"Oh! I'll walk, I'll travel, I'll 'hoof' it, fast as you want me to. Till I die and give out; but don't, don't go anywhere near the danger of being took up!" cried Dorothy, pleading meekly.
Again these two young Americans had failed to understand each other's speech. To the city-reared girl, being "taken up" meant being arrested by the police; to the country-grown boy it was giving a ride to a pedestrian by some passing vehicle. He looked at her a moment and let the matter drop. Then he rose, advising:
"You better go to work an' not waste time. To-morrow's Sunday. We gen'ally pick all day, so's to be ready for Monday mornin' market. Stuff fetches the best prices a-Monday. I'd like to leave her in good shape agin I didn't get back. But I'll take you. You can trust me."
And as she saw him return to that endless weeding in the garden, Dorothy knew that she could do so; and that it was his simple devotion to the "duty" she disliked that made him so reliable.
"But oh! what a day this is! Will it never, never end? Do you know, Jim Barlow, that it seems longer than all the days put together since I saw my mother?"
"Yep. I know. I've been that way. Once—once I went to—a—circus! Once I got to go!" answered the lad, carefully storing the baskets of early pease he had picked in the depths of the schooner. He made the statement with bated breath, remembering the supreme felicity of the event. "She went. She'd had big prices an' felt good. She told me 'twas a-comin' an' I could; and—Pshaw! I never seen a week so long in all my born days, never! An' when it got to the last one of all—time just natchally drug! I know. But we'll go. An' say, Dorothy. The faster you pick an' pack an' pull weeds, the shorter the day'll be. That's the onliest way I ever lived through that last one afore that circus," comforted Jim, himself toiling almost breathlessly, in order to leave Miranda in "as good shape" as he could. He knew how she would miss him, and that she had depended upon him as firmly as upon herself.
But all days come to an end, even ones weighted with expectations such as Dorothy's; and at nightfall Jim announced that they might stop work. Leaving the girl to wait in the harness-room he went to the house, secured a whole loaf of bread and two of the sleeping powders he had seen administered to the crying boy, and a bundle of rags, with some string. In carrying the milk to the dairy he had reserved a basin full; and into this his first business it was to drop the powders. Then he called Tige to drink the milk, and the always hungry animal greedily obeyed.
"That seems dreadful, Jim! Suppose the stuff kills him? He isn't to blame and I should hate terribly to really hurt him," cried Dorothy, frightened by the deed to which she had eagerly consented but now regretted—too late.
Jim sniffed. He supposed that all girls must be changeable. This one veered from one opinion to another in a most trying way and the only thing he could do was to pay no attention to her whimsies. He had carefully explained the action of these powders and their harmlessness and wasn't going to do it the second time. Besides, he was delighted to find them promptly affecting the mastiff, who might have hindered their flight. So he merely motioned Dorothy to sit down on the door sill, at the rear of the barn and out of sight from the cottage, then bade her:
"Hold up your foot. I'll fix 'em. Then we'll go. We can eat on the road. Ain't so dark as I wish it was but she's asleep—right on the kitchen floor—an' it's our chance. She's slept that way ever since he was so bad. He don't 'pear to know nothin' now. I'm sorry for her."