Part 32 (1/2)

Then a sudden, ear-splitting thunder-clap hurled her onto a shrieking discord.

She jumped up from the piano; she was horribly afraid of thunder-storms--mother wouldn't mind if she stopped till the storm was over. She longed to go and sit close to mother, to feel the protection of her presence; but, despite the general softening of her mood, she had maintained a certain stiffness toward the family. So she crouched on a sofa in the darkest corner of the room, hiding her eyes, stopping her ears.

Then a sudden thought brought her bolt upright. Gypsy! Tess had said Gypsy was afraid of thunder-storms--awfully afraid. And Gypsy was all alone in that big, gloomy barn--Tess blocks away at the Library.

She tried to hide amongst the cus.h.i.+ons again, but visions of Gypsy, with her bright inquisitive eyes, her funny little petulances, her endearing cajoleries, kept rising before her. She felt a stab of remorse; that she could have let even the delights of reading and improvising compensate for separation from such a darling pony. She had been selfish, selfcentred. And now Gypsy was alone in that old barn, trembling and neighing...

Finally, unable to endure the picture longer, she crept out to the hall.

She could hear mother and Aunt Nettie in the sitting-room--she couldn't get an umbrella from the closet. So, without umbrella or hat, she stole out the front door. Above was a continuous network of flame as though someone were scratching immense matches all over the surface of heaven, but doggedly she ran on. The downpour caught her, but on she sped though rain and hail hammered her head, blinded her eyes, and drove her drenched garments against her flesh.

She found Gypsy huddled quivering and taut in a corner of the stall.

She put her arms round the satiny neck, and they mutely comforted each other. It was thus that Tess discovered them; she, too, had run to Gypsy though it had taken longer as she had farther to go; but she was not so wet as Missy, having borrowed an umbrella at the Library.

”_I_ didn't wait to get an umbrella,” Missy couldn't forebear commenting, slightly slurring the truth.

Tess seemed a bit annoyed. ”Well, you didn't HAVE to go out in the rain anyway. Guess I can be depended on to look out for my own pony, can't I?”

But Missy's tactful rejoinder that she'd only feared Tess mightn't be able to accomplish the longer distance, served to dissipate the shadow of jealousy. Before the summer storm had impetuously spent itself, the friends were crowded companionably in the feed-box, feeding the rea.s.sured Gypsy peppermint sticks--Tess had met Arthur Simpson on her way to the Library--and talking earnestly.

The earnest talk was born of an ill.u.s.tration Tess had seen in a magazine at the Library. It was a society story and the ill.u.s.tration showed the heroine in riding costume.

”She looked awfully swagger,” related Tess. ”Flicking her crop against her boot, and a derby hat and stock-collar and riding-breeches. I think breeches are a lot more swagger than habits.”

”Do you think they're a little bit--indelicate?” ventured Missy, remembering her mother's recent invective against tomboys.

”Of course not!” denied Tess disdainfully. ”Valerie Jones in Macon City wears 'em and she's awfully swell. Her father's a banker. She's in the thick of things at the Country Club. It's depa.s.se to ride side-saddle, anyway.”

Missy was silent; even when she felt herself misunderstood by her family and maltreated, she had a bothersome conscience.

”There's no real cla.s.s to riding horseback,” Tess went on, ”unless you're up to date. You got to be up to date. Of course Cherryvale's slow, but that's no reason we've got to be slow, is it?”

”No-o,” agreed Missy hesitantly. But she was emboldened to mention her father's discarded pepper-and-salt trousers. At the first she didn't intend really to appropriate them, but Tess caught up the idea enthusiastically. She immediately began making concrete plans and, soon, Missy caught her fervour. That picture of herself as a das.h.i.+ng, fearless horsewoman had come to life again.

When she got home, mother, looking worried, was waiting for her.

”Where on earth have you been? Look at that straggly hair! And that dress, fresh just this morning--limp as a dish-rag!”

Missy tried to explain, but the anxiety between mother's eyes deepened to lines of crossness.

”For heaven's sake! To go rus.h.i.+ng off like that without a rain-coat or even an umbrella! And you pretend to be afraid of thunder-storms! Now, Missy, it isn't because you've ruined your dress or likely caught your death of cold--but to think you'd wilfully disobey me! What on earth AM I to do with you?”

She made Missy feel like an unregenerate sinner. And Missy liked her stinging, smarting sensations no better because she felt she didn't deserve them. That heavy sense of injustice somewhat deadened any p.r.i.c.ks of guilt when, later, she stealthily removed the pepper-and-salts from the upstairs store-closet.

But Aunt Nettie's eagle eyes chanced to see her. She went to Mrs.

Merriam.

”What do you suppose Missy wants of those old pepper-and-salt pants?”

”I don't know, Nettie. Why?”