Mrs. McBirney sat at her loom. Eyes, hands and feet were busy; but no matter how busy she kept them she could not keep her mind and heart at ease. She had come back home when she found that the search for her missing girl would be a long one, and from early morning till late at night she kept about her tasks. She had a theory that there was nothing like work to help a troubled mind to forgetfulness, and she put her theory to the full test.
Pa McBirney went about his tasks, too, and his face grew careworn as he saw the old restlessness and torment coming back in his wife’s face.
“That’s just the way she carried on after your sister Mollie passed away,” he said to Jim. “You wouldn’t think she’d take Azalea’s loss so hard, but then it’s kind o’ emptied her life again.”
“Well,” said Jim in an old way he sometimes had, “if she knew Azalea was dead and safe, perhaps she wouldn’t feel so dreadful bad. But not knowing where a body is—that’s what I call tormenting. When I think of the things that might be happening to Azalea—her maybe going hungry or being beat with sticks, or goodness knows what all—it makes me as nervous as a bat. Hi’s just the same way, too.”
Hi’s broken arm had made it impossible for him to return to the mill, and he was spending his time with the McBirneys. He seemed to be actually greedy to learn all he could of this pleasant home. He listened to all Ma McBirney had to say, as if her words were gold; he watched Pa McBirney about his work; he played chess with Jim and studied Jim’s schoolbooks under Mrs. McBirney’s direction.
Mrs. McBirney wrote home to his mother for him, and told her all that had happened to him. At first Hi objected.
“My uncle Hank Sisson will be after her first chance he gets, to find out where I am, and if she knows, he’ll worm it out of her,” the boy objected.
“That’s neither here nor there, Hi,” Ma McBirney had insisted. “She’s just aching to know what’s happening to her boy, and I’m going to let her know. Why, you ought to be with your ma, Hi. Somehow or other we’ve got to get the family down here. Now, when your arm’s well, you can go back to the mill, and perhaps some of the other children are old enough to take a hand too; and what with all the tourists that come to Lee, your ma could sure find work—washing, or sewing, or some such thing.”
“Oh, my, wouldn’t that be fun!” sighed Hi.
“See here, Mary,” Pa McBirney had broke in, “what makes you lift up that boy’s hopes the way you do? Like as not they’ll all be dashed to earth.”