CHAPTER XXIV
A STORY REMODELED
The pretended Halloween was a great success. So very excited, indeed,did David become over the swinging apples and popping nuts that hequite forgot to tell Mr. Jack what the Lady of the Roses had said untilJill had gone up to bed and he himself was about to take from Mr.Jack's hand the little lighted lamp.
"Oh, Mr. Jack, I forgot," he cried then. "There was something I wasgoing to tell you."
"Never mind to-night, David; it's so late. Suppose we leave it untilto-morrow," suggested Mr. Jack, still with the lamp extended in hishand.
"But I promised the Lady of the Roses that I'd say it to-night,"demurred the boy, in a troubled voice.
The man drew his lamp halfway back suddenly.
"The Lady of the Roses! Do you mean--she sent a message--to ME?" hedemanded.
"Yes; about the story, 'The Princess and the Pauper,' you know."
With an abrupt exclamation Mr. Jack set the lamp on the table andturned to a chair. He had apparently lost his haste to go to bed.
"See here, David, suppose you come and sit down, and tell me just whatyou're talking about. And first--just what does the Lady of the Rosesknow about that--that 'Princess and the Pauper'?"
"Why, she knows it all, of course," returned the boy in surprise. "Itold it to her."
"You--told--it--to her!" Mr. Jack relaxed in his chair. "David!"
"Yes. And she was just as interested as could be."
"I don't doubt it!" Mr. Jack's lips snapped together a little grimly.
"Only she didn't like the ending, either."
Mr. Jack sat up suddenly.
"She didn't like--David, are you sure? Did she SAY that?"
David frowned in thought.
"Well, I don't know as I can tell, exactly, but I'm sure she did n'tlike it, because just before she told me WHAT to say to you, she saidthat--that what she was going to say would probably have something todo with the ending, anyway. Still--" David paused in yet deeperthought. "Come to think of it, there really isn't anything--not in whatshe said--that CHANGED that ending, as I can see. They didn't getmarried and live happy ever after, anyhow."
"Yes, but what did she say?" asked Mr. Jack in a voice that was notquite steady. "Now, be careful, David, and tell it just as she said it."
"Oh, I will," nodded David. "SHE said to do that, too."
"Did she?" Mr. Jack leaned farther forward in his chair. "But tell me,how did she happen to--to say anything about it? Suppose you begin atthe beginning--away back, David. I want to hear it all--all!"
David gave a contented sigh, and settled himself more comfortably.
"Well, to begin with, you see, I told her the story long ago, before Iwas sick, and she was ever so interested then, and asked lots ofquestions. Then the other day something came up--I've forgottenhow--about the ending, and I told her how hard I'd tried to have youchange it, but you wouldn't. And she spoke right up quick and saidprobably you didn't want to change it, anyhow. But of course I settledTHAT question without any trouble," went on David confidently, "by justtelling her how you said you'd give anything in the world to change it."
"And you told her that--just that, David?" cried the man.
"Why, yes, I had to," answered David, in surprise, "else she wouldn'thave known that you DID want to change it. Don't you see?"
"Oh, yes! I--see--a good deal that I'm thinking you don't," mutteredMr. Jack, falling back in his chair.
"Well, then is when I told her about the logical ending--what you said,you know,--oh, yes! and that was when I found out she did n't like theending, because she laughed such a funny little laugh and colored up,and said that she wasn't sure she could tell me what a logical endingwas, but that she would try to find out, and that, anyhow, YOUR endingwouldn't be hers--she was sure of that."
"David, did she say that--really?" Mr. Jack was on his feet now.
"She did; and then yesterday she asked me to come over, and she saidsome more things,--about the story, I mean,--but she didn't say anotherthing about the ending. She didn't ever say anything about that exceptthat little bit I told you of a minute ago."
"Yes, yes, but what did she say?" demanded Mr. Jack, stopping short inhis walk up and down the room.
"She said: 'You tell Mr. Jack that I know something about that story ofhis that perhaps he doesn't. In the first place, I know the Princess alot better than he does, and she isn't a bit the kind of girl he'spictured her."
"Yes! Go on--go on!"
"'Now, for instance,' she says, 'when the boy made that call, after thegirl first came back, and when the boy didn't like it because theytalked of colleges and travels, and such things, you tell him that Ihappen to know that that girl was just hoping and hoping he'd speak ofthe old days and games; but that she could n't speak, of course, whenhe hadn't been even once to see her during all those weeks, and whenhe'd acted in every way just as if he'd forgotten.'"
"But she hadn't waved--that Princess hadn't waved--once!" argued Mr.Jack; "and he looked and looked for it."
"Yes, SHE spoke of that," returned David. "But SHE said she shouldn'tthink the Princess would have waved, when she'd got to be such a greatbig girl as that--WAVING to a BOY! She said that for her part sheshould have been ashamed of her if she had!"
"Oh, did she!" murmured Mr. Jack blankly, dropping suddenly into hischair.
"Yes, she did," repeated David, with a little virtuous uplifting of hischin.
It was plain to be seen that David's sympathies had unaccountably metwith a change of heart.
"But--the Pauper--"
"Oh, yes, and that's another thing," interrupted David. "The Lady ofthe Roses said that she didn't like that name one bit; that it wasn'ttrue, anyway, because he wasn't a pauper. And she said, too, that asfor his picturing the Princess as being perfectly happy in all thatmagnificence, he didn't get it right at all. For SHE knew that thePrincess wasn't one bit happy, because she was so lonesome for thingsand people she had known when she was just the girl."
Again Mr. Jack sprang to his feet. For a minute he strode up and downthe room in silence; then in a shaking voice he asked:--
"David, you--you aren't making all this up, are you? You're saying justwhat--what Miss Holbrook told you to?"
"Why, of course, I'm not making it up," protested the boy aggrievedly."This is the Lady of the Roses' story--SHE made it up--only she talkedit as if 't was real, of course, just as you did. She said anotherthing, too. She said that she happened to know that the Princess hadgot all that magnificence around her in the first place just to see ifit wouldn't make her happy, but that it hadn't, and that now she hadone place--a little room--that was left just as it used to be when shewas the girl, and that she went there and sat very often. And she saidit was right in sight of where the boy lived, too, where he could seeit every day; and that if he hadn't been so blind he could have lookedright through those gray walls and seen that, and seen lots of otherthings. And what did she mean by that, Mr. Jack?"
"I don't know--I don't know, David," half-groaned Mr. Jack. "SometimesI think she means--and then I think that can't be--true."
"But do you think it's helped it any--the story?" persisted the boy."She's only talked a little about the Princess. She didn't reallychange things any--not the ending."
"But she said it might, David--she said it might! Don't you remember?"cried the man eagerly. And to David, his eagerness did not seem at allstrange. Mr. Jack had said before--long ago--that he would be very gladindeed to have a happier ending to this tale. "Think now," continuedthe man. "Perhaps she said something else, too. Did she say anythingelse, David?"
David shook his head slowly.
"No, only--yes, there was a little something, but it doesn't CHANGEthings any, for it was only a 'supposing.' She said: 'Just supposing,after long years, that the Princess found out about how the boy feltlong ago, and suppose he should look up at the tower some day, at theold time, and see a ONE--TWO wave, which meant, "Come over to see me."Just what do you supp
ose he would do?' But of course, THAT can't do anygood," finished David gloomily, as he rose to go to bed, "for that wasonly a 'supposing.'"
"Of course," agreed Mr. Jack steadily; and David did not know that onlystern self-control had forced the steadiness into that voice, nor that,for Mr. Jack, the whole world had burst suddenly into song.
Neither did David, the next morning, know that long before eighto'clock Mr. Jack stood at a certain window, his eyes unswervingly fixedon the gray towers of Sunnycrest. What David did know, however, wasthat just after eight, Mr. Jack strode through the room where he andJill were playing checkers, flung himself into his hat and coat, andthen fairly leaped down the steps toward the path that led to thefootbridge at the bottom of the hill.
"Why, whatever in the world ails Jack?" gasped Jill. Then, after astartled pause, she asked. "David, do folks ever go crazy for joy?Yesterday, you see, Jack got two splendid pieces of news. One was fromhis doctor. He was examined, and he's fine, the doctor says; all well,so he can go back, now any time, to the city and work. I shall go toschool then, you know,--a young ladies' school," she finished, a littleimportantly.
"He's well? How splendid! But what was the other news? You said therewere two; only it couldn't have been nicer than that was; to bewell--all well!"
"The other? Well, that was only that his old place in the city waswaiting for him. He was with a firm of big lawyers, you know, and ofcourse it is nice to have a place all waiting. But I can't see anythingin those things to make him act like this, now. Can you?"
"Why, yes, maybe," declared David. "He's found his work--don't yousee?--out in the world, and he's going to do it. I know how I'd feel ifI had found mine that father told me of! Only what I can't understandis, if Mr. Jack knew all this yesterday, why did n't he act like thisthen, instead of waiting till to-day?"
"I wonder," said Jill.