"Tobe Barnett, listen to me!" Dolly cried. "What are you beating about the bush for? Haven't I got a right to know about that child? I love it. If anything was to happen to that baby it would kill me. Did the doctor say there was no—no hope?"
"It ain't that, exactly, Miss Dolly." Barnett avoided her eyes and gulped, his half-bare, hairy breast quivering with suppressed emotion.
"Well, what is it, then?" Dolly demanded, impatiently.
"Why, if you will know my full shame it is this, Miss Dolly," he blurted out, despondently; he started to cover his face with his gaunt hand, but refrained. "I'm a scab on the face of the world. I've lost the respect and confidence of all men. The doctor left a prescription for several kinds of medicine and a rubber hot-water bag and syringe. I went to the drug store in Darley and the one here in Ridgeville but they wouldn't credit me—they said they couldn't run business on that plan. And I can't blame 'em. I owe 'em too much already."
"Look here, Tobe!" Dolly was leaning over the fence, regardless of the fact that the sleeves of the new dress were against the palings. "How much do those things cost?"
Barnett turned and stared hesitatingly at her. "More than I'd let you pay for," he blurted out, doggedly. "Six dollars. When I git so low as to put my yoke on your sweet young neck I—I will kill myself—that's what I'll do. I tell you I've had enough, an' Annie has, too; but we ain't goin' to let you do no more. We had a talk about it last night. We are fairly blistered with shame. You've already give us things that you couldn't afford to give."
Dolly's sweet face grew rigid, the lips of her pretty mouth twitched. "Look here, Tobe," she said, huskily. "You've hurt my feelings. I love you and Annie and Robby, and it is wrong for you to talk this way when I'm so worried about the baby. You are not a cold-blooded murderer, are you? Well, you will make yourself out one if you let silly false pride stand between you and that sweet young life. Why, I would never get over it. It would haunt me night and day. Turn right around and go to the Ridgeville drug store and tell them to charge the things to me. I will pay for them to-morrow. They are anxious for my trade. They are eternally ding-donging at—bothering me, I mean, about not buying from them."
"Miss Dolly, I can't. I just can't."
"If you don't, then I'll have to go myself, as soon as I can get out of this fool contraption," she answered, with determination. "You don't want to make me dress and go, I know, but I will if you don't, and I won't lose a minute, either."
"Why, Miss Dolly—"
"Hush, Tobe, don't be a fool!" Dolly was growing angry. She had thrust her hand over her shoulder to the topmost hook of the dress at the neck, that no time should be lost in changing her clothes. "Hurry up, and I'll go straight to Annie. I'll have the hot water ready. I know what the doctor wants. It is the same treatment I helped him give Pete Wilson's baby."
"Lord have mercy!" Tobe Barnett groaned.
"Well, I'll go, Miss Dolly. I'll go. God bless you! I'll go."
She watched him for a moment as he trudged away, and then, still trying in vain to unfasten the hook at the back of her neck and jerking at it impatiently, she turned toward the house.
Mostyn was waiting for her at the porch steps, having put down his game-bag and fishing-rod.
"I declare you are simply stunning in that thing," he said, admiration showing itself in every part of him. "It is a dream!"
She frowned, arching her brows reflectively. She bit her lip.
"Oh, I don't know!" she said. "I was just trying it on to please mother and Miss Stella. Look at the silly things gaping like goggle-eyed perch at the window. One would think that the revolutions of the earth on its axis and the movement of all the planets depended on this scrap of cloth and the vain thing that has it on."
"Take my advice and buy it," Mostyn urged. "It fairly transforms you—makes you look like a creature from another world."
She shrugged her shoulders. She cast a slow glance after the figure trudging along the dusty road. She looked down at her breast and daintily flicked at the pink ribbons which were fluttering in the gentle breeze.
"It is a flimsy thing," he heard her say, as if in self-argument. "It wouldn't stand many wearings before it would look a sight. It wouldn't wash—man as you are, Mr. Mostyn, you know it wouldn't wash. I'm going to take it off and try to have some sense. I'm in no position to try to make a show. School-teachers here in the backwoods have no right to excite comment by the gaudy finery they wear. I'm paid by people's taxes. Did you know that? I might find myself out of a job—out of employment, I mean. Some of these crusty old fellows that believe it is wrong to have an organ in church had just as soon as not enter a complaint against me as being too frivolous to hold a position of trust like mine."
"Oh, I think you are very wrong to allow such an idea as that to influence you," Mostyn argued, warmly. He was about to add more, but Tom Drake sauntered round the corner, chewing tobacco and smiling broadly. He scarcely deigned to notice Dolly's altered appearance.
"John says you didn't git a nibble," he laughed. "I hardly 'lowed you would. The water is too low and clear. I've ketched 'em with my hand under the rocks in such weather as this."
Leaving them together, Dolly went into the house, where she was met by the two eager women.
"I'll bet Mr. Mostyn thought it was nice," Mrs. Drake was saying.
"Well, I certainly hope so," Miss Munson answered. "They say Atlanta men in his set are powerful good judges of women's wear."
Dolly had advanced straight to the mirror and stood looking at her reflection, a quizzical expression on her face.
"Hurry, unhook me!" she ordered, sharply. "Quick! I've got to run over to Barnett's cabin. Robby isn't any better. In fact, he is dangerous and Annie needs me."
The two women, eying each other inquiringly, edged up close to her, one on either side. "Dolly, what is the matter? I knew something was wrong the minute you come in the door."
"It is all right," Dolly said, in a low tone. "It is very sweet and pretty, Miss Stella, but I have decided not to—not to take it."
"Not take it!" The words came from two pairs of lips simultaneously. "Not take it!" The miracle happened again, in tones of double bewilderment.
"Well, I can't say I really expected you to," Miss Munson retorted, in frigid tones. "I only stopped by. To tell you the truth, I am on the way over to Peterkins'. Sally is the right size and will jump at it."
Dolly's lips were tight. Her eyes held a light, half of anger, half of an odd sort of doggedness.
"Please unhook me!" she said, coldly. "There is no time to lose. Annie is out of her head with trouble."
"Well, well, well!" Mrs. Drake sank into a chair and folded her slender hands with a vigorous slap of the palms. "Nobody under high heavens can ever tell what you will do or what you won't do," she wailed. "I never wanted anything for myself as much as for you to have that dress, and—" Her voice ended in a sigh of impatience.
With rapid, angry fingers the seamstress was disrobing the slender form roughly, jerking hooks, ribbons, and bits of lace. "Huh, huh!" she kept sniffing, as she filled her mouth with pins. "I might as well not have stopped, but it don't matter; it don't make a bit o' difference. You couldn't have it now if you offered me double the cost."
Dolly seemed oblivious of what was passing. Getting out of the garment, she quickly put on her skirt and waist, noting as she did so that her father was seated behind her on the window-sill, nursing his knee and chewing and spitting vigorously on the porch floor.
"What a bunch o' rowin' she-cats!" she heard him chuckling. "An' about nothin' more important than a flimsy rag that