Sally hastily untied him, comforting him, meanwhile, as well as she could. But Charlie, noticing something unusual in her voice, looked up into her face and saw traces of tears. He immediately burst into tears himself.

"Charlie!" cried Sally, fiercely; "Charlie! Laugh, now! Laugh, I tell you." She glanced over the wall. "Here come Fox Sanderson and Henrietta. Laugh!"

CHAPTER V

Sally always remembered that winter, a winter of hard work and growing anxiety for her, enlivened by brief and occasional joys. She got to know Fox and Henrietta very well, which was a continual joy and enlivenment. Sally did not count dancing-school among the enlivenments. And the infrequent lessons with Fox and Henrietta and her father were enlivenments, too, usually; not always. After the times when they were not, Sally wanted to cry, but she didn't, which made it all the harder.

Her mother seemed steadily progressing toward permanent invalidism, while her father was doing much worse than that. And she took more and more of the burden of both upon her own small shoulders. Poor child!

She should have known no real anxiety; none more real than the common anxieties of childhood. But perhaps they are real enough. Sally was not eleven yet.

It is hard to say whether her mother or her father caused Sally the more anxiety. Her mother's progress was so gradual that the change from day to day--or from week to week, for that matter--was not noticeable; while her father's was spasmodic. Sally did not see him during a spasm, so that she did not know how noticeable the change was from day to day or from hour to hour. We do not speak of weeks in such cases. But it was just after a spasm that he was apt to make his appearance again at home in a condition of greater or less dilapidation, with nerves on edge and his temper in such a state that Mrs. Ladue had grown accustomed, in those circ.u.mstances, to the use of great care when she was forced to address him. Lately, she had avoided him entirely at such times. Sally, on the contrary, made no effort to avoid him and did not use great care when she addressed him, although she was always respectful. This course was good for the shreds of the professor's soul and perhaps no harder for Sally. But that was not the reason why she did it. She could not have done differently.

There was the time in the fall, but that was over. And there was the time at Christmas which Sally nipped in the bud. Following the Christmas fiasco--a fiasco only from the point of view of the professor--was the Era of Good Behavior. That is begun with capitals because Sally was very happy about her father during that era, although her mother's health worried her more and more. Then there was the time late in the winter, after her father had broken down under the strain of Good Behavior for two months; and, again, twice in March. Professor Ladue must have been breaking rapidly during that spring, for there came that awful time when it seemed, even to Sally, as if the bottom were dropping out of everything and as if she had rather die than not. Dying seems easier to all of us when we are rather young, although the idea does not generally come to us when we are ten years old. But it must be remembered that Sally was getting rather more than her fair share of hard knocks. Later in life dying does not seem so desirable. It is a clear shirking of responsibility.

Not that Sally ought to have had responsibility.

The time at Christmas happened on the last day of term time; and, because that day was only half a day for the professor and because Christmas was but two days off, Sally had persuaded her mother to take her into town. "Town" was half an hour's ride in the train; and, once there, Sally intended to persuade her mother further and to beard her father in his laboratory and to take him for an afternoon's Christmas shopping; very modest shopping. Whether Mrs. Ladue suspected the designs of Sally and was sure of their failure, I do not know. Sally had not told her mother of her complete plans. She was by no means certain of their success herself. In fact, she felt very shaky about it, but it was to be tried. Whatever her reason, Mrs. Ladue consented with great and very evident reluctance, and it may have been her dread of the occasion that gave her the headache which followed. So Sally had to choose between two evils. And, the evil to her father seeming the greater if she stayed at home with her mother, she elected to go.

She disposed of Charlie and knocked softly on her mother's door. There was a faint reply and Sally went in. The shades were pulled down and the room was rather dark. Sally went to her mother and bent over her and put her arms half around her. She did it very gently,--oh, so gently,--for fear of making the headache worse.

"Is your head better, mother, dear?" she asked softly.

Mrs. Ladue smiled wanly. "Having my dear little girl here makes it better," she answered.

"Does it, mother? Does it really?" The thought made Sally very happy.

But then it suddenly came over her that, if she carried out her plans, she could not stay. She was torn with conflicting emotions, but not with doubts. She had considered enough and she knew what she intended to do. She did not hesitate.

"I'm very sorry, mother, dear, that I can't stay now. I'll come in when I get back, though, and I'll stay then, if it isn't too late and if you want me then. I truly will. I love to."

"Is it Charlie, Sally? You have too much of the care of Charlie. If I weren't so good for nothing!"

"I've left Charlie with Katie, and he's happy. It's father. I think I'd better go in and meet him. Don't you think I'd better?"

The tears came to Mrs. Ladue's eyes. "Bless you, dear child! But how can you, dear, all alone? No, Sally. If you must go, I'll get up and go with you."

"Oh, mother, you mustn't, you mustn't. I can get Fox to go with me. I know he will. I promise not to go unless I can get Fox--or some one--to go."

"Some grown person, Sally?" Mrs. Ladue asked anxiously.

"Yes," answered Sally, almost smiling, "some grown person. That is,"

she added, "if you call Fox Sanderson a grown person."

"Fox Sanderson is a dear good boy," replied Mrs. Ladue. "I wish you had a brother like him, Sally,--just like him."

"I wish I did," said Sally, "but I haven't. The next best thing is to have him just Fox Sanderson. Will you be satisfied with him, mother, dear,--if I can get him to go?"

Again Mrs. Ladue smiled. "Quite satisfied, dear. I can trust you, Sally, and you don't know what a relief that is."

"No," said Sally, "I s'pose I don't." Nevertheless she may have had some idea.

That thought probably occurred to her mother, for she laughed a little tremulously. "Kiss me, darling, and go along."

So Sally kissed her mother, tenderly and again and again, and turned away. But her mother called her back.

"Sally, there is a ticket in my bureau, somewhere. And, if you can find my purse, you had better take that, too. I think there is nearly two dollars in it. It is a pretty small sum for Christmas shopping, but I shall be glad if you spend it all."

Sally turned to kiss her mother again. "I shan't spend it all," she said.

She rummaged until she found the ticket and the purse; and, with a last good-bye to her mother, she was gone. Mrs. Ladue sighed. "The darling!" she said, under her breath.

Sally met Fox and Henrietta just outside her own gate. "Oh," she cried, "it's lucky, for you're exactly the persons I wanted to see."

Henrietta looked expectant.

"Well, Sally," Fox said, smiling, "what's up now?"

"I'm going to town," Sally answered, less calmly than usual. She laid her hand on his arm as she spoke. "That is, I'm going if I can find somebody to go with me."

Fox laughed. "Is that what you call a hint, Sally? Will we do?"

"It isn't a hint," said Sally, flushing indignantly. "That is,--it wasn't meant for one. I was going to ask you if you had just as lief go as not. I've got a ticket and there are--let's see"--she took out her ticket and counted--"there are seven trips on it. That's enough.

Would you just as lief?"

"I'd rather," replied Fox promptly. "Come on, Henrietta. We're going to town." He looked at his watch. "Train goes in fourteen minutes, and that's the train we take. Step lively, now."

Henrietta giggled and Sally smiled; and they stepped lively and got to the station with two minutes to spare. Fox occupied that two minutes with a rattle of airy nothings which kept Sally busy and her mind off her errand; which may have been Fox's object or it may not. For Sally had not told her errand yet, and how could Fox Sanderson have known it? When they got into the car, Sally was a little disappointed because she had not been able to tell him. She had meant to--distinctly meant to during that two minutes.

She had no chance to tell him in the train. The cars made such a noise that she would have had to shout it in his ear and, besides, he talked steadily.

"I'll tell you what," he said, at the end of a stream of talk of which Sally had not heard half. "Let's get your father, Sally, and take him with us while you do your errands, whatever they are. He'll be through in the laboratory, and we'll just about catch him."

"All right," Sally murmured; and she sank back in her seat contentedly.

She had been sitting bolt upright. She felt that it was all right now, and she would not need to tell Fox or anybody. She felt very grateful to him, somehow. She felt still more grateful to him when he let the conductor take all their fares from her ticket without a protest. Fox was looking out of the window.

"It looks as if we might have some snow," he remarked. "Or it may be rain. I hope it will wait until we get home."

When they got to the laboratory, they found one of the cleaners just unlocking the door. She didn't know whether the professor had gone or not. He always kept the door locked after hours; but would they go in?

They would and did, but could not find Professor Ladue. Fox found, on his desk, a beaker with a few drops of a liquid in it. He took this up and smelt of it. The beaker still held a trace of warmth.

"He has just this minute gone," he said. "If we hurry I think we can catch him. I know the way he has probably gone."

"How do you know he has just gone?" asked Sally, looking at him soberly and with her customary directness. "How can you tell?"

"Sherlock Holmes," he answered. "You didn't know that I was a detective, did you, Sally?"