CHAPTER XXX
NEARING THE END
"OLD Mr. Potter has had a stroke."
Georgina called the news up to Richard as she paused at the foot of theGreen Stairs on her way to the net-mender's house.
"Belle sent a note over a little while ago and I'm taking the answerback. Come and go with me."
Richard, who had been trundling Captain Kidd around on his forefeet inthe role of wheelbarrow, dropped the dog's hind legs which he had beenusing as handles and came jumping down the steps, two at a time to doher bidding.
"Belle's gone over to take care of things," Georgina explained, with animportant air as they walked along. "There's a man to help nurse him,but she'll stay on to the end." Her tone and words were Tippy's own asshe made this announcement.
"End of what?" asked Richard. "And what's a stroke?"
Half an hour earlier Georgina could not have answered his question, butshe explained now with the air of one who has had a lifetime ofexperience. It was Mrs. Triplett's fund she was drawing on, however, andold Jeremy's. Belle's note had started them to comparing reminiscences,and out of their conversation Georgina had gathered many gruesomefacts.
"You may be going about as well and hearty as usual, and suddenly it'llstrike you to earth like lightning, and it may leave you powerless tomove for weeks and sometimes even years. You may know all that's goingon around you but not be able to speak or make a sign. Mr. Potter isn'tas bad as that, but he's speechless. With him the end may come any time,yet he may linger on for nobody knows how long."
Richard had often passed the net-mender's cottage in the machine, andstared in at the old man plying his twine-shuttle in front of the door.The fact that he was Emmett's father and ignorant of the secret whichRichard shared, made an object of intense interest out of an otherwiseunattractive and commonplace old man. Now that interest grew vast andovershadowing as the children approached the house.
Belle, stepping to the front door when she heard the gate click,motioned for them to go around to the back. As they passed an open sidewindow, each looked in, involuntarily attracted by the sight of a beddrawn up close to it. Then they glanced at each other, startled and awedby what they saw, and bumped into each other in their haste to get by asquickly as possible.
On the bed lay a rigid form, stretched out under a white counterpane.All that showed of the face above the bushy whiskers was as waxenlooking as if death had already touched it, but the sunken eyes halfopen, showed that they were still in the mysterious hold of what oldJeremy called a "living death." It was a sight which neither of themcould put out of their minds for days afterward.
Belle met them at the back door, solemn, unsmiling, her hushed tonesadding to the air of mystery which seemed to shroud the house. As shefinished reading the note a neighbor came in the back way and Belleasked the children to wait a few minutes. They dropped down on the grasswhile Belle, leaning against the pump, answered Mrs. Brown's questionsin low tones.
She had been up all night, she told Mrs. Brown. Yes, she was going tostay on till the call came, no matter whether it was a week or a year.Mrs. Brown spoke in a hoarse whisper which broke now and then, lettingher natural voice through with startling effect.
"It's certainly noble of you," she declared. "There's not many who wouldput themselves out to do for an old person who hadn't any claim on themthe way you are doing for him. There'll surely be stars in _your_crown."
Later, as the children trudged back home, sobered by all they had seenand heard, Georgina broke the silence.
"Well, I think we ought to put Belle's name on the very top line of ourclub book. She ought to be an honary member--the very honaryest one ofall."
"Why?" asked Richard.
"You heard all Mrs. Brown said. Seems to me what she's doing to give oldMr. Potter a good time is the very noblest----"
There was an amazed look on Richard's face as he interrupted with theexclamation:
"Gee-minee! You don't call what that old man's having a good time, doyou?"
"Well, it's good to what it would be if Belle wasn't taking care of him.And if she does as Mrs. Brown says, 'carries some comfort into thevalley of the shadow for him, making his last days bright,' isn't thatthe very biggest rainbow anybody could make?"
"Ye-es," admitted Richard in a doubtful tone. "Maybe it is if you put itthat way."
They walked a few blocks more in silence, then he said:
"I think _Dan_ ought to be an honary member."
It was Georgina's turn to ask why.
"Aw, you know why! Taking the blame on himself the way he did andeverything."
"But he made just as bad times for Uncle Darcy and Aunt Elspeth as hemade good times for Mr. Potter and Emmett. I don't think he has anyright to belong at all."
They argued the question hotly for a few minutes, coming nearer to aquarrel than they had ever been before, and only dropping it as theycrossed to a side street which led into the dunes.
"Let's turn here and go home this way," suggested Richard. "Let's golook at the place where we buried the pouch and see if the sand hasshifted any."
Nothing was changed, however, except that the holes they had dug werefilled to the level now, and the sand stretched an unbroken surface asbefore the day of their digging.
"Cousin James says that if ever the gold comes to the top we can haveit, because he paid the woman. But if it ever does I won't be here tosee it. I've got to go home in eight more days."
He stood kicking his toes into the sand as he added dolefully, "Here itis the end of the summer and we've only played at being pirates. We'venever gone after the real stuff in dead earnest, one single time."
"I know," admitted Georgina. "First we had to wait so long for yourportrait to be finished and then you went off on the yacht, and all inbetween times things have happened so fast there never was any time. Butwe found something just as good as pirate stuff--that note in the riflewas worth more to Uncle Darcy than a chest of gold."
"And Captain Kidd was as good as a real pirate," said Richard,brightening at the thought, "for he brought home a bag of real gold,and was the one who started us after the wild-cat woman. I guess UncleDarcy would rather know what she told him than have a chest of ducatsand pearls."
"We can go next summer," suggested Georgina.
"Maybe I won't be here next summer. Dad always wants to try new placeson his vacation. He and Aunt Letty like to move. But I'd like to stayhere always. I hate to go away until I find out the end of things. Iwish I could stay until the letter is found and Dan comes home."
"You may be a grown-up man before either of those things happen,"remarked Georgina sagely.
"Then I'll know I'll be here to see 'm," was the triumphant answer,"because when I'm a man I'm coming back here to live all the rest of mylife. It's the nicest place there is."
"If anything happens sooner I'll write and tell you," promised Georgina.
Something happened the very next morning, however, and Georgina keptpart of her promise though not in writing, when she came running up theGreen Stairs, excited and eager. Her news was so tremendously importantthat the words tumbled over each other in her haste to tell it. Shecould hardly make herself understood. The gist of it was that a longnight letter had just arrived from her father, saying that he had landedin San Francisco and was taking the first homeward bound train. Hewould stop in Washington for a couple of days to attend to somebusiness, and then was coming home for a long visit. And--this was thesentence Georgina saved till last to electrify Richard with:
"_Am bringing Dan with me._"
"He didn't say where he found him or anything else about it," addedGeorgina, "only 'prepare his family for the surprise.' So Barby wentstraight down there to Fishburn Court and she's telling Aunt Elspeth andUncle Darcy now, so they'll have time to get used to the news before hewalks in on them."
They sat down on the top step with the dog between them.
"They must know it by this time," remarked Georgina. "Oh, don't you wishyou could see
what's happening, and how glad everybody is? Uncle Darcywill want to start right out with his bell and ring it till it cracks,telling the whole town."
"But he won't do it," said Richard. "He promised he wouldn't."
"Anyhow till Belle says he can," amended Georgina. "I'm sure she'll sayso when 'the call' comes, but nobody knows when that will be. It may besoon and it may not be for years."
They sat there on the steps a long time, talking quietly, but with theholiday feeling that one has when waiting for a procession to pass by.The very air seemed full of that sense of expectancy, of waiting forsomething to happen.
Georgina of the Rainbows Page 30
