第42章 "THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER"(1)

It was in the early twilight that Mr.Jack told the story.He,Jill,and David were on the veranda,as usual watching the towers of Sunnycrest turn from gold to silver as the sun dropped behind the hills.It was Jill who had asked for the story.

"About fairies and princesses,you know,"she had ordered.

"But how will David like that?"Mr.Jack had demurred."Maybe he doesn't care for fairies and princesses.""I read one once about a prince--'t was 'The Prince and the Pauper,'and I liked that,"averred David stoutly.

Mr.Jack smiled;then his brows drew together in a frown.His eyes were moodily fixed on the towers.

"Hm-m;well,"he said,"I might,I suppose,tell you a story about a PRINCESS and--a Pauper.I--know one well enough.""Good!--then tell it,"cried both Jill and David.And Mr.Jack began his story.

"She was not always a Princess,and he was not always a Pauper,--and that's where the story came in,I suppose,"sighed the man."She was just a girl,once,and he was a boy;and they played together and--liked each other.He lived in a little house on a hill.""Like this?"demanded Jill.

"Eh?Oh--er--yes,SOMETHING like this,"returned Mr.Jack,with an odd half-smile."And she lived in another bit of a house in a town far away from the boy.""Then how could they play together?"questioned David.

"They couldn't,ALWAYS.It was only summers when she came to visit in the boy's town.She was very near him then,for the old aunt whom she visited lived in a big stone house with towers,on another hill,in plain sight from the boy's home.""Towers like those--where the Lady of the Roses lives?"asked David.

"Eh?What?Oh--er--yes,"murmured Mr.Jack."We'll say the towers were something like those over there."He paused,then went on musingly:"The girl used to signal,sometimes,from one of the tower windows.One wave of the handkerchief meant,'I'm coming,over';two waves,with a little pause between,meant,'You are to come over here.'So the boy used to wait always,after that first wave to see if another followed;so that he might know whether he were to be host or guest that day.The waves always came at eight o'clock in the morning,and very eagerly the boy used to watch for them all through the summer when the girl was there.""Did they always come,every morning?"Asked Jill.

"No;sometimes the girl had other things to do.Her aunt would want her to go somewhere with her,or other cousins were expected whom the girl must entertain;and she knew the boy did not like other guests to be there when he was,so she never asked him to come over at such times.On such occasions she did sometimes run up to the tower at eight o'clock and wave three times,and that meant,'Dead Day.'So the boy,after all,never drew a real breath of relief until he made sure that no dreaded third wave was to follow the one or the two.""Seems to me,"observed David,"that all this was sort of one-sided.Didn't the boy say anything?""Oh,yes,"smiled Mr.Jack."But the boy did not have any tower to wave from,you must remember.He had only the little piazza on his tiny bit of a house.But he rigged up a pole,and he asked his mother to make him two little flags,a red and a blue one.

The red meant 'All right';and the blue meant 'Got to work';and these he used to run up on his pole in answer to her waving 'I'm coming over,'or 'You are to come over here.'So,you see,occasionally it was the boy who had to bring the 'Dead Day,'as there were times when he had to work.And,by the way,perhaps you would be interested to know that after a while he thought up a third flag to answer her three waves.He found an old black silk handkerchief of his father's,and he made that into a flag.

He told the girl it meant 'I'm heartbroken,'and he said it was a sign of the deepest mourning.The girl laughed and tipped her head saucily to one side,and said,'Pooh!as if you really cared!'But the boy stoutly maintained his position,and it was that,perhaps,which made her play the little joke one day.

"The boy was fourteen that summer,and the girl thirteen.They had begun their signals years before,but they had not had the black one so long.On this day that I tell you of,the girl waved three waves,which meant,'Dead Day,'you remember,and watched until the boy had hoisted his black flag which said,'I'm heart-broken,'in response.Then,as fast as her mischievous little feet could carry her,she raced down one hill and across to the other.Very stealthily she advanced till she found the boy bent over a puzzle on the back stoop,and--and he was whistling merrily.

"How she teased him then!How she taunted him with 'Heart-broken,indeed--and whistling like that!'In vain he blushed and stammered,and protested that his whistling was only to keep up his spirits.The girl only laughed and tossed her yellow curls;then she hunted till she found some little jingling bells,and these she tied to the black badge of mourning and pulled it high up on the flagpole.The next instant she was off with a run and a skip,and a saucy wave of her hand;and the boy was left all alone with an hour's work ahead of him to untie the knots from his desecrated badge of mourning.

"And yet they were wonderfully good friends--this boy and girl.

From the very first,when they were seven and eight,they had said that they would marry each other when they grew up,and always they spoke of it as the expected thing,and laid many happy plans for the time when it should come.To be sure,as they grew older,it was not mentioned quite so often,perhaps;but the boy at least thought--if he thought of it all--that that was only because it was already so well understood.""What did the girl think?"It was Jill who asked the question.

"Eh?The girl?Oh,"answered Mr.Jack,a little bitterly,"I'm afraid I don't know exactly what the girl did think,but--it was n't that,anyhow--that is,judging from what followed.""What did follow?"