CHAPTER VII
A TALE OF RICHES
It was some time later that Billie Bradley was directed to the personshe sought by the sound of heart-broken sobbing.
Silently, she made her way through the underbrush until she descried afigure in rumpled shirtwaist and pleated skirt, lying face downward onthe thick grass.
“Please don’t cry,” said Billie. “And don’t run away. I’ve brought yousome supper.”
At the sound of Billie Bradley’s voice, Edina Tooker jumped to her feetand looked wildly about her. She dashed a hand across her eyes and thenturned, as though about to dart off into the woods.
“Wait a minute!” cried Billie. “I’ve brought you some sandwiches andtwo luscious pieces of cake. If pressed,” she added lightly, “I mightconsent to eat some with you.”
As the girl paused and looked toward her, trying to pierce thedarkness, Billie knew she had struck the right note. A friendly,offhand manner would win Edina Tooker more quickly than sympathy.
“Clarice has packed the basket to the top, bless her old black heart.We’ll find a nice flat rock and regale ourselves to our hearts’content.”
Billie found the rock without more delay and seated herself upon it,the basket between her knees.
After a moment of indecision Edina followed and flung herself fulllength on the ground beside Billie.
“Why did you come after me?” she queried listlessly. “You might betterhave left me alone.”
The statement was not made ungraciously nor sullenly; it was merely asthough the girl were unutterably weary and could not imagine anyonetaking a legitimate interest in her or her affairs.
Billie said nothing, but handed out sandwiches and cake, which the girlaccepted ravenously.
“I’m hungry,” she said simply. “I haven’t had a bite to eat since noon.”
“You should have come in to supper,” said Billie, nibbling at a pieceof the matchless cake. “Debsy might have given you a bad mark for beinglate, but she couldn’t have kept you from eating your supper.”
“I didn’t want any then. I couldn’t go in and face those jeering,snickering girls.” Edina Tooker clenched her hands and spoke with asudden, desperate vehemence. “They think I’m a big joke and I--I hatethem. I could kill them all!”
Billie waited patiently for the storm to pass. Then she said gently:
“Have a piece of cake, Edina. You’ve no idea how good it is.”
“I don’t want any cake,” said Edina sullenly. She sat up, very stiffand straight, her hands locked about her humped knees. “I don’t wantanything. To-morrow I’m going back home.”
Billie was startled.
“You are leaving Three Towers?”
Edina nodded unhappily.
“Three Towers has no use for me. I ain’t ever been so unhappy in mylife as I’ve been since I come--came--here. I never dreamed it would belike this.”
“What did you think it would be like?” asked Billie gently.
“I don’t know--exactly. But I thought people would be kind and I’d havea chance to git some book learnin’ like I never had in my life. And Ialways wanted it, ever since I was old enough to ride my own cow pony.And now I--I gotta go home.”
There was a choke in the quiet, sullen voice. Billie guessed what itwould mean for Edina to return to the “cow country,” carrying woundsthat would never heal.
She said quietly:
“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you, Edina. I wouldn’t run away.”
It was dark down there by the lake, but Billie could sense the quickmotion of the girl’s head as it turned toward her.
“You oughtn’t to say that to me.” After a while she added in a hopelesstone:
“Mebbe it would be runnin’ away like you say, mebbe it would bequittin’. Jest the same,” her voice rose passionately, “I’d rutherbe horsewhipped than stand another week like the one I’ve just gonethrough!”
Billie waited a moment, then reached out and touched Edina’s clenchedfist where it rested on her voluminous skirt.
“Suppose you tell me something about yourself,” she suggested. “I thinkI can help you. I want to. I owe you something, you know, for saving mylife.”
Edina hesitated for a moment; then began in a low, monotonous voice totell the drab story of her life.
“Seems like we’ve always been poor, Paw and Maw and me,” began Edina.“Ever since I was a little shaver, I can’t remember anything butpoverty. Paw was what you’d call a prospector.”
“Gold?” asked Billie.
“No, oil. He had some property and he was always sure there was oil onit. Seems to me I can never remember the time he wasn’t drillin’ holessomewheres tryin’ to strike a gusher.
“Maw and me we got fed up with it, what with bein’ holed up in thesame little neck of the woods all the time and never goin’ nowheres norhavin’ nothing. There were days we went hungry----”
The droning voice broke off suddenly and Billie had a startlingly clearvision of that tragic little family, dying of monotony, starving a gooddeal of the time, with nothing but a vision to sustain them.
“The worst of it was,” the quiet voice continued, “that I never gotmuch schoolin’ and I always wanted it. I thought it would be heaven ifthe time ever come--came--when I could go to a real school like othergirls and learn the sort of things that were put in books----
“It just goes to show,” said Edina, after another pause, “that thingsain’t never the way you’d expect they’d be. When Paw struck oil----”
“He did?” ejaculated Billie.
“I thought me and Maw must be the happiest pair on earth. When Paw saidI could come East and go to school here, I thought I’d die, I was thatcrazy with joy. And now here I am--and--and you see how it is. I can’thardly go back and face Maw, seems like.”
Billie was thinking swiftly.
“If your father has struck oil on his property, he must be making agood deal of money, Edina.”
“Guess so.” The girl shrugged indifferently. “Paw said if the gusherkept on gushin’ we’d probably be millionaires before we got through.But what good’s it goin’ to do me,” hopelessly, “if I ain’t even goin’to git an education out of it? I’m--goin’ back home--to-morrow.”
Billie came to a swift decision.
“You are going to do no such thing, Edina Tooker! You are going to stayright here at Three Towers Hall, and before long the girls will bebegging your pardon for ever having dared to laugh at you!”