Atlantic Narratives Part 45

Alanna had no time for thought. Only one course of action occurred to her. She cleared her throat.

'Mrs. Will Church has that number, Bishop,' she said.

The crowd about her gave way, and the Bishop saw her, rosy, embarra.s.sed, and breathless.

'Ah, there you are!' said the Bishop. 'WHO has it?'

'Mrs. Church, your Grace,' said Alanna, calmly this time.

'Well, did you _ever_!' said Mrs. Costello to the Bishop.

She had gone up to claim a mirror she had won--a mirror with a gold frame, and lilacs and roses painted lavishly on its surface.

'Gee, I bet Alanna was pleased about the desk!' said Dan in the carriage.

'Mrs. Church nearly cried,' Teresa said. 'But where'd Alanna go to? I couldn't find her until just a few minutes ago, and then she was so queer!'

'It's my opinion she was dead tired,' said her mother. 'Look how sound she's asleep! Carry her up, Frank. I'll keep her in bed in the morning.'

They kept Alanna in bed for many mornings, for her secret weighed on her soul, and she failed suddenly in color, strength, and appet.i.te. She grew weak and nervous, and one afternoon, when the Bishop came to see her, worked herself into such a frenzy that Mrs. Costello wonderingly consented to her entreaty that he should not come up.

She would not see Mrs. Church, or go to see the desk in its new house, or speak of the fair in any way. But she did ask her mother who swept out the hall after the fair.

'I did a good deal meself,' said Mrs. Costello, dashing one hope to the ground.

Alanna leaned back in her chair, sick with disappointment.

One afternoon, about a week after the fair, she was brooding over the fire. The other children were at the matinee, Mrs. Costello was out, and a violent storm was whirling about the nursery windows.

Presently, Annie, the laundress, put her frowsy head in at the door. She was a queer, warm-hearted Irish girl; her big arms were still steaming from the tub, and her ap.r.o.n was wet.

'Ahl alone?' said Annie with a broad smile.

'Yes; come in, won't you, Annie?' said little Alanna.

'I cahn't. I'm at the toobs,' said Annie, coming in nevertheless. 'I was doin' all the tableclot's and napkins, an' out drops your little buke!'

'My--what did you say?' said Alanna, very white.

'Your little buke,' said Annie.

She laid the chance-book on the table, and proceeded to mend the fire.

Alanna sank back in her chair. She twisted her fingers together, and tried to think of an appropriate prayer.

'Thank you, Annie,' she said weakly, when the laundress went out. Then she sprang for the book. It slipped twice from her cold little fingers before she could open it.

'Eighty-three!' she said hoa.r.s.ely. 'Sixty--seventy--eighty-three!'

She looked and looked and looked. She shut the book and opened it again, and looked. She laid it on the table, and walked away from it, and then came back suddenly, and looked. She laughed over it, and cried over it, and thought how natural it was, and how wonderful it was, all in the s.p.a.ce of ten blissful minutes.

And then, with returning appet.i.te and color and peace of mind, her eyes filled with pity for the wretched little girl who had watched this same sparkling, delightful fire so drearily a few minutes ago.

Her small soul was steeped in grat.i.tude. She crooked her arm and put her face down on it, and sank to her knees.

SPENDTHRIFTS

BY LAURA SPENCER PORTOR

I

THE story I am about to tell I have never told before. The events in it took place when I was a child of fifteen, an oldish child of fifteen. I had a taste for books and dreams, and a kind of adoring love of older people; a predilection, too, for romance and wonderment. There were many things I meant to do some day.

Among my lesser resolves was one that I had held for a good many years: I mean the resolve some day to be a pa.s.senger in the absurd old-fashioned 'bus that had made its daily journey, ever since I could remember, from my home town to a small town quite off the railroad, and some twelve miles away, the county-seat of that county in which my home was situated.

The 'bus was an extraordinary-looking vehicle. It had the air of a huge beetle. It creaked and rattled when it was in action. It had enormous dipping springs. It lunged and rolled a bit from side to side as it went. Its top bulged and had ribs across it and a low iron railing around it, convenient for the lashing of ropes to hold the packages of all kinds and sizes with which it usually went laden. There was a door at the back and there were two steps by which to enter. It had the air of being a distinguished character, even among the antiquated and entirely individual types of vehicle still common then in the little old-fashioned town.

This air was, no doubt, due chiefly to the large oval pictures painted, not without some skill, on its sides. One of these depicted the rescue of Daniel Boone by Kenton, who with the b.u.t.t of a large musket was perpetually about to brain a murderous Indian; the other dealt with Smith's unchanging obligation to Pocahontas.

I hardly think Keats had more lasting enjoyment of his Grecian urn with 'brede of marble men and maidens overwrought' than I of those pictures, where, not less than in the more cla.s.sic example, I saw perpetually preserved what I took to be the most thrilling and desirable of moments, death forever arrested by unending loyalty and undying affection.

But, interesting as all this was, it was by no means the heart of that strange fascination with which, for so many years, I contemplated the old beetling vehicle. Its fascination lay for me in its daily journey to parts beyond the bounds of my narrow horizon. It plied faithfully every week-day of the year, an envoy extraordinary, amba.s.sador plenipotentiary, between another world and mine. Some day I should see that world and know it.

It must not be supposed, however, that I had in mind only the town to which the 'bus journeyed, the mere inconsiderable county seat.

Children's imaginations, especially when the child is just emerging into all the glorious possibilities of womanhood, deal, not in towns, but in worlds. The world outside my own narrow bounds of life--that was what I meant to see and experience.

I can think of only one thing, besides the old 'bus, which roused my fancy to an equal degree, namely, the herds of dumb cattle which were driven past my home always once, and sometimes twice a week, to the stockyards which lay somewhere on the outskirts of my home town. If I close my eyes, I can still hear on hot afternoons the dark herds trampling past, a ma.s.s of broad backs and spreading horns and wide foreheads,--and dull or occasionally frightened eyes,--and the hurrying hoofs, scuffling the dust.

I had never seen the stockyards. I was never informed very particularly about them, and by some instinct, I suppose, I never inquired too carefully. But I knew this for another world also, and dread as it was, it fascinated me. I believe the hurrying herds stood to me for a kind of world of fearful reality that I meant some day to look into, and the old picture-painted 'bus for a world of romance, yonder, yonder over the dip of the horizon, which not less, some day, I was determined to know.

Just how I came to take my resolve, and the events which precipitated it--all this has no bearing on the story. The story begins just where I stood that hot day in June waiting for the 'bus by the dusty mullens beside the pike. I had walked a good mile outside the town so that none of the townspeople would see the beginning of my adventure.

The 'bus was late, I think, even allowing for my anxiety. It came in sight at last, at a slow beetling pace. I held up a slim finger. But not until he was alongside did the driver begin to draw in the long reins. I ran after the 'bus a few paces, opened the door, climbed the high steps with a beating heart, and got in.

The driver peeked through the little peek-hole in the roof to make sure I was safe; then he called to his horses, and the vehicle lunged ahead.

The only other pa.s.sengers were an old man, unknown to me, who carried a basket of eggs, and an old woman who lived somewhere outside the town and whom I recognized as one we called the 'horse-radish woman.' She stood always on a Sat.u.r.day at one corner of our town market, grinding and selling horse-radish roots, blinking with red eyes, and always wiping the tears from them before she could make you your change. I recognized her of course at once, but whether she knew me, I do not know. If she did, she gave not the least evidence of it, but looked out absently with squinted red-lidded eyes at the country as we jogged along.

The lovely rolling Kentucky land began to spread out on all sides. Long white curves of the pike flowed slowly behind us and were seen in glimpses through the open front windows ahead of us. Dust rose and settled over us.

A little while before we got to Latonia, the old horse-radish woman, with a tin cup she carried, knocked on the ceiling of the 'bus near the driver's peep-hole, to warn him that she wished to get out. When we arrived at Latonia and the horses were having water at the big trough, the old man with the basket of eggs also left.