Christian fiction; Love stories; Man-woman relationships -- Fiction; Nineteen twenties -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
“My uncle ain’t that kind and I can get candy when I want it. I tell
you that ain’t anybody’s name at all. It’s just scribbling. Come on,
Dorrie, we’ll be late to school.”
But Dorothea had got a good vision of the writing at last.
“Why, that’s my cousin’s name!” she exclaimed eagerly, wondering if she
could possibly get that box of candy. “Joyce Ra--”
But a firm little hand was laid smotheringly over her mouth.
“Shut up!” said Lib Knox fiercely. “Don’t you know you mustn’t talk to
strange men on the street? Come on, I hear the last bell ringing--” and
she seized her young slave and dragged her at full tilt down the street.
Tyke stood still on the pavement, his red hair reflecting the morning
sun, and his unholy face broad with a leer of triumph. Let them go. He
had his clue, Joyce! Strange he hadn’t thought of that name before.
Even when he used the whole alphabet, somehow he didn’t figure out that
name. The rest would be easy to get. He sauntered down after the flying
children and noted the location of the school house. School would be
out at noon of course--or would afternoon be better? Ah, there was a
tall hedge across the way, an excellent point of vantage to watch as
the children filed out at the end of the day.
And so it happened, quite late in the afternoon after Lib Knox and
Dorothea had written their misspelled words five hundred times and
stayed in an extra half-hour for talking deaf and dumb language in
class, and when they had visited the public garage for an hour and
played with the five blind puppies that had recently arrived there, and
had said a lingering and fond farewell for the afternoon and parted,
that Dorothea started on her reluctant way home to supper.
As she turned the corner out of sight of Lib Knox, Tyke stepped up as
if he had just been walking down that way.
“Hello, kid,” he said in his insinuating way. “I jest been lookin’ fer
you. Bought that box of candy awhile ago an’ thought I’d like to give
it to you. You like chocolates, don’t you, kid?”
Dorothea quickly assured him that she did, her eyes round with
eagerness.
He produced a pound box tied with a red ribbon.
“Well, you’re a nice kid,” he went on. “I knowed it the minute I saw
you. So that girl was your cousin, was she? Joyce, wha did ya say her
name was? I ferget without the writin’ in front of me.”
“Joyce Radway,” eagerly supplied Dorothea, her eyes on the candy box.
“Yes, that’s it, Joyce Radway. Of course. How did I come to ferget
that? Well, now this Joyce Radway, she’s a great friend of that other
girl’s uncle, ain’t she?”
“Why, I guess so,” said Dorothea. “He came to the house to see her the
other night.”
“Oh, he did, did he? Yes, of course he would. Then your cousin is home,
ain’t she?” insinuatingly.
“No, she ain’t home, not now,” said Dorothea, annoyed, wondering when
he was going to give her the box. “She’s gone away.”
“Oh! She has?” his eyes narrowed as he watched her. “Did she go away
with him?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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