A very weary and dust-covered couple trudged to the top of the last hill just before sundown and paused, with Lou’s hand instinctively clutching Jim’s arm.
“Is that it; the Hudson?” She pointed over the fringe of treetops below them to the broad, winding ribbon of sparkling gray-blue, touched here and there with the reflection of the fleecy pink clouds drifting far overhead.
Jim turned to look at her, wondering what reaction the view would have upon the emotions of this child who, until a brief week ago, had known only the “brick house with a high fence and a playground where never a blade of grass grew.”
Her big eyes followed the river’s course56until it was lost in a creeping mist behind high hills, and she drew a deep breath.
“How far does it go?” she asked.
“To New York; to the sea,” he responded. “The ocean, you know.”
“My!” There was wonder and a certain regret in her tone. “What a waste of good wash-water!”
Jim emitted an inarticulate remark, and added hastily:
“Let us get along down into Highvale. I must try to find a place for you to sleep, and remember, Lou, you’re my sister if anyone starts to question you.”
“All right; I don’t mind, if you don’t.” She gave the floppy hat a yank that slued the ridiculous green bow to a more rakish angle, and then stopped suddenly in the road. “O-oh, look!”
A barn had been built close up to the side of the fence, and freshly pasted upon it was the vividly colored poster of a circus. The enthusiastic admiration which she had denied to her first view of the great river glowed now in Lou’s eyes, and she stood transfixed.
57“What is it, Jim? The pretty lady on the horse an’ the other one up on the swing thing without–without any skirt to her, and the man with the funny pants an’ the big hat that’s shootin’─”
“There must be a circus in Highvale–yes, the date says to-night,” Jim replied.
“‘Trimble & Wells Great Circus & Sideshow,’” she read slowly. “I heard about them circuses; some of the children seen them before they came to–to where I was, an’ once one come to town an’ sent free tickets to us, but the deaconesses said it was sinful an’ so we couldn’t go. It don’t look sinful to me; it looks just grand–grand!”
She could have stood for an hour drinking in all the wonders of the poster, but Jim hurried her on although he was filled with sympathy. Poor little kid! What a rotten, black sort of life she must have had, and how he wished that he might take her to this tawdry, cheap affair and watch her naïve enjoyment.
But their combined capital would not have covered the price of the tickets, and there was58supper to be thought of, and the hazards of the immediate future. For the present the circus must remain an unattained dream to Lou.
The steep little hill down to the village seemed very long, and twilight was almost upon them when they came to a big, open lot upon which a circular tent was in process of erection, with lesser oblong ones clustered at one side.
A fringe of small boys and village loungers lined the roadway watching the corps of men who were working like beavers within the lot, urged on by a bawling, cursing voice which seemed to proceed from a stout, choleric man who bounded about, alternately waving his arms and cupping his hands to improvise a megaphone.
Jim was tired, and his side throbbed dully, but a sudden inspiration came to him, and he drew Lou over to the other side of the road.
“Sit down here and wait for me,” he told her. “I won’t be long. That’s where the circus is going to be, and perhaps I can fix it for you to see it.”
59Turning, he shouldered his way through the knot of loungers, and entering the lot, approached the stout gentleman.
“Want an extra hand?” he asked. “Anything from a ballyhoo to a rough-rider?”
The stout man wheeled and surveyed him in momentarily speechless wrath at the interruption. Then his eyes narrowed appraisingly as he noted the tall, lean, well-knit figure before him, and he demanded:
“How the h–l did you know that the Wild West act was all knocked to pieces?”
“It isn’t now,” Jim smiled. “Lend me a horse and a pair of chaps, and I’ll show you in five minutes what’s going to be your star act to-night.”
“You’re no circus man, nor a Westerner, neither.” The boss still stared. “And you don’t look like a bum. What’s your game, anyway?”
“To pick up a little loose change and get a horse between my knees again.”
The thought of the forlorn little figure which he had left by the roadside kept Jim’s60smile steady, and added a desperate artificial buoyancy to his tired tones:
“Never mind who I am or where I came from; I can ride, and that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
There was an instant’s pause, and then the boss bawled a stentorian order and grabbed him by the arm.
“Come on. I’ll give you a chance to show me what you can do, but if you’re takin’ up my time on a bluff I’ll break every bone in your ─ ─ body!”
He led Jim to an open space behind the tents where presently there appeared a living convulsion in the shape of a bucking, squealing bronco seemingly held down to earth by two sweating, shirtless men.
As Jim surveyed that wickedly lowered head with its small eyes rolling viciously, his heart misgave him for a moment. What if he should fail? It was long since he had practiced those rough-riding stunts that had made him in demand for those society circuses of the ante-bellum days, and longer yet since he had learned to break a bronco on the ranch,61which had been Bill Hollis’s hobby for a season.
What if that devil of a pony should best him in the struggle, and he should be thrown ignominiously from the lot before the eyes of the girl who was waiting patiently for him?
The next instant he had vaulted lightly into the high, Western saddle, the two men had jumped back, and the fight was on. The bronco lashed out viciously with his heels, leaped sidewise, and then, after a running start, attempted to throw his rider over his head, but Jim clung to him like a burr; he flung himself down and rolled over, but the young man jumped clear and was back into the saddle as the enraged animal regained his feet.
The struggle was strenuous but brief, and Jim found himself rejoicing that none of the old tricks had failed him, and that the wicked little brute was realizing that he had at length been mastered.
When the bronco was thoroughly subjected, Jim rode quietly up to where the boss stood with the two other men.
62“Want me to pick up a handkerchief for you, or any other of the old stunts, now?” he asked. “Don’t want to tire this old plug too much for the show.”
The boss chuckled.
“Get down and talk business with me, young feller,” he said. “You won’t ride Jazz in the ring to-night; he’s the rottenest, most treacherous little wretch with the outfit, and I only put you on him to call your bluff. Want to join the show? We had to leave our rough-rider back in the last town with a broken leg.”
Jim shook his head.
“Only for to-night,” he replied. “My sister and I are beating it South.”
“Well, I’ll give you five dollars─”
“No, you won’t,” Jim smiled. “I’ll work for you to-night for just twenty-five cents.”
“Say, you ain’t bughouse, are you?” The boss stared again.
“The fourth part of a dollar, two bits!” Jim replied doggedly. Then his gaze wandered as though casually over to the cook tent, and he added: “However, if you could suggest anything to two hungry people, and63something else for a little girl who has never seen a circus, Mr. Trimble-and-Wells, and who is waiting for me in the road─”
The boss roared.
“D–d if I don’t think you’re dippy, but you certainly can ride like h–l!” he exclaimed. “I’ll take you up on that; go get the kid and bring her in to supper, and I’ll see that she gets a reserved seat for the show. Holy smoke! A feller that can stick on Jazz, and wants to work for a quarter!”
Thus it was that when the clown came tumbling into the ring to the blaring of the band that night, a girl with the green bow all askew upon her hat and her violet-blue eyes a shade darker and snapping with excitement was perched on one of the front row planks which served as seats, clutching a bag of peanuts and waiting in an ecstasy for the wonders about to be unfolded.
The ride in the pedler’s van, the hours of currant-picking, and the hot, hilly, eight-mile trudge were forgotten, and she felt like pinching herself to see if she would wake up all of64a sudden to find herself once more back in the attic at the Hess farm.
The beautiful lady with the fluffy skirts rode round the ring on tiptoe and jumped through the flaming hoops at the behest of the gentleman with the high silk hat and the long whip; the other lady “without any skirt to her” flew dizzily through the air from one trapeze to the other, and the performing elephant went through his time-worn tricks with the air of a resigned philosopher, and still Lou sat entranced.
Then the dingy curtains parted, and a man loped easily into the ring on a wiry, little Western horse. He was the same man she had seen in the poster that afternoon; the one with the funny pants and the big hat and the red handkerchief knotted around his throat, and he proceeded to do marvelous things.
It is highly probable that many a better exhibition of rough-riding had been given beneath the big top, but to Lou, as to the villagers surrounding her in densely packed rows, it was a supreme display of horsemanship, and they expressed themselves with65vociferous applause when he uncoiled a rope from the peak of his saddle and dexterously brought down the bewildered steer which had been chivvied into the ring.
In the row directly in front of Lou sat a quartet who were obviously out of place among their bucolic neighbors, but as obviously bent on amusing themselves. The ladies of the party wore brilliant sweaters beneath their long silk motor coats, and veils floated from their small round hats, and the gentlemen wore long coats, too, and had goggles pushed up on their caps.
Bits of their chatter, and low-voiced, well-bred laughter drifted back to the girl’s ears between pauses in the louder comments of her immediate neighbors and the intermittent din of the band, and Lou was amazed.
Could it be that they were laughing at this glorious, wonderful thing that was called a “circus?” Were they ridiculing it, trying to pretend that they had seen anything more marvelous in all the world?
They didn’t laugh at the rough-rider, she noticed. The ladies applauded daintily, and66once the stouter of the two gentlemen called out: “Good work!” as the rider executed a seemingly daring feat, and the other gentleman consulted his flimsy play bill.
Then all thought of the four was banished from Lou’s mind, for the rider had cantered from the ring and dropped a large white handkerchief upon the sawdust of the outer circle just before her. Wasn’t that bit of color in a corner of a handkerchief an American flag? Jim had told her that he was to do some work outside for the circus people that night, and the boss had kindly offered her a seat, but that handkerchief─
Suddenly the rider swept by with his horse at a dead run, and swooping down, seized the square of white in his teeth, and while the tent rang with applause, Lou sat very still. It was Jim! It was he, her “partner,” whom the people were all clapping their hands at, who was doing all these wonderful things! But his face had looked somewhat pale beneath that big hat, and his smile sort of fixed.
The bandage was gone from his head, and the plaster which had replaced it was hidden,67but she could not have been mistaken. What if he were suffering, if his back and side were paining him again? She recalled the exhaustion with which he had slept at noontime, and the long, weary hike that followed it, and her heart contracted within her. It was for her that he was doing this, so that she might see the show!
One of the ladies in the seats before her leaned forward and exclaimed:
“Didn’t he look like Jimmie Abbott? If we didn’t know that he was on a fishing trip up in Canada─”
Lou did not catch the rest of the remark. Her eyes were glued upon the rider and her ears stilled to everything around her. With a final flourish he dashed for the dingy curtain at the exit and it parted to let him pass. It did not close quickly enough behind him, however; not quickly enough to conceal from the gaping audience his lurching fall from the saddle into the group of acrobats waiting to come on in their turn.
Then it was that a small, pink-checked cyclone whirled through the rows of closely68packed humanity and half-way round the arena to the curtain, while above the clamor of the band arose a shrill cry; “Jim! Jim!”
“Did you see her?” The lady who had commented upon the rider’s appearance demanded of the gentleman beside her. “She called him Jim, too; isn’t that odd? Do you suppose, Jack, that she is with the circus; that little country girl?”
“Oh, it was only part of the show,” the stout gentleman replied in a bored tone. “Or else the chap was tight. He certainly rode as if he had some red-eye tucked under his belt; wonder where he got it around here?”
There was a confused babel of sound in Jim’s ears when he awoke Wednesday morning; hammering and clanging and the squeak of ropes, shouting and cursing, and now and then the roar or yell of some protesting animal.
He was lying on a narrow bunk in a tent, and opposite him a husky-looking individual was climbing into a pair of checked trousers and yawning vociferously.
Jim’s head ached confoundedly, and he was stiff and sore, but his mind cleared rapidly from the mists of slumber. What sort of a place was this, and how had he got there? Then all at once he remembered, and there came a horrifying thought. What had become of Lou?
“Where’s Lou? M–my sister?” he demanded, sitting bolt upright.
70“Hello, there! Come out of it all right, did you?” The occupant of the tent hitched a suspender over one shoulder and grinned cheerfully. “The kid’s took care of! She’s with Ma Billings. That was a nasty header you took last night. O. K. now? We gotter pull out in an hour.”
“Oh, I’m all right; but say, did I pull that bonehead stuff out there before all of them?” Jim reddened beneath his tan at the thought. “Fall off the horse like that, I mean?”
“In the ring? No, you made a grand exit, and then slumped; nobody saw it but the little girl, and she beat it right down to the ring and out after you. Fit like a wildcat, too, when we tried to keep her away from you till we could find out what had struck you.” The other grinned once more.
“Some sister, ol’-timer! When we found that big muscle bruise on your side, and she told us that you had been tossed by a bull a couple of days ago, we didn’t wonder you keeled over.”
Jim sat up dizzily.
“It was mighty good of you people to take71us in for the night,” he said. “Who is Ma Billings?”
“Marie LaBelle she used to be; worked up on the flyin’ rings until she got too hefty,” his companion explained. “Now she takes care of the wardrobes and sort of looks out that the Human Doll don’t get lost in the shuffle; the midget, you know. Now peel, and I’ll give you a rub-down with some liniment.”
Jim tried to protest, but the husky individual only grinned the broader.
“You may be some boy when it comes to bronco-bustin’, but I’m the Strong Man in the sideshow, and you haven’t a chance.”
Meekly Jim submitted to his companion’s kindly ministrations, and then dressing quickly, made his way out into the glare of the early morning sun.
The big top was down, and poles and animal cages were being loaded on long trucks as he emerged. An appetizing odor of fried pork floated upon the air from the direction of the cook tent, and people seemed to be rushing all over the lot in wildest confusion, but Jim caught a glimpse of a bit of pink-and-white72check through the mêlée, and headed for it.
Lou was sitting on the grass in cordial confab with a melancholy-looking, lantern-jawed man, but at his approach she jumped up precipitately and ran to him.
“Oh, Jim, you feelin’ all right?” There was a little tremble in her voice. “I knew it was you the minute you rode past an’ picked up that handkerchief Mr. Perkins give you yesterday, an’ when you pitched off that horse I thought you was dead. You hadn’t no call to take any chance like that with your back hurt an’ that long tramp an’ all; but it was splendid.”
She paused, breathless, and he patted her shoulder. Somehow she didn’t look so downright homely this morning, or else he was growing used to her little, turned-up nose. Her tow-colored hair was looser about her face, and where the sun struck a strand of it, it shone like spun gold.
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “But who was that man you were talking to just now?”
“Him? Oh, that was the clown,” Lou replied.73“He says the old man is just crazy ’bout your ridin’, an’ if you’ll stay along with the show he can teach me to stand still for the knife-thrower; the last girl got scared, an’ quit just because she got a little scratch on the neck. The clown says I got the nerve for it, an’ I guess I have, only they ain’t goin’ towards New York.”
She added the last almost reluctantly, and Jim shuddered. The knife-thrower! What wouldn’t the little dare-devil be willing to try next?
“I guess you have got the nerve,” he admitted grimly. “But we’re going to be in New York by Saturday night, remember. As soon as I get my quarter from the stout gentleman over there with the striped vest, we’ll be on our way.”
But it was nearly an hour before they took to the road again. The boss insisted on starting them off with a hearty breakfast, and there were good-bys to be said to the rough, kindly folk who had taken them in as friends. Except for the litter of hand-bills and peanut-shells, the last vestiges of the circus were74being removed from the lot as they finally departed, and what had been to Lou a wondrous, glittering pageant had become but a memory.
“I dunno but I’d as lief join a circus,” she observed, meditatively, after they had traveled a mile or more. “Maybe I could learn in New York how to do some of them tricks. I could git the hang of that business up on them swings in no time, only I don’t like the way that girl dressed─”
“Nonsense!” Jim snapped, and wondered at his own indignation. “We’ll find something suitable for you to do, or you can go to school─”
“School!” she interrupted him in her turn. “I–I’d like to learn things an’ be like other folks, but I ain’t–I mean I’m not–goin’ to any institootion.”
He glanced at her curiously. This was the first time she had made any conscious effort to correct herself, the first evidence she had given that she had noted the difference between his speech and hers.
“I didn’t mean an institution, but a real school, Lou,” he explained gently. “One75where you’ll have no uniform to wear, and no work to do except to learn.”
“I quit learnin’ when I was twelve.” There was an unconscious note of wistfulness in her tones. “I kin read an’ do a little figgerin’, but I don’t know much of anythin’ else. I couldn’t go to school an’ begin again where I left off, Jim; I’d be sort of ashamed. Oh, look at that big wagon drivin’ out of that gate! Maybe we’ll git a lift.”
She had turned at the creak of wheels, and now, as the cart loaded with crates and pulled by two lean, sorry-looking horses passed, she gazed expectantly at the driver. He was as lean as his team, with a sharp nose and a tuft of gray hair sticking out from his chin, and his close-set eyes straight ahead of him, as though he were determined not to see to the two wayfarers.
“He looks kinder mean, don’t he?” Lou remarked. Then impulsively she ran after the wagon: “Say, mister, will you give us a lift?”
The old man pulled in his horses and regarded her sourly.
“What’ll you pay?” he demanded.
76“What’s in them crates,” she parried.
“Eggs.” The response was laconic. “What you gittin’ at, sis?”
“Who unloads them when you git to where you’re goin’?” Lou persisted.
“At the Riverburgh dock? I do, unless I’m late, an’ then I have to give a couple o’ them loafers around there a quarter apiece to help. I’m late to-day, an’ if you ain’t got any money to ride–Giddap!”
But Lou halted him determinedly.
“If you’ll give me and Jim–I mean my brother–a ride, he’ll unload the crates for you for nothin’ when we git there. You’ll be savin’ fifty cents, and the ride won’t cost you nothin’.”
“Well”–the old man considered for a moment–“I’ll do it, if it’s only to spite them fellers that’s allus hangin’ ’round the docks. Reg’lar robbers, they be. Quarter apiece, an’ chicken-feed gone up the way’t is. Git in.”
Jim had overtaken the wagon in time to hear the end of the brief conversation, and he wasted no further time in parley, but hoisted77Lou up over the wheel and climbed in beside her.
As the reluctant horses started off once more the driver turned to him:
“Hope you’re a hustler, young man; got to git them eggs off the wagon in a jiffy when we git to Riverburgh, in time to ketch the boat. Don’t you try no scuttlin’ off on me after I give you the ride; Riverburgh’s a reg’lar city, an’ they’s a policeman on the docks.”
“I’ll keep the bargain my sister made for me,” Jim answered shortly. He had observed the poultry-farm from which the old man had started, with its miserable little hovel of a house and immense spread of chicken-runs, and drawn his own conclusions as to the character of its owner. “You needn’t be afraid I’ll shirk.”
“Well,” grumbled the other, “I don’t hold with pickin’ up tramps in the road, but I’m sick of handin’ out good money to them loafers at the dock to unload, an’ I ain’t got a hired man to take along no more; they’re allus lazy, good-for-nothin’ fellers that eat more’n78they work out, let alone their wages goin’ sky-hootin’!”
“But you must be making a handsome profit, with the price of eggs going up, too, all the time,” Jim remarked.
The old man gave him a sly glance.
“That’s how you look at it,” he replied. “They oughter go up twice the price they be. My wife’s doin’ the hired man’s work now, an’ she’s allus pesterin’ me to git an incubator, but them things cost a powerful sight of money, an’ I don’t hold with new-fangled notions; too much resk to them. You can allus sell hens when they git too old to set or lay, but what’re you going to do with a wore-out incubator?”
He cackled shrilly at his own witticism and then grew morose again. “The way things is, there ain’t no profit skeercely in nothin’.”
They jogged along drowsily through the slumberous heat, while the old man continued his harangue against the cost of everything except his own commodity, and the underfed horses strained to drag their burden over the hilly road. The mountains had been left behind,79and all over the rolling hillsides about them on either hand the vineyards stretched in undulating lines, each heavy with the load of purpling grapes.
Mile after mile passed slowly beneath the creaking wheels of the wagon; noon came, and still Riverburgh remained tantalizingly ahead. At last, on the rise of a hill, the old man pulled up and pointed with his whip to the spreading sweep of brick buildings fronting on the river’s edge below.
“There’s the town,” he announced, adding, with a touch of regret: “We’re ahead of time, after all, an’ I could have unloaded by myself. Well, it don’t matter noways except for the extra drag on the horses. Giddap!”
“There’s–there’s an ottermobile comin’ up behind,” Lou ventured. “They been tootin’ at you for some time, mister.”
“Let ’em,” the old man cackled shrilly once more. “I’ve been drivin’ on these roads afore them things was heard of, an’ I don’t calc’late to turn out for ’em.”
The warning of the siren sounded again disturbingly close, and the rush of the oncoming80car could be plainly heard. Jim glanced at the old man, and, noting the stubborn set of his jaw, said nothing; but Lou spoke again, and her voice held no note of alarm, but rather indignation at the obvious lack of fair play.
“But they got a right; you’re on their side of the road,” she exclaimed. “If you’d give them their half, mister, they could pass easy.”
“Don’t calc’late to let ’em,” he responded obstinately. “Ain’t goin’ to take their dust if I kin help it.”
Deliberately he tugged on the left reins and headed the team straight across the road. Lou gave a quick glance over the side of the wagon and behind, and then gripped Jim’s arm. He turned and caught one glimpse of her set face, and then with a roar and a grinding crash they both felt themselves lifted into the air and landed in some golden, slimy fluid in the ditch.
“Lou, are you hurt?” Jim tried to wipe the clinging stuff from his eyes and ears with his sleeve. “Where are you?”
The rapidly diminishing clatter of horses’ hoofs81down the hill, and the old man’s vigorously roared recriminations assured him of the safety of the rest of the entourage even before Lou replied.
“Not hurt a mite, but I’m laughin’!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Oh, Jim, you–you should have seen it. That ottermobile hit square in the middle of the wagon, and there ain’t–isn’t–a single egg─”
“Here, you!” the old man, dripping from head to foot with the golden slime, rushed up and tugged excitedly at Jim’s arm. “Come on an’ help me to ketch them horses! What’d I bring you along for? Let the girl be, I don’t ker if her neck’s broke! I got to lodge a complaint against them rascals, an’ have ’em stopped! You’re my witnesses that they run into me, an’ I’ll make ’em pay a pretty penny─”
“I care whether my sister’s neck is broken or not!” Jim retorted grimly. “Go after your own horses. I engaged to unload eggs, and it looks as if the job was finished. Lou, are you sure you’re all right?”
82The old man danced up and down in the road, spattering flecks of egg about him.
“We’ll see about that,” he shrilled. “You come along with me! You’re my witnesses─”
“We’ll be your witnesses that you were on the wrong side of the road, and knew it,” Jim helped Lou to her feet. “They warned you, and you wouldn’t turn out.”
With an outburst of inarticulate rage the old man dashed off down the road, and Lou, helpless with laughter, clung to Jim’s slippery sleeve.
“Don’t mind him,” she gasped. “Old skinflint! Oh, Jim, you l-look like an omelet.”
For a moment Jim laughed with her; then the seriousness of their situation was borne in upon him, and his face sobered.
“It’s the kind of an omelet that won’t come off in a hurry, I’m afraid,” he said. “How on earth are we going to walk into Riverburgh like this?”
It was the first time that he had appealed to her, and Lou’s laughter ceased also, but her cheerful confidence did not fail her.
“We gotter find some place where we can git cleaned up, that’s all,” she replied practically. “Most anybody would let you do that, I guess, if you told them what happened, an’ if you can’t ask–why, I kin. Anybody ’cept a mean old thing like that! I s’pose I ought to be sorry that his wagon’s broke an’ his eggs are all over us instead of where they84was goin’, but I’m not a mite. Long’s he wasn’t hurt, I’m kinder glad.”
“Still, those people in the car ought to have stopped to see the extent of the damage they had done, even if they did have the right-of-way,” Jim observed. “The old fellow had his grievance, but he got my goat when he said he didn’t care if your neck was broken or not, and I wouldn’t have helped him if I could.”
“‘Goat’?” Lou repeated.
Jim had no opportunity to explain, for at that moment a woman in a faded gingham gown toiled hurriedly over the brow of the hill, and, on seeing them, stopped, with one hand at her breast.
“Oh!” she gasped. “There’s wasn’t anyone hurt, was there? I saw the accident from my porch, and I came just as quick as I could.”
Jim explained, and the woman listened, wide-eyed.
“You both come straight along with me,” she invited when he had finished. “I’ll lend you some overalls, and you and the little girl can just sit around while your clothes dry.”
85She led the way back to a tiny but very neat cottage, with flowers blooming in the door-yard and a well-tended truck-garden in the rear. Broad hay-fields stretched on either side, but only two little boys were visible, tossing the hay awkwardly with pitchforks almost bigger than they were themselves.
The woman left them standing for a minute on the back porch, and then came out to them, bearing a cake of soap, a towel, and a pair of overalls and shirt, which, although immaculately clean, bore many patches and darns, and were deeply creased, as though they had been laid away a long time.
“Take these down to the barn.” She handed them to Jim. “You’ll find a spigot there, and cold water’s best for egg-stains. I left some rags in the empty box-stall that you can use to clean your shoes, and then, if you’ll give me your clothes that you’ve got on now, I’ll soak them and get them out while the sun’s high; corduroy takes a long time to dry.”
When Jim had expressed his gratitude and departed for the barn, the woman led Lou into the kitchen, and, providing her also with86clean garments, she dragged a wash-tub out on the porch.
“I–if you’ll let me, I’d like to wash my own things and Jim’s.” Lou appeared shyly in the door in a gown several sizes too large for her. “He’d like it, too, I think, and he can help with the hayin’ till the things git dried out enough, so’s we kin go on.”
“Oh, would he?” the woman asked quickly. “I’d pay him well if he’s looking for work; I can’t get any hands, though I’ve tried, and the hay is rotting for want of being turned. I didn’t think I’d seen you two around here before, but I’ve known old Mr. Weeble always.”
“You mean that–that with the egg-wagon? He was givin’ us a lift into Riverburgh; we’re just traveling through,” Lou added shortly.
“Did he pick you up back near his place?” At Lou’s nod the woman exclaimed: “Then you two haven’t had a bite of dinner! You put your things to soak and I’ll go right in the house and get you up a little something; it’s past two.”
87Lou started to protest, but the woman disappeared into the kitchen, and Jim appeared from the barn. He was attired in a shirt which strained at his broad shoulders, and overalls which barely reached his shoe-tops.
The girl noticed something else also as he turned for a moment to look toward the field where the little boys were so valiantly at work; a red-leather note-book, which she had never known that he carried, bulged now from the all too small overall-pocket.
“You can bet I’ll pitch hay for her till sundown,” he declared, when Lou had explained the situation to him. He dropped beside the tub the bundle of egg-soaked clothing which he carried, and added: “It is mighty good of her to do all this for us, isn’t it? I tell you, Lou, the credit side of the list is going up even if it did have a bit of a jolt this morning, and you’re the biggest item on it.”
This speech was wholly unintelligible to the girl, but she bent over the tub without reply, and Jim went on hurriedly, aware that he had made a slip of some sort.
88“I wonder where all the men of the family are? She can’t get any hands─”
“Thereare all the men of the family.” The woman had reappeared in time to catch his last remark, and she pointed out toward the two small toilers with a faint smile. “There was another, their father–my son–but he died; so we’re doin’ the best we can by ourselves. But there’s a little bite ready for you on the end of the kitchen-table, and it’s getting cold.”
The food tasted good, and the little red cloth beneath the dishes was clean, but the signs of carefully concealed poverty were everywhere visible to Jim’s eyes, and he suspected another reason for the lack of farm-hands than scarcity of labor. He hurried through his meal, and went at once to the hay-field, while Lou, after insisting on clearing the dishes away, went back to the wash-tub, and their hostess returned to her own belated ironing.
Upon the girl’s usually serene brow there was a frown of perplexity as she worked, and her thoughts were far afield, for in that backward89glance which she had given from the egg-wagon to the approaching car just before the crash came she had recognized in its occupants the quartet who sat in front of her at the circus the previous evening. The ladies were closely swathed in their veils, but she remembered the distinctive plaids of their silk coats, and the stout gentleman who sat between them in the tonneau, with goggles and hat snatched off in the excitement of the impending smash-up, was unmistakably the one who had called out “Good work!” when Jim was performing on the horse.
The other gentleman who had made up the quartet was the one who drove the car, and her quick glance showed her that he was even then trying to avoid the crash.
The details had been photographed upon her brain with instantaneous clarity, but it was not with these that her thoughts were busied; the remark which the younger lady had made at the circus just before Jim rode toward the exit-flap of the curtain had returned and could not be banished from her mind:
90“Didn’t he look like Jimmie Abbott?”
Her companion had told the girl that his name was Botts, but beyond that, and the fact that he was on the way to New York, he had vouchsafed no further information about himself, nor had Lou asked. She could not understand why his journey was hedged about with so many silly rules, nor why he chose to obey them; that was his affair, and he was just a part of this wonderful adventure which had started with her departure from the Hess farm.
Yet away down in her heart was a little hurt feeling for which she could not have assigned a cause even to herself. Of course she trusted him, and he would not have lied to her, but could there really be another “Jim” in the world who looked quite like him, and whose name was so nearly the same?
She had sensed instinctively, and the more clearly perhaps because of her lack of worldly experience, that he was different, not only from herself, but from all whom they had encountered upon their journey, yet could he91really be that grand young lady’s “Jimmie,” after all?
As she stepped aside to lift the basket into which the sodden garments had fallen from the wringer, her foot chanced to crunch upon something that yielded with a crisp rustle, and she glanced down. It was the little red note-book which she had seen in Jim’s overall-pocket when he came from the barn; it must have fallen out as he crossed the porch to go to the hay-field.
It had opened, and the front cover was pressed back, with the stamp of her heel, showing plainly upon the first page, and as she stooped slowly and picked it up Lou could not help reading the three words which were written across it in a bold, characteristic hand:
JAMES TARRISFORD ABBOTT
JAMES TARRISFORD ABBOTT
There was something else, an address, no doubt, written below, but Lou closed the book quickly and dropped it upon a near-by bench, as though it burned her fingers. For a moment92she stood very still with her eyes closed and her little water-shriveled hands tightly interlocked, and in that instant of time the happy, careless co-adventurer of the last two marvelous days vanished, and in his place there appeared a stranger, a man of the world, in which that young lady of the motor-car moved.
For the first time in Lou’s life a panic seized her, a desperate longing to run away. She opened her eyes and looked across the hay-fields to where that tall, stalwart figure worked beside the two smaller ones. Even from that distance he looked different, somehow; he wasn’t the same Jim.
Slowly, with a mist before her eyes she picked up the heavy basket, and, descending the steps of the porch, spread the garments upon the bleaching grass to dry. The glittering glories of the circus had turned all at once to a black shadow in her memory, and she wished fervently that she had never seen it nor those rich people who had come to make a mock of it, but had stayed to applaud Jim.
93But why shouldn’t they, even if they hadn’t recognized him? He belonged to their world, not hers. Then a new, inexpressibly forlorn thought came to her; what was her world, anyway? She didn’t belong anywhere; there was no place for her unless she made one for herself, some time.
With that, in spite of this strange, new weariness which dragged at her heart, Lou’s indomitable spirit reasserted itself, and her small teeth clamped together. Shewouldmake herself a place somewhere, somehow.
Returning to the house, she took the ironing from her tired hostess’s hands, and worked steadily until at sundown the high treble of childish voices came to her ears, and Jim’s merry, laughing tones in reply sent a quick stab through her, but she put down the iron and went determinedly out on the porch.
The two little boys came shyly on up the steps, but Jim had paused to feel of his coat, as it lay on the grass, and looked ruefully at her.
“It’s wet still, I’m afraid,” she remarked composedly, as she picked up the red note-book94and held it out to him. “Is this yourn? It looks as though it must have dropped out of your pocket an’ somebody stepped on it.”
If the girl noted the swift change which came over his face she gave no sign as he came forward and took the book from her hands.
“Yes, it’s mine.” He opened and closed it again, and then looked up uncertainly into her face as she stood on the steps above him, but Lou was gazing in seeming serenity out over the fields, which were still shimmering in the last rays of the sun. “I–I’ll tell you about this some time, Lou. It’s funny.”
“What’s funny?” she asked, with a little start, as though he had interrupted some train of thought of her own, far removed from hateful little red books.
“If you think it’s goin’ to be funny to travel in wet clothes to-night, just wait till you git started.”
But they did not start upon their journey again that night, after all. Their kindly hostess insisted upon their remaining until the morning, at least, and when the supper95dishes were cleared away Lou wandered off by herself down the little lane which led to the pasture.
There would be three days more, and then their journey’s end. Upon one thing she had decided: there would be no school for her! She was going to work as quickly as she could find something to do. Mr. James Abbott must be paid back for the little pink-checked frock and the hat with the green bow, and then she would drop from his sight. Surely in that great city, with its hundreds and hundreds of people, she would be able to disappear.
Reaching the pasture, she stood at the gate with her arms resting upon the topmost rail, and was so deep in reflection that she did not hear a step behind her until a hand touched her shoulder, and Jim’s voice asked quietly:
“What are you doing off here by yourself, Lou? Mrs. Bemis didn’t know what had become of you, and I’ve been looking everywhere.”
“I dunno,” Lou answered truthfully enough. “I been thinkin’ ’bout the institootion96where I come from; it was seein’ them little boys put me in mind of it, I reckon. I was kinder wonderin’ what it would be like to really belong to anybody.”
There was neither pathos nor self-pity in her tone, but rather a cold, dispassionate speculation that froze the words of awkward sympathy which rose to his lips, and he remained silent.
“I did once, you know,” she continued, “belong to some–body, I mean. I had on a white dress all trimmed with lace when they found me in the station at the junction an’ took me up to the institootion; it was the only white dress I ever had.”
“Where was this institution, Lou?” Jim asked. “You’ve never told me, you know.”
Lou shrugged.
“Oh, it was ’way up at a place called Mayfield’s Corners; I was most three hours on the train before I got to the station nearest Hess’s farm.”
A vicious desire came over her to shock and repulse that inexplicable thing in him which set him apart from her and made him one97with the world in which those others moved; that stout gentleman and the young lady who had called him Jimmie. She added deliberately:
“I told you what I did there–at the institootion, I mean: scrubbed an’ cooked an’ washed an’ tended babies an’ wore a uniform, just like any other norphin, I guess. Slep’ in the garret with the rats runnin’ over the floor, an’ got up in the mornin’ to the same old work. It warn’t a State institootion, you see; just a kind of a charity one, run by the deacons of the church; I ain’t got much use for charity.”
“I shouldn’t think you would have,” he exclaimed. “But it’s all behind you now, Lou. We made fourteen miles to-day from Highvale–or will have when we walk down the hill to Riverburgh to-morrow, and it is only sixty miles further to New York.”
“That’s good,” Lou said, but without enthusiasm. “Do we start at sun-up?”
“I thought I’d like to work for Mrs. Bemis for a couple of hours first and get the hay turned in that south field,” Jim answered.98“She’s been so good to us, and she’ll need the stuff this winter for those two old plugs out there.”
He pointed out into the pasture, where two horses made mere blotches of deeper shadow beneath a tree.
Lou laughed suddenly, softly, but it seemed to him that the rippling, liquid note had vanished.
“What’s funny?” he asked.
“Oh, nothin’. I was just thinkin’ of you last night in that circus. You rode so–so wonderfully. I wasn’t laughin’ at that, but it just come to me how funny it would have been if any of your friends was to have seen you!”
Jim glanced at her sharply, but in the starlight her face seemed merely amused as at a whimsical thought.
“Why would it have been funny?” he insisted. “Of course I never rode in a real circus before, and I guess I was pretty rotten, but why would my friends have laughed?”
“I dunno.” Lou dropped her arms from the fence-rail and turned away. “Let’s go back to the house. I–I’m pretty tired.”
The next morning was a trying one for them both. Jim felt dully that something was the matter, but the girl’s manner baffled him, and he could not make up his mind as to whether she had glanced in the note-book or not. It did not seem like her to do so deliberately, but if she had he could only make things worse by broaching the subject, since he was not at the moment in a position to explain.
As for Lou, she was trying her best to appear her old self with him, but dissimulation was an art in which she was as yet unversed, and her whole nature rebelled against playing a part. Only her pride kept her from betraying her disappointment in him and running away. She told herself fiercely that he100didn’t care what she thought of him; they were only partners met by chance on the road, and perhaps never to see each other again after the city was reached.
If he had lied to her about his name that was his own business, and she would not admit even to herself that this deception was not the only reason for the strange, hurt feeling about her heart.
She rose at dawn, and, creeping down from the clean little room which Mrs. Bemis had given her, she had the stove going and breakfast on the table by the time the little family was awake, and Jim appeared from the barn, where he had slept in the loft.
While he worked in the field during the early morning hours, she finished the ironing, and by ten o’clock they were ready once more to start upon their way.
Mrs. Bemis insisted upon paying them both for their work, but it was only out of consideration for her pride that Jim would accept fifty cents of the two dollars she offered him.
“I only work for a quarter a time,” he told101her gravely. “One for yesterday and one for this morning; my sister can tell you that. I–I would like to write to you if I may when we reach home, Mrs. Bemis. Will you tell me what address will find you? You see, I want to thank you properly for all your kindness to us, and I don’t know whether this is the township of Riverburgh or not.”
“It’s the Stilton post-office,” the little woman stammered. “Of course, I’d like to hear from both of you, but you mustn’t thank me! I don’t know what I should have done without your help with the hay! And your sister, too; I do hope you both find work where you’re going.”
To Lou’s amazement Jim produced the little red note-book and wrote the address carefully in it, adding what appeared to be some figures at one side. Then he thanked their good Samaritan and they took their leave.
“That makes a dollar and ten cents!” he remarked confidentially as he and Lou went down the hill road together toward the bustling little city nestled at the river’s edge. “Quite a fortune, isn’t it?”
102“She gave me a quarter for helping with the ironing, too, so that’s thirty-five that I’ve got.” Lou exhibited a hard knot tied in the corner of her handkerchief. “I couldn’t get all of the egg out of my hat, but it’s good enough. Where do we go from Riverburgh?”
Jim gave a groan of mock despair.
“That’s the dev–I mean, the deuce of it!” he exclaimed. “We’ve got to cross the river there someway, and go on down on the other side. We can’t keep on this, or we will run into New Jersey and–and I mustn’t leave the State.”
He blurted the last out in a dogged, uncomfortable way, but Lou did not appear to notice his change of tone.
“Well, there look to be plenty of boats goin’ back an’ forth,” she observed placidly. “I guess we can get over.”
“But you don’t understand. I–I can’t pay our way over; that’s another of the things I mustn’t do.” Jim flushed hotly.
“I wish I could tell you all about it.”
“It don’t make any difference.” Lou kept her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. “There103ought to be some way for you to work your way across.”
The road dipped sharply, and became all at once a pleasant, tree-lined street with pretty suburban cottages on either hand. To the east and north hung the smoke cloud of countless factories, but their way led them through the modest residential quarter. The street presently turned into a paved one, and trolley lines appeared; then brick buildings and shops, and before they knew it they were in the busy, crowded business thoroughfare.
Lou would have paused, gaping and wondering if New York could be anything like this, but Jim hurried her down the steep, cobbled way which led to the ferry. Once there, he took her to a seat in the waiting-room.
“Sit here and wait for me,” he directed. “I’m going to run back up to the shops and get some provisions for us to carry along, and then I’ll arrange about getting across. I shan’t be long.”
When he came down the hill again some twenty minutes later laden with packages, he104found Lou waiting for him at the door of the ferry-house, with a little exultant smile about her lips.
“Come on,” she commanded shortly. “I’ve fixed it for us to get over, but we gotta hurry. The boat’s a’most ready to start.”
“How in the world─” he began, but without deigning to explain she led him to the gate. It was only after he had perforce preceded her that he saw her hand two tickets to the officials at the turnstile.
“Lou!” he exclaimed reproachfully.
“Well, it’s all right, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You kin ride if anybody asks you, can’t you? I’m invitin’ you to ride on this boat with me, Mr. Botts!”
In spite of her assumed gaiety, however, the trip across the river was a silent one, and when the landing was reached and they hurried out of the settlement to the open country once more, both were acutely aware that the intangible rift was widening. It was as though they walked on opposite sides of the road, and neither could bridge the distance between.
105Both doggedly immersed in their own reflections, they walked on rapidly in spite of the heat and with no thought of time or distance until Jim realized that his companion was lagging, and glanced up to see that the sun had started well upon the western trail.
“By Jove! You must be almost starved!” he cried. “I never thought–why didn’t you wake me out of this trance I seem to have been in, and tell me it was long past time for chow? We must have walked miles!”
“I didn’t think, either.” Lou glanced about her wearily. “I don’t see any house, but I kinder think I hear a little brook somewhere, don’t you? Let’s find it, an’ then hurry on; if we’ve got to do sixty miles by the day after to-morrow we got to be movin’ right steady.”
They found the little brook, and ate of their supplies and drank heartily, for they were both famished by the long walk, but all the carefree joyousness seemed to have gone out of the adventure, and when Lou discovered that the knot in the corner of her handkerchief had become untied and the remainder106of her capital was gone, it appeared to be the last cloud needed to immerse her in gloom.
Her feet were blistered and every muscle ached with fatigue, but she shook her head when Jim asked if she were too tired to go on, and limped determinedly out into the road after him. She had accepted his companionship to New York, and she would drop in her tracks before she would be a drag on him and prevent his reaching there in the time which was so mysteriously important to him.
A mile farther on, however, an empty motor van picked them up, and seated at the back with her feet hanging over, Lou promptly fell asleep, her head sagging unconsciously against Jim’s shoulder. He did not touch her, but moved so that her head should fall into a more comfortable position, and looked down with new tenderness at the tow-colored hair. The ridiculous, outstanding braid was gone, and instead, a soft knot appeared low on the slender, sun-burned neck, with tiny tendrils of curls escaping from it.
What a game little sport she had proved herself to be! He wondered how many girls107of his own set would have had the courage and endurance for such a test. Then to his own amazement he found himself thinking of them with a certain sense of disparagement, almost contempt. They would not have had the moral courage, let alone physical endurance.
Of course, this sort of vagabondage would be outrageous and utterly impossible from a conventional standpoint, but with Lou it had been a mere venture into Arcady, as innocent as the wanderings of two children. And Saturday it must end!
At the outskirts of Parksville he called to the good-natured truckman who sat behind the wheel, and the latter obligingly put on the brakes.
“My sister and I don’t want to go right into the town, so we’ll get out here if you don’t mind,” Jim said. “This lift has been a godsend, and I can’t thank you, but I’ve got the name of the company you’re working for in New York and I’ll drop around some night when I’m flush and you’re knocking off, and108we’ll see if the old burg is as dry as it’s supposed to be.”
“You’re on!” The driver grinned. “Got a job waitin’ for yer? We need some helpers.”
“I’ve got a job.” Jim thought of that “job” in the mahogany-lined suite of offices which bore his name on the door, but he did not smile. “I’ll look you up soon. Come on, Lou; here’s where we change cars.”
She rubbed her eyes and gazed about her bewilderedly in the gathering darkness as he lifted her to the ground and the truck rumbled off.
“Where–where are we now?” she asked sleepily.
“Just outside Parksville; see those lights over there?” he replied. “We must have walked more than ten miles before that motor van came along, so it isn’t any wonder that you were tired, even if you wouldn’t admit it. Just think, nineteen miles to-day!”
He was wondering, even as he spoke, what they were to do for the night. He had not enough money to secure even the humblest of109lodgings for her, and he knew that if they ventured as vagrants into the town they would be in danger of apprehension by the authorities. But Lou solved the question quite simply.
“Isn’t that big thing stickin’ up in that field a haystack? I–I’d like a piece of that sponge cake that’s left from what we ate at noon, and then crawl in there an’ sleep straight through till to-morrow,” she declared. “Did you want to go on any further to-night?”
“Heavens, no. I was just wondering–I don’t see why it couldn’t be done,” he replied somewhat haltingly. “There isn’t any house near, and I don’t think anything will hurt you.”
The latter probability seemed of no moment to Lou. She fell asleep again with her sponge cake half eaten, and he picked her up and nestled her in the hay as though she were in very truth a child. Then, as on the first night at the deserted mill near Hudsondale, he sat down at the foot of the haystack, on guard.
It was well for them, however, that the haying110was done in that particular field, and no farmer appeared from the big white house just over the hill, for in spite of his most valiant efforts Jim, too, slumbered, and it was broad day when he awoke.
Lou had vanished from the haystack, but he found her at a little spring in a strip of woodland on the other side of the road, and they breakfasted hastily, conserving the last fragments of food for their midday meal, and started off.
They had left the last chimney of Parksville well behind them when Jim suddenly observed:
“You’re limping, Lou. Let me see your shoes.”
She drew away from him.
“It’s nothin’,” she denied. “My shoes are all right. I–I must’ve slept too long last night an’ got sort of stiffened up.”
The freckles were swamped in a deep flood of color, but Jim repeated insistently: “Hold up your foot, Lou.”
Reluctantly she obeyed, disclosing a battered111sole through the worn places of which something green showed.
“I–I stuffed it with leaves,” she confessed, defensively. “They’re real comfortable, honestly. I’m just stiff─”
Jim groaned.
“I suppose they will have to do until we reach the next town, but you should have told me.”
“I kin take care of myself,” Lou asserted. “I’ve walked in pretty near as bad as these in the institootion. We’d better get along to where there’s some houses ’cause it looks to me like a storm was comin’ up.”
The sun was still blazing down upon them, but it was through a murky haze, and the air seemed lifeless and heavy. Great, white-crested thunder heads were mounting in the sky, and behind them a dense blackness spread.
“You’re right; I never noticed─” Jim paused guiltily. After leaving the vicinity of Parksville he had purposely led her on a detour back into the farming country to avoid the main highway, for along the river front112were the estates of some people he knew and he shrank from meeting them in his tramplike condition if they should motor past. There was Lou, too, to be considered. He might have offered some possible explanation for his own appearance, but no interpretation could be placed upon her presence at his side save that which he must prevent at all costs.
Rolling fields and woodland stretched away illimitably on both sides of the road, and not even a cow shed appeared as they hurried onward, while the clouds mounted higher, and the rumble of thunder grew upon the air. The sun had vanished, and a strange, anticipatory stillness enveloped them, broken only by that hollow muttering.
“It’s comin’ up fast.” Lou broke the silence with one of her seldomly volunteered remarks. “Shall we git into the woods? I’d as lief dodge trees as be drowned in the road.”
“No!” Jim shook his head. “There is some kind of a shack just ahead there; I think we can make it before the storm comes.”
They were fairly running now, but the darkness was settling fast and a fork of lightning113darted blindingly across their path. The object which Jim had taken for a shack proved to be merely a pile of rotting telegraph poles, but no other shelter offered, and they crouched in the lee of it, awaiting the onslaught of rain.
“Take this, Lou.” Jim wrapped his coat about her in spite of her protestations. “You’re not afraid, are you?”
“No, I ain’t–I’m not–but you’re goin’ to get soaked through! I heard you coughin’ once or twice at the bottom of that haystack last night.” He thrilled unconsciously to the motherliness in her tone. Then she added reflectively: “I don’t guess I’m afraid of anythin’ I’ve seen yet, but I ain’t–I haven’t seen much.”
She ended with a sharp intake of her breath as a sudden gust of wind whirled the dust up into their faces and another streak of white light flashed before their eyes. Then with a rush and roar the storm burst.
The woods marched straight down to the roadside at this point, and the trees back of the heap of poles moaned and writhed like114tortured creatures while great branches lashed over their heads with now and then an ominous crackle, but it was lost in the surge of the winds and the ceaseless crash and roar of the thunder. Jagged forks of lightning played all about them like rapiers of steel, and at last the rain came.
The brim of Lou’s hat, hopelessly limp since its cleansing of the previous day, now flopped stringily against her face until she tore it off and gasping, buried her head in her arms as the sheets of rain pelted down. Jim’s coat was sodden, and the thin cotton gown beneath clung to her drenched body, but she crouched closer to the poles while each volley of thunder shook her as with invisible hands.
Her lashes were glued to her cheeks, but she forced them open and turned to see how Jim was faring. He had flattened himself against the poles at their farther end, and just as she looked his way a flash of lightning seemed to split the air between them and the huge old tree which reared its branches just above his head, snapped like a dry twig beneath some giant heel.
115Lou saw the great oak totter and then sway, while a sickening swirl of branches filled the air, and scarcely conscious of her own act she hurled herself upon Jim. With all the strength borne of her terror she pushed him from the heap of poles, sending him rolling out into the middle of the road, to safety. Then she tried to spring after him, but a hideous, waiting lethargy seemed to encompass her, and then with a mighty crash the tree fell athwart the poles.
Half stunned by the unexpected onslaught upon him and the rending blast of the falling tree, Jim lay motionless for an instant, then with a sharp cry sprang to his feet and turned to look for Lou, but the pile of telegraph poles was hidden beneath a broad sweep of branches and across the place where she had crouched the great trunk of the tree lay prone.
“Lou!” The cry burst from his very heart as he sprang forward and began to tear frantically at the stout limbs which barred his way. “Oh, God, she isn’t crushed! Don’t take her now, she’s so little and young, and I want her, I need her so! God!”
116He was unconscious that he was praying aloud, unconscious of the words which issued sobbingly from his lips. He tugged and tore at the branches while the skin ripped like ribbons from his hands and the boughs whipped back to raise great welts upon his face.
He was unconscious, too, of a stir at the other side of the fallen tree and a rustle of sodden leaves, as, very much after the manner of a prairie dog emerging from his hole, Lou crawled out into the rain, and sitting up, sneezed.
At the sound of that meek sternutation Jim whirled about.
“Lou!”
“Jim! Oh, Jim! You’re not killed!” A muddy, bedraggled little figure that once had been pink and white flew straight to him, and two soft arms swept about him and clung convulsively. “I seen it comin’, an’–an’ I tried to shove you out of the way─”
“Thank God, little girl! Thank God you aren’t hurt!” he murmured brokenly. “I thought the tree had fallen on you!”
117“Only the boughs of it, but they held me down. Oh, Jim, if you’d been killed I wouldn’t ’a’ cared what happened to me!”
His heart leaped, and his own arms tightened about her at the naïve, unconscious revelation which had issued from her lips. Then all at once he realized what it had meant, that hideous feeling of loss when he thought that she lay buried beneath the tree. It had come to them both, revealed as by a flash of the lightning which was now traveling toward the east, and in the wonder and joy of it he held her close for a moment and then put her gently from him.
Sternly repressing the words which would have rushed from his heart, he said quietly:
“Thank God we were both spared. Come, little Lou, we must find shelter.”