The Wall Between Part 23

"You forget you are speaking of my aunt, Mr. Barnes."

"I guess I did forget it a mite, Miss Lucy," mumbled Elias awkwardly. "I beg your pardon."

The girl inclined her head.

"Suppose we leave personal matters now and settle our business," she answered, motioning toward the boxes, baskets, and egg cases Tony had set inside the shop door. "Here is the corn and the b.u.t.ter my aunt promised you, and here are twelve dozen eggs. If you will pay me for them, I will start back home before it grows any warmer."

"Lemme see," ruminated Elias, "eggs is bringing----"

"Seventy cents."

"Ain't it sixty-nine?"

"No."

"I seem to have sixty-nine fixed awful firm in my head," protested Elias tenaciously.

Lucy laughed.

"You'll have to get it out then," she retorted good-humoredly, "for seventy cents is the market price."

The firm answer told the shopkeeper that further bickering would be useless.

"Seventy cents then," he said reluctantly, opening his cash drawer. "It's robbery, though."

"You're not often robbed, Mr. Barnes."

"Ain't I? Well, if I ain't, it's 'cause folks know better than to try to do me. 'Tain't often I'm beat in a bargain--only when I'm dealin' with a pretty woman an' give her the advantage." Again he displayed his rows of teeth. "Ladies first is my motto; an' heiresses----"

"You haven't paid me for the corn or b.u.t.ter yet," cut in Lucy impatiently.

"Five dozen ears of early corn and ten pounds of print b.u.t.ter."

For a second time Elias took from an infinitesimal crack in his money drawer another handful of change which he grudgingly counted into the girl's extended hand.

"There you are!" he a.s.serted, as if wiping some disagreeable thought triumphantly from his memory. "Now we're square an' can talk of somethin'

else."

"I'm afraid I can't stop to talk to-day, Mr. Barnes, for I've got to get home. Good-by and thank you," and with a smile that dazzled the confounded storekeeper, Lucy sped out the door.

Elias, who was a widower and "well-to-do," was considered the catch of the town and was therefore unaccustomed to receiving such scant appreciation of his advances.

"I'll be b.u.t.tered!" he declared, chagrined. "If she ain't gone!"

Lucy was indeed far down the level road, laughing to herself as she thought of the discomfited Elias. This was not the first time he had shown an inclination to force his oily pleasantries upon her; but it was the first time she had so pointedly snubbed him.

"I hope it will do him good," she murmured half aloud. "I'd like to convince him that every woman in Sefton Falls isn't his for the asking."

As she went on her way between the bordering tangle of goldenrod and scarlet-tinted sumach, she was still smiling quietly. The sun had risen higher, and a dry heat rose in waves from the earth. Already her shoes were white, and moist tendrils of hair curled about her brow. Before her loomed three miles of parching highway as barren of shade as the woodsman's axe could make it. The picture of Ellen's cool kitchen and breezy porch made the distance at that moment seem interminable. There was not a wagon in sight, and unless one came along, she would have to trudge every step of the way home.

Well, there was no use in becoming discouraged at the outset of her journey, and she was not, although she did halt a moment to draw a crisp, white handkerchief from her pocket and fan her burning cheeks. She had no idea the walk was going to be so hot a one. Despite her aunt's objections, she almost wished she had waited for Tony. If only she could have the good luck to be overtaken by somebody! Hark, did she hear wheels?

Yes, as good fortune would have it, from around the curve in the road behind her a wagon was coming into sight, the measured _clop, clop_ of the horse's feet reaching her distinctly. The cloud of dust that enveloped the approaching Jehu made it impossible for her to see who he was; nevertheless, it did not much matter, for country etiquette stipulated that those traveling on foot were always welcome to the hospitality of a pa.s.sing vehicle.

Therefore Lucy sat down on the wall to await her oncoming rescuer.

Meanwhile the wagon came nearer.

It contained a single occupant who was perched with careless grace astride a barrel of flour and appeared to be very much hedged in by a multifarious a.s.sortment of small packages and sacks of grain. It did not look as if there were room in the carriage for an additional ounce, and when the girl saw how crowded it was, her heart sank; then as she looked again, it bounded with sudden emotion, for the man who so jauntily urged forward his steed from his pinnacle on the barrel was none other than Martin Howe.

Resolutely Lucy rose from the wall and, without a glance in the traveler's direction, set out at a sharp pace along the highway.

She would not ask a favor of Martin Howe if she had to plod every step of the three scorching miles; and if he were brute enough to let her toil along in the heat--to walk while he rode--well, that was all she ever wanted to know about him. Her heart beat tumultuously as she heard the wheels coming closer.

The horse was beside her now, and the whirl-wind of dust his hoofs raised made her choke. Would the wagon stop or go on? The horse's head pa.s.sed abreast of her, then his white, lathered body. Next the wagon came into sight, with Martin sitting proudly and stiffly on his perch. Afterward horse, wagon, and man rolled past, and the girl was left alone.

Her lip trembled. Would he really leave her like this in the dust and heat? Would he leave even his worst enemy? It was incredible a human being could be so heartless. And the humiliation of it! To tag along behind him on foot, smothering in his dust!

Rage possessed her. That should be the end of Mr. Martin Howe! He was no gentleman. He was not even human.

She sat down on the stone wall once more, waiting for him to disappear and the dust from his wheels settle.

But to her surprise she saw him come to a stop in the road and, pivoting around on his perch, face her.

Lucy did not move. She watched him hesitate, waver, then dismount and come back through the dust.

"If you're on your way home----" he began with clumsy gravity.

The girl smiled up into his face.

"If you're goin' back----" he repeated, and again got no further.

She came to his rescue.

"Have you room to take me in?"

"There ain't much room." She saw the flicker of a smile shadow his face.

"Still, if you don't mind bein' a mite cramped----"

"I don't mind it at all unless it crowds you too much," answered Lucy. "It is very kind of you." Then she heard herself add without forethought: "I was afraid you were goin' by."

"I ain't that much of a heathen, I hope," Martin returned gruffly.

Although it was plain he was ill at ease, he helped her into the wagon, arranging the bags of meal solicitously that she might be as comfortable as possible. Then he touched the horse with his whip, and they started off.

"I'm so thankful to have a ride home," sighed Lucy, after waiting a second or two and finding he had no intention of speaking. "It is very hot to-day."

"So 'tis. But it is great weather for corn."