While Caroline Was Growing | Page 8

nearer and put her hand on his knee.
"There'll be--won't there be me?" she begged.
He shook his head.
"I guess not," he said bluntly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"But--but you said I was a--a regular little chum," she whispered. "Don't you like me?"
He was silent:
"Don't you? Oh, don't you?" she pleaded. "I don't need much to eat, really!"
The lad looked at her with a strange longing. The fatherhood that lives in every boy thrilled at the touch of her fat little hand on his knee; the comradely glow in her round brown eyes warmed his restless, lonely heart. He shook her off almost roughly.
"I guess they'd miss you more'n that salt-shaker," he said grimly. "I wish I could take you with me--honest, I do. But you better stay home and go to school. You don't want to grow up ignorant, and have your folks ashamed of you."
"But you--you aren't ignorant!" she urged warmly, her admiration shining in her eyes.
He blushed and kicked nervously at the grass.
"I am," he said angrily. "I am, too. Oh, dear, I wish--I wish--"
They looked at each other, troubled and uncertain.
"You're a girl," he began again, "and girls can't; they just can't. They have to stay with their folks and keep nice. It's too bad, but that's the way it is. You'd want to see 'em, too. You'd miss 'em nights."
Caroline winced, but could not deny. "Oh," she cried passionately, "why do girls have to do all the missing? It's just what that Simms boy says: 'If I couldn't be a boy, I'd rather be a dog!'"
"There, there," he said soothingly, "just think about it. You'll see. And you're not exactly like a girl, anyhow. You're too nice."
He patted her shoulder softly, and they lay quietly against the bank. Her breathing grew slow and regular; raising himself cautiously on one elbow, he saw that she had fallen asleep, her arm about William Thayer, her dusty boots pathetically crossed. He watched her tenderly, with frequent glances up and down the road.
Presently an irregular beat of hoofs sounded around a bend, and a clattering wagon drew steadily nearer.
The egg-and-chicken man jumped out and strode angrily toward the little group.
"I've caught you, have I, you young----"
"'Sh!"
The boy put up a warning hand.
"She's fast asleep," he whispered. "Are you goin' to take her home?"
The man stared.
"Oh, I'm no child-stealer," said the boy lightly. "Here, just lift her soft with me, and I'll bet we can put her in without waking her up at all."
Without a word, the man slipped his hands under Caroline's shoulders, the boy lifted her dusty boots, and gently unloosing her arm from the dog, they carried her lax little body carefully to the wagon and laid her on the clean straw in the bottom, her head on a folded coat. She stirred and half opened her eyes, murmured broken words, and sank yet deeper into her dream.
The man pointed to a book on the seat.
"That's her lesson-book," he whispered hoarsely. It was the despised geography.
"Her folks think a heap of her, I tell you," he added, still eying the boy uncertainly. "She's about as bright as they make 'em, I guess."
"I guess she is," said the lad simply. "She'd ought to have been a boy. She'd have made a fine one."
The man's face cleared.
"Do--do you want a job?" he said abruptly. "We're short up at my place, and I wouldn't mind the dog. I remember you, now. You caught a chicken for me once; my wife gave you a hot supper."
The boy smiled faintly and shook his head. "I remember," he said. "No, I don't believe I want any job, thank you. I--I'm sort of--I have to keep along."
"Keep along? Where?"
He waved his hand vaguely.
"Oh, just along," he repeated. "This year, anyhow. Maybe--well, good-by. Her folks might be gettin' anxious."
He stepped up to the cart and looked once more at the flushed cheeks and brown hands, then strode off up the road.
The egg-and-chicken man gathered up the reins and the wagon started. Caroline scowled a little at the motion, but slept on. The boy whistled to the dog.
"Come on, William Thayer," he said. "I guess it's just you and me now."

II
A LITTLE VICTORY FOR THE GENERAL
Caroline, Miss Honey, and the General were taking the morning air. Caroline walked ahead, her chin well up, her nose sniffing pleasurably the unaccustomed asphalt, the fresh damp of the river and the watered bridle path. The starched ties at the back of her white pinafore fairly took the breeze, as she swung along to the thrilling clangor of the monster hurdy-gurdy. Miss Honey, urban and blas��, balanced herself with dignity upon her roller-skates and watched with patronizing interest the mysterious jumping of young persons with whom she was unacquainted through complicated diagrams chalked on the pavement.
The General sucked a clothespin meditatively: his eyes