Girl Alone. Anne Austin
could say anything to him and he would understand. Oh, it was delicious to have a friend!
“There’s the cornfield where I’ve been plowing,” David called back to her. “A fine crop. I’ve given it its last plowing this week. It’s what farmers call ‘laid by.’ Nothing to do now but to let nature take her course.”
It was so dark now that the corn looked like glistening black swords, curved by invisible hands for a phantom combat. And the breeze rustled through them, bringing to the beauty-drunk little girl a cargo of mingled odors of earth, ripe fruit and greenness thrusting up from the moist embrace of the ground to the kiss of the sun.
“Let’s sit here on the ground and watch the moon come up,” David suggested, his voice hushed with the wonder of the night and of the beauty that lay about them. “The earth is soft, and dry from the sun. It won’t soil your pretty dress.”
Sally obeyed, locking her slender knees with her hands and resting her chin upon them.
“Tired, Sally? They work you too hard,” David said softly, as he seated himself at a little distance from her. “I suppose you’ll be glad to get back to the—Home in the fall.”
Sally’s dream-filled eyes, barely discernible in the dark, turned toward him, and her voice, hushed but determined, spoke the words that had been throbbing in her brain for four days:
“I’m not going back to the Home—ever. I’m going to run away.”
“Good for you!” David applauded. Then, with sudden seriousness: “But what will you do? A girl alone, like you? And won’t they try to bring you back? Isn’t there a law that will let them hunt you like a criminal?”
“Oh, yes. The state’s my legal guardian until I’m eighteen, and I’m only sixteen. In some states it’s twenty-one,” Sally answered, fright creeping back into her voice. “But I’m going to do it anyway. I’d rather die than go back to the orphanage for two more years. You don’t know what it’s like,” she added with sudden vehemence, and a sob-catch in her throat.
“Tell me, Sally,” David urged gently.
And Sally told him—in short, gasping sentences, roughened sometimes by tears—of the life of orphaned girls.
“We have enough to eat to keep from starving and they give us four new dresses a year,” Sally went on recklessly, her long-dammed-up emotion released by his sympathy and understanding, though he said so little. “And they don’t actually beat us, unless we’ve done something pretty bad; but oh, it’s the knowing that we’re orphans and that the state takes care of us and that nobody cares whether we live or die that makes it so hard to bear! From the time we enter the orphanage we are made to feel that everyone else is better than we are, and it’s not right for children, who will be men and women some day, with their livings to make, to feel that way!”
“Yes, an inferiority complex is a pretty bad handicap,” David interrupted gently.
“I know about inferiority complexes,” Sally took him up eagerly. “I’ve read a lot and studied a lot. We have a branch of the public library in the orphanage, but we’re only allowed to take out one book a week. I’ll graduate from high school next June—if I go back! But I won’t go back!”
“But Sally, Sally, what could you do?” David persisted. “You haven’t any money—”
“No,” Sally acknowledged passionately. “I’ve never had more than a nickel at one time to call my own! Think of it, David! A girl of sixteen, who has never had more than a nickel of her own in her life! And only a nickel given to me by some soft-hearted, sentimental visitor! But I can work, and if I can’t find anything to do, I’d rather starve than go back.”
David’s hand, concealed by the darkness, was upon hers before she knew that it was coming.
“Poor Sally! Brave, high-hearted little Sally!” David said so gently that his words were like a caress. “Charity hasn’t broken your spirit yet, child. Just try to be patient for a while longer. Promise me you won’t do anything without telling me first. I might be able to help you—somehow.”
“I—I can’t promise, David,” she confessed in a strangled voice. “I might have to go away—suddenly—from here—”
“What do you mean, Sally?” David’s hand closed in a hurting grip over hers. “Has Pearl—Mr. Carson—? Tell me what you mean!”
“When I promised to come walking with you tonight I knew that Mr. Carson would try to take me back to the orphanage, if he found out. But—I—I wanted to come. And I’m not sorry.”
“Do you mean that he threatened you?” David asked slowly, amazement dragging at his words. “Because of Pearl—and me?”
“Yes,” she whispered, hanging her head with shame. “I didn’t want you to know, ever, that you’d been in any way responsible. He—he says it’s practically settled between you and—and Pearl, and that—that I—oh, don’t make me say any more!”
David groaned. She could see the muscles spring out like cords along his jaw. “Listen, Sally,” he said at last, very gently, “I want you to believe me when I say that I have never had the slightest intention of marrying Pearl Carson. I have not made love to her. I’m too young to get married. I’ve got two years of college ahead of me yet, but even if I were older and had a farm of my own, I wouldn’t marry Pearl—”
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