst of her alarm, to close the sashes against the rain that now came dashing in.
Then she hurried below and out into the little yard, or garden, that was her own special delight. n.o.body there; but the pail and brush which Mrs.
Chester had been using to clean her back kitchen were still upon its floor, the pail overturned and the water puddling its bricks, and the sight made Dorothy"s heart sink lower yet.
Hurrying back to the street, a neighbor shielded her own head from the downpour and called from a next-door window:
"Something has happened to your father. A boy saw him picked up on the street and a policeman called a Johns Hopkins ambulance, that took him to the hospital. The boy knew him, told your mother, and she"s hurried there. Don"t worry. Probably it"s nothing serious."
"Not serious! Oh! you don"t know what you"re saying! And to think I left him only such a little while! If that hateful old woman--I must go to him, too, I must, I must!"
With that Dorothy was retreating indoors, but again the neighbor"s voice detained her:
""Tisn"t likely you"d be admitted, even if you did go. You"d better stay here and be ready for your poor mother when she comes. It"s worse trouble for her than for you."
This might be so and the advice excellent, but the excited girl was in no mood to profit by it. Once, in her early childhood, she had answered to an inquiry: "I love my mother a _little_ the best, but I love my father the _biggest_ the best!" and it was so still. Her father, her cheery, indulgent, ever-tender father, would always be "the biggest the best" of her earthly friends, and to be absent from him now, not knowing what had befallen, was impossible.
Glancing upward she observed that the neighbor had already withdrawn her head from the dashing rain and was glad of it. It left her free to bang the front door shut, to rush backward through the house and out at the alley gate, which she also shut, snapping its lock behind her. But she had caught up the key that opened it and, hanging this in a crevice of the fence known for a safe hiding place to each of the family, she started eastward for the great hospital.
Though she had never entered the famous place, she had seen it once from a street-car, and love guided her flying feet. But it was a long, long way from Brown Street, and the present storm was one of those deluging "gusts" familiar to the locality. Within the first five minutes the gutters were filled, the muddy streams pushing outward toward the very middle of the narrower alleys and quite covering her shoe-tops as she splashed through. At one or two of the older thoroughfares she came to the old-time "stepping stones," provided for just such emergencies, and still left standing because of the city"s pride in their antiquity. Over these she leaped and was glad of them, but alas! the storm was having its will of her. Her gingham frock was soaked and clung about her with a hindering obstinacy that vexed her, and her wet shoes grew intolerable.
She did not remember that she had ever gone barefoot, as some of her mates had done, but at last she sat down on a doorstep and took off her shoes and stockings. After a moment"s contemplation of their ruined state, she threw them far aside and stepped upon the brick pavement, just as a policeman in oilskins came up and laid his hand on her shoulder, asking:
"Little girl, what are you doing?"
Dorothy sprang aside, frightened, and wriggled herself free. She forgot that she had never been afraid of such officers; that, indeed, the one upon her own home beat was the friend of all the youngsters on the block, and that this one could give her the shortest direction to the place she sought. She had long ago been taught that, if she were ever lost or in any perplexity upon the street, she should call upon the nearest policeman for aid and that it was his sworn duty to a.s.sist her.
She remembered only that it was a policeman who had summoned the ambulance that had carried her father to that horrible place--a hospital! Well, she, too, was bound for it, but only to s.n.a.t.c.h him thence; and stretching out her small, drenched arms, she wondered if they and mother Martha"s together would have strength to lift and seize him.
Then on and on and on! Could one city be so big as this? Did ever brick pavements hurt anybody else as they were hurting her? How many more blocks must she traverse before she came in sight of that wide Broadway with its pretty parks, on which the hospital stood?
Everybody had retreated indoors. n.o.body who could escape the fury of the storm endured it, and she had left the officer who could have guided her far behind. But, at last, a slackening of the downpour; and as if by magic, people reappeared upon the street; though of the first few whom she addressed none paused to listen. Yet, finally, a colored boy came hurrying by, his basket of groceries upon his arm, and another empty basket inverted over his head, by way of an umbrella. Him she clutched, demanding with what little of breath she had left:
"The--way--to--Johns Hopkins"--hospital, please!"
"Hey? Horspittle? Wha" for?"
"To find my father, who"s been taken there. Oh! tell me the shortest way, please--please--please! I am so tired! and I must be--I must be quick--quick!"
A look of pity and consternation stole into the negro"s face, and he drew in his breath with a sort of gasp as he answered:
"Laws, honey, I reckon yo" _mus"_ be "quick"! But de quickes" yo" is ain" half quick enough. Know wha" dem horspittles is for? Jus" to cut up folkses in. Fac". Dey goes in alibe, dey comes out deaders. Yo" jus"
done cal"late yo" ain" got no paw no mo". He"s had his haid, or his laig, or both his arms sawed off "fore you-all more"n got started a-chasin" of him. Po" li"l gal! Pity yo" got so wet in de rain jus" fo"
nottin"! Wheah yo" live at? Yo" bettah go right home an" tell yo" folks take dem cloes off, "fore you-all done get de pneumony."