“Yes.”
“Then I’ll sell—because I’ve got to have that money right off.”
Indie hurried home and began to put things to rights. She packed up her personal belongings and moved all her humble furniture into one room, where it could be easily got at in case she should send for it a little later, if she were fortunate enough to secure steady work in the factory which Mr. Griggs had referred to. He had even given her a clipping from the Sunday paper containing an advertisement calling for twenty new hands, “experience not necessary.”
Indie was sweeping the back yard when some one strode up the pebbled walk with brisk, business-like steps, which she mistook for Mr. Griggs’s walk, for he had promised to stop in on his homeward way. But it was not the agent. It was Indie’s old friend Lem Powers, whom she had so timidly avoided for years. His broad-brimmed hat was turned up squarely in front, framing his dark, strong, sunny face in a sort of a rough halo.
“Evenin’, Indie,” said he, with a tug at his up-standing hat-brim. “Do you happen to have a wrench about the place? My buggy wheel’s locked an’ I ain’t got no tools with me.”
Indie shook down her sleeves hurriedly, keenly conscious of her unpleasing appearance. “Won’t you set down while I hunt up the wrench?” she asked, nodding toward the veranda bench. “I’ve done packed up everything, but I can find the wrench easy’s not.”
“Packed up!” the young man echoed in blank astonishment, with a sweeping glance at the denuded premises. “Why, you don’t aim to move, do you?”
“I expect to leave Shallow Ford to-morrer mornin’,” Indie answered solemnly.
“You don’t say so? Goin’ to live with your cousins?”
“No, oh no,” Indie answered quickly, with a dry smile. “None of them ain’t never asked me to live with ’em, and even if they had I wouldn’t go.”