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Mr. Gray Stoddard how come you never mentioned him to me Johnnie?" She turned to find a slow, painful blush rising in her daughter's face. "I don't know, ma," said Johnnie gently. "I reckon it was because I didn't seem to have any concern with a rich gentleman such as Mr. Stoddard. He's got more money than Mr. Hardwick, they say more than anybody else in Cottonville."
Of course Gray was devoting himself to her and lending her books; of course he would be glad to assume the position of mentor to a girl who bade fair to be such a pronounced social success, and who was herself so charming. "How long have you been in Cottonville, Miss Consadine?" he asked. "Do tell me who you are visiting or are you visiting here?" "Oh, no," Johnnie corrected him.
We didn't take 'em very serious, nor all the talk we hearn about 'em down South. But even at that we mightn't of got into any trouble if it hadn't of been fur old Bishop Warren. But that is getting ahead of the story. We got into that little town I might jest as well call it Cottonville jest about supper time. Cottonville is a little place of not more'n six hundred people.
The suburb of Cottonville bordered a creek, a starveling, wet-weather stream which offered the sole suggestion of sewerage. The village was cut in two by this natural division. It clung to the shelving sides of the shallow ravine; it was scattered like bits of refuse on the numerous railroad embankments, where building was unhandy and streets almost impossible, to be convenient to the mills.
"That's the worst thing about such people; you provide them with the best, and they don't know enough to appreciate it. Have they got a doctor, or done anything for the poor man?" "I sent for Millsaps, here he knows more about broken bones than anybody in Cottonville," Pap offered sullenly, mopping his brow and shaking his bald head. "Millsaps is a decent man.
Nothing was more natural than that they should speak of Gray Stoddard's disappearance, since Watauga, Cottonville, and the mountains above were full of the topic; yet husband and wife sheered from it in a sort of terror.
I forgot you don't know of course you don't," broke in Johnnie with a sudden dismay in her voice. "I ought to have told you that mother" she hesitated and looked at the old man "mother isn't up at the cabin any more. I left her in Cottonville this morning." "Cottonville!" echoed Pros in surprise. Then he added, "O' course, she came down to take care o' me when I was hurt. That's like Laurelly.
I always will say that Johnnie Consadine is quare. What in the nation does she want to go chasin' off to Yurrup for, when she's got everything that heart could desire or mind think of right here in Cottonville?" That same question was being put even more searchingly to Johnnie by somebody else at the instant when Mandy enunciated it. She had found Gray waiting for her at the gate of her home.
"You be right good and quiet now, and mind Johnnie," the girl began, with a pathetic tremble in her voice, "and she'll take you back to the hospital where they're so kind to you." "The hospital?" echoed Pros. "That hospital down at Cottonville? I never was inside o' one o' them places what do you want me to go thar for, Johnnie? Who is this gentleman?
I ain't never asked you, but you'd have knowed if they had." "I should have known anything that Rudd Dawson or Groner or Venters knew," Gray said, "but I'm not sure about Buckheath or Himes. However, Himes is dead, and Buckheath I don't suppose anybody in Cottonville will ever see him again." Pros's face changed instantly. He leaned abruptly forward and laid a hand on the other's knee.
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