After he had bandaged her blisters the 126woman prepared food and coffee for them all and then took Lou upstairs with her, while Jim dried his soaking clothes by the kitchen fire and the three men talked in a desultory way of the topics of the countryside.
Dr. Blair had just ascertained that Jim and his “sister” were strangers, traveling toward New York, and had offered to drive them both to the trolley line in his little car, when the woman of the house reappeared with Lou, and Jim stared with all his eyes.
Could this be the little scarecrow of a girl he had met on the road only five days before; this unbelievably tall, slender young woman in the dark blue silk gown with filmy ruffles falling about her neck and wrists, and soft puffs of blond hair over her ears?
“It’s me, though I kin hardly believe it myself!” Lou answered his unspoken thought. Then drawing him aside she added: “Mis’ Tooker–that’s her name–gave me a pair of shoes, too, an’ a hat an’ five whole dollars! Are we goin’ to a place called Pelton?”
Jim nodded.
“That is where I hoped we would be by 127to-night, but it must be at least twelve miles away.”
“Well, Mis’ Tooker says the trolley goes right into Pelton, and she gave me a letter to a friend of hers there who’ll take us in for the night─”
The doctor interrupted with an intimation of another patient to be visited, and they bade farewell to the grateful young couple and started away. The sun was still high, and save for the mud which splashed up with each turn of the wheels, all traces of the storm had vanished.
“Jennie Tooker always was a fool!” Dr. Blair grumbled. “How many babies have you taken care of, young woman?”
“More’n twenty, I guess, off an’ on,” Lou responded. “I–I used to work in an institootion up-State.”