CHAPTER XII
A PARTING OF WAYS
For a while Ben and Posey rode along almost in silence over the roads beaten smooth and clean by the heavy shower, while the wayside ditches were still noisy little rills, and the trees shook down showers of raindrops with every passing breeze.
Posey, in spite of herself, could not help a sorrowful feeling of discouragement at the failure of her first effort at home-finding. Not so much for the refusal itself, though she felt that to live with such a cheery old lady would be quite delightful, as the fear that other attempts might be equally useless.
Ben, flicking his big bay horse softly with the tassel of his whip, was evidently in a brown study. At last he turned to Posey, saying, “I’ve been thinking what you had better do. I can’t take you home with me—as I wish I could, for really I haven’t any home except as Uncle John gives me one, and that’s forty miles from here and I don’t expect to get there for a month or more; besides the house is so full that Aunt Eunice hardly knows where to put us all as it is.”
“Oh, I didn’t expect you to make a home for me!” cried Posey.
“I’d like to. But last spring the man whose route it was on was sick, so I went over into Farmdale for one trip, and there I saw such a nice old lady, nicer if anything than the one we just stopped with. I guess she took a fancy to me, for she wanted to know if I had a sister. Said she wished she could find a real nice little girl to live with her, and asked me if I knew of any one I thought would suit her. Now, Byfield’s the next town, and Farmdale is only seven miles from there, and I believe I’ll drive over there with you to-night and see her. Maybe I can pick up some rags on the way, and I know Mr. Bruce won’t care when I tell him about it.”
Posey at once agreed, and the faint anxiety that had begun to rise in her mind as to what she would do when it came night was at once swept away, for in Ben Pancost and his ability she had unlimited faith.
When they reached the straggling little railroad station of Byfield, Ben said he must go to the store and take on what paper rags had been gathered in since his last trip, and he left Posey to wait for him at Byfield’s one small hotel while he did this.
It seemed to Posey that Ben was gone a long, long time, and when at last he appeared it was with a very sober face. “I’m awful sorry, Posey,” were his first words, “but when I got over to the store I found a telegram there from Mr. Bruce to come to Cleveland as quick as I could. He’s sent for me that way before and I know what it means. He’s got an order for rags and hasn’t enough on hand to fill it. I just looked at to-day’s market report in the paper and it gave paper rags as ‘heavy with a downward tendency,’ so I suppose Mr. Bruce is afraid of a big drop and wants to get his off at once. I’ve agreed with a man here to change horses till I come back. It’s four o’clock now and with a fresh horse I can get to Cleveland by ten or eleven, then the rags can be shipped in the morning, and a day’s delay may make a big difference to Mr. Bruce.”
“I see,” murmured Posey.