“There’s no need of a searching party, sir,” she said. “Come see what we found this morning.”
And then, just as the two of them stepped out onto the porch, Azalea opened her weary eyes and blinked at the light.
“Well, praise the Lord!” broke from Haystack’s lips when he saw her.
“Amen!” shouted the Rev. Absalom, and in spite of some effort to restrain himself he broke out with:
“The Prince of darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure.
One little word shall fell-ll-ll him.”
Azalea sat up on her cot with the bedclothes drawn up to her chin, and stared about her with eyes too full of surprise to be troubled. Then, with a rush, she comprehended.
“Oh, Mr. Thompson, dear!” she gasped. “Is it really you? Oh, Mr. Thompson!” She forgot her uncovered arms and her straggling hair, and sprang from her couch into the old fiddler’s outstretched arms, and wept. It was not a mere summer shower, but a cloudburst—a freshet. And Haystack Thompson wept too, and mopped his eyes on his red bandana; and the Rev. Absalom Summers mopped his on the roller towel; and little Mrs. Summers dried hers delicately on the hem of the baby’s frock. But, however, it became necessary to bring all this to an end, and Haystack found the courage to do it. He set the little girl down firmly in a chair and shook a warning finger at her.
“Storm’s all over!” he announced; and he helped Mrs. Summers to wrap her pink knitted shawl around the girl’s shoulders.
“I’m off,” he announced, “to send word to the folks at home.”
“And I’m with you,” declared the preacher.