Georgina of the Rainbows

by Annie F. Johnston

It had been four months since the last one came. Georgina had kept careful count, although she had not betrayed her interest except in the wistful way she watched Barby when the postman came. It made her throat ache to see that little shadow of disappointment creep into Barby’s lovely gray eyes and then see her turn away with her lips pressed together tight for a moment before she began to hum or speak brightly about something else. No Chinese letter had come in her absence to be forwarded.

Georgina wished her father could know how very much Barby cared about hearing from him. Maybe if his attention were called to it he would write oftener. If the editor of a big newspaper like Grandfather Shirley, thought her letters were good enough to print, maybe her father might pay attention to one of them. A resolve to write to him some day began to shape itself in her mind.

She would have been surprised could she have known that already one of her epistles was on its way to him. Barby had sent him the “rainbow letter.” For Barby had not drawn off silent and hurt when his letters ceased to come, as many a woman would have done.

“Away off there in the interior he has missed the mails,” she told herself. “Or the messenger he trusted may have failed to post his letters, or he may be ill. I’ll not judge him until I know.”

After Georgina’s letter came she resolutely put her forebodings and misgivings aside many a time, prompted by it to steer onward so steadily that hope must do as Uncle Darcy said, “make rainbows even of her tears.”

Georgina wrote on until dinner time, telling all about the way she had spent her birthday dollar. After dinner when the sunshine had dried all traces of the previous night’s rain, she persuaded Tippy that she was entirely over the effects of the gas, and perfectly able to go down street and select the picture postals with which to conduct her daily correspondence.

Richard joined her as she passed the bungalow. They made a thrilling afternoon for themselves by whispering to each other whenever any strange-looking person passed them, “S’pose _that_ was the owner of the pouch and he was looking for us.” The dread of their sin finding them out walked like a silent-footed ghost beside them all the way, making the two pairs of brown eyes steal furtive glances at each other now and then, and delicious little shivers of apprehension creep up and down their backs.

Whether it was the passing of the unseasonable weather into hot July sunshine again or whether the wild-cat liniment was responsible, no one undertook to say, but Mrs. Triplett’s rheumatism left her suddenly, and at a time when she was specially glad to be rid of it. The Sewing Circle, to which she belonged, was preparing for a bazaar at the Church of the Pilgrims, and her part in it would keep her away from home most of the time for three days.

That is why Georgina had unlimited freedom for a while. She was left in Belle’s charge, and Belle, still brooding over her troubles, listlessly assented to anything proposed to her. Belle had been allowed to go and come as she pleased when she was ten, and she saw no reason why Georgina was not equally capable of taking care of herself.

Hardly was Mrs. Triplett out of sight that first morning when Georgina slipped out of the back gate with a long brass-handled fire-shovel, to meet Richard out on the dunes. He brought a hoe, and in his hand was the little compass imbedded in the nut.