Mr. Achilles Part 16

"All right?" she asked.

"All right," he responded.

"Did you test the other end?"

"Right enough--" said the man. "Safe as a church! The water barrel in the garden stuck a little--but I eased it up--" He looked back into the hole, as he stepped out. "Too bad we had to take _her_ down," he said regretfully.

"The police _might_ 'a' stopped," said the woman. "You couldn't tell."

They swung the barrel in place, and blew out the lantern, and the man ascended the stair. After a few minutes the woman came up. The kitchen was empty. The fire burning briskly cast a line of light beneath the hearth, and on the top of the stove the kettle hummed quietly. She lighted a lamp and lifted the kettle, filling her dishpan with soft steam.... Any one peering in at the open window would have seen only a tall woman, with high shoulders, bending above her cloud of steam and was.h.i.+ng dishes, with a quiet, round face absorbed in thought.

When she had finished at the sink and tidied the room, she took the lamp and went into the small hall at the rear, and mounted the steep stairs.

At the top she paused and fitted a key and entered a low room. She put down the lamp and crossed to the door on the other side--and listened.

The sound of low breathing came lightly to her, and her face relaxed.

She came back to the bureau, looking down thoughtfully at the coa.r.s.e towel that covered it, and the brush and comb and tray of matches. There was nothing else on the bureau. But on a little bracket at the side the picture of a young girl, with loose, full lips and bright eyes, looked out from a great halo of pompadour--with the half-wistful look of youth.

The mother's eyes returned to the picture and her keen face softened....

She must save Mollie--and the child in the next room--she must save them both.... She listened to the child again, breathing beyond the open door. She looked again at the picture, with hungry eyes. Her own child--her Mollie--had never had a chance--she had loved gay things--and there was no money--always hard work and wet feet and rough, pus.h.i.+ng cars.... No wonder she had gone wrong! But she would come back now. There would be money enough--and they would go away--together.

Twenty-five thousand dollars. She looked long at the pitiful, weak, pictured face and blew out the light and crept into bed.... And in the next room the child's even breathing came and went... and, at intervals, across it in the darkness, another sound--the woman's quick, indrawn breath that could not rest.

x.x.x

ASLEEP

In the morning the woman was up with the first light. And as the men came grumbling in to breakfast, the round face wore its placid smile.

They joked her and ate hastily and departed for the open field. It was part of a steady policy--to be always in the open, busy, hard-working men who could not afford to lose an hour. The excursion had been a quick, restless revolt--against weeks of weeding and planting and digging.... But they had had their lesson. They were not likely to stir from their strip of market garden on the plain--not till the time was up.

As the woman went about her work, she listened, and stopped and went to the door--for some sound from upstairs. Presently she went up and opened the door... and looked in.

The child lay with one hand thrown above her head--a drawn look in the softly arched brow and half-parted lips. The woman bent over her, listening--and placed her hand on the small wrist and counted--waiting.

The eyes flashed open--and looked at her. "I thought you were Nono,"

said the child. A wistful look filled her face and her lip quivered a little--out of it--and steadied itself. "You are Mrs. Seabury," she said quietly.

"Yes," said the woman cheerfully. "Time to get up, dearie." She turned away and busied herself with the clothes hanging from their hooks.

The child's eyes followed her--dully. "I don't think I care to get up,"

she said at last.

The woman brought the clothes and placed them by the bed, and smiled down at her. "There's something nice to-day," she said casually. "We're going outdoors to-day--"

"_Can_ I?" said the child. She flashed a smile and sat up. "Can _I_ go out-of-doors?" It was a little cry of waiting--and the woman's hand dashed across her eyes--at the keenness of it. Then she smiled--the round, a.s.suring smile, and held up the clothes. "You hurry up and dress and eat your breakfast," she said, "--a good, big breakfast--and we are going--out in the sun--you and me." She nodded cheerfully and went out.

The child put one foot over the edge of the bed and looked down at it--a little wistfully--and placed the other beside it. They were very dark, little feet--a queer, brown colour--and the legs above them, were the same curious brown--and the small straight back--as she stepped from the bed and slipped off her nightgown and bent above the clothes on the chair. The colour ran up to her throat--around it, and over the whole sunny face and hands and arms--a strange, eclipsing, brown disguise.

There had been a quick, sharp plan to take her abroad and they prepared her hastily against risks on board the steamer. The plan had been abandoned as too dangerous. But the colour clung to the soft skin; and the hair, cropped close to the neck, had a stubby, uncouth look. No one seeking Betty Harris, would have looked twice at the queer, little, brownie-like creature, dressing itself with careful haste. It lifted a plaid dress from the chair--large squares of red and green plaid--and looked at it with raised brows and dropped it over the cropped head. The skirt came to the top of the rough shoes on the small feet. Betty Harris looked down at the skirt--and smoothed it a little... and dropped on her knees beside the bed--the red and green plaids sweeping around her--and said the little prayer that Miss Stone had taught her to say at home.

x.x.xI

A b.u.t.tERFLY FLIGHT

She came down the stairs with slow feet, pausing a little on each stair, as if to taste the pleasure that was coming to her. _She was going out-of-doors--under the sky!_

She pushed open the door at the foot and looked into the small hall--she had been here before. They had hurried her through--into the kitchen, and down to the cellar. They had stayed there a long time--hours and hours--and Mrs. Seabury had held her on her lap and told her stories.

She stepped down the last step into the hall. The outside door at the end was open and through it she could see the men at work in the garden--and the warm, s.h.i.+mmering air. She looked, with eager lip, and took a step forward--and remembered--and turned toward the kitchen.

Mrs. Seabury had said she must have breakfast first--a good, big breakfast--and then.... She opened the door and looked in. The woman was standing by the stove. She looked up with a swift glance and nodded to her. "That's right, dearie. Your breakfast is all ready--you come in and eat it." She drew up a chair to the table and brought a gla.s.s of milk and tucked the napkin under her brown chin, watching her with keen, motherly eyes, while she ate.

"That's a good girl!" she said. She took the empty plate and carried it to the sink. "Now you wait till I've washed these--and then--!" She nodded toward the open window.

The child slipped down and came over to her and stood beside her while she worked, her eyes full of little, wistful hope. "I've most forgot about out-of-doors," she said.

"Oh, you remember it all right. It's just the same it always was," said the woman practically. "Now I'll stir up some meal and we'll go feed the chicks. I've got ten of 'em--little ones." She mixed the yellow meal and stirred it briskly, and took down her sun-bonnet--and looked at the child dubiously. "You haven't any hat," she said.

The child's hand lifted to the rough cropped hair. "I did have a hat--with red cherries on it," she suggested.

The woman turned away brusquely. "That's gone--with your other things--I'll have to tie a handkerchief on you."

She brought a big, coloured kerchief--red with blue spots on it--and bound it over the rough hair--and stood back and looked at it, and reached out her hand. "It won't do," she said thoughtfully. The small face, outlined in the smooth folds, had looked suddenly and strangely refined. The woman took off the handkerchief and roughened the hair with careful hand.

The child waited patiently. "I don't need a hat, do I?" she said politely.

The woman looked at her again and took up the dish of meal. "You're all right," she said, "we shan't stay long."

"I should _like_ to stay a long, _long_ time!" said Betty.

The woman smiled. "You're going out every day, you know."

"Yes." The child skipped a little in the clumsy shoes, and they pa.s.sed into the suns.h.i.+ne.

The woman looked about her with practical eyes. In the long rows of the garden the men were at work. But up and down the dusty road--across the plain--no one was in sight, and she stepped briskly toward an open shed, rapping the spoon a little against the side of the basin she carried, and clucking gently.

The child beside her moved slowly--looking up at the sky, as if half afraid. She seemed to move with alien feet under the sky. Then a handful of yellow, downy b.a.l.l.s darted from the shed, skittering toward them, and she fell to her knees, reaching out her hands to them and crooning softly. "The dear things!" she said swiftly.

The woman smiled, and moved toward the shed, tapping on the side of her pan--and the yellow brood wheeled with the sound, on twinkling legs and swift, stubby wings.

The child's eyes devoured them. "They belong to you, don't they?" she cried softly. "They're your _own_--your very own chickens!" Her laugh crept over them and her eyes glowed. "See the little one, Mrs.

Seabury! Just _see_ him run!" She had dropped to her knees again--breathless--beside the board where they pushed and pecked and gobbled the little, wet lumps of the meal, and darted their s.h.i.+ny black bills at the board.

The woman handed her the pan. "You can feed them if you want to," she said.

The child took the basin, with s.h.i.+ning eyes, and the woman moved away.

She examined the slatted box--where the mother hen ran to and fro, with clucking wings--and gave her some fresh water and looked in the row of nests along the side of the shed, and took out a handful of eggs, carrying them in wide-spread, careful fingers.

The child, squatting by the board, was looking about her with happy eyes. She'd almost forgotten the prisoned room up stairs and the long lonesome days. The woman came over to her, smiling. "I've found seven,"

she said. The child's eyes rested on them. Then they flitted to the suns.h.i.+ne outside.... A yellow b.u.t.terfly was fluttering in the light--across the opening of the shed. It lighted on a beam and opened slow wings, and the child's eyes laughed softly... she moved tiptoe...