The Scarecrow and Other Stories Part 11

And standing there motionless he heard a voice calling through the quiet denseness of the fog. A voice coming from a distance and m.u.f.fled by the mist. He started. It was her voice calling to him from the narrow pathway that wound up the chalk cliffs to the back of his shanty.

"Mister--oh, Mister."

He reached his hand out in front of him trying to break the saturating cover of the fog. He went stumbling unseeingly toward the rear of the house.

"Mister--oh, Mister."

The rear of the shanty. His feet sank down into the turned soil of the truck garden. He stood still.

"Here."

"Mister;" the voice of her was nearer. "Where are--you--?"

He could not see in front of him. He felt that she was close.

"Here;--little girl."

He saw the faint outline of her shadow then through the obliterating denseness of the mist.

"Some fog; ain't it, Mister?"

"Stay where--you are. There's the precipice."

"I ain't afraid of no precipice."

"Stay--where--you--are!"

He could hear the dripping of the mist over the window ledges. And then he thought he heard, smothered by the weight of the fog, the pounding of the sea.

"You surprised to see me? But you ain't able to see me. Are you?"

"No."

"You ain't surprised?"

Down there at the base of the chalk cliffs the sea was still; waiting.

"You--shouldn't--have--come."

"Why--you don't mean;--you ain't trying to tell me;--you--don't--want--me--here?"

Great beads of moisture trickled down across his eyes.

"Little girl--; I just said you shouldn't have come. Not up here in this kind of weather."

"Oh, the weather!" She laughed. "I ain't the one to mind the weather, Mister."

Again he reached his hand out in front of him in an effort to rend the suffocating thickness of the fog. His fingers touched her arm and closed over it. From below him came the repeated warning roar of the waves.

"Can you find your way home--by yourself--little girl?"

"I ain't going home, Mister;--not yet. I came up here to get that basket you said you had for me; you know, the medium sized one."

"I'll give it to you--now."

Her hand caught at his hand that lay on her arm. Her fingers fastened themselves around his and held tightly. He had never felt anything like that. The touch of them was cool and fresh, like sea weed that had just drifted in from the sea.

And then from far off across the water came the shrill, piercing shriek of a gull.

He felt her start.

"That's only a sea-gull, little girl."

"I know, Mister. But don't it sound strange; almost as if it were the sea itself; calling for something."

For a second he could not speak.

"Why--;" his voice was hoa.r.s.e, "Why d'you say that?"

"I don't know. Sometimes I get to feeling mighty queer about that water out there."

"You mean--; why--you ain't afraid of it, little girl, are you?"

"Afraid? There ain't nothing that I'm afraid of, Mister. Why, I'd go anywhere and not be afraid--"

He repeated her words very slowly to himself.

"You'd--go--anywhere--and--not--be--afraid--"

He thought then that the fog was lifting. A sickly, yellowish glow filtered through the heavy grayness. He could see her more distinctly.

"There's only one thing about the sea, Mister, that'd scare me, and that's--"

She broke off abruptly.

"What, little girl?"

"Why, Mister; why, I can't hardly say it. But there's Pa and there's my brother, Will. If anything ever happened--; if the sea ever did anything to Pa or Will, why--I guess, Mister, I'd just die."

"Don't!" He said quickly. "Don't you talk like that."

For a second they were silent.

The sun was breaking through the dwindling thickness of the mist. He could see it lifting in a faint gray line, uncovering the reach of the flat salt marshes with their dank yellowed gra.s.ses; a thin silver net of it hung for a second between the sky and the earth, and was gone.

From the base of the chalk cliffs came the sound of the sea lapping and lapping with insistent cunning.

She dropped his hand and she stood there looking up to him, scanning his white face with those childlike eyes of hers.