McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908.Various
History
McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908.
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Literature -- Periodicals
Once the loud blare of a horn sent them over to the side of the road,
clinging to the wire fencing, as an automobile shot by--a cheerful
monster that spoke of life in towns, leaving a new and sharp desolation
behind it. Why hadn't they seen it before? Why hadn't they tried to hail
it when they _did_ see? To have had such a chance and lost it! Once they
were frightened almost uncontrollably by a group approaching with
strange sounds--Italian laborers, cheerful and unintelligible when Dosia
intrepidly questioned them. They passed on, still jabbering; two
bedraggled women and a baby were no novelty to them. Then there was more
long, high fencing, and moonlight, and silence, and shadows, and
trees--and trees----
"Do you suppose we'll _ever_ get out of here?" asked Lois at last,
dully.
"Why, of course; we can't help getting out, if we keep on," said Dosia,
in a comfortingly matter-of-fact tone.
It was she who was helper and guide now.
"Oh, if I had never left Justin! Why, why did I leave him? How far do
you think we have walked, Dosia?"
"It seems so endless, I can't tell; but we must be nearly at Haledon,"
said Dosia. "Let's sit down and rest awhile here. Oh, Lois, Lois
_dear_!" She had taken off her jacket and spread it on the damp grass
for them both to sit on, huddled close together, and now pressed the
older woman's head down on her shoulder, holding both mother and child
in her young arms.
Lois lay there without stirring. Far off in the stillness, there came
the murmur of the brook they had passed in the train--so long since, it
seemed! The moon hung high above now, pouring a flood of light down
through the arching branches of the trees upon her beautiful face with
its closed eyes, and the tiny features of the sleeping child. Something
in the utter relaxation of the attitude and manner began to alarm the
girl.
"Lois, we must go on," she said, with an anxious note in her voice.
"Lois! You mustn't give up. We can't stay here!"
"Yes, I know," said Lois. She struggled to her feet, and began to walk
ahead slowly. Dosia, behind her, flung out her arms to the
shadow-embroidered road over which they had just passed.
"Oh, why _don't_ you come!" she whispered again intensely, with
passionate reproach; and then, swiftly catching up with Lois, took the
child from her, and again they stumbled on together, haltingly, to the
accompaniment of that far-off brook.
The wire fencing ceased, but the road became narrower, the walls of
trees darker, closer together, though the soil underfoot grew firmer.
They had to stop every few minutes to rest. Lois saw ever before her the
one objective point--a dimly lighted room, with Justin stretched out
upon the bed, dying, while she could not get there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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