Girl Alone Part 12

"Hey, there, honey! Steady!" David commanded gently, as he groped for a handkerchief to wipe his streaming eyes. "Now, let's see the paper.

Thank G.o.d I didn't commit murder-what the devil!" he interrupted himself, as his eyes traveled hurriedly down the front page. "By heaven, I almost wish I had killed him! The dirty, lying skunk!"

"FARMER ACCUSES HIRED MAN OF a.s.sAULT TO KILL" was the streamer head-line across the entire page. Below, two streamer lines of heavy italic type informed the reader: "CLEM CARSON SUFFERS BROKEN LEG FOR ATTEMPTING TO PROTECT ORPHANED GIRL FROM UNIVERSITY STUDENT WORKING ON FARM."

The "story," in small type, followed: "Clem Carson, prosperous farmer, living eighteen miles from the capital city, is suffering from a broken leg, a broken nose and numerous cuts and bruises, sustained late Sat.u.r.day afternoon when, Carson alleges, he broke into the garret bedroom of Miss Sally Ford, sixteen-year-old girl from the state orphanage, who was working on the Carson farm for her board during the summer vacation. According to Carson's story, told to reporters Sunday night after a warrant for the arrest of Sally Ford and David Nash had been issued by the sheriff's office, the farmer had been suspicious for several days that one of his hired men, David Nash, A. & M. student during the school year, was paying too marked attention to the young girl, for whose safety Carson had pledged himself to the state.

"On Sat.u.r.day afternoon early the members of Mr. Carson's family, including his wife, brother, mother and daughter, had come to town for shopping, leaving Miss Ford alone in the house. The two other hired men had also gone to the city, leaving Carson and young Nash at work on the farm. Carson alleges that he saw Nash enter the house late Sat.u.r.day afternoon and that when the young man did not return to his work in the barn within a reasonable time, Carson left his own work to investigate, fearing for the safety of the girl under his protection.

"After unsuccessfully searching the main floor of the house, Carson alleges, he went to the garret, heard voices coming from Miss Ford's room, tried the door and found it locked. He knocked, was refused admittance, according to the story told the sheriff, then, determined to save the girl from the man, he climbed to the roof of the porch and made his way to the small window of the great room, from which he saw Miss Ford and the Nash boy in a compromising position. When he tried to enter the room through the window Carson alleges that he was brutally a.s.saulted by young Nash, who, by the way, was boxing champion of the soph.o.m.ore cla.s.s at the A. & M. A smas.h.i.+ng blow from young Nash's fist sent the farmer cras.h.i.+ng through the window, and down the sloping roof to the ground.

"In the fall, Carson's left leg was broken above the knee. He was still unconscious when Dr. John E. Salter, a physician living ten miles from the Carson farm on the road to the capital, arrived at the deserted farm, summoned by a mysterious male voice by telephone. The sheriff's theory, as well as the doctor's, is that young Nash, fearful that he had seriously injured the farmer, summoned medical help before leaving with the girl.

"A warrant for the arrest of David Nash has been issued by the sheriff, charging the young student with a.s.sault with intent to kill and with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The warrant for Miss Ford's arrest charges moral delinquency. Since she is a ward of the state until her eighteenth birthday, she is also liable to arrest on the simple charge of running away from the farm on which the state orphanage authorities had placed her for the summer."

Sally, trembling so that her teeth chattered, watched David as he read the entire story. His young face became more and more grim as he read.

When he had finished the shameful, hideously untrue account of what had really been a piece of superb gallantry on his part, he crumpled the paper slowly between the fingers of his big hand as if that hand were crus.h.i.+ng out the life of the man who had lied so monstrously. Then, lifting a lid of the big coal range, he thrust the crumpled ma.s.s of paper into the flames.

"But-what are we going to do, David?" Sally whispered, her eyes searching his grim face piteously. "They'll send me to the reformatory if they catch me, and you-you-oh, David! They'll send you to prison for years and years! I wish you'd never laid eyes on me! I'd rather die than have you come to harm through me."

She sagged against the narrow shelf which served as a kitchen table, weeping forlornly.

"Don't cry, Sally," David pleaded gently. "It's not your fault. I'd do it all over again if anyone else dared insult you. Oh, the devil! These onions are burning up! Skip along now and don't worry. I'm cook tonight.

Buck's on a spree. Keep a stiff upper lip, honey. In all that brown paint and that rig, you could walk into the sheriff's office and he'd do nothing worse than ask you to read his palm."

"But you, David, you!" she protested, trying to choke off her sobs.

"You're not disguised-"

"I'll stick to the kitchen. n.o.body'll think of looking for me here." He grinned at her cheerfully. "Remember, Pop Bybee's on our side. He took us in when he thought I'd killed a man. I don't suppose he'll turn on us now, particularly since you're such a riot as Princess Lalla. I've been hearing how big you're going over in the Palace of Wonders."

"Honestly, David?" she brightened. "Do you like me dressed up like this?" and she made him a little curtsey.

"You sweet, sweet kid!" he laughed at her tenderly. "Like you like that?

You're adorable! But I like your own wild-rose complexion better. Now scoot or I'll be put in irons for spoiling the supper."

Sally fled, but not before she had blown him an audacious kiss from the tips of her gilded-nailed fingers.

Winfield Bybee had entered the dining car during her talk with David and was seated at his own table, his thin, hatchet-faced wife opposite him.

When he saw his new "Princess Lalla" almost skipping down the aisle, her eyes sparkling with joy at David's unexpected praise and tenderness, he muttered something to Mrs. Bybee, then beckoned the fantastically clad little figure to his table.

"Would her royal highness honor me and Mrs. Bybee with her presence at dinner this evening?" he boomed, his blue eyes twinkling.

When she had seated herself, after a little flurry of thanks, Bybee leaned toward her and spoke in a confidential undertone: "Me and the wife have seen that piece in the papers about you and Dave, Sally. What about it? Who's lying? You and the boy-or Carson?"

Sally had turned the little black lace veil back upon the jeweled-gilt crown, so that her big eyes showed like two round, polished sapphires set in bronze. Bybee, searching them with his keen, pale blue eyes, could find in them no guile, no cloud of guilt.

"David and I told you the truth, Mr. Bybee," she said steadily, but her lips trembled childishly. "You believe us, don't you? David is good, good!"

"All right," Bybee nodded his acceptance of her truthfulness. "Now what was that you was telling me and the wife about your mother?"

Sally's heart leaped with hope. "She-my mother-lived here in Stanton, Mr. Bybee. I have her address, the one she gave the orphanage twelve years ago when she put me there. But Miss Pond, who works in the office at the Home, said they had investigated and found she had moved away right after she put me in the orphanage. But I thought-I hoped-I could find out something while I'm here. But I suppose it would be too dangerous-I might get caught-and they'd send me to the reformatory-"

"Haven't I told you I'm not going to let 'em bother you?" Bybee chided her, beetling his brows in a terrific frown. "Now, my idea is this-"

"_My_ idea, Winfield Bybee!" his wife interrupted tartly. "Always taking credit! That's you all over! _My_ idea, Sally, is for _me_ to scout around the neighborhood where your mother used to live and see if I can pick up any information for you. Land knows a girl alone like you needs some folks of her own to look after her. Wouldn't do for you to go around asking questions, but I'll make out like I'm trying to find out where my long-lost sister, Mrs. Ford, is. What was her first name? Got that, too?"

"Her name was Nora," Sally said softly. "Mrs. Nora Ford, aged twenty-eight then-twelve years ago. Oh, Mrs. Bybee, you're both so good to me! Why are you so good to me?" she added ingenuously.

"Maybe," Mrs. Bybee answered brusquely, "it's because you're a sweet kid, without any dirty nonsense about you. That is," she added severely, her sharp grey eyes flicking from Sally's eager face to Bybee's, "you'd better not let me catch you making eyes at this old Tom Cat of mine!"

"Now, Ma," Bybee flushed and squirmed, "don't tease the poor kid. Can't you see she's clear gone on this Dave chap of her's? She wouldn't even know I was a man if I didn't wear pants. Don't mind her, Sally. She's your friend, too, and she'll try to get on your ma's tracks tomorrow morning before show time."

CHAPTER VI

Hours more of "crystal-gazing," of giving lavish promises of "long journeys," success, wealth, sweethearts, husbands, wives, b.u.mper corn and wheat crops, babies-until eleven o'clock and the merciful dwindling of the carnival crowds permitted a weary little "Princess Lalla" to slip out of the "Palace of Wonders" tent, Pitty Sing, the midget woman, cradled in her arms like a baby. For Pitty Sing had promptly adopted Sally as her human sedan chair, uncompromisingly dismissing black-eyed Nita, the "Hula-Hula" dancer, who had previously performed that service for her.

"I don't like Nita a bit," the tiny treble voice informed Sally with great definiteness. "I do like you, and I shall compensate you generously for your services. Nita has no proper respect for me, though I command-and I say it without boasting, I hope-twice the salary that that indecent muscle-dancer does. And she always joggled me."

"Poor Pitty Sing!" Sally soothed her, as she picked her way carefully over the gra.s.s stubble to the big dress tent which also served as sleeping quarters for the women performers of the "Palace of Wonders."

"Haven't you anyone to look after you? Anyone belonging to you, I mean?"

"Why should I have?" the indignant little piping voice demanded from Sally's shoulder. "I'm a woman grown, as I've reminded you before. I've been paying Nita five dollars a week to carry me to and from the show tent for each performance. Of course there are a few other little things she does for me, but if you'd like to have the position I think we would get along very nicely."

"Oh, I'm sure of it!" Sally exalted, laying her cheek for an instant against the flaxen, marcelled little head. "Thank you, Pitty Sing, thank you with all my heart!"

"Please don't call me 'Pitty Sing'," the little voice commanded tartly.

"The name does very well for exhibition purposes, but my name is Miss Tanner-Elizabeth Matilda Tanner."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Sally protested, hurt and abashed. "I didn't mean-I-"

"But you may call me Betty." The treble was suddenly sweet and sleepy like a child's. One of the miniature hands fluttered out inadequately to help Sally part the flaps of the dress tent, which was deserted except for the fat girl, already asleep and snoring stertorously.

Sally knelt to enable the midget to stand on the beaten down stubble which served as the only carpet of Sally's new "dormitory."

"Thank you, Sally," the midget piped, her eyes lifted toward Sally out of a network of wrinkles which testified that she was indeed a "woman grown." "You're a very nice little girl, and your David is one of the handsomest men I ever saw."

"_Your David!_" Sally's heart repeated the words, sang them, crooned over them, but she did not answer, except with one of her rare, sudden, sweet smiles.

"Nita evidently thinks so, too," the weak little treble went on, as "Pitty Sing" trotted toward her cot, looking like an animated doll. "I might as well warn you right now, Sally, that I don't trust that Nita person as far as I can throw a bull by the horns."

She flung her dire p.r.o.nouncement over a tiny, pink-silk shoulder as she knelt before a small metal trunk and reached into her bosom for a key suspended around her neck on a chain. Sally's desire to laugh at the preposterous picture of the midget throwing a bull by the horns was throttled by a new and particularly horrid fear.

"What-do you mean, Betty?" she gasped. "Has Nita-"

"-been vamping your David?" tiny Miss Elizabeth Matilda Tanner finished her sentence for her. "It would not be Nita if she overlooked a prospect like your David. It is entirely obvious that he is a person of breeding and family, even if he is helping Buck in the 'privilege' car kitchen.