The Carter Girls' Mysterious Neighbors

  CHAPTER VII

  BOBBY'S BLAME DAY

  Dr. George Wright was making a name for himself in his chosenprofession. Older men were beginning to look upon him as an authority onnervous cases and now he had been asked to come in as partner in asanitarium starting in the capital city of Virginia. Certainly he hadbeen very successful in his treatment of Robert Carter's case, sosuccessful that even Mrs. Carter could not but admire him. She was stillvery much in awe of him, but he had her respect and she depended uponhim. The daughters felt the same way without the awe. Douglas and Nanand Lucy were openly extravagant in their praise of him. Helen was alittle more guarded in her expressions of admiration, but she had asincere liking for him and deep gratitude not only for what he had donefor her father but for his service to her.

  She could never forget that it was Dr. Wright who had brought her to hersenses when her father was first taken ill, making her see herself as aselfish, extravagant, vain girl. It takes some generosity of spirit tolike the person who makes you see the error of your ways, but HelenCarter had that generosity. There were times when her cheeks burned atthe memory of what Dr. Wright must have thought of her. How silly hemust have found her, how childish!

  After the experience in the mountains when the rattlesnake bit her onthe heel and Dr. Wright had come to her assistance with first aid to theinjured, which in the case of a snake bite means sucking the wound,Helen began to realize that what the young physician thought of her madea great deal of difference to her. His approval was something worthgaining.

  Douglas had not told her she had written the letter to Dr. Wright asBobby's employer. She had a feeling that her dignity as teacher wasinvolved and she must not confide in her family. She was waiting, hopingto hear from him, rather expecting him to write to Bobby and call himto account for his misdemeanors.

  Bobby had been especially unruly all week. There was nothing he had notthought of doing in the way of mischief, and thinking mischief wasalmost identical with doing mischief where Bobby Carter was concerned.The deed was no sooner conceived than accomplished and the otherchildren, who were inclined to be naughty, thought up extra things forhim to do.

  Putting a piece of rubber on the stove was certainly not Bobby's idea,nor slipping chestnut burrs in the desk-seats while the girls were notlooking, causing howls of anguish when they inadvertently sat down onthe same. Bobby manfully took the blame for all of these things,however, confidently certain that no punishment worth speaking of wouldbe meted out to him.

  "He is honest, at least," sighed Douglas, "and owns up every time."

  Friday afternoon on the way home she felt that maybe Nan's name fortheir place was a good one. She was almost a dead warrior if not quiteone.

  "Oh, for a Valkyrie to bear me to Valhalla!"

  Bobby was trudging along by her side looking as though butter would notmelt in his mouth. What a sturdy little fellow he was growing to be!Douglas looked down on his jaunty, erect figure.

  "Bobby, you are getting right fat."

  Bobby slapped his pockets. "That ain't fat, that's blame pay!"

  "Blame pay! What on earth?"

  "Oh, them is the gif's I gits fer saying I done it ev'y time you asks usto hol' up our han's who done it."

  "Oh, Bobby!"

  "You see, the big fellers say you ain't man enough to whup 'em an' youis too soft to whup me, so I don't run no risk nohow. This is a topstring I got for 'tendin' like I put the rubber on the stove,--this hereis a big apple I got for not fillin' the girls' desks with chestnutburrs,--this here pile er oak balls I come mighty near not gettin'. Isho' did want to turn the fleas loose on Minnie Brice but the big boyswas afraid I might not be able to open the little purse right and so oneof them done it."

  "Fleas on Minnie Brice?"

  "Yes, you never did fin' out about it, so I didn't have to own up. Youknow what a funny thin neck Minnie's got, just like a mud turkle, andhow she wears a stiff collar kinder like a shell and it sets out allaround, fur out from her neck?"

  "Yes, I know," said Douglas, struggling with a laugh.

  "Well, the fellers caught some fleas off'n ol' Blitz's houn' dog an'then they put 'em in a teensy money purse with a tight clasp, an' whileMinnie was leaning over studying her joggerfy, Tim Tenser dumped 'em alldown her back."

  "Poor Minnie! No wonder she missed all of her lessons today. I could notimagine what was the matter with her. Bobby, you wouldn't have done sucha cruel thing as that surely!"

  "Shoo! That ain't nothin'. It might 'a' been toads, 'cep'n the littleones is all growed up big now. We are a-savin' up the toad joke 'tilspring. First the fellers said I didn't 'serve no blame money 'causeMinnie jes' cried when she missed her lessons an' didn't scratch none,only wiggled, an' teacher never did ask us to hol' up our han's who doneit. But Ned Beatty said I was a dead game spo't an' I took the chanstan' I mus' have my blood money, an' so I got all these here oak balls."

  "Bobby, do you realize that you must take all of these blame gifts backto the boys?"

  "Blamed if I will!"

  "Please don't talk that way! Don't say: 'Blamed if you will.'"

  "Well, wasn't you a-talkin' that way? Didn't you say, 'blame gif's,'with your own mouth? I'd like to know why I have to take them back."

  "Well, you got them for taking the blame and now you no longer take theblame but have told on the ones who did the naughty things."

  "But I ain't a-tellin' teacher! I'm a-tellin' my own sister Douglas.You ain't teacher 'cep'n when you is in school."

  "Oh, so that is the way you look at it! I suppose you think I am notyour own sister while I am teacher, either, and when you worry me sickat school it is only teacher and not Douglas you are distressing somuch," and Douglas sat down on the roadside and burst out crying.

  Now Douglas Carter was no weeper. I doubt if her little brother had everseen her shed a tear in all of his seven years. And he, Robert Carter,Jr., had done this thing! He had made his sister Douglas cry. When shewas playing teacher, she had feelings just as much as she did when sheturned into his sister Douglas again. And what was this thing she wassaying about his having to give back the blood money? Had he told on theboys after having received pay for taking the blame? Why, that was alow-down, sneaky trick!

  "Don't cry, Douglas, please don't cry! I'm a-gonter take back all thethings--'cep'n the apple--I done et into that a leetle bit."

  But the flood gates were opened and Douglas could not stop crying. Likemost persons who cry with difficulty, when she once began she kept itup. Now she was crying for all the times she might have cried. She hadhad enough to make her cry but had held in. She was crying now for allthe days and nights of anxiety she had spent in thinking of her sickfather; she was crying for the stern way in which she had been forced todeal with her mother over extravagancies; she was crying for having tomake Helen understand that there was no money for clothes; she wascrying for having to be the adamant sister who forced Nan and Lucy to goon to school; she was crying because her own dream of college was tocome to nothing; she was crying very little because of Bobby'snaughtiness, but he, of course, thought that it was all because of him.

  One of her biggest grievances was against herself: why had she been sopriggish with her cousin, Lewis Somerville? Last August he had come toher on the eve of his enlistment to go with the troops to the Mexicanborder and had plead so earnestly with her to try to love him just alittle bit and to let him go off engaged to her, and she had turned himdown with absurd talk of friendship and the like. He had astonished herwhen he made love to her, but she knew perfectly well in her heart ofhearts that it would have astonished her a great deal more if he hadmade love to someone else.

  No doubt that was what he was doing that minute: making love to someoneelse. A young man who looked like a Greek god was not going to be turneddown by every girl. How good Lewis had always been to her and how wellhe had understood her! He thought she was cold and unfeeling now, shejust knew he did. She had received no letters from him for weeks, atleast it seemed weeks.
Oh well, if he wanted to make love to othergirls, why she wasn't going to be the one to care!

  "Douglas, I hear a auto a-comin'. If'n you don't stop bawlin' folks willsee you."

  A car was coming! She could hear its chug as it climbed the hill half amile off.

  "Please wet my handkerchief in that little branch so I can wash myface," she begged Bobby, while she smoothed her ruffled hair and wishedshe had one of Helen's precious dorines to powder her red nose.

  "Yo' hankcher is as wet as water already. I don't see what you want itany wetter for," said Bobby, who might have quoted: "'Too much of waterhast thou, my poor Ophelia,'" had he known his Hamlet.

  "I ain't a-gonter be bad no mo', Douglas," declared Bobby as he broughtthe little handkerchief back from the brook dripping wet. "You mos'cried yo' face away, didn't you, Dug?" and with that Douglas had tolaugh.

  "Feel better now?" he said with quite the big brother air. "That therecar is jes' roun' the bend. I reckon if you turn yo' face away the folksin it won't know you is been a-bawlin'."

  The car slowed up, then stopped when the driver recognized Douglas, andCount de Lestis sprang out to greet her. The signs of the recent stormwere still visible on her pretty face in spite of all the water Bobbyhad brought from the brook. Douglas tried to hold her head down so thecount could not see her disfigured countenance, but such floods ofweeping could not but be noticed.

  "My dear Miss Carter, you are in distress!" He looked so truly grievedand anxious that already Douglas felt somewhat comforted. Sympathy is agreat balm.

  "It is nothing! I am a foolish, weak girl."

  "Not that! You are very intelligent and far from weak. Are you not thestaunch ally? The poor Kaiser would not find you weak."

  "I done it all! I made her cry!" declared Bobby.

  The count looked at the youngster, amused. "And so! Do little Americangentlemen make their sisters cry?" Bobby hung his head. "Well, come onand let me take you home, and then I'll take your sister for a littleride and wipe all the tears away with the wind."

  "Let me go riding, too. I don't want to go home."

  "No, not this time. My little red car doesn't like to take for longrides boys who make their sisters cry."

  So Bobby had to climb meekly in to be ignominiously dumped at the yardgate while Douglas was whisked off in the count's natty little redroadster.

  "Now you are looking like your beautiful self," he declared, slowingdown his racer and turning to gaze into Douglas's face. "What is it thatmade you weep so profusely? Not the little brother. Beautiful damsels donot weep so much because of little brothers."

  Douglas smiled.

  "Ah, the sun has come out! Now I am happy. I am so distressed by tearsthat I can hardly bear it."

  "You must have a very tender heart."

  "Yes, perhaps! Now tell me what caused your grief."

  How handsome this man was and how kind! He seemed like an old friend. Hereally did care what was troubling her and it would be a relief to pourout all of her foolish griefs. Douglas missed her father's sympathy. Sheknew that he was as ready as ever with his love and solicitude for her,but she felt that she must not add to his worries one iota. Her motherwas out of the question and Helen was too young. Before she knew it, shewas trying to tell Count de Lestis all about it, all but about LewisSomerville--somehow that was something she could not mention. Hergrievances sounded very small when she tried to put them into words.Naturally she could not dwell upon her mother's extravagancies or thisman would think her poor little mother was selfish; Helen was such atrump, the fact that she longed for stylish clothes certainly was notenough to make a grown girl sit on the roadside and dissolve in tears;while Nan and Lucy were commuting to school like little soldiers. Itended by being a humorous account of Bobby and his blame pay.

  Of course the count knew perfectly well that that was not all thathad made this lovely girl give way so to grief. No doubt Bobby'smisbehavior was the last straw, but there had been a heavy load tocarry before Douglas's camel of endurance had got his back broken. Helaughed merrily over the fleas and Douglas forgot all about her worriesand laughed, too.

  "Poor little Minnie! She did squirm so, and think of her being tooladylike to scratch, and how she must have disappointed those bad boysby refraining!"

  "Yes, if all women would just squirm and not scratch it would take muchfrom the pleasure of teasing them," laughed de Lestis. "What amuses meis how boys are alike all the world over. The discipline of my schooldays was very strict, but a thing like that might have happened amongboys in Berlin as much as here in a rural school in Virginia."

  "Berlin! But you are Hungarian!"

  "So! So--but Hungarians can go to school in Berlin. Even Americans haveprofited by the educational advantages offered there."

  Douglas thought her companion's tone sounded a little harsh. She benther candid gaze on him and met his glowing eyes. Blue eyes lookedunflinchingly into black until the steering of the red car forced him togive his attention to the wheel.

  "I wish the count's moustache did not turn up quite so much at thecorners," thought the girl. "It makes him look a wee bit like theKaiser; of course, though, he is kind and the Kaiser is cruel."

  "Perhaps we had better turn around now," she suggested gently, contritethat even for a moment she had thought this kind friend could resemblethe hated Kaiser.

  Certainly the wind had wiped away all traces of the emotional storm fromDouglas's countenance. The young man by her side could but admire thepure profile presented to him, with its soft, girlish lines but withal alook of strength and determination. Her loosened hair was like sunlightand her cheeks had the pink of the Cherokee rose. Profiles were all wellenough, but he would like another look into those eyes as blue as summerskies after a shower.

  "Of course, my dear Miss Carter, I know that the little rascal Bobbymust have been very annoying but I cannot but think that you have notentrusted to me your real troubles."

  Douglas stiffened almost imperceptibly.

  "When one finds a beautiful damsel sitting by the roadside in such griefthat her charming face is convulsed with weeping, one cannot but divinethat some affair of the heart has touched her. Tell me, has some boldcavalier trifled with her affections?"

  Douglas stiffened more perceptibly.

  "Your father told me of a young cousin, a Mr. Somerville, who is now onthe Mexican border----"

  "Father told you! I don't believe it."

  "My dear young lady, he only told me there was such a cousin; you havetold me the rest. Now! Now! Don't let your sweet eyes shed another tearfor him. He is not worth it! If he can find amusement in the ladies ofMexico, who are, when all is told, an untidy lot, why should you worry?There are other fish in the sea!"

  If the Count de Lestis wished to see something more of Douglas's eyes hehad his desire fulfilled now. She turned and once more blue eyes lookedunflinchingly into black. This time the black eyes had a mischievousgleam and the blue ones looked more like winter ice than summer skies.

  "Now I have made you angry." Once more his car took his attention forthe moment.

  "Not at all!" icily.

  "You wish you had not come with me."

  "I appreciate your kindness in bringing me for the drive very much,"still cold and formal in tone.

  "I guessed too well, that is where I sinned."

  Douglas was silent, but she still looked at her companion.

  "She is like the little Minnie: she squirms but will not scratch."

  "I was just thinking," said Douglas, changing the subject with aswiftness that disarmed the count, "your moustache certainly turns upat the ends just like Emperor William's."