Part 4

It was finally agreed that Henry and Benny would attract very little attention together; Violet and Jess would follow with the dog, who would trace Henry. And so they set out. They took down the clothesline and closed the car door. Everything instantly looked as lonesome as heart could wish. Even the merry little brook looked deserted.

When the children arrived at the McAllister orchard they soon saw that they were not the only workers. Two hired men and the young doctor himself were carrying ladders and baskets from the barn, and the Irish cook was bringing piles of square baskets from the house--the kind that strawberries are sold in.

"The girls can pick cherries as well as I can," said Henry, introducing his sisters. "Benny ought not to climb very tall trees, but we had to bring him."

"Benny can carry the baskets, perhaps," suggested the doctor, much amused. "You see, this is a cherry year, and we have to work quickly when we once begin. Perhaps he could fill the small baskets from the big ones."

It was a "cherry year," certainly. There were two varieties in the orchard, the pale yellow kind with a red cheek, and the deep crimson ones which were just as red in the center as they were on the outside. The red ones were huge, bursting with juice, and the trees were laden full with the luscious fruit. Even the air was perfumed.

It was a pretty sight that the doctor finally turned his back upon when he went on his calls. Henry, slim, tanned, and graceful, picked rapidly from the tallest ladder in the largest tree. The two girls in their sensible bloomer suits could climb like cats. They leaned against the ladders easily about halfway up, their fluffy short hair gleaming in the sun. Benny trotted to and fro, waiting upon the busy pickers, his cheeks as red as the cherries themselves.

"Eat all you want," Dr. McAllister called back. They did not really obey this command, but occasionally a set of white teeth bit into one of the glorious oxhearts.

In less than an hour Benny had made five firm friends. The hired men joked with him, the cook petted him, the young doctor laughed at him delightedly, and sweet Mrs. McAllister fell in love with him. Finally he seated himself comfortably at her side under the trees and filled square boxes with great care under her direction.

"I never had such a cheerful crowd of cherry pickers before," Mrs. McAllister said at last. "I'd much rather stay out here than go into the house where it is cool."

Evidently Mary the cook felt the same way, for she kept coming to the orchard for some reason or other. When the doctor returned at lunch time his orchard was ringing with laughter, and good-natured barks from Watch who could not feel easy in his mind with his mistress so high up in a tree where he couldn't follow.

Dr. McAllister paused in the garage long enough to give a sniff to the boiling cherries in the kitchen, and then made his way to the orchard, where he received a warm welcome.

"There's no use in your going home to lunch," he smilingly observed, at the same time watching Henry's face carefully. "You can eat right here in the orchard, unless your mother will be worrying about you."

This remark met with an astounding silence. Henry was the first to collect his wits. "No, our mother is dead," he said evenly, without embarrassment.

It was the doctor who hastened to change the subject he had introduced. "I smelled something when I came in," he said to Benny.

"What did it smell like?" inquired Benny.

"It smelled like cherry slump," replied the doctor with twinkling eyes.

"Cherry _what_?" asked Jess, struggling down her ladder with a full basket.

"I think that's what they call it--slump," repeated Dr. McAllister. "Do you care to try it?"

At this moment Mary appeared in the orchard with an enormous tray. And at the first sight of her cookery, nobody cared the least what its name was. It was that rare combination of dumpling beaten with stoned cherries, and cooked gently in the juice of the oxheart cherries in a real "cherry year." It was steaming in the red juice, with the least suspicion of melted butter over the whole.

"Do get two more, Mary," begged Mrs. McAllister, laughing. "It tastes so much better under the cherry trees!"

This was another meal that nobody ever forgot. Even the two hired men sitting under another tree devouring the delicious pudding, paused to hear Benny laugh. Nowadays those two men sometimes meet Henry--but that's another story. Anyway, they never will forget that cherry slump made by Irish Mary.

Almost as soon as lunch was over Benny rolled over on the grass and went to sleep, his head, as usual, on the dog's back. But the others worked on steadily. Mrs. McAllister kept an eye on them from the screened porch without their knowledge.

"Just see how those children keep at it," she said to her son. "There is good stuff in them. I should like to know where they come from."

Dr. McAllister said nothing. He sauntered out into the orchard when he thought they had worked long enough. He paid them four dollars and gave them all the cherries they could carry, although they tried to object.

"You see, you're better than most pickers, because you're so cheerful."

He noticed that they did not all leave the yard at the same time.

When the cherry pickers returned to their little home they examined everything carefully. Nothing had been disturbed. The door was still shut, and the milk and butter stood untouched in the refrigerator. They made a hilarious meal of raw cherries and bread and butter, and before the stars came out they were fast asleep--happy and dreamless.

That evening, very much later, a young man sat in his study with the evening paper. He read the news idly, and was just on the point of tossing the paper aside when this advertisement caught his eye:

Lost. Four children, aged thirteen, twelve, ten and five. Somewhere around the region of Middlesex and Townsend. $5000 reward for information.

JAMES HENRY CORDYCE

"Whew!" whistled the young man. "James Henry Cordyce!"

He sat in perfect silence for a long time, thinking. Then he went to bed. But long after he had gone upstairs he whistled again, and could have been heard to say-if anyone had been awake to hear it--"James Henry Cordyce! Of all people!"

THE RACE

The Cordyce Steel Mills stood a little aside from the city of Greenfield, as if they were a little too good to associate with common factories. James Henry Cordyce sat in a huge leather chair in his private office. He was a man nearly sixty years of age whose dark brown hair was still untouched by gray. He had rather hard lines around his mouth, but softer ones around his eyes. Printed on the ground-glass top of his door were these words in black and gold:

J. H. CORDYCE--President _Private_

Once a year J. H. Cordyce allowed himself a holiday. If he had a weakness, it was for healthy boys--boys running without their hats, boys jumping, boys throwing rings, boys swimming, boys vaulting with a long pole. And in company with three other extremely rich men he arranged, once a year, a Field Day for the town of Intervale. The men attended it in person, and supplied all the money. This was Field Day.

All through the spring and early summer months, boys were in training for miles around, getting ready for Intervale's Field Day. And not only boys, but men also, old and young, and girls of all ages into the bargain. Prizes were offered for tennis, baseball, rowing, swimming, running, and every imaginable type of athletic feat. But usually the interest of the day centered on a free-for-all race of one mile, which everyone enjoyed, and a great many people entered. A prize of twenty-five dollars was offered to the winner of this race, and also a silver trophy cup with little wings on its handles. Sometimes this cup was won by a middle-aged man, sometimes by a girl, and sometimes by a trained athlete. Mr. Cordyce smiled about his eyes as he closed his desk, ordered his limousine, and went out and locked the door of his office. The mill had been closed down for the day. Everyone attended Field Day.

Henry was washing the concrete drives at Dr. McAllister's at this moment. He heard the doctor call to him from the road, so he promptly turned off the hose and ran out to see what was wanted.

"Hop in," commanded the doctor, not stopping his engine. "You ought to go to see the stunts at the athletic meet. It's Field Day."

Henry did not wish to delay the doctor, so he "hopped in."

"Can't go myself," said Dr. McAllister. "I'll just drop you at the grounds. There's no charge for admittance. You just watch all the events and report to me who wins."

Henry tried to explain to his friend that he ought to be working, but there was actually no time. And when he found himself seated on the bleachers and the stunts began, he forgot everything in the world except the exciting events before his eyes.

Henry had no pencil, but he had an excellent memory. He repeated over and over, the name of each winner as it appeared on the huge signboard.

It was nearly eleven o'clock when the free-for-all running race was announced.

"What do they mean--free-for-all?" asked Henry of a small boy at his side.

"Why, just anybody," explained the boy, curiously. "Didn't you ever see one? Didn't you see the one last year?"

"No," said Henry.

The boy laughed. "That was a funny one," he said. "There was a college runner in it, and a couple of fat men, and some girls--lots of people. And the little colored boy over there won it. You just ought to have seen that boy run! He went so fast you couldn't see his legs. Beat the college runner, you know."

Henry gazed at the winner of last year's race. He was smaller than Henry, but apparently older. In a few minutes Henry had quietly left his place on the bleachers. When the boy turned to speak to him again, he was gone.

He had gone, in fact, to the dressing room, where boys of all sizes were putting on sandals and running trunks.

A man stepped up to him quickly.

"Want to enter?" he asked. "No time to waste."

"Yes," replied Henry.

The man tossed him a pair of white shoes and some blue trunks. He liked the look of Henry's face as he paused to ask in an undertone, "Where did you train?"

"Never trained," replied Henry.

"I suppose you know these fellows have been training all the year?" observed the man. "You don't expect to win?"

"Oh, no!" replied Henry, apparently shocked at the idea. "But it's lots of fun to run, you know." He was dressed and ready by this time. How light he felt! He felt as if he could almost fly. Presently the contestants were all marshalled out to the running track. Henry was Number 4.

Now, Henry had never been trained to run, but the boy possessed an unusual quantity of common sense. "It's a mile race," he thought to himself, "and it's the second half mile that counts." So it happened that this was the main thought in his mind when the starter's gong sounded and the racers shot away down the track. In almost no time, Henry was far behind the first half of the runners. But strangely enough, he did not seem to mind this greatly.

"It's fun to run, anyhow," he thought.

It was fun, certainly. He felt as if his limbs were strung together on springs. He ran easily, without effort, each step bounding into the next like an elastic.

After a few minutes of this, Henry had a new thought.

"Now you've tried how _easy_ you can run, let's see how _fast_ you can run!"

And then not only Henry himself, but the enormous crowd as well, began to see how fast he could run. Slowly he gained on the fellow ahead of him, and passed him. With the next fellow as a goal, he gradually crept alongside, and passed him with a spurt. The crowd shouted itself hoarse. The field all along the course was black with people. Henry could hear them cheering for Number 4, as he pounded by. Six runners remained ahead of him. Here was the kind of race the crowd loved; not an easily won affair between two runners, but a gradual victory between the best runner and overpowering odds. Henry could see the finish-flag now in the distance. He began to spurt. He passed Numbers 14 and 3. He passed 25, 6, and 1 almost in a bunch. Number 16 remained ahead. Then Henry began to think of winning. How much the twenty-five dollar prize would mean to Jess and the rest! Number 16 _must_ be passed.

"I'm going to win this race!" he said quietly in his own mind. "I'll bet you I am!" The thought lent him speed.

"Number 4! Number 4!" yelled the crowd. Henry did not know that the fellow ahead had been ahead all the way, and just because he--Henry--had slowly gained over them all, the crowd loved him best.

Henry waited until he could have touched him. He was within three yards of the wire. He bent double, and put all his energy into the last elastic bound. He passed Number 16, and shot under the wire.

Then the crowd went wild. It scrambled over and under the fence, cheering and blowing its horns. Henry felt himself lifted on many shoulders and carried panting up to the reviewing stand. He bowed laughing at the sea of faces, and took the silver cup with its little wings in a sort of dream. It is a wonder he did not lose the envelope containing the prize, for he hardly realized when he took it what it was.

Then someone said, "What's your name, boy?"

That called him to earth. He had to think quickly under cover of getting his breath.

"Henry James," he replied. This was perfectly true, as far as it went. In a moment the enormous signboard flashed out the name:

HENRY JAMES No. 4. AGE 13 WINNER OF FREE-FOR-ALL

Meanwhile the man of the dressing room was busy locating Mr. Cordyce of the Cordyce Mills. He knew that was exactly the kind of story that old James Henry would like.

"Yes, sir," he said smiling. "I says to him, 'You don't expect to win, of course.' And he says to me, 'Oh, no, but it's lots of fun to run, you know.'"

"Thank you, sir," returned Mr. Cordyce. "That's a good story. Bring the youngster over here, if you don't mind."

When Henry appeared, a trifle shaken out of his daze and anxious only to get away, Mr. Cordyce stretched out his hand. "I like your spirit, my boy," he said. "I like your running, too. But it's your spirit that I like best. Don't ever lose it."

"Thank you," said Henry, shaking hands. And there was only one in the whole crowd that knew who was shaking hands with whom, least of all James Henry and Henry James.

MORE EDUCATION

With twenty-five dollars in his hand, Henry felt like a millionaire as he edged through the crowd to the gate.

"That's the boy," he heard many a person say when he was forced to hold his silver cup in view out of harm's way.

When Dr. McAllister drove into his yard he found a boy washing the concrete drives as calmly as if nothing had happened. He chuckled quietly, for he had stopped at the Fair Grounds for a few minutes himself, and held a little conversation with the score-keeper. When Henry faithfully repeated the list of winners, however, he said nothing about it.

"What are you going to do with the prize?" queried Dr. McAllister.

"Put it in the savings bank, I guess," replied Henry.

"Have you an account?" asked his friend.

"No, but Jess says it's high time we started one."

"Good for Jess," said the doctor absently. "I remember an old uncle of mine who put two hundred dollars in the savings bank and forgot all about it. He left it in there till he died, and it came to me. It amounted to sixteen hundred dollars."

"Whew!" said Henry.

"He left it alone for over forty years, you see," explained Dr. McAllister.

When Henry arrived at his little home in the woods with the twenty-five dollars (for he never thought of putting it in the bank before Jess saw it), he found a delicious lunch waiting for him. Jess had boiled the little vegetables in clear water, and the moment they were done she had drained off the water in a remarkable drainer, and heaped them on the biggest dish with melted butter on top.

His family almost forgot to eat while Henry recounted the details of the exciting race. And when he showed them the silver cup and the money they actually did stop eating, hungry as they were.

"I said my name was Henry James," repeated Henry.

"That's all right. So it is," affirmed Jess. "It's clever, too. You can use that name for your bank book."

"So I can!" said Henry, delighted. "I'll put it in the bank this very afternoon. And by the way, I brought something for dinner tonight."

Jess looked in the bag. There were a dozen smooth, brown potatoes.

"I know how to cook those," said Jess, nodding her head wisely. "You just wait!"

"Can't wait, hardly," Henry called back as he went to work.

When he had gone, Benny frolicked around noisily with the dog.

"Benny," Jess exclaimed suddenly, as she hung her dish towels up to dry, "it's high time you learned to read."

"No school _now_," said Benny hopefully.

"No, but I can teach you. If I only had a primer!"

"Let's make one," suggested Violet, shaking her hair back. "We have saved all the wrapping paper off the bundles, you know."

Jess was staring off into space, as she always did when she had a bright idea.

"Violet," she cried at last, "remember those chips? We could whittle out letters like type--make each letter backwards, you know."

"And stamp them on paper!" finished Violet.

"There would be only twenty-six in all. It wouldn't be awfully hard," said Jess. "We wouldn't bother with capitals."

"What could we use for ink?" Violet wondered, wrinkling her forehead.

"Blackberry juice!" cried Jess. The two girls clapped their hands. "Won't Henry be surprised when he finds that Benny can read?"

Now from this conversation Benny gathered that this type-business would take his sisters quite a while to prepare. So he was not much worried about his part of the work. In fact, he sorted out chips very cheerfully and watched his teachers with interest as they dug carefully around the letters with the two knives.

"We'll teach him two words to begin with," said Jess. "Then we won't have to make the whole alphabet at once. Let's begin to teach him _see_."

"That's easy," agreed Violet. "And then we won't have to make but two letters, _s_ and _e_."

"And the other word will be _me_," cried Jess. "So only three pieces of type in all, Violet."

Jess cut the wiggly _s_, because she had the better knife, while Violet struggled with the _e_. Then Jess cut a wonderful _m_ while Violet sewed the primer down the back, and gathered a cupful of blackberries. As she sat by, crushing the juice from the berries with a stick, Jess planned the ink pad.

"We'll have to use a small piece of the wash-cloth, I'm afraid," she said at last.

But finally they were obliged to cut off only the uneven bits of cloth which hung around the edges. These they used for stuffing for the pad, and covered them with a pocket which Violet carefully ripped from her apron. When this was sewed firmly into place, and put into a small saucer, Jess poured on the purple juice. Even Benny came up on his hands and knees to watch her stamp the first _s_. It came out beautifully on the first page of the primer, purple and clean-cut. The _e_ was almost as good, and as for the _m_, Jess' hand shook with pure pride as she stamped it evenly on the page. At last the two words were completed. In fact, they were done long before Benny had the slightest idea his sisters were ready for him.

He came willingly enough for his first lesson, but he could not tell the two words apart.

"Don't you see, Benny?" Jess explained patiently. "This one with the wiggly _s_ says _see_?" But Benny did not "see."

"I'll tell you, Jess," said Violet at last. "Let's print each word again on a separate card. That's the way they do at school. And then let him point to _see_."

The girls did this, using squares of stiff brown paper. Then they called Benny. Very carefully, Jess explained again which word said _see_, hissing like a huge snake to show him how the _s_ sounded. Then she mixed the cards and said encouragingly, "Now, Benny, point to _s-s-s-ee_."

Benny did not move. He sat with his finger on his lip.

But the children were nearly petrified with astonishment to see Watch cock his head on one side and gravely put his paw on the center of the word! Now, this was only an accident. Watch did not really know one of the words from the other. But Benny thought he did. And was he going to let a dog get ahead of him? Not Benny! In less time than it takes to tell it, Benny had learned both words perfectly.

"Good old Watch," said Jess.

"It isn't really hard at all," said Benny. "Is it, Watch?"

During all this experiment Jess had not forgotten her dinner. When you are living outdoors all the time you do not forget things like that. In fact both girls had learned to tell the time very accurately by the sun.

Jess started up a beautiful little fire of cones. As they turned into red-hot ashes and began to topple over one by one into the glowing pile, Jess laughed delightedly. She had already scrubbed the smooth potatoes and dried them carefully. She now poked them one by one into the glowing ashes with a stick from a birch tree. Whenever a potato lit up dangerously she gave it a poke into a new position. And when Henry found her, she was just rolling the charred balls out onto the flat stones.

"Burned 'em up?" queried Henry.

"Burned, nothing!" cried Jess energetically. "You just wait!"

"Can't wait, hardly," replied Henry smiling.

"You said that a long time ago," said Benny.

"Well, isn't it true?" demanded Henry, rolling his brother over on the pine needles.

"Come," said Violet breathlessly, forgetting to ring the bell.

"Hold them with leaves," directed Jess, "because they're terribly hot. Knock them on the side and scoop them out with a spoon and put butter on top."

The children did as the little cook requested, sprinkled on a little salt from the salt shaker, and took a taste.

"Ah!" said Henry.

"It's good," said Benny blissfully. It was about the most successful meal of all, in fact. When the children in later years recalled their different feasts, they always came back to the baked potatoes roasted in the ashes of the pine cones. Henry said it was because they were poked with a black-birch stick. Benny said it was because Jess nearly burned them up. Jess herself said maybe it was the remarkable salt shaker which had to stand on its head always, because there was no floor to it.

After supper the children still were not too sleepy to show Henry the new primer, and allow Benny to display his first reading lesson. Henry, greatly taken with the idea, sat up until it was almost dark, chipping out the remaining letters of the alphabet.

If you should ever care to see this interesting primer, which was finally ten pages in length, you might examine this faithful copy of its first page, which required four days for its completion:

Henry always insisted that the rat's tail was too long, but Jess said his knife must have slipped when he was making the _a_, so they were even, after all.

GINSENG

What Dr. McAllister ever did before Henry began to work for him would be hard to guess.

There were certainly as many duties always waiting for him as he had time to do. And it made no difference to the industrious boy what the job was. Nothing was too hard or too dirty for him to attempt.

One day the doctor set him at the task of clearing out his little laboratory. The boy washed bottles, pasted labels, and cleaned instruments for one whole morning. And more than one broken flask on its way to the rubbish heap was carefully carried up the hill to the hidden family.