"I know what to get it out of," called Georgina, "out of the blue pitcher."

Richard watched while she opened the refrigerator door and poured some milk into a saucer.

"Carry it in and put it on the kitchen table," she bade him, "while I get the powder."

When he followed her into the dining-room she was upon a chair, reaching for the old powder horn, which hung on a hook under the firearm that had done duty in the battle of Lexington. Richard wanted to get his hands on it, and was glad when she could not pull out the wooden plug which stopped the small end of the horn. She turned it over to him to open. He peered into it, then shook it.

"There isn't more than a spoonful left in it," he said.

"Well, gunpowder is so strong you don't need much. You know just a little will make a gun go off. It mightn't be safe to feed him much.

Pour some out in your hand and drop it in the milk."

Richard slowly poured a small mound out into the hollow of his hand, and pa.s.sed the horn back to her, then went to the kitchen whistling for Captain Kidd. Not all of the powder went into the milk, however. The last bit he swallowed himself, after looking at it long and thoughtfully.

At the same moment, Georgina, before putting back the plug, paused, looked all around, and poured out a few grains into her own hand. If the Tishbite was going to do anybody any harm, it would be well to be prepared. She had just hastily swallowed it and was hanging the horn back in place, when Richard returned.

"He lapped up the last drop as if he liked it," he reported. "Now we'll see what happens."

CHAPTER VIII

THE TELEGRAM THAT TOOK BARBY AWAY

THE painting of Richard's portrait interfered with the quest for buried treasure from day to day; but unbeknown either to artist or model, the dreams of that quest helped in the fashioning of the picture. In the preliminary sittings in the studio at home Richard's father found it necessary always to begin with some exhortation such as:

"Now, d.i.c.ky, this has _got_ to be more than just a 'Study of a Boy's Head.' I want to show by the expression of your face that it is an ill.u.s.tration of that poem, 'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.' Chase that Binney Rogers and his gang out of your mind for a while, can't you, and think of something beside shinny and the hokey-pokey man."

So far the portrait was satisfactory in that it was a remarkably good likeness of an unusually good-looking boy, but it was of a boy who seemed to be alertly listening for such things as Binney's cat-call, signaling him from the alley. Here by the sea there was no need for such exhortations. No sooner was he seated before the easel in the loft which served as a studio, with its barn-like, double doors thrown open above the water, than the rapt expression which his father coveted, crept into his dark eyes. They grew big and dreamy, following the white sails across the harbor. He was planning the secret expedition he and Georgina intended to undertake, just as soon as the portrait was finished.

There were many preparations to make for it. They would have to secrete tools and provisions; and in a book from which Georgina read aloud whenever there was opportunity, were descriptions of various rites that it were well to perform. One was to sacrifice a black c.o.c.k, and sprinkle its blood upon the spot before beginning to dig. Richard did not question why this should be done. The book recommended it as a practice which had been followed by some very famous treasure hunters. If at times a certain wide-awake and calculating gleam suddenly dispelled the dreaminess of expression in which his father was exulting, it was because a black Orpington rooster which daily strayed from a nearby cottage to the beach below the studio window, chose that moment to crow.

Richard had marked that black c.o.c.k for the sacrifice. It was lordly enough to bring success upon any enterprise.

In the meantime, as soon as his duties as model were over each morning, he was out of the studio with a whoop and up the beach as hard as he could run to the Huntingdon house. By the time he reached it he was no longer the artist's only son, hedged about with many limitations which belonged to that distinction. He was "Dare-devil d.i.c.k, the Dread Destroyer," and Georgina was "Gory George, the Menace of the Main."

Together they commanded a brigantine of their own. Pa.s.sers-by saw only an old sailboat anch.o.r.ed at the deserted and rotting wharf up nearest the breakwater. But the pa.s.sers-by who saw only that failed to see either Dare-devil d.i.c.k or Gory George. They saw, instead, two children whose fierce mustachios were the streakings of a burnt match, whose ma.s.sive hoop ear-rings were the bra.s.s rings from a curtain pole, whose faithful following of the acts of Captain Quelch and other piratical gentlemen was only the mimicry of play.

But Barbara knew how real they were, from the spotted handkerchief tied around the "bunged eye" of Dare-devil d.i.c.k, under his evil-looking slouch hat, to the old horse pistol buckled to his belt. Gory George wore the same. And Barbara knew what serious business it was to them, even more serious than the affairs of eating and drinking.

Tippy scolded when she found that her half-pint bottles which she kept especially for cream had been smuggled away in the hold of the brigantine. But without bottles how could one give a realistic touch to the singing of "Yo ho, and the rum below"?

And Tippy thought it was heathenish for Barbara to let Georgina dress up in some little knickerbockers and a roundabout which had been stored away with other clothes worn by Justin as a small boy. But her disapproval was beyond words when Barbara herself appeared at the back door one morning, so cleverly disguised as a gypsy, that Mrs. Triplett grudgingly handed out some cold biscuits before she discovered the imposition. The poor she was glad to feed, but she had no use for an impudent, strolling gypsy.

"Don't be cross, Tippy," pleaded Barbara, laughing till the tears came.

"I _had_ to do it. I can't bear to feel that Georgina is growing away from me--that she is satisfied to leave me out of her games. Since she's so taken up with that little Richard Moreland I don't seem as necessary to her as I used to be. And I can't bear that, Tippy, when I've always been first in everything with her. She's so necessary to me."

Mrs. Triplett made no answer. She felt that she couldn't do justice to the occasion. She doubted if the Pilgrim monument itself could, even if it were to stretch itself up to its full height and deliver a lecture on the dignity of motherhood. She wondered what the Mayflower mothers would have thought if they could have met this modern one on the beach, with face stained brown, playacting that she was a beggar of a gypsy. How could she hope to be one of those written of in Proverbs--"Her children rise up and call her blessed. Her own works praise her in the gates."

Tippy ate her dinner alone that day, glancing grimly through the open window from time to time to the sand dunes back of the house, where an old hag of a gypsy in a short red dress with a gay bandanna knotted over her head, broiled bacon and boiled corn over a smoky campfire; and two swaggering villains who smelled of tar and codfish (because of the old net which half-way filled the brigantine), sucked the very cobs when the corn was eaten from them, forever registering that feast high above all other feasts in the tablet of blessed memories.

The interruption to all this came as unexpectedly as a clap of thunder from a clear sky. A messenger boy on a wheel whirled up to the front gate with a telegram. Tippy signed for it, not wanting the boy to see Barbara in such outlandish dress, then carried it out to the picnickers.

She held it under her ap.r.o.n until she reached them. Telegrams always spelled trouble to Mrs. Triplett, but Barbara took this one from her with a smiling thank you, without rising from her seat on the sand. Her father often telegraphed instead of writing when away on his vacations, and she knew he was up at a lake resort in Michigan, at an Editors'

Convention. Telegrams had always been pleasant things in her experience. But as she tore this open and read she turned pale even under her brown stain.

"It's papa," she gasped. "Hurt in an automobile accident. They don't say how bad--just hurt. And he wants me. I must take the first train."

She looked up at Mrs. Triplett helplessly, not even making an effort to rise from the sand, she was so dazed and distressed by the sudden summons. It was the first time she had ever had the shock of bad news.

It was the first time she had ever been called upon to act for herself in such an emergency, and she felt perfectly numb, mind and body.

Tippy's voice sounded a mile away when she said:

"You can catch the boat. It's an hour till the _Dorothy Bradford_ starts back to Boston."

Still Barbara sat limp and powerless, as one sits in a nightmare.

Georgina gave a choking gasp as two awful words rose up in her throat and stuck there. "_The Tishbite._" Whatever that mysterious horror might be, plainly its evil workings had begun.

"Tut!" exclaimed Tippy, pulling Barbara to her feet. "Keep your head.

You'll have to begin scrubbing that brown paint off your face if you expect to reach the boat on time."

Automatically Georgina responded to that "tut" as if it were the old challenge of the powder horn. No matter how she shivered she must show what brave stuff she was made of. Even with that awful foreboding clutching at her heart like an iron hand and Barby about to leave her, she mustn't show one sign of her distress.

It was well that Georgina had learned to move briskly in her long following after Tippy, else she could not have been of such service in this emergency. Her eyes were blurred with tears as she hurried up to the garret for suitcase and satchel, and down the hall to look up numbers in the telephone directory. But it was a comfort even in the midst of her distress to feel that she could take such an important part in the preparations, that Tippy trusted her to do the necessary telephoning, and to put up a lunch for Barby without dictating either the messages or the contents of the lunch-box.

When Mr. James Milford called up, immediately after Richard had raced home with the news, and offered to take Mrs. Huntingdon to the boat in his machine, he thought it was Mrs. Huntingdon herself who answered him.

The trembling voice seemed only natural under the circ.u.mstances. He would have smiled could he have seen the pathetic little face uplifted towards the receiver, the quivering lip still adorned with the fierce mustachios of Gory George, in strange contrast to the soft curls hanging over her shoulders now that they were no longer hidden by a piratical hat. She had forgotten that she was in knickerbockers instead of skirts, and that the old horse-pistol was still at her belt, until Barbara caught her to her at parting with a laugh that turned into a sob, looking for a spot on her face clean enough to kiss.

It was all over so soon--the machine whirling up to the door and away again to stop at the bank an instant for the money which Georgina had telephoned to have waiting, and then on to the railroad wharf where the _Dorothy Bradford_ had already sounded her first warning whistle.

Georgina had no time to realize what was actually happening until it was over. She climbed up into the mammoth willow tree in the corner of the yard to watch for the steamboat. It would come into view in a few minutes as it ploughed majestically through the water towards the lighthouse.

Then desolation fell upon her. She had never realized until that moment how dear her mother was to her. Then the thought came to her, suppose it was Barby who had been hurt in an accident, and she Georgina, was hurrying to her as Barby was hurrying to grandfather Shirley, unknowing what awaited her at the journey's end. For a moment she forgot her own unhappiness at being left behind, in sympathetic understanding of her mother's distress. She wasn't going to think about her part of it she told herself, she was going to be so brave----

Then her glance fell on the "holiday tree."

The holiday tree was a little evergreen of Barby's christening if not of her planting. For every gala day in the year it bore strange fruit, no matter what the season. At Hallowe'en it was as gay with jack-o-lanterns and witches' caps as if the pixies themselves had decorated it. On Washington's birthday each branch was tipped with a flag and a cherry tart. On the fourteenth of February it was hung with valentines, and at Easter she was always sure of finding a candy rabbit or two perched among its branches and nests of colored eggs. It seemed to be at its best at Christmas, but it was when it took its turns at birthday celebrations that it was most wonderful. Then it blossomed with little gla.s.s lanterns of every color, glowing like red and green and golden stars. Last year it had borne a great toy ship with all sails set, and nine "surprise" oranges, round, yellow boxes, each containing a gift, because she was nine years old. In just two more days she would be ten, and Barby gone!

At that instant the boat whistle sounded long and deep, sending its melodious boom across the water. It seemed to strike some chord in the very center of her being, and make her feel as if something inside were sinking down and down and down. The sensation was sickening. It grew worse as the boat steamed away. She stood up on a limb to watch it.

Smaller and smaller it seemed, leaving only a long plume of smoke in its wake as it disappeared around Long Point. Then even the smoke faded, and a forlorn little figure, strangely at variance with the fierce pirate suit, she crumpled up in the crotch of the willow, her face hidden in her elbow, and began to sob piteously: "Oh, Barby! Barby!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER IX

THE BIRTHDAY PRISM