Ladybird (19 page)

“It’s like being clothed with Christ’s righteousness, isn’t it?” she said, turning luminous eyes to her benefactor. “I wouldn’t know myself at all.”

“Mercy, child, what uncanny things you do say!” said the startled lady. “I think you look very well myself. You’d get by anywhere now.”

“Yes,” said Fraley, shining faced, “I think it will be a good deal like this when I get up to heaven and see myself all dressed in the white linen!”

The lady looked at her aghast and said quickly, “I don’t know in the least what you mean, but don’t try to tell me now, for it’s time for the conductor to be coming around. What have you done with your ticket? You said you had a ticket, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said the girl, “it’s here in this envelope.” And she drew it out from the bag where she had slipped it when she came in to put on her stockings.

“Oh, well, you’ll have to have a handbag,” said the lady and went out again to her suitcase, returning with a small strap bag of dark blue leather trimmed in silver.

“This will do. Now, put your ticket in there, and your money. They don’t carry things around uncovered that way. And what about that gray bag you have your things in? You want to keep all those things, do you? You wouldn’t want to throw them away?”

“Oh, no indeed!” said the girl, a frightened look coming into her eyes. “My mother made the bag for me. It’s been so convenient.”

“Well, I was just thinking. They’re not using that pattern of bag quite so much this season. Suppose I let you have this one of mine. I can easily put what things I have left in it into my suitcase. We sent so many things home by parcel post that there really wasn’t enough left to fill all the bags, but I didn’t just care to throw it away.”

So the old gray woolen bag found sanctuary in the extremely correct patent-leather overnight bag that the lady emptied for the purpose. Fraley went out in her new attire and sat down opposite the little door, which was now opened for the coming of the official, and wondered at herself.

Then she began to wonder what her mother would have said to all this lovely array and what her enemies would think if they could see her now. She had a passing wish that Caroline might have seen these clothes and the lady who kept looking at her feet when she tried to keep the young missionary from going to the station with her.

And then her breath came a little faster and her cheek flushed softly pink at the thought of that same young man and the words he had said and the farewell he had given her. She could feel the touch of his lips upon her brow even yet, and she told herself it was like a blessing.

The lady was watching her with satisfaction. Not in years had she been so interested in anything as in transforming this lovely creature from a wild thing to a maid of the world. And yet, she would perhaps never be just like other girls. There was a freshness and a freedom about her that she would not want to have spoiled. A little training and she would be a wonder! An idea had come to her, and she was turning it over. As she was musing and watching Fraley, the conductor arrived.

The lady leaned forward with her own ticket and told Fraley to get out hers. The conductor eyed her sharply.

“This young lady is traveling with me,” she said, handing over the two tickets. “She got on at the last stop. Can you arrange to put her here with me?”

“Tell the Pullman conductor,” growled the official who snipped a hole or two in Fraley’s ticket and handed it back.

Fraley took the ticket and studied it in wonder, reading its inscription as if it were something really interesting.

Suddenly she looked up at the lady who was still watching her.

“You have been wonderful to me,” she said with a smile. “I can never thank you enough.”

The lady spoke almost crossly. “I’ve done nothing but what I pleased. Don’t bother to thank me. I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in a long time. Come, let’s go and get some lunch!”

F
raley was very much intrigued with the diner. It seemed to her like a playhouse with all those little tables. With the pleasure of a child, she sat down in the chair opposite to the lady.

The menu interested her, too, and she studied it with fascination. But she knew very few of the names that were on its list.

“Would you like me to order?” the lady asked, watching her perplexity.

“Please,” said Fraley. “Get me something that doesn’t cost much. Just some bread and milk perhaps, if that is cheap, or don’t they have a cow on a train?”

The lady laughed. “No cow, but plenty of milk! Don’t you want tea or coffee?”

“No,” said the girl decidedly, “Mother thought it wasn’t good for me.”

When the order was brought the girl opened her eyes in astonishment.

“Won’t this cost a lot?” she asked with a troubled look.

“You’re not to bother about the cost,” smiled the lady. “You are my guest on this trip. You’ll have use enough for your money when you get to New York.”

“But that isn’t right!”

“Yes, it’s right if I want to. Now eat your soup.”

With a healthy young appetite she did as she was told and surprised her patroness with the easy way in which she handled her spoon and knife and fork and the beautiful way she ate. Where did she learn it all? There was a mystery about this.

Nothing that went on escaped the bright eyes. After the lady paid the bill she laid some money beside the plate.

“What is that for?” the girl asked.

“A tip for the waiter.”

“I thought so,” said Fraley with satisfaction. “A friend told me about that. I ought to tip the porter, too, he said.”

“You needn’t bother; I’ve done that. Who is this friend? Have you known him a long time?”

“His name is Seagrave. He is a good man. He had a service last night in a schoolhouse. I was there. I’ve only known him yesterday and today, but he was very kind. He brought me to the station and told me some of the things I would need to know.”

“Is he young or old?”

“Why he’s young with nice eyes and a nice smile.”

“H’m!” said the lady. “Some theological student out earning his next winter’s tuition, I suppose. What did he tell you?”

“Oh, how to get off the train and up into the Pennsylvania Station,” recited the careful student. “He told me to go to the travelers’ aid to find out about taking a taxi, and where to look for my friends, and where to find a place to board in case they were not at home.”

“So you have friends?”

It almost sounded as if the lady were not glad.

“Yes. My mother’s brother lives in New York. And my father’s people live there, too.” She added the last as an afterthought.

“It’s time you told me your name. I am Mrs. Wentworth, but you may call me Violet if you like. A great many of my friends call me that.”

“Oh, what a lovely name. It’s like your eyes. I’d like to pick you some of the flowers. They grow all over my mountain where I came from.”

The lady smiled. This was the kind of thing she liked.

“But my name is just Fraley MacPherson,” said the girl. “My mother was Alison Fraley, and I have her last name because she didn’t want to forget it.”

“That’s strange,” said the lady. “I know an Alison Fraley. She lives on Riverside Drive very near my home. But of course it can’t be a relative of yours. I know some MacPhersons, too, but they are very rich people. Where are your people living?”

Fraley told the address, as she remembered it from having read it to Seagrave that morning.

“Yes, that’s way downtown. Strange it happens to be the same initials. The one I know of is Robert Fraley, too. He’s a multimillionaire.”

“What is that?” asked Fraley, mildly interested.

“A man who is very rich indeed, richer than almost anybody else except just a few others like himself.”

“That wouldn’t be right, would it?” asked the girl with a worried frown. “A man ought not to keep more than his share, ought he?”

“Tell that to the millionaires and see what they’d say,” laughed the lady. “I think you’re rare. Tell me, how did you get your education if you lived away off on the mountain? Was there a school anywhere near you?”

“Oh, we had a Book,” said Fraley and opened her eyes wide in a way she had when she was astonished. “My mother used to hear me say my lessons every morning. I always learned a chapter a week at least, and then we had numbers, different kinds of them, and other things.”

“All out of the same book?” asked the lady, more amused than ever.

“Yes.”

“What was the book?”

“The Bible.”

“The Bible! How could you possibly study numbers out of that?”

“Oh, easily. At first I just had the numbers of the chapters and the verses. I counted them and added them and subtracted them and divided them. And then I began to hunt out the numbers of things in the stories. There were seventy of the children of Israel that went down into Egypt, you know, counting Joseph and his family. And there were six hundred and three thousand, five hundred and fifty of them when they came back four hundred years later.”

The woman of the world stared as if she thought the girl had gone crazy.

“There was an old rock up a little way from our back door,” Fraley went on eagerly, her eyes shining with joy at the remembrance. “I used to do my sums on that with a piece of limestone that made nice white marks on it. When I got the answers, Mother would come out and look at them to see if they were right.”

“What did you do when the rock was full?” asked the lady interested.

“Oh, I washed it off; or sometimes the rain would wash it off for me. I used to play games with the stories in the Old Testament sometimes. I would gather pebbles of different sizes for the people. There was a smooth white stone I always called David and a big rough red one with mica in it that was Goliath. And I used to set the armies out on the cabin floor and then bring Goliath down to challenge them; and little David would come and say he would fight the giant. I had a stone for the king, too.”

“Your mother must have been a very original woman,” said the lady, listening interestedly. “I would like to have known her. The perfect idea of educating a child out of one book and doing all that!”

“Oh, but the book was the Bible, you know,” explained the young student. “I used to have English work, too. I used to have to write the stories off in other words, so mother could see if I understood. That was fun, putting it in another way but telling the same story.”

The lady’s eyes narrowed.

“You speak singularly pure English,” she said. “I wonder—” But she did not finish her sentence. She was studying the girl’s eager face and wondering what it would be like to have a young thing like this around her all the time.

“And what are you going to do first when you get to New York?” the lady asked at length.

“Why, first—the very first thing—I’m going to hunt up a store where they sell Bibles. I have to buy two and send them back to people who are waiting for them.”

“Bibles?” said the lady, startled again. “Why should people be waiting for Bibles? I should think you would find a place to stay, first of all, and then hunt up your people.”

“No, I must get the Bibles first,” said Fraley firmly. “I promised. You see, they are really needed.”

“Whom are they for?”

“One is for a woman I stayed overnight with. She hadn’t ever read it, and I recited some for her, and she wanted some more so much that I told her I would be sure to send her one. She wouldn’t let me pay for my supper and my night’s lodging, and you see, I must let her know right away that I have not forgotten.”

“Sort of a bread and butter Bible, then!” laughed the lady.

“A what?” asked Fraley. Sometimes this lady almost acted as if she were making a joke out of things.

“I mean you are sending it out of courtesy,” she explained, her eyes sobering pleasantly.

“Not altogether,” said Fraley. “There’s a little boy there. He wants to read it.”

“And why should you care whether he reads it or not? It seems abnormal of a child like you to be talking about reading the Bible. You are young and ought to be interested in all the pleasant things that are going on. You’ll just love everything when you get to New York. You need to dance and flirt and have a good time. You’ve been too solemn and not had the right kind of a childhood. You are morbid. But New York will soon take it out of you, I’m afraid.”

“If I thought that,” said Fraley earnestly, “I’d get right off this train and go back. I would rather live out my life on a mountain than forget my Bible. It’s the dearest thing in life to me, and I promised my mother I would never let go of it.”

The lady shrugged her shoulders and spoke soothingly: “Oh well, child, don’t take me too seriously. Tell me who the other Bible is for?”

“It’s for my friend—Mr. Seagrave. He had to go out there to preach without any Bible because he was called to go in a hurry in place of someone who was sick, and he gave me some money and asked me to send him back a Bible as soon as I possibly could. He needs it for Sunday. I am going to mark some of the stories in it that he is to read in his services. They are stories we talked about, and he asked me to mark them for him.”

“It seems to me he got rather intimate in one day,” remarked the lady.

“Oh no,” said Fraley. “He was just friendly. He was what my mother used to tell me a gentleman was like. I never saw one before.”

“H’m! What did you say his name was?”

“Seagrave,” said Fraley and suddenly felt a reserve coming over her speech. Was there the least bit of a sneer for her friend in this lady’s eyes and on her red lips?

“There are Seagraves in New York, of course,” said the lady thoughtfully, but Fraley kept her own counsel and let her eyes wander happily out on the brightness of the landscape.

“Are your mother’s people poor?” asked the lady suddenly.

The girl brought her gaze back to the lady thoughtfully.

“Why, I’m not sure,” she said. “Perhaps they are. I never thought about it. But what difference would that make?”

“You’d not want to be dependent on them if they were,” suggested the lady. “Perhaps they wouldn’t be able to support you.”