Anything Once - Isabel Ostrander (reading tree TXT) 📗

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.

“Think it’s a runaway?” Jim rose and 35strained his eyes into the darkness at the farther end of the bridge.

“No; driver’s drunk, maybe,” Lou responded. “The horse’s dead beat an’ he’s lashin’ it on. Listen!”

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.

As though reading his thoughts, Lou remarked:

“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.”

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.

The light wagon hit the bridge with a 36bounce 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.

“It’s Max!” she informed Jim. “You git back behind the mill; you ain’t fit to fight─”

“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.”

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.

“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!”

He approached them with menacingly clenched fists, but Jim asked coldly:

37“Are you addressing this young woman?”

“Young thief, you mean! She’s gotter come─”

But Jim, too, had advanced a pace.

“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.”

“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─”

“Take that back, too, you blackguard!” Jim’s voice was beginning to shake.

“Take nothin’ back, ’cept Lou! What’s she doin’ with you, anyway? Might ha’ knowed she was this sort─”

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! 38Then 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.

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.

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.

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 39victim, and he drew back his heavily shod foot for a murderous kick, but it was never delivered.

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.

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.

“Well,” she remarked with satisfaction. “I guess he got more ’n he come for, an’ we’ve seen the last of him!”

“But Lou!” There was admiration and awe in his tones. “Your method of fighting 40isn’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!”

“Don’t know what queen you’re talkin’ about, nor what rules she made, but when 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.”

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.

41CHAPTER III
The Vendor of Everything

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.

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 42the woods back of the house where she had committed her nocturnal depredation.

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.

“Good morning.” He greeted her with a little bow, and sank down on the rock. “Were you frightened to find yourself left all alone?”

“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!”

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 43check, a cheap straw hat, and a remnant of green ribbon.

“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─”

She halted suddenly and lowered her eyelashes, adding:

“But you hadn’t any call to buy them for me; I can’t pay you back right now.”

Jim’s reply was irrelevant.

“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.”

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? 44What 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.

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.

“My, you look nice!” he said cheerfully. “I’ve brought some rolls from─”

“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!”

They breakfasted gaily, drinking the remainder of the milk first and then boiling the 45eggs 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.

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.

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.

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 46Jim’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.

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:

TRAVELING DEPARTMENT STORE

BENJ. PERKINS

A genial-looking