The Castaways of Pete's Patch

by Carroll Watson Rankin

  CHAPTER XXIII

  Billy's Memory

  WHILE Mrs. Crane was supplying Dave with a bountiful meal, thegirls were telling Billy about Rosa Marie, Marjory, Aunty Jane, theporcupine--in short, all the news of that eventful day. Billy, withbrightening eyes, was certainly enjoying it all, particularly the partabout Terrible Tim.

  "Once," began Billy, reminiscently, "when I was a kid I saw----"

  But what Billy had seen could only be guessed, for the brightnessslipped from his eyes and he pulled the corner of his blanket over hisface.

  "I can't remember a blamed thing," he mumbled, with a catch in histhroat.

  "Cheer up," teased Henrietta, gently. "Nobody 'd _want_ to rememberanything that looks like Terrible Tim. But when you see him, you'llprobably remember what you were going to say. Did they tell you thatyou're to come outside to-morrow and lie in a hammock with soft-boiledeggs? Oh, I mean you're to _eat_ the eggs. Aren't you glad?"

  "I like eggs," said the boy, uncovering one eye. "Chicken, too, androast beef."

  "Perhaps Dave will get you a partridge--Doctor Bennett said you couldeat that. Did you ever eat partridge?"

  "Yes," returned Billy.

  "Where?" demanded Bettie and Henrietta, with one voice.

  "At--at--oh, it's gone!" wailed Billy, "when I had it right at the endof my tongue."

  "Don't worry," soothed motherly Jean. "You're a _lot_ better than youwere yesterday. We can all see that."

  "Think so? Well, maybe I am. Is that--yes, it _is_ milk toast. Tastesjust like food. _Sure_ I'm ready for another bite."

  "It's the good sweet cream those people brought," said Mrs. Crane.

  "I hope," murmured Billy, between bites, "they'll come often."

  "I don't," protested Mabel. "Visitors are a nuisance--they stir thingsup too much."

  "Her mother scrubbed her," laughed Henrietta, "and brushed a lot ofsand out of her hair--didn't you hear terrible wails? But Mabel wasglad to see her mother, just the same."

  The threatening clouds that had so alarmed the two launch-men passedharmlessly over Pete's Patch; and the next day proved so fine thatBilly was moved to a hammock under the trees, where the overlappingleaves of huge maples formed a most attractive roof. The change agreedwith him; fortified with fresh eggs and fresh air he grew stronger withastonishing rapidity; a rapidity that proved alarming to Mrs. Crane;for, like Bettie, this new invalid was no sooner on his feet than hemade tracks for the alluring lake.

  "If I had a bathing suit," said Billy, when Mrs. Crane had, forthe fourth time, forbidden him to wade in the lake, "I'd go in_swimming_--then you couldn't pull me out so easily."

  "But, Billy----"

  "All right, I'll be good," promised Billy, "but that's a mighty finebunch of water--say, couldn't you _make_ some swimming tights for achap?"

  "When you're strong enough to swim," agreed Mrs. Crane.

  Physically, young Billy improved by leaps and bounds; but the strongerhe grew, the more he worried over his strange lapses of memory.

  "Sometimes I dream things," complained Billy, one day. "And when I wakeup I wonder how much of it is true. Last night I thought I was fallingdown, down out of an airship and I called 'Mother, mother! I can't findmy umbrella.'"

  "Have you a mother?" asked Jean, quickly.

  "I don't know. But I think so--I dream of some person who says: 'Nowdon't do that, Lad--Lad----'"

  "Laddie," supplied Bettie, promptly.

  "Laddie!" shouted the boy. "That's it--it didn't get away _that_ time."

  "Sometimes," said Laddie-Billy, another day, "when Dave comes intosight, I _almost_ call him by another name; but the name doesn't quitecome--I think I've known somebody--in a boat, perhaps--that looked likehim."

  There were many things, fortunately, that the boy had not forgotten. Hehandled his knife and fork properly, ate his soup daintily, and provedlater that he had once been able to row a boat; though at first, ofcourse, his strength had been unequal to very strenuous efforts withthe oars. In spite of his unhappy experience with the lake, he seemed,strangely enough, to be exceedingly fond of the water and to feel notthe slightest fear of it. Mrs. Crane, indeed, would have been glad tofind him more cowardly; for, long before the purposely delayed bathingsuit was ready, Billy had gone in swimming in his only clothes. Also,it was next to impossible to keep him out of the boats.

  Time proved, too, that the water-loving castaway was a bright lad. Hecould read and write very readily in English, knew a little French,and was rather clever at figures. Often, when glancing through theadvertising pages of magazines, his expressive face would light upand Laddie-Billy (as the girls now called him to please Mabel) wouldexclaim, joyfully: "I've seen _that_ picture before."

  But the things that the curiously afflicted boy _wanted_ to rememberrefused obstinately to come; and this grieved him sorely.

  "I suppose," said Billy, one balmy evening, when all the youngsterswere roasting potatoes between two glowing logs, "I'm really wellenough to go home, but--but where _is_ my home?"

  "You needn't worry about that," assured Mrs. Crane. "We're more thanwilling to keep you right here--as long as you don't tumble out ofthose boats."

  "Yes," added Mr. Black, heartily, "we really need a boy to help us whenDave is busy breaking the game laws. I'm only afraid that Saunders willcome along some day with an answer to that advertisement. You're wellworth keeping, my lad."

  "I'm glad of that," smiled Billy, cheered by these kindly assurances."I'll try to be, anyway."

  "We _all_ like you," declared Mabel, "even if you _are_ getting fat."

  "Am I?" queried Laddie-Billy, anxiously. "Gracious! If I do, theseclothes--can it be that I'll come to wearing a blue plaid bathing suit_all_ the time?"

  For Mrs. Crane, for want of other material, was slowly converting herbiggest and most gorgeous gingham apron into a decidedly queer bathingcostume for her lively charge.

  "The bagginess," Mrs. Crane explained, when the castaway suggestedmildly that part of the cloth might be saved for other purposes, "willfill up with air and keep you from sinking."

  And naughty Henrietta had added, under her breath: "Behold BillyBlue-eyes, the Human Balloon."