CHAPTER XVI

CONTAINING NOTHING BUT HAPPY EXPLANATIONS AND A STILL HAPPIER LOVE SCENE

The hours that followed were given to mutual explanations. Bobby, at great length, related his adventures from the time he was carried away by the breakers to the present moment. Then John Compton gave his version, pointing out that he had done everything to trace up Mrs. Vernon and that from his knowledge of Bobby picked up in the first hour of meeting he had judged that, all things considered, the best way to watch the lad and keep his mind off the sorrows of separation was to engage him in moving-picture work.

“Anyhow,” he said, “before I had quite made up my mind to do it, Bobby settled the question by actually breaking in; and just as soon as I saw him show Chucky Snuff how to do his part, I don’t think I could well have chosen any other way of meeting the situation.”

“And now, mother dear,” said Bobby, “we want you to tell everything about yourself, and don’t leave anything out.”

The eager interest of Bobby and John Compton inspired Barbara to a full and enthralling narrative of her mischances.

“And to think,” mused Compton, “that all this strange series of events should have come about just through the most trivial thing in the world.”

“How’s that, Uncle John?” asked Bobby, nestling in his mother’s arms.

“Why, through a little earth tremor. Of course you, Mrs. Vernon, and you, Bobby, were not used to it; but actually it doesn’t disturb us who live here, especially the native-born, as much as a loud clap of thunder. Three months ago we had an actual thunderstorm here, and there was one flash of lightning and one clap of thunder like the kind that are so common in Cincinnati. Now Father Mallory told me that the children in his school were so frightened that for a moment there was danger of a panic. And I have no doubt that the children who were most frightened were natives and, because they were natives, would have hardly paid any attention to an earth tremor.”

“That is so, Uncle John,” broke in Bobby. “Peggy was at school that day and she told me all about it. She said that when the thunderclap came she screamed at the top of her voice, and started for the door. The Sister got there before her, and blocked her and a dozen other children, and made them go back to their seats.”

“By the way, Bobby,” said Compton, “did you ever think to ask yourself why you were carried out by that wave?”

“They all say it was the undertow.”

“Yes; but in ordinary circumstances it would not have caught you, as you were not far enough out. In my opinion, the sea was affected by the impending earthquake and that wave was not a normal wave.”

“Well, thank God,” said the mother, “that it is all over.”

“And I,” said Compton, “thank God that it all happened. These days with Bobby have been the happiest of my life. And also—they have brought you to my home. And that reminds me; till further notice, Barbara, this suite is yours. Everything has been arranged. I have taken a room across the way. You and Bobby are in command in this suite.”

“And you’ll come in any time at all, won’t you, Uncle John?”

“That reminds me,” said Compton. “Please don’t think I am an Indian giver. But I’m arranging a little party for to-night; and may I use these rooms? Of course you are both to be among those present.”

“Don’t be absurd, John,” laughed Barbara. “These are your rooms. By to-morrow I’ll try and arrange to get a place for myself and Bobby.”

“We’ll see about that,” returned Compton, with a meaning in his words that escaped both his hearers. “To-night, Barbara, we’re going to have Peggy and Pearl and Francis and their mothers.”

“Great!” cried the boy.

“It is to be a special celebration to honor the successful end of our play ‘Imitation.’ By the way, wasn’t it a peculiar coincidence that you should appear just as Bobby finished his part of the scenario?”

“I’m afraid,” returned Mrs. Vernon, “that I’m partly responsible for that coincidence. The man who so kindly let me in to the Lantrey Studio casually informed me that Bobby was engaged in finishing up his part of the picture. I came in, and seeing him working, remained watching and hiding for ten minutes. It occurred to me that if I came upon Bobby while he was working he might not be able to act. So I watched my little boy till all was done.”

“Mother,” said Bobby, “if you had come sooner, you might have ruined that part. I could never do it again that way, because I was thinking of you.”

“But there’s another reason for this little party,” Compton went on. “I want you to meet and to know Bobby’s three pals. I think you will agree with me that I have managed to keep him in really good company. These children are innocent, bright and exceptionally good, and that they are so is due in no small part to their mothers, who are always in attendance, always with them. And that is why I am inviting the mothers, too.”

How John Compton managed all the details of this banquet is one of the secrets of his efficiency. He used the telephone three or four times and the thing was done. After a two hours’ spin along roads so perfect that they are the admiration of Eastern travelers, the three returned and found a table in the sitting-room, laid for a banquet, fragrant with flowers and fruits, and with a caterer in attendance, who announced that everything was ready.

“Very good,” said John, glancing approvingly at the preparations. “Be ready to serve dinner in ten minutes. You’ll excuse me, Barbara; the three children with their mothers are now gathered together and waiting for me at the home of Francis Mason. I’ll have them here in a jiffy.”

Compton was true to his word. Ten minutes later gales of light laughter and happy shouting made known to everybody in the apartment house that Mr. John Compton was receiving friends.

Take a good meal, season it with love and satisfaction over work well done, dash it over with the joy of reunion, and you have a banquet fit for the gods.

The children chattered gayly and, somehow or other, ate very heartily at the same time. Nothing was allowed to interfere with this latter function. But as all for the greater part of the meal spoke and laughed at the same time, it would be impossible, even were it worth while, to reproduce what they said.

Towards the end, when the babbling and laughter were at their loudest, Mr. Compton tapped his glass.

“Excuse me for interrupting all of you,” he said, “but I’m afraid, if you don’t moderate yourselves, that a patrol wagon will drive up and we’ll all be hauled to the station house for disturbing the peace.”

As Mr. Compton smiled and made a comic face the assembled guests, the children especially, raised a tirra-lirra of silvery laughter. One would judge from their enjoyment of it that Mr. Compton had cracked the best joke in the history of the world.

After a full minute, Mr. Compton tapped his glass again.

“It is a pleasure to try being funny before such an appreciative audience. But don’t you think it would be worth while to take turns in talking and not all talk at once?”

Whereupon all present answered together in different phrasings that it certainly would be worth while.

“Very good; then, Mrs. Vernon, it’s your turn.”

Mrs. Vernon promptly said that the voices of the children were music to her ears, and that this was an occasion on which children should be both seen and heard. And so substantially declared the three other happy mothers.

“Well, then, Francis?” adjured Compton.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Francis, rising and bowing, “I am going to tell you the story of my life.”

It was upon this declaration that the grown folks broke into laughter, whereat the little ones wondered where was the joke, anyhow!

“At the age of three years and a half I went into the moving-picture business. Since that time I have starred in five big productions, not counting this one. And the finest time I have had in all my life has been the time that Peggy and Pearl and Bobby have worked with me. In conclusion, I beg to state that I have been married five times.”

The amazed children joined the startled elders in applause and laughter.

“In moving pictures, I mean,” said Francis, and sat down, the orator of the day.

“And now, Pearl?” resumed Compton.

Pearl arose smiling and made her curtsy.

“Encore!” cried everybody, led by Compton.

Pearl was always ready to smile and curtsy. Nothing loath she repeated the performance three times handrunning.

“I want to say,” said Pearl, “that my best love and wishes go to Bobby and his mother. And, Mr. Compton, Peggy has brought her violin along. She thought, perhaps, that some one might ask her to play.”

“Fine!” said Compton. “We’ll not forget that. And now, Peggy, it’s your turn.”

Peggy arose radiant.

“I’ll say what Pearl said,” she declared. “For Bobby and his mother I have heaps of love. And Pearl has brought along her dancing shoes. She told me that some one might ask her to dance.”

“Splendid! We’ll have an entertainment presently. Now, Bobby?”

“I say,” cried Bobby, “that Uncle John is the finest man in the world.”

This speech was the hit of the evening.

“Bobby,” said Compton, brushing away in a comic gesture an imaginary tear—not altogether, imaginary, at that—“you have unmanned me. But now let’s have a little council of war. First of all, our play is finished and you’re all out of a job.”

“It’s really school time, anyhow,” said Francis consolingly. “I’ve never had a regular year at school. How I’d like that!”

“So should I,” said Peggy.

“And I’m old enough to start now,” ended Pearl, “and I think Ma will allow me to go.”

“Upon my word!” exclaimed the host. “This is the first time in all my life that I heard a bunch of children expressing a desire to go to school. Shakespeare has set for all time the picture of the schoolboy with a snail’s pace trudging unwillingly to school.”

“Ah, ah!” said Pearl’s mother. “But Shakespeare never lived in Los Angeles and in the days of the moving picture.”

“True,” assented Compton. “All rules fail in Los Angeles, a city which may rightly be called ‘different.’ I’m glad you are all ready for school. I’ve got good news for you. ‘Imitation’ has brought me in a large sum of money. But I don’t think it is really mine at all. Bobby here, imitating everybody, gave me the first idea—the germ of the story. Then I got to thinking of what sort of people were most likely to imitate. There was just one answer—children. Next I thought of you three, Peggy, Pearl and Francis. After that it was easy to work out the plot. Now, while I am keeping a comfortable sum for myself, I have here in my pocket a check for each one of you calling for fifteen hundred dollars: and that has nothing to do with the salary you draw. I have already spoken to your mothers, and they are all willing for you to take nine months’ vacation from moving-picture work and go to school. The check is intended to pay for your education; and who knows but by next June I’ll have another scenario for just you four!”

There was a moment of wondering silence.

Then Pearl arose, smiling more engagingly than ever.

“Oh, thank you, dear Uncle Compton,” and curtsied deeper than on any former occasion.

Bobby next arose, and with a smile not unlike Pearl’s said:

“Oh, thank you, dear Uncle Compton,” and duplicated the curtsy of Pearl.

Francis and Peggy, wondering what the laughter from the grown folks was all about, each in turn made the selfsame speech in the selfsame way.

Mr. Compton in struggling to keep a straight face while witnessing the new “Imitation” feared for the moment that he was on the point of an apoplectic seizure.

“Suppose we say grace,” he suggested.

Within a few minutes, the table was cleared, everybody taking a hand. The next thing was the entertainment.

“Look here, Mrs. Sansone,” whispered Compton. “Do you and the other women take the children into Bobby’s room and arrange a program. Besides Peggy’s violin playing and Pearl’s dancing, we want Bobby and Francis to do some little stunt, too. Get them ready in fifteen minutes at the least. Meantime, I want to have a word with Mrs. Vernon.”

Presently the two were alone, standing beneath the picture of the guardian angel.

“Barbara, you remember your remarking this morning that you had something to say to me?”

“Distinctly, John. But since that time I have seen and learned so much that I have ever so many things to say to you.”

“But what was it you intended this morning?”

“This, John: when I saw your face on the screen in San Luis Obispo last night, I went back to the years when you and I were so much together. I recalled how I had refused you because I couldn’t bring myself to marry a man who did not believe in God. I think still that I was right in my decision, but I feel that I should have been gentler, more patient. I was young and severe. And last night I felt that, if ever I met you again, I would try to explain how sorry I was not for what I did, but for the way in which I did it.”

“And I,” returned Compton, “have been thinking of you always, indeed, but almost constantly since I picked Bobby up from the roadside, and I’ve recalled bitterly my leaving you as abruptly and in a temper. Every night for the past three weeks I have said over and over again Newman’s ‘Lead, Kindly Light,’ and I have over and over reflected each time in sorrow and, I hope, true contrition on the line, ‘Pride ruled my will: remember not past years.’ Barbara, my father was an infidel and my mother never bothered about religion.”

“I should have considered that,” said Barbara.

“However, that only extenuates my conduct. Now, Barbara, I want to ask you a very serious question. Did you love me in those days?”

“I don’t know, John dear, whether I can make myself plain in answering. I liked you immensely and I was so close to the border line of love that it was only by a strong struggle that I didn’t cross it. Had I yielded to your request that night, love would, I am sure, have come in the yielding.”

“Oh, what a fool I was!” exclaimed Compton. “I was at the gate of Paradise and turned my back on it, and went out into the night; and I have been dwelling in outer darkness since. Barbara, since I left you, I’ve been no good. I have been light, frivolous, irresponsible. My career has amounted to nothing. If God gave me any talents, I have buried them. All this was true till the coming of Bobby. Bobby came and he brought _you_ back. Before God, I believe I am a changed man. I have seen the light and to-morrow I will arise and go into my Father’s house. To-morrow I am to be received into the Church, and on Sunday I go to Holy Communion. Of course, I do not know the future. How do I know whether I shall be able to persevere and not go back? But honestly, I believe I am a changed man. I believe and I hope.”

“I have known faith to move mountains,” observed Barbara.

“Now, Barbara, you know how I love your little boy.”

“And more,” assented Barbara, “I know how he loves you.”

“Taking this into consideration, do you think you could possibly love me?”

“John,” said Barbara, holding out her hand to him, “there’s no thinking about it after this wonderful day. I love you with all my heart.”

“Oh, I say,” cried Bobby, a second later, and seeing what he saw suddenly ceased to speak.

“Come here, Bobby,” said Compton, recovering his composure quickly. “I want to ask you a question. What relation are you to me?”

“First,” answered Bobby, “you were my aunt; then you were my grandfather, then you were my nephew. Just at present you are my uncle.”

“And, dear Bobby, how would you like me to be your father?”

Bobby looked at his blushing mother and understood. Catching now one, now the other, he delivered a hearty kiss and a hug to each, then throwing himself flat on the floor, he closed his eyes and said softly but joyously:

“Good night!”