It
wasn't a job he liked, but there wasn't anything else offering, and
then Katie might want somebody to look after her, and so it was just as
well he had the job. He and Katie had been schoolmates together not so
long ago, in the wooden schoolhouse near the crossroads. She had gone
to college, and had come home with a diploma. She was two or three
years older than he was, but that didn't make any difference to a boy
and girl from the same village when they had grown up alongside of each
other. He wondered how long it was to July, when he was promised a
week,--and so was Katie. He knew just what they'd do; he could get two
passes to Plymouth,--his old friend the freight boss had promised him
that,--then about daylight, the time the train arrived, he'd find
Marvin, who drove the stage up the valley and past his old home, and
help him curry his team and hitch up, and Marvin would give them a ride
free. He could feel the fresh air on his cheeks as he rattled out of
the village, across the railroad track and out into the open. Tim
Shekles, the blacksmith, would be at work, and old Mother Crawport
would be digging in her garden, early as it was; and out in the fields
the crows would be hunting corn; and pretty soon down would go the
wheels into the soft, clean gravel of the brook that crossed the
turnpike and out again on the other side dripping puddles in the dirt;
and soon the big trees would begin, and keep on and on and on,--away up
to the tops of the mountains, the morning sun silvering the mists
sweeping up their sides,--and--

"Say! you! Wake up! He's been hollering at you for five minutes. GIT!"

Joe sat up and rubbed his eyes. The fresh air of the morning had
vanished.

"Yes, sir." He was on his feet now, alert as a terrier that had sniffed
a rat.

"YES, SIR, eh! How many times do you want me to call you? Go and find
Miss Murdock, and send her here on the run. Tell her to get her hat and
cloak and show up in two minutes. I've got an assignment for her on the
East Side,--just come over the 'phone. Hurry now! That damned kid ought
to be--"

But Joe was already out of the room and down two pair of stairs. Before
the minutes were up he was back again, Katie Murdock with him. She was
sliding her arm into the sleeve of her jacket as she entered.

"Forty-third and First Avenue, Miss Murdock," said the night city
editor, lifting his head so that the cat eyes had full play. "Girl
overboard from one of the ferry boats