The Place Beyond the Winds | Page 6

She looked equal to it, too, and Jerry-Jo swore one angry word and stopped short. Then the girl's mood changed. Quite gently and noiselessly she ran to Jerry-Jo and held the opened book toward him. His keen eye fell upon the tear-stain, but his coarser nature wrongly interpreted it.
"You imp!" he cried; "you spat upon it!"
But Priscilla shook her head. "No--it's a tear," she explained; "and, oh! Jerry-Jo, it is mine--listen!--you cannot take it away from me."
And standing there upon the rock she repeated the words of the poem, her rich voice rising and falling musically, and poor Jerry-Jo, hypnotized by that which he could not comprehend, listened open-mouthed.
* * * * *
And now, again, it was spring and Priscilla was fourteen. Standing in the garden path, her yoke across her shoulders, her ears straining at the sound she heard, the old poem returned to her as it had not for years. She faltered over the words at the first attempt, but with the second they rushed vividly to her mind and seemed set to the music of that "pat-pat-pat" sound on the water. An unaccountable excitement seized her--that new but thrilling sense of nearness and kinship to life and the lovely meaning of spring. She was no longer a little girl looking on at life; she was part of it; and something was going to happen after the long shut-in winter!
And presently the McAlpin boat came in sight around Lone Tree Island and in it stood Jerry-Jo quite alone, paddling straight for the landing-place! For a moment Priscilla hardly knew him. The winter had worked a wonder upon him. He was almost a man! He had the manners, too, of his kind--he ignored the girl on the rocks.
But he had seen her; seen her before she had seen him. He had noted the wonderful change in her, for eighteen is keen about fourteen, particularly when fourteen is full of promise and belongs, in a sense, to one.
The short, ugly frock Priscilla wore could not hide the beauty and grace of her young body--the winter had wiped out forever her awkward length of limb. Her reddish hair was twisted on the top of her head and made her look older and more mature. Her uplifted face had the shining radiancy that was its chief charm, and as Jerry-Jo looked he was moved to admiration, and for that very reason he assumed indifference and gave undivided attention to his boat.
CHAPTER II
With skill and grace Jerry-Jo steered his boat to the landing-place at the foot of the garden. He leaped out and tied the rope to the ring in the rocks, then he waited for Priscilla to pay homage, but Priscilla was so absorbed with her own thoughts that she overlooked the expected tribute of sex to sex. At last Jerry-Jo stood upright, legs wide apart, hands in pockets, and, with bold, handsome face thrown back, cried:
"Well, there!"
At this Priscilla started, gave a light laugh, and readjusting her yoke, walked down to the young fellow below.
"It's Jerry-Jo," she said slowly, still held by the change in him; "and alone!"
"Yes." Jerry-Jo gave a gleaming smile that showed all his strong, white teeth--long, keen teeth they were, like the fangs of an animal.
"Where are the others?" asked Priscilla.
"Uncle's dead," the boy returned promptly and cheerfully; "dead, and a good thing. He was getting cranky."
Priscilla started back as if the mention of death on that glorious day cast a cloud and a shadow.
"And your father, Jerry-Jo, is he, too, dead?"
"No. Dad, he is in jail!"
"In--jail!" Never in her life before had Priscilla known of any one being in Kenmore jail. The red, wooden house behind its high, stockade fence was at once the pride and relic of the place. To have a jail and never use it! What more could be said for the peaceful virtues of a community?
"Yes. Dad's in jail and in jail he will stay, says he, till them as put him there begs his pardon humble and proper."
Priscilla now dropped the yoke upon the rocks and gave her entire thought to Jerry-Jo, who, she could see, was bursting with importance and a sense of the dramatic.
"What did your father do, Jerry-Jo?"
"It was like this: Uncle Michael died and the wake we had for him was the most splendid you ever saw. Bottles and kegs from the White Fish and money to pay for all, too! Every one welcome and free to say his say and drink his fill. I got drunk myself! Long about midnight Big Hornby he said as how he once licked Uncle Michael, and Dad he cried back that to blacken a man's name when he was too dead to stand up for it was a dirty trick, and so it was! Then it was forth and back