4
THE SEMI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE SECTION
Defiantly demure ... a little jaunty
and to very pale
"Sny," slit said, "do you ever Kit up
there 7"
"Nope," said Jim with serious eyes.
"I 'd never darst to. An' Gram'pu
would n't like it, neither."
"You don't durst to7 'Fraid-cnt! 'Fraid
cat ! Oh, Mister 'Fraid-cat!"
She pointed her fitter half an inch
from his nose; then, she broke and ran.
In a minute she came backiiiK around the
corner of tho stable again, dragging the
step-ladder that had been the lifeboat
when the steamer was wrecked. Jim
helped her to set it against the wall.
"I ain't afraid," he said. "You lemme
go firsi."
"No. I 'm the tallest. You yit under
me an' boost, Jim. There 1 You all ready .'
Now boost. Boost hard !"
Jim did ns he was told, and Carrie went
up in a scramble of waviiiK legs ntl
elutchiiiK fliiKcrs from the top of the lad
der to the top of the wall. She helped
Jim up by the shoulders, and then they
both knelt, clinging to one another and
lookiiiK at the greot depth below. Jim
felt unsteady. High places always seared
him, and as he looked down at the litter
of chips nnd ash-piles and tho thick bur
docks amoiiK them he felt as if he were out
lloatiiiK on a raft, somewhere in the sky.
Mut it just suited Carrie. In half a
minute she hnd found out that they could
get from the high wall to the stable roof :
and so, over sho went, with her pig-tail
tucked in her mouth and Jim after her.
The slope of the shingles was almost too
steep to climb; but they lay on their stom
achs with arms spread out, and wormed
themselves along until they had the ridge
pole safely under their arm-pits.
"Say I" Carrie shouted, tossing her hair
down her back again with a ouiek. hard
head-shake. "Ain't this fun? Like real
adventures? Like climbing mountains, Jim? Say, don't you wish it wis real?"
"M-m-yee-nh," Jim answered rather weakly. "Like elimbin' the Andes
Mountains. Let's us play we're in Peru."
"Sure! Wo'ro in Peru. Say, Jim, do vou darst to stand up 7"
"No!"
Jim had no doubts on that point. Tho houses and yards all looked
(pieer; so far below, with the high fences all thinned nnd" narrow and the
trees without any trunks, onlv tumbled, waving leaves.
" 'Frnid-cat! Oh, Mister 'Fraid-cat !"
In another second Carrie had straddled the ridge; then, she got to her
hands and knees; then, she straightened herself and stood up there against
tho blue sky, shaking her bead till her red pig-tail flapped on her shoulders.
"I 'm goin' to walk to the cuperlow," she shouted.
The cupola was not a rod away; but it looked ten times as far.
" 'Fraid-cat!" Carrie sang to Jim again as she went slowly past him,
walking the very ridge, fitting each heel exactly in front of the toe of the
other foot.
Thnt was more than tho boy coultl stand, lie fixed his eyes on the
shingles, so that ho could not see; and then scared, dumb and white he
pushed himself clumsily to his feet. He could stand, after all unsteadily;
lint he stood. Carrie was at the cupula already. She hardly touched the
clapboards as sho turned, sho was so sure of her footing. Slowly she
started toward him again.
"Carrie! Carrie-ee! Mercy!"
It was a shriek from Carrie's mother. She was crying and waving her
apron on her porch. Jim saw her in a flash; then, his eyes came back to
the roof.
"Don't you look!" he shouted.
But he was too late. Carrie turned and saw her mother. She saw the
yards, too, and tho waving trees and the thin fences below then, the
steep, smooth slant of shingles, and the sickening drop at the eaves. Jim
saw the look of it come on her face before she began to scream. Her yelling
cry shrilled in his ears. Her arms went out. Sho was losing her balance.
Jim heard, nud walked straight to her as if he had not been afraid. She
grabbed at him, and ho caught her arm with his hand and looked her in
the eyes.
"Be you n 'f raid-cat? Bo you a 'fraid-cat? Be you a 'f raid-cat 7"
He kept saying it over. He was not talking loud ; but in a way ho never
had talked slowly, with his eyes half shut. Tho girl's face changed. She
straightened herself, and Jim turned, as sure-footed as if he had been on
tho ground.
"Put your hands on me," he ordered.
Sho did as he said, and they walked back slowly to where they had
climbed the roof. They went down slowly, holding tight to one another,
and landed at the foot of the ladder at last, safe and sound except for four
torn stockings.
"Carrie-ec!" her mother's voice came to them over tho fences.
"Ye-es, Ma!" tho girl called.
She brought her pig-tail over her shoulder again, as she turned to the
boy, nnd stood pulling it nwkwardly.
"Say, Jim," she said. "You you didn't say I uus a 'fraid-cat up
there, did you? That say you know, that was awful good of you, Jim."
Ho had no idea what was coming; but she hugged him all of a sudden,
and gave him a warm, big kiss on the mouth. Then, she ran away. Next day
her mother kept her indoors; the day after, Jim's visit to his grandfather was
over, and after that they did not see each other for sixteen years. But often the
girl would go over to the yard across the street and look for the ocean and the
.jungles and the Andes. And, finding them ordinary dooryard and stable, anil
being n girl of few dreams, she made a great deal of their one daring day of
play-adventures, nnd wished and wished that Jim would come again that Jim
would come, and be with her again, having adventures, and that he would make
it all be real.
II.
AND, IN A WAY, he did. It happened in New York, where anything may
.happen, where indeed almost anything does happen once or twice n year.
Jim came swinging through Forty-first street, bis hands in his overcoat pockets,
a hard winter wind from Jersey blaring in his fnee. It was nearly eight o'clock;
an overtime rehearsal had just let out on Sixth avenue, and the girls of the chorus
were strung all along tho block to Broadway, fluttering and slanted against the
wind like the flags in a battle-picture. Jim forged past them, forded the Broad
way traffic in the lee of a theater that looked like a sunrise, nnd pushed on into
Seventh avenue.
The policeman's whistle shrilled nt the crossing above; the dark mass of
automobiles surged forward at the signal, and then he was in the thick of it
dark shapes, growling, rushing, sWervingy shaking paired lights like horns; quick
glares of glass and metal, humped chauffeurs, bearlike and mountainous, the
flash of a rose-red mantle and a shining throat; gasolene-smell, clacking chains,
shouts, hoots, hoof-beats, and over all a great shaking roar as the trolley-wheels
came down like pounding surf on tho crossing. A north-bound taxi brayed sud
denly, splitting apart a couple close to him. They belonged to the rehearsal
crowd, and the girl was Carrie.
He never would have known her if he had not seen her jump, one hand
thrown out, the way she used to, with a quick, hard headshake. She was very
small. Ho had always supposed she was a tall girl.
"Hello! Say, hello!" he shouted through the racket. "Say, don't yon
know me?"
"No," she answered him coldly, with her head up and her lips pressed tight.
"Yes you do. You 're Carrie "
"Why Jim! Well, of all people and you've grown so! My, you've
grown! Now, don't you keep mo here talking in the street here's a chance "
He tucked her under his arm, whisked her through the breach between a
limousine and a laundry -wagon and landed her on the sidewalk. While they were
still exclaiming nnd looking, a man saved himself from the whizzing Avenue
nnd came up to them.
"Mr. St. Clair, I want you to meet "
(Continued on Page It)
SCENTING BIG GAME
Drawn by Alice Beach Winter
