Kitabı oku: «Dorothy», sayfa 10
CHAPTER XVI
A GOOD SAMARITAN
"Never! Never! I'd rather die right here in the woods!" cried Dorothy, aghast. "Dead or alive that man shall never get me in his power again. But I'm not afraid. God is good to orphan children – He will take care of me – He will, He will!"
In some way she managed to get upon her knees and the next flash of lightning showed her thus, with her face uplifted and her hands clasped, while an agony of supplication was in her wide brown eyes.
Religion was an unknown thing to poor Jim Barlow, whose simple integrity was of nature, not culture. His Sundays had been merely days on which to toil a little harder against the morrow's market, nor had he ever been inside a church. But something in the sight of this child kneeling there in the night and the storm touched an unknown chord of his soul, and before he knew it he was kneeling beside her. Not to pray, as she did, but to hold her firmly, to comfort her by his human touch for this fresh terror he did not understand.
After a moment she turned and sat down again and said just as firmly as before, but quite calmly now:
"If you want to go back you may. I shall not. God will take care of me, even if you leave me all alone. I've asked Him."
"Leave you alone? I hadn't thunk of it. What you mean?"
"You said we must go back. I shall not."
"Pshaw!" It was several seconds before honest Jim could say anything more, but those five letters held a world of meaning. Finally, he was able to add to them and to help her seat herself again on the ground, and he is scarcely to be blamed if he did this with some force. From his point of view Dorothy was stupid. She should have known that he never gave up doing that to which he had set his hand. He had promised to get her back to Baltimore, some way, and he would keep his promise. With another, rather milder "Pshaw!" he explained:
"Go back an' try the road, silly! These cross-cuts are dreadful onsartain. Full o' blackberry bushes an' thorny stuff would hurt a tougher foot 'an yourn. More'n that: shoes made out o' rags an' paper ain't much good in a rain storm. We'll get back to the road. Even that's a long way off, but it's over open medders an' it's so dark nobody won't see us er stop us. It ain't rainin' nigh so hard now. You eat a bite, then we'll try agin."
"Oh! forgive me, Jim Barlow, for thinking you would be so mean. I'll trust you now, no matter what happens, but I don't want to eat. I can't – yet."
"Does your foot hurt bad?"
"Not – not – so very!"
"Well, hold on. I'll break that there sapling off an' make you a stick to help walk on. 'Tother hand you can lean on my shoulder. Now, soon's you say the word we'll go. Not the way we come, but another, slatin'er. Try?"
They stood up: Dorothy with more pain than she would acknowledge, but putting a brave face on the matter, and Jim more anxious than he had ever been about anybody in his life. He didn't speculate as to why all these strange things had come into his life, as Dorothy had done, but he accepted them as simple facts of which he must make the best. The best he could make of this present situation was to get this lamed girl to a public highway as soon as he could. Even that might be deserted now, on a rainy Saturday night, but he hoped for some help there.
"Now – come."
Dorothy made a valiant effort and managed to get ahead a few inches. Then, half-laughing, half-crying, she explained:
"I can't manage it. I can't walk on one foot and drag the other. I – Can't you hide me here, somewhere, and go on by yourself, then send somebody back after me? Would it be safe, do you think?"
"No, 'twouldn't, an' I shan't. If you can't walk – then hop!"
So, resting one hand on his shoulder and the other upon the stick he had broken, the girl – hopped! It was very awkward, very painful, and very slow; but it was only the slowness that mattered. This was exasperating to one whose blood was in a ferment of anxiety to be at her journey's end. Even Jim lost patience after they had gone some distance and stopped short, saying, with a sigh:
"This won't do. I'll have to haul you. You're limpin' worse all the time, an' it'd take a month o' Sundays to travel a mile this gait. Now, whilst I stoop down, you reach up an' put your arms 'round my neck. Make yourself light's you can, an' we'll try it that way a spell. When I gin out we'll wait an' rest. Now ketch hold!"
He took her staff in one hand, stooped his back like a bow, and Dorothy clasped her arms about his shoulders. Then he straightened himself and her feet swung clear of the ground. Fortunately, she was slight and he strong, and for another little while they proceeded quite rapidly. Also, he knew perfectly well the direction he ought to take, even in this darkness of night; and he was accustomed to walking in the fields. Then, suddenly, he had to stop.
"Guess we better rest a spell. 'Twon't do to get all tuckered out first off;" and with that he dumped her on the wet grass, very much as he might a sack of meal. Then he sat down himself, while she merrily cried:
"That's the first time I've been carried pick-a-back since I was ever so little! How splendid and strong you are! Do you suppose we have come half-way yet?"
"Half-way? Pshaw! We ain't got no furder 'an the first half-mile, if so fur. My sake, girls are orful silly, ain't they?"
Dorothy's temper flamed. She felt she had been very brave, for her foot had swollen rapidly and pained her greatly, yet she had suppressed every groan and had made "herself as light as she could," according to Jim's command. Now she would have none of his help. No matter what she suffered she would go on by herself. Then some evil thing tempted her to ask:
"Do you know where you're going, Jim Barlow, anyway?"
And he retorted with equal spirit:
"D' you s'pose I'd haul such a heavy creatur' 's you so fur on a wrong road?"
After which little interchange of amenities, the pair crawled forward again and came at last to a hedge of honeysuckle bordering a wide lane. The fragrance brought back to Dorothy's memory her own one, carefully tended vine in the little garden on Brown Street, and sent a desolate feeling through her heart. Sent repentant tears, also, to her eyes and made her reach her hand out toward her companion, with a fresh apology:
"Jim, I've got to say 'forgive me,' again and – I do say it – yet I hate it. You've been so good and – Smell the honeysuckle! My darling father John told me there were quantities of it growing wild all through Maryland, but I never half-believed it before. It makes me cry!"
"Set down an' cry, then, if you want to. I just as lief's you would. I'm tired."
This concession had the remarkable effect of banishing tears from Dorothy's eyes. She had tottered along on one foot and the tips of the toes of the other, till the injured one had become seriously strained and pained her so that rest she must, whether he were willing or not. It was comparatively dry on the further side the hedge, and the vines themselves, so closely interwoven, made a comfortable support for their tired backs. As she leaned against it, the girl's sense of humor made her exclaim:
"That's the funniest thing! I felt I must cry my eyes out, yet when you said 'go ahead and do it,' every tear dried up! But, I'm sleepy. Do you suppose we dare go to sleep for a few minutes."
"Pshaw! I'm sleepy, too. An' I'm goin' – s'posin' er no s'posin'."
After that, there was a long silence under the honeysuckle hedge. A second shower, longer and more violent than the first, arose, and dashed its cool drops on the faces of these young sleepers, but they knew nothing of that. The storm cleared and the late moon came out and shone upon them, yet still they did not stir. It was not until the sun itself sent its hot, summer rays across their closed lids that Jim awoke and saw a man standing beside them in the lane and staring at Dorothy with the keenest attention.
Instantly the lad's fear was alert. He had not spoken of it to Dorothy, but he knew that many others besides himself must have seen that wonderful advertisement in the daily paper; and though he was not wise enough to also know that every wandering child would suggest to somebody the chance of earning that five hundred, he had made up his mind that nobody should earn it. Dorothy should be restored without price, and he had promised her his should be the task. There was that about this staring stranger which made him throw a protecting arm over the still sleeping Dorothy and say:
"Well! Think you'll know us when you see us agin?"
"Come, come, boy! keep a civil tongue in your head. Who is that little girl?"
"None o' your business."
"Hold on. I'll make it my business, and lively, too, if you don't look out. Where'd you two come from?"
"Where we was last at."
"You scallawag! Your very impudence proves you're up to some mischief, but I'll ask you once more, and don't you dare give me a lying answer: Where did you two come from?"
"Norphan asylum," said Jim, patting Dorothy's hand to quiet her alarm; for she had, also, waked and was frightened by the stranger, as well as by that strange numbness all through her body and the terrible pain in her foot.
"Girl, what's your name?"
Dorothy did not answer. She did not appear even to hear, but with a stupid expression turned her head about on the honeysuckle branches and again closed her eyes. Part of this dullness was real, part was feigned. She felt very ill and, anyway, there was Jim. Let him do what talking was necessary.
Again the stranger demanded:
"Who is that girl? Where did you get her? Is she deaf and dumb – or just a plain everyday fool?"
"Dunno, stranger. Give it up," said Jim, at the same time managing to nudge Dorothy unperceived, by way of hint that that suggested deaf-and-dumbness might serve them well.
The man who was quizzing them so sharply had been riding a spirited horse, which now began to prance about the lane in a dangerous way, and for the moment distracted his attention from the children. Indeed, in order to quiet the animal he had to mount and race it up and down for a time, though he by no means intended to leave that place until he had satisfied himself whether this were or were not the missing little girl, of whose disappearance all the papers were now so full. If it were and five hundred dollars depended on her rescue from that country bumpkin – he was the man for the rescue! Being none other than a suburban "constable" with a small salary, as well as a local horse jockey, exercising a rich gentleman's new hunter – also for hire.
As he galloped past them, to and fro, Dorothy grew more and more frightened and ill. Her long sleep in her water-soaked clothing, added to the pain in her foot and her lack of food, affected her seriously; and a bed with warm blankets and hot drinks was what she needed just then. Finally, when to the thud of the racer's feet there also sounded the rumble of approaching wheels, she felt that her doom was sealed and let her tears stream freely over her wan, dirt-streaked cheeks.
Jim, also, felt a shiver of fear steal through his long limbs, and instinctively drew his young charge closer to him, resolved to protect her to the last. But, as the wheels drew nearer, there was mingled with their rumble the notes of a good old hymn, and presently both wheels and music came to an abrupt halt before the hedge and the forlorn pair half-hidden in it.
"Why, bless my heart! Younkers, where'd you hail from? and why should a pretty little girl be crying on the first Sunday morning in June? When everything else in God's dear world is fairly laughing with joy! Why, honey, little one – what – what – what!"
It was a tiny, very rickety gig from which the singer had leaped with the agility of youth, though his head was almost white, and green goggles covered his faded old eyes; and he had not finished speaking before he had climbed upon the bank to the hedge and had put his fatherly arms around the sobbing Dorothy.
She opened her own eyes long enough to see that benignant, grizzled countenance close to her, and – in an instant her arms had clasped about the stranger's neck! With the unerring instinct of childhood she knew a friend at first glance, and she clung to this man as if she would never let him go, while the astonished Jim looked on, fairly gasping for the breath that he at last emitted in the one word: "P-s-h-a-w!!" Here was another phase of that changeable creature – girl! To cry her eyes out at sight of one stranger and to fling herself headlong into the arms of another – not half so good looking!
Leaning back among the vines and coolly folding his arms, the farm-boy resigned himself to whatever might come next. He had most carefully planned all their trip "home" and not a single detail of it had followed his plan. "Give it up!" he remarked for the second time, and was immediately answered by the old man:
"No, you don't. Nobody decent ever does give up in this sunshiny world of God's. That isn't what He put us in it for, but to keep right on jogging along, shedding happiness, loving Him, being content. How did this poor little darling ever hurt her tiny foot like that?"
Already the old fellow had Dorothy on his lap and was examining with careful tenderness the angry-looking wound she had received, while her curly head rested as contentedly against his breast as if it had been that of father John himself.
She opened her lips to tell, but she was too tired. Indeed, if she had felt equal to the labor of it she would have poured forth her whole story then and there. But it is doubtful if he would have tarried to hear it, for he rose at once, carrying the girl in his arms so gently, so lovingly, that a great wave of happiness swept over her, and she flashed her own old beautiful smile into his goggles:
"Oh! you good man. God sent you, didn't He?"
"Sure, sure! To you, one of His lambs! Come, son. We'll be going! This poor little foot must be attended to right away, and this is my 'busy day.' On my way to preach at an early service, for the poor colored folk who can't come later. Then to another one for scattered white folks – the rest of the day at the hospitals – Why, bless my heart! If my Sundays were fifty times as long I could fill every minute of them with the Master's work!"
More nimbly than Jim could have done, the happy old man scrambled back into the gig, never once releasing his hold of Dorothy, gathered up his reins, bade the lad "Hang on behind, some way!" chirruped to his sleepy nag, and drove on singing out of the lane.
"Bringing in the sheaves! Bringing in the sheaves!
We will come rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves!"
Once, in a pause of his song, Dorothy reached up and stroked his cheek, saying:
"You're taking me home, aren't you!"
"Sure, sure! To my home, first, to your home next – if I can; – to your heavenly home, when the Master wills."
His home came soon; a tiny, one-storied building with but two rooms, a kitchen and bedroom; smaller, even, than the cottage of Miranda Stott, but far neater and cozier. At its door the old minister sprang from the gig and directed Jim to leave it where it stood.
"Old Nan won't move unless she's bid. I'll fix up this little one's wound while you get breakfast. Happens I haven't had my own, yet, and I know you haven't had yours. The coffee's in that canister on the shelf. The fire's ready to the match – and the match right here! There's boiled ham in that cupboard, potatoes to fry, in the ice-box in the shed, bread and butter in the cellar, as well as a pail of milk. Show yourself a man by setting the table, my boy. How glad I am to have company! I try to have somebody most the time; but I don't often get them so easily as I've gotten you two. Young folks, besides; you ought to eat lots! which will give me extra appetite – not that I need it, oh no! A fine digestion is another of my Father's good gifts to me; and do you know, laddie, that I rarely have to buy the food to feed my guests? Always comes in of its own accord, seem's if. Of the Lord's accord, more truly. He's not the One to bid you feed the hungry and give drink to the thirsty without providing the means. 'Old St. John's' is known as a free 'hotel' in all this countryside, and my children – In His Name I bid you welcome to it this glorious Sunday morning!"
Dorothy was on the bed in the inner room, and all the time he was talking her jolly host was also attending to her as well as to Jim. She was better already, simply from the cheer of his speech, and that sense of perfect security that had come to her so promptly. Such a well-stored little house as that was! From somewhere, out came a bundle of bandages already prepared, a box of soothing ointment, and a basin of soft warm water to bathe the jagged wound.
"Learned to be a sort of doctor, too, you see. Never know when a body may come limping up, needing care – just as you have. Tear my bandages evenings when it rains. Never have to buy the muslin or linen – neighbors all save it for me. Boy – what's your name? – just turn those potatoes again. The secret of nice fried potatoes is to keep them stirred till every bit is yellow-browned, even and tasty. It's a sin, the way some people cook; spoiling the good gifts of the Lord by their own carelessness. Put into everything you do – milking, plowing, cooking, preaching, praying, the very best that's in you! That's the way to get at the core of life, at its deepest-down happiness and content. That's good! I reckon you're the right sort, only want a little training. The way you slice that ham shows you're thorough. Now, watch me settle this coffee and then – for all Thy Mercies, Lord, we humbly thank Thee."
Such a breakfast as that had never been spread before Jim Barlow. Dorothy had enjoyed many fine ones in her own happy home, but even she found this something out of common; and from the chair of state in which she had been placed at the head of the little table, beamed satisfaction on the others while she poured their coffee, as deftly as if she were, indeed, the "little woman" the old man called her.
When the meal was over, said he:
"Lad, I'm a busy man, you seem to be an idle fellow. I'll leave you to wash the dishes and put away the food. Carefully, as you found it, against the need of the next comer. My name is Daniel St. John. My pride it is to bear the name of that disciple Jesus loved. Good-bye. Tarry here as long or as short a time as you will. I never lock the door. Good-bye. If we do not meet again on earth, I shall look for you in Heaven."
He was already passing out into the sunshine but Dorothy cried after him:
"One moment, please. You have told us your name, but we haven't told you ours. Yes, Jim, I shall tell! It's right and this dear man will help us, not hinder. So you needn't hold up your finger that way. Mr. St. John, I thank you, we both thank you, more than we can say. That boy's name is James Barlow. He's an orphan. I'm an orphan, too. My name is – "
"Thank you for confidence. If my day didn't belong to the Master, not to myself, I'd drive you home in the gig. If you stay here till to-morrow I will do so, anyway. Now, I am late about His business, and must be off at once!"
With that he jumped into his gig, shook the reins over old Nan's back, who went ambling down the road to the music of "Throw out the life line!" sung to the surrounding hills and dales as only old Daniel St. John could sing it.
For some hours the two wanderers rested in that sunny little home, both most reluctant to leave it, and Dorothy's own wish now being to remain until the Monday when, as he said, their new acquaintance would be at liberty to take them to the city. Jim was not so anxious to remain. It was not until his companion's entreaties grew more persistent, that he told her the truth:
"Dorothy, we can't stay. We mustn't. I dassent. You was scared o' that feller on horseback. Well, he's been ridin' by here two, three times, an' he's fetched another feller along. Them men mean bad to us. I've studied out 't they ain't sure the old man ain't to home. If they was they wouldn't wait to ketch us long. The first man, he seen us come with St. John. He must. He couldn't have rid so fur he didn't. Well, I feel's if he ketched us, 'twould be out the fryin'-pan into the fire. We couldn't get shet o' him – till he got that five hundred dollars. We've got to go on, someway, somewheres. An' – go now, whilst they've rid back agin, out o' sight."
