"Come out of that corn!" A loud, harsh voice cut across David's
low-spoken speech, made them spring guiltily apart. "I ain't going to
stand for no such goings-on on my farm!"
Clem Carson had prowled like an angry, frustrated animal, through the
fields until he had spied them out.
David and Sally had been sitting at the end of the corn field, in plain
sight of anyone who cared to spy upon them. When Clem Carson's harsh
bellow startled them out of their innocent confidences David jumped to
his feet, offering a hand to Sally, who was trembling so that she could
scarcely stand.
"We're not in the corn, Mr. Carson," David called, his voice vibrating
with indignation. "I'll have to ask you to apologize for what you said,
sir. There's no harm in two young people watching the moon rise at ten
o'clock."
Carson came striding out of the corn. David, feet planted rather far
apart, looked as if he were braced for attack, and the farmer, after an
involuntary shrinking toward the shelter of the corn, advanced again, an
apologetic smile on his brown face.
"Reckon I spoke hasty," he conceded, "but Jim said he seen you two
young-uns sneaking off into the corn and it got my dander up. I'm
responsible to the orphanage for Sally, and I don't aim to have her
going back in disgrace. Better get back to the house, Sally, and go to
bed, seeing as how you've got to be up at half-past four in the morning.
You stay back a minute, Dave. I want to have a little talk with you."
"I'm taking Sally to the house, Mr. Carson," David said grimly.
On the walk back to the house there was no opportunity for David to
reassure the frightened, trembling girl, for Carson plowed doggedly
along behind them as they walked single file between the rows of corn.
When they reached the kitchen, where Mrs. Carson was setting great pans
of yeast bread to rise on the back of the range, Sally ran to the
stairs, not pausing for a good-night.
Ten or fifteen minutes later, while she was sitting on the edge of her
cot-bed, she heard David's firm step on the back stairs, and knew that
he had cut short the farmer's "little talk" with him. Reckless of
consequences she slipped out of her door, which she had left ajar, and
crept along the dark hall to David's door.
He did not see her at first, for she was only a faint blur in the dark,
but at her whispered "David!" he paused, his hands groping for hers.
"It's all right, honey," he whispered. "I told him point-blank if he
sent you back to the Home I'd leave, too. And that will hold him,
because he can't do without me at this busy season. He couldn't get
another hand right now for love or money, and he knows it. Go to sleep
now, and don't worry."
The next morning at breakfast it was plainly evident that David had said
one or two other things to Clem Carson, and that he in turn had passed
them on to Pearl. For Pearl's eyes bore traces of tears shed during the
night, and the high color of anger burned in her plump cheeks. Carson's
anger and chagrin at losing all his hopes of David as a son-in-law and
of acquiring, through his marriage to Pearl, the neighboring farm for
his daughter, expressed itself in heavy "joshing," each word tipped with
venom:
"Well, well, how's our Sally this morning? What do you know about this,
Ma?--our little 'Orphunt Annie' is stepping out! Yes, sir, she ain't
letting no grass grow under her feet! Caught herself a feller, she has!"
"Eat your breakfast, Clem, and let Sally alone," Mrs. Carson commanded
impatiently. "She's old enough to have a feller if she wants one."
Tears of gratitude to the woman she had thought so stern gushed into
Sally's eyes, so that she could not see to butter the hot biscuit she
held in her shaking hands.
"She's cut you out, Pearl, beat your time all hollow! And looking as
meek and mild as a Jersey heifer all the time! I tell you, Ma, it takes
these buttery-mouthed little angels to put over the high-jinks!"
"I'm sure I wouldn't have looked at a hired man," Pearl cried angrily,
tossing her head. "Sally's welcome to him. But I can't say I admire
_his_ taste."
Sally's eyes, drowned in tears, fluttered toward David.
"Don't you think you're going pretty far, Mr. Carson?" David asked
abruptly.
"No offense, no offense," Carson protested hastily, with a chuckle that
he meant to sound conciliatory. "I'm a man that likes his joke, and it
does strike me as funny that a fine, upstanding college man like you,
due to come into property some day, should cotton to a scared little
rabbit of an orphan like Sally here--"
"That'll do, Clem!" Mrs. Carson interrupted sharply. "Get ahead with
your breakfast and clear out, all of you! Sally and me have got a big
day's work ahead of us. Pearl, I want you to drive to Capital City for
some more Mason jars for me. I'm all out."
Later, when Sally was washing dishes, Pearl bounced into the kitchen,
dressed for her trip to the city, her arms full of soiled white shoes,
stockings and silk underwear.
"Sally," she said, her voice like a whip-lash, "I want you to clean
these shoes for me today and wash out these stockings and underwear. See
that you do a good job, or you'll have to do it over."
Sally, raking the suds from the dishpan off her arms and hands, accepted
the pile of garments dumbly, but resentment gushed hotly in her throat.
"I've got enough work laid out for Sally to keep her busy every minute
today," Mrs. Carson rebuked Pearl sharply. "Why can't you do your own
cleaning, Pearl?"
"Because I've got a luncheon date and a matinee in town today, and I
need these things for tonight. I'm going to a party at the Mullins'
Goodby, Mom. Two dozen jars enough?"
When Sally was again bent over the dishpan she heard the little old
grandmother's uncertain, quavering voice:
"It ain't fair, Debbie, the way you let Pearl run over Sally. She's a
nice, polite-spoken little girl, the best worker I ever see."
"I know, Ma," Mrs. Carson answered in so kind a voice that fresh tears
swam in Sally's eyes. "Pearl's been spoiled. But I'm too busy now to
take it out of her. I wonder, Ma, if you couldn't rip up them other two
dresses that Pearl gave Sally? The child really ain't got a thing to
wear. If you'll just rip the seams, I'll stitch 'em myself at night, if
I ain't too tired."
Sally whirled from the dishpan, stooped swiftly and laid her lips for an
instant upon Mrs. Carson's hand. Then, flushing vividly, she ran back to
the kitchen sink, seized the big flour-sack dish towel and began to
polish a glass with intense energy.
Although Mrs. Carson made no comment on Sally's shy caress, the girl
felt that from that moment the farmer's wife was her friend, undeclared
but staunch.
Knowing that any day might prove to be her last on the farm, for Carson
never let slip an opportunity to threaten her by innuendo with the
disgrace of being sent back to the Home, Sally found a ray of comfort in
the fact that Grandma Carson, probably because she felt sorry for Sally,
constantly hectored as she was by the jealous, vicious-tongued Pearl,
was slowly but surely completing the necessary alterations upon the
other two dresses that Pearl had given her.
The vague-eyed, kindly little old woman finished the alterations on
Saturday morning, and Sally sped to her garret room with them, there to
try them on and gloat over them. Then, her eyes darting now and then to
the closed door, she hastily made a bundle of the three new dresses and
hid it under the cornshuck mattress of her bed. Maybe it would be
stealing to take the dresses if she had to run away, but she couldn't
hope to escape in the orphanage uniform--
Early Saturday afternoon Mrs. Carson announced that she had to go into
the city to do some shopping. The farmer suggested that Pearl drive her
in, since he himself was to be busy setting up the cider mill in a shack
he had built at the foot of the lane, where it ran into the state
highway.
"And you might as well take the Dodge and let Ma and Benny go in with
you. They haven't seen a picture show for a month," Carson suggested.
The thought of seeing a movie overcame Sally's timidity. "Would there be
room for me, Mrs. Carson? I could help you with your shopping, help
carry things--"
"I don't see why not," Mrs. Carson answered. "I got a lot of trotting
around to do and it's mighty hot--"
"Mama, if she goes, I won't go a step," Pearl burst out shrilly. "I
won't have her tagging after us all afternoon, making eyes at every man
that speaks to me!"
"Pearl, Pearl, I'm afraid you're spoiled rotten!" Mrs. Carson shook her
head sadly. "I'll bring you a pair of them fiber silk stockings, Sally,
to wear to church tomorrow night with your flowered taffeta," she
offered brusquely, by way of consolation.
When the car had swept down the lane and Sally was left alone in the
house, she busied herself furiously in an effort to dissipate her
loneliness and disappointment, and a fear that grew upon her with the
realization that Carson had not accompanied his family to town. The two
hired men had left the farm for Capital City, immediately after the noon
meal, wages in their pockets, bent on an afternoon and evening of city
pleasures. On the entire farm there was no one but herself, Carson and
David. And where was David? If she needed him terribly, would he fail
her?
As the afternoon wore on, and still Carson did not appear, Sally's
gratitude for Mrs. Carson's inarticulate kindness sent her on a flying
trip to the orchard to gather enough hard, sour apples to make pies for
supper. Carson, she began to hope, was so busy setting up the cider mill
that he would have no time to take her back to the orphanage, even if he
wanted to. Maybe she was safe for a while; she would not run away just
yet, for if she ran away she would never see David again--
It was fun to have the whole big kitchen to herself. Humming under her
breath, she cut chilled lard into well-sifted flour, using the full
amount that Mrs. Carson's pie crust called for. At the orphanage the pie
crust was tough and leathery, because the matron would not permit the
cook to use enough lard. What joy it was to cook on a prosperous farm,
where there was an abundance of every good thing to eat! If only she
could stay the whole summer through! She could stand the hard work....
As she piled the sliced apples thickly into the crimped pie crust, she
thought wistfully of Mrs. Carson, who was kind to her although she was a
hard taskmistress.
"Maybe," Sally reflected sadly, dusting around nutmeg over the thickly
sugared apples, "if I could stay on here, Mrs. Carson would want to
adopt me. But of course Pearl and Mr. Carson wouldn't let her. They hate
me because David likes me and won't marry Pearl. And I like David better
than anybody in the world," she confessed to herself, as the pink in her
cheeks deepened. "But I would love to have a mother, even if it was only
a ready-made mother. I wonder why some girls have everything, and others
nothing? Why should Pearl have a mother who just spoils her past all
enduring? Pearl isn't good--she isn't even good to her mother."
When her three big apple pies were in the oven, she washed the bread
bowl in which she had mixed her pie crust; washed and dried vigorously
the big yellow pine board and rolling pin, and restored them to their
proper places. Then, feeling very useful and virtuous, she set the table
for supper, singing little scraps of popular songs which she had heard
over the radio during her week on the farm.
By that time her pies were baked to a deep, golden brown, with little
glazed blisters across their top crusts.
"If I do say it myself," she said, in her little old-woman way, her head
cocked sideways as she surveyed her handiwork, "those are real pies. I
hope Mrs. Carson will be surprised and pleased."
Then, because she was very tired and the late afternoon sun was making
an inferno of the kitchen, Sally climbed the steep back stairs to the
garret, intending to take a cooling sponge bath and a short nap before
the family returned, hungry for supper. She was about to pass David's
door when his voice halted her:
"That you, Sally? I've been enjoying your singing, even if I did spend
more time listening than studying."
She went involuntarily toward him. "I didn't know you were up here,
David," she told him. "I'm sorry I interrupted your studying. I wouldn't
have sung if I'd known you were up here."
The boy was seated at a small pine table, covered with books and papers,
but as she advanced hesitatingly into the room he rose.
"Come on in," he invited hospitably. "Wouldn't you like to see my books?
Some of them are fascinating--full of pictures of prize stock and model
chicken farms and champion egg-laying hens and things like that. Look,"
he commanded snatching up a book as if eager to detain her. "Here's a
picture of a cow that my grandfather owns. She holds the state record
for butter-fat production. Her name's Beauty Bess--look!"
Sally, without a thought as to the impropriety of being in a man's
bedroom, slipped into the chair he was holding for her and bent her
little braid-crowning head gravely over her book.
"I'm going to stock the farm with nothing but pedigreed animals when
it's mine," David told her, enthusiastically. "Look, here's the kind--"
And he bent low over her, so that his arm was about her shoulder as he
riffled the pages of the book, seeking the picture he wanted her to see.
A sudden gust of wind, presaging a summer shower, slammed the door shut,
but the two were so absorbed they did not hear the faint click of the
lock. Nor did they hear, a little later, the sound of the stealthy,
futile turning of the knob, the retreat of carefully muted footsteps.
David was bending low over Sally, his cheek almost touching hers,
excitedly expounding the merits of crop rotation, and pointing out
text-book confirmation of his theories, when sudden, evil words shocked
their attention from the fascinations of the agricultural text-book:
"Caught you at last! Thought you was mighty slick, didn't you?--locking
the door! I've a good mind to whip you every step of the way back to the
orphan asylum, you lying, nasty little--" Carson's voice, hoarse with
anger and exultation over his coming revenge upon the girl who had dared
jeopardize his daughter's happiness, stopped with a gasp upon the evil
word he had spat out, for his shoulders, as he tried to wriggle into the
room from the small window, were stuck in the too-narrow frame.
If the wind had not been roaring about the house, banging branches of
shade trees against the sloping roof upon which David's window looked,
they would necessarily have heard his approach, but as it was they were
totally unprepared for the sight of his head and shoulders and breast,
framed in the window, his glittering black eyes fixed upon them with
evil exultation.
Sally struggled to her feet as David leaped toward the window. She had a
fleeting glimpse of his rage-distorted young face, his lips snarled back
from his teeth.
"David! Don't, David!" she cried, her voice a high, thin wail of
terror--terror for David, not for Carson.
"You're not fit to live, Carson," David's young voice broke in its rage,
but there was no faltering in the power behind the blow which crashed
into the farmer's face.
Sally, sinking to her knees in her terror, heard the rending sound of
flimsy timber giving way, then the more awful noise of a big body
sliding rapidly down the roof. She half fainted then, so that when David
tried to lift her to her feet she swayed dizzily against him, her eyes
dazed, her ashen lips hanging slackly.
"Can you hear me, Sally?" David's voice, a little tremulous with awe at
that which he had done, came like a series of loud claps in her ears.
She clung to him weakly, her eyes glancing fearfully from the window to
his set, pale young face. Then she nodded slowly, like a child awakening
from a nightmare.
"I think I've killed him, Sally. He hasn't made a sound since he crashed
to the ground." David's hazel eyes were as wide as hers, and almost as
frightened.
"You did--that--for me?" Sally whispered. "Oh, David, what are we going
to do?" She began to cry then, in little, frightened whimpers, but her
blue eyes, swimming in tears, never left his face.
The boy squared his shoulders as if to prepare them for a great burden,
and in that instant he seemed to grow older. Color came slowly back to
his bronzed cheeks, but his lips shook a little as he answered:
"We've got to run away, Sally, before the family comes home. I hate to
leave him--down there--if he's only hurt. But I'll be damned if I stay
here and get us both sent to jail just to ease a pain that that beast,
if he isn't dead, may be having! Oh, God, I hope I didn't kill him! I
just went crazy when he called you that name--Will you come, Sally, or
do you want to stay and face them with me? Whatever's best for you--"
Sally Ford did not hesitate for a moment. Her blue eyes were full of
trust and adoration as she answered: "I'll go with you, David. I knew
I'd have to run away. I'm all packed."
"All right." David spoke rapidly. "I'll fix up a small bundle, too. You
get your things and leave the house as quickly as possible. Cut across
the orchard to the cornfield and wait for me where we were sitting the
other night. I'll join you almost by the time you get there. But I want
you to leave first, just in case they come back before I can get away.
Now, run!"
Sally obeyed, somehow forcing her muscles to carry out David's commands,
but the tears were coming so fast that she bumped unseeingly into apple
and peach trees as she ran through the orchard, the brown paper parcel
of clothes clutched tightly to her bosom. Twice she dashed the tears
from her eyes, glanced fearfully about, and listened, but she saw and
heard nothing. The sun was getting low in the west, slanting in golden,
dust-laden beams through the rows of apple trees.
When she reached the shelter of the corn stalks she went more slowly,
for her heart was pounding sickeningly. Just before she reached the end
of the field she paused, opened her bundle with shaking hands, drew out
the dark blue linen dress and put it on over the blue-and-white gingham
uniform of the orphanage. She was re-tying her bundle when she caught
the faint sound of footsteps running toward her between rows of corn.
David was hatless. His eyes were wide, unsmiling, but his lips managed
an upturning of the corners to reassure her.
"Sorry--to be--so long," he panted. "But I telephoned a doctor that
Carson had been--hurt--and asked him to come over. I didn't answer when
he asked who was calling. Told him Carson had slipped from the roof."
"I'm awfully glad you did, David. It was like you. Shall we go now?"
David looked down at her in wonder, and his eyes and lips were very
tender. "What a brave kid you are, Sally! What a darn _nice_ little
thing you are! But I've been thinking hard, honey. We can't run away
together--far, that is. I'll have to take you back to the Home."
"No, David, no, no! I can't go back to the orphanage! I'd rather die!"
Sally gasped.
David dropped his bundle, took her hands and held them tightly. "I can't
run away from this thing I've done, Sally. I'm sorry. I thought I could.
I'm going to give myself up, after I've seen you safely back to the
Home. I'll explain to your Mrs. Stone, make her believe--"
"Oh!" Sally breathed in a gust of despair. Then, stooping swiftly, she
snatched up her bundle and began to run down a corn row. She ran with
the fleetness of a terror-stricken animal, and David watched her for a
long moment, his eyes dark with pity and uncertainty. Then he gave
chase, his long legs clearing the distance between them with miraculous
speed. He caught up with her just as she was at the edge of the
cornfield, recklessly about to plunge into the lane that led to the
Carson house.
"Wait, Sally!" he panted, grasping her shoulder. "You can't run away
alone like this--Oh Lord!" he groaned suddenly. "There they come! Don't
you hear the car turning in from the road? Come back, Sally!"
He did not wait for her to obey, but lifted her into his arms, for she
had gone limp with terror, and ran, crouching low so that the cornstalks
would hide them.
"Lie flat on the ground," David said sternly, as he set her gently upon
her feet. "We can't leave here now. The place will be swarming with
people. But when it's dark we'll slip away, across fields. Thank God,
there'll be no moon."
He flattened his own body upon the soft earth, close against the thick,
sturdy cornstalks. They did not talk much for they were listening,
listening for faint sounds coming from the farmhouse which would
indicate that the dreadful discovery had been made.
Long minutes passed and nothing had happened. Then the muffled roar of
another motor, turning into the lane from the state highway, told them
that the doctor to whom David had telephoned was arriving. It seemed
hours before a scream floated from the house to the cornfield.
"Pearl!" Sally whispered, shivering. "They hadn't found him. The doctor
told them. Oh, David!"
His hand tightened so hard upon hers that she winced. A little later
they heard Mrs. Carson's harsh voice calling, calling--"Sally! Sal-lee!
Sally Ford!"
Sally bowed her head upon David's hand then, and wept a little,
shuddering. "She was--good to me. She--she liked me, David. Oh, I hope
she'll know I didn't mean her any harm, ever!"
The next hour, during which the sun set and twilight settled like a soft
gray dust upon the cornfield, passed somehow. Several cars arrived;
men's voices shouted unintelligible words. Twice Pearl screamed--
But no one came down the corn rows looking for them. "They won't dream
we're still so near the house," David assured her in his low, comforting
voice.
When it was quite dark, David spoke again: "We'll make a break for it
now, Sally. I know this part of the country well. My grandfather's farm
adjoins this one, with only a fence between the two hay meadows. We can
cut across his farm, giving the house and barns a wide berth. Then we'll
strike a bit of timberland that belongs to old man Cosgrove. That will
bring us out on a little-traveled road that leads to Stanton, twenty-two
miles away. Think you can make it, Sally?"
She hugged her bundle tight to her breast and reached for his hand,
which he had withdrawn as he rose to his feet. "Of course," she answered
simply. "I'm not afraid, David."
"You're a plucky kid," David said gruffly. "I'll lead the way. Let me
know if I set too fast a pace."
Buoyed up by his praise, Sally trotted almost happily at his heels. She
refused to let her mind dwell on the horrors of the day, or to reach out
into the future. Indeed, her imagination was incapable of picturing a
future for a Sally Ford whose life was not regulated by orphanage
routine. She held only the present fast in her mind, passionately
grateful for the strong, swiftly striding figure before her, unwilling
for this strange night-time adventure to end.
"Thirsty, Sally?" David's voice called out of the darkness.
Suddenly she knew that she was both thirsty and hungry, for she had not
eaten since the twelve o'clock dinner. A cool breeze was rustling the
leaves of the trees, and under that whispering rustle came the cool,
sweet murmur of a brook. She crouched beside David on the bank of the
tiny stream and thirstily drank from his cupped hands. Then he dipped
his handkerchief in the water and gently swabbed her face, his hands as
tender as Sally had fancied a mother's must be.
The going was more dogged, less mysteriously thrilling when they had at
last reached the dirt road that was eventually to lead them to Stanton,
a town of four or five thousand inhabitants, the town in which the woman
who had brought her twelve years ago to the orphanage had lived. Days
before Sally had memorized the address before destroying the bit of
paper on which Miss Pond, out of the kindness of her heart, had copied
Sally's record from the orphanage files.
Half a dozen times during the apparently interminable trudge toward
Stanton David abruptly called a halt, drawing Sally off the road and
over reeling, drunken-looking fences into meadows or fields for a
terribly needed rest. Once, with his head in her lap, her fingers
smoothing his crisp chestnut curls from his sweat-moistened brow, he
went to sleep, and she knew that she would not have awakened him even to
save herself from the orphanage.
Dawn was bedecking the east with tattered pink banners when the boy and
girl, staggering with weariness and faint with hunger, caught their
first glimpse of Stanton, a pretty little town snugly asleep in the hush
that belongs peculiarly to early Sunday morning. Only the dutiful
crowing of backyard roosters and the occasional baying of a hound broke
the stillness.
"We've got to have food," David said abruptly, as they hesitated
forlornly on the outskirts of the little town. "And yet I suppose the
alarm has been given and the constables are on the lookout for us. We
might stop at a house that has no telephone--they wouldn't be likely to
have heard about Carson--but I don't like to arouse anyone this early on
Sunday morning. There's an eating house next to the station that stays
open all night, to serve train crews and passengers, but more than
likely the station agent has been told to keep a lookout for us."
As he spoke a train whistled shrilly. The two wayfarers stood not a
hundred yards from the railroad tracks where they crossed the dirt road.
Sally instinctively turned to flee, but David restrained her.
"We can't hide from everyone, Sally," he said gently. "I think our best
bet is to act as if we had had nothing to hide. Remember, we've done no
wrong. If Carson is dead, he brought his death upon himself. He deserved
what he got."
Trustingly, Sally gave him her hand, stood very small and erect beside
him as the big engine thundered down the tracks toward them. Her face
was drawn with fatigue but her eyes managed a smile for David. His did
not reflect that brave smile, for they were fixed upon the oncoming
train.
"By George, Sally, it's a carnival train! Look! 'Bybee's Bigger and
Better Show.' I'd forgotten the carnival was coming. Look over there!
There's one of their signs!"
An enormous poster, pasted upon a billboard, showed a nine-foot giant
and a 30-inch dwarf, the little man smoking a huge cigar, seated cockily
in the palm of the giant's vast hand. Big red type below the picture
announced: "Bybee's Bigger and Better Show--Stanton, June 9 and 10. One
hundred performers, largest menagerie in any carnival on the road
today."
"I suppose they're going to spend Sunday here," David remarked. Then he
turned toward Sally, beheld the miracle of her transformed face. "Why,
child, you want to go to the carnival, don't you? Poor little Sally!"
His voice was so tender, so whimsical, so sympathetic, that tears filmed
over the brilliance of her sapphire eyes. "I went to a circus once," she
said with the eager breathlessness of a child. "The governor--he was
running for office again--sent tickets for all the orphans. And, oh it
was wonderful, David! We all planned to run away from the orphanage and
join the circus. We talked about it for weeks, but--we didn't run away.
The girls didn't, I mean, but one of the big boys at the orphanage did
and Ruby Presser, the girl he was sweet on, got a postcard from him from
New York when the circus was in winter quarters. His name was Eddie Cobb
and--oh, the train's stopping, David! Look!"
"Yes." David shaded his eyes and squinted down the railroad track. "This
is a spur of the main road, a siding, they call it. I suppose the
carnival cars will stay here today--"
But for once Sally was not listening to him. She was running toward the
cars, from which the engine had been uncoupled, and as she ran she
called shrilly, joyously, to a young man who had dropped catlike from
the top of a car to the ground:
"Eddie! Eddie Cobb! Eddie!"