The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 13

"A storm?"

"There's a bad storm--; coming."

He could hardly say the words.

She stared up at him; her childlike eyes were very wide.

"Will it--be--soon--?"

He never took his blue green eyes from off her face.

"It's coming--quick."

"They're out--Pa--and--Will."

He said it very quietly then.

"That's why I'm here."

"How can we--get them--back?"

"Oh, little girl;" he muttered. "Little girl--"

"How, Mister; how?"

"I'll get a boat."

"There's Sam Wilkins' smack--down there at the wharf. We could take that."

"Then--I'll go--after them."

They went from the door together down the street and out onto the back patch of the wharf. Through the grayness they could see the boat rocking on the water at the farther end. The wail of the rising wind; the pounding of the sea; and close to them the m.u.f.fled, b.u.mping sound of the smack thrown again and again at the long wooden piles of the wharf.

For a second they stood quite still.

"I'm going," he said.

Her arms went suddenly up around his neck. Her lips brushed across his.

He felt her body s.h.i.+vering. He caught and held her to him; and then he let her go and went quickly to the end of the wharf and pulled the boat alongside and stepped into it.

He looked up at her standing there against the gray sky. He could see the white patches of her face and her hands and the pale ma.s.s of her hair that the wind had loosened. And down through the draggling grayness he distinctly saw her childlike eyes searching for his.

Before he could stop her she was in the boat.

"Get--back."

"I'm going."

"Quick--get--back."

"I'm going--with--you."

"You can't--; you don't know."

"I'm not afraid. Honest--I'm--not."

"You don't know what it means!"

"I'm--not--afraid."

"Little girl--I ain't going--if you go."

"You've got--to--go."

He repeated her words.

"I've--got--to--go."

"If you don't take me with you;" he had never heard her voice like that--"I'll come out myself. You can't leave me--you can't!"

The rain began then. Great drops of it fell into his face. The whining of the wind was terrific.

"You--don't know what it--means."

"I do know;--oh, G.o.d,--I do."

He caught up his oars then.

He rowed with all his strength. The whole thing was so strange to him.

Her going. Their being out on the water. The rowing.

The waves rose in tremendous black swells all about them. The rain and the spray drenched them. The wind rocked the small boat. The whistling wail of it; the lowering cloud sprawled pitchy sky.

He pulled in silence until they came to the nets.

She stood up in the boat and called; again and again her voice rose into the wind.

"Sit down!" He told her.

A distant shout answered her.

He bent to his oars then till he came to the cl.u.s.ter of smacks on the other side of the nets.

"Pa--;" she cried.

"Sally--! What you doing here?"

"Pa--; there's a storm."