The City of Fire - Page 126/221

Mary Rafferty caught up her pan of peas, dashed them into a basket that

hung on the wall by the door, and bareheaded as she was hastened out

through the garden after her friend for all the world as if she were

going to pick more peas. Down the green lane between the bean poles

they hurried through the picket gate, pushing aside the big gray

Duncannon cat who basked in the sun under a pink hollyhock with a

Duncannon smile on its gray whiskers like the rest of the family.

"Jane! Jane Duncannon!" called Christie McMertrie. But the hollow

echoes in the tidy kitchen flung back emptily, and the plate of

steaming cinnamon buns on the white scrubbed table spoke as plainly as

words could have done that no one was at home.

"She's gone!"

The two hurried around the house, through the front gate, across the

street with a quick glance up and down to be sure that the Petrie

babies playing horse in the next yard were their only observers, and

then ducking under the bars of the fence they scuttled down a slope,

crossed a trickle of a brook that hurried creekward, and up the

opposite bank. Behind Little's barn they paused to glance back. Some

one was coming out the Harricutt door, some one wearing a bonnet and a

black veil. They hurried on. There were two more fences separating the

meadows.

Mary went over and Christie between. They made quick work of the rest

of the way and crept panting through the hedge at the back of Carter's

just as Jane Duncannon swung open the little gate in front with a

glimpse back up the street in triumph and a breath of relief that she

had won. By only so much as a lift of her lashes and a lighting of her

soft brown eyes did she recognize and incorporate the other two in her

errand, and together the three entered the Carter house by the side

entrance, with a neighborly tap and a call: "Miz Carter, you home?"

Quick nervous steps overhead, a muffled voice calling catchily, "Yes,

I'm coming, just set down, won't you?" and they dropped into three

dining-room chairs and drew 'breath, mopping their warm faces with

their handkerchiefs and trying to adjust their minds to the next move.

Their hostess gave them no time to prepare a program. She came

hurriedly down stairs, obviously anxious, openly with every nerve on

the qui vive, and they saw at once that she had been crying. Her hair

was damp about her forehead as if from hasty ablution. She looked from

one to another of her callers with a frightened glance that went beyond

them as if looking for others to come, as she paused in the doorway

puzzled.