“‘We must go to Mr. Eastland,’ Dean said. ‘He would want us to.’
“We went, and that good man took us in, and made a home for us until—” she paused and looked around, but as her listeners did not speak, she added: “Perhaps this is all too sad, perhaps you will not care to hear the rest.”
“Please do tell us, dear Nell,” Gloria said, and so the frail girl continued her story.
CHAPTER XIV.
A PLEASANT PLAN
“The summer following our mother’s death was hot and dry,” the frail girl continued, “and the grass around Mr. Eastland’s shack, though tall from early rains, was parched in August.
“One morning before he rode in town, our foster-father jokingly told my brother Dean that he would leave the place in his care. ‘Don’t ye let anything happen to it, sonny,’ he said.
“Dean, who is always serious, looked up at the old man on the mule as he replied: ‘I’ll take care of it, Daddy Eastland, even with my life.’
“We thought nothing of this. My brother was a dreamer, living, it sometimes seemed, in a world of his own creating. I now realize that my foster-father and I did not quite understand him.
“It was an intensely hot day. How the grass got on fire I do not know, but about noon I heard a cry from Dean, who had been lying for hours on the ground in the shade of the shack reading a book of poetry that a traveling missionary had brought to him. He had visited us six months before and had promised the next time he came that he would bring a book for my brother.
“When I heard Dean’s cry of alarm and saw him leap to his feet and run toward a swiftly approaching column of smoke, I also ran, but not being as fleet of foot, I was soon far behind him. He had caught up a burlap bag as he passed a shed; then, on he raced toward the fire. I, too, paused to get a bag, but when I started on I saw my brother suddenly plunge forward and disappear.