Glory and the Other Girl

“Ye-es – three,” admitted Glory, “but I never did anything – just let 'em go. This time it's my school-books, you see. It's different. I don't see how I'm going to school without any books.”

“Sure enough. Well, I'll see what I can do for you, my dear. I'll telegraph to the conductor to take 'em in charge and deliver 'em to you at your place, in the morning. How's that?”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Blodgett. You're a regular dear – I mean you're very kind.”

“Don't change it, my dear. The first is good enough for me,” the old man laughed. He was thinking what a refreshing little picture his small window framed in. Was it like this his little girl would have looked if she had grown into girlhood? He gazed after the Flyaway One wistfully.

It was still early in the morning, and Glory loitered about in the crisp September sunshine with an hour of time to “kill.” There was but one early train to Centre Town, and that left Douglas at seven. It had not been so bad, of course, when the other girls came, too, but now! – Glory sighed pensively. So many things were bad now. The sun might just as well be snuffed out like a candle and it be raining torrents, for all the joy there was in living!

“That was my fourth Latin lexicon,” Glory exclaimed suddenly, with a vivid vision of Aunt Hope's grieved face. “I left two out in the rain, and lost a lot of leaves out of another, and now this one's gone on a tour! Poor auntie! I guess she might as well keep right on calling me Little Disappointment.”

It was an unpropitious beginning for the new term. Glory was obliged to refuse three times to recite, on the plea of her lost books, and double lessons loomed ahead of her dismally. But not for long – Glory never allowed “making up” to dispirit her unduly. Studying, anyway, was a nuisance, and the less time you let it give you the blues, the better. If you hadn't any books you couldn't study – naturally. Then why gloom over it a whole day?

“Well, dear?” Aunt Hope said that night, as they sat in the twilight together; “well, the beginning and the ending are the first day. How has it been? You look happy enough – I can feel the corners of your mouth, and they turn up!” The slender, cool fingers traveled over the girl's face in their own privileged fashion.

Glory remembered the books and drew down her lips hastily.

“I've been naughty, auntie,” she confessed softly.

“Oh, Glory! – again?”

“Yes'm, I'm afraid so. I'm afraid I've – lost something.”

Aunt Hope drew a long, patient breath before she spoke. Her fingers still lingered on the smooth cheeks and then wandered slowly to the tangle of soft hair. The little girl half hidden from her by the dusk was so dear to her!

“Tell me about it, Little Disappointment,” Aunt Hope said at length. And Glory told her story penitently.

“But I think it will come out all right, auntie, truly,” she ended. “I shall get them again to-morrow morning. Mr. Blodgett said he'd telegraph to have the Crosspatch Conduc – I mean the conductor– bring them with him to-morrow. It isn't likely anybody would steal a school satchel of books!” The bright voice ran on, quite gay and untroubled again. But Aunt Hope put up her hand and felt about for the laughing lips, to hush them. It had grown dark in the room.

“Glory, I am going to tell you a story,” Aunt Hope said quietly. “You are to sit a little closer to me and listen like a good little girl. Don't speak, dear.”

“I won't, auntie.”

“There was another girl once,” began Aunt Hope's gentle voice. “She had two things she loved especially – an Ambition and a Brother. She spelled them both with capitals, they were so dear to her. Sometimes she told herself she hardly knew which one she loved the better. But there came a time when she must choose between them, and then she knew. Of course it was the Brother. She put the Ambition away on a high shelf where she could not go to it too often and cry over it. ‘Stay there awhile,’ she said. ‘Some day I shall come and take you down and live with you again. Just now I must take care of my Brother.’

“For the girl and her Brother were all alone in the world, and she was the older. He was a little thing, and she was all the mother he had. For fifteen years she took care of him, and then one day she found time to take the Ambition down from the high shelf – she had not had time before. She took it down and clasped it in the old way to her breast. ‘Oh, ho!’ she laughed – she was so glad! – ‘Oh, now I have time for you! You and I will never part again.’ And she was as happy as a little child over a lost treasure. It did not seem to dismay her because she was not a girl any longer. Women could have Ambitions, she said. And what did she do but get out her study books and wipe off the dust of years! It lay on them discouragingly thick and white, but she laughed in its face.

“That was because she did not know. Sometimes it is better not to know. Do you think it would have been kind to let her know on that first sweet day? At any rate she never lost that day. She had it with her always afterward – the one beautiful, long day she and her Ambition spent together again, after she took it down from the shelf. They spent it all among the dusted books.

“The next day there was a terrible accident, and when it was over and this other girl, who had grown to a woman, was lying in a dark room that somehow seemed to be full of a dull pain, she heard her Brother and a doctor talking outside. She heard every word. Then she knew what was coming to her. She could tell what to expect.

“Well, she put the Ambition back, away back in her heart, and it has been there ever since. She lets it come to the front sometimes – but only once in a very great while.”

The quiet voice ceased speaking, and Glory, with a little stifled sob, hid her face in the pillows. She understood.

“Oh, I forgot something in the story,” Aunt Hope went on presently, her cheek against Glory's hair. “I forgot the best part! The Brother took care of the girl after that. He was the mother then. Even after he had a home of his own and a little baby, it was just the same. But he had to go away for years at a time, and the baby's mother was dead, so it came about that the girl – or rather woman; she is a woman now – had the little baby almost always to herself. It was beautiful, beautiful, until the little mischief took it into her head to grow up. Even then it wasn't so very bad! For, don't you see, she would fall heir to the Ambition by and by? So the woman was always hoping. And she hasn't quite given up hoping yet.”

There was silence in the big, dark room. Glory got to her feet. Her voice trembled as she began to speak, and she hurried over the words as if she were afraid she might cry.

“I'm going down to Judy's to – to get her books. Then I'm coming home and – and study, auntie. Good-by,” she stumbled.

“Good-by, dear,” said Aunt Hope, softly.

“It was hard to tell her the story like that,” she thought, half repenting. “Glory understands things instantly, and they hurt. But she is so precious – I had to tell it!”

That night Glory's light burned a good deal later than it ever had before, and Glory's bright head bent doggedly over Judy's books. Glory and Aunt Hope's beloved Ambition were so close that night that they almost touched each other. Not quite.

It was dull and bleak next day, and Glory was tired. The fierce little spark of energy seemed to have flickered out altogether.

“Don't say ‘good-by, dear,’ – say, ‘Good-by, Disappointment,’” she said at Aunt Hope's couch the last moment.

“Good-by, dear,” said Aunt Hope.

The early morning train was in the little station when Glory got there. She had just time to whisk up the steps on to the platform. The Crosspatch Conductor swung himself up after her. Glory eyed his empty hands with distinct disappointment.

“Haven't you got my books?” she panted, out of breath with her hurrying.

“Nary a book,” the conductor said shortly. “Couldn't find 'em. Went through the whole train. Weren't any books. You'll have to hang on to 'em next time, young lady.”

“I don't see how I can if I can't find 'em,” sighed the “young lady.” She went into the car and sat down heavily. Oh, it was too bad! She had been so sure the conductor would have them for her. She didn't want to lose them – not now, after that story. Oh, poor auntie!

There were not many early morning passengers. Among others Glory noticed an old man and two young men with dinner pails, and old lady without one, and a girl in a shabby jacket. She hadn't any dinner pail in sight, anyway. She sat in the seat ahead of Glory and pored over a book. She seemed buried – lost – in it.

Glory sat on the edge of her seat with her elbow on the window-sill and her chin in her hand. Her glance wandered gloomily around the car and came to rest at last on the open page of the Other Girl's book.

What —What! Glory leaned forward and gazed intently at the open page. On the margins were words scrawled carelessly in – her – handwriting! The odd, perked-up letters were unmistakable. Who else ever wrote like that? Who ever made M's and capital S's like that?

Glory got suddenly to her feet. That was her book the Other Girl was poring over —hers!

Chapter III

“I'll trouble you for my book,” a clear, stiff voice said.

The Other Girl came to her senses abruptly.

“Oh! Why!” she stammered, her lean little face flooding crimson. “Oh, is it you? Oh, I didn't know we'd got to Douglas – oh, wait, please wait! Please let me explain.” She kept tight hold of the book and faced Glory pluckily. “You must let me explain. Maybe you think I can't, but I can. I'm not a thief!”

“I don't care for any explanation, but I'd thank you for my books,” Glory said loftily. “I suppose you've got the rest, too. They were all together.”

“I have them all,” the Other Girl returned quietly. The crimson in her cheeks had faded to a faint pink. She gazed up at Glory with steady eyes.

“But I cannot give them up till you let me explain,” she persisted. “You've got to let me. Do you suppose I'm going to let you go away with my good name as though I would steal your books? They were lying on the seat – I saw you had forgotten them – I took care of them for you – I was going to give them back to you this morning, but I got interested in doing that sum and didn't know we'd got to Douglas yet. There!”

She sprang to her feet and forced the books into Glory's hands, her own fingers quivering as she did it. Suddenly Glory forgot her heroics and began to laugh.

“I never got interested in doing a sum,” she cried. “I wish you'd tell me how you do it.”

The laugh was infectious. The Other Girl laughed too. Unconsciously she moved along on her seat and as unconsciously Glory sat down.