Tom Corbett, Space Cadet Megapack
The Tom Swift Megapack
AUTHOR MEGAPACKS
The Achmed Abdullah Megapack
The Second Achmed Abdullah Megapack
The Edward Bellamy Megapack
The B.M. Bower Megapack
The E.F. Benson Megapack
The Second E.F. Benson Megapack
The Algernon Blackwood Megapack
The Second Algernon Blackwood Megapack
The Max Brand Megapack
The First Reginald Bretnor Megapack
The Wilkie Collins Megapack
The Ray Cummings Megapack
The Guy de Maupassant Megapack
The Philip K. Dick Megapack
The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack
The Jacques Futrelle Megapack
The Randall Garrett Megapack
The Second Randall Garrett Megapack
The Anna Katharine Green Megapack
The Zane Grey Megapack
The Edmond Hamilton Megapack
The Dashiell Hammett Megapack
The M.R. James Megapack
The Selma Lagerlof Megapack
The Murray Leinster Megapack
The Second Murray Leinster Megapack
The George Barr McCutcheon Megapack
The Talbot Mundy Megapack
The Andre Norton Megapack
The H. Beam Piper Megapack
The Mack Reynolds Megapack
The Rafael Sabatini Megapack
The Saki Megapack
The Robert Sheckley Megapack
OTHER COLLECTIONS YOU MAY ENJOY
The Great Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany (it should have been called “The Lord Dunsany Megapack”)
The Wildside Book of Fantasy
The Wildside Book of Science Fiction
Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries
THE WIND IN THE ROSE-BUSH
Ford Village has no railroad station, being on the other side of the river from Porter’s Falls, and accessible only by the ford which gives it its name, and a ferry line.
The ferry-boat was waiting when Rebecca Flint got off the train with her bag and lunch basket. When she and her small trunk were safely embarked she sat stiff and straight and calm in the ferry-boat as it shot swiftly and smoothly across stream. There was a horse attached to a light country wagon on board, and he pawed the deck uneasily. His owner stood near, with a wary eye upon him, although he was chewing, with as dully reflective an expression as a cow. Beside Rebecca sat a woman of about her own age, who kept looking at her with furtive curiosity; her husband, short and stout and saturnine, stood near her. Rebecca paid no attention to either of them. She was tall and spare and pale, the type of a spinster, yet with rudimentary lines and expressions of matronhood. She all unconsciously held her shawl, rolled up in a canvas bag, on her left hip, as if it had been a child. She wore a settled frown of dissent at life, but it was the frown of a mother who regarded life as a froward child, rather than as an overwhelming fate.
The other woman continued staring at her; she was mildly stupid, except for an over-developed curiosity which made her at times sharp beyond belief. Her eyes glittered, red spots came on her flaccid cheeks; she kept opening her mouth to speak, making little abortive motions. Finally she could endure it no longer; she nudged Rebecca boldly.
“A pleasant day,” said she.
Rebecca looked at her and nodded coldly.
“Yes, very,” she assented.
“Have you come far?”
“I have come from Michigan.”
“Oh!” said the woman, with awe. “It’s a long way,” she remarked presently.
“Yes, it is,” replied Rebecca, conclusively.
Still the other woman was not daunted; there was something which she determined to know, possibly roused thereto by a vague sense of incongruity in the other’s appearance. “It’s a long ways to come and leave a family,” she remarked with painful slyness.
“I ain’t got any family to leave,” returned Rebecca shortly.
“Then you ain’t—”
“No, I ain’t.”
“Oh!” said the woman.
Rebecca looked straight ahead at the race of the river.
It was a long ferry. Finally Rebecca herself waxed unexpectedly loquacious. She turned to the other woman and inquired if she knew John Dent’s widow who lived in Ford Village. “Her husband died about three years ago,” said she, by way of detail.
The woman started violently. She turned pale, then she flushed; she cast a strange glance at her husband, who was regarding both women with a sort of stolid keenness.
“Yes, I guess I do,” faltered the woman finally.
“Well, his first wife was my sister,” said Rebecca with the air of one imparting important intelligence.
“Was she?” responded the other woman feebly. She glanced at her husband with an expression of doubt and terror, and he shook his head forbiddingly.
“I’m going to see her, and take my niece Agnes home with me,” said Rebecca.
Then the woman gave such a violent start that she noticed it.
“What is the matter?” she asked.
“Nothin’, I guess,” replied the woman, with eyes on her husband, who was slowly shaking his head, like a Chinese toy.
“Is my niece sick?” asked Rebecca with quick suspicion.
“No, she ain’t sick,” replied the woman with alacrity, then she caught her breath with a gasp.
“When did you see her?”
“Let me see; I ain’t seen her for some little time,” replied the woman. Then she caught her breath again.
“She ought to have grown up real pretty, if she takes after my sister. She was a real pretty woman,” Rebecca said wistfully.
“Yes, I guess she did grow up pretty,” replied the woman in a trembling voice.
“What kind of a woman is the second wife?”
The woman glanced at her husband’s warning face. She continued to gaze at him while she replied in a choking voice to Rebecca:
“I—guess she’s a nice woman,” she replied. “I—don’t know, I—guess so. I—don’t see much of her.”
“I felt kind of hurt that John married again so quick,” said Rebecca; “but I suppose he wanted