“And just worships you. Is your lawn mowed?”
“No; I’ll do it first thing to-morrow.” He tried vainly to change the subject. “I--”
“Oh, Billy To-morrow! You won’t have half time enough to play. You’re a regular Mexican,--always _mañana_!”
When the train snorted into the station the two were there, Billy with his loaf under his arm, his can dangling. Most of the arrivals were townsfolk home from visits to the stricken city; but a few, evidently strangers, descended and stood by themselves.
“That bunch with the tickets, them’s the refugees,” Billy whispered to Jean. “See? Mr. Patton’s talking to them. Mr. Brown’s going to take ’em to their places in his hack. I wonder which is ours. Jiminy! See how hard that poor little kid’s trying to bluff her tears!”
He indicated a fair-haired child, a baby in size, though her face gave hint of more years than her slender body. She wore woman’s shoes, and one was torn; a draggled skirt pinned up in front and trailing behind; and a folded sheet drawn around her shoulders. Yet no incongruity of dress could disguise the refined beauty of her face, or of her uncovered hair.
A kindly man held her by the hand, yet he was evidently a stranger to her.
“Billy, ask Mr. Patton to let her come to your house! There aren’t any boys.” Jean’s voice trembled with eagerness.
“Sure! Take care of the truck, will you?” He dropped his burdens to Jean’s willing hands, and darted forward.
Mr. Patton, who “placed” the refugees, was glad of Billy’s request, for the child’s struggle for self-control had touched him; and he knew no one would be a kinder mother to her than Mrs. Bennett.
Billy hurried away, and arrived at his home before the hack, bread and cream safe in spite of threatened dangers.
“Ma! Mamma Bennett,” he burst out as he banged open the door; “she’s coming,--our little earthquake girl! The cutest kid,--not so big as the twins, but stylisher in the face.”
Mrs. Bennett was setting the table. She put down a pile of plates, and a new anxiety came into her careworn face. “A child? I told Mr. Patton I couldn’t take one.”
“But I asked for her, mamma.” Billy’s voice lost its exuberance. His mother never had looked so tired, he thought for the second time that day.