THEY ran across the shining sand, the Pacific thundering its long surge at their backs, and when they gained the roadway leaped upon bicycles and dived at faster pace into the green avenues of the park. There were three of them, three boys, in as many bright-colored sweaters, and they “scorched” along the cycle-path as dangerously near the speed-limit as is the custom of boys in bright-colored sweaters to go. They may have exceeded the speed-limit. A mounted park policeman thought so, but was not sure, and contented himself with cautioning them as they flashed by. They acknowledged the warning promptly, and on the next turn of the path as promptly forgot it, which is also a custom of boys in bright-colored sweaters.
Shooting out through the entrance to Golden Gate Park, they turned into San Francisco, and took the long sweep of the descending hills at a rate that caused pedestrians to turn and watch them anxiously. Through the city streets the bright sweaters flew, turning and twisting to escape climbing the steeper hills, and, when the steep hills were unavoidable, doing stunts to see which would first gain the top.
The boy who more often hit up the pace, led the scorching, and instituted the stunts was called Joe by his companions. It was “follow the leader,” and he led, the merriest and boldest in the bunch. But as they pedaled into the Western Addition, among the large and comfortable residences, his laughter became less loud and frequent, and he unconsciously lagged in the rear. At Laguna and Vallejo streets his companions turned off to the right.
“So long, Fred,” he called as he turned his wheel to the left. “So long, Charley.”
“See you to-night!” they called back.
“No—I can’t come,” he answered.
“Aw, come on,” they begged.
“No, I’ve got to dig.—So long!”
As he went on alone, his face grew grave and a vague worry came into his eyes. He began resolutely to whistle, but this dwindled away till it was a thin and very subdued little sound, which ceased altogether as he rode up the driveway to a large two-storied house.
“Oh, Joe!”
He hesitated before the door to the library. Bessie was there, he knew, studiously working up her lessons. She must be nearly through with them, too, for she was always done before dinner, and dinner could not be many minutes away. As for his lessons, they were as yet untouched. The thought made him angry. It was bad enough to have one’s sister—and two years younger at that—in the same grade, but to have her continually head and shoulders above him in scholarship was a most intolerable thing. Not that he was dull. No one knew better than himself that he was not dull. But somehow—he did not quite know how—his mind was on other things and he was usually unprepared.
“Joe—please come here.” There was the slightest possible plaintive note in her voice this time.
“Well?” he said, thrusting aside the portière with an impetuous movement.
He said it gruffly, but he was half sorry for it the next instant when he saw a slender little girl regarding him with wistful eyes across the big reading-table heaped with books. She was curled up, with pencil and pad, in an easy-chair of such generous dimensions that it made her seem more delicate and fragile than she really was.
“What is it, Sis?” he asked more gently, crossing over to her side.
She took his hand in hers and pressed it against her cheek, and as he stood beside her came closer to him with a nestling movement.
“What is the matter, Joe dear?” she asked softly. “Won’t you tell me?”
He remained silent. It struck him as ridiculous to confess his troubles to a little sister, even if her reports were higher than his. And the little sister struck him as ridiculous to demand his troubles of him. “What a soft cheek she has!” he thought as she pressed her face gently against his hand. If he could but tear himself away—it was all so foolish! Only he might hurt her feelings, and, in his experience, girls’ feelings were very easily hurt.
She opened his fingers and kissed the palm of his hand. It was like a rose-leaf falling; it was also her way of asking her question over again.
“Nothing ’s the matter,” he said decisively. And then, quite inconsistently, he blurted out, “Father!”
His worry was now in her eyes. “But father is so good and kind, Joe,” she began. “Why don’t you try to please him? He does n’t ask much of you, and it ’s all for your own good. It ’s not as though you were a fool, like some boys. If you would only study a little bit—”
“That ’s it! Lecturing!” he exploded, tearing his hand roughly away. “Even you are beginning to lecture me now. I suppose the cook and the stable-boy will be at it next.”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and looked forward into a melancholy and desolate future filled with interminable lectures and lecturers innumerable.
“Was that what you wanted me for?” he demanded, turning to go.
She caught at his hand again. “No, it wasn’t; only you looked so worried that I thought—I—” Her voice broke, and she began again freshly. “What I wanted to tell you was that we’re planning a trip across the bay to Oakland, next Saturday, for a tramp in the hills.”
“Who ’s going?”
“Myrtle Hayes—”
“What! That little softy?” he interrupted.
“I don’t think she is a softy,” Bessie answered with spirit. “She ’s one of the sweetest girls I know.”
“Which is n’t saying much, considering the girls you know. But go on. Who are the others?”
“Pearl Sayther, and her sister Alice, and Jessie Hilborn, and Sadie French, and Edna Crothers. That ’s all the girls.”
Joe sniffed disdainfully. “Who are the fellows, then?”
“Maurice and Felix Clement, Dick Schofield, Burt Layton, and—”
“That ’s enough. Milk-and-water chaps, all of them.”
“I—I wanted to ask you and Fred and Charley,” she said in a quavering voice. “That ’s what I called you in for—to ask you to come.”
“And what are you going to do?” he asked.
“Walk, gather wild flowers,—the poppies are all out now,—eat luncheon at some nice place, and—and—”
“Come home,” he finished for her.
Bessie nodded her head. Joe put his hands in his pockets again, and walked up and down.
“A sissy outfit, that ’s what it is,” he said abruptly; “and a sissy program. None of it in mine, please.”
She tightened her trembling lips and struggled on bravely. “What would you rather do?” she asked.
“I ’d sooner take Fred and Charley and go off somewhere and do something—well, anything.”
He paused and looked at her. She was waiting patiently for him to proceed. He was aware of his inability to express in words what he felt and wanted, and all his trouble and general dissatisfaction rose up and gripped hold of him.
“Oh, you can’t understand!” he burst out. “You can’t understand. You ’re a girl. You like to be prim and neat, and to be good in deportment and ahead in your studies. You don’t care for danger and adventure and such things, and you don’t care for boys who are rough, and have life and go in them, and all that. You like good little boys in white collars, with clothes always clean and hair always combed, who like to stay in at recess and be petted by the teacher and told how they ’re always up in their studies; nice little boys who never get into scrapes—who are too busy walking around and picking flowers and eating lunches with girls, to get into scrapes. Oh, I know the kind—afraid of their own shadows, and no more spunk in them than in so many sheep. That ’s what they are—sheep. Well, I ’m not a sheep, and there ’s no more to be said. And I don’t want to go on your picnic, and, what ’s more, I ’m not going.”
The tears welled up in Bessie’s brown eyes, and her lips were trembling. This angered him unreasonably. What were girls good for, anyway?—always blubbering, and interfering, and carrying on. There was no sense in them.
“A fellow can’t say anything without making you cry,” he began, trying to appease her. “Why, I did n’t mean anything, Sis. I did n’t, sure. I—”
He paused helplessly and looked down at her. She was sobbing, and at the same time shaking with the effort to control her sobs, while big tears were rolling down her cheeks.
“Oh, you—you girls!” he cried, and strode wrathfully out of the room.