and from one arm, held stiffly forward, protruded the stub of a tree-branch, standing out like a bone from a red rent in the wrist. "Oh!" shuddered the two girls. Fascinated by this terrible figure, they stared, motionless. The boy came reeling forward. He did not see them; he did not know where he was going. His eyes were strained at the crude thing that, like some savage weapon, protruded from his arm. With his other hand he pulled at it, and Harriet shuddered as she saw it resist him. Again he pulled, and, with a great effort, he yanked it from the wound. It was followed by a gush of blood. The boy gazed for a moment at the inches of crimsoned wood, then cast the stick from him. Three more strides he took toward the girls, until they prepared to avoid him. Then, without a word or a groan, he plunged heavily, and fell almost at their feet. Two of them screamed and turned to run. "Stop!" commanded Harriet. They waited, poised for flight, while Harriet looked at the boy. He was motionless, insensible. The wound in the temple was concealed as he lay, but she saw that from the injured wrist, lying in the grass, were coming regular jets of blood. Immediately she dropped on her knees before him. "Your handkerchiefs, girls!" she cried. But she knew that in this emergency handkerchiefs were too short and weak. Quickly unbuttoning the sleeve of the lad's outing shirt, with one strong pull she tore it open to the shoulder, and with two more ripped it from the arm. The blood still spurted from the wrist, and behind her the girls squealed again. Then rapidly Harriet knotted the sleeve round the arm above the wound, and gave one end of it to the stronger of her friends. "Pull!" she directed. At her own first pull, she drew the other almost from her balance. "Pull!" she commanded impatiently. To her relief, at the second pull she saw the blood slacken its flow. At the third, it stopped entirely. Then she threw the ends again around the arm, knotted them securely, and looked up at her friends. "I can run fastest," she said. "Will you two stay here while I go and get Nate?" They looked at each other, hesitating. Like silly creatures they blushed, and like foolish ones they shuddered. "No," they agreed. "We don't dare!" "Then go for Nate quickly!" she ordered. "Both go. Together you ought to find the way." "Come with us," begged one. Harriet shook her head. "He must n't be left alone. If he moves, the knot may slip, and he'd bleed to death. No, go quickly, and try to notice how to find your way back." With visible relief, yet fluttered by excitement and importance, they left her. Harriet was alone in the pasture with the boy. Now, first, she began to feel the strain of the event. It was scarcely a minute since she heard that startling cry in the bushes, and her nerves yet thrilled in response. The excitement of the sudden need was still on her. Her heart was beating fast; her knees were so weak that with relief she sat down on a stone to rest. Presently she found herself studying the boy. He was so pale that her heart was sore for him. She wished for water, to revive him; but there was none on that hillside, and so she waited, and thought. She had never seen the lad before: what kind of a boy was he? The features were clear-cut and, in fact, refined; the clothes, though torn, seemed rather to have suffered from the fall than from wear. They were fairly new and of good quality. Suddenly she remembered the wound in the temple, and, rising, went to the boy and turned his head. The bleeding had stopped, but the flesh was rapidly swelling and darkening from a cruel bruise. She put her fingers to it, and, with a groan, the boy opened his eyes. At sight of her he started and tried to rise. He was on his knees, his face red with the effort, when once more he turned white, groaned, and collapsed again. This time he fell on his back. Anxiously Harriet examined the bandage: it had not slipped. When she looked at the boy's face again, he was watching her. "It is not bleeding," she said. "How do you feel?" "Everything swims," he answered faintly. His eyes closed, and so long remained so that she feared he had fainted again. But after a while he looked at her. "Are you in pain?" she asked. He shook his head, not in answer, but as if waving the question aside. With some difficulty he spoke. "Back there where I fell-my coat." "Do you want it?" she asked. His eyes closed wearily, but he nodded. She hastened into the little wood, and there found, at the foot of the cliff, the place of his fall, marked by two large fallen stones, and by a young tree quite broken down. There lay his jacket, and she carried it back to him. Though he did not open his eyes, she felt that he knew she had returned. "I have it," she said. Slowly he spoke again. "In the pocket-a wal let." She took it out and held it in her hand. "Yes, it 's here." His eyes flew wide open, and he tried to raise himself. Failing, he yet commanded her with his glance. He seemed no longer dazed by his fall, but to understand his situation. He looked at her with strangely appealing eyes. Harriet was reminded of a wild animal which, when cornered or trapped, mutely begs for help. But now he spoke. "Don't open it!" "Very well," she answered. "What shall I do with it?" "Keep it for me," he replied. "Don't let any one know you have it." She slipped the wallet into the pocket of her skirt. "All right." His eyes did not leave her. A desperate kind of earnestness was growing in them. Then she saw that he was struggling to rise again. He lifted his head but an inch before it fell back. Quickly she knelt by him and put a hand on his chest. "You must lie still!" He tried to lift his handfailed-succeeded. His eyes implored her. "Hide it!" he gasped. "Promise!" With a womanly instinct to soothe by complying, she also raised a hand. "I promise!" she repeated, and felt as if she had taken an oath. His hand fell, and he looked his gratitude; but then his eyes closed again. This time she knew that he had fainted once more. He lay so still, and the silence of the wide pasture so long remained unbroken, that at last she became anxious. Would the others manage to find help? It was a mile to Nate's, and the way might easily be that a single friend of all that were there below might be here at her side. She looked again at the boy. He lay as if he were dead. Harriet was a girl bred in a gentle household, to whom, as yet, life had been made easy. Even sickness and bereavement, which none can es "STAND STILL!' COMMANDED HARRIET." missed. And then her own position would be hard to find. The cliffs stretched for a long distance above the upper end of the pasture, and the girls might not be able to tell at what point of them she was. When she listened, she heard nothing but the wind in the trees and the distant cawing of the crows. She looked down at the town, seemingly so near, and wished cape, so far had passed her by; and apart from simple daily duties, she had had no responsibilities. But she was of the kind that learns quickly. As she sat here, curbing her impatience, seeing her own home below her and yet knowing that it was hopeless to wish to bring this injured boy into its shelter, she had a glimpse of the meaning of patience. There came in sight a tall and wiry man, looking, in spite of the fact that he was her father's best dyer, like a woodsman, which, indeed, he preferred to be. He came up the hillside with long strides, nodded to her briefly, and, gaunt and weather-beaten, stood over the unconscious boy. "Fainted, hez he?" he asked. He dropped on his knee, tested the tightness of the bandage, nodded once more at Harriet, and then rose again. "All the better," he remarked. "He won't mind the travel." Stooping, he picked up the boy as if he were a child, and, cradling him in his arms, started downhill as swiftly as if he bore no burden. "The girls?" asked Harriet, keeping pace with him. "One I sent for the doctor," explained Nate. "She'll telephone from the Upper Cross-Roads. The other she 's gittin' the fire an' heatin' water, since I let the stove out arter gittin' breakfust." He still strode swiftly onward, not pausing in the whole of the journey. "Jes' as easy on the legs," he explained, "an' a great sight better for the arms an' back if the trip is short." Harriet, carrying the jacket, had to hurry to keep up with him, and was glad when they came in sight of the little low farm-house in which Nate lived. She was equally glad to see, laboring up the road that approached from below, the doctor's carriage. Nate reached the house, strode through the open door, and laid his burden on a couch. "Thar!" he said. The lad lay so white and still that fear clutched swiftly at Harriet's heart. "He is n't-dead?" she faltered. "Lord love ye, no!" answered Nate. "Now the best thing you can do is to see if that Joanna friend of yours has got the fire goin' rightly. Somehow I mistrust her. I'm goin' to put this young gentleman to bed while it can't hurt him." In the kitchen, Harriet found Joanna, flushed and vexed. "Oh, I've fussed so over this old stove!" she cried. "And it just smolders!" "Let me try," said Harriet. She took off the lid and rearranged the wood; she studied the drafts, opened one, closed another, and then stood listening. The roar of the fire answered to the change, and she smiled. Harriet was "capable." "Well, I never!" sighed Joanna. decided Harriet. "It heats too slowly. I'll put some of it in this pan, and bring on both the faster." Then the third friend, Elinor, joined them, full of the importance of her achievement. She had got the doctor by telephone, and had made him come at once. "You know how slow old Doctor Fitch is." She had returned with him, making him urge his horse. Now he was with Nate. They were n't in the next room any longer, but were in Nate's own bedroom, just beyond. The three girls waited now, listening for sounds from the farther room. At a groan, the two girls turned pale, and Harriet, biting her lips, covered the water in the open pan, that it might heat more quickly. It was some minutes before Nate reappeared. "Now, Harriet, if you 've got some warm water-" He went back. She felt helpless, but thought rapidly. If the water was to be but warm, then perhaps it ought to be a little warmer than the hand. She had noticed a little pile of coarse, clean towels; perhaps a couple would be useful. With the water and the towels she went into the bedroom, expecting Nate to take them from her. Both he and the doctor were busy beside the bed. "Right The doctor looked up and nodded. here beside me," he directed. "So. Now stand there till I want them." Harriet felt herself turn pale. The motionless body lay beneath a sheet, but clear in view was the dreadful red wrist, with the jagged rent. The doctor was too horribly businesslike. Harriet wanted to run away. At the sound of a moan, she shuddered. Nate, with understanding, looked up into the girl's pale face. "He ain't rightly conscious," he explained. "But he 's kinder sensitive, and when the doctor tries to sew, why, he tries to pull away. So I've got to hold the arm, Harriet, and you-why, you 've got to stand by. We need you. Don't mind it if he groans; he don't really feel it." Harriet tried to steady herself. If only these things were n't so terrible! Never had she realized it before. Nate looked at her a moment longer. "Don't look at us," he directed. "And, Harriet, remember your mother." The last words helped. Her mother would not flinch at such a time. She would be like her mother. While the doctor worked, while every nerve in her shrank at each groan from the boy, Harriet clenched her teeth upon her lip, forced herself to stand still, and silently obeyed each "There's rather too much water in the kettle," order. The strain seemed endless. The doctor's movements were deliberate; the threadings, and snippings, and tyings, and washings seemed to go on forever. Yet it was but a scant five minutes before the doctor had begun to cover the wound with cotton and with gauze. Then Nate, taking the basin from Harriet, led her out of the room, through the kitchen-where the other two looked at her in silent awe-and out into the open air. "Sit down," he said, pointing to a bench that stood beside the door. "Lean your head against the house." Harriet obeyed. It was a relief to sit down, a pleasure to rest her head. Wearily she closed her eyes. For a moment, the darkness was shot with golden streaks, her ears sang, and she felt as if she were falling infinitely far. Was she fainting? She felt very cold. Then suddenly her brain cleared, the singing stopped, and warmth returned to her. She opened her eyes, and, finding Nate watching her anxiously, was able to smile at him. "Thet 's all right!" he exclaimed with relief. "If you went off in a faint, you 'd bother me more than the boy. Here, girls. Water for Harriet. Keep her sitting here for a while, then go and get your horse.” "I feel perfectly well," protested Harriet. "Don't waste a thought on me. I'm all right." "Ten minutes on that bench!" ordered Nate as he went into the house. Fifteen minutes later, the girls were saying good-by. "A quiet afternoon to you, Harriet," the doctor recommended. "And don't worry about this youngster. He 's knocked out, of course, and he 'll be weak. But you saved him, I think." He went back to his patient. Nate helped the girls into the carriage, and then spoke to Harriet. "Your mother 'll want to come up and see about him, of course. I don't object to that, but you tell her from me that she can't take him home with her. I don't mean to let a chap go that 's chucked right into my arms, and, besides, I 've taken a fancy to him." The girls jogged slowly homeward. Harriet, holding the reins over her old horse, was content to let him take his own pace; she did not listen to her friends' chatter, but fell into a study. The others, glancing at each other behind her back, nodded knowingly and giggled. "She's thinking," said Joanna, "how goodlooking he was." Harriet, lost in thought, did not hear the silly remark. In the past hour, she had received ideas which her friends were not capable of grasping, but of which she began to see the meaning. The mystery of pain, a girl's usefulness, these were in her thoughts. (To be continued.) AN ACROSTIC BY MABEL LIVINGSTON FRANK T is for Turkeys, so great and renowned; S for the Stories our elders relate. G for the Games, when the feasting is o'er; I for the Icicles outside the door; V for the Vigilant Fathers of old, N for the Needy we meet here and there; |