Jewel: A Chapter in Her Life Part 9

A sudden thought occurring to his companion, she looked up again.

"You pretty nearly didn't come," she said, "and just think, if you hadn't I was going to England. Father said so."

At the sweet inflections of the child's voice Mr. Evringham's brows contracted with remembrance of his wrongs. "I should have come. Your father might have known that!"

"I suppose he wouldn't have liked to leave me sitting on the dock alone, but I should have known you'd come. The funny part is I shouldn't have known _you_." Jewel laughed. "I should have kept looking for an old man with white hair and a cane like Grandpa Morris. He's a grandpa in Chicago that I know. He's just as kind as he can be, but he has the _queerest_ back. He goes to our church, but says he came in at the eleventh hour. I think he used to have rheumatism. And while I was sitting there you could have walked right by me."

"Humph!"

"But then you'd have known _me_," went on Jewel, straightening Anna Belle's hat, "so it would have been all right. You'd have known there would be only one little girl waiting there, and you would have said, 'Oh, here you are, Jewel. I've come. I'm your grandpa.'" The child unconsciously mimicked the short, brusque speech.

Mr. Evringham regarded her rather darkly. "Eh? I hope you're not impudent?"

"What's that?" asked Jewel doubtfully.

Her companion's brow grew darker.

"Impudent I say."

"And what is impudent?"

"Don't you know?" suspiciously.

"No, sir," replied the child, some anxiety clouding her bright look. "Is it error?"

Mr. Evringham regarded her rather blankly. "It's something you mustn't be," he replied at last.

Jewel's face cleared. "Oh no, I won't then," she replied earnestly. "You tell me when I'm--it, because I want to make you happy."

Mr. Evringham cleared his throat. He felt somewhat embarra.s.sed and was glad they had reached the ferry.

"We're going on a boat, aren't we?" she asked when they had pa.s.sed through the gate.

"Yes, and we can make this boat if we hurry." Mr. Evringham suddenly felt a little hand slide into his. Jewel was skipping along beside him to keep up with his long strides, and he glanced down at the bobbing flaxen head with its large ribbon bows, while the impulse to withdraw his hand was thwarted by the closer clinging of the small fingers.

"Father told me about the ferry," said Jewel with satisfaction, "and you'll show me the statue of Liberty won't you, grandpa? Isn't it a splendid boat? Oh, can we go out close to the water?"

Mr. Evringham sighed heavily. He did not wish to go out close to the water. He wished to sit down in comfort in the cabin and read the paper which he had just taken from a newsboy. It seemed to him a very long time since he had done anything he wished to; but a little hand was pulling eagerly at his, and mechanically he followed out to where the brisk spring wind ruffled the river and a.s.saulted his hat. He jerked his hand from Jewel's to hold it in place.

"Isn't this beautiful!" cried the child joyfully, as the boat steamed on. "Can you do this every day, grandpa?"

"What? Oh yes, yes."

Something in the tone caused the little girl to look up from her view of the wide water s.p.a.ces to the grim face above.

"Is there something that makes you sorry, grandpa?" she asked softly.

His eyes were fixed on a ferry boat, black with its human freight, about to pa.s.s them on its way to the city.

"I was wis.h.i.+ng I were on that boat. That's all."

The little girl lifted her shoulders. "I don't believe there's room,"

she said, looking smilingly for a response from her companion. "I don't believe even Anna Belle could squeeze on. Do you think so?"

Mr. Evringham, holding his hat with one hand, was endeavoring to fetter the lively corners of his newspaper in such shape that he could at least get a glimpse of headlines.

"Oh, I see a statue. Is that it, grandpa? Is that it?"

"What?" vaguely. "Oh yes. The statue of Liberty. Yes, that's it. As if there was any liberty for anybody!" muttered Mr. Evringham into his mustache.

"It isn't so very big," objected Jewel.

"We're not so very near it."

"Just think," gayly, "father and mother are sailing away just the way we are."

"H'm," returned Mr. Evringham, trying to read the report of the stock market, and becoming more impatient each instant with the sportive breeze.

"Julia," he said at last, "I am going into the cabin to read the paper.

Will you go in, or do you wish to stay here?"

"May I stay here?"

"Yes," doubtfully, "I suppose so, if you won't climb on the rail, or--or anything."

Jewel laughed in gleeful appreciation of the joke. Her grandfather met her blue eyes unsmilingly and vanished.

"I wish grandpa didn't look so sorry," she thought regretfully. "He is a very important man, grandpa is, and perhaps he has a lot of error to meet and doesn't know how to meet it."

Watching the dancing waves and constantly calling Anna Belle's attention to some point of interest on the water front or a pa.s.sing craft, she nevertheless pursued a train of thought concerning her important relative, with the result that when the gong sounded for landing, and Mr. Evringham's impa.s.sive countenance reappeared, she met him with concern.

"Doesn't it make you sorry to read the morning paper, grandpa?"

"Sometimes. Depends on the record of the Exchange." There was somewhat less of the irritation of a newsless man in the morning in the speaker's tone.

"Mother calls the paper the Daily Saddener," pursued Jewel, again slipping her hand into her grandfather's as a matter of course as they moved slowly off the boat. "I've been thinking that perhaps you're in a hurry to get to business, grandpa."

The child did not quote his words about the ingoing ferry boat lest he should feel regret at having spoken them.

"Well, there's no use in my being in a hurry this morning," he returned.

"I was going to ask, couldn't you show me how to go to Bel-Air, so you wouldn't have to take so much time?"

A gleam of hope came into Mr. Evringham's cold eyes and he looked down on his companion doubtfully.

"We have to go out on the train," he said.

"Yes," returned the child, "but you could put me on it, and every time it stops I would ask somebody if that was Bel-Air."