487F The Whimsy Girl . OF GALIF. UMAM. LO8 SOMETIMES,' SHE RESUMED IN A MYS- TERIOUS UNDERTONE, THE CLOUDS COME VERY LOW, AN' Y' CAN HEAR ? EM TALKING." (Page 16.) The Whimsy Girl By Charlotte Canty Frontispiece by Robert W. Amick New York Dodd, Mead and Company 1913 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published, September, 1D1S To "WENDY" (Carlin Eastwood) who made life possible for THE BOY and WITCHIE 2129320 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAOB I THE PRINCESS OF THE HILLTOP 1 II A CHANGE OF ROLES . . 20 III THE CROOKED MOON SPRITE . 37 IV THE SEA TYKES ... 56 V THE BOY PLANS A GIFT . . 71 VI THROUGH THE MAGIC PANE . 90 VII HERALDING THE FAIRY GOD- MOTHER 106 VIII EARTHQUAKE AND FIRE . . 123 IX UNDER MARTIAL LAW . .14?! X IN THE HOUR OF DISASTER . 156 XI COMPANIONS IN PERIL . . 160 XII " NOT HEAVEN, BUT HOME " . 170 The Whimsy Girl CHAPTER I THE PRINCESS OF THE HILLTOP "A PATIENT down here, Dad?" Bob Bur- chard looked up into the doctor's face for his answering nod as the motor-car swung along through a jumble of crossing streets in San Francisco's Latin quarter. " Looks as though some naughty child had stolen the scissors and cut up the city pie-fashion," he pursued, for the streets crossed at many angles, and regularity was a lost word. The buildings, quaintly shaped to fit their sharp- pointed lots, had a curious air of having purposely twisted themselves out of line, and some of them seemed ready to perform fur- ther gymnastic feats. The doctor laughed, and the Boy went on : " This is the village of Choppy Town ; The streets run up and the streets run down, 2 The Whimsy Girl And any wandering alley may Shove your house right out of its way Unless " Why, Dad, we're not going up Tele- graph Hill, are we? " " Up the hill," returned the doctor, smil- ingly. "Why not, Boy? The street goes right up." " Yes, it does ; but I'll bet it was dragged, stoned, beaten and pounded into going up. It's like a flat band put on to hold the hill down in place. I shouldn't wonder if some day the hill would rise up, wiggle that flat road to pieces and shake it off, going back to its own natural curving dips and winding ways. I haven't been up here since I was a youngster, have I ? " " No, I think not ; certainly not during your school years. But you'll find the other side of the hill unchanged; as rough and broken up and hard to climb as even you will desire. We'll leave the machine at the top and walk down to the house." The Princess of the Hilltop 3 " And who's your patient, Dad ? " " A little girl ; the daughter of a Greek fisherman." " Aren't they fascinating chaps, those Greeks that drift here? I've often spent hours down at the wharf watching them furl their brown lateen sails, or .take in their nets. They're a picturesque lot; half of them look like poets, and half like pirates. Queer to find such types in an American city." " Nearly all nationalities are represented here on Telegraph Hill," returned the doc- tor. " My little patient is an odd composite, Polish mother, Greek father, a pair of eager young visionaries who came to this country with Heaven knows what high dream in their hearts. But the poor mother was injured and died at the child's birth, and the little mite has spent her whole life in one small room. She has never walked." 4 The Whimsy Girl "But who takes care of her? " asked the Boy, his attention instantly engaged. " Care? Well, she doesn't get very much care. There's a step-mother, and a brood of small children; I haven't been able to count them as yet. The father has become a broken-spirited toiler; he hasn't even kept his lamp of hope burning, and that's bad, for one who is by nature silent and melancholy. But Bianca has learned to endure, and she doesn't look for much care. I'd like to send her to a hospital, but these ignorant for- eigners are frightened at the very word. Still, the small girl's coming along well. You'll be interested in her. Her case, by the way, is very like that of Donald Hallowell." " Good old Don ! " exclaimed the Boy. " Doesn't it make you feel like swelling up till you smash your 'ribs every time you see him? Think what a sick little tyke he was two years ago! He's as husky now as any fellow of his age, and he's going to make a The Princess of the Hilltop 5 whacking good football player. No wonder his mother's so happy these days." " Yes, she is happy," the doctor agreed, " and she's very proud of her boy. But still she has her lonely hours, with Donald at school and no other child in the home. I wish The doctor did not say what he wished, for the machine had started to climb the steep hill, and it required his whole atten- tion. ' But the Boy was free to look about at a crowd of children, gathering from every direction around the car. His first im- pression was a blur of smudgy faces and shining dark eyes; in those points all the children seemed alike. A closer look showed that they were of many nations ; Italian, French, Hebrew, German, Irish, Syrian; there were one or two Chinese mites and a Japanese lad of seven or eight, who found it hard work to stay ahead of a small and very black African. Hill-climbing autos were still 6 The Whimsy Girl a novelty, and the children scampered about the machine, keeping even with its slack- ened pace and chattering in excitement. Every house contributed a child or two, and the crowd grew steadily. The Boy turned a quizzical face to his father. " Now, honest, Dad, are you or are you not the Pied Piper? Do you intend to shut 'em up in the hill when you get to the top ? " "Thought you'd enjoy it," remarked the doctor, with an amused glance at their eager retinue ; and he waved a signal to a big boy at the edge of the crowd. " That's Bap- tiste," he explained. " I pay him a nickel to guard the car while I go down to my patient. The children stay around the ma- chine, but Baptiste won't let one of them touch it." The lad was already getting his army under control. At his command the chil- dren fell back, until, at the summit of the The Princess of the Hilltop 7 hill, where the doctor and the Boy stepped out, Baptiste proudly patrolled two feet of clear space around the car. " This way," called the doctor, briskly, but a new vision had enchained the Boy; the widespread picture of San Francisco Bay lying before them. They could see the long sweep of it, from the far channels where lie the deep-water ships at rest, to the Golden Gate where they sail out upon the world's great seas. " Come on, son," called the doctor again, and the Boy obeyed, following his father down some crazy stairs, stuck crookedly into the clay hill. " Careful ! " warned the doctor, but the Boy was now alert, studying the curious lit- ter of discarded objects along the path. Old kitchen utensils, empty tomato cans, corn cobs and piles of corn husks had to be avoided if one would walk the steep and narrow way. Bob stopped to look about, 8 The Whimsy Girl and the doctor waited, while he surveyed the queer little village of shacks and shanties hung upon the side of the hill. Most of the dwellings were unpainted or 1 whitewashed. All were pitched at a pre- carious angle on the slope. There were few fences ; the houses might be private, but the yards were common property, open thor- oughfares. Crooked footpaths led in and out among them, and one might walk with some security along these until challenged by a belligerent or over-playful goat. For each household there seemed to be at least one goat ; some yards held two or three, and perhaps a bleating kid. The Boy looked at his father, his eyes shining with amusement and interest. " Are we really on the outside of the hill, Dad? Or have you magicked us inside to another world ? " "We're outside, safe enough," rejoined the doctor, " but it's probably one of the The Princess of the Hilltop 9 most curious communities in the world. Poverty is picturesque in a place like this," he went on, indicating the magnificent view of blue bay and beautiful surrounding hills. " Picturesque, yes," agreed the Boy, " but look out ! You're getting tangled up in that old bed-spring! Evidently," he laughed, as the doctor untangled himself from the wires, " the inhabitants of this bird's-nest village look so much at the out- side view that they haven't time to see this unsightly muddle at their feet. All right, Dad?" " All right," rejoined the doctor, throw- ing the snarl of wire aside. " Here we are at the castle of the Princess Bianca," and he clambered down over a pile of empty bottles and walked along a weed-bordered path to a doorsill made of two old soap-boxes. The Boy stared at the " castle " ; it was little more than a whitewashed shed, orig- inally built of scrap lumber and patched 10 The Whimsy Girl with fragments of canvas, bits of old tin, or lengths of waste wood. There was no window, but the single narrow door was ajar, held open by a crude hook that fas- tened it to the wall. The doctor stood for a moment on the threshold, and the Boy joined him, looking curiously at the little patient within. She was a tiny girl, thin and white. Her eyes and hair looked dark at the first glance, but when the Boy stepped indoors he could see that there were golden lights in the eyes and that her hair was a rich bronze. A grave sweetness gave distinc- tion to her delicate face, and she tried to smile in response to the doctor's cheery greeting. "How's my little Bianca to-day?" he asked, stepping close to the bed. She looked at him, her eyes very solemn. " How do you feel ? " he pursued. She shook her head wearily. The Princess of the Hilltop 11 " Punk," she answered. The Boy could not repress a gasp, but the small patient was giving her whole attention to his father. " Is the pain so hard? " asked the doctor, sympathetically. "Bet it is," said the little girl. "It's sump'n fierce." " Well, well, well," he rejoined heartily, to cover a choking sound from the Boy. " And I thought that it wasn't going to hurt much, didn't I?" " Yes," she assented. " You said that it wouldn't be very bad, but I knew you were only jollyinV Again the Boy had a struggle to control his laughter. Slang passed unchallenged among his friends, circulating as the ac- cepted coinage of speech, but slang from a child of this ethereal type was very differ- ent from slang on the lips of a college fresh- man. She could not be more than five years 12 The Whimsy Girl old, he thought; six, at most. Keenly in- terested, he came forward to be presented. " My boy, my son Robert, Bianca," said the doctor. The little girl studied him in shy silence. " He's a big fellow, isn't he ? " went on Dr. Burchard. " But, you see, he hasn't had to lie in bed all his life, as you have. Sometimes he helps me when he goes about with me ; I'll have him give me a hand with you now, just to show you." And while the doctor directed, the Boy moved quickly about, helping to get the lit- tle patient more comfortably settled in her ragged bed. " It's pretty mussy," she apologised, " and not so very clean, but the kids on the hill come to see me, y' know, an' they climb all over it." " All over your bed ! " exclaimed the Boy. " Sure," she rejoined. " Seven or eight of 'em, sometimes. It's good an' wide; four The Princess of the Hilltop 13 of us sleep in it every night," she added, proudly. The doctor looked up swiftly and frowned. " You've never told me that before," he said. " Isn't there any other place for those children to sleep? " " Nope," she answered, with uncomplain- ing candour. " That's the worst of it with babies. If they were kittens y' could put 'em into baskets an' shove 'em under the stove, but y' can't do that with children." " No, I suppose not," agreed the doctor, but he was still frowning, and he added abruptly : " Where's your mother ? " " Oh, she's got a job. Mis' Steinhauer, the butcher's wife, got a new baby, an' ma's goin' to take care o' the old one an' help with the work. She's goin' to get a dollar a day for it, just as much as the old man makes," she boasted, sweetly. "Can you beat that?" chaffed the Boy. But the doctor looked grave and turned 14 The Whimsy Girl away ; he crossed to the door and stood there, his thoughtful frown deepening. " He'd have to go some to beat it," ob- served Bianca. " But I guess he must come near it. The kids on the hill are all crazy about his aut'mobile; one o' them said that it must be worth pretty near a hundred dol- lars. Is it? " she demanded. " It's worth pretty far from a hundred dollars," said the Boy, smiling as he men- tally reviewed the expensive fittings of the doctor's new machine. " I thought so," said Bianca, with a wise little nod of her head. " He couldn't spend that much on one aut'mobile. Doctors don't really work, do they ? " " I've always thought they do, Bianca," said the Boy. " Well, they always seem to wear their Sunday clothes," she reasoned. " I've never seen him with a blue flannel shirt on, not even once." The Princess of the Hilltop 15 The Boy laughed ringingly, and the doc- tor strolled back from the open door and made ready to leave. " I'm coming again to-morrow," he said. " Will you ask your mother to be here, Bianca? Tell her that I want to talk to her; that I must see her." " I'm coming, too," said the Boy. " Will you let me come, Bianca? " " Sure," she rejoined in her light, high voice, and her dark eyes sparkled with pleasure. "Do you like my house?" she unexpectedly added. " Like your house ! " The Boy was some- what taken aback. " Why, your house is is all right, Bianca, isn't it? " " Yes, I guess so," said the little girl, relieved. " Anyway, the hill is, an' we have the Bay an' we have the winds oh, they're lots of fun. The little ones sing an' the big ones scold, an' up in our sky the clouds run races but the black ones nearly always 16 The Whimsy Girl beat. There aren't any black ones there now, are there? " She bent her neck, scan- ning her world of hillside and bay and sky. "No; they're just the fat, lazy, white kind; they're the breasts of the sky swans, sailing about in the blue." She lay silent watching them, and the Boy waited in wordless amaze. " Sometimes," she resumed in a mysterious undertone, " the clouds come very low, an' y' can hear 'em talking, but y' have to listen hard or y' won't hear what they say; I often know when they're goin' to have a party, an' they dress up in pink an' laven- der and yellow. It's always in the afternoon when the grey water goes out o' the bay, an' the gold water comes in an' splashes about the ships." "You little little whimsy girl!" ex- claimed the Boy. " Can you get all that much from just the bit of the world that you can see through this doorway?" He The Princess of the Hilltop 17 studied the view permitted to her; the hill sloped abruptly down from the doorway, cut- ting off from her sight everything but the sky and the Bay and a glimpse of distant hills lying beyond the water and the mist. "Get all all what?" The little girl was startled back into her commonplace mood. " All that you've been telling me," said the Boy, his keen glance coming back to her. " I must go now, but I'll come to-mor- row, and we'll talk things over," and he darted out at the doorway to follow his father. Dr. Burchard was hastening up the steep path, his head down, his face very serious, and the Boy followed in silence until they reached the motor-car and Baptiste. The car was still an object of curious attention, but the valiant guard patrolled his two feet of clear space and the children kept at a safe distance. In front of the machine and 18 The WUmsy Girl behind it Baptiste had compact stacks of rocks, placed within easy reach. " To keep off the fraish keed," he ex- plained, with the most engaging of smiles. " Sometimes fraish keed come, make lots tr-rouble not stay back weeth other bunch ; then I peeck up r-rock, an' he get away prett' queeck." He had demolished the neat piles and scattered the rocks by the time Dr. Bur- chard entered the car. The Boy waited to pay Baptiste and then sprang in beside his father. " Dad," he said, eagerly, " I want to come again to see Bianca, if I may. She's the most interesting " " She's the most pitifully neglected child I know," said the doctor, roused. " Fancy crowding other children into that bed with her at night! There's something wrong with the machine, Boy. Get out and look at the crank, will you? " The Princess of the Hilltop 19 The Boy rose instantly and leaped out of the car, but instead of the light touch of his feet on firm ground, he felt the jar of an unsteady obstacle, a sharp wrench at his knee as he struggled to regain his balance; and he went down heavily among the rocks that Baptiste had scattered over the road. CHAPTER II A CHANGE OF ROUES IT was more than a week before the Boy again made the trip with his father up the steep slope of Telegraph Hill. This time he was the centre of interest as the band of children followed, for beside him in the tonneau lay a pair of new crutches. Many of the chil- dren had been present when he fell on the rocks that Baptiste had scattered in the road, and the accident had been fully dis- cussed, so that those who had not seen it knew almost as much about it as the ones who had. Crowding about the car they clamoured questions and congratulations in a confused jumble that made it hard for the Boy to listen to what his father was saying. He understood without hearing the 20 A Change of Roles 21 words, however, and was ready, as usual, with a cheerful rejoinder. " I'll be careful, of course, Dad. I prom- ise on my crutches. I'll step over every ambushed tomato can and every lurking pile of ashes, and * they sho'ly won't git me,' for I will watch out," he finished, gaily para- phrasing Riley. The doctor looked dubious. " If I were convinced that it would do any good," he said. " I mean, of course, in proportion to the risk you take " " Why, Dad, you know I did Donald Hallowell no end of good just by telling him stories when he was strapped down to his bed. I can't go to school with this outfit of extra wooden legs," and he indicated the crutches. " I'm loafing around most of the day with only half enough to do. And if I can help Bianca as I did Don if I can make her forget her pain just by spinning a yarn or two " 22 The Whimsy Girl "Donald's case was very different," re- monstrated the doctor. "He didn't live in a shack on a cliff, and you weren't laid up with a badly wrenched knee. The very effort of walking down the hill to her house may be too much for you." " Let me try, Dad," coaxed the Boy. " If I think there's any danger of hurting myself I'll stand still and call for you; I'll submit to being ingloriously led back to the machine without even a glance at the castle of the Princess Bianca." " And if you don't have to call for me?" " Why, then, you'll go on to your other patients, leaving Bianca to the end of your list. When you get through there I'll go home with you." The doctor was still unconvinced when he brought his machine to a standstill at the top of the hill, and he watched with some concern as the Boy made his way down the A Change of Roles 23 slope, sending back a mock-heroic mono- logue : "Hah, you lie in wait, Sir Lard Can? Out upon you ! Think you that I fear you, Corn Cob? And you, nestling in the young April grass, what are you? By me faith, an ancient coffee pot, sans spout, sans bot- tom, sans top, sans everything! A blow of me spear and you're down, villain, over the cliff! Aha!" His crutches sent the various objects fly- ing right and left, but he stopped before the pile of bottles above Bianca's house. The doctor was watching, and the Boy smiled re- assuringly as he declaimed: "Sir Robert fixed his fiery eye Upon a pile of bottles high, Striving to meet the arching sky. " ' Full many a knight there might be found Who'd scatter thee upon the ground; But I I boldly walk around ! ' " 24 The Whimsy Girl And " boldly " he walked around them, waving a crutch from Bianca's doorsill as the doctor started the automobile. The little girl was lying very still, cuddled low over something that she was fondling in her hands. She straightened up with a crow of greeting as the Boy looked in at the door, but her changeful face paled at sight of his crutches, and her eyes opened wide. " Aw, kid," she said in her soft, sweet voice, " do you have to carry them broom- sticks to get around ? " " That's what I do," cheerily rejoined the Boy. " But I'm lucky to get around at all in this much time." "Yes," said the little girl. "I think you're right, there." And she added wist- fully : " D' you s'pose the doctor could rig up a pair for me? eight-year-old size? " " Eight ! " cried the Boy in astonishment. " You're not eight, are you, Bianca ? " " Eight and then some," she seriously an- A Change of Roles 25 swered. " Eight when it was raining so hard ; January, isn't it, when it rains? An' now it's " "It's April," said the Boy. "Just the beginning of the month of crocus and iris. Do you know the iris, Bianca? " " Sure," she replied. " Lots o' Irish live on the hill. There's the Higginses an' the Reillys an' the Connellys d' you know their white goat? An' " " I said iris," explained the Boy, laugh- ing. " It's a flower, a spring flower " " Jiminy ! A flower with springs in it?" " Oh, no. I'll have to get some for you and let you see. May I sit down? " he asked, perching on the edge of her bed. " Not there \ Jee-rusalem, no ! " she shrieked. " There's somebody right under the covers there. It's Garibaldi. Didn't y* see him go down ? " "Who? What? Where?" The Boy was 26 The Whimsy Girl groping about in excitement over the spot indicated. "Here. Don't move! Ah-h-h!" She stretched down in some inexplicable way, and dragged up from the tangle of torn bed covers a blinking horned toad. " I was talking to him when you came in," she explained, " and then I forgot him. But I don't want him all squashed up," she went on, caressing him tenderly. " No, of course not," warmly agreed the Boy, looking at the curious creature. " Where in the world did you get him ? " " One o' the kids on the hill has an uncle that lives up in the country, an' he sent him down to me ; sent him scrunched up in a tiny box with his tail bent up over his head. I thought he'd never get straightened out, but he's all right now," she observed, screwing a critical eye on the odd little pet in her palm. "What do you call him?" A Change of Roles 27 " Julius Caesar Garibaldi." " Some class to that name," observed the Boy. " I could have had one twice as long," said Bianca, " but that's long enough for a horned toad; don't y' think so?" " Seems so to me," he gravely agreed. " Are you fond of naming people and things, Bianca? " She blushed and was silent. " You make me think of the little chap that gave me my name," he went on. " Your name? " Bianca looked up ques- tioningly. " Yes. The little fellow who called me the Nonsense Boy. He was very ill two years ago, and I used to go to see him and tell him stories, and " " Oo-o-o, can you tell stories ? " The Boy fidgeted under her awestruck admiration. "Why, yes, a a little," he said with 28 The Whimsy Girl an embarrassed flush. " I thought you might like to have me tell you some. Would you? " " Oo, ye-e-s," was the rapt answer, and the Boy's embarrassment grew. " I'm really not a head-liner," he said, hurriedly, " though I have told some listen- able yarns. I wonder why they don't call a teller of tales a tale-r? They ought to, don't you think? ; Now as your tale-r will you try me? I keep my thread and scissors by me; The words that tell the tale completely I pin upon the pattern neatly; Then smitch and stitch, and lo! I cut A tale that's simply great all but" The Boy ended with a laugh, but the little girl was regarding him gravely. " You could tell stories about awfully swell people, couldn't you? The people that live on Vanna Savenue an' Paciffy Kites, an' never eat anything but cake an' ice-cream." " Well, I've never observed that among A Change of Roles 29 the people who live on Van Ness Avenue and Pacific Heights. But I'd rather tell you a story about something else. See that ship down there in the Bay, with all the white petticoats on it " " You mean sails," she interrupted. " She's a four-masted schooner, and her sails are very white like like the ones that the white bird followed." " The white bird? " he repeated. " What white bird?" The little girl's eyes looked far beyond her visitor, out across the spreading blue of the Bay's clear waters, into immeasurable stretches; the Boy felt himself thrust aside by the remoteness of her glance. I* The white bird," she said, slowly, " that set out to search the seas for the child's father. She was a little sick child, and he used to hold her in his arms when he came home. He was a good father that talked." 30 The Whimsy Girl " A father that talked ! " repeated the Boy. " Doesn't your father talk, Bianca? " " No, he never talks," she answered, her grave, luminous eyes meeting his, but with a half-absent gaze. " Only good-bye, when he goes away, but he's a good father," she hastily added. " The old woman talks a heap, but he never does. This father, though, could talk to beat the cars. An' one night he talked so long an' so soft that the child fell asleep in his arms, an' he had to put her down an' go off, for the ship was waiting and her sails were spread. " And after he was gone the child woke up and cried, because she hadn't kissed him good-bye. They told her to be still, but she couldn't ; the best she could do was to try to cry without making noise, but she used to cry every night. " And one night when the fire had burned low, and everybody had gone to bed, a white bird came out of the chimney and flew A Change of Holes 31 down beside her. And he said, in chirpy talk: " * Why are you crying ? ' " The child told him all about it, and he said, * Give me your tears. And now give me the kiss that you had for your father.' " So the white bird took the tears under his wing and he took the kiss in his bill and started north." "North?" The Boy was listening, curi- ous and intent. " Sure. To the big white world that's in the north. That's where the father's ship had gone, beating against the wind; it was such a strong wind that the white bird was blown back again and again, many miles and many days. His wings grew tired, and he had to stop very often to rest, but he kept the tears and he kept the kiss, and after every little rest he flew on, always keeping to the north. " One day he found himself flying into a 32 The Whimsy Girl whacking big storm; all the winds in the world seemed to be tangled up and sweeping over the ocean. He couldn't fly around such a big storm; he wouldn't go back; he had to fly through it. " The winds beat him down, and the rains tried to drown him, and the big waves reached up to swallow him, but he kept on until he was nearly worn out. His poor wet wings could hardly flap any more, especially the left one, where he had tucked the tears." The Boy's lips parted to ask a question, but Bianca was not looking at him. " All suddenly," she went on, " a rainbow came dancing out of the sky, and the wind and the sea stopped fighting and quieted down, growling a little bit, but not enough to frighten the white bird. He drifted down to rest on a long, smooth wave, and a tiny silver fish hopped up to say good-morning. " ' Good-morning,' said the white bird, A Change of Roles 33 very weakly, for he was tired. The little fish noticed it in a moment, and he said: " ' What's the matter, White Bird? ' "The white bird told him all about it, and how tired he was and everything, and the little fish said: " * Poor White Bird ! Let me help you. Take a blue thread from the rainbow and string the tears on it; then drop one end to me and I'll draw you along.' " So the white bird strung the tears on the rainbow, and he tossed one end to the little silver fish, and true enough, the fish caught it in his mouth and swam along, so that the white bird didn't have to flap his poor tired wings; just held them level and sailed along. On they went until they came to the great white north, and there they found the father and the ship. " The storm had broken the masts and carried away the sails ; the snow and the ice 34 The WUmsy Girl shut her in, and no one knew how to find the channel to sea again. " The white bird perched on the broken mast and looked about. None of the men noticed him; they had grown tired of wait- ing for help. Down in the cabin the father sat with his charts spread out about him, but he was tired and had fallen asleep. Very softly the white bird flew down to him and put the kiss on his mouth. " He woke up calling the child's name, and opened his eyes just in time to see the white bird dart out at the doorway. Then he ran up on deck. " * Come,' he said to the other men. * The white bird flying aloft will lead us to the sea! ' " He didn't say why he thought so, but of course that was the magic of the kiss and the love in it. " But it was true. The white bird was still keeping hold of the rainbow chain of A Change of Roles 35 tears, and the silver fish swam out to sea, leading the ship to deep water. The men fixed up the rigging, and they had fair winds all the way as they followed the white bird home." " But, Bianca, how did the white bird " The Boy's voice seemed to recall her from a great distance. She gave a violent start and looked up at him, her face scarlet. " Jee-rusalem ! I didn't mean to tell you a story," she said. " I tell 'em to our own kids an' the kids on the hill, but I never could tell stories to you." " Well, you've done it," declared the Boy, " but what I want to know is " " But you were going to tell me a story," protested Bianca. " And hasn't he told it? " came a big voice, and Dr. Burchard stood in the door- way. " Well, no, not exactly, Dad," answered the Boy. 36 The Whimsy Girl He was still somewhat dazed by the turn events had taken, and even after the doctor had finished his work and had helped his son up to the motor-car the Boy was uncertain as to just how it had come about that Bianca had told the story and not he. She was a queer little body, a most puzzling sprite, and he wondered where she had gathered the ele- ments that made up her story. " Instinct and inheritance might explain her language ; some of the phrases might be but echoes of tales told or read to her; but the lift of her mind, the curious withdrawal from the material details of her surroundings, these were not so easy to explain. Before reaching home he had made the doctor promise that he should be allowed to come again to see this little Whimsy Girl. CHAPTER III THE CROOKED MOON SPRITE " SPIKE McGiNTY, if y' don't sit quiet on the foot o' that bed y' can't stay," pro- nounced Bianca from her pillowed throne of authority. " An' if Johnny Steinhauer wants t' stay he'll have t' sit on the floor an' if he goes he'll take the baby," she fur- ther decreed. John Steinhauer, a tow-headed lad of eleven, promptly sidled down to the floor, after an apprehensive glance at the fat Steinhauer baby, placidly sleeping beside Bianca in her bed. "An* you two Dago kids " The two little girls on the side of the bed looked up with swift appeal. " Well, you can stay where you are," said Bianca, relenting, " only you move a little farther, Giovanna. Anina 37 38 The Whimsy Girl isn't as heavy as you are." Obediently they shifted, a harsh word of protest from the Italian Giovanna swiftly silenced by a low rebuke from Anina, the soft-voiced Sicilian girl, who sat quietly knitting lace. Outside the languorous sunshine shed its mellow warmth, and the faint breeze wafted it into the room in delicious waves. Bianca's pet chicken, free to ramble in and out of the house at will, picked at the tender green weeds growing in the chinks of the doorstep, and her thin kitten purred as it lay cuddled at her feet. The Steinhauer baby slept serenely, untroubled by the fact that a new baby had deposed him and now ruled in the home over which he had been king for some- thing more than a year. Bianca's slim fingers were busily working over the buttonholes of a queer looking gar- ment that faintly suggested having once been white. " I wish some one on this hill 'd get a The Crooked Moon Sprite 39 new baby coat," she presently observed. " Last time the Grassos had it, an* they sewed the Italian flag to the sleeve for Do- mencino's christening, an' they didn't take it off when they washed it, an' now look at it ! " Rainbow streaks of blue and green and red trailed over its lengths, and the little group studied it silently, keenly aware that this meant a grievous injury to the property of the community. " Now when the Reillys had it, they kep' it for nearly a year, an' they didn't get it half as stained up as this. Why doesn't your Aunt Lena buy a new one for the new baby, Johnny ? " But even as Bianca asked, her thin cheek flushed with the boldness of the idea. " Tante Lena she get married soon on " began Johnny, and then the derisive grin on Spike McGinty's face shook him out of his dialect. " She's goin' to be married," he briskly amended, " an' o' course she'll have to spend her money on herself." 40 The Whimsy Girl " Goin' to be married!" rejoined Bianca, with true feminine interest in this bit of gossip. " Not to that Jew peddler, I hope." " No, no ; she marry Fritz Kleinman," in- formed Johnny. " Oh, yes." Bianca's flashing teeth showed in her approving smile. " I know him. He drives the groc'ry wagon. He's a dandy feller. Often he climbs down here an' gives me a banana or a lemon. He's all right." " He's Dutch, though," put in Spike McGinty, disparagingly. "Well, what about it?" hotly demanded Johnny. "Ain't Dutch just as good as you? " " Easy, kids," commanded Bianca. " Y' can't stay if y' don't be quiet," and the threat of battle dissolved. " Anyway, I ain't sure that the doctor's boy's comin' to-day. He said he'd tell me some stories, an' then The Crooked Moon Sprite 41 I didn't have sense enough to give him a chance; I did all the talkin' myself. An' maybe he wouldn't want to tell a story to so many Lids, even though I did say y' could stay." " I can't go," put in Johnny, " till the baby wakes up." " An' I'd like to finish this scallop before I go," timidly suggested Anina. " 'N' I'm waitin' f'r 'Nina," added Gio- vanna. " Yes, I s'pose you'll all stay," observed Bianca, with questionable cordiality. " An' of course the room isn't very much crowded, long 's our own kids stay out playin'." " They're down by my house," offered Johnny Steinhauer. " We got a whole box abbles." " Apples ! " exclaimed Bianca, with a swift gasp. " A whole box ! Oh, sure they'll stay." A flush came again into her face, and her fingers worked very fast. 42 The Whimsy Girl " Why don't y ' go get her one, Dutchy ? " asked Spike McGinty, but Bianca shook her head as Johnny slowly turned to have the order confirmed. " Maybe the old woman '11 think of bringin' me one herself," she said, with a shade of wistfulness in her tone. " An', anyway, Johnny might pick out the kind of a one that the princess ate, an' that would get me into trouble, sure." Her laugh rang out gaily, and her eyes danced with the light of a fanciful idea. " What princess? " begged Spike McGinty, hungrily, and the other children sat hushed and waiting. " Well, she was a princess that didn't have any mother, not any at all ; not even a step one to make a bluff at being good to her. But she was a princess, all right, an' she wore satin dresses every day playing mud pies, an' a long velvet one on Saturday when she scrubbed the kitchen floor. An' she had serv- The Crooked Moon Sprite 43 ants, an' nurses, an' people to read to her an' amuse her, an' all the fairies of the moon were her friends, an' all the fairies in the king's garden played with her an' loved her. An' the king said that twice her weight in gold an' diamon's was not worth so much as an hour with her. He loved her very much, an' always cuddled her up beside him on his throne when 'important things were happening, an' he took off his crown an' rode her on his back when there wasn't any- thing 'mportant doing. " But one day he had to go away, an' he was dreadfully sorry because the daughter- princess couldn't go. So he called the whole bunch of palace people, servants an' messen- gers an' jesters an' all, an' he told them that he was going, an' that nothing was to happen to the princess while he was away. " An' then he went into the garden an' he called all the garden fairies an' he said: 44 The Whimsy Girl ' Guard her while her father is not here. You know how dear she is to me, an' how slow the hours will be while I am away from her.' An' all the garden fairies cried an' promised. An' that night he came in an' kissed the little princess good-night in her bed, an' then he looked up into the sky an' he called : ' Oh, fairies of the moon, I am a king, and many hearts and hands attend me, but though I am a king, I beg you to keep watch over my little daughter while I am gone.' An' the moon fairies came flying down on silver arrows, an' they promised, every one, he thought, an' he went away. " But there was one old Crooked Moon Sprite who lived in a dark alleyway in the moon, an' she was just as horrid as the others were lovely. She had never liked the king, an' she thought that the princess had no right to live since her mother, the queen, had died, an' she was just mean enough to wish to make the king unhappy. The Crooked Moon Sprite 45 " So she sneaked out of her dark moon alleyway, an' tumbled down the sky wrapped in a raggedy old black cloud, an' nobody saw her. Down she came an' hid in a big tree in the king's garden." "An' didn't any one spot her then?" eagerly demanded Spike. But Bianca did not hear; she was too far away in the realm of fancy ; too far to hear the uneven thud of a crutch on the rickety walk or to see the Boy, who glanced in at the absorbed circle and hastily withdrew so that he might not interrupt the tale. Full of her story the little girl swept on. " The crows in the big tree scolded most awfully about her being there, but she stayed anyway. An' in the morning out came the princess, happy as could be, playing in the sunshine an' talking to the garden fairies. She came dancing along, an' the Crooked Moon Sprite shook the big tree, making be- lieve that she was a wind, an' tossed a cherry 46 The Whimsy Girl down at the child's feet. The princess laughed an' stooped to pick it up, but a little dumb fairy was watching, an' he snatched it up before the princess could reach it. He couldn't speak to tell her, but he knew that the cherry was magicked an' that it would hurt her. The Crooked Moon Sprite was angry, an' she threw a plum at him an' knocked him down. He rolled over an' over, an' before he could get up that dreadful Crooked Moon Sprite threw down an apple, a big, lovely one, with a red side an' a green side, an' the princess ran quickly an' took a bite out of the red side of it. "An' what do you think happened? It changed her into a mouse ! '' The poor little thing ran indoors squeal- ing for her nurse, for of course she had no princess voice any more. But the nurse screamed an' got up on a chair, an' the more the princess squealed, the louder the nurse yelled. The Crooked Moon Sprite 47 " A maid came running in, an' the mouse- princess ran up on her sleeve, but the maid was frightened, too, an' beat down the mouse with her hands, never dreaming that she was beating her own dear princess. " Then the princess ran out into the hall, an' the maid an' the nurse followed, calling to the sweeping boy, ' Kill that mouse ! Kill that mouse ! ' An' he chased her with his broom. " She got out of the house an' into the stable, but a big cat sprang out to eat her, an' she ran back to the house again an' went into the king's library. " One of the king's wise men was there writing letters, an' the little princess thought that he would surely know her, but when she went up to him an' began to speak in her tiny mouse voice he jumped an' threw the poker at her. She got out of the way just in time an' ran up on top of a bookcase. Then he put his spectacles back on his nose 48 The Whimsy Girl an' looked about; he couldn't see the mouse, so he thought she was gone, an' he sat down to his letters again. " But pretty soon he was interrupted. There was a great crying through the house. * Where is the princess ? Where is the prin- cess? The princess is lost!' An' out in the garden the fairies were crying : ' Who is to tell the king? Oh, where is the prin- cess ? ' " He went out into the hall, and there they were, nurses and cooks an' other useful things, all in a bunch an' crying : ' Where is the princess? ' " An' while they were crying an' search- ing, in walked the king." " I'll bet there was a rough-house then ! " interjected Spike. " An' just behind the king," went on Bianca, ignoring him, " limped the little dumb fairy only he wasn't dumb any more. He had been around the world to the palace The Crooked Moon Sprite 49 of the fairy queen to ask her to give him a tongue so that he might save the princess, and on his way back he had met the king and had told him the whole story. " * The princess is lost, your majesty,' said one of the nurses, an' the others howled. " * And there's a mouse in the library, your majesty, and I'm afraid it will nib- ble your majesty's books,' said the wise man. " The king pushed him aside. " ' Stupid wise man ! ' he said. * Don't you know that the mouse is our princess? ' " He went to the library door and called : * Little daughter ! Little princess ! ' " The little mouse came scampering down an' cuddled in his hand. ' Look at her eyes,' said the king. * Do you suppose that any mouse has eyes like hers ? ' " An' they looked an' they could see that the mouse had the eyes of the princess. 50 The Whimsy Girl " * Make way there ! ' called the king, an' the dumb fairy that wasn't dumb any more came limping in, carrying the apple. " ' Here, Princess Honey-heart ! ' said the king, an' the tiny mouse nibbled a bite out of the green side of the apple, an' changed back again into their own dear princess. " There was a shout of joy from the crowd, and the king kissed her an' kissed her. But he soon put on his frown again, an' he said : ' Now to settle with the Crooked Moon Sprite,' an' he went out into the garden. " It wasn't night yet, so she couldn't get back to her dark moon alleyway, an' she was all curled up, hiding in her raggedy black cloud, but the king found her. He lifted her out of the tree an' held her up by two fingers. " ' Now,' he said, ' we'll see how you like red apple.' An' though she struggled an' cried an' tried to bite, he made her swallow a piece of the red side of the apple, an' she The Crooked Moon Sprite 51 turned into a mouse, scampering crazily about in his hand. " Every one thought it was good enough for her all but the princess. " Oh, Daddy-King,' she said, hold her ! Don't put her down! The cats will chase her an' the maids will beat her, an' the sweep- ing boy will drive her out with his broom ! ' " ' But she ought to be punished,' said the king. ' She turned you into a mouse, and she ought to be one for a while.' " * Then let her be a white mouse,' the princess begged, * an' I'll keep her in a cage an' feed her, an' when she's very, very sorry, we'll let her have a bite of the green side of the apple an' turn back to herself again.' " An' so they did," finished Bianca, re- turning from the remote wilds of fancy and smiling upon her audience. " Wow, but she was easy," scoffed Spike. " She wasn't either ! " warmly retorted Bianca. 52 The Whimsy Girl " Of course she wasn't," agreed the Boy, strolling in. Bianca's cheek flamed and was pale again. " When when did you come ? " she fal- tered. " When you had this little bunch so hyp- notised that none of you heard me," airily rejoined the Boy. " We were all under your spell. Going to do any more to-day, Witchie? " He settled himself on the side of the bed, whence the small girls had fled at his approach. Spike McGinty was sid- ling out at the door, and signalling to Johnny Steinhauer. " I gotta wait for mine baby," explained Johnny, but " mine baby " was already sit- ting up, rubbing his eyes with his fat fists. " I t'ink it's time for his boddle already," muttered Johnny, and hoisted the heavy baby to his shoulder. In a lusty yell the baby expressed his resentment of the sudden shift, The Crooked Moon Sprite 53 and energetic cries came echoing back long after Johnny had struggled up over the rough path and beyond the Boy's amused gaze. " No wonder the kids on the hill like to loaf around here, you little spell-binder," said the Boy, leaning on his crutch as he looked at Bianca. She remained silent and painfully em- barrassed, her eyes down, her fingers work- ing fast. " My laurels are as the dried corn husks of an old tamale beside yours, to localise a metaphor," said the Boy. " To to paralyse a semaphore? " echoed Bianca, uncertainly. " Not quite," said the Boy, and he laughed. " But as a wandering bard, I thought I might be not without honour here. And be- hold, a simple maid tells a tale that makes my mightiest effort Where did you learn to tell stories, Bianca? " 54 The Whimsy Girl "Why, I I don't tell 'em very much " " Oh, come now, Scheherezade " " That ain't my name." " No, but it's the name of a lady who once told stories with some success " " Stories ! " came the doctor's voice at the door. " Isn't this story meeting yet ad- journed? " " For the present, yes," answered the Boy. " But we'll call another very soon, won't we, Witchie?" Bianca did not answer, but she laid her hand in the clasp of the Boy's long fingers and smiled at him. " Dad," said the Boy, as they went up the slope from the cottage, " isn't there some way to get that little girl out of here when you've made her well? put her somewhere to get an education, a good one? " "Why, really, Boy, I don't know. Do you suppose she'd want an education, or The Crooked Moon Sprite 55 appreciate it? She's a bright child, but Of course I haven't ever thought of it." But the Boy had plunged into a maze of possibilities, and he sat silent, thinking very hard, all the way home. CHAPTER IV THE SEA TYKES AGAIN the quiet of a warm spring afternoon enveloped the tiny house on the cliff. Lan- guid with the sweetness of it, the Boy, a formal caller, sat upon the only chair in the house, bracing its four uncertain legs against the latched-open door. " It's a whacking good idea to keep this door open, Witchie, isn't it?" he observed, looking out upon the Bay panorama, shift- ing and changing in new and beautiful com- binations before his eyes. " Bet it is," she replied, " but the doctor had a fierce time with the old woman to make her stop shutting it." " They didn't keep it closed before he came, did they ? " " Sure they did." 56 The Sea Tykes 57 " A room like this, with no ventilation with only one door and no window " "Window? What's a window?" " What's a window? " The Boy looked at her blankly, and then he remembered. The child had spent all her life in this one room, and she had never seen a window. But she was full of surprises like this ; many of the common things of life were unknown to her, and yet her thought and experience some- times touched topics that the Boy had not encountered. " A window, Witchie," he ex- plained, " is is a sort of frame filled in with panes of glass " and then the flash of a sudden inspiration made his words halt. " Oh, yes ; I've seen 'em in books," said Bianca. " Sort of a lot of little picture frames all stuck together in a bunch. I forgot that people had 'em in houses. Haven't we got one in our other room? " The Boy peered uncertainly into the du- 58 The Whimsy Girl bious shadows of the castle's other apart- ment, but he forbore to investigate. " Well, anyway," resumed Bianca, " the doctor wants the door open an' he said so to my father, an' now it stays open 'most all day. It's open even when it rains, some- times, and then I lie here and look at the cross little waves fighting down in the Bay." She laughed softly at the recollection, but the Boy had gone back to his flash of in- spiration and he was mentally taking measure of the southeast wall of the room and esti- mating its possibilities. The silence of the soft spring day was unbroken until a butter- fly hesitated at the door, hovering there on wavering wings. The Boy sat forward and addressed it: 1 Rash and foolish butterfly, Pause not here, but hasten by; Here a witch resides, and you In her cauldron she would stew; Or she'd cook you in a pie, Reckless, silly butterfly ! " The Sea Tykes 59 Again Bianca laughed. " He won't be- lieve you," she said. " He knows better. Lots of butterflies come in here." And as though in proof of her assertion the butter- fly fluttered into the room. " Sometimes birds come. Once I kept one for three days, and then he got tired of living in a paper bag, so he ate his way out and flew off." " But how did you catch him ? " asked the Boy. " Like this." And lifting her hands high, she closed them over the butterfly. " Oh, Witchie ! " The Boy started up in protest, but the little girl smiled and re- leased her prisoner, unharmed and un- alarmed. " He knows that I wouldn't hurt him," she said. " Now if I happened to be one of the other kids " " By the way, Witchie," interrupted the Boy, " I don't often see the other kids. 60 The Whimsy Girl You're as much alone in this house of yours as well, as Mrs. Hallowell is in hers." "Mrs. what?" " Oh, a friend of mine. A very small lady in a very big house. And you're a very small lady in a not very big house. But how does it happen that the others are not here when I come? " " You don't come at grub times," serenely explained Bianca. " When it's time to feed 'em you bet those kids are Johnny on the spot. But soon 's they're not hungry they get out an' play; spill 'emselves all over the hill. That's what it is to be husky an' strong; they're not like me." The Boy studied her with quick sympathy, but there was no self-pity in the little girl's face. A whimsical thought had hold of her, and the stars of the firmament of her world of fancy were sparkling in her eyes. " Would you be spilling all over the hill, The Sea Tykes 61 playing with the other kids if you were well, Witchie? " he asked. " Me ? Not much ! " was the quick reply. " I'd skid right down the bluff, down through Hooligans' cabbage garden, an' past the places I can't see, right down to the wharf, to play in the water with the Sea Tykes." "The Sea Tykes?" Bianca laughed. " Oh, you don't know 'em, but I've often watched them from here havin' fun down there in the Bay. They do the worst things ! " "What are they like?" "Like like well, they're just tykes; thin ones, mostly, though some are fat. They don't belong in the Bay ; they come in from the Heads when they can play hookey from school." " Oh, they go to school? " " Yes." Bianca's tone was rich with en- joyment. " There's a fat walrus out by the 62 The Whimsy Girl Seal Rocks that teaches them, an' that poor old walrus certainly does have a hard time. She used to live up North, but she thought she was delicate because she weighed only sixteen hundred pounds, so she came down the coast for her health. An' she feels so sorry for the iceberg walruses that didn't come down with her that she spends most of her time, even when she's teaching the Sea Tykes, knitting grey woollen petticoats for the walruses at the North Pole. " But every time she gets 'em pretty well ahead an' has a good big pile of 'em tucked away under the Seal Rocks, the naughty Sea Tykes steal 'em, an' they ravel 'em all into wool an' run into the Bay with 'em. The sea gulls help, an' they catch the ends that the Sea Tykes throw up to them, an' pretty soon the air all over the Bay is full of fine grey wool. The sea gulls pull it with their bills, an' the Sea Tykes fray it with their long, thin fingers, an' it's so fine you can't The Sea Tykes 63 get a thread of it, but it hides everything, rocks an' islan's, an' lights, an' ferry boats, an' the fog whistles blow an' the sea gulls scream, an' the Sea Tykes laugh, and the walrus at the Seal Rocks gets so cross that she strikes out at everything with her tusks." Bianca lost her breath in the haste of her recital, but she caught it again with a laugh- ing gasp. " Sometimes she really does dam- age," she resumed, and a shadow lay for a moment on her face, " for she strikes the. boats that try to get past her. People don't know what makes her cross ; maybe they don't know that she's there at all. " An' then the Sea Tykes usually get sorry, an' anyway it makes them nervous to hear the fog whistles blowing, so they get out their seaweed brooms an' soon the Bay is clear again." " So that's the way the much reviled fog gets into our Bay, is it? " asked the Boy. " Not always," Bianca explained. " That's 64 The Whimsy Girl only the thick, grey, woolly kind. But you know there's another kind thin, silk fog, all dampish in the middle. That spills down from the moon where the Moon Lady sits an' strings beads on grey silk thread ; tiny little beads that look like wet glass ; you've seen them? " The Boy nodded. They were very like wet glass beads, those crystal globules that clung to his coat on foggy mornings. " She wants a dress all covered with beads like the one the lady has in the circus pic- ture, an' she has been stringing them for years. But every time she gets a good start, out marches the Moon Chief " "The what?" " The Moon Chief boss o' the moon, you know. He's all dressed in the silver stuff they wrap yeast cakes in, an' he has a belt that looks like the band of a cigar, an' he carries a banner that says on it that he's the Moon Chief an' that every one must obey The Sea Tykes 65 him. An' he simply won't let the Moon Lady have the dress of beads ; he always takes it away an' throws it down into the water. The poor Moon Lady cries an' cries, an' that's what makes the beads so wet. " The Sea Tykes just love it when the silky wet fog comes down, an' they dash about the Bay an' bump the noses of little boats together, an' they tangle the fisher- men's nets, an' they splash water on the lights of the big ships, trying to put them out. " The bells keep ringing in the fog at the ferry slips an' at Mile Rock an' the fort, an' the walrus school teacher rings her bell loudest of all, but the Sea Tykes don't pay any 'tention. They just frolic around as long 's they dare, an' then they gather up all the fog beads, millions of 'em an' roll 'em into bundles under the water, an' they take them out an' give 'em to the mermaids at the Farallone Islands." 66 The Whimsy Girl " Then they're good friends with the mer- maids," observed the Boy. " Pretty good friends, but Sea Tykes can't be very good, ever. No mermaid dares to go to sleep while the Sea Tykes are out of school; they would tie her to a rock with seaweed ropes or tangle her hair all up or do something else to tease her. But they're good to the mermaids most of the time. " They do other naughty things, though. Once in a while some very 'sclusive party of fishes comes into the Bay, an' if that old walrus school teacher isn't watching out pretty sharp the Sea Tykes get away again, an' they dive down, an' each one catches a 'sclusive fish by its 'sclusive tail an' holds it down hard to the floor of the Bay. In- stead of sailing stylishly in the fish has to walk, an' the Sea Tykes' long legs stretch up through the water, an' the Sea Tykes' naughty heels kick the whole top of the Bay into white bubbles, an' the people say : ' Look The Sea Tykes 67 at the white caps. Must be cold on the water to-day.' " Out on the beach they tease the children who go wading. They steal the shoes left on the sand an' run away with them out into the water ; they'll steal hats or anything, an' think it a big joke. An' it's heaps of fun for them to trip up a child an' make her sit down all of a floppy sudden an' get wet. An' sometimes they gather up the cross, hungry little crabs from under the rocks an' set 'em on the beach to bite toes. " But they do worse things than that. They get out there just at the tide rip, you can see it, but I can't an' they cut the nets an' let the fish out, an' there's nothing to sell when the fisherman comes in at the wharf." " But, Witchie, how do you know about the beach and the fort and and all those things? You've never seen them." " You don't have to see things to know 68 The Whimsy Girl *em," she answered, easily. " The kids tell me about lots o' things." " But the tide rip, and the broken nets " Her face grew sharp anil tense, and lines of past anxiety outlined its seriousness. " If all the things you had to eat were paid for with the fish that come out o' the Bay or put on the bill if the fish didn't come you'd get to know those things, too. Don't y' think y' would? " " Of course I would," agreed the Boy in quick concern. " And of course you know because your father's a fisherman. Did he tell you about the Sea Tykes? " " No. He used to talk about things, but now there 're too many kids around, an* they're noisy. He has to stay out a good deal on the water, too, an' he's pretty tired when he gets in." Her worried little face distressed the Boy, and he rose and came over to her. The Sea Tykes 69 " You'll have to do the talking for him, Witchie. Suppose you tell him about the Sea Tykes. Let me see if I could draw one for you; maybe I could if you'd make some suggestions." On the cover of a pasteboard box he drew a quaint figure with seaweed legs and arms, and a queer head that might have been made of a bit of floating coral. " There ! Does that look anything like it ? " he demanded of Bianca, who watched him with eyes enchanted. " That's great," she breathed, intent on the finishing strokes. " 'R' you goin' to let me keep him ? " " He's yours," said the Boy, " but first let me label him," and he wrote under the picture : " Not very many children like The somewhat snippy name of tyke; But oh, suppose you had to be The kind of tyke that's in the sea? Oh, wow! Oh, whee ! The cold, damp, chilly, splashy sea! 70 The Whimsy Girl "They never dare to come ashore, Even to scan the baseball score; They race with sturgeon, shad or pike, Or any friendly fish they strike; And hike? Sure, Mike! But who would be a deep sea tyke?" Bianca was crowing with delight over this production when the doctor came in upon them, and she flashed laughing messages to the Boy all the time that she was being put through her wearisome and painful routine. "Lots of pluck, hasn't she, Boy?" said the doctor as they went away. " She's as game as an old soldier." The Boy assented, but his thought was wandering. " Funny little Whimsy Girl ! " he said to himself, and aloud : " Dad, we'll have to do something for her. Wonder if Mrs. Hallowell wouldn't help? I'm going to ask her." CHAPTER V THE BOY PLANS A GIFT BIANCA was not expecting the Boy when he arrived next morning. He had heretofore come in the afternoon, but it was not more than nine .o'clock when he reached the cot- tage, the weight of a serious purpose bend- ing his young brows, and his merry whistle gathered into a business-like pucker. He stopped at the soap-box doorstep, and Bi- anca's light voice floated out to him. " Can't you sit just a little stiller 'thout wiggling so much, Tonia ? " she was coaxing. The Boy looked in. Tonia, a small, ragged half-sister, was perched on a box drawn close to Bianca's bed, and the little patient was busily smooth- ing out the snarls in the child's matted brown hair. 71 72 The Whimsy Girl " 'T won't take more than a few minutes, Tonia," the Whimsy Girl was saying, and then she looked up and caught sight of the Boy. " Why, what 'tisn't time for the doctor, is it? " she demanded. " Oh, no," the Boy reassured her. " It really isn't time for me for my usual call, I mean. But at this moment I'm here on a secret mission." " I thought it couldn't be time for the doctor," remarked the child, " 'nless the day was standin' on its head." " Standing on its head ! " echoed the Boy. " That's a funny notion. "Suppose 'twere eight before 'twas seven; Suppose 'twere twelve before eleven; Suppose 'twere nine before 'twas eight, Poor little one would have to wait Until the bunch had all passed by Before she'd dare pipe up : ' Here's I ! '" Bianca laughed, but small Tonia shrank The Boy Plans a Gift 73 back in scowling, unfriendly shyness, and tried to escape from the box where she sat, a prisoner. " Now, Tonia, you can't go," protested Bianca. " Not till you get these boat-lash- in's out o' your hair." The Boy instantly perceived and under- stood the child's shyness. " I'm not going to stay, you know that is, not now," he hurriedly explained. " I'll have to have my secret mission well estab- lished before the doctor gets through with his hospital work and needs the automobile, and that may mean two or three trips up and down the hill. And before I really be- gin, I must consult the authorities. Where's your mother, Witchie?" " At Steinhauer's," answered the little girl. " She has to go there early to dress the baby an' " But the Boy was gone, making brisk progress on his crutches, his eager step elo- 74 The Whimsy Girl quent of his interest in the business in hand. Bianca resumed her task. " I know you hate to have your hair combed, Tonia," she said, " but you'd rather have it hurt a little now than let the Google- winks get hold of it, wouldn't you ? " "Whath Googlewinkth?" demanded the child, fixing her solemn gaze on Bianca. " Googlewinks are well, they're just Googlewinks ; funny things, sort o' birds an' sort o' fairies ; an' they're always lookin' for tangled-up hair to live in," blandly ex- plained Bianca. " Once there was a little girl who wouldn't have her hair combed; she cried an' pulled away, an' did lots of naughty things, so that no one could get the snarly snarls out of her hair. " But one night the Googlewinks came, hundreds of 'em, an' they took all her tangled hair, an' they made swings of it, an' they twisted it into hammocks, an' they The Boy Plans a Gift 75 spliced threads of it together for skipping ropes, an' some of them played Christmas tree an' they sqwuzzled it all out into branches an' hung little dangling things on it. An' all this pulling an' twisting an' tying hurt the little girl a great deal more than just having her hair combed nice an' smooth an' her sister's ribbon tied on it," she fin- ished beguilingly. " Moral : Don't cater to the Google- winks ! " pronounced the Boy, standing smil- ing at the door, but he retreated instantly in obedience to the protest of Bianca's lifted eyebrows. Outside of the house he busied himself with a two-foot rule and a pencil taking measurements along the southeast wall, the business-like pucker again suppressing his whistle. He could hear Bianca within, still cajoling the reluctant Tonia. " An' once," she was saying, " there was a good little girl an' she never made any fuss 76 The Whimsy Girl about having her hair combed. It was al- ways soft an' shiny an' smooth, an' the Swishy-softs an' the Shiny-ohs just loved her. The Swishy-softs are the breeze fairies, an' the Shiny-ohs are the fairies of the sun. The Shiny-ohs made her pretty hair all goldy at the ends, an' the Swishy-softs played little tunes on it, blowing the hairs out like the strings of a harp. So the little girl was always happy, because her hair was beautiful an' because everywhere she went she heard lovely music playing. Now you run along," she finished. " The Googlewinks won't get you this time, Tonia." The small girl scrambled down from her box and darted away, brushing past the Boy as he came in at the door. " That's something of a stunt," remarked the Boy, " tying a kid up with a story when you want to keep it quiet. You have family enough to give you plenty of practice, too, haven't you, Witchie? " The Boy Plans a Gift 77 Bianca's face reddened. " Sometimes I have to tell 'em stories ; it's the only way," she argued. " But the old woman says it's all lies, an' she wishes I'd quit." " Quit ! " echoed the Boy in astonishment. " The lady hasn't much appreciation for the force and value of fiction, has she? " " I suppose not," agreed the little girl. " But the kids love it. Tonia begs every night for the story of the Cloud Doll." The Boy stood for a moment in interroga- tive silence, and she went on: "It begins about the Doll That Nobody Wanted. Of course there couldn't really be such a doll, a doll that nobody would want, but this was only make-believe. An' there was another doll, one that everybody wanted, only nobody could keep her because she wouldn't stay. If you put her in the drawer she was gone when you went to get her, an* if you put her in the bed, she'd slip out from 78 The Whimsy Girl the covers an' hide somewhere else; an' she never stayed in her box a minute. So she kept everybody pretty busy just looking for her, an* they were always terribly excited about her, an' couldn't guess why she was so different. But the reason was that she was a Cloud Doll, an' Cloud Dolls can do more things than some fairies. " One night the Doll That Nobody Wanted was lying awake crying, an' the Cloud Doll lifted up her head an' said : * Hoo-oo ! ' " The Doll That Nobody Wanted was very much astonished, an' she said : * Oh, is that you? I saw them putting you over in the drawer.' " ' Well, I'm not there now,' said the Cloud Doll. * I'm on the saucepan shelf.' " An', sure enough, she was. ' How do you get so far away from where they put you? ' asked the Doll That Nobody Wanted. ' I don't understand.' "The Cloud Doll laughed and said: 'Of The Boy Plans a Gift 79 course you don't. But I'm going farther away than this, an' if you like I'll take you with me. You're not very happy here, are you?' " No, I'm not,* said the Doll That No- body Wanted. ' But where are you going? ' " * To my home in the clouds,' answered the Cloud Doll. * Come. Are you ready to start? ' "The Cloud Doll took the other doll's hands an' they ran to the door; then the Cloud Doll jumped up an' began to splash her legs about just as if she were swimming, an' the Doll That Nobody Wanted did the same thing, an' up they went, up, up, up ! An' it was true. The Cloud Doll did live on a cloud; on the top side of a beautiful pink one. Just as they got below it a mil- lion dolls poked their heads over the edge to see who was coming, an* they shouted : ' It's Prankie ! ' for she was the most mischievous of the cloud dolls. They came crowding to 80 The Whimsy Girl meet her, an' they said: 'Who's with you?' But Prankie only said : ' Oh, a friend of mine.' She didn't want to say : ' It's a doll that nobody wants,' because that would hurt the other doll's feelings, an' besides it wasn't true any more. As soon as the other doll stepped up on the cloud, everybody wanted her. They thought she was darling, an' they kept telling her so. They took her to the Doll Queen's palace, an' to the room where they keep the baby dolls, an' into the kitchen where the dolls cook an' wash the dishes. An' away off at the other end of the cloud was a tiny town where all the tiny dolls lived ; none of them any longer than that," and Bianca measured off about six inches. " It was a lovely place ; the tiny dolls had tiny dogs as little as a pickle, an' kittens as little as a peanut, an' chickens about the size of red beans. The Doll That Nobody Wanted was delighted with everything, an' all the tiny dolls began to whisper together, an' one The Boy Plans a Gift 81 of them said : ' Couldn't you stay here an' take care of us for always ? ' " She was very much surprised, an' she asked them : ' Do the dolls really want me ? ' An' they all began to shout : ' Want you ! Why, everybody wants you ! ' An' so she stayed, an' An' I'm talking to you, an' you're not supposed to be here at all, are you? " " No, I'm not, Miss Whimsy," replied the Boy, starting to his feet. " I have the royal permission of your mother to proceed with my labours, and instead, here I am listening to your tales." " But what are you going to do ? " The Boy screwed up his eyes in a quizzical wink. " I'm planning a present for a captive princess," he said. " And what do you think I want to give her? " " I don't know." Bianca's reply was breathless and eager. 82 The Whimsy Girl " I'm going to give her a proprietary in- terest in the southeastern end of the world," he solemnly confided, and rising, he again surveyed the southeast wall. k &. Print Shop Alvarado Arcade 5J S. Alvarado Street I .<- Angeles DUNKIRK 7373 Uni\ S