Ladybird (17 page)

“Oh, I shall be glad to do it,” said Fraley, her eyes shining at the prospect. “That will be two Bibles I shall have to buy.”

“Two Bibles? How is that?”

And then she told him about the woman who had befriended her on the drive and kept her overnight, and of the evening when she had read her Bible to her. The young man listened.

“So you, too, have been called to be a minister by the wayside,” he said thoughtfully. “Well, I want you to let me pay for that Bible, too. I would like a share in that if you’ll let me. I’ll give you the money in the morning, and I want you to use whatever is left over for something that you want for yourself, something to remember me by. Will you?”

Fraley solemnly promised, and soon after that, they came within sight of the ranch house, its window glowing red with friendly light.

Fraley shrank back as the door was opened. Somehow she dreaded this new contact.

The room was more formal than the one at the other log house, and the hostess a different kind of woman entirely. She was gracious and lovely, an entirely new type to the girl. Her hair was waved, and she wore dainty pretty garments. She had a lovely smile and was graciousness itself when the young man introduced her as a young sister who had been at the meeting and was on her way to the railroad station.

“I have promised to see her safely to her train,” he said, quite as if that were one of the duties of a missionary preacher, “and I told her I thought you would be good enough to put her up for the night so that she might catch the morning train, as she has come a long distance, Mrs. Hartwick.”

The lady swept Fraley a lovely smile, just taking her for granted as one of the natives, and that was all.

“Oh sure, Mr. Seagrave. We’ve plenty of room and are quite used to having people stop on their way. We always keep open house. I’m glad you brought her. Molly”—motioning to a woman—“show this girl to the end bedroom. See if she would like something to eat before she retires. Good night, my dear. I hope you will rest well.”

Another smile and Fraley found herself dismissed.

She could not understand why she felt so humiliated as she walked across the lovely room full of easy chairs, deep soft rugs, wonderful pictures, and bright lamps. The lady had been pleasant. She had said nice things. But she had shoved her out. She had made her feel like a stranger and an interloper.

She followed the woman out through a little hall, but as she went through the door, she looked back and caught one look from the young man who had brought her, and something in his eyes gave her comfort. It was a light and interest and a dazzling smile, and she knew she was not alone.

The lady was watching her with amused eyes. It was good that Fraley could not hear what she said as the door closed behind her.

“It is well that girl is not staying around here; she is much too good looking to be riding around with our young minister!” she said and laughed a little warning laugh that had a snarl at the end of it.

Seagrave turned inquiring eyes on his hostess.

“Good looking?” he said. “And what has that to do with it?”

The lady laughed, but the young man began to talk of something else and did not return to the topic. It was the next morning that the hostess got in her final sting for Fraley.

They were sitting at the breakfast table, which was abundantly laden with good things, but the girl was too overawed to eat more than a bite or two. She felt uncomfortable and only longed to get away. The woman and her husband were kind and passed her everything, but otherwise ignored her, and again she felt that she was where she was not wanted, and her sensitive nature was crushed by the burden of it.

“Mr. Seagrave,” said the hostess, “we’ve made other plans for you this morning. We’re going to take you off on a riding party to another ranch about fifty miles away, and we’re starting right after breakfast. We’ve arranged to send this little charge of yours down to her train with Molly and Jim, and they will reach there in plenty of time to put her in the car and see to everything for her.”

A quick fright came into Fraley’s eyes, and suddenly she spoke, surprising them all at her gentle accent and refined tone.

“Thank you,” she said politely, “you need not trouble to do that. I am quite used to walking and would much rather go by myself. I don’t want to be a burden on anybody. You have been very kind to take me in overnight, and I thank you, but that is all I shall need. And if you will excuse me, I would like to start at once.”

She rose from the table with a grace and ease made possible by her eagerness for flight, and they all looked up amazed at her poise. The lady was almost embarrassed.

“Oh no, my dear. You misunderstood me. It is no trouble whatever to send you down to the train. We always arrange to do that for our guests. You see, the man usually drives over every day or two anyway on errands, and it will be no trouble whatever. We were glad to have you with us.”

But the young man interrupted her, rising with his watch in his hand.

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Hartwick. I’m sorry to spoil your plans, but I’ve given my word to personally see this little sister on the train, and I must do it. Another time I’ll be glad to ride with you, if I may. And now, I wonder if you can spare another horse for my friend to ride. Or perhaps we can manage as we did last night.”

“Oh, you can have the horses, of course,” laughed the lady to hide her chagrin, “but it seems to me you might be a little easier on your conscience. Jim and Molly would do it just as well as you.”

“That may be so, but I’m going,” said the young man pleasantly.

“Well then, John, we’d better go, too, and go on from the station. It will only make the ride a little farther,” said the lady determinedly.

Fraley’s heart sank. She felt like darting out the door and flying anywhere to get away, but Seagrave caught her eye with reassurance.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ll have to spoil your plans again. I’ve got a lot of business to attend to down at the station. I’ve got to send telegrams and wait for answers, and I simply couldn’t make it today. I’ll have to hang around and wait for long-distance connection with the hospital, too. I want to ask how our friend Dudley is getting on, and if he is in shape at all. I need to find out several things before I can go on here.”

“Oh, you could wait to write,” pleaded the lady.

But Seagrave was firm.

“I’ve got to get things straightened out,” he declared, and then, in the nicest and easiest way possible, he made his apologies and got Fraley out of that house and onto a horse, and together they started away in the sunshine, leaving the lady looking most discontented.

“I don’t think she liked you to go,” said Fraley solemnly, after they had ridden in silence about a mile.

“That doesn’t spoil the sunshine a particle for me,” said Seagrave, smiling. “If I were thinking of staying out here indefinitely, I might even change my boardinghouse, but I guess, as it is, we shall manage to rub along and be good friends. I really didn’t come out here for the purpose of amusing that woman, even if she does know how to put up a good lunch. Say, little sister, just hand me over that bag and let me carry it. It looks like a heavy load for you.”

“Oh no,” said Fraley, “I like it. My mother made it for me.”

“In that case I suppose it isn’t heavy, but you needn’t be selfish about it.” And he reached over and lifted the strap from her shoulder, putting it over his own.

“You are very kind,” she said. “I feel sorry to take you all this way just for me. I really can do very well alone.”

“Well, I’ve expressed my views on that subject several times before so we won’t need to say more,” he said jovially. “But listen now, there are a lot of things I need to know, and some things I must tell you before we get interrupted again. No telling, but those persistent people may tag us after all and give us no chance to talk. In the first place, you haven’t told me your name.”

“It’s Fraley MacPherson.”

“Fraley MacPherson,” he repeated, taking out a pencil and writing it down. “That’s an extraordinary name. I like it.

“And now, where are you going? Have you got the address with you?”

“My mother said she had put it inside the cover of the Bible. I have not looked at it yet. There hasn’t been any time, and I didn’t need to know till I got somewhere near, but it is in New York somewhere.”

“Well, we’ll stop when we get over that hill out yonder and let you look it up. I’ve got to know where you are going. I want to find you when I come back.”

“Oh,” smiled Fraley, “that will be nice. Then I won’t be so lonesome.”

“Well now, do you know what to do when you get to New York?”

“Why, just get off the train, don’t I?”

“Well, yes, but you know New York is a large place, and you want to be careful. You just go up into the station—you’ll see how everybody else does—and when you get upstairs where the waiting room is, you go and ask for the travelers’ aid woman. She’ll be around there somewhere. You can ask any of the red-capped porters or officials and they will show you where she is. Then you tell her where you are going, and she will tell you just how to take a taxi and get there.”

“What is a taxi?” asked Fraley wonderingly.

“Why, it’s a public car that you can hire to take you anywhere in the city. But you better get the woman agent to show you where to get it or you’ll be lost in two seconds.”

Fraley looked frightened.

“Oh, you’ll get on all right,” he reassured her, “but you better just let the agent manage things for you. It’s her business to help travelers that don’t know the city and show them where to stay all night when they haven’t any friends. You are sure you’ll be all right when you get to your family?”

“Oh yes,” said Fraley, “my mother said her brother was very nice. He was always very fond of her.”

The young man looked down at the sweet eyes lifted to his and felt grave misgivings at sending this young innocent out alone into the world. She read the thought in his eyes.

“You needn’t worry about me, really,” she laughed. “I’m perfectly all safe, and you know God is in New York, too. The Bible says He is.”

“I believe it,” he said seriously. “I didn’t know it before. Say, are there any more stories as good as Elijah in that Bible of yours?”

“Oh, many, many!” she said eagerly. “There’s the blind man.”

“Well, you hurry and send that Bible back to me. I’ve got to get up something to read on Sunday, you know.”

“Oh yes, read the blind man. I love that story! It’s the ninth chapter of John.”

“Very well, that’s the one I shall read next Sunday.”

They had come to the other side of the hill now, and under a group of trees, they stopped while Fraley took out her Bible and found the address she wanted.

“What’s this MacPherson one?” he asked, looking over her shoulder.

“That’s my father’s people,” she said with reserve. “I might look them up, too, I’ll see when I get there.”

“I know some MacPhersons,” he said thoughtfully, marking the initials, “but they’re not likely the same people. This address is away downtown in old New York.”

That meant nothing at all to Fraley. She carefully put back the bits of paper on which her mother had written the addresses and tucked away the Bible in her bag. The young man noticed with wonder the tenderness with which she handled it, almost as if the bag and its contents were holy things.

“It seems as if I oughtn’t to let you go on this journey all alone,” said Seagrave, looking troubled. “You seem so little and unprotected.”

She smiled up into his face.

“You are the first person except my mother that I ever felt was all right,” she said innocently.

He smiled down at her with a worshipful look in his eyes.

“You are the first girl I ever met that seemed just as God meant her to be,” he said gravely and then knew that if he sat there looking down into her eyes any longer he might be tempted to say more.

“Now,” he said, looking at his watch, “we’ll have to be getting on. I can’t have you missing that train. But I want to give you this envelope first. I’ve written out a lot of directions for you there about the train and what you are to do, about New York and how to get around easily. You probably won’t need them when you find your friends, but I wanted to provide against your being in a muddle. It’s a big town, you know, and you can’t trust everybody. Remember that! Trust God all you want to, but don’t trust men or many women either.”

She took the envelope and looked at it interestedly.

“And here, in this purse, I’ve put the money for the Bible and the ticket and a little extra change. You’ll need it for tipping the porter.”

“Tipping? What’s that? And what’s the porter?”

“Why, the man who looks after you on the train. You can give the porter a little something for waiting on you, and then you’ll need to go into the diner for your meals.”

“Oh!” said Fraley, round eyed. She wasn’t sure she would dare. She wasn’t sure that she was going on this journey on the train. If any chance at all presented itself for her to get away so that he wouldn’t know it, she might slip off into the desert or somewhere and pursue her weary way, even yet. Now that she was getting near to the station, she began to be more and more frightened at the idea of traveling on the train with a lot of strangers.

They had lingered longer than they realized, and at the last had to hurry their horses to reach the station in time.

She found herself trembling as the big iron monster drew nearer to them, and Seagrave, kind and thoughtful for her, slipped his hand within her arm.

“You mustn’t forget me, little ladybird,” he said wistfully. “I’m to hunt you up when I get back. You know you are my friend. You’ll remember that, won’t you?”

“Oh, I won’t forget you ever,” said Fraley earnestly, “and I’m so glad I have one friend. I’m very grateful to you for what you have done for me, and I’ll keep remembering your beautiful meeting.”

“It wasn’t mine, little sister, it was yours,” he said, and then as the train drew to a halt, he suddenly stooped and kissed her gravely, reverently, on her forehead.