Sound of the Trumpet Read Free

turning a baleful glance at the blue-eyed boy again. “Look at what you have done! Now I’ll have it back on you. These were absolutely new stockings and shoes, and you’ve simply ruined them! And you did it just for spite. You shan’t hear the last of this in quite a while! And I was going to luncheon this noon! How unbearable! Well, you’ll have plenty of chance to think this over in jail and be ready to apologize, and then
work
after you get out to pay for them, too! It’ll cost you plenty!”
    Suddenly the big lowering man turned on her.
    “You’re all wrong, ma’am! You’re completely off base! You’re barking up the wrong tree! That kid didn’t sling that mud on you. I done it myself, and I’m
glad
I did, do ye hear? If you don’t know enough to get out of the way when you’re hindering our work, it’s too bad for you! And if you stick around here any longer, I’ll do it again! Now, get out of the way, unless you want some more of the same kind, and I don’t mean mebbe! You can go talk to the water company if you want, but you can’t get nothing on us.
We’re
not the water company! We’re just volunteers, passersby, helping out in an emergency! The head man of the water company is standing over there in the road in the middle of all that water. If you want to talk to anyone, paddle over there and talk to him. Now,
scram
!”
    Mrs. Gately blinked and spluttered at the man, her face livid with anger.
    “Why—you—you—outrageous creature!” she shrieked. “Who are you, anyway? To speak that way to a
lady
!”
    “Oh, is that what you are? Okay, boys, sling your mud. The ‘lady’
asks
for it!”
    He stooped to drop his shovel into deepest mud and turned with the evident purpose of planting an ample quantity straight on the tidy little Gately feet. Suddenly Mrs. Gately started screaming and trying to back out of the crowd, but by this time the crowd had closed up behind her and there seemed no way through. Then the lowering man and a couple like-minded evil conspirators, seeing their chance, slung a goodly portion of wet dirt over the imported feet. The furious woman, raising a frantic howl, took a slide on the muddy pavement and sat down with her imported frock in a very wet puddle, till a gentleman, not really knowing what it was all about, reached a helping hand and drew her, spluttering and resisting, back against the wall.
    Somebody took pity on the poor lady and hustled her off to a car and to her home, and the crowd soon dispersed. But Lisle Kingsley, following her mother across the street, gave one more glance back at the blue-eyed boy as she turned away, her own smile still on her lips. She felt somehow that they were friends, she and that young man, and the thought of him lingered with her as she went on her way.
    John Sargent, as he turned and looked after her furtively, wondered if he would ever see that girl again. He felt a warm, friendly comfort from her smile on a day that had started in anything but a pleasant way.
    Then suddenly he heard the words of the two men working next to him. They had paused in their work and were gazing after the girl.
    “That’s old Kingsley’s kid,” one of them said, the lowering one who had been so disagreeable to Mrs. Gately.
    “Say, is that right?” asked the other one of those who had assisted in the mud slinging. “She’s some looker all right! You didn’t hear
her
making a fuss about the mud, either, and I bet she has as many ‘imported’ shoes and ‘fwocks’ as the old dame.”
    He twisted his face and his voice into a clever imitation of Mrs. Gately’s expressions and tones, and the rest of the gang laughed roughly and cast appraising glances after the pretty girl who was skirting the wet places and crossing the road.
    So, that was who she was, thought John Sargent. Daughter of a very rich man! He had heard of him. He turned a furtive look over his shoulder and took in with a swift glance the sign that glittered goldenly in the