Anything Once Part 5

"Come down, Lou." Jim stood on the sidewalk reaching up for her hands.

"This is New Hartz."

Mr. Perkins was not in the van, but as Lou scrambled over the wheel he appeared from the door of the hotel.

"Young man, I wish I was goin' further, but I ain't, and I want ter talk a little business with you." He drew Jim aside. "You and your sister wouldn't ha' ben walkin' it in from Hudsonvale if you could ha' paid ter come any other way."

"No, Mr. Perkins." Jim backed away smilingly. "We couldn't think of--of borrowing, but thanks for the ten-mile lift into New Hartz."

"Glad ter hev your company." Mr. Perkins suddenly dived around to the back of the van and his voice came to them m.u.f.fled from the depths of its interior. "Wait jest a minute."

He emerged, red and perspiring, with a small package wrapped in a square of something shimmering and white in his hands, which he offered to the wondering Lou.

"It's jest a little present fer you, miss," he said.

Lou accepted it gravely.

"Thank you, sir," she said primly. "You ain't got any call to give me this, not after bringin' us all the way from Hudsondale."

"I guess I can make a little present if I'm a mind ter, ter a pretty little girl like you." Mr. Perkins turned to Jim. "Wish yer both luck on your way."

They took leave of the kindly little fat man and moved off up the village street and beyond the inevitable car tracks to the dwindling country road once more. In the shade of a big tree at a crossroads, Lou glanced up at her companion.

"Could we set down here for a spell?" she asked. "I ain't tired, Jim, but I feel like I'd die if I can't open this!"

She gestured with Mr. Perkins's gift, and Jim dropped laughingly on the gra.s.s.

"Of course. Let's see what's in it."

Gravely she seated herself beside him and unknotted the square of white.

It contained three little handkerchiefs with pink borders, a small bottle of particularly strong scent, and a string of beads remotely resembling coral. The square in which the articles had been wrapped proved to be a large white silk handkerchief with an American flag stamped in the corner.

"That must be for you, Jim," Lou said slowly. As in a trance she slipped the string of beads over her head, opened the bottle, and poured a few drops of its contents upon one of the little handkerchiefs, inhaling the rank odor in ecstasy.

Jim watched her, amused but touched also. To that luxury-starved little soul the coa.r.s.e handkerchiefs and cheap perfume meant rapture, and he resolved to see that the gray-haired lady in New York provided something better for Lou than a servant's position. Education, perhaps----

"It must be past noon, for the shadows have started to go the other way." Her voice broke in upon his meditations. "We'd better eat the rolls an' ham now. How far is it to where we're goin'?"

"Eight miles; I'm afraid it is a long way for you----"

"Then the sooner we git started the better," the girl interrupted. "I'll take the pan an' run back to that yellow house we just pa.s.sed for some water."

Without waiting for a reply she tilted the little scent bottle carefully against the tree-trunk and departed, while Jim stretched himself out luxuriously in the grateful shade. He was tired, and the still heat of noon had a stupefying effect. Lou seemed long in returning, and his thoughts grew nebulous until he finally drifted off into slumber.

When he awakened the shadows had lengthened to those of mid-afternoon, and there was a delicious, unaccustomed aroma in the air. He gazed about him in a bewildered fashion to find Lou sitting cross-legged in the gra.s.s, and spread upon it on the ap.r.o.n between them were the rolls and ham, and a huckleberry pie, still warm, and fairly exuding juice.

"Good Lord, where did you get it?" he demanded.

"Remember that yellow house where I went to git water?" Lou laughed, but there was a new note of shyness in her voice. "When we pa.s.sed it first I saw that the currant bushes were just loaded down, an' a woman was out pickin' them, though it's ironin' day. I figgered if I pick for her she'd maybe pay me, an' she did. I--I guessed you was out of--this."

The freckles disappeared in a rosy blush as with a red-stained hand she held out a bag of tobacco.

"Lou! Why, you--you precious kid!" Jim stammered. "You worked in all this heat, while I lay here and slept."

"It wasn't far back to New Hartz, an' I'd seen where the cigar-store was when we came by. The woman at the house, she give me the pie, an' I've got ten cents left besides. I never had ten cents of my own before!"

CHAPTER IV

Under the Big Top

A very weary and dust-covered couple trudged to the top of the last hill just before sundown and paused, with Lou's hand instinctively clutching Jim's arm.

"Is that it; the Hudson?" She pointed over the fringe of treetops below them to the broad, winding ribbon of sparkling gray-blue, touched here and there with the reflection of the fleecy pink clouds drifting far overhead.

Jim turned to look at her, wondering what reaction the view would have upon the emotions of this child who, until a brief week ago, had known only the "brick house with a high fence and a playground where never a blade of gra.s.s grew."

Her big eyes followed the river's course until it was lost in a creeping mist behind high hills, and she drew a deep breath.

"How far does it go?" she asked.

"To New York; to the sea," he responded. "The ocean, you know."

"My!" There was wonder and a certain regret in her tone. "What a waste of good wash-water!"

Jim emitted an inarticulate remark, and added hastily:

"Let us get along down into Highvale. I must try to find a place for you to sleep, and remember, Lou, you're my sister if anyone starts to question you."

"All right; I don't mind, if you don't." She gave the floppy hat a yank that slued the ridiculous green bow to a more rakish angle, and then stopped suddenly in the road. "O-oh, look!"

A barn had been built close up to the side of the fence, and freshly pasted upon it was the vividly colored poster of a circus. The enthusiastic admiration which she had denied to her first view of the great river glowed now in Lou's eyes, and she stood transfixed.

"What is it, Jim? The pretty lady on the horse an' the other one up on the swing thing without--without any skirt to her, and the man with the funny pants an' the big hat that's shootin'----"

"There must be a circus in Highvale--yes, the date says to-night," Jim replied.

"'Trimble & Wells Great Circus & Sideshow,'" she read slowly. "I heard about them circuses; some of the children seen them before they came to--to where I was, an' once one come to town an' sent free tickets to us, but the deaconesses said it was sinful an' so we couldn't go. It don't look sinful to me; it looks just grand--grand!"

She could have stood for an hour drinking in all the wonders of the poster, but Jim hurried her on although he was filled with sympathy.

Poor little kid! What a rotten, black sort of life she must have had, and how he wished that he might take her to this tawdry, cheap affair and watch her nave enjoyment.

But their combined capital would not have covered the price of the tickets, and there was supper to be thought of, and the hazards of the immediate future. For the present the circus must remain an unattained dream to Lou.

The steep little hill down to the village seemed very long, and twilight was almost upon them when they came to a big, open lot upon which a circular tent was in process of erection, with lesser oblong ones cl.u.s.tered at one side.

A fringe of small boys and village loungers lined the roadway watching the corps of men who were working like beavers within the lot, urged on by a bawling, cursing voice which seemed to proceed from a stout, choleric man who bounded about, alternately waving his arms and cupping his hands to improvise a megaphone.