L. Frank Baum_Aunt Jane 01 (11 page)

The little man seemed from the first much attracted by his three
nieces. Notwithstanding Louise's constant snubs and Beth's haughty
silence he was sure to meet them when they strolled out and try to
engage them in conversation. It was hard to resist his simple good
nature, and the girls came in time to accept him as an inevitable
companion, and Louise mischievously poked fun at him while Beth
conscientiously corrected him in his speech and endeavored to improve
his manners. All this seemed very gratifying to Uncle John. He thanked
Beth very humbly for her kind attention, and laughed with Louise when
she ridiculed his pudgy, round form and wondered if his bristly gray
hair wouldn't make a good scrubbing brush.

Patsy didn't get along very well with her cousins. From the first,
when Louise recognized her, with well assumed surprise, as "the girl
who had been sent to dress her hair," Patricia declared that their
stations in life were entirely different.

"There's no use of our getting mixed up, just because we're cousins
and all visiting Aunt Jane," she said. "One of you will get her money,
for I've told her I wouldn't touch a penny of it, and she has told me
I wouldn't get the chance. So one of you will be a great lady, while I
shall always earn my own living. I'll not stay long, anyhow; so just
forget I'm here, and I'll amuse myself and try not to bother you."

Both Beth and Louise considered this very sensible, and took Patricia
at her word. Moreover, Phibbs had related to Beth, whose devoted
adherent she was, all of the conversation between Aunt Jane and
Patricia, from which the girls learned they had nothing to fear from
their cousin's interference. So they let her go her way, and the three
only met at the state dinners, which Aunt Jane still attended, in
spite of her growing weakness.

Old Silas Watson, interested as he was in the result, found it hard to
decide, after ten days, which of her nieces Jane Merrick most favored.
Personally he preferred that Beth should inherit, and frankly told his
old friend that the girl would make the best mistress of Elmhurst.
Moreover, all the servants sang Beth's praises, from Misery and Phibbs
down to Oscar and Susan. Of course James the gardener favored no one,
as the numerous strangers at Elmhurst kept him in a constant state of
irritation, and his malady seemed even worse than usual. He avoided
everyone but his mistress, and although his work was now often
neglected Miss Merrick made no complaint. James' peculiarities were
well understood and aroused nothing but sympathy.

Louise, however, had played her cards so well that all Beth's friends
were powerless to eject the elder girl from Aunt Jane's esteem. Louise
had not only returned the check to her aunt, but she came often to sit
beside her and cheer her with a budget of new social gossip, and no
one could arrange the pillows so comfortably or stroke the tired head
so gently as Louise. And then, she was observing, and called Aunt
Jane's attention to several ways of curtailing the household
expenditures, which the woman's illness had forced her to neglect.

So Miss Merrick asked Louise to look over the weekly accounts, and in
this way came to depend upon her almost as much as she did upon Lawyer
Watson.

As for Patsy, she made no attempt whatever to conciliate her aunt, who
seldom mentioned her name to the others but always brightened visibly
when the girl came into her presence with her cheery speeches and
merry laughter. She never stayed long, but came and went, like a
streak of sunshine, whenever the fancy seized her; and Silas Watson,
shrewdly looking on, saw a new light in Jane's eyes as she looked
after her wayward, irresponsible niece, and wondered if the bargain
between them, regarding the money, would really hold good.

It was all an incomprehensible problem, this matter of the
inheritance, and although the lawyer expected daily to be asked to
draw up Jane Merrick's will, and had, indeed, prepared several forms,
to be used in case of emergency, no word had yet passed her lips
regarding her intentions.

Kenneth's life, during this period, was one of genuine misery. It
seemed to his morbid fancy that whatever path he might take, he was
sure of running upon one or more of those detestable girls who were
visiting at Elmhurst. Even in Donald's harness-room he was not secure
from interruption, for little Patsy was frequently perched upon the
bench there, watching with serious eyes old Donald's motions, and
laughing joyously when in his embarrassment he overturned a can of oil
or buckled the wrong straps together.

Worse than all, this trying creature would saddle Nora, the sorrel
mare, and dash away through the lanes like a tom-boy, leaving him
only old Sam to ride—for Donald would allow no one to use the coach
horses. Sam was tall and boney, and had an unpleasant gait, so that
the boy felt he was thoroughly justified in hating the girl who so
frequently interfered with his whims.

Louise was at first quite interested in Kenneth, and resolved to force
him to talk and become more sociable.

She caught him in a little summer-house one morning, from whence,
there being but one entrance, he could not escape, and at once entered
into conversation.

"Ah, you are Kenneth Forbes, I suppose," she began, pleasantly. "I
am very glad to make your acquaintance. I am Louise Merrick, Miss
Merrick's niece, and have come to visit her."

The boy shrank back as fur as possible, staring her full in the face,
but made no reply.

"You needn't be afraid of me," continued Louise. "I'm very fond of
boys, and you must be nearly my own age."

Still no reply.

"I suppose you don't know much of girls and are rather shy," she
persisted. "But I want to be friendly and I hope you'll let me.
There's so much about this interesting old place that you can tell me,
having lived here so many years. Come, I'll sit beside you on this
bench, and we'll have a good talk together."

"Go away!" cried the boy, hoarsely, raising his hands as if to ward
off her approach.

Louise looked surprised and pained.

"Why, we are almost cousins," she said. "Cannot we become friends and
comrades?"

With a sudden bound he dashed her aside, so rudely that she almost
fell, and an instant later he had left the summer house and disappear
among the hedges.

Louise laughed at her own discomfiture and gave up the attempt to make
the boy's acquaintance.

"He's a regular savage," she told Beth, afterward, "and a little
crazy, too, I suspect."

"Never mind," said Beth, philosophically. "He's only a boy, and
doesn't amount to anything, anyway. After Aunt Jane dies he will
probably go somewhere else to live. Don't let us bother about him."

Kenneth's one persistent friend was Uncle John. He came every day
to the boy's room to play chess with him, and after that one day's
punishment, which, singularly enough, Kenneth in no way resented, they
got along very nicely together. Uncle John was a shrewd player of the
difficult game, but the boy was quick as a flash to see an advantage
and use it against his opponent; so neither was ever sure of winning
and the interest in the game was constantly maintained. At evening
also the little man often came to sit on the stair outside the boy's
room and smoke his pipe, and frequently they would sit beneath the
stars, absorbed in thought and without exchanging a single word.

Unfortunately, Louise and Beth soon discovered the boy's secluded
retreat, and loved to torment him by entering his own bit of garden
and even ascending the stairs to his little room. He could easily
escape them by running through the numerous upper halls of the
mansion; but here he was liable to meet others, and his especial dread
was encountering old Miss Merrick. So he conceived a plan for avoiding
the girls in another way.

In the hallway of the left wing, near his door, was a small ladder
leading to the second story roof, and a dozen feet from the edge of
the roof stood an old oak tree, on the further side of a tall hedge.
Kenneth managed to carry a plank to the roof, where, after several
attempts, he succeeded in dropping one end into a crotch of the oak,
thus connecting the edge of the roof with the tree by means of the
narrow plank. After this, at first sight of the girls in his end of
the garden, he fled to the roof, ran across the improvised bridge,
"shinned" down the tree and, hidden by the hedge, made good his
escape.

The girls discovered this plan, and were wicked enough to surprise the
boy often and force him to cross the dizzy plank to the tree. Having
frightened him away they would laugh and stroll on, highly amused at
the evident fear they aroused in the only boy about the place.

Patricia, who was not in the other girls' secret, knew nothing of this
little comedy and really disturbed Kenneth least of the three. But he
seemed to avoid her as much as he did the others.

She sooned learned from Oscar that the boy loved to ride as well as
she did, and once or twice she met him on a lonely road perched on top
of big Sam. This led her to suspect she had thoughtlessly deprived him
of his regular mount. So one morning she said to the groom:

"Doesn't Kenneth usually ride Nora?"

"Yes, Miss," answered the man.

"Then I'd better take Sam this morning," she decided.

But the groom demurred.

"You won't like Sam, Miss," he said, "and he gets ugly at times and
acts bad. Master Kenneth won't use Nora today, I'm sure."

She hesitated.

"I think I'll ask him," said she, after a moment, and turned away into
the garden, anxious to have this plausible opportunity to speak to the
lonely boy.

"Get out of here!" shouted the boy, angrily, as Patsy appeared at the
foot of his stair.

"I won't!" she answered indignantly. "I've come to speak to you about
the mare, and you'll just treat me decently or I'll know the reason
why!"

But he didn't wait to hear this explanation. He saw her advancing up
the stairs, and fled in his usual hasty manner to the hall and up the
ladder to the roof.

Patsy stepped back into the garden, vexed at his flight, and the next
instant she saw him appear, upon the sloping roof and start to run
down the plank.

Even as she looked the boy slipped, fell headlong, and slid swiftly
downward. In a moment he was over the edge, clutching wildly at the
plank, which was a foot or more beyond his reach. Headforemost he
dove into space, but the clutching hand found something at last—the
projecting hook of an old eaves-trough that had long since been
removed—and to this he clung fast in spite of the jerk of his
arrested body, which threatened to tear away his grip.

But his plight was desperate, nevertheless. He was dangling in space,
the hard pavement thirty feet below him, with no possible way of
pulling himself up to the roof again. And the hook was so small that
there was no place for his other hand. The only way he could cling
to it at all was to grasp his wrist with the free hand as a partial
relief from the strain upon his arm.

"Hold fast!" called Patsy. "I'm coming."

She sprang up the steps, through the boy's room and into the hallway.
There she quickly perceived the ladder, and mounted it to the roof.
Taking in the situation at a glance she ran with steady steps down
the sloping roof to where the plank lay, and stepped out upon it far
enough to see the boy dangling beside her. Then she decided instantly
what to do.

"Hang on!" she called, and returning to the roof dragged the end of
the plank to a position directly over the hook. Then she lay flat upon
it, an arm on either side of the plank, and reaching down seized one
of the boy's wrists firmly in each hand.

"Now, then," said she, "let go the hook."

"If I do," answered the boy, his white face upturned to hers, "I'll
drag you down with me."

"No you won't. I'm very strong, and I'm sure I can save you. Let go,"
she said, imperatively.

"I'm not afraid to die," replied the boy, his voice full of
bitterness. "Take away your hands, and I'll drop."

But Patsy gripped him more firmly than ever.

"Don't be a fool!" she cried. "There's no danger whatever, if you do
just what I tell you."

His eyes met hers in a mute appeal; but suddenly he gained confidence,
and resolved to trust her. In any event, he could not cling to the
hook much longer.

He released his hold, and swung in mid-air just beneath the plank,
where the girl lay holding him by his wrists.

"Now, then," she said, quietly, "when I lift you up, grab the edges of
the plank."

Patricia's strength was equal to her courage, and under the excitement
of that desperate moment she did what few other girls of her size
could ever have accomplished. She drew the boy up until his eager
hands caught the edges of the plank, and gripped it firmly. Then she
released him and crept a little back toward the roof.

"Now swing your legs up and you're safe!" she cried.

He tried to obey, but his strength was failing him, and he could do no
more than touch the plank with his toes.

"Once more," called the girl.

This time she caught his feet as they swung upward, and drew his legs
around the plank.

"Can you climb up, now?" she asked, anxiously.

"I'll try," he panted.

The plank upon which this little tragedy was being enacted was in full
view of the small garden where Aunt Jane loved to sit in her chair and
enjoy the flowers and the sunshine. She could not see Kenneth's wing
at all, but she could see the elevated plank leading from the roof to
the oak tree, and for several days had been puzzled by its appearance
and wondered for what purpose it was there.

Today, as she sat talking with John Merrick and Silas Watson, she
suddenly gave a cry of surprise, and following her eyes the two men
saw Kenneth step out upon the roof, fall, and slide over the edge.
For a moment all three remained motionless, seized with fear and
consternation, and then they saw Patsy appear and run down to the
plank.