Chapter XXVII: In the Tower

Later in the evening when the smaller children had gone home, some of the others proposed a visit to the tower room to view the sunset, and a gay crowd scurried up the stairs.

Ivy, who could climb the stairs almost as nimbly as her mates, lingered in the rear with Jack Lever.

"It's pretty hard lines," he remarked smilingly, answering her sympathetic expression.

"Yes, indeed, but you will be all right in no time! Just be thankful it won't last for years and years!"

"The brave little gipsy!" thought Jack. He gave her a kindly glance, noting with an insight gained by his late acquaintance with pain, the marks of suffering always so pathetic on a childish face.

"Things like this teach us a lot, don't you think? I feel as if I'd become quite old, tied so long to a sofa, like a thing-um-bub--those lace affairs the girls make, you know--"

"A tidy?"

"Untidy I call 'em, always sticking to a fellow's coat! If it wasn't for the Torchlights, I'd have gone all to pieces."

Ivy started, but curbing her curiosity and profiting by Laura's experience she merely repeated,

"The--the Torchlights?"

"Yes, our club, you know."

Ivy felt that Jack was ready and willing to enlarge upon the theme; she chuckled inwardly, gleefully anticipating the tale she would have for the other girls.

Alas, at that moment Jed came up the stairs with a large pitcher of lemonade and glasses on a tray, and Kizzie followed with a huge frosted cake.

"We thought you would like this, along with the sunset," she said.

Together they climbed the fourth and last flight of stairs and received a noisy greeting from the others on entering the tower room.

Jack gave them an elaborate bow.

"I assure you, my friends, we feel flattered by this demonstrative welcome."

"We don't want to throw cold lemonade on your joy, me boy, but your credentials are excellent," returned Mat, taking the cake from Kizzie.

Jed and the little maid, assisted by the boys, proceeded to pour out lemonade and to cut cake amid the clinking of glasses and merry talk.

The tower room was of octagon shape; crimson tapestry curtains edged with tarnished gilt fringe hung at the eight narrow windows, and a rug of faded crimson velvet half covered the painted floor. A heavy walnut table and a revolving bookcase graced the centre of the room, and an old fashioned wooden settee and several ancient chairs stood round, now occupied by the young people who ate and drank and chattered, the majority quite unmindful of their journey's object--Old Sol, in his departing splendor, glorifying the clouds with prismatic color, ere he sank beyond the far-reaching hills.

"You look quite uplifted," cried Alene, when Ivy, one of the few onlookers, turned from the window.

She gave an expressive glance backward toward the fast-fading sky.

"It's that and something Hugh just told me. He spoke to Dr. Medway--"

"Yes, I know, and oh, I'm so glad!"

"And I too!" cried Laura, joining them.

"I like Dr. Medway; he never once called me 'an interesting case' but talked as if I were just a little girl he would like to see cured. When I think of it I feel so queer, I have to keep tight hold of my crutches, to keep from floating away into the air, like a balloon!" Ivy glanced across the room. "Things seem to be upside down, for there I imagine I see Hugh and Mark Griffin buzzing together like two old gossips!"

"It's not imagination; all the boys are as amiable as the children when they play Mrs. Come-to-See! They were tottering on the brink of friendship and Lois toppled them over into each other's arms."

"You Happy-Go-Luckys look to your laurels; Hugh and I belong to a club of our own now!" called Mat.

"What, the Torchlights?" chorused the three.

He looked surprised.

"How did you know about it?"

They looked wise but said not a word, and Ivy whispered to the girls how near she had come to finding out.

At that moment, taking a glass of lemonade, Mark Griffin stood up.

"To the clever and plucky,
The Happy-Go-Lucky--club!"

he cried, with a sly smile, which told them he knew all about it.

"How did you know?" asked one.

"Who told you?"

"Hugh, that was shabby of you!"

"You girls are always patching up some mystery or other. How was I to know?" said Hugh.

Jack Lever, who was leaning against the table, came over and sat on the settee beside the girls.

"Mark didn't play fair; he never said a word about it till Mat and Hugh had told your secret, so to get even I'll tell you his."

Amid the girls' applause and Mark's protests he commenced.

"You ought to know Phillip Gamer, the first Torchlight, ran away from home when he was twelve to join the Salvation Army. He was a drummer boy in the ranks until a detective, hired by his dad, shadowed him and brought him home, but last year at school he said the Army had helped him to a view of a question which had puzzled him all his life. His mother declared that even as a baby, he had protested in lusty tones against silver-backed hair-brushes and perfumed soaps, and when the nurse perambulated him in the park, a bunch of ragged, barefoot kids would surround the beaming youngster in his silk-lined carriage. There might be a dozen other baby vehicles round, which they wouldn't think of touching, nor of speaking to those tony babies, but they seemed to overlook Phil's frills and laces and took to him like brothers.

"At school he refused one of the high-priced rooms, because it would separate him in a way from the boys he wished most to meet, the boys who thought things out for themselves. Phil's coming knocked out that feeling,--a sort of caste--which divided the rich scholars from the poor; his room was a meeting point--the plane upon which they became fellow-men. Here the Torchlights came into being. Our counter-sign, The Brotherhood of Man, and though there was only one of us who intended to work as a minister in the slums, each was pledged to individual effort in his own locality.

"Mark and I were the only Torchlights from this town, and the first thing I did when I got home was to break my bones in a runaway, and that put me out of the race."

"But it didn't keep him from doing a lot for the boys," said Mark. "Every week we all visited him and had a jolly evening with games, reading and singing and a dandy lunch. At first Jack's people rather scouted the idea of entertaining the Stony Road gang. The first night one of them cut a fine china plate in two, and another shied egg-shells over his shoulder against the wall. Mrs. Lever was horrified, but we begged her to wait and give us another trial."

"Now mother and the rest are completely won over and help us lots. I believe I would have knocked my brains out against the wall this summer, only for the Torchlights. I found we can't do good to others without receiving a reactionary benefit. As Phil says, many a rich lad joins in a patronizing way, thinking he's going to revolutionize things, and soon finds it's himself that needs to be done over."

"We were surprised to find a sister club ahead of us here, but we are not at all jealous!" said Mark.

"We can help each other out."

"I thank you in the name of the Happy-Go-Luckys! The Torchlights are fine!" said Laura heartily.

"We might all take for our club poem this little verse," and, half embarrassed by the sudden silence, Alene recited softly--

"'Jesus bids us shine,
With a clear pure light,
Like a little candle,
Burning in the night.
In the world is darkness,
So we must shine,
You in your corner,
And I in mine.'"

"Your lights are torches, you can take them with you out into the world," said Laura.

"As we are all so solemncholy, I'll propose a toast:

'To the dear, ducky duckies,
The Happy-Go-Luckys!'"

cried Mat.

"And here's another--take it for your motto:

'For lofty flights
The Torchlights!'"

Ivy's neat allusion brought forth three cheers for Bud Waters.

"Mr. Dawson inquired about Bud to-day. I bet he'll look out for him, though he has been kind to the Torchlights all along."

The girls glanced at each other as if to say, "What did I tell you?"

"The other day he gave us the use of a big room over his offices; said we could use it for a library and he'd provide the books and furniture," said Mark.

"When there's 'something doing' in the way of reform, Fred Dawson is right there," said Jack.

Whereupon there followed three ringing cheers for that gentleman, which made Alene color with pride. And then the meeting adjourned.

They all descended to the first floor, where the boys joined the men in the library, and the girls went outside for a parting ramble and chat, with Prince gambolling around them.

"There are things about the Torchlights we might copy," remarked Laura. "They take in members whether they like them or not, and try to help them."

"We might invite Hermione and Vera to start with," suggested Ivy.

"That would be kind. I think they would like it," said Alene.

They had reached the grassy terrace beneath the apple-trees, and Ivy, with a sudden recollection exclaimed,

"Girls, it was here we first met, or I should say parted, for Net and I ran so hard we lost our apples in tumbling over the wall, leaving poor Lol to be eaten up by Prince."

"That was the fifteenth of June. I remember it so well," said Laura.

"We have had some lovely times together since then," said Alene.

"To-day was the loveliest of all," declared Ivy.

Then Alene uttered hopefully a prediction that in time proved a true one:

"Girls, we'll have a happier time still on the anniversary of that day--Ivy will be cured, and we'll dance round the Maypole together, the 'maddest, merriest' Happy-Go-Luckys in all the world!"

THE END.