Towards the east the forest tract was completely burned to the banks of
Codler's Creek. As the wind which had sprung up had driven the fire
westward, there was little danger of the flames pressing nearer than the
creek to Sunrise Cove and The Corners.
Joseph Stagg led the horse out of the water and advised Miss Amanda and
Carolyn May to get into the seat of the buckboard again. Then he set
forth, leading the horse along the narrow beach, while Prince followed
wearily in the rear.
It was a rough route they followed, but the blackened forest was still
too hot for them to pass through, had they been able to find a path.
This was a lonely strip of shore and they saw no living soul but
themselves.
Some trees were still smouldering along the creek banks. They could see
these fires when they crossed the mouth of the stream, for the dusk had
fallen and the flames sparkled like fireflies.
It was a long tramp, and the horse, the dog, and the man were alike
wearied. Carolyn May went fast asleep with her head pillowed in Miss
Amanda's lap.
The latter and Joseph Stagg talked much. Indeed, there was much for them
to say after all these years of silence.
The woman, worn and scorched of face, looked down on the smutted and
sweating man with an expression in her eyes that warmed him to the
marrow. She was proud of him. And the gaze of love and longing that the
hardware merchant turned upon Amanda Parlow would have amazed those
people that believed he had consideration and thought only for business.
In these few hours of alarm and close intimacy the man and the woman had
leaped all the barriers time and pride had set up. Nothing further could
keep Joseph Stagg and Amanda Parlow apart. And yet they never for one
instant discussed the original cause of their estrangement. That was a
dead issue.
The refugees reached The Corners about nine o'clock. Jedidiah Parlow had
hobbled up to the store and was just then organising a party of
searchers to go to the rescue of the hardware dealer and those of whom
he had set out in search.
The village turned out _en masse_ to welcome the trio who had so
miraculously escaped the fire. Aunty Rose's relief knew no bounds. Mr.
Parlow was undeniably glad to see his daughter safe; otherwise, he would
never have overlooked the pitiable state his horse was in. Poor Cherry
would never be the same unblemished animal again.
"Well, I vum" he said to Joseph Stagg, "you done it! Better'n I could,
too, I reckon. I'll take the hoss home. You comin' with me, Mandy?" Then
he saw the burns on the younger man's shoulders and arms. "The good land
of Jehoshaphat! here's work for you to do, Mandy. If you air any sort of
a nurse, I reckon you got your hands full right here with Joe Stagg," he
added, with some pride in his daughter's ability. "Phew! them's
bad-lookin' burns!"
"They are indeed," agreed Aunty Rose.
It was a fact that Mr. Stagg was in a bad state. Carolyn May had
suggested that Aunty Rose would dress his burns, but Miss Amanda would
allow nobody to do that but herself.
When the curious and sympathetic neighbours had gone and Miss Amanda was
still busy making Joseph Stagg comfortable in the sitting-room, Aunty
Rose came out into the kitchen, where she had already bathed and helped
Carolyn May to undress, and where the little girl was now sleepily
eating her supper of bread and milk.
"Well, wonders don't ever cease, I guess," she said, more to herself
than to her little confidant. "Who'd have thought it!"
"Who'd have thought what, Aunty Rose?" inquired Carolyn May.
"Your uncle and Mandy Parlow have made it up," breathed the woman,
evidently much impressed by the wonder of it.
"Yes, indeed!" cried the child. "Isn't it nice? They aren't mad at each
other any more."
"No, I should say they're not," Aunty Rose observed with grimness. "Far
from it. It's a fact! I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it
with my own eyes. They haven't got eyes for anybody but each other."
"Oh! Haven't they, Aunty Rose?" queried Carolyn May with sudden
earnestness.
"I should say not, child! Holding hands in there like a pair of--Well, do
you know what it means, Carolyn May?"
"That they love each other," the child said boldly. "And I'm _so_ glad
for them!"
"So am I," declared the woman, still in a whisper. "But it means changes
here. Things won't be the same for long. I know Joseph Stagg for what he
is."
"What is he, Aunty Rose?" asked Carolyn May in some trepidation, for the
housekeeper seemed to be much moved.
"He's a very determined man. Once he gets set in a way, he carries
everything before him. Mandy Parlow is going to be made Mrs. Joseph
Stagg so quick that it'll astonish her. Now, you believe me, Carolyn
May."
"Oh!" was the little girl's comment.
"There'll be changes here very sudden. 'Two's company, three's a crowd,'
Carolyn May. Never was a truer saying. Those two will want just each
other--and nobody else."
"Oh, Aunty Rose!" murmured the little girl faintly. She had stopped
eating the bread and milk. The housekeeper was too deeply interested in
her own cogitations to notice how the child was being affected by her
speech.
"I've told him a thousand times he should be married," concluded Aunty
Rose. "And if Mandy Parlow's the woman for him, then it's all right.
Whether she is or not, he'll marry her. Jedidiah or a thousand others
couldn't stop Joseph Stagg now. I know what it means with him when he
once makes up his mind.
"But there'll be no room here for anybody but those two, with their
billing and cooing. 'Two's company, three's a crowd.'
"Well, Carolyn May, if you've finished your supper, we'd better go up to
bed. It's long past your bedtime."
"Yes, Aunty Rose," said the little girl in a muffled voice.
Aunty Rose did not notice that Carolyn May did not venture to the door
of the sitting-room to bid either Uncle Joe or Miss Amanda good-night.
The child followed the woman upstairs with faltering steps, and in the
unlighted bedroom that had been Hannah Stagg's she knelt at Aunty Rose's
knee and murmured her usual petitions.
"Do bless Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda, now they're so happy," was a phrase
that might have thrilled Aunty Rose at another time. But she was so deep
in her own thoughts that she heard what Carolyn May said perfunctorily.
With her customary kiss, she left the little girl and went downstairs.
Carolyn May had seen so much excitement during the day that she might
have been expected to sleep at once, and that soundly. But it was not
so.
The little girl lay with wide-open eyes, her imagination at work.
"Two's company, three's a crowd." She took that trite saying, in which
Aunty Rose had expressed her own feelings, to herself. If Uncle Joe and
Miss Amanda were going to be married, _they would not want anybody else
around_! Of course not!
Somewhere, somehow, in listening to older people talk, Carolyn May had
obtained the impression that all couples desired to be by themselves
just as soon as they were married. They had no need nor desire for other
people. Her idea was that the so-called "honeymoon" extended over long,
long months.
"And what will become of me?" thought Carolyn May chokingly.
All the "emptiness" of the last few months swept over the soul of the
little child in a wave that her natural cheerfulness could not
withstand. Her anchorage in the love of Uncle Joe and Miss Amanda was
swept away.
She was going to be alone again. There would be nobody whose right it
was to care for her. With her mother and father drowned in a foreign sea
and Uncle Joe utterly taken up with the "lovely lady" he loved, who was
there to care for Carolyn May?
The heart of the little child swelled. Her eyes overflowed. She sobbed
herself to sleep, the pillow muffling the sounds, more forlorn than ever
before since she had come to The Corners.