Tessie at first thought little or nothing of the trinket.  As she had scoffed at its purpose, when Rose respected it, so she brushed it aside as of no importance when she emptied the pitiful pittance of her forsaken companion into her own pocketbook, when forced to use the funds or beg from strangers.

On the step of the last jitney that rumbled through Franklin making no stops, and being entirely unoccupied by passengers, Tessie managed to hide as the car slowed up at a turn, and later she crawled inside, when the sleepy driver, his day and night work finished, allowed the motor to “take its head” as we might say to a horse-drawn vehicle.  Her heart almost ceased beating when the officer who commanded the line between the two villages, stopped Frank and demanded to know if he carried any passengers.

“Three empty dinner pails that came out full of supper,” the driver called back, and Tessie actually under the seat, felt free to breathe again and keep watch for some turn where a kindly house light might gleam out to save her from a dreaded night, under a tree or behind some rugged, wild world shelter.

Just as Frank, the driver, slowed down, preparatory to turning for the big shed, under which the modern carry-all would be laid up until daylight next morning, Tessie decided she would ask this rustic to assist her.  Believing that most men, especially those not too old, were apt to be kind-hearted or maybe “softhearted,” she climbed from her hiding place, and timidly tapped Frank on his astonished shoulder.

“Gosh!” he exclaimed, “where’d you come from?”

“I lost my way!” she answered not altogether untruthfully.  “Can you help me?  Where do you live?”

“Say,” Frank challenged, “you look pretty near big enough to talk to traffic cops.  How’d you get in this boat, anyhow?”

His voice was not friendly.  That anyone should have climbed into the “Ark” without signalling him was evidently opposed to his sense of humor.  Tessie did not reply as glibly as she had intended to.  Instead she threw herself on his mercy, as actors might say in melodrama.

“Honest I did get lost.  I’m on my way to the Woolston mills, and I missed so many trains, and caught so many jitneys I lost count.  Then, when I saw you come along I was so glad I almost—­well, I just flopped.  I was dog-tired.  First I hailed you, but you were dozing I guess, then I was scared to death you would jolt by and leave me, so I had to climb on.”

“Oh,” replied Frank, not altogether convinced, but evidently on the way to conviction.  “I did fall off a little, I’m out since four A.M.  Now, young lady, what’s your idea of fixin’ for the night?  My old lady, meaning a first-rate little mother, is awful strict about girls ridin’ in this bus not accompanied by their parents, and I don’t see my way clear to tote you home at this unearthly hour.  I see by—­the make-up” (with an inclusive glance over the now thoroughly frightened Tessie) “that you are a mill girl, and I know they are takin’ on new hands at Woolston’s, so that sounds natural, but findin’ you like this in the Ark—­even mother might think that a little bit stretched.”