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Into them the small body dropped, and together the two came to the floor with a dull sort of crunch. When Johnnie reached the prostrate pair, Mandy was struggling to her knees, gasping; but Deanie lay twisted just as she had fallen, the little face sunken and deathly, a tiny trickle of blood coming from a corner of her parted lips. "Oh, my baby! Oh, my baby! They've killed my baby!
"You are to present the flowers to Deanie," said Nellie. "You see, the girls always give her something at this dance, and they choose the freshies just to act in the capacity of page. You don't have to say a word," as Sally showed reticence. "A senior makes a speech and you just walk up prettily with this corn shock." "Oh, girls, I couldn't," exclaimed Sally tragically. "You couldn't!
"But they don't come," persisted the still doubting Bobbie. "But you did. And if you WERE a little rebel at first, doesn't that explain it? Your preparation was all wrong you heard Deanie say so. Come on, now, I'll walk and let you lead Firefly, Bobbie. I know it will be a treat to you to even lead him. Sorry you can't ride in that tight skirt."
"Pap," said the girl, urgently, "the baby ain't fit to go to the mill to-night if ever she ought. You said that you'd get day work for them all. If you won't do that, let Deanie stay home for a spell. She sure enough isn't fit to work." Himes faced his stepdaughter angrily. "When I say a child's fitten to work it's fitten to work," he rounded on her. "I hain't axed your opinion have I? No.
Pap went about somewhat like a whipped dog, spoke little on any subject, and tolerated no mention of the topic of the day in Cottonville; his face kept the boarders quiet at table and in the house, anyhow. Shade Buckheath never entered the place after Deanie was carried in from the hastily summoned carriage Thursday night.
In the spinning room at the Victory Mill, with its tall frames and endlessly turning bobbins, where the languid thread ran from hank to spool and the tired little feet must walk the narrow aisles between the jennies, watching if perchance a filament had broken, a knot caught, or other mischance occurred, and right it, Deanie plodded for what seemed to her many years.
"Jealous of him, I reckon," supplied the old man. Johnnie nodded. It was no time for evasions. "He had no call to be," she repeated. "Mr. Stoddard had no more thought of me in that way than he has of Deanie. He'd be just as kind to one as the other. But Shade brought his name into it, and threatened him to me in so many words.
"Johnnie," called her mother's voice from the back of the rickety old wagon as the girl was turning in toward the steps. "Sis' Johnnie Sis' Johnnie!" crowed Deanie; and then she was aware of sober, eleven-year-old Milo climbing down over the wheel and trying to help Lissy, while Pony got in his way and was gravely reproved. She ran to the wheel and put up ready arms. "Why, honeys!" she exclaimed.
Four small brothers and sisters there were; with little Deanie, the youngest, to make the painfully strong plea of recent babyhood. Consadine, who never could earn money, and used to be from home following one wild scheme or another most of the time, was gone these two years upon his last dubious, adventurous journey; there was not even his intermittent assistance to depend upon.
I'm right blind in the eyes!" wailed Deanie. "I wish Sis' Johnnie would come. I wish't she would!" "Uh-huh," commented Bob Conley, who had strolled up in the old man's wake. "Reckon Sis' Johnnie would run things to suit her an' you, Himes, you can cuss me out good an' plenty, but I take notice you seem to have trouble makin' your own family mind." "You shut your head," growled Pap.
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