The City of Fire | Page 9

to the house with eyes
down--troubled. The mother moved away. The father bent his head
upon his hand with closed eyes. The girl came back to her work, but the

song on her lips had died. She worked silently with a far look in her
eyes, trying to fathom it.
The eyes of her father and mother followed her tenderly all that day,
and it was as if the souls of the three had clasped hands, and understood,
so mistily they smiled at one another.
Billy Gaston, refreshed by a couple of chocolate fudge sundaes, a
banana whip, and a lemon ice-cream soda, was seated on the bench
with the heroes of the day at the Monopoly baseball grounds. He wore
his most nonchalant air, chewed gum with his usual vigor, shouted
himself hoarse at the proper places, and made casual grown-up
responses to the condescension of the team, wrapping them tenderly in
ancient sweaters when they were disabled, and watching every move of
the game with a practised eye and an immobile countenance. But
though to the eyes of the small fry on the grass at his feet he was as
self-sufficient as ever, somehow he kept having strange qualms, and his
mind kept reverting to the swart fat face of Pat at the Junction, as it
ducked behind the cypress and talked into the crude telephone on the
mountain. Somehow he couldn't forget the gloat in his eye as he spoke
of the "rich guy." More and more uneasy he grew, more sure that the
expedition to which he was pledged was not strictly "on the square."
Not that Billy Gaston was afraid. The thrill of excitement burned along
his veins and filled him with a fine elation whenever he thought of the
great adventure, and he gave his pocket a protective slap where the "ten
bones" still reposed intact. He felt well pleased with himself to have
made sure of those. Whatever happened he had that, and if the man
wasn't on the square Pat deserved to lose that much. Not that Billy
Gaston meant to turn "yellow" after promising, but there was no telling
whether the rest of the twenty-five would be forthcoming or not. He fell
to calculating its worth in terms of new sweaters and baseball bats. If
worst came to worst he could threaten to expose Pat and his scheme.
During the first and second innings these reflections soothed his soul
and made him sit immovable with jaws grinding in rythmic harmony
with the day. But at the beginning of the third inning one of the boys
from his Sunday-school class strolled by and flung himself full length
on the grass at his feet where he could see his profile just as he had
seen it on Sunday while he was listening to the story that the teacher
always told to introduce the lesson. He could see the blue of Lynn

Severn's eyes as she told it, and strangely enough portions of the tale
came floating back in trailing mist across the dusty baseball diamond
and obscured the sight of Sloppy Hedrick sliding to his base. It was a
tale of one, Judas, who betrayed his best Friend with a kiss. It came
with strange illogical persistence, and seemed curiously incongruous
with the sweet air of summer blowing over the hard young faces and
dusty diamond. What had Judas to do with a baseball game, or with
Billy Gaston and what he meant to do on the mountain that night?--and
earn good money--! Ah! That was it. Make good money! But who was
he betraying he would like to know? Well if it wasn't on the square
perhaps he was betraying that same _One_--Aw--Rats! He wasn't under
anybody's thumb and Judas lived centuries ago. He wasn't doing any
harm helping a man do something he wasn't supposed to know what.
Hang it all! Where was Mark Carter anyway? Somehow Cart always
seemed to set a fella straight. He was like Miss Lynn. He saw through
things you hadn't even told him about. But this was a man's affair, not a
woman's.
Of course there was another side to it. He could give some of the
money to Aunt Saxon to buy coal--instead of the sweater--well, maybe
it would do both. And he could give some to that fund for the Chinese
Mission, Miss Lynn was getting up in the class. He would stop on the
way back and give her a whole dollar. He sat, chin in hand, gazing out
on the field, quite satisfied with himself, and suddenly some one back
by the plate struck a fine clean ball with a click and threw the bat with a
resounding ring on the hard ground as he made for a home run. Billy
started and