Anything Once Part 11

He had not enough money to secure even the humblest of lodgings for her, and he knew that if they ventured as vagrants into the town they would be in danger of apprehension by the authorities. But Lou solved the question quite simply.

"Isn't that big thing stickin' up in that field a haystack? I--I'd like a piece of that sponge cake that's left from what we ate at noon, and then crawl in there an' sleep straight through till to-morrow," she declared. "Did you want to go on any further to-night?"

"Heavens, no. I was just wondering--I don't see why it couldn't be done," he replied somewhat haltingly. "There isn't any house near, and I don't think anything will hurt you."

The latter probability seemed of no moment to Lou. She fell asleep again with her sponge cake half eaten, and he picked her up and nestled her in the hay as though she were in very truth a child. Then, as on the first night at the deserted mill near Hudsondale, he sat down at the foot of the haystack, on guard.

It was well for them, however, that the haying was done in that particular field, and no farmer appeared from the big white house just over the hill, for in spite of his most valiant efforts Jim, too, slumbered, and it was broad day when he awoke.

Lou had vanished from the haystack, but he found her at a little spring in a strip of woodland on the other side of the road, and they breakfasted hastily, conserving the last fragments of food for their midday meal, and started off.

They had left the last chimney of Parksville well behind them when Jim suddenly observed:

"You're limping, Lou. Let me see your shoes."

She drew away from him.

"It's nothin'," she denied. "My shoes are all right. I--I must've slept too long last night an' got sort of stiffened up."

The freckles were swamped in a deep flood of color, but Jim repeated insistently: "Hold up your foot, Lou."

Reluctantly she obeyed, disclosing a battered sole through the worn places of which something green showed.

"I--I stuffed it with leaves," she confessed, defensively. "They're real comfortable, honestly. I'm just stiff----"

Jim groaned.

"I suppose they will have to do until we reach the next town, but you should have told me."

"I kin take care of myself," Lou a.s.serted. "I've walked in pretty near as bad as these in the inst.i.tootion. We'd better get along to where there's some houses 'cause it looks to me like a storm was comin' up."

The sun was still blazing down upon them, but it was through a murky haze, and the air seemed lifeless and heavy. Great, white-crested thunder heads were mounting in the sky, and behind them a dense blackness spread.

"You're right; I never noticed----" Jim paused guiltily. After leaving the vicinity of Parksville he had purposely led her on a detour back into the farming country to avoid the main highway, for along the river front were the estates of some people he knew and he shrank from meeting them in his tramplike condition if they should motor past. There was Lou, too, to be considered. He might have offered some possible explanation for his own appearance, but no interpretation could be placed upon her presence at his side save that which he must prevent at all costs.

Rolling fields and woodland stretched away illimitably on both sides of the road, and not even a cow shed appeared as they hurried onward, while the clouds mounted higher, and the rumble of thunder grew upon the air.

The sun had vanished, and a strange, antic.i.p.atory stillness enveloped them, broken only by that hollow muttering.

"It's comin' up fast." Lou broke the silence with one of her seldomly volunteered remarks. "Shall we git into the woods? I'd as lief dodge trees as be drowned in the road."

"No!" Jim shook his head. "There is some kind of a shack just ahead there; I think we can make it before the storm comes."

They were fairly running now, but the darkness was settling fast and a fork of lightning darted blindingly across their path. The object which Jim had taken for a shack proved to be merely a pile of rotting telegraph poles, but no other shelter offered, and they crouched in the lee of it, awaiting the onslaught of rain.

"Take this, Lou." Jim wrapped his coat about her in spite of her protestations. "You're not afraid, are you?"

"No, I ain't--I'm not--but you're goin' to get soaked through! I heard you coughin' once or twice at the bottom of that haystack last night."

He thrilled unconsciously to the motherliness in her tone. Then she added reflectively: "I don't guess I'm afraid of anythin' I've seen yet, but I ain't--I haven't seen much."

She ended with a sharp intake of her breath as a sudden gust of wind whirled the dust up into their faces and another streak of white light flashed before their eyes. Then with a rush and roar the storm burst.

The woods marched straight down to the roadside at this point, and the trees back of the heap of poles moaned and writhed like tortured creatures while great branches lashed over their heads with now and then an ominous crackle, but it was lost in the surge of the winds and the ceaseless crash and roar of the thunder. Jagged forks of lightning played all about them like rapiers of steel, and at last the rain came.

The brim of Lou's hat, hopelessly limp since its cleansing of the previous day, now flopped stringily against her face until she tore it off and gasping, buried her head in her arms as the sheets of rain pelted down. Jim's coat was sodden, and the thin cotton gown beneath clung to her drenched body, but she crouched closer to the poles while each volley of thunder shook her as with invisible hands.

Her lashes were glued to her cheeks, but she forced them open and turned to see how Jim was faring. He had flattened himself against the poles at their farther end, and just as she looked his way a flash of lightning seemed to split the air between them and the huge old tree which reared its branches just above his head, snapped like a dry twig beneath some giant heel.

Lou saw the great oak totter and then sway, while a sickening swirl of branches filled the air, and scarcely conscious of her own act she hurled herself upon Jim. With all the strength borne of her terror she pushed him from the heap of poles, sending him rolling out into the middle of the road, to safety. Then she tried to spring after him, but a hideous, waiting lethargy seemed to encompa.s.s her, and then with a mighty crash the tree fell athwart the poles.

Half stunned by the unexpected onslaught upon him and the rending blast of the falling tree, Jim lay motionless for an instant, then with a sharp cry sprang to his feet and turned to look for Lou, but the pile of telegraph poles was hidden beneath a broad sweep of branches and across the place where she had crouched the great trunk of the tree lay p.r.o.ne.

"Lou!" The cry burst from his very heart as he sprang forward and began to tear frantically at the stout limbs which barred his way. "Oh, G.o.d, she isn't crushed! Don't take her now, she's so little and young, and I want her, I need her so! G.o.d!"

He was unconscious that he was praying aloud, unconscious of the words which issued sobbingly from his lips. He tugged and tore at the branches while the skin ripped like ribbons from his hands and the boughs whipped back to raise great welts upon his face.

He was unconscious, too, of a stir at the other side of the fallen tree and a rustle of sodden leaves, as, very much after the manner of a prairie dog emerging from his hole, Lou crawled out into the rain, and sitting up, sneezed.

At the sound of that meek sternutation Jim whirled about.

"Lou!"

"Jim! Oh, Jim! You're not killed!" A muddy, bedraggled little figure that once had been pink and white flew straight to him, and two soft arms swept about him and clung convulsively. "I seen it comin', an'--an'

I tried to shove you out of the way----"

"Thank G.o.d, little girl! Thank G.o.d you aren't hurt!" he murmured brokenly. "I thought the tree had fallen on you!"

"Only the boughs of it, but they held me down. Oh, Jim, if you'd been killed I wouldn't 'a' cared what happened to me!"

His heart leaped, and his own arms tightened about her at the nave, unconscious revelation which had issued from her lips. Then all at once he realized what it had meant, that hideous feeling of loss when he thought that she lay buried beneath the tree. It had come to them both, revealed as by a flash of the lightning which was now traveling toward the east, and in the wonder and joy of it he held her close for a moment and then put her gently from him.

Sternly repressing the words which would have rushed from his heart, he said quietly:

"Thank G.o.d we were both spared. Come, little Lou, we must find shelter."

CHAPTER VIII

Journey's End

The rain had ceased, and as they walked down the muddy road the sun came out even before the final mutterings of the thunder had died away in the distance, and so they came at last upon a little house which sat well back among a group of dripping trees.

"Take your coat, Jim," Lou said, breaking a long silence which had fallen between them. "That porch is so wet now that we can't get it any wetter an' I'm goin' to ask for a chance to get dry."

But they had scarcely pa.s.sed through the gate when the front door opened and a young woman rushed out.

"Oh! Will you run to the next house for me and telephone for the doctor?" she cried, all in one breath. Her eyes were staring and her breast heaved convulsively.