Red-Robin | Page 8

to camp
next summer? And have a pair of roller skates?"
Mrs. Lynch nodded her head to each question. Behind each note of her
voice rippled a laugh. "Yes, yes, yes. Sure, it's a wonderful night this
is."
"Where's Pop now?"
"Working with the extra shift," the wife answered, proudly.
"Any dumplings?" eagerly.
"And I was forgetting! Bless the heart of you, of course I saved the
biggest. 'Twas like a party tonight for I dressed your sister in the beads.
It's worn out she is, God love her, with the excitement and trying to
keep her wee eyes open 'til her Pop come home. Hushee or you'll
waken the lamb now."
Dale was deep in thought choosing the words with which he would tell
the good news to the "fellows" on the morrow, his mother was busying
herself with the "biggest" dumpling, when a peremptory knock came at
the door. With a quick cry Mrs. Lynch dropped her spoon--why should
anything intrude upon their joy this night?
A man stood on the threshold presenting a curious figure for he wore a
heavy coat over a white duck suit. Where had she seen such a suit

before? With a catch at her heart she remembered--at the hospital, that
time Dale had been run over. "Oh!" she cried. "My Dan!"
"Mrs. Lynch?" The hospital attendant spoke quickly as one would who
had a disagreeable task and must dispose of it without any delay. "Your
husband's had an accident--he's alive, but--you'd better come."
Mrs. Lynch stood very still in the centre of the room--her hand
clutching her throat as though to stifle the scream that tore it.
"My Dan--hurt!" She trembled but stood very straight. "Quick, Dale,
we must go to him. My Dan. No, no, you stay with Beryl. Oh, hurry!"
she implored the interne, rushing bareheaded past him down the
stairway. "Hurry."
For a few moments Dale stared at the half-open door. In his thirteen
years he had experienced the pinch of poverty, even hunger, the pain of
injury, but never this overwhelming fear of something, he did not know
what. Pop, his big, strong Pop--hurt! Pop, who could swing him even
now, that he measured five feet three himself, to his shoulder! Oh, no,
no, it could not be true! Someone had made a mistake. Someone had
cruelly frightened his mother. Hadn't their luck just come? Hadn't Pop
been made a boss?
"Mom-ma!" came Beryl's voice, sleepily, from the other room.
"Mom-ma, what's they?" Glad of anything to do Dale rushed to quiet
his little sister. He bade her, brokenly, to "never mind and go to sleep,"
and he pulled the old blanket up tight to her chin, his eyes so blinded
with tears that he did not see the waxen head pillowed close to Beryl's.
Then he sat in his mother's chair and dropped his head upon the table
and waited, his hands clenched at his side.
"I won't cry! I won't be a baby! Mom'll maybe need me. I'm big now!"
he muttered, finding a little comfort in the sound of his own voice.
* * * * *

Poor Robin's Prince; alas, he felt very young and helpless before the
trouble which he faced.
Big Dan Lynch, he who had been the fairest and sturdiest of the county
of Moira's girlhood, would never work again--as superintendent or even
foreman; the rest of his days must be spent in the wheeled chair sent up
by the sympathetic Miss Lewis of the Neighborhood Settlement House.
It was fixed with a contrivance so that he could move it about the small
room.
Little Beryl started school which made up for a great deal that had
suddenly been taken from her life, for mother never sat by the lamp,
now, or crocheted. She worked at the Settlement House all day and all
evening busied herself with her home tasks.
The "lucky dolly" Beryl hid away in paper wrappings. Somehow,
young as she was, she knew her mother could not bear the sight of it.
And Dale worked every day at Tony's, going to night school on the
evenings when he had used to go to the store. A tightening about the
lips, an older seriousness in the lad's eyes alone told what it had cost
him to give up his ambition to graduate with his class, perhaps at its
head.
Little Robin with the sky-blue eyes was quite forgotten!
CHAPTER III
THE HOUSE OF FORSYTH
It was a time-honored custom at Gray Manor that Harkness should
serve tea at half-past four in the Chinese room.
On this day--another November day, ten years after the events of the
last chapter--Harkness slipped through the heavy curtains with his tray
and interrupted Madame Forsyth, mistress of Gray Manor, in deep
confab with her legal advisor,