For once careless of dust, Kate dropped down beside him and counted questions off upon her fingers so fast that Monty could only nod his head in acquiescence. Then she drew a small chain purse from her blouse pocket, where it had been carefully pinned ever since she left home in the morning. From this she took a pile of new one-dollar bills--ten in all--and laid them one by one on Montgomery's outstretched palms. It was the largest amount of money Kate had ever owned, it was almost the largest the boy had ever seen. A feeling like awe stole upon him and he whispered,--without a stutter,--"S'pose he should lose it!"

"That's a good boy. Monty, you're improving so fast, you'll beat the time I set for you to conquer in. Have you said your piece to-day? And, of course he won't lose it. Men don't lose things. Except Uncle Moses his 'specs' and the deacon his two-p.r.o.nged fork, that's never in the hay-mow when he wants it there. Stage-drivers don't lose, anyway, and I'm glad it's you, not I, who have to deal with him. He doesn't like me much. I _was_ saucy when I came. I don't think I am quite, not quite so saucy spoken as I was when I came. Do you, Monty?"

"O-o-oh, not n-n-nigh!" he easily replied, never having thought at all about it. He was still entranced with the possession, even temporary, of such vast wealth as he was now bestowing in an old and hitherto useless purse. The crisp new bills. How fat they made it! How utterly and entirely delightful was this girl from the outside world who had such wonderful ideas and the ability to carry them out!

Then the purse was put away in the innermost of all his many inner pockets, and around his blouse, beneath his jacket, Monty fastened a leather strap. Buckling this so tight he could hardly breathe, and fastening the coat over all, he slapped his chest admiringly, and valiantly declared:

"A-a-anybody get that a-a-away from me'll have to k-k-kill me f-f-first!"

Katy jumped up. "Let's go ask Aunt Eunice about the pumpkins!"

In an instant they were off down the street, and some, looking out of window as they raced past, remarked:

"There they go again, Sturtevant and Maitland, each generation as close friends as the other. But chummy as they've been ever since Johnny's girl came to Marsden, there's something more than common on the carpet now."

There certainly was. They burst in upon Miss Maitland's solitude, forgetful to tap at door as they both knew they should, and simultaneously besought the startled lady:

"Please, Aunt Eunice, may we have all the pumpkins in the south corn-field?"

At least, that was what Katharine said. Monty's request was proffered stammeringly but not less earnestly, and he said "punkins" with no attempt at correctness of speech.

"Children! What a pair of noisy creatures you are! Where have you come from? You are late if just from school. And, Montgomery, does your grandmother know that you are here?"

"N-n-no, Aunt E-E-E-Eunice. Nev' mind her. She w-w-won't care. C-c-c-can we?"

"I--don't think I quite understand. Did you ask me for a pumpkin? Please repeat."

"'A pumpkin'--that's one; no, indeed!" said Katy, scornfully. "We want the whole field full of them. We sha'n't hurt them any, Monty says, and he knows 'bout country things better than I do." Here she bestowed such an approving smile upon her comrade that he flushed and smiled beatifically. There were so few, so very few, things in which he could really excel this superior city creature, yet she was so generous as to perceive them even before he did himself.

Just then Susanna came in greatly flurried, and, catching Eunice's arm, tried to draw her hastily out of the room. Miss Maitland herself had swiftly caught her housemate's perturbation. Indeed, she had already been perturbed when the children intruded upon her, and had, apparently, now forgotten them.

Katharine saw their opportunity slipping from them, and opportunity was something that girl never wasted for want of readiness to seize it.

Running after the departing lady, she clasped her skirt and stayed her long enough to put her question once more:

"May we, aunty? Oh, please, before you go, say--yes!"

"Yes. Why, of course, yes, yes," returned the lady, all unheeding unto what she had given her consent.

But she was to learn. Ah, yes! She was to learn in good time.

CHAPTER XIX.

WHAT THE MOON SAW IN THE CORN-FIELD

October had now nearly gone, and there was a chill in the air which would, under ordinary circ.u.mstances, have made both Eunice and Susanna pause before setting off into the woods at that hour in the afternoon.

Certainly they would not have gone without wraps and shawls galore, but neither paused now. As swiftly, almost as secretly, as two guilty schoolgirls would have started upon some surrept.i.tious adventure, they left the house by the back door and pa.s.sed through the back garden. From thence they struck into the path to the woodland and hurried forward.

Between strides the widow managed to interject a few explanatory sentences.

"I got the wash off the line." Pause. "An' I got oneasy." Another pause.

Resuming: "I felt druv to go out there, alone even, an' see. What you said about starvin' him worked on me, dreadful. I took a basket o'

victuals. Bad as he is--Oh, my suz!"

"Walk slower, Susanna. We shall be overdone if we keep this pace. What then?" asked Miss Maitland.

"Well, I went. I run 'most all the way. I got there--an' he wasn't. He wasn't at all!"

"Do you mean that he had left the cottage?"

"My suz! I should think he has. He's left, an' my log-cabin quilt's left, an' my best feather tick, an' pillows, an' a pair blankets--that kitchen-bedroom bedstead's stripped as clean as 'twas the day it was born--I mean, sot up. Now--what do you think of that?"

"I think--Oh, what a miserable business it all is! I am so worried I cannot sleep. Right and wrong, right and wrong, like the pendulum of the clock the two sides of the matter swing in my mind till I'm half-distracted. I hardly know what I am doing or saying, I am so anxious to do the best for everybody, yet what is best? I have a fear that those children asked me something absurd a few minutes ago, and I said 'yes' to them without comprehending. I think they said 'a field of pumpkins.' What could they want with a field--_a field_--of pumpkins?"

"Didn't want 'em, of course. Some their silliness. Don't worry. What's punkins, anyhow, compared with that log-cabin quilt?"

"Little, to be sure. And I hope it isn't really lost. Are you certain that the poor wretch is he you said?"

"As sure as I draw my breath," averred Susanna, solemnly.

"Then Squire Pettijohn must never know," said Eunice, with equal solemnity.

After that they hurried silently onward again, reckless of the fact that they had left a bedridden man alone in the house, for although the deacon was still about his evening ch.o.r.es, such kept him wholly outside.

As for Katharine, she might or might not be on hand if Moses summoned her. Evidently she and her boy-chum had some fine scheme on hand and were away to put it in train, since they had both been more than commonly excited and eager.

Never mind. There are times in life when its commonplace affairs must yield to the extraordinary. These two quiet householders had come to such a time on that late October day.

They had walked almost as far as Susanna's cottage when Eunice paused, and held her companion also back, as she pointed through the darkening wood to a wild-looking creature prowling among the trees. He was evidently looking for something. His search so earnest and troubled that the caution he had heretofore displayed had deserted him. Stooping, poking among the leaves and bracken, rising, moving toward another tree, stooping again--repeating endlessly this same proceeding, the watchers soon tired of simply observing him.

"Stay here, Susanna. You were right. It is he. I will go and speak to him."

"Alone? Oh, Eunice, don't! Let the old quilt go! I wish I hadn't told ye. Besides, who'd ever want to sleep under it after he'd touched it?"

But though she caught at her mistress's hand to prevent such foolhardiness, Susanna could not stop her. She was walking swiftly toward the searcher and almost noiselessly, and had come up to him before he was aware. When she was close at his side, so close that her firm fingers rested on his ragged shoulder, he discovered her and started away. But she held him quiet, more by her will than her grasp, while, looking steadily into his eyes, she spoke his name, gently, kindly, as one who welcomes a long absent friend:

"Nathan! Why, Nathan! How glad I am to see you!"

The tramp no longer struggled to free himself, but as if spellbound by her gaze returned it in silence. Gradually there stole over his haggard features the light of recognition, and, instead of remembering later events, his mind reverted to his boyhood.

"Be you Miss Eunice? But--I hain't got my lesson."

Again he would have slunk away expecting a reprimand; yet none came.

Quite to the contrary, Miss Maitland's own face brightened and she laughed, answering:

"Never mind the lesson, laddie. We're not little boy and young woman to-day, Sunday scholar and Sunday teacher. We're just two old friends well met, with other things to learn besides printed lessons. What have you lost? Can I help you find it?"

"A box. His'n. I fetched it safe so fur--an' now--now--I can't see it nowhere. Planck'll frown an' make me feel mean. I promised--"