"My sister and I don't want to go right into the town, so we'll get out
here if you don't mind," Jim said. "This lift has been a godsend, and I
can't thank you, but I've got the name of the company you're working for
in New York and I'll drop around some night when I'm flush and you're
knocking off, and we'll see if the old burg is as dry as it's supposed
to be."
"You're on!" The driver grinned. "Got a job waitin' for yer? We need
some helpers."
"I've got a job." Jim thought of that "job" in the mahogany-lined suite
of offices which bore his name on the door, but he did not smile. "I'll
look you up soon. Come on, Lou; here's where we change cars."
She rubbed her eyes and gazed about her bewilderedly in the gathering
darkness as he lifted her to the ground and the truck rumbled off.
"Where--where are we now?" she asked sleepily.
"Just outside Parksville; see those lights over there?" he replied. "We
must have walked more than ten miles before that motor van came along,
so it isn't any wonder that you were tired, even if you wouldn't admit
it. Just think, nineteen miles to-day!"
He was wondering, even as he spoke, what they were to do for the night.
He had not enough money to secure even the humblest of lodgings for her,
and he knew that if they ventured as vagrants into the town they would
be in danger of apprehension by the authorities. But Lou solved the
question quite simply.
"Isn't that big thing stickin' up in that field a haystack? I--I'd like
a piece of that sponge cake that's left from what we ate at noon, and
then crawl in there an' sleep straight through till to-morrow," she
declared. "Did you want to go on any further to-night?"
"Heavens, no. I was just wondering--I don't see why it couldn't be
done," he replied somewhat haltingly. "There isn't any house near, and I
don't think anything will hurt you."
The latter probability seemed of no moment to Lou. She fell asleep again
with her sponge cake half eaten, and he picked her up and nestled her in
the hay as though she were in very truth a child. Then, as on the first
night at the deserted mill near Hudsondale, he sat down at the foot of
the haystack, on guard.
It was well for them, however, that the haying was done in that
particular field, and no farmer appeared from the big white house just
over the hill, for in spite of his most valiant efforts Jim, too,
slumbered, and it was broad day when he awoke.
Lou had vanished from the haystack, but he found her at a little spring
in a strip of woodland on the other side of the road, and they
breakfasted hastily, conserving the last fragments of food for their
midday meal, and started off.
They had left the last chimney of Parksville well behind them when Jim
suddenly observed:
"You're limping, Lou. Let me see your shoes."
She drew away from him.
"It's nothin'," she denied. "My shoes are all right. I--I must've slept
too long last night an' got sort of stiffened up."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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