Part 10 (1/2)
”No, I didn't have time to go so far. I just went down through Randolph Street to the bank and there was a boat there tied to a tree, and I got in and pushed it out as far as the rope would go and dropped the things in from the other end.”
Sylvia caught her breath in terror at this recital. The Piquota river ran swift and turbid and deep between high banks at that point.
”Weren't you afraid to venture out in a boat all by yourself?” asked the man, looking at Judith's diminutive person.
”Yes, I was,” said Judith unexpectedly.
Mr. Bristol said ”Oh--” and stood in thought for a moment. Some one knocked on the door, and he turned to open it. At the sight of the tall figure standing there in his pepper-and-salt suit, Sylvia's heart gave a great bound of incredulous rapture. The appearance of a merciful mediator on the Day of Judgment could not have given her keener or more poignant relief. She and Judith both ran headlong to their father, catching his hands in theirs, clinging to his arms and pressing their little bodies against his. The comfort Sylvia felt in his mere physical presence was inexpressible. It is one of the pure golden emotions of childhood, which no adult can ever recover, save perhaps a mystic in a moment of ecstatic contemplation of the power and loving-kindness of his G.o.d.
Professor Marshall put out his hand to the Princ.i.p.al, introducing himself, and explained that he and his wife had been a little uneasy when the children had not returned from school. Mr. Bristol shook the other's hand, saying that he knew of him through mutual acquaintances and a.s.suring him that he could not have come at a more opportune moment. ”Your little daughter has given me a hard nut to crack. I need advice.”
Both men sat down, Sylvia and Judith still close to their father's side, and Mr. Bristol told what had happened in a concise, colorless narration, ending with Judith's exploit with the boat. ”Now what would _you_ do in _my_ place?” he said, like one proposing an insoluble riddle.
Sylvia, seeing the discussion going on in such a quiet, conversational tone, ventured in a small voice the suggestion that Judith had done well to confess, since that had saved others from suspicion. ”The girls were sure that Jimmy Weaver had done it.”
”Was that why you came back and told?” asked Professor Marshall.
”No,” said Judith bluntly, ”I never thought of that. I wanted to be sure they knew why it happened.”
The two men exchanged glances. Professor Marshall said: ”Didn't you understand me when I told you at noon that even if you could make the girls let Camilla go to the picnic, she wouldn't have a good time? You couldn't make them like to have her?”
”Yes, I understood all right,” said Judith, looking straight at her father, ”but if she couldn't have a good time--and no fault of hers--I wasn't going to let _them_ have a good time either. I wasn't trying to make them want her. I was trying to get even with them!”
Professor Marshall looked stern. ”That is just what I feared, Judith, and that hateful spirit is the bad thing about the whole business.” He turned to the Princ.i.p.al: ”How many girls were going to the picnic?”
The other, with a wide gesture, disavowed any knowledge of the matter.
”Good Heavens! how should I know?”
Sylvia counted rapidly. ”Fourteen,” she said.
”Well, Mr. Bristol, how would this do for a punishment? Judith has worked in various ways, digging up dandelions from the lawn, weeding flower-beds, running errands--you know--all the things children do--and she has a little more than five dollars in her iron savings-bank, that she has been saving for more than a year to buy a collie puppy. Would you be satisfied if she took that money, divided it into fourteen parts, and took it herself in person to each of the girls?”
During this proposal Judith's face had taken on an expression of utter dismay. She looked more childlike, more like her years than at any moment during the interview. ”Oh, _Father_!” she implored him, with a deep note of entreaty.
He did not look at her, but over her head at the Princ.i.p.al, who was rising from his chair with every indication of relief on his face.”
Nothing could be better,” he said. ”That will be just right--every one will be satisfied. And I'll just say for the sake of discipline that little Judith shan't come back to school till she has done her penance. Of course she can get it all done before supper-time tonight.
All our families live in the vicinity of the school.” He was shaking Professor Marshall's hand again and edging him towards the door, his mind once more on his paper, hoping that he might really finish it before night--if only there were no more interruptions!
His achievement in divining the mental processes of two children hysterical with excitement, his magnetic taming of those fluttering little hearts, his inspired avoidance of a fatal false step at a critical point in the moral life of two human beings in the making--all this seemed as nothing to him--an incident of the day's routine already forgotten. He conceived that his real usefulness to society lay in the reform of arithmetic-teaching in the seventh grade, and he turned back to his arguments with the ardor of the great landscape painter who aspires to be a champion at billiards.
Professor Marshall walked home in silence with his two daughters, explained the matter to his wife, and said that he and Sylvia would go with Judith on her uncomfortable errand. Mrs. Marshall listened in silence and went herself to get the little bank stuffed full of painfully earned pennies and nickels. Then she bade them into the kitchen and gave Judith and Sylvia each a cookie and a gla.s.s of milk.
She made no comment whatever on the story, or on her husband's sentence for the culprit, but just as the three, were going out of the door, she ran after them, caught Judith in her arms, and gave her a pa.s.sionate kiss.
The next day was Sat.u.r.day, and it was suggested that Judith and Sylvia carry on their campaign by going to see the Fingals and spending the morning playing with them as though nothing had happened.
As they approached the house, somewhat perturbed by the prospect, they saw with surprise that the windows were bare of the heavy yellow lace curtains which had hung in the parlor, darkening that handsomely furnished room to a rich twilight. They went up on the porch, and Judith rang the bell resolutely, while Sylvia hung a little back of her. From this position she could see into the parlor, and exclaimed, ”Why, Judy, this isn't the right house--n.o.body lives here!” The big room was quite empty, the floors bare of the large soft rugs, and as the children pressed their faces to the pane, they could see through an open door into a bedroom also dismantled and deserted.