Anything Once - Isabel Ostrander (reading tree TXT) 📗

until at sundown the high treble of childish voices came to her ears, and Jim’s merry, laughing tones in reply sent a quick stab through her, but she put down the iron and went determinedly out on the porch.

The two little boys came shyly on up the steps, but Jim had paused to feel of his coat, as it lay on the grass, and looked ruefully at her.

“It’s wet still, I’m afraid,” she remarked composedly, as she picked up the red note-book 94and held it out to him. “Is this yourn? It looks as though it must have dropped out of your pocket an’ somebody stepped on it.”

If the girl noted the swift change which came over his face she gave no sign as he came forward and took the book from her hands.

“Yes, it’s mine.” He opened and closed it again, and then looked up uncertainly into her face as she stood on the steps above him, but Lou was gazing in seeming serenity out over the fields, which were still shimmering in the last rays of the sun. “I–I’ll tell you about this some time, Lou. It’s funny.”

“What’s funny?” she asked, with a little start, as though he had interrupted some train of thought of her own, far removed from hateful little red books.

“If you think it’s goin’ to be funny to travel in wet clothes to-night, just wait till you git started.”

But they did not start upon their journey again that night, after all. Their kindly hostess insisted upon their remaining until the morning, at least, and when the supper 95dishes were cleared away Lou wandered off by herself down the little lane which led to the pasture.

There would be three days more, and then their journey’s end. Upon one thing she had decided: there would be no school for her! She was going to work as quickly as she could find something to do. Mr. James Abbott must be paid back for the little pink-checked frock and the hat with the green bow, and then she would drop from his sight. Surely in that great city, with its hundreds and hundreds of people, she would be able to disappear.

Reaching the pasture, she stood at the gate with her arms resting upon the topmost rail, and was so deep in reflection that she did not hear a step behind her until a hand touched her shoulder, and Jim’s voice asked quietly:

“What are you doing off here by yourself, Lou? Mrs. Bemis didn’t know what had become of you, and I’ve been looking everywhere.”

“I dunno,” Lou answered truthfully enough. “I been thinkin’ ’bout the institootion 96where I come from; it was seein’ them little boys put me in mind of it, I reckon. I was kinder wonderin’ what it would be like to really belong to anybody.”

There was neither pathos nor self-pity in her tone, but rather a cold, dispassionate speculation that froze the words of awkward sympathy which rose to his lips, and he remained silent.

“I did once, you know,” she continued, “belong to some–body, I mean. I had on a white dress all trimmed with lace when they found me in the station at the junction an’ took me up to the institootion; it was the only white dress I ever had.”

“Where was this institution, Lou?” Jim asked. “You’ve never told me, you know.”

Lou shrugged.

“Oh, it was ’way up at a place called Mayfield’s Corners; I was most three hours on the train before I got to the station nearest Hess’s farm.”

A vicious desire came over her to shock and repulse that inexplicable thing in him which set him apart from her and made him one 97with the world in which those others moved; that stout gentleman and the young lady who had called him Jimmie. She added deliberately:

“I told you what I did there–at the institootion, I mean: scrubbed an’ cooked an’ washed an’ tended babies an’ wore a uniform, just like any other norphin, I guess. Slep’ in the garret with the rats runnin’ over the floor, an’ got up in the mornin’ to the same old work. It warn’t a State institootion, you see; just a kind of a charity one, run by the deacons of the church; I ain’t got much use for charity.”

“I shouldn’t think you would have,” he exclaimed. “But it’s all behind you now, Lou. We made fourteen miles to-day from Highvale–or will have when we walk down the hill to Riverburgh to-morrow, and it is only sixty miles further to New York.”

“That’s good,” Lou said, but without enthusiasm. “Do we start at sun-up?”

“I thought I’d like to work for Mrs. Bemis for a couple of hours first and get the hay turned in that south field,” Jim answered. 98“She’s been so good to us, and she’ll need the stuff this winter for those two old plugs out there.”

He pointed out into the pasture, where two horses made mere blotches of deeper shadow beneath a tree.

Lou laughed suddenly, softly, but it seemed to him that the rippling, liquid note had vanished.

“What’s funny?” he asked.

“Oh, nothin’. I was just thinkin’ of you last night in that circus. You rode so–so wonderfully. I wasn’t laughin’ at that, but it just come to me how funny it would have been if any of your friends was to have seen you!”

Jim glanced at her sharply, but in the starlight her face seemed merely amused as at a whimsical thought.

“Why would it have been funny?” he insisted. “Of course I never rode in a real circus before, and I guess I was pretty rotten, but why would my friends have laughed?”

“I dunno.” Lou dropped her arms from the fence-rail and turned away. “Let’s go back to the house. I–I’m pretty tired.”

99CHAPTER VII
Revelations

The next morning was a trying one for them both. Jim felt dully that something was the matter, but the girl’s manner baffled him, and he could not make up his mind as to whether she had glanced in the note-book or not. It did not seem like her to do so deliberately, but if she had he could only make things worse by broaching the subject, since he was not at the moment in a position to explain.

As for Lou, she was trying her best to appear her old self with him, but dissimulation was an art in which she was as yet unversed, and her whole nature rebelled against playing a part. Only her pride kept her from betraying her disappointment in him and running away. She told herself fiercely that he 100didn’t care what she thought of him; they were only partners met by chance on the road, and perhaps never to see each other again after the city was reached.

If he had lied to her about his name that was his own business, and she would not admit even to herself that this deception was not the only reason for the strange, hurt feeling about her heart.

She rose at dawn, and, creeping down from the clean little room which Mrs. Bemis had given her, she had the stove going and breakfast on the table by the time the little family was awake, and Jim appeared from the barn, where he had slept in the loft.

While he worked in the field during the early morning hours, she finished the ironing, and by ten o’clock they were ready once more to start upon their way.

Mrs. Bemis insisted upon paying them both for their work, but it was only out of consideration for her pride that Jim would accept fifty cents of the two dollars she offered him.

“I only work for a quarter a time,” he told 101her gravely. “One for yesterday and one for this morning; my sister can tell you that. I–I would like to write to you if I may when we reach home, Mrs. Bemis. Will you tell me what address will find you? You see, I want to thank you properly for all your kindness to us, and I don’t know whether this is the township of Riverburgh or not.”

“It’s the Stilton post-office,” the little woman stammered. “Of course, I’d like to hear from both of you, but you mustn’t thank me! I don’t know what I should have done without your help with the hay! And your sister, too; I do hope you both find work where you’re going.”

To Lou’s amazement Jim produced the little red note-book and wrote the address carefully in it, adding what appeared to be some figures at one side. Then he thanked their good Samaritan and they took their leave.

“That makes a dollar and ten cents!” he remarked confidentially as he and Lou went down the hill road together toward the bustling little city nestled at the river’s edge. “Quite a fortune, isn’t it?”

102“She gave me a quarter for helping with the ironing, too, so that’s thirty-five that I’ve got.” Lou exhibited a hard knot tied in the corner of her handkerchief. “I couldn’t get all of the egg out of my hat, but it’s good enough. Where do we go from Riverburgh?”

Jim gave a groan of mock despair.

“That’s the dev–I mean, the deuce of it!” he exclaimed. “We’ve got to cross the river there someway, and go on down on the other side. We can’t keep on this, or we will run into New Jersey and–and I mustn’t leave the State.”

He blurted the last out in a dogged, uncomfortable way, but Lou did not appear to notice his change of tone.

“Well, there look to be plenty of boats goin’ back an’ forth,” she observed placidly. “I guess we can get over.”

“But you don’t understand. I–I can’t pay our way over; that’s another of the things I mustn’t do.” Jim flushed hotly.

“I wish I could tell you all about it.”

“It don’t make any difference.” Lou kept her eyes fixed straight ahead of her. “There 103ought to be some way for you to work your way across.”

The road dipped sharply, and became all at once a pleasant, tree-lined street with pretty suburban cottages on either hand. To the east and north hung the smoke cloud of countless factories, but their way led them through the modest residential quarter. The street presently turned into a paved one, and trolley lines appeared; then brick buildings and shops, and before they knew it they were in the busy, crowded business thoroughfare.

Lou would have paused, gaping and wondering if New York could be anything like this, but Jim hurried her down the steep, cobbled way which led to the ferry. Once there, he took her to a seat in the waiting-room.

“Sit here and wait for me,” he directed. “I’m going to run back up to the shops and get some provisions for us to carry along, and then I’ll arrange about getting across. I shan’t be long.”

When he came down the hill again some twenty minutes later laden with packages, he 104found Lou waiting for him at the door of the ferry-house, with a little exultant smile about her lips.

“Come on,” she commanded shortly. “I’ve fixed it for us to get over, but we gotta hurry. The boat’s a’most ready to start.”

“How in the world─” he began, but without deigning to explain she led him to the gate. It was only after he had perforce preceded her that he saw her hand two tickets to the officials at the turnstile.

“Lou!” he exclaimed reproachfully.

“Well, it’s all right, isn’t it?” she demanded. “You kin ride if anybody asks you, can’t you? I’m invitin’ you to ride on this boat with me, Mr. Botts!”

In spite of her assumed gaiety, however, the trip across the river was a silent one, and when the landing was reached and they hurried out of the settlement to the open country once more, both were acutely aware