Part 6 (1/2)
”Not saving any more! What do you mean, Rosie? What's happened?”
She could feel his kind jolly eyes looking at her through the dark but she knew that he could not see the tears which suddenly filled her own.
”N-nothing,” she quavered.
”Rosie! Tell me!” He put his arm about her shoulder and drew her to him.
At the tenderness in his voice and touch, all the sense of outrage and loss in Rosie's heart welled up afresh and broke in sobs which she could not control.
”I wasn't going to tell you, Jarge, honest I wasn't, because you're dead gone on her and, besides, she's my own sister.”
For a few seconds Rosie could say no more and George, with a sudden tightening of the arm that encircled her, waited in silence.
”I--I was going up to count my money, Jarge, and what do you think? Some one had smashed open the bank and taken every cent! I tell you there wasn't even one cent left! And, Jarge, I've been saving so hard--you know I have!” She lay on his shoulder, her body shaking with sobs.
George spoke with an effort: ”Why do you think it was Ellen?”
”Terry and me got it out o' ma. When we cornered her she told us.... And she's gone and spent it on a bunch of curls! Think of that, Jarge--curls for her hair! Just because Hattie Graydon's got false curls, Ellen's got to have them, too! Now do you call that fair? I saved awful hard for that money, you know I did, and it was my own!”
George sighed. ”Poor kiddo! Of course it was your own! But Ellen'll pay you back, I--I'm sure she will.”
”That's what ma says. But, Jarge, even if she does, it won't be the same thing. Just tell me how you'd feel yourself if all your savings were s.n.a.t.c.hed away from you!”
George's answer was unexpected. ”They have been, Rosie, a good many times.”
”What!” Rosie sat up in fright and astonishment. ”Has she dared to go and break into your trunk?”
George laughed weakly. ”No, Rosie, it ain't Ellen this time.” He paused a moment. ”I've told you about my father's farm. It's a good farm and I'd rather live on it and work it than do anything else on earth. But it's got run down, Rosie. The old man's had a mighty long spell of unluck. A few years ago he got a little mortgage piled up on it and for nearly two years now he hasn't kept it up like he ought to. In the country you've got to have ready money to wipe out mortgages and to start things goin' right. That's why I'm here in town railroading and that's why I'm saving every cent until people think I'm a tightwad.”
”But, Jarge, how did they get it away from you so many times?”
”Well, just to show you: Two years ago one of the barns burned down.
That cost me two hundred dollars. Last summer we lost a couple of our best cows worth sixty dollars apiece. This winter the old man was laid up with rheumatiz a couple o' months and it cost me a dollar a day to get the ch.o.r.es done, let alone the doctor bill. And each time I was just about ready to blow my job here and hike for home. I thought sure I'd be doing my own plowing this spring.”
Weariness and discouragement sounded in his voice and Rosie, forgetting her own troubles, slipped her arms about his neck.
”I'm awful sorry, Jarge. Maybe if nothing happens this summer you'll be able to go back in the fall.”
George shook himself doggedly. ”Oh, I'll get there some time! I cleaned up the mortgage the first year I was here and now I'm working to pile up five hundred in the bank before I go. I'm getting there, too, but I hope to G.o.d I won't have any more setbacks!”
”And if you do, Jarge?...”
The answer came sharp and quick: ”I'll save all the harder!”
For a few moments both were silent. Then George spoke: ”I'm sorry, Rosie, about this thing. I know how you feel. If you want to, after this you may hide your savings in my trunk. I've got two keys and I'll give you one.”
”I--I didn't think I was going to save any more, Jarge.”