CHAPTER II
THE RUNAWAY

For a moment it seemed to Alaric that he could not forgive that thoughtlessly uttered speech. And yet the girl who made it had called him Cousin "Rick," a name he had always desired, but which no one had ever given him before. If she had called him "Allie," he knew he would never have forgiven her. As it was he hesitated, and his pale face flushed again. What should he say?

In her contrition and eagerness to atone for her cruel words Esther leaned towards him and laid a beseeching hand on his arm. For the moment she forgot her responsibility as driver, and the reins, held loosely in her whip-hand, lay slack across the ponies' backs.

Just then a newspaper that had been carelessly dropped in the roadway was picked up by a sudden gust of wind and whirled directly into the faces of the spirited team. The next instant they were dashing madly down the street. At the outset the reins were jerked from Esther's hand; but ere they could slip down beyond reach Alaric had seized them. Then, with the leathern bands wrapped about his wrists, he threw his whole weight back on them, and strove to check or at least to guide the terrified animals. The light cart bounded and swayed from side to side. Men shouted and women screamed, and a clanging cable-car from a cross street was saved from collision only by the prompt efforts of its gripman. The roadway was becoming more and more crowded with teams and pedestrians. Alaric's teeth were clinched, and he was bareheaded, having lost his hat as he caught the reins. Esther sat beside him, motionless and silent, but with bloodless cheeks.

They were on an avenue that led to the heart of the city. On one side was a hill, up which cross streets climbed steeply. To keep on as they were going meant certain destruction. All the strain that Alaric could bring to bear on the reins did not serve to check the headlong speed of the hard-mouthed ponies. With each instant their blind terror seemed to increase. Several side streets leading up the hill had already been passed, and another was close at hand. Beyond it was a mass of teams and cable-cars.

"Hold on for your life!" panted Alaric in the ear of the girl who sat beside him.

As he spoke he dropped one rein, threw all his weight on the other, and at the same instant brought the whip down with a stinging cut on the right-hand side of the off horse. The frenzied animal instinctively sprang to the left, both yielded to the heavy tug of that rein, and the team was turned into the side street. The cart slewed across the smooth asphalt, lunged perilously to one side, came within a hair's-breadth of upsetting, and then righted. Two seconds later the mad fright of the ponies was checked by pure exhaustion half-way up the steep hill-side. There they stood panting and trembling, while a crowd of excited spectators gathered about them with offers of assistance and advice.

"Do they seem to be all right?" asked Alaric.

"All right, sir, far as I can see," replied one of the men, who was examining the quivering animals and their harness.

"Then if you will kindly help me turn them around, and will lead them to the foot of the hill, I think they will be quiet enough to drive on without giving any more trouble," said the boy.

When this was done, and Alaric, after cordially thanking those who had aided him, had driven away, one of the men exclaimed, as he gazed after the vanishing carriage:

"Plucky young chap that!"

"Yes," replied another; "and doesn't seem to be a bit of a snob, like most of them wealthy fellows, either."

Meanwhile Alaric was tendering the reins to the girl who had sat so quietly by his side without an outcry or a word of suggestion during the whole exciting episode.

"Won't you drive now, Cousin Esther?"

"Indeed I will not, Alaric. I feel ashamed of myself for presuming to take the reins from you before, and you may be certain that I shall never attempt to do such a thing again. The way you managed the whole affair was simply splendid. And oh, Cousin Rick! to think that I should have called you a Miss Nancy! Just as you were about to save my life, too! I can never forgive myself – never."

"Oh yes you can," laughed Alaric, "for it is true – that is, it was true; for I can see now that I have been a regular Miss Nancy sort of a fellow all my life. That is what made me feel so badly when you said it. Nobody ever dared tell me before, and so it came as an unpleasant surprise. Now, though, I am glad you said it."

"And you will never give anybody in the whole world a chance to say such a thing again, will you?" asked the girl, eagerly. "And you will go right to work at learning how to do the things that other boys do, won't you?"

"I don't know," answered Alaric, doubtfully. "I'd like to well enough; but I don't know just how to begin. You see, I'm too old to learn from the little boys, and the big fellows won't have anything to do with such a duffer as I am. They've all heard too much about my weak heart."

"Then I'd go away to some place where nobody knows you, and make a fresh start. You might go out on one of your father's ranches and learn to be a cowboy, or up into those great endless forests that I saw on Puget Sound the other day and live in a logging camp. It is such a glorious, splendid life, and there is so much to be done up in that country. Oh dear! if I were only a boy, and going to be a man, wouldn't I get there just as quickly as I could, and learn how to do things, so that when I grew up I could go right ahead and do them?"

"All that sounds well," said Alaric, dubiously, "but I know father will never let me go to any such places. He thinks such a life would kill me. Besides, he says that as I shall never have to work, there is no need for me to learn how."

"But you must work," responded Esther, stoutly. "Every one must, or else be very unhappy. Papa says that the happiest people in the world are those who work the hardest when it is time for work and play the hardest in play-time. But where are you driving to? This isn't the way home."

"I am going to get a new hat and gloves," answered the boy, "for I don't want any one at the house to know of our runaway. They'd never let me drive the ponies again if they found it out."

"It would be a shame if they didn't, after the way you handled them just now," exclaimed Esther, indignantly.

Just then they stopped before a fashionable hat-store on Kearney Street, and while Alaric was debating whether he ought to leave the ponies long enough to step inside he was recognized, and a clerk hastened out to receive his order.

"Hat and gloves," said Alaric. "You know the sizes."

The clerk answered, "Certainly, Mr. Todd," bowed, and disappeared in the store.

"See those lovely gray 'Tams' in the window, Cousin Rick!" said Esther. "Why don't you get one of them? It would be just the thing to wear in the woods."

"All right," replied the boy; "I will."

So when the clerk reappeared with a stylish derby hat and a dozen pair of gloves Alaric put the former on, said he would keep the gloves, and at the same time requested that one of the gray Tams might be done up for him.

As this order was filled, and the ponies were headed towards home, Esther said: "Why, Cousin Rick, you didn't pay for your things!"

"No," replied the boy, "I never do."

"You didn't even ask the prices, either."

"Of course not," laughed the other. "Why should I? They were things that I had to have anyway, and so what would be the use of asking the prices? Besides, I don't think I ever did such a thing in my life."

"Well," sighed the girl, "it must be lovely to shop in that way. Now I never bought anything without first finding out if I could afford it; and as for gloves, I know I never bought more than one pair at a time."

"Really?" said Alaric, with genuine surprise. "I didn't know they sold less than a dozen pair at a time. I wish I had known it, for I only wanted one pair. I've got so many at home now that they are a bother."

That very evening the lad spoke to his father about going on a ranch and learning to be a cowboy. Unfortunately his brother John overheard him, and greeted the proposition with shouts of laughter. Even Amos Todd, while mildly rebuking his eldest son, could not help smiling at the absurdity of the request. Then, turning to the mortified lad, he said, kindly but decidedly:

"You don't know what you are asking, Allie, my boy, and I couldn't think for a moment of allowing you to attempt such a thing. The excitement of that kind of life would kill you in less than no time. Ask anything in reason, and I shall be only too happy to gratify you; but don't make foolish requests."

When Alaric reported this failure to Esther a little later, she said, very gravely:

"Then, Cousin Rick, there is only one thing left for you to do. You must run away."

CHAPTER III
ALARIC TAKES A FIRST LESSON

On the day following that of the runaway, Esther Dale resumed her position as a personally conducted tourist, and departed from San Francisco, leaving Alaric to feel that he had lost the first real friend he had ever known. Her influence remained with him, however, and as he thought of her words and example his determination to enter upon some different form of life became indelibly fixed.

That very day he drove again to the park, this time with only his groom for company, and went directly to the place where the game of baseball had been in progress the afternoon before. As he hoped, another was about to begin, though there were not quite enough players to make two full nines. Hearing one of the boys say this, and discovering an acquaintance among them, Alaric jumped from his cart, and, going up to him, asked to be allowed to fill one of the vacant positions.

Reg Barker was freckle-faced and red-headed, clad in flannels, with sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and was adjusting a catcher's mask to his face when Alaric approached. As the latter made known his desire, Reg Barker, who was extremely jealous of the other's wealth and fame as a traveller, regarded him for a moment with amazement, and then burst into a shout of laughter.

"Hi, fellows!" he called, "here is a good one – best I ever heard! Here's Allie Todd, kid gloves and all, wants to play first base. What do you say – shall we give him a show?"

"Yes," shouted one; "No," cried another, as the boys crowded about the two, gazing at Alaric curiously, as though he belonged to some different species.

"We might make him captain of the nine," called out one boy, who had just gone to the bat.

"No, he'd do better as umpire," suggested Reg Barker. "Don't you see he's dressed for it? I don't know, though; I'm afraid that would come under the head of cruelty to children, and we'd have the society down on us."

As Alaric, with a crimson face and a choking in his throat, sought in vain for some outlet of escape from his tormentors who surrounded him, and at the same time longed with a bitter longing for the power to annihilate them, a lad somewhat older than the others forced his way through the throng and demanded to know what was the row. He was Dave Carncross, the pitcher, and one of the best amateur players of his age on the coast.

"It's Miss Allie Todd," explained Reg Barker, "and her ladyship is offering to show us how to play ball."

"Shut up, Red Top," commanded the new-comer, threateningly. "When I want any of your chaff I'll let you know." Then turning to Alaric, he said, pleasantly, "Now, young un, tell me all about it yourself."

"There isn't much to tell," replied the boy, in a low tone, and with an instinctive warming of his heart towards the sturdy lad who had come to his rescue. "I wanted to learn how to play ball, and knowing Reg Barker, asked him to teach me; that's all."

"And he insulted you, like the young brute he is. I see. Red Top, if you won't learn manners any other way I shall have to thrash them into you. So look out for yourself. Now, you new fellow, your name's Todd, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"And your father is Amos Todd, the millionaire?"

Alaric admitted that such was the case.

"Well, I know you, or, rather, my father knows your father. In fact, I think they have some business together; and after this whenever you choose to come out here if I'm around I'll see that you are treated decently. As for learning to play ball, the mere fact that you want to shows that you are made of good stuff, and I don't mind giving you a lesson right now. So, stand out here, and let's see if you can catch."

Thus saying, the stalwart young pitcher, who held a ball in his hand, ran back a few rods, and, with a seemingly careless swing of his arm, threw the ball straight and swift as an arrow directly at Alaric, who instinctively held out his hands.

Had he undertaken to stop a spent cannon-ball the boy could hardly have been more amazed at the result. As the ball dropped to the ground he felt as though he had grasped a handful of red-hot coals. Both his kid gloves were split right across the palms, and the smart of his hands was so great that, in spite of his efforts to restrain them, unbidden tears sprang to his eyes.

A shout of laughter arose from the spectators of this practical lesson; but Dave Carncross, running up to him and recovering the dropped ball, said, cheerily: "Never mind those duffers, young un. They couldn't do any better themselves once, and you'll do better than any of them some time. First lessons in experience always come high, and have to be paid for on the spot; but they are worth the price, and you'll know better next time than to stop a hot ball with stiff arms. What you want to do is to let 'em give with the ball. See, like this."

Here Dave picked up a bat, struck the ball straight up in the air until it seemed to be going out of sight, and running under it as it descended, caught it as deftly and gently as though it had been a wad of feathers.

"There," said he, "you have learned by experience the wrong way of catching a ball, and seen the right way. I can't stop to teach you any more now, for our game is waiting. What you want to do, though, is to go down town and get a ball – a 'regulation dead,' mind – take it home, and practise catching until you have learned the trick and covered your hands with blisters. Then come back here, and I will show you something else. Good-bye – so long!"

With this the good-natured fellow ran off to take his place in the pitcher's box, leaving Alaric filled with gratitude, and glowing with the first thrill of real boyish life that he had ever known. For a while he stood and watched the game, his still-tingling hands causing him to appreciate as never before the beauty of every successful catch that was made. He wondered if pitching a ball could be as difficult as catching one, or even any harder than it looked. It certainly appeared easy enough. He admired the reckless manner in which the players flung themselves at the bases, sliding along the ground as though bent on ploughing it with their noses; while the ability to hit one of those red-hot balls with a regulation bat seemed to him little short of marvellous. In fact, our lad was, for the first time in his life, viewing a game of baseball through his newly discovered loophole of experience, and finding it a vastly different affair from the same scene shrouded by an unrent veil of ignorance.

After he had driven away from the fascinating game, his mind was still so full of it that when, in passing the children's playground, he was invited by Miss Sue Barker, sister of red-headed Reg, to join in a game of croquet, he declined, politely enough, but with such an unwonted tone of contempt in his voice as caused the girl to stare after him in amazement.

He procured a regulation baseball before going home, and then practised with it in the court-yard behind the Todd palace until his hands were red and swollen. Their condition was so noticeable at dinnertime that his father inquired into the cause. When the boy confessed that he had been practising with a baseball, his brother John laughed loud and long, and asked him if he intended to become a professional.

His sister only said, "Oh, Allie! How can you care to do anything so common? And where did you pick up the notion? I am sure you never saw anything of the kind in France."

"No," replied the boy; "I only wish I had."

His father said, "It's all right, my son, so long as you play gently; but you must be very careful not to over-exert yourself. Remember your poor weak heart and the consequences of too violent exercise."

"Oh, bother my weak heart!" cried the boy, impatiently. "I don't believe my heart's any weaker than anybody else's heart, and the doctor who said so was an old muff."

At this unheard-of outbreak on the part of the long-suffering youngest member of the family, John and Margaret glanced significantly at each other, as though they suspected his mind was becoming affected as well as his body; while his father said, soothingly, as though to an ailing child:

"Well, well, Allie, let it go. I am sorry that you should forget your manners; but if the subject is distasteful to you, we won't talk of it any more."

"But I want to talk of it, father. I am sorry that I spoke as I did just now; but you can't know what an unhappy thing it is to be living on in the way I am, without doing anything that amounts to anything, or will ever lead to anything. Won't you let me go on to a ranch, or somewhere where I can learn to be a man?"

"Of course, my boy," replied Amos Todd, still speaking as soothingly as he knew how. "I will let you go anywhere you please, and do what you please, just as quickly as I can find the right person to take care of you, and see that you do nothing injurious. How would you like to go to France with Margaret and me this summer? I am thinking of making the trip."

"I would rather go to China, or anywhere else in the world," replied the boy, vehemently. "I am tired to death of France and Germany and Switzerland and Italy, and all the other wretched European places, with their bads and bains and spas and Herr Doctors and malades. I want to go into a world of live people, and strong people, and people who don't know whether they have any hearts or not, and don't care."

"Well, well, son, I will try and arrange something for you, only don't get excited," said Amos Todd, at the same time burying himself in his evening paper so as to put an end to the uncomfortable interview.

In spite of the unsatisfactory ending of this conversation, Alaric felt greatly encouraged by it, and during the week that followed he devoted himself as assiduously to learning to catch a baseball as though that were the one preparation needful for plunging into a world of live people. Morning, noon, and evening he kept his groom so busy passing ball with him that the exercising of the ponies was sadly neglected in consequence. With all this practice, and in spite of bruised hands and lame fingers, he at length became so expert that he began to think of hunting up his friend Dave Carncross, and presenting himself for an examination in the art of ball-catching.

Every now and then he asked his father if he had not thought of some plan for him, and the invariable answer was: "It's all right, Allie; I've got a scheme on foot that's working so that I can tell you about it in a few days."

In the meantime the date of Amos Todd's departure for Europe with his daughter was fixed. Shortly before its arrival the former called Alaric aside, and, with a beaming face, announced that he had at length succeeded in making most satisfactory arrangements.

"You said you wanted to go to China, you know," he continued; "so I have laid out a fine trip for you to China, and India, and Egypt, and all sorts of places, and persuaded a most excellent couple, a gentleman and his wife, to go along and take care of you. He is a professor and she is a doctor, so you will be well looked after, and won't have the least bit of responsibility or worry."