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He drank deeply, then struggled to a sitting posture, his face whitening beneath its tan.</p>
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<div class='tp'>
<p style='font-size:2.0em;margin-bottom:20px;'>ANYTHING ONCE</p>
<p style=''>BY</p>
<p style='font-size:1.4em;margin-bottom:10px;'>DOUGLAS GRANT</p>
<p style='font-size:smaller;margin-bottom:40px;'>AUTHOR OF<br/>“THE SINGLE TRACK,” “BOOTY,”“THE FIFTH ACE,” ETC.</p>
<p style=''>Frontispiece by<br/>PAUL STAHR</p>
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<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>New York</p>
<p style='font-variant:small-caps;'>W. J. Watt & Company</p>
<p style='font-size:smaller;'>PUBLISHERS</p>
</div>
<hr class='pb' />
<p class='tp' style='font-size:smaller;margin-bottom:20px;'>COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY<br/>W. J. WATT & COMPANY</p>
<p class='tp' style='font-size:smaller;'>PRESS OF<br/>BRAUNWORTH & CO.<br/>BOOK MANUFACTURERS<br/>BROOKLYN, N. Y.</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<table summary='TOC'>
<tr><td colspan='3' style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em;'>CONTENTS</td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1' style='font-size:smaller;'>CHAPTER</td><td></td><td class='tcol3' style='font-size:smaller;'>PAGE</td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>I.</td><td class='tcol2'>A Roadside Meeting</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_1'>1</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>II.</td><td class='tcol2'>Partners</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_2'>17</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>III.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Vendor Of Everything</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_3'>41</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>IV.</td><td class='tcol2'>Under The Big Top</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_4'>55</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>V.</td><td class='tcol2'>Concerning An Omelet</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_5'>69</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>VI.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Red Note-Book</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_6'>83</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>VII.</td><td class='tcol2'>Revelations</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_7'>99</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>VIII.</td><td class='tcol2'>Journey’s End</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_8'>118</SPAN></td></tr>
<tr><td class='tcol1'>IX.</td><td class='tcol2'>The Long, Long Trail</td><td class='tcol3'><SPAN href='#link_9'>138</SPAN></td></tr>
</table>
<hr class='pb' />
<h1>ANYTHING ONCE</h1>
<hr class='pb' />
<p class='tp' style='font-size:1.6em;'><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_1'></SPAN>1</span>ANYTHING ONCE</p>
<h2><SPAN name='link_1'></SPAN>CHAPTER I<br/><span class='h2fs'>A Roadside Meeting</span></h2>
<p>The white dust, which lay thick upon the wide road between rolling fields of
ripened grain, rose in little spirals from beneath the heavy feet of the
plodding farm-horses drawing the empty hay-wagon, and had scarcely settled again
upon the browning goldenrod and fuzzy milkweed which bordered the rail fences on
either side when Ebb Fischel’s itinerant butcher-jitney rattled past. Ebb
Fischel’s eyes were usually as sharp as the bargains he drove, but the
dust must have obscured his vision. Otherwise he would have seen the man lying
motionless beside the road, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_2'></SPAN>2</span>with his cap in the ditch and the pitiless sun of
harvest-time caking the blood which had streamed from an ugly cut upon his
temple.</p>
<p>But the meat-cart jolted on and out of sight, and for a long time nothing
disturbed the stillness except the distant whirring of a reaper and nearer
buzzing of a fat, inquisitive bluebottle fly, which paused to see what this
strange thing might be, and then zoomed off excitedly to tell his
associates.</p>
<p>At length there came a dry rustling in the tall standing wheat in the field
on the opposite side of the road, and a head and shoulders appeared above the
topmost fence-rail. It was a small head covered with tow-colored hair, which had
been slicked back and braided so tightly that the short, meager cue curled
outward and up in a crescent, as though it were wired, and the shoulders beneath
the coarse blue-and-white striped cotton gown were thin and peaked.</p>
<p>The girl darted a swift, furtive glance up and down the road, and suddenly
thrust a bundle tied in a greasy apron between the rails, letting it fall in the
high, dusty weeds <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_3'></SPAN>3</span>by
the roadside. Next she climbed to the top of the fence, and for a moment perched
there, displaying a slim length of coarse black stocking above clumping,
square-toed shoes at least two sizes too large for her.</p>
<p>She looked like a very forlorn, feminine <i>Monte Cristo</i> indeed, as she
scanned the world from her vantage-point, and yet there was a look of quiet
satisfaction and achievement in her incongruously dark eyes which told of a
momentous object accomplished.</p>
<p>Then all at once they stared and softened as she caught sight of that still
figure lying across the road, and in two bounds she was beside him and lifted
his head against her sharp knees. She noted only casually that he was a
clean-shaven, tanned young man with brown hair bleached by the sun to a warm
gold, and that he wore shabby, weather-beaten clothes.</p>
<p>Had she realized that those same worn, faded garments bore the stamp of one
of New York’s most exclusive tailors! that the boots were London-made, and
the golf-stockings which met the corduroy knickerbockers came <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_4'></SPAN>4</span>from one of Scotland’s
famous mills, it would have meant just exactly nothing in her young life.</p>
<p>Her immediate attention was concentrated upon the jagged gash which ran
unpleasantly close to his temple, and which had begun to bleed afresh as she
raised his head.</p>
<p>The girl looked about her again and saw that a short distance ahead the road
was bisected by a bridge of planks with willows bordering it at either side. She
pulled at the strings which held a blue sunbonnet dangling between her narrow
shoulder-blades, regarded the sleazy headgear ruefully, and then spying the cap
in the ditch, she deposited her burden gently upon the grass once more and
scrambled over to investigate her find.</p>
<p>The cap had an inner lining of something which seemed to be like rubber, and
the girl flew off down the road to return with her improvised bowl filled with
clear, cold spring water. Dropping on her knees beside the unconscious figure,
she poured the contents of the cap over his face and head.</p>
<p>The young man sputtered, gasped, moaned <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_5'></SPAN>5</span>a little, and opened astonished brown eyes upon her.</p>
<p>“How–how the devil did you come here?” he asked
ungallantly.</p>
<p>“Over the fence.” Her reply was laconic, but it bore an
unmistakable hint that further query along that line would be highly unwelcome.
“Just you lay still while I git some more water, an’ I’ll tie
up that head of yourn.”</p>
<p>The young man’s hand went unsteadily to his aching brow and came away
brightly pink, so he decided to take this uncomely vision’s advice, and
remained quiescent, wondering how he himself had come to be there, and what had
happened to him.</p>
<p>According to the map, he had surely been on the right road, yet it had as
assuredly not looked like this one; the other had been a broad, State highway,
while this─</p>
<p>He closed his burning eyes to shield them from the glare of the sun, and a
confused memory returned to him of that invitingly green, shady pasture which
had tempted him as a short cut toward the next village, and of something which
thundered down upon <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_6'></SPAN>6</span>him
from behind and lifted him into chaos. Good Lord, and he had only six days
left!</p>
<p>“You’d better take a drink of this first an’ I kin use the
rest on your head.” A composed, practical voice advised by his side, and
he looked up gratefully into the snub-nosed, freckled face of his benefactress
as she held the brimming cap to his lips.</p>
<p>He drank deeply, then struggled to a sitting posture, his face whitening
beneath its tan at the sudden wrench of pain which twisted the muscles of his
back.</p>
<p>“Kin you hold the cap steady?” The girl thrust it into his hands
without waiting for a reply, and, sitting down with her back to him, calmly
turned back the hem of her gown and tore a wide strip from the coarse but
immaculately white cambric petticoat beneath.</p>
<p>Dipping it into the water, she bandaged his head not unskilfully, and then
rose.</p>
<p>“There! I gotta git you over to the shade of them trees, or
you’ll have sunstroke. Wait till I fetch somethin’.”</p>
<p>She ran across the road and returned with her greasy bundle under one arm,
offering the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_7'></SPAN>7</span>other to
him with a gesture as frank as it was impersonal.</p>
<p>“Lean on me, an’ try to git along–and please kinder
hurry!”</p>
<p>She added the last with a note of sudden urgency in her tones and the same
furtively darting glance with which she had swept the road from the fence-top,
but the young man was too deeply engrossed with his painful effort to rise to
observe the look, although her change of tone aroused his curiosity. Was this
scrawny but good-natured kid afraid some of her people would catch her talking
to a stranger by the roadside?</p>
<p>Somehow he managed to hobble, with her aid, across the little bridge and down
the bank of the swiftly racing brook at its farther side to a nest in the dense
thicket of willow-shoots which completely screened them from the road.</p>
<p>The girl eased him down then upon the sward, and, seating herself beside him,
unrolled the apron she had carried.</p>
<p>“It’s the ham that’s greased it all up like that,”
she remarked. “I’d have brought a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_8'></SPAN>8</span>pail, only I didn’t want to take any more ’n I had
to.”</p>
<p>The young man gasped with astonishment as the contents of the apron-bundle
were exposed: a whole ham glistening with the brown sugar in which it had been
baked, a long knife, a huge loaf of bread, and, wrapped separately in a piece of
newspaper, a bar of soap, a box of matches, and a bit of broken comb.</p>
<p>“When there’s lots of them, ham sandwiches, together with spring
water, ain’t so bad, an’ it’s near noon,” the girl
observed, beginning to cut the loaf into meager slices with a practised hand.
“I should’ve made them thicker, but I forgot.”</p>
<p>A starving gleam had come into the young man’s eyes at the sight of
food, but he paused with the sandwich half-way to his lips to glance keenly at
his companion.</p>
<p>“You’ve enough here for an army,” he declared. “Were
you taking it to men working in the fields somewhere?”</p>
<p>“No,” she replied without hesitation, but with the same air of
finality with which she <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_9'></SPAN>9</span>had responded to his first question. “You can rest
easy here till sundown, when the men begin to come in from the harvestin’,
an’ then if you holler real loud some of them will maybe stop an’
give you a lift on your way. There’s a railroad about four miles from
here, an’ the slow freight goes by along about ten.”</p>
<p>The slow freight! So the girl thought he was a tramp! The young man smiled,
and glanced down ruefully at his shabby attire. Well, so had others thought,
whom he had encountered in his journey.</p>
<p>But who and what was the girl herself? She had asked no questions as to how
he had come to the condition in which she found him, but had nursed his hurt,
brought him to this cool resting-place; and was sharing her food with him as
unconcernedly as though she had known him all her life.</p>
<p>That quantity of provisions, the package of humble toilet articles, and her
furtiveness and haste to get away from the open road all pointed to one
fact–the girl was running away. But from whom or what? She had taken him
at his face value, and he had no <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_10'></SPAN>10</span>right in the world to question her, at least without
giving some sort of account of himself.</p>
<p>“I have no intention of traveling by rail,” he assured her.
“A little while before you found me–I don’t quite know how
long–I was crossing that pasture which adjoins the wheat-field, thinking
that this road might be a short cut to Hudsondale, when something came after me
from behind and butted me over the fence. I think my head must have been cut
open by striking against a stone, for I don’t remember anything more until
you poured that water over my face.”</p>
<p>The girl nodded.</p>
<p>“I seen the stone with blood on it right near you; you must have bumped
off it an’ turned over,” she averred. “Anybody who goes
traipsin’ through old Terwilliger’s pasture is apt to meet up with
that bull of his.”</p>
<p>So she had reasoned his predicament out without asking any of the questions
that another girl would have heaped upon him.</p>
<p>He turned to her suddenly with a fresh spark of interest in his eyes.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_11'></SPAN>11</span>“How did you
know that I didn’t belong here?” he demanded.</p>
<p>The corners of her lips curled upward in a comical little grimace of
amusement, and he realized that before they had been set in a straight line far
too mature for her evident youth.</p>
<p>“No grown men ’round these parts wears short pants, an’, anyhow,
I knew you were different from the way you talk; somethin’ like the
welfare workers, with the hell an’ brimstone left out,” the girl
replied soberly. “I’m goin’ to talk like you some
day.”</p>
<p>It was the first remark she had made voluntarily concerning herself, and he
was quick to seize his advantage.</p>
<p>“Who are you, young lady? You’ve been awfully kind to me, and I
don’t know to whom my gratitude is due.”</p>
<p>“Not to anybody.” She turned her head away slightly, but not
before he saw a flush mount beneath the superficial coating of freckles, and
marveled at the whiteness of her skin. Hers was not the leathery tan of the
typical farmer’s daughter, inured to all <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_12'></SPAN>12</span>weathers, yet her hands, although small, were
toil-worn, and there was an odd incongruity between her dark eyes and the pale,
flaxen hue of that ridiculous wisp of a braid.</p>
<p>“I didn’t do any more for you than I’d do for a dog if I
found him lyin’ there.”</p>
<p>Her na�ve sincerity robbed the statement of its uncomplimentary suggestion,
and the young man chuckled, but persisted.</p>
<p>“What is your name? Mine is James–er–Botts.”</p>
<p>“Lou Lacey. It was ’L’ day, you know, an’ there was a teeny
bit of lace on my dress. I ain’t ever had any since.”</p>
<p>She added the last with unconscious pathos in her tones, but in his
increasing interest and mystification the man who called himself
“Botts” was unaware of it. What on earth could she mean about L day,
and if she were running away why did she appear so serenely unconcerned about
the future as her manner indicated?</p>
<p>He felt that he must draw her out, and he seemed to have hit upon the right
method by giving confidence for confidence; but just how <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_13'></SPAN>13</span>much could he tell her about himself?
James Botts’s own face reddened.</p>
<p>“I’m walking to my home in New York,” he explained.
“But I’m late; I ought to make it by a certain date, and I
don’t think I’ll be able to, since my encounter with
Terwilliger’s bull. Where do you live? I mean, where are you going? Where
is your home?”</p>
<p>“Nowheres,” Lou Lacey replied offhandedly, following with her
eyes the graceful swoop of a dragonfly over the tumbling waters of the little
stream.</p>
<p>“Great Scott!” The astounded young man sat up suddenly, with his
hand to his head. “Why, everybody has a home, you know!”</p>
<p>“Not everybody,” the girl dissented quietly.</p>
<p>“But–but surely you haven’t been walking the
roads?”</p>
<p>There was genuine horror in his tones. “Where did you come from this
morning when you found me?”</p>
<p>“From Hess’s farm, back up the road a piece,” she replied
with her usual unemotional literalness. “I been there a week, but <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_14'></SPAN>14</span>I didn’t like it, so
I came away. The welfare workers got me that place when my time was
up.”</p>
<p>Her time! Good Heavens, could this little country girl with her artless
manner and candid eyes be an ex-convict? Surely she was too young, too simple.
Yet the gates of hideous reformatories had clanged shut behind younger and more
innocent-appearing delinquents than she.</p>
<p>His eyes wandered over her thin, childish figure as she sat there beside him,
still intent upon the movements of the glittering dragonfly, and he shuddered.
Those horrible, shapeless shoes might very well have been prison-made, and the
striped dress was exactly like those he had seen in some pictures of female
convicts. Her freckles, too, might have been the result of only a few
days’ exposure to the sun, and he had already observed the whiteness of
the skin beneath; that whiteness which resembled the prison pallor.</p>
<p>Could it be that her very gawkiness and frank simplicity were the result not
of bucolic nature, but of dissimulation? Every instinct <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_15'></SPAN>15</span>within the man cried out against the
thought, but a devil of doubt and uncertainty drove him on.</p>
<p>“I thought that didn’t look like the dress of a farmer’s
daughter!” He essayed to laugh, but it seemed to him that there was a
grating falsetto in his tones. “You haven’t worked in the garden
much, either, have you?”</p>
<p>“Garden!” Lou sniffed. “They promised the welfare workers
that they’d give me outdoor chores to build me up, but when I got there I
found I had to cook for eighteen farm-hands, as well as the family, an’
wait on them, an’ clean up an’ all. Said they’d pay me twelve
dollars a month, an’ I could take the first month’s money out by the
week in clothes, an’ for the first week all they gave me was this
sunbonnet an’ apron. I left them the other dress an’ things I had,
an’ I figgered the rest of the money they owed me would just about pay for
this ham an’ bread an’ the knife an’ soap. The comb was
mine.”</p>
<p>She added the last in a tone of proud possession, and James Botts asked very
soberly:</p>
<p>“The welfare workers found this position <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_16'></SPAN>16</span>for you, Lou Lacey? But where did they
find you?”</p>
<p>“Why, at the institootion,” she responded, as though surprised
that he had not already guessed. “I ain’t ever been anywhere else;
I’ve always been a orphin.”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_17'></SPAN>17</span><SPAN name='link_2'></SPAN>CHAPTER II<br/><span class='h2fs'>Partners</span></h2>
<p>For a moment James Botts turned his head away lest she see the deep red flood
of shame which had suffused his face. Poor little skinny, homely, orphan kid,
thrown out to buck the world for herself, and stopping in her first flight from
injustice to help a stranger, only to have him think her a possible criminal! He
was glad that his back twinged and his head throbbed; he ought to be kicked out
into the ditch and left to die there for harboring such thoughts.</p>
<p>He was a cur, and she–hang it! There was something appealing about her
in spite of her looks. Perhaps it was the sturdy self-reliance, which in itself
betrayed her utter innocence and ignorance of the world, that made a fellow want
to protect her.</p>
<p>In his own circle James Botts had never <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_18'></SPAN>18</span>been known as a <i>Sir Galahad</i>, but he had been
away from his own circle for exactly nineteen eventful days now, and in that
space of time he had learned much. His heart went out in sympathy as he turned
once more to her.</p>
<p>But at the moment Lou Lacey seemed in no momentary need of sympathetic
understanding. She was pursuing a hapless frog with well-directed shots of small
pebbles, and there was an impish grin upon her face.</p>
<p>“How old are you?” he asked suddenly.</p>
<p>Lou shrugged.</p>
<p>“I don’t know. About seventeen or eighteen, I reckon; at least,
they told me six years ago that I was twelve, an’ I’ve kept track
ever since. When I was sixteen, though, and it was time for me to be got a place
somewhere, the matron put me back a couple of years; we were gettin’ more
babies from the poor-farm than usual, an’ I was kinder handy with them.
She had to let me go now because one of the visitin’ deaconesses let out
that she’d seen me there sixteen years ago herself, an’ I was
toddlin’ round then. Oh, I missed him!”</p>
<p>The frog, with a triumphant <i>plop</i>, had disappeared <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_19'></SPAN>19</span>beneath a flat, submerged stone, and Lou
turned to note her companion’s pain-drawn face.</p>
<p>“I’m goin’ to fix that bandage on your head again,”
she declared as she sprang to her feet. “Is your back hurtin’ you
very much?”</p>
<p>“Not very.” He forced a smile, but his face was grave, for,
despite his suffering, the problem which this accidental meeting had forced upon
him filled his thoughts. What was he to do with this girl? In spite of the
statement that she had “kept track” of her last few years he could
not credit the fact that she was approximately eighteen; fourteen would be
nearer the guess he would have made, and it was unthinkable that a child like
that should wander about the country alone.</p>
<p>He could not bear the thought of betraying her innocent confidences by
handing her over to the nearest authorities; it would mean her being held as a
vagrant and possibly sent to the county poor-farm. Perhaps the people with whom
she had been placed were not so bad, after all; if he took her back and reasoned
with them, insisted upon their keeping to <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_20'></SPAN>20</span>their bargain, and giving her lighter tasks to
perform.</p>
<p>Then he remembered his own appearance, and smiled ruefully. Instead of
listening they would in all probability set the dog on him. Perhaps he could
persuade her to return of her own accord.</p>
<p>“The people you were working for; their name was ‘Hess’?”
he asked.</p>
<p>She nodded as she finished fastening the cool compress about his
forehead.</p>
<p>“Henry Hess an’ his wife, Freida, an’–an’
Max.”</p>
<p>Something in the quality of her tone more than her hesitation made him demand
sharply:</p>
<p>“Who is Max?”</p>
<p>“Their son.” Her voice was very low, but for the first time it
trembled slightly.</p>
<p>“You don’t like him, do you?” He waited a moment, and then
added abruptly: “Why not?”</p>
<p>“Because he’s a–a beast! I don’t want to talk about
him! I don’t want even to remember that such <i>things</i> as he is can be
let live!”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_21'></SPAN>21</span>James Botts turned
and looked at her and then away, for the childish figure had been drawn up
tensely with a sort of instinctive dignity which sat not ill upon it, and from
her dark eyes insulted womanhood had blazed.</p>
<p>“I’d like to go back and lick him to a standstill!” to his
own utter amazement Botts heard his own voice saying thickly.</p>
<p>The fire had died out of Lou’s face and she replied composedly:</p>
<p>“What for? He don’t matter any more, does he? We’re
goin’ on.”</p>
<p>The last sentence recalled his problem once more to his mind. What in the
world was he to do with this young creature whom fate had thrust upon his hands?
Four quarters and a fifty-cent piece represented his entire capital at the
moment, and if he did put her into the hands of the county authorities until his
journey was completed and he could make other arrangements for her, it would
mean a delay on his part now, when every hour counted for so much just now.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_22'></SPAN>22</span>“Do you know
how far we are from Hudsondale?” he asked.</p>
<p>“Not more’n two miles, the farm-hands used to walk there often of
an evenin’ to the movies.”</p>
<p>The girl had cleaned her knife in the brook and was now wrapping it in the
apron, together with the remains of their repast.</p>
<p>“They say that not more’n twenty miles from there you can see the
big river, but I ain’t ever been.”</p>
<p>“That’s the way I was going,” he observed thoughtlessly.
“From Hudsondale to Highvale, and right on down the west bank of the river
to New York.”</p>
<p>Lou sat back on her heels reflectively.</p>
<p>“All right,” she said at last. “I ain’t ever figgered
on goin’s far as New York, but I might as well go there as anywhere, and I
guess I kin keep up with you now your back’s kinder sprained. We’ll
go along together.”</p>
<p>James Botts gulped.</p>
<p>“Certainly not!” he retorted severely, when he could articulate.
“It’s utterly out of the question! You’re not a little child
any longer, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_23'></SPAN>23</span>and
I’m not old enough to pose as your father. You must think what people
would say!”</p>
<p>“Why must I?” Her clear eyes shamed him. “What’s it
matter? I guess two kin puzzle out the roads better than one, an’ if I
have been in a brick house with a high fence an’ a playground between
where never a blade of grass grew, for about eighteen years, it looks to me as
if I could take care of myself a lot better ’n you kin!”</p>
<p>“But you don’t understand!” he groaned. “There are
certain conditions that I can’t very well explain, and if I did
you’d think I had gone crazy.”</p>
<p>“Maybe,” Lou observed non-committally, but she settled herself on
the bank once more with such an air of resigned anticipation that he felt forced
to continue.</p>
<p>“You know an army has to obey orders, don’t you?” he
floundered on desperately. “Well, I’m like a one-man army; there are
a lot of rules I’ve got to follow. This is Monday afternoon, and I must
reach New York by midnight on Saturday; that’s ninety miles or more, and
you never could make it in the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_24'></SPAN>24</span>world. I’ve got just a dollar and a half, and I
mustn’t beg, borrow, or steal food or a lift or anything, but work my way,
and never take any job that’ll pay me more than twenty-five cents.</p>
<p>“Of course, if people invite me to get up and ride with them for a
little I can accept, or if they offer me food, but I can’t ask. Even the
money I earn in quarters here and there I mustn’t use for traveling, but
only to buy food or medicine or clothes with. And the worst of it is that I
cannot explain to a soul why I’m doing all this.”</p>
<p>Lou regarded him gravely, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again
and for an appreciable moment there was silence.</p>
<p>“Well, I don’t see anythin’ in that that says you
can’t have somebody travelin’ along with you,” she remarked,
and that odd little smile flashed again across her face. “It don’t
make any difference to me what you can or can’t do.
<i>I’m</i> foot-loose!”</p>
<p>Not until later was the meaning of that final statement to be made manifest
to her companion; the one fact upon his mind was <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_25'></SPAN>25</span>that nothing he had said had moved her an
iota from her original decision. They would go along together.</p>
<p>Well, why not? It was obvious that he could not send her back to the Hess
farm nor hand her over to the authorities. His own appearance would not be
conducive to confidence in his assurances if he attempted to leave her in the
care of some country woman until he could return and make proper arrangements
for her, and the only alternative was that she must tramp the roads by herself
until she found work, and that was out of the question.</p>
<p>At least, he could protect her, and she looked wiry in spite of her
skinniness; it was as possible that she might make the distance as he, with his
aching back. But on one point he was determined: when they neared the suburbs of
New York he would telephone to a certain gray-haired, aristocratically
high-nosed old lady and persuade her to send out her car for this waif.</p>
<p>The child had been kind to him, and he would protect her from all harm, but
not for <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_26'></SPAN>26</span>all the
gilt-edged securities in Wall Street would he have the story of his
knight-errantry get abroad, nor the unprepossessing heroine of it revealed to
his friends.</p>
<p>The old lady would find some suitable position for her, and, as she evidently
possessed no reputation of any sort at the moment, a six-day journey in his
company could harm it no more if the truth became known than if she had tramped
upon her way alone.</p>
<p>“All right,” he said. “We’ll be partners, and
I’ll do my best to look out for you.”</p>
<p>She laughed outright, a merry, tinkling little laugh like the brook rippling
over the pebbles at her feet, and the man involuntarily stared. It was the sole
attractive thing about her that he had observed.</p>
<p>“Reckon it’ll be me that’ll look after you!” she
retorted. “Oh, there’s somethin’ comin’! Duck in here,
quick!”</p>
<p>Seizing her bundle, she wiggled like an eel through the willow thicket until
she was completely hidden from view, and Botts followed as well as he was able,
with one hand fending <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_27'></SPAN>27</span>off the supple young shoots from whipping back upon
his wounded forehead.</p>
<p>He had heard nothing, yet the girl’s quick ears had caught the faint
creaking of a cart along the road, and now a cheerful but somewhat shrill
whistle came to him in a vaguely reminiscent strain.</p>
<p>“That’s Lem Mattles,” Lou whispered as she reached behind
him and drew the willows yet more screeningly about their trail.
“He’s whistlin’ ‘Ida-Ho’; it’s the only tune he
can remember.”</p>
<p>“Who is he?” demanded her companion.</p>
<p>“The Hess’s next-door neighbor. She’ll stop him right away
an’ ask if he’s seen me on the road, an’ they’ll all be
after me, but they’ll never think of the old cow-trail; one of the hands
showed it to me an’ told me it led clear to Hudsondale, an’ came out
by the freight-yards.”</p>
<p>For a moment she paused with a little catch in her breath. “Think you
kin make it, Mr. Botts?”</p>
<p>“Sure!” He smiled and held out his hand. <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_28'></SPAN>28</span>“We’re partners now, and
I’m ‘Jim’ to my friends, Lou.”</p>
<p>“All right, Jim,” she responded indifferently, but she laid her
little work-worn hand in his for a brief minute. “Come on.”</p>
<p>With the bundle under her arm once more she led the way, and her partner
followed her to where the brook dwindled and the thicket gave place to a stretch
of woodland, between the trees of which a faint, narrow trail could be
discerned.</p>
<p>“We’re all right now if we kin keep on goin’,”
announced Lou. “Nobody comes this way any more, an’ the feller said
that the tracks runs through the woods clear to the Hunkie settlement by the
yards. Feelin’ all right, Jim?”</p>
<p>“I guess so.” Jim put his hand to his side, where each breath
brought a stab of pain, but brought it down again quickly lest her swift glance
catch the motion. “It’s pretty in here, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“It’s longer,” replied Lou practically. “An’
the sun’s gittin’ low. Let’s hurry.”</p>
<p>There was little further talk between them, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_29'></SPAN>29</span>for Jim had already discovered that his companion was
not one to speak unless she had something to say, and he was breathing in short
snatches to stifle the pain. The track wound endlessly in and out among the
trees, and in the dim light he would have lost it altogether more than once had
it not been for her light touch upon his arm.</p>
<p>At length the track turned abruptly through the thinning trees and led down
to a rough sort of road, on either side of which ramshackle wooden tenements
leaned crazily against each other, with dingy rags hanging from lines on the
crooked porches. Slatternly, dark-skinned women gazed curiously at them as they
passed.</p>
<p>From somewhere came the squalling of a hurt child and a man’s oath
roughly silencing it, while through and above all other sounds came the bleating
of a harmonica ceaseless reiterating a monotonous, foreign air.</p>
<p>The sun had set, and from just beyond the squalid settlement came the crash
and clang of freight-cars being shunted together. In spite of his pain, Jim
realized that nowhere <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_30'></SPAN>30</span>in this vicinity could his self-constituted companion
rest for the night; open fields or dense woodland were safer far for her.</p>
<p>“Let us cross the tracks and push on up that hill road a little,”
he suggested. “We can’t stay here, and they’ll think we are
tramps if they catch us by the railroad.”</p>
<p>“I guess that’s what we are.” Lou wrinkled her already
upturned nose. “But the country would be nicer again, if you ain’t
give out.”</p>
<p>He assured her doggedly that he had not, and they crossed the tracks and
started up the steep hill road past the coal-dump and the few scattered cottages
to where the woodland closed in about them once more.</p>
<p>Jim picked up a stout stick and leaned heavily upon it as they plodded along,
while the twilight deepened to darkness and the stars appeared. The girl’s
step lagged now, but she kept up in little spurts and set her lips
determinedly.</p>
<p>At length they came to another stream, a rushing mill-race this time, with an
old mill, moss-covered and fallen into decay beside it, <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_31'></SPAN>31</span>and by tacit consent they sank down on the
worn step.</p>
<p>“I don’t believe we can go any farther,” Jim panted.
“I guess this is as good a place as any to camp for the night, and you can
sleep in there.”</p>
<p>He indicated the sagging door behind him, and Lou followed his gesture with a
reluctant eye. Jim noted the glance and, misunderstanding it, added hastily:</p>
<p>“I don’t believe there are any rats in there, but if you’ll
lend me your matches I’ll see.”</p>
<p>“Rats!” she repeated in withering scorn. “There was plenty
of them in the insti–where I come from. I was just thinkin’ maybe
somebody else was sleepin’ there already.”</p>
<p>She handed over the matches and Jim pushed open the door and entered, feeling
carefully for rotten boards in the decayed flooring. A prolonged survey by the
flickering light of the matches assured him that the ancient, cobwebbed place
was deserted, and he turned again to the door, but its step was unoccupied and
nowhere in the starlight <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_32'></SPAN>32</span>could he discern a flutter of that blue-and-white
striped dress.</p>
<p>Could she have run away from him? At the thought a forlorn sense of
loneliness swept over him greater than he had known since he had started upon
his tramp. She was tired out; could he in some way have frightened her, or had a
mad spirit of adventure sent her on like a will-o’-the-wisp into the
night?</p>
<p>“Lou!” he called, and his voice echoed back.
“Lou!”</p>
<p>All at once he noticed what he had not observed before–a single light
by the roadside in a clearing ahead. Perhaps she had gone there for more secure
shelter.</p>
<p>His cogitations were abruptly interrupted by a dog’s excited barking,
subdued by distance, but deep-throated. The sound came from the direction of the
clearing, and, taking up his heavy stick, Jim hobbled to the road. If Lou had
got into any trouble─</p>
<p>The barking turned to growls; horrible, crunching growls which brought his
heart up into his throat as he broke into a run, forgetting his pain. He had not
gained the top <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_33'></SPAN>33</span>of the
rise in the road, however, when the growls gave place to wild yelps and howls
which rapidly diminished in the distance and presently Lou appeared holding
carefully before her something round and white which gleamed in the
starlight.</p>
<p>“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed when she neared him. “What on
earth have you been doing?”</p>
<p>“Git on back ’round the other side of the mill!” ordered Lou.
“I gotta go slow or I’ll spill it.”</p>
<p>“What is it?”</p>
<p>But she vouchsafed him no reply until they reached a ledge of rock over the
tumbling stream, well out of sight of that light on the hill. Then she set down
the object she was carrying and he saw that it was a bright tin pan, filled
almost to the brim with milk.</p>
<p>“I thought it would go good with our bread an’ ham,” she
explained ingenuously. “I figgered from what I learned at that Hess place
that they’d leave some out in the summer cellar to cream, for they
ain’t got any spring-house, an’ they won’t be likely to miss
one <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_34'></SPAN>34</span>pan out of
fifteen. Besides, there’s nothin’ in them rules you told me that
stops <i>me</i> from beggin’ or borrowin’, or stealin’,
either, an’ if I <i>give</i> you some of this you ain’t got any call
to ask me where it come from.”</p>
<p>This feminine logic left Jim almost speechless, but he managed to gasp
out:</p>
<p>“The dog! Didn’t he attack you?”</p>
<p>“I guess that was what he intended, but I put down the pan an’
fit him off.” She added, with evident pride. “I never spilled a
drop, either!”</p>
<p>“Good Lord!” Jim ejaculated. “I believe you’d do
anything once!”</p>
<p>“I b’lieve I would, provided I wanted to,” Lou agreed placidly.
Then her tone changed. “There’s somebody comin’ up the road
from Hudsondale like all in creation was after ’em.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the sound of a horse’s mad gallop up the steep road by which
they had come was plainly to be heard increasing in volume, and the grating jar
of wheels as though a wagon were being thrown from side to side.</p>
<p>“Think it’s a runaway?” Jim rose and <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_35'></SPAN>35</span>strained his eyes into the darkness at the
farther end of the bridge.</p>
<p>“No; driver’s drunk, maybe,” Lou responded. “The
horse’s dead beat an’ he’s lashin’ it on.
Listen!”</p>
<p>Jim heard the wild gallop falter and drop into a weary trot, only to leap
forward again with a wild scramble of hoofs on the rocky road as though the
wretched animal was spurred on by sudden pain, and he clenched his hands.</p>
<p>As though reading his thoughts, Lou remarked:</p>
<p>“Only a beast himself would treat a horse that way. The folks at the
farm where I was treated theirs somethin’ terrible. If he don’t look
out he’ll go over the side of the bridge.”</p>
<p>Jim had already started for the road in front of the mill, and Lou followed
him, just as a perilously swaying lantern came to view, showing an old-fashioned
carriage of the “buggy” type containing a single occupant and drawn
by a horse which was streaked with lather.</p>
<p>The light wagon hit the bridge with a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_36'></SPAN>36</span>bounce which almost sent it careening over into the
rushing stream below, and at the same moment Lou uttered an odd exclamation,
more of anger than fear, and straightened up to her full height.</p>
<p>“It’s Max!” she informed Jim. “You git back behind
the mill; you ain’t fit to fight─”</p>
<p>“What do you take me for?” Jim demanded indignantly. “Max
Hess, eh? The fellow who treated you so badly back at that farm? I wanted to get
him this morning, the hound! You go straight back into the mill yourself, and
leave me to handle him.”</p>
<p>But he was too late. The wagon had crossed the bridge and halted in front of
them so suddenly that the horse slid along for a pace upon his haunches.</p>
<p>“Got yer!” a thick voice announced triumphantly, as a burly
figure wrapped the reins around the whip socket and lumbered to the ground.
“Yah! I thought there was a feller in it, somewheres!”</p>
<p>He approached them with menacingly clenched fists, but Jim asked coldly:</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_37'></SPAN>37</span>“Are you
addressing this young woman?”</p>
<p>“Young thief, you mean! She’s gotter come─”</p>
<p>But Jim, too, had advanced a pace.</p>
<p>“Take that back and get in your wagon and beat it,” he announced
distinctly, with a calmness which the other mistook for mildness. “If your
name is Hess, this young woman is not going back with you, and I warn you now to
be off.”</p>
<p>“So that’s it, is it?” the heavy voice sneered.
“She’s my mother’s hired girl, an’ she stole a lot
o’ food an’ ran away this mornin’. Comes o’ takin’
in an asylum brat─”</p>
<p>“Take that back, too, you blackguard!” Jim’s voice was
beginning to shake.</p>
<p>“Take nothin’ back, ’cept Lou! What’s she doin’ with
you, anyway? Might ha’ knowed she was this sort─”</p>
<p>He got no further, for something landed like a hammer upon his nose and the
blood streamed down between his thick lips, choking him. With an inarticulate
roar of rage he lowered his bull neck and drove at the other man, but the other
man wasn’t there! <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_38'></SPAN>38</span>Then another light, stinging blow landed upon his fat
face and he flailed out again with a force that turned him completely around,
for again his adversary had danced out of his way.</p>
<p>Every drop of bad blood in the lout was aroused now, for he was the bully and
terror of his community, and he could not understand this way of fighting, nor
why his own blows failed to land when this tramp could dodge in and punish him
apparently whenever he chose.</p>
<p>Jim was many pounds lighter, and although the science of boxing was not
unknown to him, he was dog-tired and his wrenched back agonized him at every
move. The sheer weight of the other man was bearing him down, and Hess seemed to
realize it, for with a grunt of satisfaction he swung in and landed a stiff body
blow which staggered his adversary.</p>
<p>Hess’s left eye was closed, and his lips split, but he hammered at his
man relentlessly, and at length caught him with a blow which brought him to his
knees. All the bully’s blood-lust boiled at sight of his half-fallen <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_39'></SPAN>39</span>victim, and he drew back
his heavily shod foot for a murderous kick, but it was never delivered.</p>
<p>Something caught that foot from behind and tripped him heavily into the dust,
then landed upon him like a wildcat and bit and tore at him until with a scream
of pain he managed to throw it off. Even as he struggled to his feet it sprang
again upon him, kicking and clawing, and he turned quickly, and scrambling into
the buggy seat, gathered up the reins.</p>
<p>Lou stood where he had torn himself from her grasp, listening to the volley
of oaths and clatter of horses’s feet until both had been swallowed up in
the distance. Then she turned to where Jim stood swaying, with one hand pressed
to his side, and the blood from the reopened cut upon his forehead making his
face look ghastly in the starlight.</p>
<p>“Well,” she remarked with satisfaction. “I guess he got
more ’n he come for, an’ we’ve seen the last of
<i>him!</i>”</p>
<p>“But Lou!” There was admiration and awe in his tones. “Your
method of fighting <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_40'></SPAN>40</span>isn’t in the Queensberry rules, although I must
say it was effective. I was going to try to protect you, and it turned out the
other way!”</p>
<p>“Don’t know what queen you’re talkin’ about, nor what
rules she made, but when <i>I</i> fight, I fight with everything I’ve
got,” Lou declared with finality. “Come and let me fix up your head
again, an’ we’ll have supper.”</p>
<p>An hour later and throughout the night, a slim little figure, rolled in a
man’s shabby coat, lay sleeping peacefully in a corner of the mill, while
on the doorstep in his shirt sleeves and with a stout cudgel across his knees, a
weary man drowsed fitfully, on guard.</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_41'></SPAN>41</span><SPAN name='link_3'></SPAN>CHAPTER III<br/><span class='h2fs'>The Vendor of Everything</span></h2>
<p>When Lou awakened the next morning at dawn it was her turn to find herself
deserted, but the fact failed to arouse any misgivings in her mind. She had
found in her brief experience with menfolks that they were mostly queer, one way
or another, but this one was dependable, and she felt no doubt that he would
turn up when he got ready.</p>
<p>Unwrapping her bundle, she took the apron, soap, and broken comb, and
wandered down the bank of the stream until in the seclusion beneath the bridge
she came upon a pool formed by outjutting rocks, where she performed her limited
toilet. Then, scrubbing the greasy apron vigorously, she hung it on a bramble
bush behind the mill to dry, and scuttling across the road, made for <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_42'></SPAN>42</span>the woods back of the house
where she had committed her nocturnal depredation.</p>
<p>An hour later when Jim came slowly up the hill road from the direction of
Hudsondale, he saw a tiny smudge of smoke rising from a rock well hidden in the
rank undergrowth at the edge of the stream, and approaching it found Lou
industriously brushing her coat with a broom which she had improvised of small
twigs tied together. Beside her, carefully cradled in her sunbonnet, were half a
dozen new-laid eggs.</p>
<p>“Good morning.” He greeted her with a little bow, and sank down
on the rock. “Were you frightened to find yourself left all
alone?”</p>
<p>“Oh, no. I knew you would come back,” she replied serenely. Then,
as she noted his glance fall upon the eggs she added in swift self-defense:
“You needn’t think I stole those; I found them back in the woods a
piece. O-oh!”</p>
<p>He had carried a large paper package under his arm, and now as he unwrapped
it her wonderment changed to swift rapture. It contained an overall apron of
bright pink <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_43'></SPAN>43</span>check, a
cheap straw hat, and a remnant of green ribbon.</p>
<p>“I ain’t had a pink dress since I was ten!” Her dark eyes
were perilously glistening. “I’d almost have died for one, but you
had to wear blue after that, ’count of doin’ work ’round. Oh, an’
that hat! I kin put that ribbon on it as easy as─”</p>
<p>She halted suddenly and lowered her eyelashes, adding:</p>
<p>“But you hadn’t any call to buy them for me; I can’t pay
you back right now.”</p>
<p>Jim’s reply was irrelevant.</p>
<p>“Why, your eyes aren’t black, after all! They’re
violet-blue, the deepest blue I ever saw!” Then he caught himself up,
reddening furiously, and after a moment said in a casual tone:
“That’s all right about the things, Lou; you can pay me when you get
some work to do. Now, go fix yourself up, and we’ll have
breakfast.”</p>
<p>When she had disappeared into the mill he cursed himself for a fool. The
child had trusted him as a comrade; what would she think if he began paying her
compliments? <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_44'></SPAN>44</span>What had
come over him, anyway? He had seen women with violet-blue eyes in more countries
than one; beautiful women with every enhancement which breeding and wealth could
bestow. It must have been sheer surprise in discovering any attribute of
prettiness at all about so uncompromisingly homely a girl as poor little
Lou.</p>
<p>With this reassuring reflection he set about replenishing the fire, and
presently his companion reappeared. The large, flapping hat sat oddly upon her
small head with its tightly drawn-back hair, but the straight lines of the
all-enveloping pink gown brought out the slender curves of her childish figure,
and she didn’t seem quite so gawky, after all, as she moved toward him
over the rocks.</p>
<p>“My, you look nice!” he said cheerfully. “I’ve
brought some rolls from─”</p>
<p>“We’ll keep them for later,” Lou interrupted him firmly.
“There’s still the end of the bread left, and goodness knows where
we’ll eat again!”</p>
<p>They breakfasted gaily, drinking the remainder of the milk first and then
boiling the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_45'></SPAN>45</span>eggs in
the pan, but Lou’s remark about their next meal had made Jim think
seriously of the immediate future. He had assumed a responsibility which he must
fulfill, and his progress thus far under the handicaps he had spoken of had been
difficult enough alone.</p>
<p>The little pink apron-frock had cost half of his capital, the hat twenty-five
cents more, and the ribbon a dime. Five cents in addition for the rolls had left
but thirty-five of the preciously hoarded pennies, and he was ninety miles from
home, with a host of petty, but formidable, restrictions barring his way, and an
adopted orphan on his hands.</p>
<p>He had been forced to turn his head sharply away when he passed the village
tobacco store, for every nerve cried out for the solace of a good pipe, but he
felt more than repaid for the sacrifice by Lou’s honest rapture over the
poor things he had been able to get for her.</p>
<p>Breakfast finished, and the remainder of the ham stowed away in the milk-pan,
they carefully skirted the house on the rise of the hill, and coming out once
more upon the road, they forged ahead. The strained muscles of <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_46'></SPAN>46</span>Jim’s back and side
were still sore, but they troubled him less than the lack of a smoke, and for
Lou it was as though a new world had opened before her eyes.</p>
<p>The pleasant, wheat-growing valley had been left behind them, and the road
from being hilly grew steeper and more steep until it became a mere rutted trail
over the mountains. More or less dilapidated farm-houses, each with its patch of
cleared ground, appeared now and then, and before the gate of one of these a
huge, canvas-covered wagon stood, bearing the ambitious legend:</p>
<p>TRAVELING DEPARTMENT STORE</p>
<p>BENJ. PERKINS</p>
<p>A genial-looking fat man in a linen duster and a wide-brimmed hat was just
clambering in over the wheel when he spied the two pedestrians gazing at the
turnout, and called good-naturedly:</p>
<p>“Want a lift? I’m goin’ inter New Hartz.”</p>
<p>“Thanks. That is just where we are going, <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_47'></SPAN>47</span>too,” Jim replied promptly.
“It’s awfully good of you to take us along.”</p>
<p>“Git right in; plenty of room with me on the front seat here,”
the proprietor of the extraordinary department store responded heartily.
“Yer sister ’d be nigh tuckered out ef you tried ter walk her inter
town on a hot day like this.”</p>
<p>Jim hoisted Lou in over the big wheel and as he climbed up beside her the
driver slapped the reins over the broad backs of the two horses, and they were
off.</p>
<p>“You are Mr. Perkins?” Jim asked, ignoring the assumption of
Lou’s relationship to him.</p>
<p>“That’s me!” The other glanced at the fresh bandage about
the young man’s head which Lou had applied just before they started out,
and inquired: “You git hurt, some ways?”</p>
<p>Jim explained briefly, and changed the subject with a haste which would have
been significant to a less obtuse host.</p>
<p>“You seem to have a little of everything back here in the van, Mr.
Perkins.”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_48'></SPAN>48</span>“Reckon I
hev,” the other agreed complacently. “From a spool of thread to a
pitchfork, and from a baby rattle to wax funeral wreaths, there ain’t
nothin’ the folk hereabout hev use for that I don’t carry. The big
ottermobile order trucks don’t hurt my business none; I ben workin’
up my trade around here fer twenty year.”</p>
<p>Mr. Perkins paused to draw a pipe and tobacco sack from his pocket, and
Jim’s throat twitched. After filling the pipe the genial pedler offered
the sack. “Hev some?”</p>
<p>Jim hesitated, and his face reddened, but at last he shook his head
determinedly.</p>
<p>“Thanks; I–I don’t smoke.”</p>
<p>Lou, who had hunched about in her seat to stare at the assorted array of
articles in the body of the van, turned and looked curiously at him. Surely that
hard bulge in the coat upon which she had slept on the previous night had been
the bowl of a pipe! The eyes which Jim had called “violet blue”
narrowed for an instant in puzzled wonderment, then blurred as with swift
understanding she glanced down at the new pink apron and <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_49'></SPAN>49</span>stroked it softly. But Jim had gone on
talking rather nervously.</p>
<p>“You don’t get much trade around here, do you? Not many houses in
these mountains.”</p>
<p>“Oh, here and thar,” Mr. Perkins replied easily. “Here and
thar.”</p>
<p>The conversation which ensued was all Greek to Lou, who took off her hat,
leaned her head against the side of the van, and went peacefully to sleep.</p>
<p>She was awakened by a hand gently shaking her shoulder and found that the van
had been halted in the middle of a maple-lined street before a big house which
bore a sign labeled: “Congress Hotel.” Busy little shops shouldered
it on either side, and a band-stand stood in the open square.</p>
<p>“Come down, Lou.” Jim stood on the sidewalk reaching up for her
hands. “This is New Hartz.”</p>
<p>Mr. Perkins was not in the van, but as Lou scrambled over the wheel he
appeared from the door of the hotel.</p>
<p>“Young man, I wish I was goin’ further, but I ain’t, and I
want ter talk a little business <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_50'></SPAN>50</span>with you.” He drew Jim aside. “You and
your sister wouldn’t ha’ ben walkin’ it in from Hudsonvale if
you could ha’ paid ter come any other way.”</p>
<p>“No, Mr. Perkins.” Jim backed away smilingly. “We
couldn’t think of–of borrowing, but thanks for the ten-mile lift
into New Hartz.”</p>
<p>“Glad ter hev your company.” Mr. Perkins suddenly dived around to
the back of the van and his voice came to them muffled from the depths of its
interior. “Wait jest a minute.”</p>
<p>He emerged, red and perspiring, with a small package wrapped in a square of
something shimmering and white in his hands, which he offered to the wondering
Lou.</p>
<p>“It’s jest a little present fer you, miss,” he said.</p>
<p>Lou accepted it gravely.</p>
<p>“Thank you, sir,” she said primly. “You ain’t got any
call to give me this, not after bringin’ us all the way from
Hudsondale.”</p>
<p>“I guess I can make a little present if I’m a mind ter, ter a
pretty little girl like you.” <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_51'></SPAN>51</span>Mr. Perkins turned to Jim. “Wish yer both luck
on your way.”</p>
<p>They took leave of the kindly little fat man and moved off up the village
street and beyond the inevitable car tracks to the dwindling country road once
more. In the shade of a big tree at a crossroads, Lou glanced up at her
companion.</p>
<p>“Could we set down here for a spell?” she asked. “I
ain’t tired, Jim, but I feel like I’d die if I can’t open
this!”</p>
<p>She gestured with Mr. Perkins’s gift, and Jim dropped laughingly on the
grass.</p>
<p>“Of course. Let’s see what’s in it.”</p>
<p>Gravely she seated herself beside him and unknotted the square of white. It
contained three little handkerchiefs with pink borders, a small bottle of
particularly strong scent, and a string of beads remotely resembling coral. The
square in which the articles had been wrapped proved to be a large white silk
handkerchief with an American flag stamped in the corner.</p>
<p>“That must be for you, Jim,” Lou said slowly. As in a trance she
slipped the string <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_52'></SPAN>52</span>of
beads over her head, opened the bottle, and poured a few drops of its contents
upon one of the little handkerchiefs, inhaling the rank odor in ecstasy.</p>
<p>Jim watched her, amused but touched also. To that luxury-starved little soul
the coarse handkerchiefs and cheap perfume meant rapture, and he resolved to see
that the gray-haired lady in New York provided something better for Lou than a
servant’s position. Education, perhaps─</p>
<p>“It must be past noon, for the shadows have started to go the other
way.” Her voice broke in upon his meditations. “We’d better
eat the rolls an’ ham now. How far is it to where we’re
goin’?”</p>
<p>“Eight miles; I’m afraid it is a long way for
you─”</p>
<p>“Then the sooner we git started the better,” the girl
interrupted. “I’ll take the pan an’ run back to that yellow
house we just passed for some water.”</p>
<p>Without waiting for a reply she tilted the little scent bottle carefully
against the tree-trunk and departed, while Jim stretched himself <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_53'></SPAN>53</span>out luxuriously in the
grateful shade. He was tired, and the still heat of noon had a stupefying
effect. Lou seemed long in returning, and his thoughts grew nebulous until he
finally drifted off into slumber.</p>
<p>When he awakened the shadows had lengthened to those of mid-afternoon, and
there was a delicious, unaccustomed aroma in the air. He gazed about him in a
bewildered fashion to find Lou sitting cross-legged in the grass, and spread
upon it on the apron between them were the rolls and ham, and a huckleberry pie,
still warm, and fairly exuding juice.</p>
<p>“Good Lord, where did you get it?” he demanded.</p>
<p>“Remember that yellow house where I went to git water?” Lou
laughed, but there was a new note of shyness in her voice. “When we passed
it first I saw that the currant bushes were just loaded down, an’ a woman
was out pickin’ them, though it’s ironin’ day. I figgered if I
pick for her she’d maybe pay me, an’ she did. I–I guessed you
was out of–this.”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_54'></SPAN>54</span>The freckles
disappeared in a rosy blush as with a red-stained hand she held out a bag of
tobacco.</p>
<p>“Lou! Why, you–you precious kid!” Jim stammered. “You
worked in all this heat, while I lay here and slept.”</p>
<p>“It wasn’t far back to New Hartz, an’ I’d seen where
the cigar-store was when we came by. The woman at the house, she give me the
pie, an’ I’ve got ten cents left besides. I never had ten cents of
my own before!”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_55'></SPAN>55</span><SPAN name='link_4'></SPAN>CHAPTER IV<br/><span class='h2fs'>Under the Big Top</span></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>Her big eyes followed the river’s course <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_56'></SPAN>56</span>until it was lost in a creeping mist
behind high hills, and she drew a deep breath.</p>
<p>“How far does it go?” she asked.</p>
<p>“To New York; to the sea,” he responded. “The ocean, you
know.”</p>
<p>“My!” There was wonder and a certain regret in her tone.
“What a waste of good wash-water!”</p>
<p>Jim emitted an inarticulate remark, and added hastily:</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_57'></SPAN>57</span>“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’─”</p>
<p>“There must be a circus in Highvale–yes, the date says
to-night,” Jim replied.</p>
<p>“‘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!”</p>
<p>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 na�ve enjoyment.</p>
<p>But their combined capital would not have covered the price of the tickets,
and there was <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_58'></SPAN>58</span>supper
to be thought of, and the hazards of the immediate future. For the present the
circus must remain an unattained dream to Lou.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_59'></SPAN>59</span>Turning, he
shouldered his way through the knot of loungers, and entering the lot,
approached the stout gentleman.</p>
<p>“Want an extra hand?” he asked. “Anything from a ballyhoo
to a rough-rider?”</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>“How the h–l did you know that the Wild West act was all knocked
to pieces?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“To pick up a little loose change and get a horse between my knees
again.”</p>
<p>The thought of the forlorn little figure which he had left by the roadside
kept Jim’s <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_60'></SPAN>60</span>smile steady, and added a desperate artificial
buoyancy to his tired tones:</p>
<p>“Never mind who I am or where I came from; I can ride, and that’s
what you want, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>There was an instant’s pause, and then the boss bawled a stentorian
order and grabbed him by the arm.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_61'></SPAN>61</span>which had been Bill Hollis’s hobby for a
season.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>When the bronco was thoroughly subjected, Jim rode quietly up to where the
boss stood with the two other men.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_62'></SPAN>62</span>“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.”</p>
<p>The boss chuckled.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Jim shook his head.</p>
<p>“Only for to-night,” he replied. “My sister and I are
beating it South.”</p>
<p>“Well, I’ll give you five dollars─”</p>
<p>“No, you won’t,” Jim smiled. “I’ll work for you
to-night for just twenty-five cents.”</p>
<p>“Say, you ain’t bughouse, are you?” The boss stared
again.</p>
<p>“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, and <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_63'></SPAN>63</span>something else for a little
girl who has never seen a circus, Mr. Trimble-and-Wells, and who is waiting for
me in the road─”</p>
<p>The boss roared.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 of <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_64'></SPAN>64</span>a sudden to find herself once more back in the attic
at the Hess farm.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 with <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_65'></SPAN>65</span>vociferous 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>They didn’t laugh at the rough-rider, she noticed. The ladies applauded
daintily, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_66'></SPAN>66</span>once
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.</p>
<p>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─</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The bandage was gone from his head, and the plaster which had replaced it was
hidden, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_67'></SPAN>67</span>but 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!</p>
<p>One of the ladies in the seats before her leaned forward and exclaimed:</p>
<p>“Didn’t he look like Jimmie Abbott? If we didn’t know that
he was on a fishing trip up in Canada─”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Then it was that a small, pink-checked cyclone whirled through the rows of
closely <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_68'></SPAN>68</span>packed
humanity and half-way round the arena to the curtain, while above the clamor of
the band arose a shrill cry; “Jim! Jim!”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_69'></SPAN>69</span><SPAN name='link_5'></SPAN>CHAPTER V<br/><span class='h2fs'>Concerning an Omelet</span></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>“Where’s Lou? M–my sister?” he demanded, sitting bolt
upright.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_70'></SPAN>70</span>“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.”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Jim sat up dizzily.</p>
<p>“It was mighty good of you people to take <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_71'></SPAN>71</span>us in for the night,” he said.
“Who is Ma Billings?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Jim tried to protest, but the husky individual only grinned the broader.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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-white <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_72'></SPAN>72</span>check through the m�l�e,
and headed for it.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“I’m fine,” he assured her. “But who was that man you
were talking to just now?”</p>
<p>“Him? Oh, that was the clown,” Lou replied. <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_73'></SPAN>73</span>“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.”</p>
<p>She added the last almost reluctantly, and Jim shuddered. The knife-thrower!
What wouldn’t the little dare-devil be willing to try next?</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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
were <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_74'></SPAN>74</span>being removed
from the lot as they finally departed, and what had been to Lou a wondrous,
glittering pageant had become but a memory.</p>
<p>“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─”</p>
<p>“Nonsense!” Jim snapped, and wondered at his own indignation.
“We’ll find something suitable for you to do, or you can go to
school─”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean an institution, but a real school, Lou,” he
explained gently. “One <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_75'></SPAN>75</span>where you’ll have no uniform to wear, and no
work to do except to learn.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“He looks kinder mean, don’t he?” Lou remarked. Then
impulsively she ran after the wagon: “Say, mister, will you give us a
lift?”</p>
<p>The old man pulled in his horses and regarded her sourly.</p>
<p>“What’ll you pay?” he demanded.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_76'></SPAN>76</span>“What’s in them crates,” she
parried.</p>
<p>“Eggs.” The response was laconic. “What you gittin’
at, sis?”</p>
<p>“Who unloads them when you git to where you’re
goin’?” Lou persisted.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>But Lou halted him determinedly.</p>
<p>“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’.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Jim had overtaken the wagon in time to hear the end of the brief
conversation, and he wasted no further time in parley, but hoisted <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_77'></SPAN>77</span>Lou up over the wheel and
climbed in beside her.</p>
<p>As the reluctant horses started off once more the driver turned to him:</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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’n <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_78'></SPAN>78</span>they work out, let alone their wages
goin’ sky-hootin’!”</p>
<p>“But you must be making a handsome profit, with the price of eggs going
up, too, all the time,” Jim remarked.</p>
<p>The old man gave him a sly glance.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>He cackled shrilly at his own witticism and then grew morose again.
“The way things is, there ain’t no profit skeercely in
nothin’.”</p>
<p>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, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_79'></SPAN>79</span>and all over the rolling hillsides about them on
either hand the vineyards stretched in undulating lines, each heavy with the
load of purpling grapes.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>“There’s–there’s an ottermobile comin’ up
behind,” Lou ventured. “They been tootin’ at you for some
time, mister.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>The warning of the siren sounded again disturbingly close, and the rush of
the oncoming <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_80'></SPAN>80</span>car
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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Don’t calc’late to let ’em,” he responded
obstinately. “Ain’t goin’ to take their dust if I kin help
it.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Lou, are you hurt?” Jim tried to wipe the clinging stuff from
his eyes and ears with his sleeve. “Where are you?”</p>
<p>The rapidly diminishing clatter of horses’ hoofs <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_81'></SPAN>81</span>down 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.</p>
<p>“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─”</p>
<p>“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─”</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_82'></SPAN>82</span>The old man danced
up and down in the road, spattering flecks of egg about him.</p>
<p>“We’ll see about that,” he shrilled. “You come along
with me! You’re my witnesses─”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Don’t mind him,” she gasped. “Old skinflint! Oh,
Jim, you l-look like an omelet.”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_83'></SPAN>83</span><SPAN name='link_6'></SPAN>CHAPTER VI<br/><span class='h2fs'>The Red Note-Book</span></h2>
<p>For a moment Jim laughed with her; then the seriousness of their situation
was borne in upon him, and his face sobered.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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 they <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_84'></SPAN>84</span>was goin’, but I’m not a mite.
Long’s he wasn’t hurt, I’m kinder glad.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“‘Goat’?” Lou repeated.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>Jim explained, and the woman listened, wide-eyed.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_85'></SPAN>85</span>She 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>When Jim had expressed his gratitude and departed for the barn, the woman led
Lou into the kitchen, and, providing her also with <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_86'></SPAN>86</span>clean garments, she dragged a wash-tub out
on the porch.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“You mean that–that with the egg-wagon? He was givin’ us a
lift into Riverburgh; we’re just traveling through,” Lou added
shortly.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_87'></SPAN>87</span>Lou 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_88'></SPAN>88</span>“I wonder
where all the men of the family are? She can’t get any
hands─”</p>
<p>“<i>There</i> are 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 backward <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_89'></SPAN>89</span>glance 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_90'></SPAN>90</span>“Didn’t he look like Jimmie
Abbott?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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 he <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_91'></SPAN>91</span>really be that grand young
lady’s “Jimmie,” after all?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<div class='center'>
<p class='center'>JAMES TARRISFORD ABBOTT</p>
</div>
<p>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 moment <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_92'></SPAN>92</span>she 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_93'></SPAN>93</span>But 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.</p>
<p>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. She <i>would</i> make herself a place somewhere, somehow.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“It’s wet still, I’m afraid,” she remarked
composedly, as she picked up the red note-book <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_94'></SPAN>94</span>and 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“If you think it’s goin’ to be funny to travel in wet
clothes to-night, just wait till you git started.”</p>
<p>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 supper <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_95'></SPAN>95</span>dishes were cleared away Lou wandered off by herself
down the little lane which led to the pasture.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“I dunno,” Lou answered truthfully enough. “I been
thinkin’ ’bout the institootion <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_96'></SPAN>96</span>where 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“Where was this institution, Lou?” Jim asked. “You’ve
never told me, you know.”</p>
<p>Lou shrugged.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>A vicious desire came over her to shock and repulse that inexplicable thing
in him which set him apart from her and made him one <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_97'></SPAN>97</span>with the world in which those others
moved; that stout gentleman and the young lady who had called him Jimmie. She
added deliberately:</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“That’s good,” Lou said, but without enthusiasm. “Do
we start at sun-up?”</p>
<p>“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. <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_98'></SPAN>98</span>“She’s been so
good to us, and she’ll need the stuff this winter for those two old plugs
out there.”</p>
<p>He pointed out into the pasture, where two horses made mere blotches of
deeper shadow beneath a tree.</p>
<p>Lou laughed suddenly, softly, but it seemed to him that the rippling, liquid
note had vanished.</p>
<p>“What’s funny?” he asked.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>Jim glanced at her sharply, but in the starlight her face seemed merely
amused as at a whimsical thought.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_99'></SPAN>99</span><SPAN name='link_7'></SPAN>CHAPTER VII<br/><span class='h2fs'>Revelations</span></h2>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 he <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_100'></SPAN>100</span>didn’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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“I only work for a quarter a time,” he told <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_101'></SPAN>101</span>her 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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_102'></SPAN>102</span>“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?”</p>
<p>Jim gave a groan of mock despair.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>He blurted the last out in a dogged, uncomfortable way, but Lou did not
appear to notice his change of tone.</p>
<p>“Well, there look to be plenty of boats goin’ back an’
forth,” she observed placidly. “I guess we can get over.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“I wish I could tell you all about it.”</p>
<p>“It don’t make any difference.” Lou kept her eyes fixed
straight ahead of her. “There <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_103'></SPAN>103</span>ought to be some way for you to work your way
across.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>When he came down the hill again some twenty minutes later laden with
packages, he <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_104'></SPAN>104</span>found
Lou waiting for him at the door of the ferry-house, with a little exultant smile
about her lips.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“Lou!” he exclaimed reproachfully.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_105'></SPAN>105</span>Both 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.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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 remainder <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_106'></SPAN>106</span>of her capital was gone,
it appeared to be the last cloud needed to immerse her in gloom.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>What a game little sport she had proved herself to be! He wondered how many
girls <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_107'></SPAN>107</span>of 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.</p>
<p>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!</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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, and <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_108'></SPAN>108</span>we’ll see if the
old burg is as dry as it’s supposed to be.”</p>
<p>“You’re on!” The driver grinned. “Got a job
waitin’ for yer? We need some helpers.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“Where–where are we now?” she asked sleepily.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p>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 of <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_109'></SPAN>109</span>lodgings 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.</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>It was well for them, however, that the haying <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_110'></SPAN>110</span>was 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>They had left the last chimney of Parksville well behind them when Jim
suddenly observed:</p>
<p>“You’re limping, Lou. Let me see your shoes.”</p>
<p>She drew away from him.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>The freckles were swamped in a deep flood of color, but Jim repeated
insistently: “Hold up your foot, Lou.”</p>
<p>Reluctantly she obeyed, disclosing a battered <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_111'></SPAN>111</span>sole through the worn places of which
something green showed.</p>
<p>“I–I stuffed it with leaves,” she confessed, defensively.
“They’re real comfortable, honestly. I’m just
stiff─”</p>
<p>Jim groaned.</p>
<p>“I suppose they will have to do until we reach the next town, but you
should have told me.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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 front <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_112'></SPAN>112</span>were
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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>They were fairly running now, but the darkness was settling fast and a fork
of lightning <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_113'></SPAN>113</span>darted
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.</p>
<p>“Take this, Lou.” Jim wrapped his coat about her in spite of her
protestations. “You’re not afraid, are you?”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The woods marched straight down to the roadside at this point, and the trees
back of the heap of poles moaned and writhed like <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_114'></SPAN>114</span>tortured 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_115'></SPAN>115</span>Lou 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“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!”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_116'></SPAN>116</span>He 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>At the sound of that meek sternutation Jim whirled about.</p>
<p>“Lou!”</p>
<p>“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─”</p>
<p>“Thank God, little girl! Thank God you aren’t hurt!” he
murmured brokenly. “I thought the tree had fallen on you!”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_117'></SPAN>117</span>“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!”</p>
<p>His heart leaped, and his own arms tightened about her at the na�ve,
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.</p>
<p>Sternly repressing the words which would have rushed from his heart, he said
quietly:</p>
<p>“Thank God we were both spared. Come, little Lou, we must find
shelter.”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_118'></SPAN>118</span><SPAN name='link_8'></SPAN>CHAPTER VIII<br/><span class='h2fs'>Journey’s End</span></h2>
<p>The rain had ceased, and as they walked down the muddy road the sun came out
even before the final mutterings of the thunder had died away in the distance,
and so they came at last upon a little house which sat well back among a group
of dripping trees.</p>
<p>“Take your coat, Jim,” Lou said, breaking a long silence which
had fallen between them. “That porch is so wet now that we can’t get
it any wetter an’ I’m goin’ to ask for a chance to get
dry.”</p>
<p>But they had scarcely passed through the gate when the front door opened and
a young woman rushed out.</p>
<p>“Oh! Will you run to the next house for me and telephone for the
doctor?” she cried, <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_119'></SPAN>119</span>all in one breath. Her eyes were staring and her
breast heaved convulsively.</p>
<p>Jim quickened his pace.</p>
<p>“Where is the next house, and what doctor shall I send for?” he
asked pleasantly.</p>
<p>“It’s just over the ridge there; the Colberts. They know Dr.
Blair’s number. My husband would go himself but he can’t step on his
hurt foot and I don’t dare leave. Tell the Colberts that it’s the
baby! He’s dying, and I don’t know what to do!”</p>
<p>Jim turned, and hurried off over the ridge, but Lou took a step forward.</p>
<p>“Baby! I’ve been takin’ care of babies all my life, seems
like. You let me look at it, ma’am.”</p>
<p>“Oh, do you think you could do anything, a little thing like
you?”</p>
<p>The young woman eyed the forlornly drenched figure before her rather
doubtfully, but something she read in Lou’s steady, confident gaze seemed
to reassure her, and she threw wide the door. “Come in, please! He’s
all blue.”</p>
<p>Lou unceremoniously pushed past her <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_120'></SPAN>120</span>down the clean little hallway and paused for a
moment upon the threshold of the room at its end. It was a kitchen, small, but
as immaculately clean as the hall, and in a rocking-chair near the window sat an
anxious-eyed young man with his bandaged foot up on another chair before him,
and in his arms a tiny, rigid little form.</p>
<p>Lou went straight to him and unceremoniously possessed herself of the
baby.</p>
<p>Its small face was waxen, with a bluish tinge about the mouth, and
half-closed, glazing eyes.</p>
<p>“How long’s it been like this?” Lou demanded sharply.</p>
<p>“Only just a few minutes. It–it seemed like a sort of fit that he
had.” The young woman turned to her husband. “Jack, this little girl
stopped by and said she knew all about babies, and the man with her, he’s
gone for─”</p>
<p>“I want some hot water, quick!” Lou interrupted the explanations
brusquely. “Boiling hot, and a tub or a big pan. Have you got the kettle
on?”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_121'></SPAN>121</span>“Y-yes,
but I’m afraid I’ve let the fire go out,” the woman faltered.
“I was so worried─”</p>
<p>With an exclamation of impatience Lou rewrapped the baby which she had been
examining and thrust it into the man’s arms. Then turning to the woman
with exasperation in her eyes and voice she demanded:</p>
<p>“I s’pose you can find some dry chips, somewhere, can’t you? If I
don’t get this baby into a hot bath right away it’ll be all up with
him.”</p>
<p>The woman gasped, and ran out of the back door while the young man in the
chair groaned:</p>
<p>“It’s awful to sit here helpless and watch him suffer! If I could
only put my foot to the floor─”</p>
<p>“How old is he, anyway?” Lou, who was busily searching the shelf
of groceries, asked over her shoulder. “He looks to be under a
year.”</p>
<p>“Ten months, miss,” he answered. “What do you think is the
matter with him?”</p>
<p>“Convulsion,” Lou replied succinctly, as the <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_122'></SPAN>122</span>woman rushed in once more with her apron
full of chips. “Git some more, it don’t matter how you clog the
stove with wood ashes; we gotta git boilin’ water as quick as we
kin.”</p>
<p>Meanwhile Jim found the Colbert house, explained his mission, and having
accomplished it, hastened back. He pulled the bell, but no one came, and
knocking, found that the door yielded to his touch. Entering, he went down the
hall and paused at the kitchen door just as the woman stammered:</p>
<p>“I d-don’t think there are any dry kindlings left.”</p>
<p>“Then chop some! Ain’t you got any old boxes? Oh, Jim!” Lou
caught sight of him in the doorway. “Find a hatchet and some light, dry
wood, will you?”</p>
<p>The fire was roaring in the stove at last, but the water was long in boiling,
and the little figure in the man’s arms seemed to be undergoing a subtle
but inevitable change. His lips were still parted, but no faintest stir of
breath emanated from them, and the rigidity had taken on a marble-like cast.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_123'></SPAN>123</span>The mother bent
over him, moaning once more, but Lou turned upon her in swift scorn.</p>
<p>“For goodness’ sake, where’s that tub or pan I asked you
for? He’s got a chance, a <i>good</i> chance if you don’t waste any
more time! What you been givin’ him, anyway?” she added, as the
woman flew to do her bidding.</p>
<p>“Nothing but a little green corn. He relishes it, and it’s so
cute to see him try to chew it─”</p>
<p>“Green corn!” Lou repeated, as she seized the heavy kettle and
began pouring its steaming contents into the tub. “Ain’t
<i>nobody</i> in your family ever had any babies before?”</p>
<p>She hastily added to the tub a quantity of yellowish powder from a can which
she had found upon the shelf of groceries, and marched determinedly over to the
man who was seated in the chair.</p>
<p>“Give me that baby!” she demanded.</p>
<p>“But, miss, that water’s boiling!” he gasped.</p>
<p>“You’re not going to put my baby in that?” The woman came
quickly from her apathy of dismay and sprang forward, while Jim, too, advanced,
his anxiety for another reason.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_124'></SPAN>124</span>“Lou!
You’ll blister yourself horribly─”</p>
<p>“Let me alone, all of you!” Lou turned upon them even as she
stripped the wrappings from the child. “Haven’t I done this a
hundred times? He ain’t even goin’ to feel the heat of the mustard,
he’s so far gone! I guess I know what I’m doin’!”</p>
<p>The woman buried her face in her hands with a sob, and even Jim turned away
his eyes, but no one thought to interfere further with the assured little nurse.
There was a splash of water, a little gasp from Lou, and then after a period
which seemed interminable her matter-of-fact voice remarked:</p>
<p>“He’s comin’ round.”</p>
<p>The tiny body was scarcely tinged with pink, but it had lost its dreadful
rigidity, and a faint cry came from it as Lou wrapped it in a shawl and laid it
in its mother’s arms.</p>
<p>“He’ll do now, anyway till that doctor comes.”</p>
<p>Amid the rejoicing of the parents Jim advanced to Lou and demanded:</p>
<p>“Let me see your arms.”</p>
<p>“They’re all right–” She tried to put <span
class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_125'></SPAN>125</span>them behind her as she
spoke, but he drew them forward. A network of blisters covered them almost to
the shoulders.</p>
<p>“Oh, Lou! Lou!” he murmured brokenly. “What won’t you
do next?”</p>
<p>She smiled faintly.</p>
<p>“You said I’d do anything once, but I’ve done this lots of
times before─”</p>
<p>“Well, well, good people! What’s going on here?” A kindly
voice sounded from the doorway, and the woman turned with a little cry.</p>
<p>“Oh, Dr. Blair, she saved the baby! Put him down in that scalding water
and held him right there with her hands, and she’s burned herself
something terrible, but she saved him! I never saw a braver─”</p>
<p>“Let me see.”</p>
<p>The doctor examined the baby with professional gravity and then looked
up.</p>
<p>“I should say you did save him, young woman! I couldn’t have done
better for him myself! Now let me have a look at those arms of yours.”</p>
<p>After he had bandaged her blisters the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_126'></SPAN>126</span>woman prepared food and coffee for them all and then
took Lou upstairs with her, while Jim dried his soaking clothes by the kitchen
fire and the three men talked in a desultory way of the topics of the
countryside.</p>
<p>Dr. Blair had just ascertained that Jim and his “sister” were
strangers, traveling toward New York, and had offered to drive them both to the
trolley line in his little car, when the woman of the house reappeared with Lou,
and Jim stared with all his eyes.</p>
<p>Could this be the little scarecrow of a girl he had met on the road only five
days before; this unbelievably tall, slender young woman in the dark blue silk
gown with filmy ruffles falling about her neck and wrists, and soft puffs of
blond hair over her ears?</p>
<p>“It’s me, though I kin hardly believe it myself!” Lou
answered his unspoken thought. Then drawing him aside she added:
“Mis’ Tooker–that’s her name–gave me a pair of
shoes, too, an’ a hat an’ five whole dollars! Are we goin’ to
a place called Pelton?”</p>
<p>Jim nodded.</p>
<p>“That is where I hoped we would be by <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_127'></SPAN>127</span>to-night, but it must be at least twelve miles
away.”</p>
<p>“Well, Mis’ Tooker says the trolley goes right into Pelton, and
she gave me a letter to a friend of hers there who’ll take us in for the
night─”</p>
<p>The doctor interrupted with an intimation of another patient to be visited,
and they bade farewell to the grateful young couple and started away. The sun
was still high, and save for the mud which splashed up with each turn of the
wheels, all traces of the storm had vanished.</p>
<p>“Jennie Tooker always was a fool!” Dr. Blair grumbled. “How
many babies have you taken care of, young woman?”</p>
<p>“More’n twenty, I guess, off an’ on,” Lou responded.
“I–I used to work in an institootion up-State.”</p>
<p>Fearing further revelations, Jim hastily took a hand in the conversation, and
he and the doctor chatted until the trolley line was reached. There, when they
had descended from the little car Lou turned to Jim and asked a trifle
shyly:</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_128'></SPAN>128</span>“You–you’re goin’ to let me
ask you to ride, aren’t you? You bought all the food in Riverburgh, you
know.”</p>
<p>“And you seem to have financed all the rest of the trip,” he said
with a rueful laugh. “I thought, when you suggested that we should travel
together, I would be the one to take care of you, but it has been the other way
around. Oh, Lou, I’ve so much to say to you when we reach our
journey’s end!”</p>
<p>They arrived at Pelton before dark and found Mrs. Tooker’s friend, who
ran a small boarding-house for store employees, and was glad to take them in at
a dollar a head. Lou disappeared after supper, and although Lou waited long for
him on the little porch, he did not return until through sheer fatigue she was
forced to go to bed.</p>
<p>In the morning, however, when they met before breakfast in the lower hall he
jingled a handful of silver in his pocket.</p>
<p>“However did you git it?” she demanded.</p>
<p>“Garage,” he responded succinctly. “Didn’t know I was
a chauffeur, did you, Lou?”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_129'></SPAN>129</span>A peculiar
little smile hovered for a moment about her lips, but she merely remarked:</p>
<p>“I thought you wouldn’t only take a quarter─”</p>
<p>“For each job,” he interrupted her. “A lot of cars came in
that needed tinkering with after the storm, and they were short of hands. I made
more than two dollars, and we’ll ride in state into Hunnikers!”</p>
<p>Lou made no reply, but after breakfast she drew him out on the little
porch.</p>
<p>“Jim, I–I’m not goin’ on.”</p>
<p>“What!” he exclaimed.</p>
<p>“The woman that runs this place, she–she wants a girl to help
her, an’ I guess I’ll stay.” Lou’s tones were none too
steady, and she did not meet his eyes. “I–I don’t believe
I’d like New York.”</p>
<p>“You, a servant here?” He took one of her hands very gently in
his. “I didn’t mean to tell you until we were nearly there, and as
it is, there is a lot that I can’t tell you even now, but this much I want
you to know. You’re not going to work any more, Lou. You’re going to
a lovely old lady who lives in a big <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_130'></SPAN>130</span>house all by herself, and there you are going to
study and play until you are really grown up, and know as much as
anybody.”</p>
<p>She smiled and shook her head.</p>
<p>“This is the sort of place for me, Jim. I wasn’t meant for
anythin’ else, an’ if I should live to be a hundred I could never
know as much as that lady at the circus who called you ‘Jimmie
Abbott.’”</p>
<p>“What–” Jim exploded for the second time.</p>
<p>“At least, she said you looked like him, and if she didn’t know
you were in Canada─”</p>
<p>“Good Lord! What was she doing there?”</p>
<p>“She was with another lady an’ two gentlemen, an’ I guess
they come in an ottermobile,” Lou explained. “They was in one the
next day, anyway–the one that slammed into the egg-wagon.”</p>
<p>She described in detail the two occurrences, and added miserably:</p>
<p>“I didn’t mean to tell you, Jim, but as long as I’m not
goin’ on with you I might as well. It was me that walked on your note-book
back there on Mrs. Bemis’s porch. It had fallen <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_131'></SPAN>131</span>open on the floor, an’ when I
picked it up I couldn’t help seein’ the name that was written across
the page. It was your own business, of course, if you didn’t want to give
your real name to anybody─”</p>
<p>“Listen, Lou.” He had caught her other hand now and was holding
them both very tightly. “You <i>are</i> going on with me! I can’t
explain now about my name, but it doesn’t matter; nothing matters except
that you are not going to be a quitter! You said that you would go on to New
York with me, and you’re going to keep your word.”</p>
<p>“I know better now,” she replied quietly.
“It’s–it’s been a wonderful time, but I’ve got to
work an’ earn my keep an’ try to learn as I go along. It isn’t
just exactly breakin’ my word; I didn’t realize─”</p>
<p>“Realize what?” he demanded as she hesitated.</p>
<p>“I thought at first that you were kinder like me; it wasn’t until
I saw that lady an’ found you were a friend of hers, that I knew you were
different.”</p>
<p>Her eyes were still downcast, and now a <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_132'></SPAN>132</span>tinge of color mounted in her cheeks. “I
couldn’t bear to have you take me to that other lady in the city and be
a-ashamed of me─”</p>
<p>“Ashamed of you!” he repeated, and something in his tone deepened
the color in her cheeks into a crimson tide. “Lou, look at me!”</p>
<p>Obediently she raised her eyes for an instant; then lowered them again
quickly, and after a pause she said in a very small voice:</p>
<p>“All right, Jim. I–I’ll go. I guess I wouldn’t just
want to be a–a quitter, after all.”</p>
<p>It was mid-afternoon when they walked into Hunnikers and although they had
come ten long miles with only a stop for a picnic lunch between, they bore no
traces of fatigue. Rather they appeared to have been treading on air, and
although Jim had scrupulously avoided any further reference to the future, there
was a certain buoyant assurance about him which indicated that in his own mind,
at least, there remained no room for doubt.</p>
<p>He needed all the assurance he could <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_133'></SPAN>133</span>muster as, after ensconcing Lou at the soda counter
in the drug-store, he approached the telephone booth farthest from her ears and
closed the door carefully behind him. Lou consumed her soda to its last
delectable drop, glanced down anxiously at the worn, but spotless, little silk
gown to see if she had spilled any upon it, and then wandered over to the
showcase.</p>
<p>Jim’s voice came to her indistinguishably once or twice, but it was a
full half-hour before he emerged from the booth. He looked wilted but
triumphant, and he beamed blissfully as he came toward her, mopping his brow. He
suspected that at the other end of the wire a certain gray-haired, aristocratic
old lady was having violent hysterics to the immediate concern of three maids
and an asthmatic Pekinese, but it did not disturb his equanimity.</p>
<p>“It’s all right,” he announced. “Aunt Emmy expects
you; I didn’t tell you, did I, that the lady I’m taking you to is my
aunt? No matter. She’s awfully easy if you get on the right side of her;
I’ve always managed <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_134'></SPAN>134</span>her beautifully ever since I was a kid, and
you’ll have her rolling over and playing dead in no time. Fifteen miles
more to go, Lou, and we’ll be─”</p>
<p>“Hello, there, Jim.” An oil-soaked and greasy glove clapped his
shoulder and as he turned, the same voice, suddenly altered, stammered:
“Oh, I beg your pardon─”</p>
<p>“’Lo, Harry!” Jim turned to greet a tall, lean individual more
tanned than himself, with little, fine, weather lines about his eyes and an
abrupt quickness of gesture which denoted his hair-triggered nerves. “What
are you doing in this man’s town?”</p>
<p>“Motoring down from the Hilton’s,” the other responded.
“Pete was coming with me, but at the last minute he decided to stay over
the week-end. I’m off to Washington to-night to see about my passport;
sailing next Wednesday for Labrador, you know.”</p>
<p>“Then you’re alone?” Jim turned. “Miss Lacey, let me
present Mr. Van Ness; he spends his time trailing all over the earth to find
something to kill. Miss Lacey is a young <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_135'></SPAN>135</span>friend of my aunt’s; I’m taking her down
to her for a visit.”</p>
<p>The explanation sounded somewhat involved, but Mr. Van Ness seemed to grasp
it, and bowed.</p>
<p>“You’re motoring, too?” he asked.</p>
<p>“No. I–The fact is–” Jim stammered in his turn.
“We were thinking of taking the train─”</p>
<p>“Why not let me take you both down in the car?” The other rose to
the occasion with evident alacrity. “Miss Lacy will like it better than
the train, I’m sure, and I haven’t seen you for an age, old
man.”</p>
<p>Jim accepted with a promptitude which proclaimed a mind relieved of its final
burden, and he turned to Lou. Mr. Van Ness had gone out to see to his car, and
they were alone at a far corner of the counter.</p>
<p>“How about it, Lou? The last lap! The last fifteen miles. It’s
been a long pull sometimes, and we’ve had some rough going, but it was
worth it, wasn’t it?”</p>
<p>Her eyes all unconsciously gave him answer even before she repeated
softly:</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_136'></SPAN>136</span>“‘The last
lap.’ Oh, Jim, shall I see you some time, at this lady’s house where
you are takin’ me?”</p>
<p>“Every day,” he promised, adding with cheerful mendacity:
“I dine with her nearly all the time; have for years. Come on, Lou.
Harry’s waving at us.”</p>
<p>Through the village and the pleasant rolling country beyond; past huge,
wide-spreading estates and tiny cottages, and clusters of small shops with the
trolley winding like a thread between, the big maroon car sped, while the two
men talked together of many things, and the girl sat back in her corner of the
roomy tonneau and gave herself up to vague dreams.</p>
<p>Then the cottages gave place to sporadic growths of brick and mortar with
more open lots between, but even these gaps finally closed, and Lou found
herself being borne swiftly through street after street of towering houses out
upon a broad avenue with palaces such as she had never dreamed of on one side,
and on the other the seared, drooping green of a city park in late summer.</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_137'></SPAN>137</span>It was still
light when the big car swept into an exclusive street of brownstone houses of an
earlier and still more exclusive period, and stopped before the proudest of
these.</p>
<p>Jim alighted and held out his hand.</p>
<p>“Come, Lou,” he said. “Journey’s end.”</p>
<hr class='pb' />
<h2><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_138'></SPAN>138</span><SPAN name='link_9'></SPAN>CHAPTER IX<br/><span class='h2fs'>The Long, Long Trail</span></h2>
<p>Three hours later, in that same proudly exclusive house, an elderly lady with
gray hair and an aristocratically high, thin nose paced the floor of her
drawing-room with a vigor which denoted some strong emotion.</p>
<p>“I must say, John, that I think the whole affair, whatever it may be,
is highly reprehensible. I supposed James to be up in Canada on a fishing trip
when he telephoned me this morning from somewhere near town with a–a most
extraordinary message─”</p>
<p>She broke off, glancing cautiously toward a room across the hall, and added:
“He said he had something to tell me, and he would be here this evening.
Now you come, and you appear to know something about it, but I cannot get a word
out of you!”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_139'></SPAN>139</span>“All I can
tell you, Mrs. Abbott, is that if Jimmie does come to-night, I’ve got to
pay him a thousand bones–dollars, I mean. It was a sort of a wager, and
that must be what he wants to tell you about.”</p>
<p>It was an exceedingly stout young man with a round, cherubic countenance
standing by the mantel who replied to her, and the old lady glanced at him
sharply.</p>
<p>“A wager? H-m! Possibly.” She paused suddenly.
“There’s the bell.”</p>
<p>A moment later James Tarrisford Abbott, in the most immaculate of dinner
clothes, entered and greeted his aunt, halting with a slight frown as he
encountered the beaming face of the young man who fell upon him.</p>
<p>“Good boy, Jimmie! You made it, after all!”</p>
<p>“With a few hours to spare.” Jim darted a questioning glance at
his aunt, and seemed relieved at her emphatic shake of the head.</p>
<p>“I knew we’d lost when Mrs. Abbott told me that you had
telephoned to her from just a little way out of town to-day,” Jack Trimble
responded. “I ran over on my way to the <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_140'></SPAN>140</span>club to give her a message from my mother. Did you
have a hard time of it, old man?”</p>
<p>“Hard?” Jim smiled. “I’ve been a rough-rider in a
circus─”</p>
<p>Mrs. Abbott groaned, but Jack Trimble’s eyes opened as roundly and wide
as his mouth.</p>
<p>“Thundering–So it was you after all!”</p>
<p>“Me?” Jim demanded with ungrammatical haste.</p>
<p>“You–rough-rider–circus!” Jack exclaimed. “Vera
said the chap looked like you, but it never occurred to me that it could
possibly be!”</p>
<p>“So it was Vera, was it?” Jim smiled. “I heard what she
said–I mean, it was repeated to me. You were one of that party?”</p>
<p>“Yes. We were with the Lentilhons in their car, and the funniest thing
happened the next day on the way home! Crusty old farmer wouldn’t turn out
on the road, and Guy Lentilhon lost control and smashed straight through his
wagon!” Jack laughed. “W-what do you think it was loaded
with?”</p>
<p>“Eggs!” responded Jim crisply. “I happened to be on it at
the time, my boy, and <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_141'></SPAN>141</span>your sense of humor–I hope you all got what I
did! But I must explain to Aunt Emmy here, or she will think that we are both
quite mad!”</p>
<p>“And I must be off to the club,” Jack announced.
“I’ll break the news to Billy Hollis that we’ve lost. See you
later, and we’ll all settle up. Good evening, Mrs. Abbott.”</p>
<p>When the stout young man had taken his departure, Mrs. Abbott turned to her
nephew between laughter and tears.</p>
<p>“James, this is the maddest of all mad things that you have ever
done!”</p>
<p>“Jack doesn’t know anything about Lou?” Jim demanded
anxiously.</p>
<p>“Certainly not. He has only been here a quarter of an hour, and I kept
her out of the way. But, James, you cannot be serious! You cannot mean to marry
this nameless waif?”</p>
<p>“Stop right there, Aunt Emmy,” he interrupted her firmly.
“I’m going to marry, if she will have me, your ward whom you have
legally adopted; I mean, you will have adopted her by the time she has grown up.
<span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_142'></SPAN>142</span>But I don’t
intend to be nosed out by any of these debutante-grabbers; I’m going to
have everything settled before her studies are finished and you bring her out. I
saw her first!”</p>
<p>“H-m. We shall see,” Aunt Emmy remarked dryly, adding: “But
that can wait for the moment. What was this ridiculous wager all about, and how
did you get into such horrible scrapes?”</p>
<p>“The whole thing came out of an idle discussion Jack Trimble, Billy
Hollis and I had at the club one night concerning human nature. It drifted into
a debate about charity in general and the kindness shown toward strangers by
country folk in particular, with myself in the minority, of course,” Jim
explained.</p>
<p>“They each wagered me a thousand against my five hundred that I
couldn’t walk from Buffalo to New York in twenty-five days with only five
dollars in my pocket to start with, and work my way home without begging nor
accepting more than a quarter for each job I managed to secure in any one
time.</p>
<p>“The idea was to see how many of these <span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_143'></SPAN>143</span>hard-boiled up-State farmers we hear so much about
would offer you the hospitality reputed to be extended only by the rural
population of the South and West, and how many would give a foot-sore and weary
traveler a lift upon the way. There were other conditions, too; I was not to use
my own surname, not to go a foot out of the State into either Pennsylvania or
New Jersey. I was not to beg, borrow, or steal, and for the occasional
twenty-five cents I might earn I could only purchase food or actual necessities,
not use it for transportation, and I must not beat my way by stealing rides on
boats or trains or any other conveyances.”</p>
<p>While Aunt Emmy sat staring at him in speechless amazement, Jim produced his
little red note-book and laid it before her.</p>
<p>“There’s the route I chose over the mountains, my expense account
for each day, and the names and addresses of the people who helped to prove my
contention that, take them by and large, the people of my own State are as
big-hearted as any in the Union, and Jack’s money and Billy’s says
that they are!</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_144'></SPAN>144</span>“I’m
going to return some of that kindness, Aunt Emmy. There are two little boys near
Riverburgh whose father is dead and who are trying to do the farm work of men.
They are going to a good school this winter, and there are a few other people
who are going to be surprised! By Jove, I never realized what money was for
until now! But best of all, I found Lou!”</p>
<p>“And what makes you so sure that I am going to adopt her and educate
her and bring her out?” demanded Aunt Emmy. “My dear boy, when you
started on this Canadian fishing trip of yours I knew that something
extraordinary would come of it, but I did not anticipate anything so bizarre as
this! Why do you think that I will interest myself in this child?”</p>
<p>“Because you won’t be able to help it.” His face had
sobered, and there was a note in his voice that his aunt had never heard before.
“You won’t be able to help loving her when you find out how
courageous she is, and sincere and true! She is the biggest-hearted, most
candid, na�ve little─”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_145'></SPAN>145</span>“She is
quite that!” Aunt Emmy interrupted in her turn, with emphasis. “How
I am ever to hide her away until I’ve had her coached not to drop her
g’s, and to realize that there is a ‘u’ in the alphabet I
don’t know, but I’ll try. James–I think there are distinct
possibilities there.”</p>
<p>“I knew it!” Jim cried. “I knew you wouldn’t be able
to resist her! For the Lord’s sake, Aunt Emmy, don’t let them spoil
her! She’s so sweet and simple-hearted, don’t let them make her
cynical and worldly-wise! I’ll promise not to speak to her, not to let her
know how I feel until you say that I may.”</p>
<p>“Will you, James?” There was a faint smile about the delicately
lined lips. “She is a child in many ways, a blank page for most
impressions to be made upon, but in other things she is very much of a woman,
and I rather fancy that what you have to tell her will not be so much of a
surprise.”</p>
<p>“You old dear!” Jim sprang to his feet and folded his aunt in his
embrace which threatened her coiffure. “Where is she?”</p>
<p>“In the library waiting for you, Jamie!”</p>
<p><span class='pagenum pncolor'><SPAN name='page_146'></SPAN>146</span>She used the old
nursery name, and caught his arm. “She is very young, but the heart
sometimes breaks easily then. Don’t speak unless you yourself are very
sure.”</p>
<p>Jim smiled, and throwing back his head looked straight into the kindly old
eyes. Then without a word he turned and disappeared through the door.</p>
<hr style='border:none; border-bottom:1px solid silver; height: 1px; width: 80%; text-align: center; margin: 10px auto;' />
<p>“And you’re going to be happy here?” It was some time later
when Jim had explained about the wager, and they were sitting together in the
window-seat.</p>
<p>“Happy? Why, Jim, I can’t believe I’m awake! I’m
going to study an’ work an’ try my best to be like her. Seems to me
it’ll take the rest of my life, but she says that in a year or two there
won’t anybody hardly tell the difference.”</p>
<p>“And then, Lou, when the time is past? What then?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know.” Her tone was serenely unconcerned.</p>
<p>“That trail we’ve followed together for the <span class='pagenum
pncolor'><SPAN name='page_147'></SPAN>147</span>last week wasn’t so bad, was
it?” he asked. “You were happy in spite of the hardships?”</p>
<p>“It was wonderful!” She drew a deep breath. “I–I wish
we could start again, Jim, and do it all over again, every step of the
way!”</p>
<p>“If you feel like that, dear, perhaps some day when you have finished
your studies we will start again on a longer trail.” He took one of the
little toil-worn hands in his. “The long, long trail, Lou, only we will be
together! When that day comes, will you take the new road with me?”</p>
<p>She bowed her head, and somehow he found it nestling in the hollow of his
shoulder, and his arms were about her. After a long minute, she stirred and
smiled.</p>
<p>“Well–” she hesitated. “You knew from the very
beginning, Jim, that I’d do anything once!”</p>
<div class='center'>
<p class='center'>THE END</p>
</div>
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