Sherwood was out on the pavement by this time, helping Jane out, and he turned to meet her brother with his disarming smile. “Awfully glad to meet you, Arleth,” he said, putting out a friendly hand with a certain tone in his voice that gave Tom the impression he was no older than himself, or at least if he was that he didn’t mean to make it noticeable.
Tom accepted the new person’s overtures grudgingly, but he was left no opportunity to create an embarrassing silence.
Jane broke in eagerly, “Tom, Mr. Sherwood is one of our new men down at the office. I guess you haven’t heard me speak of him before, but he was kind enough to pick me up and bring me home out of the heat last night and tonight, and now he has made a wonderful suggestion—”
“We want to see what you think of it, Arleth,” broke in Sherwood with flattering deference to Tom. “I suggested that perhaps you would let me help you out Saturday, and some of the family could travel down with me in my flivver. I was wondering, how about your father? The seat is good and wide, and I have the new shock absorbers that are cracked up as being so wonderful. Wouldn’t it give you a little more room for your mother in the other car? It’s such hot weather to be crowded, especially when elderly people are not well.”
As he talked his gray eyes were doing their work with Tom. Tom’s haughtiness melted visibly, and when Sherwood paused for a reply Tom was even smiling.
“Gee! That sounds wonderful!” Tom said. “But isn’t that asking a whole lot from you? It isn’t likely you’d just pick on a trip like that for your Saturday off.”
“I sure would,” said Sherwood, trying to lapse into boyish vernacular, “I’d just pick that very thing. In fact I have. You see, Arleth, I’m a stranger down here, and I’m far from home and friends. The few people I know in this region are all off fishing or something, and I’m bored stiff with the thought of a whole day with my own company. So if I can get a nice cheap little trip with good company, and fit somehow into somebody else’s picture for a while, I’ll be tickled to death.”
“Well, that sure is great of you!” said Tom wholeheartedly. “Say, you’re a prince. To tell you the plain facts, I’ve been worried sick how I was going to get the crowd all down in a five-passenger bus and get in the necessary outfit besides, but this will make it all clear sailing. Of course Jane and the kid could have gone on the train, but Mother seemed awfully upset about not having them along, and there didn’t seem any other way to arrange it. Jane isn’t used to driving that far alone. I couldn’t go on the train myself because they might need me if the little old bus got a flat tire or anything. She’s got a habit of flat tires.”
“Well, that’s not so good. You’ll need an extra hand along to help in case of anything like that. I used to worry my family sick by acquiring old cars out of the dump and fixing them up to run when I was a kid.”
Tom extended a burly paw. “Same here! Shake, brother! We’re twins!” he said solemnly, and Jane, standing smilingly by, listening, could scarcely keep the happy tears from coming into her eyes. How easily this nice boy had captured her brother! She watched the two as they stood planning little details. What pleasant eyes he had, and how strongly that impression lingered that she had known him before, perhaps in some former existence. She smiled to herself mockingly. What a great thing it would be for Tom if he could have a friend like that, a little older and steadier. But of course, when this man got acquainted he would have interest of his own and no time for a youngster like Tom. However, she must not expect too much. Perhaps all Tom needed was just this little friendship of a day or two to give him an idea of something finer in his life than girls like the one he had been with last night.
Betty Lou drifted out shyly, now, and linked her arm in Jane’s, smiling up at the stranger mistily. Sherwood stopped talking long enough to smile back, and get out a whole new roll of Life Savers and proffer them to her. What a nice thing to do for a little girl, thought the older sister.
They lingered, talking some minutes, a pleasant sense of oneness and common interest upon them all. They were talking about the journey that they were all going to take together the day after the morrow, and they were all happy about it. Tom knew the roads. He had planned just the easiest way for the invalids. He got an old map out of his hip pocket and the two young men put their heads together over it. Here was a detour, there was a piece of rotten road, and this pike had too much traffic on Saturdays. Tom got out a stumpy pencil and drew a line over the best route to go.
“Any good place along there to rest a little while?” asked Sherwood thoughtfully.
“Oh, we’ll take a lunch along,” said Betty Lou, jumping up and down. “Jane and I have got it all planned. Sandwiches and cakes and little cherry tarts. I’m making the tarts tomorrow.”
“Oh, really?” eagerly responded Sherwood. “And do you think you would have time to make one for me, too?”
“Oh, sure!” said Betty Lou. “Of course we will. Jane said—”
But Betty Lou never did tell what Jane said, for just then a taxi came thundering up Flora Street and stopped with a lurch, almost shaving off the left rear fender from the flivver. A head leaned out and surveyed the group annoyedly, and suddenly Jane recognized Lew Lauderdale. Then all the world began to ride around and little black specks got in the way of the setting sunlight as Jane tried to get her lost breath and think what to say under the circumstances.
All at once the dusty little marigolds became self-assertive. The neighbor’s Victrola belting out, “Dear Little Girl of Mine,” seemed to view with the Smith baby roaring itself blue in the face all by itself on its own porch, and to fill the universe with sound. Every little defect in the neat Arleth home and its surroundings flaunted itself, and the heat and cheapness and noise seemed to dance mockingly about her.
If Jane had been asked on her way down from the mountain house that long day of travel how she would feel if Lew Lauderdale should come down after her and show that he cared enough to hunt her up even amid her plain surroundings, she would have been sure that she would be overjoyed. But now, somehow, she didn’t feel that way. She was only mortified. Even the little shiny new flivver standing before the door that she had been so pleased with a few minutes before suddenly became a part of the mortification. Lew had high-powered cars of the most expensive makes. He would consider a flivver something in the same class with an insect to be flecked out of his aristocratic way.
“Jane!” he called possessively, while the Smith baby was getting its breath for another yell, and somebody was changing the record on the Victrola, “Jane, is that really you? For heaven’s sake come here so you can hear what I say!”
The taxi engine suddenly ceased throbbing, and in the lull his words came out clearly. Tom looked up at the command and scowled, and Sherwood lifted surprised eyes and gave the occupant of the taxi a swift consideration, then turned back to Tom and the map as if the man had not been there.
“Now, do you think your father would prefer riding in my car or shall we arrange it some other way?” Jane heard him say in a tone that had suddenly lost its boyishness and become gravely courteous.
Instantly she was aware that Sherwood, the new clerk, who wore cheap suits and rode in a flivver, would never sit in a taxi and ask her to come out in the road to speak to him.
With heightened color Jane poised on the curb and spoke quite clearly even above the Smith baby who was on the job again, “Mr. Lauderdale! Where in the world did you drop from? I thought you were up in the mountains! Won’t you get out and come in?”
“No,” said Lew crossly, casting a contemptuous glance at the house behind her. “We can’t talk in there with a mob around. Come on out and sit in the taxi,” and he swung the door open for her.
Jane hesitated, her lips settling suddenly into a firm little line, her chin taking the least bit of a haughty tilt. Then with a swift glance at Sherwood, she turned quickly and slipped into the flivver whose door stood open and slid under the wheel to the side next the taxi, quite as if sh
e owned the car. Not if she knew herself did she intend to step out into the street and let her family see her being led about that way. Besides, she had no desire to be whisked off in that taxi without her will or consent to take dinner in some exclusive hotel. That would likely be what he wanted.
So Jane leaned out of the flivver and smiled over at Lauderdale. “What in the world are you doing in the city in all this heat?” she questioned pleasantly. “I didn’t know people came to the city at this time of year unless they had an imperative call.” Her tone put him among her mere acquaintances.
He darted an angry glance at her. “I’ll explain later,” he said rudely. “Go get on some different clothes, and I’ll hold the taxi. Hurry up, for it’s beastly hot in these little narrow streets. It’s a crime for anybody to live in a place like this in summer. I’m taking you to a roof garden where we can be cool and have something good to eat, and what’s more important, something cool to drink. Then we can talk. Make it snappy, for my patience is about worn out. It’s taken two full hours to locate you.”
The heart of Jane froze indignantly. “Sorry,” she said with a bright, hard smile, “I couldn’t possibly go anywhere this evening. I have work to do that can’t be put off and an engagement later in the evening.”
“Say, see here, Jane, you’re not going not stand me up when I’ve come all the way down from New England after you, are you? Not on your life. Cut the engagement and let the work go to thunder! I’m here, and I don’t intend to take no for an answer.”
“Well, that’s too bad, but it really can’t be helped, you know. You didn’t send word you were coming,” said Jane sweetly, her voice clearly audible to her brother and Sherwood.
Lauderdale got himself angrily out of the taxi at last and came and leaned over the door of the flivver to argue the matter. Jane sat there, pleasantly refusing with not the least bit of regret in her voice. At least she had made him get out to speak to her.
Then, just as Lauderdale was getting quite furious, Sherwood leaned courteously over the wheel and said, “Now, Miss Arleth, are you ready for me to run you over to the hospital to see your father?”
Jane turned startled eyes and met the gray ones with their quiet twinkle. “Why yes, now if you please,” she said graciously, “if you have finished talking with Tom.”
“And shall we tuck Betty Lou in also?” asked Sherwood, twinkling at the little girl.
“Why that will be lovely if it isn’t too crowded for you.” Jane beamed, ignoring the frowning face outside the other window of the flivver.
“Pile in there, little sister,” said Sherwood, stepping back as if Betty Lou were a lady.
“Oh, really? Without my hat?”
“You don’t need a hat on such a hot night, little lady,” said Sherwood indulgently, aware of the glaring Lauderdale eyeing him savagely.
“Mr. Sherwood, this is Mr. Lauderdale, one of the people I met this summer on my vacation,” explained Jane easily as Sherwood took his place at the wheel.
Lauderdale would have acknowledged the introduction by only a grudging inclination of his head, but Sherwood gave him a steady courteous glance and put out his hand. Jane couldn’t help feeling that Sherwood had suddenly added ten years to his appearance for the occasion. Then Jane leaned forward again and inclined her head toward Tom.
“This is my brother, Mr. Lauderdale.”
This time Lauderdale merely nodded toward the scowling Tom, as if he were a mere child, and went on with his interrupted conversation.
“How soon will you be through at the hospital, Jane? Suppose I meet you there in half an hour? Where is it?”
“That would be out of the question,” said Jane decisively. “My evening is entirely filled.” There was an air about her of cool decision that was new to the summer man of the mountain. He had taken her for a soft, pliable little butterfly, and here she had turned out to have that thing they called character. Character misdirected by some old-fogey parents, he told himself as he frowned at his watch.
“Well, then how early may I come for you in the morning?” he asked crustily. “I really haven’t the time to waste this way, waiting through a whole evening.”
“I’m sorry,” said Jane cheerfully, “but I have to be in the office all day tomorrow. I wouldn’t have a minute. I might see you for a few minutes at half past eight if that will do you any good.”
“The office!” The young man looked disgusted. “I thought this was your vacation!”
“It is,” said Jane, “but one of our people was called away by sudden illness in her family, and I am taking her place for a few days.”
“That’s an imposition!” said Lauderdale, as if he were going to do something about it right away and had a perfect right to be furious.
“Oh no,” said Jane, “I like it.”
“You like it!”
“Yes, I’m getting double pay!”
He gave her a withering look. “I never supposed you were mercenary.”
“No?” she said wickedly and laughed softly. “Well, you know one has to be sometimes.”
“I won’t keep you any longer!” said the young man suddenly, drawing away from the flivver. “I’ll see you later. I’ll call you perhaps.”
He touched his hat offendedly and moved back to his taxi.
Jane wondered why she was not troubled at what she had done. She was morally sure she would be later in the evening when her anger had had time to cool, but just now she was tingling with indignation at the easy assurance of the man who had followed her down here as if he owned her and did not respect her enough to give her ordinary courtesy.
The flivver began to move noisily, sputtering, and shot off up Flora Street exactly as if it knew just where it was going. The taxi tuned up and turned around, trundling off down Flora Street.
“Was that what you wanted me to do?” asked the owner of the flivver, turning his gray eyes to look at Jane seriously.
“How did you know?” asked Jane, meeting his gaze as if they were old friends of years’ standing.
“I sized it up about that way,” twinkled Sherwood. “Now, do you really want to go to the hospital, or shall we run around the block and back?”
“We’ll go to the hospital if you don’t mind, now that we’re started, for Betty Lou has been longing to visit Father. We won’t stay a minute, just peek in on him and back. Are you going to be very late for dinner? It isn’t but a five minutes’ drive. Yes, turn right here. You see, we are beginning already to impose upon you.”
“That’s nice,” said Sherwood with a satisfied smile. “It makes me feel like home folks.”
Sherwood stayed in the car while Jane and Betty Lou ran up, but in a moment Betty Lou came running back again.
“Father wants to see you,” she explained eagerly. “Jane told him how you brought us, and he wants to see you.”
So Sherwood followed the little girl up the white marble steps and into the sickroom, appearing at the foot of Mr. Arleth’s bed. The two men looked into each other’s eyes an instant and then the father reached out a feeble hand, and his eyes lit up with a smile of welcome.
“Now this is good of you to come to see a sick man,” he said and grasped the younger man’s hand.
Again Jane had that sense of a quick change from boyishness to a more mature look as she saw Sherwood measuring up her father, and she felt sure he liked him.
They didn’t stay but a minute or two. Jane hurried them away as Mr. Arleth’s supper tray came in, but she could see that even this brief contact with a stranger had been a good thing for her father. He had risen from his depression to his sweet habitual courtesy and said a few pleasant things to Sherwood, told him he was going to be out of here in a day or two now and really felt like himself again, ready to go back to work as soon as the doctor would let him.
Down in the flivver again they drove quickly back to Flora Street.
“I’m so glad you went up,” said Jane. “I think it was good for him to see somebody new,
and I could see he liked you at once. Now you won’t be a stranger to him when we tell him about the trip. He doesn’t know it yet, you know.”
“So your brother told me,” said Sherwood. “But he and I are going to be good friends, I could see that at once. I liked him. He has young eyes. He looks pale, of course, but the shore will do him a world of good. Now, I’ve met the whole family except your mother, haven’t I?”
“And she’s the most best of all,” said Betty Lou shyly.
“Is she, Betty Lou?” flashed the young man. “Why of course she is! Mothers always are, aren’t they? I used to have a mother once and I know.”
“Oh,” said Betty Lou sympathetically. “Haven’t you any mother? I don’t see how you can stand it!”
“Sometimes I don’t see either, Betty Lou,” said the young man gravely. “Perhaps I might borrow yours sometimes, would you mind?”
“Why—no—not if you didn’t take her away—” said Betty Lou soberly. “We couldn’t spare her, you know.”
“Indeed no! I should say not!” said Sherwood. “I’ll just borrow the whole family. How will that do?”
Betty Lou smiled happily. “That will be nice,” she said.
And then they were back at Flora Street.
He helped them out at their own door, and Jane looked furtively around, almost expecting to see the yellow taxi nearby, but none appeared.
“Who is that guy?” asked Tom appearing at the door as they went in. “Why can’t ya ask him ta stay ta dinner? I like his mug. He’s a real man.”
“We asked him,” said Jane, “but he couldn’t. He had something to attend to, he said.”
“Well, who was that other poor fish in that taxi? Where’dya pick him up? He looked like something the cat dragged in. Fer two cents I’da punched his pretty little face for him!”
There is nothing like a young brother to bring things down to first principles.
“Thomas!” said his mother severely from her couch. “What a terrible thing to say about one of your sister’s friends!”