Page [137]
Essie shook her stubborn little head. The sun in her eyes blinded her to the approaching danger, and she did not choose to run merely because she had been told to do so.
“Stop the car! stop the car!” screamed Molly, springing from her safety, and waving her arms wildly toward the motor-man.
The man began to work the brake. Till that moment he had not observed that little brown Essie was anything more than a patch of dust in the road.
“Stop the car! Oh! why don’t you stop the car?” shrieked Pauline, as it still plunged on.
“He can’t stop it! He can’t stop it in time!” wailed Molly, darting forward.
What happened next she never afterward could recall; but somehow, in the twinkling of an eye, she had dashed in front of the bounding motor; she had caught dazed little Essie about the waist, and was dragging her off the track. Nearer and nearer down the abrupt descent thundered the terrible car. Molly had scarcely time to leap with her living burden across the rail before the heavy wheels lumbered over the very spot where Essie had been seated.
“O Molly, Molly! how dared you?” shuddered Pauline, as the car came to a stand-still a few feet farther on. “I thought you’d be crushed to pieces!”
Molly tried to reply, but seized with sudden faintness sank down in the road with her feet in the gutter. Pauline ran to the nearest house for a glass of water. When she returned with it she saw the motor-man bending over Molly, speaking vehemently.
“I believe you’re the bravest girl in this city,” he was saying in a tremulous voice. “If it hadn’t been for you I should have run over that baby. You’ve done me a good turn that I sha’n’t forget in a hurry.”