She got up from the rock and slipped the frog's skin into the earth beneath
it. As she settled it in place, her pulses gave a startled leap, and she
stood terror-stricken beside the stone. A thud of footsteps was coming
along the road.
For an instant she trembled in silence; then her sturdy little heart took
courage, and she held up her hand.
"If you'll wait a minute, Mr. Devil, I'm goin' in," she cried.
From the shadows a voice laughed at her, and a boy came forward into the
light--a half-starved boy, with a white, pinched face and a dusty bundle
swinging from the stick upon his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?" he snapped out.
Betty gave back a defiant stare. She might have been a tiny ghost in the
moonlight, with her trailing gown and her flaming curls.
"I live here," she answered simply. "Where do you live?"
"Nowhere." He looked her over with a laugh.
"Nowhere?"
"I did live somewhere, but I ran away a week ago."
"Did they beat you? Old Rainy-day Jones beat one of his servants and he ran
away."
"There wasn't anybody," said the boy. "My mother died, and my father went
off--I hope he'll stay off. I hate him!"
He sent the words out so sharply that Betty's lids flinched.
"Why did you come by here?" she questioned. "Are you looking for the devil,
too?"
The boy laughed again. "I am looking for my grandfather. He lives somewhere
on this road, at a place named Chericoke. It has a lot of elms in the yard;
I'll know it by that.
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