Anything Once by Isabel Ostrander (notion reading list .TXT) 📖

that the intangible rift was widening. It was as though they walked on opposite sides of the road, and neither could bridge the distance between.

105Both doggedly immersed in their own reflections, they walked on rapidly in spite of the heat and with no thought of time or distance until Jim realized that his companion was lagging, and glanced up to see that the sun had started well upon the western trail.

“By Jove! You must be almost starved!” he cried. “I never thought–why didn’t you wake me out of this trance I seem to have been in, and tell me it was long past time for chow? We must have walked miles!”

“I didn’t think, either.” Lou glanced about her wearily. “I don’t see any house, but I kinder think I hear a little brook somewhere, don’t you? Let’s find it, an’ then hurry on; if we’ve got to do sixty miles by the day after to-morrow we got to be movin’ right steady.”

They found the little brook, and ate of their supplies and drank heartily, for they were both famished by the long walk, but all the carefree joyousness seemed to have gone out of the adventure, and when Lou discovered that the knot in the corner of her handkerchief had become untied and the remainder 106of her capital was gone, it appeared to be the last cloud needed to immerse her in gloom.

Her feet were blistered and every muscle ached with fatigue, but she shook her head when Jim asked if she were too tired to go on, and limped determinedly out into the road after him. She had accepted his companionship to New York, and she would drop in her tracks before she would be a drag on him and prevent his reaching there in the time which was so mysteriously important to him.

A mile farther on, however, an empty motor van picked them up, and seated at the back with her feet hanging over, Lou promptly fell asleep, her head sagging unconsciously against Jim’s shoulder. He did not touch her, but moved so that her head should fall into a more comfortable position, and looked down with new tenderness at the tow-colored hair. The ridiculous, outstanding braid was gone, and instead, a soft knot appeared low on the slender, sun-burned neck, with tiny tendrils of curls escaping from it.

What a game little sport she had proved herself to be! He wondered how many girls 107of his own set would have had the courage and endurance for such a test. Then to his own amazement he found himself thinking of them with a certain sense of disparagement, almost contempt. They would not have had the moral courage, let alone physical endurance.

Of course, this sort of vagabondage would be outrageous and utterly impossible from a conventional standpoint, but with Lou it had been a mere venture into Arcady, as innocent as the wanderings of two children. And Saturday it must end!

At the outskirts of Parksville he called to the good-natured truckman who sat behind the wheel, and the latter obligingly put on the brakes.

“My sister and I don’t want to go right into the town, so we’ll get out here if you don’t mind,” Jim said. “This lift has been a godsend, and I can’t thank you, but I’ve got the name of the company you’re working for in New York and I’ll drop around some night when I’m flush and you’re knocking off, and 108we’ll see if the old burg is as dry as it’s supposed to be.”

“You’re on!” The driver grinned. “Got a job waitin’ for yer? We need some helpers.”

“I’ve got a job.” Jim thought of that “job” in the mahogany-lined suite of offices which bore his name on the door, but he did not smile. “I’ll look you up soon. Come on, Lou; here’s where we change cars.”

She rubbed her eyes and gazed about her bewilderedly in the gathering darkness as he lifted her to the ground and the truck rumbled off.

“Where–where are we now?” she asked sleepily.

“Just outside Parksville; see those lights over there?” he replied. “We must have walked more than ten miles before that motor van came along, so it isn’t any wonder that you were tired, even if you wouldn’t admit it. Just think, nineteen miles to-day!”

He was wondering, even as he spoke, what they were to do for the night. He had not enough money to secure even the humblest of 109lodgings for her, and he knew that if they ventured as vagrants into the town they would be in danger of apprehension by the authorities. But Lou solved the question quite simply.

“Isn’t that big thing stickin’ up in that field a haystack? I–I’d like a piece of that sponge cake that’s left from what we ate at noon, and then crawl in there an’ sleep straight through till to-morrow,” she declared. “Did you want to go on any further to-night?”

“Heavens, no. I was just wondering–I don’t see why it couldn’t be done,” he replied somewhat haltingly. “There isn’t any house near, and I don’t think anything will hurt you.”

The latter probability seemed of no moment to Lou. She fell asleep again with her sponge cake half eaten, and he picked her up and nestled her in the hay as though she were in very truth a child. Then, as on the first night at the deserted mill near Hudsondale, he sat down at the foot of the haystack, on guard.

It was well for them, however, that the haying 110was done in that particular field, and no farmer appeared from the big white house just over the hill, for in spite of his most valiant efforts Jim, too, slumbered, and it was broad day when he awoke.

Lou had vanished from the haystack, but he found her at a little spring in a strip of woodland on the other side of the road, and they breakfasted hastily, conserving the last fragments of food for their midday meal, and started off.

They had left the last chimney of Parksville well behind them when Jim suddenly observed:

“You’re limping, Lou. Let me see your shoes.”

She drew away from him.

“It’s nothin’,” she denied. “My shoes are all right. I–I must’ve slept too long last night an’ got sort of stiffened up.”

The freckles were swamped in a deep flood of color, but Jim repeated insistently: “Hold up your foot, Lou.”

Reluctantly she obeyed, disclosing a battered 111sole through the worn places of which something green showed.

“I–I stuffed it with leaves,” she confessed, defensively. “They’re real comfortable, honestly. I’m just stiff─”

Jim groaned.

“I suppose they will have to do until we reach the next town, but you should have told me.”

“I kin take care of myself,” Lou asserted. “I’ve walked in pretty near as bad as these in the institootion. We’d better get along to where there’s some houses ’cause it looks to me like a storm was comin’ up.”

The sun was still blazing down upon them, but it was through a murky haze, and the air seemed lifeless and heavy. Great, white-crested thunder heads were mounting in the sky, and behind them a dense blackness spread.

“You’re right; I never noticed─” Jim paused guiltily. After leaving the vicinity of Parksville he had purposely led her on a detour back into the farming country to avoid the main highway, for along the river front 112were the estates of some people he knew and he shrank from meeting them in his tramplike condition if they should motor past. There was Lou, too, to be considered. He might have offered some possible explanation for his own appearance, but no interpretation could be placed upon her presence at his side save that which he must prevent at all costs.

Rolling fields and woodland stretched away illimitably on both sides of the road, and not even a cow shed appeared as they hurried onward, while the clouds mounted higher, and the rumble of thunder grew upon the air. The sun had vanished, and a strange, anticipatory stillness enveloped them, broken only by that hollow muttering.

“It’s comin’ up fast.” Lou broke the silence with one of her seldomly volunteered remarks. “Shall we git into the woods? I’d as lief dodge trees as be drowned in the road.”

“No!” Jim shook his head. “There is some kind of a shack just ahead there; I think we can make it before the storm comes.”

They were fairly running now, but the darkness was settling fast and a fork of lightning 113darted blindingly across their path. The object which Jim had taken for a shack proved to be merely a pile of rotting telegraph poles, but no other shelter offered, and they crouched in the lee of it, awaiting the onslaught of rain.

“Take this, Lou.” Jim wrapped his coat about her in spite of her protestations. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“No, I ain’t–I’m not–but you’re goin’ to get soaked through! I heard you coughin’ once or twice at the bottom of that haystack last night.” He thrilled unconsciously to the motherliness in her tone. Then she added reflectively: “I don’t guess I’m afraid of anythin’ I’ve seen yet, but I ain’t–I haven’t seen much.”

She ended with a sharp intake of her breath as a sudden gust of wind whirled the dust up into their faces and another streak of white light flashed before their eyes. Then with a rush and roar the storm burst.

The woods marched straight down to the roadside at this point, and the trees back of the heap of poles moaned and writhed like 114tortured creatures while great branches lashed over their heads with now and then an ominous crackle, but it was lost in the surge of the winds and the ceaseless crash and roar of the thunder. Jagged forks of lightning played all about them like rapiers of steel, and at last the rain came.

The brim of Lou’s hat, hopelessly limp since its cleansing of the previous day, now flopped stringily against her face until she tore it off and gasping, buried her head in her arms as the sheets of rain pelted down. Jim’s coat was sodden, and the thin cotton gown beneath clung to her drenched body, but she crouched closer to the poles while each volley of thunder shook her as with invisible hands.

Her lashes were glued to her cheeks, but she forced them open and turned to see how Jim was faring. He had flattened himself against the poles at their farther end, and just as she looked his way a flash of lightning seemed to split the air between them and the huge old tree which reared its branches just above his head, snapped like a dry twig beneath some giant heel.

115Lou saw the great oak totter and then sway, while a sickening swirl of branches filled the air, and scarcely conscious of her own act she hurled herself upon Jim. With all the strength borne of her terror she pushed him from the heap of poles, sending him rolling out into the middle of the road, to safety. Then she tried to spring after him, but a hideous, waiting lethargy seemed to encompass her, and then with a mighty crash the tree fell athwart the poles.

Half stunned by the unexpected onslaught upon him and the rending blast of the falling tree, Jim lay motionless for an instant, then with a sharp cry sprang to his feet and turned to look for Lou, but the pile of telegraph poles was hidden beneath a broad sweep of branches and across the place where she had crouched the great trunk of the tree lay prone.

“Lou!” The cry burst from his very heart as he sprang forward and began to tear frantically at the stout limbs which barred his way. “Oh, God, she isn’t crushed! Don’t take her now, she’s so little and