CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

"Ted! Teddy! Theodora McAlister!"

Theodora was pa.s.sing the Farringtons' grounds. At the third call, she looked up. Billy, on the piazza, was waving his cap in one hand and pounding the floor with one of his crutches with the other.

"What's the matter?" she called, at a loss to account for these vigorous demonstrations.

"Come up, and I'll tell you," he shouted. "Hurry up about it, too."

"Is the house on fire?" she demanded in feminine alarm, as she turned and sped across the lawn.

Billy laughed derisively.

"If that isn't just like a girl! It's nothing of the kind, Ted; it's good news."

"What a scare you gave me, you sinner!" She dropped down on the step below him and fanned herself with her hat, for it was noon of an August day. "What is your great news, anyway?"

"Uncle Frank is sick again."

"But I thought you said it was good news," Theodora said, in some perplexity.

"So 'tis. Wait till you hear the rest of it. He isn't dangerous, only comfortable; but the doctors say he'll die unless he goes up into the mountains. He won't go unless mamma goes, and so she's going."

"But for the life of me, I don't see anything so very good in all that,"

Theodora said again.

"It is very solemn and serious so far, for he's really awfully ill, and mamma doesn't want to leave me, and she feels that it is her duty to go," Billy answered, trying to subdue the rapture written in every line of his face. "Now we're coming to the good part,--good for me, that is, for I don't know what you'll say to it. She is going to be away for six weeks, and I'm to be at your house."

"Oh, Billy, how splendid!" Theodora's tone left no doubt of her sincerity. "When are you coming?"

"Day after to-morrow. Mamma had a letter, this morning, and she's been in a great pickle about it. She felt she ought to go, for there isn't anybody else; but she couldn't take me. I'm not up to mountain climbing just yet, and she was bound she wouldn't leave me alone. Finally, I suggested going to your house, and that struck her as a good scheme.

She's had a long session with your father and mother, and it's all settled, unless you veto it."

"I'll be likely to. Now we shall have a chance to work on our play."

"And to develop our pictures," added Billy, who just now was suffering from an attack of the photographic mania.

"Yes, dozens of things. We can do so much in six weeks."

"The worst of it is," Billy remarked pensively; "I'm sure to have such a fine time of it at your house that I can't seem to get up much regret over my mother's departure."

"You'll be homesick enough," Theodora predicted. "Wait a week and see."

Two days later, Mrs. Farrington took the morning train for New York, where she was to meet her brother and go with him to the Adirondacks.

Billy stood on the steps to wave her a farewell; then he slowly crossed the lawn towards the gate which had been cut through the fence under "Teddy's tree." For the next week or two, he and Theodora were busy from morning till night, revelling in the thousand and one interests for which the days had been all too short, when they were obliged to take their meals and to sleep in places six hundred feet apart.

One golden September day, Billy and Theodora were out under the old apple-tree, hard at work on the play which they had long been planning to write. It was to be given on the following Christmas; and the parts, written to order, included the three older McAlisters, Billy, and Archie who had promised to come East in time for the holidays. There was need for strict division of labor. Billy, more familiar with theatres, was able to supply the stage craft and the plot, while Theodora padded the skeleton and covered the dry bones of his outline with sonorous speeches over which she was forced to pause, now and then, to smack her lips.

"'Die, villain, die; and drink the cup of retribution for all your sins!'" she read. "How does that go, Billy?"

"All right. Do I say that, or does Hu?"

"Hu. Poor Uncle Archie! Then he tumbles over with a whack and dies in Hope's arms."

"What kills him? You never do half kill people, Ted. You take too much for granted."

"Conscience. No; Hu, that is, Sir James, shoots him."

"I remember now. I'd forgotten. I hope Hu's a safe shot."

"He couldn't hit a church, if he tried." Theodora giggled. "What's the matter, Hope?" For she saw Hope coming rapidly across the lawn towards them.

"Bad news, dear." Hope's eyes were full of tears. "Mamma has a letter from b.u.t.te, and Archie is in the hospital there, with typhoid fever."

"Hope! Not really?"

"Do they think he'll die?" Billy asked anxiously, with boyish bluntness.

Hope's tears began to fall on the letter in her hand.

"They say he's very ill, and that they felt it was best to write. Papa says typhoid is always uncertain, and he wants mamma to start West, to-night."

"Will she go?"

"I don't know yet. She's half wild, for Archie is her only brother, and she loves him so."

"Don't we all?" Theodora questioned impulsively.

Even in the midst of her tears, Hope blushed scarlet.

"Not in the same way, Teddy," she said gently. "You know they were all alone with each other for so long. I hope she will go."

"It would be better if I weren't here," Billy said thoughtfully.

"No; you're like one of us, Billy, and it's easier, with you here to be sorry for us," Hope said gratefully, for she had been quick to realize the sympathy in his look and tone. "Besides, it may not be so bad.

Mamma, if she goes, may find him better and able to come home with her."

Back of Theodora, Billy stretched out his hand to Hope and pressed her hand in silent token of understanding and pity. Nothing increases the power of observation like suffering. Billy's long months of helpless idleness had taught him to read the faces and moods of the people about him as a strong, active boy could never have done. He had fathomed the true state of affairs between Archie and Hope. He knew how much of Hope's future happiness, unknown to herself even, was depending on the outcome of that illness of Archie, and he saw her present pain, and the brave self-control which helped her to master it.

Mrs. McAlister left for the West, that night The days which followed were gloomy ones to them all, anxious and busy ones to Hope in particular, for upon her devolved the care of the housekeeping and much of the responsibility over Allyn and Phebe who was as fractious as never before and resented Hope's gentle rule. Two more letters came from the hospital; but they reported no change. Until Mrs. McAlister could reach her brother, they could know nothing definite. They could only wait and hope.

During all these weary, dreary days, it was a comfort to them all to have Billy with them. It had long been impossible to think of him as an outsider; but now he came closer to them than ever before, comforting Hope, helping Theodora to pa.s.s the time of restless waiting, cajoling Phebe into good humor, and entertaining Allyn by the hour. Blithe and sunny-tempered himself, he kept them from becoming too blue, while the little care and half-tender, half-playful coddling which the girls gave him was a safety valve for their tensely-strung nerves.

"I believe I love those old crutches of yours, Billy," Theodora said impetuously, one night.