“Oh, she ain’t poor. She’s got some private means of her own. No, ma’am, she ain’t poor.”
“There’s something dreadful the matter with her,” Julie said distressfully. “I met her one day on the porch and looked straight into her eyes, and I never saw anything so—so awful looking.”
“Well, there was a doctor once came to see her; one of the ladies she used to sew for had him to come; an’ he said she was mighty bad off; said she had some sort of melancholia, an’ it wasn’t really safe to have her goin’ ’round loose; said she was liable to do something terrible.”
“What? What would she do?” Julie’s eyes widened with apprehension.
“I dunno.” The other shook her head. “Maybe kill herself, or something.”
“How awful!” Julie gasped, appalled. “The poor, poor thing!”
That night after supper, as they sat in the little park overhanging the river, Julie confessed to Tim that she had told Mrs. Watkins she came from Hart’s Run.
“I don’t know how I ever came to do such a thing,” she said in a frightened voice; “I didn’t mean to speak of it; I tried not to. I tried my best to lie. An’ first I said ‘Red River,’ but right away I changed it to ‘Hart’s Run.’ I had to. It seemed like I’d almost slapped my home an’ all the days that were gone right in the face when I said ‘Red River.’ I oughtn’t to have said ‘Hart’s Run’—I know I oughtn’t to. Oh, do you reckon it’s done any harm? Do you think we ought to move away some place else?”
“No—no. It’s all right. I don’t expect she even noticed,” he comforted her. “It’s all right.”
She was leaning against him, and he felt a tremor of fear shiver through her.