The morning dawned with a luminous pink in the east and a sudden
twitter of birds. April, and four o’clock in the morning; asleep in a
hammock under a tree. What could be more perfect?
Joyce, half conscious of the wonder all about her, had come to life
with the first bird, and a sense of peace upon her. The daylight
was coming and God had kept her. She might go on her way now and be
undisturbed. Then a stab of pain at the memory of the night before
brought her further awake. A low flying bird almost brushed her cheek
with its wing, and the petals of the apple blossoms drifted down in her
face. Such exquisite perfume, such melody of many throats, would it be
something like this when one wakened in heaven and heard the voices of
the angel songs?
Beyond her sheltering tree the dim outlines of the old house loomed
gently in the gray morning, such peace and safety all about. How good
to be resting here.
But Julia Hartshorn’s niece had picked out this especial morning to
get up early and do some house cleaning before going to school, and
just as Joyce was allowing herself to drift off again into drowsiness
Jane Hartshorn’s alarm clock set up such a clang into the melody of
the morning that Joyce came to herself in terror and sat up looking
fearfully toward the house. Not for anything would she have them
discover her there. She must get up and get out before the light. She
must hasten now for some one was evidently going to arise at once, and
it was not safe to remain another second.
Hastily she felt for her handbag, realized that she had only one book
instead of two, groped in the darkness for her hat which had fallen to
the ground, and slid softly out of the hammock.
A glance toward the house showed a light in one of the upper windows
and in a panic she stole breathlessly from bush to bush and from
shadow to shadow till she reached the gate and the high road. Then a
new fear overtook her. She would run the risk of meeting early milk
carts, perhaps stray tramps if she walked along through the village.
Some one might recognize her. It would not do at this early hour in
the morning. Where could she hide until a respectable hour for a young
woman to be out alone? How could she explain her presence there? For
she was not one of the modern girls who go where they please and let
people think what they like. She had been taught that there was a
certain consideration for one’s reputation that was right and perfectly
consistent with independence. One of the precepts that Aunt Mary had
ingrained into her nature had been that good old Bible verse, “Let
not your good be evil spoken of” and she had grown up with a sane and
wholesome idea of values that helped immensely when she came to a
crisis anywhere.
She hurried down the road which would presently merge into the village
street, as noiselessly as possible, and cast about for a possible
retreat. Then she came to a low rail fence skirting a pasture. The
breath of the cows came sweetly in the gray dawn, mingled with the
smell of earth and growing things. She could look across a wide
expanse to wooded hills several miles away. There seemed to be no
buildings to suggest the presence of humans, and cows were safe
friends--at least most of them. She could keep close to the fence and
climb if there happened to be a bull in the lot. With a hasty glance
backward and each way she climbed the fence and dropped into the
pasture, skirting along its edge, and down away from the street. It
was still too dark for her to be visible from the road, and she would
surely find somewhere to sit down and wait until a respectable hour.
She made her way safely through two pastures, stumbling now and then
over the clumps of violets, or little hillocks of grass, but the meadow
was for the most part smooth with the cropping of the cows, and it was
growing lighter all the time.
In the second pasture the ground dipped till it came to a little
rivulet tinkling along over bright pebbles, and giving an absurdly
miniature reflection of the dawn in pink and gold as it ran; and here,
under a great old chestnut tree, she dropped down and looked about her.
Off to the right perhaps half a mile away there was a red barn, and
house beyond it with smoke coming from the chimney. Farther away a
village church spire rose among the trees. It was all so quiet and
peaceful with the first tinge of red light from the sunrise putting a
halo upon everything. Joyce never remembered having been out at this
hour before, all alone with the spring. The fear of the night before
had fled and it was as if she were sitting safe watching God make a new
day. She wondered as the miracle of the sun began to appear in a great
ruby light, what this day would bring forth for her. It hardly seemed
real to her yet, what she had passed through since she left home. The
experience in the cemetery was like an awful dream. She shuddered
to think of it. Was it because an old friend had fallen from a high
pedestal where she had placed him many years ago? Was it because a
nameless fear hovered about her, and she could not bear to search out
in her mind what he might have been doing? Whatever it was she realized
that she must put it away until she had time and privacy. There were
more important things to decide now and she must keep her poise and
plan her day. It would soon be light enough for her to go upon her way
and she must know where she was going and what she should try to do.
In the first place she must find out how much money she had with her.
She had very little of her own any way in change, and in her hurry she
was afraid she might have left that behind. She opened her handbag and
turned it carefully upside down in her lap, quickly sorting out its
contents, the lace, the handkerchiefs and the little trinkets in one
pile, the papers and letters in another, and oh, joy, she had brought
her purse. She opened it quickly to assure herself of its contents.
Yes, there was the gold piece that she had been saving so long, the
precious gold piece that had been a present from her own mother when
she was a tiny girl. Ten dollars had seemed a great sum when she was
small and Aunt Mary had encouraged her to keep it and use it for
something nice that she would like to keep always as a gift from her
mother. That she would not use except as a last resort. She snapped the
little inner pocket shut and turned to the next compartment, counting
the pennies and dimes and half dollars and quarters carefully. There
were three dollars and sixty-five cents, the change from the five
dollar bill with which she paid for her gloves to wear to the funeral.
Last she opened the little strapped pocket that held her bills. She
had been carefully hoarding her last month’s allowance, and the few
dollars saved from the months before to get a new coat and some things
she would need for the winter in case she passed her examinations and
got a school to teach. But she had been obliged to dip into her savings
several times just before Aunt Mary died, and afterward to get things
for Aunt Mary that Eugene did not think of or consider necessary, and
now she was not sure just how much she had left. She counted, slowly,
one ten dollar bill, three fives, a two dollar bill, nine ones, and two
silver dollars. It looked a lot as she went over it again to make sure,
thirty-eight dollars, and with the three sixty-five it made forty-one
dollars and sixty-five cents. Of course the ten dollar gold piece made
it fifty-one in all, but she was not counting that. That was to be
saved at all hazards for the thing that she wanted most as a gift from
her mother. Not unless life itself were endangered would she touch it,
she resolved.
But forty-one dollars ought to keep her if she were careful until she
could earn more. It didn’t look a lot when one considered that she was
starting in the world, but just suppose she hadn’t anything. Girls had
been in a predicament like that before. God was good to her. She would
have to save every cent carefully, and get a job of some sort at once.
She must not waste a day. Jobs were not easy to find, either, when one
could give no references. She would not dare give references because
somehow Eugene would make things unpleasant for her. No one must find
out where she was. She realized that Eugene and Nannette felt that they
had a good thing in her to do their work and look after the children,
while they went around and had a good time, and that they would not
easily let her go. They would not stop at talking a little against her
if by so doing they could lose her a job and bring her back to take
care of them. This conclusion had been forcing itself upon her for
some time slowly, and had been fully revealed by their actions of the
day before. She did not want to make any trouble, nor any talk in the
town, but she was fully resolved not to go back to them. She felt that
if Aunt Mary were here now, in the light of all the things that had
been said to her since the funeral, she would not advise her to remain
there. Indeed, there had been hints now and then before Aunt Mary was
so sick, such as “If you should ever consider it advisable not to live
with Gene and Nan, dear,” or “You can’t tell what may develop when you
get to teaching. I know Nan isn’t easy to get along with--.” But these
were only hints, and Aunt Mary had expected to get well. They all had
expected her to, until the last three weeks of her illness. Joyce had
shrunk from talking about the possibilities of death, and so it seemed
had Aunt Mary. After all, it was her responsibility now, and she was
doing what seemed the best for all. She could never live in Eugene’s
house. Her breath seemed stifled. How could she study and have her
light watched every night? How could she be hampered in her comings
and goings if she were to earn her own living? No, she had been right
to come away. Perhaps the break might have been done more formally,
not precipitated in such a headlong way, that was her greatest fault
to jump headlong into a situation, but even so it would likely have
been harder. She could hear even now the long arguments before she had
brought the Masseys to her viewpoint. Indeed she doubted if she would
ever have brought them there, or have been allowed to go away if they
had really thought she meant it. She was half surprised at herself
that she was really gone from home so easily, half expected to have
Gene walk to her out of the dim of the morning and order her home. She
remembered then for the first time that Gene had been fuming about the
delay in the reading of the will and likely she ought to have remained
until after that out of respect to her aunt, but after all, if Aunt
Mary had been going to leave her something, some furniture or a little
bit of money, while it would have been nice to have it, it would only
have gendered more strife. Why not let Gene have it all? That would
likely compensate for the loss of her service in the family, and it
would have been hard to stay there and see Nan turn Aunt Mary’s house
upside down, perhaps sell or dispose of some of the dear old things
that had grown precious through the years. It was just as well that she
was gone before it came up at all. When she was settled in some nice
place and everything fully assured she would write some letters to her
old friends and to Gene and Nan and tell them where she was so that
there would be no talk about her going. And she knew Nan well enough
to be sure that until such time as they heard from her Nan would cover
her going by some clever story of a visit to friends. She thought that
it would not be more than a few days before she was in a position to
write.
Having settled her finances she took up the pile of papers and letters,
tied them in a neat packet and bestowed them in the pocket of her serge
dress. She was like a bird let out of a cage. She could not go back,
not while the sunshine of the new day was coming, not even if it grew
dark and lowering. She would rather quiver in the heart of her own tree
than be caged again for the pleasure of others and obliged to sing
whether she felt like it or not.
As she reached this decision and put the little packet of letters
firmly in her pocket a ray of sun reached out a warm finger and touched
her hair, and she realized that the day was come and she must soon go
on her way. Hastily she went through the other things in her lap. The
trinkets and lace she folded into a handkerchief and pinned it inside
her dress. Having thus lightened her handbag she set about making a
meagre toilet.
The brook was at hand, sparkling and clear, in which to wash her face,
and she had a tiny mirror in her bag to tidy her hair. By way of
breakfast until she could do better she folded one of the examination
question papers into a cup and drank a long, sweet draught.
While she was setting her hat straight, far in the distance she heard
a humming sound, and for the first time she noticed the poles and
wires of a trolley line perhaps half a mile away over the fields. Sure
enough! That was the new trolley line that had just been completed.
She could ride on it as far as it went and then walk to another line
perhaps. Somehow now that she was away she wanted to go far enough away
from home to be really in a new atmosphere, where people would not find
her and tell the Masseys about her. She must get at least a hundred
miles away from home, perhaps more, or it would be no use going at all.
Yet she dared not take much of a ride on the train, it would eat into
her small hoard too much and leave her nothing to get started on when
she found a new home. But a trolley! One could go a good many miles
for five cents. She strained her eyes to watch for the car and soon
spied it, a black speck moving from the east, growing momently larger
and more distinct against the brightness of the morning. There would
likely be another one going in the opposite direction soon. Could she
make it across the fields before it came? They would probably run every
half-hour. If she missed this next one it would not be so long to wait
for the next. Was it too early for a girl to board a car in the open
country? She eyed the sun. It could not be more than five o’clock. She
decided to try for it, and picking up her small effects was soon on her
way across the fields.
Fortune favored her, and a car came along soon after she arrived at the
highway. She boarded it and found a seat in the end next to a laborer
with a pickaxe and muddy boots, who was fast asleep and did not even
know when she sat down. Most of the men in the car were laborers and
were nodding drowsily, scarcely looking at one another. She was the
only woman in the car, but they paid no heed to her, and she dropped
back into the seat as the car lurched on its way, thankful that her
hasty glance revealed no acquaintance from Meadow Brook or Heatherdell.
She put her head back against the window and closed her eyes and her
senses seemed to swim away from her. She suddenly realized that she
had had no supper the night before and no breakfast but spring water
that morning. All the strain of the day before and the terrible night
seemed to climax in that moment, and for an instant she felt as if she
were losing her consciousness. Then her will came to the front and she
set her lips and determined to pull through no matter how hard the ride
or how long the fast. She was young and this was her testing. She must
not, she would not faint.
The car stopped for a moment to let on some more tired-looking men
going to their work, and a whiff of spring blew in at her window
fanning her brow. She thought again of the hand of her mother, and
wondered if God were reminding her that He cared, and new strength
seemed to come into her.
She was awakened from a half drowse at the next stop by the sound of a
voice that sent terror through her heart. It was the same hoarse voice
breaking out in raucous laughter that she had heard half subdued in the
graveyard the night before, the one they had called “Kid.”