Estelle congealed at once. “I didn’t ask him,” she answered and took such a great snip in the overalls that she was forced to cut out a larger patch. But as new light shone in her eyes, there was no doubt about it that her suspicions, whatever they were, had been confirmed.
But I, who did not, as she demanded, believe in Dave, was not accounted worthy to be told what she had discovered. I thought, myself, it was fancy. She admitted that there was nothing to tell and yet the look in her eyes told me that there was something from which she shut me out.
I left her to her patching, and went across the bridge to Uncle Horace’s myself. I had not thought of it until grandma said she wished she had known that Estelle was going over, because she wanted to send some calves-foot jelly to Rob. I said, at once, that I would go and carry it.
Rob would be no more elusive to me than to Estelle. I remembered now that she had never been one of his favorites. I had even fancied sometimes that he was a little jealous of her influence over Dave.
“Loveday will take the jelly out of the mould for you,” grandma had said. And I sought for Loveday, knowing that she was so dainty and particular about her jelly that she disliked to have any one touch it. But Loveday was not to be found, and Viola had retired to don the plaid dress that was her afternoon toilet, adorned with cherry ribbons for the beguiling of Leander Green, a persistent bachelor. So I emptied the mould myself, taking care that the jelly rose should not be shorn of a petal, and that it should be as daintily arranged as possible to tempt the invalid’s appetite. And across the bridge I went, hearing the workmen’s hammers from the shipyard on the way, with my heart sore for Dave, and determined that if I thought from his actions that Rob really knew anything about the matter he should not be elusive with me. I was not one of the clever ones of the family, and I knew it, but I had the persistency that always accompanied the Partridge nose.
I found Rob lying on a lounge in his own room. It was a chintz-covered lounge and against its gay colors his face looked woefully wan and wasted.
“Rob, you ought to have come home before,” I exclaimed, too frank in my dismay at his changed looks. “Palmyra air and home nursing are the things to make you pick up!” I added hastily and as cheerfully as I could.
“I knew he didn’t want me to come—father, you know. He thinks I haven’t any pluck.” There was a deep, anxious line between the boy’s delicately-penciled brows. “Dave, now, ought to have been his son.”
“Dave!” I echoed wonderingly. “He can’t bear Dave!”
“That’s because he doesn’t know him. I do.” Rob had a kind of triumphant air as of a great discoverer. “Whatever fathers and mothers and teachers may think, it takes one fellow to know another. When it comes to pluck, now, Dave is all there. He’s simply great!”