Hills of the Shatemuc Part 62

"How far have you to go?"

"Home."

"How far is that?"

"It's six miles, I guess," said the owner of the eyes.

"That's too far for you to go in the storm. The lightning might kill you."

"Kill me!"

"Yes. It might."

"I guess I'd be glad if it did," she said, with another glance at the storm.

"Glad if it did! -- why?"

"'Cause."

"'Cause what?" said Winthrop, entering more into the child's interests, Elizabeth thought, than he had done into hers.

"'Cause," repeated the blackey. -- "I don't want to get home."

"Who do you live with?"

"I live with my mother, when I'm to home."

"Where do you live when you are not at home?"

"Nowheres."

The gathered storm came down at this point with great fury.

The rain fell, whole water; little streams even made their way under the walls of the shanty and ran across the floor. The darkness asked no help from black walls and smoky roof.

"Isn't this better than to be out?" said Winthrop, after his eyes had been for a moment drawn without by the tremendous pouring of the rain. But the little black girl looked at it and said doggedly,

"I don't care."

"Where have you been with that basket?"

"Down yonder -- where all the folks goes," she said with a slight motion of her head towards the built-up quarter of the country.

"Do you bring wood all the way from there on your back?"

"When I get some."

"Aren't you tired?"

The child looked at him steadily, and then in a strange somewhat softened manner which belied her words, answered,

"No."

"You don't bring that big basket full, do you?"

She kept her bright eyes on him and nodded.

"I should think it would break your back."

"If I don't break my back I get a lickin'."

"Was that what you were crying for as you went by?"

"I wa'n't a cryin'!" said the girl. "n.o.body never see me a cryin' for nothin'!"

"You haven't filled your basket to-day."

She gave an askant look into it, and was silent.

"How came that?"

"'Cause! -- I was tired, and I hadn't had no dinner; and I don't care! That's why I wished the thunder would kill me. I can't live without eatin'."

"Have you had nothing since morning?"

"I don't get no mornin' -- I have to get my dinner."

"And you could get none to-day?"

"No. Everything was eat up."

"Everything isn't quite eaten up," said Winthrop, rummaging in his coat pocket; and he brought forth thence a paper of figs which he gave the girl. "He isn't so short of means as I feared, after all," thought Elizabeth, "since he can afford to carry figs about in his pocket." But she did not know that the young gentleman had made his own dinner off that paper of figs; and she could not guess it, ever when from his other coat pocket he produced some biscuits which were likewise given to eke out the figs in the little black girl's dinner.

She was presently roused to very great marvelling again by seeing him apply his foot to another box, one without a clean side, and roll it over half the length of the shed for the child to sit upon.

"What do you think of life now, Miss Elizabeth?" he said, leaving his charge to eat her figs and coming again to the young lady's side.

"_That_ isn't life," said Elizabeth.

"It seems without the one quarter of agreeableness," he said.

"But it's horrible, Mr. Winthrop! --"

He was silent, and looked at the girl, who sitting on her coal box was eating figs and biscuits with intense satisfaction.

"She is not a bad-looking child," said Elizabeth.

"She is a very good-looking child," said Winthrop; "at least her face has a great deal of intelligence; and I think, something more."

"What more?"