CHAPTER XXVI
There was no question that Hertha Ogilvie was not making a success at stenography and typewriting at the excellent school which Dick had found for her. Among the thirty-odd pupils who had entered in February, only two were as far behind as she. And though her teachers, who liked her for her good manners and quiet speech, were ready with encouragement, assuring her that the moment would come when, with unexpected rapidity, the light of understanding would shine amid the darkness of insignificant lines and dots and she would forge ahead, she herself did not believe in the miracle. This was perhaps her greatest handicap—distrust in her ability blocked her road. An ever recurring sense of stupidity kept her repeating the same tasks without progress, until, filled with disgust, she threw her books aside, declaring that she would give it up and take to sewing again.
This was her mood on the Saturday afternoon following the game of bridge, when, dropping her work, she went into the park with Bob Henderson, her next door neighbor and devoted companion. Bob was the oldest of four children, though but six himself, and when his mother could spare him from the home tasks that were already piling upon his small shoulders, he liked best to go with Hertha among the trees to the lake where every day there was some new interest. This afternoon it was a brood of ducks that were taking their first bath. And while Hertha sat on the grass he wandered along the shore, throwing in bits of bread and sometimes laughing softly to himself.
The afternoon was full of golden lights, the warm sun bringing a feeling of happy drowsiness. School was forgotten and the southern girl basked in the languorous fragrance of spring. Life had begun again for the world. Across from where she sat on a granite stone a little white butterfly lighted and slowly folded and unfolded its wings. It quivered on its resting place as though not yet accustomed to flight. The buds on the azalea were slowly opening. Everywhere life was close to fulfilment and yet as though waiting for some final word from sun or earth.
"Please come here, Miss Ogilvie," Bob called, running up to her. "Look at this bird. I bet it's broken its wing."
A white birch hung over the path by the water's edge and beneath it, on the smooth asphalt, fluttered a little bird, brilliant with black and orange markings. It hopped away as they approached, but made no flight, and as they followed they could mark each splotch of black and white and orange.
"What is it?" Bob asked eagerly.
"I never saw it before," Hertha said. "I think it belongs up in the treetops."
Bob eyed the broken wing. "It was some boy," he said admiringly, "that could hit such a little thing with nothing but a stone."