CHAPTER IX

A GREAT CHANGE COMING

Oriole could not keep back the tears, although she tried hard to do so. She realized that the ranchman was patting her hands and saying:

"Now, now! Don't take on so, my dear. Let me tell you all I have learned."

"Ye-yes, sir!" sobbed Oriole. "I want to know the worst!"

She had got that expression from Mrs. Joy herself. That good woman was now wiping her eyes frankly as she watched Oriole's sorrowful face.

"Well, my dear, maybe it is not as bad as it seems," Mr. Langdon said. "But I think you ought to know the particulars. I talked with one of the seamen who was rescued from that rocky island. He is in the East Boston Hospital. He certainly was a member of the _Helvetia's_ crew. He remembers you very well."

"Oh, dear!" gasped Oriole. "And my mamma and father?"

"This man says that not long after the purser's boat was sent away with you and the other passengers that the _Adrian Marple_ saved in it, the other boats were lowered. The wireless was out of order. That must have been why so few other vessels knew anything about the _Helvetia's_ trouble.

"Your father, Oriole, planned to go with your mother in the captain's boat. This seaman remembers Mr. Putnam clearly. He says your father went to work with some of the seamen to lower that boat--got into it himself while your mother waited to be lowered by a sling.

"But, my dear," the ranchman pursued, with his arm about the girl's shoulders, "an accident happened. The fall-block fouled, and one end of the boat went down suddenly and tipped the men in it into the sea. Your father was thrown against the hull of the sinking ship and--and he never came to the surface of the sea again."

"Oh! Oh! My dear daddy!" sobbed Oriole, her face against Mr. Langdon's coat.

"But listen!" urged the ranchman. "This seaman thinks your mother was saved. She was put in another boat--one commanded by the first officer of the _Helvetia_--and the seaman saw that boat picked up by another ship, not the _Adrian Marple_, of course, on which you were brought to the States.

"It seems a fog shut down. This seaman thinks that the ship that rescued the boat your mother was in was what he calls a 'tramp.' She was a freight ship and perhaps was bound to a distant port. She probably carried no passengers and possibly no wireless outfit.

"So that is why no word has come from your mother. The shock of your loss and your father's disappearance may have made it quite impossible for your mother to take steps to communicate with the steamship company that owned the _Helvetia_. Her first officer must have neglected to do so, as well. It is all a mystery as to what became of that strange freight ship, but there is good reason to hope."

"Oh, but my dear father is dead!" murmured Oriole. "What will mother do without her Noddy?" and she burst into sobs again. "Out there--all alone--in that strange--strange ship! What will happen to her?"

"Now, Oriole, don't you take on that-a-way," urged Mrs. Joy, likewise in tears.

"But, my poor daddy----"

"Don't grieve so, child," urged Mr. Langdon huskily. "I will be a father to you, Oriole. You shall never want for a thing. You are just like a sister to Myron and Marian now. They love you dearly."

"And I love them," sobbed the girl. "But I want my mamma so much! I--I just don't think I can--can live without her!"

"Don't say that. There is a good chance, we believe, of her coming back to you, my dear," said Mrs. Joy. "Don't lose heart, Oriole. Providence works in wondrous ways, the hymn book says."

"I am going to take care of you till your mother comes back," declared Mr. Langdon firmly. "I have talked with Nat Jardin and with Mrs. Joy, here. They both agree that a change will do you good.

"Sadie Brown is well enough to travel. She is a good woman and will be fond enough of you when she knows you. And those twins of mine--well! when I tell them you are going to be their sister--or nearabout--they are going to be tickled pretty near to pieces."

"I--I know. They--they are just _dears_," gasped Oriole, struggling for composure.

"Everything will turn out all right, Oriole," said Mrs. Joy again. "Me and Lyddy Ann will miss you. But you'll be back to visit us some day. I am sure you will be happy with Mr. Langdon. He is well able to take care of you--and he's got no hypercritical relatives, I understand," and the sea-captain's widow shook her head gravely.

"Yes. He's better able than either Nathaniel Jardin or me to give you what you ought to have in this world. I shall miss you a good deal. But at my age I hope I've got past being selfish."

There was much more to be said, but it was all in the same vein. Mr. Langdon went away before supper time; and then Lyddy Ann must be told. Lyddy Ann declared she was "taken all aback" by this sudden change in Oriole's fortunes.

"I thought you was here in this old house for the rest of my nateral life, at least," grumbled the fleshy maid-of-all-work, after a while and when Oriole had had another cry. "I don't like changes, Oriole Putnam. And I am going to miss you a lot. And what Becky Joy will do without you--Well! I don't see how she can be so foolish as to let you go."

"But I am going to have lots of good times out on that ranch," said Oriole, child enough to begin already to anticipate. She dried her eyes. "Mr. Langdon says I shall have a pony to ride, and----"

"Goodness! A _horse_? I wouldn't no more trust myself on a horse than I'd think of going into a wild tiger's cage," declared the woman with emphasis. "No, indeedy! Now, if 'twas a boat you'd ride in--that would be some sense. A body knows what to expect in a boat."

"But I don't think," said Oriole cautiously, "that Mr. Langdon's ranch is near enough to the sea for him to have a boat."

"Humph! Funny place, I say! I couldn't imagine anybody from choice living so far away from blue water. But I hope you'll be happy there, Oriole. And you can always come back if you don't like it. I've got some money saved up. Becky Joy has paid me well, and goodness knows I never get any chance to spend money with all the work there is to do in this house.

"So if you don't like it out there on that dairy farm----"

"It's not a dairy farm. It's a ranch," corrected Oriole.

"What's the difference? They keep cows, don't they? I got a second cousin in Hepsbury that keeps a farm like that. And sells butter and milk to the city. Well, if you don't like the cows--and they ain't much society for a gal like you, I do allow--you come back here. You sha'n't suffer none for a dollar as long as I am alive and the Littleport Bank don't bust."

Oriole kissed the fleshy woman warmly. "Dear me!" she cried, "how good everybody is to me."

"Sure. They ought to be," replied Lyddy Ann. "You are worth your weight in ambergris, as my brother who whaled it all his days used to say of me. I was twenty year younger than him. If he could see me now," added the woman, shaking with mirth, "I guess he would change his statement. With ambergris at eighty dollars an ounce I'd be worth some money, wouldn't I?"

Oriole tried to figure out this enormous sum, knowing that Lyddy Ann had weighed the fall before at "hog killing time" the huge amount of two hundred and forty pounds. But she almost fell asleep over the problem. Mrs. Joy had company in the museum--the room lined with cabinets of curios and with marine souvenirs on the walls--so Lyddy Ann and the girl were alone in the kitchen until bedtime.

"I got to take in those clothes before we go to bed," said Lyddy Ann at last. "I don't care if they be frozen. They won't need sprinkling down in the morning and I can iron them early. You want to hold the lantern for me, Oriole?"

"Oh, ow!" yawned the girl, waking up. "Of course I do."

Really, Lyddy Ann did not need the illumination of the barn lantern to enable her to take down the clothes from the lines in the side yard; Oriole quite knew that. But she knew likewise that the woman was very timid, despite her superabundance of flesh and good health. Lyddy Ann feared "ghosts." To her imagination the old Dexter Mansion and its surroundings were peopled with the spirits of departed people whose lives had been spent in or about the place. Nothing could shake her belief in such intangible visions. But even Oriole Putnam had had experience enough to scoff at such ideas.

She agreed to hold the lantern, however, and they went out into the faint gray glow of the star-light. Objects were plainly visible about the door yard. The white garments hung upon the line might be said to look ghostly, and there was frost enough in them to make some of the garments appear to be clothing rather tangible bodies. Oriole mentioned this and laughed.

"Don't you laugh, child, at such solemn things as ghosts," advised Lyddy Ann.

"I'm not," said the girl gayly. "I'm only laughing at the _idea_ of there being such things. Especially in Mrs. Joy's nightgown and my blue gingham frock."

"Now, don't you laugh," repeated Lyddy Ann, and then she uttered a muffled scream. She dropped the clothes basket into which she had already placed several of the garments, and seized Oriole's arm.

"Now! Look at that!" she gasped. "See that sheet--down there at the end by the old plum tree. _There's something in it._"

Oriole looked. She did not find speech again for a moment. The big sheet which was hung over the line seemed to be alive! There was no wind to blow it, but it was jerking about and seemed trying to advance up the yard just as though there really was something inside of it.

"It _is_ a ghost," murmured Lyddy Ann. "Oh, Oriole! I'm scare't nearabout to death!"