“Climb in,” was the hearty invitation.
Phœbe climbed. Then, calling upon her imagination, and aided by moving-picture plots she could recall, she told the elderly man all about herself and her aunt, and how they came to be camping out behind a hay-stack in a farmer’s field. And so real was her story, and so genuine seemed her concern for her aunt, that the elderly man was hugely interested, and gave Phœbe some plums out of his coat pocket.
As they spun along, Phœbe fell to wondering what she would do when they arrived in town. For she feared the man would take her directly to a drug-store, and there she would have to confess that she had no money. Of course she could say that, somehow, she had lost it. But suppose the man not only bought the medicine she would have to ask for, but insisted on carrying her back to a point on the road nearest that stack!
Worse! Suppose as they entered the little town that an officer of the law hailed them, to ask if Phœbe was not the little girl who had run away that morning! And suppose——
But to Phœbe’s intense relief none of the several possibilities she feared came to pass. For the reason that the man, when he reached the outskirts of the town, came to a stop and explained that he would have to turn aside for a mile or so, and would not be able to take Phœbe all the way into town.
“Just the same,” he added, “if you’ll be at this spot an hour from now, I’ll pick you up as I start home.”
“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed Phœbe, grateful. But she was not thanking him for his offer. Her gratitude was for the ride and for the almost miraculous escape from being carried into town. She climbed down, waved a good-bye, and watched the little open car whirl away in a cloud of dust down a long dirt road that led under a small bridge.
That bridge gave her an idea. She had the plums, and she was too tired to go farther until she had more rest and sleep. “I’ll hide,” she determined, “and I’ll eat two of the plums, and then I’ll sleep. And early tomorrow morning, I’ll go round this town before anybody’s up.”
At one end of the bridge, and under it, where the timbers met the earth, there was a little scooped-out place, as if some one no larger than Phœbe had been there before her and hollowed a resting place for her. She crawled into it, lay on one side with her face toward the macadam road, ate all of the plums, broke the pits by using two stones that were at hand, ate the pits and liked them, then covered herself with her coat, laid her head on her hat, and slept.
First, however, she said her prayers. She remembered that she had told lies that afternoon. “I had to tell them,” she pleaded. None the less, they were lies, and she dared not sleep with them on her conscience.