CHAPTER II

ON THE WIDOWS' WALK

"But just what is it?" she mused a few minutes later, as she settled herself comfortably and pulled Boru's shaggy head down to her knee.

The "widows' walk" was Janet's favorite place in which to think things out, for it was on the flat roof of the house, away from any possible interruptions. Martha, the old servant, had long ago given up attempting the rickety stairs that led to it. It was in itself a rather dangerous spot. Many of the boards that went to make the platform were broken or badly rotted from long exposure to wind and rain. The railing that ran around it was in the last stage of decay. But there was something about it, perhaps the feeling of being up among the tree tops, that made Janet disregard its dangers.

As a rule, she was content to sit and gaze out to sea and "pretend." The name, "widows' walk," opened up so many avenues of imaginings. She often saw the ghosts of the poor distracted women of long ago, pacing up and down, their eyes always turned toward the sea, searching for a familiar masthead. Old Chester had once been a famous fishing village, and the roof of every house along the shore was topped by some sort of observatory. Sometimes it was a square glass cupola, but more often it was a wooden walk, such as crowned the Page house, and because in so many, many cases the looked-for boats never did return to harbor, these walks unhappily came to be called "widows' walks."

To-day, however, Janet had no time for fancy. Something inside her head and her heart was demanding to be put into words.

"I wonder what is the matter with me!" she said again. "I feel awfully different. I suppose I'm unhappy. Am I, do you think!"

If any one had accused Janet of talking to herself she would have resented it hotly, but it was characteristic of her to pour out her troubles to the ever-patient and understanding Boru.

"I'm lonely, for one thing," she confided as she pulled one velvety soft ear. "Of course any one but you would say that was silly, for I have Harry to play with, and then there are the Blake children." Two well-behaved, very clean and very shiny girls filled her imagination for an instant, but she dismissed them with a frown. "They don't count, because they simply won't play the way I want to. Harry is a boy, and I do--no, I did like him a little better, but you know, old fellow, that after the way he acted to-day about the snake, I just--well, he is a scare-cat and that's all there is about it."

Boru's eyes, almost as brown as his mistress's, looked up in solemn confirmation of her last remark.

Her thoughts wandered for a minute and then came back to the original idea.

"I guess lonely isn't just exactly the word, but it's something a lot like it. I want some one to be with who is more like me--" She broke off suddenly, "I wish I had a sister," she whispered softly. Her arm tightened around Boru's neck, and she buried her head in his shaggy coat. Then quite suddenly she sat bolt upright, and her eyes flashed. "I'm mad, too; mad all the way through at everything and everybody except you,"--Boru acknowledged the exception with an affectionate lick--"and I think the person I'm the very maddest at is my big brother Thomas. He's not a bit the kind of a brother to have." She jumped up suddenly, and the breeze coming in from the water took the skirt of her gingham dress and flapped it as it would a sail.

"Boru, do you know what I am going to do!" she demanded very seriously.

Boru was a little surprised and disturbed at being so unceremoniously upset but he cocked one ear expectantly.

"I'm going to write and tell him so," she announced defiantly.

Her determination did not leave her even when she was seated at her big desk, where everything was arranged in perfect order for letter writing. Janet had written her brother at stated intervals during her thirteen years, but each and every letter had always been carefully read and corrected by her grandmother. Stiff and formal notes were the result. As for answers, she had never received any, as far back as she could remember, but a brief typewritten note reached her grandmother twice a year and stated, rather than said, that Thomas was well and that the ranch in far-away Arizona was as successful as could be expected under the conditions of the present year. True, he never forgot to send his love to Janet, but Janet, from early childhood, had had a very decided idea about that sort of love. To-day she meant to make that idea known.

With a great deal of care and precision she selected an especially clean sheet of paper and a square and very businesslike envelope, put a new gold pen in her penholder and set to work. The first words she wrote were "Dear Thomas," then she stopped. There were so many things she wanted to say. She looked to Boru for inspiration He was gazing thoughtfully at a fly that was crawling along the floor; the instant it started to fly he pounced on it. Janet laughed. "Thanks, Boru; that is just what I'll do myself; I'll gobble Thomas up all at once." She turned back to her desk and wrote under the "Dear Thomas:

"I have been meaning to write to you for ever so long and to say just what I wanted to, and so I might as well tell you right away that grandmother is not going to see this letter at all. It's just from me to you, and I'm not going to be particular about grammar or blots. The most 'special things I have to say are all questions, and then some other things that are not very nice. Perhaps I'd better start with those. The first one is that I think you would be a lot nicer if you called yourself Tom or Tommy, instead of Thomas. Of course I don't know what you look like, for the only picture we have of you is a baby one that I know you would perfectly hate, but I think you are short and frown a lot, and I hope you haven't a beard but I'm afraid you have. I just told Boru, that's my dog, but you probably wouldn't like him, that you were not a bit what a big brother ought to be, and I really don't think you are, and I might as well say that you would have been much more of a comfort to me if you'd been a sister.

"The questions I want to ask you are: What do you do in Arizona, and are you ever coming home, and do you ride horseback, and don't you like to be with lots of people instead of just with a few that some one else chooses for you, and what would you think of a boy who was afraid of snakes? If you say that he's a sensible boy--that's what grandmother would say--I'll never like you, never.

"If I only knew you and you were nice like the boys in the books I read, how many things we could talk over! I could ask you about all the things that really matter--the things that grandmother won't even let me mention. Thomas, I'm really not too young to be told things. I'd grow up all in a minute if I could be with girls my own age. But I don't expect you'll understand, so I won't write any more. I've said some of the things I wanted to and that makes me feel a little tit better."

She hesitated over the ending, and finally decided just to sign her name. Then without reading over what she had written, lest her resolve weaken, she folded up the paper and put it into its envelope.

Boru's tail thumping on the floor made her conscious of steps outside her door, and she hastily finished writing the address and slipped the letter into her pocket just as Martha opened her door.

"Now, Miss Janet, not dressed for your tea, and it almost six o'clock, and Mrs. Waters with your grandmother and wanting to see you! Tut, tut!" Martha shook her gray head in real despair. She was a kindly old woman, who had served faithfully all her life, but because it was so simple for her to do what was expected of her always she had never understood how hard it was sometimes for others; but she was never cross and usually contented herself with saying, "Tut, tut!" in her mild old voice at all Janet's failings.

"What does Mrs. Waters want me for?" Janet asked. A vision of Harry's mother retailing the afternoon's adventure with the snake made her heart sink.

"I couldn't say, my dear," Martha replied placidly. "Your grandmother sent me to get you. Here now, brush up your hair a bit. Are your hands clean?"

Janet submitted to being tidied up, and then hurried downstairs to her grandmother's room.

Mrs. Waters was seated in the visitor's chair, her back to the door, but she turned around as Janet entered and smiled a welcome. Mrs. Page spoke:

"Janet, what is all this I hear about your knowing how to take care of sick dogs?" she inquired crossly.

Janet hesitated. She did know a good deal about the care of all animals, but she was at a loss as to how to explain her knowledge to her grandmother.

"Well, do you or don't you know anything about them?" Mrs. Page insisted impatiently.

"Yes, I do know about them." Janet's reply came so quickly that it surprised herself.

Her grandmother looked at her for a long minute and then nodded her head. "Very well; go with Mrs. Waters and do what you can for her dog," she said sharply, and then to indicate that the interview was at an end she turned her back on her visitors.

Mrs. Waters took Janet's arm and hurried out of the room. She was a timid little woman, very easily silenced, and she still spoke in a half whisper when they were out of the house.

"It's Roy, my dear, our English setter; he has hurt his paw, and the veterinary is away," she explained.

Janet gave a mighty sigh of relief. Harry had not told tales. She smiled at his mother reassuringly.

"Poor old fellow. I hope I can do something to help him."

"Oh, I'm sure you can. Harry says you are wonderful with animals," Mrs. Waters replied. "Roy is such a valuable dog," she added.

They reached the Waters' cottage, just off the main street of the little village, and Janet followed Mrs. Waters around to the barn. Before the door was opened, she could hear the low moan of an animal in pain. Once inside, she knelt down beside Roy and patted him. He gave her the affectionate welcome, always awarded a true dog lover.

She examined his paw and found the trouble to be a deeply embedded splinter.

"May I have a darning needle? she asked. Mrs. Waters hurried to the house to get it. Janet busied herself filling a basin with clear spring water, and she took the towel from its roller on the kitchen porch.

"Here it is, my dear," Mrs. Waters said, "and a bottle of peroxide. You don't mind if I don't stay, do you! I'd be sure to faint."

Janet smiled. "No indeed. I can get along quite well alone," she said, and knelt to her task.

For the next few minutes she was absorbed in her work. The splinter was in deep, and it was hard to make Roy lie still. She was about to give up in despair when a voice, almost at her elbow, said:

"Here, let me help."

She turned quickly, startled, and saw a boy about fifteen, very shabbily dressed in old blue overalls and a torn straw hat. His hair, burnt by the sun, was almost red, and his eyes were a clear gray. Janet was too astonished to speak, but with a nod she accepted his offer to help, and they worked in silence until the splinter was out and the wound carefully bathed.

"I guess I'll let him lick it," Janet said, putting aside the bandage Mrs. Waters had given her. The boy nodded.

"Best way," he said. "Do you know horses as well as dogs!" he inquired slowly.

"No, we haven't any, you see," Janet replied, as she gathered up the things and started for the house.

"Too bad." The boy spoke with a drawl that had nothing of laziness in it but a good deal of dreamy calculation. He leaned over and patted Roy. "Good night, old fellow," he said, and without a word more to Janet he disappeared as quietly as he had come.

Janet went on into the house, wondering who he could be, but for some reason she did not ask Mrs. Waters, perhaps because that good lady was too busy thanking her.

"I think you are so clever, dearie," she said warmly. "I wonder where Harry can be. It's dark, and he ought to see you home."

"Oh, don't bother Harry," Janet protested. "I'll run all the way and I'll be there in no time. I'll be down to see Roy to-morrow."

As soon as she was out of sight of the cottage she did run. It was quite chilly, and the salt wind in her face made her blood tingle, and all the worries of the day faded away with the last glow of the sunset. It was not until she was undressing for bed, several hours later, that she remembered her letter. Her time had been taken up thinking about the strange boy who had come so quietly to her aid. When she went to the pocket of her dress to look for it, it was not there.