Red Pepper Burns Part 4

To everybody's regret the call was waiting, and as the party went in to supper they waved their hands at the Green Imp flying away down the road. It was not till long after the "ice-cool, salad-y supper" was ended and the women, freshly clad, were sitting on the porch again, the men smoking on the steps below them, that tine Green Imp came back.

Ten minutes later a large figure crossed the lawn at a pace which suggested both reluctance and fatigue.

"If it hadn't been for that beefsteak--" Burns began.

"You wouldn't have come," finished Macauley. "Oh, we know that! Go in and get it, Red, and perhaps afterward the charms of human society will have their inning."

Whether or not the beefsteak made the difference, a change had taken place when R. P. Burns at length returned to the comforts of the porch.

He threw himself upon a crimson cus.h.i.+on on the upper step, precisely at the feet, as it chanced, of Ellen Lessing. As he leaned comfortably back against the porch pillar he looked directly up into her face, his eyes meeting hers with an odd, searching expression as if he now saw her for the first time. Pauline, gazing enviously across, saw the black eyes meet the hazel ones in the dim light, and noted that a curiously long look was exchanged--the sort of look which denotes that two people are observing each other closely, without attempt at producing an impression, only at discovering what is there.

But when Burns began to talk he appeared to address the midsummer night air, staring off into it and speaking rather low, so that they all leaned forward to listen. For, at last, he seemed to have something other than motor cars upon his mind.

"He's a mighty taking little chap," he said musingly. "Curly black hair, eyes like coals--with a fringe around 'em like a hedge. Cheeks none too round--but milk and eggs and good red steaks will take care of that. A body like a cherubs--when it's filled out a bit."

"What in the name of gibberish are you giving as, Red?" inquired Macauley.

"Name's Bob," went on Red Pepper. "By all the odd chances! That's what decided me. 'Bobby Burns'--it was the last straw!"

"Is he crazy?" asked Chester of the company. They seemed undecided. They were listening closely.

"Clothes--one pair of patched breeches--remember 'Little Breeches,'

Ches?--one faded flannel s.h.i.+rt--mended till there wasn't much left to mend. A straw hat with a fringe around it--uneven fringe. Inside--a heartache as big as a little fellow could carry and stagger under it.

Think of having the heartache--at five and for your grandmother!"

"Why for his grandmother?" asked Winifred Chester.

"Because there wasn't anybody else to have it for. Rest all gone, grandmother the one who attended the breeches and patched the s.h.i.+rt, and went without food herself lest the boy's cheeks get thinner yet. That was what fixed her at last--she hadn't enough vitality to pull her through."

"So that was the matter with you to-day," hazarded Chester. "Worried about your patient all day and found you'd lost her when you got back?"

Burns turned upon him with a characteristic flash. "You go join the ranks of the snap-shots. They sometimes miss fire. No, I didn't. I'd lost her before I went or I wouldn't have gone, not for you or any other box-party. It was the kiddie that was on my mind--as I'd seen him last."

"Where is he now?" asked Martha Macauley urgently. She was the mother of two small sons, and Burns's sketch had interested her.

He looked up at her. "Want to see him?"

"Of course I do. Did you take him to somebody in town? Are you going to send him to the asylum in the city?"

"Do you want to see him?". Burns inquired of Winifred Chester. He rose.

"Red! What do you mean? Have you got a child here?"

"Come along, all of you, if you like. He won't wake up. He's sleeping like a top--can't help it, with all that bread and milk inside of him.

Part cream it was, too. I saw Cynthia chucking it in. He'd got her, good and plenty, in the first five minutes. Bless her susceptible heart! Come on."

"Talk of susceptible hearts," jeered Macauley as he followed. "There's the softest one in the county."

"n.o.body would ever guess it," murmured Pauline Hempstead.

They tiptoed into the house, across the offices into the big, square room which was Burns's own. He switched on a hooded reading-light beside the bed and turned it so that its rays fell on the small occupant.

He lay in spread-eagle, small-child fas.h.i.+on, arms and legs thrown wide, the black, curly head disdaining the pillow, one fist clutching a man's riding-crop. In sleep the little face was an exquisite one; the onlookers might guess what it would be awake.

Burns pointed at the crop, smiling. "That was the nearest approach to a plaything I could muster to-night. To-morrow the shops will help me out."

"I'll send over plenty in the morning, Red," whispered Martha Macauley.

Her eyes were suspiciously s.h.i.+ny.

"Did you bring him home just now?" questioned Winifred.

Burns nodded. "I hadn't meant to get him to-night, if I did at all. My call took me within half a mile. I went over and saw him again. That settled it."

The small sleeper stirred, sighed. Burns turned off the light in a twinkling. "He's not used to electricity point blank," he chuckled.

Going down the steps a hand touched his arm. He looked into Ellen Lessing's upturned face and discovered anew that it was a face to hold the attention of a man. But there was no coquetry in it. Instead, he saw a stirred look in eyes which struck him suddenly as singularly like those of the child he had just shown her, "black, with a fringe around 'em."

"Doctor Burns," she said, "will you give me the very great pleasure of dressing the boy? I know how to do it."

"Of course, if you want to," he responded gladly. "I hoped you ladies would look after that."

"Let me do it alone," she urged. "They have their children: it would only be a task to them. To me--I can't tell you what a delight it would be."

"I'll take you and Bob to the city in the morning if you'll go."

"It will be a happy morning for Bob and me, then," she answered, and he saw it in her face that it would be. But he felt that it was because of the boy; not for any other reason. It occurred to him that it might possibly be a happy morning for the driver of the Green Imp, also.

"So Ellen's going to dress the brat." Macauley was strolling over the lawn with Chester and Burns, as, having out-sat the women on the Macauley porch, the men were turning bedward, reluctant to leave the cool star-s.h.i.+ne of the July night. "It's easy to see why she wants to do that. Her three-year-old boy would have been just about this Bob's age by now. Tough luck, wasn't it?--when he was all she had left since Jack got out of the game?"

Burns stared at him. "Oh, that's why? I didn't know about her boy, or I'd forgotten it if I was ever told. She will enjoy fitting Bob out, if I can keep her from putting him into white clothes to make him resemble an angel instead of a small boy with an eye for dirt."

"You'll find Ellen's no fool," Macauley a.s.sured him warmly. "But if she takes an interest in the boy it'll be the best thing that could happen to him. She has a lot of money. She may get a notion to adopt him."

But upon this Red Pepper Burns spoke with decision. "Confound you, the kiddie belongs to me. Didn't I tell you his name is now Robert Burns?

She may dress him if she likes. She can't have him, not by a long shot.

He's mine!"

"Oh, well, it might be arranged," murmured Macauley, but not quite low enough. In a flash he was laid flat on his back on the lawn, a menacing figure standing over him.

"None of that!" growled the man with the temper. "Not now or any other time." Then he laughed and let his victim up. "Alcohol will take out gra.s.s stains, Jim," he advised. "Tell Martha that."

CHAPTER IV. IN WHICH HE MAKES A CONCESSION

Red Pepper Burns opened his eyes. What on earth was that? A small voice piping at him from within close range? But how could that be?