The City of Fire - Page 147/221

At a turn in the road where a little grove began he got off his wheel

and seeking a sheltered spot dropped down under a tree to read his

papers. His quick eye searched through the County paper first for the

sensational account of the murder, and a gray look settled over his pug

countenance as he read. So might a mother have regarded her child in

deep trouble, or a lover his beloved. Billy's spirit was bowed to the

depths. When he had devoured every word he flung the paper aside

wrathfully, and sat up with a kind of hopeless gesture of his hard

young hands. "Aw Gee!" he said aloud, and suddenly he felt a great wet

blob rolling down his freckled cheek. He smashed it across into his

hair with a quick slash of his dirty hand as if it had been a mosquito

annoying him, and lest the other eye might be meditating a like trick

he gave that a vicious dab and hauled out the other paper, more as a

matter of form than because he had a deep interest in it. All through

the description of those wonderful Shafton jewels, and the mystery that

surrounded the disappearance of the popular young man, Billy could see

the word "murder" dancing like little black devils in and out among the

letters. The paragraph about Mrs. Shafton's collapse held him briefly: "Aw, gee!" he could see pink tears everywhere. He supposed he ought to

do something about that. For all the world like Aunt Saxon! He seemed

to sense her youth through the printed words as he had once sensed Mrs.

Carter's. He saw her back in school, pretty and little. Rich women were

always pretty and little to his mind, pretty and little and helpless

and always crying. It was then that the thought was born that made him

look off to the hills and ponder with drawn brows and anxious mien. He

took it back to his home with him and sat moodily staring at the lilac

bushes, and gave Aunt Saxon another bad day wondering what had come to

Willie. She would actually have been glad to hear him say: "I gotta

beat it! I gotta date with tha fellas!"

That evening the rumor crept back to Sabbath Valley from who knows

where that Dolph was dead and Mark Carter had run away!