Jewels Story Book | Page 5

with me to Chicago?"
Mr. Evringham nodded. "I will get you one." He kept on nodding
slightly, and Jewel noted the expression of his eyes. Her bright look
began to cloud as her grandfather continued to gaze at her.
"You'd like to have a picture of Star to keep, wouldn't you?" she asked
softly, her head falling a little to one side in loving recognition of his
sadness.
"Yes," he answered, rather gruffly, "and I've been thinking for some
weeks that there was a picture lacking on my desk here."
"Star's?" asked Jewel.
"No. Yours. Are there any pictures of you?"
"No, only when I was a baby. You ought to see me. I was as fat!"
"We'll have some photographs of you."
"Oh," Jewel spoke wistfully, "I wish I was pretty."
"Then you wouldn't be an Evringham."
"Why not? You are," returned the child, so spontaneously that slow
color mounted to the broker's face, and he smiled.
"I look like my mother's family, they say. At any rate,"--after a pause
and scrutiny of her,--"it's your face, it's my Jewel's face, that suits me
and that I want to keep. If I can find somebody who can do it and not
change you into some one else, I am going to have a little picture
painted; a miniature, that I can carry in my pocket when Essex Maid
and I are left alone."
The brusque pain in his tone filled Jewel's eyes, and her little hands
clasped tighter the frame she held in her lap.

"Then you will give me one of you, too, grandpa?"
"Oh, child," he returned, rather hoarsely, "it's too late to be painting my
leather countenance."
"No one could paint it just as I know it," said Jewel softly. "I know all
the ways you look, grandpa,--when you're joking or when you're sorry,
or happy, and they're all in here," she pressed one hand to her breast in
a simple fervor that, with her moist eyes, compelled Mr. Evringham to
swallow several times; "but I'd like one in my hand to show to people
when I tell them about you."
The broker looked away and fussed with an envelope.
"Grandpa," continued the child after a pause, "I've been thinking that
there's one secret we've got to keep from father and mother."
Mr. Evringham looked back at her. This was the most cheering word he
had heard for some time.
"It wouldn't be loving to let them know how sorry it makes us to say
good-by, would it? I get such lumps in my throat when I think about
not riding with you or having breakfast together. I do work over it and
think how happy it will be to have father and mother again, and how
Love gives us everything we ought to have and everything like that; but
I have--cried--twice, thinking about it! Even Anna Belle is mortified
the way I act. I know you feel sorry, too, and we've got to demonstrate
over it; but it'll come so soon, and I guess I didn't begin to work in time.
Anyway, I was wondering if we couldn't just have a secret and manage
not to say good-by to each other." The corners of the child's mouth
were twitching down now, and she took out a small handkerchief and
wiped her eyes.
Mr. Evringham blew his nose violently, and crossing the office turned
the key in the door.
"I think that would be an excellent plan, Jewel," he returned, rather
thickly, but with an endeavor to speak heartily. "Of course your

confounded--I mean to say your--your parents will naturally expect you
to follow their plans and"--he paused.
"And it would be so unloving to let them think that I was sorry after
they let me have such a beautiful visit, and if we can just--manage not
to say good-by, everything will be so much easier."
The broker stood looking at her while the plaintive voice made music
for him. "I'm going to try to manage just that thing if it's in the books,"
he said, after waiting a little, and Jewel, looking up at him with an
April smile, saw that his eyes were wet.
"You're so good, grandpa," she returned tremulously; "and I won't even
kiss Essex Maid's neck--not the last morning."
He sat down with fallen gaze, and Jewel caught her lip with her teeth as
she looked at him. Then suddenly the leghorn hat was on the floor,
daisy side down, while she climbed into his lap and her soft cheek
buried itself under Mr. Evringham's ear.
"How m-many m-miles off is Chicago?" stammered the child, trying to
repress her sobs, all happy considerations suddenly lost in the
realization of her grandfather's lonely lot.
"A good many more than it ought to be. Don't cry,