THE WISHING MOON
 
 " 'Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me?
 
 THE 
 WISHING MOON 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE DUTTON 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 "THE GODDESS GIRL" 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 EVERETT SHINN 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1916
 
 Copyright, 1916, by 
 LOUISE BUTTON 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 COPYRIGHT, I9l6, THE METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE COMPANY
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " ' Oh, Judith, won't you speak to me ? ' ' Frontispiece 
 (See page 239) 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 *'*! know what this means,' she asserted" . . 128 
 
 "' Shut your eyes'" 166 
 
 " ' Judith, you don't hate me? Say it say it ' " 180
 
 THE WISHING MOON
 
 The Wishing Moon 
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 A LITTLE girl sat on the worn front door- 
 steps of the Randall house. She sat very 
 still and straight, with her short, white 
 skirts fluffed daintily out on both sides, her hands 
 tightly clasped over her thin knees, and her long, 
 silk-stockinged legs cuddled tight together. She 
 was bare-headed, and her short, soft hair showed 
 silvery blonde in the fading light. Her hair was 
 bobbed. For one miserable month it had been 
 the only bobbed head in Green River. Her big, 
 gray-green eyes had a fugitive, dancing light in 
 them. The little girl had beautiful eyes. 
 
 The little girl was Miss Judith Devereux Ran- 
 dall. She was eleven years old, and she felt 
 happier to-night than she remembered feeling 
 in all the eleven years of her life. 
 
 The Randalls' lawn was hedged with a fringe of 
 lilac and syringa bushes, with one great, spreading 
 horse-chestnut tree at the corner. The house did 
 not stand far back from the street. The little 
 
 3
 
 4 The Wishing Moon 
 
 girl could see a generous section of Main Street 
 sloping past, dark already under shadowing trees. 
 The street was empty. It was half-past six, and 
 supper-time in Green River, but the Randalls did 
 not have supper, they dined at night, like the 
 Everards. To-night mother and father were 
 dining with the Everards, and the little girl had 
 plans of her own. 
 
 Father was dressed, and waiting, shut in the 
 library. Mother was dressing in her big corner 
 room upstairs, with all the electric lights lighted. 
 The little girl could see them, if she turned her 
 head, but mother was very far away, in spite of 
 that, for her door was locked, and you could not 
 go in. You could not watch her brush her long, 
 wonderful hair, or help her into her evening gown. 
 Mother's evening gown was black this summer, 
 with shiny spangles a fairy gown. Mother had 
 to be alone while she dressed, because she was go- 
 ing to the Everards'. 
 
 There were two Everards, the Colonel, who was 
 old because his hair was white, and his wife, who 
 wore even more beautiful clothes than mother. 
 She had heard her father say that the Colonel had 
 made the town, and she had heard Norah, the 
 cook, say that he owned the town. She had an 
 idea that these two things were not quite the same, 
 though they sounded alike, for father was fond of
 
 The Wishing Moon 5 
 
 the Colonel, and Norah was not. At any rate, he 
 was president of the bank father and Norah 
 agreed about that and he lived in a house at the 
 edge of the town, in what used to be a part of 
 Larribees' woods. Father used to go Mayflower- 
 ing there, but now nobody could. 
 
 The house was ugly, with things sticking out all 
 over it, towers and balconies and cupolas, and it 
 was the little girl's twin. She was born the year 
 the Everards settled in Green River. 
 
 "And you're marked with it," Norah said, in 
 one of their serious talks, when Mollie, the second 
 girl, was out, and the two had the kitchen to them- 
 selves. Norah was peeling apples for a pie, and 
 allowing her unlimited ginger-snaps, straight from 
 the jar. " Marked with it, Miss Judy." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "That house, and what goes on in it." 
 
 "What does go on?" 
 
 "You'll know soon enough." 
 
 "I'm not marked with it. I've got a birth- 
 mark, but it's a strawberry, on my left side, like 
 the princesses have in the fairy tales." 
 
 "You are a kind of a princess, Miss Judy." 
 
 "Is that a bad thing to be, Nana? " 
 
 "It's a lonesome thing." 
 
 "My strawberry's fading. Mother says it will 
 go away."
 
 6 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "It won't go away. What we're born to be, we 
 
 will be, Miss Judy . Bless your heart, you're 
 
 crying, with the big eyes of you. What for, dear? " 
 
 "I don't know. I don't want to be a princess. 
 I don't want to be lonesome. I hate the Ever- 
 ards." 
 
 "Well, there's many to say that now, and 
 there'll be more to say it soon." Norah muttered 
 this darkly, into her yellow bowl of apples, but 
 Judith heard: "Here, eat this apple, child. You 
 musn't hate anybody." 
 
 " I do. I hate the Everards." 
 
 Queer things came into your head to say when 
 you were talking with Norah, who had an aunt 
 with the second sight, and told beautiful fairy 
 tales herself, and even believed in fairies; Judith 
 did not. The Everards gave Judith and no other 
 little girl in town presents at Christmas, and in- 
 vited Judith and no other little girl to lunch. 
 They had a great deal to do with her trouble, her 
 serious trouble, which she would not discuss even 
 with Norah. But she did not really hate the Ever- 
 ards certainly not to-night. She was too happy. 
 
 Judith was going out to hang May-baskets. 
 
 So was every other little girl in town who wanted 
 to, and it was a wonderful thing to be doing to- 
 night. It was really May night, by the weather 
 as well as the calendar the kind of night that
 
 The Wishing Moon 7 
 
 Norah's fairies meant should come on the first of 
 May: warm, with a tiny chill creeping into the 
 air as the dark came, a pleasant, shivery chill, as 
 if there might really be fairies or ghosts about. 
 It was still and clear. One star, that had just 
 come up above the horse-chestnut tree, looked very 
 small and bright and close, as if it had climbed up 
 into the sky out of the dark, clustering leaves of the 
 tree. 
 
 This was the star that Judith usually wished on, 
 but she could wish on the moon to-night; Norah 
 had told her so; wish once instead of three nights 
 running, and get her wish whether she thought of 
 the red fox's tail or not. The new moon of May 
 was a wishing moon. 
 
 A wishing moon! The small white figure on the 
 steps cuddled itself into a smaller heap. Judith 
 sighed happily and closed her eyes. She was 
 going with the others. She had her wish already. 
 
 It was Judith's great trouble that she was not 
 like other little girls. Until she was six Judith 
 had a vague idea that she was the only child in 
 the world. Then she tried to make friends with 
 two small, dirty girls over the back fence, and 
 found out that there were other children, but she 
 must not play with them. One day Norah found 
 her crying in the nursery because she could not 
 think what to play, and soon after Willard Nash,
 
 8 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the fat little boy next door, came to dinner and 
 into her life, and after that, Eddie and Natalie 
 Ward, from the white house up the street, and 
 Lorena Drew, from over the river. Still other 
 children came to her parties, so many that she 
 could not remember their names. Then Judith's 
 trouble began. She was not like them. 
 
 She did not look like them; her clothes were not 
 made by a seamstress, but came from city shops, 
 and had shorter skirts, and stuck out in different 
 places. She could not do what they did; Mollie 
 called for her at nine at evening parties, and she 
 usually had to go to bed half an hour after dinner, 
 before it was dark. She had to do things that they 
 did not do: make grown-up calls with her mother 
 and wear gloves, and take lessons in fancy dancing 
 instead of going to dancing school. 
 
 But she had gone to school now for almost a 
 year, a private school in the big billiard-room at 
 the Larribees', but a real school, with other chil- 
 dren in it. They did not make fun of her clothes, 
 or the way she pronounced her words, very often 
 now. She belonged to a secret society with Rena 
 and Natalie. She had spent one night with 
 Natalie, though she had to come home before 
 breakfast. The other children did not know she 
 was different, but Judith knew. 
 
 Unexpected things might be required of her at
 
 The Wishing Moon 9 
 
 a moment's notice: to be excused from school 
 and pass cakes at a tea at the Everards'; to leave 
 a picnic before the potatoes were roasted, because 
 Mollie had appeared, inexorable; unaccountable 
 things, but she was to be safe to-night. May 
 night was not such a wonderful night for any little 
 girl as it was for Judith. 
 
 The lights were on in Nashs' parlour, and not 
 turned off in the dining-room, which meant 
 that the rest of the family were not through sup- 
 per, but Willard was. Presently she heard three 
 loud, unmelodious whistles, his private signal, and 
 a stocky figure pushed itself through a gap in the 
 hedge which looked, and was, too small for it, and 
 Judith rubbed her eyes and sat up it crossed the 
 lawn to her. 
 
 " Good morning, Merry Sunshine," said Willard, 
 ironically. 
 
 "I wasn't asleep." 
 
 "You were." 
 
 "I heard you coming." 
 
 "You did not." 
 
 "I did so." 
 
 These formalities over, she made room for him 
 eagerly on the steps. Willard looked fatter to 
 Judith after a meal, probably because she knew 
 how much he ate. His clean collar looked much 
 too clean and white in the dark, and he was evi-
 
 10 The Wishing Moon 
 
 dently in a teasing mood, but such as he was, he 
 was her best friend, and she needed him. 
 
 " Willard, guess what I'm going to do?" 
 
 "I don't know, kid." Willard's tone implied 
 unmistakably that he did not want to know. 
 
 "To-night!" 
 
 Judith's voice thrilled. Willard stared at her. 
 Her eyes looked wider than usual, and very bright. 
 She was smiling a strange little smile, and a rare 
 dimple, which he really believed she had made with 
 a slate pencil, showed in her cheek. The light in 
 her face was something new to him, something he 
 did not understand, and therefore being of mascu- 
 line mind, wished to remove. 
 
 "You're going to miss it to-night for one thing, 
 kid," he stated deliberately. 
 
 "Oh, am I?" Judith dimpled and glowed. 
 
 "We're going to stay out until ten. Vivie's 
 not going." Willard's big sister had chaperoned 
 the expedition the year before. Now it was to go 
 out unrestrained into the night. 
 
 "That's lovely." 
 
 Willard searched his brain for more overwhelm- 
 ing details. 
 
 "We've got a dark lantern." 
 
 "That's nice." 
 
 "I got it. It's father's. He won't miss it. 
 It's hidden in the Drews' barn. We're going to
 
 The Wishing Moon 11 
 
 meet at the Drews, to fool them. They'll be 
 watching the Wards'." 
 
 "They will?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 "The paddies?" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 Judith drew an awed, ecstatic breath. He was 
 touching now on the chief peril and charm of the 
 expedition. Hanging May-baskets, conferring an 
 elaborately-made gift upon a formal acquaintance, 
 was not the object of it nothing so philanthropic; 
 it was the escape after you had hung them. You 
 went out for adventure, to ring the bell and get 
 away, to brave the dangers of the night in small, 
 intimate companies. And the chief danger, which 
 you fled from through the dark, was the paddies. 
 
 She did not know much about them. She 
 would not show her ignorance by asking questions. 
 But there were little boys with whom a state of 
 war existed. They chased you, even fought with 
 you, made a systematic attempt to steal your 
 May-baskets. They were mixed up in her mind 
 with gnomes and pirates. She was deliciously 
 afraid of them. She hardly thought they had 
 human faces. She understood that they were 
 most of them Irish, and that it was somehow a 
 disgrace for them to be Irish, though her own 
 Norah was Irish and proud of it.
 
 12 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Sure!" said Willard. "Irish boys. Paddies 
 from Paddy Lane. Ed got a black eye last year. 
 We'll get back at them. It will be some evening." 
 Judith did not look jealous or wistful yet. "The 
 whole crowd's going." 
 
 "Yes, I know," thrilled Judith. "Oh, Wil- 
 lard " 
 
 "Oh, Willard," he mimicked. Judith pro- 
 nounced all the letters hi his name, which was not 
 the popular method. "Oh, Willard, what do you 
 think I heard Viv say to the Gaynor girl about 
 you?" 
 
 "Don't know. Willard, won't the paddies see 
 the dark lantern?" 
 
 "Viv said you were as pretty as a doll, but just 
 as stiff and stuck-up," pronounced Willard sternly. 
 "And your father's only the cashier of the bank, 
 and just because the Everards have taken your 
 mother up is no reason for her to put on airs and 
 get a second girl and get into debt " 
 
 He broke off, discouraged. Judith did not 
 appear to hear him. After the masculine habit, 
 as he could not control the situation, he rose to 
 leave. 
 
 "Well, so long, kid. I've got to go to the 
 post-office." 
 
 Even the mention of this desirable rendezvous, 
 which was denied to her because Mollie always
 
 The Wishing Moon 13 
 
 brought home the evening mail in a black silk 
 bag, did not dim the dancing light in Judith's 
 eyes. She put a hand on his sleeve. 
 
 "Willard -- " 
 
 "Well, kid?" 
 
 "Willard, don't you wish I was going to-night?" 
 
 "What for, to fight the paddies, or carry the 
 dark lantern?" 
 
 "I could fight," said Judith, with a little quiver 
 in her voice, as if she could. 
 
 " Fight? You couldn't even run away. They'd" 
 Willard hissed it mysteriously "they'd get 
 you." 
 
 "No, they wouldn't, because" something had 
 happened to her eyes, so that they did not look 
 tantalizing "you'd take care of me, Willard," 
 she announced surprisingly, "wouldn't you?" 
 
 "Forget it," murmured Willard, flattered. 
 
 "Wouldn't you?" 
 
 "Willard!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well I am. Father made mother let me. 
 I'm going with you." 
 
 The words she had been trying to say were out 
 at last in a hushed voice, because her heart was 
 beating hard, but they sounded beautiful to her, 
 Kke a kind of song. Perhaps Willard heard it,
 
 14 The Wishing Moon 
 
 too. He really was her best friend, and lie did not 
 look so fat, after all, in the twilight. She waited 
 breathlessly. 
 
 "You are?" 
 
 Judith nodded. She could not speak. 
 
 "Well!" Willard's feelings were mixed, his 
 face was not fashioned to express a conflict of 
 emotions, and words failed him, too. "You're 
 a queer kid. Why didn't you tell me before? " 
 
 "Aren't you glad, Willard?" 
 
 "You'll get sleepy." 
 
 "Aren't you glad?" 
 
 "Sure I'm glad. But you can't run, and you 
 are a cry-baby." 
 
 These were known facts, not insults, but now 
 Judith's eyes had stopped dancing. 
 
 "Judy, are you mad with me?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "You're the queerest kid." Up the street, he 
 caught sight of a member of a simpler sex than 
 Judith's. "There's Ed coming out of the gate. 
 I've got to see him about something. See you 
 later. Don't be mad. So long!" 
 
 The house was astir behind Judith. Father 
 was opening and shutting doors, and hunting for 
 things. Nbrah was helping mother into her wraps 
 and scolding. Somebody was telephoning. Moth- 
 er's carriage was late.
 
 The Wishing Moon 15 
 
 But it was turning into the yard now, a big, 
 black hack from the Inn, with a white horse. 
 Judith liked white horses best. The front door 
 opened, and her father, very tall and blond, with 
 his shirt-front showing white, and her mother, 
 with something shiny in her black hair, swept out. 
 
 "Look who's here," said her father, and picked 
 her up with his hands under her elbows. "Go- 
 ing to paint the town red to-night, son? " 
 
 "Red?" breathed Judith. How strong father 
 was, and how beautiful mother was. She smelled 
 of the perfume in the smallest bottle on the toilet- 
 table. How kind they both were. "Red?" 
 
 "Harry, you see she doesn't care a thing about 
 going. She'd be better off in bed. Careful, 
 baby! Your hair is catching on my sequins. Put 
 her down, Harry. You'll spoil the shape of her 
 shoulders some day." 
 
 " Don't you want to go, son?" 
 
 "I" Judith choke'd, "I " 
 
 "Well, she's not crazy about it, is she?" 
 
 "Then do send her to bed." 
 
 "No, you can't break your promise to a child, 
 Minna." 
 
 "Prig," said mother sweetly, as if a prig were a 
 pleasant thing to be. "All right, let her go, then. 
 Oh, Harry, look at that horse. They've sent us 
 the knock-kneed old white corpse again."
 
 16 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Mother hurried him into the carriage, and it 
 clattered out of the yard. They did not look 
 back. They were always in a hurry, and rather 
 cross when they went to the Everards. For once 
 she was glad to see them go, such a dreadful crisis 
 had come and passed. How could father think 
 she did not want to go, father who used to hang 
 May-baskets himself? Norah was calling her, 
 but she did not answer. Norah was cross to-night. 
 She did not know how happy Judith was. 
 
 Nobody knew, but now Judith did not want to 
 tell. She did not want sympathy. She was not 
 lonely. This secret was too important to tell. 
 And, before her eyes, a lovely and comforting thing 
 was happening, silently and suddenly, as lovely 
 things do happen. Quite still on the steps, a 
 white little figure, alone in a preoccupied world, 
 but calm in spite of it, Judith looked and looked. 
 
 Above the horse-chestnut tree, so filmy and faint 
 that the star looked brighter than ever, so pale 
 that it was not akin to the stars or the flickering 
 lights in the street, but to the dark beyond, where 
 adventures were, so friendly and sweet that it 
 could make the wish in your heart come true, 
 whether you were clever enough to wish it out 
 loud or not, hung the wishing moon.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 A SMALL, silent procession was edging its 
 way along Church Street, darkly silhou- 
 etted against a faintly starred sky. It was 
 a long hour later now, and looked later still on 
 Church Street. There were few lights left in the 
 string of houses near the white church, at the lower 
 end of the street, and here, at the upper end, there 
 were no lights but the one street lamp near the 
 railroad bridge that arched black overhead, and 
 there were few houses. The street did not look 
 like a street at all, but a country road, and a 
 muddy one. 
 
 The narrow board sidewalk creaked, so the 
 procession avoided it, and stuck to the muddy 
 side of the road. 
 
 The procession looked mysterious enough, even 
 if you were walking at the tail of it and carrying a 
 heavy market basket; if you had to smell the lan- 
 tern, swung just in front of you, but did not have 
 the fun of carrying it; if a shaker cloak, hooded and 
 picturesque, in the procession, hampered your 
 activities; if you had questions to ask, and no- 
 body answered you. 
 
 17
 
 18 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Willard." 
 
 "Sh!" 
 
 One by one, they came into sight, in the waver- 
 ing light of the street lamp, and melted into the 
 dark under the bridge; Ed, in his white sweater, 
 captaining them, and keenly aware of it; Rena and 
 Natalie, with the larger market basket between 
 them; Willard, bulky in two sweaters, and ten- 
 derly shielding his lantern with a third, and Judith. 
 Her face showed pale with excitement against the 
 scarlet of her hood. One hand plucked vainly at 
 Willard's sleeve; he stalked on, and would not 
 turn. Only these five, but they had consulted 
 and organized and reorganized for half an hour in 
 the Drews' barn before they started, and had 
 hung only three May-baskets yet. However, the 
 adventure was under way now. 
 
 "Willard, now it's my turn to carry the lantern." 
 
 "Judy, you can't.'* 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "It might explode." The feeble flame gave 
 one dispirited upward spurt at this encourage- 
 ment, causing excitement in front. 
 
 "Oh, Ed!" 
 
 "Ed, make him put it out." 
 
 "Rena and Nat, you keep still. Judy's not 
 scared, are you Judy?" 
 
 "No! Oh, no!"
 
 The Wishing Moon 19 
 
 "The lantern's a sick looking sight, and he can 
 carry it if he wants to, but we don't need it." 
 
 "I like that. You tried to get me to let you 
 carry it, Ed." 
 
 "Don't talk so much." 
 
 "Who started the talk?" 
 
 "Well, who's running this, anyway you, Wil- 
 lardNash?" 
 
 "There's a dog in that house." 
 
 "Sh!" 
 
 " But that dog's only a cocker spaniel. He can't 
 >hurt you." 
 
 "Judy,sh!" 
 
 Sh ! Somebody was always saying that. It was 
 part of the ceremony, which had been the same all 
 three times. The procession was halting opposite 
 the Nealy house. A whispered quarrel started 
 every time they approached a house, and was 
 hushed halfway through and not taken up again. 
 The quarrel and the hush were part of the cere- 
 mony, too. 
 
 The Nealy house was small and harmless look- 
 ing, and entirely dark, but they did not allow that 
 to make them reckless. They stood looking 
 warily across the dark street. 
 
 "But there's nobody there. Maggie Nealy's 
 out, too, to-night, and her mother 
 
 "Sh!" Willard put a hand over Judith s mouth.
 
 20 The Wishing Moon 
 
 It smelled of kerosene, and she struggled, but did 
 not make a noise. Just at this dramatic moment 
 the Nealy's dog barked. 
 
 Judith could hear her heart beat and feel her 
 damp feet getting really wet and cold. 
 
 "Now," Ed whispered, close to her ear and un- 
 comfortably loud, and she fumbled in her basket. 
 Willard jiggled the lantern dizzily over her shoulder, 
 tissue paper tore under her fingers, and bonbons 
 rattled. Hanging May-baskets was certainly hard 
 on the May-baskets, and they were so pretty; pale 
 coloured, like flowers. 
 
 "I can't find the right one. The marks are all 
 falling off. The candy's falling out." 
 
 "We can't stand here all night. Here 
 
 "Willard, take your hands out. Not that 
 one " 
 
 "Willard and Judy stop fighting. That one 
 will do. I'm going." 
 
 There was dead silence now, and Ed, clutching 
 the wreck of a sizable crepe-paper creation to the 
 bosom of his white sweater, doubled into a crouch- 
 ing, boy scout attitude, crossed the road, and ap- 
 proached the house. Nothing but his own com- 
 mendable caution delayed his approach. The 
 small dog's dreams within were untroubled now. 
 There were no signs of life. 
 
 He reached the front door, deposited the May-
 
 The Wishing Moon 21 
 
 basket with a force that further demolished it, 
 and took to his heels. After another breathless 
 wait the procession formed behind him and 
 trailed after him up the road, hilly here, so that 
 the market basket grew heavier. 
 
 "Some evening," Willard murmured to himself, 
 not the rest of the world, but he sounded amiable. 
 
 "Willard." 
 
 "Well, kid." 
 
 "There wasn't anybody in that house. Ed 
 knew it." 
 
 "There might have been. They might have 
 come home." 
 
 "But they didn't . . . Willard, is this all 
 there is to it?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Hanging May-baskets. Throwing them down 
 that way. I thought maybe they really hung 
 them, on the doorknob I thought " 
 
 "Silly! Ed's going cross lots, and up the wood 
 road to Larribees'. Good work. That will throw 
 them off the track." 
 
 "Throw who off the track?" 
 
 " You scared ? Want to go home ? " 
 
 "Oh, no! But who? There's nobody chasing 
 us. Nobody." 
 
 "No. We've got them fooled. It's some 
 evening."
 
 22 The Wishing Moon 
 
 " Willard, where are the paddies?" 
 
 That was the question Judith had been wanting 
 to ask more and more, for an hour, but it came in 
 a choked voice, and nobody heard. They were 
 plunging into a rough and stubbly wood lot, and 
 hushing each other excitedly. Twigs caught at 
 Judith's skirt, and it was hard to see your way, 
 with the moon, small and high above the trees in 
 Larribee's woods, only making the trees look 
 darker. The wood road was little used and over- 
 grown. 
 
 " If they get us in here ! " 
 
 "They won't, Willard." Judith's voice trem- 
 bled. 
 
 "Cry-baby!" 
 
 "I am not." 
 
 "Here, buck up. We're coming out right here, 
 back of the carriage house. If Ed catches you 
 crying he'll send you home." 
 
 But Ed had his mind upon higher things. "You 
 girls stay here with the baskets. Don't move. 
 Willard, you go right and I'll go left, and we'll 
 meet at the carriage-house steps, if the coast is 
 clear." 
 
 "If they get us " 
 
 If! The boys crunched out of hearing on the 
 gravel, awesome silence set in, and Rena and 
 Natalie whispered; Judith was not to be awed.
 
 The Wishing Moon 23 
 
 Four May-baskets hung, and nobody objecting; 
 dark cross-streets chosen instead of Main Street 
 and no danger pursuing them there. If there was 
 no danger in the whole town, why should there be 
 in one little strip of woods, though it was dark and 
 strange, and full of whispering noises? Judith 
 had clung to Willard's hand in terror, turning 
 into the cross-streets, and nothing came of it. 
 She was not to be fooled any longer. There was 
 no danger. 
 
 Not that she wanted to be chased. She did 
 not know what she wanted. But she had come 
 out into the dark to find something that was not 
 there. She had been happier on the doorsteps 
 thinking about it. This, then, was hanging May- 
 baskets all there was to it. But it was pleasant 
 here in the dark, pleasanter than walking through 
 mud, and quarrelling. Now Rena and Nat were 
 quarrelling again. 
 
 " Get back there ! Ed said not to move." 
 "They've been gone too long. Something's 
 the matter." 
 
 "There they come. I hear them. Get back!" 
 
 They were coming, but something else was 
 
 happening. Willard's three whistles sounded, 
 
 then Ed's voice, and a noise of scuffling on the 
 
 gravel and a new boy's voice. 
 
 Rena and Natalie, upsetting their basket as
 
 24 The Wishing Moon 
 
 they started, and not noticing it, pushed through 
 the trees and ran. Judith stood still and listened. 
 She did not know the voice. It was shrill and 
 clear. She could hear the words it said above the 
 others' voices, all clamouring, now, at once. She 
 held her breath and listened. She could not move. 
 
 "I don't want your damn May-baskets." 
 
 "Liar! Get back of him, Rena. Come on, 
 Nat." 
 
 "You'll get hurt. Let me go. " 
 
 "Liar Paddy!" 
 
 The magic word fell unheeded. The boy was 
 laughing, and the laugh filled her ears, a splendid 
 laugh, fearless and clear. 
 
 "Paddy!" 
 
 "I don't want your damn May-baskets." 
 
 "Paddy Paddy!" 
 
 This time there was no answer. Judith, tearing 
 at the hooks of her cape, and throwing it off as 
 she ran, broke through the circling trees. Then 
 she stopped and looked. 
 
 Rena stood high on the carriage-house steps and 
 held the lantern. It wavered and swung in her 
 hand, and threw a flickering circle of light round 
 the group by the steps. 
 
 The sprawled shadows at their feet seemed to 
 have an undue number of arms and legs, and the 
 children were a struggling, uncertain mass of mo-
 
 The Wishing Moon 25 
 
 tion, hard to make out, like the shadows, but they 
 were only four: Willard, grunting and groaning; 
 Natalie attacking spasmodically in the rear, and 
 the strange little boy, the enemy. He was the heart 
 of the struggling group, and Judith looked only at 
 him. She could do nothing but look, for Judith 
 had never seen a little boy like this. 
 
 They were three against one, and the one was 
 a match for them. He was slender and strong, 
 holding his ground and making no noise. He was 
 coatless and ragged shifted, and one sleeve of his 
 shirt was torn, so that you could see how thin 
 his shoulder was. He held his head high, and 
 smiled as he fought. A shock of blond hair was 
 tossed high above his forehead. He had a thin, 
 white face, and dark jewels of flashing eyes. As 
 she stood and looked, they met Judith's eyes, and 
 Judith knew that she had never seen a boy like 
 this, because there was no boy like this no little 
 boy so wild and strange and free, so ragged and 
 brave. If he could come out of the dark, it was 
 full of unguessable things, splendid and strange 
 and new. Judith's heart beat hard, a hot feeling 
 swept over her, and a queer mist came before her 
 eyes. A wonderful boy; a fairy boy! What 
 would they do to him? What did they do to 
 paddies? There was no little boy like this in the 
 world.
 
 26 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Judy!" The others had seen her and were 
 calling her. "Come on. Help get him down." 
 
 "He chased Willard round here." 
 
 "He led the gang last year." 
 
 "It's Neil Donovan." 
 
 "Get him down!" 
 
 Judith did not answer then. Her cheeks flamed 
 red, and her eyes looked as big and dark as the 
 stranger's, and her small hands clenched tight. 
 It was only a minute that she stood so. The 
 three were close to him, hiding him. She saw his 
 face again, above Willard's pushing shoulder, and 
 then she could not see it. 
 
 "Judy, what's the matter? Come on!" 
 
 And Judith came. She plunged straight into 
 the struggling group, and hammered at it indis- 
 criminately with two small fists. She caught at a 
 waving coat sleeve, and pulled it Willard's, and 
 it tore in her hands. She spotted Ed s white 
 sweater, and beat at it fiercely, with all her 
 strength. 
 
 "That's me, Judy. Cut it out!" 
 
 "Then let him go. Three to one is no fair. 
 Let him go!" They did not hear her, or care 
 which side she was on, or take the trouble to drive 
 her away. Judith drew back and stood and looked 
 at them, breathless and glowing and undefeated, 
 for one long minute.
 
 The Wishing Moon 27 
 
 "Boy," she called then, softly, as if he could 
 hear when the others could not, "wait! It's all 
 right, boy. It's all right." 
 
 Then she charged up the steps at Rena. Judy, 
 the most demure and faithful of allies, confronted 
 Rena, amazingly but unmistakably changed to a 
 foe; Judy, with her immaculate and enviable 
 frock smirched and torn, and her sleek hair wildly 
 tossed, her cheeks darkly flushed, and her eyes 
 strange and shining; a Judy to be reckoned with 
 and admired and feared a new Judy. 
 
 "What's the matter? Are you crazy? What 
 do you want?" 
 
 "Make them let him go. They've got to let 
 him go." 
 
 "He's a paddy Neil Donovan a paddy." 
 
 "They've got to let him go. . . . Give 
 that to me." 
 
 " What for? Judy, don't hurt me. Judy ! " 
 
 Judith wasted no more words. She caught 
 Rena's wrist, twisted it, and snatched the lantern 
 out of her hand. She held it high above her head, 
 and shook it recklessly. 
 
 "Don't, Judy! Don't!" The flame sputtered 
 crazily. Judy still shook the lantern, dancing 
 out of reach, and laughing. "Nat everybody 
 stop Judy. She's making the lantern explode. 
 Oh, Ed!"
 
 28 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Natalie heard, and then the others. They 
 looked up at her, all of them. Rena and Natalie 
 screamed. Willard started toward her. "Put 
 it down, kid," he was calling. 
 
 "I'll put it down . . . Now boy." 
 
 There he was, with Ed's arm gripping his 
 shoulders. He did not give any sign that he knew 
 she was trying to help him, or that he wanted 
 help. He was not afraid of the lantern, like the 
 others. His black eyes were laughing at all of 
 them laughing at Judith, too. He was looking 
 straight at Judith. 
 
 "Now, boy," she called, "now run!" and she 
 gripped the lantern tight, swung it high, and 
 dashed it to the ground. 
 
 It fell at the foot of the steps with a crash of 
 breaking glass. The light sputtered out. The air 
 was full of the smell of spilled kerosene. In the 
 faint radiance that was not moonlight, but a glim- 
 mering reflection of it, more confusing than dark- 
 ness, dim figures struggled and shrill voices were 
 lifted. 
 
 "Get him. Hold him." 
 
 "Get the lantern." 
 
 "Get Judy." 
 
 "Hold him, Ed." 
 
 "That's me." 
 
 "Get him, Rena."
 
 The Wishing Moon 29 
 
 Judith laughed, and out of the dark he had 
 come from, the dark of May-night, lit by a wishing 
 moon, that grants your secret wish for better or 
 for worse, irrevocably, a far-away laugh answered 
 Judith's. The boy was gone.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 MISS Judith Devereux Randall was get- 
 ting into her first evening gown. 
 The Green River High School foot- 
 ball team was giving its annual September concert 
 and ball in Odd Fellows' Hall to-night. The 
 occasion was as important to the school as a com- 
 ing-out party. The new junior class, just gradu- 
 ated from seclusion upstairs to the big assembly 
 room where the seniors were, made its first public 
 appearance in society there. Judith was a junior 
 now. 
 
 Her first dance, and her first evening gown; it 
 was a memorable scene, fit to immortalize with the 
 first love-letter and the first proposal, in a series of 
 pictures of great moments in a girl's life chosen 
 by some masculine illustrator, touchingly confi- 
 dent that he knows what the great moments of a 
 girl's life are. Judith seemed to be taking this 
 moment too calmly for one. 
 
 The dress lay ready on the bed, fluffy and light 
 and sheer, a white dream of a dress, with two 
 unopened florist's boxes beside it, but there was no 
 picturesque disarray of excited toilet-making in 
 
 30
 
 The Wishing Moon 31 
 
 her big, brightly lighted room, and no dream- 
 promoting candlelight. And there were no pen- 
 nants or football trophies disfiguring the daintily 
 flowered wall paper, and no pictures or programs 
 in the mirror of the dainty dressing-table; there 
 was no other young girl's room in town where they 
 were prohibited, but there was no other room so 
 charming as Judith's, all blue-flowered chintz 
 and bird's-eye maple and white fur rugs, and 
 whiter covers and curtains. 
 
 Judith was the most charming and immaculate 
 thing in the room, as she stood before the cheval- 
 glass, bare armed and slim and straight in be- 
 ruffled, beribboned white, pinning the soft, pale 
 braids tight around her small, high-poised head. 
 Quite the most charming thing, and Norah, finger- 
 ing the dress on the bed disapprovingly, and giving 
 her keen, sidelong glances, was aware of it, but 
 did not believe in compliments, even to the crea- 
 ture she loved best in the world. 
 
 Her mouth was set and her brown eyes were 
 bright with the effort of repressing them. Judith, 
 seeing her face in the glass, turned suddenly and 
 slipped her arms round the formidable old crea- 
 ture's neck, and laughed at her. 
 
 "Don't you think I'm perfectly beautiful?" 
 she demanded. "If you really love me, why not 
 tell me so?"
 
 32 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Your colour's good." Judith pressed a deli- 
 cately flushed cheek to Norah's, and attempted a 
 butterfly kiss, which she evaded grimly. "Good 
 enough healthy and natural." 
 
 "Oh, no. I made it. Oh, with hot water and 
 then cold, I mean. Nana, don't begin about 
 rouge. Don't be silly. That red stuff in the 
 box on mother's dresser is only nail paste, truly." 
 
 "Who sent the flowers?" 
 
 "Look and see." 
 
 "Much you care, if you'll let me look." 
 
 "Do you want me to care?" 
 
 "Much you care about the flowers or the 
 party." 
 
 Judith had caught up the alluring dress without 
 a second glance, and slipped it expertly over her 
 head, and was jerking capably at the fastenings. 
 
 "With the spoiled airs of you, and Willard 
 Nash sending to Wells for flowers, when his father 
 clerked in a drygoods store at his age 
 
 "Oh, carnations are cheap or he wouldn't 
 get them." 
 
 "These aren't cheap, then." 
 
 The smaller box was full of white violets. 
 
 " Give them to me. No, you can't see the card. 
 You don't deserve to. You're too cross, and 
 besides you wouldn't like it. Do my two top 
 hooks. Now, am I perfectly beautiful? "
 
 The Wishing Moon 33 
 
 Under her capable hands a pretty miracle had 
 been going on, common enough, but always new. 
 Ruffle above ruffle, the soft, shapeless mass of 
 white had shaken itself into its proper lines and 
 contours, lightly, like a bird's plumage settling 
 itself, and with it the change that comes when a 
 woman with the inborn, unteachable trick of 
 wearing clothes puts on a perfect gown, had come 
 to her slight girl's figure. It looked softer, 
 rounder, and more lightly poised. Her throat 
 looked whiter above the encircling folds of white. 
 Her shy hah* smile was sweeter. The white 
 violets, caught to her high girdle, were sweeter, 
 too. 
 
 Norah surrendered, her voice husky and reluct- 
 ant. 
 
 "You're tqo good for them." 
 
 "For the G. H. S. dance? For Willard?" 
 Judith pretended great humility: "Nana!" 
 
 "There's others you're more than too good for. 
 Others " 
 
 "Nana, don't." 
 
 " Come here." Norah put two heavy hands on 
 her shoulders and regarded her grimly. It was 
 the kind of look that Judith used to associate with 
 second sight, and dread. It was quite formid- 
 able still. But Judith met it steadily, with some- 
 thing mature and assured about her look that had
 
 34 The Wishing Moon 
 
 ' V 
 
 nothing to do with the softness and sweetness of 
 her in her fluffy draperies, something that had no 
 place in the heart of a child; something that Norah 
 saw. 
 
 "Too good for them, and you know it," pro- 
 nounced Norah. "You know it too well. You 
 know too many things. A heart of gold you've 
 got, but your head will rule your heart." 
 
 "Nonsense." Norah permitted herself to be 
 kissed, still looking forbidding, but holding Judith 
 tight. 
 
 "Little white lamb, may you find what's good 
 enough for you," she conceded, unexpectedly, 
 "and may you know it when you find it." 
 
 "You're an old dear, and you're good enough 
 for me." 
 
 Downstairs there was a more critical audience 
 to face. Judith saw it in the library door, and 
 stood still on the stair landing, looking down. 
 She held her head high, and coloured faintly. 
 She looked very slender and white against the 
 dark woodwork of the hall. The Randall house 
 had been renovated the year before becoming 
 ten years older in the process, early Colonial 
 instead of a comfortable mixture of late Colonial 
 and mid-Victorian. The hall was particularly 
 Colonial, and a becoming background for Judith, 
 but the dark-haired lady in the door had no more
 
 The Wishing Moon 35 
 
 faith in compliments than Norah, and there was a 
 worried wrinkle in her low forehead to-night, as 
 if her mind were on other things. 
 
 "Will I do, mother?" 
 
 "It's a good little gown, but there's something 
 wrong with the neck line. You're really going 
 then?" 
 
 "I thought I would." 
 
 "Be back by half -past ten. We're going to 
 have some cards here. The Colonel likes you to 
 pass things." 
 
 "I thought father's head ached." 
 
 "He's sleeping it off." 
 
 "I wanted him to see how I looked." 
 
 "I can't see why you go." 
 
 "I thought I would. I'll go outside now, and 
 wait for Willard." 
 
 Judith closed the early Colonial door softly 
 behind her, and settled down on the steps. She 
 arranged her coat, not the one her mother lent 
 her for state occasions, but a white polo coat of 
 her own, with due regard for her ruffles and her 
 violets. The violets were from Colonel Everard. 
 Norah, with her tiresome prejudice against the 
 Everards, and mother, who thought and talked so 
 much about them that she was almost tiresome, 
 too, were both wrong about this party. She did 
 want to go.
 
 36 The Wishing Moon 
 
 The church clock was striking nine. There was 
 nothing deep toned or solemn about the chime; 
 it was rather tinny, but she liked it. It sounded 
 wide awake, as if things were going to happen. 
 Nine, and the party was under way. The con- 
 cert was almost over. The concert was only for 
 chaperones and girls who were afraid of not getting 
 their dance orders filled. The truly elect arrived 
 just in time to dance. Some of them were passing 
 the house already. Judith saw girls with light- 
 coloured gowns showing under dark coats, and 
 swathing veils that preserved elaborate coiffures. 
 Bits of conversation, monosyllabic and formal, to 
 fit the clothes, drifted across the lawn to her. 
 
 She had not been allowed to help decorate the 
 hall, but she had driven with Willard to Nashes' 
 Corners for goldenrod, and when they carried it 
 in, big, glowing bundles of it, she had seen fascin- 
 ating things: Japanese lanterns, cheesecloth in yel- 
 low and white, the school colours, still in the piece, 
 and full of unguessable possibilities, and a rough 
 board table, the foundation of the elaborately 
 decorated counter where Rena and other girls 
 would serve the fruit punch. All the time she 
 dressed she had been listening for the music of 
 Dugan's orchestra, and caught only tantalizing 
 strains of tunes that she could not identify. There 
 was a sameness about the repertoire. Most of
 
 The Wishing Moon 37 
 
 the tunes sounded unduly sentimental and re- 
 signed. But now they were playing their star 
 number, a dramatic piece of program music called 
 "A Day on the Battlefield." 
 
 The day began with bird notes and bugle calls, 
 but was soon enlivened by cavalry charges and 
 cannonades. The drum, and an occasional blank 
 cartridge, very telling in effect, were producing 
 them now. Judith listened eagerly. 
 
 She needed friends of her own age for the next 
 two years, but she must not identify herself with 
 them too closely, because she would have wider 
 social opportunities by and by; that was what her 
 mother said, and she did not contest it; by and 
 by, but this party was to-night. 
 
 Willard was coming for her now, half an hour 
 ahead of time, as usual. He crossed the lawn, 
 and sat heavily down on the steps. 
 
 " Hello. Don't talk," said Judith. 
 
 Willard was silent only long enough to turn this 
 remark over in his mind, and decide that she 
 could not mean it, but that was five minutes, for 
 all his mental processes were slow. Down in the 
 hall the last of the heroes was dying, and Dugan's 
 orchestra rendered Taps sepulchrally. Judith 
 drew a long breath of shivering content. 
 
 "Cold? "inquired Willard. 
 
 "No."
 
 38 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "You're looking great to-night." 
 
 ' * In the dark ? In an old polo coat ? ' ' 
 
 "You always look great." 
 
 Judith was aware of an ominous stir beside her,, 
 and changed her position. 
 
 "Oh, Judy." 
 
 "When you know I won't let you hold my 
 hand, what makes you try?" 
 
 "If I didn't try, how would I know?" said Wil- 
 lard neatly. 
 
 "Oh, if you don't know without trying," Judith 
 sighed. The cannonade in the hall was over, and 
 the night was empty without it. 
 
 "They took in thirteen dollars and fifty-two 
 cents selling tickets for to-night." Willard, 
 checked upon sentimental subjects, proceeded to 
 facts. He had so many at command that he 
 could not be checked. 
 
 "Who did?" 
 
 "The team. They divide it. Only this year 
 they've got to let the sub-team in on it, the faculty 
 made them, and they're sore. And there's a sub 
 on the reception committee." 
 
 "I don't care." 
 
 "You ought to. A sub, and a roughneck. 
 The sub-team is a bunch of roughnecks, but he's 
 the worst. On the reception committee! But 
 they'll take it out of him."
 
 The Wishing Moon 39 
 
 * ' Who ? The reception committee ? ' ' 
 
 "No, the girls. They won't dance with him. 
 He won't get a decent name on his card. Rough- 
 neck, keeping Ed off the team. He's an Irish 
 boy." 
 
 "An Irish boy?" Something, vague as an un- 
 forgotten dream that comes back at night, though 
 you are too busy to recall it in waking hours, 
 urged Judith to protest. "So is the senior presi- 
 dent Irish." 
 
 "No, the vice-president." There was a wide 
 distinction between the two offices. "Besides" 
 this was a wider distinction " Murph lives at the 
 Falls." 
 
 Living at the Falls, the little settlement at the 
 head of the river, and lunching at noon, in the 
 empty schoolhouse, out of tin boxes, with a forlorn 
 assembly of half a dozen or so, was a handicap that 
 few could live down. 
 
 "Murph?" 
 
 "The team calls him Murphy. I don't know 
 why. They're crazy about him. He lives a 
 half mile north of the Falls. Walking five miles 
 a day to learn Lathi ! He's a fool and a roughneck, 
 but he can play ball. Yesterday on Brown's 
 field " 
 
 Willard started happily upon technicalities of 
 football formations. Judith stopped listening.
 
 40 The Wishing Moon 
 
 He could talk on unaided, pausing only for an 
 occasional yes or no. 
 
 Brown's field! It was a tree-fringed stretch of 
 level grass set high at the edge of the woods, on 
 the other side of the river, with glimpses of the 
 river showing through the trees far below. Here, 
 on long autumn afternoons, sparkling and cool, 
 but golden at the heart, ending gloriously in red, 
 sudden sunsets, football practice went on every 
 day; shifting here and there, mysteriously, over 
 the field, the arbitrary evolutions that were foot- 
 ball, the shuffling, and shouting, and panting 
 silence; on rugs and sweaters under the trees, 
 an audience of girls, shivering delightfully, or 
 holding some hero's sweater, too proud to be 
 cold. 
 
 Judith had seen all this through Willard's eyes, 
 or from a passing carriage, but now she would go 
 herself, go perhaps every day. Her mother would 
 let her. She would not understand, but she would 
 let her, just as she had to-night. Judith could 
 be part of the close-knit life of the school in the last 
 two years there the years that counted. The 
 party was a test and her mother had met it fa- 
 vourably. That was why she was glad to go, as 
 nearly as she understood. She did not know 
 quite what she wanted of the party, only how very 
 much she wanted to go.
 
 The Wishing Moon 41 
 
 Willard was asking a question insistently: 
 "Didn't he do pretty work?" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Why, the fellow I'm telling you about the 
 roughneck." 
 
 " Roughneck," said Judith dreamily. The word 
 had a fine, strong sound. Willard was holding 
 her hand again, and she felt too comfortable and 
 content to stop him. 
 
 The orchestra down the street was playing the 
 number that usually ended its programs, a medley 
 of plantation melodies. They were never such a 
 strain on the resources of a hard-working but only 
 five-piece orchestra as the ambitious, martial 
 selections, and here, heard across the dark, they 
 were beautiful: plaintive and thrillingly sweet. 
 "Old Kentucky Home," was the sweetest of all, 
 lonely and sad as youth, and insistent as youth, 
 claiming its own against an alien world. 
 
 "Oh, Willard!" breathed Judith. Then, in 
 quite another tone, "Oh, Willard!" 
 
 Encouraged by her silence, he was reaching for 
 her other hand, and slipping an arm round her 
 waist. 
 
 "You feel so soft," objected Judith frankly, 
 getting up. "I do hope I'll never fall in love with 
 a fat man. Come on, let's go ! " 
 
 She waited for him politely on the sidewalk, and
 
 42 The Wishing Moon 
 
 permitted her arm to be duly grasped. Willard, 
 sulky and silent, but preserving appearances, 
 piloted her dutifully down the street. Willard's 
 silences were rare, and Judith usually made the 
 most of them, but she did not permit this one to 
 last. She did not want any one, even Willard, 
 to be unhappy to-night. 
 
 "Willard." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Don't take such long steps, or I can't keep up 
 with you. You're so tall." 
 
 " Do you want to be late? " 
 
 "Oh, no! Are we?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But there's only one couple behind us, and 
 the music's stopped." 
 
 "It takes hah* an hour to get the chairs moved 
 out." 
 
 "Willard." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Is the first dance a grand march and circle?" 
 
 "No, that's gone out. They have contras in- 
 stead, but the first is a waltz." 
 
 "Willard, mother said I mustn't dance contras, 
 but I shall with you." 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "Don't you want me to?" 
 
 "Yes."
 
 The Wishing Moon 43 
 
 "Willard, are you cross with me?" 
 
 "No." They were in front of the Odd Fellows' 
 Building now. The door was open. The pair 
 behind them crowded past and clattered hurriedly 
 up the bare, polished stairs. The orchestra could 
 be heard tuning industriously above. They were 
 almost late, but Willard drew her into a corner of 
 the entrance hall, and pressed her hand ardently. 
 
 "Judy, I couldn't be cross with you." 
 
 "Don't be too sure!" Judith laughed, and ran 
 upstairs ahead of him. 
 
 " There's the ladies' dressing-room. I'll get the 
 dance orders and meet you outside." 
 
 There was a whispering, giggling crowd in the 
 dressing-room, mostly seniors, girls she did not 
 know, but they seemed to know her, and she was 
 conscious of curious looks at her hair and dress. 
 It was the simplest dress in the room, and her 
 mother would not have approved of the other 
 dresses, but Judith did. There was something 
 festive about the bright colours, too bright most 
 of them : sharp pinks, and cold, hard blues. There 
 was a yellow dress on a brunette, who was cheap- 
 ened by the crude colour, and a scarlet dress too 
 bright for any one to wear successfully on a big, 
 pretty blond girl, who almost could. Judith 
 smelled three distinct kinds of cheap talcum 
 powder, and preferred them all to her own un-
 
 44 The Wishing Moon 
 
 scented French variety. She had a moment of 
 sudden loneliness. Was she so glad to be here, 
 after all? 
 
 It was only a moment. The tuning of instru- 
 ments outside broke off, and the first bars of a 
 waltz droned invitingly out: "If you really love 
 me," the song that had been in her ears all the 
 evening, a flimsy ballad of the year, hauntingly 
 sweet, as only such short-lived songs can be. 
 Moving to the tune of it, Judith crowded with the 
 other girls out of the dressing-room. 
 
 The hall was transformed. It was not the room 
 she had dreamed of, a great room, dimly lit, 
 peopled with low- talking dancers, circling through 
 the dimness. The place looked smaller decorated, 
 and the decorations themselves seemed to have 
 shrunk since she saw them. The lanterns had 
 been hung only where nails were already driven, 
 and under the supervision of the janitor, who would 
 not permit them to be lighted. The cheesecloth 
 was conspicuous nowhere except around the little 
 stage, which it draped in tight, mathematically 
 measured festoons. Beneath, under the mislead- 
 ing legend, "G. H. S.," painted in yellow on a 
 suspended football, Dugan's orchestra performed 
 its duties faithfully, with handkerchiefs guarding 
 wilted collars. 
 
 The goldenrod, tortured and wired into a
 
 The Wishing Moon 45 
 
 screen to hide the footlights, was drooping away 
 already and showing the supporting wires. The 
 benches were stacked against the wall, all but an 
 ill-omened row designed for wall-flowers, and the 
 floor was cleared and waxed. But little patches 
 of wax that were not rubbed in lurked for unwary 
 feet, and there were clouds of dust in the air. In 
 one corner of the hall most of the prominent 
 guests of the evening were attempting to obtain 
 dance orders at once, or to push their way back 
 with them to the young ladies they were escorting. 
 
 These ladies, and other ladies without escorts, 
 were crowding each other against the stacked 
 benches and maneuvering for positions where their 
 dance orders would fill promptly. The atmos- 
 phere was one of strife and stress. But Judith 
 found no fault with it. She was not aware of it. 
 
 In a corner near the stage, by the closed door of 
 the refreshment-room, a boy was standing alone. 
 He was tearing up his dance order. It was empty, 
 and he was making no further attempts to fill it. 
 He tore it quite unostentatiously so that no young 
 lady disposed to be amused by his defeat could 
 see anything worth staring at in his performance, 
 and he was forgotten in his corner. But Judith 
 stared. 
 
 She had remembered him tall, but he was only a 
 little taller than herself. His black suit was shiny,
 
 46 The Wishing Moon 
 
 and a size too small for him, but it was carefully 
 brushed, and he wore it with an air. His hair 
 was darker than she remembered, a pale, soft 
 brown. It was too long, and it curled at the 
 temples. He stood squarely, facing the room, as 
 if he did not care what anybody did to him, but 
 there was a look about his mouth as if he cared. 
 He raised his eyes. They were darker than she 
 remembered, darker and stranger than any eyes 
 in the world. They looked hurt, but there was a 
 laugh in them, too, and across the hall they were 
 looking straight at Judith. 
 
 "Here you are. I've got myself down for all 
 your contras. Just in time." 
 
 Willard, mopping his brow, slipping on a patch 
 of wax, and saving himself with a skating motion, 
 brought up triumphantly beside her, waving two 
 dance orders. Judith pushed them away, and 
 said something she hardly knew what. 
 
 "What, Judy? What's that? You're engaged 
 for this? You can't dance it with me?" 
 
 "No. No, I can't." 
 
 Judith slipped past him, and started across the 
 floor. The music was louder now, as if you were 
 really meant to dance, and dance with the person 
 you wanted to most. The floor was filling now 
 with dancers stepping forward awkwardly, but 
 turning into different creatures when they danced,
 
 The Wishing Moon 47 
 
 caught by the light, sure swing of the music, whirl- 
 ing and gliding. The words sang themselves to 
 Judith, the silly, beautiful words: 
 
 Please don't keep me waiting. 
 
 Won't you let me know 
 That you really love me? 
 
 Tell me so. 
 
 A girl in red was dancing in a quick, darting 
 sort of way, in and out, among the others, and 
 her dress was beautiful, too, like a flower. The 
 boy in the corner was watching it. He did not 
 see Judith come. 
 
 "I thought you couldn't be real. When I never 
 saw you again I thought I had dreamed you.'* 
 
 Judith said it softly and breathlessly, and he did 
 not hear. She put her hand on his arm, and he 
 turned and looked at her. 
 
 "Don't you remember me?" Judith was too 
 happy to be hurt even by this. The light, sweet 
 music called to her. "Don't you remember? 
 Never mind! Come and dance with me."
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 WILLARD stood still and stared after 
 Judith for one bewildered minute; that 
 was as long as he could stand still. 
 Odd Fellows' Hall had ceased to afford standing- 
 room. 
 
 The floor was filling and more than filling with 
 determined young persons who were there to 
 dance, and looked as if they had never had any 
 aim but to dance. The enthralled silence, which 
 was more general than conversation, advertised 
 it. Even acknowledged belles, like the girl in 
 red, coquetted incidentally, with significant but 
 brief confidences and briefer upward glances. 
 There was an alarming concentration, intent as 
 youth itself, to be read in their unsmiling faces 
 and eager eyes. 
 
 They danced quite wonderfully, most of them, 
 as only country-bred young people can, with free- 
 limbed young bodies, more used to adventuring 
 in the open air than to dancing, but attuned to 
 the rhythm of the dance by right of their youth. 
 The old-fashioned waltz, that our grandmothers 
 lost their hearts to the time of, still prevailed in 
 
 48
 
 The Wishing Moon 49 
 
 Green River; not the jerkier performance that 
 was already opening the way for the one-step and 
 the dance craze in larger centres, but the old 
 waltz, with the first beat of each measure heavily 
 emphasized a slow swinging, beautiful dance, 
 and they danced it with all their hearts. 
 
 In and out among them, two slender, quick- 
 turning figures were making an intricate way. 
 The girl danced delicately and surely, a faint, 
 half smile parting her lips, her small, smooth head 
 erect, the silvery gold hair that crowned it shim- 
 mering and pale in the uncompromising light of the 
 newly installed electric chandeliers, her eyes intent 
 on the boy. 
 
 His performance was not expert, but it had a 
 charm all its own. He put a great deal of strength 
 into it, and made it evident that he possessed still 
 more; strength enough to master the art of dancing 
 once and for all, by the sheer force of it, if he cared 
 to exert it, and a laughing light in his eyes, as if 
 dancing was not important enough for that, and 
 nothing else was. 
 
 An ambitious pair, experimenting with the dip 
 waltz, just introduced that year, and pausing on 
 the most awkward spots in the crowded floor, 
 blocked his path, and he swung heavily out of 
 their way just in time, squaring his chin and 
 holding his head a shade higher. The girl in red
 
 50 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was whirled toward him in double-quick time, and 
 he dodged, miscalculated his distance, but met 
 the shock of her squarely, whisking Judith out of 
 her way. 
 
 " Good try, Murph," her partner called. 
 
 Willard regarded the encounter disapprovingly 
 from the door of the gentlemen's dressing-room, 
 to which he had edged his way. His was not an 
 expressive countenance, and that was a protection 
 to him just now. He was bewildered and deeply 
 hurt, but he merely looked fat and slightly puzzled, 
 as usual. 
 
 "Judy turn you down?" inquired his friend Mr. 
 Ward, also watching from the dressing-room door, 
 with the few other gentlemen who were without 
 partners for this dance. It was the most impor- 
 tant dance of the evening, for you danced it with 
 the lady of your choice, or with nobody. It 
 cemented new intimacies or foreshadowed the 
 breaking of old; settled anew the continually 
 agitated question of "who was going with who." 
 
 "Judy turn you down?" said Mr. Ward, but 
 he meant it as a pleasantry. Mr. Willard Nash 
 was not often turned down, even at this early 
 age. He was too eligible. 
 
 "Rena turn you down, Ed?" 
 
 "Yes." Mr. Ward became suddenly confi- 
 dential, and lowered his voice. "Mad. She
 
 The Wishing Moon 51 
 
 wanted me to get her a shinguard to mount tin- 
 types on tintypes of the team." 
 
 "Buy it or steal it?" inquired Willard sarcas- 
 tically. 
 
 "I offered to buy it," his friend confessed, "buy 
 her a new pah*, but she wants one that's been 
 used." 
 
 "You spoil Rena. You can't spoil a girl." 
 They laughed wisely. " It don't pay." 
 
 "Mad with Judy?" 
 
 "Well no," said Willard magnanimously. He 
 thought quite rapidly, as his brain, not overworked 
 at other times, could do in emergencies. "My 
 feet hurt. Pumps slip at the heel. I've been 
 stuffing them out. Judy came with me, but I had 
 to be excused for this dance." 
 
 "Good thing for him." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "For Murph for Neil Donovan. They'll all 
 dance with him if she does; though Judy don't 
 know that. She's not stuck on herself, and never 
 will be. I didn't know she knew Murph." 
 
 "Well, you know it now," said Willard shortly, 
 his man-of-the-world composure failing him. 
 Judith was circling nearer now, slender and de- 
 sirable. He hesitated between an angry glare 
 and a forgiving smile, but she did not look to 
 see which he chose. She whirled quickly by.
 
 52 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Smooth little dancer, and she's no snob. 
 Judy's all right," said Ed. "Watch Murph! 
 He's catching on never danced till last night. 
 Some of the fellows taught him. He never 
 danced with a girl before." 
 
 ' "If my feet hurt," remarked Mr. Nash irrele- 
 vantly, and without the close attention from his 
 friend which this important announcement called 
 for, "I may not dance at all to-night." 
 
 Willard stopped abruptly. "What do you 
 know about that"; a voice was saying, in the rear 
 of the dressing-room; he stiffly refrained from 
 turning to see whose, "Judith is dancing the first 
 dance with Neil Donovan!" 
 
 Judith was dancing the first dance with Neil 
 Donovan. It was social history already, accepted 
 as such, and not further discussed, even by Wil- 
 lard. But many epoch-making events are not 
 even so much discussed, they look so simple on 
 the face of them. We cross a room, and change 
 the course of our lives by crossing it, and few peo- 
 ple even observe that we have crossed the room. 
 
 If Judith had affected the course of her life 
 materially by crossing the room to the strange 
 boy, she did not seem to be thinking of it just now. 
 She was not thinking at all. She was only dancing, 
 following her partner's erratic course quite faith- 
 fully, and quite intent on doing so; feeling every
 
 The Wishing Moon 53 
 
 beat of the music, and showing it, pink-cheeked and 
 sparkling eyed, and pleasantly excited, but noth- 
 ing more. 
 
 The wistful and dreamy look was gone from her 
 eyes, and her half-formed desire for something to 
 happen this evening, something that had never 
 happened before, was gone from her, too. She 
 felt content with whatever was going to happen, 
 and deeply interested in it, and particularly inter- 
 ested in dancing. 
 
 They had danced almost in silence, rather a 
 grim silence at first, but now that the boy could 
 let the music carry him with it, and was beginning 
 to trust it, too, the silence was comfortable. But 
 the few words he managed to say were worth 
 listening to and answering, not to be dreamed 
 through and ignored, like Willard's. His voice 
 was not as she remembered it, and that was inter- 
 esting, too, deeply significant, though she could 
 not have said why. Everything seemed unac- 
 countably interesting to-night. 
 
 "I thought it was louder," she said, "or higher 
 or something." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Your voice." 
 
 It was quite husky and low, and he pronounced 
 a word here and there with a brogue like Norah's, 
 only pleasanter, with a kind of singing sound. It
 
 54 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was never the word you expected. You had to 
 watch for it. She could hear it now. 
 
 "Won't you please tell me who you are? " 
 
 "I know who you are, and I know where you 
 live." 
 
 "Where do I?" 
 
 "At the Falls, and I know when you moved 
 there five years ago, or six." 
 
 "Six. How do you know?" 
 
 "Oh, I know." 
 
 As you grew older, and learned to call more 
 boys and girls in the school by name, and more of 
 the clerks in the shops, you discovered new people 
 in the town where you thought you knew every- 
 body, and it made the town infinitely large. But 
 this boy had not been so near her, or she would 
 have seen him. He could not have been in school 
 with her. He must have worked on a farm and 
 studied by himself with the grammar-school 
 teacher at the Falls, and taken special examina- 
 tions to enter the Junior class this year, as Willard 
 said that some boy at the Falls was doing. He 
 must be that boy or Judith would surely have seen 
 him. 
 
 She nodded her head wisely. "I know." 
 
 "You know a lot." In his soft brogue this 
 sounded like the most complimentary thing that 
 could be said.
 
 The Wishing Moon 55 
 
 "But you don't remember me." This had 
 troubled her at first. Now it seemed like the most 
 delicious of jokes, and they laughed at it together. 
 
 "That was the first thing you said to me." 
 
 "Isn't it queer" Judith's eyes widened and 
 darkened as if it were something more than queer, 
 something far worse "so queer! I can't think 
 what the first thing was that you said to me." 
 
 They confronted this problem in silence, staring 
 at each other with wide-open eyes. Though they 
 were circling smoothly at last, carried on by the 
 slow, sweet music, so that they hardly seemed to 
 be moving at all, and though he did not really 
 move his head, the boy's eyes seemed to Judith 
 to be coming nearer to hers, nearer all the time. 
 They were beautiful eyes, deep brown, and very 
 clear. His brown hair grew in a squarish line 
 across his forehead, and waved softly at the 
 temples. It looked as if he had brushed it hard 
 there to brush the curl out, but it was curliest 
 there. 
 
 "You've got the brownest eyes," said Judith. 
 
 "You've got the biggest eyes. Won't you tell 
 me your name?" 
 
 Judith did not answer. She looked away from 
 the disconcerting brown eyes and down at her 
 hand, against his shoulder, her own little hand, 
 with the careful manicure and the dull polish that
 
 56 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was all her mother permitted; bare of rings, though 
 Norah had given her a beautiful garnet ring for 
 Christmas. How shiny his coat-sleeve was, and 
 her hand looked unfamiliar to her not like her 
 own at all. She pressed tighter against his 
 shoulder to steady herself. 
 
 The music was growing quicker and louder, 
 working up gradually but surely into a breathless 
 crescendo that meant the end of the dance. It 
 whirled them dizzily about. The sleepy spell of 
 the dance broke in this final crash of noise, and as 
 it broke a sudden panic caught Judith. 
 
 What had she been saying to this boy? She 
 had never talked like this to a boy before. And 
 why was she dancing with him? She ought to 
 be dancing with Willard Willard, waiting there 
 in the dressing-room door with her dance order 
 in his hand, with the patient and puzzled look in 
 his eyes, with brick-red colour in his cheeks from 
 the affront she had subjected him to. What would 
 Willard think of her? What would her mother 
 think? And who was this boy? Just what the 
 children had called him in taunting screams, on 
 that long-ago May night, and she would have 
 liked to scream it now a paddy. 
 
 Instead, she lifted her head, no longer afraid 
 of the boy's brown eyes, and said it, as cruelly as 
 she could, in her soft and clear little voice:
 
 The Wishing Moon 57 
 
 "Paddy," she said; "a paddy from Paddy 
 Lane." 
 
 She looked defiantly into his eyes, but they did 
 not grow angry. They only grew very soft and 
 kind, and they laughed at her. She wanted to 
 look away from the laughter in them, but she could 
 not look away from the kindness. Now she was 
 not angry with him any more, but glad she was 
 dancing with him. She knew she never wanted 
 to stop dancing. 
 
 "Paddy?" He thought she had said it to re- 
 mind him of that May night; he was remembering 
 it now. " Are you that little girl? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "The little girl who broke the lantern?" 
 
 "Yes," said Judith proudly. 
 
 "And had such long black legs, and went scut- 
 tling across the lawn, and screaming out to me 
 that funny little girl?" 
 
 "But I did break the lantern," said Judith. 
 
 All the bravest stories that she had made up in 
 the dark to put herself to sleep with at night, all 
 the perilous adventures of land and sea, camp fire 
 or pirate ship, began with the breaking of that 
 lantern, and the boy she rescued had been her 
 companion upon them, her brushwood boy, her 
 own boy. She had found him at last, and he was 
 laughing laughing at her.
 
 58 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Sure you did. As if I couldn't have broken 
 away from a bunch of fool kids, without being 
 doped with the smell of kerosene, and yelled at by 
 another fool kid. Sure you broke the lantern. 
 How mad I was." 
 
 "You didn't remember." It was not a joke 
 any longer now, but a tragedy, and Judith felt 
 overwhelmed by it, alone in the world. "You 
 forgot, and I remembered." 
 
 The brown eyes and the gray met in one last 
 long look and when the brown eyes saw the hurt 
 in Judith's, the laughter died out of them. Again 
 they seemed to be growing nearer and nearer to 
 hers, but this time Judith was not afraid, -she was 
 glad. 
 
 "If you didn't save my life then, you did to- 
 night." It came in a husky burst of confidence, 
 straight from his shy boy's heart, very rare and 
 very precious. Judith caught her breath. 
 
 "Oh, did I? Did I?" 
 
 "Yes. This crowd here had me mad crazy 
 mad. I was going home. I was going to get off 
 the team. I wasn't going to school next week, and 
 I've worked my hands off to get there. Maybe 
 you remembered and I forgot, but I won't for- 
 get again. You were that little girl." It was not 
 a slight to the little girl she used to be, but a tribute 
 to the girl she was; that was what looked out of his
 
 The Wishing Moon 59 
 
 brown eyes at Judith, and sang through the brogue 
 in his voice. 
 
 "You were that little girl you!" 
 
 "Yes," breathed Judith; "yes!" 
 
 They whirled faster and faster. This was really 
 the end of the dance, and this dance could never 
 come again. Judith held tight to his shiny shoulder, 
 breathless, hurrying to part with her secret and 
 strip herself bare of mystery generously in a 
 breath. All sorts of barriers might come between 
 them, she might put them there herself, and she 
 was quite aware of it, but not yet, not until the 
 music stopped. 
 
 "My name's Judith Judith Randall. Call me 
 Judy."
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 COLONEL EVERARD sat at the head of 
 his dinner table. A little dinner for 
 twelve was well under way at the Birches. 
 Mrs. Everard was confined to her tower suite to- 
 night with one of the sudden headaches which 
 unkind critics held were likely to come when the 
 Colonel entertained. Randolph Sebastian, his 
 secretary, had superintended the arrangements 
 for the dinner. 
 
 Pink roses, rather too many of them, were 
 massed on the big, round table. Rather too much 
 polished silver was to be seen on it; the most or- 
 nate candlesticks in the Everard collection, and 
 a too complete array of small, scattered objects, 
 each with a possible but not an essential function, 
 littering a cloth already complicated by elaborate 
 inserts of lace. But the brilliantly lighted, over- 
 decorated table was effective enough in the big, 
 darkly wainscoted room, a little island of light 
 and colour. 
 
 The room was characterless, but finely and gen- 
 erously proportioned, and not so blatantly new as 
 the rest of the colonel's house still looked. Against 
 
 60
 
 The Wishing Moon 61 
 
 the dark walls the pale-coloured gowns around 
 the table were charming. Indeed, most of the 
 gowns were designed for this setting. 
 
 For there were no outsiders among the Col- 
 onel's guests to-night. Sometimes there were 
 distinguished outsiders, politicians and other big 
 men, diverted from triumphant tours through 
 larger centres by the Colonel's influence, and by his 
 courtesy exhibited to Green River after they had 
 dined, or bigger men still, whose comings and go- 
 ings the public press was not permitted to chron- 
 icle. Sometimes, too, there were outsiders on pro- 
 bation, the outer fringe of Green River society, 
 admitted to formal functions, and hoping in vain 
 to penetrate to intimate ones; ladies flustered and 
 flattered, gentlemen sulky but flattered, conscious 
 that each appearance here might be their last, and 
 trying to seem indifferent to the fact. 
 
 But this was the Colonel's inner circle, gathered 
 by telephone at twenty-four hours' notice, as they 
 so often were. No course that the chef had con- 
 tributed to the rather too elaborate menu was new 
 to them. The Pol Roger which the big English 
 butler was just starting on his second round was 
 of the vintage year usually to be found on the 
 Colonel's wine list, and on most intelligently 
 supervised wine lists. A dinner for twelve, like 
 plenty of little dinners elsewhere, no more correct
 
 62 The Wishing Moon 
 
 and no less, but it had this to distinguish it; it was 
 being served in Green River. 
 
 Served complete from hors-d'oeuvres to liqueurs, 
 in a New England town where high tea had been 
 the fashion not ten years ago, and church suppers 
 were still important occasions where you were 
 rich on five thousand a year, and there were not a 
 dozen capitalists secure of so much, where a second 
 maid was an object of pride, and there was no 
 butler except the Colonel's. And he had imported 
 this butler and his chef and his wines, but not his 
 guests; they were quite as impressive, quite able 
 .to appreciate his hospitality, if not to return it in 
 kind, and they were all but one native products of 
 Green River. 
 
 The youngest guest was eating mushrooms 
 sous cloche in contented silence at the Colonel's 
 left. The scene was not new to her. She could 
 not remember her first party here; she was prob- 
 ably the only person in Green River who could 
 pass over that momentous occasion so lightly. 
 She had grown up as the only child in the inner 
 circle. She had been privileged to excuse herself, 
 when the formal succession of courses at some 
 holiday function was too much for her, and read 
 fairy tales on a cushion by the library fire, out of 
 the fat, purple edition de luxe of the "Arabian 
 Nights" that was always waiting for her there.
 
 The Wishing Moon 63 
 
 Though her white ruffled skirts had grown long 
 now, and her silvery gold braids were pinned up, 
 and she was allowed to fill an empty place at the 
 Colonel's table whenever he asked her, if not 
 quite on his regular dinner list yet, Judith was not 
 much changed from that wide-eyed child, and 
 to-night her eyes looked sleepy and soft, as if she 
 had serious thoughts of the cushion by the fire and 
 the fairy book still. 
 
 The scene was not new, but it kept a fascination 
 for her, like a transformation scene in a pan- 
 tomime. Mr. J. Cleveland Kent, the manager of 
 the shoe factory, who had taken her in to dinner, 
 had been leaning out of a factory window in his 
 shirt-sleeves, his black hair tumbled, and badly 
 in need of a shave, when she passed on her way 
 home from school. He looked mysterious and 
 interesting in a dinner coat, like her idea of an 
 Italian nobleman. 
 
 When Judith knocked at the kitchen door to 
 deliver a note, Mrs. Theodore Burr, in a pink cook- 
 ing apron, corsetless, and with her beautiful yel- 
 low hair in patent curlers, had been blackening 
 the kitchen stove, and quarrelling with the furnace 
 man about an overcharge of fifty cents on his 
 monthly bill. The Burrs had no maid. Theodore 
 Burr had been assisting Judge Saxon ever since 
 he passed his bar examinations, but he was not
 
 64 The Wishing Moon 
 
 admitted to partnership yet. This was beginning 
 to make gossip, for he worked hard. He had 
 broken his dinner engagement to-night, as he 
 often did, to stay at home and work. Randolph 
 Sebastian, the secretary, with the queer, hybrid 
 foreign name, and thin face and ingratiating brown 
 eyes, had his place at the table. 
 
 Mrs. Burr, stately and slender now in jetted 
 black, the lowest cut gown in the room, her yellow 
 hair fluffing and flaring into an unbelievable num- 
 ber of well-filled-out puffs, was chattering to the 
 Colonel in a low voice, so that Judith could not 
 understand, and breaking into French at inter- 
 vals Green River High School French, but she 
 spoke it with an air, narrowing her blue-gray 
 eyes after an alluring fashion she had and laughing 
 her full-toned laugh. She was a full-blown, em- 
 phatic creature, though she had been married only 
 three years, and was Lil Gaynpr still to half the 
 town. 
 
 Auburn-haired little Mrs. Kent had been lying 
 down all the afternoon, as her disapproving do- 
 mestic had informed any one who inquired at the 
 door in a shrill voice that did not promote repose. 
 She was very piquant and enticing now, with her 
 bright, slanting hazel eyes, and a contagious 
 laugh, but her dinner partner, Judith's father, was 
 tired and hard to amuse. He looked very boy-
 
 The Wishing Moon 65 
 
 ish when he was tired; his blue eyes looked large 
 and pathetic. 
 
 The other two young women and Judith's 
 mother, whose dark, low-browed Madonna beauty 
 was gracious and fresh to-night, set off by her 
 clear-blue gown, with a gardenia caught in her 
 sheer, white scarf, deserved the Honourable 
 Joseph Grant's flowery name for them, the Three 
 Graces. 
 
 Before the Colonel's time and Judith's the Hon- 
 ourable Joe had been the most important man in 
 Green River, and in evening things, and after a 
 properly concocted cocktail he still looked it, 
 florid and portly and well set-up, with a big voice 
 that could still sound hearty though it rang rather 
 empty and hollow sometimes. He looked ten 
 years younger than his old friend, Judge Saxon. 
 The Judge's coat was getting shiny at the seams, 
 and this appeared even more unfortunate to 
 Judith he was in the habit of pointing out that 
 it was shiny, and without embarrassment. Mrs. 
 Saxon's pearl-gray satin was of excellent quality, 
 but of last year's cut, and the modest neck was 
 filled in with the net guimpe which she affected 
 at informal dinners. The Saxons were not quite 
 in the picture, but they were always very kind to 
 Judith. 
 
 And if they were not in the picture, Mrs. Joseph
 
 66 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Grant, certainly not the youngest woman in the 
 room, though she was not the oldest, occupied the 
 centre of it. 
 
 She was like the picture of the beautiful princess 
 on the hill of glass, in a book of Judith's, and be- 
 sides, she had once been a real debutante, of the 
 kind that Judith liked to read about in novels, 
 before the Honourable Joe brought her from 
 Boston to Green River. Judith liked to look 
 at her better than any one here except Colonel 
 Everard. 
 
 "Cosmopolitan ten years ahead of Wells, or 
 any town in your state; real give and take in the 
 table talk; really pretty women; the same little 
 group of people rubbing wits against each other 
 day after day and getting them sharpened instead 
 of dulled by it; a concentrated, pocket edition of a 
 social life, but complete nothing provincial about 
 it," a very distinguished outsider had said after 
 his last week-end with the Colonel. 
 
 But he was fresh from a visit to the state capital, 
 the most provincial city in the state when the leg- 
 islature was not in session; also he had a known 
 weakness for pretty women. Green River did 
 not admire the Colonel's circle so unreservedly, 
 but Green River was jealous. Whatever you 
 thought of it, it was made of fixed and unpromising 
 material, and making it was no mean achieve-
 
 The Wishing Moon 67 
 
 ment, and the man at the head of the table looked 
 capable of it, and of bigger things. 
 
 The Colonel was a big man and a public char- 
 acter, and as with many bigger men, you could 
 divide the facts of his life into two classes: what 
 everybody knew and what nobody knew. If 
 the known facts were not the most dramatic ones, 
 they were dramatic enough. He was sixty now. 
 At fifteen he had been a student in a small theo- 
 logical seminary, working for his board on his 
 uncle's farm, and engaged to the teacher of the 
 district school, who helped him with his Greek at 
 night. He gave up the ministry for the law, used 
 his law practice as a stepping-stone into state 
 politics, climbed gradually into national politics, 
 built up a fortune somehow these were the days 
 of big graft married for money and got an assured 
 position in Washington society thrown in, and 
 soon after his marriage chose Green River as a 
 basis of operations, spending a winter month in 
 Washington which later lengthened to three, os- 
 tensibly for the sake of his wife's health. The 
 title of Colonel came from serving on the Governor's 
 staff in an uneventful year. He had held no very 
 important office, but his importance to his party 
 in state and national politics was not to be meas- 
 ured by that. 
 
 White haired, slightly built, managing with per-
 
 68 The Wishing Moon 
 
 fectly apparent tricks of carriage and dress to 
 look taller than he was, he was the effective figure 
 in this rather unusually good-looking group of 
 people. Just now he was lighting a fresh cigarette 
 for Mrs. Burr so gracefully that even Judge Saxon 
 must enjoy watching, so Judith thought, though 
 there was a tradition that he did not like women 
 to smoke. Shocking the Judge was one of their 
 favourite games here. It was only a game. Of 
 course they could never shock anybody. They 
 were quite harmless people, too grown up to be 
 very interesting, but almost always kind, and al- 
 ways gay. 
 
 The Colonel's profile was really beautiful through 
 the curling, bluish smoke, and Judith liked his 
 quick, flashing smile. He turned now and smiled 
 at Judith. Her own smile was charming, a faint, 
 hah 5 smile, that never knew whether to turn into a 
 real smile or to go away and not come again, but 
 was always just on the point of deciding. 
 
 "Is our debutante bored?" 
 
 "Oh, no; I was just thinking. No." 
 
 "She's blushing. Look at her." 
 
 "Yes, look at a real one. Do you good, Lil," 
 agreed the Judge, and Mrs. Burr rubbed a pink 
 cheek with her table napkin, exhibited it daintily, 
 and laughed. 
 
 "Rose-white youth! But she doth protest too
 
 TJie Wishing Moon 69 
 
 much." The Honourable Joe was fond of quota- 
 tions, and often tried to make his remarks sound 
 like them, when he could not recall appropriate 
 ones, raising a solemn fat finger to emphasize 
 them: "The thoughts of youth are long, long 
 thoughts." 
 
 "Wrong, wrong thoughts," supplied Randolph 
 Sebastian, so gravely that the Honourable Joe 
 accepted the amendment, and looked worried, as 
 only the thought of losing his grip on Bartlett's 
 "Familiar Quotations" could worry him at the end 
 of a perfect meal. 
 
 "Wrong thought?" he repeated, in a puzzled 
 voice. 
 
 "Thinking's barred here. What's the penalty, 
 Judge?" 
 
 "You aren't likely to get it inflicted on you, so 
 I won't tell you, Lil." 
 
 "No, I don't think; I act," Mrs. Burr admitted 
 cheerfully. She always became a shade more 
 cheerful just when you expected her to lose her 
 temper. 
 
 "How true that is," observed Mr. Sebastian 
 gently. 
 
 "Ranny!" 
 
 "Didn't you play auction with me last night? 
 We're out just 
 
 "Don't tell me. I can't think in anything
 
 70 The Wishing Moon 
 
 beyond three figures. Ted's doing higher mathe- 
 matics over it. That's why he's home, really. 
 I'll play with you again to-night, for your sins." 
 
 "For my sins!" He made melancholy eyes, as 
 if he were really confessing them. Mr. Sebastian 
 always pretended a deep devotion to Mrs. Burr. 
 Judith thought it was one of the silliest of their 
 games. 
 
 "But what was Judy thinking about?" de- 
 manded Mrs. Grant, in the sweet, indifferent voice 
 that always made itself heard. 
 
 "She met a fairy prince at the ball last night. 
 They are still to be met at balls." 
 
 "You'd meet one anywhere he made a date, 
 wouldn't you, Edith Kent? " said the Judge rudely. 
 "Give Miss Judy a penny for her thoughts, if 
 you want them, Everard. You've got to pay 
 sometimes, you know even you." 
 
 "Don't commercialize her too young," said Mr. 
 Sebastian smoothly. "Though, on the whole 
 can you commercialize them too young?" 
 
 "Judith, what were you thinking about?" the 
 Colonel interrupted, rather quickly, turning every 
 one's eyes upon her at once, as he could with a 
 word. 
 
 Judith met them confidently amused, curious 
 eyes, but all friendly and gay. They talked a 
 great deal of nonsense here, but it did not irritate
 
 The Wishing Moon 71 
 
 her, as it did her friend Judge Saxon, though she 
 was not always amused, and could not always 
 understand. They never tried to shock her. 
 She was sorry for the Judge. He was not at home 
 with these gay and good-natured people, and it 
 was so easy to be. 
 
 She tipped her head backward in deliberate 
 imitation of Edith Kent, whom she admired, half 
 closed her eyes, like Lillian Burr, whom she admired 
 still more, gazed up at the Colonel, and said, in her 
 clear little voice : 
 
 "I was thinking about you." 
 
 "That's the answer," said Mr. Kent, and re- 
 warded it with a lump of sugar dipped in his 
 apricot brandy. 
 
 "For an ingenue?" said Mrs. Burr, very sweetly 
 indeed. 
 
 " 'She's getting older every day,' " hummed Mrs. 
 Kent, in her charming, throaty contralto. 
 
 But Judge Saxon pushed back his chair and rose 
 abruptly. 
 
 "I've had dinner enough," he said, "and so have 
 you, Miss Judy." 
 
 "We all have, Hugh," said the Colonel quickly, 
 and rose, too, and slipped an intimate hand 
 through his arm. "Run along, children! Hugh, 
 about that Brady matter " 
 
 Judge Saxon submitted sulkily, but was laugh-
 
 72 The Wishing Moon 
 
 ing companionably with the Colonel by the time 
 they all reached the library. 
 
 Judith never admired the Colonel more than 
 when he was managing Judge Saxon in a sulky 
 mood. And she never admired the Colonel and 
 his friends more than she did in the lazy intimate 
 hour here before the cards began. 
 
 The room was long and high, and too narrow; 
 unfriendly, as only a room that is both badly pro- 
 portioned and unusually large can be, but you 
 forgot this in the softening glow of candles and 
 rose-shaded lights. You forgot, too, that you were 
 an exile from your own generation, among elders 
 who bored you, though you were subtly flattered 
 to be among them. Safe on a high window-bench 
 in the most remote window, entirely your own, 
 since the architect had not designed it to be sat 
 on, and nobody else took the trouble to climb up, 
 it was so much pleasanter to watch these people 
 than to talk to them; they had such pretty clothes, 
 and wore them so well, and made such effective, 
 changing pictures of themselves in the big room. 
 
 Sometimes they amused themselves with the 
 parlour tricks that they had so many of, and some- 
 times they drifted in and out in groups of two and 
 three, to more intimate parts of the house: the 
 smoking-room, or Mrs. Everard's suite, if she 
 was well, or out through the French windows,
 
 The Wishing Moon 73 
 
 across the broad, glassed-in veranda that ran the 
 length of the room and darkened it unpleasantly by 
 day, into the Colonel's rose garden. It was warm 
 enough for that to-night, and a yellow, September 
 moon showed invitingly through the windows. 
 Mrs. Grant, who liked to be alone, as Judith 
 could quite understand, since she had to listen to 
 the Honourable Joe's big voice so much of the 
 time, was slipping out through a window now, 
 taking the coat that Mr. Sebastian brought her, 
 but refusing to let him go with her. 
 
 He went to the piano, ran his thin, flexible 
 brown fingers over the keys, struck into a Spanish 
 serenade, and sang a verse of it in his brilliant but 
 tricky tenor, with his languishing eyes upon Mrs. 
 Burr. 
 
 "Ranny, do you want to tell the whole world of 
 our love? You terrify me," she said, and took 
 refuge on one arm of the Colonel's chair. Judith's 
 mother, protesting that she needed a chaperon, 
 promptly took possession of the other arm, dis- 
 posing her blue, trailing skirts demurely, and 
 looking more Madonna-like than ever through 
 the cloudy smoke of a belated cigarette. The 
 others made themselves equally comfortable, all 
 but Judge Saxon, who had ceased to advertise 
 the fact that he was not. 
 
 "Smile at me," Mrs. Kent begged, hovering
 
 74 The Wishing Moon 
 
 over his chair; "I'm going to sing by and by, and 
 I need it. Do smile! If you don't, I'm going 
 to kiss you, Judge." 
 
 "Go as far as you like, but be sure how far 
 you like to go, Edith," said the Judge quietly. 
 She flushed, and turned away abruptly, playing 
 with a pile of songs. 
 
 "I'm looking for a lullaby. Our youngest 
 seems to need it." 
 
 "Not in your line, are they?" said Sebastian, 
 and began to improvise one, while Judith, in her 
 corner, closed her eyes contentedly. Whether there 
 was any truth or not in the report that he had 
 been playing a ramshackle piano in an East Side res- 
 taurant in New York when the Colonel picked him 
 up, Sebastian could do charming things with quite 
 simple little tunes, if you did not inquire into prob- 
 lems of harmony and counterpoint too closely. 
 He was doing them now, weaving odds and ends 
 of familiar tunes, rather scapegrace and thin, 
 into a lovely, reassuring whole, that made you 
 feel rested and safe. Judith, making herself 
 comfortable against a stiff and unwieldy Arts 
 and Crafts sort of cushion, as long experience had 
 taught her to, listened, smiling. 
 
 She had no idea what a unique position she was 
 occupying there. Judge Saxon grumbled and 
 scolded, but he was part of the group in the room.
 
 The Wishing Moon 75 
 
 He had grown into it, and belonged to them, as 
 he might have belonged to an uncongenial family. 
 The Colonel's distinguished guests saw them only 
 on their best behaviour. Their local critics never 
 penetrated here at all. Judith was the only out- 
 sider who did, and she had besides the irrevocable 
 right of youth to pronounce judgment upon those 
 who have prepared the world for it to occupy. 
 She was their only licensed critic. What did she 
 think of them? Her blond head drooped sleep- 
 ily. She did not look disposed to say. 
 
 Sebastian played on, drifting into something 
 sophisticated, with a suggestion of waltz rhythms 
 running through it. There was a stir of move- 
 ment in the room, and the sound of windows open- 
 ing and shutting, once, and then again. Judith 
 did not turn her head to see who had gone out. 
 She was too comfortable. It was strange that he 
 could make you so comfortable with his music, 
 when he made you so uncomfortable if you talked 
 to him, watching you so closely with his queer, 
 bright eyes. 
 
 He stopped abruptly, with a big, crashing dis- 
 cord, and Judith rubbed her eyes and sat up. 
 Mrs. Kent was going to sing now. She tossed 
 some music to him. 
 
 "That's over your head," she said; "over all 
 your heads; better put me up there, too, Cleve.
 
 76 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Besides, I want to dance. That table will do." 
 She cleared it unceremoniously, with her hus- 
 band's help, and established herself there, poised 
 motionless, through the introductory bars of the 
 song, her sleepy eyes wide awake now, and a 
 red rose from a bowl on the table caught between 
 her teeth. 
 
 Quietly, always careful to avoid the reputation 
 of being shocked, like the Judge, Judith slipped 
 down from her perch, and across the room, and 
 out through the window. 
 
 "Please keep my folks from kickin'; 
 Grab me while I'm a chicken, 
 I'm getting older every day." 
 
 Mrs. Kent's fresh voice was urging, as Judith 
 tiptoed across the veranda. 
 
 The rowdy words of her little songs and the 
 demure plaintiveness of Mrs. Kent's voice made 
 an effective contrast. It amused Judith as much 
 as any one, and she liked to laugh, but she liked 
 better to cry, and if you could not hear the words, 
 Mrs. Kent's voice made you cry; big, luxurious 
 tears, that stood in your eyes and did not fall. 
 As she found her way across the lawn, among the 
 elaborate flower-beds, the voice followed her, mellow 
 and sweet. It had never sounded so sweet before. 
 Everything sweet in the world was sweeter to-night.
 
 The Wishing Moon 77 
 
 At the edge of the lawn Judith paused. Ahead 
 of her three marble steps, flanked by urns filled 
 with ivy, glaring things in the daytime but glim- 
 mering shadowy white and alluring now, led up 
 the terrace to the rose garden; a fairy place, far 
 from the world, so hedged in and shadowed by 
 trees that it was dark even by moonlight, entered 
 through an old-fashioned trellised arbour, that 
 was so mysterious and dark, she liked it almost 
 as well now when the rambler roses were not in 
 flower. 
 
 When she left the room her mother had been 
 sitting in Colonel Everard's chair, she seemed to 
 remember, and the Colonel and Mrs. Burr were 
 nowhere to be seen. The whole room looked 
 emptier, though she did not know who else was 
 missing. But there were two people now in the 
 rose arbour. She could just hear their voices, 
 low, with long silences between. 
 
 She wanted the place to herself. She stood still, 
 hoping that they would go. There was a path 
 into the woods on the other side of the little gar- 
 den: the Colonel's bare, semicultivated woods, 
 combed clean of underbrush, but you did not miss 
 it at night. The woods were full of adventure, 
 but the garden was better to dream in, and 
 Judith had a great deal to dream about. 
 
 The lighted house looked quite small and far
 
 78 The Wishing Moon 
 
 away across the wide, moonlit lawn. They had 
 stopped singing, and the laughter that followed 
 the song did not sound so clear as the music; 
 you could just hear it. Presently you could hear 
 nothing, and it was quiet in the rose arbour, too. 
 She waited until she was sure, standing quite still 
 at the edge of the dark enclosure, not a rufflle 
 of her white dress fluttering, very slender and 
 small against the dark of the leaves. Then she 
 slipped into the arbour. 
 
 Through a fringe of drooping vine that half hid 
 the picture, she could see the garden, empty and 
 dimly moonlit, with the marble benches faintly 
 white. She hurried through, pushed a trailing 
 vine aside, then dropped it and shrank back under 
 the trellis. 
 
 The garden was empty. But across it, just at 
 the entrance of the wood path, she saw a man and 
 a woman. At first she took the two figures for 
 one, they were standing so closely embraced. 
 She could not see their faces, only the two dark 
 figures standing there like one. They stood still a 
 long time. They might have been lovers in a 
 picture, only you could not paint pictures of 
 darkly clothed, ungraceful, shapeless people. Fin- 
 ally they moved, the man turning suddenly, slip- 
 ping an arm higher around the woman's shoulders, 
 and putting his face down to hers.
 
 The Wishing Moon 79 
 
 Then he drew her into the wood path, and they 
 passed down it out of sight. Judith did not know 
 who the woman was, but the man was Colonel 
 Everard. And they had kissed each other. 
 
 Now they were gone. Judith drew a deep breath 
 of relief and stepped out into the enclosure, pacing 
 across it with slow steps, possessing it for her own 
 and dismissing alien presences. There was a 
 high-backed marble erection between the benches, 
 which looked like a memorial to the dear departed, 
 but was designed for a chair. She seated herself 
 there deliberately, leaning back, at ease somehow 
 in the unfriendly depths of it, a slender, uncom- 
 promising creature, like a young princess sitting 
 in judgment on her throne. 
 
 They had kissed each other. She knew they 
 did things like this, but now she had seen it, which 
 was different, and not very pleasant. But they 
 were all so old. Did it really matter whether 
 they kissed each other or not? 
 
 "Stupid old things," said Colonel Everard's 
 only authorized critic, "I don't care what they 
 do." 
 
 Here in the quiet of the garden you were free to 
 think about more interesting things than the 
 Everards or even fairy princes. 
 
 "Stupid," repeated Judith absently, and forgot 
 the Everards. The moon, far away but very clear,
 
 80 The Wishing Moon 
 
 shone down at her in an unwinking, concentrated 
 way, as if it were shining into the Colonel's garden 
 and nowhere else, and at nobody but Judith. She 
 did not look disconcerted by the attention, but 
 stared back at it with eyes that were not sleepy 
 now, but very big and bright wondering, but 
 not afraid. 
 
 On still nights like this you could just hear the 
 church clock strike from the garden, but you could 
 not count all the strokes. Judith listened for the 
 sound. It was early, and out here, in the cool, 
 still air, it felt early, though the time had passed 
 so slowly in the Colonel's sleepy rooms. She 
 could hear no music from the house. They would 
 soon begin to put out the bridge tables. There 
 was always a chance that they would need her to 
 complete a table, but if they did not, the Colonel's 
 car was to take her home at nine. 
 
 And the Colonel's youngest guest had further 
 plans for the evening.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 THAT will be all, Miss? " 
 "Yes," said Judith, with unnecessary 
 emphasis. " Oh, yes, indeed ! " 
 
 The Everards' car turned and flashed out of the 
 drive and up the street. Judith stood still on the 
 steps and watched it, if a young lady with her 
 breath coming fast and her eyes shining bright in 
 the dark, and her heart beating unaccountably 
 hard can be said to be standing still. One light 
 burned forlornly over the entrance of the inn. 
 Light was Judge Saxon's one extravagance, and 
 plenty of it was waiting for him in the house next 
 door, though it would be two before any one left 
 the Everards' but Judith. 
 
 The house before her was dark, and the dimly 
 lighted street was profoundly still, with the heavy 
 and brooding stillness that comes upon village 
 streets after nine and is to be found nowhere else 
 in the world. Judith did not seem depressed by 
 it. Somewhere on a side street solitary footsteps 
 echoed hollow through the silence, and she lis- 
 tened intently, but they came no nearer, and 
 presently died away. She fumbled excitedly with 
 
 81
 
 82 The Wishing Moon 
 
 her key, threw open the door, and groped her way 
 across the unlighted hall. She encountered the 
 telephone table prematurely, clutched it, and 
 laughed a high-keyed, strange little laugh. 
 
 "Who's there?" demanded a voice from the 
 stairs, disconcertingly close. The lights, switched 
 suddenly on, flashed into Judith's eyes, and Norah 
 confronted her, peculiarly forbidding in a dis- 
 carded cape of Judith's and her own beflowered 
 best hat. 
 
 "Oh, it's you," she said. 
 
 "Who did you expect? Anybody else? Did 
 anybody come?" 
 
 "I expected you a half hour ago." 
 
 "What made you wait for me?" 
 
 "Didn't you want me to?" 
 
 "Nana, of course, but if your sister is sick and 
 needs you 
 
 Norah listened to this irreproachable sentiment 
 suspiciously. "It's late to go," she said. 
 
 "I'll walk up with you if you're frightened." 
 
 " You ! Can you unhook that dress ? " 
 
 "Yes. I'm going to bed pretty soon. I'm 
 awfully sleepy." 
 
 "There's some ginger ale on the ice." 
 
 " I can get it open myself. Did anybody come?' 
 
 "A boy you know." 
 
 "Who?"
 
 The Wishing Moon 83 
 
 "You're too anxious to know, and too anxious to 
 get rid of me. And you're acting nervous." 
 
 "I'm not. I'm just sleepy." 
 
 Norah, her grimmest self, as she always was just 
 before relenting, began to fumble with her hat- 
 pins. 
 
 "Let me help, if you really want to take off 
 your hat. You'll spoil your beautiful roses. 
 Darling, you look like your niece, the lovely Miss 
 Maggie Brady, in that hat. Don't take it off. 
 You're cross because you know where I've been. 
 Well, they didn't eat me. I'm all here. It was 
 Willard who came, and I don't care whether you 
 tell me or not. And I don't want to get rid of 
 you. And I love you and you love me, and you're 
 not cross now." 
 
 "If I love you, you've got need of it, then." 
 Norah struggled perfunctorily, and permitted 
 herself to be kissed. "Alone here till all hours of 
 the night, and Mollie at the dance at the Falls, 
 and your own mother " 
 
 "But you won't worry about me? And you'll 
 go? And you'll go now, before it gets later, so 
 you won't be frightened. You'll go this minute? 
 And oh, Nana " 
 
 Norah, departing by the front door because the 
 back one was secured by an elaborate system of 
 locks of her own invention, and operated only by
 
 84 The Wishing Moon 
 
 herself, turned to give Judith a farewell glance of 
 grim adoration. 
 
 "Nana, was it Willard that came?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And not anybody else?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 Norah, winding herself tightly into the cape 
 in a way that converted that traditionally grace- 
 ful garment into a kind of armour, disappeared 
 up the street. When she was out of sight, and 
 not until then, Judith slammed the door shut, 
 laughing her tense, excited laugh again. 
 
 Then, for a sleepy young woman, she began to 
 display surprising activity. First she turned off 
 all the lights in the hall but one, in an opalescent 
 globe, over the front door, looked at the faintly 
 lighted vestibule with a calculating eye, and turned 
 that out also. She looked critically in at the li- 
 brary, close curtained for the night, and dimly lit 
 by the embers of the wood fire, raked apart, but 
 not dead. She pushed them together expertly, 
 and added a stick, a little one, which would soon 
 burn down to picturesque embers, like the rest. 
 She pulled an armchair closer to the fire, pushed 
 it away again, and dropped two cushions on the 
 hearth with a discreet space between. 
 
 The remains of Willard's last half-dozen carna- 
 tions and a box of the eighty-cent-a-pound candy
 
 The Wishing Moon 85 
 
 which only Mr. Edward Ward was extravagant 
 enough to prefer to the generally popular fifty-cent 
 Belle Isle, were conspicuous on the table, and 
 Judith carried them into the next room, out of 
 sight. Just then the telephone rang. 
 
 Judith started, dropped the candy, ran into the 
 hall, and stood looking down at the small instru- 
 ment resentfully, as if it were personally to blame 
 because she could not see who was calling her 
 without answering and committing herself. Once 
 she picked it up doubtfully, but finally put it down, 
 still ringing intermittently, and hurried into the 
 kitchen. She put a second bottle of ginger ale 
 on the ice, brought a hammered brass tray and 
 two glasses from the butler's pantry, then sub- 
 stituted a less ostentatious bamboo tray, hesi- 
 tated, and then put them all away again. 
 
 Now she went to her own room, turned on an 
 unbecoming but searchingly clear toplight, and 
 frowned at herself in the mirror, jerked out her 
 hairpins, shook out her soft hair, and brushed and 
 pulled at it with unsteady hands. In spite of 
 them, the pale gold braids, rearranged, looked 
 almost as well as before, if no better, and the 
 heightened colour in her cheeks was charming. 
 From a corner of her glove-case she produced the 
 two cosmetics then in favour with the younger 
 set in Green River, burnt matches, and a bit of
 
 86 The Wishing Moon 
 
 scarlet ribbon, which made an excellent substitute 
 for rouge if you moistened it. The ribbon was an 
 unhealthy red, and looked peculiarly so to-night. 
 Judith dropped it impulsively into her waste- 
 basket, but experimented with the matches. 
 
 She made both her delicately shaded eyebrows 
 an even splotchy black, admired the result, then 
 suddenly rubbed it off, turned away from the 
 mirror without a backward glance, and ran down 
 into the hall. The clock was just striking ten. 
 
 Judith paused for one breathless minute at the 
 library door, pressing both hands against her heart, 
 then she went into the firelit room and made the 
 last and most important of her preparations. She 
 switched on the lights, toplights and sidelights and 
 reading-lamp, all of them, went to the middle one 
 of the three front windows, crushed the curtains 
 back, and raised both shades high to the top, so 
 that the light in the room looked out at the street 
 from this window from sill to ceiling. Judith 
 slipped quickly out of range of the window, 
 dropped down on one of the cushions by the fire, 
 and waited. 
 
 She had fluttered through her little hurry of 
 preparation excitedly, but now there was evidence 
 of deeper excitement about the tense quiet of her, 
 huddled on her cushion, small hands clasping 
 silken knees, and brooding eyes on the fire. There
 
 The Wishing Moon 87 
 
 was a dignity about her, too, in spite of her childish 
 pose and a drooping grace that was almost a 
 woman's. 
 
 What she was waiting for was slow to come, but 
 she did not seem disturbed by that. The hands 
 of the clock above her seemed to move with 
 the unbelievable quickness characteristic of clock 
 hands when there is no other activity in the room, 
 and she observed them calmly. Soon they pointed 
 to the quarter hour, they passed it. She looked 
 faintly worried then. The telephone rang again; 
 she pressed her hands over her ears and shut her 
 eyes tight, and did not answer. The stick on the 
 fire burned low and she did not replace it. It 
 parted and fell from the andirons with a dull noise 
 that echoed loudly through the empty room. 
 Judith started and jumped up, her eyes hard and 
 bright, her hands tightly clenched. 
 
 She eyed the clock threateningly, as if it were 
 personally responsible for whatever disappoint- 
 ment she might be feeling, and she were daring it 
 not to strike. It struck half-past ten in spite 
 of her. Judith's mouth trembled childishly, 
 and tears started to her eyes. They did not fall. 
 Footsteps sounded outside. They turned into the 
 drive. Judith stood on tiptoe and peeped at her- 
 self in the mantel mirror her flushed cheeks, 
 tumbled hair, and sparkling eyes. The steps
 
 88 Tlie Wishing Moon 
 
 crossed the porch, and she ran to the door and 
 threw it open the length of the chain, and no 
 wider. She did not unbar the chain. On the 
 threshold, with a substantial box of Belle Isle 
 under his arm, stood Mr. Willard Nash. 
 
 Judith regarded Mr. Nash and his Belle Isle 
 with disfavour. 
 
 "You can't come in," she said. 
 
 Mr. Nash, who had been stooping to flick some 
 dust from his boots, straightened guiltily. "Why?" 
 
 "It's too late." 
 
 "I've got to see you." 
 
 "You do see me." A white dress, a face al- 
 most as white, and big, dark eyes were all he could 
 see, but it seemed to be enough. He inserted a 
 square-toed boot cautiously in the opening of the 
 door. 
 
 "I want to see you about something." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "A new comic song for the quartette. They 
 won't let us do 'Amos Moss' at the Lyceum con- 
 cert. That part about the red shirt is vulgar. 
 The new one's close harmony. It will show off 
 Murph's voice." 
 
 "It's too late now. Go home, Willard." 
 
 "But I brought you this." 
 
 " Go home and eat it," suggested Judith. 
 
 Willard turned scarlet, swung round, then
 
 The Wishing Moon 89 
 
 changed his mind and inserted his foot in the crack 
 of the door again, this time with a purposeful air. 
 He was to develop into the type of man to whom 
 an unpropitious time and place are an irresistible 
 temptation to demand a show-down. It is a 
 type that goes far, though it is not essentially 
 popular. Judith sighed, then resigned herself. 
 
 "Judy, I don't make you out." 
 
 "You don't have to." 
 
 "I do." Willard's voice was impressive, as 
 even a fat boy's can be when he is in the grip of 
 fate and conscious of it. "I do." 
 
 "I'm sorry, Willard, dear," murmured Judith, 
 with disarming sweetness, but he was not to be 
 turned from his purpose. 
 
 "Judy, are you going with me or not? " 
 
 " Going with you? " 
 
 "Don't be a snob. What else can I call it but 
 going with me? I don't know any other way 
 to say it." 
 
 "Then don't say it." 
 
 "You've got my class pin and I've got yours. 
 I know there isn't anybody else. You let me call 
 and take you places, but you won't let me " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Willard looked sheepishly down at his boots, 
 then bravely up at Judith. "Put my arm round 
 you at picnics. Kiss you good-night."
 
 90 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Judith cut short this catalogue crisply. 
 
 "Spoon?" 
 
 This word was forbidden in the upper circles of 
 the Green River younger set, and Willard looked 
 pained, but collected himself. 
 
 "We are the same as engaged," he insisted 
 sturdily. 
 
 He had forced an issue at last, but Judith evaded 
 it, laughing softly in the dark. 
 
 "Oh, are we?" 
 
 "Aren't we?" 
 
 " How do you know there isn't anybody else? " 
 
 "Well, you won't look at Ed, and Murph don't 
 count. ' ' Willard made this pronouncement lightly, 
 though the adamantine rules and impassable 
 barriers of a whole social order were embodied 
 in it. " Murph that you're so thick with, all of a 
 sudden. He's a bully fellow, all right, next cap- 
 tain of the team, probably. Good thing he's 
 broken into the crowd a little way. Too bad he's 
 Irish. Murph don't count." 
 
 "No no!" A sudden and poignant sweet- 
 ness thrilled in Judith's voice. The tenor of the 
 Green River High School quartette, not ordinarily 
 sensitive to variations of tone in the voices of 
 others, could not ignore it. The change had dis- 
 turbed him vaguely. It seemed to call for some 
 comment.
 
 The Wishing Moon 91 
 
 "Judy, you look great to-night. . . . I'd 
 do anything for you." 
 
 " Then go home, Willard." 
 
 "You haven't answered my question." 
 
 "What question?" 
 
 "Don't tease." 
 
 "I honestly don't know." 
 
 "You don't hear one word I'm saying to you." 
 
 Judith laughed guiltily. "Then what makes 
 you talk tome?" 
 
 "Judith are we the same as engaged?" 
 
 Judith hesitated. "Kissing each other good- 
 night and all that is silly. I don't want to. 
 Only sometimes I want to, and then afterward I'm 
 ashamed, and can't understand why. Willard, 
 I don't want to grow up. I don't ever want to. 
 I want things to stay just the way they are. 
 They are lovely . Oh, Willard " 
 
 She stopped, with tears in her eyes. There 
 had been a real appeal in his earnest young voice, 
 and she had done her best to answer it, painfully 
 thinking out loud, with her heart in her words, 
 making him an authentic confidence. But the 
 confidence was off the point, and he ignored it, 
 pursuing his subject with the concentration which 
 will keep his sex the stronger one, votes for women 
 or no votes for women. 
 
 "Are you the same as engaged to me?"
 
 92 The Wishing Moon 
 
 " Will you go home if I say I am? " 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 "There isn't any such thing as being the same 
 as engaged." 
 
 "Are you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Willard, forgetting himself in the heat of de- 
 bate, had withdrawn his foot from the door. Ju- 
 dith, narrowly on the watch for this moment, 
 now seized it, shutting him and his Belle Isle out- 
 side, and slamming the door in his face. He had 
 gained his point, and would not linger. She 
 heard him ring the bell once or twice in perfunc- 
 tory protest, then put down his candy on the 
 steps. 
 
 "Good-night," he called cheerfully, through the 
 flimsy barrier of the pseudo-Colonial door. 
 
 "Good-night, Willard dear!" 
 
 Judith's voice was sweet, but indifferent, and 
 her manner was indifferent, for a young lady who 
 would have seemed, to a literal-minded person, 
 to have materially affected her whole future life 
 by this conversation. She did not watch Willard 
 go. She turned and stood in the library door, 
 smiling absently and humming a little snatch of 
 a waltz tune. It was eleven now, but the hour 
 had ceased to concern her, as if she had been 
 watching the clock for Willard. Presently, as
 
 The Wishing Moon 93 
 
 if she really had, she tossed the cushions back on 
 the couch, drew the shades over the window, 
 turned off the lights, and disappeared upstairs. 
 Muffled sounds of a methodical but unhurried 
 preparation for bed drifted faintly down, one last 
 ripple of song, and then it was silent there. 
 
 It was very still in the library. The stillness of 
 the whole empty house and the moonless night 
 outside seemed to centre there. The dying fire 
 threw out little spurts of flame and made wavering 
 shadows on the hearth as if Judith were still 
 crouching there. The embers glowed as red as 
 when she had been fire-gazing, but they did not 
 show what it was she had seen in the fire. They 
 kept her secrets as safely as she kept them herself; 
 as youth must keep its secrets, inarticulate, dumb, 
 because it sees into the heart of the world so 
 deeply that if it were granted speech it would 
 make the world too wise. What Judith had seen 
 in the fire, what had really been in her heart when 
 she talked to Willard in the groping and pitiful 
 language of youth, the only language she had, the 
 fire could not tell, and perhaps Judith did not 
 know. 
 
 It was still, and the tiniest sounds were exag- 
 gerated : a board creaking at the head of the stairs, 
 and creaking again, the stair-rail creaking, the 
 ghost of a faint little sigh; tiny and intermittent
 
 94 The Wishing Moon 
 
 sounds, but the silence became a listening hush 
 because of them: listening harder and harder. 
 At last a sound broke it: the doorbell, rung three 
 times, one long peal and two short. 
 
 It was rung faintly, but loud enough. There 
 was a soft hurry of slippered feet down the stairs, 
 and a slender figure, tall in straight-falling draper- 
 ies, slipped cautiously down and across the hall 
 to the door, stopped and stood leaning with one 
 ear pressed against it, silent and motionless, 
 hardly breathing. The faint signal was repeated. 
 Judith did not move. 
 
 There was one more ring, a soft tapping, and 
 then silence. Judith listened for a minute, then 
 whistled softly, a clear little signal, one long and 
 two short, like the signal ring. There was no 
 answer. She pulled frantically at the chain, got 
 it loose, and threw open the door. 
 
 A boy was standing on the steps, a stolid, un- 
 moving figure, looming deceptively tall in the dark. 
 He did not step forward or greet her. Judith 
 put out a groping hand and caught at his shoulder. 
 
 "Is it you? Oh, I thought you had gone," she 
 said. "I was watching for you upstairs." 
 
 "I am going. I can't come in so late." 
 
 "No, of course not." 
 
 "Then what made you watch for me?" 
 
 "I wanted to see if you came."
 
 The Wishing Moon 95 
 
 "Well, I did come, and now I'm going." 
 
 "You walked past the house five times." 
 
 " Eight." The boy laughed shortly, and Judith's 
 soft laugh echoed his. "Oh, what's the use? I'm 
 going." 
 
 " Don't you want to come in? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Then what made you walk past the house?" 
 
 "You know well enough." 
 
 "I want you to tell me. . . . You can come 
 in just five minutes if you want to." 
 
 "I-you- 
 
 Judith caught her trailing draperies tighter 
 round her, conscious that they were under obser- 
 vation. "It's not a kimono, it's a negligee. 
 And you've seen my hair in braids before, when 
 I played basket-ball. But you needn't come in 
 unless you want to." 
 
 "I don't." 
 
 "You're not very nice to me. Willard tried to 
 break in. Rena's been trying to get me by 
 'phone, to stay all night with me. You're not 
 nice to me at all." 
 
 His only reply was a kind of tortured groan, but 
 she seemed content with it. Her voice grew com- 
 pellingly sweet. 
 
 "I want to talk to you." 
 
 "Go on and talk."
 
 96 Tlie Wishing Moon 
 
 She huddled her draperies closer. "I'm too 
 cold." 
 
 "Go to bed then." 
 
 "I won't. If you don't come in I shall stand 
 here till mother comes. I'll probably get pneu- 
 monia." 
 
 This threat evoked no reply. 
 
 "Neil," the name was said as only names are said 
 that are new and dear not often used yet, but 
 often dreamed over, but there was still no answer. 
 
 "Neil, I'm awfully cold." 
 
 "I don't care." 
 
 "Oh, don't you?" 
 
 "You know I do. You know Oh, Ju- 
 dith, won't you please let me go? I don't want to 
 come in, I tell you." 
 
 "But you're coming?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Yielding abruptly, he stepped into the hall 
 beside her. Judith, suddenly silent, concerned 
 herself conscientiously with the chain. 
 
 "Don't stand there like that. I can't fasten 
 this if you do," she said breathlessly. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Go into the library, and don't light the lights, 
 if you're afraid of pigtails." 
 
 "I'm not afraid of anything." 
 
 "Well I'm not." With a reckless laugh,
 
 The Wishing Moon 97 
 
 which made this comprehensive challenge to the 
 world still more comprehensive, she followed him 
 into the firelit room. Slender and straight in soft- 
 falling white, her face flushed and sweet, framed 
 between silvery gold braids, her eyes wide and 
 challenging, she stood looking at him across the 
 hearth. 
 
 He faced her awkwardly but bravely, tall 
 in the shadowy room, his face very white, his 
 dark eyes catching the last rays of light from the 
 dying fire. The two did not move or speak till 
 he gave a sudden, shaken laugh. 
 
 "You wanted to talk to me talk." He smiled 
 a quick flashing smile. Judith drew away from him 
 and he followed. "Now you've got me here, 
 can't you shake hands with me? " 
 
 "Neil, be careful." 
 
 "I'm doing the best I can," he said in a choked 
 voice. " You shouldn't get me here. You shouldn't 
 get me to a house by night that's not open to me 
 by day." 
 
 "But it is. Only they'll never let me see you 
 alone, and I like to. I like to talk to you. It 
 makes me feel comfortable. Isn't it comfortable 
 here?" Judith paused, overcome by an unac- 
 countable difficulty with her breathing, but mas- 
 tered it. "Comfortable and cozy? Aren't you 
 glad you came in?"
 
 98 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Comfortable!" He laughed, came two steps 
 nearer to her, and stopped stiffly. Judith, dis- 
 posing her soft, silky draperies daintily, observed 
 him in silence from a big chair which she had 
 taken possession of rather abruptly, faintly 
 smiling. 
 
 "Don't look at me like that," he commanded. 
 
 "Like what? Sit down over there, Neil. 
 Isn't it cozy? Willard's got a new song that " 
 
 "Willard!" 
 
 "Don't be cross. We haven't very much 
 time." 
 
 "Judith, where is this getting us? We're not 
 children. Won't you talk straight to me? You 
 ought to leave me alone, or talk straight." 
 
 " Please don't be cross." 
 
 " Cross ! " He came across the hearth and stood 
 close before her, awkward no longer, but splendid 
 with youth in the firelight, his dark eyes shining. 
 
 "You knew I'd come, no matter how hard I 
 tried not to?" 
 
 "Yes," Judith breathed. 
 
 "And you meant to let me in? " 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "And you know, if I come, if you let me, I 
 can't help can't help " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Oh, Judith!" He dropped on his knees beside
 
 The Wishing Moon 99 
 
 her and hid his face. Judith did not touch the 
 dark head that she could see dimly in the shad- 
 owy room, outlined against her cloudy white, but 
 she leaned closer to it, her lips parting softly, her 
 eyes wide and strange. 
 
 "I don't want you to help it," she breathed. 
 
 "But where will it get us?" pleaded a muffled 
 voice. 
 
 "I don't care." Her hand hovered over the 
 dark hair, touching it with the wonderful, blended 
 awkwardness and adroitness of first caresses. 
 
 He brushed the butterfly touch away and 
 raised his head and looked long at her, slipping 
 both arms round her waist and holding her tight. 
 
 "Will you always say that?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Oh, Judith!" Her sweet, flushed face was 
 close above him now, eyes drooping, lips faintly 
 apart, drawn down to his as gently and inevitably 
 as tired eyes close into sleep. "Judith, some day 
 you'll have to care." 
 
 "Not yet. Neil, don't talk any more." 
 
 "I can't." 
 
 "Then kiss me."
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 IT WAS winter in Green River. 
 The town, attracting Colonel Everard to 
 it sixteen years before, newly prosperous, 
 outgrowing its old lumbering days, with the ship- 
 building industry already a thing of the past, 
 with the power in the little river awaiting develop- 
 ment, money in the small but thriving bank, and 
 a new spirit everywhere, beyond the control of 
 old leaders, too progressive for a provincial mag- 
 nate's direction, had been in the interesting and 
 dangerous condition of a woman ready for her next 
 love affair; if the right man comes, she may live 
 happy ever after, but even if the wrong man comes, 
 a flirtation is due. Like a woman again, the town 
 showed the strength of his hold on her in his ab- 
 sence; in winter, when the big, unfriendly house 
 was shuttered and closed, the ladies of the 
 inner circle wore out their summer evening gowns 
 at mild winter gayeties, church socials, Vil- 
 lage Improvement Society bridge parties, and the 
 old-fashioned supper parties which the Nashes 
 and Larribees and Saxons still ventured to 
 give. 
 
 100
 
 The Wishing Moon 101 
 
 Humble festivities which he would not have 
 honoured with his presence lacked allurement 
 because he was not in town and staying away from 
 them. Great matters and small hung fire to await 
 his deciding vote, from the list of books to be 
 bought for the library to the chairmanship of the 
 school board. Marking time and waiting for the 
 Colonel to come home; that was what winter meant 
 to most of Green River, but not to Judith Ran- 
 dall. Winter was a charmed time to her; the 
 time when her mother did not care what she did. 
 Freedom was always sweet, but this winter it 
 was sweeter than ever before to Judith. 
 
 She was never lonely now. Whispering groups 
 in the dingy corridor of the old schoolhouse, or in 
 that sacred spot, the senior's corner, a cluster of 
 seats in the northwest corner of the assembly- 
 room devoted by tradition to secret conclaves, 
 though not distinguishable from the rest of the 
 seats in the room to uninitiated eyes, drew her in 
 without question, slipping intimate arms round 
 her waist. 
 
 Attempts at informal gatherings in the Randall 
 drawing-room were failures, chilled by brief but 
 devastating invasions of Mrs. Randall with a too 
 polite manner and disapproving eyes. But wher- 
 ever the crowd drifted after school hours, Judith 
 drifted, too, or was summoned by telephone, by
 
 102 The Wishing Moon 
 
 imperative messages, vague, and of infinite possi- 
 bilities: 
 
 "Judy, this is Ed. There'll be something doing 
 to-night at our house. Bring your new dance 
 records." Or, as the outer fringe of the younger 
 set, jealously on the watch for snobbishness, but 
 disarmed at last, claimed her diffidently but eag- 
 erly, new names at which her mother raised her 
 eyebrows appeared on her dance orders: Joe 
 Garland, whose father kept the fish market, and 
 Abie Stern, Junior, the tailor's son. "Is this 
 Judith Randall? Well, Judith, this is Joe; Joe 
 Garland. I'm getting up a crowd to go skating 
 to-night, and have a rarebit afterward. Would 
 you care to come?" 
 
 She was one of the crowd. Natalie, little, 
 sparkling-eyed, and black-haired, with the freshest 
 and readiest of laughs, was more popular, filling 
 her dance orders first and playing the lead in 
 theatricals, and Rena Drew was more prominent, 
 president of the class and the debating society, 
 and the proud owner of the strongest voice in 
 the school quartette, a fine big contralto which 
 wrapped itself round Judith's small, clear soprano 
 at public appearances and nearly extinguished it. 
 Willard, the most eligible of the boys, was Ju- 
 dith's unquestioned property, otherwise nothing 
 distinguished her. She was one of the crowd,
 
 The Wishing Moon 103 
 
 and accepted the fact demurely, as if it were a 
 matter of course, not a dream come true. Just 
 as discreetly she conducted her affair with Neil 
 Donovan, captain-elect of the team, literary editor 
 of the school paper, star debater, and in his way a 
 creditable conquest, if she had cared to claim him 
 openly. 
 
 "Neil danced three dances with me," confided 
 Natalie, in the hushed whisper appropriate to 
 the confidences that were part of the ceremony 
 of spending the night together after a party, 
 though Natalie's room, with the old-fashioned 
 feather bed, where the two were cuddling together, 
 was on the third story of the rambling white house, 
 and safe out of hearing. 
 
 "Neil?" 
 
 "Judy, it's too bad to call him Murph and 
 make fun of him. The day he came into the store 
 to solicit ads for the Record father said that boy 
 would go far, if he had hah* a chance, but no boy 
 had a chance in this town, the way it is run, and 
 no Irish boy ever did have a chance. Well, an 
 Irish boy is just as good as anybody, if they only 
 thought so." 
 
 "But they don't." 
 
 "Judy, you are horrid about Neil. You al- 
 ways are about any boy I get crushed on. Neil 
 has perfectly beautiful eyes, and he is so sensi-
 
 104 The Wishing Moon 
 
 tive. He kept looking at you all through that 
 last schottische as if you had hurt his feelings. 
 He must have gone home soon after that. I didn't 
 see him again. You didn't dance with him 
 once." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Poor boy. And he's up there in the school- 
 house with you, hour after hour, practising quar- 
 tette stuff, and Willard so crazy about you he 
 can't see, and Rena crazy about Willard " 
 
 "Rena can have Willard." 
 
 Miss Ward was not to be diverted. "Neil's 
 father did keep a saloon, but he died when Neil 
 was a baby. His uncle that he lives with keeps 
 a store at the Falls, and that's all right. His 
 aunt took in washing, but his mother never did. 
 Charles Brady does get drunk, but Maggie drives 
 him to it. She's getting awfully wild. She's a 
 perfect beauty, though, and I wish I had her hair. 
 But Charlie's only Neil's second cousin. And 
 Neil is so quiet and pleasant, not like that Brady 
 boy that was in my sister Lutie's crowd; just as 
 fascinating, but Neil doesn't take liberties." 
 
 "I'm getting sleepy, Nat." 
 
 "Judy, the way I feel about Neil, about Irish 
 boys, is this: we can't go with them afterward, 
 but while they're in school with us, they are just 
 as good as we are, and we ought to give them just as
 
 The Wishing Moon 105 
 
 good a time as we can. If you know what I 
 mean." 
 
 "I don't. I'm sleepy." 
 
 "I'm not. I shan't shut my eyes." But Miss 
 Ward did shut them. "Judy." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "Judy, Abraham Lincoln split rails." 
 
 "Cheer up. The Warren Worth Comedy Com- 
 pany is going to play at the Hall next week, and 
 Warren Worth has perfectly beautiful eyes, too." 
 
 "Not like Neil's." 
 
 "Go to sleep, Nat." 
 
 But Judith did not go to sleep until after an 
 hour of staring wide-eyed into the dark, and she 
 did not confide to Natalie or any one what had hap- 
 pened in the intermission after the schottische. 
 
 "You act restless," Willard complained to her 
 then. "You hardly looked at me all through the 
 encore." 
 
 "I'll look at you now, but get me some water 
 first," she directed, and having disposed of him, 
 slipped out alone into the dim and draughty cor- 
 ridor. Odd Fellows' Building, the centre of vari- 
 ous business activities by day, looked deserted 
 and forlorn at night, when the suites of offices 
 were dark and closed, and the hall where they 
 danced, gayly lighted and tenanted, was a little 
 island of brightness in the surrounding dark.
 
 106 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Neil," Judith called softly, "Neil, where are 
 you? I saw you come out here. I know you're 
 here." The corridor was empty, but several 
 office doors opened on it, and on one of them she 
 saw Charlie Brady's name. She knocked at it. 
 "You're in there. I know you are. Let me in." 
 She tried the door, found it unlocked, and opened 
 it. The room was dark, faintly lighted by the 
 street lamps outside the one uncurtained window, 
 where he sat with his head in his hands, huddled 
 in a discouraged heap over Charlie Brady's 
 desk. Judith came and perched on it triumph- 
 antly. 
 
 "Running away?" she said. 
 
 "It's all I'm good for." 
 
 "Look at me." 
 
 "I thought you hadn't any dances free." 
 
 "I haven't. This is Willard's." 
 
 "Go back to Willard. . . . What did you 
 come here for?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Don't you?" He looked up now, with magic 
 in his eyes and voice, the strange magic that came 
 and went, and when it left him Judith could 
 never believe it would come again. But it was 
 here. With a little sigh she slipped off the desk 
 and into the arms he held out for her, closing her 
 eyes.
 
 The Wishing Moon 107 
 
 "I didn't want to dance with you," she whis- 
 pered; "not with all those lights, and before those 
 people." 
 
 "No, dear." 
 
 "I can't stay very long. They'd miss me." 
 
 "I'll let you go when you want to." 
 
 "I don't want to. I feel so comfortable all 
 sleepy, but so wide-awake. I never want to 
 go." 
 
 Judith, remembering this moment until she 
 carried it into her dreams with her, could not have 
 shared it with Natalie. It was a dream already, 
 to be wondered at and forgotten by daylight, as 
 she stared across the schoolroom at Neil, not a 
 romantic figure at all with his ill-fitting suit and 
 his tumbled hair; forgotten until the next moment 
 like it came next in a lengthening series of dream 
 pictures, of moonlight and candlelight and faintly 
 heard music, a secret too sweet to share, a hidden 
 treasure of dreams. 
 
 Certain pictures stood out clearest. In one, 
 she was skating with Neil. Willard was giving a 
 chowder party at the Hiawatha Club. This 
 imposing name belonged to a rough one-room 
 camp with a kitchen in a lean-to and a row of 
 bunks in the loft above, and a giant chimney, with 
 a crackling blaze of fire to combat the bleakness 
 of the view through the uncurtained windows
 
 108 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Mirror Lake. It was a failure as a mirror that 
 day, veiled with snow, and the white birches fring- 
 ing it showed bare and cold among the warm green 
 of spruce and pine. 
 
 The camp was built and owned and the canoes 
 and iceboats kept in repair in the boathouse, and 
 the cook maintained and replaced when he left 
 from loneliness, all by a syndicate with Judge 
 Saxon as president. Forming it was one of the 
 last independent social activities of the town be- 
 fore the Colonel took charge. 
 
 It was bad ice-boating to-day. The wind was 
 fitful, and the boat, a graceful and winged thing 
 in full flight, dragged heavily along, looking the 
 clumsy makeshift box of unpainted boards that it 
 was. It was a day to be towed along on your 
 skates with one hand on the boat. Judith and 
 Neil had tired of this and fallen behind. 
 
 Close together, but not taking hands, they swung 
 slowly through the unpeopled emptiness, leaving 
 a tiny scattering of tracks behind, the blue-white 
 ice firm under their feet through a light film of 
 snow. The ice-boat was out of sight, the sprightly 
 and unexpurgated ballad of " Amos Moss," rendered 
 in the closest of close harmony, could be heard no 
 longer, and a heavy silence hung over the lake. 
 The camp lay [far behind them, a vanishing 
 speck.
 
 The Wishing Moon 109 
 
 "Neil, take me back," Judith directed suddenly. 
 
 "Not yet." 
 
 "Please. I want some pop-corn. . . . Neil, 
 I don't like you. You won't talk. You're queer 
 to-day." 
 
 He did not answer. They cut through the ice 
 in silence. It was rougher here. They were near 
 the north end of the lake. There was open water 
 there to-day, black water into which a boat 
 might crash and go down; it made the water under 
 them seem nearer to Judith, black water with only 
 the floor of ice between. She shivered, and Neil 
 broke the silence abruptly, his eyes still straight 
 ahead. 
 
 "Judith." 
 
 "Oh, you can talk then?" 
 
 "Judith do you love me?" 
 
 "Don't be silly." Judith spoke sharply. Days 
 at the camp were always a trial to her. The 
 crowd, bunched together in a big hay-rack mounted 
 on runners, started out noisy and gay, like a party 
 of children, singing, groping for apples in the straw, 
 and playing children's games. But at night, 
 slipping home under the moon to a tinkle of sleigh- 
 bells, covered with rugs two by two, a change 
 would take place: arms would slip around waists 
 that yielded after perfunctory protest; in the 
 dark of the woods there would be significant whis-
 
 110 The Wishing Moon 
 
 pering and more significant silences; Willard 
 would be unmanageable. Judith saw this with 
 alien eyes because of Neil, and dreaded it. This 
 that was between them was so much more beauti- 
 ful, not love-making, not real love, only a strange, 
 white dream. 
 
 "You don't, then? You don't love me?" 
 
 "We're too young." 
 
 He did not argue the point. His silence had 
 made her lonely before, now it frightened her. 
 She slipped a hand into his, warm through its 
 clumsy glove. 
 
 "Cross hands. Don't you want to?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But I want to. I'm tired. How limp your 
 hand feels. Hold my hands tighter. Neil " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "You don't mind what I said just now?" 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "That about not loving you." 
 
 "That?" He laughed a bitter, lonely sort of 
 laugh, as if she were talking about something that 
 happened a long time ago. "You had to say it. 
 It's true. I knew it well enough. I just thought 
 I'd ask you." 
 
 "Do you want me to very much want me to 
 love you?" 
 
 "Don't talk any more about it."
 
 The Wishing Moon 111 
 
 "Neil, suppose I should marry Willard?" 
 
 "I suppose you will." 
 
 "You won't mind too much?" 
 
 "What call would I have to mind? Who am I? 
 What am I?" 
 
 He laughed again, the same hard and bitter 
 laugh, and struck out faster, gripping her hands 
 hard, so that it hurt, but looking away from her 
 across the dead, even white of the trackless snow. 
 There was a pain not to be comforted or reached 
 in his beautiful eyes. It had nothing to do with 
 her. 
 
 "Neil, wouldn't you care at all?" she said 
 jealously. 
 
 "Care?" 
 
 "If I married Willard?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "Neil, do you love me?" 
 
 He did not answer or seem to hear, and now 
 Judith gave up asking questions. Carried along 
 at his side in silence, she listened to the muffled 
 creak of the skates on the snow-covered ice, 
 hushed by the steady and sleepy sound of it, half 
 closing her eyes. His left arm was behind her 
 shoulders now, to support her, and she could feel 
 it there, warm and strong. Breathing when he 
 breathed, her heart beating in time with his, 
 swinging far to right and left, tense with the stroke
 
 112 TJie Wishing Moon 
 
 
 
 or yielding deliciously in the recovery, caught in 
 the rhythm of it as if some force outside them both 
 were carrying them on like one, and not two, and 
 would never let them go, Judith yet felt far away 
 from him. 
 
 She was alone in the heart of a snow-covered 
 world, but she was growing content to be alone. 
 She looked up at his white, set face with wide and 
 fearless eyes, while the lure of unexplored and 
 unseen ice invited them all around, and the 
 gray and brooding sky shut them in closer and 
 closer. 
 
 "Neil," she said softly, not caring now whether 
 he answered or heard, "I wish we needn't ever go 
 back. I love to-day." 
 
 Not long after this Judith and Neil went snow- 
 shoeing one Saturday afternoon by special ap- 
 pointment, an epoch-making event for them. 
 Judith did not often walk with him or take him 
 driving when the sleigh was entrusted to her. 
 She was not of ten .seen with him. With quartette 
 practice and committee work for the dramatic club 
 and other official pretexts for the time they spent 
 together, Willard was not jealous yet, though the 
 winter was almost over, and the treasury of dreams 
 was filling fast. 
 
 But this time she made an engagement with Neil 
 as openly as if he were Willard, while Natalie
 
 The Wishing Moon 113 
 
 listened jealously. She started with him openly 
 from the front door, with her mother's disapproving 
 eyes upon them from the library window, and 
 Neil proudly carrying her snowshoes, all un- 
 conscious of the critical eyes. The afternoon 
 began well, but no afternoon with Neil could be 
 counted upon to go as it began. Two hours 
 later, when they emerged from the Everard woods 
 into the Colonel's snow-covered rose garden, they 
 had quarrelled about half a dozen unrelated sub- 
 jects, all equally unimportant in themselves, but 
 suddenly important to Neil, who now found further 
 matter for debate. 
 
 "What did you bring me in here for?" 
 
 "Didn't you know I was?" 
 
 "How should I know? I'm no friend of Ever- 
 ard's. I don't know my way through his grounds." 
 
 "What makes you call him Everard, without 
 any Colonel or Mr.? It sounds so common." 
 
 "It's good enough for me. Here, I don't want 
 to go near his house. I hate the sight of it." 
 
 "But you can't go back by the path. It's too 
 broken up." Judith plunged into the dismantled 
 rose arbour. "Come on, if you don't want to 
 see the house, take my hand and shut your 
 eyes." 
 
 "That's what Green River does," Neil muttered 
 darkly, "shuts its eyes." But he followed her.
 
 114 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "The Red Etin's castle," Judith announced; 
 "you know, in the fairy tale: 
 
 "The Red Etin of Ireland, 
 
 He lived in Ballygan. 
 He stole King Malcolm's daughter, 
 
 The pride of fair Scotlan'. 
 'Tis said there's one predestinate 
 To be his mortal foe 
 
 Well, you talk as if the Colonel were the Red 
 Etin, poor dear. Oh, Neil, look!" 
 
 Sinister enough, looming turreted and tall 
 against a background of winter woods, its windows, 
 unshuttered still, since the last of the Colonel's 
 week-end parties, and curtainless, catching the 
 slanting rays of the afternoon sun and glaring 
 malignantly, the house confronted them across 
 the drifted lawn. 
 
 In the woods that circled the house, denuded of 
 undergrowth, seeming always to be edging for- 
 lornly closer to the upstanding edifice for comfort 
 because it was barren and unfriendly, too, the 
 new-fallen snow lay shadowy and soft, clothing 
 the barrenness with grace. Giant pine and spruce 
 that had survived his invasion stood up proud and 
 green under the crown of snow that lay lightly 
 upon them, as it had lain long ago, before the 
 Colonel came. And between woods and house,
 
 The Wishing Moon 115 
 
 erasing all trace of tortuous landscape gardening, 
 flower-bed and border and path, as if it had never 
 been, lay a splendid, softly shining sweep of blue- 
 white snow. The Colonel's unbidden guests for- 
 got their quarrel and plunged eagerly across the 
 white expanse. 
 
 "Catch me," Judith called, but it was Neil, 
 snatching off her toboggan cap by its impudent 
 tassel, who had to be caught. It was heavy and 
 breath-taking work on the broad, old-fashioned 
 snowshoes which she managed with clumsy grace. 
 Judith, short-skirted and trim in fleecy white 
 sweater, collar rolled high to the tips of small, 
 pink ears, blond curls blowing in the wind, pursued 
 ardently. Neil evaded her like a lean and darting 
 shadow, hands deep in the pockets of his old gray 
 sweater, cap low over his brooding eyes. 
 
 Under the unrelenting glare of the Colonel's 
 windows, and across the deserted grandeur of his 
 lawn, the two small and dishevelled figures dodged 
 and doubled and retreated, only to grapple and 
 trip each other up at last at the foot of the veranda 
 steps, and collapse there, breathless and laughing. 
 But their laughter died quickly, and Judith, pulling 
 the recovered cap over her wind-tossed curls, 
 watched the brooding gloom come back into 
 Neil's eyes as he settled into a sulky heap on the 
 step below her.
 
 116 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Her quarrels with Neil were as strange as her 
 beautiful hours with him, fed by black under- 
 currents of feeling that swept and surprised her, 
 flaming up suddenly like banked fires. She was 
 hotly angry with him now. 
 
 "Neil, I heard what you said about Green River 
 shutting its eyes. It was foolish." 
 
 "I'd say it to his face." Neil flashed a black 
 look at the bland and elegant drawing-room win- 
 dows, as if he could talk to the Colonel through 
 them. "I've got worse than that to say to 
 Everard." 
 
 "Then say it to me. Don't hint. I'm tired of 
 hearing you. You're as bad as Norah." 
 
 "You wouldn't understand." 
 
 That is the irresistible challenge to any woman. 
 Judith's eyes kindled. Neil slouched lower on 
 the steps, dropping his head in his hands. "Ever- 
 ard," he threw out presently, "has bought the 
 Hiawatha Club Camp." 
 
 "I don't believe it." 
 
 "The club was in debt. That's a bad thing for 
 a club or a man to be, if the Colonel knows it. 
 And it's a worse thing for a woman." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 He did not explain or raise his head. "I've 
 got a job for the summer vacation," he said pres- 
 ently.
 
 The Wishing Moon 117 
 
 "Already? Fine." 
 
 "Oh, fine. In the fish market tend store, 
 drive the cart. And I'm fired from the Record, 
 Judith." 
 
 "Fired?" 
 
 "They're going to take on one more man, and 
 pay him real money." 
 
 "But you've got the Green River Jottings to do 
 for the Wells Clarion" 
 
 "And I may get two dollars a month out of it.'* 
 
 "Did you see Judge Saxon again?" 
 
 "Last week." 
 
 "Why didn't you tell me what he said?" 
 
 "I told you what he would say." 
 
 "Oh, Neil!" 
 
 "The Judge hates to say no, that's why he took 
 time to think it over. He'd be a bigger man if he 
 didn't hate to say no. He was right to say no to 
 me." 
 
 "Then I wouldn't admit it." 
 
 "What's it worth to read law in a country law 
 office? The time for that's past. He's right. 
 And suppose he took me on, what would it do for 
 me? Look at Charlie. Doing hack work and 
 dirty work to pay the rent of a place to drink 
 himself to death in. He's got brains enough. He 
 knows law enough. He's slaved and starved and 
 got ready for his chance, and his chance don't
 
 118 v The Wishing Moon 
 
 come. Why? Because he's Charlie Brady. Well 
 I'm Neil Donovan. I'm Irish, too, what they 
 called me the first time I saw you a paddy." 
 
 "That's not the Colonel's fault." 
 
 "Who do you think gets the Record job?" 
 
 Judith shook her blond head, disdaining to 
 answer, a gathering storm in her eyes. 
 
 "Chet Gaynor Mr. J. Chester Gaynor. Lil 
 Burr's brother. Her prize brother, the one that's 
 been fired from three prep schools. Everard got 
 him a scholarship at the last one." 
 
 " Why not? He ought to help his friends. He's 
 a kind man and lots of fun. It's not his fault if 
 you don't get on. It's your own fault. You don't 
 have to work in a fish market if you don't want to, 
 or sit there and sneer at a man who doesn't care 
 what you think of him. Abraham Lincoln split 
 rails " 
 
 Judith stopped, amazed. Quite abruptly Neil 
 had ceased to sit on the steps and sneer. He was 
 on his feet, hands clenched, thin body tense and 
 dangerous, face dead white and eyes blazing, as 
 Judith had never seen him before, or only once 
 before, too angry for words, but not needing them. 
 
 "Neil, do you really hate him? Hate him like 
 that? I never thought you meant it. But why 
 what has he done?" 
 
 "Care what I think? If I was any one else
 
 The Wishing Moon 119 
 
 your fool of a Willard any one in this town but 
 me, I'd make him care." 
 
 " He's done nothing wrong. Neil, don't. Your 
 eyes look all queer. You're frightening me." 
 
 "No, he's done nothing wrong, nothing you 
 could get him for. He's too careful. He plays 
 favourites. He fools women. He locks the door 
 to every chance to get on in this town and he sells 
 the keys. He's got his hand on the neck of the 
 town, and he's shutting it tighter and tighter. 
 That's all he does. That's all Everard does." 
 
 "You can't prove it." 
 
 " He takes good care I can't." 
 
 " You can't prove a word of it." 
 
 "Your father could." 
 
 "He's kind to father. He's kind to me." 
 
 "You talk like a child." 
 
 " Well, you talk like my mother's cook. . . . 
 Oh, Neil, I didn't mean to say that. Forgive me. 
 Where are you going? I didn't mean to say it." 
 
 "Let me go." 
 
 "You're hurting me." 
 
 "I hate you! You're one of them one of the 
 Everard crowd. I hate you, too!" 
 
 "What are you going to do?" Her short, 
 panting struggle with him over, her wrists smarting 
 from the backward twist that had broken her hold 
 on him, she leaned against the veranda rail breath-
 
 120 The Wishing Moon 
 
 less and stared with fascinated eyes. When this 
 quarrel had gone the way of their other quarrels, 
 atoned for by inarticulate words of infinite mean- 
 ing, justified by the keen delight of reconciling 
 kisses, Judith was to keep one picture from it: 
 Neil as she saw him then, standing over her white- 
 faced and angry, ragged and splendid, Neil as she 
 had seen him once before. 
 
 "May-night!" she cried. "You look the way 
 you did that May-night. I'm afraid of you." 
 
 "Everard!" He turned from her, and looking 
 at the windows again as if the Colonel were behind 
 him, swung back his arm, and sent it crashing 
 through the glass of the nearest one once and a 
 second time. "Oh, you don't want me to call 
 him Everard. Colonel Everard !" 
 
 "Neil, I'm afraid." 
 
 He looked at the fragments of broken glass and 
 at Judith scornfully, but the angry light was 
 fading out of his eyes already, the magic light; 
 against her will she was sorry to see it go. 
 
 Are you hurt ? Did you hurt your hand ? " 
 
 "What do you care if I did? Don't be afraid, 
 Judy. He can pay for a pane of glass or two. He 
 wouldn't care if I burned his house down. No- 
 body cares what I do. I'm a paddy." 
 
 Awkward, suddenly conscious of his snowshoes, 
 he shuffled across the matched boards of the Colo-
 
 The Wishing Moon 121 
 
 nel's veranda and down the steps, turning there 
 for a farewell word : 
 
 "I'm going. Don't cry. I'm not worth it. 
 I'm a paddy, from Paddy Lane." 
 
 Dream pictures, pleasant or sad, making her 
 cheeks burn in the dark, or little secret smiles 
 come when Judith recalled them. Some lived 
 in her heart and some faded. Judith did not 
 choose or reject them deliberately. They chose 
 or rejected themselves, arranging themselves 
 into an intricate pattern of growing clearness. 
 She did not watch it grow. It was only when it 
 was quite complete that she would see it, but it 
 was growing fast.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 YOU'LL find the coffee pot on the back of 
 the stove. I'm washing out a few 
 things," said Mrs. Donovan. 
 
 Though she kept her five little nephews and 
 nieces in dark-patterned dresses or shirts, as the 
 case might be, and encouraged her brother Michael 
 to wear flannel shirts, and even limited her eldest 
 niece, Maggie Brady, clerking in the Green River 
 Dry Goods Emporium now, instead of helping her 
 father in his little store at the Falls, to three white 
 waists a week, she was usually washing out a few 
 things. 
 
 The contending odours of damp clothes and 
 rank coffee were as much a part of the Brady 
 kitchen as the dishes stacked in the sink for Neil 
 to wash, or the broken-legged, beautifully grained 
 mahogany card table in the warm corner near the 
 stove, where his school books were piled, a relic 
 of his dead father's prosperous saloon-keeping 
 days, or the view of Larribee's Marsh through the 
 curtainless windows with their torn green shades. 
 
 The swampy field was the most improvident 
 part of an improvident purchase a brown, tum- 
 
 122
 
 The Wishing Moon 123 
 
 bledown house, wind swept and cold, inconveni- 
 ently far from the settlement at the Falls and the 
 larger town, heavily mortgaged, and not paid for 
 yet, but early on sunny spring mornings like this 
 the field was beautiful; level and empty and green, 
 the only monotonous thing in that restless stretch 
 of New England country, billowy with little hills, 
 and rugged with clumps of trees. A boy could 
 people the sunlit emptiness of the field with airy 
 creatures of folk-lore, eagerly gleaned in a busy 
 mother's rare story-telling moments, or with 
 Caesar's cohorts marching across it, splendid in 
 the sun, if he had eyes for them. The only boy 
 who ever had regarded the familiar, glinting green 
 of the field with unkindled eyes to-day as he sat 
 finishing his lukewarm breakfast. Yet it was 
 Saturday morning, that magic time, the last 
 Saturday of his last spring vacation, and he had 
 only one more term of school before him. 
 
 On this Saturday morning he had an unpleasant 
 errand to do, and he was carefully dressed for it, 
 just as he had been dressed for the Lyceum 
 declamation contest and ball the night before, 
 but not so effectively, for his best black suit 
 showed threadbare in the morning sun, and the 
 shine on his shoes was painstakingly applied, and 
 a heavy, even, blue black, but they needed 
 tapping. His brown eyes had a big, rather hungry
 
 124 The Wishing Moan 
 
 look that was unquestionably picturesque, and 
 Miss Natalie Ward would have approved of it, 
 if his mother did not, watching him as she trailed 
 in and out of the room. 
 
 "Making out all right? Don't hurry," she 
 said. 
 
 "I'm in no hurry to get there," agreed her son. 
 
 "He won't say no to you. He never has yet, 
 and he likes you." 
 
 "Oh, he won't say no. Nothing new will hap- 
 pen to me in this town; not even that." 
 
 Neil's mother paused, balancing her clothes bas- 
 ket against one hip, and deftly favouring the string- 
 mended handle, then put it heavily down, and 
 leaned on the table and looked at him a small, 
 tired, pretty woman, with gray, far-away eyes 
 that were like no other eyes in Green River, and 
 a smile like Neil's. 
 
 "Tired? "she said. 
 
 "Dog tired." 
 
 "Well, you were out till three." 
 
 "One. That was Maggie you heard at three. 
 Where was she? " 
 
 "That's her business." 
 
 "It's Charlie's, if he's going to marry her." 
 
 "It's not yours, then. Never mind Maggie. 
 Tour uncle and I had a talk about you last night." 
 
 "Why don't you ask to see my dance order?"
 
 The Wishing Moon 125 
 
 He made a defensive clutch at his pocket as if she 
 had, and quick colour swept into his cheeks. She 
 watched it, and watched it fade, leaving his face 
 tired and sullen, and too old for its years. " Uncle ! " 
 
 "He's been like a father to you." 
 
 "I've been two sons to him, then. He's worked 
 me like two. If he grudges the time I take off, I 
 can make it up to him. There's been little enough 
 of it, and there'll be little more, and there's been 
 little enough enjoyment in it, and I'm not ashamed 
 of it. Why don't he spy on his own daughter, if 
 
 he's curious? Why " This outburst ended 
 
 as suddenly as it began, in a short, sullen laugh 
 as he pushed his empty cup away. "Dan thinks 
 he can land something for me with the telephone 
 company. I couldn't send money home at first, 
 but I'd be off your hands. Tell that to Uncle." 
 
 "Would you be with Dan, in Wells?" 
 
 "Somewhere outside Wells. It won't be too 
 gay. You needn't be afraid I'll go to too many 
 dances." 
 
 " Don't glare at me. I'm not your uncle." 
 
 "Sorry. I don't know what's wrong with me." 
 
 "Don't you?" 
 
 He flushed, laughed, and ignored the question, 
 producing a small box and offering it. "I got 
 that last night. Don't wipe your hands. They're 
 good enough to handle it wet." A gold medal
 
 126 The Wishing Moon 
 
 glittered in her hand. He observed it without en- 
 thusiasm, and noticing that, his mother shut the 
 b.ox abruptly. 
 
 "Neil, that's the first prize." 
 
 "Looks like it. I spoke the Gettysburg address, 
 and they always fall for that. Good-bye, I'm off." 
 
 "Neil, come back here." 
 
 He swung round with his cap doubled under his 
 arm, and stood before her, helpless and sullen, 
 hedged about with that sudden dignity which no 
 woman creature can break through, but seeming 
 to derive no comfort from it. Painful colour 
 mounted to her cheeks, as if the effort of keeping 
 him there was all she could manage without the 
 effort of opening delicate subjects. 
 
 "Neil, I'm worried about you." 
 
 "Why? Are you afraid I'll marry beneath me? 
 I won't marry without your consent. It's not 
 being done." 
 
 "You got three dollars from the Clarion last 
 week." 
 
 "Are you afraid I'll try to support a wife on 
 it?" 
 
 "It's the most you've made from them. Why 
 weren't you proud of it? Why aren't you proud of 
 this prize? A year ago you'd have had me up at 
 one to speak your piece to me. There's no life 
 in you, and no pride, and I know why."
 
 The Wishing Moon 127 
 
 t 
 "Me with so much to be proud of." 
 
 "You're good enough for any girl, but " 
 
 "Do you think I don't know my place, with the 
 whole town teaching it to me going on eighteen 
 years? I've got no false hopes, and I shan't lose 
 my head over any girl. Let me be." 
 
 "It's not the town that's taught you your 
 place, it's " 
 
 " Don't you say her name." 
 
 I' empty headed and overdressed." 
 "Go on. Judith Randall don't care what you 
 think of her." 
 
 "Can't you even get up enough spirit to stand 
 up for her? You that thought you had your for- 
 tune all but made when you got the chickens paid 
 for, and followed me round the house, telling me 
 how you'd run the town? You that could tell 
 what was wrong with the Record editorials, if 
 you couldn't pay for a year's subscription to the 
 paper? You " 
 
 "Yes, I come from one of the five lines in Ire- 
 land what have a right to the O', but you never 
 tell me that unless you've got something else to 
 tell me that you're afraid to tell. What is it this 
 time?" 
 
 "You come of Irish kings." 
 
 "What did Uncle say last night?" 
 
 "Well, he's getting to be an old man."
 
 128 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 His mother did not reply. She avoided his 
 eyes, and made no further criticism of him, or 
 of a young lady who was no doubt as indifferent 
 to her criticisms as Neil said, since she did not 
 recognize Mrs. Donovan on the street. 
 
 "Uncle," Neil decided deliberately, "wants me 
 to help in the store. I can't go to Wells." 
 
 "He can't get on alone new Maggie's gone. 
 We need your board money to run the house at 
 all. Dan was wild to get away from Green River, 
 but in two years he's got no farther than Wells, 
 and ten dollars a week. I know we ought to 
 leave you free to start yourself, if we can't give 
 you a start, but " 
 
 "Is that all you want to tell me?" 
 
 She put out an unaccustomed arm and pulled 
 him awkwardly close. He came obediently, and 
 patted her shoulder stiffly but did not kiss her. 
 "I know what this means," she asserted, and 
 showed a rapidly forming intention of crying on 
 his shoulder. "It hurts me like it does you." 
 
 "It don't hurt me. I ought to have seen it 
 myself. I ought not to have planned to go. 
 It's all right, mother. Is that all?" 
 
 "All? It's enough. I was awake hah* the 
 night planning to break it to you." 
 
 "You broke it all right. I'll be going." He
 
 " '/ know what this means,' she asserted "
 
 The Wishing Moon 129 
 
 shook out his crushed cap, and adjusted it with 
 dignity, looking at her calmly out of impenetrable 
 eyes, like a young prince ending an audience, with 
 more power behind him than he knew, kissed her 
 gravely on the cheek with cool young lips, and 
 opened the door, and walked off into the sun- 
 shine. 
 
 "It's the girl," said his mother, but not until 
 the door had closed behind him. "No girl is good 
 enough to do what she's done to you." Then she 
 selected the frilliest of Maggie's blouses, which had 
 dried while she talked, and spread it on the iron- 
 ing table to sprinkle again. 
 
 Neil did not look like a young man crossed in 
 love, or a young man with his future wrecked by a 
 word. He did not give a backward glance to the 
 little brown house with the sun on its many-paned 
 windows, or seem to hear the children's voices 
 from the old barn behind the house the favourite 
 refuge of the little Bradys when they were ban- 
 ished from the kitchen that echoed after him in 
 the clear morning air, shrill and then fainter as 
 he left the place behind. 
 
 He had settled into his usual pace for this fa- 
 miliar walk a steady stride that you could fit the 
 unmanageable parts of a Latin verb to the rhythm 
 of, or the refractory words of a song; but it was not 
 * usual day. It was the first warm day of that
 
 130 The Wishing Moon 
 
 April, wanner already, with the goading urge of 
 spring in the softening air that frets and troubles 
 with new desires and a sense of unfitness for them 
 at once, and will not let you be. The road, fringed 
 with scattering trees, and wind-swept and bleak 
 on winter days, was golden with new sunlight, 
 spongy underfoot, but drying under your eyes in 
 the morning sun. The boy's brooding face did not 
 change as he walked, but his shoulders straight- 
 ened themselves, and lost their patient look, and 
 his lean young body gave itself more gayly to 
 the swing of his pace and looked strong and free, 
 alive with the unconscious strength of youth 
 that must be caught and harnessed to make the 
 wheels of the world go round before it can be 
 taught what its purpose is. 
 
 Whether it troubled him or not his face did 
 not tell all that his mother had hinted was 
 wrong with his world, and more. No outsider 
 had ever won a place like Neil's in Green River 
 High School society so far as the ur ,/ritten history 
 of it recorded. Charlie Brady in his time, and 
 Dan after him, had been extra men at big dances, 
 hard worked and patronized in school entertain- 
 ments, more intimate with the boys than the 
 girls. Charlie, deep in a secret love affair with 
 Lil Gaynor, had still called her Miss in public, 
 and treated her as respectfully as he did now that
 
 The Wishing Moon 131 
 
 the affair was forgotten and she was Mrs. Burr 
 and one of the Everard circle. Charlie and Dan 
 had only looked over impassable barriers. Neil 
 had been really inside included in small, inti- 
 mate parties, like week-ends at Camp Hiawatha, 
 openly favoured by Natalie, if not Judith inside 
 and he would soon be shut out. 
 
 There were new signs of it every day. The 
 long, friendly winter, when he had been safe in that 
 intimate fellowship, was over. The girls were 
 planning their gowns for college commencement 
 dances. Willard came back from a week-end at 
 the state university pledged to a fraternity there 
 and refusing to discuss minor subjects. God- 
 like creatures in amazing neckties condescended 
 to visit him, and Natalie was beginning to collect 
 fraternity pins. Rena and Ed were engaged, and 
 under the impression that it was a secret, and a 
 place was being made for Ed in the bank. In one 
 way or another, the world was opening to all of 
 them, and closing to Neil. 
 
 And with the spring, the Everards had come 
 back to Green River. The big, over-decorated 
 house had not been open a week, but already they 
 pervaded the town. Their cars whirled through 
 the splashing spring streets, and ladies not upon 
 Mrs. Everard's calling list peered at the passen- 
 gers to see who was hi her favour. The Colonel
 
 132 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was turning the Hiawatha Club into a private 
 camp, and closing it to the town, but nobody 
 protested much. He was ordering a complete 
 set of slip covers from the furniture department 
 of Ward's Emporium, and the daring group of 
 prominent business men who ventured to assail 
 the Colonel's political views and private morals 
 sometimes in the little room at the rear of the 
 store lacked support from Ward. Neil had the 
 run of the store and hung about and listened, but 
 never contributed. Whether these criticisms were 
 justified or not, the Everards were back again. 
 
 Judith had given up the Lyceum dance for the 
 first of the Everard dinners the night before. It 
 was three days since Neil had seen her, and he was 
 to see her to-day, but he was showing no impatience 
 for the meeting. The end of the world, not the 
 beginning of it, that was what spring would mean 
 to him, and that is a graver catastrophe at eigh- 
 teen than at eighty. The boy who was facing 
 it had passed the outlying straggle of houses, and 
 had come to the edge of the town, and to the end 
 of the long, hilly street that led down past the 
 court-house, straight into Post Office Square, the 
 heart of the town. It was still empty of traffic 
 at ten, and looked sunny and empty and clean, 
 wide-awake for the day. He took his hands out 
 of his pockets, stopped whistling "Amos Moss,"
 
 The Wishing Moon 133 
 
 and hurried down Court-house Hill, stepping in 
 time to the tune of it. 
 
 A mud-splashed Ford clattered down Main 
 Street, and drew up in front of the post-office 
 as Neil reached it with a flourish that would have 
 done credit to a more elegant equipage than this 
 second-hand one of the Nashes. Two elegant 
 young gentlemen, week-end guests of Willard's and 
 duly presented to Neil the night before, ignored 
 his existence, perusing a gaudily covered series of 
 topical songs with exaggerated attention on the 
 rear seat of the car, but Willard greeted him ex- 
 uberantly: 
 
 "Ah, there, Murph. You don't look like the 
 morning after. Sorry I haven't got room for 
 you. We've got other plans. We love the 
 ladies." 
 
 "I'm tied up, anyway. So long." 
 
 Willard's tone was too patronizing, but he was 
 not to blame, for the days when they would ex- 
 change intimate greetings at all were numbered. 
 As Neil left them one of the elegant guests de- 
 manded audibly : 
 
 "Who's your friend?" 
 
 Neil flushed but did not look back. He had an 
 errand to do in the few minutes before his appoint- 
 ment with Judge Saxon. He crossed the street 
 to Ward's store.
 
 134 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Ward's Dry Goods Emporium, three stores in 
 one, and literally three stores bought out one by 
 one, and joined by connecting doors, though they 
 could never be united in their style of architecture, 
 was rather dark and chaotic inside, though a brave 
 showing of plate glass across the front advertised 
 its prosperity. Luther Ward himself, in his shirt 
 sleeves, was looking over a tray of soiled, pale-col- 
 oured spats, assisted by a tall, full-bodied girl with 
 a sweet, sulky mouth, and a towering mass of blue- 
 black hair. 
 
 "Hello, Donovan, what's new?" he said, with 
 only a shade more condescension than Willard, 
 and distinctly more friendliness. 
 
 "Nothing, sir," said Neil with conviction. 
 
 "You want to talk to Maggie, here. I won't 
 intrude on a family quarrel," said Mr. Ward, 
 and chuckling heartily at his own mild joke, as 
 he generally did, and few others did, disappeared 
 into the furniture department, the central one of 
 the three stores, and his favourite. The two cous- 
 ins regarded each other across the tray of spats as 
 if the family quarrel were not a joke, but an un- 
 pleasant reality. 
 
 "You can't come here and take up my time," 
 stated Miss Brady. 
 
 "Your time is pretty full evenings, too. Do 
 you know where Charlie was last night?"
 
 The Wishing Moon 135 
 
 "I don't care." 
 
 " You ought. He's your second cousin, and goes 
 by the same name as you, if you're not in love 
 with him. He was in Halloran's billiard hall." 
 
 "If he can't keep himself out of the gutter, I 
 can't keep him out," stated Miss Brady logically. 
 
 "Well, don't push him in," her cousin advised, 
 but the light of battle had died out of his eyes, 
 leaving them listless. "It's nothing to me. I 
 only came to bring you this." 
 
 He produced something from an inner pocket 
 and tossed it on the counter, something wrapped 
 in a twist of newspaper, which parted as the girl 
 bent eagerly over it, something which shone and 
 twinkled alluringly, as she straightened it out with 
 caressing fingers and held it up to the light a 
 little necklace of rather ornate design and startling 
 colours, crimson stones and green and blue, the 
 gayest of toys. 
 
 "Seems to be yours all right." 
 
 His cousin, who seemed to have forgotten his 
 existence for one rapt moment, remembered it 
 with a start. "Did you show this to your 
 mother?" she asked sharply. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, she don't like to have me spend my 
 money on imitation jewellery." Miss Brady deliv- 
 ered this very natural explanation haltingly.
 
 136 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 One of the sudden, vivid blushes which had 
 helped to establish her reputation as a beauty 
 overspread Miss Brady's cheek. "I missed it this 
 morning and didn't have time to hunt for it, and 
 I was worried. I don't want to show it to her. 
 It cost a good deal." 
 
 "It must have. They say a ruby's the only 
 stone you can't imitate." 
 
 "What do you mean?" Miss Brady's cheeks 
 grew still redder. "Why don't you save your big 
 talk for Saxon? You may need it. Why don't 
 you mind your own affairs, and leave mine alone?" 
 
 "Leave that on the kitchen floor for mother 
 to find and sweep up in a broken dust-pan, or one 
 of the kids to show to your father?" 
 
 "Why not? Haven't I got a right to do what 
 I want with my own money? Haven't I got a 
 right to do what I want with myself? Wlio are 
 you to dictate to me, with the Randall girl making 
 a fool of you? Why " 
 
 " That will be all." Though Miss Brady's voice 
 had been threatening to make itself heard through- 
 out all the three stores in one, she stopped obe- 
 diently, looking defiant but frightened, but when 
 her cousin spoke again the ring of authority which 
 had shocked her was gone from his voice. 
 
 "Don't be scared. It's nothing to me what yo*
 
 The Wishing Moon 137 
 
 do, and I shan't talk too much. You know me, 
 Mag." 
 
 "No, I don't, not lately. You act doped, not 
 half there. I can't make you out. If you think 
 if you suspect " 
 
 "I don't. It's nothing to me. I'm due at 
 Saxon's. Put your glass beads away before Ward 
 sees them. Good luck to you." 
 
 Miss Brady, standing quite still in one of her 
 carefully cultivated, statuesque poses, watched her 
 cousin cross the street and disappear into a narrow 
 and shabbily painted doorway there. Then she 
 took his advice, and producing a red morocco 
 wrist bag from under the counter, shut the necklace 
 into it with a vicious snap, as if she did not derive 
 so much pleasure as before from handling it 
 now. 
 
 Her cousin climbed the three flights of stairs to 
 Judge Saxon's office. The stairs were dingy and 
 looked unswept, and a pane of glass in the door of 
 the untenanted suite across the landing from the 
 Judge's was broken. Nothing about the Judge's 
 quarters indicated that he was Colonel Everard's 
 attorney, a big man in the town before the Everard 
 regime and under it an unusual combination. 
 His office was shabby outside and in. The letter- 
 ing on the door, Saxon and Burr, Attorneys-at- 
 Law, looked newer than it was by contrast, and it
 
 138 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was still only six months old. Theodore Burr 
 had his delayed junior partnership at last. 
 
 The Judge's young client did not pause to col- 
 lect himself on the worn door-mat, as he had done 
 when he first came here on errands like this. They 
 were an old story to him now, and so were scenes 
 like the one with Maggie, which he had just 
 come through so creditably. He looked quite 
 unruffled by it, calm as people are when they have 
 no troubles to bear or when they have borne all 
 they can, and are about to find relief in establishing 
 the fact. He knocked and stepped inside.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 AFIRE in the air-tight stove in the corner 
 had taken the early morning chill from the 
 room and been permitted to burn out, now 
 that the morning sun came in warm through the 
 dusty windows, but the room was still close and 
 cloudy with wood smoke. At a battered, roll- 
 topped desk in the sunniest window Mr. Theodore 
 Burr was struggling with the eccentricities of an 
 ancient Remington, and looking superior to it and 
 to all his surroundings, but the Judge was nowhere 
 to be seen. 
 
 Mr. Burr was a very large, very pink young man, 
 with blond hair which would have looked too 
 good to be true on a woman, and near-set, green- 
 blue eyes which managed to look vacant and 
 aggressive at the same time. He was wearing a 
 turquoise-blue tie which accentuated their effec- 
 tiveness, and he occupied himself ostentatiously 
 with the Remington for quite three minutes before 
 he turned his most vacant and aggressive look upon 
 his client. 
 
 "Well, Donovan?" he said. 
 
 Mr. Burr's manner was as patronizing as Mr. 
 
 139
 
 140 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Ward's with the friendliness left out, but his 
 client was not chilled by it. 
 
 "Theodore, where's the Judge?" he asked. 
 
 "Mr. Burr." The pink young man turned two 
 shades pinker as he made the correction. "The 
 Judge is engaged." 
 
 "I don't believe it." 
 
 Mr. Burr laughed unpleasantly and held up his 
 hand. From the other side of a door labelled 
 private misleadingly, for the Judge's little sanc- 
 tum, where half the town had the privilege of 
 crowding in and tipping back chairs and smoking, 
 was the nearest approach to a clubroom that the 
 town afforded, now that the Hiawatha Club was 
 no more muffled voices were faintly audible. 
 
 "You can talk to me," said Mr. Burr. 
 
 "I can, and I can go away and come back when 
 he's not engaged. He said he'd see me." 
 
 "He's changed his mind. He don't want to 
 see you. I know all about your case." 
 
 "You've learned a lot in six months." 
 
 "Talk like that won't get you anything, Dono- 
 van, here or anywhere else," remarked Mr. Burr, 
 reasonably, if somewhat offensively. Admitting 
 it, his client dropped into one of the Judge's big 
 office chairs, and sat there, fingering his cap as 
 he talked, and looking suddenly beaten and 
 tired.
 
 The Wishing Moon 141 
 
 "You're right, Theodore. Well, what's all this 
 you know about my case?" 
 
 "Mike Brady sends you here begging when 
 he's ashamed to come himself. It's hard on you, 
 Neil." 
 
 "My uncle's too busy to come. Is that all you 
 know?" 
 
 "I know what you want to-day, and you can't 
 have it." 
 
 "What do I want?" 
 
 Mr. Burr's manner had become alarmingly 
 official, but his client continued to smile at him, 
 and to fold and unfold his cap methodically. 
 
 "An extension of time on your uncle's mortgage. 
 The principal is due the first of next month. 
 You've kept the Judge waiting twice for the inter- 
 est, the security is insufficient, the bank holds a 
 first mortgage on the house, and for fourteen 
 months your uncle has made no payment to the 
 Judge whatever." 
 
 "Don't rub it in, Theodore." 
 
 " This is no laughing matter. Business is busi- 
 ness," stated the junior partner importantly. 
 
 "More like charity, with the Judge, but Uncle 
 isn't holding him up for much this time. Uncle's 
 getting on his feet. The Judge never expected 
 him to, and I didn't, but the automobiles help. 
 Maggie served tea before she went to Ward's,
 
 142 The Wishing Moon 
 
 and he's going on with it. His luck has turned. 
 He's got the money to pay this year's interest and 
 half the back interest that's due, but he wants to 
 keep it and put it into repairs the roof wants 
 shingling, and if we could fix up the storeroom for 
 a place to serve tea and ice-cream we could double 
 trade. Then, next year " 
 
 " We've heard too much about next year, Dono- 
 van." 
 
 "Don't get tragic, Theodore. This is a new 
 proposition. I'll go into figures with the Judge 
 and prove it to him don't want to waste them on 
 you. But he won't be sending good money after 
 bad this time, like he's done too many times. I'm 
 as glad for him as I am for Uncle." 
 
 "It can't be done." 
 
 "Nonsense, Theodore. I won't wait to see the 
 Judge now, but you tell him " 
 
 "It don't make any difference what I tell him. 
 The Judge has made up his mind, and he won't 
 change it. You can take it from me as well as 
 him. You won't get another dollar of his money, 
 and you won't get another month's extension of 
 time. We're done with you." 
 
 "I almost believe you mean that, Theodore." 
 
 "As I said, the house is insufficient security, but 
 for the sake of the dignity of the firm we must 
 protect ourselves "
 
 The Wishing Moon 143 
 
 "I believe you mean it, and the Judge gave you 
 authority to say it." 
 
 "We must go through the form of protecting 
 ourselves and " 
 
 His client laughed. "You don't mean the 
 Judge wants to take over the house. That's 
 'Way Down East stuff. If money's ctight with 
 him, we'll pay the interest and manage some way, 
 though I don't see how. But the house would be 
 no good to him if he took it, and he wouldn't 
 take it if it was. I know the Judge. Don't 
 let your imagination get away with you, Theo- 
 dore." 
 
 "I'm sorry for you, Donovan." 
 
 "You think he's going to take it?" 
 
 "I know he is." 
 
 "You mean that," his client decided slowly, 
 "and you've got the Judge's authority for it, 
 too." 
 
 "Take it quietly. It's the best way," urged the 
 junior partner helpfully. 
 
 "I understand that's your motto, Theodore," 
 said his client, and proceeded to take his advice, 
 sitting quite still in the Judge's big chair, and fixing 
 a clear-seeing but unappreciative gaze upon the 
 immaculate folds of Mr. Burr's turquoise-blue tie. 
 He took the advice too literally. The silence grew 
 oppressive and sinister, and as if he found it so,
 
 144 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Mr. Burr broke into a monologue, disjointed, but 
 made up of irreproachable sentiments. 
 
 "This is hard on your uncle, Neil, and it's hard 
 on you, but it may be the best thing in the end. 
 He's been hiding behind you too long. A business 
 that can't stand on its own feet deserves to fail. 
 He can start new and start clean. The Judge has 
 been a good friend to you " 
 
 " Don't explain him to me. You don't own him, 
 whoever else does," interrupted the Judge's protege 
 softly. 
 
 "What do you mean? If you don't thirik 
 you're getting a square deal, say so." 
 
 "Do you want me to weep on your shoulder, 
 Theodore?" 
 
 "The Judge is your friend, and," Mr. Burr added 
 handsomely, "I'm your friend, too." 
 
 His client arose briskly, as if encouraged by this. 
 "Theodore, you don't want to tell me what's back 
 of your turning me down?" he asked. "No, I 
 thought not. Well " 
 
 "I'm your friend," repeated Mr. Burr, gener- 
 ously if irrelevantly, and this time without effect. 
 His client had crossed the room without another 
 glance at him, and had his hand on the knob of 
 the Judge's office door. His manner still had the 
 composure which Mr. Burr had advocated, but his 
 face was very pale, ominously pale, and his brown
 
 The Wishing Moon 145 
 
 eyes were changed and bright, dangerously bright. 
 To imaginative eyes like Mr. Burr's he must have 
 looked suddenly taller. 
 
 Mr. Burr was facing an unmistakable crisis, with 
 no time to wonder how long it had been forming, 
 or why. He hurried after the boy and caught 
 him fiercely if ineffectively by the arm. 
 
 "You can't go in there," stated Mr. Burr arbi- 
 trarily, all logic deserting him. "You can't. 
 You don't know " 
 
 "Oh, I'm not going to knife the Judge," his 
 client explained kindly. "I'm only going to find 
 out what's back of this." 
 
 "Take it quietly," was the ill-chosen sentiment 
 which suggested itself to Mr. Burr. Neil Donovan 
 swung round angrily, and paused to reply to it, 
 with fires which the somewhat negative though 
 offensive personality of the pink young man 
 could never have kindled alight in his brown 
 eyes. 
 
 "Quietly? There's been too much of that in 
 this town. I'm sick of it. The only friend I've 
 got who hasn't got one foot in the gutter goes 
 back on me for no reason at all, the first time I ask 
 a favour of him that don't amount to picking his 
 pockets. The only big man in this rotten town 
 who's halfway straight since Everard turned the 
 town rotten begins to act like he wasn't straight.
 
 146 The Wishing Moon 
 
 What's back of it? I'm going to know. Get out 
 of my way, Theodore." 
 
 "You don't know who's in there." 
 
 "I don't care. I'm going to know." Disposing 
 of the hovering and anxious intervention of Mr. 
 Burr, and throwing the door open, he slammed it 
 in the pink young man's perturbed face, and 
 stepped alone out of the sunshine into the Judge's 
 dim little inner office. 
 
 The Judge's friendly littered little room was not 
 so inviting in working hours as it was in the 
 hospitable hours of late afternoon. It was like a 
 woman seen in evening dress by daylight. But the 
 boy who had invaded it so hotly unmasked no 
 conspiracy here. The men at the table near the 
 one window, with a pile of official but entirely inno- 
 cent looking papers between them, had every right 
 to be there. They were the Judge and Colonel 
 Everard. 
 
 The great man looked quite undisturbed by the 
 boy's invasion, glancing up at him indifferently 
 from the papers that he was turning over with his 
 finely moulded, delicately used hands; he even 
 looked mildly amused, but the boy turned to him 
 first instinctively, and not to the Judge, who was 
 peering at him with troubled and kindly eyes over 
 the top of his glasses. 
 
 "I've got to speak to the Judge. I'm sorry."
 
 The Wishing Moon 147 
 
 He stammered out his half -apology awkwardly 
 enough, but the smouldering fires were still alight 
 in his brown eyes, tragic fires of cowed and rebel- 
 lious youth. The great man regarded him in- 
 differently for a minute and then turned rather 
 ostentatiously to his papers again. 
 
 "Judge, I've got to speak to you alone.'* 
 
 "You can't just now, son." 
 
 "I've got to." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 The Judge's kind, drawling voice was not quite 
 as usual, and his blue, near-sighted eyes were not; 
 they were wistful and deprecating, and rather 
 tired, a beaten man's eyes, eyes with an irresistible 
 appeal to the race that is vowed to lost causes, this 
 boy's race. The boy stepped instinctively closer. 
 
 "I don't blame you, sir, but I've got to under- 
 stand this and know what's behind it." 
 
 "Better go home before you say anything you'll 
 be sorry for, Neil." 
 
 "Why did you go back on me?" 
 
 "You're taking a sentimental attitude about a 
 business matter. It's natural enough that you 
 should. I'm sorry for you, son." 
 
 "Why " 
 
 The Judge drew himself up a shade straighter 
 in his chair, and met the boy's insistent challenge 
 with sudden dignity, kindly but judicial, peculiarly
 
 148 The Wishing Moon 
 
 his own, but his flashes of it were not very frequent 
 now. 
 
 "Neil," he said deliberately, "I've got nothing 
 to say to you alone. I've got nothing to say to 
 you at all that Mr. Burr hasn't said. Is that quite 
 clear to you?" 
 
 It was entirely clear. The Judge had left no 
 room for uncertainty or argument, and the boy 
 did not attempt to argue or even to answer. He 
 stood looking uncertainly down at the Judge, as if 
 for the moment he could not see anything in the 
 room quite distinctly, the Judge's face, with its 
 near-sighted blue eyes and red-gold beard and 
 thinning hair, or Colonel Everard's clear-cut pro- 
 file. 
 
 "Better go," said the Judge gently. 
 
 "I'd better go," the boy repeated mechanically, 
 but he did not move. 
 
 Colonel Everard put down his papers deliber- 
 ately, and favoured him with a glance, amused 
 and surprised, as if he had not expected to find 
 him still in the room, and was prepared to forget 
 at once that he was there; a disconcerting sort of 
 glance, but the boy's brown eyes met it gallantly, 
 and cleared as they looked. They grew bright 
 and defiant again, with a little laugh in the depths 
 of them. The ghost of a laugh, too, lurked in the 
 boy's low voice somewhere.
 
 The Wishing Moon 149 
 
 " You're right, Judge. I'll go. I'm wasting my 
 time here," he said, "asking you who's back of 
 what you've done to me when I know. I won't 
 ask you again, but I'll ask you, I'll ask you both, 
 who's back of everything that's crooked or wrong 
 in this town? Little or big, he's back of it all; 
 straight back of it, or well back of it, hiding his 
 face and pulling the wires. He's to blame for it 
 all, for he's made the town what it is. 
 
 " He's got his hand on the neck of the town, and 
 got hold of it tighter, gradual, so nobody saw it 
 and knocked it off; tighter and tighter, squeezing 
 the life out. He never made a gift to the town 
 with one hand that he didn't take it back with the 
 other. What the town gets without him giving it, 
 he won't let it keep. The whole town's got his 
 stamp on it, grafting and lying and putting up a 
 front. The whole town's afraid of him. The 
 Judge here, that's the best man in town, don't 
 dare call his soul his own. Me, I'm afraid of him, 
 too, and the only reason I dare stand up and say to 
 his face what's said behind his back is because I've 
 got nothing to lose. It's him, there " 
 
 "Don't, son," muttered the Judge tardily, 
 unregarded, but Colonel Everard listened courte- 
 ously, with a faint, amused smile growing rather 
 stiff on his thin lips. 
 
 "Him, that's too good to speak to me or look
 
 150 The Wishing Moon 
 
 at me, sitting there grinning, and reading fine 
 print, making out not to care, he's back of it all 
 him, Everard." 
 
 The two men, who had heard him out, did not 
 interrupt him now. It was only a passionate 
 jumble of boyish words they had listened to, but 
 behind it, vibrating in his tense voice, was some- 
 thing bigger than he could frame words to ex- 
 press, something that commanded silence; pain 
 forcing its way into speech, long repression broken 
 at last. The dignity of it was about him still, 
 though his brown eyes flashed no more defiance, 
 and he was only a shabby and hopeless boy walk- 
 ing uncertainly to the office door, and fumbling 
 with the handle. 
 
 "I'll go out this way," he said. "I've had 
 enough of Theodore. And I've had enough of this 
 place. I'll say good morning, gentlemen." 
 
 In a prosaic and too often unsatisfactory world, 
 which is not the stage, no curtain drops to relieve 
 you of the embarrassment of thinking what to say 
 next after a record speech; you have to step out of 
 the limelight, and walk somewhere else. Neil 
 Donovan, emerging from the ancient building 
 which contained Judge Saxon's office into Post- 
 office Square after a brief interval of struggling 
 successfully for self-control in a dusty corridor 
 little suited to such struggles, and not even en-
 
 The Wishing Moon 151 
 
 suring the privacy which is wrongly believed to 
 be necessary for them, had one more appointment 
 to keep. He was late for it already. He glanced 
 at the town clock and started off hurriedly to 
 keep it. 
 
 Back of Court-house Hill another street, start- 
 ing parallel to Court Street, rapidly loses its sense 
 of direction and its original character of a busi- 
 ness street, wavers to right and left, past a scatter 
 of discouraged looking houses, and finally slants 
 off in the general direction of the woods at the 
 edge of the town, and the abortive, sparsely wooded 
 hill known to generations of picnickers not the 
 elite of the town, but humbler, more rowdy pic- 
 nickers as Mountain Rock. 
 
 The street never reaches it, but loses itself in a 
 grubby tangle of smaller streets, thickly set with 
 small houses, densely and untidily populated, the 
 section known at first derisively and later in good 
 faith as Paddy Lane. Through the intricate 
 geography of this quarter Colonel Everard's only 
 openly declared enemy might have been seen mak- 
 ing a hasty and expert way ten minutes later; 
 quickly and directly as it permitted him to, he 
 approached the base of the hill. 
 
 Disregarding more public and usual ways of as- 
 cent, he struck straight across a stubbly field that 
 lay behind a row of peculiarly forlorn and tumble-
 
 152 The Wishing Moon 
 
 down houses into a path so narrow that it was 
 hard to see until you were actually looking down 
 it, between the twin birches that marked the 
 entrance. He followed it to the base of the cliff 
 itself. The belt of stunted birches and dusty- 
 looking alders that skirted the cliff was broken by 
 an occasional scraggly pine. The boy stopped 
 under one of them, leaned against the decaying 
 trunk, produced a letter, and read it. 
 
 It was only a pencilled scrawl of a letter, on the 
 roughest of copy paper, and so crumpled that he 
 must have been quite familiar with it, but he read 
 it intently. 
 
 "Neil," it ran, "I'll meet you Saturday, on top 
 of Mountain Rock, same time and place. I shan't 
 see you till then. I don't want to. You fright- 
 ened me last night. I don't like you lately. Be 
 nice to me Saturday. JUDITH." 
 
 Only a pencilled scrawl, but he knew every word 
 of it by heart, and of the burst of excited speech 
 in the Judge's office nothing remained in his mind 
 but the general impression that he had made a fool 
 of himself there. Perhaps he was too familiar 
 with Judith's letter, for the sting he had found 
 there at first was gone from the words. He looked 
 at them dully. 
 
 "I can't stand much more," he said aloud.
 
 The Wishing Moon 153 
 
 He said it lifelessly, and with no defiance in 
 his eyes, stating only a wearisome fact. He had 
 seen the Colonel's face through a kind of red mist 
 in the Judge's office, and felt reckless and strong. 
 He did not feel like a hero now. He was tired. 
 
 He would hardly have cared just now if you had 
 told him that back in Judge Saxon's office two men 
 who had not moved from their chairs since he 
 left them, and who would not move until several 
 vital points were settled, were discussing some- 
 thing he would not have believed them capable of 
 discussing at such length and with so much feeling 
 the fortunes of the Donovan family. 
 
 He did not care just now for the little sights and 
 sounds of spring that were all around him, the 
 cluster of arbutus leaves at his feet, the faint, 
 nestling bird noises, sweeter than song, and the 
 stir and rustle of tiny, unclassified sounds that 
 were signs of the pulse of spring beating every- 
 where, of change and growth going on whether 
 human beings perceived or denied it. 
 
 "I can't stand any more," said the boy. 
 
 Up the cliff to his right, strewn with pine needles 
 that were brown-gold in the sun, a steep and tiny 
 trail led the way to the top of the hill and his ren- 
 dezvous. Now the boy crushed Judith's letter 
 into his pocket, turned to the trail with a sigh, 
 and began to climb.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 THEY won't like it, Judith," said Mrs. 
 Randall for the last time, as she slipped 
 into her evening coat. 
 
 " They? If you mean the Colonel " 
 
 "I do." 
 
 Judith, looking up at her mother from the 
 chaise-longue, could not have seen the radiant 
 vision that she had adored as a child, when the 
 spring and the Everards and the habit of evening 
 dress all returned at once to Green River. Mrs. 
 Randall's blue gown was the creation of a Wells 
 dressmaker, but lacked the charm of earlier even- 
 ing frocks, anxiously contrived with the help of a 
 local seamstress, when the clear blue that was still 
 her favourite colour had been her best colour, 
 when there was a touch more pink in the warm 
 white of her complexion, and before the tiny, wor- 
 ried line in her broad, low forehead was there to 
 stay. But there was no reflection of these changes 
 in her daughter's big, watching eyes. 
 
 "It will do him good not to like it," said Judith 
 sweetly. 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 154
 
 The Wishing Moon 155 
 
 "Oh, nothing, Mamma. Is that the carriage? 
 Don't be late." 
 
 Minna Randall looked down at her daughter 
 in puzzled silence a moment, with the little line 
 in her forehead deepening, then slipped to her 
 knees beside her with a disregard for her new 
 gown which was unusual, and put a caressing 
 hand on her forehead, a demonstration which 
 was more unusual still. 
 
 "Your head does feel hot," she said, "but to 
 stay away from a dance at your age, just for a 
 headache " 
 
 "I went to one last night." 
 
 " A high school dance ! " 
 
 "There won't be any more of them. You 
 needn't grudge it to me." Judith buried her face 
 in the cushions, and lay very still. 
 
 "But the Colonel really arranged this for you. 
 Dancing bores him. He said you ought to be 
 amused." 
 
 " He didn't say so to me." 
 
 "Are you laughing? I thought you were cry- 
 ing a minute ago." Judith gave no further signs 
 of either laughing or crying. "Judith, what does 
 he say to you? When you went with him to look 
 at that night-blooming flower with the queer name, 
 last week, and were gone so long, what did he talk 
 to you about? You heard me. Please answer."
 
 156 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "He's a stupid old thing." 
 
 " What did he talk about? " 
 
 "I don't remember." 
 
 "Judith," Judith's mother stood plucking in- 
 effectively at her long gloves, and looking at the 
 motionless white figure, very slender and childish 
 against the chintz of the cushions, soft, tumbled 
 hair, and hidden face, with a growing trouble in 
 her eyes, "I ought to talk to you I ought to tell 
 you you're old enough now old enough " 
 
 Judith turned with a soft, nestling movement, 
 and opened her eyes again, deep, watchful eyes 
 that asked endless questions, and made it impossi- 
 ble to answer them, eyes that knew no language but 
 their own, the secret and alien language of youth. 
 Her mother sighed. 
 
 "You're the strangest child. Sometimes you 
 seem a hundred years old, and sometimes you 
 don't feel too badly to stay alone? Mollie would 
 have stayed in with you, or Norah." 
 
 "No. I would have gone, if I'd known you 
 cared so much, but it won't do any good to make 
 yourself late, Mamma. Father's calling," said 
 Judith gravely. Still grave and unrelaxed, she 
 returned her mother's rare good-night kiss, and 
 watched her sweep out of the room, turning the 
 rose-shaded night lamp low as she passed. 
 
 There was a hurry of preparation downstairs,
 
 The Wishing Moon 157 
 
 her mother's low, fretful voice and her father's 
 high and strained one joined in a heated argument, 
 and they started still deep in it, for her father 
 did not call a good-night to Judith. The street 
 door shut, and she was alone in the house. Carriage 
 wheels creaked out of the yard and there was no 
 returning sound of them hi search of some for- 
 gotten thing; a long enough interval passed so 
 that it was safe to infer that there would not be, 
 but Judith lay as her mother had left her, as still 
 as if her headache were really authentic, her 
 questioning eyes on the rose-sjiaded light. 
 
 There was much that might have increased her 
 mother's concern for her in her face, if you could 
 interpret it fully; sometimes the eyes suggested a 
 fair proportion of the hundred years her mother 
 had credited her with, sometimes there was dawn- 
 ing fear in them, and sometimes an inconsequent, 
 gipsy light; sometimes her soft lips trembled piti- 
 fully, and sometimes they smiled. Always it was 
 a lovely face, rose flushed and eager in the rosy 
 light, and always something was evident which 
 was enough to account for her mother's concern 
 and for more concern than her mother was capable 
 of feeling; Miss Judith Devereux Randall was 
 growing up. 
 
 Whatever questions occupied her answered 
 themselves in a satisfactory way at last, even an
 
 158 The Wishing Moon 
 
 amusing way, for her smile had come to stay and 
 her eyes were dancing, when she jumped up from 
 the chaise-longue at last, turned on more lights, 
 opened closets and bureau drawers all at once, 
 dropped various hastily chosen and ill-assorted 
 articles on the immaculate counterpane of her 
 bed, and began to dress. 
 
 She dressed without a glance into the mirror, 
 and without need of it, it appeared, when she stood 
 before it at last, pulling a left-over winter tarn 
 over rebellious curls which she had made no at- 
 tempt to subdue. She had buttoned herself 
 hastily into the dress she had taken off last, a 
 tumbled organdy, and thrown a disreputable polo 
 coat over it, white like the cap, but of more prehis- 
 toric date, but on her slender person these incon- 
 gruous garments had acquired a harmony of their 
 own, and become a costume somehow. It might 
 not have withstood a long or critical inspection, 
 but it was not subjected to one. Youth, in its 
 divinely suited garb of white, regarded itself with 
 grave eyes for one breathless minute, flushed and 
 coquetted with itself for another, and then was 
 gone from the mirror. Judith turned off the 
 lights and stole out of the room, and downstairs. 
 
 There was nothing in the dark and empty house 
 to frighten her. It must have been fear of what- 
 ever was before her that made her slip so softly
 
 The Wishing Moon 159 
 
 across the hall, and tremble and stand still when 
 the door chain rattled. The door was open at last. 
 With a soft, inarticulate gasp of excitement, she 
 stepped out into the May night. 
 
 Colonel Everard had an ideal night for the little 
 dance in his garden, warm, but with a quiver of new 
 life in the air. The May moon was in its last 
 quarter, but lanterns were to supplement it. But 
 the Colonel's guest of honour, pausing at the 
 corner of Main Street and looking sharply to left 
 and right, and then turning quickly off it, found 
 very little light on the narrow and tree-fringed 
 cross-street through which she was hurrying now 
 but the moon. 
 
 It hung slender and pale and low above the 
 ragged row of little houses, and seemed to go with 
 her through the dark, but she took no notice of its 
 companionship. The street was deserted, and 
 the tap of her little heels sounded disconcertingly 
 loud in the emptiness of it as she hurried on, 
 turning from the narrow street into a narrower 
 one. 
 
 This street had only one real end; pending the 
 appropriation needed to carry it straight through, 
 witheld by agencies which could only be con- 
 nected by guess with Colonel Everard, it led feebly 
 past a few houses which were nearly all untenanted 
 and looked peculiarly so to-night, to a clump of
 
 160 The Wishing Moon 
 
 alders at the edge of an impenetrated wood lot, 
 where it had paused. Just in front of it the girl 
 paused, too. 
 
 Her small, white-coated figure was only dimly 
 to be seen in the dark of the street; the group in 
 the shadow of the trees was harder to see, but it 
 moved; a horse pawed the ground impatiently, 
 the boy in the buggy leaned forward and spoke to 
 him. Then Judith started uncertainly toward 
 him, and spoke softly, in the arrogant phrasing 
 of lovers, to whom there is only one "y u " m 
 the world: 
 
 "Is that you?" 
 
 "Is it you?" the boy's voice came hoarse 
 through the dark. "I thought you weren't 
 coming. I waited an hour for you yesterday on 
 the Rock." 
 
 "I couldn't help it. I oughn't to be here now, 
 and I almost didn't come, but I thought we'd 
 have to-night. Neil, you hurt my hand. Be nice 
 to me." 
 
 She was standing close beside him now, and they 
 could see each other's faces, white and strange in 
 the dark, but the boy's looked whiter, and his 
 breath came oddly, in irregular gasps. He held 
 both her hands in his, but he did not bend down 
 to her, nor kiss her. 
 
 "What makes you look so queer? I don't like
 
 The Wishing Moon 161 
 
 YOU. Be nice to me." There was something 
 terribly wrong with the smug little phrases, or 
 with any words at all just then, there in the heart 
 of the silent dark, and facing the strangeness of the 
 boy's eyes; words failed her suddenly, and she 
 pulled her hands away, and hid her face in them. 
 "I won't go with you I'll go home, if you aren't 
 
 nice to me if " 
 
 "You can't go home now." There was some- 
 thing in the boy's voice that was like the fierce 
 clasp of his hands, something from which it was 
 not so easy to escape. "It might be better if you 
 hadn't come, better for both of us, but you can't 
 go back now. It's too late. Yes, we'll have to- 
 night. Get in, Judith."
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 GET in, Judith." 
 "I won't go. You can't make me." 
 The boy did not answer or move. Boy 
 and buggy and horse Charlie Brady's ancient 
 chestnut mare, not such a dignified creature by 
 daylight, but high shouldered and mysterious 
 now against the dark of the grove might all have 
 been part of the surrounding dark, they were so 
 still, and Judith's little white figure was motion- 
 less, too. 
 
 Judith stood looking up at the boy for one long, 
 silent minute. Such minutes are really longer 
 than other minutes, if you measure them by heart- 
 beats, and how else are you to measure them? 
 Strange, breathless minutes, that settle grave 
 questions irrevocably by the mere fact of their 
 passing, whether you watch them pass with open 
 eyes or are helpless and young and vaguely afraid 
 before them; helpless, but full of the untaught 
 strength of youth, which works miracles without 
 knowing how or why. 
 
 " Get in," said the boy, very softly this time, so 
 that his voice just made itself heard through the 
 
 162
 
 The Wishing Moon 163 
 
 dark; it was like part of the dark, caressing and 
 hushed and secret, and not to be denied. With a 
 soft little laugh that was attuned to it, Judith 
 yielded suddenly, and slipped into the carriage 
 beside him, drawing the robe tight round her, and 
 settling into her corner, all with one quick, nestling 
 motion, like a bird perching. 
 
 "Where are we going?" she said rather breath- 
 lessly, "Hurry. Let's go a long, long way." 
 
 "All right. Don't be frightened, Judith." 
 
 "Frightened?" 
 
 He did not answer. Charlie's horse, debarred 
 from its destined career by bad driving, that broke 
 its wind in its first race, but of sporting ancestry 
 and unable to forget it, especially when Charlie's 
 adventures in the Green River under- world cheated 
 it of exercise too long, was remembering it now, 
 and bolting down the hilly little street, settled at 
 last into a jerky and tentative gait with the air 
 of accepting their guidance until it could arrange 
 further plans, but remembering its ancestry still. 
 
 "Splendid," Judith breathed. " Keep off Main 
 Street." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The ancient vehicle, well oiled, but rattling 
 faintly still, swung alarmingly close to one street 
 corner lamp-post and then another. Judith nestled 
 almost out of sight in her corner. Neil leaned
 
 164 The Wishing Moon 
 
 forward, gripping the reins with an ungloved hand 
 that whitened at the knuckles, his dark eyes 
 looking straight ahead. His brooding eyes and 
 quiet mouth, and even the whiteness of his face 
 had something unfamiliar about them, something 
 that did not all come from the unhealthy light 
 of the street lamps, something strange but un- 
 accountably charming, too. Judith had no eyes 
 for it just then. 
 
 "This is silly. I ought not to have come. 
 Who's that?" 
 
 "Nobody. Just a tree. Sit still. We'll go 
 under the railroad bridge and out over Grant's 
 Hill. There won't be any more lights." 
 
 "It looked like some one." 
 
 "What do you care?" 
 
 "It looked like your cousin Maggie." 
 
 " She's at home in bed. She was tired to-night." 
 
 "Oh. Well, it looked like her. It was silly to 
 come. I never shall coine again." 
 
 As if this were not a new threat, or had for some 
 reason lost it terrors to-night, the boy did not 
 contradict her. They had left track and railroad 
 bridge behind now, darker blots against the sur- 
 rounding dark, with the lights of the station 
 showing faintly far down the track. They were 
 passing the last of the houses that straggled along 
 the unfashionable quarter above the railroad track.
 
 The Wishing Moon 165 
 
 Most of the houses here were dark now. In the 
 Nashs' windows the last light puffed suddenly out 
 as they went by. 
 
 Down in the town behind them other sleepy 
 little lights were burning faintly, or going out, 
 but ahead of them the faintly moonlit road looked 
 wide-awake. It was an alluring road. It dipped 
 into wooded hollows, it broke suddenly into ar- 
 bitrary curves and windings but found its way out 
 again, and kept on somehow, and gradually lifted 
 itself higher and higher toward the crest of the hill 
 five miles away that you reached without ever seem- 
 ing to climb it, to be confronted all at once with the 
 only real view between Wells and Green River. 
 
 "I used to think Grant's Hill was the end of the 
 world," said Judith softly. "Maybe it is. It's 
 funny I can say things like that to you, when you 
 only laugh and won't answer. Listen. Isn't it 
 still, so still it almost makes a noise." 
 
 It was very still. You could feel the pulse of 
 the night here. There was a whisper and stir 
 of life in the rustling trees when the road crossed 
 some belt of woods; there was a look of blind, 
 creeping life about the clustering shadows in 
 stretches of moonlight, and the low-hanging moon 
 above the dark fields they passed was a living 
 thing, too, the most alive of all. Judith stirred 
 in her corner, and turned and looked at it.
 
 166 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "It's sweet," she said. "And it's ours. It's 
 still May. But we can't wish on the moon now; 
 it's too late. And I don't want to wish, I'm so 
 comfortable. Aren't you? Well, you needn't an- 
 swer, then, and you needn't hold my hand." She 
 had felt for a hand that avoided hers. With a 
 sleepy, satisfied laugh, like a petted kitten purr- 
 ing, she settled herself again, with her head against 
 an unresponsive shoulder, and pulled an unrespon- 
 sive arm round her waist. 
 
 "You aren't as soft as the cushions not nearly. 
 You're pretty hard, but I like you. I was afraid to 
 come, but now 
 
 "Now what?" 
 
 " There's nothing to be afraid of. I'm so happy. 
 There's nobody in the world but you and me. 
 Neil, I'm going to sleep." 
 
 "All right. Shut your eyes, then, and don't 
 keep staring at me. What makes your eyes so 
 bright?" 
 
 "You." 
 
 "Shut your eyes." 
 
 "All right. Nobody but you and me." 
 
 They were really alone in the world now, alone 
 in the heart of the night. Their little murmur of 
 talk, so low that they could just hear it themselves, 
 had been such a tiny trickle of sound that it did 
 not quite break the silence, and now it had died
 
 Shut your eyes ' '
 
 The Wishing Moon 167 
 
 away. Asleep or awake, the girl was quite still, 
 with her cheek pressed against the boy's shoulder, 
 and her long-lashed eyes tight shut. The horse 
 carried them over the moonlit road at a rate of 
 speed that did not seem possible from its strange, 
 loping gait. The effect of it was uncanny. 
 
 Boy and girl and queer, high-shouldered horse, 
 darkly silhouetted in the moonlight, lost to sight 
 in the shadows of tall trees that looked taller in the 
 dark, and then coming silently into view again, 
 were like dim, flitting shadows in the night; like 
 peculiarly helpless and insignificant shadows, 
 restless and purposeless. The moon, soft and 
 far away and still, seemed more alive than 
 they did, and more competent to adjust their 
 affairs. 
 
 They required adjusting. That was in the 
 watching brightness of the girl's eyes, fluttering 
 open once or twice, only to close quickly again, in 
 the tenseness of the boy's arm around her, in the 
 set of his shoulders and lift of his stubborn young 
 chin, in the very air that he breathed uneasily, 
 the soft, disturbing air of the May night. It was 
 not a boy and girl quarrel that was before them: 
 it was something more. It was the strangest hour 
 that had come to them in their secret treasury of 
 strange hours that were touched with the glamour 
 of black magic and swayed by laws they did not
 
 168 The Wishing Moon 
 
 know. It might be the darkest hour. It was 
 the test hour. 
 
 There is no sure and easy way through such 
 hours. If they faced theirs unprepared and afraid, 
 so must the rest of the world, the part that 
 is older and counted wiser. But this could have 
 been no comfort just then to the boy t nd girl in 
 the antiquated buggy, under the untroubled gaze 
 of the wishing moon. 
 
 They were almost on the crest of the hill now. 
 One long, upward slant of road led straight to it, 
 bare of trees, and silvery in the moonlight. At 
 the foot, and just at the edge of a thick belt of 
 woods, the boy pulled up as if to rest his horse 
 for the gradual ascent. At his left, hardly visible 
 at all to-night unless you stopped your horse to 
 look for it, a narrow and overgrown road led off 
 through the trees. Tightening the arm that held 
 her cautiously, the boy looked down at the face 
 against his shoulder, the faint, half-smile on the 
 lips, and the lightly closed eyes. 
 
 The girl did not move. Her cap had slipped off, 
 and one small, bare hand clutched the fuzzy white 
 thing tight, as a sleeping child's hand might have 
 closed on some favourite toy. Her hair showed 
 silvery blond and soft against his dark coat. 
 With a quick, hungry motion, the boy dropped 
 his head and kissed it lightly. Then, gripping
 
 The Wishing Moon 169 
 
 the reins with a firmness that no present activity 
 of the animal called for, he left Green River's only 
 noteworthy view without a backward glance, and 
 turned his horse into the road through the woods. 
 
 For the next few minutes he had no attention 
 to spare for Judith, suspiciously quiet in his arms. 
 He could not see her face. It was black dark 
 under the trees, dark as if it had never been light. 
 The track was wider than it looked, but also 
 rougher. The trees grew close. Branches that 
 he brushed aside sprinkled dew into his face. The 
 buggy creaked out vain protests and useless warn- 
 ings. Finally moonlight showed at the end of the 
 black tunnel, and the horse, which had been en- 
 countering its difficulties in resourceful silence, 
 made a faint, snorting comment which sounded 
 relieved, and presently, with unexpected jaunti- 
 ness, swung into the road again. 
 
 It was technically a road, and it was the wreck 
 of a very good road, but it was not in much better 
 shape than the track they had reached it by. 
 Aspiring amateurs had sketched it and camera 
 fiends haunted it in their day. It was Colonel 
 Everard's favourite bridle path, which naturally 
 prevented repairs upon it. But before the rail- 
 road went through it had been Green River's only 
 link with a wider world. Now a better built but 
 more circuitous road had replaced it, designed
 
 170 The Wishing Moon 
 
 for motoring. No motors ever penetrated here, 
 and few carriages. It was left to the ghosts of 
 ancient traffic, if they ventured here. The glanc- 
 ing moonlight under the close-growing trees might 
 have been full of them to-night. 
 
 But the boy was not looking for ghosts or inter- 
 ested in the history of the road or its charm, as he 
 hurried his high-shouldered horse along it, still 
 responding jauntily. He squared his chin more 
 stubbornly than ever, and muttered encourag- 
 ingly to the horse, and reached for his battered 
 whip. Round this corner, beyond this milestone, 
 the stage drivers used to make up time when the 
 mail was late. A generous mile of almost level 
 road curved ahead of Neil into the moonlight, a 
 fairly clean bit of going even now. Judith and 
 Neil were on the old coaching road to Wells. 
 
 Neil reached for his whip, but did not take it 
 out of the socket. A small hand closed over his. 
 The head on his shoulder did not move, but dark 
 eyes, watchful and deliberate, opened and looked 
 up at him quietly. 
 
 "Now," said a cool little voice, "you can take 
 me home." 
 
 "You're awake?" 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 "Then why " 
 
 "I waited to see where you were going, and
 
 The Wishing Moon 171 
 
 what you were going to do," explained Judith 
 simply. They were covering the banner stretch 
 of road at a rate the old stage drivers had never 
 emulated. Judith pushed Neil's arm away, and 
 sat straight and looked at him. Her cheeks were 
 gloriously flushed with the quick motion, and her 
 soft, tumbled hair had broken into baby curls 
 round her forehead, but her eyes were a woman's 
 dark, unforgiving eyes. Neil gave her one furtive 
 glance, and looked away. 
 
 "I told you to take me home," she said. 
 
 He made a muttered reply, inarticulate, so that 
 it would have been hard to tell whether it was 
 really addressed to Judith or the horse, and bent 
 forward over the reins. 
 
 The colour deepened in Judith's cheeks, her 
 soft lips tightened into a straight line that was 
 like her mother's mouth. Her cool, unhurried 
 voice was like her mother's, too: "I knew when 
 we started out I'd have trouble with you. Now I 
 don't intend to have any more. I don't want to 
 have to tell you again. Take me home." 
 
 She had adopted the tone which Green River's 
 self-made gentlewomen like Mrs. Theodore Burr 
 mistakenly believed to be effective with servants. 
 The boy beside her gave no sign that it was effec- 
 tive with him. He spoke softly to the horse again, 
 and flicked at it coaxirigly with the whip.
 
 172 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Neil, I am sorry for you," Judith stated pres- 
 ently, with no sympathy whatever in her judicial 
 young voice. "I have been awfully good to 
 you." 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 "Yes, good. I had to be. Because I knew 
 we didn't have much time. I knew this would 
 have to stop some day. I knew it and you knew 
 it, too. You always knew it. Well, I've been 
 trying to tell you for a long time that it had got to 
 stop. I tried, but you wouldn't let me. We're 
 both getting older, too old for this, and I'm going 
 away next year. And some things have happened 
 to me, just lately last week that made me think. 
 I've got to be careful. I've got to take care of 
 myself. This has got to stop now to-night. I 
 wanted to tell you so. That's why I came; be- 
 cause " 
 
 " I know why you came." 
 
 " Don't be cross. Be good, and turn round now, 
 and take me home. Neil, I'm not sorry, you 
 know, for anything. Ever since that first night 
 at the dance you've been so sweet to me. I'm not 
 sorry. Are you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "How funny your voice sounds. Why don't 
 you turn round? " 
 
 He had no explanation to offer. The buggy
 
 The Wishing Moon 173 
 
 plunged faster through the dark, and Judith 
 braced herself in her corner. 
 
 "Neil, turn round. Don't you hear me?" 
 
 He gave no sign of hearing. The horse swung 
 gallantly into a bit of road where the stage drivers 
 had never been in the habit of hurrying, a tricky 
 bit of road, with overhanging rocks jutting out 
 just where you might graze them at sudden turns, 
 and with abrupt dips into percipitous hollows. 
 One stretched dark ahead of them now. Judith 
 caught her breath as they plunged into it, and 
 clutched Neil's arm. He laughed shortly, and 
 did not shake off her hand. She pulled at his 
 wrist and shook it. 
 
 "Upset us if you want to. We'd go together," 
 he urged, with a logic not to be questioned. "To- 
 gether, and that suits me, Judy." 
 
 "Neil, turn round. Neil!" Judith's voice was 
 shrill with sudden terror repressed too long, but 
 she struggled to make it steady and cold again, in 
 one last effort at control. 
 
 "Who do you think you are, Neil Donovan? 
 I tell you to take me home." 
 
 He did not even turn to look at her. He was 
 getting the horse down the rocky slant of dimly lit 
 road with a patience and concentration which there 
 was nobody to appreciate just then. Judith 
 collapsed into her corner. There was a faint sound
 
 174 The Wishing Moon 
 
 of helpless crying from her, then silence as she 
 choked back the tears; silence, and an erect, stub- 
 born figure showing oppressively big and dark 
 between Judith and the moon. 
 
 "Neil, I'm sorry. . . . Neil, I can't stand 
 this," came a muffled voice. "Please speak to 
 me." 
 
 They were on level ground again, and the horse 
 was disposed to make the most of it. The boy 
 pulled her into a jolting walk which was not the 
 most successful of her gaits, but represented a 
 triumph for him just now, and then he turned 
 abruptly to Judith, gathering both her hands into 
 his free hand and gripping them tight. 
 
 "I'll talk to you now," he said. "It's time I 
 told you. Judith, you and I are not going back."
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 WHAT do you mean?" 
 "We're not going back," he repeated 
 deliberately. 
 
 "We are!" flashed Judith 
 
 " We're notgoing back. We're never going back." 
 
 Judith drew back and stared at him, her hands 
 still in his, and the boy stared back with a look 
 that matched her own in his big, deeply lit, dark 
 eyes. White faces, with angry, dark eyes, were 
 all that they could see clearly, though they were 
 crossing a patch of road where a ragged gap in the 
 trees let some of the moonlight through; white 
 faces like strangers' faces. 
 
 They were only a boy and girl jolting through 
 the woods in the night in a rattletrap buggy behind 
 a caricature of a horse, but what looked out of 
 their angry eyes and spoke in their tense young 
 voices was greater than the immediate issue of 
 their quarrel, and older and wiser than they were; 
 as old as the world. Ancient enemies were at 
 war once more. A man and a woman were making 
 their age-old fight for mastery over themselves 
 and each other. 
 
 175
 
 176 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Never, Judy." 
 
 "Where are we going, then?" 
 
 "What difference does it make?" 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 "To Wells. We can make it by morning. I've 
 got the mortgage money with me." 
 
 "Your uncle's?" 
 
 "Yes. What difference does that make? That, 
 or anything? We'd go if we hadn't any money 
 at all. We'd have to. Oh, Judith " 
 
 "You don't know what you're saying. Take 
 me home. What are you laughing at?" 
 
 "You. You sounded just like them, then, giv- 
 ing me orders just like your whole rotten crowd, 
 but you're through with them now, and you're 
 through ordering me about and making a fool of 
 me. I've been afraid to say my soul was my own. 
 It wasn't, I guess. But we're all through with 
 that. We're through, Judith." 
 
 "Yes, of course. Of course we're through. 
 It's all right. Everything's all right, Neil dear." 
 
 "Everything's all wrong, and I know whose 
 fault it is now: it's your fault. Maybe I only had 
 one chance in a hundred to get on, but one chance 
 is enough, and I was taking it. You made me 
 ashamed to take it. I was ashamed to do the 
 work that was all I could get to do, and I had my 
 head so full of you I couldn't do any work. Mag-
 
 The Wishing Moon 177 
 
 gie's better than I am. She don't sit around with 
 her hands folded and wait for Everard to get tired 
 of her. And the whole town don't laugh at her. 
 The whole'town don't know : 
 
 "Neil, I said I was sorry. Please don't." 
 
 "You've got the smooth ways of them all, but 
 it's too late for that between us, Judy. Smooth, 
 lying ways." 
 
 "We can't go to Wells, Neil dear. What could 
 we do there? Think." 
 
 "I'm sick of thinking. I'd get work maybe. 
 I don't know. I don't care. Judith " 
 
 "We can't. Not to-night, Neil. Wait.'* 
 
 "I'm sick of waiting. I've got nothing to gain 
 by it. I've done all the waiting I could. I've 
 stood all I could. You're the only thing I want 
 in the world, and I couldn't wait for you any longer 
 if I could get you that way and I wouldn't get 
 you. I'd lose you." 
 
 "Not to-night. To-morrow, if you really want 
 me to go. To-morrow, truly." 
 
 "You're lying to me, and I'm tired of it." 
 
 "No, Neil Neil dear." 
 
 "You're lying." 
 
 "How dare you say that! I hate you!" 
 
 "That's right. We'll talk straight now. It's 
 time." 
 
 "I hate you. Don't touch me. You're going
 
 178 The Wishing Moon 
 
 to take me home you must and I'm never 
 going to speak to you again. I think you're crazy. 
 But I'm not afraid of you I'm not afraid." 
 
 The low-keyed, hurrying voices broke off 
 abruptly. There was no sound in the buggy but 
 Judith's rapid breathing, more and more like sobs, 
 but no tears came. The two faces that confronted 
 each other were alike in the gloom, white and 
 angry and very young; alike as the faces of enemies 
 are when they measure each other's strength in 
 silence. It was a cruel, tense little silence, but 
 the sound that broke it was more cruel. It was 
 dry and hard and had nothing to do with his own 
 conquering laugh, that the girl knew, but it came 
 from the boy. 
 
 "How dare you laugh at me. I hate you!" 
 Judith's voice came hoarse and unrecognizable. 
 
 A hand caught blindly at the reins; another hand 
 closed over it. Then there was silence again in the 
 buggy, broken by panting sounds and little sobs. 
 At the end c . it Judith, forced back into her corner 
 and held there, was really crying now, with hys- 
 terical sobs that hurt, and hot tears that hurt, too. 
 
 " Let me go," she panted. " I hate you ! You've 
 got to let me go." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "I'm going home. I'm going to get out and 
 walk home."
 
 The Wishing Moon 179 
 
 "Ten miles?" 
 
 "I'd walk a hundred miles to get away from 
 you." 
 
 " You'd have to walk farther to do that." The 
 dry little laugh cut through the dark again, and 
 Judith struck furiously at the arm that held her. 
 
 "I hate you!" she sobbed. 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Oh, I do I do " 
 
 "I don't care." The boy's voice sounded light 
 and dry, like his laugh. "I don't care. Kiss me.'* 
 
 "I won't! I won't! I'll never speak to you 
 again. I'll never forgive you." 
 
 "Lying to me fooling me; taking me up and 
 dropping me like Everard does to women. . . . 
 You're no better than he is. You're one of his 
 crowd, but you're through with them. . . . 
 Lying to me, when you do care. You do." 
 
 "I hate you!" 
 
 "Ah, no, you don't." 
 
 Little bursts of confused speech, all they had 
 breath for and more, disconnected, not always 
 understood, not always articulate, but always 
 angry, came from them, with intervals of silent, 
 panting struggle between. The two young crea- 
 tures in the buggy were struggling in earnest now. 
 The struggle was clumsy, like most really signifi- 
 cant ones; sudden and clumsy and blind. The
 
 180 The Wishing Moon 
 
 two figures swayed aimlessly back and forth. 
 The boy and girl were both on their feet now. 
 The boy had dropped the reins. Both arms held 
 the girl. Her pinioned arms fought to free them- 
 selves. 
 
 "Judith, you don't hate me. Say it say it." 
 
 The two shadowy figures were like one now, but 
 the girl's arms were free, pushing the boy away, 
 striking at him impotently. 
 
 "You needn't say it. I know. You had to 
 come to-night. You couldn't stay away. You 
 don't hate me. You never will. You couldn't. 
 I'm crazy about you. You're the only thing that 
 matters, if we should die the next minute. Every- 
 thing's all wrong, and it's not my fault or yours. 
 Everything's wrong, and this is wrong, too, but I 
 don't care and you don't. Do you? Do you?" 
 
 "Neil, let me go. I can't breathe." 
 
 "I love you." 
 
 "Let me go." 
 
 The shadow figures swayed and then were still. 
 The girl's arms dropped. The little, one-sided 
 struggle was over. There was a long, tired sigh, 
 and then silence; silence, and one shadow face 
 bending hungrily over the other shadow face. 
 "Judith," the boy whispered breathlessly, "do 
 you hate me now? " 
 
 "Yes."
 
 " 'Judith, you don't hate me ? Say itsay it ' "
 
 The Wishing Moon 181 
 
 "Do you want me to let you go? Do you want 
 me to take you home?" 
 
 "Yes," came the same answering whisper, the 
 faintest and most uncertain of whispers, but two 
 arms, gently freeing themselves, found their way 
 to his shoulders, two hands locked behind his head 
 and drew it gently down, until the two shadow 
 faces were close once more, and lips that were not 
 shadow lips met and clung together; not shadow 
 lips, but hungry and warm and alive untaught 
 but unafraid young lips, ready for kisses that are 
 no two alike and can never come again wonderful 
 kisses that blot everything out of the changing 
 world but themselves. 
 
 "Judith" the boy lifted his head at last, and 
 looked down at the face against his shoulder, 
 pale and small, but with all the colour and light 
 and life that night had taken from the world and 
 hidden, burning undimmed in the awakening 
 eyes "you don't want me to take you home? 
 You don't care what happens?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 He could hardly hear her low whisper, but her 
 face was answer enough, even for a boy who could 
 not know what had touched it with new beauty, 
 but had to guess, as his own heart and the night 
 might teach him. 
 
 " No, I don't care. I don't care."
 
 182 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Judith, you do love me?" 
 
 "Yes. Oh, yes." 
 
 "You're so sweet," he whispered, "I feel as if 
 I'd never kissed you before or seen you before. 
 I love you, Judith." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I love you and I don't want to hurt you. 
 You know that, don't you? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But nothing's going to take you away from 
 me now." 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "I don't want to hurt you." 
 
 "I tell you, I don't care what happens. I 
 don't care." 
 
 "Judith!" 
 
 Once more her hands drew him close; shy hands, 
 groping uncertainly in the dark, and shy lips kissed 
 him. It was the coolest and lightest of kisses, 
 but it was worth all the others, if the boy knew 
 how much it promised more than all her broken 
 speech had promised, more than any spoken words. 
 
 Judith herself did not know, but some instinct 
 older than she was made her whisper: "Be good 
 to me. Will you be good to me? " 
 
 "Yes, Judith." 
 
 The boy answered her small, shaken whisper 
 solemnly, as if he were taking a formal and irrev-
 
 The Wishing Moon 183 
 
 ocable vow, but there was no one to listen to it 
 here, and bear witness to it as irrevocable. The 
 girl did not answer him. Suddenly shy, breathing 
 quickly, and trying to laugh, she slipped out of 
 his arms. 
 
 The boy let her go. Some time before the trail- 
 ing reins had been caught up and twisted twice 
 round the whip socket. He had done this instinc- 
 tively, he could not have told just when. He bent 
 down and untwisted them now, rather slowly and 
 awkwardly, not looking at Judith. Then he sat 
 down stiffly beside her. 
 
 "You're tired," he said, with new gentleness 
 in his voice. He put an arm loosely round her 
 waist in the manner of an affectionate but inex- 
 perienced parent, and her head dropped on his 
 shoulder. "Very tired? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Judith, I'm sorry." 
 
 "No, I'm sorry. How could I be so horrid? 
 What made me? Did I hurt you, dear, with my 
 hands?" 
 
 "You couldn't hurt me." 
 
 "Neil, you know what you said just now?" 
 
 "Never mind what I said." 
 
 "You said you didn't want anything to take me 
 away from you. Well, if it did, if anything did 
 take me away from you now, I'd "
 
 184 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "What, dear?" 
 
 "I'd never forgive you. I couldn't. I'd de- 
 spise you." This warning came in a low, uncer- 
 tain voice, wasted, as countless warnings have 
 been wasted on wiser masculine ears than the 
 boy's. "Look at our moon up there. It's glad, 
 I guess glad about you and me. Why don't 
 you listen to me? " 
 
 "I'm thinking, Judith. I've got to think." 
 
 "You look very nice when you think. Your 
 eyes look so big and still. You look beautiful. 
 I could really sleep now, I guess." 
 
 "All right, dear." 
 
 "But I don't want to. I'm too happy. How 
 late is it?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Well, it's late. We couldn't get home now 
 before awfully late two or something. And the 
 road's so narrow here, we couldn't turn round. 
 We couldn't go home if we wanted to. Could 
 we?" 
 
 "Not very well, dear." 
 
 "I'm glad. . . . Neil." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Are you thinking now?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You do look beautiful. I don't know just why. 
 I never saw you look just like this before; kind,
 
 The Wishing Moon 185 
 
 but years older than I am, and miles away. 
 Neil " 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "Neil, don't think any more. Just love me. 
 
 . . . I love you."
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 COLONEL EVERARD'S little party was 
 quite successful enough without the guest 
 of honour. At least, it would have seemed 
 so to Judith, if she could have looked in upon it 
 just before midnight. A distinguished guest of 
 the Colonel's had made an ungrateful criticism 
 of the inner circle, on parade for his benefit only the 
 week before at Camp Hiawatha, which was elab- 
 orately rebuilt now, and rechristened Camp Ever- 
 ard. He complained that the Colonel's parties 
 were too successful. 
 
 "Too many pretty women," he said, "or they 
 work too hard at it dress too well, or talk too well 
 don't dare to let down. You need more back- 
 ground, more men like Grant. You need to be 
 bored. You can't have cream without milk. 
 You can't take the essentials of a society and make 
 a whole society out of them without adulterating 
 them. It won't last. That's why Adam and 
 Eve didn't stay in the garden. They couldn't 
 too much tension there. They needed casual 
 acquaintances, and you need background. You 
 can't get on without it.'* 
 
 386
 
 The Wishing Moon 187 
 
 "We do," said his host. 
 
 The distinguished critic was far away from the 
 Colonel's town to-night, but the Colonel's party 
 was all that he had complained of; the thing he 
 had felt and tried to account for and explain was 
 here, as it was at all the Colonel's parties, though a 
 discreet selection of outsiders had been admitted 
 to-night; the same sense of effort and tension, of 
 working too hard, of a gayety brilliant but forced 
 artificial, but justifying the elaborate processes 
 that created it by its charm, like some rare hot- 
 house flower. 
 
 You saw it in quick glimpses of passing faces 
 thrown into strong relief by the light of the swing- 
 ing lanterns, and then dancing out of sight; you 
 heard it in strained, sweet laughter, and felt it 
 in the beat of the music, and in the whole picture 
 the party made of itself in the garden, the restless, 
 changing picture, but this was not all it was in 
 the air. You could close your eyes and breathe it 
 and feel it. It was unusually keen to-night, real, 
 like a thing you could actually touch and see. 
 
 You lost the keen sense of it if you looked too 
 closely for signs of it. If you overheard bits of 
 talk, they were not always clever at all, or even 
 entirely gay. Worried lines showed under elab- 
 orate makeup in the women's faces, as if Cinder- 
 ella had put on white gloves to hide smutty fingers;
 
 188 The Wishing Moon 
 
 indeed, though they were trained to forget it and 
 make you forget it, they were only so many Cin- 
 derellas, after all. Seen too closely, there was a 
 look of strain about some of the men's faces. 
 
 There was a reason for this 'ook to-night, be- 
 sides the set of reasons which the gentlemen of the 
 Colonel's circle always had for looking worried; 
 living beyond their incomes, living in uncertainty 
 of any income at all, and other private reasons, 
 different in each case, but all quite compelling; 
 there was a reason, and the Colonel's guest of the 
 week before was connected with it. Others would 
 follow him soon, secret conferences would take 
 place unrecorded, the Colonel's private telephone 
 wire would be busy, and the telegrams be received 
 would be frequent and not intelligible to the casual 
 reader. These were the months before election, 
 when the things that were going to happen began 
 to happen. Their beginnings were obscure. The 
 man in the street talked politics, but the man with 
 his hands in the game kept still. Even when they 
 slipped away to the smoking-room, or gathered 
 at the edge of the lawn in groups of two and three 
 that scattered as their host approached, the Colo- 
 nel's guests were not discussing politics to-night. 
 
 No tired lines were permitted to show in Mrs. 
 Randall's face. Her fresh, cool prettiness was of 
 the valuable kind that shows off best at the height
 
 The Wishing Moon 189 
 
 of the evening, when other women look tired. 
 If she was aware of the fact and made the most of 
 it, overworking her charming smile and wide-open, 
 tranquil eyes, you could not blame her. It was 
 not the time or place to overlook any weapons 
 you might have. Whatever duties or privileges 
 belonged to the Colonel's inner circle, you had to 
 take care of yourself if you were part of it, and 
 you learned to; that was evident from her manner. 
 It seemed easy for her to-night. Just now she 
 was sharing a bench and an evening cloak with 
 Mrs. Burr, smooth, dark head close to her fluffy, 
 blond one, and smiling into her face confidingly, 
 as if all that lady's purring, disconnected remarks 
 were equally agreeable to her. 
 
 "We miss Judy so much," she said sweetly. 
 
 "I can see just how much, dear," said Judith's 
 mother more sweetly still. 
 
 "And it's so long since she's been here." 
 
 "She has her school work to do. She's just a 
 child. She's not well to-night." 
 
 "But I got the idea he meant this to be her 
 evening." 
 
 "He did." 
 
 "There he is." The third person singular, 
 unqualified, could mean only one gentleman to 
 the ladies of the Colonel's circle, and that gentle- 
 man was passing close to them now, though he
 
 190 The Wishing Moon 
 
 seemed unconscious of the fact. He was guiding 
 Mrs. Kent through an old-fashioned waltz with 
 elaborate precision. His concentration upon the 
 performance increased as he passed them, and he 
 not did look away from his partner's face, though 
 it was not absorbingly attractive just now. The 
 piquant profile had a blurred look, and the cheeks 
 were flushed under the daintily calculated touch of 
 rouge. Mrs. Burr turned to her friend with a 
 faint but relentless light of amusement in her 
 narrowed eyes. 
 
 "Edie's had just one cocktail too many." 
 
 "Yes." They ignored the more obvious fact 
 that the Colonel had. The evening had reached 
 the stage when he always had. 
 
 "He hasn't danced with you many times, 
 Minna dear." 
 
 "I'm tired of dancing, but don't let me keep you 
 here, Lil." 
 
 "I haven't seen him dance with you at all." 
 
 "He hasn't yet." 
 
 "No?" said Mrs. Burr, very casually. 
 
 "No. Lil, I think Ranny wants you. He's 
 wandering about, looking vague." 
 
 "Don't you want me, dear? Well, Ranny 
 always wants me." 
 
 Mr. Randolph Sebastian, discovering her sud- 
 denly, gave exaggerated proof of this as he carried
 
 The Wishing Moon 191 
 
 her off. If the Colonel's secretary had really been 
 recruited from a dance hall, he had profited by 
 what he saw there, and showed it in every quick, 
 graceful turn he made. His partner was the type 
 of woman that dancing might have been invented 
 to show off; it gave her lazy, graciously built 
 body a reason for being, and put a flicker of mean- 
 ing into her shallow eyes so that she was not 
 floridly pretty any longer, but beautiful. This 
 was peculiarly apparent when she danced with 
 Mr. Sebastian. She seemed to have been created 
 for the purpose of dancing with him; it could not 
 have been more apparent if their elaborate game of 
 devotion to each other had been real, and they 
 were really lovers. 
 
 Mrs. Clifford Kent, suddenly appearing alone, 
 slipped into Mrs. Burr's empty place. Her dance 
 with the Colonel was over. "My Lord's in fine 
 form to-night," she confided without preliminary. 
 "We're going to play blind-man's buff after the 
 duchess goes home." The duchess was Mrs. 
 Grant, the Honourable Joe's wife, still the first 
 lady of Green River, but the younger women were 
 beginning to make fun of her discreetly behind her 
 back. "He told me the tiger story." This repre- 
 sented a triumph. Getting the Colonel's smoking- 
 room stories at first hand instead of second hand, 
 from their husbands, was the only form of rivalry
 
 192 The Wishing Moon 
 
 about which these ladies were frank with each 
 other. "I got it out of Cliff first, anyway. He 
 said he couldn't tell me, but he did. I made him. 
 Where was Harry last night?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "Cliff had a crowd of men locked into his den 
 until two, talking. Didn't Harry know about it? " 
 
 "What were they doing?" 
 
 "Just talking. The Colonel and I don't know 
 who else. I heard two strange voices, and I didn't 
 hear Harry's voice. Didn't Harry know?" 
 
 "I suppose so. What did they talk about?" 
 
 "Campaign stuff prohibition or something. 
 Cliff wouldn't tell me." 
 
 "Was Teddy Burr there?" 
 
 "I didn't hear him. What do you care?" 
 
 "I don't care." 
 
 "If Harry didn't know, I ought not to have told 
 you, but I can't help it now." 
 
 "Edith, don't go. Wait." 
 
 "I can't. I have this next with my Lord, too. 
 I'm going to sit it out in the library and meet him 
 inside. The duchess is getting jealous. Besides, 
 there comes the dragon." Judge Saxon, looking 
 shabby and old and tired, was making a circuitous 
 way toward them. "Let me go. Oh, darling " 
 she put her small, flushed face suddenly close to 
 her friend's to ask the question, and after it,
 
 The Wishing Moon 193 
 
 fluttered away without waiting for the answer, 
 leaving the echo of her pretty, empty laugh 
 behind "why didn't Judith come? What's the 
 real reason? Has anybody been making trouble 
 for her here? Never mind. You needn't tell me. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 Mrs. Randall closed her eyes and pressed two 
 fingers against her temples for a moment, and then 
 looked up with almost her usual welcoming smile 
 at Judge Saxon, who had come close to her, and 
 stood looking down at her keenly with his kind, 
 near-sighted, blue eyes. 
 
 "Hiding?" he said. "Tired?" 
 
 "Not hiding from you. Take care of me." 
 
 "Minna," he decided, "you little girls aren't so 
 nice to me unless you're in wrong somehow and 
 feel sorry for yourselves. What's the matter? 
 Where's Harry?" 
 
 "Inside somewhere. Don't ask me any more 
 questions. I've answered all I can to-night." 
 
 "All right. I'll just sit here and enjoy the view 
 and keep the other boys away." 
 
 The view was hardly one to promote unmixed 
 enjoyment. The two settled into a friendly si- 
 lence in their corner, broken by an occasional 
 quiet word in the Judge's intimate, drawling 
 voice. Around them the temper of the party was 
 changing, and a series of little signs marked the
 
 194 The Wishing Moon 
 
 general change. More men crowded into the 
 smoking-room between dances, and they stayed 
 longer. Mrs. Grant left first according to her 
 established privilege, and a scattering of other 
 guests followed her. Nobody seemed to miss 
 them or to be conspicuously happier without them. 
 There was a heavy, dull look about the passing 
 faces, a heaviness and staleness now about the 
 whole atmosphere of the party, and this, like the 
 unnatural excitement which it followed, and like 
 the light, endless fire of inconsequent, malicious 
 chatter, always the same, whether it meant nothing 
 or meant real trouble brewing, was an essential 
 part of all the Colonel's parties, too. 
 
 The Judge regarded the change with faraway 
 eyes, as he talked on in the wistful voice that goes 
 with talking your own private language openly to 
 people who cannot answer you in it. 
 
 "Don't need the moon, do we, with those lan- 
 terns? But it was here first, and will be a long 
 time after, and it's a good moon, too; quite decora- 
 tive for a moon." 
 
 "I hate it," said Mrs. Randall, with a personal 
 vindictiveness not usually directed against natural 
 phenomena. The Judge took no immediate no- 
 tice of it. More guests had gone. In a cleared 
 circle in the heart of the lanternlight Mrs. Kent 
 was performing one of the more expurgated and
 
 The Wishing Moon 195 
 
 perfunctory of her dances for the benefit of the 
 select audience that remained, to scattered, per- 
 functory applause. The motif of it was faintly 
 Spanish. 
 
 "Paper doll," commented the Judge, "that's 
 all that girl is. You and Harry are the best of 
 them, Minna. They're a faky lot, all of them 
 about as real as a house of cards. It looks big, 
 but it will all tumble down if you pull one card 
 out only one card. The devil of it is to know 
 which card to take hold of, and who's to pull it 
 out if you haven't got the nerve? I haven't. I'm 
 too old. But it's a comfort to think of it. Don't 
 you agree with me?" 
 
 "I didn't really hear you." 
 
 "Minna, I've known you since you were two. 
 Can't you tell me what's the matter? You're 
 frightened." 
 
 She looked at him for a minute as if she could, 
 turning a paling face to him, with the mask off 
 and the eyes miserable, then she tried to laugh. 
 
 "Nothing's the matter. Nothing new." 
 
 "Well, there's enough wrong here without any- 
 thing new," said the Judge, rebuffed but still 
 gentle. "I won't trouble you any longer, my 
 dear. There comes Harry." 
 
 Mrs. Randall's husband, an unmistakable figure 
 even with the garden and the broad, unlighted
 
 196 The Wishing Moon 
 
 lawn between, stood in the rectangle of light that 
 one of the veranda windows made, slender and 
 boyish still in spite of the slight stoop of his shoul- 
 ders, and then started across the lawn toward the 
 garden. 
 
 His wife got rather stiffly to her feet and waited, 
 looking away from the lighted enclosure, over the 
 low hedge, at the lawn. Her eyes were dizzy from 
 the flickering lights. She could not see him 
 clearly, and the figure that followed him across the 
 lawn was harder to see. 
 
 It was a man's figure, slightly taller than her 
 husband's. The man had not come from the 
 veranda windows, or from the house at all, he had 
 slipped round one corner of the house, stood still 
 in the shelter of it, seeming to hesitate there, and 
 then plunged suddenly across the lawn at a queer 
 little staggering run. Twice she saw him stand 
 still, so still that she lost sight of him under the 
 trees, as if he had slipped away through the dark. 
 
 In the garden Mrs. Kent's performance was 
 over, and the game of blind-man's buff was begin- 
 ning. It was a novelty, and acclaimed even at 
 this stage of the evening. Lillian Burr's shrill 
 laugh and Edith Kent's pretty, childish one 
 could be heard through the other sounds. They 
 were trying to blindfold the Colonel, who struggled 
 but laughed, too, looking somehow vacuous and
 
 The Wishing Moon 197 
 
 old, with his longish, white hair straggling across 
 his forehead. No one in the garden but Minna 
 Randall had attention to spare for an arriving 
 guest, expected or unexpected. 
 
 Which was he? He was out of sight again, but 
 this time she had seen him reach the edge of the 
 lighted enclosure. Was he gone, or waiting out- 
 side, or had he stepped under the trellis of the rose 
 arbour, to appear suddenly at the end of it and 
 among them? Instinctively she kept her eyes 
 upon it, though her husband had already passed 
 through. She was watching for the figure that it 
 might frame next. 
 
 "Harry," she said to her husband, who had seen 
 her and elbowed his way to her, and stood beside 
 her, looking pale and tired like herself in the lan- 
 ternlight and not boyish at all, "who was that 
 man? Who was it following you?" 
 
 He paid no attention to her question. He did 
 not seem to hear it. He put a hand on her arm, 
 and she could feel that it trembled. 
 
 "Oh, Harry, what is it?" she said. "I've had 
 such a horrible evening. I'm so afraid." 
 
 "Don't be afraid, Minna," he said very gently, 
 "but you must come to the telephone. Norah's 
 calling you. She's just come home. She wants 
 to tell you something about Judith."
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN 
 
 JUDITH?" Mrs. Randall took her husband's 
 news quietly, with something that was al- 
 most relief in her face, the relief that comes 
 when a gathering storm breaks at last, and you 
 learn what it is you have been afraid of, though 
 you must go on being afraid. "What is it? Is 
 she ill, Harry?" 
 
 "Come and talk to Norah." 
 
 "No, we'll go straight home." 
 
 "But she's not there, Minna. That's all 
 Norah'll say to me, but she's got some idea where 
 she is, and says she'll tell you. Judith isn't 
 there." 
 
 "It must be nearly morning." 
 
 "It's two." 
 
 "It was after nine when we started." 
 
 "Minna, didn't you hear what I said?" 
 
 Mrs. Randall's face had not changed as she 
 heard; it looked unchangeable, like some fixed but 
 charming mask that she wore. The lips still 
 smiled though they had stiffened slightly, and 
 she watched the two women's attempts to blind- 
 fold the Colonel unaided now, but hilariously 
 
 198
 
 The Wishing Moon 199 
 
 applauded by the circle around her with the 
 same mild, interested eyes, wide-set and Madonna 
 calm. 
 
 "I tell you, Judith's not there. What does 
 Norah know? Why don't you do something? 
 Where is she? . . . My God, look at them. 
 What are they doing now? Look at Everard." 
 
 Mrs. Burr had drawn the knot suddenly tight 
 in the white scarf she was manipulating, and 
 slipped out of the Colonel's arms and out of reach. 
 He followed, and then swung round and stumbled 
 awkwardly after Edith Kent, who had brushed 
 past him, leaving a light, challenging kiss on his 
 forehead, and was further guiding him with her 
 pretty, empty laugh. The game of blind-man's 
 buff was under way. 
 
 Crowding the garden enclosure, swaying this 
 way and that and threatening to overflow it, a 
 pushing, struggling mass of people kept rather 
 laboriously out of one another's way and the 
 Colonel's, not so much amused by the effort as 
 they were pretending to be; people with heavy 
 and stupid faces who had never looked more 
 irrevocably removed from childhood than now that 
 they were playing a children's game. 
 
 In the heart of the crowd, now plunging ahead 
 of it, now lost in it, the first gentleman of Green 
 River disported himself. His white head was easy
 
 200 The Wishing Moon 
 
 to follow through the crowd, and the thing that 
 made you follow it was evident even now much 
 of his old dignity, and the charm that was peculi- 
 arly his; you saw it in an occasional stubborn shake 
 of his beautifully shaped head, in the grace of the 
 hand that caught at some flying skirt and missed 
 it. He was the first gentleman of Green River 
 still, but he was something else. 
 
 His white hair straggled across his forehead 
 moist and dishevelled, and his face showed flushed 
 and perspiring against the white of the scarf. 
 The trailing ends of the scarf flapped grotesquely 
 about his head, and the high, splendidly modelled 
 forehead was obscured and the keen eyes were 
 hidden. The beauty of the face was lost, and the 
 mouth showed thin lipped and sensual. The 
 Colonel was really a stumbling, red-faced old man. 
 
 "Look at him. That's what she's seen. This 
 was Judith's party. That's what we've hung on 
 in this town for till it's too late to break loose. 
 We never can get away now. We can't " 
 
 "Keep still, Harry. Do you want to be heard? 
 Did any one hear you at the telephone? Keep 
 still and come home." 
 
 "You're right. You're wonderful. You don't 
 lose your nerve." 
 
 "I can't afford to, and neither can you. Come 
 Oh, Harry, look. I saw him following you.
 
 The Wishing Moon 201 
 
 What does he want? What's the matter? What 
 is he going to do?" 
 
 Mrs. Randall had adjusted her cloak deliber- 
 ately, and turned to pilot her husband out of the 
 garden, slipping a firm little hand through his 
 arm. Now she clung to him and stood still, 
 silent after her little fire of excited questions. The 
 entrance to the garden was blocked. An uninvited 
 and unexpected guest was standing there. 
 
 His entrance had been unheralded, and his wel- 
 come was slow to come. The crowd had closed 
 in round the Colonel, with Edith Kent caught sud- 
 denly in his arms, and giving a creditable imita- 
 tion of attempting to escape. Interested silence 
 and bursts of laughter indicated the progress of it 
 clearly, though the two were entirely out of sight. 
 Nobody saw the newcomer except the Randalls. 
 
 He stood in the entrance to the rose arbour, 
 clutching at the trellis with one unsteady hand, and 
 managing to keep fairly erect, a slightly built, 
 swaying figure, black-haired and hatless. He 
 kept one hand behind him, awkwardly, as a shy 
 boy guards a favourite plaything. He was star- 
 ing into the crowd in the garden as if he could see 
 through into the heart of it, but had not the in- 
 tellect just then to understand what he saw there. 
 
 It was the man Mrs. Randall had seen lurking 
 in the shadow of the trees, but he was no myste-
 
 202 The Wishing Moon 
 
 rious stranger, though here in the light of the 
 lanterns she hardly recognized him as she looked 
 at his pale, excited face; it showed an excitement 
 quite unaccounted for by the perfectly obvious 
 fact that he was drunk, and entirely unconnected 
 with that fact. Here and there on the outskirts 
 of the crowd some one turned and saw him, too, 
 and stared at him. They all knew him. He was 
 Neil Donovan's cousin, the discredited young 
 lawyer, Charlie Brady. 
 
 He did not speak or move. He only stood still 
 and looked at them with vague, puzzled eyes, and 
 lips that twitched as if he wanted to speak, but 
 standing so, he had the centre of the stage. He 
 could not command it, he had pushed his way into 
 it doggedly, uncertain what to do first, but he was 
 there. One by one his audience had become con- 
 scious of it, and were confronting him startled and 
 uncertain, too. Young Chester Gaynor elbowed 
 his way to the front, but stopped there, grinning 
 at the invader, restrained perhaps by a lady's 
 voice, which was to be heard admonishing him 
 excitedly. 
 
 "Don't you get hurt, dear." 
 
 "How did he get here? Why can't somebody 
 get him out?" other excited ladies inquired. 
 
 "Get Judge Saxon," directed Mr. J. Cleveland 
 Kent's calm and authoritative voice.
 
 The Wishing Moon 203 
 
 "Get Sebastian. Where is the fellow? Is he 
 afraid?" demanded the Honourable Joe from the 
 extreme rear. Some one laughed hysterically. 
 It was Mrs. Burr. The laugh was quickly hushed, 
 but the new guest had heard it, though no 
 other sound seemed to have impressed him. He 
 laughed, too, a dry, broken ghost of a laugh, as 
 cracked and strange as his voice, which he now 
 found abruptly. 
 
 " Lillie," he called. " Hello, Lillie dear.'* 
 
 Mrs. Burr was not heard to reply to this affec- 
 tionate greeting, but he hardly paused for a reply. 
 His light, high, curiously detached sounding voice 
 talked on with a kind of uncanny fluency. 
 
 "Lillie," he urged cordially, "I heard you. I 
 know you're there. Come out and let's have a 
 look at you. I don't see anything of you lately. 
 You're too grand for me. I don't care. I'm in 
 love with a prettier girl. But you used to treat 
 me all right, Lillie dear, and I treated you right, 
 too. I never told. A gentleman don't tell. 
 And you were straight with me. You never 
 double-crossed me, like you and the dago Sebastian 
 do to Everard. Everard! That's who I want to 
 talk to. Where is he?" 
 
 At the mention of the name his wavering gaze 
 had steadied and concentrated suddenly on the 
 centre of the group in the garden, and now, while
 
 204 The Wishing Moon 
 
 he looked, the crowd parted. Pushing his way 
 through, the Colonel faced his uninvited guest. 
 
 The great man was not at his best. His most 
 ardent admirer could hardly have claimed it. 
 He had pulled the muffling scarf down from his 
 eyes, but was still tearing at the knot impatiently. 
 Mrs. Kent had come fluttering ineffectively after 
 him, catching at his arm. He struck her hands 
 away, and pushed her back, addressing her with a 
 lack of ceremony which outsiders were not often 
 permitted to hear him employ toward a member 
 of his favoured circle. 
 
 "Keep out of this, Edith, and you keep quiet, 
 Lil. You girls make me sick," he snapped. 
 "Half the trouble in this town comes because you 
 can't learn to hold your tongues. You'd better 
 learn. You're going to pay for it if you don't, and 
 don't you lose sight of that. Well, Brady, what 
 does this mean ? What can I do for you ? " 
 
 The ring of authority was in his voice again, 
 as if he had called it back by sheer will power. 
 He had stepped forward alone, and stood looking 
 up at his guest, still framed in the sheltering trel- 
 lis, and his blurred eyes cleared and grew keen as 
 he looked, regarding him indifferently, like some 
 refractory but mildly amusing animal. His guest's 
 defiant eyes avoided his, and the ineffective, sway- 
 ing figure seemed to shrink and droop and grow
 
 The Wishing Moon 205 
 
 smaller, but it was a dignified figure still and a 
 dangerous one. There was the snarling menace 
 of impotent but inevitable rebellion about it, of 
 men who fight on with their backs against the wall; 
 a menace that was not new born to-night, but 
 the gradual growth of years, just the number of 
 years that the Colonel had spent in Green River. 
 
 "I'm sorry, sir," stammered his guest. 
 
 "Then apologize and get out." 
 
 "I can't." 
 
 "I think you'll find you can, Brady." 
 
 "I can't. I've got to ask you a few questions." 
 
 They seemed to be slow in framing themselves. 
 There was a little pause, the kind of pause that 
 for no apparent reason deprives you for the mo- 
 ment of any desire to move or speak. The un- 
 assuming figure of the young man under the trel- 
 lis stood still, swaying only slightly from side to 
 side. A deprecating smile appeared on his lips, 
 as if his errand were distasteful to him and he 
 wished to apologize for it. Gradually the smile 
 faded and the eyes grew steady again and unnatur- 
 ally bright. He held himself stiffly erect where he 
 stood for a moment, took a few lurching steps for- 
 ward, paused, and then plunged suddenly across the 
 garden toward Colonel Everard. 
 
 It would have been hard to tell which came first, 
 the little, stumbling run forward, the Colonel's
 
 206 The Wishing Moon 
 
 instinctive move to check it, the stampede of the 
 devotees of the time-honoured game of blind-man's 
 buff, acting now with a promptness and sponta- 
 neity which they had not displayed in that game, 
 Lillian Burr's hysterical scream, the snarling words 
 from the Colonel that silenced it, or the quick 
 flash of metal. It had all happened at once. 
 But now, in an amphitheatre of scared faces, as 
 far behind as the limits of the garden enclosure 
 would allow, Mr. Brady and his host stood facing 
 each other alone, and the Colonel, now entirely him- 
 self, with the high colour fading out of his cheeks, 
 was looking with cool and unwavering eyes straight 
 into the barrel of Mr. Brady's revolver. 
 
 It was a clumsy, old-fashioned little weapon. 
 Brady's thin hand grasped it firmly, as if some 
 stronger hand than his own were steadying his. 
 He laughed an ineffective laugh, like a boastful 
 boy's, but there was a threat in it, too. 
 
 "What have you got to say for yourself? I'll 
 give you a chance to say it," he stated magnani- 
 mously, "but you shan't say a word against her. 
 She was always a good girl. She is a good girl. 
 What have you done with her? Where is she?" 
 
 "You don't make yourself altogether clear, 
 Brady," said the Colonel smoothly. 
 
 "Where's Maggie?" 
 
 " Maggie? " The Colonel's eyes swept the circle
 
 The Wishing Moon 207 
 
 of his guests deliberately, as if to assure himself 
 that no lady of that name was among them. 
 
 "Maggie. You know the name well enough." 
 The sound of it seemed to give the lady's champion 
 new courage; it flamed in his eyes, hot, and quick 
 to burn itself out, but while it lasted, even a gen- 
 tleman who had learned to face drawn revolvers 
 as indifferently as the Colonel might do well to be 
 afraid of him. " Maggie's missing. I'm going to 
 find her. That's all I want of you. I won't ask 
 you who's worked on her and made a fool of her. 
 I won't ask you how far she's been going. But I 
 want her back before the whole town knows. I 
 want to find her and find her quick. She's a good 
 girl and a decent girl. She's going to keep her 
 good name. She's coming home." 
 
 "Commendable," said the Colonel, not quite 
 smoothly enough. His guest was past listening 
 to him. 
 
 "Maggie. That's all I want. You're getting 
 off easy. Luck's with you. I've stood a lot from 
 you, the same as the town has. It will stand a lot 
 more, and I will. Get Maggie back. Get her 
 back and give her to me and leave her alone, and 
 I'll eat out of your hand and starve when you don't 
 feed me, the same as the rest" he came two 
 wavering steps nearer, and dropped his voice to a 
 dry quaver meant to be confidential, a grotesque
 
 208 The Wishing Moon 
 
 and sinister parody of a confidence "the rest, 
 that don't know what I know." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "I won't tell. Don't be afraid. A gentleman 
 don't tell, and there's nobody that can but me. 
 Young Neil don't know. The luck's with you, sir, 
 just the same as it always was." 
 
 "I've had enough of this. Get home, Brady," 
 cried the Colonel, in a voice that was suddenly 
 wavering and high, like an old man's, but his 
 guest only smiled and nodded wisely, beginning to 
 sway as he stood, but still gripping the clumsy re- 
 volver tight. 
 
 "Just the same as it was when old Neil Dono- 
 van died." 
 
 " Get home," shrilled the Colonel again, but his 
 guest pursued the tenor of his thoughts untroubled, 
 still with the look of an amiably disposed fellow- 
 conspirator on his weak face, a maddening look, 
 even if his words conveyed no sting of their own. 
 
 "Neil Donovan," he crooned, "my father's own 
 half-brother, and a good uncle to me, and a gen- 
 tleman, too. He sold rum over a counter, but he 
 was a gentleman, for he didn't talk too much. A 
 gentleman don't tell." 
 
 But the catalogue of his uncle's perfections, 
 whether in place here or not, was to proceed no 
 further. The audience pressed closer, as eager to
 
 The Wishing Moon 209 
 
 look on at a fight as it was to keep out of one. 
 There was a new and surprising development in 
 this one. The two men had closed with each 
 other, and it was not the half-crazed boy who had 
 made the attack, but the Colonel himself. 
 
 It was a sudden and awkward attack, and there 
 was something stranger about it still. The Colonel 
 was angry. He had tried to knock the weapon 
 out of the boy's hand, failed, and tried instinctively, 
 still, to get possession of it, but he was not making 
 an adequate and necessary attempt to disarm 
 him, he was no longer adequate or calm. He was 
 angry, suddenly angry with the poor specimen 
 of humanity that was making its futile attempt 
 at protest and rebellion, as if it were an equal and 
 an enemy. His face was distorted and his eyes 
 were dull and unseeing. His breath came in 
 panting gasps, and he made inarticulate little 
 sounds in his throat. He struck furious and badly 
 directed blows. 
 
 It was a curious thing to see, in the heart of the 
 great man's admiring circle, at the climax of his 
 most successful party of the year. It did not last 
 long. The two struggling figures broke away from 
 each other, and the boy staggered backward and 
 stood with the revolver still in his hand. He was 
 a little sobered by the struggle, and a little weak- 
 ened by it, pale and dangerous, with a fanatic
 
 210 The Wishing Moon 
 
 light in his eyes. Some one who had an eye for 
 danger signals, if the Colonel had not, had made 
 his unobtrusive way forward, and joined him now. 
 He was not the most formidable looking of allies, 
 but he stood beside them as if he had a right to be 
 there, and the Colonel turned to him as if he recog- 
 nized it. 
 
 "Hugh, you heard what he said?" he appealed; 
 "you heard?" 
 
 "Judge, you keep out of this," Brady called, 
 "keep out, sir." 
 
 Judge Saxon, keeping a casual hand on his 
 most prominent client's arm, stood regarding Mr. 
 Brady with mild and friendly blue eyes. He had 
 quite his usual air of being detached from his 
 surroundings, but benevolently interested in them. 
 
 "Charlie," he said, as if he were recognizing Mr. 
 Brady for the first time at this critical moment, 
 and deriving pleasure from it. "Why, Charlie," 
 his voice became gently reproachful, but remained 
 friendly, too. "Everard, this boy don't mean a 
 word he says," he went on, with conviction, "he's 
 excited and you're excited, too. This is a pretty 
 poor time for you to get excited, Everard." 
 
 "You're right, Hugh," muttered the Judge's 
 most prominent client thickly; "you're right. 
 Get him away. Get him home." 
 
 "He's a good boy," pronounced the Judge.
 
 The Wishing Moon 211 
 
 It was not the obvious description of Mr. Brady 
 just at that moment. There was only friendly 
 amusement in the Judge's drawling voice and 
 shrewd eyes, but back of it, unmistakably there, 
 was something that made every careless word 
 worth listening to. Mr. Brady was resisting it. 
 His face worked pitifully. 
 
 "Judge, I told you to keep out. I don't want 
 to hurt you." 
 
 "Thanks, Charlie." 
 
 "Every word I say is God's truth, Judge." 
 
 The Judge did not contradict this sweeping 
 statement. He was studying Mr. Brady's weapon 
 with some interest. "Your uncle's," he com- 
 mented, pleased. "Why, I didn't know you still 
 owned that thing, Charlie." 
 
 " I want Maggie. I want 
 
 "I'll tell you what you want," offered the Judge, 
 amicably, "you want to hand that thing to me, 
 and go home." 
 
 Mr. Brady received this suggestion in silence, a 
 silence which left his audience uncertain how deeply 
 he resented it. Indeed, they were painfully un- 
 certain, and showed it. Bits of advice reached 
 the Judge's ears, contradictory, though much of it 
 sound, but he took no notice of it. He only 
 smiled his patient and wistful smile and waited, 
 like a man who knew what would happen next.
 
 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Hand it to me," he repeated gently. 
 
 "I won't, Judge." Mr. Brady's weapon wav- 
 ered, and then steadied itself. His thin body 
 trembled. The fanatic light in his eyes blazed 
 bright. The excitement which had gripped him, 
 too keen to last long, reached its climax now in one 
 last burst of hysterical speech. 
 
 "He's a liar and a thief," he asserted, uncontra- 
 dicted. He was not to be contradicted. There 
 was a dignity of its own about the hysterical indict- 
 ment, grotesque as it was, an unforgettable sug- 
 gestion of truth. "He's a thief and a murderer, 
 too. I don't have to tell what I know. Every- 
 body knows. You all know, all of you, and you 
 don't dare to tell. He's murdering the town." 
 
 The high, screaming voice broke off abruptly. 
 Mr. Brady, still with the echo of his big words in 
 his ears and apparently dazed by it, stood looking 
 blankly into the Judge's steady and friendly eyes. 
 
 "I can't I won't " he stammered. 
 
 " Hand it to me," said the Judge, as if no inter- 
 ruption had occurred. For a moment the boy 
 before him looked too dull and dazed to obey or to 
 hear. Then, as suddenly as if some unseen hand 
 had struck it out of his, the revolver dropped to 
 the ground, and he collapsed, sobbing heartbrok- 
 enly, into the Judge's arms. 
 
 He was a heroic figure no longer. The alien
 
 The Wishing Moon 213 
 
 forces that made him one had deserted him 
 abruptly, and he looked unworthy of their support 
 already, only an inconsiderable creature of jangled 
 nerves and hysterical speech, which would be dis- 
 credited if you looked at him, even if it still echoed 
 in your ears. The Judge, holding him and quieting 
 him, looked allied with him, humble and discred- 
 ited, too. The relieved audience hung back for 
 a moment, taking in the full force of the picture, 
 before it broke ranks to crowd round the Colonel 
 and offer him belated support. The Colonel said a 
 few inaudible words to Judge Saxon, and then 
 turned from him and his protege with the air of 
 washing his hands of the whole affair. He looked 
 surprisingly unruffled by it, even stimulated by it. 
 The interruption to his party was over. 
 
 It ended as it had begun, the most successful 
 party of the year. Mr. Brady's invasion was not 
 the first unscheduled event which had enlivened a 
 party at the Birches. There was more open and 
 general speculation about the fact that the Ran- 
 dalls left immediately after, did not linger over 
 their good-nights, and were obviously not per- 
 mitted by their host to do so. 
 
 Mrs. Randall, leaning back in her corner with 
 her hand tight in Harry's, and her long-lashed 
 eyes, that were like Judith's, tightly shut, showed
 
 214 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the full strain of the evening in her pale face. She 
 was a woman who did not look tired easily, but she 
 was also a woman who could not afford to look 
 tired. 
 
 There was no appeal or charm about her pale 
 face now, only a naked look of hardness and strain. 
 Her husband, staring straight ahead of him with 
 troubled eyes, and his weak, boyish mouth set 
 in a hard, worried line, spoke rapidly and discon- 
 nectedly not of Judith, or the Colonel's ominous 
 coldness to him, but of Mr. Brady. 
 
 "Maggie's a bad lot," he was explaining for 
 approximately the fifth time as they whirled into 
 the drive and under their own dark windows. 
 "She always was. Everard isn't making away 
 with the belle of Paddy Lane. Not yet. He's 
 not that far down. But that dope about old 
 Neil Donovan ' 
 
 "Oh, Harry, hush," his wife said, "here we 
 are. What do you care about Brady? " 
 
 "Nothing," he whispered, his arm tightening 
 round her as he lifted her down. "I don't care 
 about anything in the world but Judith." 
 
 "Neither do I. Not really," she said in a 
 hurried, shaken voice that was not like her own, 
 "you believe that, don't you, Harry?" 
 
 He did not answer. Gathering up her skirts, 
 she followed him silently to the front of the house,
 
 The Wishing Moon 215 
 
 single file along the narrow boardwalk, not yet 
 taken up for the summer, creaking loudly under 
 their feet. 
 
 "Look," she whispered, catching at his arm. 
 The front of the house was dark except for two 
 lights, a flickering lamp that was being carried 
 nearer to them through the hall, and a soft, shaded 
 light that showed at a bedroom window. The 
 window was Judith's. He fumbled for his key, 
 but the door opened before them. Norah, her 
 forbidding face more militant than ever in the 
 flickering light of the kerosene hand-lamp she held, 
 her white pompadour belligerently erect, and her 
 brown eyes maliciously alight, peered at them 
 across the door chain, and then gingerly admitted 
 them. 
 
 "It's a sweet time of night to be coming home 
 to the only child you've got," she commented, 
 "why do you take the trouble to come home at 
 all?" 
 
 It was a characteristic greeting from her. If it 
 had not been, Mrs. Randall would not have re- 
 sented it now. She clutched at the old woman's 
 unresponsive shoulder. 
 
 "Where is she?" she demanded breathlessly. 
 
 "Judith is it you mean?" 
 
 "Oh, yes." 
 
 "How should I know how she spends her even-
 
 216 The Wishing Moon 
 
 ings? At some of the girls' to-night. Rena 
 Drew's maybe. I don't know. It's a new thing 
 for you to care. She was late in, and it's no 
 wonder I was worried. She's like my own to me. 
 But she needs her sleep now. You'd better go 
 softly upstairs." 
 
 "Do you mean she's here?" 
 
 "What is it to you?" Norah, one bony hand 
 clutching the newel post as if it were a negotiable 
 weapon of defense, and her brown eyes flashing 
 as if she were capable of using any weapon for 
 Judith, barred the way up the stairs. 
 
 "I tell you, she needs her sleep, poor lamb poor 
 lamb," she said, "and you're not to go near her 
 to-night. You're to promise me that. But she's 
 here fast enough. My lamb is safe at home in her 
 own bed."
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN 
 
 ON AN afternoon in June a year later than 
 the interrupted party at the Everards' a 
 young man sat at Mr. Theodore Burr's 
 desk in Judge Saxon's outer office. It was still 
 technically Mr. Burr's desk, but the young man 
 looked entirely at home there. A litter of papers 
 which that fastidious gentleman would never have 
 permitted himself now covered it, and the air was 
 faintly scented with the smoke of a cigarette widely 
 popular in Green River, but not with devotees of 
 twenty-five-cent cigars, like Mr. Burr. The bulky 
 volume open on the desk was thumbed and used 
 as Mr. Burr had never used any book that looked 
 or was so heavy. The book was Thayer on Con- 
 stitutional Law, and the young man dividing his 
 attention between it and Main Street under his 
 window flooded with June sunshine was Neil 
 Donovan. 
 
 He divided his attention unequally, as Main 
 Street late on that sunny afternoon might per- 
 suade the most studious of young men to do. The 
 square was crowded crowded, it is true, much as a 
 busy street on the stage is crowded, where the 
 
 217
 
 218 The Wishing Moon 
 
 same overworked set of supers pass and repass. 
 The group of bareheaded girls now pacing slowly 
 by arm in arm under the window were returning 
 from what was approximately their fourth visit 
 that afternoon to the post-office, the ice-cream 
 parlours, the new gift shop and tea-room, or some 
 kindred attraction. The Nashes' new touring 
 car, driven by the prettiest girl in Willard's June 
 house party, under the devoted instruction of 
 Willard himself, was whirling through the shop- 
 ping district for at least the third time. 
 
 However, it was an imposing pageant enough, 
 though the boy at the window did not appear to 
 find it so, regarding it with approving but grave 
 eyes, and returning Mr. Nash's flourishing salute 
 unsmilingly a brave pageant of gay and flimsy 
 gowns, of youth returning to the town, and move- 
 ment and colour, and June fairly begun. 
 
 June so far was like other Junes in Green River. 
 Colonel Everard and the season of social and polit- 
 ical intrigues were here. Rallies in the town hall 
 would soon begin. Men with big names in state 
 politics would make speeches there, while the 
 Colonel presided with his usual self-effacing charm, 
 which did not advertise the known fact that he 
 was a bigger power in the state than any of them. 
 The good old question of prohibition was the chief 
 issue, as usual; discreet representatives of the
 
 The Wishing Moon 219 
 
 people would, according to a catch phrase at the 
 capital, vote for prohibition, and then go round 
 to the best hotel and get drunk; and discreet poli- 
 ticians, like the Colonel, would make money out of 
 both these facts in their own way. 
 
 Behind the closed door of Judge Saxon's office 
 low-keyed, monotonous voices were talking, and a 
 secret conference was going on. Troubled times 
 were here again for those deep in the Colonel's 
 councils. They were never sure of a permanent 
 place there, but always on the watch for one of his 
 sudden changes of front, which threatened not 
 only his enemies but his friends. But he had re- 
 covered and held their confidence before, and he 
 could this year. 
 
 All scandals of the year before were decently 
 hidden. Maggie Brady was missing and con- 
 tinued to be missing. By this time it was the 
 general verdict that she had always been bound 
 to come to a bad end, and Charlie Brady to drink 
 himself to death. Nobody interrupted his at- 
 tempts to do so. His drunken outburst of speech 
 had echoed a growing sentiment in the town, but 
 it grew slowly, for under its thin veneer of sophis- 
 tication Green River was only a New England 
 town still, conservative and slow to change. 
 
 Green River had not changed much in a year, 
 but Neil Donovan's fortunes had. Nobody
 
 220 The Wishing Moon 
 
 knew the full history of the change except Neil, 
 but others could have thrown sidelights upon it, 
 among them Mrs. Randall's second maid, Mollie. 
 On the morning after that same party of the Colo- 
 nel's, which Mr. Brady attended so unexpectedly, 
 and Judith did not attend, Mollie opened the 
 Randalls' door to an early caller. 
 
 Even in curl papers, she was usually too much 
 for the young man now on the doorstep. He was 
 in the habit of looking at his boots and addressing 
 them instead of her, and Mollie quite understood 
 that, for they were shabby boots. They looked 
 shabbier than ever to-day, and so did his shiny 
 coat, but his eyes were steady and clear, and there 
 was clear colour in his cheeks, as if he had had the 
 only restful and well-earned sleep in Green River. 
 
 "Miss Judith," he said. 
 
 "Not at home," said Mollie, in a manner suc- 
 cessfully copied from French maids in the ten, 
 twenty, thirties. 
 
 "Nonsense. Her curtains aren't up," replied 
 the young man who was usually made speechless 
 by it. 
 
 "She's asleep," conceded Mollie, in a manner 
 more colloquial but also more forbidding. "She 
 don't want to see you." 
 
 Mollie was incapable of interpreting Judith's 
 wishes, but the young man was not; his smile
 
 The Wishing Moon 
 
 conveyed this, though it was friendly enough. 
 "When Miss Judith gets up, tell her " 
 
 "I tell you she don't want to see you," snapped 
 Mollie in a tone any French maid would have de- 
 plored. "She don't want to see anybody." 
 
 "Tell her that I'll call again at three this after- 
 noon," directed the young man calmly, and com- 
 pleted his disturbing effect upon Mollie by turn- 
 ing and walking briskly away without a backward 
 glance, and without his usual air of self-conscious- 
 ness when her eyes were upon him. He carried 
 his shabby coat with an air, and held his head high, 
 and swung out of sight down the sleepy little 
 street as if he were the only wide-awake thing in 
 the whole sunny, sleepy town. 
 
 It was a disconcerting moment for Mollie or 
 any lady properly conscious of her power, and 
 sorry to see a sign of it disappear, even the hum- 
 blest of signs. It would still have been disconcert- 
 ing, if she could have foreseen that Judith would 
 not receive this young man alone, either at three 
 that afternoon, or for many afternoons. The 
 young man was not overawed by Mollie. That 
 was established once and for all. He would 
 never be overawed by her again. She slammed 
 the door rather viciously. 
 
 "Keep quiet there," said Norah, appearing 
 inopportunely, as her habit was, with a heavily
 
 222 The Wishing Moon 
 
 laden breakfast tray. "She needs her rest. But 
 she's awake. She rang. You can take this up 
 and leave it outside her door. Who was talking 
 to you?" 
 
 "Well, I don't know what's come to him," 
 Mollie complained. "Who does he think he is? 
 Did anybody leave him a fortune over night? 
 It was the Donovan boy." 
 
 A few minutes after Neil's encounter with 
 Mollie, when Mr. Theodore Burr admitted him 
 listlessly after his third knock at Judge Saxon's 
 door, he could see no evidence that any one had 
 left the Donovan boy a fortune over night, but 
 did note a change in him. There was something 
 appealingly grave and sedate about his face, as if a 
 part of its youth, the freakish, unconquerable 
 laughter of it, that had defied and antagonized 
 Mr. Burr, were gone forever, burned away, some- 
 how, in a night. It was a look Mr. Burr was to 
 grow well used to in the next few months. Perhaps 
 the unaccountable affection he was to feel for the 
 boy in the course of them was born then and there. 
 
 Neil emerged from the Judge's private office 
 after a briefer talk than usual, and the Judge did 
 not escort him to the door in his accustomed, 
 friendly fashion. Mr. Burr did, and made him 
 clumsy and unwonted confidences there. 
 
 "The old man's not quite fit to-day," he said.
 
 The Wishing Moon 223 
 
 "I ought to have told you. It's a poor time to get 
 anything out of him. Been shut up there by him- 
 self doping out something. Won't say two words 
 to me." 
 
 "Then he must be in a bad way, Theodore," 
 said the boy, with the ghost of his old, mocking 
 smile, which Mr. Burr somehow did not find an- 
 noying at all. 
 
 "Look here, Neil," he surprised himself by 
 saying, "I like you. I always did. You deserve 
 a square deal. You're too good for the Brady 
 gang. You're too good for the town. If there 
 was anything I could do for you " 
 
 "Maybe there is, Theodore," the boy turned in 
 the corridor to say. "Cheer up. You'll have a 
 chance to see. I'm coming to work for the Judge. 
 I start in next week." 
 
 "But the Judge turned you down." Mr. 
 Burr's brain struggled with the problem, thinking 
 out loud for the sake of greater clearness, but too 
 evidently not achieving it. " The Judge likes you, 
 too, but he couldn't take you in if he wanted to. 
 He talked of it, but gave it up. He'd be afraid to. 
 Everard 
 
 "I start in next week," repeated Mr. Donovan. 
 
 "But what did you say to him?" demanded Mr. 
 Burr. "What did he say to you? How did you 
 dare to ask him again?"
 
 224 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "I didn't ask him. Don't worry, Theodore. 
 I haven't been trying any black magic on the 
 Judge. I don't know any. Maybe I'll learn 
 some. I'm going to learn a good deal. I've got 
 to. Nobody knows how much. Even the Judge 
 don't know. I'm coming to work for the Judge, 
 that's all, but I didn't ask him." Mr. Burr, 
 listening incredulously, did not know that this 
 was a faithful if condensed account of his talk 
 with the Judge and more, the key to much that 
 was to happen to this pale and determined young 
 man, the secret of all his success. He gave it away 
 openly, and without pride: 
 
 "I just told him so." 
 
 Neil started in the next week. If Mr. Burr 
 watched his young associate somewhat jealously 
 at first in the natural belief that a boy who had 
 changed the course of his life in a five-minute inter- 
 view would do something equally spectacular 
 next, and if the Judge, who had said to him at last, 
 "Well, it's my bad morning, son, and your good 
 morning, so you get your way, but you're climbing 
 on a sinking ship, and remember I told you so. 
 And I'll tell you something else. It will be poor 
 pickings here for all of us, and I'm sorry, but I'm 
 the sorriest for you," was inclined to follow him 
 furtively over the top of his spectacles with a look 
 that held all the pathetic apology of age to youth
 
 The Wishing Moon 225 
 
 in his kind, near-sighted eyes, this was only at 
 first. 
 
 Colonel Everard, returning a few weeks later 
 from one of his sudden, unexplained absences from 
 town, and making an early morning visit to his 
 attorney, was admitted by a young man whom 
 he recognized, but pretended not to. 
 
 "Who are you?" he inquired, "the office boy?" 
 
 "Just about that, sir," the young man admitted, 
 as if he had no higher ambition, but the Judge, 
 entering the room with more evidence of beginning 
 the day with the strength that the day required, 
 than he had been showing lately in his carriage 
 and look, put a casual hand on the boy's shoulder, 
 and kept it there. 
 
 "The last time we discussed enlarging my office 
 force, you didn't advocate it, Everard," he said 
 rather formally. 
 
 "So you aren't discussing it with me now?" 
 
 "Do you think you'd better discuss it?" 
 
 "Do you?" 
 
 "I think you are in no position to discuss it. 
 You've been recently furnished with much more 
 important material to discuss. I haven't seen 
 you since your garden party, have I?" 
 
 "No." Both men seemed to have forgotten 
 the boy's existence, but now the Colonel recalled 
 it, and apparently without annoyance, and flashed
 
 226 The Wishing Moon 
 
 a disarming smile at him, giving up gracefully, 
 as he always did if he was forced to give up at all. 
 "Well, you're right, Hugh. You're always right. 
 Do as you please. But this boy's got a temper of 
 his own and quite a flow of speech. Runs in his 
 family, evidently. Properly handled, these are 
 assets, but " 
 
 "I'm sorry, sir," Neil found himself stammering. 
 "I shouldn't have spoken to you as I did that day. 
 I'm sorry." 
 
 "Next time be sure of your facts." The voice 
 was friendly, almost paternal, but it held an in- 
 sidious challenge, too, and for one betraying mo- 
 ment all the native antagonism that was really 
 there flashed in the Colonel's eyes. Few enemies 
 of his had been permitted to see it so clearly. It 
 was a triumph for Neil, if a barren one. "Be 
 very sure." 
 
 "I will, sir," said Neil deliberately, but very 
 courteously. Then the Colonel disappeared into 
 the private office with his arm about his trusted 
 attorney's shoulders, and the young man for 
 whose sake his attorney had openly defied him for 
 the first time in years began to empty the office 
 waste-baskets. 
 
 The winter weeks in the Judge's office passed 
 without even moments of repressed drama like 
 this. There was little to prove that they were the
 
 The Wishing Moon 227 
 
 most important weeks of his life to Neil. At first 
 they were lonely weeks. Mr. Burr, unusually 
 prompt, reached the office one crisp September 
 morning in time to find him staring out of the 
 window at a straggling procession passing on its 
 way up the hill to the schoolhouse, hurrying on foot 
 in excited groups, or crowded into equipages of 
 varying sizes and degrees of elegance, properly 
 theirs or pressed into service. 
 
 "First day of school," said Neil, and did not 
 need to explain further, even to Mr. Burr. From 
 to-day on new faces would look out of the many- 
 paned windows of the old, white-painted building. 
 New voices would sing in the night on then* way 
 home from barge rides and dances. There were 
 to be new occupants of the seats of the mighty; a 
 new crowd would own the town. The door of the 
 country of the young was shut in this boy's face 
 from to-day, and that is always a hard day, but it 
 was peculiarly hard in Green River, where the 
 country of the young was the only unspoiled and 
 safe place to live. And there were signs of a 
 private and more personal hurt in the boy's 
 faraway eyes. 
 
 "What's that letter?" said Mr. Burr. 
 
 "Seed catalogue." 
 
 "Don't she write to you every day?" 
 
 "Who?"
 
 228 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Is she too proud, or did she forget all about 
 you? She'll have time to, away half the summer, 
 and not coming home for vacations. She won't 
 see you till next June." 
 
 "If you mean Judith Randall," her late class- 
 mate replied in a carefully expressionless voice, 
 "why should she write to me, and why shouldn't 
 she forget all about me?" There was a faint, 
 reminiscent light in his eyes, as if he were not 
 seriously threatened with the prospect, but it died 
 away quickly, and his face grew very grave. 
 
 "I'm a business man now, Theodore." 
 
 "You are," said his newest friend, "and we 
 couldn't keep house without you now. You're in 
 a class by yourself." 
 
 This was true. Neil did not take his big chance 
 at life as other boys equally in need of it would 
 have done. He did not lose his head. He 
 showed no pride in it. Green River, soon seeing 
 this, rewarded him in various ways, each signifi- 
 cant in its own fashion. Nondescript groups 
 round the stove in his uncle's little store ceased 
 to look for signs that he felt superior to them, and 
 welcomed him as before, restoring to him his 
 privilege of listening to talk that was more im- 
 portant than it seemed, public sentiment uncol- 
 oured and without reserve, the real voice of the 
 town. Mrs. Saxon, of the old aristocracy of the
 
 The Wishing Moon 229 
 
 town, with inborn social prejudices stronger 
 than any acquired from the Everards, broke all 
 her rules and invited him to Sunday -night supper. 
 
 "The boy's not spoiled," his old friend Luther 
 Ward said to the Judge approvingly. "He knows 
 his place." 
 
 "That's the surest way to climb out of it," said 
 Judge Saxon, advisedly, for it was the Judge who 
 had the closest and most discerning eyes upon 
 Neil Donovan's career. Listlessly at first, be- 
 cause he had looked on at too many uphill and 
 losing fights against the world, but later with 
 interest, forced from him almost against his will, 
 he watched it grow. 
 
 To a casual observer the boy would have seemed 
 to be fitting himself not for an ornament to the 
 legal profession, but for the office boy Colonel 
 Everard had called him, but he would have seemed 
 a willing office boy. He spent hours uncom- 
 plainingly looking up obscure points of law for 
 some purpose nobody explained to him. He 
 devoted long, sunny afternoons to looking up titles 
 connected with some mortgage loan which nobody 
 gave him the details of, and he seemed satisfied 
 with his occupation, and equally satisfied to devote 
 a morning to plodding through new-fallen snow 
 delivering invitations to some party of Mrs. 
 Saxon's.
 
 230 The Wishing Moon 
 
 When he was actually studying, he lost himself 
 in the Judge's out-of-date reference books, as if 
 they contained some secret as vital as the elixir 
 of youth, and might yield it at any moment. 
 Mr. Burr, at first ridiculing pupil and course of 
 instruction alike, and with some show of reason, 
 began shamefacedly and afterward openly to give 
 him what benefit he could from the more modern 
 education which had been wasted upon him. Be- 
 tween his two teachers the boy arrived at con- 
 clusions of his own. Neil was studying law by 
 the old method which evolved so many different 
 men of letters and keen-witted lawyers, a method 
 obsolete as the Judge's clothes, but Neil gave 
 allegiance to it ardently, as if it had been invented 
 for him. 
 
 "What do you get out of this?" the Judge de- 
 manded, coming upon Neil late one afternoon, 
 poring over the uninspired pages of Mr. Thayer 
 by the fading light. " What do you hope to get? " 
 
 "All there is in it," said the boy simply, and 
 without oratorical intent. 
 
 "Suppose you do pass your bar examinations. 
 What then? What will you do with it? " 
 
 "I'll wait and see then. I had to begin some- 
 where." 
 
 "Why?" said the Judge, and as he asked the 
 question, the answer to it, which he had once
 
 The Wishing Moon 231 
 
 known so well and forgotten, looked at him in the 
 boy's pale face and glowing eyes, the great answer 
 not to be silenced, youth, and the wonderful, 
 wasteful urge of youth. "Don't you know this 
 town's sick?" he demanded abruptly. "It's 
 dirty. You can't clean it up. Don't you ever 
 try. Don't you stir things up. Don't you dig 
 in too deep. I suppose you know the town's got 
 no room for you? " 
 
 "Yes, sir, I know." 
 
 " Where do you expect to end?" the Judge began 
 irritably, "in the poorhouse? You're so damn 
 young," he grumbled. "It's a good thing I didn't 
 know you when I was young. I'd have listened 
 to you then." 
 
 "You will now, sir," said the boy, and the Judge 
 did not contradict him, but instead, under shy 
 pretence of groping for the switch of the desk 
 lamp, found the boy's hand and gripped it. 
 
 " You're a good boy," he remarked irrelevantly. 
 "Mind what I said, and don't dig in too deep." 
 
 The Judge did not explain whose secrets he 
 hoped to protect by this vague warning. Probably 
 he could not have explained. It was one of those 
 instinctive pronouncements which shape them- 
 selves in rare moments when two people are close 
 and mean more than either of them know. Cer- 
 tainly if the key to any secret was to be found
 
 232 The Wishing Moon 
 
 within the Judge's dingily decorated walls or in 
 his battered safe, or learned from his partner, the 
 boy had exceptional opportunities to unearth it. 
 Theodore Burr's intimacy with Neil developed 
 rapidly. He stuck to it obstinately, in spite of his 
 wife, showing more independence about it than 
 he had in years. The two had tramped and snow- 
 shoed together through long winter hours of inti- 
 mate talk and more intimate silence, and they 
 found the first Mayflowers of the year together. 
 Only the week before he had committed the 
 crowning indiscretion of giving up a poker game 
 at the Everards' to go shooting with Neil. 
 
 The Judge, in the strenuous days of Colonel 
 Everard's summer campaign, had no time to 
 observe the growth of this intimacy or to think 
 much about Neil, but he might have been inter- 
 ested in a snatch of talk in the Brady kitchen one 
 evening, if he could have overheard it, more inter- 
 ested than Mrs. Donovan, who did not remember 
 it long. 
 
 Her son was an hour late for supper, but she 
 was used to that, for now that he was on his feet 
 the house revolved around him. She served him, 
 and then sat watching him with her hands folded, 
 and the new dignity that had come with his first 
 bit of success straightening her tired shoulders, 
 and the look of age and pain that had been grow-
 
 The Wishing Moon 233 
 
 ing there since Maggie disappeared widening her 
 soft, deep eyes. He had dropped wearily into his 
 chair, and he ate almost in silence, but she was 
 used to that, too. 
 
 Outside the short, June twilight was over, and 
 a pattering summer rain had begun to fall. Neil's 
 dark hair was damp with it and clung to his fore- 
 head in close curls. Once, passing his chair, she 
 smoothed it with a hand that was work hardened 
 but finely made and could touch him lightly and 
 shyly still. Her son pulled her suddenly close, 
 and hid his face against her. 
 
 "What is it? " she asked, softly and not too soon 
 as she stood still and held him. "What's wrong, 
 then? Where have you been? " 
 
 "Nothing's wrong. Nothing new. I went 
 round to Theodore Burr's, but I left there at five. 
 I didn't mean to be late home or make work. 
 But I had a hunch to look in at Halloran's. I 
 thought I'd find Charlie there. I did, and I had 
 to get him home." 
 
 "Taking your strength," said Mr. Brady's aunt, 
 unfeelingly but truthfully, "a good-for-noth- 
 ing- 
 
 " That's not the worst thing he does." 
 
 "What is, then?" 
 
 "Talking." 
 
 "He don't mean anything by that."
 
 234 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Sometimes he does. Sometimes he tells you 
 things that you never suspected and you don't 
 believe him at first, but you find they're true; 
 things that have been locked up in his addled 
 brain so long that they're out of date, and you 
 don't know how to profit by them or handle them, 
 but they're true all true." 
 
 "Neil, you don't half know what you're saying. 
 You're tired." 
 
 Mrs. Donovan released herself abruptly to get 
 the tea-pot from the stove. Her son, who had 
 been talking in a low, monotonous voice, more to 
 himself than her, watched her with dazed eyes that 
 slowly cleared. 
 
 "I guess you're right," he said. "I didn't 
 mean to frighten you. Charlie was no more 
 loose mouthed to-day than he always is. I got 
 hold of nothing new, but I have hold of more than 
 I can handle, and I'm tired and I'm scared, and 
 there's only one of me." 
 
 But Mrs. Donovan preferred her own interpre- 
 tation of the situation, as most ladies would have. 
 She made it tactfully, keeping her eyes away from 
 him, busy with the tea-pot. " You're young, and 
 it's June. Neil, the children walked round with 
 the Sullivan girl to take home the wash to the 
 Randalls'. They had some talk with Norah there. 
 Judith will be home this week."
 
 The Wishing Moon 235 
 
 She had mentioned the much-debated name in a 
 voice which she kept indifferent, but she flashed 
 a quick, apprehensive glance at him. She was 
 quite unprepared for its effect upon him. He only 
 laughed, and then his face sobered quickly, and 
 his eyes grew lonely and tired again. 
 
 "Judith," he said, "you think that's my 
 trouble, mother. Well, I'm not so young as I 
 was last June." Then he began with considerable 
 relish to drink his tea. 
 
 "You're contrary and close mouthed, but you're 
 only a boy like all other boys," said Mrs. Donovan, 
 sticking to her point, "and you're a good son 
 to me." 
 
 The boy who had made this rare and abortive 
 attempt at confidences only the night before 
 showed no need of repeating it as he gazed out of 
 the Judge's window. He looked quite competent 
 to bear all his own troubles alone, and a generous 
 share of other people's, though somewhat sad- 
 dened by them. Perhaps his mother's diagnosis 
 of him was correct. He leaned his chin on his 
 hands and stared out of the window like any 
 dreaming boy, as if it was. But the whiter that 
 had passed so lightly over Green River had left 
 traces of its own upon him. His profile had a 
 clearer, more sharply outlined look. The lines 
 at the corners of his mouth were firmer though
 
 236 The Wishing Moon 
 
 they were no deeper, and the mouth was still a 
 boy's mouth, red-lipped and lightly closed. But 
 the dreaming eyes were a man's, dreaming still, 
 but alert, and ready to banish dreams. 
 
 The afternoon light was fading fast. It was 
 not so easy now to read the fine print of Mr. 
 Thayer's notes, and the boy made no further pre- 
 tence of trying to. He let Mr. Thayer slip to the 
 floor, and stretched himself in his chair with a 
 sigh of relief. The sounds of talk in the Judge's 
 room had grown fainter and more intermittent 
 and finally ceased. The Judge, still deep in 
 conference with them, had left with his guests 
 by the private door. The boy was alone in the 
 office. 
 
 Gradually, as he sat there, the bright pageant of 
 the busy little street had dimmed. It made a 
 softer and mellower picture, a blend of delicate 
 colours in the slant mellow light, and it was not so 
 busy now. There were fewer passers-by, and they 
 hurried and did not loiter past. It was almost 
 supper-time. Willard Nash, not joy riding now, 
 but dispatched reluctantly alone on some emer- 
 gency errand, flashed by in his car, and disap- 
 peared up Main Street. 
 
 Beyond the double row of shops the upper section 
 of the street was empty. The maples, in full leaf 
 now and delicately green, shadowed the upward
 
 The Wishing Moon 237 
 
 slant of smooth road alluringly. Touched with 
 golden afternoon light, and half hidden by the 
 spreading green, the old, solidly built houses 
 planted so heavily in the midst of their well-kept 
 lawns had new and unguessed possibilities. Any 
 one of them just then might have sheltered a fairy 
 princess. The one that did was just within range 
 of the boy's grave, patient eyes, a protruding 
 porch, disproportionately enlarged and ugly, a 
 sweep of vividly green lawn stripped bare of the 
 graceful, dishevelled growth of lilac and syringa 
 bushes that had graced it before Mrs. Randall's 
 day. 
 
 Not from that house, but from somewhere be- 
 yond it, a car flashed into view and cut smoothly 
 and quickly down through the street, almost de- 
 serted now. The boy followed it idly with his eyes. 
 The low-built, graceful lines of it held them. It 
 approached, and slowed down directly under 
 the windows, and the boy leaned forward and 
 looked. 
 
 It was stopping there. It was one of the Ever- 
 ard cars, as the trim lines and perfection of detail 
 would have shown without the English chauffeur's 
 familiar, supercilious face. The car had only one 
 occupant, a slender young person in white. She 
 slipped quickly out, and disappeared into the 
 dingy entrance hall below.
 
 238 The Wishing Moon 
 
 She had not seen the boy at the window. He 
 stood still now in his corner, and waited. The 
 tap of her feet was light even on the old creaking 
 stairs, but he heard. She knocked once and a 
 second time, and then threw open the door im- 
 patiently, saw who was there, and stopped just in- 
 side the door, and looked at him. 
 
 Her white dress and big, beflowered hat looked 
 as cool and as new as June itself. They did not 
 make the dingy room look dingier, they made you 
 forget it was dingy. Her soft, bef rilled skirts 
 fluffed and flared in the brave and bewildering 
 mode of the moment. Skirts, small shoes that 
 were built to dance, not to walk, the futuristic 
 blend of flowers in her hat, and the girdle, unre- 
 lentingly high and futuristic of colour, too, that 
 gave her waist an unbelievably slender look, were 
 all in the dainty and sophisticated taste of a sophis- 
 ticated young lady, and under the elaborate hat 
 there was a sophisticated young face. It looked 
 smaller and more faintly pink. The small chin 
 was more prominent. But she still had the wide, 
 reproachful eyes of a child. They regarded the 
 boy unwinkingly. One hand went behind her, 
 found the knob of the door, and closed it mechani- 
 cally, but the eyes did not leave his face. 
 
 He stepped uncertainly forward, and stopped. 
 
 "Well, Judith," he said, in a voice that held all
 
 The Wishing Moon 239 
 
 the authority Judge Saxon's assistant had acquired 
 in the long year of his service and more, "Well?" 
 and then, in a voice that held no authority at all, 
 but was suddenly husky and small: "Oh, Judith, 
 won't you speak to me?"
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
 
 JUDITH," Neil said. 
 Neil's visitor flashed a quick glance 
 round the dim office, empty except for the 
 lean young figure that confronted her. It was a 
 hunted glance, as if she really meant to turn with- 
 out speaking and pick up her beruffled skirts, and 
 run away down the dusty stairs, but she did not 
 run away. Suddenly quite herself, recovering by 
 tapping some emergency reserve of strength as 
 only ladies can, but as most of them can, even the 
 most amateurish and beruffled of ladies, she crossed 
 the room to him. 
 
 She came deliberately, with an impressive flutter 
 of hidden silk . She was smiling a faint half-smile, 
 sweet but indefinably teasing, and holding out a 
 daintily gloved hand. It touched Neil's lightly 
 and impersonally, not like a girl's warm hand at 
 all, but like the hand of a society forever beyond 
 his reach, held out patronizingly to this boy be- 
 yond its pale, only to emphasize the distance be- 
 tween them. 
 
 "How do you do?" she murmured, formally but 
 sweetly. 
 
 240
 
 The Wishing Moon 241 
 
 "How do you do?" the boy stammered. "Ju- 
 dith, oh, Judith, I " 
 
 He broke off, staring helplessly into her eyes. 
 They were dark and accusing and grave, and a 
 heartache shadowed the depths of them, the lonely 
 and infinite heartache of youth, when you cannot 
 measure your pain or argue it away, but must 
 suffer and suffer instead. But the boy was too 
 miserable just then to read it there. 
 
 "Judith," he began, "don't you care any more? 
 Why wouldn't you read my letters? Why 
 wouldn't you let me explain? Won't you let me 
 now? I can, Judith." 
 
 Still smiling, not taking the trouble to interrupt 
 him, she waited for him to finish, and as she waited 
 and smiled, he had suddenly nothing more to say. 
 Judith was so slender and white and still as she 
 stood there. All the outraged dignity of an 
 offended schoolgirl was helping to make this 
 overwhelming little effect of hers, and every trick 
 of poise and carriage that she had acquired in a 
 year, and something else, something that shamed 
 and silenced the boy as no tricks could have done, 
 and made her pathetic little show of injured dig- 
 nity real. A woman's shy soul was reaching out 
 for every defence it had to protect itself; a woman's 
 new-born, bewildered soul looked out of Judith's 
 beautiful, grieved eyes.
 
 242 The Wishing Moon 
 
 It was very still in the office. Outside an auto- 
 mobile horn sounded aggressively, once and again, 
 and Judith gave the boy an amused, apologetic 
 glance. 
 
 "Parks is in a hurry," she said. "He ought not 
 to do that. The Colonel wouldn't like it. But I 
 won't keep him waiting. I'm going out to the 
 Camp for supper. Father and mother are there 
 already . I stopped for the Judge, but he doesn't 
 seem to be here. He is walking out to the Camp, 
 I suppose. I'm glad to have seen you." Her 
 voice choked perilously over this irreproachable 
 sentiment, then steadied and modulated itself 
 according to the instructions of the highly ac- 
 credited elocution teacher of which she had en- 
 joyed the benefit for a year. "Good-night." 
 
 Again she put out her cool little hand, but this 
 time the boy's hand closed on it tight. 
 
 "Judith," he began, his words coming fast, the 
 contact seeming to release all that had been storing 
 itself up in his lonely heart for a year. Once 
 released, it came tumbling out incoherently, with 
 the lilting brogue of the ragged little boy that he 
 used to be singing through it, and the breath- 
 less catch in his voice that is the supremest elo- 
 quence for the kind of words that he had to say. 
 But Judith gave no sign of being moved by it, 
 and while she listened, a hard look, too unrelenting
 
 The Wishing Moon 243 
 
 for any eloquence to reach, was growing in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Judith, you're so sweet, so sweet; sweeter than 
 you were last year sweeter than you ever were 
 before. I didn't know anybody could be sweeter, 
 even you. I was so lonely. I wanted you so, and 
 now you've come. Everything will be all right, 
 now you've come. And you came straight here. 
 You knew I was here, and you came because you 
 knew. You came straight to me." 
 
 "I came for the Judge," she corrected him 
 gravely. 
 
 "But you knew I was here." 
 
 "I knew you were working for the Judge, but I 
 didn't think you'd be here so late in the afternoon. 
 I didn't come to see you. I didn't want to. Why 
 should I? But I'm glad you are doing so well. 
 Good-night, Neil." 
 
 "Good-night," he muttered mechanically, 
 checked once more in spite of himself. 
 
 But as he spoke, he felt her hands, both in his 
 now, and held tight, tremble and try softly at 
 first, and then in sudden panic, to pull themselves 
 away. Her voice, that had been so grave and cool, 
 with no echo of the excitement that was in his, 
 failed her now, though she kept her wide-open eyes 
 bravely upon him. She was afraid of him, this 
 young lady who was making such elaborate at-
 
 244 The Wishing Moon 
 
 tempts to hide it, this young lady not of his 
 world, and so anxious to prove it to him, this 
 calm stranger with Judith's eyes. She was very 
 much afraid, and she could not hide it any longer. 
 
 "Let me go," she tried to say. 
 
 "Judith," he dropped her hands obediently, but 
 his arms reached out for her and caught her and 
 held her close, "you didn't come for the Judge. 
 You came to see me." 
 
 "No. No." 
 
 Her face was hidden against his shoulder. Her 
 voice came muffled and soft. Neil paid no further 
 attention to it. "No," it insisted faintly. "Let 
 me go." Then it insisted no more, and the boy 
 laughed a soft, triumphant little laugh. 
 
 "You did come to see me, and you love me. 
 You love me and I love you. You were angry, of 
 course. Of course you sent back my letters. 
 But you're going to listen to me now. You're 
 going to let me explain. I couldn't that night. I 
 couldn't talk any more. I didn't dare. I had to 
 keep hold of myself. I had to get you home. 
 And I did, dear. I turned round and took you 
 home, and I got you home safe. You're going 
 to listen? And not be angry any more? You 
 won't, will you? You won't dear?" 
 
 Her face was still out of sight, and her white 
 figure was motionless in his arms. She did not
 
 The Wishing Moon 245 
 
 relax there, but she did not struggle. She looked 
 very slender and helpless so. Her futuristic hat 
 had slipped from its daring and effective adjust- 
 ment, and fallen to the Judge's dusty floor, where 
 it lay unregarded. The silvery blond head 
 against his shoulder was changed like the rest of 
 her, a mass of delicately adjusted puffs and curls, 
 but in the fast-fading light he saw only the soft, 
 pale colour of her hair and the tender curve of her 
 throat. He kissed it reverently and lightly, once 
 only, and then his arms let her go. 
 
 "You're so sweet," he whispered; "too sweet 
 for me. But you're mine, aren't you? Tell me 
 you are. And you forgive me for everything? 
 Tell me, Judith." 
 
 She seemed in no hurry to tell him. She faced 
 him silently, her white dress whiter than ever 
 in the fading light, and her face big eyed and ex- 
 pressionless. He waited reverently for her an- 
 swer, and quite confidently, picking up the elab- 
 orate hat mechanically, and then smoothing the 
 ribbons tenderly, and pulling at the flowers, as he 
 realized what he held. 
 
 "Poor little hat," he said softly, with the brogue 
 coaxing insinuatingly in his voice. "Poor little 
 girl. I didn't mean to frighten you. And I 
 didn't mean to that night. . . . Judith!" 
 
 It was undoubtedly Judith who confronted him,
 
 246 The Wishing Moon 
 
 and no strange lady now. It was as if she had 
 been waiting for some cue from him, and heard it, 
 and sprung into life again, not the strange lady, 
 not even the girl of the year before, but a long-ago 
 Judith, the child who had come to his rescue on a 
 forgotten May night, the child of the moonlit 
 woods, with her shrill voice and flashing eyes. 
 She was that Judith again, but grown to a woman 
 and now she was not his ally, but his enemy. She 
 snatched the beflowered hat away, and swung it 
 upon her head with the same reckless hand that 
 had swept the lantern to the ground in her childish 
 defence of him. Her eyes defied him. 
 
 " That night," she stormed, " that night. Don't 
 you ever speak of that night to me again. I never 
 want to hear you speak again. I never want to 
 see you again. I'll never forgive you as long as 
 I live. I hate you ! " 
 
 "Judith, listen to me," begged the boy. "Lis- 
 ten. You must." 
 
 But the girl who swept past him and turned to 
 confront him at the door was past listening to him. 
 Words that she hardly heard herself, and would 
 not remember, came to her, and she flung them at 
 him in a breathless little burst of speech that hurt 
 and was meant to hurt. The boy took it silently, 
 not trying to interrupt, slow colour reddening his 
 cheeks, his eyes growing angry then sullen. The
 
 The Wishing Moon 247 
 
 words that Judith used hardly mattered. They 
 were futile and childish words, but because of the 
 blaze of anger behind them, that had been gather- 
 ing long and would go on after they were forgotten, 
 they were splendid, too. 
 
 "I hate you! I don't belong to you. I don't 
 belong to anybody. I'm not like anybody else. 
 Nobody cares what I do, and I don't care. I don't 
 care. Nobody ever takes care of me or knows 
 when I need it. Well, I can take care of myself. 
 I'm going to now. I never want to belong to 
 anybody. If I did, it wouldn't be you." 
 
 "Judith, stop ! You'll be sorry for this." 
 
 "If I am, it's no business of yours. It's no- 
 body's business but mine." 
 
 "You'll be sorry," the boy muttered again, and 
 this time the girl did not contradict him or an- 
 swer. Her shrill little burst of defiance was over, 
 and with it the sullen resentment that had crim- 
 soned the boy's face as he listened began to die 
 away. He was rebuffed and thrown back upon 
 himself. His heart would not open so easily 
 again. It would be a long time before it opened 
 at all. But he did not resent this. He only 
 looked baffled and puzzled and miserable, and the 
 girl staring mutely at him from the doorway with 
 big, starved eyes, looked miserable, too. She 
 would be angry again. All the hurt pride and
 
 248 The Wishing Moon 
 
 anger that had been gathering in her heart for a 
 year was not to be relieved by an unrehearsed 
 burst of speech. It had been sleeping in her heart. 
 It was all awake now, and she would be angrier 
 with the boy and the world than ever before, 
 angrier and more reckless. But just now her anger 
 was blotted out and she was only miserable. 
 In the gloom of the office there was something 
 curiously alike about the two tragic young faces. 
 
 The two were alone together there, but they had 
 never been farther apart. There was a whole world 
 between them, a lonely world, where people all 
 speak different languages, and understand each 
 other only by a miracle, and most of them are so 
 used to being alone that they forget they once had 
 a moment of first realizing it. But when it was 
 upon them, it was a bitter moment. These two 
 young creatures were both living through it now. 
 They looked at each other blankly, all antagonism 
 gone. 
 
 "You won't listen?" said the boy wonderingly, 
 admitting defeat. "You won't forgive me?' 
 
 "No," said Judith pitifully. "I can't." 
 
 Neil looked at her forlornly, but did not con- 
 test this. He came meekly forward, not trying 
 to touch her again, and opened the door for her. 
 
 "Well, good-night," he said. "Good-night, 
 dear."
 
 The Wishing Moon 249 
 
 "Good-bye," Judith said. "Good-bye, Neil." 
 
 Then, jerking her flaunting hat into adjustment 
 with trembling fingers, and shaking out her be- 
 frilled skirts with a poor little imitation of her 
 earlier airs and graces, she slipped out into the 
 corridor, groped for the dusty stair rail, and 
 clutched at it with a new disregard for her immacu- 
 late whiteness, and disappeared down the stairs. 
 
 In the street below the last of the .afternoon 
 light still lingered, reflected from the polished win- 
 dows of the bank building, and f aintly illuminating 
 the half-deserted square, but the sun was just 
 going down behind the court-house roof, a big, 
 crimson ball of vanishing light. Judith, appear- 
 ing below in the doorway, stood regarding it de- 
 liberately for a minute, ignoring the chauffeur's 
 discreet manifestations of impatience, and then 
 made herself comfortable deliberately in the Colo- 
 nel's car. 
 
 She sat there proudly erect, a dainty, aloof 
 little lady. She seemed to have recovered her 
 high estate upon entering it, and become a prin- 
 cess beyond Neil's reach once more. Watching 
 her gravely from the Judge's window, he could 
 not see the angry tears in her eyes or the reckless 
 light in them. 
 
 Little preliminary pants and puffs came from 
 the car, discreetly impatient, as if they voiced all
 
 850 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the feelings that the correct Parks repressed. He 
 relieved them with one blatant flourish of sound 
 from the horn, and swung the car grandly across 
 the square, round the corner, and out of sight. 
 Judith was gone, and she had not once looked up at 
 the boy in the window. 
 
 She had not even seen another cavalier, who 
 dashed out of a shop and tried to, intercept and 
 speak to her, but was just too late; Mr. Willard 
 Nash, thrilled by his first sight of her, ready to 
 return to his old allegiance at a word, and adver- 
 tising the fact in every line of his forlorn fat figure 
 as he stood alone on the sidewalk gazing wistfully 
 after the vanished car. 
 
 The boy at the window did not waste his time 
 in this way. Judith was gone, and with her the 
 spell that had held him mute and helpless, and 
 he was a man of affairs once more. He was not a 
 very cheerful man of affairs to-night. He was 
 not singing or whistling to himself, as he usually 
 did, but he moved competently enough about the 
 room, entering the Judge's private office with its 
 smell of stale tobacco smoke and group of chairs, 
 so confidentially close that they looked capable 
 of carrying on the conference then* late occupants 
 had begun without help from them. He rear- 
 ranged this room, giving just the straightening 
 touches to the jumble of papers on the desk that
 
 The Wishing Moon 251 
 
 the Judge permitted, and no more, and putting 
 the outer office in order, too. 
 
 By his own desk he paused, fingering Mr. 
 Thayer's thumbed pages absently. He had no 
 attention to spare for them just then, or for the 
 graver questions that had absorbed him just be- 
 fore Judith came. They would soon claim him 
 again. They awaited him now, but out hi the 
 gathering dark that he watched from the darken- 
 ing office something else waited, too. 
 
 His heart ached with it, but it beat harder and 
 stronger for it, and new strength to meet old 
 issues came pulsing from it, as if he were awake 
 again after a year of sleep. He was grieved and 
 miserable, but he was awake. For his mother 
 was right: he was only a boy like other boys; 
 he was young and it was June, and whether she 
 was kind or unkind, Judith Randall was back in 
 Green River. 
 
 Judith, whirled along the fast-darkening road be- 
 tween close-growing pines, dulling from green to 
 black, and birches, silver against them, looked for 
 the welcoming lights of Camp Everard through a 
 mist of angry tears. 
 
 She shed them decorously, even under cover of 
 the dark; she was still a dainty and proud little 
 lady, with nothing about her to advertise con-
 
 252 The Wishing Moon 
 
 spicuously that she was crying, or why. But her 
 little gloved hands were closing and unclosing 
 themselves, her lips were trembling in spite of 
 her, and there was a hunted look in her eyes as 
 she turned them toward the dark woods, as if her 
 quarrel with Neil were not her only trouble. The 
 tears that she controlled so gallantly were a pro- 
 test against a world only half understood and full 
 of enemies whose alien presence she was just be- 
 ginning to feel. 
 
 But Neil, as she had just seen him, was enough 
 to occupy the mind of such a young lady, or a 
 much older one. The look in his eyes as he stood 
 holding open the Judge's door for her was a highly 
 irritating one for any lady to meet. He was 
 older and wiser than she was, no matter what she 
 could say or do to hurt him; he was stronger than 
 she was, and patiently waiting to prove it to her; 
 that was what Neil's eyes were saying. 
 
 They said it first when he left her at her own 
 door without a good-night on that strange May 
 night a year ago; when she stood looking up at 
 him changed and alien and silent, with the May 
 moon behind him, that had brought her bad for- 
 tune instead of good, still dim and alluring with 
 false promises above the shadowy elms in the little 
 street, and they looked down at her just so 
 Neil's grave, unforgettable, conquering eyes.
 
 The Wishing Moon 253 
 
 They were eyes that followed you to-night, when 
 you tried to forget them and look at the dark 
 woods and fields; eyes that looked at you still 
 when you closed your own. 
 
 But Judith would not look at them. The eyes 
 were lying to her. Neil was not really wise or 
 kind. He was cruel. He had hurt her and slighted 
 her, and she was through with him. 
 
 "Parks, can't you go faster?" she said suddenly, 
 in her clear little voice. "It's so late, and I'm 
 hungry and cold." 
 
 "It's bad going through here, Miss," the chauf- 
 feur said. 
 
 They were turning into a narrow mile or so of 
 road that sloped gradually down through a series 
 of arbitrary curves and bends to the lake and the 
 camp, a changed and elaborate structure now, 
 overweighted with verandas and uncompromis- 
 ingly lit with new electric lights. But the road 
 was one of the things that the Colonel did not 
 improve when he changed the public camp into a 
 private one. It was unchanged and unspoiled, 
 a mysterious wood road still, alluring now in the 
 gloom. 
 
 Judith's own people were waiting for her there 
 at the end of that road. They were all the people 
 she had. Willard and schooltime and playtime 
 were more than a year behind her; they were be-
 
 254 The Wishing Moon 
 
 hind her forever. She could never go back to them. 
 She had never really been part of them. She 
 had forced herself into a place there, but she had 
 lost it now, and it could never be hers again. 
 
 These were her people. They were strange to 
 her still, but she had grown up breathing tLe 
 feverish air that they breathed, and with little 
 whispers of hidden scandal about her. Judith 
 was alone between two worlds: one was closed to 
 her, and she was before the door of another, where 
 she did not know her way. She was really alone, 
 as she had told Neil, more alone than she knew; a 
 lonely and tragic figure, white and small in the 
 corner of the big car. 
 
 But she was not crying now. She dabbed ex- 
 pertly at her eyes with an overscented scrap of 
 handkerchief and sat up, looking eagerly down the 
 dark road. She could catch far echoes of a song 
 through the still night air, faint echoes only, but 
 it was a song that she knew, a gay little song, and 
 it came from a place where people were always 
 kind and gay. It was like a hand stretched out to 
 her through the dark, a warm hand, to beckon her 
 nearer, and then draw her close. She leaned for- 
 ward and listened and looked. 
 
 There was the camp, the first glimpse of it, 
 though soon a dip of the road would hide it again. 
 It was an enchanting glimpse, a far, low-lying
 
 The Wishing Moon 255 
 
 flicker of light. And there, just by the big, up- 
 standing boulder where the road turned abruptly, 
 she saw something else. She saw it before Parks 
 did, as if she had been watching for it. It was a 
 man's figure that started forward, came to the 
 edge of the road, and waited. The man looked 
 more than his slender height in the shadow, but his 
 light, quick walk was unmistakable. It was 
 Colonel Everard. 
 
 "Stop, Parks," Judith said, with new authority 
 in her voice. 
 
 He stood waiting for her silently, without any 
 greeting at all, and she slipped her hand into his 
 and stepped out and stood beside him. 
 
 "Go on," he said to the chauffeur. "It's too 
 rough here for the car. It's easier on foot Miss 
 Randall will walk with me." 
 
 The car, skilfully manipulated along the steep, 
 zigzag road, but a clumsy thing at best here in the 
 woods, and an artificial and ugly thing, lumbered 
 away, breaking through outreaching branches. 
 Judith watched it out of sight. Then and not till 
 then she turned to her host. 
 
 "Aren't you going to speak to me?" the great 
 man inquired respectfully, as if her intentions de- 
 served the most serious consideration. 
 
 "Yes," said Judith serenely, unflattered by it. 
 
 " What are you going to say? "
 
 256 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "What do you want me to say?'* 
 
 "I want you to shake hands with me." 
 
 A hand touched his lightly. It drew quickly 
 away, but it was a confiding little hand. 
 
 "You don't seem surprised to see me." 
 
 "I'm not," said Judith. 
 
 "But you're glad to see me? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "It's stuffy inside, and they've got a fire hi the 
 billiard room and won't leave it. I wanted ' 
 
 Judith laughed and let him draw her hand 
 through his arm as they began to grope their way 
 down the road. "You wanted to meet me." 
 
 She made the correction triumphantly and con- 
 fidently, as she would have made it to Willard. 
 All this was coquetry, as she and Willard under- 
 stood it, and it was an old game to her, and a 
 childish game, but there was something strangely 
 exciting about the fact that the Colonel under- 
 stood it, too, and condescended to play at it. It 
 was more exciting than usual to-night. 
 
 " Why should I want to meet you? " he said. 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "Why weren't you downstairs last night when 
 I came to see your father? " 
 
 "I was tired." 
 
 "You weren't running away from me?" 
 
 "No."
 
 The Wishing Moon 257 
 
 "And you won't ever run away from me?" 
 
 "I don't know." 
 
 "You're afraid of me." 
 
 "Ami?" 
 
 "Aren't you?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Judith. "Look, there's 
 the moon." 
 
 It was low above the trees, rising solemn and 
 round and slow. It looked reproachful and grave, 
 like Neil's eyes. It was looking straight at Judith. 
 Judith turned her eyes sternly away. What was 
 the Colonel saying? Something that did not 
 sound like Willard at all, or like the Colonel, either. 
 Nobody had ever spoken to her in just that voice 
 before. It was a choked, queer voice. But 
 Judith smiled up at him and listened, tightening 
 the clasp of her hand on his arm. 
 
 " Don't be afraid of me. Don't ever be afraid. 
 . . . You're so sweet to-night." 
 
 "No, I won't," said Judith defiantly, straight 
 to the round, accusing moon. " I won't be afraid."
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 
 
 I DON'T like the look of you," said Mrs. 
 Donovan. 
 "Then you're hard to please," Neil 
 turned at the foot of the steps to say, trying to 
 smile as he said it. "Harder than I am. I do 
 like the look of you." 
 
 The Donovans, mother and son, were both quite 
 sufficiently attractive to the eye at that moment. 
 This was the second day of September, and also 
 the second day of the county fair in Madison, five 
 miles away the big day of the fair, and Neil's 
 uncle had been up at dawn to escort the younger 
 Bradys there in a borrowed rig, and in the com- 
 pany of at least half Green River in equipages of 
 varied style and state of repair. Neil had slept 
 late, breakfasted sketchily, and dined elaborately 
 alone with his mother. Now the long, still, 
 sunny afternoon was half over, and she stood in the 
 kitchen door, watching him start for town. 
 
 The kitchen, newly painted this year, looked 
 empty and unnaturally neat behind her, but 
 friendly and lived in, too, with the old, creaking 
 rocker pulled to an inviting angle at the window 
 
 258
 
 The Wishing Moon 259 
 
 overlooking the marsh, and a sofa under the other 
 window, its worn upholstery covered freshly with 
 turkey-red; one splash of clear colour, sketched in 
 boldly, just in the corner where it satisfied the eye. 
 Her neighbours did not take this humble fabric 
 seriously for decorative purposes; indeed, they 
 would not have permitted a sofa in the kitchen at 
 all, but her neighbours were not of her gracious 
 race. They could not wear a plain and necessary 
 white apron like the completing touch to a correct 
 toilette assumed deliberately. Mrs. Donovan 
 could, and she did to-day. Also her brown hair, 
 dulled to a softer, more indefinite brown by its 
 sprinkling of white, rippled softly about her low 
 forehead, and her dress was faded to a tender, 
 vague blue like the blue of her eyes. Her eyes, 
 almost on a level with Neil's as she stood on the 
 step above him, had the charm that was peculiarly 
 their own to-day, cloudy as they were with the 
 faraway look of a race that believes in fairies, but 
 warm and human, too, with an intimate mother 
 look of concern for Neil. 
 
 Neil met it steadily, not a sullen boy as he would 
 have been under that questioning a year ago, not 
 resenting it at all, but keeping his secrets deliber- 
 ately. It had always been hard for her to make 
 him answer questions. It was not even easy for 
 her to ask them now.
 
 260 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "You don't sleep," she began. 
 
 "Neither do you, if you've been catching me 
 at it," reasoned her son correctly. 
 
 "You work too hard." She had made an ac- 
 cusation that he could not deny, so he only smiled 
 his quick, flashing smile. "You won't even take 
 a day to yourself." 
 
 "I'll have the office and most of the town to my- 
 self this afternoon. I'll have to go. I've got 
 something special to look into." 
 
 "Where's Charlie?" she demanded at once. 
 
 "Oh, he's not troubling me to-day. He's safe 
 at Madison with his new mare. He'll break loose 
 there, then come home and repent and stay straight 
 for weeks and make no trouble for me. He's due 
 to break loose. He's been good too long too 
 good to be true. He was in fine form last night.'* 
 Mr. Charlie Brady's cousin grinned reminis- 
 cently. 
 
 "What do you mean?' 
 
 "He gave me quite a little side talk on good form 
 in dress and diction. Charlie claims I won't make 
 an orator, and he don't like my taste in ties." 
 
 "Who does he think he is?" flashed Mr. Brady's 
 aunt indignantly. 
 
 "Who do you think he is?" her son inquired 
 unexpectedly. "For whatever you think, that's 
 me. , I'm no better than Charlie."
 
 The Wishing Moon 261 
 
 "Charlie?" Mrs. Donovan gasped, and then 
 plunged into an indignant defence of her son, not 
 pausing to take breath. 
 
 "You?" she began. "You that's planted firm 
 on the ladder and right-hand to the Judge already, 
 and him getting older every day, and Theodore 
 Burr just kept on in the office because Everard's 
 after Burr's wife. So he is, and the town knows it, 
 and Theodore'll wake up to it soon. A fine partner 
 Theodore is for the Judge, poor boy, but he's a 
 good boy, too, though none too strong in the head; 
 Lil Burr is a good girl, too, and she'd make a good 
 wife to Theodore if she could be left to herself. 
 She'd make it up with Theodore, as many a girl 
 has done that's got more for her husband to forgive 
 than Lil. 
 
 "Poor Lil. Her head's high above me now, 
 but the time was she cried on my shoulder; crying 
 for Charlie, she was, before ever Charlie took up 
 with Maggie and Lil with Theodore; when the 
 four of them were all young together, and the one 
 as good as the other. Young they were, and the 
 hearts of them young wild, doubtful hearts. 
 Many's the time Lil would come to me then, here 
 in this same kitchen, and go down on her knees, 
 her that was tall and a fine figure of a girl, and 
 cling onto me, crying her heart out; crying she 
 was for all the world like like "
 
 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Mrs. Donovan checked herself abruptly with 
 shrewd eyes upon her son. 
 
 "Like young things do cry, and tell you their 
 troubles in tears, not words." She ended some- 
 what vaguely, and came quickly back to her main 
 subject again. 
 
 "You that can walk into the big rally next week 
 and sit with the men that count, and whisper and 
 talk to them, and hold your head high, with noth- 
 ing against you, and will be sitting up on the plat- 
 form soon, with the best of them, and be mayor 
 yet, like Everard's going to be, or governor, maybe 
 you to compare yourself with Charlie, if he is 
 my half-sister's own son. He's a drunken good- 
 for-nothing. He's got no spirit in him if he'll stay 
 here at all, where he's ashamed himself and make 
 a show of himself. How is it he's able to stay? 
 Where does he get the money he spends? This 
 town don't pay it to him. Who does?" 
 
 "What put that into your head?" her son asked 
 sharply. 
 
 "There's talk enough of it, and there'll be 
 more. The whole town will be asking soon." 
 
 "The town asks a lot of questions it don't dare 
 hear the answers to," said Neil softly, unregarded. 
 His mother returned to her grievance: 
 
 "You to be likening yourself to Charlie." 
 
 "When Charlie was twenty-five," Neil began
 
 The Wishing Moon 263 
 
 slowly, "he was where I will be then, or better. 
 The Judge was a friend to him, too, and the Judge 
 was a better friend then to have. Charlie was 
 setting up for himself, well thought of. My own 
 father trusted him. When I was a boy and not 
 grown, Charlie was a son to him, and more. He 
 was a better spoken lawyer than I'll ever make, 
 quick and smooth with his tongue, and he was 
 fine appearing, and put up a better front than I do. 
 I've gone part of the road that Charlie went. 
 What will stop me from going the whole road? 
 What's beat Charlie is strong enough to beat me. 
 . . . Don't look so scared, mother. I don't 
 want to scare you. I only want you to be fair to 
 Charlie." 
 
 "His heart's broke," she conceded, melting. 
 "He's nothing with Maggie gone." 
 
 "His heart's broke, but that's not what beat 
 him," her son stated with authority. "He was 
 beat before." 
 
 "When?" 
 
 "He was beat," Neil stated deliberately, "when 
 Everard moved to Green River." 
 
 This was a sweeping statement, but Neil did 
 not qualify it. He dropped the subject and stood 
 silent, turning absent eyes upon the green expanse 
 of marshy field that had been the starting-place 
 of all his dreams when he was a dream-struck,
 
 264 The Wishing Moon 
 
 gazing boy. His mother's eyes followed his, 
 growing cloudier and soft as if even now she could 
 read them there. 
 
 "Rests your eyes," Neil said, after a minute; 
 "looks pretty, too, in the sun. It's a pretty green. 
 We'll drain it, perhaps, by the time I'm mayor or 
 governor. It might pay. I'll be going now." 
 
 "Neil, when did you see her last?" asked his 
 mother suddenly. 
 
 "See who?" he muttered, and then flushed, 
 and straightened himself, and met her eyes 
 bravely. 
 
 "I saw Judith yesterday," he said, "on Main 
 Street, and she cut me." 
 
 "Did she walk past you?" 
 
 "No, she wouldn't do that. She pretended not 
 to see me, but she saw me, all right. She passed 
 me in an automobile." 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 "One of Everard's." 
 
 "Was he with her?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Neil," his mother began a little breatibiessly, 
 "I want to tell you something. I've said hard 
 things to you, and they weren't deserved. I know 
 it now, and I'm sorry. I want to take them all 
 back. I've said hard things about Judith Ran- 
 dall."
 
 The Wishing Moon 265 
 
 She hurried on, afraid of being stopped, but he 
 made no move to stop her. He listened courte- 
 ously, his face not changing. 
 
 "Neil, she's not what I thought. There's no 
 harm in her. There's no pride in her. She's 
 just lonesome. She's just a young, young girl. 
 She's sweet-spoken and sweet-faced. Neil, from 
 all I hear " 
 
 "You didn't hear all this direct from Judith, 
 then?" 
 
 "Judith?" she hesitated, flashing a questioning 
 glance at him. "Is it likely? How would I get 
 the chance? But from all I hear, she's too good 
 for Everard and the like. And she's not safe 
 with them. She needs " 
 
 "What?" interrupted her son gravely, with the 
 air of seeking information on a subject quite 
 strange to him and rather distasteful. But she 
 tried to go on. 
 
 "Judith needs any one that's fond of her, any 
 one that she's fond of, to be good to her now. I've 
 seen her, and it's in the eyes of her. No man ever 
 knows just what a woman is grieving for, but that's 
 all one if he'll comfort her when she's grieving. 
 She needs " 
 
 Neil's eyes were expressionless. She sighed and 
 put her two hands on his shoulders. "Have it 
 your own way," she said. "I'll say no more."
 
 266 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Neil caught at one of the hands on his shoulders 
 and kissed it. 
 
 "For one thing," he said, "Judith or any girl 
 needs a mother with a heart in her like I've got, 
 but you're the one in the world. I'm going." 
 
 But he did not go at once. Standing beside her, 
 suddenly awkward and shy, he first gave her the 
 confidence that she could not force from him, all 
 in one generous breathless burst of words. 
 
 "Mother, Charlie's not the only one with his 
 heart broke. But heart-break isn't the worst 
 thing I've got to bear. There's something else. 
 I can't tell you. I'd rather bear it alone. I've 
 got to. Good-bye." 
 
 Then he left her standing still in the door, shad- 
 ing her cloudy blue eyes with one small hand and 
 looking after him. He swung into the dusty road 
 and, keeping his head high and his eyes straight 
 ahead, undazzled by the sharp sunlight of mid- 
 afternoon on the long stretch of unshaded way, 
 passed out of sight toward Green River.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
 
 NEIL turned into Post-office Square just 
 on the stroke of four. The square was as 
 empty and strange to the eye as his 
 mother's kitchen, though this was the rush hour of 
 the day in that business centre upon ordinary 
 days, when the fair had not emptied the town. 
 
 A solitary Ford of prehistoric make stood before 
 the post-office, and even that was just cranking up. 
 It lurched dispiritedly off, leaving a cloud of dust 
 behind. A dejected-looking group of children 
 hung about the door of the ice-cream parlour, and 
 appeared to lack the initiative to enter in. Hah* 
 the shops were shut. In the big show-window 
 of the central section of Ward's Emporium Luther 
 Ward, usually on parade and magnificently in 
 charge of his shop and his staff of employees at 
 this time of day, stood in his shirt sleeves, em- 
 bracing an abnormally slender lady in a mauve 
 velveteen tailored suit. 
 
 At first glance he seemed to be instructing her in 
 the latest dance steps, but on a nearer view the 
 visible part of her proved to be wax, and the suit 
 was ticketed nineteen-fifty. He jerked her into 
 
 267
 
 268 The Wishing Moon 
 
 place, turned and saw Neil, and hailed him cheer- 
 fully, waving him round to the main entrance 
 door, where he joined him, still wiping his brow. 
 
 "If you want a thing well done, do it yourself," 
 he said, explaining his late exertions with the air 
 of believing the explanation was original with him 
 and did credit to his intellect. "What are you 
 here for* brother? Isn't Madison good enough 
 for you?" 
 
 "No," Neil said. "Not with the big race 
 called off." 
 
 "Called off? How's that?" 
 
 "Because you weren't there, Luther." 
 
 Mr. Ward gave a gratified laugh at this graceful 
 compliment, and descended to facts. 
 
 "I'm too old for horse racing. It's my boy's 
 turn. He went over with Willard Nash's crowd 
 to-day. Why didn't you?" Mr. Ward de- 
 manded severely. 
 
 "Oh, Willard asked me all right. He's quite 
 strong for me now." Mr. Ward had doubted this, 
 being on the watch for slights to Neil and resent- 
 ing them, though he never made an effort to pre- 
 vent them. This was the usual attitude of Neil's 
 more influential friends. 
 
 "Willard's a shrimp," said Mr. Ward gruffly. 
 "And I like you," he added in a burst of frankness. 
 "I always did like you, Neil. You've pulled
 
 The Wishing Moon 269 
 
 yourself up by your boot-straps, and I hope you 
 hang on to them tight. There's nobody better 
 pleased than I am. Oh, I got a rig and sent all 
 the help from the store over to the fair to-day," he 
 added, turning quickly to impersonal subjects. 
 
 "You always do treat them right." 
 
 "Well, this wasn't my idea. I got it from the 
 Colonel." A look of harmless but plainly evident 
 pride came into Mr. Ward's open and ruddy coun- 
 tenance as he mentioned the great man's name. 
 It was only the week before that he had received 
 his first dinner invitation from the Everards. It 
 came at the eleventh hour and did not include his 
 wife, but he was dazzled by it still. "You know 
 what he's doing? Closing his house, practically, 
 for all three days of the fair, and sending all the 
 help on the place over there two touring cars 
 full. It's a fine thing for them. They're high- 
 class help and don't have it any too interesting 
 down here. Anybody that says he's not demo- 
 cratic don't know the Colonel. This town don't 
 half know him yet." 
 
 "You're right," Neil put in softly. 
 
 "Democratic," declaimed Mr. Ward, "and 
 public spirited. Look at the fountain he's going 
 to put up in the square. Look at the old Grant 
 house going to be fitted up for a library. Look at 
 him running for mayor, when he's been turning
 
 270 The Wishing Moon 
 
 down chances at bigger offices for years willing 
 to stay here and serve for the good of the town. 
 There's talk against him more than ever this 
 year. I know that. It amounts to an indigna- 
 tion meeting when the boys get together at Hallo- 
 ran's. Well, failures hate a successful man, and 
 their talk don't count. It will die down. But I 
 hate to hear of it. For the Colonel's put this 
 town on the map. He's not perfect, but who is? 
 And suppose he does have a good time his own way? 
 We've got a right to all of us. It's a free 
 country." 
 
 Mr. Ward delivered this last sentiment with 
 touching faith in its force and freshness, and waved 
 a plump hand of invitation toward the little pri- 
 vate office back of the main section of his store, 
 where he had developed his unfailing eloquence 
 of speech upon subjects of public interest, and 
 liked best to practise it. But Neil, himself lis- 
 tened to with growing deference by the groups that 
 forgathered there, was not to be lured to that 
 sanctum to-day. Speaking hastily and vaguely 
 of work to be done, he escaped from his good friend 
 and across the street to Judge Saxon's office. 
 
 He climbed the stairs heavily, and did not 
 linger before the door to picture the sign changed 
 to "Saxon, Burr, and Donovan," as he had done 
 more times than he cared to admit. The office
 
 The Wishing Moon 271 
 
 was not a thing to be proud of as a step up in life 
 for him to-day; it was a place to be alone in, as 
 men feel alone and safe in the place that is their 
 own because they have worked there. 
 
 Showing this in every move, Neil locked the 
 door, threw off his cap, and dropped into the 
 broken-springed chair at the desk that was nom- 
 inally Theodore Burr's, but really his. He groped 
 mechanically for the handle of the drawer where 
 he usually rested his feet, found it hard to open, 
 gave up the attempt and, leaning back without its 
 support, stared at Mr. Burr's ornate, brass- 
 mounted blotter with unseeing eyes. 
 
 Sitting there, he was no longer the boy who had 
 the privilege of intimate talk with prominent 
 citizens like Mr. Ward and valued it; or the boy 
 who had laughed at his mother's anxiety so 
 bravely. He was not even the boy that he used 
 to be, sullen, but rebellious, too. To-day for the 
 first time he was something worse, a defeated boy. 
 The long minutes dragged like hours, and he sat 
 through them as he would have sat through hours, 
 silent and motionless, losing run of time and ac- 
 knowledging defeat. 
 
 For there was something that this boy wanted, 
 and had always wanted, as he could never want 
 other things, even success or love, as a boy or a 
 man can want one thing only in one lifetime. It
 
 272 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was a remote and preposterous dream that he 
 had, a dream that nobody else in Green River 
 was foolhardy enough to cherish long, but this 
 boy belonged to the race of poets and dreamers, 
 the race that must sometimes dream true, because 
 it always dreams. His dream had taken different 
 forms: sometimes he saw himself doing desperate 
 things, setting fire to a house that he knew and 
 hated, striking a blow in the dark for which no- 
 body thanked him, but the issue was always the 
 same, and the dream never left him. He was to 
 find Green River a new master. He was to save 
 the town. That was his dream. It had never 
 left him till now. 
 
 He was only a lean, tense boy, crouched over a 
 battered desk and staring out of the window at a 
 country street with absent, beautiful eyes, but he 
 was living through a tragic hour; the terrible hour 
 that poets and dreamers know when they lose 
 hold upon their dreams. Measured by minutes t 
 this hour was not long. Neil passed a hand across 
 his forehead and sat up, reaching for his cap in a 
 dazed way, for he was not to be permitted to hide 
 longer from his trouble here. The plump and per- 
 sonable figure of Mr. Theodore Burr was crossing 
 the square and disappearing into the door below. 
 His unhurried step climbed the stairs. Neil 
 opened the door to him.
 
 The Wishing Moon 273 
 
 "Hello, stranger. Why aren't you at Madi- 
 son?" Neil said. 
 
 "I didn't go," said Mr. Burr lucidly. "Where 
 are you going? I don't want to drive you away 
 from here." 
 
 "Oh, just out. I was going anyway." 
 
 "You don't invite me. I don't blame you. 
 I'm poor company, and I've got business to at- 
 tend to here." 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Why shouldn't I have business here?" snapped 
 Mr. Burr. 
 
 "You should, you should, Theodore. Say"- 
 the question had been troubling Neil subcon- 
 sciously all the time he sat at the desk "what's 
 wrong with that lower drawer? I can't open it." 
 
 "It's locked." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "That," said Mr. Burr with dignity, "is my 
 private drawer for private papers." 
 
 "Papers!" Mr. Burr's private papers were 
 known to consist chiefly of a file of receipted bills 
 and a larger file of unreceipted bills, both kept 
 with his usual fastidious neatness. "What 
 papers?" 
 
 "That's my business. I've got some rights 
 here, if I am a figurehead. I've got some priv- 
 ileges."
 
 274 The Wishing Moon 
 
 " Sure. Don't you feel right to-day, Theodore?" 
 
 "That," said Mr. Burr, "is my business, too." 
 
 Neil stared at his friend. Mr. Burr was fault- 
 lessly groomed, as always, his tie was of the vivid 
 and unique blue that he affected so often, and a 
 very recent close shave had acted upon him as 
 usual, giving him a pink and new-born appearance, 
 but his eyes looked old and tired, as if he had not 
 slept for weeks and had no immediate prospect 
 of sleeping, and there were lines of strain about 
 his weak mouth. He was not himself. Even a 
 boy preoccupied with his own troubles could not 
 ignore it. 
 
 "Don't you feel right?" Neil said. "Don't 
 you want me to do something, Theodore?" 
 
 "Yes. Get out of here. Leave me alone," 
 Mr. Burr snapped angrily. 
 
 "Sure," said Neil soothingly. 
 
 Suddenly Mr. Burr gripped Neil's reluctant, 
 shy, boy's hand, kept it in his for a minute in 
 silence, and then abruptly let it go, pushing Neil 
 toward the door. 
 
 "Don't begrudge me one locked drawer when 
 you'll own the whole place some day," he said, 
 with all the dignity that his fretful burst of irrita- 
 tion had lacked. "I'd like to see that day. 
 You're a good boy, Donovan." 
 
 "You're not right. You've got a grouch.
 
 The Wishing Moon 275 
 
 Come with me and walk it off," Neil said uneasily, 
 but he did not press the invitation, and his friend 
 had little more to say. His silence was perhaps the 
 most unusual thing about his behaviour, which 
 was all out of key to-day. Neil remembered after- 
 ward that just as he closed the door upon Mr. 
 Burr and his vagaries, shutting them at the same 
 time out of his mind, Mr. Burr, sitting rather 
 heavily down in the broken-springed desk chair, 
 was bending and stretching out a faultlessly mani- 
 cured, slightly unsteady hand toward the locked 
 drawer of the desk. 
 
 Neil stepped out into the street with a cautious 
 eye upon the Emporium across the way, but no 
 portly form was in sight there now, and no hearty 
 voice hailed him. He crossed the square and 
 turned north, walking quickly, soon leaving the 
 larger houses behind, and then the smaller houses 
 above the railroad track, always climbing gradually 
 as he walked. Finally, at the entrance to an over- 
 grown road that led off to his left, and at the 
 highest point of his long and slow ascent, he turned 
 and looked back at the town. 
 
 The town that Colonel Everard had put on the 
 map hardly deserved the honour, seen so in a 
 glitter of afternoon light, with the long, sloping 
 hill leading down to it, and the white tower of the 
 church pointing high above it, a cozy huddle of
 
 276 The Wishing Moon 
 
 houses at the foot of the hill. It looked unas- 
 suming and sheltered and safe, only a group of 
 homes to make a simple and sheltered home in. 
 The boy looked long at it, then turned abruptly 
 and plunged into the road before him. 
 
 It led straight across a shallow belt of fields and 
 deep into the woods. Only a cart-track at first, 
 it soon lost itself here in a path, and the path in 
 turn grew fainter and became a brown, alluring 
 ghost of a path. It was hard to trace, but this 
 was ground that Neil knew, a favourite haunt of 
 his, though few other boys ventured to trespass 
 here. The woods were part of the Everard estate. 
 
 Neil had found his first May flowers here on the 
 first spring that he was privileged to give them to 
 Judith. Last year she had helped him look for 
 them here. His errand here was not so pleasant 
 to-day. The brown path did not really lead to 
 the heart of the woods as it seemed to. It was 
 not so long as it looked. It was a fairly direct 
 short cut to the Everard house. 
 
 The boy followed it quickly, with no eyes for 
 the dim lure of the woods to-day. 
 
 "You've beat me," he muttered once to him- 
 self; "I'll have a look at you." 
 
 Soon the woods were not so thick. They fell 
 away around him, carelessly thinned at first, 
 littered with fallen trees and stumps, but nearer
 
 The Wishing Moon 'ill 
 
 the house combed out accurately by the relentless 
 processes of landscape gardening, and looking 
 orderly and empty. The little path vanished 
 entirely here. Ahead of Neil, through a thin 
 fringe of trees, was the Colonel's rose garden; 
 beyond it, the broad stretch of lawn and the house, 
 bulky and towered and tall. 
 
 Neil broke through the trees and stood and 
 looked at it, straight ahead, seen through the 
 frame of the trellised entrance to the garden, 
 upstanding and ugly and arrogant. 
 
 "You've beat me," he said to the Colonel's 
 house. "You've beat me; you and him. I hate 
 you!" 
 
 His voice had a hollow sound in the empty gar- 
 den. Garden and lawn and house had the same 
 look that the whole deserted town had caught 
 to-day; the look of suddenly empty rooms where 
 much life has been, a breathless strangeness that 
 holds echoes of what has happened there, and 
 even hints of what is to happen; haunted rooms. 
 It is not best to linger there. Neil turned uneasily 
 toward the path again. 
 
 He turned, then he turned back, stood for a 
 tense minute listening, then broke through the 
 rose garden and began to run across the lawn. 
 Very faint and small, so that he could not tell 
 whether it was in a man's voice or a woman's, but
 
 278 The Wishing Moon 
 
 echoing clearly across the deserted garden, he had 
 heard a scream from the house. 
 
 It came from the house somewhere, though as 
 Neil ran toward it the house still looked tenantless. 
 The veranda was without its usual gay litter of 
 cushions and books and serving trays. At the 
 long windows that opened on it all the curtains 
 were close drawn or at all but one. 
 
 As Neil reached the house he saw that the middle 
 window was thrown high and the long, pale- 
 coloured curtain was dragged from its rod and 
 dangling over the sill. Just then he heard a second 
 scream from the house. It was so choked and 
 faint that he barely heard it. Neil ran up the 
 steps and slipped through the open window into 
 the Everards' library. 
 
 Little light came through the curtained win- 
 dows. The green room, sparsely scattered with 
 furniture in summer covers of light chintz that 
 glimmered pale and forbidding, looked twice its 
 unfriendly length in the gloom. There was a 
 heavy, dead scent of too many flowers in the air. 
 On a table across the room a bowl of hothouse 
 hyacinths, just overturned, crushed the flowers 
 with its weight and dripped water into the sodden 
 rug. 
 
 Neil, at the window looking uncertainly into the 
 half-dark room, saw the bowl and the white mass
 
 The Wishing Moon 279 
 
 of crushed flowers, and then something else, some- 
 thing that shifted and stirred in a far corner of the 
 room. He saw it dimly at first, a dark, struggling 
 group. There were two men in it. 
 
 One was a man who had screamed, but he was 
 not screaming now. It would hardly have been 
 convenient for him to scream, for the other, the 
 smaller and slighter man of the two, was clutch- 
 ing him by the throat, gripping it with a hand that 
 he could not shake off as the two figures swayed 
 back and forth. 
 
 "Who's there?" Neil cried. 
 
 Nobody answered him. Nobody needed to, 
 for just then the two men who seemed to be 
 fighting swung into the narrow strip of light before 
 the uncurtained window and he could see their 
 faces. He could see, too, that they were not fight- 
 ing now, though they had seemed to be. The bigger 
 man was choked into submission already. No 
 sound came from him and he hung limp and still 
 in the little man's hold. Just in the centre of the 
 strip of light the little man relaxed his grip, and let 
 him fall. He dropped to the floor in a limp, un- 
 tidy looking heap, and lay still there, with the 
 light full on his face, closed eyes and grinning 
 mouth. The man was Colonel Everard, the man 
 who stood over him was Charlie Brady. 
 
 As Neil looked Brady dropped on his knees
 
 280 The Wishing Moon 
 
 beside the Colonel, felt for his heart, and found it. 
 He knelt there, motionless, holding his hand 
 pressed over it and peering intently into his face. 
 Presently he got to his feet deliberately, gave a 
 deep sigh of entire content with himself, and 
 looked about him. Then and not until then he 
 saw Neil. He saw him without surprise, if with- 
 out much pleasure, it appeared. 
 
 "You're late," he remarked. 
 
 "You drunken fool," Neil began furiously, 
 then stopped, staring at his cousin. Whatever 
 the meaning of this exhibition was, Charlie was not 
 drunk. The excitement that possessed him was 
 excitement of some other kind. It possessed him 
 entirely, though it was under control for the mo- 
 ment. His muscles twitched with it. His shoul- 
 ders shifted restlessly. His hands closed and un- 
 closed. His eyes were strangely lit, and there 
 was an absent, exalted look about them. What- 
 ever the excitement, it was strong stronger than 
 Charlie. Neil, his eyes now used to the half-light, 
 could see no weapon in the room, dropped on the 
 floor or discarded. Mr. Brady, normally a cow- 
 ard in his cups and out of them, had attacked his 
 enemy with his bare hands. 
 
 " Charlie, what's got you? " Neil said. " What's 
 come to you?" 
 
 "What's come to him, there?" Charlie said, in a
 
 The Wishing Moon 281 
 
 voice that was changed, too, and was as remote 
 and as strange as his eyes, a low voice, with the 
 deceptive, terrible calm of gathering hysteria about 
 it. 
 
 "Look what's come to him," the voice went on. 
 "Don't he deserve it, and worse? How did I find 
 him to-day when I broke in through the window 
 there? At his old tricks again. There was a 
 woman with him in the library there, when he 
 came out to me. He locked the door. She's 
 there now. Neil, you'd better get away from here. 
 I don't know what you're doing here, but you'd 
 better go, and go quick." 
 
 He had given this advice indifferently. He 
 made his next observation indifferently, too, with 
 his furtive, absent eyes on the library door. 
 
 "I've killed him." 
 
 "What's got you? Are you crazy?" 
 
 "No not now. You'd better go. I want to 
 take a look in there first. The key's in the door." 
 
 "Charlie, come back here." 
 
 The note of command that he was used to re- 
 sponding to in his young cousin's voice reached and 
 controlled Mr. Brady even now; he obeyed and 
 swung round and stood still, looking at Neil. 
 Neil's dark eyes, just above the level of his own, 
 and so like them, were unrecognizable now. They 
 were dull with anger, and they were angry with him.
 
 82 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "What's the matter?" he quavered. "What's 
 the matter, Neil?" 
 
 Between the two cousins, as they stood facing 
 each other, the Colonel lay ominously still. The 
 cruel eyes did not open, and the distorted mouth 
 did not change. 
 
 "Look! You can see for yourself. Feel his 
 heart," Mr. Brady offered, but his cousin's dark, 
 disconcerting eyes did not leave his face. " What's 
 the matter, Neil? What are you going to 
 do?" 
 
 "I'm going to make you talk out to me," Neil 
 said. "You'll tell me what's got you, and why 
 you did this, which will be the ruin of you and me, 
 too, but first you'll tell me something else. You'll 
 tell me what you've hid from me for a year, you 
 who can tell me the truth when you're drunk and lie 
 out of it when you're sober, till you've worn me 
 out and I'm sick of trying to get the truth from 
 you. I'll be getting it now too late, but I'll get 
 it. Have you or have you not been living on this 
 man's money?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Was it hush money?" 
 
 "Yes," Mr. Brady said. "Neil, I'll tell you 
 everything. You've guessed most of it, but I'll 
 tell you the rest. I can prove it. I can prove 
 everything I know. I did take hush money. It
 
 The Wishing Moon 283 
 
 was dirty money, but I didn't care. I didn't care 
 what happened. I didn't care till to-day." 
 
 "To-day?" 
 
 "I got a letter." 
 
 "Go on," Neil said. 
 
 As he spoke Mr. Brady's face began suddenly 
 to change, lighting again with that strange ex- 
 citement which had gripped him, revived, and 
 burning through its thin veneer of control. His 
 eyes blazed with it, and his voice shook with it. 
 He waved a trembling hand toward the library 
 door. A sound had come from the library, the 
 faintest of sounds, a low, frightened cry. It was 
 like the ghost of a cry, but he heard. Neil heard 
 it, too, and was at the door before him, trying to 
 unlock it, fumbling with the key. 
 
 "She's there yet," Mr. Brady cried; "whoever 
 she is. Well, she'll be the last of them. I had a 
 letter, I tell you, a letter from Maggie. She's 
 coming home, what's left of her what he's left 
 of her Everard. I never thought he was to 
 blame. I said he was, but I was talked out of it. 
 If I'd thought so, if I'd suspected it, would I have 
 touched a penny of his dirty money? But she's 
 coming home. Maggie's coming home." 
 
 For the moment Neil was not concerned with the 
 fact. Graver revelations might have passed over 
 him unheeded. The key had turned at last.
 
 284 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Then Neil felt the door being pushed open from 
 inside. He stepped back and waited. The door 
 opened cautiously for an inch or two, then swung 
 suddenly wide. Standing motionless, framed in 
 the library door, was Judith.
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN 
 
 r 1 HE two cousins, Mr. Brady shocked into 
 sudden silence, stood with Colonel Ever- 
 
 JL ard's unconscious body behind them, un- 
 regarded, like any other bulky and motionless shape 
 in the dim room, and stared at the girl who had 
 come from the locked library. 
 
 "Not you," Neil's voice said dully. "Not 
 here." 
 
 But the girl was Judith. 
 
 Bare-headed, slender in soft-falling white, she 
 stood in the library door with both hands behind 
 her, clasping her big, limp hat by its flaring brim. 
 Her lightly poised, blond head was fluffy with 
 small, escaping curls, her clear-coloured cheeks 
 were warmly flushed, and between her red, slightly 
 parted lips her breath came too quickly, but softly, 
 still. A sheer, torn ruffle trailed from her skirt. 
 One rose-coloured bow hung from her girdle awry 
 and crushed, and looked the softer for that, like 
 a crumpled flower. 
 
 About her dress and her whole small self there 
 was a drooping and crumpled look. It was the 
 look of a child that has played too hard. Surely 
 
 285
 
 286 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the most incongruous and pathetic little figure 
 that had ever appeared from a room where a dis- 
 tressed or designing lady was suspected of hiding, 
 she stood and returned Neil's look, but there was 
 blank panic in her eyes. 
 
 They turned from Neil to Mr. Brady, wild eyed 
 and pale beside him, to the disordered room, and 
 back to Neil again, with no change of expression at 
 all. They were wide and dilated and dark, in- 
 tent still on some picture that they held and could 
 not let go. Judith came an uncertain step or two 
 forward into the room, stiffly, as if she were walk- 
 ing in her sleep, and stood still. 
 
 "Neil, what did you come here for?" she said. 
 "I'm glad you came." 
 
 Her voice was sweet and expressionless, like her 
 eyes, and though she had called Neil by name, 
 she looked at him as if she had never seen him be- 
 fore. One small hand reached out uncertainly, 
 pulled at his sleeve, and then, as he made no move 
 to take it, dropped again, and began to finger the 
 big hat that she held, and pluck at the flowers on 
 it, but her eyes did not leave his face. 
 
 "Will they stand for this?" Mr. Brady was de- 
 manding incoherently behind them, "as young as 
 this? Will the town stand it? No. And they 
 won't blame me now. They can't. It was com- 
 ing to you you "
 
 The Wishing Moon 287 
 
 He was in the grip of his own troubles again, 
 and breaking into little mutterings of hysterical 
 speech, which he now addressed directly to Colonel 
 Everard, standing over him and not seeming to 
 feel the need of an answer. It was an uncanny 
 proceeding. The girl and boy did not watch it. 
 They were seeing only each other. 
 
 "Judith," Neil began stumblingly, "what were 
 you doing there? What's frightened you so? 
 What you heard out here? That's all that fright- 
 ened you, isn't it? Isn't it? But what made 
 you come here alone like this? Didn't you 
 know Oh, Judith " 
 
 He stopped and looked down at her, saying 
 nothing, but his eyes were troubled and dark 
 with questions that he did not dare to ask. There 
 was no answer to them in Judith's eyes, only 
 blank fear. As Neil looked, the fear in Judith's 
 eyes was reflected in his, creeping into them and 
 taking possession there. 
 
 "Oh, Judith," he whispered miserably. "Oh, 
 Judith." 
 
 Judith seemed to have heard what he said to 
 her from far away, and to be only faintly puzzled 
 by it, not interested or touched. Her eyes kept 
 their secrets under his questioning eyes. They 
 defied him. She was not like his little lost sweet- 
 heart found again, but a stranger and an enemy,
 
 288 The Wishing Moon 
 
 one of the people he hated, people who intrigued 
 and lied, but were out of his reach and above him, 
 and were all his enemies. 
 
 The boy's world was upsetting. Nothing that 
 had happened to him in that room or ever had 
 happened to him before had shaken it like that 
 minute of doubt that he lived through in silence, 
 with the strain of it showing in his pale face, and 
 Charlie's voice echoing half heard in his ears. 
 He drew back from Judith slightly as they stood. 
 He was trembling. Judith's face was a blur of 
 white before his eyes, then he could not see it 
 and then, as suddenly as it had come, his black 
 minute was over. 
 
 "Take me away. I don't want to stay where 
 he is any more. Is he dead?" Judith said, and 
 she slipped her hand into Neil's. 
 
 Judith's voice was as lifeless and strange as 
 before, and the hand in his was cold, but it was 
 Judith's own little clinging hand, and the boy's 
 hand closed on it tight. He stood still, feeling 
 it in his, and holding it as if the poor little cold 
 hand could give him back all his strength again. 
 He looked round him at the dim room and its 
 motionless owner and Charlie as if he were seeing 
 them clearly for the first time. He was not angry 
 with Charlie any longer. He was not angry at all. 
 He drew a deep, sobbing breath of relief, dropped
 
 The Wishing Moon 289 
 
 his dark head suddenly and awkwardly toward 
 Judith's unresponsive hand and kissed it, and then 
 very gently let it go. 
 
 "Judith, you're you," he said, "just you, no 
 matter what happens, and nothing else matters; 
 nothing in the world, as long as you are you." 
 
 Judith only smiled her faint half smile at him, 
 as if she guessed that some crisis had come and 
 passed, but did not greatly care. 
 
 "Take me away," she repeated patiently. "I 
 thought there'd be other people here. He said 
 so. But I've come here alone before, only he was 
 different to-day. He was different." 
 
 " Don't tell me. I don't want to know. I won't 
 ever ask you again. I never ought to have asked 
 you. It's all right, dear. It's all right." 
 
 "I didn't know people were like that any- 
 body, ever. I just didn't know '*' 
 
 "Don't, dear," said Neil sharply. The small, 
 bewildered voice that held more wonder and pain 
 than her words broke off, but her bewildered eyes 
 still wondered and grieved. Neil's arms went out 
 to her suddenly and drew her close, holding her 
 gently, and hiding her small, pathetic face against 
 his shoulder. 
 
 "Don't," he whispered. "I'll take care of you. 
 I'm going to take care of you. Nobody's going to 
 hurt you any more."
 
 290 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Neil, I just didn't know. I didn't know." 
 "It's all right. I'm going to take you away. 
 Just wait, dear. I'm going to take care of 
 
 you." 
 
 He spoke to her softly, saying the same thing 
 over and over, as if he were quieting a frightened 
 child. She was quiet in his arms like a frightened 
 and tired child in any arms held out to it. One 
 arm had slipped round his neck and clung to him. 
 She drew long choking breaths as if she were too 
 tired to cry. Gradually they stopped, but the 
 arm round his neck only clung tighter. 
 
 "Don't leave me," she whispered. 
 
 "No, I'm not going to. I'm going to take 
 care of you. You know that, don't you, Judith?" 
 
 "Yes. Neil?" 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "Neil." Still in his arms, because she felt safe 
 and protected there, Judith lifted her head and 
 looked at him, and into her sweet, dazed eyes, full 
 of a terror that she could not understand, came a 
 faint flash of anger. This boy who held her so 
 safe and comforted was her enemy, too. Long 
 before the ugly accident of what had happened 
 behind the library doors he had been her enemy, 
 and he was her enemy now, though she needed 
 his protection and took it. Their quarrel was not 
 over.
 
 The Wishing Moon 291 
 
 "Neil, I don't forgive you. I'm never going 
 to forgive you." 
 
 "All right, dear." 
 
 "And I hate you. You know that, don't you? 
 I hate you." 
 
 "Yes, dear, I know it. We aren't going to talk 
 about that now. Let me go." 
 
 Both arms were round him now. Judith let 
 him draw them gently apart and down, and drew 
 back from him. The anger was gone from her 
 eyes. She watched him wide eyed and still, as 
 children watch the incomprehensible activities 
 of grownups, or devoted but jealous dogs watch 
 them. 
 
 "Don't leave me," she said. "You're sweet to 
 me." Then she gave a sharp, startled little cry. 
 
 "Neil," she begged, "don't touch him. I 
 don't want you to touch him. What are you 
 going to do?" 
 
 The light had not had time to dim or shift per- 
 ceptibly in Colonel Everard's big room while so 
 much was settling itself for Neil and Judith. 
 The Colonel still lay with the pale shaft of after- 
 noon light on his unconscious face. Now the boy 
 was kneeling beside him. He slipped a strong, 
 careful arm under his shoulders, and bent over 
 him, touching him with quick, sure hands. He 
 ignored Mr. Brady, who stood crying out inco-
 
 292 The Wishing Moon 
 
 herent protests beside him, and finally put a shak- 
 ing hand on his shoulder. 
 
 Neil shook it off, and rose and stood facing his 
 cousin. 
 
 "I thought so," he said, with a short laugh. 
 "You had me going at first, Charlie, when I came 
 in here and saw what a pretty picture you made. 
 I believed you. I thought you had killed him. 
 I might have known things like that don't happen 
 in Green River." 
 
 Neil put both hands on his cousin's shoulders 
 and looked at him. Mr. Brady was not an at- 
 tractive sight at that moment. The excitement 
 that had held and swayed him was leaving him 
 now, and he looked shaken and weak. An un- 
 healthy colour purpled his cheeks, and his sullen 
 eyes glared vindictively, but could not meet Neil's 
 eyes. 
 
 " Don't laugh at me," he muttered. " Don't you 
 dare to laugh at me." 
 
 " Going to beat me up, too?" his cousin inquired. 
 "Poor old Charlie! Let's hope your friend there 
 will laugh at you when he talks this over with you. 
 He'll come out of this all right, but he'll be in a 
 better temper if he has a doctor here. I'll 'phone 
 for one." 
 
 "What do you mean? I've killed him. I'm 
 glad I killed him. "
 
 The Wishing Moon 29S 
 
 His cousin laughed again. "Killed him? The 
 man's no more dead than you are. You've 
 knocked him out, that's all. But you didn't kill 
 him. Is that the 'phone over there?" 
 
 A desk telephone on a big Louis Quinze table 
 at one end of the room, the instrument masked 
 by the frilly skirts of a French mannequin, perhaps 
 the only lady who had ever been permitted to be 
 insipid in that room and to stay there long, an- 
 swered Neil's question by ringing faintly, once and 
 again. Neil started toward it, but did not reach 
 it. Mr. Brady had flung himself suddenly upon 
 him in a last burst of feverish strength, which he 
 dissipated recklessly by shrieking out incoherent 
 things, and striking misdirected blows. 
 
 Neil parried them easily, caught his thin arms 
 and held them at his sides. Keeping them so, he 
 forced him against the edge of the flimsy table 
 and held him there and looked at him. 
 
 "You shan't answer that 'phone," Mr. Brady 
 cried, in a last futile burst of defiance. "You 
 shan't stop me. You shan't interfere. I'll kill 
 him, I tell you, and you shan't answer that 'phone. 
 You shan't " 
 
 Mr. Brady's voice died away, and he was silent 
 under his cousin's eyes. 
 
 "Through?" said Neil presently. 
 
 "Yes," he muttered.
 
 294 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Do you mean it?" 
 
 Mr. Brady nodded sullenly. 
 
 "You've made a fool of yourself?" 
 
 Mr. Brady nodded again. 
 
 "Neil," he got out presently, "I can make it up 
 to you. I haven't been square with you, but I can. 
 I will. You don't know " 
 
 " You've done talking enough. Will you go now ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "You'll quiet down and go to mother's and stay 
 there till I come?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Neil let him go. 
 
 " Maybe I'll finish up your friend for you myself, 
 Charlie, after you leave here," he offered. "I've 
 thought of it often enough. Now I come here and 
 fight for him instead of fighting against him. I 
 fight with you. Poor old Charlie. Murder and 
 sudden death! I tell you, things like that don't 
 happen hi Green River." 
 
 Neil stopped talking suddenly. The telephone 
 at his elbow had rung again, this time with a sharp, 
 sudden peal, peremptory as an impatient voice 
 speaking. Neil caught it up, jerked off the sim- 
 pering lady by her audacious hat, and answered. 
 
 At once, strangely intimate and near in that 
 room where the three had been shut in for the last 
 half hour alone and away from the rest of the world
 
 The Wishing Moon 295 
 
 while it went on as usual or faster, a man's voice 
 spoke to him. It was almost unrecognizable, so 
 excited and hoarse, but it was Luther Ward's. 
 
 "Hello," Neil said. "Hello. Yes, this is Ever- 
 ards'. No, he can't come to the 'phone. He 
 what? What's that?" 
 
 Neil stopped and listened breathlessly. Mr. 
 Brady, slinking head down from the room, turned 
 curiously to stare at him, and Judith, slipping 
 across the room like a little white ghost, drew close 
 to him and felt for his hand. Neil took her hand, 
 this time with no response of heart or nerves. He 
 had put down the telephone, replacing the re- 
 ceiver mechanically, but Luther Ward's voice still 
 echoed in his ears. 
 
 It had spoken to an uncanny accompaniment 
 of half-heard voices, rattling unintelligibly in the 
 room where Ward was, the prosaic, tobacco- 
 scented room that Neil knew so well. 
 
 "Tell Everard to come," Ward's voice had said. 
 " He's to come down here, to Saxon's office. I'm 
 there now. Theodore Burr has shot himself, 
 yes, shot himself. He won't live through the night. 
 Who's this talking to me? Neil Donovan, it's 
 you. What are you doing at Everard's? Never 
 mind. Come down here yourself. Come straight 
 down. Theodore's conscious, and talking, and 
 he's been asking for you."
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY 
 
 GREEN RIVER was getting ready for the 
 rally in Odd Fellows' Hall. It was six 
 o'clock on the evening of the seventeenth 
 of September, and " Grand rally, Odd Fellows' Hall, 
 September Seventeenth at eight-thirty," had been 
 featured for weeks in the Green River Record, on 
 the list that with a somewhat arrogant suggestion 
 of prophetic powers possessed by the Record was 
 headed "Coming Events." It was always a 
 scanty list, especially in the fall, when ten, twenty, 
 thirty companies began to play larger centres, and 
 church lawn parties and circuses could no longer 
 appear on it. Sometimes not more than six events 
 were to come in a gray and workaday world. 
 But six were enough to announce. Even a true 
 prophet is not expected to see all the future, only 
 to see clearly all that he sees, and the Record did 
 that. 
 
 This rally was important enough to be listed 
 all by itself, and it did not need the adjective 
 grand. It was The Rally. 
 
 It was Green River's own a local, almost a 
 family, affair. No out-of-town celebrities were 
 
 296
 
 The Wishing Moon 297 
 
 to be imported this time, to be listened to with 
 awe and then wined and dined by the Colonel safe 
 from the curious eyes of the town. This time old 
 Joe Grant was to preside, as he had done as a 
 matter of course on all such occasions when he was 
 the acknowledged head of the town in political 
 and financial matters, in the old days of high- 
 sounding oratory and simpler politics that were 
 gone forever, but were not very long ago. Judge 
 Saxon, an old timer, too, and better loved than 
 the Honourable Joe, had declined the honour of 
 presiding, but had the authentic offer of it, his 
 first distinction of the kind for years. 
 
 It was a local but very important occasion. It 
 was Colonel Everard's first official appearance as 
 candidate for mayor. It was to be a very modest 
 appearance. No more time was allotted for his 
 speech than for Luther Ward's. He was putting 
 himself on a level with Luther and the Judge and 
 the Honourable Joe and identifying himself at 
 last with local politics. The evening emphasized 
 the great man's condescension in accepting this 
 humble office and honouring Green River. Even 
 with the scandal of Theodore Burr's suicide unex- 
 plained still and only two weeks old, interest 
 centred on the rally. It was a triumph for the 
 town. 
 
 Green River was almost ready. Dugan's or-
 
 298 The Wishing Moon 
 
 chestra was engaged for the evening, instead of a 
 rival organization from Wells, which the Colonel 
 often imported upon private and public occasions. 
 Jerry Dugan was getting old, too, like the Judge and 
 the Honourable Joe. He had not lost the peculiar 
 wail and lilt from his fiddling, but he had made few 
 recent additions to his repertoire. Just now the 
 band concert in front of Odd Fellows' Hall was 
 winding up with his old favourite: "A Day on 
 the Battlefield." 
 
 It had the old swing still, contagious as ever. 
 Loafers in front of the hall shuffled their feet in 
 time to it. Moon-struck young persons hanging 
 two by two over the railings of the bridge to gaze 
 at the water straightened themselves and listened. 
 An ambitious soloist lounging against the court- 
 house fence across the square began to whistle it 
 with elaborate variations, at the inspiring moment 
 when "morning in the forest" had bird-called and 
 syncopated itself into silence, and actual fighting, 
 and the martial music of the charge began. 
 
 High and lilting and shrill, it hung in the still 
 night air, alive for the hour, challenging the echoes 
 of dead tunes that lingered about the square, only 
 to die away and be one with them at last; band 
 music, old-fashioned band music, blatant and 
 empty and splendid, clear through the still night 
 air, attuned to the night and the town.
 
 The Wishing Moon 299 
 
 "Good old tune. Gets into your feet," Judge 
 Saxon said, while his wife adjusted his tie before 
 the black walnut mirror in their bedroom, but his 
 unual tribute to the tune was perfunctory to- 
 night, and his wife ignored it, wisely taking this 
 moment of helpfulness to plunge him suddenly 
 and briskly into a series of questions which she had 
 been trying in vain for some time to get the correct 
 answers to. 
 
 "Hugh," she said, "why wouldn't you take the 
 chair to-night?" 
 
 "You were the only thing I ever tried to take 
 away from Joe Grant and got away with it, Millie," 
 the Judge explained gallantly. 
 
 "Don't you think this rally is like old times? 
 Don't you want to see the town stand on its own 
 feet again, instead of being run from outside?" 
 
 "I do, Millie." 
 
 Mrs. Saxon made her next point triumphantly, 
 connecting it with the point before by some obscure 
 logic known only to ladies. 
 
 "Hugh, a father could not do more for Lillian 
 Burr than the Colonel has since poor Theodore 
 went. The house full of flowers, calling there him- 
 self every day and twice a day, though she won't 
 see him; but Lillian won't see any one. The 
 Colonel's been ailing himself, too, but he wouldn't 
 put off the rally and disappoint the town. And
 
 300 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the new library will open this fall, and there's 
 talk that he's giving an organ to the church. 
 Hugh, don't you think Theodore's death may have 
 sobered him? Don't you think this may be the 
 beginning of better things ? Don't you think ' ' 
 
 "I think you're making a butterfly bow. I 
 don't like them," said the Judge, with the in- 
 genuous smile that somehow closed a subject. 
 She sighed, but changed her attack. 
 
 "Turn round now. I want to brush you. 
 Hugh, what has happened to Neil Donovan?" 
 
 "What do you mean, happened to him?" 
 snapped the Judge, and then added soberly, 
 "I don't know, Millie. I wish I did." 
 
 "An Irish boy can get just so far and no farther." 
 
 "How far, Millie?" 
 
 "Don't be flippant, Hugh. There's something 
 strange about Neil lately. He didn't speak three 
 times at the table last time he came to supper here. 
 He looks at me as if he didn't know who I was 
 when I speak to him on the street sometimes. 
 There's no life in him. He's like Charlie and all 
 the rest of them giving out just when things are 
 going his way; that's an Irish boy every time." 
 
 "When things are going his way? When his 
 best friend has just shot himself?" 
 
 "I didn't refer to that, Hugh," said Mrs. Saxon 
 with dignity.
 
 The Wishing Moon 301 
 
 "No?" 
 
 "I referred to Neil's family affairs, and the fact 
 that Colonel Everard has taken him up." 
 
 "Maggie home and behaving herself and no 
 questions asked, Charlie shipped to Wells, and 
 Neil going shooting twice with the Colonel?" 
 
 "Three times, Hugh." 
 
 "And that's what you call things going his 
 way." 
 
 "Hugh, why should those two spend any time 
 together at all? They hate each other, or I al- 
 ways thought so that is, if a man like the Colo- 
 nel could hate a boy like Neil. What does he 
 want of Neil now? What does Neil want of 
 him?" 
 
 "They don't tell me, Millie." 
 
 "But it's queer. It frightens me, Hugh. It's 
 
 as queer as 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Everything," Mrs. Saxon said, goaded into 
 an exaggeration foreign to her placid type, "every- 
 thing, lately. You refusing to preside to-night. 
 Lillian Burr shutting herself up in this uncanny 
 way. It is uncanny, even if she is in trouble. 
 Minna Randall taking to church work, and sewing 
 for hours at a time, and taking long drives with 
 her husband. They haven't been inside the 
 Colonel's doors for weeks. Their second girl told
 
 302 The Wishing Moon 
 
 our Mary that they have refused five invitations 
 there in the last month. It's my idea that he 
 gave that last stag dinner because he couldn't get 
 Minna or Edith there, or any woman. Why 
 should his own circle turn against him, just when 
 he's doing real good to the town? And it's not 
 only his own circle that's against him. I was 
 matching curtains at Ward's when Sebastian 
 came in to-day, and Luther Ward was barely 
 civil to him the Colonel's own secretary. What's 
 wrong with the town, Hugh? Can't it be grate- 
 ful to the Colonel, now when he really deserves 
 it?" 
 
 "Don't worry about what Everard deserves. 
 He's not likely to get it, Millie." 
 
 Again the Judge was closing the subject, and 
 this time his wife had no more to say. She gave 
 his threadbare, scrupulously pressed coat a final 
 pat and jerk of adjustment, and stood off and 
 looked at him. 
 
 "You'll do," she said, "now go along. The 
 music's stopping. It won't look well if you're 
 late." 
 
 She turned off the flickering gas jet above the 
 marble-topped bureau abruptly, but not before 
 the Judge had caught the gleam of tears in her 
 eyes. 
 
 "Why girl," he said, and came close to her and
 
 The Wishing Moon 303 
 
 slipped an arm round her plump, comfortable 
 waist. " You're really troubled." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And vexed with me for not helping you." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He had drawn her toward a front window of the 
 big, square room. The Judge and his wife stood 
 by it quietly, looking down through a triangle 
 of white, starched curtains at the glimmering, 
 sparsely lit length of street below, and straighten- 
 ing out their difficulties in darkness and silence, 
 as all true lovers should, even lovers at fifty, as 
 these two were fortunate enough to be. 
 
 "Millie, I don't want to tease you," the Judge 
 said. "I'll tell you anything you want to know." 
 
 "I've been so worried," she wept comfortably 
 against his shoulder. "I'm so afraid." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I feel as if something anything might happen. 
 I oh, you'll only laugh. I can't just tell you, 
 Hugh." 
 
 "I'll tell you," said the Judge. 
 
 He hesitated and then went on slowly, speaking 
 more to himself than to her. 
 
 "Women hate change. That makes them dread 
 it, even when it's not coming. You're dreading 
 it, but it's not coming now, dear. There's feeling 
 against Everard. You're right, but you exagger-
 
 304 The Wishing Moon 
 
 ate it. It's instinctive and unformulated. It 
 hasn't gone far and won't go any farther. He 
 won't let it. The rally and the library and this 
 new democracy stuff, stag dinners to Ward's 
 crowd and all, are part of a campaign to stop it. 
 The campaign will succeed. Everard's own crowd 
 won't quarrel with him. They can't afford to. 
 Everard has pulled through worse times than this. 
 I've helped him myself, and I shall help him again. 
 "There'll be no change, Millie. Things will go 
 on just the way they are. I've lived the best 
 years of my life believing that it was best they 
 should, and if I'm wrong, I'm too old to change my 
 mind. I've said somebody had to own the town, 
 and it might as well be Everard. I've said the 
 Burrs and Kents and Randalls, and old Joe 
 Grant's young wife with their parties and drinks 
 and silly little love affairs, were playing too hard, 
 but doing no real harm, planting their cheap, fake 
 smart set here in Green River where it don't be- 
 long. Now poor Theodore Burr's dead. That 
 don't look like play. Harry Randall's so deep in 
 debt to the bank for what Everard's let him bor- 
 row that he has to stay on there at three thousand 
 a year, though he's been offered twice that in 
 Wells. Everard won't let him go. And the best 
 I can say about myself in the years I've worked 
 for Everard is that I've kept my hands clean, if
 
 The Wishing Moon 305 
 
 I have had to keep my eyes shut, but I can say 
 that to you, Millie." 
 
 "It does look like old times down there," he went 
 on softly, after a minute. "The street and the 
 lights are the same. And it sounds like old times. 
 It was from a rally in the hall that I first went 
 home with you, Millie. Remember? I was just a 
 boy then, but I wish I was hah* the man I was 
 then, to-night." He heard a murmur of protest, 
 and laughed. "But I do, Millie. I wouldn't 
 be helping Everard." 
 
 "Oh, Hugh!" 
 
 "Don't worry. Everard will pull through all 
 right. Look at the Randalls over there, starting 
 for the hall. Leave your windows open, Millie, 
 and you'll soon hear them all cheering for Ever- 
 ard. The moon won't rise till late, but it will be 
 full to-night. Listen, the band's going into the 
 hall now." 
 
 The Judge rested his cheek for a moment against 
 his wife's soft, smooth hair, the decorous, satisfy- 
 ing caress of a decorous generation, then he raised 
 his head with a long, tired sigh. 
 
 "I wish I was young," he said. "I wish I was 
 young to-night." 
 
 "I wish I was young," the Judge had said, 
 with a thrill and hunger that was the soul of youth
 
 306 The Wishing Moon 
 
 itself in his voice. At the moment when he said 
 it, a boy who had the privilege that the Judge 
 coveted, and was not enjoying it just then, was 
 leaning against the court-house railing, and watch- 
 ing Green River crowd into Odd Fellows' Hall. 
 
 Another boy had pushed his way across the 
 square to his side, and was not heartily welcomed 
 there, but was calmly unconscious of it. 
 
 "Some night, Donovan," he remarked. 
 
 "Some night, Willard," Neil agreed gravely. 
 
 "Going in? Good for three hours of hot air?" 
 
 "I'm not going. No." 
 
 " Good boy. Say " Mr. Willard Nash lowered 
 his voice as he made this daring suggestion 
 "we'll go around to Halloran's, and get into a 
 little game." 
 
 His invitation was not accepted. 
 
 "Jerry Dugan's not dead yet," observed Wil- 
 lard presently. 
 
 Strains of a deservedly popular waltz tune, 
 heard from inside the hall, gave faint but unmis- 
 takable proof of this. Willard kept time with his 
 feet as he listened, paying the tune the tribute of 
 silence, a rare one from him. Standing so, the 
 two were sharply contrasted figures, though the 
 flickering lamps in the square threw only faint 
 light here, and showed them darkly outlined 
 against the railing, as they leaned there side by
 
 The Wishing Moan 307 
 
 side. Pose, carriage, every movement and turn 
 of the head were different, as different as a bulky 
 and overgrown child is from a boy turning into a 
 man. 
 
 "Some night," Willard repeated, unanswered, 
 but unchilled by it, " and some crowd." 
 
 The hall had been filling fast. Though the 
 waltz still swung its faint challenge into the night, 
 so much of Green River had responded to it al- 
 ready that now it was arriving only by twos and 
 threes. But the groups still followed each other 
 fast under the big globe of light at the entrance 
 door, gayly shaded with red for the occasion, and 
 up the bare, clattering stairs to the floor above, 
 and the hall. 
 
 Willard was right, more right than he knew. 
 There was a crowd up there, a crowd as Willard 
 did not understand the word; a crowd with a tone 
 and temper of its own and a personality of its own. 
 It was subject to laws of its own and could think 
 and feel for itself, and its thoughts and feelings 
 were made up of the brain stuff of every person 
 in it, but different from them all. It was a newly 
 created thing, a new factor in the world, and like 
 all crowds it was born for one evening, to live for 
 that evening only, and do its work and die. 
 
 Upstairs behind closed doors, such a crowd was 
 forming; getting ready to think its own thoughts
 
 308 The Wishing Moon 
 
 _x 
 
 and act and feel, and so many houses, little and 
 big, had emptied themselves to contribute to it, 
 so many family discussions like the Saxons' had 
 gone on as a prelude to it, that you might fairly 
 say the crowd up there was Green River. 
 
 Willard, watching the late arrivals and com- 
 menting upon them to Neil, still an uncommunica- 
 tive audience, was vaguely stirred. 
 
 "This gets me," he conceded. "There's some- 
 thing about old Dugan's music that always gets 
 me. For two cents, I'd go in. I sat through a 
 patent medicine show there last week, because I 
 didn't have the sense to stay away. It always 
 gets me when there is anything doing in the hall. 
 And " he paused, heavily testing his powers of 
 self-analysis, "it gets me," he brought out at 
 length, "more to-night than it ever did before. 
 It gets me." 
 
 "Look, there's Joe Grant," Willard went on. 
 "This is his night, all right. Look at the bulge 
 to that manuscript case, and the shine to his hair. 
 He mixes varnish with his hair dye, all right. I 
 said, look at him." 
 
 "I'm looking." 
 
 "Well, you don't do much else. What's eating 
 you to-night? Say, will you go in if I will?" 
 
 An inarticulate murmur answered him. 
 
 "What's that?"
 
 The Wishing Moan 309 
 
 "No." 
 
 " All right. Well, what do you know about that? 
 Look there." 
 
 "I'm looking." 
 
 The latest comers were crowding hurriedly into 
 the entrance hall by this time, and with them, a 
 slender, heavily veiled figure had slipped quickly 
 through the door and out of sight. 
 
 " Was that Lil? " Willard said. " Lil Burr? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "She wouldn't come here; I don't believe it." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "She told me." 
 
 "What was she doing, talking to you? Why, 
 she won't talk to anybody. She " 
 
 "You'll be late at Hallorans'." 
 
 "Aren't you coming?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But you said you would. I don't want to go 
 if you don't. I don't half like to leave you here, 
 you act so queer to-night. What makes you act 
 so? What's eating 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 Willard detached himself from the railings and 
 regarded his friend, suddenly breathless with sur- 
 prise, and deeply grieved. Nothing. The word, 
 harmless in itself, had been spoken so that it hit
 
 310 The Wishing Moon 
 
 him like an actual blow, straight from the shoulder. 
 Neil, shifting so that the light showed his face, was 
 returning his look with the sudden, unreasoning 
 anger that we feel toward little sounds that beat 
 their slow way into our consciousness at night, 
 to irritate us unendurably at last. 
 
 "Go," he urged, "go along to Halloran's. Go 
 anywhere." 
 
 "Well, what do you know about that?" began 
 Willard, offended, and then forgave him. There 
 was a look in Neil's pale face that commanded 
 forgiveness. It was pale and strained with a 
 trouble that had nothing to do with Willard, and 
 Willard was respectful and inarticulate before 
 it. 
 
 "That's all right," Willard muttered, "that will 
 be all right. I'll go." 
 
 Neil took no notice of this promise. Up in the 
 hall the waltz had swelled to a high, light-hearted 
 climax, heady and strained, like the sudden excite- 
 ments that sweep a crowd. It came clear through 
 the open windows, making one last appeal to the 
 boy below to come up and be part of what was 
 there. And just then a small closed car swept 
 down through the empty square and stopped. 
 Two men stepped out, and paused in the doorway 
 under the red-shaded light. 
 
 One was the Colonel's secretary, waiting on the
 
 The Wishing Moon 311 
 
 step beyond range of the light, a tall, shadowy 
 figure, and the other, who stood with the light on 
 his face, was Colonel Everard. 
 
 He was still pale from his week of illness, but his 
 keen eyes and clear-cut profile were more effective 
 for that. He stood listening to the sounds from 
 upstairs, and he smiled as he listened. He turned 
 at last and looked out across the square as if he 
 could feel Neil's eyes upon him and were returning 
 their look, and then turned away and disappeared 
 up the stairs. 
 
 "Neil," Willard was announcing uneasily, "I 
 think a lot of you. I'd do a lot for you. If you're 
 in wrong, any way, if " 
 
 Willard broke off, rebuffed. Neil did not even 
 look at him. He stood staring at the lighted 
 doorway where the Colonel had stood and smiled, 
 as if he could still see him there. He was a crea- 
 ture beyond Willard's world, as he looked, but un- 
 accountably fascinating to Willard. Willard re- 
 garded him in awed silence. 
 
 Now Dugan's music had stopped. Some one 
 above shut a window with a clatter that echoed 
 disproportionately loud. Then there was silence 
 up there, tense silence, and the call of the silence 
 was harder to resist than the music. The boy by 
 the court-house railing could not resist it. He 
 pushed away Willard's detaining hand, and with-
 
 312 The Wishing Moon 
 
 out a word to him or another glance at him, was 
 across the square and through the red-lighted door, 
 and running up the stairs. 
 
 "What do you know about that?" Willard de- 
 manded, in vain. "What do you know " 
 
 Willard, certainly, knew nothing, and gave up 
 the attempt to understand, with a sigh. 
 
 A little later the vantage point of the court- 
 house fence was unoccupied. Of the two boys 
 who had occupied it, one was making a belated and 
 rather disconsolate way toward Halloran's the 
 one who would be boasting to-morrow that he had 
 spent the last fifteen minutes with Neil Donovan. 
 The other boy stood listening outside the closed 
 doors of the hall. 
 
 It was half an hour later and it had been an 
 important half -hour in Odd Fellows' Hall, that 
 uneventful but vital time when the newly made 
 creature that is the crowd is passive, gathering its 
 forces slowly, getting ready to fling the weight of 
 them into one side of a balance irrevocably, if it has 
 decisions to make; the most important half-hour 
 of the evening if you were interested in the psychol- 
 ogy of crowds. The Honourable Joe Grant was 
 not. He would have said that the first speech 
 dragged and the half-hour had been dull. Dull or 
 significant, that half-hour was over, and Green
 
 The Wishing Moon 313 
 
 River was waking up. In the listening hush of the 
 hall the big moments of the evening, whatever 
 they were to be, were creeping nearer and nearer. 
 Now they were almost here. 
 
 The Honourable Joe had just introduced Luther 
 Ward and heavily resumed his seat. He sat 
 portly and erect and entirely happy behind the 
 thin-legged, inadequate looking table that held a 
 water pitcher, his important looking papers, and 
 his watch. The ornately chased gold watch that 
 had measured so many epoch-making hours for 
 Green River was in public life again, like the 
 Honourable Joe. He fingered it affectionately, 
 wiped his forehead delicately from time to time 
 with a purple silk handkerchief, followed Mr. 
 Ward's remarks with unwavering brown eyes, and 
 smiled his benevolent, public-spirited smile. This 
 was his night indeed. 
 
 Behind the Honourable Joe, on the stage in a semi- 
 circular row of chairs were the speakers of the even- 
 ing, and before him was Green River. 
 
 The badly proportioned little hall was not at its 
 best to-night. It was too brightly lit and the 
 footlights threw an uncompromising glare upon the 
 tiny stage. Red, white, and blue cheesecloth in 
 crude, sharp colouring draped windows and stage, 
 making gay little splashes of colour that em- 
 phasized the dinginess of the room. Only the
 
 314 The Wishing Moon 
 
 Grand Army flag, borrowed and draped elaborately 
 above the stage, showed faded and thin against 
 the brightness of the cheesecloth, but kept its 
 dignity and kept up its claim to homage still. 
 And the ugliness of the room was a thing to be 
 discounted and forgotten, like some beautiful, full- 
 blooded woman's tawdry, and ill-chosen clothes, 
 because this room held Green River. 
 
 Green River, filling the little room to over- 
 flowing, standing in the rear of the room, crowding 
 every available inch of space on benches, window 
 sills, and an emergency supply of camp chairs, 
 impressive as that much sheer bulk of humanity, 
 crowded between four walls, becomes impressive, 
 and impressive in its own right, too; Green River 
 represented as it was, with all the warring, un- 
 reconciled elements that made the town. 
 
 For they were all here, Paddy Lane, and the 
 Everard circle, and the intermediate stages of 
 society, the Gaynors and other prosperous farmers 
 and unprosperous farmers and their wives, from 
 the outskirts of the town, and citizens a cut above 
 them both, like the Wards, were all represented 
 here. Mrs. Kent, hatless and evening coated, 
 was elbowed by a lady from Paddy Lane, hatless 
 because she had no presentable hat, and wearing 
 a ragged shawl. These two were side by side, 
 and they had the same look on their faces. There
 
 The Wishing Moon 315 
 
 was something of it now on every face in the room. 
 It was a look of listening and waiting. 
 
 It was on every face, and it grew more intense 
 every minute that Luther Ward's speech droned on, 
 though it was only a dry, illogical rehash of political 
 issues that could not have called that look into any 
 face. It was as if the audience listened eagerly 
 through it because every word of it was bringing 
 them nearer to something that was to follow. 
 What was it? What did Green River want? 
 What was it waiting for? Green River itself 
 did not know, but it was very near. 
 
 Perhaps it was coming now. This might well 
 be the climax of the evening. No more important 
 event was scheduled. Luther Ward, looking dis- 
 contented with his performance, but relieved to 
 complete it, had sunk into his chair to a scattered 
 echoing of applause, and the next speaker was 
 Colonel Everard. 
 
 The Honourable Joe was rising to introduce him. 
 The little introductory speech was a masterpiece, 
 for, though the Colonel had edited every word of 
 it, it was still hi the Honourable Joe's best style, 
 flowery and sprinkled with quotations. 
 
 "I will not say more," it concluded magnifi- 
 cently, "of one whose life and work among you 
 can best speak for itself, and who will speak for 
 himself now, in his own person. I present to
 
 316 The Wishing Moon 
 
 you the Republican candidate for mayor, Colonel 
 Everard." 
 
 And now the Honourable Joe had bowed and 
 smiled himself into his seat, and the great man was 
 on his feet, and coming forward to the centre of the 
 stage. The first real applause of the evening 
 greeted him, not very hearty or sustained, but 
 prompt at least. He looked like a very great man 
 indeed, as he stood acknowledging it, his most 
 effective self, a strong man, though so lightly 
 built, erect and pliant of carriage, a man with in- 
 finite reserves of power and dignity. He was 
 smiling, and his smile was the same that the boy 
 by the court-house fence had seen, a tantalizing 
 smile of assurance and charm and power, as if he 
 were master of himself and the town. 
 
 This was his moment, planned for and led up to 
 for weeks, but Colonel Everard was slow to take 
 advantage of it. He stood still, with his eyes to- 
 ward the rear of the hall. As he stood so, heads 
 here and there turned and looked where he was 
 looking. Presently all Green River saw what the 
 Colonel saw. A boy was pushing his way toward 
 the front of the hall a boy who had slipped quietly 
 inside the doors unnoticed fifteen minutes before, 
 and came forward now just as quietly, but held 
 their eyes as he came. Now he had reached the 
 stage, and he broke through the barrier of golden-
 
 The Wishing Moon 317 
 
 rod that fenced the short flight of steps, crushing 
 the flowers under his feet, and now he was on the 
 stage confronting Colonel Everard. It was Neil 
 Donovan. 
 
 " Sit down," he said to the great man. " They're 
 not going to listen to you. They're going to listen 
 to me." 
 
 After that he did not wait to see if the great 
 man took his amazing advice. He came forward 
 alone, and spoke to Green River. He was not an 
 imposing figure as he stood there, only a lean, eager 
 boy, with dark, flashing eyes, and a face that was 
 very pale in the glare of the footlights. He hardly 
 raised his tense, low-pitched voice as he spoke, 
 but Green River heard. 
 
 "You're going to listen to me." 
 
 And it was true. Green River was going to lis- 
 ten. In the middle of the hall, where the chief 
 delegation from Paddy Lane was massed, a ripple 
 of excitement promised the boy support. It was 
 seconded by a muttering and shuffling of feet on 
 the rear benches, devoted to the youth of the town. 
 From here and there in the hall there were mur- 
 murs of protest, too, dying out one by one, and 
 ceasing automatically, like the whispered consulta- 
 tion that went on behind him on the stage. 
 
 But the boy did not wait for support or regard 
 interruptions. He did not need to. The audience
 
 318 The Wishing Moon 
 
 was his in spite of them, and he knew it and they 
 knew it. Whatever he had to say, important or 
 not, it was what they had been waiting for; that 
 was what the evening had been leading to, and it 
 was here at last. Pale and intent, the boy looked 
 across the footlights at Green River. The au- 
 dience was his, but he had no pride in the triumph. 
 He began haltingly to speak. 
 
 "It will do no good to you or me, but you're 
 going to listen. I've got a word to say about 
 Everard. 
 
 "He's sucked your town dry for years and you 
 know it. He's had the pick of your men and used 
 their brains and their youth, and he's had the pick 
 of your women. If there are any of you here that 
 he's got no hold on, it's because you're worth 
 nothing to h m. He's got the town. Now he's 
 driven one of your boys to his death. 
 
 "'I can't beat him/ That's what Theodore 
 Burr said to me the night he died. 'They won't 
 blame him for this. I want to die because I don't 
 want to live in the world with him, but I'll do no 
 harm to him by dying, only to Lily and me. They 
 won't blame him. You can't beat Everard.' 
 
 " Well, you don't blame Everard. He's got you 
 where you don't blame him, whatever he does. 
 You shut your eyes to it. He's got you. You 
 know all this and you shut your eyes. Now I'll
 
 The Wishing Moon 319 
 
 tell you some things you don't know. Everard's 
 been trying for weeks to bribe me to keep my 
 mouth shut, like he bribed Charlie for years. He 
 might have saved his breath and his money. I 
 can't hurt him, whether I keep my mouth shut or 
 not. You won't blame him. You'll let him get 
 away with this, too. But you're going to know." 
 
 The boy came closer still to the footlights and 
 leaned across them, pausing and deliberately choos- 
 ing his words. The pause, and the look in his dark, 
 intent eyes as he stood , there challenged Green 
 River and dared it to interrupt him. But it was 
 too late to interrupt, too late to stop him now. 
 And behind him in the place of honour in the centre 
 of the row of chairs on the stage, one man at least 
 was powerless to stop him: Colonel Everard, who 
 listened with a set smile on his lips, and a set stare 
 in his eyes. 
 
 " He's the man that broke Maggie Brady's life to 
 pieces," Neil's low voice went on. "Everard's the 
 man. He got her away from town. He filled 
 her head with him and set her wild and she had to 
 go. When he was tired of her, he left her in a 
 place he thought she'd be too proud to come back 
 from. She was proud, but he's broken her pride, 
 and she crawled back to us. The prettiest girl 
 in the town, she was, and you all knew that, and 
 my sister and more to me " he broke off
 
 320 The Wishing Moon 
 
 abruptly, and laughed a dry little laugh that 
 echoed strangely in the silent room. His voice 
 sounded dry and hard as he went on. 
 
 "He broke Maggie's life, but what's that to you, 
 that give him a chance at your women, knowing 
 well what he is, and leave them to take care of 
 themselves with him, your own women that are 
 yours to take care of, daughters and wives? It's 
 nothing to you, but you're going to know it, and 
 you're going to know this. I had it straight from 
 Theodore Burr the night he died. 
 
 "Everard's going to sell you out at the next 
 election, the whole of you his own crowd, too. 
 He's been planning it for months. He's worked 
 prohibition for all it's worth to him; worked for it 
 till the state went dry, and then he's made money 
 for you that are in it with him, and more for him- 
 self, protecting places like Halloran's that sell 
 liquor on the quiet, and the smuggling of liquor into 
 the state. Well, he's made money enough that 
 way, and it's getting risky, and now he sees a way 
 to make more and let nobody in on it. He's going 
 to sell out to the liquor interests and work against 
 prohibition, and the big card he'll use will be ex- 
 posing Halloran's and the secret traffic in liquor, 
 and all the crowd that's been buying protection 
 from him. There's a big campaign started al- 
 ready, and big money being spent. There'll be big
 
 The Wishing Moon 321 
 
 money in it for him. There'll be arrests made here 
 and a public scandal. He's going to sell the town. 
 
 "Maybe that interests you some. Maybe it 
 gets you. It won't for long. He'll crawl out 
 of it and lie out of it and talk you and buy you 
 back to him. Well, I know one thing more, and 
 he can't lie or crawl out of it. My father could 
 have put him behind bars any time in twenty 
 years. He's a common thief. 
 
 "It was when he was seventeen, and studying 
 law first, back in a town up state that's not on the 
 map or likely to get there, and he was called by a 
 name there that wasn't Everard. He was seven- 
 teen, but he was the same then as now; he had the 
 same will to get on and the power to, no matter 
 who he trampled on to get there, and the same 
 charm that got men and women both, though they 
 didn't trust him got them even when he was 
 trampling on them and they knew it. It got 
 him into trouble there with two girls at once. 
 One was the girl that gave him his start, the chance 
 to go into her uncle's office. He was the biggest 
 man hi the town. Older than Everard, this girl 
 was, and teaching in the school he went to, when 
 she fell in love with him and brought him home to 
 her town and gave him his chance. He was tired 
 of her, and she was where it was bound to come 
 out soon how things were with them, and so was
 
 322 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the other girl, a girl that he wasn't tired of, the 
 daughter of the woman where he boarded. He 
 tried to get her to go away with him. She wouldn't 
 go and she wouldn't forgive him, but the town was 
 getting too hot for him, and he had to go 
 
 "He had to go quick and make a clean getaway 
 and he wanted a real start this time. He had to 
 have money. That was a dead little town. There 
 was only one place he could get money enough, in 
 the little hotel there. It was the only bank they 
 had. The keeper of it used to cash checks and 
 make loans. Everard was lucky, the same then 
 as now. There was almost five thousand dollars 
 in the safe hi the hotel office the night he broke 
 into it, and that was enough for him. He had a 
 fight with the hotel clerk, but he got away with 
 the money, and he got away from the town. 
 
 "The clerk was his best friend in town never 
 trusted him, but fell for him the same as the girls 
 and lent him money and listened to his troubles 
 and fell for him again when he ran across him again, 
 years later, here in Green River. Everard told 
 him he'd sent the money back, and he kept the 
 secret. He never took hush money for it like 
 Charlie. He said Everard ought to have his 
 chance, and was straight now. But he fell for 
 Everard again, that's what happened. Everard 
 had him, the same as the rest of you.
 
 The Wishing Moon 323 
 
 " The clerk was my father.'* 
 
 The boy's voice broke off. There was dead 
 silence in the hall. Green River had been listen- 
 ing almost in silence, and did not break it now. 
 Presently the boy sighed, shrugged his thin shoul- 
 ders as if they were throwing off an actual weight, 
 and spoke again, this time in a lifeless voice, with 
 all the colour and drama wiped out of it, a voice 
 that was very tired. 
 
 "That's all," he said. "That's back of him, 
 with his fine airs and his far-reaching schemes and 
 his big name in the state. You've stood for a 
 crook. Will you stand for a common criminal, a 
 common thief? Now you know and it's up to 
 you. That's all." 
 
 An hour later a boy was hurrying through the 
 dark along the road to the Falls. 
 
 He was almost home. Green River lay far 
 behind with its scattered, sparsely strewn lights. 
 The flat fields around him and the unshaded road 
 before him, so bleak by day, were beautiful to- 
 night, far reaching and mysterious. Above them, 
 flat looking and unreal, remote hi a coldly clouded 
 sky, hung the yellow September moon. 
 
 "I've done for myself," the boy was saying half 
 out loud, as if the faraway moon could hear. " I've 
 lost everything now. I've done for myself."
 
 324 The Wishing Moon 
 
 The boy was sure of this, but could have told 
 little more about the events of the evening. He 
 remembered listening outside the hall doors until 
 he was drawn inside in spite of himself, and listen- 
 ing there until something snapped in his brain, and 
 suddenly the long days of repression, of vainly 
 wondering what to do with his hard-won knowl- 
 edge, were over, and he was pouring it all out in 
 one jumbled burst of speech. He had no plan 
 and no hope of doing harm to his enemy by speak- 
 ing. He had to speak. 
 
 After he had spoken he remembered getting 
 down from the stage and out of the hall somehow. 
 He remembered the crushed goldenrod, slippery 
 under his feet. Against a background of blurred, 
 unrecognizable faces, he remembered a tall, black- 
 garbed figure that rose to its feet swaying and then 
 steadying itself. It was Lilian Burr. Less clearly 
 he remembered a wave of sound from the hall that 
 followed him as he hurried away across the square. 
 It was not like applause. He did not know or 
 care what it meant. After that, he remembered 
 only the cool dark of the September night as he 
 walked through it aimlessly at first, and then turned 
 toward home. 
 
 "I've lost everything,*' he had said, and it must 
 be true. How could he face the Judge again? 
 How could he go on living in Green River? This
 
 The Wishing Moon 325 
 
 was what all his long-cherished dreams had come 
 to; a scene that Charlie might have made, and 
 disgrace in the eyes of the town. He had lost 
 everything. 
 
 Yet strangely, as he said it, he knew that it was 
 not true. Whatever he had lost, he had better 
 things left. He had those free and splendid min- 
 utes of speaking out his heart. They could not 
 be taken from him. The freedom and relief of 
 them was with him still. And he had the road 
 firm under his feet, and the clean air blowing the 
 fever out of his brain, and the strength of his own 
 young body, clean strength, good to feel as he 
 walked through the night. And along the dark 
 road before him, familiar as it was, and worn so 
 many times by discouraged feet, the white track 
 of moonlight beckoned him, clean and new. It 
 was a way that might lead anywhere to fairy- 
 land, to success, to the end of the world. 
 
 Now the boy made the turn in the road that 
 brought him within sight of home. Faint lights 
 twinkling from it, intimate and warm, invited 
 him as never before. Was his mother waiting 
 up for him? Home itself, lighted and intimate 
 and safe, was enough to find waiting. His heart 
 gave a strange little leap that hurt, but was keen 
 pleasure, too. Almost running, he covered the last 
 bit of road, crossed the grassy front yard and then
 
 326 The Wishing Moon 
 
 climbed the creaking front steps, and stood for a 
 minute that was unendurably long, fumbling with 
 the door. 
 
 The door was unlocked and gave suddenly, 
 opening wide, and he stood on the threshold of 
 the kitchen. The lights he had seen were in the 
 sitting-room beyond. In this room there was only 
 moonlight. It came through the window that 
 looked out on the marshy field, the fairies' field. 
 Surely there must be fairies there to-night, out in 
 the empty green spaces, flooded with moonlight. 
 But the fames were not all in the field, there was 
 one in the room. Neil could see it. 
 
 The old rocking chair stood in the moonlit 
 window. It was holding two, his mother, and 
 some one else the fairy, golden haired and white 
 robed and slender, and close in his mother's arms. 
 As he stood and wondered and looked, a board 
 creaked under his feet. It was the faintest of 
 sounds, but a fairy's ears are keen, and the fairy 
 heard, and stirred, and turned in his mother's 
 arms. 
 
 Now Neil could see her face. It was flushed 
 and human and warm, and in her eyes, opening 
 grave and deep, was a look that was the shyest 
 but surest of welcomes. The welcome was all for 
 Neil, and the fairy was Judith.
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 
 
 A BOY and a girl sat on the doorsteps of the 
 Randall house. 
 It was almost a year since the night of 
 the rally. It was an evening in late May late, 
 but it was May, and the fairies' month still. 
 There was a pleasant, shivery chill in the air. A 
 far sprinkling of stars made the dark of the still, 
 windless night look darker and warmer and safer 
 to whisper in. The big horse-chestnut tree at the 
 corner of the syringa hedge was only a darker blot 
 against the surrounding dark, and the slope of 
 faintly lit street on the other side of the hedge 
 looked far away, with the dark sweep of lawn be- 
 tween. It was a night for the fairies, or for the 
 girl and boy, and that was quite as it should be, 
 for it was their first together for months. 
 
 Judith and Neil sat discreetly erect on the steps, 
 undoing what those months apart had done with 
 little bursts of shy speech, and long, shy silences 
 that helped them more. In the longest and shyest 
 silence their hands had groped for each other once, 
 met as if they had never touched before, and clung 
 together for a minute as if they never meant to 
 
 327
 
 328 The Wishing Moon 
 
 let go, but Judith kept firmly to impersonal sub- 
 jects still. 
 
 "You did it all," she said. "Things do happen 
 so fast when they happen. Just think, this time 
 last year he was like a king!" 
 
 "Everard?" 
 
 "Yes. Do you remember how I used to be 
 cross when you called him that, and wouldn't say 
 Colonel? How childish that was!" Judith pat- 
 tronized her dead self, as a young lady may, with 
 her twentieth birthday almost upon her. 
 
 "You weren't childish." 
 
 "What was I?" 
 
 "Just what you are now." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "Wonderful." Neil chose his one adequate 
 word, from the tiny vocabulary of youth, small be- 
 cause few words are worthy to voice the infinite 
 dreams of it. " Wonderful." 
 
 "No, I'm not wonderful. You are. That 
 dreadful old man, and every one knew he was 
 dreadful and wouldn't do anything about it till 
 you " 
 
 "Bawled him out? That's all I did, you know, 
 really. It was a kid's trick. He lost out because 
 it was coming to him anyway. Poor Theodore 
 saw to that. He turned the town against Everard 
 when he killed himself. It wasn't turning fast,
 
 The Wishing Moon 329 
 
 but it was turning. I did give it a shove and make 
 it turn faster, but I didn't even have sense enough 
 to know I had until the day after the rally, when 
 the Judge sent for me and told me. I didn't dare 
 go near him until he sent for me, and I thought he 
 had sent for me to fire me." 
 
 "But you broke up the rally. They were dead 
 still hi the hall until you left, and then they went 
 crazy, calling for you, and all talking at once, 
 talking against you, some of them, till it really 
 wasn't a rally any more, but just like a mob. Oh, 
 I know. The Judge tells me, every time I go to 
 ride with him, and when he came on to the school 
 last winter and saw me there, he told me all over 
 again. Father has never half told me. He hates 
 to talk about the rally or the Colonel either, but 
 I don't care, he and mother are both so sweet 
 to me lately just sweet. 
 
 "So it was just like a mob, and then poor Mrs. 
 Burr got up and tried to speak, and they got quiet 
 and listened, and she said "Every word the boy 
 says is true and more more " just like that, 
 and then she got faint and had. to stop, and then 
 the Judge took hold. That's what he says he did, 
 took hold, and he says it was time, because they 
 might have tarred and feathered the Colonel if he 
 hadn't. I don't suppose they would, but I wish I 
 could have seen the Judge take hold. I love him."
 
 330 The Wishing Moon 
 
 "Don't you love anybody else?" 
 
 Judith ignored this frivolous interruption, as 
 it deserved. 
 
 "And so your work was done, though you didn't 
 know it and ran away. And the Judge says you 
 are a born orator, Neil. That you've got the real 
 gift, the thing that makes an audience yours. I 
 don't know just what he means, but I know you've 
 got it, too. You're going to be a great man, 
 Neil." 
 
 "I didn't do anything." 
 
 "You're the only man in town who thinks that, 
 then, or has since that night. He Everard was 
 done for the minute you stepped on the stage, the 
 Judge says. Only they managed it decently, the 
 Judge and the few that kept their heads. They 
 announced that Colonel Everard was indisposed 
 and couldn't speak, and the Judge took him home. 
 He really was ill next day. There's something 
 wrong with his horrid heart. And that gave him 
 a good excuse not to run for mayor, he gave that 
 up himself. And in a few days the Judge and 
 Luther Ward went to him and told him what else 
 he had to do, and he did it. He had to resign 
 from everything, everything he was in charge of or 
 was trustee of, or had anything to do with, and 
 get out of town. If he'd do that, they wouldn't 
 make any scandal or bother him afterward, but let
 
 The Wishing Moon 331 
 
 him start new. And they gave him six months 
 to do all that decently and save his face. Why 
 did he have to do it decently? Why couldn't 
 they tar and feather him? I wish they had. I 
 wish " 
 
 " Wish something else, Judith. Something about 
 us." 
 
 "What do you mean by us?" 
 
 "You and me." 
 
 "Isn't it splendid the Judge is going to be 
 president of the bank?" said Judith hastily. 
 
 "Splendid," said a future president of the Green 
 River Bank, who was occupying the step beside 
 her. 
 
 "And isn't it nice that poor Mrs. Burr is going 
 to marry Mr. Sebastian, even if she does have to 
 move away from Green River? I like people to 
 be happy, don't you?" 
 
 "No. No, I don't. Not other people. I don't 
 care whether they are happy or not, and I don't 
 want to talk about them, only about you and me." 
 
 "If you don't like the way I talk, I'll keep still," 
 Judith said, in a severe but small voice, but a 
 small hand groping for his softened the threat, 
 and a soft, sudden laugh as his arm slipped round 
 her atoned for it entirely. Then there was silence 
 on the steps, a long, whispering, wonderful silence. 
 Long before Judith spoke again all the work of
 
 332 The Wishing Moon 
 
 the lonely months was undone. And the low 
 whispers that the two exhanged conveyed no fur- 
 ther information about Colonel Everard. 
 
 But there was no more to tell. The master of 
 Green River was master no longer and the end of 
 all the intricate planning and scheming that had 
 made and kept him master was a story that 
 Judith could tell in a few careless sentences and 
 forget. If she had seen and guessed some things 
 that she could not forget, in the strange little 
 circle that had found a place for her, she would 
 never see them again. That order was gone from 
 the town forever, with the man who had created 
 it, and beside her on the steps was the boy who 
 could make her forget it, and see beyond the long, 
 hard years between. And, as she almost could 
 guess, in these magic minutes when she could 
 dream and dream true, that boy was the future 
 master of Green River. 
 
 Judith sighed, and stirred in his arms. 
 
 "Are you happier now?" she whispered. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But you're going to be great. You are, 
 really." 
 
 "I am if you want me to. Judith, how long 
 does your father think you and I ought to wait?" 
 
 "I don't know. You can ask him. He likes 
 you better -than me. He always wanted me to be a
 
 The Wishing Moon 333 
 
 boy. . . . Neil, I want to tell you something. 
 Keep your arm like that, but don't look at me.'* 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "It's about what you don't like me to talk 
 about." 
 
 "Everard?" 
 
 "Yes, and it's about something dreadful, that 
 day in his library when I was alone with him, and 
 you came. He frightened me." 
 
 " Never mind, dear, now." 
 
 "He frightened me but that was all. I 
 wasn't hurt or anything. I just didn't know he 
 anybody could look the way he was looking, or 
 act the way he was acting, and then I felt sick all 
 over. I was afraid. But he was just trying to kiss 
 me, of course, and I wasn't going to let him, the 
 horrid old man. So I think now it was silly to be 
 frightened. Was it?" 
 
 "No, it wasn't silly, dear." 
 
 "I'm glad. And Neil I want to tell you some- 
 thing else. It's about that night in the buggy, 
 on the old road to Wells, you know, when you were 
 going to elope with me and changed your mind." 
 
 "When I frightened you so. Oh, Judith." 
 
 "You didn't frighten me," said a very small 
 voice indeed. "You " 
 
 "What, dear?" 
 
 "Made me want you want to go away with
 
 334 The Wishing Moon 
 
 you. I never felt like that before, all waked up 
 and different and happy. Oh, you didn't frighten 
 me. I wasn't angry because you tried to take me 
 away. It was because you brought me back." 
 
 "Don't you know why I brought you back?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why, because I loved you. I didn't love you 
 till then, not really; not till that minute in the 
 carriage. I know just what minute. When you 
 let me kiss you, and didn't mind any more. Then 
 I knew about love. I never knew before, but 
 I'll never forget again. It isn't just wanting people, 
 it's taking care of them, and not hurting them. 
 Waiting till you can have things right. So I 
 wanted to have you right and be fit for you, and 
 after that night I went to work and I wouldn't 
 be stopped, not by anything in this town or the 
 world. Oh, Judith, why don't you speak to 
 me? It isn't much use to talk. You don't under- 
 stand." 
 
 "I do." 
 
 "You're crying!" 
 
 She was crying, and she did understand. Before 
 this unexpected, beautiful proof of it, the boy was 
 reverent and half ashamed, as if a woman's tears 
 were a sacred miracle invented for him. He held 
 her hand timidly and pressed it. Presently she 
 drew it away, and suddenly she was not crying,
 
 The Wishing Moon 335 
 
 but laughing, a low, full-throated laugh as wonder- 
 ful to him as her tears. 
 
 "I told you, you did it all," she said softly. 
 "Well, you didn't. Neil, there's what did it all. 
 Because, if you only go on believing in things and 
 being sweet and true and not afraid, and wishing, 
 then everything will come right. It's got to, just 
 because you want it to. So there's what did it all 
 and made us so happy, you and me. I love it. 
 Love it, Neil." 
 
 Neil looked where Judith was looking. Above 
 the horse-chestnut tree, so filmy and faint that the 
 stars looked brighter than ever, so pale that it was 
 not akin to the stars, but to the dark beyond, where 
 adventures were, so friendly and sweet that it 
 could make the wish in your heart come true, hung 
 a new-risen silvery crescent of light. 
 
 "But it's only the moon," Neil said. 
 
 "It's the wishing moon," said Judith. 
 
 THE END
 
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