For a second time Elias took from an infinitesimal crack in his money drawer another handful of change which he grudgingly counted into the girl’s extended hand.
“There you are!” he asserted, as if wiping some disagreeable thought triumphantly from his memory. “Now we’re square an’ can talk of somethin’ else.” 178
“I’m afraid I can’t stop to talk to-day, Mr. Barnes, for I’ve got to get home. Good-by and thank you,” and with a smile that dazzled the confounded storekeeper, Lucy sped out the door.
Elias, who was a widower and “well-to-do,” was considered the catch of the town and was therefore unaccustomed to receiving such scant appreciation of his advances.
“I’ll be buttered!” he declared, chagrined. “If she ain’t gone!”
Lucy was indeed far down the level road, laughing to herself as she thought of the discomfited Elias. This was not the first time he had shown an inclination to force his oily pleasantries upon her; but it was the first time she had so pointedly snubbed him.
“I hope it will do him good,” she murmured half aloud. “I’d like to convince him that every woman in Sefton Falls isn’t his for the asking.”
As she went on her way between the bordering tangle of goldenrod and scarlet-tinted sumach, she was still smiling quietly. The sun had risen higher, and a dry heat rose in waves from the earth. Already her shoes were white, 179 and moist tendrils of hair curled about her brow. Before her loomed three miles of parching highway as barren of shade as the woodsman’s axe could make it. The picture of Ellen’s cool kitchen and breezy porch made the distance at that moment seem interminable. There was not a wagon in sight, and unless one came along, she would have to trudge every step of the way home.
Well, there was no use in becoming discouraged at the outset of her journey, and she was not, although she did halt a moment to draw a crisp, white handkerchief from her pocket and fan her burning cheeks. She had no idea the walk was going to be so hot a one. Despite her aunt’s objections, she almost wished she had waited for Tony. If only she could have the good luck to be overtaken by somebody! Hark, did she hear wheels?
Yes, as good fortune would have it, from around the curve in the road behind her a wagon was coming into sight, the measured clop, clop of the horse’s feet reaching her distinctly. The cloud of dust that enveloped the approaching Jehu made it impossible for her to see who he was; nevertheless, it did not much matter, for country etiquette stipulated that 180 those traveling on foot were always welcome to the hospitality of a passing vehicle.