“No, Mum,” she said. “There wasn’t a feller in Placer made me feel that way. Not one. I—I was just thinking. That’s all.”
“And it makes you want to quit and get around where life’s real life?” Hesther cried incredulously. “An’ where there’s folks and parties, and marrying, and you can have a place in it all?”
Again the girl shook her head. This time all smiling had passed. Her lips were no longer happily parted. And the corners of her mouth were slightly depressed.
“No, dear,” she said, with a decision which the other felt had cost her an effort. “I don’t feel like quitting. I don’t want to quit. Ever! I want to stay right here, till—till—I want to stay here always with you, and the kids, and Usak. But sense says I can’t. None of us can. We’ve played our game to the limit, an’ I guess the cards are dead against us. We must go next year for—the sake of those babies your Jim handed to you. I don’t just know all it means. I don’t just see what we’re to do to earn our food. But we’ll have to make the break, and take what the good God hands—Hello!”
The girl broke off. Her final exclamation came at the sight of a little procession which hurried round the angle of the building. It was headed by Mary Justicia and the adventurous Perse. Alg was behind carrying Jane Constance in his sturdy arms, while Gladys Anne clung to him yielding him her moral support.
It was a subdued procession, and the Kid and the mother looked for the thing which had affected them so seriously. Their attention became promptly fixed on the dripping bundle of humanity in the elder boy’s arms. An explanation was instantly forthcoming in the coolest phraseology.
“Darn crazy little buzzock reckoned to drown herself,” the boy said with a grin. “Hadn’t no more sense than to fall off’n the driftwood pile into six foot of water. We shaken most of it out of her.”
The mother was on her feet in a moment, and the child, despite her liquid condition, was snatched to her eager bosom. And in her anxiety everything else was completely forgotten.
“You pore little bit,” she cried solicitously as she hugged the moist bundle in her arms. Then she turned on the gawking youth with which she was surrounded. She glanced swiftly over the faces grinning up at her, and punctuated her survey with a sweeping condemnation.
“You bunch o’ hoodlams,” she cried. “The good God gave you the image of Hisself, did He? Well, I guess He must ha’ forgot the mush you need to think with. Be off with you. The whole bunch. You, Mary Justicia, stay around an’ help me scrape the pore mite clean. The rest of you get out o’ my sight. I don’t feel like looking at any of you again—ever.”