Part 16 (1/2)
Meg had reached the stairway hewn in the rocks, leading to the cabin, which, for so many minutes had been uppermost in her thoughts, and she drew rein, yodeling to a tall, graceful girl whom she saw standing by a pine gazing out over the valley. Jane Abbott turned and looked down, amazed that the mountain girl should have the effrontery to yodel to _her_. ”Just because she mailed a letter for me does not ent.i.tle her to _my_ friends.h.i.+p as an equal!” Abruptly Jane turned her back and walked away toward the cabin. Meg's face flushed and her inclination was to ride on to her own home, but she recalled the clinging of little Julie's arms and the sweet, yearning expression in the small girl's face when she had said, ”Meg, I like you. I wish you were my sister instead of Jane. You'd love me, wouldn't you?”
Leaping from her pony, she bade him wait for her, and, taking the paper, the girl sprang, nimble as a mountain goat, up the rocky steps. Jane had seated herself in the comfortable chair on the porch, and was reading when she heard hurrying footsteps. She looked up, an angry color suffusing her cheeks. This halfbreed was evidently going to force her acquaintance upon her. Well, she would soon regret it. But the proud, scornful words were never spoken.
CHAPTER XXI.
MEG AS BENEFACTRESS
Dan and the children had gone on a hike, and Jane, being quite alone, rose and confronted the mountain girl with a cold stare that would have caused Meg at another time to have whirled about and departed, but for the sake of the other three she was willing to be treated unkindly.
”Miss Abbott,” she said, holding out the newspaper, and pretending not to notice the unfriendly expression, ”there is news in here which may be of great importance to you. May I show it to your brother?”
Suddenly Jane found herself trembling from some unnamed fear. Instantly she had thought of the taxes. Perhaps, without really being conscious of it, she had read the word somewhere on that outheld paper.
She sank back into her chair, saying, almost breathlessly, ”Dan isn't here. What is it, Miss Heger? Is something wrong?”
The mountain girl pointed to the paragraph and was amazed at the effect the reading of it had upon the proud girl. There was an expression of terror in the dark eyes that were lifted.
”Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do?” she implored helplessly. ”Our father gave us the money. He told us the taxes must be paid, but I thought another two weeks would do as well as now. Dan did not know the need of haste.”
Meg, seeing that the girl, unused to deciding matters of importance, was more helpless than even Julie would have been, felt a sudden compa.s.sion for her and so she said: ”If you can get the money to the county seat before five o'clock you will not lose your property.”
A dull flush suffused the dark face. ”I--I haven't the money! I--I borrowed it for something I wanted. It was in that letter that Julie gave you this morning to mail.”
Then looking up eagerly, hopefully, ”Miss Heger, perhaps you forgot to post it. Oh, how I hope that you did!”
But the mountain girl shook her head. ”I sent it by Mr. Bently to the eastbound train, which was due about noon. He said that he himself would put it in the mail car.”
”Then there is nothing that I can do!” The proud girl burst into sudden tears. ”Father has lost everything but our home in the East, and now, now I have been the cause of his losing the cabin he so loved.” Lifting a tear-stained face to the girl who was watching her, troubled and thoughtful, she implored: ”Oh, isn't there something I can do? If I tell them I will pay it in two weeks, when my birthday money comes, won't that do as well as now?”
Meg shook her head. ”No,” she said. ”This is final. They notified your father some time ago.”
Jane nodded hopelessly. ”Oh, if only brother were here! But the worry would start him to coughing.”
Again the girl, who scorned tears in others, began to sob helplessly. How vain and foolish she had been to want that necklace, hoping that it would make her appear more beautiful in the eyes of Jean Sawyer.
Meg stood for one moment deep in thought. Then she said: ”Miss Abbott, find your papers. Have them ready for me when I return. I'll try to save your place.”
With that she turned and ran back to her pony, leaped upon it and galloped out of sight up around the bend.
”What does she mean?” Jane sat, almost as one stunned, for a moment, then as the command of the mountain girl recalled itself to her, she arose and went indoors to locate the papers their father had given Dan.
These being fastened with a rubber band into a neat packet, she held closely while she ran out to the brook calling Dan's name frantically, but there was no response. Soon she heard the musical yodeling which had so filled her heart with wrath a short half hour before. Now it was to her a sound sweeter than any she had ever heard. It brought a faint hope that her father's cabin might yet be saved. Down the stone steps she went, holding out the papers. Then and for the first time she thought of something: ”But the money--I haven't any to give you.”
Meg's answer was: ”I am loaning you twenty-five dollars from my savings, but don't hope too much. It will be very hard for me to make Scarsburg by five o'clock, but for Julie's sake I'll do my best.”
”For Julie's sake!” The words drifted back to Jane as she stood watching the pony hurtling itself down the mountain road until the cloud of dust hid it from view. She, Jane, had never done anything for Julie's sake, and why, pray, should this mountain girl loan her own money to strangers who might never repay her, and risk her life and that of her pony, as it was evident she was doing?
Jane looked out into the heat-s.h.i.+mmering valley. Many times the mountain road reappeared to her as it zigzagged down to Redfords. Again and again a rus.h.i.+ng cloud of dust a.s.sured her that Meg was still racing with time.
Returning to the porch, Jane sank down in the deep chair, keenly conscious of her own uselessness.