Gloria: A Girl and Her Dad

The boy was taller than the girl, this could be noticed from quite a distance, but other marks of difference, such as Gloria’s red cheeks and Tom’s brave freckles, her black eyes flashing while Tom’s were meek, blue and shadowy; these distinct and contrary characteristics were only observable when one looked under Gloria’s floppy white hat, or glimpsed Tom’s quaint, boyish person at a little distance.

There was that about Gloria which compelled a close scrutiny, under the brim of her hat seemed the very point of vantage, while Tom—one would hate to scrutinize Tom. Even the friendliest notice would seem rude if too closely given. He was not bashful, really, nor was he in any way stupid, on the contrary, his alert mind that only flashed out in moments of unchecked enthusiasm was the magnet that held Gloria Doane to his companionship, ever since they had both toddled off to their first battle with learning, in the back room of Miss Mary Drake’s Fancy Store. But few others understood Tom, they were generally too busy condemning Gloria’s lack of discrimination in her selection of such a companion.

Besides those shadowy blue eyes Tom also had freckles—a real saddle of them across his nose; splendid, healthy, ginger brown freckles. They were rather unfair to the nose, however, destroying what might have been an aristocratic outline; but freckles are like that—ruthless when once they get a footing. Being tall, having freckles and possessing a musically liquid voice, gave Tom his chief claim to personality, but his own mother called him Tommy-lad and declared he was a fine, upstanding little youngster.

Just as Gloria Doane had a father and no mother, so Tom Whitely had a mother and no father. This similarity of parental privation may have forged the bond of companionship stronger; at any rate, Gloria and Tom were chums.

All the joys of country life ever piped in poet’s tunes would be flat and monotonous if unshared by a chum. You may talk of the music of the birds and the magic of the running brook, even of the glory of wild daisy fields and the beauty of sovereign sunsets, but to youth, to the eager young and even to childhood, these would be all rather stupid in solitude. There is no solitude in the city—that can be said in its favor. Even a sick boy or girl may be shut up in narrow quarters there, but somehow the hum of companionship will reach in and sometimes cheer. But in the country it is very different.

Without a chum would be like being without a roof, or even without a family dog. That life around a fishing village is not apt, however, to be so solitary as is found inland, and it was in the seaside town of Barbend that our interesting little friends lived.

Vacation had been particularly merry; picnics, lawn parties, launch trips and even city scouting parties filled the days with continual change and thrilling variety. Tom had earned more than ever before in any vacation, and Gloria felt like a pinwheel revolving in golden sprayed breezes of good times and surprise adventures. Only a few weeks remained now, then the new adventure of fresh school days, with brand new programmes and mysterious possibilities in new teachers (two were due at Barbend this year), these delights, in spite of dreaded routine and perhaps hated studies, beckoned every girl and boy in the township; to say nothing of the hurried last stitches being put in new blouses for the boys and into new dresses for the girls, by anxious mothers.

The launch Finnan-Laddie was lapping the dock just after Gloria had stepped ashore, and Tom happened to be passing from the swamp with a great basket of pond lilies for his next day’s sales. Automatically they fell into step, if that could be said of their peculiar motion, Gloria sort of easing into Tom’s shuffle with a queer little grace note trick that kept the tempo going.

No greetings were exchanged. Would one say hello to the sun, or to the moon or even to some familiar star?

“How did you make out?” asked Gloria, eagerly.

“All right,” replied Tom.

“Can it be fixed?”

“Sure.”

“It’s a wonder you weren’t killed.”

Tom grinned. “That wasn’t anything.”

“It wasn’t!” Gloria’s voice boomed. “Well, if it wasn’t, then I don’t ever want to see another bicycle spill.”

“Not even at the races?”

“No. I hate spills anyhow. They make you gulp and you can’t see anything but dust.”

“You saw my basket go, didn’t you?”

“I should say I did. I thought it would never stop bumping over the stones until it went straight into the brook. But, Tom, honest, you ought to be more careful.”

“Oh, listen who’s talking!”

“Just the same, I never ride over that hill with a clothes basket full of pond lilies and an arm full of papers.”

“But you do ride over there with trees full of blossoms—”

“Oh, well. That was only when we had to get the school decorated—”

“And this was only when I had a big order—”

They laughed, gave in and changed the subject.

“What if your mother finds out?” persisted Gloria.

“She won’t.”

“A lot of folks saw you. They were down waiting for the launch.”

“Well, ’twasn’t anything.”

“Tom Whitely! You almost rolled over on the railroad track and Mrs. Trivett nearly had a heart spell.”

“Oh, Mrs. Trivett!”

“But she talks more than half of the town.”

“Who listens to her?”

“Folks can’t help it. She’s so—pesky.” Gloria dropped a spray of golden rod.

“My mother never bothers with her.”

“But you know, Tom, others listen to her, and then—then. Just suppose someone tells your mother you rolled down that hill when the Flyer was whistling—”

“Say, Glo. Who’s been stringing you?”

“Tom Whitely, that’s no way to talk.” Gloria’s nose seemed to sniff her hat brim, and her black eyes flashed at the willows they were passing.

“Oh, I didn’t mean it.” Tom’s voice was caressing now. His eyes blinked and he changed his big basket to the other arm in spite of Gloria’s blue gingham dress and her own armful of sweet-flag roots being on that side. There was plenty of room now, however, for she had edged off toward the stone wall.