III
At my wife’s suggestion, I went down the line to meet Nathan. Mary Ann drove the roadster down to Gilberts Mills. I boarded the shuttle train there in order to ride up into the town with him alone. I found him in the vile-flavored smoker. He jumped as I laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Bill!” he cried. “Where’d you come from now?”
“Just getting back from the Mills where I had to chase a news story,” I lied. “You haven’t been home yet, I take it?”
“I’m just getting home. I got a telegram from Mildred. Do you know about anything happening to her or my folks, Bill?” he asked anxiously.
“Move over, old man,” I requested. “Let’s smoke a cigar—a good one.”
“Do you, Bill?”
“Yes.”
“What is it? In God’s name, what is it?”
“Nathan, it’s a darned long lane that doesn’t have a turning sometime,” said I. “And some of the turns are pleasant and some are hard. The mystery to me is why most of the turns for some people seem to be hard ones.”
“Bill,—cut out the suspense. You’re trying to prepare me for bad news. And I think you’re lying about that news story. You came down a purpose to meet me. Let’s have it—the worst. I’ve stood a lot. But I—well, anything’s better than suspense. What’s happened?”
Once before I had been called to break bad news to my chum. I had done it crudely, tossed him a paper with a red-inked item which had aborted his whole life. I wanted to do a more artistic bit of work now. But I’m afraid again I messed it.
“It’s your little girl, Nat,” said I. “She’s—gone away.”
“Gone away? You mean she’s run off—she’s lost?”
“Run off? No! Lost? Yes!”
He gripped my arm.
“You mean little Mary’s—dead?”
My cigar tasted like tar and ashes. I simply proffered him a short clipping from the Telegraph of the previous evening.
AUTO KILLS CHILD
───
SMALL DAUGHTER OF MR. AND MRS. NATHAN FORGE HIT BY
RED FRONT GROCERY TRUCK IN MAIN STREET
The community was shocked at four o’clock this afternoon when it became known that little Mary Frances Forge, aged six years, had been struck by one of the delivery trucks belonging to the Red Front Grocery in East Main Street opposite the Catholic Cemetery.
The little girl was on her way home from school when the accident happened. One of her companions chased her and she left the sidewalk and darted into the road to escape her pursuer. The truck was coming from a westerly direction....
Nathan passed his hand across his eyes. He took a long breath, held it, released it raggedly.
“Takes grit to live sometimes, doesn’t it, Bill? Just grit!” he said.
Little more was spoken on that ensuing two miles before the train drew alongside the Paris depot platform.