A smile went around the circle of farmers. They were all amused, except the gray-haired one. He was nearest to 'Tilda Jane, and felt the intense gravity of her manner.
"In the town, I mean," she went on, wearily. "I want to ask him something. I thought they'd know in the post-office, but when I asked behind them boxes," and she nodded toward the wall near them, "they told me to get out—they was busy."
The old farmer was silent for a moment. Then he said, gruffly, "You look beat out, young girl, like as if you'd been out all night."
"I was," she said, simply, "I've been pacin' the streets waitin' for the mornin'."
The attitude of the younger men was half reproachful, half disturbed. They always brought with them to the town an uneasy consciousness that they might in some way be fooled, and 'Tilda Jane's air was very precocious, very citified, compared with their air of rustic coltishness. They did not dream that she was country-bred like themselves.
The older man was thinking. He was nearer the red spots and the grieving eyes than the others. The child was in trouble.
"Bill," he said, slowly, "what's the name o' that man that holds forth in Molunkus Street Church?"
His son informed him that he did not know.
"How d'ye do, Mr. Price," said the farmer, leaving the young farmers, and sauntering across to the other side of the post-office, where a brisk-looking man was ripping open letters. "Can you give us the name of the preacher that wags his tongue in the church on Molunkus Street?"
"Burness," said Mr. Price, raising his head, and letting his snapping eyes run beyond the farmer to the flock of young men huddling together like gray sheep.