Part 25 (1/2)

The swift color made her face lovely as she spoke, and with the words she turned away and went quickly into the house. The young man looked after her and dared not follow. He had never had a shock like that in his life. Girls had talked about everything under heaven to him at one time or another, but they had never mentioned G.o.d except profanely.

Marilyn went swiftly up to her room and knelt down by her bed, burying her hot cheeks in the cool pillow and trying to pray. She was glad, glad that she had spoken for her poor city children, glad that there was a prospect or help perhaps; but beside and beyond it all her heart was crying out for another matter that was namelessly tugging away at the very foundations of her soul. Why, Oh _Why_ had Mark gone away with that queer girl? He must have seen what she was! He must have known that it was unnecessary! He must have known how it would hurt his friends, and that the man she came to see could have gone as well as he and better.

Why did he go? She would not, she could not believe anything wrong of Mark. Yet _why did he go_?

XX

Billy had no appet.i.te for the nice supper that Aunt Saxon had ready when he came dejectedly home that night. He had pa.s.sed the parsonage and seen through the dining-room window that the rich guy was sitting at the supper table opposite Marilyn laughing and talking with her and his soul was sick within him. That was his doing! n.o.body else but himself to blame!

Aunt Saxon had apple dumplings with plenty of ”goo,” black with cinnamon just the way he loved it, but he only minced at the first helping and scarcely tasted the second. He chopped a great many kindling after supper, and filled the woodbox, and thoughtfully wound the clock. Then instead of going out with his usual ”I gotta beat it!” he sat languidly on the doorstep in the dusk, and when she anxiously questioned if he were sick he said crossly:

”Aw, Gee! Can't ya let a fella _alone_! I'm all in, can't ya _see_ it?

I'm gonta _bed_!” and knowing he had said the most alarming thing in the whole category he slammed upstairs to his own room and flung himself across his bed.

Aunt Saxon filled with vague fears crept softly up after him, tapping at his locked door:

”Willie, what is the matter? Just tell auntie where the pain is and I'll get you some medicine that will fix you all up by morning. I'll get you a hot water bag--!”

”DON'T WANT NO HOT WATER BAGS!” roared the sore hearted Billy. ”Can't ya lemme _alone_?”

Silence a moment while Aunt Saxon pondered tearfully and sighfully, then:

”Willie, is it the tooth ache?”

”NoooOH!” roared Billy.

A pause, then:

”Billy, you've had a fall off that wheel and hurt yer head or cut yer knee, I know, I've always thought you'd do that, that old wheel! You oughtta have a new one. But I'll bring the arnica and bathe it. And we'll paint it with iodine--where was it Willie? Yer knee?”

Billy's shoes came to the floor with a bang:

”Aw gee! Can't ya keep yer mouth shut an' let a fella have a little sleep. It ain't _Nowhere_! It ain't _Nothin'_ an' I didn't have no fall an' I don't want no new bicycle. D'ye hear? I don't want nothin' 'cept just to be let alone. I wantta go ta sleep. Ain't I ben tellin' ya fer the last half hour? It ain't _sinful_ fer a fella to wantta take a little sleep is it when he's been up half the night before taking care of a fella on the mountain?--But if I ain't allowed, why then I'll get up an' go out somewheres. I know plenty of places where they'll lemme sleep--”

”Oh _Wil-lee_!” sobbed Aunt Saxon. ”That's all right dear! Just you lie right down in your bed and take a good sleep. I didn't understand.

Auntie didn't understand. All right Willie. I'll keep it real still. Now you lie down won't you? You will won't you? You'll really lie down and sleep won't you Willie?”

”Didn't I say I would?” snapped Willie shamedly, and subsided on his bed again while Aunt Saxon stole painfully, noiselessly over the creak in the stair, closed the house for the night and crept tearfully to her own bed, where she lay for hours silently wiping the steady trickle of hopeless tears. Oh, Willie, Willie! And she had had such hopes!

But Billy lay staring wide eyed at the open square of his window that showed the little village nestling among the trees dotted here and there with friendly winking lights, the great looming mountains in the distance, and Stark mountain, farthest and blackest of them all. He shut his eyes and tried to blot it out, but it seemed to loom through his very eyelids and mock him. He seemed to see Mark, his idol, carried between those other three dark figures into the blackness of that haunted house. He seemed to see him lying helpless, bound, on the musty bed in the deserted room, Mark, his beloved Mark. Mark who had carried him on his shoulder as a tiny child, who had ridden him on his back, and taught him to swim and pitch ball and box, Mark who let him go where even the big boys were not allowed to accompany him, and who never told on him nor treated him mean nor went back on him in any way! Mark! _He_ had been the means of putting Mark in that helpless position, while circ.u.mstances which he was now quite sure the devil had been specially preparing, wove a tangled maze about the young man's feet from which there seemed no way of extrication.

Billy shut his eyes and tried to sleep but sleep would not come. He began to doubt if he would ever sleep again. He lay listening to the evening noises of the village. He heard Jim Rafferty's voice going by to the night s.h.i.+ft, and Tom McMertrie. They were laughing softly and once he thought he heard the name ”Old Hair-Cut.” The Tully baby across the street had colic and cried like murder. Murder! _Murder!_ Now why did he have to think of that word of all words? Murder? Well, it was crying like it wanted to murder somebody. He wished he was a baby himself so he could cry. He'd cry harder'n that. Little's dog was barking again. He'd been barking all day long. It was probably at that strange guy at the parsonage. Little's dog never did like strangers. That creak was Barneses gate with the iron weight hitched on the chain to make it shut, and somebody laughed away up the street! There went the clock, nine o'clock! Gee! Was that all? He thought it must be about three in the morning! And then he must have dozed off for a little, for when he woke with a start it was very still and dark, as if the moon had gone away, had been and gone again, and he heard a cautious little mouse gnawing at the baseboard in his room, gnawing and stopping and gnawing again, then whisking over the lath like fingers running a scale on the piano. He had watched Miss Lynn do it once on the organ.

He opened his eyes and looked hard at the window. The dim outline of Stark mountain off in the distance began to grow into form, and what was that? A speck of light? It must be his eyes. He rubbed them sleepily and looked again. Yes, a light. Alert at once with the alertness that comes to all boys at the sound of a fire bell or some such alarm, he slid from his bed noiselessly and stole to the window. It was gone! Aw, Gee! He had been asleep and dreamed it. No, there it was again, or was it?

Blackness all before his eyes, with a luminous sky dimly about the irregular mountain top fringed with trees. This was foolish. He felt chilly and crept back to bed, but could not keep his eyes from the dark spot against the sky. He tried to close the lids and go to sleep, but they insisted on flying open and watching. And then came what he had been watching for. Three winks, and stop, three winks, stop, and one long flash. Then all was dark. And though he watched till the church clock struck three he saw no more.

But the old torment came back. Mark and Cherry and Lynn. The guy at the parsonage and the girl with the floured face and base ball bats in her ears! Aw Gee! He must have a fever! It was hours since the clock had struck three. It must be nearly four, and then it would soon be light and he could get up. There seemed to be a light somewhere down the street through the trees. Not the street lamp either. Somebody sick likely. Hark! What was that? He wished he hadn't undressed. He sat up in bed and listened. The purr of a car! Someone was stealing Mark's car! Mark was away and everybody knew it. n.o.body in Sabbath Valley would steal, except, perhaps over at the plush mill. There were new people there--Was that Mark's car? _Some car_!

With a motion like a cat he sprang into the necessary garment which nestled limply on the floor by the bed, and was at the window in a trice. A drop like a cat to the shed roof, down the rainwater spout to the ground, a stealthy step to the back shed where old trusty leaned, and he was away down the road a speck in the dark, and just in time to see the dim black vision of a car speeding with m.u.f.fled engine down the road toward the church. It was too dark to say it was Mark's car. He had no way but to follow.