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Courage (Dramatic Reading)

<h2> CHAPTER VIII.—COURAGE DOES IT. </h2> Really, I believe it's nicer than being on the boat.” “Yes,” responded Sylvia, with a supreme faith in any assertion that Courage might choose to make; “but why?” “Because we have the fun of living out on the water, and Miss Julia besides.” “Oh, yes, to be sure!” half ashamed to have ventured so obvious a question. Miss Julia besides! No one could imagine what those three little words meant to Courage. It was a delight in itself simply to waken in the morning, and know that before night Miss Julia would probably come riding over on her beautiful “Rex” or driving the gray ponies, or if not to-day, then to-morrow. Whenever she came she would stop for a chat, and more likely than not bring with her some little gift from the wonderful place on the Rumson—a plant from the greenhouse, a golden roll of delicious butter, or just a beautiful flower or two that her own hands had picked in the garden. <div class="figright"> <ANTIMG src="images/8089.jpg" alt="8089 " width-obs="100%" /> <ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </div> And so the summer was crowned for Courage by the happy accident of nearness to Miss Julia, and the only sad moments were when, now and then, a great longing for her father surged over her, or when the realization of Larry's ever-increasing blindness pressed heavily down upon even her buoyant spirit. As for life on the draw, the days slipped by as uneventfully as on the lighter, though no doubt they were more monotonous. There were no morning trips through the busy streets to market (David had all their supplies sent over from Red Bank), and nothing, of course, of the ever-changing life of the harbor; but the children were more than contented. Sylvia was never so happy as when at work, and somehow or other there always seemed to be plenty of work for the little black hands to do. But, it must be confessed, there were times when Courage did find the days rather dull—times when she did not feel quite like reading or studying, and when she could think of nothing that needed to be done. There was one recreation, however, that always served to add a zest to the quietest sort of a day. Every clear afternoon, somewhere between four and six o'clock, she would don the pretty blue hat, and when it was anywise cool enough the blue coat, too—for she loved to wear it—and then go out and perch herself safely somewhere on the top of the bridge rail and with her back to the sun, should he happen to be shining. Then in a little while some of her friends, out for their afternoon drive, would be pretty sure to come crossing the bridge, and though possibly lacking the time to stop for a chat, would at least exchange a few cheery words as they perforce walked their horses over the draw. I say some of her friends, for already there were many of them, for people could hardly escape noticing the pretty little house and the kind-faced, halfblind old man sitting in the door-way, or failing these, the little girl in the handsome blue coat and hat. Some had either guessed or found out the meaning of the black bow on the sleeve, and ever afterward seemed to regard her with an interest close bordering on downright affection. Indeed, in one way and another, the household on the draw became known far and wide, and strangers sometimes driving that way for no other reason than to see the beautiful little girl with the remarkable name, were disappointed enough if they did not chance to come across her; but of this far-reaching notoriety Courage fortunately never so much as dreamed. And so the days fared on much as I have described until there came an evening when something happened. It was an evening early in October, and our little party sitting down to their six o'clock supper were every one in a particularly happy frame of mind. The sun had gone down in a blaze of gold and crimson, and the river, which is wide enough below the bridge to be dignified as a bay, lay like a mirror reflecting the marvellous color. Later, when the twilight was fusing all the varying shades into a fleecy, wondrously tinted gray; a brisk little breeze strode up from the west, and instantly the water rose in myriad tiny waves to meet it, and each wave donned a “white-cap,” as in honor of its coming. Low down on the horizon the veriest thread of a new moon was paying court to the evening star, that was also near its setting, but both still shone out with more than common brilliancy through the early evening air. Here, then, was one cause for the generally happy feeling, and another, no doubt, lay in the all-pervading cheeriness of the little home. Humble and small it was, to be sure, but there was comfort, and plenty of it, on every side—comfort in the mere sight of the daintily set table; comfort of a very substantial kind in the contents of the shining teapot, in the scrambled eggs sizzling away in a chafing-dish, which Sylvia had cleverly concocted, and, above all, in the aroma, as well as in the taste, of the deliciously browned toast. People who chanced to come driving over glanced in at the cosey, lamp-lighted table, caught a whiff of the savory odors, and then the moment they were off the draw urged on their horses in elusive hope of finding something as inviting at home. During the progress of the meal, and while Sylvia, who was an inimitable little mimic, was giving a lisping impersonation of one of the teachers at the Asylum, a carriage rolled rapidly by, and some one called, “Hello there, Courage!” Quickly recognizing the voice, Courage rushed out-of-doors, almost upsetting the table in her eagerness, but even then Miss Julia was a long way past, having actually trotted her ponies right over the draw itself in most unprecedented fashion. This was a grave offence in David's eyes, and Courage, retaking her seat at the table, wondered what he would have to say about it. “Miss Julia must have been in a great hurry,” she ventured. “Yes, a ten-dollar hurry,” growled David. “Oh, you won't fine her!” Courage exclaimed, alarmed at the mere thought of anything so ungracious; “she just couldn't have been thinking.” “Well, then, we'll just teach her how to think;” but Sylvia, quite sure that she detected a lack of determination in David's tone, said complacently, “Neber you fear, Miss Courage. Mr. David don' sure nuff mean what he sez, I reckon,” whereupon Mr. David shook his head, as much as to say, “Well, he rather guessed he did,” but Courage saw with relief that there really was nothing to fear. After supper Larry and David took a turn on the bridge while the table was being cleared, and then coming back to the little living-room, Courage read aloud for an hour from one of Sylvia Sylvester's namesake books. It chanced to be the incomparable story of “Alice in Wonderland,” and David and Larry were as charmed as the little folk themselves. At nine o'clock the book was laid away and Larry went directly to bed. Courage and Sylvia hurried into coats and hats for a run in the bracing night air, and David, stopping first to light his pipe, followed them out onto the bridge. All three found to their surprise that the sky had grown suddenly lowering and overcast, while the breeze of the twilight was fast stiffening to a vigorous west wind. <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0094.jpg" alt="0094 " width-obs="100%" /> </div> <h5> <ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </h5> “We're in for a blow, I'm thinkin',” said David, looking down-river, with the children standing beside him, “and, bless me! there isn't a star to be seen. Who'd a-thought it after that sunset.” Courage, seeing something in the distance, paid no attention to this last remark. “Mr. David, what's that?” she exclaimed, pointing in the direction in which she had been gazing. “Sure it looks like a sail, Courage. Can it be that they're wantin' to get through, I wonder? What's a boat out for this time o' night, anyhow?” Then for several minutes all was silent. “Listen,” said Sylvia at last; “doesn't that sound like rowing?” “Yes it do,” said David, after listening intently, his hand to his ear. “I thought it didn't 'pear just like a sail-boat; howsomever, there's a white thing dangling to it that looks—” but here David was interrupted by a coarse voice calling out, “Hello there! Open the draw, will you?” “Hello there!” David answered; “but what'll I open it for? Ye're rowin', aren't ye?” “Yes, we're rowing to gain time, but there's a sail to the boat as plain as daylight, isn't there? Now hurry, man alive, and do as you're told; we've sprung aleak.” “Sprung aleak! Then ye're fools not to make straight for the shore,” reasoned David. “That's our lookout; but for land's sake! open the draw, instead of standing there talking all night,” and David, realizing that there may be danger for the men in longer parleying, puts his hand to the lever, hurriedly dispatching the children to close the gates at either end; and away they fly, eager to render a service often required of them when there was need for special expedition. Indeed, one can but wonder how David sometimes managed when alone, and a boat tacking against the wind had need to make the draw at precisely the right moment. But to-night it happens that he is in too great haste, and while yet several yards from the gate, Courage, with horror, feels the draw beginning to move under her. “Wait,” she calls back to David, but her voice is weak with fear, and her feet seemed weighted. Oh, if she cannot reach the end in time to make the main bridge and close the gate, and some one should come driving on in the darkness, never seeing that the draw was open! At last she is at the edge, but only the tenth of a second more and it will be too late to jump. Shall she try it? It will be taking a dreadful risk. She may land right against the rail, be thrown back into the water, and no one know in time to hasten to her rescue. She hesitates. No—and then yes, for an instantly deciding thought has come to her. The draw swings clear of the bridge. The men in the boat, grumbling at everything, paddled clumsily through, while over the other gate, reached barely in time, Sylvia hangs breathless and trembling. At the same moment with Courage, she, too, felt the draw begin to move, but luckily chanced to be nearer her goal. Meanwhile, where is Courage? Not in the water, thank God, but prone upon the bridge above it, lying just where she fell when, as she jumped, the rail of the draw struck her feet and threw her roughly down upon it. She feels terribly jarred and bruised, and tries in vain to lift herself up. But, hark! is that the sound of horses on the road? Yes, surely, and they are coming nearer; and now they are on the bridge, and the gate—the gate is open. With one superhuman effort she struggles to her feet, reaches out for it, and swings it to. Then, leaning heavily against the rail, she utters one shrill, inarticulate scream. There is another scream almost as shrill in answer, and instantly a pair of ponies, brought to an alarmingly sudden standstill, rear high in the air beside her, and Courage, unable to stand another moment, drops in a limp little heap to the flooring. “My darling, darling Courage!” whispers some one close bending above her. “Dear Miss Julia,” and a little hand all of a tremble gropes for Miss Julia's face in the darkness. The draw swings back into place, and Sylvia is on it in a flash. “Oh, you didn't gib us 'nough time,” she cries accusingly to David as she flies past. David instantly divines her meaning, for they both know Courage well enough to fear she may have run some terrible danger, and seizing the lantern, hanging midway in the draw, David follows Sylvia as fast as tottering limbs will carry him. What a sickening sensation sweeps over him as the horses loom up in the darkness and he sees a group of people crowding about something hung on the bridge! <div class="fig"> <ANTIMG src="images/0099.jpg" alt="0099 " width-obs="100%" /> </div> <h5> <ANTIMG src="images/enlarge.jpg" alt="" /> </h5> “She isn't deaded! she isn't deaded!” Sylvia joyfully calls out, and that moment the light from the lantern falls athwart a prostrate little figure in the midst of the group. “I think I can get up now” are the words that meet David's ear, and an answering “God be praised!” escapes from his quivering lips. Then some one turns the heads of the quieted horses, and two ladies, one on either side of Courage, help her back to the house. Larry, who has heard the commotion, succeeds in getting dressed and out to the door just as the little party reach it. He starts alarmed and surprised at the sight of Courage, but fortunately is too blind to see the alarming stains of blood on her little white face, but the moment they enter the light the others are quick to see them. Courage is lifted into David's big rocker, and Larry, groping into his own room, brings a pillow for her back; Sylvia disappears and returns in a trice with a towel and a basin of water; Miss Julia, with shaking hands, measures something into a glass; the other lady, with a little help from Courage, removes the dust-begrimed coat, and then lays it very tenderly over a chair. And now the color begins to surge back into the little pale face. The cut under the curls, which is not severe enough to need a surgeon, is tightly bound, and then at last they all sit down to get their breath for a moment. The horses, which of course were none other than Miss Julia's gray ponies, are secured to a rail outside, and David brings a strange gentleman into the room. “This is my brother, Courage,” says Miss Julia—“he has often heard me speak of you—and this lady is his wife.” Courage smiles in acknowledgment of the introduction, for, indeed, she does not feel equal to talking yet, and so keeps perfectly quiet, listening to all the others—to David's reiterated self-accusations for forgetting, in his haste, to make sure that the children were clear of the draw; to Sylvia's excited account of the way she had “jes' ter scrabble” to get over in time; to Miss Julia's explanation of how they had set out at that late hour, and on a sudden impulse, to pay a call down at Elberon, and of how, in her eagerness to spend as little time as possible on the road, she had forgotten to walk the ponies over the draw; and then to her description of her terror when the scream smote her ears, and she reined in her ponies so suddenly as to almost throw them over backward; until, at last, Courage herself feels inclined to put in a little word of her own. “And you didn't hear me call at all, Mr. David?” she asked in a low little voice. “Never a word, darling—never a word. Oh, it's dreadful to think what might ha' happened, and I so careless!” “It's all right now though, Mr. David,” Courage said comfortingly, “but it was terrible to have to jump at the last moment like that. I thought I couldn't at first, that no team would be likely to come over so late, and then—oh, it's wonderful how many things you can think just in a moment—I remembered that Miss Julia was over the draw, and I felt I must try to do it,” and Courage looked toward Miss Julia with eyes that said, “There is nothing in the world I would not try to do for you,” and then what did Miss Julia herself do but break right down and cry. “Oh, why are you crying?” asked Courage, greatly troubled. “Because I cannot help it, Courage. It was so brave to risk so much, and all for my sake, too.” “But I was not really brave, Miss Julia. You see”—and as though fully convinced of the logic of her position—“I think I was not going to do it at all till I remembered about you. And if I hadn't, and even if no one had happened to come on the bridge, I should have been ashamed of it always every time any one called me Courage.” “And so you are not going to take the least credit to yourself,” said Mr. Everett, Miss Julia's brother. “Well, you certainly are a most unheard-of little personage.” Courage was not at all sure whether this was complimentary or otherwise, but no matter. She had not much thought or heed for anything beyond the fact that Miss Julia was crying, and she very much wished she wouldn't. Meanwhile, Miss Julia's sister sat thinking her own thoughts with a sad, far-away look in her eyes. She knew that little blue coat so well, and this was not the first time she had come across it since, months before, she had sent it away, expecting never to see it again. “Courage,” she asked at last in what seemed an opportune moment, “were you not on a lighter that was run into by the St. Johns a few weeks ago?” “Why, yes,” answered Courage, surprised; “and were you the lady and the gentleman?” (glancing toward Mr. Everett). “Yes; we wanted to learn your name, but you and Sylvia here both answered at once, so we could not make it out.” “But why did you want to know?” “Because I thought I recognized the little blue coat you had on, and now that I have seen you again, I feel sure of it. I think it must have been given to you by Miss Julia.” “Why, yes,” said Courage; “and did you know the little girl it used to belong to?” “It belonged to my own little girl, Courage.” “To your little girl? Oh, I would love to have seen her wear it, it's such a beautiful coat! Did she mind having it given away?” “Courage,” said Miss Julia sadly, “little Belle died last winter, and so there was no longer any need for it.” “Oh, dat's how it was,” said practical Sylvia, who had listened attentively to every word. “We've spec'lated of 'en an' over—ain't we, Miss Courage?—why a jes-as-good-as-new coat was eber gib away.” “Hush, Sylvia!” whispered Courage, feeling instinctively that this commonplace remark was untimely; and then by grace of the same beautiful intuition she asked gently, “Did it make you feel very badly to see your little Belle's coat on a strange little girl?” “It almost frightened me. Courage, for Belle had auburn curls, too, and you seemed so like her as you stood there. Then, after a moment, when I had had time to think, I felt pretty sure it must be Belle's own coat that I saw.” “I am sorry that I happened to have it on,” said Courage; “I would not like to have seen anything of my papa's on anybody else.” “And so I thought,” said Mrs. Everett, wondering that a child should so apparently understand every phase of a great sorrow, “but I find I was mistaken,” and Mrs. Everett, moving her chair close beside Courage, took her little brown hand in hers, as she added: “More than once since that evening it has been on my lips to ask Miss Julia if she knew who was the owner of Belle's coat.” “And more than once,” said Miss Julia, “it has been on my lips to tell without your asking, and then I feared only to start for you some train of sad thoughts.” Miss Julia by this time had gotten the best of her tears, and stood behind Courage affectionately stroking the beautiful wavy hair, for both she and Mrs. Everett were longing to give expression to the overpowering sense of gratitude welling up within them. “Do you know what the black bow is for?” Courage asked of Mrs. Everett. “I thought it was mourning for some one, perhaps.” “Yes; it is mourning for my papa. A little girl told me I ought to wear all black clothes, but Miss Julia thought not; only she just tied this bow on for me the last day of sewing-school, because I wanted to have something that would tell that I was very lonely without him. Soldiers wear mourning like that, you know.” All this while Larry had sat quietly on one side, his dimmed eyes resting proudly on Courage; but now he had something to say on his own account. “It was all my fault, sir,” he began abruptly, addressing Mr. Everett—“that accident on the bay a few weeks back. I was losing my sight, and was just going to give up my life on the water when I found that Hugh Masterson had died, and that Courage there had set her heart on spending the summer with me on the boat. And so I tried for her sake to hold on a while longer, but it wa'nt no use, and I'd like to made an end to us all that evening. I wish sometime when ye're aboard the St. Johns ye'd have a word with the captain, and tell him how it all happened, and that Larry Starr has not touched a drop of liquor these twenty years; he thought I was drunk, you know, and no wonder.” “Indeed I will, Larry, and only too gladly,” Mr. Everett promised, drawing closer to Larry's side, that they might talk further about it. Not long after this Miss Julia made a move to go, not, however, you may be sure, until she had seen Courage tucked away in her own bed, and dropping off into the soundest sort of a sleep the moment her tired little head touched the pillow. But before Miss Julia actually gave the reins to her ponies for the homeward drive there was a vigorous hand-shaking on all sides, for the exciting experiences of the last hour had made them all feel very near to each other. “Well, Julia, we must do something for that precious child,” said Mrs. Everett as soon as the ponies struck the dirt road, and it was less of an effort to speak than when their hoofs were clattering noisily on the bridge. “And what had it best be?” asked Miss Julia, and yet with her own mind quite made up on the subject. “Nothing less than to have her make her home with us always.” “Nothing less,” said Miss Julia earnestly. “Bless her brave heart! nothing less,” chimed in Mr. Everett; “but what will become of poor Larry?” True enough! what would become of poor Larry? and would it be right to ask him to make such a sacrifice? It was not necessary, however, to discuss all the details of the beautiful plan just then, and even Mr. Everett, who had raised the question, had faith to believe that somehow or other everything could be satisfactorily arranged. For the remainder of the drive home not a word was spoken. People who have just been face to face with a great peril, and realize it, are likely to find thoughts in their hearts quite too deep for utterance and too solemn. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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