Part 36 (1/2)

Still without notion of whither bound, the runaways, moist and dishevelled, found themselves down by the railroad tracks. There, in front of the Pacific depot, stood the 10:43 ”accommodation” for Osawatomie and other points south. Another idea out of the blue!

”Let's go to Osawatomie!” cried Missy.

The accommodation was puffing laboriously into action as the last Junior clambered pantingly on. But they'd all got on! They were on their way!

But not on their way to Osawatomie.

For before they had all found satisfactory places on the red plush seats where it was hard to sit still with that bright balminess streaming in through the open windows--hard to sit still, or to think, or to do anything but flutter up and down and laugh and chatter about nothing at all--the conductor appeared.

”Tickets, please!”

A trite and commonplace phrase, but potent to plunge errant, winging fancies down to earth. The chattering ceased short. No one had thought of tickets, nor even of money. The girls of the party looked appalled--in Cherryvale the girls never dreamed of carrying money to school; then furtively they glanced at the boys. Just as furtively the boys were exploring into pockets, but though they brought forth a plentiful salvage of the anomalous treasure usually to be found in school-boys' pockets, the display of ”change” was pathetic. Raymond had a quarter, and that was more than anyone else turned out.

The conductor impatiently repeated:

”Tickets, please!”

Then Missy, feeling that financial responsibility must be recognized in a cla.s.s president, began to put her case with a formal dignity that impressed every one but the conductor.

”We're the Junior cla.s.s of the Cherryvale High School--we wish to go to Osawatomie. Couldn't we--maybe--?”

Formal dignity broke down, her voice stuck in her throat, but her eyes ought to have been enough. They were big and s.h.i.+ning eyes, and when she made them appealing they had been known to work wonders with father and mother and other grown-ups, even with the austere Professor Sutton.

But this burly figure in the baggy blue uniform had a face more like a wooden Indian than a human grown-up--and an old, dyspeptic wooden Indian at that. Missy's eyes were to avail her nothing that hour.

”Off you get at the watering-tank,” he ordained. ”The whole pack of you.”

And at the watering-tank off they got.

And then, as often follows a mood of high adventure, there fell upon the festive group a moment of pause, of unnatural quiet, of ”let down.”

”Well, what're we going to do now?” queried somebody.

”We'll do whatever Missy says,” said Raymond, just as if he were Sir Walter Raleigh speaking of the Virgin Queen. It was a wonder someone didn't start teasing him about her; but everyone was too taken up waiting for Missy to proclaim. She set her very soul vibrating; shut her eyes tightly a moment to think; and, as if in proof that Providence helps them who must help others, almost instantly she opened them again.

”Rocky Ford!”

Just like that, out of the blue, a quick, unfaltering, almost unconscious cry of the inspired. And, with resounding acclaim, her followers caught it up:

”Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!”--”That's the ticket!”--”We'll have a picnic'.”--”Rocky Ford! Rocky Ford!”

Rocky Ford, home of nymphs, water-babies and Indian legend, was only half a mile away. Again it shone in all its old-time romantic loveliness on Missy's inward eye. And for a fact it was a good Maytime picnic place.

That day everything about the spot seemed invested with a special kind of beauty, the kind of beauty you feel so poignantly in stories and pictures but seldom meet face to face in real life. The Indian maiden became a memory you must believe in: she had loved someone and they were parted somehow and she was turned into a swan or something. Off on either side the creek, the woods stretched dim and mysterious; but nearby, on the banks, the little new leaves stirred and sparkled in the sun like green jewels; and the water dribbled and sparkled over the flat white stones of the ford like a million swis.h.i.+ng diamonds; and off in the distance there were sounds which may have been birds--or, perhaps, the legendary maiden singing; and, farther away, somewhere, a faint clanging music which must be cow-bells, only they had a remote heavenly quality rare in cow-bells.

And, all the while, the sun beaming down on the ford, intensely soft and bright. Why is it that the sun can seem so much softer and brighter in some places than in others?

Missy felt that soft brightness penetrating deeper and deeper into her being. It seemed a sort of limpid, s.h.i.+ning tide flowing through to her very soul; it made her blood tingle, and her soul quiver. And, in some mysterious way, the presence, of Raymond Bonner, consciousness of Raymond--Raymond himself--began to seem all mixed up with this ineffable, surging effulgence. Missy recognized that she had long experienced a secret, strange, shy kind of feeling toward Raymond. He was so handsome and so gay, and his dark eyes told her so plainly that he liked her, and he carried her books home for her despite the fact that the other boys teased him. The other girls had teased Missy, too, so that sometimes she didn't know whether she was more happy or embarra.s.sed over Raymond's admiration.

But, to-day, everyone seemed lifted above such childish rudeness.

When Missy had first led off from the watering-tank toward Rocky Ford, Raymond had taken his place by her side, and he maintained it there masterfully though two or three other boys tried to include themselves in the cla.s.s president's group--”b.u.t.tinskys,” Raymond termed them.