Sally of Missouri | Page 7

And the railroad? And haven't
they Miss Betsy,--or Miss--Miss----"
"Sally."
"Ah, yes, Sally! Know Sally, son?"
"Ev'body in the Tigmores knows her."
"I am beginning to want to know Sally myself." Bruce let his eyes go
drowsing toward the pale river up which the slow rain was beating, and
talked foolishness idly: "Red-cheeked Sally! Freckled Sally! Roly-poly
Sally! What's a Missouri girl like anyway, Piney?"
"Wy, people think she's purty," protested the boy with a quick palpitant
shyness, "an' most people l----," he stopped trying to talk, laughing
brusquely and flushing with a very young man's self-consciousness.
"All of which goes to prove me an ass," cried Bruce, "for talking about
a lady whom I have never seen." Looking repentantly at Piney, he felt a
sudden ache for him. He was not very familiar with conditions in
Canaan, but it occurred to him suddenly that even in Canaan there
might be social gradations, and that the tramp-boy, rare little chap
though he seemed to be, was probably miles away from the daughter of
the promoter, Mr. Crittenton Madeira. "I retract, Piney," he added
gravely.
"Aw!--not as I keer whut you say abaout her,--or whut anybody says."
Piney slashed at some brilliant sumach by the wayside and his mobile
lips jerked and quivered.

"I should have supposed that she was older--well, than you," said Bruce,
trying to set himself right.
"May be in what she knows,--aint in what she feels,--not as I keer----"
The boy was so deliciously new to his own emotions that they flashed
away beyond his control, minute by minute. His eyes looked misty,
with a little spark of high light cutting bravely through. He would not
finish his sentence. "Did Unc' Bernique say whend he's comin' back to
Canaan?" he asked moodily.
"No, he didn't, though I urged him to. That's a fine old man, Piney."
Piney's eyes softened beautifully. "Takes mighty good keer of me," he
said.
"Is he kin to you?"
"I d'n know abaout that. He's took my side always. Y'see, I aint got no
people an' I just ride araoun'. Y'see,"--Piney quivered with boyish
fire,--"I just got to ride araoun'. I cayn't stay on no farm an' in no
haouse. Kills me. I got to git to the woods an' the hills. An' Unc'
Bernique he stands by me, an' keeps me in his shack whend they's any
trouble abaout it. Y'see, some people think I oughter--oughter work!"
Piney laughed from the gay, melodious depths of his vagabond heart
and Bruce laughed with him. "An' Unc' Bernique has he'ped me abaout
that," explained the tramp-boy. He let his dancing eyes dart off to the
west where the hills were shouldering into a thickening drift of grey.
"Hi, look yonder!" he cried. "We got to cut and run to git to Poetical
before that rain."
So they cut and ran, the boy setting the pace and singing lustily, with
that high melody of voice, as of temperament, of his, as they dashed
down the road in the first cool scattering pelt of the rain. "Want to go to
the hotel, don't you?" he called over his shoulder, and Bruce called yes.
It was grey, rainy twilight now, and through the gloom five or six
houses sprawled out across the little plateau toward which the road
twisted. Some geese flew up under the feet of the horses, squawking
wildly, some "razor-back" hogs grunted from the dust-wallows, some

cow-bells tinkled, some small yellow spheres of light shone through
windows.
"How far from Poetical, Piney?" shouted Steering.
"'Baout a foot," answered Piney. He made his lightning-like pony go
more slowly so that Bruce's horse might come alongside, and he shook
his head, his ready sympathy again on his face. "Say, it's goin' to be
kinder tough on you to stay here to-night, aint it? This is ev' spittin' bit
there is tew Poetical. Here's the hotel."
They drew rein before a rickety two-story frame building and Bruce
lifted his shoulders shudderingly. A man came out on the hotel porch,
said "Howdy," and waited.
"Say,"--Piney in a lower tone, voiced a notion that evidently drifted in
to him on the high tide of his sympathy,--"why don't you ride over to
Mist' Crit Madeira's? Taint so far. I'll show you the way. They cand
take care of you over tha'. They'd be glad to have you. You cand caount
on that. It's that-a-way in Mizzourah." The boy's conscientious
earnestness was sweet. He was in good spirits again and he whisked
one roughly-booted foot out of its stirrup and laid it across his
saddle-horn, while he regarded Bruce. "You cand git ter see Miss Sally
ef you do that," he added, pursing up his lips, a subtle sense of humour
on his face. "You cand see what Mizzourah girls are like."
"Now