The Happy Venture | Page 3

none, and he wandered
across the room and dragged an enormous book out upon the floor. He
sprawled over it in a dim corner, his eyes apparently studying the
fireplace, and his fingers following across the page the raised dots
which spelled his morrow's lesson. What nice hands he had, Felicia
thought, watching from her seat, and how delicately yet strongly he
used them! She wondered what he could do with them in later years.
"They mustn't be wasted," she thought. She glanced across at Ken. He
too was looking at Kirk, with an oddly sober expression, and when she
caught his eye he grew somewhat red and stared out at the rain.
"Better, Mother dear?" Felicia asked, curling down on a footstool at
Mrs. Sturgis's feet.
"Rather, thank you," said her mother, and fell silent, patting the arm of
the chair as though she were considering whether or not to say
something more. She said nothing, however, and they sat quietly in the
falling dusk, Felicia stroking her mother's white hand, and Ken
humming softly to himself at the window. Kirk and his book were
almost lost in the corner--just a pale hint of the page, shadowed by the
hand which moved hesitantly across it. The hand paused, finally, and
Kirk demanded, "What's 'u-g-h' spell?"
"It spells 'Ugh'!" Ken grunted. "What on earth are you reading? Is that
what Miss Bolton gives you!"
"It's not my lesson," Kirk said; "it's much further along. But I can read
it."

"You'll get a wigging. You'd better stick to 'The cat can catch the
mouse,' et cetera."
"I finished that years ago," said Kirk, loftily. "This is a different book,
even. Listen to this: 'Ugh! There--sat--the dog with eyes--as--big
as--as--'"
"Tea-cups," said Felicia.
"'T-e-a-c-' yes, it is tea-cups," Kirk conceded; "how did you know,
Phil?--'as big as tea-cups,--staring--at--him. "You're a nice--fellow,"
said the soldier, and he--sat him--on--the witch's ap-ron, and took as
many cop--copper shillings--as his--pockets would hold.'"
"So that's it, is it?" Ken said. "Begin at the beginning, and let's hear it
all."
"Ken," said his mother, "that's in the back of the book. You shouldn't
encourage him to read things Miss Bolton hasn't given him."
"It'll do him just as much good to read that, as that silly stuff at the
beginning. Phil and I always read things we weren't supposed to have
reached."
"But for him--" Mrs. Sturgis murmured; "you and Phil were different,
Ken. Oh, well,--"
For Kirk had turned back several broad pages, and began:
"There came a soldier marching along the highroad--one, two! one,
two!..."
Little by little the March twilight settled deeper over the room. There
was only a flicker on the brass andirons, a blur of pale blossoms where
the potted azalea stood. The rain drummed steadily, and as steadily
came the gentle modulations of Kirk's voice, as the tale of "The
Tinder-Box" progressed.
It was the first time that he had ever read aloud anything so ambitious,

and his hearers sat listening with some emotion--his mother filled with
thankfulness that he had at last the key to a vast world which he now
might open at a touch; Ken, with a sort of half-amazed pride in the
achievements of a little brother who was surmounting such an obstacle.
Felicia sat gazing across the dim room.
"He's reading us a story!" she thought, over and over; "Kirk's reading to
us, without very many mistakes!" She reflected that the book, for her,
might as well be written in Sanskrit. "I ought to know something about
it," she mused; "enough to help him! It's selfish and stupid not to! I'll
ask Miss Bolton."
The soldier had gone only as far as the second dog's treasure-room,
when Maggie came to the door to say that supper was ready. From
between the dining-room curtains came the soft glow of the candles and
the inviting clink of dishes. "'He threw--away all the copper--money he
had, and filled his--knapsack with silver,'" Kirk finished in a hurry, and
shut the book with a bang.
"I wouldn't have done that," he said, as Felicia took the hand he held
out for some one to take; "I should think all the money he could
possibly get would have been useful."
"You've said it!" Ken laughed.
"Yes," Mrs. Sturgis murmured with a sigh, "all the money one can get
is useful. You read it very beautifully, darling--thank you."
She kissed his forehead, and took her place at the head of the table,
where the candles lit her gentle face and her brown eyes--filled now,
with a sudden brimming tenderness.
CHAPTER II
HAVOC
The town ran, in its lower part, to the grimy water-front, where there
was ever a noise of the unloading of ships, the shouts of teamsters, and

the clatter of dray-horses' big hoofs on bare