CHAPTER V.

_DANGER._

FANNY hurried along up to the hill, walking so fast that she soon put herself out of breath and had to sit down and rest.

"Oh what a hateful thing she is!" she said to herself. "I wish she was dead; I wish the bull would get out and kill her when she is going home to-night. I don't care if it is wicked; I do wish so. There isn't one bit of use in my trying to be good when she is around. I don't care; it is all her fault."

When Fanny reached home, she found supper ready.

"We were just going to sit down without you," said her grandmother. "What has kept you so long?"

Fanny gave a straightforward account of herself, except that, as it may be guessed, she said nothing about Sarah Leyman.

"Oh, very well," said Mrs. Lilly; "I am glad you had a nice visit at Mrs. Cassell's, and it was very kind in Mr. Brandon to lend you and Willy such nice, pretty books."

"I wonder whether Mr. Brandon knows that Willy is a hired boy?" said Fanny.

"I presume he does. Why?"

"Oh, nothing—only I was wondering whether, if he knew it, he would take so much notice of him and lend him books, and so on."

"And I wonder whether he would take so much notice of Fanny if he knew how she talked about him and his wife?" said Oney.

"I dare say it would not make much difference in either case," said Mrs. Lilly, dryly. "Mr. Brandon is too much of a gentleman to think less of a good boy because he works honestly for a living, or to mind the idle gossip of two silly girls. Never mind, Willy; I hope Fanny will know better some day."

"Mr. Brandon does know," said Willy. "He asked me where I lived, and I told him all about it, and he said it was an excellent thing, and that I couldn't be better off. I hope it is no disgrace to be a hired boy, or man either."

"I hope not," said Mrs. Lilly. "Fanny's father was one."

"Why, grandma!" exclaimed Fanny. "You don't mean to say that 'my' father was ever a hired boy."

"I mean just exactly that," said Mrs. Lilly. "He lived out three winters at Judge Higley's, and worked for his board that he might go to school, and afterward, when he was in college, he used to hire out in harvest-time that he might help pay his way, for money was not very plenty in those times."

"I wonder if I could go to college?" said Willy, while Fanny suddenly subsided and became very busy in buttering her cakes.

"I don't know what should prevent you," said Mrs. Lilly, "but it is early to be thinking about that."

"But there is no harm in thinking about it, is there?" asked Willy.

"No, my dear, not the least harm," replied Mrs. Lilly; "on the contrary, there may be a great deal of good if you only think of it in the right way."

"What would you like to be, Willy—a lawyer or a minister?" asked Oney.

"Neither, I think," replied Willy, soberly, and as if he had been turning the matter over in his own mind for some time. "I think I should like to be professor of a college, or else a State geologist, like that gentleman who came here last summer and camped out on the mountain with Mr. Brandon."

"Well done!" exclaimed Oney, laughing. "You mean to aim high, anyway."

"There is no reason that I know of why you should not be either," said Mrs. Lilly, smoothing down Willy's black curls as he sat beside her at the table. "A good many learned men have been worse off than Willy to begin with."

"I don't think I am badly off at all," said Willy. "I think I am as well off as any boy I know."

"Good for you!" said Oney, putting a large piece of cake on his plate. "When you are president of a college, send for me, and I will come and keep house for you."

Fanny ate her supper in silence, feeling very much disgusted.

"What a fuss they do make over him!" she thought. "And nobody takes any more notice of me nor cares any more about me than if I was nothing at all. I don't care. I'll 'make' them care about me some time. I mean to be a missionary or something, and do a great deal of good, so that every one shall talk about me and praise me. But there doesn't seem to be much use in trying to be good so long as Sarah Leyman is round. I wish I was in a convent or something, like that girl in my book who went to the Moravian school in Germany. I mean to try, though. I will be very good about everything else, and perhaps it won't matter so much about Sarah. Grandma says we are all sinners, so I sha'n't be any worse than the rest are."

The next day, and for a good many days afterward, Fanny and Sarah met somewhere about the farm—either up by the spring or in the grove by the side of the river. Once or twice Sarah had tempted Fanny up on the mountain-side by telling her of the wonderful stones and flowers and mosses to be found there. But Fanny did not much like these expeditions. The loneliness scared her, and so did the thick dark evergreens, the great rocks, and the strange sounds she heard every time she listened.

"I don't see what you want to come here for," she said, pettishly, and just ready to cry, one day when Sarah had coaxed her into visiting one of her favourite haunts. "I think it is awfully lonesome and dismal, and I don't like it one bit. One would think we were out of the world."

"Now, that is just what I like," said Sarah. "It is so solemn, and the wind makes such strange noises. But you must never try to come up here by yourself, Fanny," she added, gravely. "Promise me that you will not."

"No danger," said Fanny; "I don't like it well enough for that. Come, do let us go down."

Sarah agreed, and they walked down the blind path which led to the spring. When they reached it, they sat down to rest, and Sarah took out of her pocket the last book Fanny had lent her and began to read.

"Don't read; it is so pokey," said Fanny. "I want to talk. You are very fond of reading, all at once."

"This is such a nice book," returned Sarah. "All the people in it are so natural."

She closed it, however, and they sat for some little time in silence.

"Well, why don't you talk?" said she, at last.

"I am listening," said Fanny. "I keep hearing such a strange noise, like something growling or grumbling under ground. What can it be?"

Sarah laid her ear to the ground to listen like an Indian.

"It is the bull," said she, after a minute's silence. "He has got out some how. We must run home as fast as we can. Now, don't begin to cry," she added, sharply. "That will only hinder you."

The two girls started for home, but as they came into the open field, they saw the bull coming across the pasture straight toward them. Sarah comprehended the situation in a moment, and had all her wits about her. She was a girl of naturally strong mind, and her out-of-door life had made her quick and self-reliant. Fanny wore a small red cloak. Sarah snatched it from her shoulders, saying at the same time, in sharp, clear tones,—

"Now, Fanny, do just as I tell you, and you will be all right. Walk away behind me—don't run—and get over the wall. I'll take to the trees, and I bet I can dodge him, but never mind me. If I am caught, run home and call somebody. There! Now, while I take across the field—'now'!"

Fanny did as she was bid.

With wonderful agility Sarah started for another part of the field, running like a deer. When she had gone some little way, she turned, and began shaking the scarlet cloak. The bull, attracted by the colour, and taking it, as all bulls do, as a personal insult to himself, instantly abandoned his intended chase of Fanny and ran at Sarah. But Sarah was too quick for him. She dodged out of sight, first behind one tree and then another, till she saw that Fanny was safely over the rough stone wall. Then picking up a good-sized stone, and wrapping the cloak round it, she threw it at the bull with such a correct aim that the missile struck him full in the forehead. The next minute she went over the wall at one spring, and came round to where Fanny was lying on the ground crying as if her heart would break.

"There! Don't cry. There is no more danger now," said Sarah, soothingly. "Nothing is hurt but your cloak, and I guess you won't get much of that," she added, peeping over the wall at the bull, who was now expending all his rage on the scarlet flannel, tossing and trampling it as if he had at last found the enemy he had been hunting all his life.

"It is all your fault," sobbed Fanny, finding her voice. "I should think you would have been ashamed, Sarah Leyman."

"Well, I declare!" said Sarah.

"You needn't have given him my cloak," continued Fanny. "It was an opera flannel, and cost ever so much money."

"Which would you rather the bull should be tossing—me or the cloak? It had to be the one or the other," said Sarah, very sensibly, and naturally vexed at Fanny's unreasonable faultfinding. "I wonder what you think would have become of you if I had not been here?"

For the first time it occurred to Fanny that Sarah had saved her life.

"To be sure, I don't know what I should have done," said she, "and I am very much obliged to you, Sarah—only I don't like to have my pretty new cloak spoiled."

"Nor I, but you would rather it should be the cloak than me, wouldn't you, Fanny?"

"Of course," said Fanny; "but what shall I tell grandma?"

"What you please," said Sarah, shortly. "Tell her the bull chased you and you dropped your cloak, or tell her the whole truth. Why not?"

"But then she will scold me for going with you," said Fanny.

Sarah turned and looked at her with an expression of wonder and contempt in her great black eyes.

"I wonder what makes me care to go with 'you'?" she said, at last, in an odd, choked voice.

Fanny was silent. She did not know what to say.

Sarah sat down on a stone and hid her face in her hands for a few minutes.

"I say, Fanny," said she, looking up suddenly, "let's you and I set out to be Christians in good earnest, instead of only pretending to be good."

"I 'am' good now," replied Fanny, rather indignantly. "I read my Bible and say my prayers every day, and I heard grandma say to Oney that I had been very good lately, and I have, I know. I learned three hymns yesterday of my own accord."

"Oh! Then, of course, Mrs. Lilly knows all about your running away, and about the pie and all?"

"Why, no," said Fanny, hesitating. "I didn't think it worth while. What would be the use? She thinks it was one of the Wye children, and she may as well think so."

"The use would be that you would be telling the truth instead of telling and acting lies all the time," said Sarah. "Now, it is of no use, Fanny. You know you can't be a Christian in any such way as that. Don't she ever say anything about the pie now?"

"Sometimes."

"And don't she ever ask you, when you come in, where you have been and what you have been doing?"

"Why, yes, she almost always does."

"And then you tell her the truth, I suppose?"

"It is no business of yours what I tell her," replied Fanny, sullenly.

"Maybe not, but it is of yours," said Sarah. "Don't you know, Fanny, the Bible says no one that loves or makes a lie can go to heaven? I remember Aunt Sally's telling me that years ago."

"What makes you want to be a Christian, Sarah? I mean, what sets you to thinking about it?" asked Fanny, trying to turn the conversation.

"Partly the books I have been reading, and partly some old journals and letters of Aunt Sally's that I found in a trunk up in our garret, and partly—well, I don't know that I can tell you if I try. All the best people I know are religious. Pa was going on the other day about pious people being all hypocrites, and says I, 'Pa, where would we have been if pious people had not helped us last winter when you broke your leg?'"

"You would have an awful time with your father," remarked Fanny.

"We have that now," said Sarah.

"And you would have to go to church and Sunday-school and learn your lessons," continued Fanny. "You couldn't run about all day Sunday and weekday as you do now. You wouldn't like that at all."

"I don't think I should mind," said Sarah, thoughtfully. "Running about is all very well, but one may have too much of it. I'll tell you what, Fanny: I will try if you will. Let us go together and tell the old lady all about it, and then we can begin in earnest. She won't be hard on us, I know."

"I can't, I tell you," said Fanny, in an agony of alarm and vexation. "She would whip me, I know, for she said the other day that she never whipped pa but once, and that was for telling lies. And then they would all despise me so. Oh, Sarah, don't! Wait till I go away, and then you can tell her if you like."

"Well, I won't tell of you, only of myself," said Sarah.

"She will get it all out of you, you may be sure. She is so sharp! I am afraid every day, as it is, that she will find me out."

"Don't you suppose God finds you out, Fanny?" asked Sarah, in a low voice. "Don't you think that, for all your hymns and prayers and Bible readings, you are only making believe all the time? Aunt Sally used to say he knew our very inmost thoughts."

"Your aunt was a church-member, wasn't she?" asked Fanny, hoping to divert Sarah's attention. "Mrs. Merrill told me something about her."

"She was a good woman, if ever there was one in this world," said Sarah, with feeling. "If she had lived, I know I should have been very different, but she died when I was only eight. But come, Fanny, let us go and see your grandmother."

"I 'won't'! So there!" exclaimed Fanny. "And if you tell her, I'll run away and go down to Boston all alone. I have got twenty dollars of my own, and I can go on the cars; and I will, Sarah Leyman, if you tell her one word. And besides, you can't tell her to-day," said Fanny, with a sense of sudden relief. "She has gone away, and won't be home till Saturday."

This was not true, for Mrs. Lilly expected to be at home next morning.

"If she isn't at home, of course I can't tell her," said Sarah. "You had better go home now, Fanny. Be sure you tell them that the bull is loose, because he may do some great mischief. Good-night."

Sarah turned and walked rapidly away across the fields.

Fanny watched her for a minute, and then went home. She informed Oney that the bull was loose, that he had chased her and torn her flannel cloak all to pieces, but she never said a word about Sarah Leyman.