Part 23 (1/2)
They were all scampering through the long hall playing leap-frog--a specialty of Split's which her present costume facilitated--when Francis Madigan, candle in hand, came out of his room on his usual tour of nightly inspection. His short-sighted eyes fell upon Irene, a pretty, lithe, wavy-haired boy, before she and the twins bolted.
”What boy have you got there?” he demanded. ”Send him home.”
Kate took Frances up in her arms and covered the retreat; she knew how much the better part of valor was discretion.
Sissy remained standing, looking up at him. When she was alone with her father she was conscious of her poor little barren favorites.h.i.+p, though she dared not impose upon it. In the candle-light his harsh, rugged features stood out marked with lines of suffering.
”It's all right, father,” she said, with a quick choice of the lesser irritation for him. ”He'll go--right away. Good night.”
”Good night, child.”
But she walked a step or two with him, slipping her hand at last into his, and pressing it tenderly.
”Is--anything the matter, father?” she whispered.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”She walked a step or two with him”]
He threw back his head as though some one had struck him. It was not difficult to guess from whom the Madigans had inherited their fanatical desire to conceal emotion.
Sissy was terrified at what she had done, yet the vague trouble lay quivering before her, though still unnamed, in his working face.
”Father--I'm sorry,” she sobbed.
He pushed her from him, but gently, and she crept into her bed and pulled the clothes over her head, that the twins might not hear her strangled sobbing.
”THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN”
With a shrill whistle of recognition, Jack Cody ran down the hill to meet Split toiling up.
The air is like ethereal champagne in Virginia City, and on a late summer's evening, after the sun's honeyed freshness has been strained through miles of it, it has a quality that makes playing outdoors intoxicating.
Split, though, had not been playing. There was business on hand and she had been downtown to buy eggs for the picnic, with the usual result. She had never yet succeeded in bringing home an unbroken dozen, nor did she ever hope to; but she was really out of temper at the extraordinary dampness of the paper bag, to which her two hands adhered stickily. She walked slowly upward, holding the eggs far in front of her like a votive offering to the culinary G.o.ds, unconscious of the betraying yellow streaks that beaded her blue gingham ap.r.o.n.
”Where you been, Split?” asked Cody, by way of an easy opening.
”Down to the grocery. Mrs. Pemberton's not laying decently these days.”
”Mrs. Pemberton!”
”Sissy's gray hen, you know. Sissy called her that 'cause she's so stuck-up and thinks she's better than any other hen in the yard.
Besides, she's got only one chicken, and bosses him for all the world like Crosby.”
Cody nodded. ”What time you going to start in the morning? Six?”
”Uh-huh.” Split dared not lift her eyes from the sticky trail that exuded from her.
”Sure?” the boy demanded.
”Sure--if only father don't keep us so long to-night that we can't get ready. We've got to be martyred to-night,” she added gloomily.