The Camerons of Highboro Part 22

"If that machine was Pete's," Father Bob mused, "Hun aviators may drop word of him within our lines. They have done that kind of thing before."

"Wouldn't Bob cable, if he knew anything more than this letter says?"

Gertrude questioned.

"I expect Bob's waiting to find out something certain before he cables," said Father Bob. "Doubtless he has written. We shall just have to wait for his letter."

"Wait! Gee!" whispered Henry.

"Both the boys' letters were so awfully late, in the summer!" sighed Gertrude. "However can we wait for a letter from Bob?"

Elliott said nothing at all. Her heart was aching with sympathy for Bruce. When a person could do something, she thought, it helped tremendously. Mother Jess and Laura had gone to Sidney and she had had a chance to make Laura's going possible, but there didn't seem to be anything she could do for Bruce. And she wished to do something for Bruce; she found that she wished to tremendously. Thinking about Mother Jess and Laura reminded her to look up and ask, "What _are_ we going to write them at Camp Devens?"

Then she discovered that she and Bruce were alone in the room. He was sitting at Mother Jess's desk, in as deep a brown study as she had been. The girl's voice roused him.

"The kind of thing we've been writing--home news. Time enough to tell them about Pete when they get here. By that time, perhaps, there will be something definite to tell." He hesitated a minute. "Laura is going to feel pretty well cut up over this."

Elliott looked up quickly. "Especially cut up?"

"I think so. Oh, there wasn't anything definite between her and Pete--nothing, at least, that they told the rest of us. But a fellow who had eyes--" He left the sentence unfinished and walked over to Elliott's chair. "You know, I told you," he said, "that I shouldn't go into this war unless I was called. Of course I'm registered now, but whether or not they call me--if Pete is out of it--and I can possibly manage it, I'm going in."

A queer little pain contracted Elliott's heart. And then that odd heart of hers began to swell and swell until she thought it would burst. She looked at the boy, with proud eyes. It didn't occur to her to wonder what she was proud of. Bruce Fearing was no kin of hers, you know.

"I knew you would." Somehow it seemed to the girl that she could always tell what Bruce Fearing was going to do, and that there was nothing strange in such knowledge. How strong he was! how splendid and understanding and fine! "Oh," she cried, "I wish, _how_ I wish I could help you!"

"You do help me," he said.

"I?" Her eyes lifted in real surprise. "How can I?"

"By being you."

His hand had only to move an inch to touch hers, but it lay motionless. His eyes, gray and steady and clear, held the girl's. She gave him back look for look.

"I am glad," she said softly and her face was like a flower.

Bruce was out of the house before Elliott thought of the thing she could do for him.

"Mercy me!" she cried. "You're the slowest person I've ever seen in my life, Elliott Cameron!" She ran to the kitchen door, but the boy was nowhere in sight. "He must be out at the barn," she said and took a step in that direction, only to take it back. "No, I won't. I'll just go by myself _and do it_."

Whatever it was, it put her in a great hurry. As fast as she had dashed to the kitchen she now ran to the front hall, but the third step of the stairs halted her.

"Elliott Cameron," she declared earnestly, "I do believe you have lost your mind! Haven't you any sense _at all_? And you a responsible housekeeper!"

Perhaps it wasn't the first time a whirlwind had ever struck the Cameron farmhouse. Elliott hadn't a notion that she could work so fast. Her feet fairly flew. Bed-covers whisked into place; dusting-cloths raced over furniture; even milk-pans moved with unwonted celerity. But she left them clean, clean and s.h.i.+ning.

"There!" said the girl, "now we shall do well enough till dinner-time.

I'm going into the village. Anybody want to come?"

Priscilla jumped up. "I do, unless Trudy wants to more."

Gertrude shook her head. "I'm going to put up tomatoes," she said, "the rest of the ripe ones."

"Don't you want help?"

"Not a bit. Tomatoes are no work, at all."

Elliott dashed up-stairs. In a whirl of excitement she pinned on her hat and counted her money. No matter how much it cost, she meant to say all that she wanted to.

Her cheeks were pink and her dimples hard at work playing hide-and-seek with their own shadows, when she cranked the little car. Everything would come right now; it couldn't fail to come right. Priscilla hopped into the seat beside her and they sped away.

"I have cabled Father," Elliott announced at dinner, with the prettiest imaginable little air of importance and confidence, "I have cabled Father to find out all he can about Pete and to let us know _at once_. Perhaps we shall hear something to-morrow."

But the next day pa.s.sed, and the next, and the day after that, and still no cable from Father.

It was very bewildering. At first Elliott jumped every time the telephone rang, and took down the receiver with quickened pulses. No matter what her brain said, her heart told her Father would send good news. She couldn't a.s.sociate him with thoughts of ill news. Of course, her brain said there was no logic in that kind of argument, and that facts were facts; and in a case like Pete's, fathers couldn't make or mar them. Her heart kept right on expecting good tidings.

But when long days and longer nights dragged themselves by and no word at all came from overseas, the girl found out what a big empty place the world may become, even while it is chuck-full of people, and what three thousand miles of water really means. She thought she had known before, but she hadn't. So long as letters traveled back and forth, irregularly timed it might be, but continuously, she still kept the familiar sense of Father--out of sight, but there, as he had always been, most dependably _there_. Now, for the first time in her life, she had called to him and he had not answered.

There might be--there probably were, she reminded herself--reasons why he hadn't answered; good, rea.s.suring reasons, if one only knew them. He might be temporarily in a region out of touch with cables; the service might have dropped a link somewhere. One could imagine possible explanations. But it was easier to imagine other things. And the fact remained that, since he didn't answer, she couldn't get away from a horrible, paralyzing sense that he wasn't there.

It didn't do any good to try to run from that sensation; there was nowhere to run. It blocked every avenue of thought, a sinister shape of dread. The only help was in keeping very, very busy. And even then one couldn't stop one's thoughts traveling, traveling, traveling along those fearful paths.

At last Elliott knew how the others felt about Pete. She had thought she understood that and felt it, too, but now she found that she hadn't. It makes all the difference in the world, she discovered, whether one stands inside or outside a trouble. The heart that had ached so sympathetically for Bruce knew its first stab of loss and recoiled. The others recognized the difference; or was it only that Elliott herself had eyes to see what she had been blind to before? No one said anything. In little unconscious, lovable ways they made it quite clear that now she was one with them.

"Perhaps we would better send for them to come home from Camp Devens,"

Father Bob suggested one day. He threw out his remark at the supper-table, which would seem to address it to the family at large, but he looked straight at Elliott.

"Oh, no," she cried, "don't _send_ for them!" But she couldn't keep a flash of joy out of her eyes.

"Sure you're not getting tired?"

"Certain sure!"

It disappointed her the least little bit that Uncle Bob let the suggestion drop so readily. And she was disappointed at her own disappointment. "Can't you 'carry on' _at all_?" she demanded of herself, scornfully. "It was all your own doing, you know." But how she did long at times for Aunt Jessica!

Of course, Elliott couldn't cry, however much she might wish to, with the family all taking their cues from her mood. She said so fiercely to every lump that rose in her throat. She couldn't indulge herself at all adequately in the luxury of being miserable; she couldn't even let herself feel half as scared as she wished to, because, if she did, just once, she couldn't keep control of herself, and if she lost control of herself there was no telling where she might end--certainly in no state that would be of any use to the family. No, for their sake, she must sit tight on the lid of her grief and fear and anxiety.

But there were hours when the cover lifted a little. No girl, not the bravest, could avoid such altogether. Elliott didn't think herself brave, not a bit. She knew merely that the thing she had to do couldn't be done if there were many such hours.

One day Bruce heard somebody sobbing up in the hay-loft. The sound didn't carry far; it was controlled, suppressed; but Bruce had gone up the ladder for something or other, I forget just what, and, thinking Priscilla was in trouble, he kept on. The girl crying, face down in the hay, wasn't Priscilla. Very softly Bruce started to tiptoe away, but the rustling of the hay under his feet betrayed him.

"I didn't mean--any one to--find me."

"Shall I go away?"

She shook her head. "I can't stand it!" she wailed. "I simply can't _stand it_!" And she sobbed as though her heart would break.

Bruce sat down beside the girl on the hay and patted the hand nearest him. He didn't know anything else to do. Her fingers closed on his convulsively.

"I'm an awful old cry-baby," she choked at last. "I'll behave myself, in a minute."