The Lucky Piece.
by Albert Bigelow Paine.
PROLOGUE
There is a sharp turn just above the hill. The North Elba stage sometimes hesitates there before taking the plunge into the valley below.
But this was late September. The morning was brisk, the mountains glorified, the tourists were going home. The four clattering, snorting horses swung into the turn and made straight for the brow--the stout, ruddy-faced driver holding hard on the lines, but making no further effort to check them. Then the boy in the front seat gave his usual "Hey! look there!" and, the other pa.s.sengers obeying, as they always did, saw something not especially related to Algonquin, or Tahawus, or Whiteface--the great mountains whose slopes were ablaze with autumn, their peaks already tipped with snow--that was not, indeed, altogether Adirondack scenery. Where the bend came, at the brink, a little weather-beaten cottage cornered--a place with apple trees and some faded summer flowers. In the road in front was a broad flat stone, and upon it a single figure--a little girl of not more than eight--her arm extended toward the approaching stage, in her hand a saucer of berries.
The tourists had pa.s.sed a number of children already, but this one was different. The others had been mostly in flocks--soiled, stringy-haired little mountaineers, who had gathered to see the stage go by. The smooth, oval face of this child, rich under the tan, was clean, the dark hair closely brushed--her dress a simple garment, though of a fashion unfavored by the people of the hills. All this could be comprehended in the brief glance allowed the pa.s.sengers; also the deep wistful look which followed them as the stage whirled by without stopping.
A lady in the back seat (she had been in Italy) murmured something about a "child Madonna." Another said, "Poor little thing!"
But the boy in the front seat had caught the driver"s arm and was demanding that he stop the stage.
"I want to get out!" he repeated, with determination. "I want to buy those berries! Stop!"
The driver could not stop just there, even had he wished to do so, which he did not. They were already a third of the way down, and the hill was a serious matter. So the boy leaned out, looking back, to make sure the moment"s vision had not faded, and when the stage struck level ground, was out and running, long before the horses had been brought to a stand-still.
"You wait for me!" he commanded. "I"ll be back in a second!" Then he pushed rapidly up the long hill, feeling in his pockets as he ran.
The child had not moved from her place, and stood curiously regarding the approaching boy. He was considerably older than she was, as much as six years. Her wistful look gave way to one of timidity as he came near.
She drew the saucer of berries close to her and looked down. Then, puffing and panting, he stood there, still rummaging in his pockets, and regaining breath for words.
"Say," he began, "I want your berries, you know, only, you see, I--I thought I had some money, but I haven"t--not a cent--only my lucky piece. My mother"s in the stage and I could get it from her, but I don"t want to go back." He made a final, wild, hopeless search through a number of pockets, looking down, meanwhile, at the little bowed figure standing mutely before him. "Look here," he went on, "I"m going to give you my lucky piece. Maybe it"ll bring luck to you, too. It did to me--I caught an awful lot of fish up here this summer. But you mustn"t spend it or give it away, "cause some day when I come back up here I"ll want it again. You keep it for me--that"s what you do. Keep it safe. When I come back, I"ll give you anything you like for it. Whatever you want--only you must keep it. Will you?"
He held out the worn Spanish silver piece which a school chum had given him "for luck" when they had parted in June. But the little brown hand clung to the berries and made no effort to take it.
"Oh, you must take it," he said. "I should lose it anyway. I always lose things. You can take care of it for me. Likely I"ll be up again next year. Anyway, I"ll come some time, and when I do I"ll give you whatever you like in exchange for it."
She did not resist when he took the berries and poured them into his cap. Then the coin was pushed into one of her brown hands and he was pressing her fingers tightly upon it. When she dared to look up, he had called, "Good-bye!" and was halfway down the hill, the others looking out of the stage, waving him to hurry.
She watched him, saw him climb in with the driver and fling his hand toward her as the stage rounded into the wood and disappeared. Still she did not move, but watched the place where it had vanished, as if she thought it might reappear, as if presently that st.u.r.dy boy might come hurrying up the hill. Then slowly--very slowly, as if she held some living object that might escape--she unclosed her hand and looked at the treasure within, turning it over, wondering at the curious markings. The old look came into her face again, but with it an expression which had not been there before. It was some hint of responsibility, of awakening.
Vaguely she felt that suddenly and by some marvelous happening she had been linked with a new and wonderful world. All at once she turned and fled through the gate, to the cottage.
"Mother!" she cried at the door, "Oh, Mother! Something has happened!"
and, flinging herself into the arms of the faded woman who sat there, she burst into a pa.s.sion of tears.
CHAPTER I
BUT PALADINS RIDE FAR BETWEEN
Frank rose and, plunging his hands into his pockets, lounged over to the wide window and gazed out on the wild March storm which was drenching and dismaying Fifth Avenue. A weaving throng of carriages, auto-cars and delivery wagons beat up and down against it, were driven by it from behind, or buffeted from many directions at the corners. Coachmen, footmen and drivers huddled down into their waterproofs; pedestrians tried to breast the rain with their umbrellas and frequently lost them.
From where he stood the young man could count five torn and twisted derelicts soaking in gutters. They seemed so very wet--everything did.
When a stage--that relic of another day--lumbered by, the driver on top, only half sheltered by his battered oil-skins, seemed wetter and more dismal than any other object. It all had an art value, certainly, but there were pleasanter things within. The young man turned to the luxurious room, with its wide blazing fire and the young girl who sat looking into the glowing depths.
"Do you know, Constance," he said, "I think you are a bit hard on me."
Then he drifted into a very large and soft chair near her, and, stretching out his legs, stared comfortably into the fire as if the fact were no such serious matter, after all.
The girl smiled quietly. She had a rich oval face, with a deep look in her eyes, at once wistful and eager, and just a bit restless, as if there were problems there among the coals--questions she could not wholly solve.
"I did not think of it in that way," she said, "and you should not call me Constance, not now, and you are Mr. Weatherby. I do not know how we ever began--the other way. I was only a girl, of course, and did not know America so well, or realize--a good many things."
The young man stirred a little without looking up.
"I know," he a.s.sented; "I realize that six months seems a long period to a--to a young person, and makes a lot of difference, sometimes. I believe you have had a birthday lately."
"Yes, my eighteenth--my majority. That ought to make a difference."
"Mine didn"t to me. I"m just about the same now as I was then, and----"
"As you always will be. That is just the trouble."
"I was going to say, as I always had been."
"Which would not be true. You were different, as a boy."
"And who gave you that impression, pray?"
The girl flushed a little.
"I mean, you must have been," she added, a trifle inconsequently. "Boys always are. You had ambitions, then."
"Well, yes, and I gratified them. I wanted to be captain of my college team, and I was. We held the championship as long as I held the place. I wanted to make a record in pole-vaulting, and I did. It hasn"t been beaten since. Then I wanted the Half-mile Cup, and I won that, too. I think those were my chief aspirations when I entered college, and when I came out there were no more worlds to conquer. Incidentally I carried off the honors for putting into American some of Mr. Horace"s justly popular odes, edited the college paper for a year, and was valedictorian of the cla.s.s. But those were trivial things. It was my prowess that gave me standing and will remain one of the old school"s traditions long after this flesh has become dust."
The girl"s eyes had grown brighter as he recounted his achievements. She could not help stealing a glance of admiration at the handsome fellow stretched out before her, whose athletic deeds had made him honored among his kind. Then she smiled.
"Perhaps you were a pillar of modesty, too," she commented, "once."
He laughed--a gentle, lazy laugh in which she joined--and presently she added:
"Of course, I know you did those things. That is just it. You could do anything, and be anything, if you only would. Oh, but you don"t seem to care! You seem satisfied, comfortable and good-naturedly indifferent; if you were poor, I should say idle--I suppose the trouble is there. You have never been poor and lonely and learned to want things. So, of course, you never learned to care for--for anything."
Her companion leaned toward her--his handsome face full of a light that was not all of the fire.
"I have, for you," he whispered.
The girl"s face lighted, too. Her eyes seemed to look into some golden land which she was not quite willing to enter.
"No," she demurred gently. "I am not sure of that. Let us forget about that. As you say, a half-year has been a long time--to a child. I had just come from abroad then with my parents, and I had been most of the time in a school where girls are just children, no matter what their ages. When we came home, I suppose I did not know just what to do with my freedom. And then, you see, Father and Mother liked you, and let you come to the house, and when I first saw you and knew you--when I got to know you, I mean--I was glad to have you come, too. Then we rode and drove and golfed all those days about Lenox--all those days--your memory is poor, very poor, but you may recall those October days, last year, when I had just come home--those days, you know----"
Again the girl"s eyes were looking far into a fair land which queens have willingly died to enter, while the young man had pulled his chair close, as one eager to lead her across the border.