Part 9

However, long before noon, Ernie slipped her hand into her desk to take out the beloved book, and reassure herself by a hasty glance through its pages. She owns several blank-books; one for spelling, a second for “home-work,” and a third for English. These were successively dragged out, and hastily thrust back again. With a queer little shock it became certain that the book containing the solution to the all-important problems was missing!

Ernie was puzzled, startled, but, just at first, she felt no suspicion.

Perhaps she had not put the book into her desk, after all. Perhaps she had dropped it on the landing in the hall. It was impossible to communicate her loss to Mary Hobart, who had been sent to the blackboard to demonstrate a proposition. So Ernie raised her hand and asked Miss Horton’s permission to leave the room to look for something. The request was granted.

Yet a hurried search of the stairways revealed nothing; and the more Ernie reflected, the more anxious she became. She returned to the classroom thoroughly puzzled and distressed.—When what was her amazement to discover the missing book lying in plain view on her desk!

Ernie took it up incredulously,—and was instantly conscious of a faint scent of musk.

She turned to Mary Hobart, who was just about to resume her seat, having finished her work at the board, and fairly hissed:—

“_Smell of Lulu, Mary. Smell her! quick!!!_”

Mary looked at Ernie in bewilderment. “I don’t _want_ to,” she whispered back. “Why should I, I’d like to know?”

“Go on,” commanded Ernie, too excited to explain. “Smell her! You must!”

So Mary, with a puzzled and somewhat resentful air, inclined her head stiffly toward Lulu Jennings and began to sniff.

“Well?” questioned Ernie, with dilating eyes.

“Well,” returned Mary, crossly; “she smells of cheap perfume, as usual. It’s musk to-day. I hope you’re satisfied.”

“Yes,” returned Ernie, quietly. “And so, I haven’t a doubt, is Lulu. She has copied my problems! I’ll tell you after school.”

Certainly the evidence seemed conclusive enough, and Mary added still other links to the chain.

“Don’t you remember?” she said. “Lulu was at her desk when we put our things away this morning. While we were eating that apple, she must have taken the book; and no sooner did you leave the room to look for it, than she asked permission to put some stuff in the wastepaper-basket. I noticed, from the blackboard, that she paused at your desk on her way back. She must certainly have returned it then.”

Yet what was to be done? The affair was entirely too complicated to take to Miss Horton, even if Ernie could have made up her mind to that course.

“No,” she returned to Mary’s suggestion. “I just won’t. I’m no tell-tale. I’d rather give up all thought of the prize, even if I have worked so hard for it. If Lulu Jennings can enjoy the books earned this way, she’s welcome to ’em!” And Ernie thrust the fatal blank-book into the very bottom of her school-satchel, and snapped to the catch with a click!

The next morning examinations began, with arithmetic first as usual. Every girl in the class surveyed her paper anxiously, in search of the famous problem. It was there,—the ninth,—one of the four which Ernie had neglected to prove. At first this was rather a disappointment; but, having given up all hope of winning the prize, Ernie quickly dismissed the matter and set quietly to work, merely determining to pass as creditably as she could.

The moments flew quickly by. Absorbed in her calculations, Ernie forgot all feeling of pique or disappointment; nor did she again think of Lulu Jennings till, having finished her paper, she passed it under final review, when something struck her eye!

She gave a little bounce in her seat, and caught her breath sharply. The answer obtained to the all-important problem was different to-day from that which she had written out before!

She remembered distinctly what that other answer was, and went hastily over the work before her to see where the mistake lay. But it was right. It proved! Figure by figure Ernie followed the intricate proposition, to which, without a doubt, she had at last obtained the correct solution! What had been wrong before she did not know, nor did she much care.

Instinctively her glance sought Lulu Jennings, who sat with head bent low above her desk. At the same moment Lulu raised her eyes. She did not look at Ernie, but cautiously toward Miss Horton, who was standing at the blackboard with her back toward the class. Lulu, seeing this, darted a stealthy hand into her desk, and brought out a little roll of paper which she placed in her lap, at the same moment throwing her handkerchief over it.

Ernie did not wait for anything further, but, rising from her seat, carried her paper to Miss Horton’s desk. No one paid any attention, as it is customary for the girls to put up their papers when finished. On her way back Ernie stopped beside Lulu just long enough to whisper,—

“I wouldn’t bother to copy that. It’s wrong.”

Lulu turned first white, then red. She clutched the paper in her lap. Whether she heeded Ernie’s warning makes little difference. The mark she received was not especially creditable; and Ernie, who passed a nearly perfect examination, came out head, and was awarded the prize, after all.

“Just think, Elizabeth!” she chortled. “Five dollars’ worth of books! We’ll fill up the bottom shelf of the mahogany bookcase, again. I have my list all made out:—_Water Babies_, for Robin; _The Conquest of Granada_, for Hazard; Longfellow’s poems for you, dear,—and _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, for mother. The Visiting Board read the titles aloud from the platform, and said it was ‘a remarkably comprehensive selection.’”

“But, Ernie,” I expostulated, “what have you for yourself?”

“Pshaw!” says Ernie—“I told you I was going to use them for birthday presents. My birthday is past; and besides I wanted nice editions, and I really think I’ve made the money go as far as anybody could!”

“It is very sweet of you, honey,” I said; “but we will share that Longfellow. Aren’t Mary and the other girls delighted?”

“Indeed they are,” admitted Ernie, with an ingenuous little skip. “I’m quite the Heroine of their young hearts! It’s lots of fun, Elizabeth. Only, I’m sorry for Lulu. It must be horrid for her to look back and think how mean she has been,—and all for nothing, too!”

Wednesday, February 11.

Our precious Robin has been far from well, lately. For some time now he has almost given up trying to walk. His crutches seemed to tire him more and more, and his left side has become so helpless that when he did attempt to get about it reminded one of a little lame bird trailing a broken wing.

The greater part of the day he has passed propped up with pillows in the big rocker in the window, or lying in his little crib, because he was “too tired” to sit up. And the deepening shadows beneath his eyes have quite wrung our hearts.

Dr. Porter has been very kind and attentive, but far from satisfied; and last week the stern edict went forth. Robin was to go to bed and stay there for no less a period than six weeks, with a heavy weight attached to his little thin leg.

Well, there is one comfort. Our darling baby seems more like himself since he has been forced at last to give up. He has lost some of the languor and gentle indifference that seemed to be growing on him. His merry grin flashes forth with reassuring frequency, followed by the deep dimple high in his cheek.

“He is resting,” said the doctor, “and he needs it. That boy is grit clear through,—a quality of which I don’t approve in patients, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Would you rather have them whine?” I asked.

“Yes,” returned the doctor, uncompromisingly. “I would.”

But Robin will never do that. In the first place, everybody is too good to him;—Mrs. Burroughs, Miss Brown, and the three Lysles. Indeed, Mr. Lysle is kind as kind can be. He has brought fruit for Bobsie several times, and seems quite distressed because “the little invalid” has not a better appetite. To-day he declared that he really did not see “how the child managed to survive on such a small amount of sustenance.” Whereat Ernie giggled, and I had some difficulty controlling my countenance, for it was at the table the observation was rumbled forth, just as the kind “Hippopotamus” was finishing his third helping of turkey.

Yes, turkey! if you please; though certainly it did seem some weeks ago as if the little Grahams could never again claim even so much as a bowing acquaintance with that royal bird. And after the turkey came ice cream and mince pie, served by Rose in a spotless cap and apron, while Rosebud purred upon the warm hearth in the kitchen, waiting his turn to lick the plates! For no sooner did plenty begin to smile again upon our household than Ernie (naughty Indian-giver!), demanded back her pet. “Mary would just as soon have one of the grocer’s new kittens,” she affirmed. “I’ve asked him about it, and he says we may take our pick.” So the compromise was effected. Rosebud, sleek and debonair as ever, returned to grace our home,—and such a welcome as the children gave him! Indeed, we were all glad. Things have not been so comfortable for months,—which reminds me of Robin’s poem.

It was this morning, while I was washing his face, that Bobs repeated it to me. A little soap got into his eyes. He screwed them up, and then remarked,—

“You must be more careful, Elizabeth, when you wash me, else my poem won’t stay true.”

“Your poem, Bobsie?” I repeated. Though, certainly, by this time I should be accustomed to the family weakness.

“Yes,” answered Robin, shyly. “Ernie wrote one, you know, and Haze, too,—so I thought I would. Shall I say it?”

And, without waiting to be pressed, he graciously began:—

“Oh, what a lucky child am I, As here upon my bed I lie With all my needs and wants supplied, My food, and everything beside;— Clams, and white mice, and kittens, all! And when I’m cold my mother’s shawl.”

“Isn’t that pretty?”

“Indeed it is, honey,” I answered. “How did you come to think of it?”

“Well,” confessed Robin, “I’d been crying just a little yesterday, Ellie, because I wanted to pertend to play tag and I couldn’t see out the window, and so I had to blow my nose; and I felt for my hankersniff under the pillow, and _there_ it was! I didn’t have to ring or anything! And that made me think how lucky I am, and so I made up the poem. Is it nice enough to be written down?”

“It certainly is,” I answered. “I will put it in my diary, and some day when you are a big fat man Ellie will read it aloud to you, and we will both laugh.”

“Why will we laugh, Ellie dear?” asked Robin, innocently.

“Because we will be so glad that the little sick boy who composed it grew up strong and well,” I answered.

And so I have written “the poem” here, that I may be able to fulfil my part of the prophecy.

But now I want to talk a little of Geoffrey, for we are really anxious about him. There is no doubt the boy is very much changed.

Yesterday afternoon he dropped in to see Ernie nearly an hour before school was out.

“Why, Geof,” I said, “what are you doing here so early? It is scarcely two o’clock. Ernie isn’t home yet. Did you have a half-holiday?”

Geoffrey looked confused. “’Guess your clocks are wrong,” he answered. “Can you give a fellow a bit of lunch, Elizabeth?”

“I thought you got your lunch at school,” I returned. “But, of course,—if you are hungry. Rose has just finished baking. Isn’t that luck?” And I ran down to the kitchen, where a glass of milk, a couple of bananas, and a plate of hot ginger-bread were quickly collected.

Geof ate in silence, crumbling his ginger-bread over the tray cloth on the library table.

“Geoffrey!” I remonstrated. “That’s too good to waste. What you don’t want I am going to take up to Robin.”

“All right,” answered Geof, pushing his plate indifferently toward me. “How is the kid?” Then he broke into a short chuckle. “I say, Elizabeth,” he remarked, “there’s a trained bear out at the zoo that would tickle Bobs most to death. I’ve been feeding it peanuts all the morning. It’s gentle as a kitten, the keeper says,—jolly good sort he seems, too,—and——”

“Geoffrey!” I accused, in sudden shocked enlightenment. “You have been playing hookey.”

Geof flushed angrily, and bit his lip. “Well, and if I have?” he blustered. “It’s nobody’s business but my own, I suppose!”

“It certainly is somebody’s business,” I answered, decidedly. “And you ought to be ashamed of yourself. After all the trouble you were in last term over hockey and athletics, I should think you would have learned that such foolishness doesn’t pay.”

Geof sprang to his feet. “Now see here, Elizabeth,” he said, “I’m not going to be jawed by you. I get enough of that sort of talk at home. If you can’t be pleasant, I’ll go somewhere else. There are plenty of other places where a chap can spend the afternoon, and Hollister and Sam Jacobs are glad enough to show ’em to me.”

“Very well, Geoffrey,” I answered. “If you choose to treat the matter so! Only, I warn you frankly, in that case I shall go directly upstairs and tell mother,—I shan’t feel that I have any choice,—and she will tell Uncle George, I know.”

Geof turned on me incredulously. “You sneak!” he cried. “If that doesn’t sound exactly like Meta!”

“Oh, Geof dear!” I expostulated, hurt and shocked by his violence. “Don’t let’s quarrel, or misunderstand each other. You know very well I don’t want to get you into trouble. But Sam Jacobs and Jim Hollister are not the sort of fellows you ought to associate with. I don’t believe you really enjoy the places they take you to, either,—and in the end it can’t help but be found out. You are doing yourself an injustice, Geoffrey,—truly you are! Come, let’s sit down and talk things over quietly.”

I laid my hand on his arm. He tried to shake it off,—but the next instant his face changed.

“Hang it all, Elizabeth!” he blurted out. “If I had sisters like you and Ernie,—or a mother!”

And the first thing I knew big, strong, manly Geof had broken down, and was sobbing like a baby, his head buried in his arms on the library table.

And presently the whole wretched story came out. It seems that things have been going from bad to worse ever since last September. It was only by unusual pressure brought to bear by Aunt Adelaide, and equally unusual acquiescence on the part of the school authorities, that Geof managed to be promoted with his class this year, and he entered the new grade heavily conditioned in nearly all his studies. This, in itself, was bad; but what made the matter still harder was that in his case a weekly report has been substituted for the customary monthly one; he tutors three afternoons a week; and his progress is kept under rigid supervision.

“So if I’m not nagged about French, I am about Latin,” said poor Geoffrey; “and I tell you, Elizabeth, the schedule I’m carrying this year is enough to daze a Solomon.”

“But do you really try to study, Geof?” I asked. “Have you made one honest effort to set things right?”

Geof flushed. “Yes; I have,” he answered, sullenly. “But nobody believes it. And recently I’ve had so many headaches, and I don’t sleep well nights, and——”

“If Aunt Adelaide knew that?” I suggested.

“She’d think I was faking,” concluded Geof, hardily. “And I don’t know that I blame her much,” he admitted, the next minute. “You see, we never have gotten along. I was seven when my own mother died, and nine when the governor remarried,—just old enough to resent it. I remember for three weeks I wouldn’t call her ‘mamma,’ till finally the matter was taken to headquarters, and I had to. And then Meta didn’t make things any easier. We fought from the very start. And they’ve managed to set the governor against me, till now—Well, the latest threat is, if my March reports don’t show ‘marked improvement’ I’m to be packed off to the Catskills for the summer to a little tin soldier camp, where the fellows wear toy uniforms and tutor all through vacation. Pleasant prospect!”

“Then, Geoffrey, why in the world play hookey,” I asked, “and throw away your last possible chance of avoiding it?”

Geof was silent.

“Come, be sensible,” I urged. “Things do look black, I admit, but if for the next few weeks you learn the lessons set each day, and look neither forward nor back——”

“That’s just it,” interrupted Geof. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s too much behind me, Elizabeth. I can’t learn what we are having now, because I didn’t last term, or the year before. And,—and, you haven’t any idea how hard it is when everybody is down on a chap. Now that I’m out of athletics the fellows I used to go with have no further use for me; I never did get along with the grinds; and Hollister, Jacobs, and their set are always cordial and pleasant, at least. I’ve got to associate with somebody, I suppose? You don’t know what you are talking about,—that’s all.”

“Yes, I do, Geoffrey,” I replied. “It won’t be easy to turn round, I know;—but what is the use of complicating matters still further? Right is right, and wrong wrong; and hookey never paid yet. Will you give me your word that you will go to school to-morrow?”

Again Geof was silent, and I waited. It seemed hard, unsympathetic,—yet what was I to do? “Will you give me your word, Geof?” I reiterated.

“All right,” he muttered, sullenly, at last. “You have the whip-hand. I’ll go to school to-morrow and the day after. I won’t promise more than that. And Saturday, if I haven’t seen the governor myself, you are welcome to go and tell him anything you please. Does that satisfy you?”

It did not, entirely; but in Geof’s stubborn mood it was the best I could hope for, and at least he will have time to think things over till the end of the week. Poor, foolish fellow! I hope I shan’t be obliged to tell!

Saturday, February 14.

Geoffrey has run away! So that was what he meant by promising to go to school till Saturday! Oh, I feel as if I were partly responsible;—and yet, how could I have suspected?

He was over here late yesterday afternoon. I did not have a chance to see him, as mother was out, and Robin rather feverish and fretful; but Ernie and he talked together in the workshop for nearly a couple of hours, and after he went Ernie came down to dinner with such red eyes.

“What is it, dear?” I asked, at last, when she and I were undressing together in our little room. “Was Geof in one of his moods again?” For Ernie had been on the verge of tears all the evening.

She dropped upon the bed then, with a little wail, and buried her face in the pillows. “I should say he was,” she sobbed. “I couldn’t do a thing with him. That hateful military camp! It’s enough to drive anybody to desperation!”

“Is it settled?” I asked. “Must Geof really go?”

“Oh, don’t bother, Elizabeth,” returned Ernie, almost crossly. “He’s going to talk to Uncle George to-night. He gets his allowance Fridays, you know; and to-morrow we’ll hear.”

Then she turned her face to the wall and pretended to go to sleep; but she was restless for hours, and once she cried out wildly in her dreams:

“Geoffrey! you mustn’t! You mustn’t, I tell you!”

No wonder she was anxious, poor child; for it seems that Geoffrey, after having first obtained a promise of secrecy, confided his plans to her yesterday afternoon. She is the only person who knows where he is now, and entreaties and arguments are equally of no avail. We simply cannot get her to tell.

The first alarm reached us this morning, just as we had risen from the breakfast table. There was a sharp ring at the door-bell; and Rose, answering the summons, found Maria, one of Aunt Adelaide’s maids, outside.

“Is Master Geoffrey here?” asked Maria, rather breathlessly. And, upon receiving Rose’s denial, she cried out:

“Then Lord-a-mercy knows what’s become of him! For he ain’t been home all the morning, not even to his breakfast, and missis and the boss, too, are in a great taking!”

Mother and I, who were on our way upstairs, overheard the exclamation and turned back.

“What is it, Maria?” asked mother, after having sent Rose down to the kitchen again. “Master Geoffrey has not been here since yesterday. You say he was not home to breakfast?”

“No, ma’am,” answered Maria; and proceeded to pour forth her tale. It seems that Geoffrey has been in the habit of over-sleeping recently, which indulgence greatly irritated Aunt Adelaide.

“Mrs. Graham thinks it’s only manners for the family to sit down to meals together,” Maria explained. “So this morning when Master Geoffrey did not come, she sent Jennie up to knock at his door, and Jennie, she knocked, and knocked again, and got no answer. So after a bit she came down, and said she could not make Master Geoffrey hear, and Mr. Graham jumped up.

“‘I’ll wake him myself,’ he says. ‘We’ve had enough of this sort of nonsense.’ And he went and called very angry-like at the foot of the stairs; but still there was no reply;—and I was rather sorry for Master Geoffrey when his pa snatched off one of his slippers and ran upstairs and threw open the bedroom door.

“‘He’s going to catch it, sure enough, like any babby,’ I thought; but he didn’t, because the room was empty. The bed had not even been slept in.

“‘Hello!’ says Mr. Graham, in a disturbed sort of way. And he put on his slipper and came downstairs again; and directly breakfast was over they sent me here.”

“Can Ernie know anything of this?” asked mother, turning to me. “She is Geoffrey’s usual confidante. Run upstairs and get her, Elizabeth. I believe she has taken Robin his tray.”

All the colour died out of Ernie’s face when she saw me enter the nursery; but it flooded back again in a crimson wave as she listened to mother’s message. However, she settled Bobsie to his breakfast, and quietly followed me downstairs.

“Have you any idea where Geoffrey is, Ernie?” asked mother, gravely.

Ernie’s long lashes swept her cheeks. “Isn’t he at home?” she returned, in a tone that was intended to sound innocent.

Mother smiled, just a little. “Don’t be foolish, dear,” she replied. “If you know anything about Geoffrey it is only right for you to tell us. We are not his enemies.”

For a moment Ernie stood silent; then she said, very low, “I know, but I can’t tell. I’ve promised.”

At that instant there sounded a second peal at the bell. This time it was Uncle George. Never before in my life have I seen him so upset, though it was evident he tried to appear indifferent.

His first words were addressed to Maria.

“Go home to your mistress, my good girl,” he said.

Then, turning to mother,—“It does not answer to send servants on such errands. They simply stand and gossip.”

Mother flushed a little. “Maria is quite blameless,” she replied. “I desired to hear all she knew in regard to Geoffrey. Have you any further news?”

Uncle George laid his hat carefully upon a chair, and felt in his coat pocket.

“It seems the young scamp left a note,” he said, in a voice that was husky, despite his assumption of unconcern. “It was not in his room, or we would have found it earlier. He gave it to Georgie last night, telling him to give it to me this morning as soon as he had finished breakfast in the nursery.” And Uncle George handed mother a folded sheet of paper.

“_Dear father_,” we read,—I was looking over her shoulder,—