Treasured Brides Collection (28 page)

Out in the lovely summer day at last, he drew a breath of relief and began to talk eagerly to his mother about the new curtains she was going to select the next day for his college room. He had decided ideas of just what he wanted, built upon a college room of a famous athlete he had seen last spring.

Chris was glad his father’s headache seemed to be better and that the dinner table was a cheerful place, with all the things he liked best to eat. His father seemed a bit grave and silent, but he attributed that to the headache, for he responded smiling to anything that was said. Chris tried to persuade himself that he had only imagined those lines of care on his father’s face. He talked eagerly of his new car, and his father seemed pleased and promised to take a drive with him if he would come down to the bank between eleven and twelve o’clock the next day.

Monday morning, Chris came whistling down the stairs with a light in his eyes. His mother stood in the hall just below him, and he paused at the foot of the stairs to stoop and touch a light kiss on her forehead. Such a pretty little mother! But he knew just what she was going to say, and he wished to forestall it. She was a little peach of a mother, of course, but she always had been afraid of things, and he was so full of his own joy this morning that he felt a little impatient toward her fears.

“Oh, Chris, you will be careful, won’t you?” she implored, just as he had known she would do.

“Sure, Muzzie. I’m always careful. Why, what’s the idea? You act as though I had never driven before.”

“But, a new car, Chris, that’s different. You don’t know how it will act. And a new kind that you have never driven before. That free-wheeling. I’m afraid of it. You don’t know how to work it. They tell me it’s quite different from other driving. I wish you’d take a serviceman along with you the first day or two.”

Chris laughed cheerfully.

“Well, I like that! A serviceman! I think I see myself. Why, Mud, you know Uncle Eben’s car was just like this one, and I drove it for him all the time he was here, every day for two weeks. But, Mother, seriously, you must stop worrying about me. I’m not a kid anymore. I’m a man. This is my last year at college, remember. And besides, there isn’t a car made that I can’t drive. Why do you suppose I’ve hung around Ross Barton’s garage all these years, if not for that? I’m considered a good driver. Why don’t you go along with me and prove it? I’ll give you a good ride and leave you wherever you say, then you will have more confidence in me.”

“Oh, I can’t, Chris, I have a committee meeting here at the house this morning. But you won’t be late for lunch, will you? You know I’ll be worried.”

The boy stooped and silenced her with a real kiss on her soft, anxious lips, now.

“Now, look here, Mother,” he said earnestly, “you’ve just got to stop worrying. You’re just making trouble for yourself. Besides, I’m stopping at the bank at eleven for Father, and you know he’ll come back on time. You’ve got him well trained. Sure you don’t want to go along, just for a little spin? Well, come on out and look at the car, anyway. Did you see it yet from the window? Look!”

He flung the front door open.

“There! Isn’t that a winner! Isn’t it the niftiest car you ever saw? Long, clean, sporty lines. Dad was great to do all this for me. It’s going to make all the difference in the world in my college life, having this car.”

His mother smiled indulgently with a wistful look in her eyes and patted his arm.

“Your father feels that you deserve it, Chris,” she said lovingly. “We want you to get the greatest enjoyment possible out of your last year in college.”

She stood in the open doorway and watched him drive away, thinking what a happy lot was hers with such a son. Then she turned with a bit of a sigh of anxiety, and yet a smile, and went back to her pleasant, sheltered life, thinking how good God had been to her.

Chris drove out into the clear September morning, his face alight with satisfaction. Down through the pleasant village street of the pretty suburb where he had been born. He wanted, first of all, to ride around the old familiar streets and get used to the idea that this wonderful car was his.

As he thrilled to the touch of the new wheel, he remembered that first old Ford he had bought for ten dollars. He had to tinker with it for three weeks before it would run. He had never been so happy with it then, till the kindly policeman who had known him all his young life stopped him because he was too young to drive and had no license. But he never dreamed that day that only a few years more and he would be driving one of the best cars that was made, and thrilling to the thought that it was all his own.

It was practically his own now. Dad would see to the red tape of the purchase tomorrow morning. He had promised. And then he would drive it back to the home garage, and it would be his. It made him feel like a man to think of it. He had a sudden memory of his express wagon, and how serious life had looked to him as he had taken it out on that first morning after Christmas, on the street, and showed it to his playmates. And his first bicycle! Dad had always been so good to him, getting him everything he wanted. How he loved that wheel!

But boy! It had been nothing like this first car! This was great!

Skimming along with the top down and the wind in his hair! There was nothing like it!

He was skirting the edge of the little grove just outside of town now, where they used to have the high school picnics. The trees were golden, with here and there a vivid coral one. They were early in turning. The yellow leaves against the blue of the autumn sky filled him with an ecstasy. He wished he had someone to talk to who would understand, yet he felt that it would be impossible to put into words what he was feeling. College and car and the glory of the day all mixed up in his soul. Boy! It was great!

He whirled back into town again and traversed the streets, going slowly by his own house and waving to his mother, whose face he could see at the window, just to give her confidence in his driving. His mother waved back to him. She was a great little mother. She was a pretty good sport after all, fearful as she was. Some mothers would have made a terrible kick at having their sons go off to college with a high-powered car. Mothers were always so afraid of accidents.

There was Natalie Halsey. He would pick her up and take her for a spin. She had her arms full of bundles and would perhaps be glad of the lift. He had never had much to do with Natalie, although they had been in the same class in high school. She was a quiet, shy girl, always hurrying off home right after school and never going to any parties or high school affairs, a bit shabby, too, with very few friends among the high school clique. Had he heard that her father died this summer? He wasn’t quite sure. It would be better not to mention it. He hadn’t seen Natalie for a year or two. He couldn’t remember when it was.

He drew up alongside the girl and called out, “Hello, Natalie, want a ride? I’m going your way.”

Natalie turned with a delighted smile and surrendered heavy bundles as he sprang and took them from her.

“That will be wonderful!” she said, turning a tired smile upon him, and he wondered that he had never noticed before what blue eyes she had. “I was just wondering whether I could get these things home. I twisted my arm yesterday, and it aches so I could hardly hold on to everything.”

“You oughtn’t to try to carry such loads,” reproved Chris in a grown-up tone. “Why didn’t you have them sent?”

“Well, you see, the grocery stores don’t deliver,” said Natalie frankly, “and we can’t afford to go to any other.” She laughed cheerfully as if it were a joke, and he looked at her with a wondering pity. He had never realized before that people who were decent at all had to consider such trivial matters. It embarrassed him. He hastened to change the subject and took naturally the one uppermost in his mind, which was college.

“You’re going back to college this fall, I suppose? I forget where you went.”

Natalie laughed again, this time wistfully.

“No such luck for me,” she said. “I went for two years to the university, but last year Mother was too sick to leave, and this year—well—I oughtn’t to complain,” she added brightly, “I’ve just got a job, and I’m very fortunate in these hard times.”

“A job!” said Chris in dismay, and looked at her wonderingly. Why, she seemed just a kid out of high school. So slender and frail looking.

“You know my father died last spring,” added Natalie sadly. “I needed a job badly.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Chris. He felt he was making a bungle of things. He recalled suddenly that Natalie had not been at the high school commencement exercises three years ago. Someone had been sick. Her essay, which had received honorable mention, had been read by someone else. Poor kid! She must have been having a rotten time.

“I just got the job,” confided Natalie, almost eagerly. “I’m to be cashier at the grocery store on the corner of Park Avenue. I’m so pleased.”

There was a ringing to her voice that told of anxiety and need, and Chris looked at her wonderingly, pityingly.

“Oh, I say,” said Chris, as they neared her home, “wouldn’t you like to take a little spin? You don’t have to go in yet, do you? I’ve just got this new car and I’m trying her out. Want to go?”

“Oh, I’d love to,” said Natalie breathlessly, “but I’ve got to get home. You see, my mother’s been very sick again, and I’ve left her all alone this morning. It was only a bad case of the flu, but she’s very weak, and I don’t like to leave her long. My sister had to go on an errand. But the car is wonderful, and I thank you for this much of a ride. I shall remember it a long time.”

He helped her out and carried her bundles to the door of the plain little house for her, and suddenly thought of the contrast between this home and his own. There was something touching and lovely in the way Natalie thanked him. Her voice was sweet and womanly. He felt a deep discomfort at the thought that this pretty, frail girl had to work in a grocery store and make change for all kinds of people.

The discomfort lasted as he spun away from the door into the bright September day again. He half wished he had not picked Natalie up and got to know the unhappiness in her life. He couldn’t do anything about it, of course.

He whirled into another street, and there was Betty Zane coming around the corner.

“Hello, Betts!” called Chris. “Wantta ride in my new buggy?”

“Oh boy! Do I?” replied Betty eagerly, clambering in without waiting for him to get out and help her, and they whirled away into the sunshine.

Betty was pretty and stylish and a great chatterbox. Betty admired the car and in the same breath told of one as wonderful that Bruce Carson had just bought. Betty had much gossip to tell of the different members of the old high school class, and she threw out hints as to parties that she might be induced to go to with the boy that got the earliest request. Betty talked of college and what she expected to do there, decried the fact that Chris was not attending a coeducational college where they might continue their acquaintance, openly said she would like more rides in his wonderful new roadster, and left him reluctantly when it was time for him to go for his father.

Chris had forgotten Natalie and her difficulties when he rode downtown toward his father’s bank. His mind was full of the things that Betty Zane had told him. When he closed his eyes, he could see the bright red speck that had been Betty’s little sharp painted lips and the dancing sarcastic eyes. He still heard ringing in his ears some of the flattery she had handed him. He knew that some of the things Betty had said had been bold, things his mother would not have liked. But, of course, Betty was a modern girl. Mother would have to learn that girls were not as they were when she was young. Then why should he suddenly think of Natalie? She was a girl more like the girls of his mother’s day. But then that was probably because she had had no chance in life, no good times. She was old-fashioned, poor thing! But she was nice. Too bad she couldn’t have had a better chance!

Then he turned downtown and made his way through increasing traffic toward his father’s bank.

Within a half block of the bank he came to a traffic light. As he waited for it to change, he noticed an unusual jam in traffic and stretched his neck to discover the cause.

Then he saw a double line of people were blocking the sidewalk in front of the bank and surging out into the street, right in the way of traffic. What would it mean?

The light flashed green, and Chris moved on a few paces nearer to the scene of confusion. There must have been an accident. There were so many people and cars he could not see what was the matter.

Then as he drew nearer, he saw ugly, menacing faces in the crowd, and he heard a rough voice call out, “There he is, the son of the president, ridin’ round in a five-thousand-dollar car, while we have to sweat fer our money!”

Then a kind of growl passed over the crowd like a roll of muffled thunder, and suddenly a little thickset man in the crowd picked up a brick from a pile along the curb where the road was being mended and hurled it straight at Chris. It crashed through the beautiful glass of the windshield, barely escaped hitting him in the temple, and glanced off through the open window at his left. Chris was too much astonished to even be frightened at first.

But the shattering glass had fallen among the crowd and cut hands and faces here and there, a bit got into someone’s eye, and all was confusion. Fists were shaken in his face, angry threats were hurled at him, and Chris was hard put to know what to do, for the car was tight in traffic and he could not move it.

Then suddenly, he heard the voice of his friend the policeman at his left.

“Better get out of here quick, Chris,” he said in a guarded voice. “Start yer engine. I’ll make a way fer ya.” And the mounted officer of the law rode fearlessly into the crowd, hitting this way and that with his club, till the mob separated enough for Chris to go through, escorted by two or three burly policemen who appeared out of the throng. They battled an opening through to the side street that led to the alley of the bank, but as they turned the corner Chris heard the report of a shot, and a bullet whistled by his ear, straight through what was left of the windshield. Then Chris knew he had had a close call.