At the Crossroads Part 12

"Where do you live, Jan-an?"

This made talk and filled an uncomfortable pause.

"One place and another. I was left."

"Left?"

"Yep. Left on the town. Folks take me in turn-about. I just jog along.

I'm staying over to the Point now. Next I'm going to Aunt Polly. I chooses, I do. I likes to jog along."

The girl was inclined to be friendly and she was amusing.

"Did you hear the bell ring the night you came--the ha'nt bell?" she asked.

"I certainly did."

"'Twas a warning, and then here _you_ are! Generally warnings mean bad things, but Aunt Polly says you're right enough and generally they ain't when they're young."

"Who are not, Jan-an?"

"Men. When they get old, like Uncle Peter, they meller or----"

"Or what?"

"Naturally drop off."

Northrup laughed. The sound disturbed the girl and she scowled.

"It's terrible to have folks think you're a fool to be laughed at,"

she muttered. "I can't get things over."

"What do you want to get over, Jan-an?"

Northrup was becoming interested. If straws show the wind's quarter, then a bit of driftwood may be depended upon to indicate the course of a stream. Northrup was again both amused and surprised to find how his very ordinary presence in King's Forest was, apparently, affecting the natives. Jan-an took on new proportions as she was regarded in the light of a straw or a bit of driftwood.

"Yer feelin's," the girl answered simply. "When you don' understand like most do, yer feelin's count, they do!"

"They certainly do, Jan-an."

The girl considered this and struggled, evidently, to adjust her companion to suit her needs, but at last she shook her head.

"I ain't going to take no chances with yer!" she muttered at length.

"'Tain't natural. Aunt Polly and Uncle Peter ain't risking so much as--her----"

"You mean----" Northrup felt guilty. He knew whom the girl meant--he felt as if he were taking advantage; eavesdropping or reading someone else's letter.

Jan-an sunk her face deeper into the cup of her hands--this pressed her features up and made her look laughably ugly. She was not taking much heed of the man near by; she was seeking to collect all the shreds of evidence she had gathered from listening, in her rapt, tense way, and making some definite case for, or against, the stranger who, Aunt Polly had a.s.sured her, was "good and proper."

"Now, everything was running on same as common," Jan-an muttered--"same as common. Then that old ha'nt bell took to ringing, like all possessed. I just naturally thought 'bout you dropping out of a clear sky and asking us the way to the inn when it was plain as the nose on yer face how yer should go. What do you suppose folks paint sign-boards for, eh?" The twisted ideas sprang into a question.

"That's one on me, Jan-an!" Northrup laughed. "I was afraid I'd be found out."

"Can't yer read?" Jan-an could not utterly distrust this person who was puzzling her.

"Yes, I can read and write, Jan-an."

"Then what in tarnation made yer plump in that way?"

"The Lord knows, Jan-an!" Almost the tone was reverent.

"Then _he_ came ructioning in--Larry, I mean. An' everything is different from what it was. Just like a bubbling pot"--poor Jan-an grew picturesque--"with the top wobbling. I wish"--she turned pleading eyes on Northrup--"I wish ter G.o.d you'd clear out."

For a moment Northrup felt again the weakening desire to follow this advice, but, as he thought on, his chin set in a fixed way that meant that he was not going to move on, but stay where he was. He meant, also, to get what he could from this strange creature who had sought him out. He convinced himself that it was legitimate, and since he meant to get at the bottom of what was going on, he must use what came to hand.

"So Larry has come back?" he asked indifferently. Then: "I've caught sight of him from a distance. Good-looking fellow, this Larry of yours, Jan-an."

"He ain't mine. If he was----" Jan-an looked mutinous and Northrup laughed.

"See here, you!" The girl was irritated by the laugh. "Larry, he thinks that Mary-Clare has set eyes on yer before yer came that day.

Larry is making ructions, and folks are talking."

"Well, that's ridiculous." Northrup found his heart beating a bit quicker.

"I know it is, but Maclin can make Larry think anything. Honest to G.o.d, yer ain't siding 'long of Maclin?"

"Honest to G.o.d, Jan-an, I'm not."

"Then why did yer stumble in on us that way?"

"I don't know, Jan-an. That's honest to G.o.d, too!"

"Then if nothing is mattering ter yer, and one place is as good as another, why don't you go along?"

Northrup gave this due consideration. He was preparing to answer something in his own mind. The dull-faced girl was having a peculiar effect upon him. He was getting excited.

"Well, Jan-an," he said at last, "it's this way. Things _are_ mattering. Mattering like thunder! And one place isn't as good as another; this place is the only place on the map just now--catch on?"

Jan-an was making strenuous efforts to "catch on"; her face appeared like a rubber mask that unseen fingers were pinching into comical expressions.

Northrup began to wonder just how mentally lacking the girl was.

"But tuck this away in your noddle, Jan-an. Your Uncle Peter and Aunt Polly have the right understanding. They trust me, and you will some day. I'm going to stay right here--pa.s.s that along to anyone who asks you, Jan-an. I'm going to stay here and see this thing out!"

"What thing?"

The elusive something that was puzzling the girl, the sense of something wrong that her blinded but sensitive nature suffered from, loomed close. This man might make it plain.

"What thing?" she asked huskily. Then Northrup laughed that disturbing laugh of his.