“I asked Gwen to go with us this morning, but she shrank back in such horror at the mention of the Devil’s Gorge that I realized I had been cruel, indeed, to speak of the place to her. That’s where her father killed himself, you know.”
“Yes, poor girl! Doesn’t it seem strange that there were no papers of any sort found to show where he came from?”
Just then Dr. Wright joined them and they told him of the little English girl and how her father had killed himself and how, there being no papers to show that he had made a payment on the mountain property, Old Dean, the country storekeeper, had foreclosed at the Englishman’s death and the property had later been given to their father in payment of a debt Dean owed him for services in rebuilding the hotel at Greendale, also owned by Dean.
“Aunt Mandy says it was only about a thousand dollars in all,” explained Douglas, “and she was under the impression that Mr. Brown had paid cash for the land, but he was so reticent no one knew much about him and old Dean said that he had never paid anything. Of course Dean is the rich member of the community and gives them credit at his store, so all the mountaineers are under his thumb, more or less. Father got only half the land.”
When Helen appeared, she fancied Dr. Wright looked disapprovingly at her because of her legginless state, but on the contrary he was thinking what a very delightful looking person she was and never even thought of leggins. He only thought how nice it would be if she would permit him to walk by her side and hold back the low hanging branches and briars so that her bright, animated face would escape the inevitable scratches that attend a hike in the mountains. He liked the way she walked, carrying her head and shoulders in rather a gallant way. He liked the sure-footed way she stepped along in her pretty grey canvas ties. He liked the set and hang of her corduroy skirt and the roll of the soft collar of her shirt—above all, he liked the little dash of red at her throat. She reminded him of a scarlet tanager, only they were black, and she was grey, grey like a dove—but there was certainly nothing dovelike about her, certainly nothing meek or cooing as she swished by him.
No one laughed more or chattered more than Helen did on that hike, not even Tillie Wingo herself, the queen bee of laughers and chatterers; but Nan noticed that the last mile of their walk her sister’s carriage was not nearly so gallant, and Dr. Wright noticed that the scarlet of her tie was even more brilliant because of an unwonted paleness of her piquant face. He tapped his breast pocket to be sure that the tiny medicine case he always carried with him was safe.
“You never can tell what will happen when a lot of youngsters start off on a hike, and it is well to have ‘first aid to the injured’ handy,” he had said to himself.
“Wal, if you uns is lowing to eat here, reckon we uns will drive Josephus round the mounting a bit. We uns feels like it’s a feedin’ the Devil and starvin’ God to eat in sech a spot,” and Josh prepared to unload his mule after he had assisted Bobby to the ground.
“Oh, please don’t eat here,” begged Nan, “this is where the Englishman died.”