From the Valley of the Missing Part 16

"The bats left her head the minute that there winder got dark!" gasped the watcher. Tremblingly she drew closer to Flukey, until sleep overpowered her.

The next day pa.s.sed slowly, the cold rain lasting until almost nightfall, and yet the children dared not venture into the town. Flea fumed and fretted; for the earning of the nickel had whetted her ambition to earn more. Now she dared not go near the river where work could be found; but she knew that as soon as the tug appeared Lem Crabbe would go to New York. Probably by this time the scow was far on its way down the river. This was the decision at which the squatter twins arrived after weary hours of waiting. So, when the twilight again fell over the dead, they rose stiffly from their hiding place and limped to the road.

"We'll go back to the graveyard tonight, if this ain't the good land,"

murmured Flea. "We'll be safe there from Lem, Fluke."

"Wish we was rich like we was that fair-day, Flea," replied the boy, scarcely able to walk.

"I wish so, too. If we had that yeller gold-piece we coughed up for that d.a.m.n brown hen, we'd eat. But I'd ruther have s.n.a.t.c.het, Fluke."

"I'd ruther have him, too; but we need money--"

"And when we get it," interrupted Flea, "s.n.a.t.c.het'll have a hunk of meat, and Prince Squeaky a bucket of b.u.t.termilk, and ye'll have liniment for yer legs, Fluke."

"Ye'll eat yerself first, Flea," said Flukey. "I saw ye when ye give the pig a bit of yer biscuit yesterday mornin'."

"We'll all eat in the good land," replied Flea hopefully.

By this time they had come to the gateway and turned into the street.

Harold Brimbecomb's beautiful home was brilliantly lighted. It appeared the same to Flea as on the night before, when she had seen Scraggy make her melancholy play before it.

Flea had refrained from speaking of her midnight fright to Flukey; for he would but tell her that, like all girls, she was afraid, and a slur from her brother was more than she could bear.

Flea and Flukey had never been taught to pray, "Lead us not into temptation." Now, with aching hearts and empty stomachs, they turned in silence to the richly lighted houses. Flukey dragged himself resolutely past Brimbecomb's as if he would avoid the desire that suddenly pressed upon him to ply the trade in which he had been darkly instructed. But he halted abruptly before the next house, the curtains of which were pulled up halfway. The long windows reached to the porch floor. Through the clear gla.s.s the children saw a table dressed in all the gorgeousness of silver and crystal. At the spectacle a clamor for food set up in both aching stomachs, and the two pa.s.sed as if by one accord to the porch. As they peered into the window with longing eyes, Squeaky was held tightly under Flea's arm; but s.n.a.t.c.het, resting wearily on Flukey's, suddenly sat up. He, too, had scented something to eat, and thrust in and out a lean red tongue over pointed, tusky teeth.

"It's time for me to steal, Flea," whispered Flukey, turning feverish eyes toward his sister.

"If you do it, Flukey, I'll do it with ye."

With no more ado, Flukey's practiced fingers silently slid up the sash.

Two youthful bodies stepped through: the opening. In absolute quiet, they stood raggedly forlorn, savagely hungry, before the tempting table.

There, was plenty to eat; so without a word the squatter girl placed Squeaky before a gla.s.s dish of salad. His small pink nose buried its tip from sight, and the food disappeared into the suckling's empty stomach.

s.n.a.t.c.het, squatting on his haunches, snapped up a stuffed bird. Flea began to eat; but Flukey, now too ill, leaned against the red-papered wall.

Just at this critical moment the door opened, and Flea, greatly frightened, started back to the window. She blinked, brushed a dark curl from her eyes, and saw her Prince advancing toward her. He saw her, too; but did not connect her with the bare-footed girl on Cayuga Lake, but only with the boy who had kept from him the greased pig at the Dryden fair. He glanced at Squeaky calmly eating the salad and smiled.

"Bless my soul, Ann!" he said, turning to a lady who had followed him in, "we have company to dinner, or my name isn't Horace Sh.e.l.lington! Why didn't you young gentlemen wait, and we should all have been seated together?"

There was a whirling in Flukey's head, such as he had never felt before; but Flea's ashen face brought back his scattered senses. He tried to lift his arm to throw it about her; but dropped it with a groan.

Realizing the agony that had swept over her dear one, Flea gathered in a deep breath and took his fevered hand in hers.

"It weren't him," she cried, lifting her eyes to her questioner and sullenly moving her head toward the shivering boy at her side. "I e't yer victuals--he didn't. If one of us goes to jail, I do--see?"

"Let me think," ruminated Horace, eying her gravely. "Six months is about the shortest sentence given to a fellow for breaking into a house.

And what about the pig? I see him in the act of theft. Shall he go with you?"

"He were hungry, that's why Prince Squeaky stealed," exclaimed Flea, dropping Flukey's fingers. There was something in the kindly eyes of the man that forced her forward a step. She thrust out her hand in appealing anxiety. "We was all hungry," she continued, a dry sob strangling her.

"Flukey nor me nor the pig nor s.n.a.t.c.het ain't e't in a long time. We did steal; but if I knowed it were yer house--"

A quizzical expression flashing into Sh.e.l.lington's eyes stopped her words.

"You wouldn't have come in?" he queried.

Flea nodded just as s.n.a.t.c.het jumped to the floor with another plump bird between his teeth. Flukey staggered to his sister's side.

"Let me tell ye how it was, Mister," he begged, his eyes bloodshot and restless. "We be lookin' for a good land where boys don't have to steal, and when they get sick they get well again."

Here Flea burst forth impetuously.

"He has such h.e.l.lish rheumatiz that he can't set in no dark prison. I can set weeks among rats and bugs what be in all prisons! I ain't afraid of nothing what lives!"

Flukey interrupted her by taking her arm and pushing her back a little.

"I'm a thief by trade," he said; "but my sister ain't. She ain't never stole nothin' in all her life, she ain't. Take me, will ye, Mister?"

"Sister!" murmured the gentleman, turning to Flea.

If nothing else had been said, the question would have been answered in the affirmative by the vivid blush that dyed Flea's dark skin. Her embarra.s.sment brought another exclamation from Flukey.

"She's a girl, all right! She's only tryin' to save me. She put on my pants jest to get away from Pappy Lon. I'll go to jail; but don't send her!"

He swayed blindly, closing his eyes with a moan.

"The child is sick, Horace," said Ann. "I think he is very sick."

"Where did you sleep last night?" Sh.e.l.lington asked this of Flea.

"Out there," answered the girl, pointing over her shoulder, "down by a big monument."

"Horace Sh.e.l.lington," gasped Ann, "they slept in the cemetery!"

The sharp tone of the girl's voice brought Flukey back to the present.

"We run away 'cause Pappy Lon were a makin' me steal when I didn't want to," he explained, clearing his throat, "and he was goin' to make Flea be Lem's woman. And that's the truth, Mister, and Lem wasn't goin' to marry her, nuther!"

He rambled on in a monotone as if too sick for inflection. Flea placed one arm about his neck.

"I'm a girl! I'm Flea Cronk!" she confessed brokenly. "And Flukey's doin' all this for me! And he's so sick! I stealed from yer table--he didn't! Will ye let him lay in yer barn tonight, if I go up for the stealin'?"

Never had Horace Sh.e.l.lington felt so keenly the sorrows of other human beings as when this girl, in her crude boy clothes, lifted her agonized, tearless eyes to his. His throat filled. Somehow, his whole soul went out to her, his being stirred to its depths. He put out one hand to touch Flea--when voices from the inner room stopped further speech. A light step, accompanied by a heavier one, approaching the dining-hall, brought his thoughts together.

"Ann," he appealed, stepping to his sister's side, "you're always wanting to do something for me--do it now. Let me settle this!"

Speaking to Flukey, he said, "Pick up your dog, Boy!"

"And the pig from the table!" groaned Ann distractedly.