LITMIR.BIZ

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alert gaze singled out one—an elderly man wearing, of all things, a pair of stained overalls and a battered old straw-hat. He was pacing about nervously, a distraught look on his weather-beaten face, when Miss Addie moved to his side with the casual air of a good hostess drifting about among her guests.

      “Can I get you something, sir?” she asked in that caroling voice like a songbird’s. “Do sit down by the fire and rest yourself. You mustn’t fret. Really, there’s nothing to worry about . . . now.”

      The old man, a farmer from his speech and dress, gave her a quick, seemingly desperate look, twisting his gnarled hands together.

      “Ma’m—how’d I git here?” he blurted all at once, in a voice edged with hysteria. “I . . . I don’t recollect nothin’ . . . ! Except, I went out to put the cow in the barn, h’it was a-rainin’ so hard. And then that sharp pain struck me, right here in the chest! I called to Sarah, that’s m’ sister, she’s bedridden . . . And I kinda remember walking along some dark road or other . . . Then, all at once, I’m here! . . . Who . . . ? Where . . . ? I got to git back to Sarah! She can’t do for herself! She’s paralyzed . . . !”

      “There, there.” Miss Addie’s quiet voice edged into his outburst, like a lark’s singing in a lull of gunfire. “You mustn’t be frightened or worried about your sister. Someone will take care of her. I’ll phone the county health officer, if you’ll tell me your name and address. . . .”

      “Wilkins. I got a little farm,” the man blurted out eagerly. “Two mile east of Hopper’s Ferry, on Highway 6. There’s . . . there’s just me and m’ sister. But I got a boy in Atlanta! He’d come a-runnin’ if he knew his aunt . . . if he knew I . . . No!” He shook his head stubbornly. “No, I got to git back some way! There’s the stock, and there’s my crop o’ cotton. . . .”

      “Please.” The mistress of Faraday House spoke again, melting his hysteria with gentleness. “You must get hold of yourself. And . . . you must realize that you can’t go back. You can only go . . . on, Mr. Wilkins.”

      Frankly eavesdropping, Tom and Jean stared at each other in blank astonishment. Why couldn’t this frantic old farmer go back to his work and his bedridden sister? Why was Miss Addie telling him that in such a sad, gentle manner? Her soothing voice was insistent, almost hypnotic. Under its spell, a drowsy peace pervaded the room. Its occupants stopped shifting about. Voices lowered to a calmer pitch. . . .

      Jean started. Something like a chill breeze had brushed her bare arm. Looking down, she was aware of a thin, hollow-eyed little girl, about seven years old, staring up at her with an almost terrifying intensity. She was wearing. . . . Jean gasped. Why, the child had on a pink flannel nightgown, and was barefooted! Perhaps she had wandered downstairs, she decided quickly, away from sleeping parents yet unaware that she had slipped out of bed.

      The child’s lips parted slowly in a vague, wistful smile.

      “Are . . . are you my mother?” she whispered unexpectedly. “Daddy said I would . . . would see my Mommy soon! But I don’t . . .” The thin mouth quivered. “I don’t know what she looks like! She went away when I was borned, and . . . and there was only a snapshot Daddy had. Her hair was long and goldy, like yours!” she added, hopefully. “You do look kind of like the picture. . . !”

      Jean’s heart contracted. She reached out to gather the child into her embrace. Poor little thing, she thought fiercely. Deserted once by her mother, and now tossed back to her by a father who evidently did not want her either. . . ! Her reaching hands almost touched the thin arms. But shyly, fearfully, the little girl backed away at her words:

      “Darling—no. No, I’m not your Mommy . . . But aren’t you cold, running around in your little nightgown and bare feet?” Jean smiled and held out a hand coaxingly. “Come let me take you back up to your room. Is your Daddy asleep upstairs? Does he know you’ve slipped out. . . ?”

      The child’s dark eyes stared up at her. The pale lips puckered—with disappointment, or bewilderment, or something Jean could not define.

      “I . . . don’t know where my Daddy is, either!” she whimpered, near tears. “He was at the hospital, right by my bed. And he . . . he was crying! And telling me about my Mommy, about how I’d be seeing her soon . . . You’re sure you’re not my . . . ?” she asked again, with pathetic eagerness.

      Tom and Jean exchanged a helpless look, torn with pity.

      At that instant, Miss Addie drifted over to them, smiling kindly from the child to Jean in a way that puzzled the newlyweds.

      “Look over there in that glass case!” the old lady said cheerily to the little girl. “It’s just chock- full of china dollies I used to play with, when I was a little girl! That’s the one. Yes! . . .” As the child, bemused, moved toward the cabinet across the room, the old lady sighed. “Oh dear!” she murmured. “It’s always like this with the children.

      Unless someone who’s gone . . . on ahead comes back for them, to show them the way. Did she mention a mother?” Miss Addie asked hopefully.

      “Why . . . why, yes!” Jean and Tom, over the silvery head, exchanged a shocked look. “A mother who deserted her as a baby! Who’s supposed to meet her and . . . Look,” Jean snapped. “You don’t mean that poor little tike has nobody with her? She’s traveling alone?”

      “Most of them are.” Miss Addie shrugged cryptically. “That’s . . . that’s why they stop here. Because they can’t go back, of course—and they’re afraid to go on. You’re two of the lucky ones!” Her faded blue eyes traveled sadly from Tom to Jean. “You’re together, so it isn’t as . . . confusing. Oh mercy!” She broke off, fluttering her ivory fan in delicate agitation. “Can’t you take the child on with you, if no one comes for her? The older ones do that, lots of times. Really, she’d be no trouble.”

      Jean gaped at her. “Take . . . ? You’re asking us to . . . ?”

      She broke off, startled, as wind or a sudden freshet of rain clattered a window of the firelit room. Glancing toward the sound, the honeymooners pointed and cried out at sight of a dim face pressed against the panes—a woman’s face, framed by long flowing hair the color of Jean’s.

      At their exclamation, the little girl, peeking forlornly at Miss Addie’s doll-collection, turned. An expression of wonder and delight illuminated her thin features at sight of the face outside the window.

      “Mommy! There’s my Mommy . . . ! I’d know her anywhere . . . !”

      The words seemed torn from her, a glad cry, trailing after her as she pelted, barefoot, into the hall. The dim face vanished from the window, and Jean and Tom heard the front door open and close. But what amazed them most was the look of beaming complacence on the face of old Miss Faraday, fluttering her dainty fan with a new composure.

      “Well,” the old lady said in pleased voice, “that’s settled. And now, if I can only make that poor Mr. Wilkins understand! Saul tells me I simply can’t afford any more long-distance calls, or I’d just phone that son of his in Atlanta . . . Hmm. There must be someway to help . . . !”

      Pursing her wrinkled lips, Miss Addie bustled across the room to another guest—a disheveled youth with a nasty-looking bruise on his forehead. The honeymooners glanced at each other sharply as the old lady’s clear, birdlike tones drifted to their ears:

      “Young man . . . ? Are you quite comfortable? Is there anything you’d like? Anyone I can . . . notify?”

      The boy, a defiant look on his face, glared up at her from where he sat, hunched on a brocade loveseat. He reached into his sport jacket, mouth quivering, then searched another pocket, muttering under his breath.

      “Nah!” he snarled. “How’d I get here? Tell me that! I know when my jalopy blew a tire . . . but after that, I . . . I . . . Who brought me here? What kind of a joint is

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