"Come on. I won't let nothing hurt you."
They circled a swamp surrounded by woods, Carl's left arm about her, his right clutching the saber. Though the sunset was magnificent and a gay company of blackbirds swayed on the reeds of the slough, dusk was sneaking out from the underbrush that blurred the forest floor, and Gertie caught the panic fear. She wished to go home at once. She saw darkness reaching for them. Her mother would unquestionably whip her for staying out so late. She discovered a mud-smear on the side of her skirt, and a shoe-button was gone. She was cold. Finally, if she missed supper at home she would get no tea-biscuits and honey. Gertie's polite little stomach knew its rights and insisted upon them.
"I wish I hadn't come!" she lamented. "I wish I hadn't. Do you s'pose mamma will be dreadfully angry? Won't you 'splain to her? You will, won't you?"
It was Carl's duty, as officer commanding, to watch the blackened stumps that sprang from the underbrush. And there was Something, 'way over in the woods, beyond the trees horribly gashed to whiteness by lightning. Perhaps the Something hadn't moved; perhaps it was a stump——
But he answered her loudly, so that lurking robbers might overhear: "I know a great big man over there, and he's a friend of mine; he's a brakie on the M. & D., and he lets me ride in the caboose any time I want to, and he's right behind us. (I was just making b'lieve, Gertie; I'll 'splain everything to your mother.) He's bigger 'n anybody!" More conversationally: "Aw, Jiminy! Gertie, don't cry! Please don't. I'll take care of you. And if you ain't going to have any supper we'll swipe some 'taters and roast 'em." He gulped. He hated to give up, to return to woodshed and chicken-yard, but he conceded: "I guess maybe we hadn't better go seek-our-fortunes no more to——"
A long wail tore through the air. The children shrieked together and fled, stumbling in dry bog, weeping in terror. Carl's backbone was all one prickling bar of ice. But he waved his stick fiercely, and, because he had to care for her, was calm enough to realize that the wail must have been the cry of the bittern.
"It wasn't nothing but a bird, Gertie; it can't hurt us. Heard 'em lots of times."
Nevertheless, he was still trembling when they reached the edge of a farm-yard clearing beyond the swamp. It was gray-dark. They could see only the mass of a barn and a farmer's cabin, both new to Carl. Holding her hand, he whispered:
"They must be some 'taters or 'beggies in the barn. I'll sneak in and see. You stand here by the corn-crib and work out some ears between the bars. See—like this."
He left her. The sound of her frightened snivel aged him. He tiptoed to the barn door, eying a light in the farm-house. He reached far up to the latch of the broad door and pulled out the wooden pin. The latch slipped noisily from its staple. The door opened with a groaning creek and banged against the barn.