At the Crossroads Part 55

"I see. Well, we must get this Mr. Northrup busy, then. Where is he?"

Mrs. Dana tucked the book away and her eyes looked kindly into Mary-Clare's.

"I do not know. He went to his--to the city--New York."

"And you have never heard from him?"

"No."

"Well, Mrs. Rivers, I am your friend and the friend of the Forest.

Together, we ought to be able to do it a good turn. And now, if you are willing, I would love to borrow your little girl."

On the lake road Noreen, after a few skirmishes, succ.u.mbed to one of her sudden likings--she abandoned herself to Mrs. Dana's charm. With her head coquettishly set slantwise she fixed her grave eyes--they were very like her mother's--on Mrs. Dana's face.

"I like the look of you," she confided softly.

"I'm glad. I like the look of you very much, little Noreen."

"Do you know any stories or songs?" Noreen had her private test.

"I used to, but it has been a long while since I thought about them.

Do you know any, Noreen?"

"Oh! many. My man taught me. He taught me to be unafraid, too."

"Your man, little girl?" Mrs. Dana turned her eyes away.

"Yes'm. Jan-an, she's a bit queer, you know, Jan-an says the ghost-wind brought him. He only stayed a little while, but things aren't ever going to be the same again. No'm, not ever! He even liked Jan-an, and most folks don't--at first. His name is Mr. Northrup, but Jan-an and I call him The Man."

"And he sang for you?"

"Yes'm. We sang together, marching along--this way!" Noreen swung the hand that held hers. "Do you know--'Green jacket, red cap'?" she asked.

"I used to. It goes something like this--doesn't it?

"Up the airy mountain Down the rustly glen----

I have forgotten the rest." Mrs. Dana closed her eyes.

"Oh! that's kingdiferous," Noreen laughed with delight. "I'll sing the rest, then we'll sing together:

"We daren't go a-hunting For fear of little men.

Wee folk, good folk Trooping all together, Green jacket, red cap And white owl's feather."

They were keeping step and singing, rather brokenly, for Noreen was thinking of her man and Mrs. Dana seemed searching, in a blur of moving men upon a weary road, for a little boy--a very little boy.

"Now, then," Noreen insisted, "we can sing it betterer this time.

"Green jacket, red cap And white owl's feather."

Suddenly Noreen stopped.

"Your face looks funny," she said. "Your lips are laughing, but your eyes--is it the sun in your eyes?"

Mrs. Dana bent until her head was close to Noreen's.

"Little girl, little Noreen," she said, "that is it--the sun is in my eyes."

"There's the inn!" Noreen was uncomfortable. Things were not turning out quite as gaily as she hoped. Things did not, any more.

"Shall I go right to the door with you?" she asked.

"No. I want to go alone. Good-bye, Noreen."

"I hope you'll stay a long time!" Noreen paused on the road.

"Why, dear?"

"Because Motherly liked you, and I like you. Good-bye."

And Mrs. Dana stayed a long time, though after the first week her sojourn was marked by incidents, not hours.

"Seems like the days of the creation," Peter confided to Twombley.

"Let there be light--there was light! Get the Forest to work--and the Forest gets busy! Heard the church is going to be opened--and a school. Queer, Twombley, how her being a woman and the easy sort, too, doesn't seem to stop her none."

Twombley shifted in his chair--the two men were sitting in the spring sunshine by Twombley's door.

"The Government's behind her!" he muttered confidently. "And, Heathcote, I ain't monkeying with the Government. Since that Maclin night--anything the Government asks of me, I hold up my hands."

"Yes, I reckon that's safest." Peter was uplifted, but cautious.

"She's set Peneluna to painting all the houses--yeller," Twombley rambled on, the smell of fresh paint filling his nostrils. "And you know what Peneluna is when she gets a start. Colour's mighty satisfying, Peneluna says; but I guess there's more in it than just colour. The Pointers get touchy about dirt, and creepy insects showing up on the 'tarnal paint that's slushed everywhere."

"Mighty queer doings!" Heathcote agreed.

"The women are plumb crazy over this government woman," Twombley went on, "and the children lap out of her hand. She and Mary-Clare are together early and late. Thick as corn mush."

Peter drew his chair closer.

"Her and Mary-Clare is writing up the doings of the Forest," he whispered. "Writing things allas makes me nervous. What's writ--is fixed."

"Gosh! Heathcote; it's like the Judgment Day and no place to hide in!"

"That's about it, Twombley. No place to hide in."

And then after weeks of strenuous effort Mrs. Dana went away as suddenly as she had come. She simply disappeared! But there was a peculiar sense of waiting in the Forest and a going on with what had been begun. The momentum carried the people along. The church was repaired, a school house started, the Point cleaned.