Arthur told Miss Hatty and Cynthia, and, after they had eaten a sorrowful breakfast, they sat and talked of their grief in whispers and low, awed tones, as though somebody had died.
Miss Hatty, who realized more fully than anybody else her uncle’s position, and what utter ruin this blow meant for him, was more distressed even than Arthur, and he almost forgot his own sorrow in his efforts to comfort her.
“Don’t cry, Cousin Hatty,” he pleaded, as he gently smoothed her hair, and wondered in his boyish fashion what good crying could do in such a case as this. “It isn’t so bad after all, when you come to think of it,” he continued. “Really it isn’t. Even if we can’t go back to Dalecourt, we have got this place, and it’s a great deal better than some places, you know, and your mamma and Uncle Phin can come here to live with us, and I can do lots of things to earn money, and we can be just as happy as anything. I ought to be the one to work for the rest anyhow, because it must have been my knowing so much about oil wells that spoiled this one. I never did feel like a real truly chump, but I thought perhaps you and grandpapa could make up. I am afraid though the trouble was that it was more my well than anybody else’s, and so you being chumps didn’t do any good.”
“You are a dear, blessed little comforter!” cried Miss Hatty, throwing her arms about her “Prince Dusty” and giving him a great hug. She even smiled through her tears, whereupon the boy declared that he could almost see a tiny rainbow at the ends of her eye-lashes.
Then the children went out, but it was only to walk soberly up to the now silent derrick where it was so lonely, and seemed so queer, that they did not care to stay long.
The long, solemn day wore itself slowly away, and the weight of a great calamity was so heavy upon it that everybody was glad when night came and it was time to go to bed.
Although Colonel Dale had not been seen, he had been heard pacing heavily up and down his room for hours at a time. Miss Hatty had carried some dinner up-stairs, and begged that he would eat it. Without opening his door, he said: “Leave me alone to-day, Harriet, and to-morrow I will again try to face the world.” She thereupon left the tray close beside the door, and told him that it was there. He did not again answer her, nor had the tempting dishes been touched at nightfall.