CHAPTER IX

JEANNE PLANS AN ADVENTURE

The dinner served in Sandy’s honor at the artist’s studio was an occasion long to be remembered. Jeanne had chanced to speak of her gypsy step-father, Bihari.

“And is he now in America?” Miss Mabee asked with sudden interest.

“Yes. In Chicago!” Jeanne replied joyously.

“Then we must have him at our party tonight. Perhaps I might like to paint his picture.”

“Oh, you are sure to!” Jeanne cried. “There is no one in the world like Bihari.”

So Bihari was sent for. Tum Morrow too had been invited and, to help the affair along, had volunteered to bring three boon companions, all destitute musicians, and all glad to provide music in exchange for Jeanne’s gypsy-style chicken dinner.

When the hour arrived all were there; so too were the great steaming platters of chicken with dumplings and gravy. And such a feast as that was! Bihari had persuaded two good cooks of his own race to prepare the feast. And, because of their love for Bihari and Jeanne, they had spared neither time nor labor.

“That,” said Sandy, as at last the final toast of delicious fruit juice had been drunk, “is the finest feast I have ever known.”

“And now,” he said to Jeanne, “tell us about this magic isle I am to visit, this Isle Royale.”

“You?” Jeanne looked at him in surprise. “You are going to Isle Royale? In winter?”

“Yes. In an airplane.”

“In an airplane?” The look of surprise and longing on Jeanne’s face was a wonderful thing to behold. Her own Dragonfly was stored away, but never would she forget those golden days when she had gone gliding through the air. Nor would she forget the glorious days she had spent on the shores of the “Magic Isle.”

“You are going to Isle Royale in an airplane,” she repeated slowly. “Then I shall tell you all about it—but on one condition!”

“Name it.” Sandy smiled.

“That you take me with you.”

A little cry of surprise ran round the room. For a space of seconds Sandy was silent. Then, with a look of sudden decision on his face, he said, “It’s a go!”

“And now, Jeanne,” Miss Mabee arose, “when our good friend Tum has put another log on the fire and we have all drawn up our chairs, suppose you tell us all about this very wonderful isle.”

So there, with the lights turned out, with the glow of the fire playing over her bewitching face, Jeanne told them of Isle Royale. She spoke of the deep, dark waters where lake trout gleam like silver; of the rocky shore where at times the waters of old Lake Superior come thundering in, and of the little lakes that lay gleaming among the dark green forests.

She told of wild moose that come down to the shores at sunset to dip their noses in the bluest of waters, then to lift their antlers high and send a challenge echoing away across the ridges. She told of the bush wolves who answered that challenge, then of the slow settling down of night that turned this whole little world to a pitchy black.

“And then,” she whispered, “the moon comes rolling like a golden chariot wheel over the ridge to paint a path of gold across those black waters. And you, not to be outdone by a mere moon, touch a match to your campfire and it blazes high to meet the stars.

“That,” she exclaimed, springing to her feet and executing a wild dance before the fire, “that is summer! What must it be in winter? All those tall spruce trees decorated with snow, all those little lakes gleaming like mirrors. And tracks through the snow—tracks of moose, bush wolves, lynx and beaver, mysterious tracks that wind on and on over the ridge. To think,” she cried, “we are to see all this!

“But Sandy!” Her mood changed. “You said they were trapping moose. Why should they trap any wild thing? That—why that’s like trapping a gypsy!”

“Some gypsies should be trapped.” Sandy laughed, seizing her hand teasingly. “But as for the moose of Isle Royale, they have become too numerous for the island. They are trapping them and taming them a little. In the spring they are to be taken to game sanctuaries on the mainland where there is an abundance of food. But look!” he exclaimed. “We are taking up all the time raving about this island. What about our musicians? Let’s have a tune.”

His words were greeted with hand-clapping. Tum Morrow and his companions tuned up and for the next half hour the studio walls echoed to many a melody. Some were of today, modern and rhythmical, and some of yesterday with all their tuneful old melodies.

During this musical interlude Florence, seated in a dark corner, gave herself over to reflections concerning the amusing, mysterious and sometimes threatening events of the days just past.

“It is all so strange, so intriguing, so rather terrible!” she was thinking to herself. “This Madame Zaran, is she truly a genius at crystal gazing? How could she fail to be? Did I not, myself, see a vision in the crystal ball? And that girl June, who could doubt but that she saw herself as she was when a child, with her father? And yet—” the whole affair was terribly disturbing. They had compelled the girl, a mere child, to pay two hundred dollars for this vision. How much for the next? They had promised to reveal her father’s whereabouts, tell her when he would return. Could they do that? “Ten years!” she whispered. “One is tempted to believe him dead. And yet—”

Then there was the voodoo priestess, she with the black goat. They were to visit her on the morrow. “And I have an appointment with Madame Zaran too. A busy day!”

She thought, with a new feeling of alarm, of Jeanne’s experience on that day. “Wish I hadn’t told her of that thieving gypsy fortune teller. Get her into no end of trouble. Dangerous, those gypsies!” Then, at a sudden remembrance, she smiled. It was good that Jeanne had won the dancing contest; good, too, that she had helped that gypsy child of the bright shawl. Jeanne had “cast bread upon the waters.” It would return.

Then of a sudden as the music stopped, she gave a start. Before her eyes there appeared to float a shadow, a curiously frightening shadow. It was the shadow of a face she had seen on the midnight blue of Madame Zaran’s studio, a face that had somehow reminded her of Satan. “My dear old aunt used to say Satan had a hand in all fortune telling,” she whispered. But then, aunts were almost always old-fashioned and sometimes a little foolish.

Now the music played so well by Tum Morrow and his companions came to an end. There was instant applause, and Florence was wakened from her disturbing day dream.

“Can you play one of Liszt’s rhapsodies?” Miss Mabee asked.

“I’m sorry,” Tum said regretfully, “I have never studied them.”

“But yes!” Bihari, the gypsy blacksmith, sprang up. “Let me show you! The best one it goes like this. Every gypsy knows it.”

Taking the violin from Tum Morrow’s hand, he began drawing forth a teasing, bewitching melody. “Come!” he exclaimed, nodding his head at the other musicians. “You know this one. Surely you must!”

They did. Soon piano, cello, clarinet and violin were doing full justice to this glorious gypsy music written down for the world by a master composer.

A perfect silence fell over the room. When the violin dropped to a whisper and was heard alone, there was not another sound.

As for Jeanne, while Bihari played she was far, far away beside a hedge where the grass was green and the midnight blue of the sky was sprinkled with golden stars. Again, with her fellow wanderers she breathed the sweet free air of night, listened to the call of the whippoorwill and the wail of the violin.

“Wonderful!” Miss Mabee exclaimed as the music ended. “You almost make me want to be a gypsy. And Bihari, you shall make me famous. I shall paint your picture. You shall be seated on your anvil, playing Liszt’s rhapsody to a group of ragged children. In the background shall be a dozen poorly clad women holding their pots and pans to be mended, but all carried away by that glorious music. Ah, what a picture! Shall I have it?”

“If you wish it,” Bihari replied humbly.

“Tomorrow?”

“If you wish.”

“Done!” the artist exclaimed. “And all the ones with ragged shawls and leaky pans shall be well paid.

“And now, Tum, my dear boy,” she turned to the boy musician. “You give us a goodnight lullaby, and we shall be off to pleasant dreams.”

A half hour later Miss Mabee and Florence sat before the fire. Florence had just told of her experience as a crystal-gazer.

“You were day-dreaming, my dear,” Miss Mabee laughed lightly. “Had you been looking dreamily at a spot of light or a blank wall, you would have seen the same thing. You are fond of the wide out-of-doors and our bits of American wilderness. Day-dreaming is our most wonderful indoor sport. Were it not for our day-dreams, there are many who would go quite mad in these troublous times. But when life is too hard, off we drift on our magic carpet of dreams, and all is well.”