Part 10 (1/2)
The game went on. It was the Swede boy's turn at the goal, and he put his hands over his face and began to count as the children scattered.
”Tane, twanety, thirty, forty, feefty,” he chanted, ”seexty, saventy, eighty.” As he told the numbers he stealthily watched the kitchen window where the little girl stood.
The neighbor woman's boy, who was in hiding under the wagon and almost at his feet, saw him peeking through his fingers and jumped out to denounce him. ”King's ex, king's ex!” he cried, holding up one hand.
”It's no fair; he's looking.”
”Ay bane note,” declared the Swede boy, stoutly, wheeling about; ”yo late may alone.”
”You are, too,” persisted the other, springing away to hide again.
The Swede boy once more resumed his chanting, and the little girl, as she leaned from her vantage-point to listen, wished that she might return to the yard and take part in the game. But ”Frenchy's” brother, though tired with his struggles, was still sitting menacingly on the wagon tongue, and she dared not leave her cover.
Suddenly the sight of a slat sunbonnet, hanging on a nail beside her, suggested a means of circ.u.mventing him. She took it down and put it on, tying the strings under her chin in a hard double knot. The long, stiff pasteboard slats buried her face completely, and n.o.body but Luffree, with his sharp muzzle, could have reached her cheeks to kiss them. So she sallied bravely into the yard.
The Swede boy had been counting slowly in the hope that she would hide, and when he saw her approaching he paused a moment, expecting ”Frenchy's” brother to renew the attack. But the figure on the tongue never moved, even when the little girl, with a saucy swish of her skirts, paused daringly near it. So he sang out his last call:
”Boshel of wheat, boshel of raye, Who ain't radey, holer 'Ay.'”
”I,” shouted the little girl, whisking triumphantly away, and the Swede boy began to count again.
She entered the house, going in at the sitting-room. He followed her movements as she threaded her way through the dancers toward the empty granary, and saw her sunbonnet pa.s.s the bedroom window and the open kitchen door. Then once more he sent out the last call. This time there was no response. So, after a hasty examination of the wagon, he began to creep about with an impressive show of hunting.
Often he came upon a new calico dress trailing in a dusty place, but pa.s.sed its wearer by as if he had not seen her. He surprised the colonel's son curled up in a box beneath a Jack-o'-lantern, and distanced him to the wagon. Then he went on searching for a girl, and the boys, cl.u.s.tered about the wheel, watched him as he sneaked through the yard. Finally, when he judged that enough time had pa.s.sed to warrant it, he made a wider search that brought him close to the granary door.
His courage almost failed him as he pa.s.sed in front of it, and he was glad when the delighted squeals of two girls, who were running toward the goal, gave him an excuse to delay his entrance. But when the girls had tapped the wheel, he bounded back and, spurring himself on, stepped within the dark room, where, in a far corner, he caught a faint glint of white.
He walked toward it timidly. It moved, and he stood still. ”Yo there?”
he asked, at last, his throat so dry that he could scarcely find the words. A subdued giggle answered him. He recalled how kind and comrade-like she had been to him three months before when they had caught gophers together, and his spirits rose. ”Yo there?” he asked again.
Suddenly she came from her corner and attempted to pa.s.s him. Emboldened by the darkness, he put out his arms and stopped her, and she laughed gaily up at him. He laughed shyly back and dropped her arms. She made no effort to get away. He stood still, awkwardly cracking his knuckles.
”Why don't you fight!” she demanded. He did not reply, but shuffled his feet and cracked his knuckles harder than ever. The music of a waltz floated in to them over the babble of the kitchen, and he turned his head that way as if to listen. As he did so she crept past him, her eyes sparkling with fun from the depths of the bonnet. When he turned back to look at her, she was gone.
He followed her out and paid no attention to the jeering inquiries of the other children. And as the colonel's son began to count from the wagon-wheel he walked slowly past the teams and smudges, and across a strip of backfire beyond, to the high, dry gra.s.s, where he lay on his back for the rest of the evening, looking sadly up at the stars.
The little girl sought a hiding-place, too, behind a hay-stack on the other side of the house. The colonel's son had seen her run that way, and as he sounded the final challenge his voice had a victorious ring.
He began a second mock hunt. But it was a short one, for, fearful that he might stumble upon one of the Dutchman's younger brood, he first penetrated the outer darkness to find a boy, and then ran round the house in the direction taken by the little girl.
He came upon her unexpectedly as he circled a stack. She was crouching in plain sight against the hay, her face still hidden in the recesses of the bonnet. He rushed up to her and took her by the shoulders. ”I've got you!” he said, but so low that the neighbor woman's daughter, who was just a few steps away behind a fanning-mill, could scarcely hear him.
”Y-e-e-s,” stammered the little girl. She drew back and looked down, all her a.s.surance supplanted by a wild desire to get away.
”Going to let me have my forfeit?” he whispered, shaking her a little.
The sunbonnet drooped until its wide cape stood up stiffly above her curls. ”I hate that old French boy,” she said.
The colonel's son moved closer, and a wisp of brittle gra.s.s in her hands crackled in a double grasp. She glanced up at him swiftly, as she felt his touch, and this time there was a nearing of the white frock to the suit of blue. ”Well,--if--if--you've got t',” she added.