“I don’t know’s I ought to leave Chips with you?”
The words were spoken with a questioning intonation by a woman that stood in the middle of a shabby kitchen, with her bonnet and shawl on, and an old-fashioned satchel, made of carpet, in her hand. She was anxiously looking at a girl of fifteen or sixteen, who was sitting by the window sewing straw. The latter used her needle rather listlessly. She had an open book, with her bonnet block, on the little stand near her. In a corner, in the midst of rude, home-made toys, played a child of four years, sitting flat on the floor and entirely absorbed in trying to put a wheel onto the broken axle of a cart.
The girl flushed somewhat and looked up, stopping entirely the movement of her needle.
“I don’t know what makes you talk like that,” she said, with indignant emphasis. “Can’t you trust me?”
“‘Tain’t that you don’t mean well,” the mother replied gently; “but somehow you get absent-minded, with readin’ and things. Now, you know Chips might walk out of this door and you not know it for hours. I wouldn’t go to your Aunt Susan’s, only she’s sick and needs me. There’s the car whistle down to the mills. High time I started.”
Mrs. Garland sighed as she turned to the door. Her daughter threw down her half-made hat and sprang forward, catching her mother’s hand, as she said earnestly.
“Now, mother, don’t you worry one bit about anything here. Come back tomorrow night, and you’ll find Chips and me as safe as we are now.”
“I hope so. Goodbye. Bye-bye, Chips.”
The widow hurried out, and the girl stood watching the cheaply-clad figure as it hastened down the road toward the station, which was at the foot of the hill.
Sue Garland’s Aunt Susan, after whom she was named, had sent up word by the baker the day before, that, if “Sister Rebecca could any ways do it, she wanted her to come down, for the rheumatics was worse than usual.”
Aunt Susan lived at Pinkton Falls, the next station, six miles away. It cost thirty cents to go and return; and, “pinching” as the Garlands were obliged to be, this small fare was worth consideration. Sue knew that she and Chips would have gone, too, if her mother could have spared the money. It was rather good fun to go to the falls, for Mrs. Susan Moore and her husband lived in a large old farm house, and, though having small supply of ready money, they had plenty of coarse food and clothes, and always made much of the Garland children, having none of their own.
The straw works were going on half time now, and Sue had no work in the shop. She had a few hats to make from straw brought round from a neighboring town by a “straw man.”
As she stood at the window, Sue saw the smoke puffing from the engine, which was behind the hill. It was a bright, still day in winter, with no snow on the ground. The very sunlight tempted one to be off.
She breathed heavily, and said aloud: “We might have gone as well as not. Chips and I could have walked and it would have done us good.”
Something pulled at her skirt, and a small but rather important-sounding voice said:
“Chips could walk well enough. Chips is big. Chips stram along like this to Aunt Susan’s.”
The boy left his sister’s side and strode across the room, puffing out his tiny person to the utmost. He was, in fact, rather large and heavy for his years. He had been called Chips by everybody because his first attempt to pronounce his own name, Chilton, had resulted in Chips. Since then he had learned to talk remarkably plain.
Sue laughed and came back to her chair, taking up her Mackinaw braid and sewing swiftly now, having shut her book with a movement of decision.
In spite of her persistent industry, it was a dull day for Sue, and a duller one still for the boy. He played all his plays, and, as a last resort, he pulled the cat’s tail to such a degree that the much enduring animal resented it. The child’s loud shriek, as the blood flowed from the scratch, made Sue run toward him. After that, there was stillness, for Chips took a nap.
The last hat was made and the package prepared for the straw man. Sue looked longingly at the novel on the table, but she resolutely turned from it. There was always housework to do. As a great treat to herself and Chips, she fried a plate of doughnuts, and the hot cakes, with cheese, formed their indigestible supper.
The next morning, the boy had an invitation to go and play with a neighbor’s child; but his sister, in her anxiety lest something should happen to him and her mother never trust her again, would not let him go. He resisted her decision, storming about the room in a rage, threatening something, she hardly noticed what; but afterward she remembered it was about going to Aunt Susan’s.
At six o’clock, her mother would come. This time she would find everything right. When the room was tidied after dinner, the cook stove filled with coal, and Chips shining from a bath, and with a clean “tire” on, Sue again looked longingly at the book. She knew that the heroine was in a most dangerous situation. The boy was contentedly building a straw shop of corn cobs on the floor. Really, she felt justified in reading half an hour. She meant to go with Chips down to the station to meet her mother, but it was now only three o’clock. She sat down with her feet on the stove hearth and her book in her hand. For a few moments, she was vaguely conscious of the child’s babble; then she knew nothing but the woes of the Lady Marion.
An hour later, the woman living nearest the Garlands opened the door, bearing in her hand something steaming in a bowl. Sue did not notice her until she spoke.
“I brought some of them hot baked sweet apples that Chips likes so well,” said Mrs. Haynes. “You can both have ’em for your supper. Your mother’s comin’ tonight?”
Sue now arose, and, in absent voice, thanked the caller for the fruit.
“I guess I’ll give one to Chips now,” remarked Mrs. Haynes, looking about her. “But where is the boy?”
“He’s making a factory,” said Sue vacantly, still thinking of the Lady Marion.
“P’raps he’s in the shed.”
Mrs. Haynes opened the door leading into the shed as she spoke. “No, he ain’t here.”
These last words roused Sue. She dropped her book on the floor. She was more frightened than there seemed any cause for being.
“Not here?” she cried out. “But he was playing beside me five minutes ago.”
In truth, it was more than half an hour since Chips had left the room.
“Don’t you worry,” said Mrs. Haynes easily: “he’s most likely over to the Tabers, if he ain’t in the yard here.”
He was not in the yard. Sue hunted about like one half crazed. What if he should not be found when her mother came? Of course, no real harm could come to him. The girl tried to be calm and reasonable. She saw that Mrs. Haynes was not alarmed in the least.
“Law!” said that person, “I lose one of mine about every day, but they always turn up again. Don’t you worry,” she repeated.
Sue went to the low nail placed in the entry for Chips’ convenience, so that he might hang up his own garments. The little blue coat, made from her old blue cashmere dress, was gone, and also the cap and the diminutive rubber boots that stood beneath, of which Chips was so proud. He had evidently started off in good earnest. And he had been able to make all these preparations (a task for him to execute alone) without his sister knowing anything of his movements.
Sue twisted her hands painfully together, and cried with sharp remorse: “No wonder that mother says she can’t trust me!”
“Your mind gets taken up,” responded Mrs. Haynes, as if in explanation and apology.
What if she were inclined to be absent-minded, Sue asked herself. She was not so weak mentally as not to be able to put her mind on her duty. Today, she realized, in a way she never forgot, what her besetting sin was, and she had a lesson to be remembered all her life.
“You jest run over to the Tabers’,” said Mrs. Haynes. “I’ll bet you’ll find him there. His putting on his coat and boots ain’t nothin’. He’d wear ’em any chance he could git. I’ll stay and wait for you.” Sue ran down the road a quarter of a mile to the Tabers. No, they had not seen Chips since the day before yesterday. They also advised her not to worry: they said also that he was right round somewhere.
Going back breathlessly a few rods from her home, Sue met a boy of eight or nine, sauntering along, with his hands in his pockets, his clothes rather ragged, and his air not respectable. Sue knew the boy as Tim Landis, who lived up in the village, a mile away.
“Tim,” she said quickly, “have you seen my brother anywhere?”
“Small kid in blue coat and rubber boots?
I seen him ‘nour ago or more. He was makin’ good time, I tell you. I told him such a chap as him better go home. He said he was bound for Pinkton Falls.
“Where was he?”
Sue thought she had never heard any one speak so slowly as this boy.
“Down the hill there,” tossing his head back, and to one side. “Said he was goin’ after his mother. Said he could go alone’s well ‘s not. I caught a ride on a buck-board jest then, or I should hev hed more talk with him. Ain’t he come back? Plucky little piece, I sh’d say.”
Sue did not reply. She rushed along until she came to her home, at the door of which Mrs. Haynes stood. She paused an instant.
“Does Tim Landis ever tell the truth?” she asked.
“Casionally,” was the answer.
“He said Chips went down the hill more than an hour ago. I shall go that way, and inquire of every one I meet,” and she flew on, taking no heed of the words Mrs. Haynes shouted after her, to stop for a hat and shawl.
At the foot of the hill was the station, and a road that turned to the right and went up another hill, where the highway ran along rather near the railroad and parallel with it. The railroad was in a valley, however, and the country road gave a wide outlook.
Sue had seen no one of whom to inquire, and there were no houses near. When she had mounted the elevation, she stopped, compelled herself to stand quietly and look in every direction. She must get some clue before she went farther.
If Chips had come this way so long ago as the boy said, and had made no pause, even his short legs would have taken him out of sight. We know that it was not such a long time as Tim Landis had said. It was likely, too, the child would linger here and there.
The afternoon sunlight looked cruelly cheerful, as it fell on the bare trees, the brown ground, and the long line of the car track, stretching out straight in the valley below.
A half (it might not be much more than a quarter) of a mile down the track toward Pinkton Falls, the rails were laid on a high trestle-work, built over a creek that was bordered on both sides by heavy bog lands.
As the girl’s eye took in, with the keenness of terrible anxiety, every object in that direction, her face, reddened by running, suddenly grew white, and her lips parted with an expression of utter terror. She gasped, then seemed to gather herself together for a mighty effort.
The cheerful sunshine, glancing along the rails, had shown her a tiny blue figure just coming from behind a small pine, which had hidden it at first from her sight. The figure was now but a very short distance this side the trestle, and walking towards it, away from Sue.
The hill between her and the road was so steep that no one, ordinarily, would think of attempting the descent. She did not stop to consider whether the going down were possible, but dashed ahead among bushes and rough ravines; breaking through long arms of dog brier that seemed extended to stop her; cutting her face and hands with savage thorns; stumbling over rocks; reeling, half steadying her swaying body again; not falling, but saved from falling, as if by a miracle; darting on, almost as if she had been shot from above. She could not have stopped if she had tried; she went now without her own volition.
It was barely more than two moments before she was at the bottom, though even that time had seemed long to her. Without pausing, she clambered over the fence and onto the railroad. She did not know the hours, but she knew there were not many trains, this being a branch road.
But how could she think of trains now? She must go on, whatever came. There was her little brother, who had been left in her care, every instant approaching that dangerous network of planks. He would fall through; he would be killed or maimed. She had never before known how much she loved him. She tried to cry out, but she had absolutely no breath; and afterward she thought that her voice might startle him and cause him to lose his balance.
She was gaining very fast on him now. He had reached the trestle and was walking steadily and carefully on. Once on this place, one could not leave it from either side, and there was no fence. It was sheer down fifty or sixty feet into the water. One must go forward or retreat; there was no turning aside, as on the land. Sue found that now, when she needed steadiness to tread the planks safely, her heart was beating so rapidly from her furious run, that she had to go very slowly indeed.
The child was half way across before she overtook him. With a pathetic cry of thankfulness, she suddenly reached out and seized firmly the back of the blue coat. She could not help sinking down for an instant, panting painfully. Whether Chips spoke or not, she did not know.
As she started up and turned to retrace her steps, the piercing and several times repeated sound of the car whistle came cutting through the air. Right before her, so near that despair told her there was nothing she could do, was the engine.
She could not know what efforts the engineer was making to stop the train. She saw, with swimming, uncertain gaze, the blackened face of a man leaning far out and gesticulating madly to her. What did he mean? She had got to die now, and Chips with her.
The boy gave a shrill, inarticulate cry. Sue, as if obeying the man, though she was not conscious that she knew what he meant, grasped Chips by one arm, and, carefully moving, like an automaton, let herself and her burden down between the planks, hanging on by one hand. She had barely dropped below, when the train thundered over her.
She now made a desperate fight to retain her consciousness, that she might continue to hold on. If she fell, she and Chips would knock from one rough beam to another, and then the water would close over them. When she was found, the blood had burst from beneath the nails of her right hand.
Yes, she and Chips were saved. As soon as could be, the train was stopped, and engineer, fireman, conductor, and many passengers ran back to the trestle. Could she have held on one breath of time longer? Useless to ask. She had kept her grip long enough.
She retained her senses, and a kind of calmness, in a wonderful way, until her mother came. Brother and sister were in their own house by that time. Then she suddenly cried out, “Oh, mother, you must trust me after this! I saved him! I saved him!” Then the reaction came, and poor Sue remained unconscious for a long time.
Chips insisted for many a day that he could have taken care of himself well enough.
