FullReads

Presently, while the two men rested with long chairs and long glasses and Mrs. Hawtry ministered to them, Jimmie appeared on the scene and after exchanging proper greetings turned to inspect Cecelia Anne and her work. “I think you’ve got it bright enough,” he said with kindly condescension. “You can go and get dressed for dinner now. And to-morrow morning if I’m not using the wheel maybe I’ll let you use it awhile.”

“Oh, fank you!” said Cecelia Anne who had never quite outgrown her babyhood’s lisp, “and can I have the saddle lowered so’s I can reach the pedals?”

“Oh, I s’pose so,” said Jimmie grudgingly. “Sometimes you act just like a girl. You give ’em something and they always want, more. Now you run on and open the stable door. I’m goin’ to try if I can ride right into the harness-room without getting off. Don’t catch your foot in the door and don’t get too near Dolly’s hind legs.”

When the children had vanished around the corner of the house, Mrs. Hawtry turned to Mr. Debrett.

“There’s the explanation of Cecelia Anne’s ruggedness,” said she. “She and Jimmie are inseparable. He has taught her all kinds of boys’ accomplishments. And she’s as happy as a bird if she’s only allowed to trot around after him. It doesn’t seem to make her in the least ungentle or hoydenish and I feel that she’s safer with him than with the gossipy little girls down at the hotel.”

“Not a doubt of it,” Debrett heartily endorsed. “She couldn’t have a better adviser. Her grandmother, a very clever lady by the way, had a high opinion of your son’s practical mind. A useful antidote, I should say, to his sister’s extreme gentleness.”

He found further confirmation of old Mrs. Hawtry’s acumen when Mr. Hawtry proposed that they should look over Cecelia Anne’s disbursement account, kept by herself, as the will had specified.

Cecelia Anne was delighted with the idea. Jimmie had wandered out to see about the sports that were going to be held on the Fourth of July, and so the burden of explanation fell upon the little heiress. She drew her account book from its drawer in her father’s desk, settled herself comfortably in the hollow of his arm and proceeded to disclose the “trend of her inclinations” as is evidenced by her shopping list:

“One sloop yat Jennie H swoped for hockey skates when it got cold.

One air riffle.

Three Tickets.

One riding skirt.

Two Tickets.

Six white rats two died.

Four Tickets.

Leather Stocking Tales. Three Books.

Three Tickets.

Four Boxing Gloves.

Eight Tickets.

One bull tarrier dog and collar he fought Len Fogerty’s dog bit him all up and father sent him away.”

“I remember him,” said Mr. Hawtry, “a well-bred beast but a holy terror, go on dear.”

“One Byccle.

Three Tickets.

Stanley’s Darkest Africa two books but not very new.

One printing press.

Two Tickets.

Treasure Island. One Book.”

“And that’s all the big things,” finished Cecelia Anne in evident relief. “Jimmie wrote down the prices, wouldn’t you like to see them?”

And she crossed to Mr. Debrett and laid the open book on his knee.

Mr. Debrett, as Cecelia Anne teetered up and down on her heels and toes before him, read the list again, counted up the total expenditure and admitted that his ward had got remarkably good value for her money.

“But what are all these ‘tickets,’ my dear?” he asked her.

“Eden Musee,” answered Cecelia Anne. And the very thought of it drew her to her mother’s knee. “Jimmie and the boys used to take me there Saturday afternoons in the winter to try to get my nerve up. They say,” she admitted dolefully, “that I haven’t got much. So they used to take me to the Chamber of Horrors so’s I’d get accustomed to life. That’s what Jimmie thought I needed. They used to like it, and I expect I’d have liked it, too, if I could have kept my eyes open, but I never could. I couldn’t even get them open when the boys stood me right close to that gentleman having death throes on the ground after he’d been hung on a tree. You can hear him breathing!”