That Little Girl of Miss Eliza's Part 2

The boy took out his note-book and asked questions which the man who sat in waiting and Mrs. Kilgore eagerly answered. He looked at the woman with her ma.s.s of yellow hair about her head like a crown. He had been brought up inland. He knew little of that great wave of surging humanity which yearly seek our sh.o.r.es in search of a home. He had seen the German type with fair skin and yellow hair. It did not come to him that a far northern country had these characteristics intensified.

The presses closed at midnight. He had four hours to reach the city and have his copy ready. He fired questions rapidly, and wrote while the answers came. Then he fairly ran down the country road to the Bend where he caught the late flyer.

It was almost eleven when he began to make copy. Suddenly he stopped. He had neglected to ask the s.e.x of the child who had been made motherless by the accident. He paused an instant. He had no time to find out. He would use a reporter's privilege.

The next morning's edition of the _Herald_ came out with triple headings on its front page.

Accident at Village of Shintown One Killed-Two Badly Hurt A German Woman Who Cannot be Identified Killed by Runaway Horse. Her Little Son in Care of Strangers.

Then followed an incorrect account of the accident. The nationality of the woman, her relation to the child, the s.e.x and age of the latter were so far removed from the truth, that people hundreds of miles away read in eager hope, only to lay the paper aside, disappointed that this was not she for whom they were searching.

CHAPTER III.

No one came to ask concerning the strangers, and she was laid away in the Wells burial lot, and Miss Eliza paid the bills that necessarily followed.

Mrs. Kilgore and Dr. Dullmer, with Squire Stout standing by and looking on like a bird of ill omen, went over every article of the attire of woman and child in the hope of finding some means of identification.

There was a small traveling bag of fine leather. It contained the articles necessary for a journey of several days. There was a small drinking cup, a child's coat, comb and brush. There were neither tickets nor checks, nor a cent of money. This led Miss Eliza to believe that somewhere there must have been a second purse. She went with the men over the scene of accident and retraced every step from the time she had first seen the woman sleeping in the shade of the bushes. But nothing was found to help them out of the unfortunate situation. Still, they believed that checks and tickets were somewhere. A tramp might have picked them up, or some dishonest, careless person found and retained possession of them. But after a careful search, all hope in that direction was given up.

The dead woman's clothes were ordinary. A coat-suit and shirt-waist of cheap material, underwear with a bit of hand-made lace of the old-fashioned kind. Her hat was cheap and rather tawdry; but everything about her was clean and whole. All gave the appearance of her being a self-respecting person in poor circ.u.mstances.

Two things belied this, however. The dress which the little child wore and a second one in the traveling case were exquisite in quality and handiwork. The little petticoats were dainty and showed expenditure both of money and good taste. The little beauty pins which fastened the dress were solid gold with the monogram E. L.

In the traveling case was a small box containing several quaint rings and a brooch.

Miss Eliza knew little of jewelry. The people with whom she had been reared had never been financially able to indulge themselves along this line and had consequently put upon it the ban of their disapproval. Her experience had been so limited that she knew no values. The articles were rings and pins, and were pretty. That was as far as she gave them thought. They had no dollar mark attached to them.

There was only one course left to her to follow. She put every article which the child wore, the traveling case and all its contents safely away with the few legal doc.u.ments and valuables she possessed. She had the business instinct and forethought sufficient to mark each one, and to write a full letter of explanation as to how they came into her possession.

"You're taking a heap of trouble," said Mrs. Kilgore sadly. She had been following Miss Eliza over the house, always keeping a few steps behind her. She put on a big, green-checked ap.r.o.n when she dressed in the morning, and wore it until she prepared for bed at night. She never took it off at other times unless she had an errand to the store or post-office. Then she merely removed the work-marked one for that which was fresh from the iron.

She always had a broom in her hand. She followed in the footsteps of Eliza and brushed up after her, or stopped to pick up a thread or bit of lint, or straightened out a misplaced book, or flicked away a bit of dust with the tail of her ap.r.o.n.

This gave the impression that Mrs. Kilgore was a conscientious, indefatigable housewife who busied herself from morning until night with duties. It was all in appearances. Her house was a litter. Garments hung from parlor to kitchen, from attic to cellar, at every place where a nail might be driven in wall, beam or door.

She sighed and looked doleful and "put upon" every time she stooped to pick up a stray bit of lint, but deep in her soul she was happy. She was posing as an over-worked martyr and was not doing enough to tire herself. She was getting barrels of credit for a tin cup of effort.

"You're taking a heap of trouble," she repeated. "It's more than I'd take."

"I'm taking a little now to save a great deal for some one when I'm not here. The time may come when the girl's own kin may be found. I want things to be in order so that they'll not doubt that she's their own.

I'm of the opinion that she belongs to folks that are something. Her little white dress is enough to make me think that. Sometime, somebody will be coming along to look her up."

This was a new idea to Mrs. Kilgore. It appealed to the sentimental side of her nature. In her mind's eye, she pictured the child's kin appearing in splendor and bearing her away with them. Another element of the case presented itself to her. She paused in her "sweeping up" and looked at Miss Eliza. She looked at her in a new light.

"They may do a heap for you for being so good to her and burying her mother decent and respectable in your own folks' lot and not in the poor field. They may do a heap for you."

"I'm not thinking of that. I had a right to do what I did. It was the very least I could do, and I've got to provide for the little girl until some one comes for her. It was my fault that she's dead. I hain't finding fault with myself for asking her to ride back with me. Any Christian woman would have done the same; but I didn't do right to touch the whip to Old Prince. That's where I was at fault; but"-pensively, "who would have thought that an old worn-out brute like him could have had so much ginger in him. It was my fault at not knowing and not understanding a brute animal that I'd driven for six years. No; I'll be good to the child-as good as I can be. I've hurt her a powerful lot by taking her mother from her. I'll do what I can to make up for it. It won't be for long. Her kin will come to claim her."

Had Eliza not felt responsible, she could have been nothing but good to the child. Mothers of the locality fixed the age of the little girl at about three. Others placed it as high as five. There she was dropped in among them without a name or even a birthday. She was a well-formed, beautiful child with brown ringlets clinging about her little plump neck; and eyes matching in color the blue of the midsummer sky. She was good-tempered and healthy. She smiled from the time she awoke until she fell asleep from sheer weariness. She prattled and hummed little tunes, only a few of the words of which she could remember. She followed Eliza wherever the woman went, and crawled into her lap and cuddled close to her the instant she seated herself. "Pity adee" was the only t.i.tle she knew for Miss Eliza. After a few days, the name was fixed: "Adee." The little girl could not be persuaded to call her foster-parent by any other name. A child can manage to thrive and yet have no birthday; but a name it must have. For several days Eliza referred to the stranger as "the little girl." This was not satisfactory.

"She must be called something. It's simply heathenish not to have a name of some kind. I'll name her myself if I cannot find out what her name is," concluded Miss Eliza. She set about to find the real name. The monogram E. L. on the pins was the only clue. The child might remember something. Taking her up in her lap, Eliza began a system of catechising.

"What shall Adee call you?"

"Baby." She smiled back at her interlocutor until the dimples came and went.

"A prettier name than Baby. Shall I call you Elizabeth-Beth-Bessie?" She p.r.o.nounced each name slowly, watching if it might awaken any show of memory. But it did not. The little girl smiled the more, even while she shook her head in negation.

"No, no-Izbeth not pitty name. Baby-'Itta one' pitty name."

Eliza would not let herself become discouraged. "Little One" and "Baby"

were pet names given by some adoring fathers and mothers. Perhaps the child had seldom heard her correct name. Guided by the letters on the pins, Eliza repeated every name beginning with E; but it was without results.

"You must be called something," she at last cried in desperation. "It must begin with E too. Elizabeth will do as well an anything else. It's dignified enough for her when she's grown up, and Beth or Bess will be well enough for a child. I've just got to call her something."

So Elizabeth she became. Beth was what Eliza called her. Adee was the only t.i.tle that the child could be induced to give to her foster-mother.

"Some one will claim her before the week pa.s.ses," Eliza had told herself again and again. She was hopeful that it would be so. A child is a great responsibility, and the woman had no desire to take it upon herself.

July pa.s.sed and no one came. August had come with all the glory of color and life rampant in yard and field.

Never before had flowers bloomed so luxuriantly even for Miss Eliza. The nasturtiums were blazing with burnt orange and carmine. Petunias flaunted their heavily laden stocks. The scarlet sages glowed from every shaded nook. There was braggadocio in every clump and cl.u.s.ter as though every flower being in flower-land was proclaiming, "See what we can do when we try." High carnival of bloom! Gay revelry of color! Flaunt and brag! Flaunt and brag through all those wonderful days of August.

Eliza went from flower to flower and Beth followed. There was no need to tell the child not to step upon them or to pluck them ruthlessly. She picked her steps. Her fingers touched each petal caressingly. She loved them as much as the woman herself did.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _With a mad plunge he went tearing down the road._]

Eliza was busy weeding. Bending over, she was patiently removing with the aid of a kitchen fork the sprouts of chick-weeds which would creep in among her treasures.

Beth, who had been following her closely, suddenly proved a laggard.

Missing her at last, Eliza retraced her steps to the east side of the house where she had last seen the child. There she was down on her knees at the edge of the pansy bed and her head bent close over them.

"Whatever are you doing, Beth? Not hurting Adee's flowers?"

"No, indeedy. I was ust a tissin 'em. A has so pitty itta faces. A ast me to tiss em." There she was, putting her lips to each purple-yellow face, and talking with them as though they were real live babies. Eliza had nothing to say. She would have done that same thing herself when she was a child if she had dared. She knew exactly how Beth felt.

Sam Houston had come around the corner and had been a witness to the pretty scene. He had come over to borrow a hatchet and some nails. A board had come off his chicken-yard and the hens had destroyed what they could of his garden.

"Laws, Eliza!" he exclaimed. "You'll not be able to get much from that child. She'll not be practical. Common sense and not sentiment is what is needed in this world. She'll be for settin' out flowers an' lettin'

cabbage go. I declare to goodness." He was yet watching Beth kissing the pansies. "She'll be as big a fool as you are about posies an' sich like."

"Do you really think so?" cried Eliza joyously, her face brightening up as though she had been paid a great compliment. Sam sniffed, "I've come over to get the lend of your hatchet and some nails. Those dern chickens got out somehow. The wimmen-folks must have left the door open."