One day in the time of Reynolds' absence at General DeKay's, White came down to Birmingham in his cart and Milly insisted so strenuously on accompanying him, that she had her way. This led to an adventure of a sort likely to impress itself deeply in the mind of an unsophisticated girl of the mountains. She had given no especial reason for wishing to visit the city, but White shrewdly guessed that her desire to know something of the whereabouts of Reynolds was the motive impelling her to so unusual an undertaking, for heretofore she had always been very averse to going into Birmingham.
When they reached town White gave Milly a pittance of money and said:
"You go ter some store, Milly, an' buy ye some candy er a apple er somethin' er other. When ye git tired er foolin' eround ye kin go back ter the cyart an' stay ther' tell I come."
She took the small pieces of silver without a word and allowed her father to desert her. She suspected that he meant to deceive her and go off to some gambling den; but she did not care. Her desires all centered in finding Reynolds or hearing something about him.
She strolled about from place to place in the street, innocently staring into men's faces and quite as innocently receiving, without shrinking, such brutal leers and winks as certain of the bejeweled and over-dressed loafers bestowed in return. She went into a store now and then, but, instead of asking for any article of merchandise, she invariably propounded the question:
"I wanted ter ax ef ye hed seed any thing o' John Reynolds 'bout this yer town?"
She spoke with such confiding earnestness of manner and with such an appealing light in her eyes and such music in her voice, that she attracted immediate attention from whomever she addressed. She received respectful answers from the tradesmen. None of them knew any thing about Reynolds, but some of them, touched in a sweet, indefinite way by the inexpressible half-lisp of her childish voice, and feeling the influence of her strange, yearning face and graceful form, tried to draw her into conversation only to discover that she became dumb so soon as she learned that they could not give her what she sought. She turned solemnly away from each one and left him to struggle out of the bewilderment she had unconsciously cast over his mind.