THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT

"What does it mean? What does it mean!" cried the astonished girl, scarcely believing the words that were printed so plainly yet seemed so impossible. "It's my own name. I'm Dorothy Chester, called Dorothy C. It's about me—I see it's about me—there couldn't be another right here in Baltimore—and money—all that money—who? Where? What? O long boy, talk, talk, tell!"

He was really as excited as she. For once he forgot caution and was indifferent to the opinion of his mistress, whether that were good or ill. He could not read very well. He had had to study that advertisement slowly before he could make out even its sentences, and to do a deal of thinking before he could actually comprehend their meaning. But he knew that it concerned his new friend even more than himself, and laying his hand upon her shoulder to steady her while he answered, began:

"I did go to market. She went, too. She had to get some things for him, an' soon's the stores was open. I sold the stuff. Some of the things she bought was wrapped up and a pair o' shoes was in this here. I ain't got books. I want 'em. I keep every scrap o' paper ever gets this way, an' I learn out o' them. She fired this away, for cattle-beddin'—'cause she can't read herself—an' 'twould save a speck of straw. I called it wicked waste, myself, so I hid it. Then whilst I was milkin' I begun to study it out. Thinks I, mebbe I can learn a hull new word afore I get through; an' I hit fust off on that there 'Dorothy,' 'cause 'twas yourn an' had so many 'O's' it looked easy. I read that, then I read the next—some more—I forgot to milk—I thought you'd never wake up—an'—Pshaw! Pshaw—pshaw—Pshaw!!"

Only by that word could the excited lad begin to express his fierce emotions; while for a brief time Dorothy was silent, trying to understand. Finally, and almost calmly, she said:

"I don't know a thing about this printed stuff except that it must mean me. I can't guess who would pay money for me, for just a little girl; though maybe father John would if he had it. But he hadn't. He was poor, he said, real poor; even if we did live so nice and cozy. He hadn't anything but what he earned and out of that he had to buy the food and clothes and pay on the house. I don't believe he ever had five hundred dollars in all his life, at one time. Think of it! Five—whole—hundred—dollars! Fifty—thousand—cents! My!"

Jim regarded her with awe. Such erudition as this almost took away his breath. That anybody, a little girl so much younger than himself, could "reckon" figures at such lightning speed was away beyond his dreams. More than that it convinced him that now she must be saved, restored to people who valued her at such enormous price. His simple rule of "right or wrong" resolved itself into two questions: Should he be loyal to his employer and help to keep this valuable Dorothy on the truck-farm, and show its owner how to get all that money? Because it wasn't she herself, who had brought the girl here, and if she took Dorothy back the reward would be hers. He reasoned that out to the end.

On the other hand: If Dorothy belonged to somebody who wanted her so much, shouldn't he help to restore her to that person and save them—or him—the money?

It was a knotty problem; one almost too profound for the mind of this honest farm-boy. He would do right, he must; but—which was "the rightest right of them two"?

Dorothy settled it. Dorothy who was the most concerned in the affair and had so much more wisdom than he. She had ceased to wonder at the strange advertisement and had now decided how to turn it to the best account. She was almost positively glad for all her misadventures and suffering since it could result in infinite good to another; and that other none but the "long boy" she had laughed at in the beginning. With a little joyful clap of her hands, she exclaimed:

"I know how! I know how! You have been—you can find the way—you must help me back to Baltimore, to my folks, to these Kidder-Kiddery men that offer all that money. I never heard of them. I can't imagine why they want to pay so many good dollars for a girl, just a girl they can't even know. I wouldn't trust them. I wouldn't go into anybody's 'office' again for all the world. But you take me, show me the way to the city and I'll show you the way to Baltimore Street. I know it. I know it quite well. I've been there on a street car. Then I'll stand outside while you go in and ask for the money. If they won't give it to you, bring them to the street and show them—ME! I ought to call myself in capital letters, same as I'm printed there, if I'm so expensive as that! Think of it, Jim Barlow! If you get that five hundred dollars you can live somewhere else and study all the time and go to college and be President, just exactly as I told you! Oh! Oh! O—Oh! Let's start now, this minute! I can't wait, I cannot!"

Jim listened intently. With a slowly growing wonder and delight on his homely features, with a widening of his blue eyes, and—at last with a burst of tears. He was ashamed of them, instantly, but he couldn't have helped shedding them at that supreme moment any more than he could have helped breathing. It was as if the girl's words had opened wide the gates of Paradise—the Paradise of Knowledge—and let him look within.

Then the cottage door opened and Miranda Stott looked forth. The sight of her restored him to the present and the practical side of life. The five hundred dollars wouldn't be his, of course. That notion of Dorothy's was as wild as—as the flight of that chicken-hawk sailing over the barnyard. Nor could he start at once, as she demanded. He had lived here for years and he still owed his employer allegiance—to a certain extent. Less than ever would he leave her alone with all this farm work on hand as well as a sick son. He must find somebody to take his place. Then he would help Dorothy back to town, but they'd have to be careful.

Dorothy, also, had seen Mrs. Stott at the door, but now had a strange indifference to her. How could anybody hurt a girl who was worth five hundred dollars to somebody? She stopped Jim as he was moving away and demanded:

"Are you ready? Can we start now—when she's shut the door?"

"Not yet."

Her face saddened and he hastened to add:

"S-ssh! Don't say nothin'. We'll go. I've got to think it over—how. An' to hunt somebody to work. But—we'll go—we'll go!"

He hastily turned away from the sight of her reproachful eyes nor did he blame her for the angry: "You mean boy!" which she hurled after him as he went into the house. But he made a chance soon to talk with her, unheard by Miranda, and to lay his plans before her.

"I know a feller'll come, I guess. He was in the county-farm an' jobs round, somewheres. He don't live nowheres. I seen him loafin' round them woods, yonder, yesterday, an' I'll try find him. If I do I'll coax him to stay an' help whilst I'm gone. Noonin' I'll leave you get the grub, whilst I seek him. Go 'long, just's if nothin' was different an' I'll help you."

Dorothy had made sundry "starts" already, but had feared to go all alone. If Jim would only go with her and knew the way it would be all right, but the day seemed interminable; and when her friend disappeared at noon she was so frightened that she retreated to her barn bedroom and shut the door upon herself. She could not lock it, for its one fastening was on the outside; but she called Tiger to come inside with her and felt a sort of protection in his company, sharing her chunk of brown bread with him, even giving him by far the larger portion.

Then Jim came back and, missing her, guessed where to find her.

"Open the door a minute. Lemme in."

"Oh! I'm so glad you've come! It seems—awful. That house so tight shut; that man in it; that dreadful woman that looked at me so—so angry! I want to get away, I must—I must!"

Tired with his breathless run to the woods and back, the youth dropped down on the floor to recover himself; then informed her:

"I found him. He was fishin' in the run. He'll fish all day if he's let. He'll come. He ain't got all his buttons——"

"Wh-a-t?"

"His buttons. His wits. He ain't so smart as some of us, but he can hoe an' 'tend cattle first-rate. We'll go, to-night, soon's it's dark. I'll tie some rags on your feet so's they won't get sore an' give out. I'll have to muzzle Tige, or, if I can, I'll give him some them powders in his milk she'd ha' used to make you dopy, if you'd give trouble. She won't miss us first off, an' when she does—Why, we'll be gone. Be you a good, free traveler?"

"Why, I don't know. I never traveled," answered Dorothy, perplexed. If they were going to walk, or run, as his talk about trying on rags suggested, how could they travel? To her "travel" meant a journey by boat or rail, and surely neither of these conveniences were visible.

"Pshaw! Fer a smart girl you're the biggest fool!" returned the farm-boy testily. He was tired, body and brain; he was trying to make safe plans for her comfort, yet she couldn't understand plain English. "What I mean is—can you walk, hoof it, good? Course, we can't go no other way. If you can we'll strike 'cross lots—the nighest. If you can't we'll have to take to the road, on the chance of bein' took up."

"Oh! I'll walk, I'll travel, I'll 'hoof' it, fast as you want me to. Till I die and give out; but don't, don't go anywhere near the danger of being took up!" cried Dorothy, pleading meekly.

Again these two young Americans had failed to understand each other's speech. To the city-reared girl, being "taken up" meant being arrested by the police; to the country-grown boy it was giving a ride to a pedestrian by some passing vehicle. He looked at her a moment and let the matter drop. Then he rose, advising:

"You better go to work an' not waste time. To-morrow's Sunday. We gen'ally pick all day, so's to be ready for Monday mornin' market. Stuff fetches the best prices a-Monday. I'd like to leave her in good shape agin I didn't get back. But I'll take you. You can trust me."

And as she saw him return to that endless weeding in the garden, Dorothy knew that she could do so; and that it was his simple devotion to the "duty" she disliked that made him so reliable.

"But oh! what a day this is! Will it never, never end? Do you know, Jim Barlow, that it seems longer than all the days put together since I saw my mother?"

"Yep. I know. I've been that way. Once—once I went to—a—circus! Once I got to go!" answered the lad, carefully storing the baskets of early pease he had picked in the depths of the schooner. He made the statement with bated breath, remembering the supreme felicity of the event. "She went. She'd had big prices an' felt good. She told me 'twas a-comin' an' I could; and—Pshaw! I never seen a week so long in all my born days, never! An' when it got to the last one of all—time just natchally drug! I know. But we'll go. An' say, Dorothy. The faster you pick an' pack an' pull weeds, the shorter the day'll be. That's the onliest way I ever lived through that last one afore that circus," comforted Jim, himself toiling almost breathlessly, in order to leave Miranda in "as good shape" as he could. He knew how she would miss him, and that she had depended upon him as firmly as upon herself.

But all days come to an end, even ones weighted with expectations such as Dorothy's; and at nightfall Jim announced that they might stop work. Leaving the girl to wait in the harness-room he went to the house, secured a whole loaf of bread and two of the sleeping powders he had seen administered to the crying boy, and a bundle of rags, with some string. In carrying the milk to the dairy he had reserved a basin full; and into this his first business it was to drop the powders. Then he called Tige to drink the milk, and the always hungry animal greedily obeyed.

"That seems dreadful, Jim! Suppose the stuff kills him? He isn't to blame and I should hate terribly to really hurt him," cried Dorothy, frightened by the deed to which she had eagerly consented but now regretted—too late.

Jim sniffed. He supposed that all girls must be changeable. This one veered from one opinion to another in a most trying way and the only thing he could do was to pay no attention to her whimsies. He had carefully explained the action of these powders and their harmlessness and wasn't going to do it the second time. Besides, he was delighted to find them promptly affecting the mastiff, who might have hindered their flight. So he merely motioned Dorothy to sit down on the door sill, at the rear of the barn and out of sight from the cottage, then bade her:

"Hold up your foot. I'll fix 'em. Then we'll go. We can eat on the road. Ain't so dark as I wish it was but she's asleep—right on the kitchen floor—an' it's our chance. She's slept that way ever since he was so bad. He don't 'pear to know nothin' now. I'm sorry for her."

"Why, that's real ingenious! That's almost like a regular shoe! And a good deal better than a shoe too small!" laughed the girl, wild with pleasure that her helper had, at last, begun to do something toward their trip. She found, too, that with these rude sandals tied on she could walk much faster than in her tender bare feet, although Jim cautioned:

"Ain't nothin' but rags an' paper. Remember that. Ain't no call to go scuffin' 'em out, needless."

Whereupon Dorothy ceased to dance and prance, as she had been doing to work off some of her excitement, and became quite as sober as he could desire. Also, though she had been so anxious to start, it came with suddenness when he said:

"Ready. Come!"

She glanced at Tiger, who very closely resembled a dead dog as he lay beside the basin on the floor, then toward the house. Utter silence everywhere; save for the fretful fussing of some hens, settling to roost, and a low rumble of thunder from the west where it now looked quite dark enough to satisfy even Jim Barlow.

They struck off across lots, past the teeming garden which the active young farmer really loved and which he felt that he would never see again. He held Dorothy's hand in one of his, while the other carried a stick and bundle thrown over his shoulder. The bundle was a bit of old cloth, containing his beloved spelling book, the newspaper with the alluring advertisement, and their loaf of bread. Nothing else; and thus equipped, this uncouth, modern knight errant turned his back on all he had ever known for the sake of a helpless girl, and with as true a chivalry as ever filled the breast of ancient man-at-arms.

For some distance neither spoke. The hearts of both were beating high with excitement and some fear; but after a time, when no call had followed them and they had reached the little run where Jim had sought the half-wit, the farm-boy said:

"Best eat our grub, now. Can't travel fast on empty stummicks. Mebbe your feet need fixin' over, too. I brung some more rags in my jumper, case them give out. Here's a good place to set. We can get a drink out the brook."

"I'd rather go on. I'm not a bit hungry!" pleaded Dorothy, who already felt as if her mother's arms were folding about her and who longed to make this fancy prove the dear reality.

"I be, then. I didn't eat no noonin', recollec'?" returned Jim, and dropped down on the bank with a sigh.

"Oh! I'm sorry I forgot. Of course we'll stop—just as long as you want," returned the girl, with keen self-reproach, and sat down beside him. As she did so, there came a fresh rumble from the west and the pale light which had guided them so far was suddenly obscured, so that she cried out in fear: "There's going to be a fearful gust! We shall be wet through!"

"Reckon we will; here's a chunk o' bread," answered the matter-of-fact youth, reaching through the gloom to place the "chunk" on her lap, and, to his surprise, to find her wringing her hands as if in fright or pain. "Why, tell me what ails you now."

"No-nothing—only—ouch! Don't—don't worry—it's—Ooo-oh!"

Despite her fierce will to the contrary Dorothy could not restrain a bitter groan. She had not meant to hinder their flight by any breakdown on her own part. She had intended to "travel," to "hoof it" just as rapidly and as "freely" as her guide could; but something had happened just now, though her feet had hurt her almost from the first moment of their walk; but this was worse, and reaching down she felt what she could not see—one end of a great thorn or splinter projecting from the ball of her foot.

"What's the matter, I say?" demanded Jim, quite fiercely for him. He had no fear but that her pluck would be equal to any strain put upon it, but of her physical endurance he wasn't so sure.

"It's a thorn—or a splinter—and oh! it hurts! put your hand here—feel!" Yet as she guided his fingers to that queer thing sticking from her wonderful "sandals" she winced and almost screamed. "I guess you mustn't touch it. I can't bear it. I've run something in and I daren't pull it out—I can't—it's awful!"

Indeed the agony was making her feel faint and queer and the boy felt, rather than saw, that she swayed where she sat as if she were about to sink down on the ground.

Here was plainly another case of "duty" and an unpleasant one, from which the lad shrank. He would much rather have borne any amount of pain himself than have inflicted more on this forlorn little girl who depended upon him; but all he said was: "Pshaw!" as setting his teeth, he suddenly gripped her foot and—in an instant the great bramble was out!

It was heroic treatment and Dorothy screamed; then promptly fainted away. When she came to herself she was dripping with water from the brook, with which Jim had drenched her—not knowing what better to do; and from a sudden downpour of rain which came almost unhindered through the branches overhead.

"Pshaw! I'd oughter 'a' took to the road. I hadn't no business to try this way, though 'tis nigher!"

That was the first thing Dorothy realized; the next that her foot was aching horribly, but not in that sickening way it had before; and lastly that, as the only means of keeping it dry, Jim had thrust their loaf back into the bundle and was sitting upon that! A lightning flash revealed this to her, but did not prepare her for her companion's next words:

"We got to go back!"