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Updated: June 11, 2025
Noticing this, a real terror seized upon Priscilla and she darted in the opposite direction, reached the hearth, and was bending toward a heavy poker which lay there, before she herself could have explained her motive. Jerry-Jo was alert. Tossing his food upon the table as he strode forward, he gripped her wrist. "None of that!" he muttered. "What ails you, Priscilla?"
And standing there upon the rock she repeated the words of the poem, her rich voice rising and falling musically, and poor Jerry-Jo, hypnotized by that which he could not comprehend, listened open-mouthed. And now, again, it was spring and Priscilla was fourteen.
He knew she must be from Lonely Farm Jerry-Jo used to speak of her; lately he had said nothing, to be sure, but this certainly must be the child who had once cried over a book of his. Poor, little, temperamental beggar! "Come up and deliver!" Travers gave a laugh. "I'm Robin Hood and I want you to explain yourself. Why do you bow down before that brazen and evil-looking brute?"
"She had something to tell! You did not let her say her say. What kept her away all night? Jerry-Jo McAlpin has the devil blood in him when he's up to to pranks. Suppose " A sort of horror shook the thin, livid face. Nathaniel, in spite of himself, had a bad moment; then his hard common sense steadied him. "Would she go to him, if what you fear was true?" "Has she gone to him?"
There was little time for introspection or romancing and even the chance meeting with Jerry-Jo was relegated to the non-essentials. Of course he was in the city, but so were the Hornby boys and others from the In-Place. The whirlpool was a big and rushing thing, and if they who had once been neighbours caught a glimpse of each other from dizzy eddies, what did it matter?
"Go on!" again whispered Priscilla, and Jerry-Jo heard only her soft command, for his senses were filled with the loveliness of her charming, defiant face set under the broad brim of a hat around which was twined a wreath of natural flowers as blue as the girl's laughing eyes.
The book was in the outstretched hands, the hot kiss lay upon the smooth, girlish neck, and then they looked at each other. "It is his book?" "No. Yours I sent for it, myself." "Oh! Jerry-Jo. And how did you know?" "I copied it from that one of his." Priscilla tore the wrappings asunder and saw that the book was a duplicate of the one over which, long ago, she had loved and wept.
She was ready to relinquish the poems, but she would not buy them. "Keep the book it's yours." Jerry-Jo scowled. And then he shouldered the box and ran up the path. When he came back Priscilla was gone, and the spring day seemed commonplace and dull to Jerry-Jo; the adventure was over. Priscilla had filled her pails and had carried them and the book to the house.
And with this Jerry-Jo stood up, turned and twisted his lithe body into such a grotesque distortion that he was quite awful to look upon, and left no doubt in the girl's mind as to whom he referred. He brought the Far Hill people into focus, sharply and suddenly. "He has miles of books," Jerry-Jo went on, "and a fiddle and pictures and gewgaws. He plays devil tunes, and he's bewitched!"
"I have only to tell you," she said slowly and with deadly hardness, "you will not have to force Jerry-Jo McAlpin to marry me; he's eager enough to do it. He leaves to-night for the States; he has arranged for me to go with him." She paused, then went on, speaking now to her mother: "As God hears me, I am not dishonoured, little mother. I will never bring dishonour upon you.
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