“Please don’t go! Please! You mustn’t until I’ve had a chance to thank you!”
At the urgent request, or command, the girl reappeared, but with obvious reluctance. She stood awkwardly, rubbing one foot over the other.
“Don’t want any thanks,” she muttered. “Didn’t do nothing, nohow. I guess—I guess—I’d better go now.”
Billie was nonplused by the strange behavior of this young person who had just saved her life. The manner of the girl had altered completely. From being dictatorial, “bossy,” and almost offensively sure of herself, she had become a shy and awkward country girl. Her eyes avoided Billie’s direct look, whether from shyness or sullenness, it was impossible to tell.
Billie, painfully conscious of all her cuts and bruises, went up to the girl and held out her hand.
“Whether you like it or not, I’m going to thank you. My life doesn’t mean a lot to you probably,” with a whimsical smile, “but it does to me and I am very properly grateful for it. How you can climb!” she added with genuine admiration. “If I could scale the side of a cliff like that, I wouldn’t care whether I could solve a problem in algebra or not.”
The girl flashed Billie a glance. There was both sullenness and shyness in it; which was odd, considering the dictatorial tone she had used to Billie a few moments earlier.
“Don’t be so nice to me,” she said, in a hard voice, “until you know who I am!”
Billie was given no opportunity to comment on this peculiar observation for at the moment Vi and Laura dashed in from the woods, rushed to Billie and flung their arms about her. They had come by the woods path “around Robin Hood’s barn” and had reached her as soon as possible.
“Oh-h, look out! Don’t hug so tightly, darlings. I’m—to put it mildly—sensitive. Yes, I’m alive—as you see. No there are no bones broken—I think. But I’ll have to soak in arnica to-night. Bruises—hundreds of ’em. But I’m not complaining. I know how lucky I am just to be alive!”