The Trumpeter Swan   By: Temple Bailey (-1953)

The Trumpeter Swan

By

TEMPLE BAILEY

Author of "The Tin Soldier" "Contrary Mary" "Mistress Anne" "Glory of Youth"

Sonus ex nubibus te revocabit a mundo A sound from the clouds shall call thee from this earth

Illustrated by ALICE BARBER STEPHENS

THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 1920

COPYRIGHT 1920 BY THE PENN PUBLISHING COMPANY

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A Major and Two Minors 7 II. Stuffed Birds 33 III. A Wolf in the Forest 61 IV. Rain and Randy's Soul 88 V. Little Sister 108 VI. Georgie Porgie 127 VII. Mademoiselle Midas 147 VIII. Ancestors 161 IX. "T. Branch" 181 X. A Gentleman's Lie 214 XI. Wanted a Pedestal 245 XII. Indian Indian 263 XIII. The Whistling Sally 289 XIV. The Dancer on the Moor 313 XV. The Trumpeter Swan 333 XVI. The Conqueror 361

ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE

"When I am Married Will You Sound Your Trumpet High Up Near the Moon?" Frontispiece

"It's So Heavenly to Have You Home" 9

Becky Drew A Sharp Breath Then Faced Dalton Squarely "I Am Going to Marry Randy" 143

"Oh, Oh," She Whispered, "You Don't Know How I Have Wanted You" 257

THE TRUMPETER SWAN

CHAPTER I

A MAJOR AND TWO MINORS

I

It had rained all night, one of the summer rains that, beginning in a thunder storm in Washington, had continued in a steaming drizzle until morning.

There were only four passengers in the sleeper, men all of them two in adjoining sections in the middle of the car, a third in the drawing room, a fourth an intermittent occupant of a berth at the end. They had gone to bed unaware of the estate or circumstance of their fellow travellers, and had waked to find the train delayed by washouts, and side tracked until more could be learned of the condition of the road.

The man in the drawing room shone, in the few glimpses that the others had of him, with an effulgence which was dazzling. His valet, the intermittent sleeper in the end berth, was a smug little soul, with a small nose which pointed to the stars. When the door of the compartment opened to admit breakfast there was the radiance of a brocade dressing gown, the shine of a sleek head, the staccato of an imperious voice.

Randy Paine, long and lank, in faded khaki, rose, leaned over the seat of the section in front of him and drawled, "'It is not raining rain to me it's raining roses down '"

A pleasant laugh, and a deep voice, "Come around here and talk to me. You're a Virginian, aren't you?"

"By the grace of God and the discrimination of my ancestors," young Randolph, as he dropped into the seat opposite the man with the deep voice, saluted the dead and gone Paines.

"Then you know this part of it?"

"I was born here. In this county. It is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh," there was a break in the boy's voice which robbed the words of grandiloquence.

"Hum you love it? Yes? And I am greedy to get away. I want wider spaces "

"California?"

"Yes. Haven't seen it for three years. I thought when the war was over I might. But I've got to be near Washington, it seems. The heat drove me out, and somebody told me it would be cool in these hills "

"It is, at night. By day we're not strenuous."

"I like to be strenuous. I hate inaction."

He moved restlessly. There was a crutch by his side. Young Paine noticed it for the first time. "I hate it."