The needle in Miss Holbrook"s fingers stopped short in mid-air, the thread half-drawn.
"Didn"t--wave!" she stammered. "What do you--mean?"
"Nothing," laughed the boy, turning away from the window. "I forgot that you didn"t know the story."
"But maybe I do--that is--what was the story?" asked Miss Holbrook, wetting her lips as if they had grown suddenly very dry.
"Oh, do you? I wonder now! It wasn"t "The PRINCE and the Pauper," but the PRINCESS and the Pauper," cited David; "and they used to wave signals, and answer with flags. Do you know the story?"
There was no answer. Miss Holbrook was putting away her work, hurriedly, and with hands that shook. David noticed that she even p.r.i.c.ked herself in her anxiety to get the needle tucked away. Then she drew him to a low stool at her side.
"David, I want you to tell me that story, please," she said, "just as Mr. Jack told it to you. Now, be careful and put it all in, because I--I want to hear it," she finished, with an odd little laugh that seemed to bring two bright red spots to her cheeks.
"Oh, do you want to hear it? Then I will tell it," cried David joyfully. To David, almost as delightful as to hear a story was to tell one himself. "You see, first--" And he plunged headlong into the introduction.
David knew it well--that story: and there was, perhaps, little that he forgot. It might not have been always told in Mr. Jack"s language; but his meaning was there, and very intently Miss Holbrook listened while David told of the boy and the girl, the wavings, and the flags that were blue, black, and red. She laughed once,--that was at the little joke with the bells that the girl played,--but she did not speak until sometime later when David was telling of the first home-coming of the Princess, and of the time when the boy on his tiny piazza watched and watched in vain for a waving white signal from the tower.
"Do you mean to say," interposed Miss Holbrook then, almost starting to her feet, "that that boy expected--" She stopped suddenly, and fell back in her chair. The two red spots on her cheeks had become a rosy glow now, all over her face.
"Expected what?" asked David.
"N--nothing. Go on. I was so--so interested," explained Miss Holbrook faintly. "Go on."
And David did go on; nor did the story lose by his telling. It gained, indeed, something, for now it had woven through it the very strong sympathy of a boy who loved the Pauper for his sorrow and hated the Princess for causing that sorrow.
"And so," he concluded mournfully, "you see it isn"t a very nice story, after all, for it didn"t end well a bit. They ought to have got married and lived happy ever after. But they didn"t."
Miss Holbrook drew in her breath a little uncertainly, and put her hand to her throat. Her face now, instead of being red, was very white.
"But, David," she faltered, after a moment, "perhaps he--the--Pauper--did not--not love the Princess any longer."
"Mr. Jack said that he did."
The white face went suddenly pink again.
"Then, why didn"t he go to her and--and--tell her?"
David lifted his chin. With all his dignity he answered, and his words and accent were Mr. Jack"s.
"Paupers don"t go to Princesses, and say "I love you.""
"But perhaps if they did--that is--if--" Miss Holbrook bit her lips and did not finish her sentence. She did not, indeed, say anything more for a long time. But she had not forgotten the story. David knew that, because later she began to question him carefully about many little points--points that he was very sure he had already made quite plain.
She talked about it, indeed, until he wondered if perhaps she were going to tell it to some one else sometime. He asked her if she were; but she only shook her head. And after that she did not question him any more. And a little later David went home.
CHAPTER XXI
HEAVY HEARTS
For a week David had not been near the House that Jack Built, and that, too, when Jill had been confined within doors for several days with a cold. Jill, indeed, was inclined to be grieved at this apparent lack of interest on the part of her favorite playfellow; but upon her return from her first day of school, after her recovery, she met her brother with startled eyes.
"Jack, it hasn"t been David"s fault at all," she cried remorsefully.
"He"s sick."
"Sick!"
"Yes; awfully sick. They"ve had to send away for doctors and everything."
"Why, Jill, are you sure? Where did you hear this?"
"At school to-day. Every one was talking about it."
"But what is the matter?"
"Fever--some sort. Some say it"s typhoid, and some scarlet, and some say another kind that I can"t remember; but everybody says he"s awfully sick. He got it down to Glaspell"s, some say,--and some say he didn"t.
But, anyhow, Betty Glaspell has been sick with something, and they haven"t let folks in there this week," finished Jill, her eyes big with terror.
"The Glaspells? But what was David doing down there?"
"Why, you know,--he told us once,--teaching Joe to play. He"s been there lots. Joe is blind, you know, and can"t see, but he just loves music, and was crazy over David"s violin; so David took down his other one--the one that was his father"s, you know--and showed him how to pick out little tunes, just to take up his time so he wouldn"t mind so much that he couldn"t see. Now, Jack, wasn"t that just like David?
Jack, I can"t have anything happen to David!"
"No, dear, no; of course not! I"m afraid we can"t any of us, for that matter," sighed Jack, his forehead drawn into anxious lines. "I"ll go down to the Hollys", Jill, the first thing tomorrow morning, and see how he is and if there"s anything we can do. Meanwhile, don"t take it too much to heart, dear. It may not be half so bad as you think.
School-children always get things like that exaggerated, you must remember," he finished, speaking with a lightness that he did not feel.
To himself the man owned that he was troubled, seriously troubled. He had to admit that Jill"s story bore the earmarks of truth; and overwhelmingly he realized now just how big a place this somewhat puzzling small boy had come to fill in his own heart. He did not need Jill"s anxious "Now, hurry, Jack," the next morning to start him off in all haste for the Holly farmhouse. A dozen rods from the driveway he met Perry Larson and stopped him abruptly.
"Good morning, Larson; I hope this isn"t true--what I hear--that David is very ill."
Larson pulled off his hat and with his free hand sought the one particular spot on his head to which he always appealed when he was very much troubled.
"Well, yes, sir, I"m afraid "t is, Mr. Jack--er--Mr. Gurnsey, I mean.
He is turrible sick, poor little chap, an" it"s too bad--that"s what it is--too bad!"
"Oh, I"m sorry! I hoped the report was exaggerated. I came down to see if--if there wasn"t something I could do."
"Well, "course you can ask--there ain"t no law ag"in" that; an" ye needn"t be afraid, neither. The report has got "round that it"s ketchin"--what he"s got, and that he got it down to the Glaspells"; but "t ain"t so. The doctor says he didn"t ketch nothin", an" he can"t give nothin". It"s his head an" brain that ain"t right, an" he"s got a mighty bad fever. He"s been kind of flighty an" nervous, anyhow, lately.
"As I was sayin", "course you can ask, but I"m thinkin" there won"t be nothin" you can do ter help. Ev"rythin" that can be done is bein" done.
In fact, there ain"t much of anythin" else that is bein" done down there jest now but, tendin" ter him. They"ve got one o" them "ere edyercated nurses from the Junction--what wears caps, ye know, an"
makes yer feel as if they knew it all, an" you didn"t know nothin". An"
then there"s Mr. an" Mis" Holly besides. If they had THEIR way, there wouldn"t neither of, em let him out o" their sight fur a minute, they"re that cut up about it."
"I fancy they think a good deal of the boy--as we all do," murmured the younger man, a little unsteadily.
Larson winkled his forehead in deep thought.
"Yes; an" that"s what beats me," he answered slowly; ""bout HIM,--Mr.