CHAPTER XIII
LITTLE URANIA
The soft moonlight was now peeping through the screen of maple leaves that arched the old stone bridge, as the shifting shadows of early evening settled down to quiet nightfall. Dorothy and her cousin did not at once turn their steps toward the Cedars; instead they sat there on the bridge, enjoying the tranquil summer eve, and talking of what might happen when all their schooldays would be over and the long “vacation” of the grown-up world would be theirs to plan for, and theirs to shape into the rolling ball of destiny.
Nat declared he would be a physician, as that particular profession had ever been to him the greatest and noblest – to relieve human suffering. Dorothy talked of staying home with her brothers and father. They would need her, she said, and it would not be fair to let Aunt Winnie do so much for them.
“But I say, Dorothy,” broke in Nat. “This moonlight is all right, isn’t it?”
Dorothy laughed at his attempt at sentimentality. “It is delightful,” she replied, “if that is what you mean.”
“Yes, that’s it – delightful. For real, home-made sentiment apply to Nat White. By the pound or barrel. Accept no substitute. Good thing I did not decide to be a writer, eh? The elements represent to me so many kinds of chemical bodies, put where they belong and each one expected to do its little part in keeping things going. Now, I know fellows who write about the moon’s face and the sun’s effulgence, just as if the poor old sun or moon had anything to do with the lighting-up process. I never speculate on things beyond my reach. That sort of thing is too hazy for mine.”
“Now, Nat, you know very well you are just as sentimental as any one else. Didn’t you write some verses – once?”
“Verses? Oh, yes. But I didn’t get mixed with the stars. You will remember it was Ned who said:
“‘The stars were shining clear and bright
When it rained like time, that fearful night!’
“I was the only one who stood by Ned when he penned that stanza. It could rain like time and be a fearful night while the stars were shining – in China. Oh, yes, that was a great composition, but I didn’t happen to win out.”
The school test of versification, to which both had reference, brought back pleasant memories, and Dorothy and Nat enjoyed the retrospection.
“What is that?” asked Dorothy suddenly, as something stirred at the side of the bridge on the slope that led to the water.
“Muskrat or a snake,” suggested Nat indifferently.
“No, listen! That sounded like someone falling down the path.”
“A nice soft fall to them then,” remarked Nat, without showing signs of intending to make an investigation.
“Ask if anyone is there,” timidly suggested Dorothy.
At this Nat jumped up and looked over the culvert.
“There sure is some one sliding down,” he said. “Hi there! Want any help?”
“A stone slipped under my foot,” came back the answer, and the voice was unmistakably that of a young girl or a child.
“Wait a minute,” called Nat. “I’ll get down there and give you a hand.”
The path to the brook led directly around the bridge, and it took but a moment for the boy to make his way to the spot whence the voice came. Dorothy could scarcely distinguish the two figures that kept so close to the bridge as to be in danger of sliding under the stone arch.
“There,” called Nat. “Get hold of my hand. I have a good grip on a strong limb, and can pull you up.”
But it required a sturdy arm to hold on to the tree branch and pull the girl up. Several times Nat lost his footing and slid some distance, but the street level was finally gained, and the strange girl brought to the road in safety.
The moonlight fell across her slim figure, and revealed the outlines of a very queer little creature indeed. She was dark, with all the characteristics of the Gypsy marked in her face.
Dorothy and Nat surveyed her critically. Whatever could a child of her age be doing all alone there, in that deserted place after nightfall?
“Thanks,” said the girl to Nat, as she rubbed her bare feet on the damp grass. “I almost fell.”
“Almost?” repeated Nat, “I thought you did fall – you must have hit that big rock there. I know it for I used to fish from the same place, and it’s not exactly a divan covered with sofa cushions.”
“Yes, I did hit my side on it,” admitted the girl, “but it doesn’t hurt much.”
“What is your name?” asked Dorothy, stepping closer to the stranger.
“Urania. But I’m going to change it. I don’t believe in Urania any more.”
“Then you are a Gypsy girl,” spoke Nat. “I thought I’d seen you before.”
“Yes, they say I’m a Gypsy girl, but I’m tired of the business and I’m going away.”
“Where?” asked Dorothy.
“Any place as long as it’s not back to camp. I left it to-night and I’m never going back to it again – never! never!” and the girl shook her disheveled head in very positive emphasis.
“Why?” asked Dorothy. “You’re too young to be out alone and at night. You must be frightened; aren’t you?”
“Frightened?” and the girl laughed derisively. “What is there to be afraid of? I know all the snakes and toads, besides the birds.”
“Aren’t there tramps?” inquired Nat.
“Perhaps. But it would take a slick tramp to catch me. Gypsy girls know how to run, if they can’t read and write.”
It seemed to Dorothy that this remark was tinged with bitterness; as if the girl evidently felt the loss of education.
“But you had better run back to the camp like a good girl,” pleaded Nat. “Come, we’ll walk part of the way with you.”
“Back to the camp! You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve started out in the world for myself, and could not go back now if I wanted to. That woman would beat me.”
“What woman?” Nat asked.
“The one my father married. They call her Melea. She has her own little girl and doesn’t care for Urania.”
“But where will you stay to-night?” inquired Dorothy, now anxious that the little Gypsy would change her mind, and run back to the camp at the foot of the hill before it would be too late – before she might be missed from her usual place.
“I was going to sleep under the bridge,” replied Urania calmly, “but when I heard you talking I came out. I love to hear pretty words.”
“Poor child,” thought Dorothy, “like a little human fawn. And she wants to start out in the world for herself!”
“I heard what you said about going to Dalton,” Urania said to Nat, as she tried to hide her embarrassment by fingering her tattered dress, “and I was wondering if you could let me ride in the back of your automobile. I want to go to the big city and it’s – it’s a far walk – isn’t it?”
“It would be a long walk to Dalton,” replied Nat in surprise, “but Dalton isn’t a big city. Besides, I could never help you to run away,” he finished.
“Some boys do,” Urania remarked with a pout. “I know people who run away. They come to Melea to have their fortunes told.”
Nat and Dorothy laughed at this. It seemed queer that persons who would run away would stop long enough to have their fortunes told by a Gypsy.
“And couldn’t I ride in the back of your automobile?” persisted the girl, not willing to let so good a chance slip past her too easily.
“I’m afraid not,” declared Nat. “I wouldn’t help you to run away in the first place, and, in the second, I never take any girls out riding, except my cousin and her friend.”
“Oh, you don’t eh?” sneered Urania. “What about the one with the red hair? Didn’t I see you out with her one day when we were camping in the mountains – near that high-toned school, Glendale or Glenwood or something like that. And didn’t she come to our camp next day to have her fortune told? Oh, she wanted to start out in the world for herself. You would help her, of course, but poor Urania – she must die,” and the girl threw herself down upon the grass and buried her head in the long wet spears.
Dorothy and Nat were too surprised to answer. Surely the girl must refer to Tavia, but Tavia had never ridden out alone with Nat, not even while he was at the automobile assembly near Glenwood. And Tavia could scarcely have gone to the fortune teller’s camp.
“I say I have never taken out any girl without my mother or my cousin being along,” Nat said, sharply, recovering himself.
“Then it was your girl with another fellow,” declared the wily Gypsy, not willing to be caught in an untruth. She arose from the grass and, seeing the telling expression on the faces of her listeners, like all of her cult, she knew she had hit upon a fact of some kind.
“My girl?” repeated Nat laughingly.
“Yes,” was the quick answer. “She had bright, pretty colored hair, brown eyes and her initials are O. T. I heard her tell Melea so.”
The initials, O. T., must surely be those of Octavia Travers thought Dorothy and Nat. But Nat knew better than to press the subject further. This cunning girl, in spite of her youth, he was sure, would make answers to suit the questions, and such freedom on the subject of Tavia (especially, now, when there were enough rumors to investigate), would simply be inviting trouble.
But Dorothy was not so wise in her eagerness to hear more. She wanted to know if her chum had really gone to the Gypsy camp from Glenwood, but she would not deign to ask if Tavia really went auto riding with some boys who attended the meet. That would be too mean even to think about! And besides, thought Dorothy suddenly, Tavia was sick during all the time of the automobile assembly.
“I can tell you more if you’ll give me money,” boldly spoke Urania. “I know all her fortune. I heard Melea tell her. I was outside the tent and I heard every word.”
“I thought that was against the practice of the Gypsies,” said Nat severely.
“Practice!” sneered the girl. “When a pretty girl comes to our camp I always listen. I like to find out what that kind think about! To see if they are different from Urania!”
“Come,” said Dorothy to Nat. “We must go. It is getting late.”
“And you don’t want to hear about the girl that is going to run away to a circus?” called the Gypsy as Dorothy and Nat turned away.
“No, thank you, not to-night,” replied Nat. “You’d better run home before the constable comes along. They put girls in jail for running away from home.”
“Oh, do they? Then your red-headed friend must be there now,” called back the Gypsy with unconcealed malice.
“What can she mean?” asked Dorothy, clinging to her cousin’s arm as they hurried along.
“Oh, don’t mind that imp. She is just like all her kind, trying to play on your sympathies first and then using threats. She was listening to us talking and picked up all she told us. She got the initials at Glenwood – likely followed Tavia and asked some other girl what her name was. I remember now, there was a Gypsy settlement there. That part’s true enough.”
“Perhaps,” admitted Dorothy with a sigh. “I know Mrs. Pangborn positively forbade all the girls to go near the Gypsy camps, but some of the pupils might have met Urania on the road.”
“That’s about it,” decided Nat. “But she ought to stick to the game. She’d make a good player. The idea of waylaying us and pretending to have fallen down.”
“It’s hard to understand that class,” admitted Dorothy. “But I hope she’ll not stay out all night. I should be worried if I awoke, and heard her walking about under the trees near my window.”
“No danger,” declared Nat. “I must go and see that the garage is locked. She might take a notion to turn the Fire Bird into a Pullman sleeper.”
Then, leaving Dorothy on the veranda with his mother, Nat went around to the little auto shed, fastened the door securely and put the key into his pocket.
CHAPTER XIV
THE RUNAWAY
Dorothy was not sure whether she dreamed it, or really heard sounds stirring under the trees. She had been thinking of the Gypsy girl, and Tavia, as she fell asleep, and when she suddenly awoke in the middle of the night, there seemed to be some one moving about just under the window of her room. It was so quiet that even faint sounds could be heard, and Dorothy lay there listening for some time, after being aroused. Presently something banged – like a blind being slammed back. There was no breath of wind – surely someone must have opened the shutter!
The moonlight came in through the casement and illuminated the room enough for her to see to get up and reach her door. It was but a step to the boys’ apartment. She would call them, she decided, but was most anxious not to disturb her father or aunt.
Strange to say when Dorothy had slipped on her dressing gown and slippers and knocked at the door of the boys’ room, she found them both awake, for they had answered her light tap at once. A moment later they were in the corridor, attired in their big bath robes.
“I’m sure I heard a footstep at the side porch,” whispered Dorothy.
“So did I,” answered Ned. “I’ve been awake for a long time, listening.”
“Perhaps you had better go down,” suggested Dorothy nervously. “It might be a tramp.”
“Tramp nothing,” declared Nat boldly, as he made his way softly to the front door. “I’ll bet it’s our friend Urania. I was sure she would call this evening.”
Without the slightest fear the brothers opened the door, and searched about for a possible intruder. They even looked under the lilac bush at Dorothy’s window, but no midnight prowlers were discovered.
Dorothy bravely stood at the front door, waiting to call for more help in case the boys should need assistance, but they finally returned from their hunt more disgusted than alarmed. Dorothy was entirely satisfied now that no one was about the place.
“I call that mean,” grumbled Nat. “I was all primed for an adventure.”
“You should be careful what sort of acquaintances you pick up after dark,” cautioned Ned. “Your little Urania may turn out troublesome if you cross her. Gypsies have a way of making people ‘pony up’ with the money, you know.”
“Don’t wake the folks,” cautioned Dorothy, leading the way back to the sleeping rooms. “I’m not a bit afraid now.”
“Well, if she comes back again, ask her in,” spoke Nat in a hoarse whisper. “I think Urania needs a talking to.”
Dorothy fell asleep again, after listening for some time, and was not disturbed any further that night, until the bright sun shining into her windows, called her to get up to begin another day.
As they had planned, Nat was to start early for Dalton. He could easily make some excuse for his solitary trip – say that he wanted to see some friends who were off camping, or that he wanted to go fishing. He mentioned these two objects vaguely as he started off.
Dorothy warned him not to let an inkling of her fears concerning Tavia reach the ears of any one in Dalton, but there was no need for this, as Nat was as anxious as was his cousin to keep the matter secret between them.
“It’s an easy thing to start gossip in a place like Dalton,” he whispered to Dorothy as he threw in the clutch to send the auto on its way, “and you can depend upon me to give them another ‘think’ if they’re looking for news.”
As the Fire Bird swung out along the path Nat turned to wave a reassuring good-bye to Dorothy who stood on the porch watching him spin away.
The morning which had begun so bright and pleasant now took on a gloomy aspect for Dorothy. How could she wait for Nat’s return? And what would he find out concerning Tavia and her plans? Suppose she should really be in Buffalo? That would not necessarily mean that she had gone away – she might be visiting her friend, Grace Barnum.
It seemed impossible for Dorothy to become interested in anything save Nat and his mission. She tried to sew, but soon laid aside the dainty little work basket Aunt Winnie had provided for the summer hours on the porch. Then Ned invited her to go bicycling, and she had to make some excuse for refusing the invitation. Even writing some letters for the major did not distract her, and she could think of nothing but Nat and his trip to Dalton.
But, somehow, the morning wore on, and it was almost time for Nat to return, as Dorothy knew in his swift car he could make the journey in record time over the good roads.
“But I’m sure something will delay him,” said Dorothy to herself. “I feel as if something will surely happen!”
And a well-grounded fear it was for, meanwhile, something was happening to Nat – something quite unexpected.
Having reached, in due time, Dalton and the little cottage where the Travers family dwelt, Nat steered the machine up in front of the door. Then he remembered he had to tighten the bolt of the clutch pedal, and decided to do it before making his inquiries, as it was important that the pedal be tight. He turned back to the machine, from which he had jumped, to get his wrench from the tool box under the rear seat. He unbuttoned the leather curtain that reached down to the floor of the tonneau, and was feeling about for the wrench when he started back in surprise.
There, under the seat, stretched out so as to be concealed while the curtain was down, was Urania, the Gypsy girl! The confined space made her hump up like an angry cat, and her dark face peered sharply into Nat’s from under the leather flap.
For a moment Nat could not find words to speak to the girl, who remained in her hiding place, grinning out at him with a mocking look on her elfin face.
“Hello!” she exclaimed presently. “I had a lovely ride.”
“Get out of there instantly,” exclaimed Nat, in angry tones. “How in the world did you ever get in there?”
“Oh, easy enough. You locked the door, but you left the shed window open last night, and I crawled in. I was almost a goner, though, when you and your brother came out on the porch looking for spooks. I was just trying your hammock then. That’s a softer cradle than this stuffy place.”
“I guess I’d better hand you over to a constable,” went on Nat, realizing what it might mean to try to drag the girl from her hiding place just then.
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself,” was the cool answer. “I believe I’ve had enough of riding, and I’d like to stretch out a bit.”
By this time the Travers family had become aware of the presence of the Fire Bird at their door, and Mrs. Travers, impressed with the distinction, had stepped back quickly to her room to tidy herself up a bit. This gave Nat a few moments longer to think of what he had best do with the Gypsy girl.
“Here,” he said to her, rather fiercely, “you just stay under that seat until I’m ready to take you to a place of safety. Now, if you dare to move while I’m in this house I’ll – I’ll have you arrested,” and with that Nat fastened down the curtain securely, with a catch that snapped on the outside and was incapable, as he supposed, of being opened from the inside.
He walked up the path to the front door and, after a few seconds, his knock was answered by Mrs. Travers. With unlimited protestations of welcome she showed Nat in, and offered him a seat in the far corner of the room, some distance from the front windows. He felt that he had better keep his eye on the machine, because of his concealed passenger, so, after a moment’s hesitation, he took a chair near the front of the apartment, remarking, as he did so, what a pretty view there was from the window.
“What brings you to Dalton?” asked Mrs. Travers.
“I was – er – just passing through, and I thought I’d stop to inquire – about the family. Dorothy would like to know,” said Nat.
“Oh, we’re about as well as usual,” said Tavia’s mother.
“How’s Tavia? Is she home?” asked Nat quickly, feeling that this was as good an opening as he could desire.
“No, and I’m very sorry, for she’d be delighted to see you. She went to Buffalo just after coming from school. We scarcely had a good look at her. I wanted her to stay home for a week, but she was so set on going that she started off bag and baggage, and I’m sure I can’t say when she will be home. Of course she’s with friends,” the mother hastened to add, seeing the look of surprise that flashed over Ned’s face in spite of his effort at self-control.
“My cousin, Dorothy, wrote to her,” Nat hastened to say, to cover his confusion, “and, not receiving an answer, thought it likely that she might be ill, or away.”
“Tavia’s father forwarded the letter to her,” said Mrs. Travers. “She should have answered it by this time. We have only had one souvenir card from her since she went away, but it was a real pretty one; I’d like to show it to you, but I guess I’ve mislaid it. I can’t think where I put it.”
“Never mind. I suppose it takes some time for a letter to travel when it’s been forwarded from one place to another. I dare say Dorothy will soon hear from her. I’m glad all the family are well. Major Dale is always glad to hear news of the Dalton folks.”
“And indeed we all miss the major,” spoke Mrs. Travers with a show of feeling. “Not to say we don’t miss the entire family, for the boys were fine little fellows, and, as for Dorothy – ”
The intended tribute to Dorothy ended with a little catch in Mrs. Travers’s voice, for she was very fond of her daughter’s companion, and sometimes showed her feelings with a touch of sentimentality.
Then, as Nat was really in a hurry (for he could not stop thinking of Urania under the seat) he made his excuses as quickly and as politely as the circumstances would allow, and was soon out of the house. He lost no time in cranking up and, in a few minutes, was chug-chugging at top speed down the country road.
He had made up his mind to take the Gypsy girl back to North Birchland, and was vaguely wondering, as he dashed along, why she did not knock on the seat and demand to be let out of her uncomfortable quarters.
“I think I’ll stop and just take a look at her. She may be crying,” the lad remarked to himself, and, bringing the machine to a halt alongside the road, he stepped out.
He assumed a determined look before unfastening the curtain, for he was bound not to let his sympathies run away with him in dealing with the unruly girl. He shoved back the catch and raised the leather flap.
Urania was gone!
“Well, I’ll be jiggered!” cried Nat aloud, so great was his astonishment at the second surprise the Gypsy had given him. “If she isn’t a dandy! How in the world did she slip out without me seeing her?”
But Nat had forgotten the few moments when he sat on the sofa at the rear side of Mrs. Travers’s parlor, some distance from the front windows, and it was in those few moments that Urania had managed to undo the catch, in spite of its supposed security, and slip out of the Fire Bird. Swiftly, as no girl but a Gypsy can run, she had fled down the street, across the Dalton bridge, and into the deep woods beyond, where she would have time to plan out the remainder of her day’s travels.
“Well, she’s gone – good riddance,” thought Nat, as he started up the machine once more, and turned, at a swift speed, into the turnpike leading to North Birchland.