"I'm waiting," said she. "Where shall I ride?" And she put one foot on
the hub and stepped up with the other into the wagon box.

"I'm just pulling out for Iowa," I said, my face as red as her hair, I
suppose.

"_We're_ just pulling out," said she.

"I've got to move on," said I; "be careful or you'll get your dress
muddy on the wheel."

She couldn't have expected me to take her, of course; but I thought she
looked kind of hurt. There seemed to be something like tears in her eyes
as she put her arms around my neck.

"Kiss your little step-sister good-by," she said. "She's been a better
friend of yours than you'll ever know--you big, nice, blundering
greenhorn!"

She laid her lips on mine. It was the first kiss I had ever had from any
one since I was a little boy; and as I half struggled against but
finally returned it, it thrilled me powerfully. Afterward I was
disgusted with myself for kissing this castaway; but as I drove on,
leaving her standing in the middle of the road looking after me, it
almost seemed as if I were leaving a friend. Perhaps she was, in her
way, the nearest thing to a friend I had then in the world--strange as
it seems. As for Rucker, he was rejoicing, of course, at having trimmed
neatly a dumb-head of a Dutch boy--a wrong to my poor mother, the very
thought of which even after all these years, makes my blood boil.