Page:McClure's Magazine v10 no3 to v11 no2.djvu/86

 between the stalks; but the low sun beat straight into her eyes, and the higher ground of the meadow, full of hay-cocks, intervened. She could see only the weather-worn roofs of the house and barn. She crept back and took up again her burden of blankets and bottle and pie, and trudged on deeper into the sheltering labyrinth of corn. When she had put half the width of the field between herself and the house she felt safe for the time being, and sat down again to rest and bide her time.

Her objective point was an old dugout in the face of a stony ridge just beyond the cornfield. It had been constructed for a potato cellar, and was used only for storing those edible tubers in winter. From March to November it was empty and forgotten, given over to rats and spiders. She had chosen it for her refuge over all other nooks and crannies on the farm because of its isolation. No roving member of the objectionable "gang" would be likely to stumble upon it and discover her. But it was well up the face of the ridge and visible from the house, so she did not think it best to risk discovery by approaching it in open day.

She partly unrolled the blankets and lay down upon them, turning her worn face up to the sky, with a deep-drawn breath of rest and a delicious new sense of freedom. Her close environment of tall corn shut out the horizon, but she knew when the sun had sunk below it by the tinted glow that overspread her small vista of sky, and the fresher breeze that came whispering among the corn-blades, precursor of the coming night.

After a time dark shadows began creeping along the furrows, as if striving to steal upon her unawares, and in the purpling firmament above two or three pale stars took form and blinked coldly down at her. She sat up and shivered, and her heart sank a little at thought of the potato cellar and the lonely night.

"Dew's a-fallin'!" she exclaimed in dismay, with care for her rheumatism; and as quickly as might be she gathered up her belongings and resumed her flight. In the fast-gathering night the way to the potato cellar seemed long and rough, and when she had reached it she found it a stronghold defended by wild blackberry vines that she must tear away with her naked hands before she could gain an entrance.

The clumsy door opened outward, and yielded only inch by inch to her repeated jerks. Each time a blackberry vine was wrenched out by the roots, it brought down a shower of loosened gravel upon her defenseless head from the crumbling banks that towered high on either side. But at last a dark aperture yawned before her wide enough to give her entrance. She wondered why she had not foreseen the need of a candle and some matches, as she groped her way within and pulled the door shut. As she did so there came a great roar and crash of falling gravel outside. It sounded a perfect avalanche, and she congratulated herself on having escaped it.

The atmosphere of the little cave-like place was close and musty from long lack of ventilation, and Mrs. Spencer found the abrupt change from the pure outer air almost stifling. She decided that she must reopen the door and leave it so through the night. But when she attempted to do this, she found the door immovable, held shut by the mass of gravel that had fallen against it. The discovery left her aghast.

"Why, now—if I can't get out, and nobody has the least notion where I am, why—it's 'most like bein' buried alive!"

The situation was disheartening, but the direst forebodings must yield to extreme bodily weariness, and soon she had spread her blankets on the dry straw of a potato bin and stretched her aching frame upon them.

For an hour or more her mental worry and her "rheumatiz" united in tormenting her; then came sleep, and wooed her to rest with the welcome thought of no breakfast to get in the morning and no disturbing voice to break in upon her slumbers with the announcement of "gettin'up time."

But she dreamed, and all through her dream sounded the chirping of hungry little chickens, the lowing of unmilked cows, and the slow, heavy tread of her husband's feet coming up the lane at evening time. "Tired and hungry, and you not here to get supper for him," droned the reproachful voice of her neighbor, running like a dirge through the other sounds and making of the dream a wretched, haunting nightmare.

"Drat that Mis' Howard! I'll never speak to her again," was Mrs. Spencer's first waking thought. A thin shaft of daylight, with the yellow glint of a well-risen sun in it, was forcing its way into the cellar through a crevice an inch wide above the door. Involuntarily Mrs. Spencer sat up and listened for the familiar sounds of her dream. But she heard only