The Red Note-Book
For a moment Jim laughed with her; then the seriousness of their
situation was borne in upon him, and his face sobered.
"It's the kind of an omelet that won't come off in a hurry, I'm afraid,"
he said. "How on earth are we going to walk into Riverburgh like this?"
It was the first time that he had appealed to her, and Lou's laughter
ceased also, but her cheerful confidence did not fail her.
"We gotter find some place where we can git cleaned up, that's all," she
replied practically. "Most anybody would let you do that, I guess, if
you told them what happened, an' if you can't ask--why, I kin. Anybody
'cept a mean old thing like that! I s'pose I ought to be sorry that his
wagon's broke an' his eggs are all over us instead of where they was
goin', but I'm not a mite. Long's he wasn't hurt, I'm kinder glad."
"Still, those people in the car ought to have stopped to see the extent
of the damage they had done, even if they did have the right-of-way,"
Jim observed. "The old fellow had his grievance, but he got my goat when
he said he didn't care if your neck was broken or not, and I wouldn't
have helped him if I could."
"'Goat'?" Lou repeated.
Jim had no opportunity to explain, for at that moment a woman in a faded
gingham gown toiled hurriedly over the brow of the hill, and, on seeing
them, stopped, with one hand at her breast.
"Oh!" she gasped. "There's wasn't anyone hurt, was there? I saw the
accident from my porch, and I came just as quick as I could."
Jim explained, and the woman listened, wide-eyed.
"You both come straight along with me," she invited when he had
finished. "I'll lend you some overalls, and you and the little girl can
just sit around while your clothes dry."
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.
The woman left them standing for a minute on the back porch, and then
came out to them, bearing a cake of soap, a towel, and a pair of
overalls and shirt, which, although immaculately clean, bore many
patches and darns, and were deeply creased, as though they had been laid
away a long time.
"Take these down to the barn." She handed them to Jim. "You'll find a
spigot there, and cold water's best for egg-stains. I left some rags in
the empty box-stall that you can use to clean your shoes, and then, if
you'll give me your clothes that you've got on now, I'll soak them and
get them out while the sun's high; corduroy takes a long time to dry."
When Jim had expressed his gratitude and departed for the barn, the
woman led Lou into the kitchen, and, providing her also with clean
garments, she dragged a wash-tub out on the porch.
"I--if you'll let me, I'd like to wash my own things and Jim's." Lou
appeared shyly in the door in a gown several sizes too large for her.
"He'd like it, too, I think, and he can help with the hayin' till the
things git dried out enough, so's we kin go on."
"Oh, would he?" the woman asked quickly. "I'd pay him well if he's
looking for work; I can't get any hands, though I've tried, and the hay
is rotting for want of being turned. I didn't think I'd seen you two
around here before, but I've known old Mr. Weeble always."
"You mean that--that with the egg-wagon? He was givin' us a lift into
Riverburgh; we're just traveling through," Lou added shortly.
"Did he pick you up back near his place?" At Lou's nod the woman
exclaimed: "Then you two haven't had a bite of dinner! You put your
things to soak and I'll go right in the house and get you up a little
something; it's past two."
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.
The girl noticed something else also as he turned for a moment to look
toward the field where the little boys were so valiantly at work; a
red-leather note-book, which she had never known that he carried, bulged
now from the all too small overall-pocket.
"You can bet I'll pitch hay for her till sundown," he declared, when Lou
had explained the situation to him. He dropped beside the tub the bundle
of egg-soaked clothing which he carried, and added: "It is mighty good
of her to do all this for us, isn't it? I tell you, Lou, the credit side
of the list is going up even if it did have a bit of a jolt this
morning, and you're the biggest item on it."
This speech was wholly unintelligible to the girl, but she bent over the
tub without reply, and Jim went on hurriedly, aware that he had made a
slip of some sort.
"I wonder where all the men of the family are? She can't get any
hands----"
"_There_ 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."
The food tasted good, and the little red cloth beneath the dishes was
clean, but the signs of carefully concealed poverty were everywhere
visible to Jim's eyes, and he suspected another reason for the lack of
farm-hands than scarcity of labor. He hurried through his meal, and went
at once to the hay-field, while Lou, after insisting on clearing the
dishes away, went back to the wash-tub, and their hostess returned to
her own belated ironing.
Upon the girl's usually serene brow there was a frown of perplexity as
she worked, and her thoughts were far afield, for in that backward
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.
The other gentleman who had made up the quartet was the one who drove
the car, and her quick glance showed her that he was even then trying to
avoid the crash.
The details had been photographed upon her brain with instantaneous
clarity, but it was not with these that her thoughts were busied; the
remark which the younger lady had made at the circus just before Jim
rode toward the exit-flap of the curtain had returned and could not be
banished from her mind:
"Didn't he look like Jimmie Abbott?"
Her companion had told the girl that his name was Botts, but beyond
that, and the fact that he was on the way to New York, he had vouchsafed
no further information about himself, nor had Lou asked. She could not
understand why his journey was hedged about with so many silly rules,
nor why he chose to obey them; that was his affair, and he was just a
part of this wonderful adventure which had started with her departure
from the Hess farm.
Yet away down in her heart was a little hurt feeling for which she could
not have assigned a cause even to herself. Of course she trusted him,
and he would not have lied to her, but could there really be another
"Jim" in the world who looked quite like him, and whose name was so
nearly the same?
She had sensed instinctively, and the more clearly perhaps because of
her lack of worldly experience, that he was different, not only from
herself, but from all whom they had encountered upon their journey, yet
could he really be that grand young lady's "Jimmie," after all?
As she stepped aside to lift the basket into which the sodden garments
had fallen from the wringer, her foot chanced to crunch upon something
that yielded with a crisp rustle, and she glanced down. It was the
little red note-book which she had seen in Jim's overall-pocket when he
came from the barn; it must have fallen out as he crossed the porch to
go to the hay-field.
It had opened, and the front cover was pressed back, with the stamp of
her heel, showing plainly upon the first page, and as she stooped slowly
and picked it up Lou could not help reading the three words which were
written across it in a bold, characteristic hand:
JAMES TARRISFORD ABBOTT
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 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.
For the first time in Lou's life a panic seized her, a desperate longing
to run away. She opened her eyes and looked across the hay-fields to
where that tall, stalwart figure worked beside the two smaller ones.
Even from that distance he looked different, somehow; he wasn't the same
Jim.
Slowly, with a mist before her eyes she picked up the heavy basket, and,
descending the steps of the porch, spread the garments upon the
bleaching grass to dry. The glittering glories of the circus had turned
all at once to a black shadow in her memory, and she wished fervently
that she had never seen it nor those rich people who had come to make a
mock of it, but had stayed to applaud Jim.
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.
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 _would_ make herself a place somewhere,
somehow.
Returning to the house, she took the ironing from her tired hostess's
hands, and worked steadily until at sundown the high treble of childish
voices came to her ears, and Jim's merry, laughing tones in reply sent a
quick stab through her, but she put down the iron and went determinedly
out on the porch.
The two little boys came shyly on up the steps, but Jim had paused to
feel of his coat, as it lay on the grass, and looked ruefully at her.
"It's wet still, I'm afraid," she remarked composedly, as she picked up
the red note-book 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."
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 dishes 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 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."
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 with 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. "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."