Carol Norton - The Phantom Yacht

The face of Dories Moore was as dismal as the day was bright. It was Indian summer and the maple trees under which she was hurrying were joyfully arrayed in red and gold, while crimson, yellow and purple flowers nodded at her from the gardens that she passed with unseeing eyes. She was almost blinded with tears; her scarlet tam was awry, as though she had put it on hurriedly, and her sweater coat, of the same cheerful hue, was unbuttoned and flapping as she fairly ran down the village street. In her hand was a note which had been the cause of the tears and the haste. On it were a few penciled words:

“Dori dear, we are leaving sooner than we expected. I’m sending this to you by little Johnnie-next-door. Do come right over and say good-bye to someone who loves you best of all.

At a large old colonial house at the edge of the town, just where the meadows began, the girl turned in at a lilac-guarded gate and hurried up the neatly graveled walk. Her eyes were again brimming with tears as she glanced up at the curtainless windows that looked as dismal and deserted as she felt. Hurrying up the steps, she lifted the quaintly carved old iron knocker and shuddered as she heard the sound echoing uncannily through the big unfurnished rooms. Her sensitive mouth quivered when she heard the sound of running feet on bare floors and when the door was flung open by another girl of about the same age, Dori leaped in and, throwing her arms about her friend, she burst into tears.

“Why, Dories! Dear, dear Dori, don’t cry so hard.” There were sudden tears in the warm brown eyes of Nann Sibbett, as for a moment she held her friend tenderly close.

“One might think that I was going a million miles away.” She tried to speak cheerfully. “Boston isn’t so very far from Elmwood and some day, soon, I am sure that you will be coming to visit me.”

An April-like smile flickered tremulously on the lips of the younger girl as she stepped back and straightened her tam. “Well, that is something to look forward to,” she confessed. “It will be a little strip of silver lining to as black a cloud as ever came into my life. Of course,” Dories amended, “losing father was terrible, but I was too young to know the loneliness of it, and being poor when we should be rich is awfully hard. Sometimes I feel so rebellious, O, nobody knows how rebellious I feel. But losing one’s money is nothing compared to losing one’s only friend.”

The other girl, who was taller by half a head, actually laughed. “Why, Dories Moore, here you talk as though you would not have a single friend left when I have moved away. There isn’t a girl at High who hasn’t been green with envy because I have had the good fortune to be your best friend ever since we were in kindergarten, and just as soon as I’m out of town they’ll be swarming around you, each one aspiring to be your pal.”

There was a scornful curl on the sensitive lips of the listener. “As though I would let anyone have your place, Nann Sibbett. Never, never, never, not if I live to be a thousand years old.” Then with an appealing upward glance, “But you’ll probably like some city girl heaps better than you ever did me. I suppose you’ll forget all about me soon.”

“Silly!” Nann exclaimed brightly, giving her friend an impulsive hug. “Don’t you remember when you were eleven and I was twelve, we had a ceremony out in the meadow under the twin elms and we vowed, just as solemnly as we knew how, that we would be adopted sisters and that real born sisters could not be closer.”

Dories nodded, smiling again at the pleasant recollection. “Do you know, Nann,” she put in, “I sort of feel that we were intended to be sisters some way. It was such a strange coincidence that our birthdays happened to fall on the same day, the third of September.”

“Maybe if they hadn’t,” Nann chimed in, “you and I wouldn’t have been best friends at all, for, don’t you remember, way back in kindergarten days, you were so shy you didn’t make friends with anyone, and when Miss Sally wanted to find a seat for you that very first morning, she chose me because it was our birthday. After that, since I was a year older, I felt that I ought to look out for you just as a big sister really should.”

Dories nodded, then as she glanced into the bare library, in the wide doorway of which they were standing, she said dismally, “O, Nann, what good times we’ve had in this room. I can almost see now when we were very little girls curled up on that window seat near the fireplace studying our first primer, and on and on until last June when we were cramming for our sophomore finals.”

“I know.” Nann looked wistfully toward the corner which Dories had indicated. “I don’t believe we will either of us know how to study alone.” Then, fearing that tears would come again, she caught her friend’s hand as she exclaimed, “Dories dear, this room is too full of ghosts of our past. Let’s go out in the garden. Dad had to go to the bank to finish up some business, and I had to stay here to see that the last load of furniture got off safely. It left just before you came. We’re going to store it for a time and live in a very fine hotel in Boston. Won’t that be a lark for a change?”

Dories spoke bitterly, “Well, for one thing I am thankful, and that is that your father didn’t lose his money the way my father did, though how it happened I never knew and mother never told me.”

“Maybe it will all come back some time in a manner just as mysterious,” her friend said cheerfully as she led her down the steps around the house. Neither of the girls spoke of Nann’s dear mother, who had so recently died, and whose passing had made life in the old house unendurable to the daughter and her father, but they were both thinking of her as they wandered into the garden which she had so loved. Nann slipped an arm about her friend as she paused to look at the blossoms.

“Autumn flowers are always so bright and cheerful, aren’t they, Dori?” She was determined to change the younger girl’s dismal trend of thought. “That bed of scarlet salvia over by the evergreen hedge seems to be just rejoicing about something, and the asters, of almost every color, look as though they were dressed for a party. They’re happy, if we aren’t.”

“Stupid things!” Dories said petulantly. “They don’t know or care because you, who have tended and watered and loved them, are going away forever and ever.”

“Yes, they do know,” Nann said, smiling a bit tremulously, “for last night when I came out to give them a drink, I told them all about it, but they’re just trying to make the best of it. They know it’s as hard for me to go away from my old home as it is for them to have me go, but they’re trying to make it easier for me, I guess.”

Dories flashed a quick glance up at her companion. Then, impulsively, “Oh, Nann, how selfish I always am! Of course it’s hard for you to leave your old home and go among strangers. Here all the time I’ve just been thinking how hard it is for me to have you go.” Then, making a little bow toward the bed of radiant asters, the girl of many moods called to them: “You’re setting a good example, you little plant folk in your bright blossom tams. From now on I’ll be just as cheerful as ever I can.” Smiling up at her companion, Dories exclaimed, “And all this time I’ve had some news that I haven’t told you.” Answering verbally her friend’s questioning look, she hurried on, “I’m going away myself for the month of October. At least I suppose I am, and that’s one of the things that has made me so dismally blue.” Nann stopped in the garden path which they had been slowly circling and gazed into the pretty face of her friend, hardly knowing whether to congratulate or condole. Instead of doing either, she queried, “But why are you so dismal about it, Dori? I’ve often heard you say that you did wish you could see something of the world beyond Elmwood?”