The Place Beyond the Winds | Page 6

Indeed, one large, full tear escaped the blue eyes and lay like a
pitiful kiss on the fair page, where there was a broad, generous space
for tears on either side of the lines.
"Hist! Father's coming!"
Then Priscilla stood up and a demon seemed to possess her.
"I'm not going to give it back to you! It's mine!" she cried shrilly.
Jerry-Jo made as if he were about to dash up the path and annihilate her,
but she stayed him by holding the book aloft and calling:
"If you do I'll throw it in the Channel!" 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