Adventures of Bobby Orde Page 6

  V

  THE LITTLE GIRL

  Bobby spent as much time with Celia as he was allowed. On Sunday he tookher on his regular excursion to Auntie Kate--and Auntie Kate's cookies.

  "Aren't you glad there was no Sunday School to-day?" he inquiredblithely.

  "I like Sunday School," stated Celia.

  Bobby stopped short and looked at her.

  "Do you like church too?" he demanded.

  "I love it," she said.

  "Do you like pollywogs?"

  "Ugh, No!"

  "Or stripy snakes?"

  "They're _horrid!_"

  "Or forts?"

  "I don't know."

  "Or rifles an' revolvers?"

  "I am afraid of them."

  "Or dogs?"

  "I love dogs. I've got one home. His name is Pancho."

  "What kind is he?" asked Bobby with a vast sigh of relief at finding acommon ground. He had been brought to realize yesterday that littlegirls differ from boys; but for a few dreadful, floundering moments thismorning he had feared they might, so to speak, belong to a differentrace. Afterward he realized that it would not have mattered even if shehad not liked dogs. He merely wished to be near her. When he left her heimmediately experienced the strongest longing to be again where he couldsee her, and breathe the deep, intoxicating, delicious, clean influenceof her near presence. And yet with her his moments of unalloyedhappiness were few and his hours of sheer misery were many.Self-consciousness had never troubled Bobby before; but now in thepresence of Gerald's slim elegance and easy, languid manner, he becameacutely aware of his own deficiencies. His clothes seemed coarser; hishands and feet were awkward; his body dumpier; his face rounder and morefreckled. To him was born a great humility of spirit to match the greatlonging of it.

  Nevertheless, as has been said, he and Duke trudged down to the Ottawaevery morning, and again every afternoon, or as many of them as Mrs.Orde permitted. He was content to come under the immediate spell of thedancing, sprite-like, sunny little girl. No thought of the especialeffort to please, called courtship, entered his young head. He playedwith the children, and kept as close to Her as possible; that was all.And one evening, trudging home dangerously near six o'clock, he ran slapagainst the legend chalked in huge letters on a board fence:

  CELIA CARLETON and BOBBY ORDE

  He stopped short, his heart jumping wildly. Often had he seen thiscoupling of names, other names; and he knew that it was considered alittle of a shame, and somewhat of a glory. The sight confused him tothe depths of his soul; and yet it also pleased him. He rubbed out theletters; but he walked on with new elation. The undesired butauthoritative sanction of public recognition had been given hisdevotion. Gerald was not considered. Somebody had observed; so theaffair must be noticeable to others. And with another tremendous leapof the heart Bobby welcomed the daring syllogism that, since thesomebody of the impertinent chalk had fathomed his devotion to her,might it not be possible, oh, remotely inconceivably possible, ofcourse, that the unknown had equally marked some slight interest on herpart for him? The board fence, the maple-shaded walk, the soft brownstreet of pulverized shingles, all faded in the rapt glory of thisvision. Bobby gasped. Literally it had not occurred to him before. Nowall at once he desired it, desired it not merely with every power of hischild nature, but with the full strength of the man's soul that waitedbut the passing of years to spread wide its pinions. The need of heranswer to his love shook him to the depths, for it reached forward andback in his world-experience, calling into vague, drowsy, flutteringresponse things that would later awaken to full life, and reanimatingthe dim and beautiful instincts that are an heritage of that time whenthe soul is passing the lethe of earliest childhood and retains still awavering iridescence of the glory from which it has come. The questionrose to his lips ready for the asking. He wanted to turn track on theinstant, to call for Celia, to demand of her the response to his love.

  And then, after the moment of exaltation, came the reaction. He wasafraid. The thought of his stubby uninteresting figure came to him; anda deep sense of his unworthiness. What could she, accustomed tobrilliant creatures of the wonderful city, of whom Gerald was probablybut a mild sample, find in commonplace little Bobby Orde? He walkedmeekly home; and took a scolding for being late.

  Nevertheless the idea persisted and grew. It came to the point ofrehearsal. Before he fell asleep that very night, Bobby had ready cutand dried a half-dozen different ways in which to ask the question, andtwice as many methods of leading up to it. In the darkness, and byhimself, he felt very bold and confident.

  The next morning, however, even after he had succeeded in sequestratingCelia from her companions, he found it impossible to approach thesubject. The bare thought of it threw him to the devourings of a panicterror. This new necessity tore him with fresh but delicious pains. Hefelt the need of finding out whether she cared for him as he had neverconceived a need could exist; yet he was totally unable to satisfy it.By comparison the former misery of jealousy seemed nothing. Bobby livedconstantly in this high breathless state of delight in Celia; andmisery in the condition of his love for her. The Fuller boys and Angussaw him no more; the little library was neglected; the wood-box half thetime forgotten; and the arithmetic, always a source of trouble, tangleditself into a hopeless snarl of which Bobby's blurred mental visioncould make nothing.

  All of his spare time he spent at his toy printing press, trying overand over for a perfect result--unblurred, well-registered, wellaligned--in the shape of calling cards for "Miss Celia Carleton."

  As soon as they were done to his satisfaction, he wrapped them in aclumsy package, and set out for the Ottawa, followed, as always, byDuke.

  He found Celia alone in a rocking chair.

  "Why didn't you come down this morning?" she asked him at once.

  Bobby held up the package and looked mysterious.

  "This," said he.

  "Oh! what is it?" she cried, jumping up.

  "I made it," said Bobby.

  "What is it?" insisted Celia. "Show it to me."

  But Bobby thrust the package firmly into his pocket.

  "Up past our house there's a fine sand-hill to slide down," said he,"and we got a fine fort over the hill, and I know where there's a placeyou can climb up on where you can see 'most to Redding."

  "Show me what you've got!" pleaded Celia.

  "I will," Bobby developed his plan, "if you'll come up and play in thefort."

  "All right," agreed Celia in a breath; "I'll tell mamma I'm going. AndI'll hunt up the others."

  "I don't want the others to go," announced Bobby boldly.

  She calmed to a great stillness, and looked at him with intent eyes.

  "All right," she agreed quietly after a moment.

  They walked up the street together, followed by the solemn black andwhite dog. The shop windows did not detain them, as ordinarily. At thefire-engine house they turned under the dense shade of the maples. Butby the end of the second block said Bobby:

  "We'll go this way."

  He was afraid of encountering Angus, or perhaps the Fuller boys.

  The sand-hill proved toilsome to Celia, but without a single pause shestruggled bravely up its sliding, cascading yellow surface to the top.Then she stood still, panting a little, her cheeks flushed, her eyesbright, the tiniest curls about her forehead wet and matted withperspiration. With a great adoration, Bobby looked upon her slenderfigure held straight against the blue sky. Almost--almost dared hespeak. At least that is what he thought until the words rose to hislips; and then all at once he realized what a wide gulf lay between theimagined and the spoken word.

  "The fort's over this way," said he gruffly.

  "Show me the package first," insisted Celia.

  Bobby drew out the cards, and thrust them into her hands.

  "They're for you," he said hastily. "I did them on my printing press."

  Celia was delighted and wanted to say so at length, but Bobby had hissex's aversion to spoke
n gratitude.

  "Come on, see the fort," he insisted.

  He showed her the elaborate works and explained their uses, and pointedout the enemy of stumps charging patiently. Celia caught fire with theidea at once.

  ALMOST--ALMOST DARED HE TO SPEAK]

  "I'll make bullets the way they did in the Colonies!" she cried.

  "Have you 'Old Times in the Colonies,' too?" asked Bobby eagerly.

  They seated themselves and talked of their books. Celia was justbeginning the Alcott series. Bobby had never heard of them, and so theyhad to be explained. The children had romped and played games together;but they had never exchanged such ideas as their years had developed.For once Bobby forgot the fact of his love, and its delicious pains, andits need for something which he could not place, in the unselfconsciousjoy of intimate communion. He drew close to Celia in spirit; and hiswhole being expanded to a glow that warmed him through and through. Thewestering sun surprised them with the lateness of the hour. At the hotelgate Celia left him.

  "My, but we had a good time!" said she.

  With much trepidation Bobby next day suggested in face of the wholegroup that he and Celia should climb the high hill from which Bobbyfondly believed he could see "'most to Redding." To his surprise, and tothe surprise of the others, Celia consented at once. They climbed thehill in short stages, resting formally every ten feet. Bobby theycalled the Guide; while Celia was assigned the duty of announcing theresting-places. There was a wood-road up the hill, but they preferredthe steep side. Trees shaded it; and undergrowth veiled it. Little openspaces were guarded mysteriously and jealously by the thickets; littlehot pockets held like cups the warmth of the sun. Birds flashed anddisappeared; squirrels chattered indignantly; chipmunks scurried away.Occasionally they came to dense shade, and moss, and black shadow, andlow sweet shrubs a few inches high, and the tinkle of a tiny streamlet.Once a tangle of raspberries in a little clearing fell across their way.Bobby had never happened on these. They had been well picked over by thesquaws, who sold fruit in town by the pailful, but the children managedto find a few berries, and ate them, enjoying their warm, satiny feel.

  Thus they climbed for a long time. The rests were frequent, the coursenot of the straightest. For many years their recollection of that hillwas as of a mountain. Finally the top sprang at them abruptly, as thoughin joke.

  "Come over this way, I'll show you," said Bobby.

  He led the way to a point where the scant timber had in times pastsuffered a windfall. Through the opening thus made they looked abroadover the countryside. They could see the snake-fences about the farms,and the white dusty road like a ribbon and the stumps like black dots,and the waving green tops of the "wood lots" and far away the flash ofthe River.

  Thus Bobby gained another of his great desires. Celia proved strangelyacquiescent to suggestions for these excursions. Gerald's dreadedattractions relaxed their power over Bobby's spirit; and incorresponding degree Bobby regained the lost captaincy of his soul. Theself-confidence which he lacked seeped gradually into him; and he began,though very tentatively, to recognize and respect his own value as anindividual. These are big words to employ over the small problems of achild; yet in the child alone occur those silent developments, thosenoiseless changes which touch closest to true abstraction. Later in lifeour processes are stiffened by the material into forms of greatersimplicity.

  They explored the country about; and what the shortness of their legsdenied them in the matter of actual distance, the largeness of theirchildren's imaginations lavished bounteously.

  Bobby had explored most of it all before--the stump pastures, thewood-lots, the hills, the beach, the piers, the upper shifting downs ofsand--but now he saw them for the first time because he was showing themto Celia. One day they made their way under tall beech woods, through ascrub of cedars, and found themselves on the edge of low bluffsoverlooking the yellow shore and the blue lake. Long years after hecould remember it vividly, and all the little details that belonged toit--the flash of the waters, the dip of gulls, the gentle wash of thequiet wavelets against the shore, the thin strip of dark wet sand thatmarked the extent of their influences, and, in a long curve to the blueof distance, the uneven waste of the yellow dry sand on which lay andfrom which projected at all angles countless logs, slabs and timberscast up derelict by the storms of years. But at the time he was notconscious of noticing these things. In the darkness of his room thatnight all he remembered was Celia standing bright and fair against theshadow of ancient twisted cedars.