Already Meadowcroft’s acquaintance with the school-master had ripened into warm friendship. All through the autumn, he had been a frequent visitor at the high school, at first after hours, but presently a deeply interested observer during the sessions. And though at first he had had the carriage wait for him, after a short time he sent it back at once and went home on the train the South Paulding children took, walking to the train at Paulding and from the station to his sister’s. The first halting progress through the town of Paulding with its loafers and staring groups had been difficult; just as his first excursion across the floor of the main room of the high school with seventy-odd pairs of curious young eyes upon him had been an ordeal. But thereafter both processes had become progressively easier; and at this time he was vaguely aware that the uneven pound of his crutches on the school-room floor was a familiar and welcome sound both to master and pupils, all the latter of whom he could now call by name.
The year just closing had been that of a presidential election. Mr. Appleton wishing to go home to vote, had astonished Meadowcroft by asking him to take charge of the school for the day and to hear his classes. Overcoming some natural shrinking, Mr. Meadowcroft had complied with the request, and the day stood out from all others as a red-letter day in his life. Since then he had thrice taken classes: once, when Mr. Appleton wished to attend a funeral and twice during the last week of school when the principal’s cold had threatened to take away his voice.
Before he had gone far, it came to Humphrey Meadowcroft that it was something new for him to be leaving with regret a place that had become home to him. For years a journey had meant to him neither regret nor anticipation. It had been simply a bridge between monotonies. He was fortunate to feel so loath to go, to be looking ahead eagerly already to the day when he might return again. For it meant that he had friends, and friends made South Paulding a home for one who had long been homeless. One friend would have meant much to his lonely heart, and he had three—three royal as well as loyal friends!
CHAPTER XVIII
ROSE HARROW wouldn’t have felt slighted had she known that Mr. Meadowcroft didn’t think of including her among his friends. She realized, as Betty did not, that he didn’t care for her as he did for Tommy and Betty, but she did not resent his preference for them. She was grateful to him for persuading her mother to allow her to go to school, but she wasn’t particularly drawn to him. Secretly she thought him “stuck-up” and she felt she would be bored to go to see him as Tommy and Betty did constantly. And when Betty had asked her to go to the station on the day he went away, Rose had decided it was too near supper time and she wouldn’t go.
As the train pulled out, the boy and girl on the platform looked into one another’s eyes with a sudden sense of loss and loneliness upon them. And when Betty recollected that Mr. Meadowcroft was to see a surgeon, it came to her that he would probably suffer terribly, and she clasped her hands with a look of despair.
As Tommy gazed at her in perplexity, on a sudden a light came to his eyes, and he gave vent to a whoop that recalled his grammar school days before he had acquired the dignity of the long trousers that were now so short.
“Golly, I almost forgot!” he cried. “Come into the depot, Bet, while I show you something. I found it in the woodshed just now—that’s why I was so late. I was reading something in a paper that was wrapped round a box of axle-grease dad got over in Millville the week before Christmas. His wheel got stuck. He gave me blazes for not oiling the wagon, but perhaps I ain’t glad now that I forgot! Come on in quick.”
Millville, an ugly, unsightly factory village a mile and a half north of Paulding, was scarcely more than a name to South Paulding people. With trembling hands, Tommy drew forth a copy of its weekly paper, unfolded and spread it out upon a bench in the station, calling Betty’s attention to an advertisement in conspicuous type embellished by a picture of a bearded, benevolent-looking man in spectacles.
Dr. Vandegrift of London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco, large type immediately below declared him, and announced that he would be in the parlors of the Eagle Hotel, Millville, for the week beginning December 26th, to fit glasses and to treat all affections and diseases of the eye. Finer print following gave an account of the doctor’s education and enumerated the degrees he had received from foreign universities and the decorations from various potentates. It narrated many marvelous cures he had effected, including more than one case of total blindness, and predicted yet more marvelous things to come because of his recently perfected invention. There were, of course, other eye-cups (so-called) on the market, but this eye-cup of Dr. Vandegrift differed in one vital particular from anything of the sort ever patented. It was warranted to cure a list of ailments and diseases of the eye that occupied six lines of the advertisement; and the friends of the blind were urged to bring forward all but inveterate cases.