Re-Creations (27 page)

But quick as he was, Brand and Carey were ahead of him. At the very first sound, even before the car had been really in motion, Carey looked up over the wall he was building, gave a low whistle, and cried, “Hey there! Brand! Your car! Get a hustle!”

Brand turned and needed not an explanation. He dashed across the intervening space to his own car, sprang to the driver’s seat, and was off. Carey, though handicapped by the wall he had to leap over, was scarcely a hair’s breadth behind and alighted on the running board after the car had started.

“We’ve got to catch her before she reaches the corner,” he shouted above the noise of the racing engine. “There’s a trolley coming around the curve at the foot of the hill, and you can’t tell what that kid’ll do. It’s a cinch she never ran a car before; look at her wabble. She’s getting scared now. Look! The fool in the backseat has dragged her away from the wheel! Hey there! Give her plenty of room! Now curve her around, and give me space to jump her!”

Maxwell was running frantically and vainly down the street after his car, which was now going at a wild pace. From either direction on the cross street at the foot of the hill he could see cars speeding along. Who would know that the oncoming car was managed by a child who had never run a car in her life, a child who knew nothing whatever about cars, was too young to know, had never even been accustomed to ride in one, but lived in a little country village where cars were scarce articles? All this he knew because the grandmother had talked much to the youngster on the way down, and the child had said she had never been in a car but once before, but she wished she had one; she knew she could run it.

Horror froze in his veins as he remembered all these little details. He had made running a specialty when he was in college athletics, but now, although his way was downhill, his feet were like lead and his knees weak as water. He saw himself a murderer. Every possible detail of disaster rose and menaced his way as he sped onward, determined to do all in his power for rescue. The blood was pounding through his head so that he could scarcely see or hear. His breath came painfully, and he wondered blindly how long this would last. Then suddenly he saw the long, clean body of the racing car slide down the hill like a glance of light, glide close to the runaway car, then curve away and cross the street just in front of the oncoming trolley. He looked to see his own car smash into the trolley car, but instead it swept around in a steady, clean curve that just cleared the trolley car and veered away to the right. It crossed the car track behind the trolley car and circled around and back up the hill again, a steady hand at the wheel. An instant more and the car stopped before him where he stood in the middle of the road, his face white, his eyes staring, unable to believe that the catastrophe had really been averted. He looked up, and there sat Carey in the driver’s seat as coolly as if he had been taking a pleasure trip.

“Shall I turn her around?” asked Carey nonchalantly. “Or do you want to go back to the house?”

“How did you do it?” asked Arthur Maxwell, grasping Carey’s grimy hand eagerly. “I didn’t see you catch her.”

“Oh, just jumped her from Brand’s running board. Dead easy. Guess she gave a little start though. That kid ought to be spanked. I guess the lady’s pretty badly scared.”

The lady and the “kid” were bathed in tears and wrapped in each other’s arms in the backseat. The child was experiencing a late repentance, and the grandmother was alternately scolding and babying and in a fair way to make the little criminal feel she had done a smart thing. Maxwell gave them a withering glance and turned to Carey, who had swung out over the door and was standing in the road, looking at the car like a lion tamer who has just subdued a wild creature.

“I shall never forget this, Copley,” said Maxwell, grasping his hand once more in the kind of a grip a real man gives to another. “I’ll talk about it later when I’ve taken these people to the train. Meantime accept my thanks for yourself and your friend. You’re both princes, and I’ll see that everybody knows it.”

“Forget it!” chanted Carey and swung himself like a thistledown to the running board of Brand’s car as he swept slowly, scrutinizingly up.

“Got her all right, didn’t you, old man?” said Brand admiringly. “Any scratches? You had a mighty close shave!”

“Yep! She’s all right. Well, so long, Maxwell. We gotta beat it back to work.” And with a great whizzing and banging of joyful celebration the racer shot its way back uphill, and the two jumped out quite casually as if they had been off to get a soda and come back to work again.

Cornelia, white and trembling from the horror of the thing, tried to praise, to question, to exclaim; but failing to make an impression on the two indifferent workers, went upstairs, fell on her knees, and cried. Somewhere in the midst of her tears her crying turned into a prayer of thanksgiving, and she came down with an uplifted look on her face. Now and then as she went about her duties, she stole to the front window and looked out on the two sturdy workers. She could have hugged them both; she was so proud of them—they were so cool, so capable, and so indifferent! Just regular boys!

Maxwell came back that evening. She had somehow known he would. He was filled with gratitude to the two who had so gallantly saved him from a catastrophe, which would have shadowed his whole life. He still shuddered over the thought of what might have happened.

“I will never again leave a child alone in an automobile,” he declared. “That girl was a little terror. I never saw one so spoiled and disagreeable in my life. She was determined to be allowed to run the car from the minute she got in, and she annoyed me constantly by playing with the electric buttons and getting her hands constantly on the wheel. I never dreamed she would have the strength to start the car, although she is large and strong for her age. But she has all kinds of nerve and impudence, and I might have known better than to stop here at all when I had such a passenger. Her grandmother is a nervous wreck, but she doesn’t blame me, fortunately, although I blame myself decidedly. It is my business to know men, and I should have known that child well enough to realize it was a risk to leave her.”

“Kid ought to be spanked!” declared Carey gruffly. “Know what she did? When she saw she was going to run into that car, she lost every bit of nerve and began climbing over the back of the seat. Some kid that! Just bad all through. Any nervy kid I know would have stuck it out and tried to steer her somehow, but that kid had a yellow streak.”

“You’re right there,” declared Maxwell, with watchful eyes upon the young man. “But you had your nerve with you all right, I noticed. When you swung off that running board, it was an even chance you took. If you had missed your calculation by so much as a hair’s breadth, you would have been smashed up pretty badly, crushed between the cars, probably.”

Carey gave his shoulders a slight shrug.

“It’s all in a lifetime,” he said lightly. “But, say, that’s a peach of a car you’ve got. Had it long?” And they launched into a lengthy discussion of cars in general and Maxwell’s in particular. Cornelia noticed that all the time Maxwell was watching her brother intently. As he got up to leave, he asked casually, “Are you still working with the garage people?”

Carey colored and lifted his chin a trifle haughtily.

“Yes. I—
yes!”
he answered defiantly.

“Stick to it till something better comes along,” advised Maxwell. “It isn’t a bad line, and you learn a lot about machines that won’t do you any harm in the future. You’re a good man, and there’s a good job waiting for you somewhere.” And with that, he said, “Good night.”

Mr. Copley came in presently with a late edition of the evening paper. He had been called to the home of his manager, who was ill, on a business consultation. He looked tired but exalted. He spread the paper out on the table under the lamp and called the children.

“See!” he said. “Do you know who that is?”

They all gathered around, and behold there was Carey looking at them from the pages of the
Evening Bulletin.
Carey! Their brother! They stared and stared again.

The picture had him in football garb, with one eye squinting at the sun and a broad grin on his lips. It was Carey two years ago, on the high school football team, but it looked like him still. Beneath from a border looked forth the bold, handsome features of Brand Barlock, and to one side another border held the round, fat, impertinent face of the child who had started the car that afternoon. The article below was headed in large letter:

FOOTBALL HERO SAVES TWO LIVES

Carey Copley Jumps from Moving Car and Saves Child and Grandmother!

“Now, isn’t that the limit? How did that thing get in
there?”
demanded the young hero angrily. “And say! How’d they get my picture? Some little fool reporter went around to school, I suppose. Wouldn’t that make you mad? How’d they find that out I’d like to know? Brand never told, that’s one thing sure. Brand knows how to keep his mouth shut. You don’t suppose that guy Maxwell would give it to them, do you?”

“He said he was going to see that everybody knew about it,” chuckled Louise happily. “I think it oughta be known, don’t you, Daddy? When a boy—that is a
man
—does a big thing like saving two lives, I think everybody oughta know how brave he is.”

“Nonsense!” said Carey. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid. That wasn’t anything to do.” But his tone showed that he was pleased at the general attitude of his family. Nevertheless, he slammed around noisily in the dining room, pretending not to hear when his father read aloud the account of the accident in the paper, and went whistling upstairs immediately after. At the top he called down, “Say, I’m mighty glad they were fair to Brand in that article. Brand’s a great fellow. I couldn’t have done a thing without him and his car. He knew just what to do without being told, and he can drive, I’ll say. Brand deserves all they can say of him. He’s a good fellow.”

Altogether, the household slept joyously that night, and Harry dreamed of going to the mountains in a blimp and flying back tied to the tail of a kite.

When Maxwell came to get Harry the next afternoon, he asked Cornelia one question that made her wonder a little. It seemed almost irrelevant.

“Did your brother ever have anything to do with managing men?” he said, looking thoughtfully at the neat masonry that was growing steadily longer and wider and higher.

“Why—I—hardly know,” she replied, laughing. “I’ve been away so much from home.”

“Captain of the basketball team in high school,” announced Harry shrewdly. “And captain of a local baseball team they had out the other side of the city last summer. Some team it was, too; licked everything in sight and then some. Carey had ‘em all right where he wanted ‘em, and when a team treated ‘em mean once, Kay just called the fellows off, and they wouldn’t play one of ‘em till he got a square deal with the ump!”

Harry’s eyes sparkled. He made an earnest young advocate.

“Fine! I must hear more about that. I foresee I’m going to have a thrilling trip. There’ll be lots to talk about. Well, Miss Copley, we’ll bid you good-bye and get on our way. I want to get on well this afternoon in case we have bad weather tomorrow. But it looks clear now. We’ll travel late tonight. There ought to be a wonderful moon. I wish you were going along.” He gave her a wistful glance, and she flushed with pleasure.

“Thank you,” she said appreciatively. “If I were only a little boy with nothing to do!”

“Sister!” protested Harry. “I’ve lots to do. I guess I work every day after school.”

“You’re not a little boy, Harry; you’re almost a man,” answered his sister lovingly. “I wasn’t meaning you at all. I said if
I
were a little boy with nothing to do, then I could go along. I meant you could take care of me, see?” She gave a dear little smile at him, and he grinned.

“Aw! Quit yer kiddin’. So long, Cornie! Be back Monday. Take care o’ yerself!”

Maxwell’s eyes met hers; they laughed together at the boyishness of it, and Maxwell said good-bye and departed. Cornelia, as she went into the house, wondered why the brief conversation had seemed to lighten the monotony of the day so much and then fell to wondering why Maxwell had asked that question about Carey.

Five minutes later the doorbell rang, and when she opened the door, there stood Clytie Dodd, a brilliant red feather surrounding a speck of a hat and her face painted and powdered more wickedly than ever. She was wearing a yellow organdie dress with scallops on the bottom and adornments of colored spheres of cloth attached with black stitches at intervals over the dress. She carried a green parasol airily, and there was a “man” with an incipient and tenderly nursed mustache waiting for her at the gate. She greeted Cornelia profusely and talked very loudly and very fast.

“Is Kay here? I’m just dying to see him and kid him about having his picture in the paper. He always said he’d never get his there. But isn’t it great though? Some hero, I’ll tell the world! Who was the kid? Anybody belonging to the family? The paper didn’t state. Oh, darn! I’m sorry Kay isn’t here. I wanted him to meet my friend,” she said nodding toward the man at the gate. “We’ve got a date on for tonight, and we want him and his friend Mr. Barlock. Some girlfriends of mine are coming, and we’re going to have a dance and a big meal. It’s just the kind of thing Kay likes. When’ll he be back? Where is he? At the garage? We stopped there, but Pat said he’d went off with a car for some big-timer. I thought p’r’aps he’d stopped off here to take you on a ride er something. Well, I s’pose I’ll have to leave a message. Say, Ed, what time we going to start? Eight? Oh, rats! We oughta start at half past seven. It’s a good piece out to that Horseheads Inn I was tellin’ you ‘bout. We’ll start at half past seven. Say, you tell your brother to call me up soon’s he gets here. He often phones from the drugstore. Tell him I’ll give the details. But in case he don’t get me, tell him we’ll stop by here for him at half past seven. Tell him not to keep us waiting. I gotta go on now ’cause we gotta tell two other people, a girl and a man. It’s awful annoying not having telephones everywhere. I don’t know what we’d ever do without ours. S’long! Don’t forget to tell Kay!” And she flitted down the steps and out the gate to her “man.”