"It"s all right, Jeff," said his uncle. "You never can tell what a woman will do, but you can count on one thing--it won"t be what you expect."
"You don"t suppose she was angry, do you?"
The captain smiled. "No, I don"t think she was angry," he said confidently.
The door flew open again. Two impetuous arms were around Jeff"s neck from behind, nearly strangling him. A breezy swirl of skirts, and Captain Rayburn feared for the integrity of his head upon his shoulders.
And then the two were alone again.
"Christopher Columbus!--discovered America in 1492!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Jefferson, an expression of great delight irradiating his countenance.
Then he looked at his uncle with an air of superior wisdom. "_Now_ she"ll cry," he said.
"I shouldn"t wonder if she did," agreed the captain, nodding.
CHAPTER IX
Lanse stood in the kitchen door, lunch-pail in hand. It lacked ten minutes of seven of a June morning; therefore he wore his working clothes. He glanced down at them now with an expression of extreme distaste, then from Celia to Charlotte, both of whom wore fresh print dresses covered with the trim pinafore ap.r.o.ns which were Celia"s pride.
"When this siege is over," he remarked, "maybe I won"t appreciate the privilege of wearing clean linen from morning till night every day in the week."
"Poor old Lanse!" said Celia, with compa.s.sion. "That"s been the part that has tried your soul, hasn"t it! You haven"t minded the work, but the dirt----"
"I hope I"m not a Nancy, either," Lanse went on. "I"m sure I don"t feel that my wonderful dignity is compromised by my occupation. Better men than I soil their hands to more purpose every day, but--well, I must be off."
He departed abruptly, leaving Celia standing in the door to wave a hand to him as he turned the corner.
"John Lansing is tired," she said to Charlotte, sisterly sympathy in her voice. "I don"t think we"ve half appreciated what all these months in the shops have meant to him. It isn"t as if he were training for one of the engineering specialties, and were interested in his work as practical education in his own line. He"ll never have the least use for anything he"s learning now."
"He may," Charlotte suggested. "He may marry a girl who will want him to do odd jobs about the house. A mechanic in the family is an awfully desirable thing. Mrs. Fields says there"s nothing Doctor Churchill can"t do in the way of repairing; and when I told that to Uncle Ray he said that all good surgeons needed to be born mechanics, and usually were.
And even though Lanse makes a lawyer, like father, he may need to get out of the automobile he"ll have some day, and crawl under it and make it over inside before he can go on."
Celia laughed, and went to call the rest of the family from their beds, early hours having now perforce become the habit of the Birch family.
It was some three hours later that Charlotte sat down for a moment to rest on the little vine-covered back porch. The breakfast work and the bed-making were over, the kitchen was in order, and there was time to draw breath before plunging into the next set of duties.
Celia had gone up-stairs to some summer sewing she had on hand; Captain Rayburn had taken the baby around the corner to a pretty park, where the two spent long hours now, in the perfect June weather; the boys were at school, and the house was very still.
Charlotte stretched her arms above her head, drawing a long breath.
"How long ago it seems that I was free after breakfast to do what I wanted to!" she said to herself. "And how little I realised all the cares that were always on mother! Oh, if it were only time for them to come back--this day--this hour--this minute! I wouldn"t mind the work now, if they were only here."
The girl"s gaze, fixed wistfully on the leafy treetops above her, suddenly dropped to earth. A man"s figure was stumbling along the little path which led diagonally from the back of the Birch premises through a gateway and off toward a back street, the route by which Lanse was accustomed to take an inconspicuous short cut toward the locomotive shops, by the river.
For an instant, only the similarity of the figure to Lanse"s struck her, for the wavering walk and bandaged head, with hand pressed to the forehead, did not suggest her brother. At the next instant the man lifted a white face, and Charlotte gave a startled cry as she saw that it was John Lansing himself, in a sorry plight.
She ran to him. His head was clumsily tied up in a soiled cloth, which the blood was beginning to stain. As she put her arm about him he smiled wanly down at her, murmuring, "Thought I couldn"t make it--glad I have.
No--not the house--Doctor"s office. Don"t want to scare Celia. It"s nothing."
It might be nothing, but he was leaning heavily on his sister"s strong young shoulder as they crossed the threshold of Doctor Churchill"s little office, Charlotte having flung open the door without waiting to ring. n.o.body was there.
"No, don"t try to sit up in a chair. Here, lie down on the couch," she insisted, and Lanse yielded, none too soon. His face had lost all colour by the time he had stretched his tall form on the wide leather couch which stood ready for just such occupants.
Charlotte went back to the door and rang the bell; then, as n.o.body appeared, she explored the lower part of the house for Mrs. Fields in vain.
Returning, she caught sight for the first time of a little memorandum on the doctor"s desk: "_Out. Return 10:30 A.M._" She glanced at the clock.
It was exactly quarter past ten.
She studied her brother"s face anxiously. The stain upon the cloth was rapidly growing larger. She was sure he ought not to lie there with the bleeding unchecked. She went to the door of the small private office; her eyes fell upon a package labeled "Absorbent Cotton." She opened it, pulled out a handful, and went back to her brother.
She lifted the cloth from his head, and saw a long, uneven gash, from which the blood was freely oozing. Taking two rolls of cotton, she laid one on each side of the wound, forcing the edges together. After a little experimenting she found that by holding her cotton very firmly and pressing in a certain way, the flow of the blood was almost completely checked.
"Does that hurt?" she asked Lanse. He nodded without speaking, but she did not lighten her pressure. She saw that he was very faint.
"I"m sorry it hurts you, dear," she said, "but it stops the blood when I press this way, and I"m sure that"s better for you. The doctor will be here soon, and I think I"d better hold it till he comes."
Lanse nodded again, his brows contracting with pain, not only from the pressure upon the wound, but from the reaction from the blow which had caused it.
Charlotte"s eyes watched the clock, her hands never relinquishing their task.
"What next?" she was thinking. "Will the time ever be up and father and mother come back to find us all safe? Three more months--three more months----"
Dr. Andrew Churchill came whistling softly across the lawn, glancing at his watch, and noting that he was fifteen minutes later than he had expected to be. In the doorway of his office he came to a surprised halt.
"Miss Charlotte! What"s happened?"
Lanse spoke faintly for himself: "Got hit at the shop--wrench slipped out of man"s hands above me--nothing much----"
"No--I see," the doctor answered, surveying the situation.
He lifted Charlotte"s cotton rolls, noted the character and extent of the injury, and lost no time in getting at work.
"Keep up that pressure just as you were doing, please, Miss Charlotte, while I make things ready. We"ll have you all right in a jiffy, Birch."
Two minutes later the doctor had Lanse stretched on a narrow white table in an inner office. "I"ve got to hurt you quite a bit," he said to his patient. "I don"t want to give you an anesthetic, but somebody must hold your head. Shall I call Mrs. Fields?"
He glanced at Charlotte, and met what he had counted on--her help. "No, I can manage," she said quietly.
The doctor was soon ready, with arms, surgically clean, bared to the elbows.
It was rather a bad ten minutes for Lanse that followed, although he bore it bravely, without a sound. The strong, steady support of his sister"s hands on the sides of his head never varied, and her eyes watched the doctor"s rapid movements with absorbed attention. Doctor Churchill glanced at her two or three times, but met only quiet resolve in her face, which, although pale, showed no sign of weakness.
The injury was a severe one, being no clean cut, but a jagged gash several inches in length, caused by a heavy blow with a rough tool.
Charlotte observed that the worker seemed never at a loss what to do, that his touch was as light as it was practised, and that his eyes were full of keen interest in his work. At length Doctor Churchill finished his manipulations and put on the smooth bandages, which, he remarked with a laugh, were to turn Lanse into the image of the Terrible Turk.