Tranquillity House/Chapter 15

OOKING back on it all, now that two or three years have passed, I can still feel the amazing thrill I experienced, as I stood in that Western Union office and read this message:

The charges on this were enormous, and took every dollar of our Christmas money. But I paid it all joyfully, for I knew that now, at least, we had some definite clue that all Uncle’s relatives had not died—at least in India, as that heartless old Cookson had hoped.

The ferry and trolleys that took me back to Penryd were all too slow, and I whiled away the time by planning what we ought to do next. It was plain that Uncle could not yet be told anything about all this, and also that we had as yet no right to discuss it with any one else, except, perhaps Tomkins. I didn’t quite like to think how we were going to square things with Mother, but concluded we’d have to leave that to Connie’s ingenuity. I myself was too full of the wonder of all this discovery to be able to think how that was to be done.

As it turned out, Mother had gone home by the time I got back and Miss Carstair was again on duty. But Connie informed me, in one moment we had alone, that she had managed to quiet Mother’s curiosity by telling her that as Mr. Cookson was laid up and Tomkins so busy I had gone to get this message for Uncle. Mother still didn’t quite see the necessity for it, but had asked no more questions, being more interested in Mr. Cookson’s accident of the night before. This Connie described to her as well as she could, without telling any of the before and after developments. But she added that Beulah had pretty nearly given the whole thing away, when she came in with Connie's afternoon broth, by demanding “what for Miss Elspeth done run out to dat ole graveyard 'n stan’ dere while Mr. Cookson fell into dat dere tomb?”

“Mother's eyes almost popped out of her head at that!” laughed Connie. “But I managed to shoo Beulah out of the room and explain to her that Beulah had got things dreadfully mixed—how you heard Mr. Cookson groaning (which was true) and had stood by him and called for help and how Tomkins had come just in the nick of time and got him back to the house. It all sounded sort of confused, but fortunately Ralph began to make a fuss just then and when we got back to the subject again, I began to describe all about Mr. Cookson’s injuries, and Mother forgot about the other. But, for gracious sake, Elspeth, tell me what message you got! I’m dying to hear, for it’s far more important than all this!”

However, as usual, it was not till bedtime that we got any real chance to talk it all over.

“I tell you, Elspeth, this son must be hunted up, somehow!” declared Connie. “And we can’t get at it too quickly.”

“Yes, I quite agree; but how?” I questioned, for the thing really seemed to me rather baffling. “Ten years ago this young boy named Mason was taken from Arcot, India, to America by a missionary named Abercrombie. We don’t know the boy's first name; we don’t know where the missionary went, nor any way to trace him, that I can see.”

“Then you’re remarkably stupid!” snorted Connie, unfeelingly. “We know enough about them to trace them in the easiest way possible! Didn’t the message say Abercrombie was a missionary of the Presbyterian Board? Very well! Get some letter paper and write a note to the Presbyterian Board in New York. I’ll dictate it!”

Meekly I got together the materials, to do her bidding, and had just sat down, fountain pen in hand, when she commanded:

“No! That’s too slow! I have a better scheme than that. A letter would take too long, and we must have this information at once. To-morrow’s a half-holiday in school because of that teachers’ convention in Philadelphia, you said. Now, you come straight here at noon, get by yourself in the library, and call up the Presbyterian Board in New York. Tell them you want some information about these Abercrombie missionaries who returned to America ten years ago, bringing with them the young son of a dead missionary named Mason. Ask what has become of this boy. And if they don’t know, ask at least where these Abercrombie people are and how you can get in touch with them!”

Connie stopped triumphantly, and I could only gasp in wonder over her resourcefulness.

“How did you ever manage to think of it?” I exclaimed admiringly.

“Oh, easy enough!” she replied. “You see, I went once with Mother to New York when she was sent as a delegate from the missionary society of the church here to the Presbyterian Board in New York, where they were having a convention. It was a big affair and lasted two or three days; you remember it, don’t you? It was several years ago. You stayed home and kept house for Daddy, but I was so little that Mother thought she’d better take me along. Anyhow, I wasn’t too young to take in a lot of things, and I noticed what a big place it was and how there were people who seemed to be able to answer any kind of question you could think of. I always remembered that, and to-night it just came to me that there was where we were surely going to get some information. I can hardly wait for to-morrow to come. Wish we could do it to night, but of course there wouldn’t be any one there!”

It was hard to wait for the next day and I dreaded the morning in school, as it was the first time I had returned after the lunch-bag episode. But nothing was said about it. Lucy Shaver and her set avoided me very noticeably, for which I was thankful, and noon time came at last. It didn’t take me long to reach Tranquillity, and I found Connie in as great a state of excitement as I was.

“Now for it!” she cried, as we hunted up the number in the directory while Miss Car stair was eating her lunch. And, having found it, I hurried downstairs to my job, dreading it as I did all unusual and unfamiliar things.

It was only after much difficulty and a great deal of referring to other parties and departments, that I got anything like satisfaction. There were, it seemed, no missionaries named Abercrombie now on their lists any where. But, in looking up the records, they found that a Mr. and Mrs. Edward Abercrombie had returned from India about ten years before, and, as they were elderly and not at all in good health, had retired from the service. It was thought that the husband was living with his son in Litchfield, Connecticut. The wife was dead. Of the Mason boy the board knew nothing. Nor had they known of his father. They thought Campbell Mason had been a worker of some other denomination, probably. That was all the information I could get.

“Very well!” declared Connie, undaunted by the scarcity of it. “Go right down again and call up Litchfield Information and try to get hold of Mr. Edward Abercrombie if it is possible, or any one he lives with or who knows him. In a comparatively small place like that, it oughtn’t to be difficult to locate him.”

By this time I had warmed up to the work, and I returned to the task with a lot more confidence. I felt rather guilty at running up such a big telephone bill for Uncle without his consent, but, on the other hand, we were doing all this just for him, and he surely would not object to any lengths to which we might go. But it was a far more difficult piece of work to get in touch with Litchfield and find out anything about the Abercrombies. There wasn’t any such name in the directory and In formation seemed unable to get in touch with any one who knew anything about them. But finally she said there was a Mrs. Washburn in town whose father lived with her, and she thought she had heard that the old gentleman's name was Abercrombie. She connected me with Mrs. Washburn, and I told that invisible lady that I was hunting for a Mr. Edward Abercrombie who had once been a missionary in Arcot, India.

To my joy, she answered that he was her father and was now in the house, but she said he was very ill and quite unable to talk. He was not expected to live more than a few days longer. I said I was awfully sorry and then asked her if she knew anything about a young boy they had brought home from India ten years before, whose name was Mason, and if she could tell me anything about him.

“Why, no!” she said, in a very surprised manner. “I never heard of any such boy!”

Well, my heart went right down into my boots, at that, and the whole thing seemed a hopeless failure, when she suddenly exclaimed:

“Wait a minute! Hold the wire!”

I waited, in simply breathless suspense, and then she called again:

“Hello! I’ve just made inquiries of some one else here, about that. I was living out West at the time Father and Mother returned and didn’t see them for several months after, so I didn’t know about this. They did bring over a young boy who was called ‘Tony’ or Anthony Mason. His father and mother had died over there and he had no relatives and had been very ill. They kept him with them for a little while, but as they were traveling around and lecturing a good deal and were then coming out to me, they felt that they would have to find some other home for him. So they left him with some friends of theirs in New York. I don’t know the name of these people, but they were very nice people. They were not very well off, but they had no children and so they took the little boy to bring up as their own.

“I believe he lived with them for a number of years and is now supposed to be working his way through Princeton University, so my informant says. Is that sufficient information? It is all that I can give you, I'm afraid.”

I thanked her as best I could and stumbled upstairs to Connie, so bursting with the news that I was absolutely incoherent for a while. But at last I had told the tale, and Connie leaned back in her chair with a long sigh of content.

“Right here in Princeton, not fifty miles away from us!” she exclaimed. “Did you ever know anything to beat it, Elsbeth? Here is Uncle's own and only nephew so near him that he could be reached in a couple of hours, and not a soul knows it beside ourselves!”

“And if it hadn’t been for your accident, and all that's happened since, he might have gone right on living there and no one would ever have been the wiser!” I murmured. “But what are we to do next? Oughtn’t we to tell some one about it?”

“No; I have another scheme!” announced Connie, who seemed to have taken charge of affairs.

“Well, what is it now?” I demanded.

“You go right downstairs to the library and get Princeton University on the telephone!” she promptly ordered.