“Oh, Jinny! How wonderful!” said Betty Lou, her cheeks pink with delight.
“Say, Jin, do you remember where I put my fishing rod last fall?” asked Tom, taking big mouthfuls of the snow pudding. “Gee! Kid, this is good! Did you make it all by your lonesome! You’re some cook!”
There was something so homely and happy about the little group talking in there around the supper table, planning for the cheap little vacation as if it had been a trip to Europe, that the mother found tears of joy slipping down her face and had to mop them up with her napkin lest the family should suddenly surprise her and discover that she had been crying. She thought of the dreadful girl who had telephoned Tom yesterday and sent up a thanksgiving that he was not off trailing her now. Tom didn’t seem to have a thought for anything today but getting ready for the trip. Dear Tom! After all, he was just a boy yet. Perhaps the girl did not have a very firm hold on him yet. Perhaps they could do something to get Tom interested in some other direction. If he only could go to school a little longer and get a wider vision on life!
The mother sighed and then rejoiced again that her elder daughter was at home. Oh, there was much for which to be thankful!
Then, just as they were finishing the last of the pudding, there came a knock at the door. Betty Lou hurried to answer it, thinking it might be Mrs. Smith wanting her to take care of the baby again, and she was thinking as she hurried through the sitting room that she would tell Mrs. Smith that she was too busy.
But it was a boy about her own age, a barefoot boy with ragged khaki trousers and an old shirt with the sleeves cut out. He looked dirty, too, and his hair needed cutting. Betty Lou didn’t like his looks.
“Tom Arleth live here?” he asked in a bold, insolent voice.
Tom scowled and hurried to the door precipitately, and his sudden furtive manner made his sister Jane thoughtful.
“Hello, Ted, what’s wrong with you?”
“Hello yerself,” said the young upstart, handing out a crumpled envelope. “Beth sent you this, and she said tell you that you better get a hustle on and—”
But the rest of the message was lost to the family for Tom slid out the screen door, drawing the house door shut behind him with a decided slam. It was only a moment until he returned, crushing something into his trousers’ pocket and murmuring something in an angry growl about “that fool kid.”
But he hadn’t gone with the boy. That was something to be thankful for—as long as it lasted—reflected the three women who loved Tom.
It lasted for almost two hours. Tom helped to clear off the table, even drying and putting away some of the dishes, and all the time kept up a merry banter with his sisters, occasionally coming into the front room to have a pleasant word with his mother.
He went up to the attic and hunted for fishing rods, unearthed old cushions and a net hammock, and brought down another trunk.
“No reason why we can’t ship as much stuff as we want down there,” he said. “Send both trunks by freight. It won’t cost much. Take some books and a few magazines down, Jinny. It’s great to lie in the sand and read. Get your things together and I’ll pack ’em tonight and take both trunks down there at once.”
So the girls hurried upstairs and produced various articles that would add to the family comfort, and they had a merry time packing.
When the trunk was corded, Tom took it outside and put it in the old car ready for morning. But Tom didn’t return in a few minutes as they had expected, and presently Jane remembered that he had said something about going down to see if the electric shop was open yet. He wanted a new tube for his little homemade radio. No reason they shouldn’t take that along for rainy days and evenings.
So the three women’s hearts quaked and wondered, though none of the three spoke out her fears to either of the others.
Betty Lou’s little sensitive face took on the troubled look of fragility that it had worn earlier in the evening, and Jane sent her straight to bed.
“You’ve got to get your sleep, kittykins, or you will get sick, too, and then we couldn’t go, you know,” said Jane with a loving pat as she smoothed the child’s pillow and stooped to kiss her. Then she looped the cheesecloth curtain back a little farther to give the young sleeper all the air there was.
Betty Lou caught at her sister’s sleeve as she turned to leave her and drew her down for another kiss.
“It’s so good to have you home again, Jinny!” she said for the hundredth time, giving her sister a big hug. Then, quite irrelevantly, she asked, “Has Tom come home yet?”
“Not yet, but I imagine he’ll come soon,” encouraged Jane cheerfully. “I think he’ll take time to select his tubes and things. He probably had to go to the other shop. The nearby one usually closes early, you know.”
“I know,” said Betty Lou forlornly with a little grown-up sigh.
“Now you go to sleep quick, Betty Lou!” admonished the elder sister. “I’ve got to get my clothes together and see what wants washing. Good night!”
But Tom did not return until Jane had been in bed for some time. She could hear the clock on the church striking two as he rattled his latchkey softly in the lock. Jane was filled with indignation that Tom should worry his mother that way. She held her breath and listened, hoping against hope that her mother would not waken, but it was hours afterward before the mother slept! She knew when her boy went through the room. She sensed with her woman’s keen nose the mingled odors he brought with him, a rank tang of smoke and liquor on his breath, clinging to his garments, exuding from his hair, mingled with a faint suggestion of the great unwashed anointed with cheap perfume. There was something so common and fetid about that odor that Tom brought with him. It lingered in the stifling air of the room where Mother lay with bated breath and tears on her cheeks, and she grieved all night about it. Her son, her baby boy, whom she had held in her arms and kept so sweet and clean and pure, to take his pleasure like this. How amazingly pitiful it was!
When morning came the mother slept at last, but with dark rings under her eyes and a drawn gray look about her mouth that made Jane’s heart quail as she tiptoed to the couch and looked at her.
Jane went straight up to her brother’s room and gave Tom a few plain words.
“Tom, you’ve given Mother a big setback with your staying out so late. She’s been worrying all night long about you. I should think you might have had a little consideration for her when she is sick!”
“Aw, gee!” said Tom, blinking at her from a tumbled pillow. “I couldn’t help it, Jin! Met a lot a fellows down at the shop and we got ta talking radio. They wanted me to come and hear a new one that one of the fellows had. They got England and the coast and it was great!”
“That doesn’t make it any easier for Mother, Tom,” said Jane bluntly, eyeing her brother suspiciously. Tom didn’t look in his best form himself after being up so late, and Jane had sensed the alien odors, too, as her brother came up the stairs. She wasn’t at all sure that Tom was telling the whole truth. She had it on the tip of her tongue to say something sharp about that girl who had telephoned the day before but thought better of it just in time. No good would come from finding fault, she knew only too well.
“Aw, gee! Haven’t I been working hard? Can’t a fella stir a step from home without a lot of women weeping over him, I’d like ta know? I wish you’d get outta here, I wantta get up! I’ve got work ta-day, I’d have you know!”
Tom had reared up on one elbow and was blinking angrily at her, his hair standing every which way and a furious look on his cross young face. Jane sensed that in about a minute more he would fire his pillow at her, so she went downstairs while the going was good. She had the wisdom to be smiling and pleasant as usual when her brother came stumping crossly down a few minutes later to his excellent breakfast, finding fault with them all because he couldn’t find his hat and the keys of his car. But she was glad to notice that he went in to their mother and kissed her, and she heard him making an elaborate explanation a
bout how he had been kept out so late against his will, and how he hoped he had not wakened her. Jane hoped Mother might be reassured, but she doubted it. Mother was generally pretty keen where her children were concerned.
Jane rode all the way to town with her feet twisted sideways around the end of the trunk and never said another word about Tom’s being out so late. Only when he left her at the office entrance, she warned him to be sure and keep a good watch on Mother all day or she might not be able to go to the shore on Saturday. Then with a wistful smile she left him and hurried up to her work, wondering why a boy with a mother like theirs wanted to go with people who were utterly all wrong. And how was it that Tom’s coat could possibly get such an odor of stuffy rooms and unclean people from such a short contact? Even yet in the out of doors, she thought, she could get that unpleasant odor. Ugh! How could Tom?
She was carrying her anxiety in her eyes as she entered the big outer office and met Sherwood just coming to his desk with a sheaf of papers.
His gray eyes met hers and suddenly looked grave. “You’ve been worrying about something. Is there anything I can do to help?” was his greeting in a low voice; and Jane was so astonished that instead of being annoyed at his presumption she answered in a surprised voice, as she might have done to a friend of long standing, “How did you know?”
“Saw it in your eyes,” said the quiet voice. “Can you tell me about it, or am I too new an acquaintance?”
“I don’t know,” said Jane thoughtfully. “Not now, anyway. I must get to work.”
“All right. Anytime. How about getting lunch together? Or if you don’t like that, just remember I’m ready to help in any way I can. I’d like to be counted that kind of a friend.”
“Thank you,” she said, seeing the sincerity in the gray eyes. “I’ll be glad to count you that. And—yes, I’ll take lunch with you. But I’m not sure I’ll have anything to tell you. I’m not really sure I’m worrying, you know.”
“All right, but you are,” said the steady pleasant lips that had somehow taken on more mature lines this morning.
She passed into the inner office for the mail, marveling at the kind of intimacy that seemed to be spreading up between herself and this new young man. It was not like any friendship she had ever had with a man before, and its uniqueness pleased her. There did not seem to be anything in it that she had to be on her guard about, and it rested her to know she had acquired a real friend.
But presently when Jane came out with a message from Mr. Dulaney for Sherwood, she noticed Minnick’s baleful eyes upon her, and every time that morning when she had occasion to speak to Sherwood about his work, Minnick would look up with a strange smile upon his face.
Just at noon when she stepped over to give Sherwood some papers that had been forgotten earlier in the day, Minnick spoke to her as she passed by his desk going back to her own.
“Seems to me you have a lot of time to spare talking to a new clerk, Miss Arleth!” he said with his acrid sneer. “You find him attractive, don’t you?”
Jane looked at him haughtily.
“If it troubles you, Mr. Minnick, perhaps you had better speak to Mr. Dulaney about it,” she said and passed on with her head up, angry at herself that her cheeks would grow hot.
Chapter 6
They took lunch in a quaint little tearoom opening into a tidy back alley that had been redeemed and furbished into comfort and even beauty, right in the heart of the business district. The wooden chairs and tables were painted green, and the little paper doilies and napkins were green bordered, and there were growing plants in bloom in window lattices to hide the looming grime of walls across the court. They had soup and rolls and a baked apple. There had not been any question of either taking anything more, and Jane insisted on paying her own check.
“It’s the only way for businesspeople to do, you know,” she said sensibly, and the young man suppressed a startled look and acquiesced.
“All right, if that will make you happier. Now what’s the worry about?”
She had not been sure till that instant that she meant to tell him, but now it seemed altogether the sensible thing to do. Perhaps— who knew but he could help? He was a young man, and attractive.
“Oh, I don’t know that it’s a real worry. It’s just about my kid brother. He’s growing up and Mother is afraid he’s getting interested in a shameless girl. She’s called him up a couple of times, and last night he was out very late. I thought I caught a whiff of various things as he passed my door, including some very poor perfume.”
“Well, now, that ought to be something that I could help in if you would let me try,” said the quiet voice, and as she looked up to meet his kindly glance he suddenly seemed so much older than he had, and the look in his eyes was like that of a well-tried friend whom she had known and trusted before in the past days somewhere.
“Why, of course, I’ll let you try if you’ll be so good and it won’t take too much of your time. Tom would greatly enjoy knowing you, I’m sure, and he’s a bright kid. I think you might not be bored with him. But I don’t know how it could be managed. Tom works, of course. This is his vacation, but you see we’re going down to the shore for a few days. I don’t know just how I could get you together.”
“Where are you going?” asked Sherwood thoughtfully.
“Down to a little place called Lynn Haven. I’ve never been there and it’s probably a dump, but there’s a tiny shanty big enough to hold us all at the price of a song almost, and you see we really had to get Mother and Father out of the heat for a while.”
Then before she knew it she was telling him briefly about her father’s accident and her mother’s sudden illness.
“How are you traveling?” he asked her suddenly. “In the train?”
“No,” explained Jane, “I doubt if our invalids could stand a journey in the train in this hot weather, and there would be so much changing, too, for it is a very roundabout route. That’s why it is so cheap, I suppose. And besides, we couldn’t afford to go in the train, there are so many of us. We are all piling into the old car. It will be a bit crowded, but I guess we’ll manage. Tom is sending some of our luggage ahead by freight.”
“But see here,” said Sherwood eagerly, “why isn’t that just my chance? Why couldn’t I take a load in my flivver and see you safely down? I don’t see how you could possibly all get comfortably into a five-passenger car with two invalids who need plenty of room to rest. Why not let me take Tom—or no, I suppose he would have to drive, wouldn’t he? Why not let me take your father down, and we could get acquainted, and then perhaps that will give me an entering wedge to get to know Tom later.”
“I’m beginning to suspect you’re a rather wonderful friend,” said Jane, suddenly overcome with the kindness of the suggestion. “I can’t think of anything that would so well solve our biggest problem just now about going, but I don’t think it would be right to let you do a thing like that.”
“But it would be a real pleasure. I mean it,” said the young man eagerly. “I told you I have nothing to do after the office closes.”
“Would you let us pay for the gas?”
“Couldn’t we leave that question till a little later? You see, I was going to drive out somewhere Saturday to kill time, and why shouldn’t my destination be Lynn Haven? It isn’t so far away but that I could get back that night, is it?”
“Why, no, I suppose not,” said Jane thoughtfully. “You manage always to make your kindnesses a favor to yourself, don’t you? I think that is the very fineness of courtesy. Well, it does seem as if your offer was a real godsend. Tom and I had been worrying about that journey a lot. But I’ll talk to my brother about it, since Father is not well enough to be consulted.”
“Couldn’t I drive out with you this evening and meet that brother and we talk it over together? How about it?”
And so it was arranged. Jane went back to her desk with a lighter heart. She telephoned home to see how her mother was before she went to work a
nd Betty Lou answered.
“Mother wasn’t quite so well this morning. She wouldn’t eat her breakfast, and she felt the heat terribly, but I asked the doctor to come, and he gave her some new medicine, and now she is sleeping and looks real better. Don’t you worry, Jinny, Tom has been home all day after he got back from the city. He’s out in the garage now fixing the car. He got a flat tire, but he’s mended it.”
Jane sat back reflectively a moment and thought how far away that mountain hotel seemed, where she was but two short days ago! And all those happy people, how utterly foreign to her life they seemed. Lew Lauderdale and his tender words and admiration, how like a dream they were! Well, that was that! And she plunged into her work, casting a furtive eye toward Sherwood’s desk. He hadn’t needed so much prompting today. He was learning rapidly. He would soon need no more help from her!
She found him at the front entrance with his car waiting for her when she came down, and they drove off together like old friends.
Betty Lou was on the porch watching the road when they turned into Flora Street, and she ran into the house and called her brother. “Tom! Tom! They’re coming! It’s the same man! Come and see him! Isn’t that a pretty new shiny car, and hasn’t he got a nice smile?”
Tom came frowning to the door. “What’s Jane doing coming home with a man? Doesn’t she know that’s dangerous these days? How does she know he can drive? And in traffic at this hour, too! Gee! She oughta know better!” he said in a lordly tone. “Waddaya s’pose I wantta see a man smile for, kid? You must think I’m some sissy!”
But he came to the door, curious to see who his sister had picked up.
“There he is now,” said Jane joyously. “Tom, come here a minute!” she called him.
Tom came frowning with that curious reluctance one male has to meet another just a little older than himself. He had an air of hauteur and suspicion as he approached, which mortified Jane. Now why did Tom have to act like that when she wanted him to be at his best?