THE CINDER PATH Read Free Page B

behind him.
    As he moved towards her, Polly turned and came
    towards him, her teeth tightly pressed into her lower
    lip and her eyes full of tears. When they came
    abreast neither of them spoke, nor did they move from
    behind the hedge until the sound of MacFelPs
    voice reached them from the yard; then going quickly on to the path, they bent one on each side of Ginger and
    pulled him upwards.
    "Don't cry, Ginger. Don't cry."
    Ginger's head was deep on his chest and his body was
    trembling, but once on his feet he tugged his arm
    away from Charlie's and turned fully towards
    Polly, and she, putting her arms around him,
    murmured, "Come on down to the burn, the water'11
    cool you."
    Her arm still about him, she led him along the cinder
    path down the slope, past the cottage that
    MacFell had had renovated and furnished,
    supposedly to let to the people who tramped the hills in the summer, and to the bank of the burn.
    "Take your knickerbockers off."
    "No, no!" The boy now grabbed at the top of
    his short trousers.
    "Go on, don't be silly. There's three of them
    back home, I'm used to bare backsides."
    When the boy still kept tight hold of his trousers,
    she said, "All right I'll go but Charlie'll stay
    with you, won't you, Charlie?"
    It pointed to a strange relationship that the daughter
    of the one time cowman could address the master's son in a way other than as young Master MacFell or
    Mister Charlie, and that she was the only one connected with the farm, besides his parents and sister, who did
    address him so.
    "Yes, yes, Polly."
    "I... I don't want to take "em off."
    Ginger sniffed, then wiped his wet face with the back of his hand. "I'll . . . I'll just put me legs
    in."
    "All right, have it your own way. But wait a
    tick till I take me boots off an" I'll
    give you a hand down the bank."
    With a speed that characterized all her movements,
    Polly dropped on to the grass and rapidly
    unlaced her boots, stood up again, shortened her
    skirt by turning in the waistband several times, then,
    her arm around Ginger once more, she helped him down the bank; and when their feet touched the ice-cold water
    the contact forced her into momentary laughter.
    Glancing up the bank at Charlie, she cried,
    "It would freeze mutton," and almost in the same breath she went on, "come on, a bit further,
    Ginger, get it over your knees. And here, let me
    get the grit off your hands."
    As if she were attending to a child, and not to a boy almost two years her senior, she gently flapped the
    water over his grit-studded palms, saying as she
    did so, "They're not bleedin' much, it's your knees that are the worse. . . . There, is that better? It
    gets warm after you've been in a minute. Feel
    better, eh?" She lowered her head and, turning it
    to the side, looked into his face, and he nodded at
    her and said, "Aye, Polly."
    A few minutes later she helped him up the
    bank, although he now seemed able to walk unaided, and
    when he sat down on the grass she sat close beside
    him; then, her round, plump face straight, her
    wide full lips pressed tight, she stared
    up at Charlie for a moment before saying, "You know what I'd like to do? I'd like to take your da and kick him
    from here to hell along a road all made of
    cinders."
    Looking down into the angry green eyes, Charlie
    was prompted to say, "And I'd like to help you do it,"
    but all he did was to turn his gaze away towards the
    burn, until she
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    said, "I don't blame you; you know I don't,
    Charlie ... Sit down, man."
    As if he, too, were obeying the order from an
    older person, Charlie, like Ginger, did as she
    bade him and sat down, and as he watched her dabbing
    at Ginger's knees with the inside of her print skirt
    he wished, and in all sincerity, it had been he himself who had suffered the cinder path this morning, just so he could be the recipient of her attentions.
    He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't
    loved Polly Benton. He was three years old
    when big Polly first brought her into