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The Outdoor Girls at the Hostess House, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 24. Mystery Explained |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV. MYSTERY EXPLAINED The girls stared for a moment, dazed, bewildered. Stared at the dark head bent in such passionate tenderness over the gray one, stared at the old hands patting the broad young shoulders, tremblingly, joyfully, incredulously, then, with a stifled gasp, turned and fled. Betty closed the door softly and followed the girls into their own room where they sank down on arms of chairs or tables or the edge of the bed--any place--and went on staring, only this time at each other. "Betty Nelson," Mollie broke out at last, her eyes dark and wide, her voice awed, "did you ever in your life hear of such a thing?" "Of course I never did," answered Betty, her lips trembling, her eyes shining and wet. "Not since my fairy-story days, anyway," she added softly. "But how," Grace demanded, still too dazed to think clearly, "can Mrs. Sanderson's son be William Mullins?" "Goodness! how do we know?" returned Mollie, wiping two tears from the end of her nose. "It's all the biggest kind of a m-mystery, anyway. Oh, dear, has anybody got a handkerchief?" as two other tears threatened to make their appearance. "I didn't know I had it in me to be such a goose." "We seldom do realize our possibilities," drawled Grace, but Mollie was too busy wiping away the traces of her weakness to notice the insult. "And to think," Amy murmured softly, "that if that old motorcyclist hadn't knocked Mrs. Sanderson down, she would have gone away without finding her son, and the chances are she would never have seen him again." "I suppose you think we ought to send the motorcyclist a vote of thanks," remarked Mollie dryly, recovering herself a little. "If he keeps on knocking old ladies down in the middle of the road and then gets himself arrested, he may be counted on to do a lot of good in the world." "I don't see how you can say such silly things," Amy began hotly, when Betty broke in pleadingly: "Please, please, girls!" she said, smiling as only Betty knew how to smile. "What is the use of quarreling about miracles? The most wonderful thing in all the world has happened, and what do we care how it happened? Just think of it!" she added, leaning forward eagerly. "Only this morning we were feeling discouraged and down-hearted because Mrs. Sanderson was going away to-morrow and we couldn't think of a thing to do to help her. Then all in one day, in an hour, really, we capture the motorcyclist and find her son for her. It's no wonder I can't seem to make myself believe I haven't dreamed it all," she finished, with such a look of utter happiness on her face that Mollie slipped an arm about her and hugged her fondly. "You know, Betty," she said solemnly, "I'm almost beginning to have a superstitious belief in you." "Goodness! Why?" cried Betty, while the other two looked at Mollie wonderingly. "What have I done now that you should say such things and treat me thus?" "Why, I was just thinking," Mollie replied with rare earnestness, "that, as usual, if it hadn't been for you we probably wouldn't have arrested the gambler--or rather, given Sergeant Mullins a chance to--and so wouldn't have brought him here to find out he belonged to our little old lady." "But I don't see how--" Betty was beginning in real bewilderment when Mollie interrupted her impatiently. "I don't suppose you do," she said, with fond severity. "You never do give yourself credit for anything, anyway, Betty Nelson. But who was it, I'd like to know, that first had courage to go up and speak to that criminal?" "Oh, that!" said Betty, sinking back relievedly. "Anybody could have done that." "Perhaps anybody could," retorted Mollie practically. "But you notice nobody else did, don't you, Betty Nelson?" "Well, I know, but that didn't have anything to do with capturing him," argued Betty, determined not to take any more than her share of the credit--and not that, if she could help it. "If Sergeant Mullins hadn't happened along just at that moment, he'd have gotten away from us the way he did those other times." "Yes, but who delayed him, I'd like to know," Mollie flung back triumphantly, "and gave the Sergeant time to come along and finish up the work?" "All right," laughed Betty. "I'll admit that much, since you insist. But what earthly difference does it make, anyway, as long as it's done?" she cried. "Just think," her voice trembled a little, "how happy those two must be in there! I--I--oh, I can't believe it yet." "Well, but that's still troubling me," said Grace, so apropos of nothing at all that they just stared at her. "Goodness, don't look at me like that," she cried irritably, getting up and walking round the room. "You know I always did hate mysteries." "We should be very much obliged," said Mollie, with forced politeness, "if you would tell us what you're raving about." "Goodness, don't you even see there is a mystery?" she cried, facing them impatiently. "How in the world could Sergeant Mullins ever be Mrs. Sanderson's son?" "You'd better ask 'em," chuckled Mollie. "They both seemed so tolerably sure of it that we've taken it for granted. What's the deep, dark mystery?" "Grace means," it was Amy who acted the peacemaker this time, "that it's strange about the name." "And, of course, it is," Betty added gravely. "Sergeant Mullins should by all rights be Sergeant Sanderson." "And Mrs. Sanderson couldn't have known about his being called Mullins," Grace broke in eagerly, "because we've spoken to her of Sergeant Mullins more than once, and she never acted as though more than casually interested." "Well, but I suppose that's easily enough explained," said Mollie, who was in no mood for details--the actual occurrences being wonderful enough in themselves to occupy her attention for some time to come. "People often enough change their last names for some reason or other." "Then you mean," said Grace, "that William Mullins is really William Sanderson?" "A fair assumption," returned Mollie dryly. "Unless Mrs. Sanderson's name is Mullins." "Perhaps the best way," suggested Betty peaceably, "would be to wait and let Mrs. Sanderson tell us about it." "Wait--" Grace was beginning, when a gentle tap sounded on the door and Betty flew to open it. On the threshold stood Mrs. Sanderson, her eyes red with weeping, yet her whole face so transformed with joy that the girls would hardly have recognized her as the Mrs. Sanderson of that morning. Instinctively they glanced over her shoulder, expecting to see the tall figure of Sergeant Mullins looming in the background, but he was nowhere to be seen. "He's--he's gone," said the little old lady tremulously, seeming to interpret their glances, at the same time coming timidly into the room. "He told me to tell you," her face lighted up still more with that wonderful inward joy, "that he would have stayed and thanked you young ladies, but he'd made sort of an idiot of himself--so he said--an' would be around later, instead." "And is he really--really--_really_ your son?" cried Betty, unable to contain herself longer, pressing the old lady into a chair and kneeling down before her eagerly. "Oh, we knew you'd come and tell us! We've been so very happy for you." "Yes, he's my Willie boy," answered the little old lady, speaking dreamily as though even yet she was not able to grasp the wonderful thing that had happened to her. "It's strange when I come to think of it how I knew him right away because, you see, I've always sort o' thought of him as my little son, my baby, and in my mind I've always seen him as he was that day he ran away. But he's really just the same--my little Willie boy--only taller and sort o' broader in the shoulders an' handsomer--" her voice broke and Betty slipped a sympathetic little hand in hers while the girls gathered closer. "You see, I've been prayin' for this thing for a good many years," she went on quaintly, "an' it looks like Providence sort o' saw fit to answer me at last. An' He jest picked out the sweetes' little ladies He could find to be His instruments." The girls laughed unsteadily and Betty's young hand tightened on the old one. "We feel as if it all must be a fairy story," she said softly. "That's jest what it is--a fairy story," cried the little old lady, turning those wonder-filled eyes upon them. "It must have seemed sort o' strange to you about the name," she added, after a short pause. Betty saw that Grace was about to interrupt, but a warning glance stopped her. "You see, his real name is William Mullins Sanderson. But when he ran away he dropped the Sanderson so's they couldn't arrest him for somethin' he didn't do--poor little lad." Her voice was very soft and her eyes tender. "He would have come back to me, only he heard that I was dead and thought 'twasn't any use. He said he'd jest been eatin' his heart out, thinkin' of old days an' how he'd promised to make a fortune for us both an' buy a big house where I wouldn't ever have to work again 'less I wanted to. An' now he says," she straightened up and her eyes flashed with pride in him, "he says, soon's the war is over he's goin' to make that old dream come true. "He'd been studyin' to be a lawyer, an' had jest passed his 'bar exams'--so he called 'em--when the war broke out, an' he jes' couldn't resist the call o' the bugle. O' course he couldn't!" Once more was heard that thrill of pride. "Wasn't he my Willie boy, who had the blood of fightin' ancestors in his veins as well as brains an' a love o' book larnin' from his pa? "But he says when the war's over he's goin' back to his books an' make good, an'," with simple assurance; "I know he will. Jest think," she added dreamily, "my little son, a lawyer! "But I ain't never goin' to forget," she cried, flinging her head up with a martial gesture, "that first of all, he was a soldier!" _ |
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