Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net RED-ROBIN BY JANE ABBOTT AUTHOR OF KEINETH, HIGHACRES, APRILLY, Etc. With Illustrations By HARRIET ROOSEVELT RICHARDS GROSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS NEW YORK Made in the United States of America ----------------------------------------------------------------------- COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: THE EFFECT WAS VERY CHRISTMASY--Page 196] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- TO BETSY ----------------------------------------------------------------------- CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Prologue--A Story Before the Story 11 I. The Orphan Doll 19 II. A Prince 28 III. The House of Forsyth 39 IV. Red-Robin 49 V. Jimmie 61 VI. The Forsyth Heir 70 VII. Beryl 79 VIII. Robin Asserts Herself 90 IX. The Lynchs 103 X. The Lady of the Rushing Waters 114 XI. Pot Roast and Cabbage Salad 126 XII. Robin Writes a Letter 138 XIII. Susy Castle 151 XIV. A Gift to the Queen 164 XV. The Party 176 XVI. Christmas at the Manor 190 XVII. The House of Laughter 204 XVIII. The Luckless Stocking 220 XIX. Granny 235 XX. Robin's Beginning 250 XXI. At the Granger Mills 266 XXII. The Green Beads 279 XXIII. Robin's Rescue 292 XXIV. Madame Forsyth Comes Home 305 Epilogue--A Story After the Story 318 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Effect Was Very Christmasy Frontispiece The Beautiful Little Girl Had Not Spoken To Her 20 "Couldn't I Run Away With You?" 56 "It's Like The House of Bread And Cake" 119 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- RED-ROBIN PROLOGUE A STORY BEFORE THE STORY On a green hillside a girl lay prone in the sweet grass, very still that she might not, by the slightest quiver, disturb the beauty that was about her. There was so very, very _much_ beauty--the sky, azure blue overhead and paling where it touched the green-fringed earth; the whispering tree under which she lay, the lush meadow grass, moving like waves of a sea, the bird nesting above her, everything-- And Moira O'Donnell, who had never been farther than the boundaries of her county, knew the whole world was beautiful, too. Behind her, hid in a hollow, stood the small cottage where, at that very moment, her grandmother was preparing the evening meal. And, beyond, in the village was the little old stone church and Father Murphy's square bit of a house with its wide doorstep and its roof of thatch, and Widow Mulligan's and the Denny's and the Finnegan's and all the others. Moira loved them all and loved the hospitable homes where there was always, in spite of poverty, a bounty of good feeling. And before her, just beyond that last steep rise, was the sea. She could hear its roar now, like a deep voice drowning the clearer pipe of the winging birds and the shrill of the little grass creatures. Often she went down to its edge, but at this hour she liked best to lie in the grass and dream her dreams to its lifting music. Her dream always began with: "Oh, Moira O'Donnell, it's all yours! It's all yours!" Which, of course, sounded like boasting, or a miser gloating over his gold, and might have seemed very funny to anyone so stupid as to see only the girl's shabby dress and her bare feet, gleaming like white satin against the green of the grass. But no fine lady in that land felt richer than Moira when she began her dreaming. Of late, her dreams were taking on new shapes, as though, with her growth, they reached out, too. And today, as she lay very still in the grass, something big, that was within her and yet had no substance, lifted and sung up to the blue arch of the sky and on to the sun and away westward with it, away like a bird in far flight. Beyond that golden horizon of heaving sea was everything one could possibly want; Moira had heard that when she was a tiny girl. America, the States, they were words that opened fairy doors. Father Murphy had told her much about that world beyond the sea. He had visited it once; had spent six weeks with his sister who had married and settled on a farm in the state of Ohio. His sister's husband had all sorts of new-fangled machinery for plowing and seeding, and for his reaping! And Father Murphy had told her of the free library that was in the town near his sister's home, where he could sit all day and read to his heart's content. Father Murphy (he had spent three whole days in New York) had made her see the great buildings that were like granite giants towering over and walling in the pigmy humanity that beat against their sides like the rise and fall of the tide; he told her of the rush and roar of the streets and of the trains that tore over one's head. And he told her of the loveliness that was there in picture and music. Moira, listening, quivering with the longing to be fine and to do fine things, could always see it all just as though magic hands swept aside those miles of ocean dividing that land of marvel from her Ireland. That was why it was so simple to let her dream-mind climb up and away westward. Her eyes, staring into the paling blue, saw beautiful things and her thoughts revelled in delicious fancies. That slender, gold crowned bit of a cloud--_that_ was Destiny circling her globe, weaving, and moulding, and shaping; Moira O'Donnell's own humble thread was on her loom! And Destiny's face was turned westward. Moira saw shining towers and thronged streets and fields greener than her own. Far-off music sounded in her ears as though the world off there just sang with gladness. And it was waiting for her--her. She saw herself moving forward to it all with quick step and head high, going to a beautiful goal. Sometimes that goal was a palace-place, encircled by brilliant flowers, sometimes a farm like Father Murphy's sister's and a husband who worked with marvelous contrivances, sometimes a free library with all the books one could want, sometimes a dim, vaulted space through which echoed exquisite music-- She so loved that make-believe Moira, moving forward toward glowing things, that she cried aloud: "That's me! _Me!_" And of course her voice broke the spell--the dream vanished; there was nothing left but the fleecy cloud, the meadow lark's song, close by. There was just time enough before her grandmother needed her, to run down to Father Murphy's. She knew at this hour she would find him by his wide doorstep. Fleetly, her bare feet scarcely touching the soft earth, she covered the distance to his house. She ran up behind him and slipped her fingers over his half-closed eyes. He knew the familiar touch of the girl's hands. He patted them with his own and moved aside on his bench that she might sit down with him. "Father," she said, very low, her eyes shining. "It's my dream again." The old priest did not chide her for idling, as her grandmother would have done. The old priest dreamed, too. "Tell me," she went on. "Can one go to school over there as long as one likes? Is it too grown-up I am to learn more things from books?" The old Father told her one could never be too old to learn from books. He loved her craving for knowledge. Had he not taught her himself, since she was twelve? He looked at her proudly. "Father!" She whispered now, and the rose flush deepened in her face. "It's Danny Lynch that comes every evening to see me." Now Father Murphy turned squarely and regarded her with startled eyes. This slip of a girl was the most precious colleen in his flock. "And, Father, it's of America _he_ talks all the time!" The old priest shivered as though from a chill. Sensing his feeling, Moira caught his hand quickly and held it in a close grip. "But if I go away it's not forgetting you I'll be! Oh, who in all this world has been a better friend to Moira O'Donnell? Who has taught Moira but you?" "Child--" "Sure it's grown-up I am! See!" She sprang to her feet and stood slimly erect. "See?" He nodded slowly. "Yes. And your old priest had not noticed. Moira--" he caught her arm, leaned forward and peered into her face as though to see through it into her soul. "Moira, girl, is it courage I have taught ye? And honor? And faith?" Her heart was singing now over the secret she had shared with him. Who would not have courage and faith when one was so happy? With a lift of her shoulders, a tilt of her head, she shrugged away his seriousness. "If you could only see me, Father, as I am in my dream. Oh, it's beautiful I am! And smart! And rich!" "Not money," broke in the priest with a ring of contempt. "Sure, no, not money! But fine things. Oh, Father," she clasped her hands childishly. "It's fine things I want. The very finest in the world! And I want my Danny to want them, too." "Fine things," he repeated slowly. "And will ye know the fine things from the dross, child? That wealth is more times what ye give, aye, than what ye get? It's rich ye are of your fine things if the heart of you is unselfish--" "What talk, you, Father; it's like the croaking frogs in the Widow Finnegan's pond you are! But, sh-h-h, I will tell you what I saw, as real as real, as I lay dreaming--Destiny herself, as fine as you please, sailing to the new world, a-spinning on her loom. She had Moira O'Donnell's poor thread and who knows, Father Murphy, but maybe this minute it's a-spinning it with a thread of gold she is!" The girl's eyes danced. "Ah, 'tis nonsense I talk, for it's a dream it was, but my poor heart's so light it hurts--here." The old man laid a trembling hand upon her head. Under his touch it bowed with quick reverence but not before she had seen a mistiness in the kindly eyes. "It's God's blessing I ask for ye--and yes, may your dream come true--" "Your blessing for Danny, too," whispered Moira. "For the both of ye!" "Sure it's a crossing Granny'll be a-giving me and no blessing," laughed the girl. It was her own word for Granny's sharp tongue. "I'd best be off, Father dear." "Wait." The old man disappeared through his door. Presently he came out carrying a small box. From this he took a crumpled package. Unwrapping the tissue folds he revealed, in the cup of his hand, a string of green beads. "Oh! Oh! How beautiful!" cried the girl. "Are they for me?" with the youthful certainty that all lovely things were her due. "Yes. To remember my blessing." He regarded them fondly, lifted them that she might see their beauty against the sun's glow. "'Twas in a little shop in London I found the pretty things." Moira knew how much he must love them as a keepsake--that visit to London was only next in his heart to the trip to America. She caught his hands, beads, tissue wrappings and all. "Oh, it's precious they are! And you too!" The Father fastened them over the girl's shabby dress. "They are only beads," he admonished. "But it's of this day they'll remind you." He watched Moira as she ran off down the lane. He noted the quick, sure tread of her feet, the challenging poise of her head. "Colleen--" he whispered with a smile. "Little colleen." He turned to his door and his lips, even though they still twisted in a smile, moved as though in prayer. "And may God keep pure the dream in the heart of ye!" CHAPTER I THE ORPHAN DOLL November--and a chill wind scurrying, snapping, biting, driving before it fantastic scraps of paper, crackly leaves, a hail of fine cinders. An early twilight, gray like a mist, enveloped the city in gloom. Through it lights gleamed bravely from the grimy windows rising higher and higher to the low-hanging clouds, each thin shaft beckoning and telling of shelter and a warmth that was home. High over the heads of the hurrying humanity in a street of tenements Moira Lynch lighted her lamp and set it close to the bare window. With her it was a ceremony. She sang as she performed the little act. Without were the shadows of the approaching night--gloom, storm, disaster, perhaps even the evil fairies; her lamp would scatter them all with its glow, just as her song drove the worries from her heart. Her lamp lighted, she paused for a moment, her head forward, listening. Then at the sound of a light step she sprang to the door and threw it open. A wee slip of a girl, almost one with the shadows of the dingy hallway, ran into her arms. "And it's so late you are, dearie! And so dark it's grown--and cold. Your poor little hands are blue. Why, what have you here, hidin' under your shawl? Beryl Lynch! Dear love us--a doll!" With a laugh that was like a tinkling of low pitched bells the little mother drew the treasure from its hiding place. But as her eyes swept the silken splendor of the raiment her merriment changed to wonder and then to fear. "You didn't--you didn't--oh, Beryl Lynch, you--" "Steal it? No. Give me it. I--found it." But the terror still darkened the mother's eyes. "And where did you find it?" "On the bench. She left it. She forgot it. Ain't it mine now?" pleadingly. "I waited, honest, but she didn't come back." Mrs. Lynch was examining the small wonder with timid fingers, lifting fold after fold of shining satin and dainty muslin. "Who was she?" she asked. "A kid." Little Beryl kindled to the interest of her story. Had not something very thrilling happened in her simple life--a life the greatest interest of which was to carry to the store each day the small bundle of crocheted lace which her mother made. "She was a swell kid. She played in the park, waitin' for a big man." "Did she talk to you?" breathlessly. Beryl avoided this question. The beautiful little girl had _not_ spoken to her, though she had hung by very close, inviting an approach with hungry eyes. "She was just a little kid," loftily. Then, "Ain't the doll mine?" Mrs. Lynch patted down the outermost garment. "Yes, it's yours it is, darlin'. At least--" she hesitated over a fleeting sense of justice, "maybe the little stranger will be a-coming back for her doll. It's a fair bit of dolly and it's lonesome and weeping the little mother may be this very minute--" Beryl reached out eager arms. "It's an orphan doll. I'll love it _hard_. Give me it. Oh," with a breath that was like a whistle. "_Ain't_ she lovely? Mom, is she _too_ lovely for us?" The timid question brought a quick change in the mother's face, a kindling of a fire within the mother breast. She straightened her slender body. "And if there's anything too good for my girlie I'd like to see it! Isn't this the land where all men are equal and my girl and boy shall have a school as good as the best and grow up to be maybe the President himself?" She repeated the words softly as though they made a creed, learned carefully and with supreme faith. Why had she come, indeed, to this crowded, noisy city from her fair home meadows if not for this promise it held out to her? "And isn't your brother the head of his class?" she finished triumphantly. "And it's smarter than ever you'll be yourself with your little books. Oh, childy!" She caught the little girl, doll and all, into an impulsive embrace. From it Beryl wriggled to a practical curiosity as to supper. She sniffed. Her mother nodded. "Stew! And with _dumplin's_--" She made it sound like fairy food. "Ready to the beating when your father comes." "Where's Dale? And Pop?" "It's Dale's night at the store. And Pop'll be comin' along any minute. I've set the lamp for him." "I'm hungry," Beryl complained. She sat down cross-legged on the spotless scrap of carpeting and proceeded with infinite tenderness to disrobe the doll. "Do you think she will like it here?" she asked suddenly, looking about the humble room which for the Lynch's, served as parlor, dining-room and kitchen. Now its bareness lay wrapped in a kindly shadow through which glinted diamond sparks from much-scrubbed tin. "It's _nice_--" Beryl meditated. She loved this hour, she loved the singing tea-kettle and the smell of strong soap and her mother's face in the lamplight, with all the loud noises of the street hushed, and the ugliness outside hidden by the closed door, against the paintless boards of which had been nailed a flaming poster inviting the nation's youth to join the Navy. "But maybe this home'll be--too different," she finished. The mother's eyes grew moist with a quick tenderness. Her Beryl, with this wonder of a dolly in her arms! Her mind flashed over the last Christmas and the one before that when Beryl had asked Santa Claus for a "real doll" and had cried on Christmas morning because the cheap little bit of dolldom which the mother had bought out of her meagre savings would not open or shut its eyes. And now--the impudent heart of the blessed child worrying that the home wasn't good enough for the likes of the doll! "It's a good home for her where it's loving you are to her. It's the heart and not the gold that counts. And who knows--maybe it's a bit of luck the dolly'll be a-bringing." As though a word of familiar portent had been uttered Beryl lifted a face upon which was reflected the glow of the little mother's. Babe as she was, she knew something of the mother's faith in the fickle god of chance, a faith that helped the little woman over the rough places, that never failed to brighten her deepest gloom. Did she not staunchly believe that someday by a turn of good fortune she and her Danny would know the America and the good things of which they had dreamed, sitting in the gloaming of their Ireland, their lover's hands close clasped? But for that hope why would they have left their dear hillsides with the homely life and the kindly neighbors and good Father Murphy who had taught her from his own dog-eared books because she was eager and quick to learn? Through the fourteen years since they had come to America those girl-and-boy dreams had gone sadly astray, but the little wife still clung to the faith that they'd have the good things sometime, her Danny would get a better job and if he didn't there was young Dale, always at the head of his class in school and even the baby Beryl, as quick as anything to pick out words from her little books. "A good luck dolly!" Beryl held the doll close. Her eyes grew round and excited. "Then I can ride all day on a 'bus and go to the Zoo, can't I? And can I have a new coat with fur? And go to Coney? And shoot the shoots? And can Dale ride a horse? And can Dale and me go across the river where it's like--that?" nodding to the poster. Mrs. Lynch rocked furiously in her joy at Beryl's anticipations. The floor creaked and the kettle sang louder than before. "That you can. And it'll be a fine strong, brave girl you'll be, going to school and learning more than even poor old Father Murphy knew, God love him. And by and by--" But a heavy toiling of steps up the stairs checked her words. That slow tread was not her big Danny nor the young Dale! At a knock she flew to the door. "Oh, and if it isn't Mister Torrence." She caught the old man who stood on the threshold and laughingly pulled him into the room. "It was afraid I was that it was bad news! Danny Lynch isn't home yet but you shall stay and eat dumplin's with us--the best outside of our Ireland--" [Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL LITTLE GIRL HAD _NOT_ SPOKEN TO HER] "No! No!" protested the old man, regretfully. "My old woman's waitin'! _Bad_ news! It's _good_ news I bring. Dan's had a raise. He's foreman of the gang now. And I stepped 'round to tell ye the good news and that Dan'll be a-workin' tonight with an extry shift and'll not be comin' home to dinner, worse luck for him!" sniffing appreciatively at the pleasant odor from the stove. "A raise? My Dan a foreman?" Moira Lynch caught her hands together. "It's the good luck! And it's deservin' of it he is for no man on the docks works harder than my big Dan." Her eyes shone like two stars. "Well, ye'll want to be a-eatin' the dumplin's so I'll go along. Good-night, Mrs. Lynch." "God love you, Mister Torrence," whispered Moira, too overcome to manage her voice. Closing the door behind her unexpected visitor she turned and caught the wondering Beryl into her arms. "And I was a-thinking it would never come! It's ashamed I should be to have doubted. My big Dan!" "Is it the dolly that's brought us the good-luck, Mom?" interrupted Beryl, round-eyed. "A foreman!" cried the mother in the very tone she would have used if she had said "a king." She-danced about until the floor creaked threateningly. "Our good fortune is coming, my precious. And it's fine and beautiful my girl shall be with a dress as good as the next one. Wait! Wait!" She flew into the tiny bedroom, returning in a moment with a small box in her hands. From it she lifted a string of round green beads and held them laughingly before Beryl's staring eyes. "My beads! You shall wear them this night. It's the good old Father's blessing." She clasped them about Beryl's neck, fingering them tenderly. "Pretty beads. Pretty beads," cried the little girl. Suddenly quieted by a rush of memories Mrs. Lynch sat down and took Beryl upon her lap. "Beryl darlin', was the likes of that other little girl--the one who forgot the dolly--fine and beautiful?" "Oh, yes!" The child's voice carried a note of wonder. "And you shall be fine and beautiful, too, Moira Lynch's own girl, just as I used to dream for my own self, the selfish likes o' me. You shall go to school and learn from good books. Didn't the old Father tell me of the fine schools he had seen when he visited his sister in America? And anybody can go--anybody!" Little Beryl felt that it was a solemn moment. She lifted serious eyes. "I promise," she drawled, with a gravity out of all proportion to her six years, "I promise to go to school and learn lots like Dale and be fine and boo'ful so's my 'dopted dolly will like me as well as--that other kid. I've gotta be good 'nough for her. So there." The child could not comprehend the obstacles which might threaten such a standard; she stared bravely into the unblinking eyes of the doll who smiled back her graven smile. Then: "I'm hungry," she declared, suddenly deciding that dumplings were more important than anything else. "And can my Dolly sit in Pop's seat?" "That she can," cried the mother, going to her "mixin'." "And what a gay supper it will be--with the new dolly and the pretty beads and the dumplin's. Oh, Himself a foreman!" CHAPTER II A PRINCE Promptly at nine o'clock, young Dale Lynch turned the key in the door of "Tony Sebastino, Groceries" and started, whistling, homeward. Three times a week, from the close of school until nine o'clock, he worked in the store, snatching a dinner of bananas, or bread and cheese, between customers. Because "Mom" had whispered that there were to be "dumplin's" this night and that she would keep some warm for him, and because the wind whipped chillingly through his thin clothing, he broke into a run. His homeward way led him past a bit of open triangle which in the neighborhood was dignified by the name of park, a dreary place now, dirty straw stacked about the fountain, dry leaves and papers cluttering the brown earth and whipping against the iron palings of the fence. Dale, still whistling, turned its corner and ran, full-tilt, upon a bit of humanity clinging, like the paper and leaves, to the fence. "Giminy Gee!" Dale jumped back in alarm. Then: "Did I scare you, kid? Oh, say, what's the matter?" For the face that turned to his was red and swollen with weeping. "Y'lost?" This was Dale's natural conclusion, for the hour was late, and the child a very small one. "I lost--my Cynthia." "Your--_what_?" "My--my Cynthia. She's my b-bestest doll. I forgot her." The voice trailed off in a wail. Dale, touched by her woe, looked about him. Certainly no Cynthia was visible. By rapid questioning on his part he drew from her the story of her desertion. She had played a nice game of running 'round and 'round and counting the "things," waiting for Mr. Tony; Cynthia did not like to run because it shook her eyes, so she had put her down on the edge of the straw where the wind would not blow on her. And then Mr. Tony had come and had told her to "hustle along" and she "had runned away and for-g-got Cynthia!" "Well, I guess she's somebody else's Cynthia now, kid. Things don't stay long in the parks 'round here." Dale seemed so very old and very wise that the tiny girl listened to his verdict with blanching face. He knew, of course. "Where d'you live?" demanded Dale. "Why, you're just a baby! Anybody with you?" The child pointed rather uncertainly to one of the intersecting streets. "I come that way," she said, then, even while saying it, began to wonder if that were the way she had come. The streets all looked so much alike. She had run along the curb, so as to be as far away as possible from the dark alley ways and the doors. And it had been a long way. Her lip quivered though she would not cry. After Cynthia's fate, just to be lost herself did not matter. "Well, don't you know where you live? What's the street? I'll take you home." "22 Patchin Place," lisped the child. Dale hesitated a moment to make sure of his bearings. "Well, then, come along. I know where that is. And you forget 'bout your Cynthia. You've got another doll, haven't you? If you haven't, you just ask Santa Claus for one. Why, say, kiddo, what's this? You lame?" For the little girl skipped jerkily at his side. "That's just the way I'm made," the child answered, quite indifferent to the shocked note in the boy's voice. "I can walk and run, but I go crooked." "What's your name?" "Robin Forsyth." She made it sound like "Wobbin Force." "Oh, Wobbin Force. Funny name, isn't it? And what's your Ma and Pa going to say to you for running off?" Putting a small hand trustingly into the boy's big one, the child skipped along at his side. "Oh, nothing," she answered, lost in an admiring contemplation of her rescuer. "What's they, anyway?" "A Ma? Don't you know what your mother is?" Little Robin met his astonishment with a ripple of laughter. "Oh a _mother_! I had a lovely, lovely mother once but she's gone away--to Heaven. And is a Pa a Jimmie?" "A--what?" Dale had never met such a strange child. "'Cause Jimmie's my Parent. I call him Parent sometimes and sometimes I call him Jimmie." If his companion had not been so very small Dale might have suspected an attempt at "kidding." He glanced sidewise and suspiciously at her but all he saw was a cherub face framed in a tilted sky-blue tam-o'shanter and straggling ends of flaming red hair. "Jimmie won't scold me. _He'd_ want me to try to find Cynthia." Robin smothered a sigh. "He wasn't home anyway." "D'you live all alone? You and your Jimmie?" "Oh, yes, only Aunt Milly's downstairs and Grandpa Jones is 'cross the hall, so I'm never 'fraid. They're not my really truly aunt's and grandfather's--I just call them that. And Jimmie leaves the light burning anyway. What's your name? And are you very old? Are you a man like Jimmie?" Dale, warming under the adoration he saw on the small face, felt very big and very manly. He returned the little squeeze that tugged on his hand. "Oh, I'm a big fellow," he answered. "You look awful nice," the little girl pursued. "Just like one of my make-believe Princes. I wish you lived with Jimmie and me. I wouldn't mind Cynthia then." "But the Princes never lived with the little girls in the stories, you know," argued Dale, finding it a very pleasant and unusual sensation to act the rôle of a Prince even to a very small girl. "You have to find me, you see." Miss Robin jumped with joy. "Oh, goody, goody! I'll always make b'lieve you are a Prince and I'll find you and you must find me, too. You will, won't you?" "You just bet I will," promised Dale, easily. "Here's your street." He stopped to study the house numbers. Suddenly a door flew open wide and a bareheaded man plunged into the street, almost tumbling upon them. "Robin! Good gracious! I thought you were--stolen--lost--" Robin, very calm, clasped him about his knee. "I _was_ lost, Jimmie. But this very big boy brought me home. He's a Prince--I mean he's my make-believe Prince." "But, Robin--" The man turned from the child to Dale. "I found her way down by Sheridan Square. She was hunting for her doll she'd left there." "While I was walking with Mr. Tony this afternoon I played in the park and I forgot Cynthia." "Good Heavens--and you went way off there all by yourself to find the thing?" In her pride of Dale, Robin overlooked the slur on Cynthia. "I went alone," she repeated, "but I came home with my Prince." Gradually Robin's father was recovering from his shock. The muscles of his face relaxed; he ran his fingers through his thick hair, red like the child's, with a gesture of throwing off some horrible nightmare. To Dale he looked very boyish--with a little of Robin's own cherubic expression. "Well, say, you gave me a fright, child. And you must promise not to do it again. Why, I can't ever leave you alone unless you do." He turned to Dale, who stood, lingering, loath to leave the little Robin under the doubtful protection her Jimmie offered. "I'm no end grateful to you, my boy. If there's anything I can do for you--" He slipped one hand mechanically into his pocket. "_I_ don't want anything." Dale spoke curtly and stepped back. "It wasn't any bother; it's a nice night to walk." With a child's quick intuition Robin realized that her gallant Prince was about to slip out of her sight. Her Jimmie had pulled his hand from his pocket and was extending it to the boy. He was not even inviting him to come in and smoke like he always invited Mr. Tony and Gerald and all the others. But of course Princes wouldn't smoke, anyway. She waited until her father had finished his thanks, then, stepping up to Dale, she reached out two small arms and by holding on to Dale's, drew herself up almost to the boy's chin. Upon it she pressed a shy, warm kiss. "Good-bye, Prince. You will hunt for me, won't you? Promise! Cross your heart!" Dale, flaming red, confused, promised that he would, then wheeled and stalked off down the street. After he had rounded the corner he lifted his arm and wiped his chin with the sleeve of his coat. Then he stuck his hands deep in his pockets and whistled loudly. But after a moment, at a recollection of sky-blue eyes underneath a sky-blue tam-o'shanter, he chuckled softly. "A Prince! Gee, some Prince!" But his head instinctively went higher at the honor thrust upon him. When he returned from the store, Dale usually found his mother sitting by the lamp crocheting. But tonight everything was different; scarcely had he stopped at their landing before the little mother, quite transformed, rushed to greet him and tell him the wonderful bit of good fortune. Before it his own adventure was forgotten. "And it's only a beginning it is--it's the superintendent he'll be in no time at all, at all," finished Mrs. Lynch. "And we can move? And I can join the Boy Scouts? And go to camp next summer? And have a pair of roller skates?" Mrs. Lynch nodded her head to each question. Behind each note of her voice rippled a laugh. "Yes, yes, yes. Sure, it's a wonderful night this is." "Where's Pop now?" "Working with the extra shift," the wife answered, proudly. "Any dumplings?" eagerly. "And I was forgetting! Bless the heart of you, of course I saved the biggest. 'Twas like a party tonight for I dressed your sister in the beads. It's worn out she is, God love her, with the excitement and trying to keep her wee eyes open 'til her Pop come home. Hushee or you'll waken the lamb now." Dale was deep in thought choosing the words with which he would tell the good news to the "fellows" on the morrow, his mother was busying herself with the "biggest" dumpling, when a peremptory knock came at the door. With a quick cry Mrs. Lynch dropped her spoon--why should anything intrude upon their joy this night? A man stood on the threshold presenting a curious figure for he wore a heavy coat over a white duck suit. Where had she seen such a suit before? With a catch at her heart she remembered--at the hospital, that time Dale had been run over. "Oh!" she cried. "My Dan!" "Mrs. Lynch?" The hospital attendant spoke quickly as one would who had a disagreeable task and must dispose of it without any delay. "Your husband's had an accident--he's alive, but--you'd better come." Mrs. Lynch stood very still in the centre of the room--her hand clutching her throat as though to stifle the scream that tore it. "My Dan--hurt!" She trembled but stood very straight. "Quick, Dale, we must go to him. My Dan. No, no, you stay with Beryl. Oh, _hurry_!" she implored the interne, rushing bareheaded past him down the stairway. "_Hurry._" For a few moments Dale stared at the half-open door. In his thirteen years he had experienced the pinch of poverty, even hunger, the pain of injury, but never this overwhelming fear of something, he did not know what. Pop, his big, strong Pop--hurt! Pop, who could swing him even now, that he measured five feet three himself, to his shoulder! Oh, no, no, it could not be true! Someone had made a mistake. Someone had cruelly frightened his mother. Hadn't their luck just come? Hadn't Pop been made a boss? "Mom-ma!" came Beryl's voice, sleepily, from the other room. "Mom-ma, what's they?" Glad of anything to do Dale rushed to quiet his little sister. He bade her, brokenly, to "never mind and go to sleep," and he pulled the old blanket up tight to her chin, his eyes so blinded with tears that he did not see the waxen head pillowed close to Beryl's. Then he sat in his mother's chair and dropped his head upon the table and waited, his hands clenched at his side. "I _won't_ cry! I _won't_ be a baby! Mom'll maybe need me. I'm big now!" he muttered, finding a little comfort in the sound of his own voice. * * * * * Poor Robin's Prince; alas, he felt very young and helpless before the trouble which he faced. Big Dan Lynch, he who had been the fairest and sturdiest of the county of Moira's girlhood, would never work again--as superintendent or even foreman; the rest of his days must be spent in the wheeled chair sent up by the sympathetic Miss Lewis of the Neighborhood Settlement House. It was fixed with a contrivance so that he could move it about the small room. Little Beryl started school which made up for a great deal that had suddenly been taken from her life, for mother never sat by the lamp, now, or crocheted. She worked at the Settlement House all day and all evening busied herself with her home tasks. The "lucky dolly" Beryl hid away in paper wrappings. Somehow, young as she was, she knew her mother could not bear the sight of it. And Dale worked every day at Tony's, going to night school on the evenings when he had used to go to the store. A tightening about the lips, an older seriousness in the lad's eyes alone told what it had cost him to give up his ambition to graduate with his class, perhaps at its head. Little Robin with the sky-blue eyes was quite forgotten! CHAPTER III THE HOUSE OF FORSYTH It was a time-honored custom at Gray Manor that Harkness should serve tea at half-past four in the Chinese room. On this day--another November day, ten years after the events of the last chapter--Harkness slipped through the heavy curtains with his tray and interrupted Madame Forsyth, mistress of Gray Manor, in deep confab with her legal advisor, Cornelius Allendyce. Mr. Allendyce was just saying, crisply, "Will your mind not rest easier for knowing that the Forsyth fortune will go to a Forsyth?" when Harkness rattled the cups. Then, strangest of all things, Madame ordered him sharply away with his tray. Such a thing had never happened before in Harkness' experience and he had been at Gray Manor for fifty-five years. He grumbled complainingly to Mrs. Budge, the housekeeper, and to Florrie, Madame's own maid, who was having a sip of tea with Mrs. Budge in the cosy warmth of the kitchen. Florrie asserted that she could tell them a story or two of Madame's whims and cranks--only it would not become her, inasmuch as Madame was old and a woman to be pitied. "Poor thing, with this curse on the house, who wouldn't have jumps and fidgets? I don't see I'm sure how any of us stand it." But Florrie spoke with a hint of satisfaction--as though proud to serve where there was a "curse." Harkness and Mrs. Budge, who had lived at Gray Manor when things were happier, sighed. "It's an heir they be talking about now," Harkness admitted. "You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Budge and Florrie in one breath. Up in the Chinese room Madame Forsyth was saying; "Do you think any child of that--branch of the family--could take the place of--" "Oh, dear Madame," interrupted the lawyer. "I am not suggesting such a thing! I know how impossible that would be. But on my own responsibility I have made investigations and I have ascertained that your husband's nephew has the one child. The nephew's an artist of sorts and doubtless has his ups and downs--most artists do. Now I suggest--" "That I take this--child--" Mr. Allendyce tactfully ignored the scorn in her voice. "Exactly," he purred. "Exactly. Gordon is the child's name. A very nice name, I am sure." "The child of an obscure artist--" "Ah, but, Madame, blood is blood. A Forsyth--" "P'ff!" Madame made a sound like rock hitting rock. Indeed, as she sat there, her narrow eyes gleaming from her immobile face, her thin lips tightly compressed, she looked much more like rock than flesh-and-blood. Her explosion had the effect of exasperating the little lawyer out of his habitual attitude of conciliation. "Madame, I can do no more than advise you in this matter. I have traced down this child as a possible heir to the Forsyth fortune. However, you have it in your power to will otherwise. But let me say this--not as a lawyer but as your friend. You are growing old. Will you not find, perhaps, more happiness in your old age, if you bring a little youth into this melancholy old house--" "I must ask you to withhold your kind wishes until some other time," interrupted Madame, dryly. "I am at present seeking your advice as a lawyer. I have not been regardless of the fact that the House of Forsyth must have an heir; I have been thinking of it for a long time--in fact, that is all there is left for me to do. And, though it is exceedingly distasteful to me, I see the justice in seeking out one of--that family. But, it must be done in my way. My mind is quite made up to that. You say there is a--child. I wish you to communicate with this child's father--this relative of my husband, and inform him that I will make this child my heir provided he can be brought to Gray Manor at once. He will live for one year here under your guardianship. I will send for Percival Tubbs who, you may remember, tutored my grandson. Doubtless he is old-fogyish but from his long association with our family he knows the Forsyth traditions and what the head of the House of Forsyth should be. He will know whether this boy can be trained to measure up to it. If, after a year, he does not, he must go back--to his father. I will be fair, of course, as far as money goes. If he does--" She stopped suddenly, her stony demeanor broken. The thin lips quivered at the thought of that sunny south room in the great house where had been left untouched the toys, the books, the games, the precious trophies, the guns and racquets, golf sticks and gloves which marked each development of her beloved grandson. "A very fair plan," murmured the lawyer. "You have not heard all," went on Madame Forsyth in such a strange voice that Cornelius Allendyce looked up at her in astonishment. "I am going away." "You! Where?" exclaimed the man. He could not quite believe his ears. "That I do not care to divulge." She enjoyed his amazement. "I am yielding to a restlessness which in a younger woman you would understand, but which in me you would no doubt term--crazy. I am going to run away--to some new place, where, for awhile, no one will know whether I am the rich Madame Christopher Forsyth or the poor Mrs. John Smith. Oh, I shall be quite safe; at my bank they will be able to find me if anything happens. Norris has had entire charge of the mills for a long time. And Budge and Harkness can take care of things here." "Madame," the lawyer was moved out of his customary reserve, "are you not possibly running away from what may bring you happiness--and comfort?" For the space of a moment the real heart of the woman shone in her eyes. "I _am_ running away. I might learn to love this boy and he might not be what the head of the house of Forsyth _should_ be and I would have to send him back. And my heart has been torn enough. It is tired. I have a whim to find new places--new things--to rest--and forget all this." There was an interval of silence. Then Mr. Allendyce, lifting his eyes from the patent-leather tips of his shoes, said quietly: "I will carry out your commands to the best of my ability." There followed, then, a great deal of discussion over details. And, while carefully jotting figures and memoranda in a neat, morocco bound note-book, the little man of law felt as though he were writing the opening chapters of some fairy-tale. Yet there was little of the fairy-tale in the old, empty house, a melancholy house in spite of its wealth of treasure, brought from every country on the globe. And there was nothing of romance in the Forsyth family which had come over to Connecticut from England in the early days of its settlement and had left to all the Forsyths to come, not only the beginnings of the Forsyth factory where thread was made by the millions of spools, and the Forsyth fortune, amassed by those same spools, but also a deal of that courage which had helped those pioneers endure the hardships and meet the obstacles of the early days. Her business at an end, Madame expressed embarrassment at her inhospitality in denying Mr. Allendyce his cup of tea. Would he not stay and dine with her? Mr. Allendyce did not in the least desire to dine alone with his client but the Wassumsic Inn was an uninviting place and New York was a three hours' ride away. So he accepted with a polite show of pleasure and assured Madame that he could amuse himself in the library while she dressed for dinner. Left to himself, the lawyer fell to pacing the velvety length of the library floor. This led him to one of the long windows. He stopped and looked out through it across the sloping lawns which surrounded the house. A low ribbon of glow hung over the edge of the hills which lay to the west of the town. Silhouetted against it was the ragged line of roofs and stacks which were the Forsyth Mills. Familiar with them through years of business association, the little man of law visualized them now as clearly as though they did not lay wrapped in evening shadow; he saw the ugly, age-old walls, the glaring brick of the new additions, the dingy yards, the silver thread of the river and across that the rows upon rows of tiny houses piled against one another, each like its neighbor even to the broken pickets surrounding squares of cinder ground. He knew, although his eyes could not see, that these yards even now were hung with the lines of everlasting washing, that men lounged on those back doorsteps and smoked and talked while women worked within preparing the evening meals. These human beings were machines in the gigantic industry upon which the House of Forsyth was founded. Did Madame ever think of them as flesh and blood mortals--like herself? Cornelius Allendyce smiled at the question; oh, no, the Forsyth tradition, of which Madame talked, built an impenetrable wall between her and those toilers. Staring at the gray hard line of shadow that was the tallest of the chimneys the man thought how like it was to Madame and old Christopher Forsyth. His long connection with the family and the family interests gave the lawyer an intimate understanding of them and all that had happened to them. And it had been much. Mr. Allendyce himself often spoke of the "curse" of Gray Manor. Christopher Forsyth and Madame had had one son, Christopher Junior. Allendyce could recall the elaborate festivities that had marked the boy's coming of age, the almost royal pomp of his wedding. Three years after that wedding the young man and his wife had been drowned while cruising with friends off the coast of Southern California. This terrible blow might have crushed old Christopher but for the toddling youngster who was Christopher the Third. The grandfather and grandmother shut themselves away in Gray Manor with the one purpose in life--to bring up Christopher the Third to take his place at the head of the House of Forsyth. At this point in his reflections Mr. Allendyce's heart gave a quick throb of pity--he knew what that handsome lad had been to the old couple. He thought now how merciful it had been that old Christopher had died before that cruel accident on the football field in which the lad had been fatally injured. The brunt of the blow had fallen upon Madame. And after the boy's death, a gloom had settled over her and the old house which nothing had seemed able to dispel. As a last desperate resort the lawyer had suggested, with a courage that cost considerable effort, the finding of this other heir. Mr. Allendyce had known very little of that "other branch" of the family. Old Christopher had had a younger half-brother, Charles, who, at the time Christopher took over the responsibilities of the head of the family, went off to South America where he married a young Spanish girl. And from the moment of that "low" marriage, as old Christopher had called it, to the investigation by Mr. Allendyce's agents, nothing had been heard at Gray Manor of this Charles Forsyth. It
{'title': 'Red-Robin by Jane Abbott', 'source': 'Project Gutenberg', 'lang': 'en'}