Itwas some time later that Billie Bradley was directed to the person she sought by the sound of heart-broken sobbing.
Silently, she made her way through the underbrush until she descried a figure in rumpled shirtwaist and pleated skirt, lying face downward on the thick grass.
“Please don’t cry,” said Billie. “And don’t run away. I’ve brought you some supper.”
At the sound of Billie Bradley’s voice, Edina Tooker jumped to her feet and looked wildly about her. She dashed a hand across her eyes and then turned, as though about to dart off into the woods.
“Wait a minute!” cried Billie. “I’ve brought you some sandwiches and two luscious pieces of cake. If pressed,” she added lightly, “I might consent to eat some with you.”
As the girl paused and looked toward her, trying to pierce the darkness, Billie knew she had struck the right note. A friendly, offhand manner would win Edina Tooker more quickly than sympathy.
“Clarice has packed the basket to the top, bless her old black heart. We’ll find a nice flat rock and regale ourselves to our hearts’ content.”
Billie found the rock without more delay and seated herself upon it, the basket between her knees.
After a moment of indecision Edina followed and flung herself full length on the ground beside Billie.
“Why did you come after me?” she queried listlessly. “You might better have left me alone.”
The statement was not made ungraciously nor sullenly; it was merely as though the girl were unutterably weary and could not imagine anyone taking a legitimate interest in her or her affairs.
Billie said nothing, but handed out sandwiches and cake, which the girl accepted ravenously.
“I’m hungry,” she said simply. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since noon.”
“You should have come in to supper,” said Billie, nibbling at a piece of the matchless cake. “Debsy might have given you a bad mark for being late, but she couldn’t have kept you from eating your supper.”
“I didn’t want any then. I couldn’t go in and face those jeering, snickering girls.” Edina Tooker clenched her hands and spoke with a sudden, desperate vehemence. “They think I’m a big joke and I—I hate them. I could kill them all!”
Billie waited patiently for the storm to pass. Then she said gently:
“Have a piece of cake, Edina. You’ve no idea how good it is.”
“I don’t want any cake,” said Edina sullenly. She sat up, very stiff and straight, her hands locked about her humped knees. “I don’t want anything. To-morrow I’m going back home.”
Billie was startled.
“You are leaving Three Towers?”
Edina nodded unhappily.
“Three Towers has no use for me. I ain’t ever been so unhappy in my life as I’ve been since I come—came—here. I never dreamed it would be like this.”
“What did you think it would be like?” asked Billie gently.
“I don’t know—exactly. But I thought people would be kind and I’d have a chance to git some book learnin’ like I never had in my life. And I always wanted it, ever since I was old enough to ride my own cow pony. And now I—I gotta go home.”
There was a choke in the quiet, sullen voice. Billie guessed what it would mean for Edina to return to the “cow country,” carrying wounds that would never heal.
She said quietly:
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you, Edina. I wouldn’t run away.”
It was dark down there by the lake, but Billiecould sense the quick motion of the girl’s head as it turned toward her.
“You oughtn’t to say that to me.” After a while she added in a hopeless tone:
“Mebbe it would be runnin’ away like you say, mebbe it would be quittin’. Jest the same,” her voice rose passionately, “I’d ruther be horsewhipped than stand another week like the one I’ve just gone through!”
Billie waited a moment, then reached out and touched Edina’s clenched fist where it rested on her voluminous skirt.
“Suppose you tell me something about yourself,” she suggested. “I think I can help you. I want to. I owe you something, you know, for saving my life.”
Edina hesitated for a moment; then began in a low, monotonous voice to tell the drab story of her life.
“Seems like we’ve always been poor, Paw and Maw and me,” began Edina. “Ever since I was a little shaver, I can’t remember anything but poverty. Paw was what you’d call a prospector.”
“Gold?” asked Billie.
“No, oil. He had some property and he was always sure there was oil on it. Seems to me I can never remember the time he wasn’t drillin’ holes somewheres tryin’ to strike a gusher.
“Maw and me we got fed up with it, what withbein’ holed up in the same little neck of the woods all the time and never goin’ nowheres nor havin’ nothing. There were days we went hungry——”
The droning voice broke off suddenly and Billie had a startlingly clear vision of that tragic little family, dying of monotony, starving a good deal of the time, with nothing but a vision to sustain them.
“The worst of it was,” the quiet voice continued, “that I never got much schoolin’ and I always wanted it. I thought it would be heaven if the time ever come—came—when I could go to a real school like other girls and learn the sort of things that were put in books——
“It just goes to show,” said Edina, after another pause, “that things ain’t never the way you’d expect they’d be. When Paw struck oil——”
“He did?” ejaculated Billie.
“I thought me and Maw must be the happiest pair on earth. When Paw said I could come East and go to school here, I thought I’d die, I was that crazy with joy. And now here I am—and—and you see how it is. I can’t hardly go back and face Maw, seems like.”
Billie was thinking swiftly.
“If your father has struck oil on his property, he must be making a good deal of money, Edina.”
“Guess so.” The girl shrugged indifferently. “Paw said if the gusher kept on gushin’ we’d probably be millionaires before we got through. Butwhat good’s it goin’ to do me,” hopelessly, “if I ain’t even goin’ to git an education out of it? I’m—goin’ back home—to-morrow.”
Billie came to a swift decision.
“You are going to do no such thing, Edina Tooker! You are going to stay right here at Three Towers Hall, and before long the girls will be begging your pardon for ever having dared to laugh at you!”