Chapter 2

Nesbitt, smiling at his own whim, hurried to the nearest fruit and
confectionery store and soon came back, loaded with parcels. Sarah Maud
was waiting for him. She pushed her carrotty hair back under her hat,
scrubbed her face dry with her apron, and was ready to adventure forth
on any quest with this astonishing new friend of hers.

“Gee, but you’ve got whacks of things!” she exclaimed. “What’s them?
Or’nges? Or’nges are the clear stuff. Gimme one to suck on the train.
Ain’t I glad you come along, though!”

“I’m not sorry myself,” said Nesbitt. “You are what I really needed,
Sarah Maud—a diversion.”

“Ain’t!” said Sarah Maud indignantly. “I’m Irish.”

“Oh, it’s all the same thing, dearie,” he assured her. “Come, let us go
away to Arcady now. Begone, dull care and haunting remorse, we’ll daff
the world and sneering rivals and over-dressed, triumphant Joneses aside
for one day at least, Sarah Maud.”

“You talk just like a crazy uncle of me father’s,” said Sarah Maud
tolerantly.

They got on a lazy little freight train that took half an hour to crawl
out to the Junction, a small village where the east and west roads
branched off. When Nesbitt left the train his eye caught the sign over a
small restaurant near the station and he took Sarah Maud in and treated
her to unlimited ice cream. Sarah Maud ate two saucerfuls and chattered
blithely between rapturous gulps. Evidently Sarah Maud had no sorrow
that ice cream could not cure.

Then they went away into the big beech woods beyond the village,
following a winding forest path until they came to the banks of a brook,
where they sat down and had another feast, Sarah Maud rummaging
cheerfully in Nesbitt’s parcels and squealing with delight over her
discoveries.

[Illustration: “Sarah Maud rummaging cheerfully in Nesbitt’s parcels and
squealing with delight over her discoveries.”]

“Say, ain’t it great here?” she said, when they had finished their
lunch, pillowing her elbows in the moss and looking up into the great,
green arches above her. “These woods make me feel, I don’t know
how—like I do at Mass sometimes—all kind of solemn and happy-like. The
country is all right, Mister.”

“Would you like to live out here?” asked Nesbitt.

Sarah Maud shook her head decidedly.

“Nope. It’d be too lonesome for a steady thing. I’d ruther people than
trees. But for a day it’s fine. Say, Mister, let’s mosey on a bit. I
want to see all that’s to be seen.”

Accordingly they moseyed on. Sarah Maud seemed tireless and they rambled
through woods and fields and country lanes the whole afternoon. They
gathered flowers and hunted for birds’ nests and Nesbitt answered Sarah
Maud’s questions of which she asked a few thousand, more or less. The
inquisition was wholesome for Nesbitt, he could not brood much over what
might be doing at Maiden Lake when he had satisfied Sarah Maud’s
rapacious appetite for information about everything she saw.

It was sunset when Sarah Maud’s legs gave out. Nesbitt sat her up on the
gate of a wood lane on the hill above the Junction and they watched the
sunset together while they waited for their train.

“It’s been boss,” said Sarah Maud with a deep breath of satisfaction.
“I’ll bet I wouldn’t have had half as good a time if I’d gone with the
other kids. Them Joneses would have put on too much side. I wisht I
could go to a pickernic with you every week.”

“Much obliged,” said Nesbitt absently.

“You’d ruther gone to the other, though,” said Sarah Maud shrewdly.
“You’ve been thinkin’ about it all time. Why? Did your girl go on it?”

“Yes,” said Nesbitt, moved by a whimsical impulse of confidence in this
red-headed mite of the slums. “And you see, Sarah Maud, the other fellow
went, too.”

“I savvy.” Sarah Maud nodded comprehendingly. Then, desiring to comfort
him and drawing on her own feminine possibilities, she added, “That
needn’t worry you. ’Cause she’ll be so mad at you not comin’ that she’ll
likely give him the cold shoulder and the marble heart for spite. See?”

“You’re a comforting young woman, Sarah Maud. But—I’m afraid—you see,
_I_ think she is my girl but I’m not sure _she_ thinks so.”

“Does she want the earth with a gilt fence around it?” demanded Sarah
Maud scornfully. “I’ll bet the other fellow ain’t half as good-looking
as you. I wisht _I_ was grown up.”

“Thank you. I wish she had your excellent taste.”

“I s’pose she’s a good-looker?” queried Sarah Maud curiously.

“She is the most beautiful woman in the world, dearie. Look—do you see
that little cloud away down in the northwest corner—that bright gold
one? That is just the color of her hair. And do you see that sky in the
southwest with that one clear star in it? Her eyes are as blue and
tender as that sky, Sarah Maud. And those wild roses you picked by the
brook today have never seen her face or they would not think it worth
while to be roses.”

“Say, but you’ve got it bad,” commented Sarah Maud drowsily. Her red
head nodded against Nesbitt’s arm. He lifted her off the gate and
carried her down to the station where a train presently rolled in.
Nesbitt got on the rear car with Sarah Maud in his arms. Her head was
cuddled on his shoulder and in one of her scrawny little hands she still
clutched her big bouquet of wild roses and limp daisies.

Nesbitt had supposed the train was the freight they had come out on. He
now discovered that it was the western train and the car was full of the
returning Maiden Lake picnickers.

Nesbitt’s appearance was hailed with laughter and jests. He felt foolish
but he looked nobly serene as he stalked down the aisle and dropped into
the only vacant place in the car—beside Betty Stewart. He wondered why
it was vacant. Where in the world was Clark? Then he saw Clark was down
at the other end, scowling moodily out of the window.

Betty said “good-evening” very icily and completely ignored the fact of
Sarah Maud. Nesbitt made the little red head more comfortable on his
shoulder before he spoke. Then he said slowly:

“Did you take the trouble to wonder why I did not show up this morning?”

“I supposed you were not sufficiently interested in the picnic—or
picnickers—to come,” said Betty in an indifferent tone which had the
effect of adding, “And then I dismissed the matter from my mind.”

“I missed the train,” said Nesbitt. “My watch was slow to begin with and
then I met Murchison and he delayed me. You were gone ten minutes when I
reached the station. I can’t tell you how I felt about it. On my way
back I found this baby crying in the People’s Square because she
couldn’t get to a mission picnic. So I took her out to the Junction for
an outing and I think she had a good time at least.”