CHAPTER XXIII
THROUGH THE DARKNESS
All unconscious of Cousin Penelope's musings, Caroline stretched herselfin the fresh cool bed, in her pretty room. She thought of the party nextday, and all the lovely days, brimful of music and happiness, that wereto follow. For Jackie had promised that she should stay thereundisturbed at The Chimnies, until Aunt Edie came at the end of summer.
How kind Jackie was, and how good, and how brave! She wasn't afraid ofcows, or Cousin Penelope, or boys, or the dark. Caroline, for instance,would have been frightened to death to go the three miles in the blacknight down into the Meadows. But Jackie had just whistled and walkedaway, as unconcerned as anything. No, there was no one in the world sogood or so brave as Jackie. With that worshiping thought uppermost inher mind, Caroline fell asleep, as safe and sheltered as care and lovecould make her.
Meantime the brave Jackie, with her heart in her throat, was making thebest of her way through the vast blackness of the onion fields, back tothe Conway farm.
The first of the walk wasn't so bad. On Longmeadow Street she metpeople, by ones and twos and threes, on their way to prayer meeting orto the Post Office. She could see, too, the light from house windowsthat streamed across the broad, well-tended lawns. She enjoyed theluxury of pitying herself, all alone in the dark, with no one to care,while other children, in those lighted houses, were being tucked up inbed.
But after she left the last houses of the village, Jacqueline stoppedenjoying the drama of the situation which she had chosen. The fieldsstretched round her endlessly. The sky was black as despair, and allstuck with stars that were sharp as screams of rage. The edges of thesky were tucked in behind the coal black mountains, from which theIndians in old days used to swoop down upon the settlement.
Jacqueline caught her breath, and looked hurriedly over her shoulder. Ofcourse there were no Indians nowadays. They couldn't be lurking thatmoment in the fields. The onions grew too low to hide an ambuscade. Itwas only the wind that made their tops rustle in a queer way that pumpedthe blood out of her heart and set it throbbing against her ear-drums.
No one could hide in the onion fields, she knew. But in the littlegullies where the brooks flowed that drained the fields--that was adifferent matter. Every time she drew near a culvert, she ran as fast asshe could upon her tired legs, through the heavy dust, until the dangerpoint was passed. Even if there weren't any Indians, there were Polishfield-hands. Good, honest men, most of them, Aunt Martha maintained. Butsome of them were worthless and drunken. There was a half-wittedKaplinsky boy, too, who sometimes chased younger children, with horrid,half-articulate threats.
Jacqueline sheered into the middle of the dark gray road to avoid thepatch of inky shadow that a solitary elm tree threw halfway across it.She wasn't crying, as Caroline would have cried. Jacqueline cried, asyou may have discovered, only when she was angry. Now her breath camethick and strangling, and her legs felt weak, and there were hotprickles of sweat on her temples, and cold prickles on the back of herneck. But she didn't cry!
Some one was coming along the road behind her. No mistake! She couldhear voices--men's voices. On instinct she did what a moment before shecouldn't have been hired to do. She scuttled off the road and hid in thedamp bed of the brook that bounded the Whitcomb acres. There shecrouched with her head on her knees, until she heard steps shuffle alongthe culvert. She peeped up fearfully. Three figures of men weresilhouetted against the sky. They paused on the side of the culvert(fortunately!) that was farthest from her, and spat into the brook, andspoke to one another in a foreign tongue, and laughed--ogreishly, as itseemed to Jacqueline--and then walked on.
They had actually gone. She could breathe again. But she wouldn't darewalk on for hours and hours. They might loiter. She might overtake them.
For what seemed to her half the night, she crouched in the clammy bed ofthe brook. Oh, she thought to herself in those long, dreary minutes,what a silly she had been! Why hadn't she stepped right up and toldCousin Penelope who she was? Well, she couldn't, because she had goneand promised Caroline--a crazy promise--she hated herself because shehad made it--she knew she was going to hate herself when she madeit--just the same a promise was a promise, and you kept it, even thoughthe sky fell.
But why had she ever promised? It would be dreadful at the farm now--butthere wasn't anywhere else to go. Perhaps Aunt Martha would send her toan Institution. She didn't think any longer that an Institution would befun. She thought of the workhouse boys in "Oliver Twist," who never hadenough to eat--and she hadn't eaten herself now for ages and ages. Sheknew what hunger was! Oh, she didn't want to go to an Institution--andshe didn't want to go to the farm--and she couldn't go to theGildersleeves', because she had promised Caroline! Perhaps she'd betterstay right there in the ditch and die--and then wouldn't everybody besorry!
Just then she heard something rustling near her. She didn't stop to findout whether it was a harmless field mouse, or a snake, equally harmless,though perhaps less attractive. She didn't stop for anything. Shescrambled out of that ditch and started on a sore-footed run for theConway farm. Aunt Martha--Neil--_anything_ rather than the loneliness ofthe ditch upon a pitiless, black, Pole-infested night!
She was stumbling along the road, as she felt that she had beenstumbling for a lifetime, panting and coughing as the dust that shekicked up got into her nose, when she heard from before her the chug andchatter of a laboring Ford. Nearer and clearer, she caught the gleam ofheadlights that lit up a fan-shaped space of dust and dark green oniontops.
For a second she halted in her tracks. Then she reflected that people incars can be as undesirable as people on foot, and once more she plungedoff the road. This time she found no friendly ditch to hide her. Shejust plumped down flat among the onion tops and lay gasping.
The Ford trundled past the spot where she had left theroad--stopped--began to back. Jacqueline "froze," like a scared littleanimal. Oh, _why_ couldn't she wake up, and find that this was just ahorrible nightmare?
Some one leaned out of the Ford.
"Jackie!" a voice called clearly and firmly. "Is that you? Jackie!"
Jacqueline found her feet, though a second before she would have vowedshe hadn't enough strength left ever to stand again. She flew,stiff-legged, through the crumbly dust and the strong-smelling oniontops, into the road. She cast herself upon the running board, she flungherself into the seat of the car, and hung about the neck of the womanat the steering wheel.
"Oh, Aunt Martha!" she cried. "Aunt Martha!"
And Martha Conway, if you'll believe it, grabbed that bad Jacqueline andhugged her just as tight as if she were clean and sweet, instead of thedirtiest, sweatiest, tiredest ragamuffin that ever crawled penitentlyout of an onion bed.