The Cruise of the Dazzler | Page 2

Vallejo streets his
companions turned off to the right.
"So long, Fred," he called as he turned his wheel to the left. "So long,
Charley."
"See you to-night!" they called back.
"No--I can't come," he answered.
"Aw, come on," they begged.
"No, I've got to dig.--So long!"
As he went on alone, his face grew grave and a vague worry came into
his eyes. He began resolutely to whistle, but this dwindled away till it
was a thin and very subdued little sound, which ceased altogether as he
rode up the driveway to a large two-storied house.
"Oh, Joe!"
He hesitated before the door to the library. Bessie was there, he knew,
studiously working up her lessons. She must be nearly through with
them, too, for she was always done before dinner, and dinner could not
be many minutes away. As for his lessons, they were as yet untouched.
The thought made him angry. It was bad enough to have one's
sister--and two years younger at that--in the same grade, but to have her
continually head and shoulders above him in scholarship was a most

intolerable thing. Not that he was dull. No one knew better than himself
that he was not dull. But somehow--he did not quite know how--his
mind was on other things and he was usually unprepared.
"Joe--please come here." There was the slightest possible plaintive note
in her voice this time.
"Well?" he said, thrusting aside the portière with an impetuous
movement.
He said it gruffly, but he was half sorry for it the next instant when he
saw a slender little girl regarding him with wistful eyes across the big
reading-table heaped with books. She was curled up, with pencil and
pad, in an easy-chair of such generous dimensions that it made her
seem more delicate and fragile than she really was.
"What is it, Sis?" he asked more gently, crossing over to her side.
She took his hand in hers and pressed it against her cheek, and as he
stood beside her came closer to him with a nestling movement.
"What is the matter, Joe dear?" she asked softly. "Won't you tell me?"
He remained silent. It struck him as ridiculous to confess his troubles to
a little sister, even if her reports were higher than his. And the little
sister struck him as ridiculous to demand his troubles of him. "What a
soft cheek she has!" he thought as she pressed her face gently against
his hand. If he could but tear himself away--it was all so foolish! Only
he might hurt her feelings, and, in his experience, girls' feelings were
very easily hurt.
She opened his fingers and kissed the palm of his hand. It was like a
rose-leaf falling; it was also her way of asking her question over again.
"Nothing 's the matter," he said decisively. And then, quite
inconsistently, he blurted out, "Father!"
His worry was now in her eyes. "But father is so good and kind, Joe,"

she began. "Why don't you try to please him? He does n't ask much of
you, and it 's all for your own good. It 's not as though you were a fool,
like some boys. If you would only study a little bit--"
"That 's it! Lecturing!" he exploded, tearing his hand roughly away.
"Even you are beginning to lecture me now. I suppose the cook and the
stable-boy will be at it next."
He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked forward into a
melancholy and desolate future filled with interminable lectures and
lecturers innumerable.
"Was that what you wanted me for?" he demanded, turning to go.
She caught at his hand again. "No, it wasn't; only you looked so
worried that I thought--I--" Her voice broke, and she began again
freshly. "What I wanted to tell you was that we're planning a trip across
the bay to Oakland, next Saturday, for a tramp in the hills."
"Who 's going?"
"Myrtle Hayes--"
"What! That little softy?" he interrupted.
"I don't think she is a softy," Bessie answered with spirit. "She 's one of
the sweetest girls I know."
"Which is n't saying much, considering the girls you know. But go on.
Who are the others?"
"Pearl Sayther, and her sister Alice, and Jessie Hilborn, and Sadie
French, and Edna Crothers. That 's all the girls."
Joe sniffed disdainfully. "Who are the fellows, then?"
"Maurice and Felix Clement, Dick Schofield, Burt Layton, and--"
"That 's enough. Milk-and-water chaps, all of them."

"I--I wanted to ask you and Fred and Charley," she said in a quavering
voice. "That 's what I called you in for--to ask you to come."
"And what are you going to do?" he asked.
"Walk, gather wild flowers,--the poppies are all out now,--eat luncheon
at some nice place, and--and--"