Thus the entries in the scrawling, boyish hand covered page after page, recounting the adventurous and ofttimes seamy career of the two youthful pirates, through all of which the two stood up for each other stanchly, and never, never gave each other away, because they were “sworn frends till deth us do part,” and their names were “written in blood on the attic window sill.”
The entries became farther apart after a while, and the spelling improved until finally there came this announcement:
“Tad and I can’t be pirates any longer. We are going to college next week.”
There the India ink ceased and also the illustrations. After that came page after page of neat entries in faded but still legible blue ink, telling of the progress through college of the two boys; chronicles of the joys, the troubles, the triumphs and the escapades of the two friends, still so inseparable that their names have become a byword among the students and they go by the nickname of David and Jonathan. When one of them gets into trouble the other one still does “what a sworn friend has to do when their names are written in blood on the attic window sill.” The Winnebagos listened with shining eyes while Nyoda read the tale of this remarkable friendship.
The dates of the entries moved forward by months; records of scrapes became fewer and fewer; David and Jonathan had outgrown their colthood and were beginning to win honors with brain and brawn. Then came the record of their graduation and return to Oakwood; of “Tad the Terror” becoming a doctor, of the marriage of Jasper’s sister Patricia to a sea captain; the death of his father and the passing of Carver House into his possession.
Later came the account of a delightful year spent abroad with Tad Phillips, of mountain climbing in the Alps; of browsing among rare old art treasures in France and Italy; of gay larks in Paris. It was always he and Tad, he and Tad; still as loyal to each other as in the days when they wrote their names in blood on the attic window sill.
After the entry which chronicled Jasper’s return to Oakland and settling down in Carver House with his mother, and his enthusiastic adoption of literature as a profession, came an item which made the Winnebagos sit up and listen. It was:
“June 3, 1885. I have had a new window put into my study on the side which faces toward’s Tad’s house on Harrisburg Hill. I had the young Italian artist, Pusini, who has lately come to New York, come and set the glass for me. It is a representation of a charming scene I came across in Italy—an arched gateway covered over with climbing roses. The window is arranged so that through the arch of the gateway I can look directly at Tad’s house. It gives me inspiration in my work.”
“What a beautiful idea!” said Hinpoha, carried away completely by the great love of Jasper Carver for his friend, so simply expressed in his diary.
“So that was Tad’s house, that we are living in!” said Sylvia excitedly. “I wonder where he is now.”