The girl tried to fling herself down again, but he held her tight. "I wouldn't do that!" His voice was kind, but he spoke with authority. "Get your nice clean dress all dirty! What would Mis' Bailey say? Why, she'll be lookin' for you, I expect. She thought you was 'tendin' to the hens, and all the time--what say?" "Take me with you!" cried the girl. "I want you! I won't go back. Take me with you!" "Now what a way that is to talk! You wouldn't leave Mr. and Mis' Bailey, good and kind as they be--" "I want you!" wailed the girl, and again she would have flung herself down, had not those firm hands held her fast. "Take me with you! Sing to me! Love me! I belong to you!" Pippin's face had been full of perplexity, but now it lightened. "Sing to you! Why, sure I will! There's a song you'll just admire to hear, Miss Flora May. We'll walk along and I'll sing as we go. No, I won't let go both your hands; I'll hold this one so--so we can keep step together. Now let's step out lively!" The girl drew back, her eyes narrowing. "This isn't the way you were going!" she said sullenly. "I won't go back. I'm a big girl, and they treat me like I was a kid. I won't go back! If you won't take me, I'll drown myself!" "We'll go along! 'Along' isn't 'back,' is it now? Along, you know: matches up with song, don't you see? Green grass! see those pretty yaller flowers! They're along, too, just a piece! Let's we gather some, see if they're sweet as they are pretty!" Still holding her wrist in that firm grasp, rambling on about the flowers, he stooped to pluck them, and managed to turn back in the direction of Cyrus. "Now we'll come along!" he proclaimed. "Here's a good clear stretch of road, and I'll sing--you just listen!" Never before, it seemed to Pippin, had he let his voice out to its full power. He felt it fly like a bird before him; it must reach all the way, it _must_! "When I can read my title clear To mansions in the skies, ("He'll hear that sure! he'll sense it in a minute, and know it's all right!") "I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes! "So we will, Miss Flora May, won't we? You sing, too, that's a dandy girl! Let her go, Gallagher!" Two hundred yards away, a man was driving through the woods at top speed of his lumbering horse. Brows bent, lips compressed, deadly fear at his heart, he sat unseeing, silent, save when he urged the clumsy beast to still further effort. Fear at his heart, and anger, and bewilderment; but struggling with all these something that said dazedly over and over, "I don't believe it! He wasn't that kind! I don't believe it!" Suddenly he checked the horse and threw up his head, listening. Through the trees, down the wood road, a voice came flying like a bird, ringing like a trumpet, crying like a great wind in his ears: "I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes!"