Read Ebook: Bouncing Bet by Gray Joslyn

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Ebook has 1007 lines and 60016 words, and 21 pages

"Which of the two girls enjoys life more, Tommy, your friend or your cousin?"

Tommy opened his eyes wide. "O, Madge has a jolly time, of course, and Betty never has any fun, but--she doesn't care for it. She'd drather--I mean, she's used to it by this time. She's always been too big to play ever since she was little. And--she gets considerable quiet enjoyment out of my magic."

Meadowcroft smiled. Tommy grinned and reluctantly left the room. Sliding down the handsome solid railing of the staircase, he landed neatly on a rug and let himself out the screen door. At that moment he heard his name called, and stepping back saw Meadowcroft leaning over the balustrade with his crutches. He wished he might have seen how he got there. He had never dreamed he was so spry as all that!

"Tommy, I wish you would ask Miss Betty to come in to see me some day," Meadowcroft called down--"some day soon, please."

"Sure. That's just her line. She'll be pleased to accept," Tommy called back cheerfully, and was off again, whistling gaily if not very tunefully as he strolled up the avenue towards home.

MRS. PHILLIPS had friends in Paulding and other towns nearby, and though she was in mourning and did not go out much, entertained constantly at home. But on this particular night she and her brother were alone at dinner, and he took occasion to ask her about the young girl in whom he already felt warm interest. For though Mrs. Phillips did not associate with the village people, she knew the history of everyone and was always informed as to what was going on about her.

"O--Bouncing Bet, you mean?" she exclaimed, and laughed in her pretty, artificial way. "I wonder, Humphrey, if you remember a story we read as children--at least, I did--called 'The Baby Giant'?"

Meadowcroft did not recall it.

"Well, Bouncing Bet always makes me think of the pictures in that story--there's one where he's climbing over a wall, and is stuck, I believe--she's just so big and lumbering, with just such a big baby face and placid sort of cow-like expression. Then there's another where the baby giant is crying--such an absurd spectacle, his mouth puckered up, fists in his eyes, and baby tears rolling down the cheeks of a six- or eight- or I-don't-know-how-many-footer. Well, when Bouncing Bet was ever so much younger, but big as a girl of twelve really, she used to cry if the children called her names; and, Humphrey, she was the baby giant over again. I just wish you could have seen her."

Her brother didn't echo her wish. He changed the subject rather abruptly. He didn't like the idea of a woman recalling with unmixed amusement the picture of a big little girl crying because her feelings were hurt. And he felt the more concerned for the girl.

He watched for her rather eagerly next morning. Presently he caught sight of her coming towards the house, head and shoulders above her companion. She walked slowly, of a truth, as Tommy had said, and he had opportunity for a searching scrutiny.

Tall and very large, Meadowcroft saw that the girl was square and massive, so to speak, rather than fat. She was altogether too large--he couldn't gainsay that--but she wasn't shapeless or clumsy. With different clothing her figure wouldn't, Meadowcroft decided, be bad; it would be rather like certain Greek statues, indeed, though her proportions probably exceeded the most ample of those marbles, and she was, perhaps, too big even for an Amazon.

But her style of dress was most unfortunate, as if it had been designed to call attention to her size. She wore a white blouse drawn in very tightly at the waist under a leather belt, bulging out below which a dark stuff skirt reached her ankles. Her hat was small and suited to an old lady, and her fair hair, which waved prettily about her ears, was drawn into a tight knob at her neck. And while the other school-girls wore attractive shoes with ribbon lacings, she wore ugly, pointed-toed, high-heeled boots which looked too tight and made her heavy step mincing at the same time.

Meadowcroft had not sufficient time to study her face to catch its expression--or, according to his sister, lack of expression. But he saw that though her face was large and square, it was not what is called plump. Rather, there was a flatness, a sort of Indian cast to her features. Her profile was good, with a clear-cut chin, and her color clear and fine. Perhaps, indeed, that sweet pink in her cheeks gave her a kindlier resemblance to the pretty posy whence her nickname had come than her size to its flaunting and rather inappropriate name.

Meantime, having passed the Phillips house, Betty Pogany turned and glanced shyly back. Tommy had left the kindlings he had been chopping and run down the lane on which his house stood to tell her that the lame gentleman at Mrs. Phillips's wanted her to come to see him just as soon as she possibly could, and she felt pleased and rather excited. If only Aunt Sarah wouldn't object too seriously. She would be sure to object and strenuously. Scarcely anyone in South Paulding liked Mrs. Phillips and Aunt Sarah couldn't bear her, and if she had her way wouldn't allow Betty to enter her house. But as the lady did a great deal of trading with Betty's father, who was a hardware merchant, there was an even chance of her being allowed to accept the invitation given by Mrs. Phillips's brother.

It proved more than even. Aunt Sarah, who was an extremely exacting woman and almost always had her way, told Betty that she certainly should not go a step, talked about Mrs. Phillips for a quarter of an hour, and upbraided the girl for wishing to enter the house of one who thought herself so much better than her neighbors. But that evening when she bade her brother forbid Betty to visit the mansion, George Pogany decided that if Mr. Meadowcroft wanted to see his daughter, she should go. She needn't, however, let it interfere with her practising. She must wait until Saturday afternoon.

"Of course, father," the girl assented seriously.

"But that doesn't mean, I hope, that you'll neglect Rosy, Betty?" he demanded. And Betty, who was highly elated, declared that she should of course go first to the Harrows'.

"Well, then, it'll surely be a case of the lame, the halt, and the blind," her father remarked facetiously.

But when she was alone in her room, as she undressed and prepared for bed, Betty Pogany sighed more than once, despite the fact that she had the coveted permission to call on the stranger whom Tommy found enchanting. It hurt her almost cruelly to have Aunt Sarah call him a cripple in that cold, scornful fashion. Furthermore, she knew that she had a number of very uncomfortable days before her. Had Betty's father confirmed her decision, Aunt Sarah would have had nothing further to say. As it was, she would be very resentful; she would bring up the matter again and again and Betty would have no peace except while she was at school and during the evenings when her father wasn't at the shop.

TOMMY FINNEMORE was seldom enthusiastic over anything except magic. Everyone in the village liked the odd, lazy, careless lad; but though he cherished no dislike for anyone, nearly everybody bored him, his schoolmates as well as older people, and especially his parents. Wherefore when he spoke in glowing terms of the stranger in the Phillips house, it meant much to one who knew Tommy as Betty Pogany knew him, and who regarded him not only as a scientific experimenter and observer but also as something of a philosopher. And Tommy took occasion to mention Mr. Meadowcroft every time he saw Betty. He wished her to appreciate the value of her invitation and did not mind if she realized that it came through him. And if she guessed that it was in a sense a reward for her devotion to his magic, so much the better.

Accordingly, when Saturday arrived, Betty was in a state of unusual excitement, though none would have guessed it from her appearance. Perhaps it was better so. For it was childish excitement, and perhaps childish emotion in a great girl like Betty would have made her the Baby Giant Mrs. Phillips saw in her. However, it would have been far more difficult for the girl to express her emotion than to hide it.

It was also characteristic of her that though she was all eagerness to present herself at the Phillips house, she went first for her wonted dreary, weekly visit to a friend and former schoolmate who had been left blind six months earlier after a severe attack of scarlet fever. Moreover, Betty went to the Harrows' cottage first, not because she wished to have the visit over and out of the way, but because she wanted to make sure of that whatever happened.

Betty lived in a large comfortable house on the main street not far from where it became the highway leading to Paulding. Tommy lived in a lane which branched off one-eighth of a mile nearer the post office, and Rose Harrow in a street meeting the avenue on the opposite side just above the Phillips estate. Mr. Harrow was a carpenter and had built the cottage, which had many gables and porches and a great deal of ornamentation which Aunt Sarah referred to as "gingerbread." Betty went round to a side porch which looked like a little pagoda, and knocked. Mrs. Harrow came to the door.

Mrs. Harrow had changed greatly since her daughter's tragic misfortune. Formerly a pretty, cheerful, youthful-appearing woman, she had grown thin and worn, and bluish shadows under her large dark eyes made them look as over-large as they were solemn. She always seemed on the verge of bursting into tears, and always whispered at the door as if someone within were desperately ill.

"Rosy didn't sleep very well last night, Betty; she tossed and turned," she whispered warningly; "so you'd better only stay half an hour to-day. And do be very careful about mentioning anything that might excite her. I couldn't think of letting anyone else come in, but you are so mature that I can trust you. Being such a great girl, I almost forget you aren't a woman."

Betty's face didn't express how she hated being whispered to. She promised solemnly to be careful, though she wondered what she should talk about. She was never allowed to mention school, for that would make Rose feel very badly, nor to have anything to say about the other girls or flowers or colors or games. There wasn't much left to talk about except Tommy's magic, and probably Mrs. Harrow would think that exciting. She could read aloud, but Rose's mother did that by the hour and another voice wouldn't make much difference.

She stifled a sigh as Mrs. Harrow ushered her into the familiar sitting-room, silently and solemnly as one leads a visitor into a sick-chamber. Rose sat in a big, soft chair, leaning back listlessly against the cushions. Exceedingly pretty and vivacious before her illness, the girl was thin to emaciation now, shockingly pale and forlornly apathetic. Her big, dark, mournful-looking eyes gave no indication that they were sightless except that they stared straight before her; the enlarged pupils only made them seem darker and more brilliant. Her abundant dark crinkly hair, which she had worn parted at the side with piquant effect and adorned with huge, bright-colored bows, was strained unbecomingly back from her brow, braided tightly, and tied at the end with a bit of string. She wore a shapeless dressing-gown and ugly slippers.

She had been the liveliest, the best dressed, and one of the prettiest girls in the grammar school; and the change struck Betty anew each week, though she had seen Rose every Saturday since the first of April. She could scarcely control her voice, but Mrs. Harrow's warning presence aided her. After some rather forced talk about a nest the robins were building in the portico over her front door, which she had described at some length a week earlier, she came to a halt. In a sort of desperation, she proposed that they should sit out in the piazza for a little.

"It's very mild out, Mrs. Harrow," she added in her mature way.

"Yes, I know, but her papa's going to take her out in the buggy when he comes home, and I don't know's she'd better be out now, Betty. What do you think, Rosy?" her mother inquired anxiously.

"I don't care," said Rose languidly.

"Then you may as well stay right here, for the windows are open," Mrs. Harrow decided with evident relief. "I'll change you into the rocking-chair so's you'll get more breeze." And she led the girl very gently and carefully to a seat nearer the window and established her in it with an excessive amount of fussing. Then, deciding to take advantage of Betty's presence to finish some work in the kitchen, she left the room with a farewell glance of warning to the girl.

Conversation limped along a little and then halted. It occurred to Betty to propose to sing. Rose was very fond of music, and assented with rather less than her wonted indifference; and taking her place at the pianoforte, Betty sang all the cheerful songs she could think of. Just as she was obliged to resort to hymns, Mrs. Harrow returned. Though the effect of the music appeared to be soothing, she watched her daughter anxiously and presently began making signs at Betty and pointing to the clock. With some hesitation, Betty finished a stanza, then went to her friend and took her hand.

"I guess I'd better be going now, Rose dear," she said gently; and as Rose clung to her, bent and kissed her. On a sudden the blind girl burst into tears, and Mrs. Harrow hurried Betty off with scant ceremony.

"I suppose it was the music," said Betty sorrowfully to herself as she went along. "Dear me, I begin to dread next Saturday already. I don't know what I can do or say. O, and now, here's this lame gentleman. I must be careful with him, too. I mustn't speak of legs or arms or mention any sort of sports. Well! at least I can talk about sunsets and how things look, and school, if he should be interested. And--here I am already, and--I hope Mrs. Phillips isn't at home."

THE man who opened the door was so fine and imposing that Betty would have taken him for Mr. Meadowcroft if she hadn't known of the latter's infirmity. She asked for him in her polite, old-womanly fashion and was told to go right up. But as she would have started, she saw Mrs. Phillips, dressed for the carriage, about to descend the grand stairway. Betty stifled a sigh, but she waited dutifully and greeted the lady with sweet formality.

"Who's this! Not Bouncing Bet, surely!" cried Mrs. Phillips effusively. "Dear me, how you do grow! You're as tall as I, and you'd make three of me, if not four. My goodness! how do you buy your belts--by the yard? And how old are you, pray?"

"Thirteen in July," said the girl reluctantly, as if confessing a fault. But Mrs. Phillips was not waiting for a reply.

"Did you want to see me?" she asked rather rudely, "because, as you can see, I am on my way out."

"I came to see Mr. Meadowcroft," said Betty quietly.

"O, I'm sorry, but you see it's really shockingly early," Mrs. Phillips began. But the man at the door, though he didn't interrupt, took advantage of her pause to say: "Mr. Meadowcroft said as how the young lady was to come right up, ma'am, as he's expecting her."

Mrs. Phillips shrugged her shoulders and went on without a word. She had never understood her brother's vagaries and now he seemed "queerer" than ever to her. But she liked having him in the house, not only because he was so distinguished and elegant both in manner and appearance, but because he was a wonderful companion. And though she would have liked to manage his personal affairs as she had managed her husband's, and those of everyone else within her sphere, she realized that she couldn't keep him with her if she made any such attempt.

As Betty climbed the stair, it came to her that it would be a pleasanter world if people would choose their words in speaking to overgrown girls--to fat people, in short--just as they did for the lame and blind. It wasn't, of course, the same, but it seemed sometimes as bad as a real affliction.

The door of the room the man had indicated stood open. As she knocked on the lintel, the girl drew her breath sharply. Aunt Sarah's word "cripple" came up before her, making her forget all Tommy's enthusiastic praise, and she shrank momentarily from what was before her. But bidden to enter, she complied without an instant's delay, and went straight to the wheel-chair.

At first sight, however, Mr. Meadowcroft was so impressive and so charming that she couldn't help feeling conscience-stricken for her moment of hesitation.

"Pardon my not rising, and pray make yourself comfortable, Miss Pogany," he said in the pleasantest voice Betty had ever heard. "I am sorry I can't tell you which chair is most comfortable, for Tommy Finnemore changes from one to another so frequently that I sometimes suspect they're all like dentists' chairs. However, that blue one doesn't look so bad. You might try that."

The blue chair was truly very comfortable. Moreover, it was small. Anyone else would have pointed out the largest in the room; and Betty sank into it gratefully.

"It's right good of you to give me a part of your holiday, Miss Pogany," the gentleman remarked, glancing kindly upon her.

Already Meadowcroft saw that the girl's countenance, which upon closer view resembled yet more nearly the facial type of the American Indian, was redeemed from its potential Indian impassiveness or even stolidity by her soft-brown eyes, which were gentle and lovely of expression and full of keen intelligence. Mrs. Phillips's voice was high and thin and very penetrating, and her brother had been exceedingly annoyed to hear her greet his guest as Bouncing Bet. Now he said to himself that Black-eyed Susan would be a more fitting nickname. But he didn't dwell upon the comparison, for it came to him that that wild flower is also called ox-eyed daisy, and that reminded him of his sister's epithet "cow-like."

"I was very glad to come, sir," replied the girl politely. "I visit--the sick considerably, you know."

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