She knew that all his thoughts and all his ideals for the future were bound up in his desire to make life easier for the people whom he did not believe were having a fair deal. Of course, Billy was a youthful and rather ignorant socialist, but for those reasons he was perhaps the more enthusiastic.
Certainly his own family did not understand him and knew but little of what was going on inside his mind; but this was not their fault so much as Billy’s. He was sensitive to ridicule, like many dreamers, and, moreover, he never felt that he had the strength for argument. It was easier for him to do the thing he wished and take the consequences, rather than argue and explain. It was enough if Vera and a few other friends realized that his laziness was in part physical delicacy, and that he only acted when he thought the result worth while.
In a way it was odd that Mr. and Mrs. Webster should have had so queer a son and not strange that they should not understand him. Billy was one of the persons whom no one ever fully understands and who never fully understands himself, because he was intended to travel by a different route than the most of us. There was a streak of genius in the O’Neill family. Polly O’Neill, now Mrs. Burton, was never like other people, besides possessing a great gift as an actress. Perhaps Billy was only odd without her genius, but the future alone could answer this question.
To Vera he now appeared a young Sir Galahad riding in front of her. The boy’s hat was off, his fair hair curling over his white forehead, he was pale and thin from his recent illness. But it was a fact that Billy usually had strength for the things he wished to do.
Naturally, Billy Webster had not developed his socialistic ideas alone. Unknown to his parents there had been a laborer on his father’s place, who had once been a school teacher in Russia and because of his views had been compelled to leave. He had been accustomed to come often to Vera’s father’s house, and when Billy was present to talk for hours on his revolutionary propaganda. Moreover, Billy also had a teacher at the High School who, although saner than the Russian, also wished to make the world over according to his own plan. Besides, as Billy was not strong enough to be outdoors so much as the rest of his family, he had spent many quiet hours in reading books on social questions.
“How do you expect to find your way to the place, Billy?” Vera asked, after five or ten minutes’ more of riding in silence.
Again the boy turned his head, laughing cheerfully.
“Sure I don’t know, but I pumped Peggy as much as I could this morning without actually having my plan found out. Besides, I am trusting somewhat to luck. I meant to get some information out of Marshall when he reached camp this morning, but he and Peg went off somewhere to talk. Queer, their being intimate friends all of a sudden, Vera, don’t you think? I agree with Bettina Graham, I never knew two people so unlike. And I don’t know whether I admire Marshall.”
Vera frowned. She cared for Peggy more perhaps than for any of the other Camp Fire girls and she also had been a little surprised at her recent behavior. Yet she answered sensibly:
“It isn’t important, you know, Billy, whether you like Ralph Marshall or not, so long as Peggy does. You know you have said a hundred times you did not think outsiders had a right to interfere with friendships. And Peggy’s pretty clever! If she likes Ralph there must be more to him than the rest of us can see. She don’t like many people.”