That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 13

"The Wells family have lived here for a century. Their farm was one of the first cleared. It's about two miles out of town. Eliza Wells is the last of the family, except this little girl who is her brother's daughter."

"If she was a sister's child, her name would not be Wells," thought Miss Hanscom to herself as she justified her last remark.

Mr. Laurens moved away. "You heard, Ermann?" he said to his wife who had joined them.

"Yes," she said dully, as though she had lost interest in everything about her. "Let us go to the car. I wish to go home."

"Yes, Ermann," he said. He escorted her, half leaning on his arm, into the main hall. The girls in the freshman cla.s.s were preparing for dismissal and were pa.s.sing into the cloak room, which was a division of the main hallway.

Mrs. Laurens dropped her hand from her husband's and, erect and intensely interested, watched them. Suddenly, as Beth came near, she threw out her arms and hugged the girl to her, kissing her on brow and cheeks.

"Dear little girl, love me a little for the sake of my baby who is gone."

"I do-I did from the first," said Beth.

"Ermann, dearest," remonstrated her husband, "you are making a scene.

Come, the car is waiting."

She loosened her arms about Beth and, without another word or glance in the direction of the cloak room, permitted her husband to escort her to the car waiting below.

CHAPTER XII.

Beth did not mention this occurrence to Adee. She scarcely knew why she did not. Perhaps for the same reason that one does not discuss sacred things. In each one's heart is a tenderness, a thought which is hers alone and which she can tell no one. It was this feeling of delicacy which restrained Beth from speaking of the matter to Adee. She was very quiet on her way home. Adee was too, for that matter. There had been something about Mr. Laurens which had impressed her. She had a feeling that she had met him somewhere. His voice had thrilled her, like a voice she had heard and forgotten. She found herself trying to recall where she had met him. She checked herself, however. Her experience had been limited. She had been but rarely away from her native town. It was ridiculous to think for a moment that she had known him.

Without a word, the two walked side by side until they came to the ravine. Here they instinctively paused. "Look at the Oliver place,"

cried Eliza. "I wonder who would be foolish enough to move in there.

Tramps, like enough."

"Tramps."-Beth came closer to Eliza's side. All she knew of them was that she had a dim remembrance that Rose Burtsch had called her a tramp's child and Adee had shaken Rose. A tramp must be a dreadful creature, so Beth had reasoned. She drew instinctively closer.

As they walked up the slope, they had a better view of the log house.

The boards had been removed from the doors and windows which stood wide open to the breeze. A narrow path had been cut through the brambles to the public road. Smoke was coming from the chimney. The sound of some one whistling came to the ears of Beth and Eliza. There was the sound of an axe. As they turned the corner, they saw some one cutting the old fence rails into proper length for wood. He paused when he saw them coming up the slope and leaned lightly against the axe as he rested.

What a fine looking tramp he was. Fully six feet, with broad shoulders and long, slender limbs. There were no drooping muscles about him. He had a white brow with dark hair about it. His eyes were clear and keen.

His mouth was as big and firm and tender as Eliza's own. He wore trousers of khaki cloth and a soft s.h.i.+rt open at the throat. The sleeves were rolled up, exposing his arms to the elbow.

"I did not know that tramps were so nice," said Beth. "I thought that they were something dreadful."

"They are. You can never tell by looks. Hereafter never go or come this way unless I am with you, and never come to the woods to pick flowers."

"I'm sorry he's moved in there. I had planned to camp out here next summer. Helen Reed and Sally Monroe and I intended to camp out and do all our own cooking."

Eliza smiled and wondered if the other two were as ignorant of culinary arts as Beth herself. The whistling had ceased and a song had taken its place.

"Just a song at twilight when the lamps are low."

The words followed them clear up the slope.

"He's a queer sort of tramp," said Eliza to herself. "I should not have believed that they knew such things."

She might have said something about this to Beth, but at their own gate, Jim-Boy, Sam Houston's youngest son, met them. Jim-Boy was in his bare feet. His apparel consisted of a pair of jean overalls and a hickory-colored s.h.i.+rt which had belonged to his father. He was a bashful lad, and braced himself against the post of the gate before he could find courage to speak. "Say, Miss Liza, pap wants the lend of your log chain."

"Dear me. I do not know whether I have one. It's been years since I thought of it."

"Yes, you have. Pap says it's hanging up in the old harness room. He's coming over to look at your stone-boat. He doesn't know whether it's all right or not. He says it hain't been used for years. If it's all right, he'll come over and borrow it off you."

All this was said as though his father's borrowing would be a great favor conferred upon Miss Eliza.

"The stone-boat. What does your father intend to do?"

"He's got a job hauling stone to fix the wall at Paddy's Run. The man was up to see him yesterday. The wall's bulging out. They mean to tear some away and build it in and higher than it was."

Miss Eliza shuddered at the mention of the wall. It was a retaining wall built to hold the public road and railroad from the water. At this point, the river had come so close to the mountain that the way for the railroad had been cut out. To make this safe, a high stone wall had been built.

It had been here that Prince had gone over. That had been ten years before, but even yet Miss Eliza could recall the sensation of dizziness, of feeling herself falling, which she had felt then.

"Look for the chain. As to the stone-boat, tell your father that I'll sell that to him if he finds he needs it. I'll never have use for it."

Jim-Boy went his way. Eliza and Beth went into the house and began the preparation of the evening meal. Beth was not a cook, but there was a score of things she could do to help Adee. She arranged the table and did the errands to the cellar and milk-house.

When the meal had been finished and she sat with Adee in the living-room, she drew close and began wistfully, "I want to ask you something, Adee. One of the girls asked me questions. That put it in my mind. I couldn't answer anything she asked. I don't know whether I have a father or mother, or if I ever had one. I do not know if they are living or dead. She asked me if I was your niece and I could not tell her. Am I, Adee?"

There was silence. Eliza had nothing to say. She had known that the time would come when Beth could not understand and would ask questions. It had come sooner than she expected.

"Will you tell me, Adee? I do not know what to say when people ask me, and I feel ashamed that I do not know. Every little girl in school has a father and mother and I have none. I cannot understand it."

"Your mother is dead. She is buried near my mother, in our own family lot. I do not know her name. I saw her but once in my life. I always feel that I caused her death. This is how it happened."

Then Eliza recounted the events of that dreadful day when she had asked the mother to ride. She described Beth's mother, her dress and manner.

"That accounts for the dreams I have-waking dreams, Adee. Do you remember that I told you once that you did not look like you used to. It was some one else I remembered. I can see, as plain as can be, a lady with coils about her head, and flowers stuck in her hair. She wore dresses trailing over the floor. I can see her bending over my crib to kiss me. There was always a man with her."

"But the woman who had you did not look like a woman who would dress so.

She was a respectable person, but poorly dressed and, I am afraid, not very cultivated. Do you remember what they called you? Do any names stay with you?"

"No, except Bena and Baby. I remember that I tried to say those words.

Bena must have been a made-up word. Surely no one was ever called so."

"No, it seems hardly possible," said Eliza. "We looked over the ground everywhere where the accident occurred, but could find no purse. We thought she might have had her checks or name somewhere in that. I have a dim remembrance that she had such an article in her hand, but we could find nothing. I saved everything that you or the woman wore. You had a little baby pin with E. L. engraved on it. I called you Elizabeth for that reason."

"Have you them yet, Adee? Will you show them to me?" There was a high-strung, nervous eagerness in Beth's voice. She was trembling from head to foot. There was a sadness because of the loss of parents she had never known; and an eagerness to see those things which were part of her life somewhere else.

"Would it not be better to put it off until tomorrow?" asked Eliza.

"No, please, Adee, this evening-now." There was no denying the eager, trembling request. Without another word, Adee arose and, taking up the lamp, made her way upstairs.