Chapter 9

Of course, I know that there are many strange things in life that seem to contradict each other and themselves in a very puzzling manner, but my disgrace has turned out in a way that nobody could have made me believe, if they had told it to me in dictionary words of six syllables. I am being befriended and honored by the whole of Byrdsville, and I don't know what to make of it. My mind refuses to explain it and my heart is just going on rejoicing over it, as I have not been able to think up any reason why it shouldn't.

Everybody now knows about the steel process that their distinguished citizen, Mr. Douglass Byrd, invented; and they all believe that Father has had it stolen and has left Byrdsville for some place where Colonel Stockell can't find him, but they are none of them mad at me about it. Of course, a load of sympathy can be as heavy to bear as one of disgrace; and when you have both the two to stagger under, you may wobble some in your conduct, as I have done these last two days. First, though my reason is convinced about Father, there is something in me that just won't believe it, and that keeps making me hope, and be passive in life, until he comes. I say nothing about it to anybody, because the proof is too great against him, and I suppose it is really more daughterly love than hope. Anyway, it is a precious feeling to me.

But one thing that troubles me is the way one friend's sorrow can throw its shadow over the lives of many others. It troubles me that Tony and Roxanne and the Colonel and some of the others are distressed about me, especially Tony. He came to see me the morning after Belle had told me all about his scouting out the secret; and if it hadn't been such an occasion I would have had to laugh at the collapsed way he looked, like he would fall to pieces if you touched him even very gently. His grin was so entirely gone that his mouth looked only the size of an ordinary human being's, and his eyes were shut down so dolefully that they were funnier than ever.

"Go on, Bubble, and shake me," he said, with a comical sadness that was hard to bear with proper respect. "Play I'm a doormat if you want to, but I cross my heart and body I didn't mean to hurt you by letting my mouth overwork at the wrong time. The Dumpling is just a sponge that sops up any old thing and lets any old body squeeze it out of her. Please say you forgive me."

"Why, Tony," I said with difficult but becoming gravity, "don't you know that I know that you didn't mean to do anything to hurt me?" I couldn't bring myself to mention Father or the shameful circumstances and I hoped he wouldn't, either.

Tony is not a mere boy; he is a kind gentleman, also, and he ignored the subject we were discussing just as carefully as I did.

"Good for you, girliky, and I hope you fully realize that this little old burg of Byrdsville is all for you and anxious to hop rig-lit into your pocket," he said most picturesquely, with relief at my not being hurt at him beginning to pull the corners of his mouth into the grin that he had put away as not suitable for the occasion.

A person who has the smile habit fixed on his face is a very valuable friend, and I was glad to see Tony put on his grin again. There were two or three questions I wanted to ask him when he was in his normal condition, and I was just going to consult him about whether it wouldn't be easier for the other girls and boys for me not to go to school--anyway until they found Father and his innocence, or knew the worst about the prosecution and other punishments that would be given him; but before I could get the words arranged in my mind to say just what I wanted to say, he began on something like the same subject himself.

"See here, Phyllis, Roxy told me that you hadn't been in to jolly the bug-grubber to-day at all, and the poor little bubble is worried about what she thinks is going to be a grouch in your system," he said, looking at me with so much confidence in my good disposition shining in his face, that it was painful to try to make him understand just how the pride disease I had caught from the Byrds was affecting me.

"Indeed you know, Tony, that it is not because I don't love Roxanne and Lovelace Peyton that I haven't been there this morning; but I just don't think it is right for me to be taking their friendship and love when everybody thinks my own father has injured them, as he has not. It is right for me to suffer for what they think he has done, until we know better, and my pride won't let me take any more of their affection when I may not deserve it." I looked away while I was talking to Tony, for I hated to see the shock fade the grin. I also hated to bring up the subject we were ignoring.

"Oh, fudge and fiddlesticks, Phyllis, don't let any old sour idea like that ball up your naturally sweet temper. You and Roxy are just women folks and had better keep out of men's business, like this wrangle between Doug and Mr. Forsythe. Trot along and do your stocking-darning and pie-fixing together as per usual schedule. And as to this mix-up--forget it!"

"I know, Tony, that Roxanne and I are just children--and what is worse, just girls--but I have to do what I think is honorable under these circumstances; and taking friendliness from Roxanne now would be just charity--I can't do it." As I spoke I felt my head straighten itself after the manner of the grandmother portrait, just as if I had been born a Byrd.

"Now, who would have thought that you could 'throw a crank' like that, Phyllis--a girl who could brace another girl as hefty as Roxy upon her shoulder to save the whole town and Dr. Snakes from being dynamited? I'm disappointed in you."

"Why, how did you know about that explosion that Lovelace Peyton almost blew us all into pieces with?" I asked with astonishment.

"Roxy sniffled it all to me this morning when she was pouring out her trouble because you hadn't been over to cheer up the bugger to-day. She told Pink and Sam and Belle and the Sponge and me all about it, and I can tell you we thrilled some. By acclamation we have elected you to lead the Kitten Patrol of the Campfire that we Scouts have been talking about helping you bubbles set up for a month. We have already decided to put you in command of the girls, because we can then expect some real good stand-bying in case of Scout trouble or excitement. We meet in the Crotch to-night to decide all the details." Tony's eyes were shining and flaring and his red hair standing straight up in his friendly excitement.

Honors are mighty apt to shock a person when they come unexpectedly, and I don't believe expected ones bring half the joy that the surprise ones do. I feel humble to think that in less than a year the boys and girls of a place like Byrdsville have found me worthy of the leadership of such a sacred thing as a Girl Scout company will be. For, of course, of all the things that boys ever were in the world, nothing is so wonderful as being Scouts like so many hundreds and hundreds have been made all over the United States in the last three years. And when the Boy Scouts do all the noble things in the noble way they do, what will be expected of the girls, now that they are being let Into the organization? The boys have to pledge themselves to be clean and honorable and kind and just and charitable and brave; so, of course, the girls will have to be all that and still more. Could I?

I sat still and thought for a long time, and Tony, with his knowledge of girls, let me do it. Could I? Could a girl with a father that might have done the thing that my father is suspected of having done to a fellow-man, promise to be all or any of those things? How would she know that some little thing in her, like her father, wouldn't come up, just at the time when she was being depended on, to make her fail? This distinction was not for me!

"Tony," I said quietly, and I didn't let the tremble in my heart get into my voice at all, "whatever happens to me in my life I can't ever forget that you offered to make me the leader of the Campfire, but--I can't be it. Please don't make me say any more about it. I can't."

Tony understood. "Not a word more on the subject, Bubble; but I do want to say that you are one fine--"

But just here we were interrupted by Mamie Sue coming lumbering across the wall from the Byrd cottage, for Tony and I had been sitting on a bench out under the blooming peach-tree arbor. She sat pretty close to me and gave me a nice, good, fat-armed hug as she offered me a paper bag.

"Have some fudge, Phyllis," was all she said; but I saw Belle walking down the street with her head in the air and her skirts switching like Helena's and I knew that Mamie Sue had come through a hard fight to be friends with me. I can't say how I appreciated it, and I love Mamie Sue. Maybe she is not very smart, but a person that always has sweetness of disposition and in paper bags to offer a friend in trouble ought to be appreciated. And just as I had got hold of her nice big right arm to return the hug, around the other side of the house came Pink and Sam, with Miss Priscilla in between them.

"Phyllis dear," said Miss Prissy, as all of us got up to give her a seat, though she only took Tony's and part of mine, while the boys sat on the grass, "the boys are telling me about the Girl Scout ideas. I think it is naughty of them to say they are going to name you the Kitten Patrol, especially as your rescue of Lovey Byrd is more than likely to give you a life-saving medal to start with, as soon as the Colonel writes to New York about it."

"A medal--a--a medal like Tony's?" I gasped, as my heart stood still in awe of my own act.

"Why, of course, Bubble, you will get a medal," said Tony, with the delight that some boys might not have shown at the idea of a girl's getting up to the same height of distinction that they had attained. "Now, will you be good and be the leader of the Kittens?"

"Say, Phyllis, when you raised Roxy from the ground, did you use the other muscles of your body or depend a lot on the shoulder lift?" Sam is not so big and strong as the other boys and consequently has the greatest regard for the strength that he hasn't got.

I could only say that I didn't know what I had lifted Roxanne up to catch the bottle with--except prayers.

And while they all sat there in my garden and talked with Miss Priscilla about what she should get the Colonel to write to headquarters about me and about the dynamite and the steel and everything that was indirectly related to my disgrace, I sat quiet and prayed for some sort of strength to tell them that I maybe couldn't be a Scout, and couldn't have a medal and was hoping to move away from them to some other place to live, just as I had learned to like them better than I had dreamed one could like friends.

These boys and girls, including Miss Priscilla, haven't been used to having things happen to them to distress them, and they are so warm-hearted and sympathetic that it makes it hard to say a thing to them that would hurt them. But I couldn't, couldn't go on being a public and distinguished character, if my father were going to be a public character of another kind. If people should say, "How his life must mortify his poor daughter, noble girl, with a medal and friends and things!" that would just put me on the other side of the fence from my own parent, who needs me more than ever, if he is sinful. He isn't, but what right have I to bask in public favor while he is in outer darkness?

Then just as I was going to decline to be a member of the Campfire and beg them all not to mention it to me any more, and try not to worry over me but to just forget about me, something so horrible came over the wall, in the shape of the news that Mr. Douglass Byrd brought, that I and they forgot all about the Scouts and Kittens and medals and all that. The Idol was pale and quiet as he walked up the path to us, after skimming over the wall with one hand on it in a way that made Sam gasp with admiration. He looked past Miss Priscilla and the rest of his old friends of inherited generations in Byrdsville and straight at me, his new--but adoring--one.

"Miss Phyllis," he said, with such sadness in his voice that Mamie Sue gulped over a piece of fudge worse than usual, "Dr. Hughes has just examined Lovey's eyes and it has hurt him very much--also he thinks the sight has gone. The youngster is crying and fretting for you and they don't want him to do that under any circumstances. The only hope for his sight will be for him not to inflame his eyes. Will you come?"

Would I go--would I go across the dead body of my father's honor and my own and anybody's disgraces and any other old thing? I went so quickly that I upset Mamie Sue on the one side and Miss Priscilla almost on the other, and I didn't even wait to answer the Idol in the reverent and respectful manner that is always his due and that I always observe. Down that garden path I flew and over that wall I skimmed, like a bird with wings, or like the Idol himself, and in so little a time that I didn't even realize the journey, I was in Roxanne's room with her in one of my arms and Lovelace Peyton squeezed up in the other.

Roxanne choked her sobs down in my neck and I choked mine down in my heart as the little doctor kicked one fat little knee out from under the cover and began to squeal like a queer kind of pig as one of his arms went around and around.

"That's the way I cried when that old Dr. Hughes hurt my eyes to make 'em well, Phyllie, and you wasn't here to see him do it and tell me how red they looked and if they had got any blue around the edges like a carbuncle. Roxy can't tell disease like you kin, and now you was away from 'em and didn't see the nice ones I have got in both eyes."

The reproach in his voice was so funny and yet so sad that Roxanne and I both choked still more and held on to each other tight. I just simply couldn't say a word, and I was again made ashamed by that unruly lump in my throat that never seems to come unless something is the matter with the Byrds.

"I'm hungry, too, for some of the nice sweet charlock rookster that your cook makes me and I eats in the afternoon, right now. I waked up in the night and wanted it and you, too, Phyllie, and I wouldn't have old Doug or Roxy, neither. Now, it is always night time and Roxy wouldn't go and call you. Won't you stay with me always and read me about smallpox like you promised?

"Always night now!" Again Roxanne and I hugged and choked, but this time I had to conquer the lump and answer him.

"Indeed, indeed, Lovelace Peyton, I'm never going to leave you any more, only to go and get the things you want. Can't I go and get the charlotte russe for you now?"

"No, Phyllie," he exclaimed, grasping with his strong little fingers my hand that lay on his pillow. "I wants smallpox now worser than I do charlocks. Then Tony can come and let me tie bandages around his leg while you go git the rookster and maybe some nice cake and oranges and candy. No; Dumpie bringed me candy. You git more rags to tie up folks with. I want to fix Doug's head good 'fore he goes to bed. But read the smallpoxes right away. Begin where they throws up."

Roxanne got the book while I drew a chair by the bed and sat down to it, with gratitude drying the tears in my heart, for being forced into forgetting my pride and coming back to them again. Roxanne sat by me and held my left hand until we got to the worst part of the smallpox, and then she got pale around the mouth and went out of the room.

"Read the sickest part again, Phyllie, and then turn and read the medicine for it," he had just demanded when she fled.

And for the rest of the afternoon I sat by him and went through all the different stages of smallpox until, feeling each one acutely as I did, it is a wonder I was not pock-marked. When he fell asleep at last he was holding fast to one of my hands for fear I would get away with the precious book.

When I could slip his fingers from mine, I tried to steal tiptoe through the hall so as not to wake Roxanne, who was lying asleep, I hoped, on the sofa in the hall, but she opened her great, troubled, dark eyes and saw me before I got to the door.

"Oh, Phyllis," she said and held out her arms to me. Somehow it seems to me I have learned very quickly how to take a person I love in my arms without awkwardness--that is for a girl who never had anybody to take before--and I sat down and snuggled Roxanne in a manner comfortable to us both. "Do you think it is possible that Lovey is going to be--be blind?" she asked me in a small voice that could hardly dare utter the horrible words.

"I came in such a hurry when Mr. Douglass Byrd called me that I didn't quite understand what Dr. Hughes said or found," I answered.

"When he took the bandages off, Lovey didn't seem to see at all, but the lids are still so swollen that he is not sure they are closed. I don't believe he knows what to do, Phyllis, and that is what scares me. But is there any great thing a blind man can do except be a musician? Lovey can't sing much."

I verily believe that Roxanne Byrd would have gone on and planned some kind of a career of blind genius for Lovelace Peyton while waiting to see if he was to lose his eyes, if the Idol hadn't come into the hall at that moment.

He moved Roxanne over and sat down between us and began to talk seriously to us, like I was a valued member of the Byrd family.

"I have just had a long talk with Dr. Hughes, and he says that Lovelace Peyton will have to have a specialist examine his eyes and direct the treatment, if the sight is to be saved. We will have to think up a plan to get a great doctor from Cincinnati down to Byrdsville, Tennessee."

"But it will cost so much and where--?" Roxanne stopped quickly for fear of hurting the Idol's feelings and not from my presence. One of the great things about the Byrds is that they can forget riches in such a way as not even to know or realize that they haven't them.

"We'll get it," answered the Idol with his heroic look, the like of which I do not believe a man ever owned before. "Things are going to go straight, now that Miss Phyllis has got the bugger all happy with the medical course again. What would all of us do without her?" He stood up to light his pipe and his fingers trembled.

Anybody else but a great man, born of a great family like the Byrds, would have hurt my feelings by saying apologetic things about the tragedy between us, but the Idol just ignored it and I was made one of them again in their trouble. Suddenly something popped into my mind that I could do to get the money for them to save Lovelace Peyton's eyes and not hurt the family pride. There is no doubt about it, when a girl gets so she can ask God to help her and think at the same time, she can find an inspiration when she needs it. I may be in trouble and disgraced, but I've got Him on my side, and I can yet do things when my friends have such dire needs as a doctor. I am afraid to write it even to you, leather Louise.

Suddenly I stood up beside Mr. Douglass, and looked down at Roxanne, and then up at him.

"Do both of you trust me enough to let me try to help if I do it with my own brains and not--not my father's money?" I asked.

For a moment they both looked at me, and then the Idol took my hand in his and looked me in the eyes just as square as I looked at him.

"Yes," he said in a voice that grows more wonderful the more you love and know him, "you are one of us and you can plan with us all you are able to."

"Yes, Phyllis; you have never offered or asked us to do anything we ought not to, and if you can think with us I know it will help," Roxanne said, looking up at me trustfully.

Again I make record, Louise, that my course with the Byrd family pride has conquered it, even if I did display symptoms of it myself by staying away from the cottage so long. I'm in a very queer position. I have not made everybody understand that I can't be a Girl Scout and I am a dishonored person in Byrdsville, with all sorts of distinctions offered me. But this scheme I have thought up to get the doctor here has made me hold my breath so that I can hardly write, and I can't worry over honors and medals and things. I will do it! I will! Good-night!