Someone to watch over me

hungry as hell. His clothes and hair stank. He had burns on his arms and was still periodically having coughing fits. But so was everyone else. The chances of a respectable person giving him a lift would have been slim.
    He kept hoping Mary Towerton had come the same way, and he’d overtake her. But he didn’t see a woman with a wagon, mule, and children.
    Fortunately, he discovered he had a little change in his suitcase, enough to get one really substantial meal. Instead, he spent the money on a new pencil and a fresh pad of paper and had just enough left for a cup of coffee and a doughnut before the train left. He waited for the 7 P.M. train because he didn’t want to inflict himself on the crowds going home from work on the late-afternoon trains. He had his first column for the Voorburg-on-Hudson Times written by the time they passed Croton. Then he started on the next one.
    In the back of his mind, however, was Mary Towerton. He wished he knew what her route home was. He felt an obligation to get one night’s sleep and then go find her, to help her complete her journey with an adult along.

Chapter 18

    Lily was up early, dressed and ready to hunt down Jack Summer. It had been another stifling hot night, and she’d fretted for sleepless hours over what had become of him. The reports of the rout of the Bonus Marchers were so frightening that she feared he was hurt, lost, having amnesia. Her imagination was running riot.
    But Mrs. Prinney caught her at the door. “Oh, dear. I must have misunderstood,“ she said, sounding hurt.
    “Misunderstood what?“ Lily replied, looking around for where she’d put her handbag.
    “I thought you said you’d help me put in these baby plants this morning while it’s fairly cool.”
    Lily was starting to think she ought to start taking notes of what she’d committed to. Had she really made this promise? In a weak moment, she might have said something vague about helping. “The heat’s gotten to my brain, I guess,“ she said apologetically. “I’ll put on my dungarees and be out in a moment.”
    Escape wasn’t granted her until almost noon. Although she had to admit that until the sun shifted to the partly shady area they’d worked in, putting in the cuttings had been a soothing, pleasant thing to do. She’d liked the smells of the foliage, the odor of the rich earth they turned, the scents of pine that occasionally drifted over them from the trees deep in the woods. It was nice to kneel in the cool grass, until the sunshine got to them and made everything steam. On a nicer day in spring or autumn, she might have liked it even more. Gardening might not be such a bad hobby.
    She came inside and phoned Jack’s office, but there was no answer. She showered, dressed again in a skirt and blouse, but realized she simply couldn’t face the long walk down the road, and the path through the woods would be almost as bad in the heat of the day. Robert had gone somewhere and she was tired of asking him to drive her places. Jack Summer wasn’t a child. Surely if he’d had some serious trouble he’d have found some way to alert them or at least call his cousin Ralph.
    But she had her walking shoes on, so out of curiosity she went to find the old abandoned icehouse where Robert and the Harbinger boys had found the mummy. She’d never really explored the woods to the north of Grace and Favor, where Robert said it was. Probably there was an old path that would lead her to it.
    She found Agatha sleeping soundly under some bushes where it was cool and damp and rousted her out. “If I can go for a walk in the heat, so can you,“ she told the dog, who took her up on the offer with bouncing, barking delight.
    She felt safer exploring unknown territory with Agatha along. She had never felt in danger in the woods before, but, after all, Robert had found a dead body and there were getting to be more and more hoboes around. Agatha had once come to her defense when she was threatened and no doubt would do it again if necessary.
    The icehouse was, as she’d hoped, reasonably easy to find. It wasn’t visible from the mansion, but she could catch glimpses of Grace and Favor through the woods when she got there, so she could easily find her way back.
    It was very sturdy indeed, made entirely of solid wood so tightly fitted she could see why it had been weatherproof. And it was much larger than she’d imagined, almost the size of a tiny one-room house. She wondered if it had once