Page:The Keeper of the Bees.pdf/65

 Jamie stood there staring at him, and then slowly and deliberately, slapping one swollen foot and then the other on the hard road, he took a few steps in the man’s direction. He stopped again to stare at him, to note the fine lines of the anguished old face, the immaculate apparel, the stricken attitude of the frame hanging across the gate. So, with all the strength that he could muster Jamie took a few more steps and came within speaking distance, and on his dazed and incredulous ears there fell the strangled cry, “Help! For God’s sake, lad, help me!”

One minute before Jamie would not have believed that he could help anybody or anything. He had been figuring that he had reached the end of his endurance, that if he did not have help himself in a very few minutes he would be past the place where he would ever need it. There was something about the whiteness of the fine old head, something about the breadth of the shoulders and the leanness of the frame that reminded Jamie of his father, and possibly because he was reminded of his father, Jamie lifted his eyes above the wonderful white house, above the lace of the trees surrounding it, above its sheltering vines, away up to the blue, and far down in his heart he gave an imperative order. “Now you’ve got to help me, Lord! You must help me now!”

Then he clenched his fists very tightly at his sides and covered the three steps more to the gate. He found the combination by which it opened and he put his arm around the old figure leaning on it and in a dry, breathless voice he heard himself saying: “Why, of course I’ll help you!”