It was the first time in her life that Posey had ever really prayed—all which had gone before had been a form, a habit. But now in the hour of her heart-sinking and loneliness, in the stress of her anger and resentment, shaken by the mingled impulses of fear and the courage which comes of desperation, with no earthly support to lean on, her tumultuous young soul reached out, feebly it is true, but still with real longing, for a guidance and strength higher than her own.
Posey was too excited by all that had happened, too thrilled with her new, wild determination, to sleep much or soundly. Nearly every hour she heard the old clock in the kitchen strike, and when she counted three she slipped noiselessly out of bed. Her room was no longer dark; a great yellow moon had risen and made it, as well as the outer world, almost as light as day. Indeed it is safe to say that but for that flood of softly illuminating brightness Posey would never have dared to put her rash impulse to the test. As it was, her fingers shook as she gathered together a few articles from her scanty wardrobe and tied them up in a gingham apron, not forgetting the few mementos of her mother which through everything she had clung to, and were the first to be thought of now. Then putting on her coarse straw hat, and wrapping about her an old cape that chanced to be hanging in the room, she took her shoes in her hand, cautiously raised the window, and carefully crept out, something easily done as it was but a few feet from the ground.
As Posey stole around the corner of the house old Rover saw her, and after a brief sniff came toward her wagging his tail in friendly recognition. Many a time had she been comforted by the voiceless sympathy in the soft eyes of this dumb friend, and now as she stroked his head, and felt the touch of his warm tongue on her hand, her sense of utter desolation was for the moment relieved.
When she reached the pantry window Posey put down her bundle and stretching on tiptoe slipped her slender hand between the slats of the blind, and easily lifted the latch, and then with the help of a stool on the back porch quickly crept in. Mr. and Mrs. Hagood slept quite on the other side of the house, and moving quietly she had no fear of being heard by them, while the bright moonlight gave her light enough.
She had come to the pantry for two reasons: to make up for the supper she had lost the night before, and to get supplies for the enterprise on which she was entering. Nor did she hesitate to take the best she could find. “I’ve done enough here to earn it,” was her reasoning, as she helped herself plentifully and without a scruple to the company cake kept sacredly in a tin box. She appropriated the cold chicken set aside for the morning’s breakfast, with a naughty chuckle at the thought of Mrs. Hagood’s wrath when she should discover its absence, and she spread her thick bread and butter with the best peach preserves that were only brought out on especial occasions. And having satisfied her appetite she next packed full a small-handle basket she found on a shelf, adding as its crowning delicacy a saucer pumpkin pie, she by chance discovered.
This done, as she was turning to leave, her eye fell on a memorandum book with pencil attached in which Mrs. Hagood kept her egg account. The sight suggested an idea, and tearing out a blank leaf she wrote on it as best she might by the uncertain light, in a sprawling, childish hand:
“Dear Mr. Hagood,
“You have been so good to me that I awfully hate to leave you, and I hope you won’t blame me for running away, for I couldn’t stay any longer, no more at present, good by with love,
“Posey.”
With that she climbed out of the window, closed the blind so that all should be secure again and tiptoeing around into the woodhouse laid the folded note on his basket of kindlings, where Mr. Hagood would find it the first thing in the morning. This done, she put on her shoes and hat, took up her bundle and basket, to go she knew not where; her one thought that it would be away from Mrs. Hagood and the renewed contest which the morning would be sure to bring. As she moved toward the gate the old dog followed her with a wistful whine, as if he was puzzled by and questioned this strange action. “Dear old Rover,” Posey whispered, throwing her arms around his neck, while her tears fell thick on the white star on his forehead, “dear old doggie, you must go back; I can’t take you with me. I wish I could and Mr. Hagood, too, so go back, old fellow, and stay with him,” and with one last hug she shut the gate between them, with a real pain in her heart; and also shut the gate to the only place in the wide world that she could call home.