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PAGE 3

Old Woman Magoun
by [?]

Presently she heard footsteps behind her; she turned around a little timidly to see who was coming. When she saw a handsome, well-dressed man, she felt reassured. The man came alongside and glanced down carelessly at first, then his look deepened. He smiled, and Lily saw he was very handsome indeed, and that his smile was not only reassuring but wonderfully sweet and compelling.

“Well, little one,” said the man, “where are you bound, you and your dolly?”

“I am going to the store to buy some salt for grandma,” replied Lily, in her sweet treble. She looked up in the man’s face, and he fairly started at the revelation of its innocent beauty. He regulated his pace by hers, and the two went on together. The man did not speak again at once. Lily kept glancing timidly up at him, and every time that she did so the man smiled and her confidence increased. Presently when the man’s hand grasped her little childish one hanging by her side, she felt a complete trust in him. Then she smiled up at him. She felt glad that this nice man had come along, for just here the road was lonely.

After a while the man spoke.”What is your name, little one?” he asked, caressingly.

“Lily Barry.”

The man started.”What is your father’s name?”

“Nelson Barry,” replied Lily.

The man whistled.”Is your mother dead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“How old are you, my dear?”

“Fourteen,” replied Lily.

The man looked at her with surprise.”As old as that?”

Lily suddenly shrank from the man. She could not have told why. She pulled her little hand from his, and he let it go with no remonstrance. She clasped both her arms around her rag doll, in order that her hand should not be free for him to grasp again.

She walked a little farther away from the man, and he looked amused.

“You still play with your doll?” he said, in a soft voice.

“Yes, sir,” replied Lily. She quickened her pace and reached the store.

When Lily entered the store, Hiram Gates, the owner was behind the counter. The only man besides in the store was Nelson Barry. He sat tipping his chair back against the wall; he was half asleep, and his handsome face was bristling with a beard of several days’ growth and darkly flushed. He opened his eyes when Lily entered, the strange man following. He brought his chair down on all fours, and he looked at the man–not noticing Lily at all–with a look compounded of defiance and uneasiness.

“Hullo, Jim!” he said.

“Hullo, old man!” returned the stranger.

Lily went over to the counter and asked for the salt, in her pretty little voice. When she had paid for it and was crossing the store, Nelson Barry was on his feet.

“Well, how are you, Lily?It is Lily, isn’t it?” he said.

“Yes, sir,” replied Lily, faintly.

Her father bent down and, for the first time in her life, kissed her, and the whiskey odor of his breath came into her face.

Lily involuntarily started, and shrank away from him. Then she rubbed her mouth violently with her little cotton handkerchief, which she held gathered up with the rag doll.

“Damn it all!I believe she is afraid of me,” said Nelson Barry, in a thick voice.

“Looks a little like it,” said the other man, laughing.

“It’s that damned old woman,” said Nelson Barry. Then he smiled again at Lily.”I didn’t know what a pretty little daughter I was blessed with,” said he, and he softly stroked Lily’s pink cheek under her hat.

Now Lily did not shrink from him. Hereditary instincts and nature itself were asserting themselves in the child’s innocent, receptive breast.

Nelson Barry looked curiously at Lily.”How old are you, anyway, child?” he asked.