CHAPTER I
A POOR RICH BOY

Alaric Dale Todd was his name, and it was a great grief to him to be called "Allie." Allie Todd was so insignificant and sounded so weak. Besides, Allie was a regular girl's name, as he had been so often told, and expected to be told by each stranger who heard it for the first time. There is so much in a name, after all. We either strive to live up to it, or else it exerts a constant disheartening pull backward.

Although Alaric was tall for his age, which was nearly seventeen, he was thin, pale, and undeveloped. He did not look like a boy accustomed to play tennis or football, or engage in any of the splendid athletics that develop the muscle and self-reliance of those sturdy young fellows who contest interscholastic matches. Nor was he one of these; so far from it, he had never played a game in his life except an occasional quiet game of croquet, or something equally soothing. He could not swim nor row nor sail a boat; he had never ridden horseback nor on a bicycle; he had never skated nor coasted nor hunted nor fished, and yet he was perfectly well formed and in good health. I fancy I hear my boy readers exclaim:

"What a regular muff your Alaric must have been! No wonder they called him 'Allie'!"

And the girls? Well, they would probably say, "What a disagreeable prig!" For Alaric knew a great deal more about places and people and books than most boys or girls of his age, and was rather fond of displaying this knowledge. And then he was always dressed with such faultless elegance. His patent-leather boots were so shiny, his neckwear, selected with perfect taste, was so daintily arranged, and while he never left the house without drawing on a pair of gloves, they were always so immaculate that it did not seem as though he ever wore the same pair twice. He was very particular, too, about his linen, and often sent his shirts back to the laundress unworn because they were not done up to suit him. As for his coats and trousers, of which he had so many that it actually seemed as though he might wear a different suit every day in the year, he spent so much time in selecting material, and then in being fitted, and insisted on so many alterations, that his tailors were often in despair, and wondered whether it paid to have so particular a customer, after all. They never had occasion, though, to complain about their bills, for no matter how large these were or how extortionate, they were always paid without question as soon as presented.

From all this it may be gathered that our Alaric was not a child of poverty. Nor was he; for Amos Todd, his father, was so many times a millionaire that he was one of the richest men on the Pacific coast. He owned or controlled a bank, railways, steamships, and mines, great ranches in the South, and vast tracts of timber lands in the North. His manifold interests extended from Alaska to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic; and while he made his home in San Francisco his name was a power in the stock-exchanges of the world. Years before he and his young wife had made their way to California from New England with just money enough to pay their passage to the Golden State. Here they had undergone poverty and hardships such as they determined their children should never know.

Of these Margaret, the eldest, was now a leader of San Francisco society, while John, who was eight years older than Alaric, had shown such an aptitude for business that he had risen to be manager of his father's bank. There were other children, who had died, and when Alaric came, last of all, he was such a puny infant that there was little hope of his ever growing up. Because he was the youngest and a weakling, and demanded so much care, his mother devoted her life to him, and hovered about him with a loving anxiety that sought to shield him from all rude contact with the world. He was always under the especial care of some doctor, and when he was five or six years old one of these, for want of something more definite to say, announced that he feared the child was developing a weak heart, and advised that he be restrained from all violent exercise.

From that moment poor little "Allie," as he had been called from the day of his birth, was not only kept from all forms of violent exercise and excitement, but was forbidden to play any boyish games as well. In place of these his doting mother travelled with him over Continental Europe, going from one famous medical spring, bath, or health resort to another, and bringing up her boy in an atmosphere of luxury, invalids, and doctors. The last-named devoted themselves to trying to find out what was the matter with him, and as no two of them could agree upon any one ailment, Mrs. Todd came to regard him as a prodigy in the way of invalidism.

Of course Alaric was never sent to a public school, but he was always accompanied by tutors as well as physicians, and spent nearly two years in a very select private school or pension near Paris. Here no rude games were permitted, and the only exercise allowed the boys was a short daily walk, in which, under escort of masters, they marched in a dreary procession of twos.

During all these years of travel and study and search after health Alaric had never known what it was to wish in vain for anything that money could buy. Whatever he fancied he obtained without knowing its cost, or where the money came from that procured it. But there were three of the chief things in the world to a boy that he did not have and that money could not give him. He had no boy friends, no boyish games, and no ambitions. He wanted to have all these things, and sometimes said so to his mother; but always he was met by the same reproachful answer, "My dear Allie, remember your poor weak heart."

At length it happened that while our lad was in that dreary pension, Mrs. Todd, worn out with anxieties, cares, and worries of her own devising, was stricken with a fatal malady, and died in the great château that she had rented not far from the school in which her life's treasure was so carefully guarded. A few days of bewilderment and heart-breaking sorrow followed for poor Alaric. Many cablegrams flashed to and fro beneath the ocean. There was a melancholy funeral, at which the boy was sole mourner, and then one phase of his life was ended. In another week he had left France, and, escorted by one of his French tutors, was crossing the Atlantic on his way to the far-distant San Francisco home of which he knew so little.

He had now been at home for nearly three months, and of all his sad life they had proved the most unhappy period. His father, though always kind in his way, was too deeply immersed in business to pay much attention to the sensitive lad. He did not understand him, and regarded him as a weakling who could never amount to anything in the world of business or useful activity. He would be kind to the boy, of course, and any desire that he expressed should be promptly gratified; at the same time he could not help feeling that Alaric was a great trial, and wishing him more like his brother John.

This bustling, dashing elder brother had no sympathy with Alaric, and rarely found time to give him more than a nod and a word of greeting in passing, while his sister Margaret regarded him as still a little boy who was to be kept out of sight as much as possible. So the poor lad, left to himself, without friends and without occupation, found time hanging very heavily on his hands, and wondered why he had ever been born.

Once he ventured to ask his father for a saddle-horse, whereupon Amos Todd provided him with a pair of ponies, a cart, and a groom, which he said was an outfit better suited to an invalid. Alaric accepted this gift without a protest, for he was well trained to bearing disappointments, but he used it so rarely that the business of giving the horses their daily airing devolved almost entirely upon the groom.

It was not until Esther Dale, one of the New England cousins whom he had never seen, and a girl of his own age, made a flying visit to San Francisco as one of a personally conducted party of tourists, that Alaric found any real use for his ponies. Esther was only to remain in the city three days, but she spent them in her uncle's house, which she refused to call anything but "the palace," and which she so pervaded with her cheery presence that Amos Todd declared it seemed full of singing birds and sunshine.

Both Margaret and John were too busy to pay much attention to their young cousin, and so, to Alaric's delight, the whole duty of entertaining her devolved on him. He felt much more at his ease with girls than with boys, for he had been thrown so much more into their society during his travels, and he thought he understood them thoroughly; but in Esther Dale he found a girl so different from any he had ever known that she seemed to belong to another order of beings. She was good-looking and perfectly well-bred, but she was also as full of life and frisky antics as a squirrel, and as tireless as a bird on the wing.

On the first morning of her visit the cousins drove out to the Cliff House to see the sea-lions; and almost before Alaric knew how it was accomplished he found Esther perched on the high right-hand cushion of the box-seat in full possession of reins and whip, while he occupied the lower seat on her left, as though he were the guest and she the hostess of the occasion. At the same time the ponys seemed filled with an unusual activity, and were clattering along at a pace more exhilarating than they had ever shown under his guidance.

After that Esther always drove; and Alaric, sitting beside her, listened with wondering admiration to her words of wisdom and practical advice on all sorts of subjects. She had never been abroad, but she knew infinitely more of her own country than he, and was so enthusiastic concerning it that in three days' time she had made him feel prouder of being an American than he had believed it possible he ever would be. She knew so much concerning out-of-door life, too – about animals and birds and games. She criticised the play of the baseball nines, whom they saw one afternoon in Golden Gate Park; and when they came to another place where some acquaintances of Alaric's were playing tennis, she asked for an introduction to the best girl player on the ground, promptly challenged her to a trial of skill, and beat her three straight games.

During the play she presented such a picture of glowing health and graceful activity that pale-faced Alaric sat and watched her with envious admiration.

"I would give anything I own in the world to be able to play tennis as you can, Cousin Esther," he said, earnestly, after it was all over and they were driving from the park.

"Why don't you learn, then?" asked the girl, in surprise.

"Because I have a weak heart, you know, and am forbidden any violent exercise."

The boy hesitated, and even blushed, as he said this, though he had never done either of those things before when speaking of his weak heart. In fact, he had been rather proud of it, and considered that it was a very interesting thing to have. Now, however, he felt almost certain that Esther would laugh at him.

And so she did. She laughed until Alaric became red in the face from vexation; but when she noticed this she grew very sober, and said:

"Excuse me, Cousin Rick. I didn't mean to laugh; but you did look so woe-begone when you told me about your poor weak heart, and it seems so absurd for a big, well-looking boy like you to have such a thing, that I couldn't help it."

"I've always had it," said Alaric, stoutly; "and that is the reason they would never let me do things like other boys. It might kill me if I did, you know."

"I should think it would kill you if you didn't, and I'm sure I would rather die of good times than just sit round and mope to death. Now I don't believe your heart is any weaker than mine is. You don't look so, anyway, and if I were you I would just go in for everything, and have as good a time as I possibly could, without thinking any more about whether my heart was weak or strong."

"But they won't let me," objected Alaric.

"Who won't?"

"Father and Margaret and John."

"I don't see that the two last named have anything to do with it. As for Uncle Amos, I am sure he would rather have you a strong, brown, splendidly built fellow, such as you might become if you only would, than the white-faced, dudish Miss Nancy that you are. Oh, Cousin Rick! What have I said? I'm awfully sorry and ashamed of myself. Please forgive me."