Читать книгу Bobby in Movieland - Francis J. Finn - Страница 5

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But Bobby was not drowned. Peggy and he, as the wave caught him, were not alone. Seated on the ledge of a cliff, hidden almost completely from view, a bather, tall and plump, once a professional life-saver, had been watching the two children carefully. He had noted the roller even before Peggy. He was at a considerable distance from the children; but as Peggy turned to fly he was dashing, diagonally, across the beach. It was nothing for him, tall and strong of limb, to plunge into the water, to reach the very spot where Bobby had disappeared, and when Bobby’s head came to the surface, to take a few strong strokes, reach the unconscious boy, and bring him almost without effort to the shore.

Bobby, I say, was unconscious; and the rescuer, for a moment, doubted whether the little lad was alive. Paying no attention, therefore, to the fleeing Peggy, the man, experienced in such matters, endeavored to restore the lad to consciousness. Bobby had swallowed much salt water. It was the work of a few moments to remedy that trouble. Then the man put himself to the task of getting the boy to breathe. In the shade of the cliff he labored long and arduously. Almost a quarter of an hour passed before Bobby’s face showed the slightest sign of life. Eventually he began to breathe.

“Hey, boy! you’re doing fine,” cried the man. “Come on now, and wake up.”

Adjured in such like terms at least twenty times, Bobby at length opened his eyes upon a world which he had almost left for good.

“Howdy, Johnny? Are you awake?”

Bobby looked gravely at his companion and, the inspection completed, asked, as he closed his eyes again:

“Where am I?”

“Right here at Long Beach,” came the answer. “Here, let me put my coat about you. You look pretty cold. How do you feel?”

“I guess so,” answered Bobby, not even opening his eyes.

Then the rescuer took the child, wrapped as he was in the heavy coat, and folded him to his bosom. He held the boy tight. Bobby soon began to warm up.

“Where am I?” he inquired once more, opening his eyes as he spoke.

“I told you we were at Long Beach, didn’t I?”

“Maybe you did. Say, didn’t you pull me out of the water?”

“I did, and not a second too soon, either. Now look here, Johnny. The color is coming back to your face. But you must get that chill out of you. Here, you must stretch your legs. Take my hand.”

Bobby at first was barely able to walk. But gradually his strength returned, his strength and his smile. But neither lasted long.

“Say! I’m getting so tired!” he remarked after a few quick turns. “Would you mind if I lie down?”

The man laid Bobby down upon the sands, once more wrapping him, as he did so, tightly in the coat. Bobby promptly turned on his side and, resting his head upon his right arm, fell asleep.

“My!” apostrophized the man, after a long contemplation. “I never saw such an interesting face.”

“Did you say something, sir?” asked Bobby, opening his eyes.

“I said a mouthful,” came the answer. “But look you, boy; you are weaker than you ought to be. What you need is brandy.”

“I don’t drink,” objected Bobby.

“None of us drink just now, for that matter,” the man dryly observed. “Just the same, you need a bit of brandy. Now will you remain here till I come back? I may be gone ten or fifteen minutes.”

“Just now, sir, I don’t want to go anywhere. Oh, I’ll stay, all right.”

And Bobby meant it. Nevertheless he did not stay.

The man had hardly disappeared from view when Bobby sat up and stretched himself. Then he arose and went through the same process. Bobby was feeling once more that he was alive. Throwing off the coat, he quickly put on his proper garments, already perfectly dry. Then Bobby bethought him of his shoes. It would be easy to recover them and return within a few minutes. Accordingly, with his light step and easy grace quite restored, he trotted along the shore; and even as he moved, the events that had led up to his mischance began to return to his memory—the horrified eyes of Peggy, the big wave coming upon him, and then? What was it happened next? At the moment he could recall no more. Seating himself, he put on shoes and stockings, when all of a sudden as he arose, the awful memory, unbidden, returned. Once more he felt the waves’ might, once more he felt himself whirled and tossed about like a cork, once more he choked as the water forced itself into his gaping mouth. Here his memory ended. Bobby was more frightened by the memory than he had been by the actual happening.

And just then, when the horror of it all had seized upon him, the ground beneath his feet began to oscillate. This was the last straw. Bobby could bear no more. The sea but a short time before had tried to swallow him up; now it was the land itself that would devour him.

Utterly panic-stricken, urged on by a blind instinct in which reason had no share, the little fellow ran at a speed born of fear away from that awful beach. As it happened, there were stairs at that point leading up to the cliff. Bobby took them two at a time. Ocean Avenue was thronged just then with people, strangers in California, who failed, naturally enough, to see anything of humor in an earthquake. Under normal circumstances Bobby, flying at full speed along a highway, would have attracted more than a little attention. But the circumstances were not normal, and the fear which urged Bobby onwards was the same fear which in a measure possessed nearly all of those whom with flying feet he passed.

Bobby had always been a good runner. On this occasion he surpassed himself. On he went until he was alone on the open road; on past orchards of oranges, peaches, lemons, pears and plums. The ground at every step was, as he felt, growing firmer beneath his feet; and once away from the outskirts of Ocean Beach he began to slacken his pace. It was then that the sharp tooting of a horn behind him caused him to turn; an automobile was bearing down upon him.

Bobby, putting on full speed once more, darted to the left side of the road, which at this point sharply curved, only to find another machine bearing upon him swiftly from the opposite direction. There seemed to be no chance of escape. Nevertheless Bobby jumped for his life, landing on hands and knees at the side of the road, while the oncoming machine, now fairly upon him, swung desperately away. It passed within an inch of the boy’s feet as he flew through the air. Bobby did not arise. He collapsed where he had fallen. The machine which had nearly done for him came to a halt full thirty yards up the road, where from it descended a highly excited young man, who, more than emulating Bobby’s burst of speed, ran quickly and picked up the lad in his arms.

“Say, little fellow, you’re not hurt, are you? Now don’t say you’re hurt. It was a close call, but I never touched you.”

But Bobby’s head hung limp, his eyes remained closed.

The man grew pale with fear. Possibly he had frightened the child to death. Gazing with extreme compassion upon the delicate features of the sensitive face, he groaned aloud and, as though his burden weighed nothing, sprinted back to his machine. There he laid the boy on the front seat, and, getting out a water bottle from the tonneau, removed the stopper and dashed a goodly portion of water into the child’s face.

The effect was immediate. Bobby sat up, and looking into the frightened face of his new aggressor, opened his mouth and bawled. Bobby, to do him justice, was a manly little fellow, and manly little fellows of seven or eight are not in the habit of bawling. But he had been through a fearful series of ordeals. He was no longer himself. Panic had entered into his very soul. The sea had tried to get him; the earth, lining itself up with the sea, had shaken beneath his feet; and when he ran from one automobile, another had borne down upon him to such effect that only by a marvel short of the miraculous had he escaped with his life. So Bobby went on bawling.

This exhibition of tears and lungs had a very disconcerting effect on the young man. He was, as the reader has a right to know, John Compton, a promising comedian, engaged recently by a moving-picture company, the head members of which counted upon his becoming shortly one of the leading film comedians of the country. On that very day he had started in upon his second picture. But an hour before he had rehearsed part of the opening scene; and he would have still been rehearsing at that very moment had it not happened that the property man was not on time with the completion of an indoor set; as a consequence of which the director had called off further rehearsal till two o’clock that afternoon. Not thinking it worth his while to disturb his make-up, John Compton had jumped into his automobile and gone out for a spin, with his face painted a sickly yellow and eyebrows fiercely exaggerated. Bobby had never before seen a moving-picture actor in his war paint. No wonder that he continued to bawl; no wonder that he refused to be comforted.

Mr. Compton was at his wits’ end. It was useless to advise the boy to calm himself. To be heard Compton would be obliged to bellow at the top of his voice. And why not? It was an inspiration. Standing outside his own machine, John Compton planted his hands upon his knees, and stooping till his face was on a level with Bobby’s, opened his mouth, a not inconsiderable one, and bawled, too, with all the energy of desperation.

At the awful sound Bobby, opening his eyes to their widest, ceased his outcries and, with his mouth still wide open, stared in incredulous amazement at John Compton. This gentleman, having stopped momentarily for breath, started his strange performance once more. But there was a different tone to the second attempt. Mr. Compton, gaining courage through success, was beginning to perceive a certain humor in the situation; and into his bawling went that sense of humor. The suspicion of a grin came upon the boy’s face. Inspired by this, Compton entered upon a third attempt, which really succeeded in being a clever caricature of Bobby’s bawling.

The boy grinned.

“Never say die,” said the comedian, smiling pleasantly and winking.

“I’ll say so!” returned Bob, and reproduced to a nicety Compton’s identical wink.

Compton’s perplexity was entirely gone. He liked Bobby from the first; but with that wink he loved him. So, light of heart, John Compton forced his features into the exaggerated smile which, in the opinion of his director, would, when once known, be worth a fortune, and Bobby for the first time since the roller came upon him burst into a laugh, clear, silvery—sweeter, dearer at that moment to Compton than all the music that had ever charmed his ears.

“Hey! Do it again,” cried Bobby, standing up and wearing an air of seraphic joy. Mr. Compton accepted the encore gratefully, but lost his great smile almost instantaneously when Bobby, allowing for a smaller mouth and more delicate features, reproduced the million-dollar grin.

“Upon my word!” exclaimed the thoroughly amazed comedian. “I must say I like you.”

“And I like you.”

“In fact, I like you very much.”

“And I like you very much.”

“What’s your name, little screecher?”

“Bobby Vernon.”

“I like that name very much. Mine is John Compton.”

“And I like that name very much. Say, come in and sit with me.”

“One moment. Where are you from?”

“Cincinnati.”

Compton, starting slightly, looked at the boy’s features searchingly.

“Say, Bobby, what was your mother’s maiden name—her name before she was married, you know?”

“Barbara Carberry.”

Compton buried his face in his hands. When he raised his head presently, he discovered Bobby weeping. Stepping into the car, Compton took Bobby in his arms and, gazing once more upon the child’s face, stooped over and kissed him.

“I knew your mother once,” he said quietly.

“And you like her?” asked Bobby eagerly.

“Like her! That’s no name for it. Tell me all about her.”

It was the thought of his mother that had set Bobby to weeping again. No wonder, then, that as he proceeded to recount the events of that morning he was forced sobbing to halt in his narration several times until he had mastered his grief. No child in deep trouble ever had a more sympathetic listener. While Bobby went on with his tale of woe, Compton, deeply attentive, was speeding at the rate of forty-five miles an hour for Los Angeles.

“You see,” he had explained to Bobby, “if I don’t hurry, I’ll be late for that two o’clock rehearsal.”

He stopped once on the road at a telephone station.

“Bobby,” he said when he had returned from the booth, “I’ve made inquiries. Your mother took sick. They say there was an earthquake.”

“I should say there was! Didn’t I tell you how it started me to running till I ran into you?

“That’s true. In fact, I believe there was an earthquake. Seems to me I noticed one myself; but I was so busy thinking about my part in the new production that I didn’t pay much attention to it. Well, anyhow, it made your mother sick. It often does affect strangers that way. And they brought her to her car; and before she knew what happened I reckon the old train started off to bring her to San Luis Obispo without you.”

Bobby’s sensitive upper lip quivered.

“Here, now, don’t you cry. I’ve sent a telegram which will catch her at San Luis Obispo, telling her that you are with me and that I will keep you safe and sound till I hear from her. Cheer up, Bobby! You’ll get word to-morrow. There’s nothing to worry about.”

Mr. Compton was a bad prophet. Bobby did not get word. In fact, owing to the flood of telegrams consequent upon the earthquake, Compton’s message was delayed nearly twenty-four hours, and though it duly reached San Luis Obispo it was never delivered. Barbara Vernon was not there to receive it.