Part 4 (1/2)

Somehow the expression in her brother's eyes made Jane unhappy. She did wish he would not look at her--was it wistfully, yearningly or what?

Rising, their father said, ”The taxi is outside, children. Are you all ready?”

There was much confusion for the next few moments. The expressman had come for the trunks, and there were many last things that the father wished to say to the three who were going to his cabin on Mystery Mountain.

”Dan, my boy,” Mr. Abbott held the hand of his eldest in a firm clasp and looked deep into his eyes, ”let your first thought be how best you can regain your strength. If you need me, wire and I will come at once.” Then putting his hand in his pocket, he drew out an envelope. ”The pa.s.ses are in here. Put them away carefully.” Then he turned to Jane. ”Goodbye, daughter. You will be nearer. Come home when you want to. May heaven protect you all.”

The two younger children gave ”bear hugs,” over and over again, to their dad and grandmother, and when at last all were seated in the taxi, they waved to the two who stood on the porch until they had turned a corner.

Dan smiled at Jane as he said: ”This is indeed an exodus. That little old home of ours never lost so many of us all at once.”

”Gee, I bet ye the apple orchard'll wonder where me and Julie are,” the boy began, but Jane interrupted fretfully. ”Oh, I do wish you would be more careful of the way you speak, Gerald. You know as well as any of us that you should say where Julie and I are.”

The boy's exuberance for a moment was dampened, but not for long. He soon burst out with, ”Say, Dan, you know that story Dad tells about a brown bear that came right up to the cabin door once. Do you suppose there's bears in those mountains now?”

”I'm sure of it, Gerry. Dozens of them, but they won't hurt us, unless we get them cornered.”

”Well, you can bet I'm not going to corner any of them,” Gerry confided.

”But I'd like to have a little cub, wouldn't you, Julie, to fetch up for a pet?”

The little girl was doubtful. ”Maybe, when it grew up, it would forget it was a pet bear, and maybe you'd get it cornered, and then what would you do?”

Dan laughed. ”The bear would do the doing,” he said. He glanced at Jane, who sat looking out of the small window at her side. He did not believe that she really saw the objects without. How he wished he knew what the girl, who had been his pal all through their childhood, was thinking. As he watched her, there was again in his eyes that yearning, wistful expression, but Jane did not know it as she did not turn.

The little station at Edgemere was soon reached, the trunks checked for the big city beyond the river, and, after a short ride on the train and ferry, they found themselves in the whirling, seething ma.s.s of humanity with which the Grand Central Station seemed always to be filled.

The train for the West was to leave at 10, and after it was gone, Jane planned going uptown to buy a summer dress. Dad had told her to charge it to him. His credit was still good. As they stood waiting for the gates to open, Dan took from his pocket the envelope containing the pa.s.ses. For the first time he glanced them over, then exclaimed: ”Why, how curious!

There are four pa.s.ses! I thought there were but three. Oh, well, they are only slips of paper, and do not represent money.” He replaced them and smiled at Jane. The children raced to a stand to buy a bag of popcorn and Dan seized that opportunity to take his sister's hand, and say most seriously: ”Dear girl, if I never come back, try to be to our Dad all that I have so wanted to be.”

There was a startled expression in the girl's dark eyes. ”Dan, what do you mean?” Her voice sounded frightened, terrorized. ”If you never come back? Brother, why shouldn't you come back!” She clung to his arm. ”Tell me, what do you mean?” But he could not reply for a time, because of a sudden attack of coughing. Then he said: ”I don't know, little girl. I'm afraid I'm worse off than Dad knows. I----”

”All aboard!” The gates were swung open. Frantically, Jane cried: ”Dan, quick, have my trunk checked on that other pa.s.s. I'm going with you.”

Mr. Abbott smiled through tears as he handed his mother the telegram he received that afternoon. ”I felt sure our Jane had a soul,” he said. ”Her mother's daughter couldn't be entirely without one.”

”And now that it's awakened maybe it'll start to blossoming,” the old lady replied.

CHAPTER VIII.

ALL ABOARD

There had been such a whirl at the last moment that it was not until they were on the train and had located their seats on the Pullman, that the children realized what had happened. Luckily Jane was too much occupied readjusting her own att.i.tude of mind, and trying to think hastily what she should do before the train was really on its way, to notice the disappointment which was plainly depicted on the faces of Julie and Gerald. They gazed at each other almost in dismay when they heard that their big sister was to accompany them, but the joy in their brother's face and manner was all that was needed to reconcile the younger boy.

In the confusion caused by pa.s.sengers entering the car with porters carrying their luggage, Gerald managed to draw Julie aside and whisper to her: ”Don't let on we didn't want Jane, not on your life! Dan wanted her, and this journey's got just one object, Dad says, and that's to help Dan get well.”

But Julie was too terribly disappointed to pretend that she was not. ”I know all that,” she half sobbed and turned toward the window across the aisle, ”but I was so happy when I s'posed I was to cook for Dan, and when you and I were to be the ones to take care of him. But now Jane will get all the honor and everything, and we'll have to be bossed around worse than if we were at home, for Dad's there to take our part.”

Gerald's clear hazel eyes gazed at his sister rebukingly. ”Julie,” he said, with an earnestness far beyond his years, ”the train hasn't started yet and if you'n I are going to think of ourselves we'd better go back home. Shall we, Julie?”