Girl Alone Part 9

"You did-that-for me?" Sally whispered. "Oh, David, what are we going to do?" She began to cry then, in little, frightened whimpers, but her blue eyes, swimming in tears, never left his face.

The boy squared his shoulders as if to prepare them for a great burden, and in that instant he seemed to grow older. Color came slowly back to his bronzed cheeks, but his lips shook a little as he answered:

"We've got to run away, Sally, before the family comes home. I hate to leave him-down there-if he's only hurt. But I'll be d.a.m.ned if I stay here and get us both sent to jail just to ease a pain that that beast, if he isn't dead, may be having! Oh, G.o.d, I hope I didn't kill him! I just went crazy when he called you that name-Will you come, Sally, or do you want to stay and face them with me? Whatever's best for you-"

Sally Ford did not hesitate for a moment. Her blue eyes were full of trust and adoration as she answered: "I'll go with you, David. I knew I'd have to run away. I'm all packed."

"All right." David spoke rapidly. "I'll fix up a small bundle, too. You get your things and leave the house as quickly as possible. Cut across the orchard to the cornfield and wait for me where we were sitting the other night. I'll join you almost by the time you get there. But I want you to leave first, just in case they come back before I can get away.

Now, run!"

Sally obeyed, somehow forcing her muscles to carry out David's commands, but the tears were coming so fast that she b.u.mped unseeingly into apple and peach trees as she ran through the orchard, the brown paper parcel of clothes clutched tightly to her bosom. Twice she dashed the tears from her eyes, glanced fearfully about, and listened, but she saw and heard nothing. The sun was getting low in the west, slanting in golden, dust-laden beams through the rows of apple trees.

When she reached the shelter of the corn stalks she went more slowly, for her heart was pounding sickeningly. Just before she reached the end of the field she paused, opened her bundle with shaking hands, drew out the dark blue linen dress and put it on over the blue-and-white gingham uniform of the orphanage. She was re-tying her bundle when she caught the faint sound of footsteps running toward her between rows of corn.

David was hatless. His eyes were wide, unsmiling, but his lips managed an upturning of the corners to rea.s.sure her.

"Sorry-to be-so long," he panted. "But I telephoned a doctor that Carson had been-hurt-and asked him to come over. I didn't answer when he asked who was calling. Told him Carson had slipped from the roof."

"I'm awfully glad you did, David. It was like you. Shall we go now?"

David looked down at her in wonder, and his eyes and lips were very tender. "What a brave kid you are, Sally! What a darn _nice_ little thing you are! But I've been thinking hard, honey. We can't run away together-far, that is. I'll have to take you back to the Home."

"No, David, no, no! I can't go back to the orphanage! I'd rather die!"

Sally gasped.

David dropped his bundle, took her hands and held them tightly. "I can't run away from this thing I've done, Sally. I'm sorry. I thought I could.

I'm going to give myself up, after I've seen you safely back to the Home. I'll explain to your Mrs. Stone, make her believe-"

"Oh!" Sally breathed in a gust of despair. Then, stooping swiftly, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her bundle and began to run down a corn row. She ran with the fleetness of a terror-stricken animal, and David watched her for a long moment, his eyes dark with pity and uncertainty. Then he gave chase, his long legs clearing the distance between them with miraculous speed. He caught up with her just as she was at the edge of the cornfield, recklessly about to plunge into the lane that led to the Carson house.

"Wait, Sally!" he panted, grasping her shoulder. "You can't run away alone like this-Oh Lord!" he groaned suddenly. "There they come! Don't you hear the car turning in from the road? Come back, Sally!"

He did not wait for her to obey, but lifted her into his arms, for she had gone limp with terror, and ran, crouching low so that the cornstalks would hide them.

"Lie flat on the ground," David said sternly, as he set her gently upon her feet. "We can't leave here now. The place will be swarming with people. But when it's dark we'll slip away, across fields. Thank G.o.d, there'll be no moon."

He flattened his own body upon the soft earth, close against the thick, st.u.r.dy cornstalks. They did not talk much for they were listening, listening for faint sounds coming from the farmhouse which would indicate that the dreadful discovery had been made.

Long minutes pa.s.sed and nothing had happened. Then the m.u.f.fled roar of another motor, turning into the lane from the state highway, told them that the doctor to whom David had telephoned was arriving. It seemed hours before a scream floated from the house to the cornfield.

"Pearl!" Sally whispered, shivering. "They hadn't found him. The doctor told them. Oh, David!"

His hand tightened so hard upon hers that she winced. A little later they heard Mrs. Carson's harsh voice calling, calling-"Sally! Sal-lee!

Sally Ford!"

Sally bowed her head upon David's hand then, and wept a little, shuddering. "She was-good to me. She-she liked me, David. Oh, I hope she'll know I didn't mean her any harm, ever!"

The next hour, during which the sun set and twilight settled like a soft gray dust upon the cornfield, pa.s.sed somehow. Several cars arrived; men's voices shouted unintelligible words. Twice Pearl screamed-

But no one came down the corn rows looking for them. "They won't dream we're still so near the house," David a.s.sured her in his low, comforting voice.

When it was quite dark, David spoke again: "We'll make a break for it now, Sally. I know this part of the country well. My grandfather's farm adjoins this one, with only a fence between the two hay meadows. We can cut across his farm, giving the house and barns a wide berth. Then we'll strike a bit of timberland that belongs to old man Cosgrove. That will bring us out on a little-traveled road that leads to Stanton, twenty-two miles away. Think you can make it, Sally?"

She hugged her bundle tight to her breast and reached for his hand, which he had withdrawn as he rose to his feet. "Of course," she answered simply. "I'm not afraid, David."

"You're a plucky kid," David said gruffly. "I'll lead the way. Let me know if I set too fast a pace."

Buoyed up by his praise, Sally trotted almost happily at his heels. She refused to let her mind dwell on the horrors of the day, or to reach out into the future. Indeed, her imagination was incapable of picturing a future for a Sally Ford whose life was not regulated by orphanage routine. She held only the present fast in her mind, pa.s.sionately grateful for the strong, swiftly striding figure before her, unwilling for this strange night-time adventure to end.

"Thirsty, Sally?" David's voice called out of the darkness.

Suddenly she knew that she was both thirsty and hungry, for she had not eaten since the twelve o'clock dinner. A cool breeze was rustling the leaves of the trees, and under that whispering rustle came the cool, sweet murmur of a brook. She crouched beside David on the bank of the tiny stream and thirstily drank from his cupped hands. Then he dipped his handkerchief in the water and gently swabbed her face, his hands as tender as Sally had fancied a mother's must be.

The going was more dogged, less mysteriously thrilling when they had at last reached the dirt road that was eventually to lead them to Stanton, a town of four or five thousand inhabitants, the town in which the woman who had brought her twelve years ago to the orphanage had lived. Days before Sally had memorized the address before destroying the bit of paper on which Miss Pond, out of the kindness of her heart, had copied Sally's record from the orphanage files.

Half a dozen times during the apparently interminable trudge toward Stanton David abruptly called a halt, drawing Sally off the road and over reeling, drunken-looking fences into meadows or fields for a terribly needed rest. Once, with his head in her lap, her fingers smoothing his crisp chestnut curls from his sweat-moistened brow, he went to sleep, and she knew that she would not have awakened him even to save herself from the orphanage.

Dawn was bedecking the east with tattered pink banners when the boy and girl, staggering with weariness and faint with hunger, caught their first glimpse of Stanton, a pretty little town snugly asleep in the hush that belongs peculiarly to early Sunday morning. Only the dutiful crowing of backyard roosters and the occasional baying of a hound broke the stillness.

"We've got to have food," David said abruptly, as they hesitated forlornly on the outskirts of the little town. "And yet I suppose the alarm has been given and the constables are on the lookout for us. We might stop at a house that has no telephone-they wouldn't be likely to have heard about Carson-but I don't like to arouse anyone this early on Sunday morning. There's an eating house next to the station that stays open all night, to serve train crews and pa.s.sengers, but more than likely the station agent has been told to keep a lookout for us."

As he spoke a train whistled shrilly. The two wayfarers stood not a hundred yards from the railroad tracks where they crossed the dirt road.

Sally instinctively turned to flee, but David restrained her.

"We can't hide from everyone, Sally," he said gently. "I think our best bet is to act as if we had had nothing to hide. Remember, we've done no wrong. If Carson is dead, he brought his death upon himself. He deserved what he got."

Trustingly, Sally gave him her hand, stood very small and erect beside him as the big engine thundered down the tracks toward them. Her face was drawn with fatigue but her eyes managed a smile for David. His did not reflect that brave smile, for they were fixed upon the oncoming train.

"By George, Sally, it's a carnival train! Look! 'Bybee's Bigger and Better Show.' I'd forgotten the carnival was coming. Look over there!

There's one of their signs!"

An enormous poster, pasted upon a billboard, showed a nine-foot giant and a 30-inch dwarf, the little man smoking a huge cigar, seated c.o.c.kily in the palm of the giant's vast hand. Big red type below the picture announced: "Bybee's Bigger and Better Show-Stanton, June 9 and 10. One hundred performers, largest menagerie in any carnival on the road today."

"I suppose they're going to spend Sunday here," David remarked. Then he turned toward Sally, beheld the miracle of her transformed face. "Why, child, you want to go to the carnival, don't you? Poor little Sally!"

His voice was so tender, so whimsical, so sympathetic, that tears filmed over the brilliance of her sapphire eyes. "I went to a circus once," she said with the eager breathlessness of a child. "The governor-he was running for office again-sent tickets for all the orphans. And, oh it was wonderful, David! We all planned to run away from the orphanage and join the circus. We talked about it for weeks, but-we didn't run away.

The girls didn't, I mean, but one of the big boys at the orphanage did and Ruby Presser, the girl he was sweet on, got a postcard from him from New York when the circus was in winter quarters. His name was Eddie Cobb and-oh, the train's stopping, David! Look!"

"Yes." David shaded his eyes and squinted down the railroad track. "This is a spur of the main road, a siding, they call it. I suppose the carnival cars will stay here today-"

But for once Sally was not listening to him. She was running toward the cars, from which the engine had been uncoupled, and as she ran she called shrilly, joyously, to a young man who had dropped catlike from the top of a car to the ground:

"Eddie! Eddie Cobb! Eddie!"

CHAPTER V