“Four—” Marion began, but Florence squeezed her arm as she whispered; “It’s no use. We can’t help it and neither can they? There must be some other way. Besides, we haven’t yet elected our trustee.”
CHAPTER V
SAFE AT HOME
That night, for the first time in many days, Florence found herself ready to creep beneath the hand woven blankets beside her pal. Ah, it was good to feel the touch of comfort and the air of security to be found there. What did it matter that after all the struggle and danger she had found her efforts crowned only by partial success? Time would reveal some other way. New problems beckoned. Let them come. Life was full of problems, and solving them is life itself.
The whipsawed house in which the girls lived had been built more than sixty years before. The heavy beams of its frame and the broad thick boards of its sheeting inside and out had been sawed by hand from massive poplar logs.
The walls of the room in which the girls slept were as frankly free of paint or paper as when the boards were first laid in place. But time and sixty summers of Kentucky mountain sunshine had imparted to every massive beam and every broad board such a coat of deep, mellow, old gold as any millionaire might covet for his palace.
Heavy, hand-cut sandstone formed the fireplace. Before this fireplace, on a black bearskin, in dream-robes and dressing gowns, sat the two girls curled up for a chat before retiring.
Then it was that Marion told of the mysterious stranger who had peered in at the window at dusk.
“That’s strange,” said Florence as a puzzled look knotted her brow. “Who could he have meant when he said, ‘Hit’s her’? Could he have meant Mrs. McAlpin?”
“Maybe. She’s been around doctoring people a great deal. He might have seen her somewhere; might even have needed her services for his family and been too timid to ask for it. You know how these mountain folks are. But—” Marion paused.
“But you don’t believe it was Mrs. McAlpin,” prompted Florence, leaning toward the fire. “Neither do I. I believe it was little Hallie, and I don’t like it.”