Part 41 (2/2)
He looked up at Hertha who stood on the step above him.
”Tom,” she said, trying to delay him, ”do you go to church?”
”Of course!”
”To Siloam?”
”How'd you guess that?”
”It's the biggest church in town.”
Tom smiled. ”I reckon you know'd I wouldn't go to any but a big one while I was about it.”
”And when you write home tell them all about me, won't you?”
”Yes.”
”And we won't lose track of one another again.”
He did not reply to this, but with a smile for her and a nod to Bob, walked with his slow, steady gait down the street. Hertha stood by her doorstep fearing to go farther, but Bob tore after his hero and with short, trotting steps that sometimes became a run, accompanied him to the street car, watching as he was carried away out of his sight.
When he came back he found Hertha standing just where he had left her.
”Say, Miss Ogilvie,” he questioned, ”is it staying in the woods so much makes him black?”
”Why do you ask!” Hertha said sharply; ”don't you like him the way he is?”
”Oh, I don't care,” Bob replied in a catholic spirit; and added meditatively: ”In the Arabian Nights all the genii are black.”
CHAPTER XXIX
There are some who make decisions with the sure swiftness of a sensitive film, one moment a blank, the next, by a flash of light, a picture, incisive and clear. Such people, though they may make their share of mistakes, lead on the whole a comfortable existence. But there are others who, like the southern girl occupying the second-story back-room of Mrs. Pickens' boarding-house, find it difficult to determine for themselves the course which they shall take. And to these who wander in the valley of indecision the right path to follow becomes daily more obscured. The more they question the more they are beset with obstacles, mists gather about them, and some have been known to wait in hesitancy, until, without having tasted of adventure, they find that their day is done.
Hertha, however difficult decision might be to her, had determined not to be in this latter group. When her school work was over, she had resolved to settle upon her future; but in the days that followed Tom's visit, when with her lover away there was a chance to stop and think, she had to confess to herself that the paths down which she looked were none of them to her liking. And yet she must apparently choose one of two alternatives or else after seven months of trial start in again with lessened fortune, without a profession and alone.
As she sat at her books late one afternoon, endeavoring to indite a business letter she looked up to find Miss Wood standing at her open door.
”Excuse me,” Miss Wood said, ”I know you are at work but I wanted to leave you some of my roses. One of our cases--a woman who got into trouble--brought them to me from the country to-day. She did the sensible thing (so few will) and went away with her child to work at domestic service; and now she can come in for the day and leave me something as lovely as this.” And she held out a spray of rambler roses.
Hertha took the gift with a shy word of thanks, and after placing the flowers in water invited Miss Wood to sit down.
”No, I'm not going to interrupt you,” the older woman said.
”You aren't interrupting,” Hertha answered. ”Especially,” she added, ”as I want very much to ask your advice.”
To be asked to a.s.sume the role of adviser is the most subtle of compliments; and Miss Wood, while murmuring that she feared she would be of little use, took Hertha's rocking-chair by the window and proceeded to look self-conscious, as though she might thus exude wisdom.
<script>