Phebe, Her Profession: A Sequel to Teddy: Her BookRay, Anna Chapin
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Phebe, Her Profession: A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book
Ray, Anna Chapin
Friendship -- Juvenile fiction; Girls -- Juvenile fiction; United States -- Juvenile fiction
There was a long interval when the noise of the rain was interrupted by
little groans and exclamations from Phebe, while she tugged and shoved
and pried at the man in the road. He was so very big, so very
unconscious, so very determined to lie with his face buried in the mud
and meet his end by suffocation. At last, she drew a long breath,
mustered all her strength and gave him one pull which turned him
completely over on his back. As she did so, his eyes opened dully and by
degrees gathered expression. He looked up into her mud-stained face, down
at his mud-stained clothes, around at the mud-stained skull which lay
close to his side and grinned back at him encouragingly.
"What the deuce--" he faltered. Then once more he fainted away.
Twenty minutes later, Phebe was rushing away to the nearest house in
search of help. There was but one house within reach, however, and fate
willed that she should find that deserted. She hesitated whether she
should ride on for two miles farther, or go back to her victim, and she
decided upon the latter course. It seemed hours to her before she reached
the top of the hill again. Then she stopped short, dismounted and stared
down the slope in astonishment. Her victim had vanished from the scene.
Only the skull remained to mark the spot where he had lain, two deep
tracks in the soft mud to show the way by which he had gone.
"Well, Babe?" Allyn's voice hailed her, as she rode wearily up the drive,
the water squelching in her shoes and her soaked skirt flapping dismally
about her pedals. "Were you out in all that shower?"
"Yes."
"Why didn't you go under cover?"
"There wasn't any cover to go under." Phebe's tone was not
altogether amicable.
"But the mud? It's all over your face, and your wheel, and your hair."
"I fell off."
"Where?"
"Coming down Bannock Hill. I lost my pedals, and my wheel slipped
in the mud."
"Bannock Hill? That's a bad place to fall. Break anything?"
"You can look and see."
But Allyn was not to be suppressed.
"Where's your hat?"
She started slightly and raised her hand to her head. It was bare.
"Oh, yes," she said unguardedly. "I remember now. I must have left it
where I sat."
"Sat!" Allyn stared at his sister in amazement. "What did you do? Sit
down to study the landscape?"
But Phebe stalked up the steps and into the house, and Allyn saw her no
more until dinner-time.
Two days later, Allyn burst into the office where Phebe was bending over
a book. In his hand was an unfolded newspaper which he flapped excitedly,
as she looked up.
"There are others, Babe."
"What do you mean?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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