"Mush! Why, child, I thought you hated it" Mrs. Crawford exclaimed.
"I did hate it," Jerry replied, "but I want it now real bad. Make it for me, please. Harold likes it, don"t you, Hally?"
Harold did like it very much; and so the mush was made, and Jerry forced herself to swallow it in great gulps, and made up her mind that she could not stand that any way. She preferred bread and water. So, for supper she took bread and water and nothing else, and went up to bed us unhappy and nervous as a healthy, growing child well could be.
She had tried the mush, and the bread and water, and now she meant to try the shorn head, which was the hardest of all, for she had a pride in her hair, which so many had told her was beautiful.
Standing before her little gla.s.s, with the lamp beside her, she looked at it admiringly for a while, turning her head from side to side to see the bright ringlets glisten; then, with an unsteady hand the severed, one by one, the shining tresses, on which her tears fell like rain as she gathered them in a paper and put them away, wondering if the prison shears would cut closer or shorter, and wondering if it would make any difference that she was only a subst.i.tute, or at most an accessory.
It was a strange idea which had taken possession of her, and a senseless one, but it was terribly real to her, and that little shorn head represented as n.o.ble and complete a sacrifice as was ever made by older and wiser people. There was no hard board to sleep upon, and so she took the floor, with a pillow under her head and a blanket over her, wondering the while if this were not a more luxurious couch than convicts, who had stolen diamonds, were accustomed to have.
"Why, Jerry, what have you done?" and "Oh, Jerry, how you look!" were the ejaculatory remarks which greeted her next morning, when she went down to her breakfast of bread and water, for she would take nothing else.
"Why did you do it?" Mrs. Crawford asked a little angry and a good deal astonished; but Jerry only answered at first with her tears, as Harold jeered at her forlorn appearance and called her a picked chicken.
"Maude"s hair is short, and all the girls", and mine was always in my eyes and snarled awfully," she said at last, and this was all the excuse she would give for what she had done; while for her persisting in a bread and water diet she would give no reason for three or four days.
Then she said to Harold, suddenly:
"You told me that the one who stole the diamonds would have to eat bread and water and have his head shaved, and I am trying to see how it would seem--am playing that I am the man, and in prison; but I find it very hard, I don"t believe I can stand it. Oh, Harold, do you think they will ever find the diamonds? I am so tired and hungry, and the blackberry pie we had for dinner did look so good!"
"Jerry," Harold exclaimed, in amazement, and but dimly comprehending her real meaning, "you are crazy, to be playing you are a convict! And is that what you have been doing?"
"Ye-es," Jerry sobbed; "but I can"t bear it, and I hope they will not find him,"
"Him! Who?" Harold asked.
"The one who took the diamonds," she replied.
"And I hope they will. He ought to be found and punished. Think what harm he has done to me by letting them accuse me," Harold answered, indignantly.
"No, no, Hally," Jerry replied. "No one accused you but Tom, and he is meaner than dirt; and if they did think you took them, and if you had to go, I should not let you; I should go in your place. I could do it for you and Mr. Arthur, but for no one else. Oh, I hope they will never find them."
She put her hands to her head, and looked so white and faint that Harold was alarmed, and took her at once to his mother, who, scarcely less frightened than himself, made her lie down, and brought her a piece of toast and a cup of milk, which revived her a little. But the strain upon her nerves for the last few days, and the fasting on bread and water proved too much for the child, who for a week or more lay up in her little room, burning with fever, and talking strange things at intervals, of diamonds, and state prison, and accessories, and subst.i.tutes, the last of which she said she was, a.s.suring some one to whom she seemed to be talking that she would never tell, never!
Every day Arthur came and sat for an hour by her bed, and held her hot hands in his, and listened to her talk, and marvelled at her shorn head, which he did not like. Whatever he said to her was spoken in German, and as she answered in the same tongue, no one understood what they said to each other, though Harold, who understood a few German words, knew that she was talking of the diamonds, and the prison, and the subst.i.tute.
"I shall _never_ tell!" she said to Arthur, "and I shall go! I can bear it better than you. It is not that which makes my headache so. It"s--oh, Mr. Arthur, I thought you so good, and I am so sorry about the diamonds--Mrs. Tracy was so proud of them. Can"t you contrive to get them back to her? I could, if you would let me. I am thinking all the time how to do it, and never let her know, and the back of my head aches so when I think."
Arthur could not guess what she really meant, except that the lost diamonds troubled her, and that she wished Mrs. Tracy to have them.
Occasionally his brows would knit together, and he seemed trying to recall something which perplexed him, and which her words had evidently suggested to his mind.
"Cherry," he said to her one day when he came as usual, and her first eager question was, "Have they found them?" "Jerry, try and understand me. Do you know where the diamonds are?"
Instantly into Jerry"s eyes there came a scared look, but she answered, unhesitatingly:
"Yes, don"t you?"
"No," was the prompt reply; "though it seems to me I did know, but there has been so much talk about them, and you are so sick, that everything has gone from my head, and the bees are stinging me frightfully. Where are the diamonds?"
But by this time Jerry was in the prison, sleeping on a board and eating bread and mush, and Arthur failed to get any satisfaction from her.
Indeed, they were two crazy ones talking together, with little or no meaning in what they said. Only this Arthur gathered--that Jerry would be happy if "Mrs. Tracy had her diamonds again and did not know how they came to her. When this dawned upon him he laughed aloud, and kissing her hot cheek, said to her:
"I see; I know, and I"ll do it. Wait till I come again.
It was ten o"clock in the morning when he left Mrs. Crawford"s house; there was a train which pa.s.sed the station at half-past ten, bound for New York, and without returning to the park, Arthur took the train, sending word to his brother not to expect him home until the next day, and not to be alarmed on his account, as he was going to New York and would take care of himself.
Why he had gone Frank could not guess, and he waited in much anxiety for his return. It was evening when he came home, seeming perfectly composed and well, but giving no reason for his sudden journey to the city. His first inquiry was for Jerry, and his second, if anything had been heard of the diamonds. On being answered in the negative, he remarked:
"Those rascally detectives are bunglers, and oftentimes would rather let the culprit escape than catch him. I doubt if you ever see the jewels again. But no matter; it will all come right. Tell your wife not to fret,"
The next morning when Mrs. Tracy went to her room after breakfast she was astonished to find upon her dressing bureau a velvet box with Tiffany"s name upon it, and inside an exquisite set of diamonds; not as fine as those she had lost, or quite as large, but white, and clear, and sparkling as she took them in her hand with a cry of delight, and ran with them to her husband. Both knew from whence they came, and both went at once to Arthur, who, to his sister-in-law"s profuse expressions of grat.i.tude, replied indifferently:
"Don"t bother me with thanks; it worries me. I bought them to please the little girl, who talks about them all the time. She will yet well now, I am going to tell her."
He found Jerry better, and perfectly sane. She was very glad to see him, though she seemed somewhat constrained, and shrank from him a little, when he sat down beside her. Her first rational question had been for him, and her second for the diamonds; were they found, and if not, were they still looking for them.
"No, they have not found them," Harold had said, "and the officers are still hunting for the thief, while the papers are full of the reward offered to any one who will return them. Five hundred dollars now, for Mr. Arthur has added two hundred to the first sum. He has quite waked up to the matter. You know he seemed very indifferent at first."
"Mr. Arthur offered two hundred more!" Jerry exclaimed. "Well, that beats me!"
This was Mrs. Crawford"s favorite expression, which Jerry had caught, as she did most of the peculiarities in speech and manner of those about her.
"Two hundred dollars! He must be crazy."
"Of course he is. He don"t know what he does or says half the time, and especially since you have been sick," Harold said.
"Sick!" Jerry repeated, quickly. "Have I been sick, and is that why I am in bed so late? I thought you had come in to wake me up, and I was glad, for I have had horrid dreams."
Harold told her she had been in bed since the day of the investigation, when she came from the park house with a dreadful headache.
"And you"ve been crazy, too, as a loon," he continued, "and talked the queerest things about state prison, and hard boards, and bread and water, and accessories, and subst.i.tutes, and so on. Seemed as if you thought you were a felon, and a body would have supposed that you had either taken the diamonds yourself or else knew who did, the way you went on by spells."
"Oh, Harold!" Jerry gasped, while her face grew spotted and the perspiration came out upon her forehead. "Did I speak anybody"s name?"
"No," Harold replied. "I could not make you do that. I asked you ever so many times if you knew who took the diamonds, and you said "Yes," but when I asked who it was, you always answered, "Don"t you wish you knew?"
and that was all I could get out of you. Mr. Arthur was here every day, and sometimes twice a day, but you spoke German to him. Still I knew it was about the diamonds, for I understood that word. He was not here yesterday at all. There, hark! I do believe he is coming now. Don"t you know who is said to be near when you are talking about him?"
And, with a laugh, Harold left the room just as Arthur entered it.
"Well, Cherry," he said to her, as he drew a chair to her bedside, "Mrs.
Crawford tells me the bees are out of your head this morning, and I am glad. I have some good news for you. Mrs. Tracy has some diamonds, and is the happiest woman in town."
Jerry had not noticed his exact words, and only understood that Mrs.
Tracy had found her diamonds.
"Oh, Mr. Arthur, I am so glad!" the cried; and springing up in bed, she threw both arms around his neck and held him fast, while she sobbed hysterically.
"There, there, child! Cherry, let go. You throttle me. You are pulling my neck-tie all askew, and my head spins like a top," Arthur said, as he unclasped the clinging arms and put the little girl back upon her pillow, where she lay for a moment, pale and exhausted, with the light of a great joy shining in her eyes.