Part 20 (2/2)

For a moment her heart almost stopped beating, and she turned her eyes with a hopeless glance across the fields by which she had come. Oh, how wide they were and how desolate! All their glorious beauty faded from her vision till they seemed but an endless waste between her and safety.

Oh, if she had only gone by the straight and longer road, instead of yielding to a whim she had not dared to speak of to Susanna! If she hadn't stopped to fish she would already have been at the Mansion, which now it seemed she would never see again. A tramp. It was the one thing in the world of which she had the greatest fear, and the behavior of Widow Sprigg, as well as the other villagers, had convinced her that here was a tramp of the worst variety.

Then her sense of what was ”fair” made her force her eyes toward her unwished-for companion. To her surprise he was not paying the slightest attention to her, and he didn't look so--well, not so fearfully wicked.

He certainly was clothed in the poorest and dirtiest of rags. His bare feet showed through the holes in his shoes. His hat had a brim but half-way around. His hair had not seen a comb for so long that he must have forgotten what a comb was like. His face was roughly bearded, but it was very pale and not so dirty as his hands. His eyebrows stood out at an angle above his wild eyes, and were the bus.h.i.+est she had ever seen, except Squire Pettijohn's. He wasn't a bit like that sleek and portly gentleman, yet, even as he had done in Alfaretta's case, he brought the village potentate to mind. And--what was it he was doing?

With an old clasp-knife he had drawn from his rags he was digging bait!

Not as she had dug, with timid, tentative jabs from the point of a stick, but systematically, thoroughly, just as Monty would have done. He had found a spot where the earth was soft and rich, and was wholly absorbed in his task. So absorbed that Katharine felt it safe to attempt flight, and got upon her feet.

But he pulled her roughly down again. Yet he showed no enmity toward her, and with the swift intuition of youth she comprehended that he wished her to stay and see him fish. He, the tramp, was to give her her first lesson in angling! What, what would Uncle Moses say?

Always quick to see the comic side of any incident, Katy laughed. She couldn't have helped it even if he had struck her the next instant. He didn't strike, he merely laughed in response--his first laughter of many days. Then he looked into her face, stared, and stared again. Stared so long that Katharine put her hand to it wondering what was amiss. When he turned his gaze aside he fixed it on the chattering river and became oblivious to everything else. Within his brain there was working another memory, evoked by her brown eyes; eyes so like her father's that when she sometimes looked at Susanna, that good woman begged her turn her glance away, saying:

”You're so like Johnny you give me the creeps!”

Susanna was often getting the ”creeps,” and Katy wondered if she had given them to this poor wretch also, since, though he had seemed so anxious to fish a few moments ago, he had now apparently forgotten all about it. She gathered all her courage and put out her hand to take the rod.

”If you please, mister, I must be going now. Will you give me my things?”

”Bime by. Wait. Don't talk. In a minute I'll have a whopper.”

It was a relief to hear him speak in such an ordinary way. She had supposed that the language of tramps was something wholly vile. His voice was husky, but that might be from illness, for he certainly did look ill. Well, if he wanted her to stay she would better please him. He would tire of keeping her there after awhile, or so she hoped. Even a tramp couldn't go on fis.h.i.+ng forever, and somebody might come.

He was really very skilful. Almost as soon as Uncle Moses could have done so he had landed his first catch and left it floundering on the bank. Katharine had never thought about the cruel side of angling. It was left for this forlorn creature to teach her that of this pretty pastime there is something else than lounging beside charming waterways and beneath green boughs. Angleworms might not suffer much, might even get used to being tortured, as Montgomery averred; but how about that beautiful s.h.i.+ning thing done to slow death on the sward beside her? A new pity for this humbler of G.o.d's creatures made her forget her lingering fear of the man. With a cry she s.n.a.t.c.hed the rod from his hand, exclaiming:

”You sha'n't do that any more! It's wicked! Oh, the poor, pretty thing!

We have taken away its life and we can never give it back again. I feel as if I had seen murder done. I understand Aunt Eunice now about the poultry. Oh, it is dreadful!”

This was the girl's first knowledge of killing, and she was extreme in her revulsion as she was in all things. But her emotion was a good thing because it recalled her to the fact that she had something else to do.

She must be about it at once, and if the man followed or annoyed her--why, she must trust she could escape him.

Rapidly unfolding the rod, she was conscious that the tramp was again regarding her with that intent gaze which had nothing menacing in it, but was rather wistful and sad. He did not resent her stopping his sport, and, turning away from her, he picked up the fish and tossed it back into the water. Then she went a few steps to where she had placed the basket and drew it out from the alders.

Now his whole att.i.tude changed. He had not suffered greatly from hunger heretofore. The gardens and fields were too rich just then with fruits and vegetables, and n.o.body missed a few potatoes from the heaps dug, nor corn from the shocks. There were apples galore, and in some orchards pears and even plums. The stone walls bordering the farms were hung with wild frost-grapes, while the nut-trees offered their abundance to whomsoever would accept. Beneath these same trees there was game to be ensnared even by one who carried no gun, and as for poultry-yards, nearly every householder had one. n.o.body, not even a tramp, need go hungry on that countryside, unless his scruples prevented him from helping himself.

This particular tramp had no scruples of that sort whatever. As Katharine picked up her heavy basket, he was upon his feet and relieved her of the burden at once. She tried to retain her hold of the handle, but was no match for him in strength, and had to watch him drop down upon the bank, tear apart the two halves of the cover, and explore the contents.

She made one effort to rescue Susanna's good things from this ”thief,”

as she now knew him to be, but he flung her hands aside so rudely he hurt them; and when she cried to him: ”You mustn't! You must not touch those things, they aren't mine!” he did not notice her.

Already one pumpkin pie was half-devoured. Uncooked food from the fields may, indeed, prevent starvation, but here was luxury. If ”the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” Susanna Sprigg should have been highly flattered. Katharine had never seen anybody eat as this man did. Before she could say, ”Well, you sha'n't have the basket, even if you do steal the things from it!” the first pie had wholly gone. He tried a little variety: broke the brown loaf in two, and, unrolling the pat of b.u.t.ter, generously smeared it, using his dirty hands for knife.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”ALREADY ONE PUMPKIN PIE WAS HALF-DEVOURED”]

This was wretchedly disgusting but--fascinating. It reminded the young Baltimorean of feeding-time at the Zoo. She also dropped upon the sward to watch, and to recover her basket when he should have done with its contents.

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