Jim never forgot the strange look of everything—of the cave with its rough walls, of the bats and spiders and beetles, of his mother, sitting there on the ground, all bewildered and strange-looking, and of the girl who clung to her and shuddered.
“Get out of here! Get out of here!” called Pa McBirney cheerily. “It’s a fine day outside.” And he helped his wife and Azalea to their feet and led them outside.
“Best not build a fire,” he said. “We’ll have to lie low a day or two till them show folks get out of the way. I cooked the bacon before I come, and I brought the coffee in a pail. It was hot when I started, but I reckon it’s cold enough now. But here’s plenty of biscuit, and a jar of gooseberry jam, and some of them star cookies and some hard-boiled eggs and a few radishes and some cold potatoes—”
“My goodness, Thomas!” cried his wife. “Did you think we had turned into wolves because we was living in a den?”
“Well you see, Mary, this here will have to last you all of to-day and perhaps a part of to-morrow. There’s no telling just what will happen. I might be penned up down there, with men watching me, and then you’d want a little stock of stuff laid by.”
Jim had moved over toward Azalea, and now the two stood side by side staring at the older people. Pa might be penned up, and ma, who was hiding in a den, might go hungry! Did such things really happen? Jim turned and gazed at the girl, and he couldn’t help thinking how pretty she was, with her oval face and her great gray eyes and her long braids of brown hair. She looked as if she could run as well as a boy and ride a horse as well, or maybe better. Suddenly an idea came to him.
“Say!” he burst out. “You’re glad you’re with us, ain’t you? You don’t wish you’d gone on with them other folks?”
“Glad!” said the girl. “Of course I’m glad. I never want to see them again—never, never!” Her gray eyes turned almost black, and she straightened her thin little figure till, in Jim’s words, she was like a ramrod.
“Peter!” thought Jim. “I wouldn’t like to get her mad at me.” She wouldn’t be a good one to tease, Jim made up his mind. Jim saw that his mother was watching the girl, too, and he knew how his mother hated anything like bad temper and he wondered if she would like Azalea as well when she saw that she could be “peppery.” But all she said was:
“Azalea, I know a place where there’s a spring of water. Pa’s brought us a towel and some soap and a comb. We’ll go down to the spring and make ready for breakfast.” So the two went off together, and Jim and his father spread the breakfast out on a sort of table-rock.