The Sick a Bed Lady Part 11

That was exactly the sort of Road it was!

Yet after three or four miles the White Pony shook all the skittishness out of his feet, and settled down to a zigzag, browsing-clover gait, and the Girl relaxed at last, and sat loosely to ease her own muscles, and slid the bridle trustingly across the White Pony's neck.

Then she began to sing. Never in all her life had she sung outside the restricting cage of house or church. A green and blue loneliness on a June day is really the only place in the world that is big enough for singing! In dainty ballad, in impa.s.sioned hymn, in opera, in anthem, the Girl's voice, high and sweet and wild as a boy's, rang out in fluttering tremolo. Over and over again, as though half unconscious of the words, but enraptured with the melody, she dwelt at last on that dream-song of every ecstatic young soul who tarries for a moment on the edge of an unfocused exultation:

The King of Love my Shepherd is Whose Goodness faileth never, I nothing lack if I am _his_ And he is _mine f-o-r-e-v-e-r_!

Forever!----Is _mine f-o-r-e-v-e-r_!

Her pulsing, pa.s.sionate crescendo came echoing back to her from a gray granite hillside, and sent a reverent thrill of power across her senses.

Then--suddenly--into her rhapsody broke the astonishing, harsh clash and clatter of a hay-rake. The White Pony lurched, stood stock-still, gave a hideous snort of terror, grabbed the bit in his teeth, and bolted like mad on and on and on and on till a quick curve in the Road dashed him into the very lap of a tiny old gray farmhouse that completely blocked the way.

In another second he would have stumbled across the threshold and hurled his rider precipitously into the front hall if she had not at that very second recovered her "yank-hold" on his churning mouth and wrenched him back so hard that any animal but a horse would have sat down.

Then the girl straightened up very tremblingly in her saddle and said "O--h!"

Some one had to say something, for there in the dooryard close beside her were an Artist, a Bossy, and a White Bulldog, who all instantaneously, without the slightest cordiality or greeting, stopped whatever they were doing and began to stare at her.

Now it's all very well to go dashing like mad into a person's front yard on a runaway horse. Anybody could see that you didn't do it on purpose; but when at last you have stopped dashing, what are you going to do next, particularly when the Road doesn't go any farther? Shall you say, "Isn't this a pleasant summer?" or "What did you really like best at the theater last winter?" If you gallop out it looks as though you were frightened. If you amble out, you might hear some one laugh behind your back, which is infinitely worse than being grabbed on the stairs.

The situation was excessively awkward. And the Artist evidently was not clever in conversational emergencies.

The Girl straightened her gray slouch hat. Then she ran the cool metal b.u.t.t of her riding-whip back and forth under the White Pony's sweltering mane. Then she swallowed very hard once or twice and remarked inanely:

"Did the Road go right into the house?"

"Yes," said the Artist, with a nervous blue dab at his canvas.

The Girl's ire rose at his churlishness. "If that is so," she announced, "if the Road really went right into the house, I'll just wait here a minute till it comes out again."

But the Artist never smiled an atom to make things easier, though the Bossy began to tug most joyously at his chain, and the White Bulldog rolled over and over with delight.

The Girl would have given anything now to escape at full speed down the Road along which she had come, but escape of that sort had suddenly a.s.sumed the qualities of a panicky, ignominious retreat, so she parried for time by riding right up behind the Artist and watching him change a perfectly blue canvas sky into a regular tornado.

"Oh, do you think it's going to rain as hard as that?" she teased.

"Perhaps I'd better settle down here until the storm is over."

But the Artist never smiled or spoke. He just painted and sniffed as though he worked by steam, and when his ears had finally grown so crimson that apoplexy seemed impending, she took pity on his miserable embarra.s.sment and backed even the shadow of her pony out of his sight.

Then with a desperate effort at perfect ease she remarked:

"Well--I guess I'll ride round to your back door. Perhaps the Road came out that way and went on without me."

But though she and the White Pony hunted in every direction through white birch and swaying alders, they found no possible path by which the Road could have escaped, and were obliged at last to return with some hauteur, and make as dignified an exit as possible from the scene.

The Artist bowed with stiff relief at their departure, but the White Bulldog preceded them with friendly romps and yells, and the Bossy pulled up his iron hitching stake and chain and came clanking after them with furious bounds and jingles.

No one but the White Pony would have stood the racket for a moment, and even the White Pony began to feel a bit staccato in his feet. The Girl kept her saddle like a circus rider, but the amus.e.m.e.nt on her face was just a trifle studied. It was a fine procession, clamor and all, with the Bulldog scouting ahead, the White Pony following skittishly, and the Bossy see-sawing behind, clanking a dungeon chain that left a cloud of dust as far as you could see.

It must have startled the Youngish Man who loomed up suddenly at a bend of the Road and caught the wriggling Bulldog in his arms.

"Who comes here?" he cried with a regular war-whoop of a challenge. "Who comes here?"

"Just a lady and a bossy," said the Girl, as she reined in the Pony abruptly, and sent the Bossy caroming off into the bushes.

"But it's my brother's Bossy," protested the Youngish Man.

"Oh, no, it isn't," the Girl explained a little wearily. "It's mine now.

It chose between us."

The Youngish Man eyed her with some amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Did you really see my brother at the house?" he probed.

The Girl nodded, flushing. It was very hot, and she was beginning to feel just a wee bit faint and hungry and irritable.

"Yes, I saw your brother," she reiterated, "but I didn't seem to care for him. I rode by mistake right into the picture he was painting.

There's probably paint all over me. It was very awkward, and he didn't do a thing to make it easier. I abominate that kind of person. If a man can't do anything else he can always ask you if you wouldn't like a drink of water!" She scowled indignantly. "It was the Road's fault anyway! I was just exploring, and the Road cried 'Follow me,' and I followed--a little faster than I meant to--and the Road ran right into your house and shut the door. Oh, _slammed_ the door right in my face!"

"Would you like a drink of water, _now_?" suggested the Youngish Man.

"No, I thank you," said the Girl, with stubborn dignity, and then weakened to the alluring offer with "But my White Pony is very cruelly thirsty."

Both adventurers looked pretty jaded with heat and dust.

The Youngish Man led the way into a tiny, pungent wood-path that ended in a gurgling spring-hole, where the White Pony nuzzled his nose with deep-breathed, dripping satisfaction, while the Girl kept to her saddle and looked down on the Youngish Man with frank interest.

He looked very picturesque and brown and clever in his khaki suit with a game bag slung across his shoulder.

"You're not a hunter," she exclaimed impulsively. "You're not a hunter--because you haven't any gun."

"No," said the Man, "I'm a collector."

The Girl cried out with pleasure and clapped her hands. "A collector?--oh, goody! So am I! What do you collect? Minerals? Oh--dear!

_Mine_ is lots more interesting. I collect adventures."

"Adventures?" The Man made no slightest effort to conceal his amused curiosity. "Adventures? Now I call that a jolly thing to collect. Is it a good country to work in? And what have you found?"

The Girl smiled at him appreciatively--a little flitting, whimsical sort of smile, and commenced to rummage in the blouse of her white shirt-waist, from which she finally produced a small, red-covered notebook. She fluttered its diminutive pages for a second, and then began to laugh:

"You'd better sit down if you really want to hear what I've found."

The Man dropped comfortably into place beside the spring and watched her. She was very watchable. Some people have to be beautiful to rivet your attention. Some people _don't_ have to be. It's all a matter of temperament. Her hair was very, very brown, though, and her eyes were deep and wide and hazel, and the red in her cheeks came and went with every throb of her heart.

"Of course," she explained apologetically, "of course I haven't found a lot of things yet--I've only been working at it a little while. But I've collected a 'Runaway Accident with the Rural Free-Delivery Man.' It was awfully scary and interesting. And I've collected a 'Den of Little Foxes Down in the Woods Back of My House,' and 'Two Sunrises with a Crazy Woman who Thinks that the Sun Can't Get Up Until She Does,' and I've collected a 'Country Camp-Meeting all Hallelujahs and By Goshes,' and a 'Circus Where I Spent All Day with the Snake-Charmer,' and a 'Midnight Ride Alone through the Rosedale Woods in a Thunder-Storm.' Of course, as I say, I haven't found a lot of things yet, but then it's only the middle of June and I have two more weeks' vacation yet."

The Man put back his head and laughed, but it was a pleasant sort of laugh that flooded all the stern lines in his face.

"I'm sure I never thought of making a regular business of collecting adventures," he admitted, "but it certainly is a splendid idea. But aren't you ever afraid?" he asked. "Aren't you ever afraid, for instance, riding round on a lonesome trip like this?"