Read Ebook: From the Valley of the Missing by White Grace Miller

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2809 lines and 82274 words, and 57 pages

After leaving Horace, Ann went to the side window and tapped upon it. Receiving no response, she lifted the sash and called softly to her fianc?. Hearing her voice, Everett Brimbecomb appeared at the opposite window. The girl's heart thrilled with happiness as he smiled upon her.

"Run over a minute, Everett," she called.

"All right, dear heart."

His voice was so vibrantly low and rich that the girl experienced a feeling of thanksgiving as she stood waiting for him at the door. When he came, the lovers went into the drawing-room, where a grate fire burned dim.

"Horace says he'll go to Dryden, Everett," Ann announced, "and I'm so glad! I thought he might say that he was too busy."

Everett smiled, slipped his arm about the girl's waist, and for a moment she leaned against him like a frail, sweet flower.

Presently Ann noticed that a shadow had settled on her lover's face. Womanlike, she questioned him.

"Is there anything the matter, Dear?" she asked, drawing him to the divan.

"Nothing serious. I've been talking with Father."

"Yes?"

She waited for him to continue; but he sat silent, wrapped in thought for a long minute. At last, however, he spoke gloomily:

"Ann, I wish I knew who my own people were."

"Aren't you satisfied with those you have, Everett?" There was sweet reproof in the girl's tones.

"More than satisfied," he said; "but somehow I feel--no I won't say it, Ann. It would seem caddish to you."

"Nothing you could say to me would seem that," she answered.

Everett rose and walked up and down the room. "Well, it seems to me that, although the blood of the Brimbecomb's is blue, mine is bluer still; that, while they have many famous ancestors, I have still more illustrious ones. I feel sometimes a longing to run wild and do unheard-of things, and to make men know my strength, to--well, to virtually turn the world upside down."

A frightened look leaped into the girl's eyes. He was so vehement, so passionate, so powerful, that at times she felt how inferior in temperment she was to him. Her heart swelled with gratitude when she realized that he belonged to her and to her alone. How good God had been! And every day in the solitude of her chamber she had thanked the Giver of every gift for this perfect man--since he was perfect to her. In a few moments she rose and walked beside him, longing to enter into the hidden ambitions of his heart, to read his innermost thoughts. Everett appreciated her feeling. Again he passed his arm around her, and for a time they paced to and fro, each thankful for the love that had become the chief thing in life.

"I have an idea, Ann," began Everett presently, "that my mother will know me by the scar on me here." He raised his fingers to his shoulder and drew them slowly downward as he continued. "And I know that she is some wild, beautiful thing different from any other woman living. And I've pictured my father in my mind's eyes a million times, since I have found out I am not really Everett Brimbecomb."

"But Mr. and Mrs. Brimbecomb have done everything for you--"

"So they have," broke in Everett; "but a chap wants to know his own flesh and blood, and, since Mother told me that I was not her own son, I've looked into the face of every woman I've seen and wondered if my own mother was like her. I don't want to seem ungrateful; but if they would only tell me more I could rest easier." A painful pucker settled between his brows.

"Sit down here, Everett," Ann urged, "and tell me if you have ever tried to find them."

"I asked my fath--Mr. Brimbecomb today." His faltering words and the change of appellation shocked Ann; but she did not chide him, for he was speaking again. "I told him that, now I was through college and had been admitted to the bar, I insisted upon knowing who my own people were. But he said that I must ask his wife; that she knew, and would tell me, if she desired me to know. I promised him long ago that I would register in his law office at the same time that Horace went to Vandecar's. Confound it, Ann!--I beg your pardon, but I feel as if I had been created for something more than to drone over petty cases in a law office."

"But, Everett, it has been understood ever since you went to Cornell that you should enter Mr. Brimbecomb's office. You would not fail him now that he is so dependent upon you?"

"Of course not; I intend to work with him. But I tell you this, Ann, that I am determined to find my own people at whatever cost!"

"Did you ask Mrs. Brimbecomb about them?"

"Yes; but she cried so that I stopped--and so it goes! Well, Dear, I don't want to worry you. It only makes a little more work for me, that's all. But, when I do find them, I shall be the proudest man in all the world."

Ann rose to her feet hastily. "Here comes Horace! Let's talk over the fair--and now, Dear, I must kiss away those naughty lines between your eyes this moment. I don't want my boy to feel sad."

She kissed him tenderly, and turned to meet her brother.

"I was tired of staying in there alone," said Horace. "Hello, Everett! It was nice of you, old chap, to ask me along to Dryden. That's my one failing in the fall--I always go. Let me see--you didn't go last year, did you, Everett?"

"No; but I knew that Ann wanted to go this year, and I thought a party would be pleasant. I asked Katherine Vandecar; but her aunt is such an invalid that Katherine can scarcely ever leave her."

"Mrs. Vandecar is ill," said Ann. "I called there yesterday, and she is the frailest looking woman I ever saw."

"She's never got over the loss of her children," rejoined Everett. "It's hard on Vandecar, too, to have her ill. He looks ten years older than he is."

"Yes; but their little Mildred is such a comfort to them both!" interjected Ann. "They watch the child like hawks. I suppose it's only natural after their awful experience. Isn't it strange that two children could disappear from the face of the earth and not a word be heard from them in all these years?"

"They're probably dead," replied Horace gently, and silence fell upon them.

Flea and Flukey Cronk, followed by the yellow dog, made their way farther and farther from Ithaca. They had left the university in the distance, when a dim streak of light warned them that day was approaching. It was here that Flea lagged behind her brother.

"Ye're tired, Flea," said Flukey.

"Yep."

"Will ye crawl into a haystack if we come to one?"

"Yep."

They spoke no more until, farther on, a farmhouse, with dark barns in the rear, loomed up before them.

"Ye wait here, Flea," said Flukey, "till I see where we can sleep."

After an absence of a few minutes he returned and in silence conducted the girl by a roundabout way to a newly piled stack of hay.

"I burried a place for us both," he whispered. "Ye crawl in first, Flea, and I'll bring in Snatchet. Lift yer leg up high and ye'll find the hole."

A minute later they were tucked away from the cold morning, their small faces overshadowed by the new-mown hay, and here, through the morning hours, they slept soundly. Then again they set forth, and it was late in the afternoon when they drew up before the high fence encircling the fair-grounds at Dryden. The fall fair was in full blast. Crowds were passing in and out of the several gates. With longing heart, first Flea, then Flukey, placed an eye to a knothole, to watch the proceedings inside. Rows of sleek cattle waved their blue and red ribbons jauntily in the breeze; fat pigs, with the owners' names pasted on the cards in front, grunted in small pens. For a time the twins stood side by side, wishing with all their might that they were possessed of the necessary entrance-fee.

"If I could get a job," said Flukey, "we could get in."

"I could work, too," said Flea, her hands dug deep in her trousers pockets.

Just then a man hailed them. "Want to get in, Kids?" he asked.

"Yep!" bawled Flea and Flukey in unison, their hunger forgotten in this new delight.

"Then help me carry in those boards, and then you can stay in."

Flukey looked apprehensively at Flea.

"Ye ain't a boy--"

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet