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CHAPTER XXIX.
TRAGIC HOURS

And now while these young people are having a care-free, happy time in the beautiful Orange Hill country, let us return to the East Side that is sweltering in the heat of late June.

It was nine o’clock at night and the air was still breathlessly stifling. The playground that edged the East River was thronged with neighboring folk who had brought what portable bedding they had and who planned sleeping upon the ground out-of-doors to catch some possible breeze from over the water.

Many of these people were residents of the rickety tenement across from the model apartments, but one there was who had been unable to leave the small, hot room that she called home, and that one was Mrs. Wilovich.

She was not alone, nor had she been, for all that day Lena May had been at her bedside.

“She cannot last the night out,” the visiting district nurse had said. “Hastn’t she any own folks to stay with her till it’s all over?”

“I shall stay,” little Lena May had replied.

“You? Do you think you ought? You’re a mere girl. Aren’t there some women in this house who’d do that much for a neighbor?”

“I am seventeen,” was the quiet reply, “and Mrs. Wilovich would rather have me. She never made friends among the neighbors.”

“Well, as you wish,” the busy nurse had said. “I have many more places to visit this evening, so I can’t stay; and, anyway, there’s nothing to do but to let her – ”

“Hush, please, don’t say it. Little Tony might hear,” Lena May had implored in a whisper as she glanced at the child curled up on the floor as though he were asleep.

When the nurse was gone, Dean Wiggin appeared in the open doorway, as he had many times that day and evening. Nell had been called to the country to see about the small farm which their foster-father had bequeathed them, or she would have been with Lena May. Gloria had left at eight to take her evening classes at the Settlement, and had promised to return at ten and remain with her sister until the end.

The giant of a lad, with his helpless arm that was always held in one position as it had been in slings so long ago, glanced first at the woman in the bed, and then at the girl who advanced to him.

“Can’t I stay now?” he spoke softly. “I’ve closed the shop and the office. Isn’t there anything that I can do to help?”

“No, Dean, I don’t need you, and there isn’t room; but I do wish that you would take Tony out of doors. It is stifling here.”

The little fellow seemed to hear his name. He rose and went to Dean. The lad lifted Tony with his strong right arm. “I’ll take him down to the docks a while,” he told the girl. “Put a light in the window if you want me.”

Lena May said that she would. Then for a time the young girl stood in the open window watching the moving lights out on the river. At last she turned back and glanced at the bed. The mother lay so quiet and so white that Lena May believed that she had passed into the land where there is no sweltering, crowded East Side. She was right. The tired soul had taken its flight. The girl was about to place the lamp in the window to recall Dean when she paused and listened. What a strange roaring sound she heard, and how intensely hot it was becoming. In another moment there was a wild cry of “Fire! Fire!” from the playground.

Lena May sprang to the open door. She knew there was but one fire escape and that at the extreme rear of the long, dark hallway. That very day she had noticed that it was piled high with rubbish. Then she must make her escape by the narrow, rickety front stairs. Down the top flight she ran, only to find that the flight beneath her was a seething mass of flame.

She darted back into the small room and closed the door. Then she ran to the open window and called for help, but the roaring of the flames drowned her voice. However, she was seen, and several firemen ran forward with a ladder, but a rear wall crashed in and they leaped back.

At that moment a lad darted up and pushed his way through the crowd. “Put the ladder up to that window,” he commanded, pointing to where Lena May, pale and quiet, was still standing.

“By heck, we won’t! It’s sure death to climb up there. The wall’s rocking even now. Stand back, everybody,” the chief shouted; but one there was who did not obey. With superhuman effort he lifted the ladder. Several men seeing that he was determined helped him place it, then ran back, and left the lad to scale it alone. Never before had Dean so regretted his useless arm.

“God, give me strength!” he cried; then mounted the ladder. He could feel it sway. Flames leaped from the windows as he passed. He caught at the rounds with his left hand as well as his right, and up, up he went. The girl leaned far out. “Drop down. Hold to the window sill! I’ll catch you,” the lad called. Lena May did as she was told, and, clinging to the top round with his left hand, Dean clasped the girl’s waist with his strong right arm and climbed down as fast as he could go. He did not realize that he was using his left arm. He had to, it was a matter of life and death. A pain like that made by a hot branding iron shot through his shoulder, but even this he did not know.

Firemen rushed forward and took the girl from him, and none too soon, for with a terrific roar the fire burst through the roof, which caved in; then the wall tottered and crashed down about them.

“Where’s that boy? The one that went up the ladder?” people were asking on all sides. Where was he, indeed?

CHAPTER XXX.
A HERO REWARDED

A week later Lena May was in the sunny kitchen of the Pensinger mansion making broth. A curly-headed three-year-old boy was sitting on the floor playing contentedly with his toys. He had been told that his mother had gone to a beautiful country where she would be well and happy and that some day he would see her again.

“Muvver likes Tony to stay wiv you, Auntie May,” he prattled as the girl stooped to kiss him. Then, as he suddenly reached up his chubby arms, he added: “Tony likes to stay wiv you.”

“There, now, the broth’s ready and Tony may help Auntie May,” she told him. The little fellow was given a plate of crackers and the girl followed with a bowl of steaming refreshment. They went to Bobs’ room, where a lad was lying in bed.

Once again Dean Wiggin had fought a fire for the sake of a friend, but this time had undone the harm that had been done in the long ago. Even the surgeon who had been called in declared that the way the lad had wrenched his arm free and had actually used it was little less than a miracle; but, all through the ages, people who with a high purpose have called upon God for help, have received it, and that help has been named a miracle.

“See, Lena May,” the lad said as he stretched out his left arm, “it moves, doesn’t it? Stiffly, perhaps, but I must keep it going, the doctor told me.” Then he drew himself into a sitting position and the girl raised the pillows to make him comfortable.

He smiled at her beamingly as he said: “Another bit of good news is that tomorrow I may get up. Just because one wall of a burning tenement fell on me is no reason why I should remain in bed longer than one week and be waited upon.”

“You surely had a wonderful escape, Dean,” the girl said as she gave him the broth. “Just by chance the firemen instantly turned the water where you had fallen and so you weren’t burned.”

“Nor drowned,” the lad said merrily, “just knocked senseless.” Then, after a moment’s pause, he continued: “I want to be up and about before Nell returns. She will be in about noon tomorrow. Unless it got into the New England papers, which isn’t likely, she won’t know a thing about it. I don’t want her to hear of it before I tell her. She would imagine all sorts of things that aren’t true, and be needlessly worried.”

“How glad your sister will be when she finds that the use of your arm has been restored to you.” Lena May sat by the bedside holding Tony on her lap.

“Won’t she?” Dean’s upward glance was radiant. “No longer will I have to follow the profession of old book-seller. I want to do something that will keep that arm constantly busy.”

“What, Dean, have you thought?”

“Yes, indeed. You won’t think it a very wonderful ambition. I want to be a farmer. I don’t like this crowded city. I feel as though I can’t breathe. When I am lying here alone, I keep thinking of the New England farm where my boyhood was spent, and I long to really work in that rocky soil, standing up now and then to breathe deep of that sparkling air and to gaze at that wide view over the meadow-lands, and the shining, curving silver ribbon, that is really a river, to the distant mountains. Lena May, how I wish you could see it with me.”

“I am sure that I would love it,” the girl said, then, rising, she added: “Here comes Gloria and Mr. Hardinian. They are going to hear some Hungarian music tonight, and I promised to have an early supper for them. Tony may stay with you. I am sure he would like to hear a story about the little wild creatures who live on your farm.”

But, when the girl was gone, the little fellow accommodatingly curled up by Dean’s side and went to sleep, and so the lad’s thoughts were left free to dream of a wonderful something that might happen some day on that far-away New England farm.

CHAPTER XXXI.
FOUR ROMANCES

Time – Two weeks later.

Place – Kitchen of the Pensinger mansion.

Characters – Gloria, Gwendolyn, Roberta, Lena May and little Tony.

“Haven’t things been happening with a whirl of late?” Bobs exclaimed as she passed a plate of hot muffins. “I feel dizzy, honestly I do! I’m so proud of Dick,” she added as she sank into her own place at the table.

“All of his own accord he told me that he’s going back for one more year at law school and then he and Ralph are going to hang out a shingle for themselves. They’re going to start a new firm and be partners. Judge Caldwaller-Cory thinks that his son must be crazy, when he is already a junior member of an old and well established firm. They got the idea from Arden Wentworth, I suppose. He has made good by himself, and the plan rather appeals to Dick and Ralph.”

“They’re great pals, aren’t they, these two? Brothers couldn’t care more for each other, I do believe,” Lena May said, as she buttered a muffin for her little charge.

“And to think that they are to marry sisters in the dim and distant future. That ought to cement the brotherly ties even closer than ever,” Gloria remarked, as she smiled at Gwendolyn, who, wind-browned and sun-rosy, looked as though she had never been ill.

“Gwen, you and Ralph fell in love rather suddenly, didn’t you?” Lena May inquired.

“Maybe so,” her sister replied. “Ralph says that he has always felt sure that he would know the girl who was meant for him the very moment that he saw her, and he insists that he loved me the minute he met me at Orange Hills Inn.”

Roberta leaned over and placed her hand on that of her sister. “I’m so glad,” she said, “for I do believe that Ralph is almost as fine a chap as my Dick, and that is saying a great deal; and to think that if it hadn’t been for the Pensinger mystery, we might never have met him.”

“By the way,” Gloria remarked, “what has become of the Pensinger mystery?”

Roberta laughed as she arose to replenish the muffin plate from the oven. “I’m afraid it is destined to always remain a mystery. Ralph and I followed every clue we could possibly think of. It’s a shame, isn’t it, not to have this old place owned by someone, to say nothing of the money.”

After a moment’s silence, Gloria asked: “Lena May, was there any news of general interest in Dean’s letter this morning?”

Their youngest sister smiled brightly. “Oh, yes, indeed. He was so glad to get back to that New England farm where he can breathe. He said that there are wonderful possibilities in the old house and that he is going to begin work on it at once. He hopes that by the time I am eighteen, it will look like a real home; but there was another item in the letter that I am sure you will all be glad to hear. His group of nature poems has been accepted by a magazine called The New England Homestead, and the check they sent seems like a real fortune to Dean. The best of it is, they have asked for more.”

“Great! I for one shall be most proud to have a poet for a brother-in-law.” Then to Lena May: “Maybe you thought you were keeping it a secret from us, little one, but you weren’t, and we’re glad, just as glad as we can be.”

Their youngest, shining-eyed, looked up at the oldest sister, who sat at the head of the table, then she said: “Of course I had told Glow, because she is Mother to us, but after that letter from Dean this morning, I want to tell you all.”

Then merrily Bobs exclaimed: “Now, Gloria, we’ve all ’fessed up but you. Aren’t you and Mr. Hardinian going to be married some day and live happily ever after?”

“I never knew two people who seemed better suited for each other,” Gwendolyn commented.

Gloria smiled. “And what would you have us live on, dear? You know that it takes Mr. Hardinian’s entire income to pay the expenses of his Boys’ Club. Of course the little chaps pay five cents a night for a bunk when they have work, but he has to loan money to others who are out of work, who might take to stealing if they had no other way to procure food. However, they have never failed to pay him back when they did get work.” Their oldest sister’s enthusiastic praise of the welfare worker told how great was her admiration for that truly noble young man, if nothing more.

“Crickets, what was that?” Bobs suddenly exclaimed.

“Only the telephone, my dear,” Lena May remarked. “Bobsy, will you answer it?”

Three minutes later that girl fairly plunged back into the kitchen, her shining eyes assuring them that she had heard something of an astonishing nature.

“It was Ralph,” she exclaimed, as she sank down into the nearest chair. “The mystery is solved!”

“Solved?” her sisters repeated inquiringly and all at once. “How? When? Who is the heir?”

Roberta laughed. “Well, here’s where I resign as a detective,” she declared. “I’ve had three cases and although each one has been successfully solved in spite of me, it has not been because of any cleverness on my part.”

“But, Bobs, do tell us what Ralph said. We’re bursting with curiosity.”

“My partner-detective feels as chagrined about it as I do, for the solution of the mystery just turned up; we neither of us ferreted it out as we had hoped that we would.”

“Bobita, you’re just trying to tantalize us,” Gwen declared. “Do tell us from the beginning.”

“Very well then, I will. Ralph said that his dad happened to recall recently something which his father had once told him. You know it was Ralph’s grandfather who was the intimate friend and legal advisor of Mr. Pensinger.

“It seems that a week before his death, Mr. Pensinger had sent some important papers and a letter to the office of Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, the grandfather, you understand. Just as he was about to examine them, he was called away on urgent business and he left the papers on his desk, expecting to return soon. The Cory building was even then in the process of construction, but Ralph’s grandfather had moved in before it was quite completed.

“That day the floor was being put down in the room adjoining the small office. Later, when Mr. Caldwaller-Cory returned, his mind was so filled with the intricacies of the new case which had just been given to him, that he did not even notice that the brown packet containing the Pensinger papers was gone; in fact, he had forgotten that it ever existed; but a week later, when he received word that his friend, Mr. Pensinger, had died suddenly, he recalled the papers and began to search for them, but they were never found.”

“Oh, I know where they were,” Lena May said brightly, “under the floor.”

Bobs nodded, her eyes glowing. “That’s just it!” she affirmed. “Recently Judge Caldwaller-Cory said to Ralph, ‘Either we will have to tear down this old building of ours or we will have to renovate it and bring it up to date.’

“Ralph is romantic enough to want to retain the atmosphere of the days of his grandfather, and so he favored the latter plan. Soon carpenters were tearing up the office floors to replace them with hard wood and the packet was found.”

“And in those papers, had Mr. Pensinger made some different disposition of his property?” Gloria inquired.

Bobs nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It seems that Mr. Pensinger, after his wife’s death, visited Hungary, found his daughter Marilyn, who lived but a short time, and so, as he was without an heir, he had written Mr. Caldwaller-Cory, requesting him to use the Pensinger fortune wherever he thought it would be most needed.”

“What will become of this house?” Lena May inquired.

“Ralph didn’t say. He wants to tell that himself. In fact, he said that he was coming right up in The Whizz and that he wasn’t coming alone, either.”

“I suppose that Dick De Laney will be with him,” Gloria remarked as she cleared the table.

“We aren’t going to be kept long in suspense,” Gwendolyn said, “for The Whizz just passed the window and there’s the knocker. Shall I go to the door?”

Before her sisters could reply, that maiden was half-way down the long hall, and a second later she reappeared with Ralph at her side. Two other young men followed closely. One indeed was Dick De Laney and the other was Mr. Hardinian. His dark, expressive eyes showed that he was much mystified by all that was happening.

“Shall we go into the salon?” Gloria inquired when greetings were over.

“No indeed. This dining-room corner with its cheerful grate fire is the pleasantest part of the old house,” Ralph declared. “Dick, help me bring in another chair or two.”

“Now sit down, everybody, and I’ll tell you the results of my conference with my father.” Ralph was plainly elated about something, which, as yet, he had revealed to no one.

When they were seated, he turned at once to the tall, dark Hungarian. “Mr. Hardinian, you were telling me last week that your temporary wooden building for the Boys’ Club is to be torn down next month that a tobacco factory may be erected, were you not?”

“Yes,” was the reply of the still puzzled young man. “I can’t imagine where I am to take my boys. I don’t like to have them bunkless even for one night.”

“Of course not, nor shall they be,” Ralph continued. Then he looked at the girls beamingly. “Not if these young ladies will consent to having a model clubhouse erected in the old garden back of their mansion.”

“Ralph, how wonderful that would be!” Gloria exclaimed. “But what do you mean?”

“Just what I say,” the lad replied. “The former owner of this place wanted his fortune used for some good cause, and Dad and I thought that it would be great to help Mr. Hardinian carry on his fine work right here on this very spot as a sort of memorial, and couldn’t it be called The Pensinger Boys’ Club, or something like that?”

“Indeed it could,” Mr. Hardinian’s dark eyes expressed his appreciation more than words could have done. Then to the tall girl at his side he said: “Now, many of our dream-plans for the boys can be made a reality.”

Turning to the others, he continued: “I am sure that Gloria is now willing that I should tell you that she had consented to some day mother all of our boys, and because of this splendid new plan, I hope that the some-day may be very soon.”

And it was. Indeed, before another year had passed, each of the girls was in a home of her own.