Natalie

Table Of Contents

Page

The Wreck of the Bobolink. 17

The First Guest. 41

Chapter I THE WRECK OF THE BOBOLINK

H I, NATS!” the voice of Teddy Davis cut through the warm spring air. Natalie turned her head toward the window. The shades were drawn, but she could see a flicker of sunlight playing along the sill.

“That’s Teddy,” she thought. “They haven’t told him. Maybe I am not hurt as badly as I thought I was if they haven’t told Teddy.” She tried to lift herself on her elbow to call a greeting to Teddy, but the effort sent a sharp pain along her back, and she settled quickly against the pillow. A little moan escaped her tight'shut lips.

Instantly a white-clad figure was standing beside her bed and a strange voice said, “What is it, dear?”

i8

“Who are you?” It was hard to speak, almost more effort than was worth while. But she did want to know who belonged to the face bending over her.

l Tm your nurse,’ 1 was the answer. “My name is Leonora Hart, but most people call me Miss Lee.”

“Natalie,” the voice of Teddy sounded more in¬ sistent this time. And instantly came another voice, warning, almost scolding. It was her aunt’s voice.

“Hush, Teddy. Please go away. Natalie is sick!”

Through the open window Teddy’s voice came very clearly. “Isn’t she all right yet?" he demanded.

“No, Teddy. Not yet.” Was Aunt Bess crying?

“Aw, shucks,” Teddy answered. “Doesn’t she realize the Star Dusters are going to play the Buf¬ falo Wonders tomorrow? We’ve got to have her! Won’t you tell her that—” But the rest was lost to Natalie’s ears, for Miss Lee quickly crossed the room and closed the window. Then she came back to the bed and took Natalie s hand in hers. They were nice hands, thought Natalie, and strong too, not soft and weak like most women’s hands.

“I’m glad you are awake, Natalie,” Miss Lee said.

For now you and I can begin to get acquainted.” She smiled at Natalie, who did her best to smile back, although she felt more like crying. But it was not in Natalie Harding’s code to cry.

“By the way, your father asked me to let him know as soon as you woke up,” said Miss Lee. “Shall

The Wrec\ of the Bobolink^

I call him? He is going to the office today, the first time for a week.”

“For a week,” echoed Natalie in surprise. “Why, it was just yesterday that he and I were driving, and—”

She stopped suddenly, for now she remembered what had been perplexing her. She closed her eyes to think better, and lay so still that Miss Lee thought she had fallen asleep again. But Natalie was not sleeping. Her thoughts went scurrying from one comer of her mind to another, collecting pieces of memory to weave into a pattern. Now it was all coming back to her.

She and her father had been driving along the boulevard trying out the new car, or, as her father called it, “taking the good ship on her maiden voy¬ age.” She had been so proud of the new car, with its gay canary-colored body and shiny steel trim¬ mings. Daddy and Aunt Bess and she had picked it out from many others at the Auto Show in New York City last November. And it had just come!

They had named it right then and there at the show, much to the annoyance of the salesman who had expected them to admire the upholstery and the wonders of the engine. But of course he could not possibly have known how important names were to the Harding family. They had a name for every¬ thing.

“Let’s call it Bobolink,” Natalie had suggested.

“But bobolinks aren’t yellow.” Aunt Bess, who was very correct and particular about such things, had protested.

“This one is,” Daddy had said, as he kissed Aunt Bess right on her little turned-up nose, salesman or no salesman. “Don’t you go getting so accurate, old lady, just because you are President of the Audubon Bird Club,” he had chided.

So Bobolink it was. And Natalie and her father had had such a splendid secret about it! They were going to take some rides out into the country. On the safe little back roads, where there was scarcely any traffic. Daddy was going to teach her to drive. They were not going to let Aunt Bess know about this until Natalie became quite expert, for things like that were inclined to make Aunt Bess nervous.

But one day, so went the plan, when the three of them were out in the car together, Daddy was going to climb down from his seat and say, “Miss Natalie Harding at the wheel.” Then Natalie would slide in under the steering wheel, and, much to her aunt’s consternation, would step on the accelerator and away they d go with the lady’s expression changing from bewilderment to pleasure,” Daddy had prophe¬ sied.

Yes, that had been the wonderful dream. But how differently it had all turned out! One afternoon

The Wrec\ of the Bobolink^

Daddy had come driving home in state in the new car, arriving just as Natalie came in from high school.

“Let’s go for a spin, girls,” Daddy had said, gaily. He always called them girls when he was feeling particularly happy. “Then we’ll celebrate with ice cream sodas at the Goody Shop.”

“Oh, how I wish I could!” Aunt Bess had said. “But I promised old Mrs. Craven that I would be in all afternoon if she called. But you two run along, anyway. And do be careful!”

“Be careful.” Of course Daddy had been careful. He was a wonderful driver. But just as they had rounded a comer a great red truck had shot out ahead of them—and all of a sudden—all of a sudden she had cried out, “Oh, Daddy!” Then what had happened next? She remembered a frightful, splin¬ tering noise as if the whole universe had blown up, a blinding light, and then darkness.

So that was why she was lying in bed with a trained nurse to take care of her! Natalie opened her eyes and saw her nurse still standing beside her.

“Was my father hurt too, Miss Lee?” she asked.

“Not very badly. His arm is broken, and he had some bruises, but he will be all right soon. Shall I call him?”

“Yes, please, but tell him I can’t roughhouse with him this morning.” Oh dear! Why did she want to cry, Natalie wondered. It didn’t hurt very much unless she moved, yet she felt like such a baby!

The solemn, quiet man who came into her room with his arm in a sling did not seem much like her splendid playmate, the envy of all her friends. N;v talie was perhaps too old for that sort of thing, but she and her father had never given up their early morning scrimmage. “That’s our daily dozen,” Dad' dy had once said, when Aunt Bess protested.

But his voice was the same as he spoke to his daughter. “Hi, Nats.”

“Hello, Daddy,” she tried to smile. “How’s things?” It was their daily greeting. But it was too much for her father. He turned his head away to hide his own grief.

See here, Corporal. ’Tenshun!” Natalie said with mock severity.

Her father responded huskily, “Aye, aye, sir.”

“It’s scandalous the way we mix up the Army and Navy, Miss Lee,” he said as soon as he had re' covered his composure. “But it’s our game and we’ll stick to it.”

^ They all laughed. “Well, darling,” said her father, “I must get along to the office. I’ll see you tonight.”

He bent to kiss her, but could not put his arm around her because of the bandage.

“I’m sorry you hurt your wing, Dad. Does it feel very bad?”

“Just a little.”

The Wreck of the Bobolink,

*3

“Is it the right one, Dad?”

“ ’Fraid so, Nats.”

“Then how will you draw?”

“Oh, it will get better soon. Good-bye, dear.”

“Good-bye, Daddy.”

After her father closed the door behind him, Natalie listened until she heard his steps going down the stairs. She felt sad and frightened. She won¬ dered how bad it all was. Would they tell her the truth, or treat her like a baby the way most people do when one is sick?

There was so much to worry about! If her father’s hand was hurt how would he be able to draw the comic strips that kept the Harding’s own private big bad wolf from the door, as her father called it? And what about herself? What had happened to her? Why was it so important that she lie still? How soon would she be able to go back to school?

Would her nurse tell her the truth, Natalie won¬ dered, or would she act like most people and try to hide things? She looked like a straightforward kind of person. Well, she would ask, anyway.

“Miss Lee,” she called.

“Yes, dear.” She has a nice voice as well as strong hands, Natalie thought to herself, and no fuss about her.

“Miss Lee, will you tell me something?”

“I’ll tell you what I can, of course, Natalie,” answered Miss Lee. “What is it you want to know?”

“First of all, will Daddy’s hand be all right?”

“Why, of course it will,” Miss Lee’s voice sound' ed very reassuring, as if she meant what she said. “Lots of people break their arms or wrists or even hands, and they heal.”

“But Daddy is an artist. He needs his hand more than most people need theirs. It is more important.”

“Even so, Natalie, artists’ hands heal just like other peoples’,” and Miss Lee was smiling at her.

“Please don’t joke about it,” begged Natalie. “Oh, dear, I thought you would be different!”

“Why, Natalie,” concern and surprise were min' gled in Leonora Hart’s voice. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well," said Natalie, hesitatingly, “grown people have a way of keeping the truth away from kids, most of all when they are sick. Don’t you know. Miss Lee, that I’d rather know than not know? It’s not knowing that scares me. Don’t you understand what I mean?”

“Yes, I do understand, my dear,” Miss Lee am swered soberly. “And I respect the way you feel about it. But you must not think that doctors and nurses keep information away from their patients just to be contrary. Sometimes it works just the other way, and knowing too much about their condition only makes people worry more.”

The Wrecks of the Bobolink

“Not for me, it wouldn’t,” Natalie answered stoutly.

“Very well. Ask me anything you wish and I will help you all I can to understand what has happened.”

Natalie smiled. This nurse was different, after all! “Thanks,” she said. “Then tell me really what hap' pened to me.”

“You hurt your back in the accident, Natalie. You know you had an accident, don’t you?”

“Yes, Miss Lee. I remember the red truck hitting us in the new car, but nothing else. Is my back badly hurt?”

“Well, badly enough so that you will have to stay in bed for some weeks and you will have to lie quiet' ly. Now that you are awake and I can boss you a little, you may be sure that I’ll see to it you do a bet' ter job of staying still than you have been doing so far.” She pretended to look very stem but her eyes were twinkling.

“What day is this? Goodness, if the game is to' morrow, as Teddy said, this must be Friday! Is it?”

“It is indeed,” answered Miss Lee. “And I have been here since Monday evening, so think of all the time we have lost! You and I will have to hurry up and learn to know each other.”

Natalie smiled. In spite of all the pain and worry, she decided getting acquainted with someone as nice as Miss Lee would be great fun.

Natalie lay asleep, dreaming that she was running along a high cliff in the early morning sunshine. It was fun to run in the dream. But suddenly her foot slipped and she tumbled over the edge of the cliff and went falling and falling, dizzily, sickeningly, until bump! She landed with a thud in the valley below. She came wide awake with a jerk that sent the cruel fingers of pain digging into her back. She tried to lie still so as not to disturb Miss Lee, asleep in the day bed beside her, but suddenly Miss Lee leaned over her and said, softly, “Awake, dear?”

“Yes,” answered Natalie. “I guess I jumped in my sleep, and it hurts. But I didn't mean to disturb you. Miss Lee. I'm so sorry.”

“Never mind, darling. It’s almost morning, any¬ way. I’ll just slip a blanket around me and sit beside you and we’ll watch the dawn together. Shall we?”

“I’d like to,” Natalie said, trying to keep her lips from quivering.

But before she took her seat at Natalie’s bedside. Miss Lee smoothed the girl’s pillow and straightened the crumpled sheet under her. Then she lit the little spirit lamp on the table and heated a cup of milk which she brought for Natalie to drink.

“How do you know how to do so many things to make a person feel better, Miss Lee?” Natalie asked gratefully. “You’re a wonder!”

“Why, making her patient as comfortable as pos¬ sible is the nurse’s first job,” said Miss Lee with a little laugh.

“Still,” said Natalie, as she sipped the warm drink Miss Lee held for her, “you are extra-specially good at it. How did you happen to be a nurse, Miss Lee? Not that it’s any wonder you did!”

“Well, Nats,” said Miss Lee, settling beside Nata¬ lie, and smoothing the girl’s forehead with strong, gentle hands, “I have always thought that making sick people well was about the most important thing a person could do with his life. That’s been my ambition ever since I have known what I wanted to do.”

“But didn’t you change your mind a lot of times, Miss Lee, about what you wanted to do when you grew up, and ever think about other things to do?”

“No dear, I don’t believe I ever did. No doubt if I had had a special talent like singing or drawing it would have been different. But why do you ask?”

“Because that’s not a bit like me,” Natalie said. “Maybe I am more changeable than you are. Some' times I want to be one thing and sometimes another. You see, I’ve always been a good athlete and some of the time I think I want to be an athletic instructor at a big school, but most of the time—well, maybe you will think I am a copycat—but I’d love to be an artist like Daddy.”

“I think that’s a splendid thing to want to be,” said Miss Lee. “Some day when you are better, show me some of your pictures, will you? You have some, have you not?”

“I should say I have,” answered Natalie. “I’ve been trying to draw all my life, almost. I’ve even kept a diary in pictures instead of in words.” A wave of pain swept over her and she held Miss Lee’s hand tight in both her own.

“That’s the girl!” said Miss Lee, encouragingly. “Hold on tight. It will go away in a minute. After all, you have only to stand it minute by minute, did you ever think of that? I learned that from my father—a very wise man he was, and a hardy one. He had to be to do his job.”

“What was that?” Natalie asked.

“A very surprising one,” Miss Lee answered. “He was one of the engineers who helped build the Panama Canal. Why, Nats, here I have been with you several days and I don’t believe I have ever told you that I was bom and brought up far away in Panama!”

“Really,” cried Natalie, interested in spite of the pain. “What a funny place to live. Is there anything there besides the Canal?”

“Oh, yes indeed,” said Miss Lee. “There is the spick-and-span Canal Zone where the people con¬ nected with the work of the Canal live, and where I went to school and studied much the same lessons as you have here. But right next door, so to speak, is the jungle, wild and riotous and almost as untamed as it was when Columbus found it, and when Balboa hacked his way across it and came out upon the Pacific on the other side.”

“Gee, that’s interesting. But how did you ever happen to come up here?”

“I’m afraid you will laugh at me,” Miss Lee an¬ swered. “But to tell the truth it was a nursery rhyme of my childhood that started me off —The Night Be - fore Christmas. Isn’t that silly? I just had to see snow and icicles and sleighs and reindeer, for I thought they really did land sleighs on rooftops, you see.

Leonora’s reindeer were a family joke in our household. As a small girl I used to beg and beg for a real Christmas, as I called it, up north. So one year my father managed it. I came up and stayed with my uncle who is a doctor. He and his family live in Albany. Living with that doctor-uncle furthered my desire to be a nurse.”

“So did you stay with your uncle and start learn' ing to be a nurse then?” Natalie asked.

“Oh, no indeed. It was many years later, not until after my father and mother died, that I came north for good. Then I lived with my uncle’s family while I took my training. That uncle is a very good friend of your Dr. Burgess, by the way. That is how it happened that I came here, all the way from Albany to take care of you.”

“And have you stayed up north ever since you came that time to study?”

“Yes, except for one trip about three years ago. I went back to Panama and stayed for nearly a year getting acquainted all over again with my brother and his family. And what fun that was! Can you imagine what a three-ring circus a household is that contains three girls and two boys, to say nothing of a couple of pups, a cat or two, and incidentally a very lively mother and father?”

“It sounds pretty lively. How old are the chil¬ dren?” asked Natalie.

3 i

“Well, Leonora, my namesake, is about three years older than you are, and Peter must be just about a year older, and the other three are much younger . 11

“My it would be fun to live with a big family like that ! 11 Natalie exclaimed. “Fve never had any broth¬ ers or sisters, although of course Daddy makes him¬ self over into anything I want. Sometimes he seems like an older brother, and he is always sort of father and mother both to me. I don't mean that Aunt Bess isn't a darling, only—but look here, Miss Lee, what does your brother do down there in Panama?"

“Oh, he is one of the pilots who take the boats through the locks. That's a fascinating job and he loves it. He wouldn't live anywhere else but Panama and has always made fun of me because I wanted to come north to live."

“But don't you ever get homesick?"

“Dreadfully! Especially so when I first came north. I remember once actually crying in English class over a poem that felt like Panama to me and brought back so vividly the sights and sounds of my childhood. I learned part of it later, the verse that seems like Panama," Then she recited in her low, sweet voice:

“Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus

Dipping through the tropics by the palm-green shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,

Emeralds, amethysts,

Topazes and cinnamon, and gold moidores.”

“What a lovely poem ! 11 exclaimed Natalie.

“Yes, isn't it? And it was written by a man who loved the sea as much as I do, but who was lucky enough to be more articulate about it. Some day we will read more of his poetry, shall we?"

“Oh, I'd like to," said Natalie. “But tell me more about Panama."

“There are so many things to tell about Panama. It's a little country but it has had an exciting past. But I'll tell you what I like best, and that's the seaport. It's a wonderful seaport, Natalie. All sorts of people from almost every place in the world pass through Panama, some even wearing their native dress. I have often seen Hindus in high turbans and Orientals in very un-American looking clothes, hang¬ ing about the docks. And, oh Natalie, such ships! All sorts and conditions of ships filled with cargoes from all over the world and bound for strange ports in the seven seas. Cochineal bark from Peru—that's what some dyes are made of—and coffee from Puerto Rico, and cocoa and ivory from Ecuador, and nitrate from Chile. Can't you imagine what an exciting place it is?"

“I wish I could go there some day," Natalie said, drowsily, for the soothing touch of Miss Lee’s hands was putting her to sleep.

“Perhaps we will, my dear," her nurse answered softly. “Who knows?"

“1 thin\ these show real talent'”

“I think you are a witch. Miss Lee," Natalie said with a yawn. "Don’t you say a kind of Mumbo' Jumbo over me to put me to sleep? See, it’s getting light. I’ll have just forty winks, as Daddy says, before breakfast.”

While Natalie slept Miss Lee watched her. How she wished she really were the witch that Natalie called her. How quickly she would charm away the pain and make the girl whole and well again.

As the days went by, Natalie asked her nurse more and more questions about the strange land of her birth and seemed never to tire of hearing stories of the far-off land of Panama which had so captured her imagination. In exchange Natalie confided every' thing she could remember of her own young life to Miss Lee, sometimes illustrating the anecdotes she told with her picture diary. They had many a good laugh over that diary, for Natalie’s little sketches had real humor.

“Honey," said Miss Lee one day, when Natalie was showing her some of her more recent drawings, "I’m no art critic, of course, but I think these show real talent. What does your father say about them?"

"Oh, I haven’t shown Daddy this stuff for years!” Natalie exclaimed. "He’s a real artist. This junk isn’t good enough to show him."

“All right, miss,” Miss Lee answered, "but I’m sure he would be interested.”

“Well,” said Natalie, “maybe I will some day, if I ever make anything that I think is good enough.”

Natalie had not known that two people could possibly know each other as well as she and Miss Lee were learning to do. Somehow the secret solitary thoughts that everybody has but few people can communicate, came out quite casually in her talks with Miss Lee. Was this the way girls talked to their mothers, Natalie wondered?

The house was very quiet most of the day. For Daddy was at the office, as they called the newspaper where he drew cartoons, and Aunt Bess, who was a very busy clubwoman, was away a great deal. Some¬ times the mellow voice of “Big Black Glory” as she and Daddy secretly called the colored cook, Lucinda, would come up from the kitchen. It was a lovely voice, and her songs were all very devout. Natalie and Miss Lee always stopped whatever they were doing or talking about to listen.

“It’s no use asking her to sing,” Natalie once ex¬ plained. “Daddy and I tried that once, and she said, 'Land sakes, me? Ah cain’t sing, ah jes prays with mah lungs!’ ”

“I’ve heard many beautiful spirituals,” Miss Lee said, “but never any that she sings. I wonder where she learned them?”

“She didn’t learn them. She made them up, right out of her heart, Dad says, because she needed them.”

“That’s the best way to sing, and perhaps all great songs were made that way—out of the heart because the singer needed them. But tell me, how did you come to call her Black Glory?”

Natalie giggled. “I don’t remember about it, of course, I was much too little. You see, Miss Lee, when I was very little my mother died, and Aunt Bess—she’s Daddy’s younger sister, you know—came to live with us and bring me up. This old house we live in used to belong to my father’s family; it still belongs partly to Aunt Bess now.

“Well, to go on with my story, Aunt Bess adver¬ tised for a cook. Daddy says a couple of dozen in¬ mates of menageries must have got hold of the ads— he made me a picture of the people who came—they were all sizes and shapes and ages and colors, he said. And he and Aunt Bess interviewed one after another of them, until they got more and more discouraged. Each applicant had so many good things to say for herself, but looked so unpromising.

“Then Lucinda—that’s Black Glory’s real name, you know, Lucinda Marianna Meeker—barged right into the room. She was so big and black that Daddy said he and Aunt Bess seemed to shrivel right up before her eyes. But they plucked up their courage and went through the regular questions. 'Can you do good plain cooking?’ Aunt Bess asked. 'Me?’ shouted Lucinda, 'why, white folks, when you-all tastes mah cooking you’ll think you’se gone to glory!’ ”

Miss Lee laughed. “So they took her?’’

“Yes, indeed, nothing could have stopped them then and she’s been cooking for us ever since and that’s been about eleven years.”

As Natalie began to feel more comfortable she found it harder and harder to lie still. Sometimes she felt she must get up and walk around the room if it killed her. But she really knew better. The only way to keep the pain away was to lie perfectly still, a difficult thing for an athlete to do. Sometimes her eyes wandered to the mantel where the trophies she had won in swimming and tennis stood. At first she could not bear to think about them, but, as she was telling all she could remember to Miss Lee, stories of the games she had played would come out.

“Aunt Bess thinks I’m a terrible tomboy,” she once confided. “She doesn’t mind the tennis or the swimming. She was awfully pleased when I won the Junior Tennis Cup at the Country Club last summer, but she thinks I am too old to play baseball with the Gang. She hoped I’d give up all that when I got to be fourteen and entered high school, but it’s such a lot of fun. The Gang says I’m the best shortstop they could find. I can pitch pretty well, too.”

“I was that kind of youngster myself,” Miss Lee said.

“Did you play ball? 1 '

“I should rather say I did , 11 said Miss Lee. “I used to pitch on the team. I was the only girl on it. Of course I thought the reason that the boys let me play was because I had such a good curve, but later I learned it was because of the baseball which my elder brother had given me. That ball had actually been used in a World Series and my team thought it would bring them luck . 11

“But Miss Lee, I really am pretty good. I can run circles around any girl my age and Fm faster than a lot of the boys. All the boys think I am, except Arthur Phillips , 11 and her tone was suddenly full of scorn.

“Who is he ? 11 Miss Lee asked.

“The meanest boy in the world. I hate him ! 11

“Why, Natalie ! 11

“Well, I do , 11 Natalie answered defiantly. “He has always tried to get my place with the Gang. And he tried to get me disqualified on the Relay Race last spring on the grounds that I wasn’t a boy! He says girls shouldn’t try to do the things I do, that it isn’t their place. Imagine! Daddy laughs and says he is just an old-fashioned home boy and I am not to mind. But the worst of it is Aunt Bess agrees with Arthur! And his mother is one of Aunt Bess 1 best friends. Well, no matter what old Arthur Phillips says about me. I’m one of the best runners in the whole school,

4° girl or no girl. Wait until you see me when Fm well.”

Leonora Hart turned her face away abruptly. “Wait until I see her run,” she repeated to herself. “Short of a miracle, I wonder if I ever will?”

Chapter III THE FIRST GUEST

One afternoon, several days later, while Natalie slept and Miss Lee was resting, there was a light tap on the door of Natalie’s room. Miss Lee silently crossed the room and opened the door to find Aunt Bess standing there.

"How is she, Miss Hart?” Aunt Bess had not urn bent sufficiently to call the nurse by her nickname, although both Natalie and her father had used the convenient abbreviation from the first.

"About the same, Miss Harding. She is asleep now, without any of the medicine, I am glad to say. Dr. Burgess and I are so glad when we don’t have to use the medicine, for it affects her appetite.”