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DAVID DUNNE

A Romance of the Middle West

by

BELLE KANARIS MANIATES

With illustrations by John Drew

[Illustration: "_He stood as if at bay, his face pale, his eyes riveted
on those floating banners_" Page 218]

Rand McNally & Company
Chicago--New York

Copyright, 1912, by
Rand, McNally & Company

To Milly and Gardner

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

 "_He stood as if at bay, his face pale, his eyes
 riveted on those floating banners_"                    _Frontispiece_

                                                           FACING PAGE

 "'_Dave's little gal!_'"                                           11

 "_With proudly protective air, David walked beside
 the stiffly starched little girl_"                                 42

 "_David's friends were surprised to receive an
 off-hand invitation from him to 'drop in for a little
 country spread'_"                                                 148

 "_He kept his word. Jud was cleared_"                             158

 "_It was a relief to find Carey alone_"                           224

 "_'Carey, will you make the dream a reality?'_"                   238

[Illustration: "'_Dave's little gal!_'"]

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

Across lots to the Brumble farm came the dusty apparition of a boy, a
tousle-headed, freckle-faced, gaunt-eyed little fellow, clad in a sort
of combination suit fashioned from a pair of overalls and a woman's
shirtwaist. In search of "Miss M'ri," he looked into the kitchen, the
henhouse, the dairy, and the flower garden. Not finding her in any of
these accustomed places, he stood still in perplexity.

"Miss M'ri!" rang out his youthful, vibrant treble.

There was a note of promise in the pleasant voice that came back in
subterranean response.

"Here, David, in the cellar."

The lad set down the tin pail he was carrying and eagerly sped to the
cellar. His fondest hopes were realized. M'ri Brumble, thirty odd
years of age, blue of eye, slightly gray of hair, and sweet of heart,
was lifting the cover from the ice-cream freezer.

"Well, David Dunne, you came in the nick of time," she said, looking
up with kindly eyes. "It's just frozen. I'll dish you up some now, if
you will run up to the pantry and fetch two saucers--biggest you can
find."

Fleetly David footed the stairs and returned with two soup plates.

"These were the handiest," he explained apologetically as he handed
them to her.

"Just the thing," promptly reassured M'ri, transferring a heaping
ladle of yellow cream to one of the plates. "Easy to eat out of,
too."

"My, but you are giving me a whole lot," he said, watching her
approvingly and encouragingly. "I hope you ain't robbing yourself."

"Oh, no; I always make plenty," she replied, dishing a smaller portion
for herself. "Here's enough for our dinner and some for you to carry
home to your mother."

"I haven't had any since last Fourth of July," he observed in
plaintive reminiscence as they went upstairs.

"Why, David Dunne, how you talk! You just come over here whenever you
feel like eating ice cream, and I'll make you some. It's no trouble."

They sat down on the west, vine-clad porch to enjoy their feast in
leisure and shade. M'ri had never lost her childish appreciation of
the delicacy, and to David the partaking thereof was little short of
ecstasy. He lingered longingly over the repast, and when the soup
plate would admit of no more scraping he came back with a sigh to
sordid cares.

"Mother couldn't get the washing done no-ways to-day. She ain't
feeling well, but you can have the clothes to-morrow, sure. She sent
you some sorghum," pointing to the pail.

M'ri took the donation into the kitchen. When she brought back the
pail it was filled with eggs. Not to send something in return would
have been an unpardonable breach of country etiquette.

"Your mother said your hens weren't laying," she said.

The boy's eyes brightened.

"Thank you, Miss M'ri; these will come in good. Our hens won't lay nor
set. Mother says they have formed a union. But I 'most forgot to tell
you--when I came past Winterses, Ziny told me to ask you to come over
as soon as you could."

"I suppose Zine has got one of her low spells," said Barnabas Brumble,
who had just come up from the barn. "Most likely Bill's bin gittin'
tight agin. He--"

"Oh, no!" interrupted his sister hastily. "Bill has quit drinking."

"Bill's allers a-quittin'. Trouble with Bill is, he can't stay quit. I
see him yesterday comin' down the road zig-zaggin' like a rail fence.
Fust she knows, she'll hev to be takin' washin' to support him.
Sometimes I think 't would be a good idee to let him git sent over the
road onct. Mebby 't would learn him a lesson--"

He stopped short, noticing the significant look in M'ri's eyes and the
two patches of color spreading over David's thin cheeks. He recalled
that four years ago the boy's father had died in state prison.

"You'd better go right over to Zine's," he added abruptly.

"I'll wait till after dinner. We'll have it early."

"Hev it now," suggested Barnabas.

"Now!" ejaculated David. "It's only half-past ten."

"I could eat it now jest as well as I could at twelve," argued the
philosophical Barnabas. "Jest as leaves as not."

There were no iron-clad rules in this comfortable household,
especially when Pennyroyal, the help, was away.

"All right," assented M'ri with alacrity. "If I am going to do
anything, I like to do it right off quick and get it over with. You
stay, David, if you can eat dinner so early."

"Yes, I can," he assured her, recalling his scanty breakfast and the
freezer of cream that was to furnish the dessert. "I'll help you get
it, Miss M'ri."

He brought a pail of water from the well, filled the teakettle, and
then pared the potatoes for her.

"When will Jud and Janey get their dinner?" he asked Barnabas.

"They kerried their dinner to-day. The scholars air goin' to hev a
picnic down to Spicely's grove. How comes it you ain't to school,
Dave?"

"I have to help my mother with the washing," he replied, a slow flush
coming to his face. "She ain't strong enough to do it alone."

"What on airth kin you do about a washin', Dave?"

"I can draw the water, turn the wringer, hang up the clothes, empty
the tubs, fetch and carry the washings, and mop."

Barnabas puffed fiercely at his pipe for a moment.

"You're a good boy, Dave, a mighty good boy. I don't know what your ma
would do without you. I hed to leave school when I wa'n't as old as
you, and git out and hustle so the younger children could git
eddicated. By the time I wuz foot-loose from farm work, I wuz too old
to git any larnin'. You'd orter manage someway, though, to git
eddicated."

"Mother's taught me to read and write and spell. When I get old enough
to work for good wages I can go into town to the night school."

In a short time M'ri had cooked a dinner that would have tempted less
hearty appetites than those possessed by her brother and David.

"You ain't what might be called a delikit feeder, Dave," remarked
Barnabas, as he replenished the boy's plate for the third time.
"You're so lean I don't see where you put it all."

David might have responded that the vacuum was due to the fact that
his breakfast had consisted of a piece of bread and his last night's
supper of a dish of soup, but the Dunne pride inclined to reservation
on family and personal matters. He speared another small potato and
paused, with fork suspended between mouth and plate.

"Mother says she thinks I am hollow inside like a stovepipe."

"Well, I dunno. Stovepipes git filled sometimes," ruminated his host.

"Leave room for the ice cream, David," cautioned M'ri, as she
descended to the cellar.

The lad's eyes brightened as he beheld the golden pyramid. Another
period of lingering bliss, and then with a sigh of mingled content and
regret, David rose from the table.

"Want me to hook up for you, Mr. Brumble?" he asked, moved to show his
gratitude for the hospitality extended.

"Why, yes, Dave; wish you would. My back is sorter lame to-day. Land
o' livin'," he commented after David had gone to the barn, "but that
boy swallered them potaters like they wuz so many pills!"

"Poor Mrs. Dunne!" sighed M'ri. "I am afraid it's all she can do to
keep a very small pot boiling. I am glad she sent the sorghum, so I
could have an excuse for sending the eggs."

"She hain't poor so long as she hez a young sprout like Dave a-growin'
up. We used to call Peter Dunne 'Old Hickory,' but Dave, he's
second-growth hickory. He's the kind to bend and not break. Jest you
wait till he's seasoned onct."

After she had packed a pail of ice cream for David, gathered some
flowers for Ziny, and made out a memorandum of supplies for Barnabas
to get in town, M'ri set out on her errand of mercy.

The "hooking up" accomplished, David, laden with a tin pail in each
hand and carrying in his pocket a drawing of black tea for his mother
to sample, made his way through sheep-dotted pastures to Beechum's
woods, and thence along the bank of the River Rood. Presently he spied
a young man standing knee-deep in the stream in the patient pose
peculiar to fishermen.

"Catch anything?" called David eagerly.

The man turned and came to shore. He wore rubber hip boots, dark
trousers, a blue flannel shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. His eyes, blue
and straight-gazing, rested reminiscently upon the lad.

"No," he replied calmly. "I didn't intend to catch anything. What is
your name?"

"David Dunne."

The man meditated.

"You must be about twelve years old."

"How did you know?"

"I am a good guesser. What have you got in your pail?"

"Which one?"

"Both."

"Thought you were a good guesser."

The youth laughed.

"You'll do, David. Let me think--where did you come from just now?"

"From Brumble's."

"It's ice cream you've got in your pail," he said assuredly.

"That's just what it is!" cried the boy in astonishment, "and there's
eggs in the other pail."

"Let's have a look at the ice cream."

David lifted the cover.

"It looks like butter," declared the stranger.

"It don't taste like butter," was the indignant rejoinder. "Miss M'ri
makes the best cream of any one in the country."

"I knew that, my young friend, before you did. It's a long time since
I had any, though. Will you sell it to me, David? I will give you half
a dollar for it."

Half a dollar! His mother had to work all day to earn that amount. The
ice cream was not his--not entirely. Miss M'ri had sent it to his
mother. Still--

"'T will melt anyway before I get home," he argued aloud and
persuasively.

"Of course it will," asserted the would-be purchaser.

David surrendered the pail, and after much protestation consented to
receive the piece of money which the young man pressed upon him.

"You'll have to help me eat it now; there's no pleasure in eating ice
cream alone."

"We haven't any spoons," commented the boy dubiously.

"We will go to my house and eat it."

"Where do you live?" asked David in surprise.

"Just around the bend of the river here."

David's freckles darkened. He didn't like to be made game of by older
people, for then there was no redress.

"There isn't any house within two miles of here," he said shortly.

"What'll you bet? Half a dollar?"

"No," replied David resolutely.

"Well, come and see."

David followed his new acquaintance around the wooded bank. The river
was full of surprises to-day. In midstream he saw what looked to him
like a big raft supporting a small house.

"That's my shanty boat," explained the young man, as he shoved a
rowboat from shore. "Jump in, my boy."

"Do you live in it all the time?" asked David, watching with
admiration the easy but forceful pull on the oars.

"No; I am on a little fishing and hunting expedition."

"Can't kill anything now," said the boy, a derisive smile flickering
over his features.

"I am not hunting to kill, my lad. I am hunting old scenes and
memories of other days. I used to live about here. I ran away eight
years ago when I was just your age."

"What is your name?" asked David interestedly.

"Joe Forbes."

"Oh," was the eager rejoinder. "I know. You are Deacon Forbes' wild
son that ran away."

"So that's how I am known around here, is it? Well, I've come back, to
settle up my father's estate."

"What did you run away for?" inquired David.

"Combination of too much stepmother and a roving spirit, I guess. Here
we are."

He sprang on the platform of the shanty boat and helped David on
board. The boy inspected this novel house in wonder while his host set
saucers and spoons on the table.

"Would you mind," asked David in an embarrassed manner as he wistfully
eyed the coveted luxury, "if I took my dishful home?"

"What's the matter?" asked Forbes, his eyes twinkling. "Eaten too much
already?"

"No; but you see my mother likes it and she hasn't had any since last
summer. I'd rather take mine to her."

"There's plenty left for your mother. I'll put this pail in a bigger
one and pack ice about it. Then it won't melt."

"But you paid me for it," protested David.

"That's all right. Your mother was pretty good to me when I was a
boy. She dried my mop of hair for me once so my stepmother would not
know I'd been in swimming. Tell her I sent the cream to her. Say, you
were right about Miss M'ri making the best cream in the country. It
used to be a chronic pastime with her. That's how I guessed what you
had when you said you came from there. Whenever there was a picnic or
a surprise party in the country she always furnished the ice cream.
Isn't she married yet?"

"No."

"Doesn't she keep company with some lucky man?"

"No," again denied the boy emphatically.

"What's the matter? She used to be awfully pretty and sweet."

"She is now, but she don't want any man."

"Well, now, David, that isn't quite natural, you know. Why do you
think she doesn't want one?"

"I heard say she was crossed once."

"Crossed, David? And what might that be?" asked Forbes in a delighted
feint of perplexity.

"Disappointed in love, you know."

"Yes; it all comes back now--the gossip of my boyhood days. She was
going with a man when Barnabas' wife died and left two children--one a
baby--and Miss M'ri gave up her lover to do her duty by her brother's
family. So Barnabas never married again?"

"No; Miss M'ri keeps house and brings up Jud and Janey."

"I remember Jud--mean little shaver. Janey must be the baby."

"She's eight now."

"I remember you, David. You were a little toddler of four--all eyes.
Your folks had a place right on the edge of town."

"We left it when I was six years old and came out here," informed
David.

Forbes' groping memory recalled the gossip that had reached him in the
Far West. "Dunne went to prison," he mused, "and the farm was
mortgaged to defray the expenses of the trial." He hastened back to a
safer channel.

"Miss M'ri was foolish to spoil her life and the man's for fancied
duty," he observed.

David bridled.

"Barnabas couldn't go to school when he was a boy because he had to
work so she and the other children could go. She'd ought to have stood
by him."

"I see you have a sense of duty, too. This county was always strong on
duty. I suppose they've got it in for me because I ran away?"

"Mr. Brumble says it was a wise thing for you to do. Uncle Larimy says
you were a brick of a boy. Miss Rhody says she had no worry about her
woodpile getting low when you were here."

"Poor Miss Rhody! Does she still live alone? And Uncle Larimy--is he
uncle to the whole community? What fishing days I had with him! I must
look him up and tell him all my adventures. I have planned a round of
calls for to-night--Miss M'ri, Miss Rhody, Uncle Larimy--"

"Tell me about your adventures," demanded David breathlessly.

He listened to a wondrous tale of western life, and never did narrator
get into so close relation with his auditor as did this young ranchman
with David Dunne.

"I must go home," said the boy reluctantly when Joe had concluded.

"Come down to-morrow, David, and we'll go fishing."

"All right. Thank you, sir."

With heart as light as air, David sped through the woods. He had found
his Hero.

CHAPTER II

David struck out from the shelter of the woodland and made his way to
his home, a pathetically small, rudely constructed house. The patch of
land supposed to be a garden, and in proportion to the dimensions of
the building, showed a few feeble efforts at vegetation. It was not
positively known that the Widow Dunne had a clear title to her
homestead, but one would as soon think of foreclosing a mortgage on a
playhouse, or taking a nest from a bird, as to press any claim on this
fallow fragment in the midst of prosperous farmlands.

Some discouraged looking fowls picked at the scant grass, a lean cow
switched a lackadaisical tail, and in a pen a pig grunted his
discontent.

David went into the little kitchen, where a woman was bending wearily
over a washtub.

"Mother," cried the boy in dismay, "you said you'd let the washing go
till to-morrow. That's why I didn't come right back."

She paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment and wrung the suds from
her tired and swollen hands.

"I felt better, David, and I thought I'd get them ready for you to
hang out."

David took the garment from her.

"Sit down and eat this ice cream Miss M'ri sent--no, I mean Joe Forbes
sent you. There was more, but I sold it for half a dollar; and here's
a pail of eggs and a drawing of tea she wants you to sample. She says
she is no judge of black tea."

"Joe Forbes!" exclaimed his mother interestedly. "I thought maybe he
would be coming back to look after the estate. Is he going to stay?"

"I'll tell you all about him, mother, if you will sit down."

He began a vigorous turning of the wringer.

The patient, tired-looking eyes of the woman brightened as she dished
out a saucer of the cream. The weariness in the sensitive lines of her
face and the prominence of her knuckles bore evidence of a life of
sordid struggle, but, above all, the mother love illumined her
features with a flash of radiance.

"You're a good provider, David; but tell me where you have been for so
long, and where did you see Joe?"

He gave her a faithful account of his dinner at the Brumble farm and
his subsequent meeting with Joe, working the wringer steadily as he
talked.

"There!" he exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction, "they are ready for
the line, but before I hang them out I am going to cook your dinner."

"I am rested now, David. I will cook me an egg."

"No, I will," insisted the boy, going to the stove.

A few moments later, with infinite satisfaction, he watched her
partake of crisp toast, fresh eggs, and savory tea.

"Did you see Jud and Janey?" she asked suddenly.

"No; they were at school."

"David, you shall go regularly to school next fall."

"No," said David stoutly; "next fall I am going to work regularly for
some of the farmers, and you are not going to wash any more."

Her eyes grew moist.

"David, will you always be good--will you grow up to be as good a man
as I want you to be?"

"How good do you want me to be?" he asked dubiously.

A radiant and tender smile played about her mouth.

"Not goodygood, David; but will you always be honest, and brave, and
kind, as you are now?"

"I'll try, mother."

"And never forget those who do you a kindness, David; always show your
gratitude."

"Yes, mother."

"And, David, watch your temper and, whatever happens, I shall have no
fears for your future."

His mother seldom talked to him in this wise. He thought about it
after he lay in his little cot in the sitting room that night; then
his mind wandered to Joe Forbes and his wonderful tales of the West.
He fell asleep to dream of cowboys and prairies. When he awoke the sun
was sending golden beams through the eastward window.

"Mother isn't up," he thought in surprise. He stole quietly out to the
kitchen, kindled a fire with as little noise as possible, put the
kettle over, set the table, and then went into the one tiny bedroom
where his mother lay in her bed, still--very still.

"Mother," he said softly.

There was no response.

"Mother," he repeated. Then piercingly, in excitement and fear,
"Mother!"

At last he knew.

He ran wildly to the outer door. Bill Winters, fortunately sober, was
driving slowly by.

"Bill!"

"What's the matter, Dave?" looking into the boy's white face. "Your ma
ain't sick, is she?"

David's lips quivered, but seemed almost unable to articulate.

"She's dead," he finally whispered.

"I'll send Zine right over," exclaimed Bill, slapping the reins
briskly across the drooping neck of his horse.

Very soon the little house was filled to overflowing with kind and
sympathetic neighbors who had come to do all that had to be done.
David sat on the back doorstep until M'ri came; before the expression
in his eyes she felt powerless to comfort him.

"The doctor says your mother died in her sleep," she told him. "She
didn't suffer any."

He made no reply. Oppressed by the dull pain for which there is no
ease, he wandered from the house to the garden, and from the garden
back to the house throughout the day. At sunset Barnabas drove over.

"I shall stay here to-night, Barnabas," said M'ri, "but I want you to
drive back and get some things. I've made out a list. Janey will know
where to find them."

"Sha'n't I take Dave back to stay to-night?" he suggested.

M'ri hesitated, and looked at David.

"No," he said dully, following Barnabas listlessly down the path to
the road.

Barnabas, keen, shrewd, and sharp at a bargain, had a heart that ever
softened to motherless children.

"Dave," he said gently, "your ma won't never hev to wash no more, and
she'll never be sick nor tired agen."

It was the first leaven to his loss, and he held tight to the horny
hand of his comforter. After Barnabas had driven away there came
trudging down the road the little, lithe figure of an old man, who was
carrying a large box. His mildly blue, inquiring eyes looked out from
beneath their hedge of shaggy eyebrows. His hair and his beard were
thick and bushy. Joe Forbes maintained that Uncle Larimy would look no
different if his head were turned upside down.

"David," he said softly, "I've brung yer ma some posies. She liked my
yaller roses, you know. I'm sorry my laylocks are gone. They come
early this year."

"Thank you, Uncle Larimy."

A choking sensation warned David to say no more.

"Things go 'skew sometimes, Dave, but the sun will shine agen,"
reminded the old man, as he went on into the house.

Later, when sundown shadows had vanished and the first glimmer of the
stars radiated from a pale sky, Joe came over. David felt no thrill at
sight of his hero. The halo was gone. He only remembered with a dull
ache that the half dollar had brought his mother none of the luxuries
he had planned to buy for her.

"David," said the young ranchman, his deep voice softened, "my mother
died when I was younger than you are, but you won't have a stepmother
to make life unbearable for you."

The boy looked at him with inscrutable eyes.

"Don't you want to go back with me to the ranch, David? You can learn
to ride and shoot."

David shook his head forlornly. His spirit of adventure was
smothered.

"We'll talk about it again, David," he said, as he went in to consult
M'ri.

"Don't you think the only thing for the boy to do is to go back with
me? I am going to buy the ranch on which I've been foreman, and I'll
try to do for David all that should have been done for me when I, at
his age, felt homeless and alone. He's the kind that takes things hard
and quiet; life in the open will pull him up."

"No, Joe," replied M'ri resolutely. "He's not ready for that kind of
life yet. He needs to be with women and children a while longer.
Barnabas and I are going to take him. Barnabas suggested it, and I
told Mrs. Dunne one day, when her burdens were getting heavy, that we
would do so if anything like this should happen."

Joe looked at her with revering eyes.

"Miss M'ri, you are so good to other people's children, what would you
be to your own!"

The passing of M'ri's youth had left a faint flush of prettiness like
the afterglow of a sunset faded into twilight. She was of the kind
that old age would never wither. In the deep blue eyes was a patient,
reflective look that told of a past but unforgotten romance. She
turned from his gaze, but not before he had seen the wistfulness his
speech had evoked. After he had gone, she sought David.

"I am going to stay here with you, David, for two or three days. Then
Barnabas and I want you to come to live with us. I had a long talk
with your mother one day, and I told her if anything happened to her
you should be our boy. That made her less anxious about the future,
David. Will you come?"

The boy looked up with his first gleam of interest in mundane things.

"I'd like it, but would--Jud?"

"I am afraid Jud doesn't like anything, David," she replied with a
sigh. "That's one reason I want you--to be a big brother to Janey, for
I think that is what she needs, and what Jud can never be."

The boy remembered what his mother had counseled.

"I'll always take care of Janey," he earnestly assured her.

"I know you will, David."

Two dreary days passed in the way that such days do pass, and then
David rode to his new home with Barnabas and M'ri.

Jud Brumble, a refractory, ungovernable lad of fifteen, didn't look
altogether unfavorably upon the addition to the household, knowing
that his amount of work would thereby be lessened, and that he would
have a new victim for his persecutions and tyrannies.

Janey, a little rosebud of a girl with dimples and flaxen curls, hung
back shyly and looked at David with awed eyes. She had been frightened
by what she had heard about his mother, and in a vague, disconnected
way she associated him with Death. M'ri went to the child's bedside
that night and explained the situation. "Poor Davey is all alone, now,
and very unhappy, so we must be kind to him. I told him you were to be
his little sister."

Then M'ri took David to a gabled room, at each end of which was a
swinging window--"one for seeing the sun rise, and one for seeing it
set," she said, as she turned back the covers from the spotless white
bed. She yearned to console him, but before the mute look of grief in
his big eyes she was silent.

"I wish he would cry," she said wistfully to Barnabas, "he hasn't shed
a tear since his mother died."

No sooner had the sound of her footsteps ceased than David threw off
his armor of self-restraint and burst into a passion of sobs, the
wilder for their long repression. He didn't hear the patter of little
feet on the floor, and not until two mothering arms were about his
neck did he see the white-robed figure of Janey.

"Don't cry, Davey," she implored, her quivering red mouth against his
cheek. "I'm sorry; but I am your little sister now, so you must love
me, Davey. Aunt M'ri told me so."

The lilac-scented breeze of early morning blowing softly through the
vine-latticed window and stirring its white draperies brought David to
wakefulness. With the first surprise at the strangeness of his
surroundings came a fluttering of memory. The fragrance of lilacs was
always hereafter to bring back the awfulness of this waking moment.

He hurriedly dressed, and went down to the kitchen where M'ri was
preparing breakfast.

"Good morning, David. Janey has gone to find some fresh eggs. You may
help her hunt them, if you will."

Knowing the haunts of hens, he went toward the currant bushes. It was
one of those soft days that link late spring and dawning summer. The
coolness of the sweet-odored air, the twitter of numberless dawn
birds, the entreating lowing of distant cattle--all breathing life and
strength--were like a resurrection call to David.

On the east porch, which was his retreat for a smoke or a rest between
the intervals of choring and meals, Barnabas sat, securely wedged in
by the washing machine, the refrigerator, the plant stand, the churn,
the kerosene can, and the lawn mower. He gazed reflectively after
David.

"What are you going to hev Dave do to help, M'ri?"

M'ri came to the door and considered a moment.

"First of all, Barnabas, I am going to have him eat. He is so thin and
hungry looking."

Barnabas chuckled. His sister's happiest mission was the feeding of
hungry children.

After breakfast, when Janey's rebellious curls were again being
brushed into shape, M'ri told David he could go to school if he liked.
To her surprise the boy flushed and looked uncomfortable. M'ri's
intuitions were quick and generally correct.

"It's so near the end of the term, though," she added casually, as an
afterthought, "that maybe you had better wait until next fall to start
in."

"Yes, please, Miss M'ri, I'd rather," he said quickly and gratefully.

When Janey, dinner pail in hand and books under arm, was ready to
start, David asked in surprise where Jud was.

"Oh, he has gone long ago. He thinks he is too big to walk with
Janey."

David quietly took the pail and books from the little girl.

"I'll take you to school, Janey, and come for you this afternoon."

"We won't need to git no watch dog to foller Janey," said Barnabas, as
the children started down the path.

"David," called M'ri, "stop at Miss Rhody's on your way back and find
out whether my waist is finished."

With proudly protective air, David walked beside the stiffly starched
little girl, who had placed her hand trustfully in his. They had gone
but a short distance when they were overtaken by Joe Forbes, mounted
on a shining black horse. He reined up and looked down on them
good-humoredly.

[Illustration: "_With proudly protective air, David walked beside the
stiffly starched little girl_"]

"Going to school, children?"

"I am. Davey's just going to carry my things for me," explained
Janey.

"Well, I can do that and carry you into the bargain. Help her up,
David."

Janey cried out in delight at the prospect of a ride. David lifted her
up, and Joe settled her comfortably in the saddle, encircling her with
his arm. Then he looked down whimsically into David's disappointed
eyes.

"I know it's a mean trick, Dave, to take your little sweetheart from
you."

"She's not my sweetheart; she's my sister."

"Has she promised to be that already? Get up, Firefly."

They were off over the smooth country road, Forbes shouting a
bantering good-by and Janey waving a triumphant dinner pail, while
David, trudging on his way, experienced the desolate feeling of the
one who is left behind. Across fields he came to the tiny, thatched
cottage of Miss Rhody Crabbe, who stood on the crumbling doorstep
feeding some little turkeys.

"Come in, David. I suppose you're after M'ri's waist. Thar's jest a
few stitches to take, and I'll hev it done in no time."

He followed her into the little house, which consisted of a sitting
room "with bedroom off," and a kitchen whose floor was sand scoured;
the few pieces of tinware could be used as mirrors. Miss Rhody seated
herself by the open window and began to ply her needle. She did not
sew swiftly and smoothly, in feminine fashion, but drew her
long-threaded needle through the fabric in abrupt and forceful jerks.
A light breeze fluttered in through the window, but it could not
ruffle the wisp-locked hair that showed traces of a water-dipped comb
and was strained back so taut that a little mound of flesh encircled
each root. Her eyes were bead bright and swift moving. Everything
about her, to the aggressively prominent knuckles, betokened energy
and industry. She was attired in a blue calico shortened by many
washings, but scrupulously clean and conscientiously starched. Her
face shone with soap and serenity.

Miss Rhody's one diversion in a busy but monotonous life was news. She
was wretched if she did not receive the latest bulletins; but it was
to her credit that she never repeated anything that might work harm or
mischief. David was one of her chosen confidants. He was a safe
repository of secrets, a sympathetic listener, and a wise suggester.

"I'm glad M'ri's hevin' a blue waist. She looks so sweet in blue. I've
made her clo'es fer years. My, how I hoped fer to make her weddin'
clo'es onct! It wuz a shame to hev sech a good match spiled. It wuz
too bad she hed to hev them two chillern on her hands--"

"And now she has a third," was what David thought he read in her eyes,
and he hastened to assert: "I am going to help all I can, and I'll
soon be old enough to take care of myself."

"Land sakes, David, you'd be wuth more'n yer keep to any one. I
wonder," she said ruminatingly, "if Martin Thorne will wait for her
till Janey's growed up."

"Martin Thorne!" exclaimed David excitedly. "Judge Thorne? Why, was he
the one--"

"He spent his Sunday evenings with her," she asserted solemnly.

In the country code of courtships this procedure was conclusive proof,
and David accepted it as such.

"He wuz jest plain Lawyer Thorne when he wuz keepin' company with
M'ri, but we all knew Mart wuz a comin' man, and M'ri wuz jest proud
of him. You could see that, and he wuz sot on her."

Her work momentarily neglected, Rhody was making little reminiscent
stabs at space with her needle as she spoke.

"'T wuz seven years ago. M'ri wuz twenty-eight and Mart ten years
older. It would hev ben a match as sure as preachin', but Eliza died
and M'ri, she done her duty as she seen it. Sometimes I think folks is
near-sighted about their duty. There is others as is queer-sighted.
Bein' crossed hain't spiled M'ri though. She's kep' sweet through it
all, but when a man don't git his own way, he's apt to curdle. Mart
got sort of tart-tongued and cold feelin'. There wa'n't no reason why
they couldn't a kep' on bein' friends, but Mart must go and make a
fool vow that he'd never speak to M'ri until she sent him word she'd
changed her mind, so he hez ben a-spitin' of his face ever sence. It's
wonderful how some folks do git in their own way, but, my sakes, I
must git to work so you kin take this waist home."

This was David's first glimpse of a romance outside of story-books,
but the name of Martin Thorne evoked disturbing memories. Six years
ago he had acted as attorney to David's father in settling his
financial difficulties, and later, after Peter Dunne's death, the
Judge had settled the small estate. It was only through his efforts
that they were enabled to have the smallest of roofs over their
defenseless heads.

"Miss Rhody," he asked after a long meditation on life in general,
"why didn't you ever marry?"

Miss Rhody paused again in her work, and two little spots of red crept
into her cheeks.

"'Tain't from ch'ice I've lived single, David. I've ben able to take
keer of myself, but I allers hed a hankerin' same as any woman, as is
a woman, hez fer a man, but I never got no chanst to meet men folks. I
wuz raised here, and folks allers hed it all cut out fer me to be an
old maid. When a woman onct gets that name fixt on her, it's all off
with her chances. No man ever comes nigh her, and she can't git out of
her single rut. I never could get to go nowhars, and I wa'n't that
bold kind that makes up to a man fust, afore he gives a sign."

David pondered over this wistful revelation for a few moments, seeking
a means for her seemingly hopeless escape from a life of single
blessedness, for David was a sympathetic young altruist, and felt it
incumbent upon him to lift the burdens of his neighbors. Then he
suggested encouragingly:

"Miss Rhody, did you know that there was a paper that gets you
acquainted with men? That's the way they say Zine Winters got
married."

"Yes, and look what she drawed!" she scoffed. "Bill! I don't know how
they'd live if Zine hadn't a-gone in heavy on hens and turkeys. She
hez to spend her hull time a-traipsin' after them turkeys, and thar
ain't nuthin' that's given to gaddin' like turkeys that I know on,
less 't is Chubbses' hired gal. No, David, it's chance enough when
you git a man you've knowed allers, but a stranger! Well! I want to
know what I'm gittin'. Thar, the last stitch in M'ri's waist is took,
and, David, you won't tell no one what I said about Mart Thorne and
her, nor about my gittin' merried?"

David gave her a reproachful look, and she laughed shamefacedly.

"I know, David, you kin keep a secret. It's like buryin' a thing to
tell it to you. My, this waist'll look fine on M'ri. I jest love the
feel of silk. I'd ruther hev a black silk dress than--"

"A husband," prompted David slyly.

"David Dunne, I'll box yer ears if you ever think again of what I
said. I am allers a-thinkin' of you as if you wuz a stiddy grown man,
and then fust thing I know you're nuthin' but a teasin' boy. Here's
the bundle, and don't you want a nutcake, David?"

"No, thank you, Miss Rhody. I ate a big breakfast."

A fellow feeling had prompted David even in his hungriest days to
refrain from accepting Miss Rhody's proffers of hospitality. He knew
the emptiness of her larder, for though she had been thrifty and
hard-working, she had paid off a mortgage and had made good the
liabilities of an erring nephew.

When David returned he found Miss M'ri in the dairy. It was churning
day, and she was arranging honey-scented, rose-stamped pats of butter
on moist leaves of crisp lettuce.

"David," she asked, looking up with a winning smile, "will you tell me
why you didn't want to go to school?"

The boy's face reddened, but his eyes looked frankly into hers.

"Yes, Miss M'ri."

"Before you tell me, David," she interposed, "I want you to remember
that, from now on, Barnabas and I are your uncle and aunt."

"Well, then, Aunt M'ri," began David, a ring of tremulous eagerness in
his voice, "I can read and write and spell, but I don't know much
about arithmetic and geography. I was ashamed to start in at the baby
class. I thought I'd try and study out of Jud's books this summer."

"That's a good idea, David. We'll begin now. You'll find an elementary
geography in the sitting room on the shelf, and you may study the
first lesson. This afternoon, when my work is done, I'll hear you
recite it."

David took the book and went out into the old orchard. When M'ri went
to call him to dinner he was sprawled out in the latticed shadow of an
apple tree, completely absorbed in the book.

"You have spent two hours on your first lesson, David. You ought to
have it well learned."

He looked at her in surprise.

"I read the whole book through, Aunt M'ri."

"Oh, David," she expostulated, "that's the way Barnabas takes his
medicine. Instead of the prescribed dose after each meal he takes
three doses right after breakfast--so as to get it off his mind and
into his system, he says. We'll just have one short lesson in
geography and one in arithmetic each day. You mustn't do things in
leaps. It's the steady dog trot that lasts, and counts on the long
journey."

When David was on his way to bring Janey from school that afternoon
he was again overtaken by Joe Forbes.

"Dave, I am going to Chicago in a few days, and I shall stop there
long enough to buy a few presents to send back to some of my friends.
Here's my list. Let me see, Uncle Larimy, a new-fangled fishing
outfit; Barnabas, a pipe; Miss M'ri--guess, Dave."

"You're the guesser, you know," reminded David.

"It's a new kind of ice-cream freezer, of course."

"She's going to freeze ice to-night," recalled David anticipatingly.

"Freeze ice! What a paradoxical process! But what I want you to
suggest is something for Miss Rhody--something very nice."

"What she wants most is something you can't get her," thought David,
looking up with a tantalizing little smile. Then her second wish
occurred to him.

"I know something she wants dreadfully; something she never expects to
have."

"That is just what I want to get for her."

"It'll cost a lot."

Joe disposed of that consideration by a munificent wave of the hand.

"What is it?"

"A black silk dress," informed the boy delightedly.

"She shall have it. How many yards does it take, I wonder?"

"We can ask Janey's teacher when we get to school," suggested the
boy.

"So we can. I contrived to find out that Janey's heart is set on a
string of beads--blue beads. I suppose, to be decent, I shall have to
include Jud. What will it be?"

"He wants a gun. He's a good shot, too."

They loitered on the way, discussing Joe's gifts, until they met Janey
and Little Teacher coming toward them hand in hand. David quickly
secured the pail and books before Joe could appropriate them. He
wasn't going to be cut out a second time in one day.

"Miss Williams," asked the young ranchman, "will your knowledge of
mathematics tell me how many yards of black silk I must get to make a
dress, and what kind of fixings I shall need for it?"

"You don't have to know," she replied. "Just go into any department
store and tell them you want a dress pattern and the findings. They
will do the rest."

"Shopping made easy. You shall have your reward now. My shanty boat is
just about opposite here. Suppose the four of us go down to the river
and have supper on board?"

Little Teacher, to whom life was a vista of blackboards dotted with
vacations, thought this would be delightful. A passing child was made
a messenger to the farm, and they continued their way woodward to the
river, where the shanty boat was anchored. Little Teacher set the
table, Joe prepared the meal, while David sat out on deck, beguiling
Janey with wonderful stories.

"This seems beautifully domestic to a cowboy," sighed Joe, looking
around the supper table, his gaze lingering on Little Teacher, who was
dimpling happily. Imaginative David proceeded to weave his third
romance that day, with a glad little beating of the heart, for he had
feared that Joe might be planning to wait for Janey, as the Judge was
doubtless waiting for M'ri.

The children went directly home after supper, Joe accompanying Little
Teacher. Despite the keenness of David's sorrow the day had been a
peaceful, contented one, but when the shadows began to lengthen to
that most lonesome hour of lonesome days, when from home-coming cows
comes the sound of tinkling bells, a wave of longing swept over him,
and he stole away to the orchard. Again, a soft, sustaining little
hand crept into his.

"Don't, Davey," pleaded a caressing voice, "don't make me cry."

CHAPTER IV

Outside of the time allotted for the performance of a wholesome amount
of farm work and the preparation of his daily lessons, David was free
for diversions which had hitherto entered sparingly into his life.
After school hours and on Saturdays the Barnabas farm was the general
rendezvous for all the children within a three-mile radius. The old
woods by the river rang with the gay treble of childish laughter and
the ecstatic barking of dogs dashing in frantic pursuit. There was
always an open sesame to the cookie jar and the apple barrel.

David suffered the common fate of all in having a dark cloud. Jud was
the dark cloud, and his silver lining had not yet materialized.

In height and physical strength Jud was the superior, so he delighted
in taunting and goading the younger boy. There finally came a day when
instinctive self-respect upheld David in no longer resisting the call
to arms. Knowing Barnabas' disapproval of fighting, and with his
mother's parting admonition pricking his conscience, he went into
battle reluctantly and half-heartedly, so the fight was not prolonged,
and Jud's victory came easily. Barnabas, hurrying to the scene of
action, called Jud off and reprimanded him for fighting a smaller boy,
which hurt David far more than did the pummeling he had received.

"What wuz you fighting fer, anyway?" he demanded of David.

"Nothing," replied David laconically, "just fighting."

"Jud picks on Davey all the time," was the information furnished by
the indignant Janey, who had followed her father.

"Well, I forbid either one of you to fight again. Now, Jud, see that
you leave Dave alone after this."

Emboldened by his easily won conquest and David's apparent lack of
prowess, Jud continued his jeering and nagging, but David set his lips
in a taut line of finality and endured in silence until there came the
taunt superlative.

"Your mother was a washerwoman, and your father a convict."

There surged through David a fierce animal hate. With a tight closing
of his hardy young fist, he rushed to the onslaught so swiftly and so
impetuously that Jud recoiled in fear and surprise. With his first
tiger-like leap David had the older boy by the throat and bore him to
the ground, maintaining and tightening his grip as they went down.

"I'll kill you!"

David's voice was steady and calm, but the boy on the ground
underneath felt the very hairs of his head rising at the look in the
dark eyes above his own.

Fortunately for both of them Barnabas was again at hand.

He jerked David to his feet.

"Fightin' again, are you, after I told you not to!"

"It was him, David, that began it. I never struck him," whimpered Jud,
edging away behind his father.

"Did you, David?" asked Barnabas bluntly, still keeping his hold on
the boy, who was quivering with passion.

"Yes."

His voice sounded odd and tired, and there was an ache of bafflement
in his young eyes.

"What fer? What did he do to make you so mad?"

"He said my mother was a washerwoman and my father a convict! Let me
go! I'll kill him!"

With a returning rush of his passion, David struggled in the man's
grasp.

"Wait, Dave, I'll tend to him. Go to the barn, Jud!" he commanded his
son.

Jud quailed before this new, strange note in his father's voice.

"David was fighting. You said neither of us was to fight. 'T ain't
fair to take it out on me."

Fairness was one of Barnabas' fixed and prominent qualities, but Jud
was not to gain favor by it this time.

"Well, you don't suppose I'm a-goin' to lick Dave fer defendin' his
parents, do you? Besides, I'm not a-goin' to lick you fer fightin',
but fer sayin' what you did. I guess you'd hev found out that Dave
could wallop you ef he is smaller and younger."

"He can't!" snarled Jud. "I didn't have no show. He came at me by
surprise."

Barnabas reflected a moment. Then he said gravely:

"When it's in the blood of two fellers to fight, why thar's got to be
a fight, that's all. Thar won't never be no peace until this ere
question's settled. Dave, do you still want to fight him?"

A fierce aftermath of passion gleamed in David's eyes.

"Yes!" he cried, his nostrils quivering.

"And you'll fight fair? Jest to punish--with no thought of killin'?"

"I'll fight fair," agreed the boy.

"I'll see that you do. Come here, Jud."

"I don't want to fight," protested Jud sullenly.

"He's afraid," said David gleefully, every muscle quivering and
straining.

"I ain't!" yelled Jud.

"Come on, then," challenged David, a fierce joy tugging at his
heart.

Jud came with deliberate precision and a swing of his left. He was
heavier and harder, but David was more agile, and his whole heart was
in the fight this time. They clutched and grappled and parried, and
finally went down; first one was on top, then the other. It was the
wage of brute force against elasticity; bluster against valor. Jud
fought in fear; David, in ferocity. At last David bore his oppressor
backward and downward. Jud, exhausted, ceased to struggle.

"Thar!" exclaimed Barnabas, drawing a relieved breath. "I guess you
know how you stand now, and we'll all feel better. You've got all
that's comin' to you, Jud, without no more from me. You can both go to
the house and wash up."

Uncle Larimy had arrived at the finish of the fight.

"What's the trouble, Barnabas?" he asked interestedly, as the boys
walked away.

The explanation was given, but they spoke in tones so low that David
could not overhear any part of the conversation from the men
following him until, as they neared the house, Uncle Larimy said: "I
was afeerd Dave hed his pa's temper snoozin' inside him. Mebby he'd
orter be told fer a warnin'."

"I don't want to say nuthin' about it less I hev to. I'll wait till
the next time he loses his temper."

David ducked his head in the wash basin on the bench outside the door.
After supper, when Barnabas came out on the back porch for his hour of
pipe, he called his young charge to him. Since the fight, David's face
had worn a subdued but contented expression.

"Looks," thought Barnabas, "kinder eased off, like a dog when he licks
his chops arter the taste of blood has been drawed."

"Set down, Dave. I want to talk to you. You done right to fight fer
yer folks, and you're a good fighter, which every boy orter be, but
when I come up to you and Jud I see that in yer face that I didn't
know was in you. You've got an orful temper, Dave. It's a good thing
to hev--a mighty good thing, if you kin take keer of it, but if you
let it go it's what leads to murder. Your pa hed the same kind of
let-loose temper that got him into heaps of trouble."

"What did my father do?" he asked abruptly.

Instinctively he had shrunk from asking his mother this question, and
pride had forbidden his seeking the knowledge elsewhere.

"Some day, when you are older, you will know all about it. But
remember, when any one says anything like what Jud did, that yer ma
wouldn't want fer you to hev thoughts of killin'. You see, you fought
jest as well--probably better--when you hed cooled off a mite and hed
promised to fight fair. And ef you can't wrastle your temper and down
it as you did Jud, you're not a fust-class fighter."

"I'll try," said David slowly, unable, however, to feel much remorse
for his outbreak.

"Jud'll let you alone arter this. You'd better go to bed now. You need
a little extry sleep."

M'ri came into his room when he was trying to mend a long rent in his
shirt. He flushed uncomfortably when her eye fell on the garment. She
took it from him.

"I'll mend it, David. I don't wonder that your patience slipped its
leash, but--never fight when you have murder in your heart."

When she had left the room, Janey's face, pink and fair as a baby
rose, looked in at the door.

"It's very wicked to fight and get so mad, Davey."

"I know it," he acknowledged readily. It was useless trying to make a
girl understand.

There was a silence. Janey still lingered.

"Davey," she asked in an awed whisper, "does it feel nice to be
wicked?"

David shook his head non-committally.

CHAPTER V

The rather strained relations between Jud and David were eased the
next day by the excitement attending the big package Barnabas brought
from town. It was addressed to David, but the removal of the outer
wrapping disclosed a number of parcels neatly labeled, also a note
from Joe, asking him to distribute the presents.

David first selected the parcel marked "Janey" and handed it to her.

"Blue beads!" she cried ecstatically.

"Let me see, Janey," said M'ri. "Why, they're real turquoises and with
a gold clasp! I'll get you a string of blue beads for now, and you can
put these away till you're grown up."

"I didn't tell Joe what to get for you, Aunt M'ri; honest, I didn't,"
disclaimed David, with a laugh, as he handed the freezer to her.

"We'll initiate it this very day, David."

David handed Barnabas his pipe and gave Jud a letter which he opened
wonderingly, uttering a cry of pleasure when he realized the
contents.

"It's an order on Harkness to let me pick out any rifle in his store.
How did he know? Did you tell him, Dave?"

"Yes," was the quiet reply.

"Thank you, Dave. I'll ride right down and get it, and we'll go to the
woods this afternoon and shoot at a mark."

"All right," agreed David heartily.

The atmosphere was now quite cleared by the proposed expenditure of
ammunition, and M'ri experienced the sensation as of one beholding a
rainbow.

David then turned his undivided attention to his own big package,
which contained twelve books, his name on the fly-leaf of each.
Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Andersen's Fairy Tales,
Arabian Nights, Life of Lincoln, Black Beauty, Oliver Twist, A
Thousand Leagues under the Sea, The Pathfinder, Gulliver's Travels,
Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Young Ranchers comprised the selection. His
eyes gleamed over the enticing titles.

"You shall have some book shelves for your room, David," promised
M'ri, "and you can start your library. Joe has made a good foundation
for one."

His eyes longed to read at once, but there were still the two
packages, marked "Uncle Larimy" and "Miss Rhody," to deliver.

"I can see that Uncle Larimy has a fishing rod, but what do you
suppose he has sent Rhody?" wondered M'ri.

"A black silk dress. I told him she wanted one."

"Take it right over there, David. She has waited almost a lifetime for
it."

"Let me take Uncle Larimy's present," suggested Jud, "and then I'll
ask him to go shooting with us this afternoon."

David amicably agreed, and went across fields to Miss Rhody's.

"Land sakes!" she exclaimed, looking at the parcel. "M'ri ain't
a-goin' to hev another dress so soon, is she?"

"No, Miss Rhody. Some one else is, though."

"Who is it, David?" she asked curiously.

"You see Joe Forbes sent some presents from Chicago, and this is what
he sent you."

"A calico," was her divination, as she opened the package.

"David Dunne!" she cried in shrill, piping tones, a spot of red on
each cheek. "Just look here!" and she stroked lovingly the lustrous
fold of shining silk.

"And if here ain't linings, and thread, and sewing silk, and hooks and
eyes! Why, David Dunne, it can't be true! How did he know--David, you
blessed boy, you must have told him!"

Impulsively she threw her arms about him and hugged him until he
ruefully admitted to himself that she had Jud "beat on the clutch."

"And say, David, I'm a-goin' to wear this dress. I know folks as lets
their silks wear out a-hangin' up in closets. Don't get half as many
cracks when it hangs on yourself. I b'lieve as them Episcopals do in
lettin' yer light shine, and I never wuz one of them as b'lieved in
savin' yer best to be laid out in. Oh, Lord, David, I kin jest hear
myself a-rustlin' round in it!"

"Maybe you'll get a husband now," suggested David gravely.

"Mebby. I'd orter ketch somethin' with this. I never see sech silk.
It's much handsomer than the one Homer Bisbee's bride hed when she
come here from the city. It's orful the way she wastes. Would you
b'lieve it, David, the fust batch of pies she made, she never pricked,
and they all puffed up and bust. David, look here! What's in this
envylope? Forever and way back, ef it hain't a five-doller bill and a
letter. I hain't got my glasses handy. Read it."

"Dear Miss Rhody," read the boy in his musical voice, "silk is none
too good for you, and I want you to wear this and wear it out. If you
don't, I'll never send you another. I thought you might want some more
trimmings, so I send you a five for same. Sincerely yours, Joe."

"I don't need no trimmin's, excep' fifty cents for roochin's."

"I'll tell you what to do, Miss Rhody. When you get your dress made
we'll go into town and you can get your picture taken in the dress and
give it to Joe when he comes back."

"That's jest what I'll do. I never hed my likeness took. David, you've
got an orful quick mind. Is Joe coming home? I thought he callated to
go West."

"Not until fall. He's going to spend the summer in his shanty boat on
the river."

"I'll hurry up and get it made up afore he comes. Tell me what he sent
all your folks."

"Joe's a generous boy, like his ma's folks," she continued, when he
had enumerated their gifts. "I am glad fer him that his pa and his
stepmother was so scrimpin'. David, would you b'lieve it, in that
great big house of the Forbeses thar wa'n't never a tidy on a chair,
and not a picter on the wall! It was mighty lucky for Joe that his
stepmother died fust, so he got all the money."

David hastened home and sought his retreat in the orchard with one of
his books. M'ri, curious to know what his selection had been, scanned
the titles of the remaining eleven volumes.

"Well, who would have thought of a boy's preferring fairy tales!"

David read until dinner time, but spent the afternoon with Uncle
Larimy and Jud in the woods, where they received good instruction in
rifle practice. After supper he settled comfortably down with a book,
from which he was recalled by a plaintive little wail.

"I haven't had a bit of fun to-day, Davey, and it's Saturday, and you
haven't played with me at all!"

The book closed instantly.

"Come on out doors, Janey," he invited.

The sound of childish laughter fell pleasantly on M'ri's ears. She
recalled what Joe Forbes had said about her own children, and an
unbidden tear lingered on her lashes. This little space between
twilight and lamplight was M'ri's favorite hour. In every season but
winter it was spent on the west porch, where she could watch the moon
and the stars come out. Maybe, too, it was because from here she had
been wont to sit in days gone by and watch for Martin's coming. The
time and place were conducive to backward flights of memory, and
M'ri's pictures of the past were most beguiling, except that last one
when Martin Thorne, stern-faced, unrelenting, and vowing that he would
never see her again, had left her alone--to do her duty.

When the children came in she joined them. Janey, flushed and
breathless from play, was curled up on the couch beside David. He put
his arm caressingly about her and began to relate one of Andersen's
fairy tales. M'ri gazed at them tenderly, and was weaving a future
little romance for her two young charges when Janey said petulantly:
"I don't like fairy stories, Davey. Tell a real one."

M'ri noted the disappointment in the boy's eyes as he began the
narrating of a more realistic story.

"David, where did you read that story?" she asked when he had
finished.

"I made it up," he confessed.

"Why, David, I didn't know you had such a talent. You must be an
author when you are a man."

Late that night she saw a light shining from beneath the young
narrator's door.

"I ought to send him to bed," she meditated, "but, poor lad, he has
had so few pleasures and, after all, childhood is the only time for
thorough enjoyment, so why should I put a feather in its path?"

David read until after midnight, and went to bed with a book under his
pillow that he might begin his pastime again at dawn.

After breakfast the next morning M'ri commanded the whole family to
sit down and write their thanks to Joe. David's willing pen flew in
pace with his thoughts as he told of Miss Rhody's delight and his own
revel in book land. Janey made most wretched work of her composition.
She sighed and struggled with thoughts and pencil, which she gnawed at
both ends. Finally she confessed that she couldn't think of anything
more to say. M'ri came to inspect her literary effort, which was
written in huge characters.

"Dear Joe--"

"Oh," commented M'ri doubtfully, "I don't know as you should address
him so familiarly."

"I called him 'Joe' when we rode to school. He told me to," defended
Janey.

"He's just like a boy," suggested David.

So M'ri, silenced, read on: "I thank you for your beyewtifull present
which I cannot have."

"Oh, Janey," expostulated M'ri, laughing; "that doesn't sound very
gracious."

"Well, you said I couldn't have them till I was grown up."

"I was wrong," admitted M'ri. "I didn't realize it then. We have to
see a thing written sometimes to know how it sounds."

"May I wear them?" asked Janey exultingly. "May I put them on now?"

"Yes," consented M'ri.

Janey flew upstairs and came back wearing the adored turquoises, which
made her eyes most beautifully blue.

"Now I can write," she affirmed, taking up her pencil with the
impetus of an incentive. Under the inspiration of the beads around her
neck, she wrote:

  "DEAR JOE:

  "I am wareing the beyewtifull beeds you sent me around my neck.
  Aunt M'ri says they are terkwoyses. I never had such nice beeds
  and I thank you. I wish I cood ride with you agen. Good bye.
  From your frend,

                                                          "JANEY."

CHAPTER VI

The next day being town day, David "hooked up" Old Hundred and drove
to the house. After the butter crock, egg pails, and kerosene and
gasoline cans had been piled in, Barnabas squeezed into the space
beside David. M'ri came out with a memorandum of supplies for them to
get in town. To David she handed a big bunch of spicy, pink June
roses.

"What shall I do with them?" he asked wonderingly.

"Give them to some one who looks as if he needed flowers," she
replied.

"I will," declared the boy interestedly. "I will watch them all and
see how they look at the roses."

At last M'ri had a kindred spirit in her household. Jud would have
sneered, and Janey would not have understood. To Barnabas all flowers
looked alike.

It had come to be a custom for Barnabas to take David to town with him
at least once a week. The trip was necessarily a slow one, for from
almost every farmhouse he received a petition to "do a little errand
in town." As the good nature and accommodating tendency of Barnabas
were well known, they were accordingly imposed upon. He received
commissions of every character, from the purchase of a corn sheller to
the matching of a blue ribbon. He also stopped to pick up a child or
two en route to school or to give a lift to a weary pedestrian whom he
overtook.

While Barnabas made his usual rounds of the groceries, meatmarket,
drug store, mill, feed store, general store, and a hotel where he was
well known, David was free to go where he liked. Usually he
accompanied Barnabas, but to-day he walked slowly up the principal
business street, watching for "one who needed flowers." Many glances
were bestowed upon the roses, some admiring, some careless, and
then--his heart almost stopped beating at the significance--Judge
Thorne came by. He, too, glanced at the roses. His gaze lingered, and
a look came into his eyes that stimulated David's passion for
romance.

"He's remembering," he thought joyfully.

He didn't hesitate even an instant. He stopped in front of the Judge
and extended the flowers.

"Would you like these roses, Judge Thorne?" he asked courteously.

Then for the first time the Judge's attention was diverted from the
flowers.

"Your face is familiar, my lad, but--"

"My name is David Dunne."

"Yes, to be sure, but it must be four years or more since I last saw
you. How's your mother getting along?"

The boy's face paled.

"She died three weeks ago," he answered.

"Oh, my lad," he exclaimed in shocked tones, "I didn't know! I only
returned last night from a long journey. But with whom are you
living?"

"With Aunt M'ri and Uncle Barnabas."

"Oh!"

The impressive silence following this exclamation was broken by the
Judge.

"Why do you offer me these flowers, David?"

"Aunt M'ri picked them and told me to give them to some one who looked
as if they needed flowers."

The Judge eyed him with the keen scrutiny of the trained lawyer, but
the boy's face was non-committal.

"Come up into my office with me, David," commanded the Judge, turning
quickly into a near-by stairway. David followed up the stairs and into
a suite of well-appointed offices.

A clerk looked up in surprise at the sight of the dignified judge
carrying a bouquet of old-fashioned roses and accompanied by a country
lad.

"Good morning, Mathews. I am engaged, if any one comes."

He preceded David into a room on whose outer door was the deterrent
word, "Private."

While the Judge got a pitcher of water to hold the flowers David
crossed the room. On a table near the window was a rack of books
which he eagerly inspected. To his delight he saw a volume of
Andersen's Fairy Tales. Instantly the book was opened, and he was
devouring a story.

"David," spoke the Judge from the other end of the room, "didn't these
roses grow on a bush by the west porch?"

There was no answer.

The Judge, remarking the boy's absorption, came to see what he was
reading.

"Andersen's Fairy Tales! My favorite book. I didn't know that boys
liked fairy stories."

David looked up quickly.

"I didn't know that lawyers did, either."

"Well, I do, David. They are my most delightful diversion."

"Girls don't like fairy stories," mused David. "Anyway, Janey doesn't.
I have to tell true stories to please her."

"Oh, you are a yarner, are you?"

"Yes," admitted David modestly. "Aunt M'ri thinks I will be a writer
when I grow up, but I think I should like to be a lawyer."

"David," asked the Judge abruptly, "did Miss Brumble tell you to give
me those roses?"

With a wild flashing of eyes the Dunne temper awoke, and the boy's
under jaw shot forward.

"No!" he answered fiercely. "She didn't know that I know--"

He paused in mid-channel of such deep waters.

"That you know what?" demanded the Judge in his cross-examining tone.

David was doubtful of the consequences of his temerity, but he stood
his ground.

"I can't tell you what, because I promised not to. Some one was just
thinking out loud, and I overheard."

There was silence for a moment.

"David, I remember your father telling me, years ago, that he had a
little son with a big imagination which his mother fed by telling
stories every night at bedtime."

"Will you tell me," asked David earnestly, "about my father? What was
it he did? Uncle Barnabas told me something about his trouble last
Saturday."

"How did he come to mention your father to you?"

David reddened.

"Jud twitted me about my mother taking in washing and about my father
being a convict, and I knocked him down. I told him I would kill him.
Uncle Barnabas pulled me off."

"And then?"

"Then he let us fight it out."

"And you licked?"

"Yes, sir," replied the boy, with proud modesty.

"You naturally would, with that under jaw, but it's the animal in us
that makes us want to kill, and the man in us should rise above the
animal. I think I am the person to tell you about your father. He had
every reason to make good, but he was unfortunate in his choice of
associates and he acquired some of their habits. He had a violent
temper, and one night when he was--"

"Drunk," supplied David gravely.

"He became angry with one of his friends and tried to kill him. Your
father was given a comparatively short sentence, which he had almost
served when he died. You must guard against your temper and cultivate
patience and endurance--qualities your mother possessed."

It suddenly and overwhelmingly flashed across David what need his
mother must have had for such traits, and he turned away to force back
his tears. The Judge saw the heaving of the slender, square, young
shoulders, and the gray eyes that were wont to look so coldly upon the
world and its people grew soft and surprisingly moist.

"It's past now, David, and can't be helped, but you are going to aim
to be the kind of man your mother would want you to be. You must learn
to put up with Jud's tyranny because his father and his aunt are your
benefactors. I have been away the greater part of the time since your
father's death, or I should have kept track of you and your mother.
Every time you come to town I want you to come up here and report to
me. Will you?"

"Thank you, sir. And I will bring you some more flowers."

CHAPTER VII

"Whar wuz you, Dave, all the time we wuz in town?" asked Barnabas, as
they drove homeward.

"In Judge Thorne's office."

"Judge Thorne's office! What fer?"

"He asked me there, Uncle Barnabas. He was my father's lawyer once,
you know."

"So he wuz. I hed fergot."

"He warned me against my temper, as you did, and he told me--all about
my father."

"I am glad he did, Dave. He wuz the one to tell you."

"He says that every time I come to Lafferton I must come up and report
to him."

"Wal, Dave, it does beat all how folks take to you. Thar wuz Joe
wanted you, and now Mart Thorne's interested. Mebby they could do
better by you than we could. Joe's rich, and the Jedge is well fixed
and almighty smart."

"No," replied David stoutly. "I'd rather stay with you, Uncle
Barnabas. There's something you've got much more of than they have."

"What's that, Dave?" asked Barnabas curiously.

"Horse sense."

Barnabas looked pleased.

"Wal, Dave, I callate to do my best fer you, and thar's one thing I
want _you_ to git some horse sense about right off."

"All right, Uncle Barnabas. What is it?"

"Feedin' on them fairy stories all day. They hain't hullsome diet fer
a boy."

"The Judge reads them," protested David. "He has that same book of
fairy stories that Joe gave me."

"When you've done all the Jedge has, and git to whar you kin afford to
be idle, you kin read any stuff you want ter."

"Can't I read them at all?" asked David in alarm.

"Of course you kin. I meant, I didn't want you stickin' to 'em like a
pup to a root. You're goin' down to the fields to begin work with me
this arternoon, and you won't feel much like readin' to-night. I wuz
lookin' over them books of your'n last night. Thar's one you'd best
start in on right away, and give the fairies a rest."

"Which one?"

"Life of Lincoln. That'll show you what work will do."

"I'll read it aloud to you, Uncle Barnabas."

When they reached the bridge that spanned the river Old Hundred
dropped the little hurrying gait which he assumed in town, and settled
down to his normal, comfortable, country jog.

"Uncle Barnabas," said David thoughtfully, "what is your religion?"

Barnabas meditated.

"Wal, Dave, I don't know as I hev what you might call religion
exackly. I b'lieve in payin' a hundred cents on the dollar, and
a-helpin' the man that's down, and--wal, I s'pose I come as nigh bein'
a Unitarian as anything."

The distribution of the purchases now began. Sometimes the good
housewife, herself, came out to receive the parcels and to hear the
latest news from town. Oftener, the children of the household were
the messengers, for Barnabas' pockets were always well filled with
candy on town days. At one place Barnabas stopped at a barn by the
roadside and surreptitiously deposited a suspicious looking package.
When he was in front of the next farmhouse a man came out with anxious
mien.

"All right, Fred!" hailed Barnabas with a knowing wink. "I was afeerd
you'd not be on the watchout. I left it in the manger."

They did not reach the farm until the dinner hour, and the conversation
was maintained by M'ri and Barnabas on marketing matters. David spent
the afternoon in being initiated in field work. At supper, M'ri asked
him suddenly:

"To whom did you give the flowers, David?"

"I've made a story to it, Aunt M'ri, and I'm going to tell it to
Janey. Then you can hear."

M'ri smiled, and questioned him no further.

When the day was done and the "still hour" had come, Janey and David,
hand in hand, came around the house and sat down at her feet. It was
seldom that any one intruded at this hour, but she knew that David had
come to tell his story.

"Begin, Davey," urged Janey impatiently.

"One day, when a boy was going to town, his aunt gave him a big
bouquet of pink roses. She told him to give them to some one who
looked as if they needed flowers. So when the boy got to town he
walked up Main Street and looked at every one he met. He hoped to see
a little sick child or a tired woman who had no flowers of her own;
but every one seemed to be in a hurry, and very few stopped to look at
flowers or anything else. Those that did look turned away as if they
did not see them, and some seemed to be thinking, 'What beautiful
flowers!' and then forgot them.

"At last he met a tall, stern man dressed in fine clothes. He looked
very proud, but as if he were tired of everything. When he saw the
flowers he didn't turn away, but kept his eyes on them as if they made
him sad and lonesome in thinking of good times that were over. So the
boy asked him if he would not like the flowers. The man looked
surprised and asked the boy what his name was. When he heard it, he
remembered that he had been attorney for the boy's father. He took him
up into an office marked private, and he gave the boy some good
advice, and talked to him about his mother, which made the boy feel
bad. But the man comforted him and told him that every time he came to
town he was to report to him."

M'ri had sat motionless during the recital of this story. At its close
she did not speak.

"That wasn't much of a story. Let's go play," suggested Janey,
relieving the tension.

They were off like a flash. David heard his name faintly called.
M'ri's voice sounded far off, and as if there were tears in it, but he
lacked the courage to return.

CHAPTER VIII

Two important events calendared the next week. The school year ended
and Pennyroyal, the "hired help," who had been paying her annual visit
to her sister, came back to the farm. There are two kinds of
housekeepers, the "make-cleans" and the "keep-cleans." Pennyroyal was
a graduate of both classes. Her ruling passions in life were scrubbing
and "redding" up. On the day of her return, after making onslaught on
house and porches, she attacked the pump, and planned a sand-scouring
siege for the morrow on the barn. In appearance she was a true
exponent of soap and water, and always had the look of being freshly
laundered.

At first Pennyroyal looked with ill favor on the addition that had
been made to the household in her absence, but when David submitted to
the shampooing of his tousled mass of hair, and offered no protest
when she scrubbed his neck, she became reconciled to his presence.

On a "town day" David, carrying a huge bunch of pinks, paid his second
visit to the Judge.

"Did she tell you," asked the tall man, gazing very hard at the
landscape without the open window, "to give these flowers to some one
who needed them?"

There was a perilous little pause. Then there flashed from the boy to
the man a gaze of comprehension.

"She picked them for you," was the response, simply spoken.

The Judge carefully selected a blossom for his buttonhole, and then
proceeded to draw David out. Under the skillful, schooled questioning,
David grew communicative.

"She's always on the west porch after supper." He added naïvely:
"That's the time when Uncle Barnabas smokes on the east porch, Jud
goes off with the boys, and I play with Janey in the lane."

"Thank you, David," acknowledged the Judge gratefully. "You are quite
a bureau of information, and," in a consciously casual tone, "will you
take a note to your aunt? I think I will ride out to the farm
to-night."

David's young heart fluttered, and he went back to the farm invested
with a proud feeling of having assisted the fates. The air was filled
with mystery and an undercurrent of excitement that day. After David
had delivered the auspicious note, a private conference behind closed
doors had been held between M'ri and Barnabas in the "company parlor."
David's shrewd young eyes noted the weakening of the lines of finality
about M'ri's mouth when she emerged from the interview. Throughout the
long afternoon she performed the usual tasks in nervous haste, the
color coming and going in her delicately contoured face.

When she appeared at the supper table she was adorned in white,
brightened by touches of blue at belt and collar. David's young eyes
surveyed her appraisingly and approvingly, and later he effected a
thorough effacing of the family. He obtained from Barnabas permission
for Jud to go to town with the Gardner boys. His next diplomatic move
was to persuade Pennyroyal to go with himself and Janey to Uncle
Larimy's hermit home. When she wavered, he commented on the eclipse of
Uncle Larimy's windows the last time he saw them. That turned the tide
of Pennyroyal's resistance. Equipped with soft linen, a cake of strong
soap, and a bottle of ammonia, she strode down the lane, accompanied
by the children.

The walk proved a trying ordeal for Pennyroyal. She started out at her
accustomed brisk gait, but David loitered and sauntered, Janey of
course setting her pace by his. Pennyroyal, feeling it incumbent upon
herself to keep watch of her young companions, retraced her steps so
often that she covered the distance several times.

At Uncle Larimy's she found such a fertile field for her line of work
that David was quite ready to return when she pronounced her labors
finished. She was really tired, and quite willing to walk home slowly
in the moonlight.

It was very quiet. Here and there a bird, startled from its hiding
place, sought refuge in the higher branches. A pensive quail piped an
answer to the trilling call from the meadows. A tree toad uttered his
lonely, guttural exclamation. The air, freshening with a coming covey
of clouds, swayed the tops of the trees with mournful sound.

David, full of dreams, let his fancy have full play, and he made a
little story of his own about the meeting of the lovers. He pictured
the Judge riding down the dust-white road as the sunset shadows grew
long. He knew the exact spot--the last bit of woodland--from where
Martin, across level-lying fields, could obtain his first glimpse of
the old farmhouse and porch. His moving-picture conceit next placed
M'ri, dressed in white, with touches of blue, on the west porch. He
had decided that in the Long Ago Days she had been wont to wear blue,
which he imagined to be the Judge's favorite color. Then he caused the
unimpressionable Judge to tie his horse to the hitching post at the
side of the road and walk between the hedges of sweet peas that
bordered the path. Their pink and white sweetness was the trumpet
call sounding over the grave of the love of his youth. (David had read
such a passage in a book at Miss Rhody's and thought it very fine and
applicable.) His active fancy took Martin Thorne around the house to
the west porch. The white figure arose, and in the purple-misted
twilight he saw the touches of blue, and his heart lighted.

"Marie!"

The old name, the name he had given her in his love-making days, came
to his lips. (David couldn't make M'ri fit in with the settings of his
story, so he re-christened her.) She came forward with outstretched
hand and a gentle manner, but at the look in his eyes as he uttered
the old name, with the caressing accent on the first syllable, she
understood. A deep sunrise color flooded her face and neck.

"Martin!" she whispered as she came to him.

David threw back his head and shut his eyes in ecstatic bliss. He was
rudely roused from his romantic weaving by the sound of Barnabas'
chuckle as they came to the east porch.

"You must a washed every one of Larimy's winders!"

"Yes," replied Janey, "and she mopped his floors, washed and
clean-papered the shelves, and wanted to scrub the old gray horse."

"Pennyroyal," exclaimed Barnabas gravely, "I wonder you ain't
waterlogged!"

"Pennyroyal'd rather be clean than be President," averred David.

"Where's M'ri?" demanded Pennyroyal, ignoring these thrusts.

"On the west porch, entertaining company," remarked Barnabas.

"Who?"

Pennyroyal never used a superfluous word. Joe Forbes said she talked
like telegrams.

Barnabas removed his pipe from his mouth, and paused to give his words
greater dramatic force.

"Mart Thorne!"

The effect was satisfactory.

Pennyroyal stood as if petrified for a moment. Than she expressed her
feelings.

"Hallelujah!"

Her tone made the exclamation as impressive as a benediction.

M'ri visited the bedside of each of her charges that night. Jud and
Janey were in the land of dreams, but David was awake, expecting her
coming. There was a new tenderness in her good-night kiss.

"Aunt M'ri," asked the boy, looking up with his deep, searching eyes
and a suspicion of a smile about his lips, "did you and Judge Thorne
talk over my education? He said that he was going to speak to you
about it."

Her eyes sparkled.

"David, the Judge is coming to dinner Sunday. We will talk it over
with you then."

"Aunt M'ri," a little note of wistfulness chasing the bantering look
from his eyes, "you aren't going to leave us now?"

"Not for a year, David," she said, a soft flush coming to her face.

"He's waited seven," thought David, "so one more won't make so much
difference. Anyway, we need a year to get used to it."

After all, David was only a boy. His flights of romantic fancy
vanished in remembrance of the blissful certainty that there would be
ice cream for dinner on Sunday next and on many Sundays thereafter.

CHAPTER IX

The little trickle of uneven days was broken one morning by a message
which was brought by the "hired man from Randall's."

"We've got visitors from the city tew our house," he announced. "They
want you to send Janey over tew play with their little gal."

Befitting the honor of the occasion, Janey was attired in her
blue-sprigged muslin and allowed to wear the turquoises. David drove
her to Maplewood, the pretentious home of the Randalls, intending to
call for her later. When they came to the entrance of the grounds at
the end of a long avenue of maples a very tiny girl, immaculate in
white, with hair of gold and eyes darkly blue, came out from among the
trees. She regarded David with deep, grave eyes as he stepped from the
wagon to open the gate.

"You've come to play with me," she stated in a tone of assurance.

"I've brought Janey to play with you," he rejoined, indicating his
little companion. "If you'll get in the wagon, I'll drive you up to
the house."

She held up her slender little arms to him, and David felt as if he
were lifting a doll.

"My name in Carey Winthrop. What is yours?" she demanded of Janey as
they all rode up the shaded, graveled road.

"Janey Brumble," replied the visitor, gaining ease from the
ingenuousness of the little girl and from the knowledge that she was
older than her hostess.

"And he's your brother?" indicating David.

"He's my adopted brother," said Janey; "he's David Dunne."

"I wish I had a 'dopted brother," sighed the little girl, eying David
wistfully.

David drove up to the side entrance of the large, white-columned,
porticoed house, on the spacious veranda of which sat a fair-haired
young woman with luminous eyes and smiling mouth. The smile deepened
as she saw the curiously disfigured horse ambling up to the stone
step.

"Whoa, Old Hundred!" commanded David, whereupon the smile became a
rippling laugh. David got out, lifted the little girl to the ground
very carefully, and gave a helping hand to the nimble, independent
Janey.

"Mother," cried Carey delightedly, "this is Janey and her 'dopted
brother David."

David touched his cap gravely in acknowledgment of the introduction.
He had never heard his name pronounced as this little girl spoke it,
with the soft "a." It sounded very sweet to him.

"I'll drive back for you before sundown, Janey," said David, preparing
to climb into the wagon.

"No," objected Carey, regarding him with apprehension, "I want you to
stay and play with me. Tell him to stay, mother."

There was a regal carriage to the little head and an imperious
note--the note of an only child--in her voice.

"Maybe David has other things to do than to play with little girls,"
said her mother, "but, David, if you can stay, I wish you would."

"I should like to stay," replied David earnestly, "but they expect me
back, and Old Hundred is needed in the field."

"Luke can drive your horse back, and we will see that you and Janey
ride home."

So Carey, with a hand to each of her new playmates, led them across
the driveway to the rolling stretch of shaded lawn. The lady watched
David as he submitted to be driven as a horse by the little girls and
then constituted himself driver to his little team of ponies as he
called them. Later, when they raced to the meadow, she saw him hold
Janey back that Carey might win. Presently the lady was joined by her
husband.

"Where is Carey?" he asked.

"She is having great sport with a pretty little girl and a guardian
angel of a boy. Here they come!"

They were trooping across the lawn, the little girls adorned with
blossom wreaths which David had woven for them.

"May we go down to the woods--the big woods?" asked Carey.

"It's too far for you to walk, dear," remonstrated her mother.

"David says he'll draw me in my little cart."

"Who is it that was afraid to go into the big woods, and thought it
was a forest filled with wild beasts and scary things?" demanded Mr.
Winthrop.

The earnest eyes fixed on his were not at all abashed.

"With him, with David," she said simply, "I would have no afraidments."

"Afraidments?" he repeated perplexedly. "I am not sure I understand."

"Don't tease, Arthur; it's a very good word," interposed Mrs. Winthrop
quickly. "It seems to have a different meaning from fear."

"Come up here, David," bade Mr. Winthrop, "and let me see what there
is in you to inspire one with no 'afraidments'."

The boy came up on the steps, and did not falter under the keen but
good-humored gaze.

"Do you like to play with little girls, David?"

"I like to play with these little girls," admitted David.

"And what do you like to do besides that?"

"I like to shoot."

"Oh, a hunter?"

"No; I like to shoot at a mark."

"And what else?"

"I like to read, and fish, and swim, and--"

"Eat ice cream!" finished Janey roguishly, showing her dimples.

The man caught her up in his arms.

"You are a darling, and I wish my little girl had such rosy cheeks.
David, can you show me where there is good fishing?"

"Uncle Larimy can show you the best places. He knows where the bass
live, and how to coax them to bite."

"And will you take me to this wonderful person to-morrow?"

"Yes, sir."

Carey now came out of the hall with her cart, and David drew her
across the lawn, Janey dancing by his side. Down through the meadows
wound a wheel-tracked road leading to a patch of dense woods which, to
a little girl with a big imagination, could easily become a wild
forest infested with all sorts of nameless terrors--terrors that make
one draw the bedclothes snugly over the head at night. She gave a
little frightened cry as they came into the cool, olive depths.

"I am afraid, David. Take me!"

He lifted her to his shoulder, and her soft cheek nestled against his
face.

"Now you are not afraid," he said persuasively.

"No; but I would be if you put me down."

They went farther into the oak depths, until they came to a fallen
tree where they rested. Janey, investigating the forestry, finally
discovered a bush with slender red twigs.

"Oh," she cried, "now David will show you what beautiful things he can
make for us."

"I have no pins," demurred David.

"I have," triumphantly producing a paper of the needful from her
pocket. "I always carry them now."

David broke up the long twigs into short pieces, from which he
skillfully fashioned little chairs and tables, discoursing the while
to Carey on the beauty and safety of the woods. Finally Carey
acquired courage to hunt for wild flowers, though her hand remained
close in David's clasp.

When they returned to the house Carey gave a glowing account of the
expedition.

"Sit down on the steps and rest, children," proposed Mrs. Winthrop,
"while Lucy prepares a little picnic dinner for you."

"What will we do now, David?" appealed Carey, when they were seated on
the porch.

"You mustn't do anything but sit still," admonished her mother.
"You've done more now than you are used to doing in one day."

"Davey will tell us a story," suggested Janey.

"Yes, please, David," urged Carey, coming to him and resting her eyes
on his inquiringly, while her little hand confidently sought his knee.
Instinctively and naturally his fingers closed upon it.

Embarrassed as he was at having a strange audience, he could not
resist the child's appeal.

"She'll like the kind that you don't," he said musingly to Janey, "the
kind about fairies and princes."

"Yes," rejoined Carey.

So he fashioned a tale, partly from recollections of Andersen but
mostly from his own fancy. As his imagination kindled, he forgot where
he was. Inspired by the spellbound interest of the dainty little girl
with the worshiping eyes, he achieved his masterpiece.

"Upon my word," exclaimed Mr. Winthrop, "you are a veritable
Scheherazade! You didn't make up that story yourself?"

"Only part of it," admitted David modestly.

When he and Janey started for home David politely delivered M'ri's
message of invitation for Carey to come to the farm on the morrow to
play.

"It is going to be lovely here," said the little girl happily. "And we
are going to come every summer."

Janey kissed her impulsively. "Good-by, Carey."

"Good-by, Janey. Good-by, David."

"Good-by," he returned cheerily. Looking back, he saw her lips
trembling. His gaze turned in perplexity to Mrs. Winthrop, whose eyes
were dancing. "She expects you to bid her good-by the way Janey did,"
she explained.

"Oh!" said David, reddening, as two baby lips of scarlet were lifted
naturally and expectantly to his.

As they drove away, the light feet of the horse making but little
sound on the smooth road, Mrs. Winthrop's clear treble was wafted
after them.

"One can scarcely believe that his father was a convict and his mother
a washerwoman."

A lump came into the boy's throat. Janey was very quiet on the way
home. When they were alone she said to him, with troubled eyes:

"Davey, is Carey going to be your sweetheart?"

His laugh was reassuring.

"Why, Janey, I am just twice her age."

"She is like a little doll, isn't she, David?"

"No; like a little princess."

The next morning Little Teacher came to show them her present from
Joe.

"I am sure he chose a camera so I could take your pictures to send to
him," she declared.

"Miss Rhody wants her picture taken in the black silk Joe gave her. If
you will take it, she won't have to spend the money he sent her," said
the thoughtful David.

Little Teacher was very enthusiastic over this proposition, and
offered to accompany him at once to secure the picture. Miss Rhody was
greatly excited over the event. Ever since the dress had been finished
she had been a devotee at the shrine of two hooks in her closet from
which was suspended the long-coveted garment, waiting for an occasion
that would warrant its débût. She nervously dressed for the
"likeness," for which she assumed her primmest pose. A week later
David sent Joe a picture of Miss Rhody standing stiff and straight on
her back porch and arrayed, with all the glory of the lilies of the
field, in her new silk.

CHAPTER X

When the hot, close-cropped fields took on their first suggestion
of autumn and a fuller note was heard in the requiem of the
songbirds, when the twilights were of purple and the morning skies
delicately mackereled in gray, David entered the little, red, country
schoolhouse. M'ri's tutelage and his sedulous application to Jud's
schoolbooks saved him from the ignominy of being classified with the
younger children.

When he sat down to the ink-stained, pen-scratched desk that was to be
his own, when he made compact piles of his new books and placed in the
little groove in front of the inkwell his pen, pencils, and ruler, he
turned to Little Teacher such a glowing face of ecstasy that she was
quite inspired, and her sympathies and energies were at once enlisted
in the cause of David's education.

It was the beginning of a new world for him. He studied with a
concentration that made him oblivious to all that occurred about him,
and he had to be reminded of calls to recitations by an individual
summons. He fairly overwhelmed Little Teacher by his voracity for
learning and a perseverance that vanquished all obstacles. He soon
outstripped his class, and finally his young instructress was forced
to bring forth her own textbooks to satisfy his avidity. He devoured
them all speedily, and she then applied to the Judge for fuel from his
library to feed her young furnace.

"He takes to learning as naturally as bees to blossoms," she
reported.

"He must ease off," warned Barnabas. "Young hickory needs plenty of
room for full growth."

"No," disagreed the Judge, "young hickory is as strong as wrought
iron. He's going to have a clear, keen mind to argue law cases."

"I think not," said M'ri. "You forget another quality of young
hickory. No other wood burns with such brilliancy. David is going to
be an author."

"I am afraid," wrote Joe, "that Dave won't be a first-class ranchman.
He must be plum locoed with dreams."

This prognostication reached David's ears.

"Without dreams," he argued to Barnabas, "one would be like the
pigs."

"Wal, now, Dave, mebby pigs dream. They sartain sleep a hull lot."

David laughed appreciatively.

"Dave," pursued Barnabas, "they're all figgerin' on your futur, and
they're a-figgerin' wrong. Joe thinks you'll take to ranchin'. You
may--fer a spell. M'ri thinks you may write books. You may do even
that--fer a spell. The Jedge counts on yer takin' to the law like a
duck does to water. You may, but law larnin', cow punchin', and story
writin' 'll jest be steppin' stuns to what I know you air goin' ter
be, and what I know is in you ter be."

"What in the world is that, Uncle Barnabas?" asked David in surprise.
"A farmer?"

"Farmer, nuthin'!" scoffed Barnabas. "Yer hain't much on farmin',
Dave, though I will say yer furrers is allers straight, like
everythin' else you do. Yer straight yerself. No! young hickory can
bend without breakin', and thar's jest one thing I want fer you to
be."

"What?" persisted the boy.

Barnabas whispered something.

The blood of the young country boy went like wine through his veins;
his heart leaped with a big and mighty purpose.

"Now, remember, Dave," cautioned Barnabas, "what all work and no play
done to Jack. You git yer lessons perfect, and recite them, and read a
leetle of an evenin'; the rest of the time I want yer to get out and
cerkilate."

November with its call to quiet woods came on, and David was eager to
"cerkilate." He became animated with the spirit of sport. Red-letter
Saturdays were spent with Uncle Larimy, and the far-away echo of the
hunter's bullet and the scudding through the woods of startled game
became new, sweet music to his ears. Rifle in hand, with dog shuffling
at his heels or plunging ahead in search of game, the world was his.
Life was very full and happy, save for the one inevitable sprig of
bitter--Jud! The big bully of a boy had learned that David was his
equal physically and his superior mentally, but the fear of David and
of David's good standing kept him from venturing out in the open; so
from cover he sought by all the arts known to craftiness to harass the
younger boy, whose patience this test tried most sorely.

One day when Little Teacher had given him a verbose definition of the
word "pestiferous," David looked at her comprehendingly. "Like Jud,"
he murmured.

Many a time his young arms ached to give Jud another thrashing, but
his mother's parting injunction restrained him.

"If only," he sighed, "Jud belonged to some one else!"

He vainly sought to find the hair line that divided his sense of
gratitude and his protection of self-respect.

Winter followed, and the farm work droned. It was a comfortable, cozy
time, with breakfast served in the kitchen on a table spread with a
gay, red cloth. Pennyroyal baked griddle-sized cakes, delivering them
one at a time direct from the stove to the consumer. The early hour
of lamplight made long evenings, which were beguiled by lesson books
and story-books, by an occasional skating carnival on the river, a
coasting party at Long Hill, or a "surprise" on some hospitable
neighbor.

One morning he came into school with face and eyes aglow with
something more than the mere delight of living. It meant mischief,
pure and simple, but Little Teacher was not always discerning. She
gave him a welcoming smile of sheer sympathy with his mood. She didn't
smile, later, when the schoolroom was distracted by the sound of
raucous laughter, feminine screams, and a fluttering of skirts as the
girls scrambled to standing posture in their chairs. Astonished, she
looked for the cause. The cause came her way, and the pupils had a
fresh example of the miracles wrought by a mouse, for Little Teacher,
usually the personification of dignity and repose, screamed lustily
and scudded chairward with as much rapidity as that displayed by the
scurrying mouse as it chased for the corner and disappeared through a
knothole.

As soon as the noiseful glee had subsided, Little Teacher sought to
recover her prided self-possession. In a voice resonant with
sternness, she commanded silence, gazing wrathfully by chance at
little Tim Wiggins.

"'T was David done it," he said in deprecating self-defense, imagining
himself accused.

"David Dunne," demanded Little Teacher, "did you bring that mouse to
school?"

"He brung it and let it out on purpose," informed Tim eagerly.

Little Teacher never encouraged talebearing, but she was so
discomfited by the exposure of the ruling weakness peculiar to her
sex that she decided to discipline her favorite pupil upon his
acknowledgment of guilt.

"You may bring your books and sit on the platform," she ordered
indignantly.

David did not in the least mind his assignment to so prominent a
position, but he did mind Little Teacher's attitude toward him
throughout the day. He sought to propitiate her by coming to her
assistance in many little tasks, but she persistently ignored his
overtures. He then ventured to seek enlightenment regarding his
studies, but she coldly informed him he could remain after school to
ask his questions.

David began to feel troubled, and looked out of the window for
an inspiration. He found one in the form of big, brawny, Jim
Block--"Teacher's Jim," as the school children all called him.

"There goes Teacher's Jim," sang David, _soto voce_.

The shot told. For the second time that day Little Teacher showed
outward and visible signs of an inward disturbance. With a blush she
turned quickly to the window and watched with expressive eyes the
stalwart figure striding over the rough-frozen road.

In an instant, however, she had recalled herself to earth, and David's
dancing eyes renewed her hostility toward him. Toward the end of the
day she began to feel somewhat appeased by his docility and evident
repentance. Her manner had perceptibly changed by the time the closing
exercise began. This was the writing of words on the blackboard for
the pupils to use in sentences. She pointed to the first word,
"income."

"Who can make a sentence and use that word correctly?" she asked.

"Do call on Tim," whispered David. "He so loves to be the first to
tell anything."

She smiled her appreciation of Tim's prominent characteristic, and
looked at the youngster, who was wringing his hand in an agony of
eagerness. She gave him the floor, and he jumped to his feet in
triumph, yelling:

"In come a mouse!"

This was too much for David's composure, and he gave way to an
infectious fit of laughter, in which the pupils joined.

Little Teacher found the allusion personal and uncomfortable. She at
once assumed her former distant mien, demanding David's presence after
school closed.

"You have no gratitude, David," she stated emphatically.

The boy winced, and his eyes darkened with concern, as he remembered
his mother's parting injunction.

Little Teacher softened slightly.

"You are sorry, aren't you, David?" she asked gently.

He looked at her meditatively.

"No, Teacher," he answered quietly.

She flushed angrily.

"David Dunne, you may go home, and you needn't come back to school
again until you tell me you are sorry."

David took his books and walked serenely from the room. He went home
by the way of Jim Block's farm.

"Hullo, Dave!" called Big Jim, who was in the barnyard.

"Hello, Jim! I came to tell you some good news. You said if you were
only sure there was something Teacher was afraid of, you wouldn't feel
so scared of her."

"Well," prompted Jim eagerly.

"I thought I'd find out for you, so I took a mouse to school and let
it loose."

"Gee!"

David then related the occurrences of the morning, not omitting the
look in Little Teacher's eyes when she beheld Jim from the window.

"I'll hook up this very night and go to see her," confided Jim.

"Be sure you do, Jim. If you find your courage slipping, just remember
that you owe it to me, because she won't let me come back to school
unless she knows why I wasn't sorry."

"I give you my word, Dave," said Jim earnestly.

The next morning Little Teacher stopped at the Brumble farm.

"I came this way to walk to school with you and Janey," she said
sweetly and significantly to David.

When they reached the road, and Janey had gone back to get her sled,
Little Teacher looked up and caught the amused twinkle in David's eye.
A wave of conscious red overspread her cheeks.

"Must I say I am sorry now?" he asked.

"David Dunne, there are things you understand which you never learned
from books."

CHAPTER XI

Late spring brought preparations for M'ri's wedding. Rhody Crabbe's
needle and fingers flew in rapturous speed, and there was likewise
engaged a seamstress from Lafferton. Rhody had begged for the making
of the wedding gown, and when it was finished David went to fetch it
home.

"It's almost done, David, and you tell M'ri the last stitch was a
loveknot. It's most a year sence you wuz here afore, a-waitin' fer her
blue waist tew be finished. Remember, don't you, David?"

He remembered, and as she stitched he sat silently reviewing that
year, the comforts received, the pleasures pursued, and, best of all,
the many things he had learned, but the recollection that a year ago
his mother had been living brought a rush of sad memories and blotted
out happier thoughts.

"I wish yer ma could hev seen Mart and M'ri merried. She was orful
disapp'inted when they broke off."

There was no reply. Rhody's sharp little eyes, in upward glance, spied
the trickling tear; she looked quickly away and stitched in furious
haste.

"But, my!" she continued, as if there had been no pause, "how glad she
would be to know 't was you as fetched it around."

David looked up, diverted and inquiring.

"Yes; I learnt it from M'ri. She told me about the flowers you give
him. I thought it was jest sweet in you, David. You done good work
thar."

"Miss Rhody," said David earnestly, "maybe some day I can get you a
sweetheart."

"'T ain't no use, David," she sighed. "No one wants a plain critter
like me."

"Lots of them don't marry for looks," argued David sagely. "Besides,
you look fine in your black silk, and your hair crimped. Joe thinks
your picture is great. He's got it on a shelf over his fireplace at
the ranch."

"Most likely some cowboy'll see it and lose his heart," laughed Miss
Rhody, "but thar, the weddin' dress is all done. You go home and quit
thinkin' about gittin' me a man. I ain't ha'nted by the thought of
endin' single."

Great preparations for the wedding progressed at the Brumble farm. For
a week Pennyroyal whipped up eggs and sugar, and David ransacked the
woods for evergreens and berries with which to decorate the big barn,
where the dance after the wedding was to take place.

The old farmhouse was filled to overflowing on the night of the
wedding. After the ceremony, Miss Rhody, resplendent in the black silk
and waving hair loosed from the crimping pins that had confined it for
two days and nights, came up to David.

"My, David, I've got the funniest all over feelin' from seein' Mart
and M'ri merried! I was orful afeerd I'd cry."

"Sit down, Miss Rhody," said David, gallantly bringing her a chair.

"Didn't M'ri look perfeckly beyewtiful?" she continued, after
accomplishing the pirouette that prevented creases. "And Mart, he
looked that proud, and solemn too. It made me think of that gal when
she spoke 'Curfew shall not ring tewnight' at the schoolhouse. Every
one looks fine. I hain't seen Barnabas so fussed up sence Libby Sukes'
funyral. It makes him look real spry. And whoever got Larimer Sasser
to perk up and put on a starched shirt!"

"I think," confided David, "that Penny got after him. She had him in a
corner when he came, and she tied his necktie so tight I was afraid
she would choke him."

"Look at old Miss Pankey, David. She, as rich as they make 'em, and
a-wearin' that old silk! It looks as ef it hed bin hung up fer you and
Jud to shoot at. Ain't she a-glarin' and a-sniffin' at me, though?
Say, David, you write Joe that if M'ri did look the purtiest of any
one that my dress cost more'n any one's here, and showed it, too. I
hope thar'll be a lot of occasions to wear it to this summer. M'ri is
a-goin' to give a reception when she gits back from her tower, and
that'll be one thing to wear it at. Ain't Jud got a mean look? He's as
crooked as a dog's hind leg. But, say, David, that's a fine suit
you're a-wearin'. You look handsome. Thar ain't a stingy hair on
Barnabas' head. He's doin' jest as good by you as he is by Jud. Don't
little Janey look like an angel in white, and them lovely beads Joe
give her? I can't think of nothin' else but that little Eva you read
me about. I shouldn't wonder a bit, David, if I come to yer and
Janey's weddin' yet!" she said, as Janey came dancing up to them.

A slow flush mounted to his forehead, but Janey laughed merrily.

"I've promised Joe I'd wait for him," she said roguishly.

"She's only foolin' and so wuz he," quickly spoke Miss Rhody, seeing
the hurt look in David's eyes. "Barnabas," she asked, stopping him as
he passed, "you air a-goin' to miss M'ri turrible. You could never
manige if it wa'n't fer Penny. Won't she hev the time of her life
cleanin' up after this weddin'? She'll enjoy it more'n she did gettin'
ready fer it."

"I hope Penny won't go to gittin' merried--not till Janey's growed
up."

"David's a great help to you, too, Barnabas."

"Dave! I don't know how I ever got along afore he came. He's so
willin' and so honest. He's as good as gold. Only fault he's got is a
quick temper. He's doin' purty fair with it, though. If only Jud--"

He stopped, with a sigh, and Rhody hastened to change the subject.

"You're a-lookin' spry to-night, Barnabas. I hain't seen you look so
spruce in a long time."

"You look mighty tasty yerself, Rhody."

This interchange of compliments was interrupted by the announcement of
supper.

"I never set down to sech a repast," thought Miss Rhody. "I'm glad I
didn't feed much to-day. I don't know whether to take chickin twice,
or to try all them meltin', flaky lookin' pies. And jest see them
layer cakes!"

After supper adjournment was made to the barn, where the fiddles were
already swinging madly. Every one caught the spirit, and even Miss
Rhody finally succumbed to Barnabas' insistence. Pennyroyal captured
Uncle Larimy, and when Janey whirled away in the arms of a
schoolmate, David, who had never learned to dance, stood isolated. He
felt lonely and depressed, and recalled the expression in which Joe
Forbes had explained life after he had acquired a stepmother. "I was
always on the edge of the fireside," he had said.

"Dave," expostulated Uncle Barnabas, as soon as he could get his
breath after the last dance, "you'd better eddicate yer heels as well
as yer head. It's unnateral fer a colt and a boy not to kick up their
heels. You don't never want to be a looker-on at nuthin' excep' from
ch'ice. You'd orter be a stand-in on everything that's a-goin' instead
of a stand-by. The stand-bys never git nowhar."

PART TWO

CHAPTER I

David Dunne at eighteen was graduated from the high school in
Lafferton after five colorless years in which study and farm work
alternated. Throughout this period he had continued to incur the
rancor of Jud, whose youthful scrapes had gradually developed into
brawls and carousals. The Judge periodically extricated him from
serious entanglements, and Barnabas continued optimistic in his
expectations of a time when Jud should "settle." On one occasion Jud
sneeringly accused David of "working the old man for a share in the
farm," and taunted him with the fact that he was big enough and strong
enough to hustle for himself without living on charity. David started
on a tramp through the woods to face the old issue and decide his
fate. He had then one more year before he could finish school and
carry out a long-cherished dream of college.

He was at a loss to know just where to turn at the present time for a
home where he could work for his board and attend school. The Judge
and M'ri had gone abroad; Joe was on his ranch; the farmers needed no
additional help.

He had been walking swiftly in unison with his thoughts, and when he
came out of the woods into the open he was only a mile downstream from
town. Upon the river bank stood Uncle Larimy, skillfully swirling his
line.

"Wanter try yer luck, Dave?"

"I have no luck just now, Uncle Larimy," replied the boy sadly.

Uncle Larimy shot him a quick, sidelong glance.

"Then move on, Dave, and chase arter it. Thar's allers luck somewhar.
Jest like fishin'. You can't set in one spot and wait for luck tew
come to you like old Zeke Foss does. You must keep a-castin'."

"I don't know where to cast, Uncle Larimy."

Uncle Larimy pondered. He knew that Jud was home, and he divined
David's trend of thought.

"You can't stick to a plank allers, Dave, ef you wanter amount tew
anything. Strike out bold, and swim without any life presarvers. You
might jest as well be a sleepy old cat in a corner as to go
smoothsailin' through life."

"I feel that I have got to strike out, and at once, Uncle Larimy, but
I don't just know where to strike."

"Wal, Dave, it's what we've all got to find out fer ourselves. It's a
leap in the dark like, and ef you don't land nowhere, take another
leap, and keep a-goin' somewhar."

David wended his way homeward, pondering over Uncle Larimy's
philosophy. When he went with Barnabas to do the milking that night he
broached the subject of leaving the farm.

"I know how Jud feels about my being here, Uncle Barnabas."

"What did he say to you?" asked the old man anxiously.

"Nothing. I overheard a part of your conversation. He is right. And if
I stay here, he will run away to sea. He told the fellows in Lafferton
he would."

"You are going to stay, Dave."

"You won't like to think you drove your son away. If he gets into
trouble, both you and I will feel we are to blame."

"Dave, I see why the Jedge hez got it all cut out fer you to be a
lawyer. You've got the argyin' habit strong. But you can't argue me
into what I see is wrong. This is the place fer you to be, and Jud 'll
hev to come outen his spell."

"Then let me go away until he does. You must give him every chance."

"Where'll you go?" asked Barnabas curiously.

"I don't know, yet," said the boy, "but I'll think out a plan
to-night."

It was Jud, after all, who cut the Gordian knot, and made one of his
welcome disappearances, which lasted until David was ready to start in
college. His savings, that he had accumulated by field work in the
summers and a very successful poultry business for six years, netted
him four hundred dollars.

"One hundred dollars for each year," he thought exultantly. "That
will be ample with the work I shall find to do."

Then he made known to his friends his long-cherished scheme of working
his way through college. The Judge laughed.

"Your four hundred dollars, David, will barely get you through the
first year. After that, I shall gladly pay your expenses, for as soon
as you are admitted to the bar you are to come into my office, of
course."

David demurred.

"I shall work my way through college," he said firmly.

He next told Barnabas of his intention and the Judge's offer which he
had declined.

"I'm glad you refused, Dave. You'll only be in his office till you're
ripe fer what I kin make you. I've larnt that the law is a good
foundation as a sure steppin' stone tew it, so you kin hev a taste of
it. But the Jedge ain't a-goin' to pay yer expenses."

"I don't mean that he shall," replied David. "I want to pay my own
way."

"I'm a-goin' to send you tew college and send you right. No starvin'
and garret plan fer you. I've let Joe and the Jedge do fer you as much
as they're a-goin' to, but you're mine from now on. It's what I'd do
fer my own son if he cared fer books, and you're as near to me ez ef
you were my son."

"It's too much, Uncle Barnabas."

"And, David," he continued, unheeding the interruption, "I hope you'll
really be my son some day."

A look of such exquisite happiness came into the young eyes that
Barnabas put out his hand silently. In the firm hand-clasp they both
understood.

"I am not going to let you help me through college, though, Uncle
Barnabas. It has always been my dream to earn my own education. When
you pay for anything yourself, it seems so much more your own than
when it's a gift."

"Let him, Barnabas," again counseled Uncle Larimy. "Folks must feed
diff'rent. Thar's the sweet-fed which must allers hev sugar, but
salt's the savor for Dave. He's the kind that flourishes best in the
shade."

Janey wrote to Joe of David's plan, and there promptly came a check
for one thousand dollars, which David as promptly returned.

CHAPTER II

A few days before the time set for his departure David set out on a
round of farewell visits to the country folk. It was one of those
cold, cheerless days that intervene between the first haze of autumn
and the golden glow of October. He had never before realized how
lonely the shiver of wind through the poplars could sound. Two
innovations had been made that day in the country. The rural delivery
carrier, in his little house on wheels, had made his first delivery,
and a track for the new electric-car line was laid through the sheep
meadow. This inroad of progress upon the sanctity of their seclusion
seemed sacrilegious to David, who longed to have lived in the olden
time of log houses, with their picturesque open fires and candle
lights. Following some vague inward call, he went out of his way to
ride past the tiny house he had once called home, and which in all his
ramblings he had steadfastly avoided. He had heard that the place had
passed into the hands of a widow with an only son, and that they had
purchased surrounding land for cultivation. He had been glad to hear
this, and had liked to fancy the son caring for his mother as he
himself would have cared for his mother had she lived.

As he neared the little nutshell of a house his heart beat fast at the
sight of a woman pinning clothes to the line. Her fingers, stiff and
swollen, moved slowly. The same instinct that had guided him down this
road made him dismount and tie his horse. The old woman came slowly
down the little path to meet him.

"I am David Dunne," he said gently, "and I used to live here. I wanted
to come to see my old home once more."

He thought that the dim eyes gazing into his were the saddest he had
ever beheld.

"Yes," she replied, with the slow, German accent, "I know of you. Come
in."

He followed her into the little sitting room, which was as barren of
furnishings as it had been in the olden days.

"Sit down," she invited.

He took a chair opposite a cheap picture of a youth in uniform. A flag
of coarse material was pinned above this portrait, and underneath was
a roughly carved bracket on which was a glass filled with goldenrod.

"You lived here with your mother," she said musingly, "and she was
taken. I lived here with my son, and--he was taken."

"Oh!" said David. "I did not know--was he--"

His eyes sought the picture on the wall.

"Yes," she replied, answering his unspoken question, as she lifted her
eyes to her little shrine, "he enlisted and went to the Philippines.
He died there of fever more than a year ago."

David was silent. His brown, boyish hand shaded his eyes. It had been
his fault that he had not heard of this old woman and the loss of her
son. He had shrunk from all knowledge and mention of this little home
and its inmates. The country folk had recognized and respected his
reticence, which to people near the soil seems natural. This had been
the only issue in his life that he had dodged, and he was bitterly
repenting his negligence. In memory of his mother, he should have
helped the lonely old woman.

"You were left a poor, helpless boy," she continued, "and I am left a
poor, helpless old woman. The very young and the very old meet in
their helplessness, yet there is hope for the one--nothing for the
other."

"Yes, memories," he suggested softly, "and the pride you feel in his
having died as he did."

"There is that," she acknowledged with a sigh, "and if only I could
live on here in this little place where we have been so happy! But I
must leave it."

"Why?" asked David quickly.

"After my Carl died, things began to happen. When once they do that,
there is no stopping. The bank at the Corners failed, and I lost my
savings. The turkeys wandered away, the cow died, and now there's the
mortgage. It's due to-morrow, and then--the man that holds it will
wait no longer. So it is the poorhouse, which I have always
dreaded."

David's head lifted, and his eyes shone radiantly as he looked into
the tired, hopeless eyes.

"Your mortgage will be paid to-morrow, and--Don't you draw a pension
for your son?"

She looked at him in a dazed way.

"No, there is no pension--I--"

"Judge Thorne will get you one," he said optimistically, as he rose,
ready for action, "and how much is the mortgage?"

"Three hundred dollars," she said despairingly.

"Almost as much as the place is worth. Who holds the mortgage?"

"Deacon Prickley."

"You see," said David, trying to speak casually, "I have three hundred
dollars lying idle for which I have no use. I'll ride to town now and
have the Judge see that the place is clear to you, and he will get you
a pension, twelve dollars a month."

The worn, seamed face lifted to his was transfigured by its look of
beatitude.

"You mustn't," she implored. "I didn't know about the pension. That
will keep me, and I can find another little place somewhere. But the
money you offer--no! I have heard how you have been saving to go
through school."

He smiled.

"Uncle Barnabas and the Judge are anxious to pay my expenses at
college, and--you _must_ let me. I would like to think, don't you see,
that you are living here in my old home. It will seem to me as if I
were doing it for _my_ mother--as I would want some boy to do for her
if she were left--and it's my country's service he died in. I would
rather buy this little place for you, and know that you are living
here, than to buy anything else in the world."

The old face was quite beautiful now.

"Then I will let you," she said tremulously. "You see, I am a
hard-working woman and quite strong, but folks won't believe that,
because I am old; so they won't hire me to do their work, and they say
I should go to the poorhouse. But to old folks there's nothing like
having your own things and your own ways. They get to be a part of
you. I was thinking when you rode up that it would kill me not to see
the frost on the old poplar, and not to cover up my geraniums on the
chill nights."

Something stirred in David's heart like pain. He stooped and kissed
her gently. Then he rode away, rejoicing that he had worked to this
end. Four hours later he rode back to the little home.

"The Judge has paid over the money to Old Skinflint Prickley," he said
blithely, "and the place is all yours. The deacon had compounded the
interest, which is against the laws of the state, so here are a few
dollars to help tide you over until the Judge gets the pension for
you."

"David," she said solemnly, "an old woman's prayers may help you, and
some day, when you are a great man, you will do great deeds, but none
of them will be as great as that which you have done to-day."

David rode home with the echo of this benediction in his ears. He had
asked the Judge to keep the transaction secret, but of course the
Judge told Barnabas, who in turn informed Uncle Larimy.

"I told the boy when his ma died," said Uncle Larimy, "that things go
'skew sometimes, but that the sun would shine. The sun will allers be
a-shinin' fer him when he does such deeds as this."

The fare to his college town, his books, and his tuition so depleted
David's capital of one hundred dollars that he hastened to deposit the
balance for an emergency. Then he set about to earn his "keep," as he
had done in the country, but there were many students bent on a
similar quest and he soon found that the demand for labor was exceeded
by the supply.

Before the end of the first week he was able to write home that he had
found a nice, quiet lodging in exchange for the care of a furnace in
winter and the trimming of a lawn in other seasons, and that he had
secured a position as waiter to pay for his meals; also that there was
miscellaneous employment to pay for his washing and incidentals.

He didn't go into details and explain that the "nice quiet lodging"
was a third-floor rear whose gables gave David's six feet of length
but little leeway. It was quiet because the third floor was not
heated, and its occupants therefore stayed away as much as possible.
His services as waiter were required only at dinner time, in exchange
for which he received that meal. His breakfast and luncheon he
procured as best he could; sometimes he dispensed with them entirely.
Crackers, milk, and fruit, as the cheapest articles of diet, appeared
oftenest on his ménu. Sometimes he went fishing and surreptitiously
smuggled the cream of the catch up to his little abode, for Mrs.
Tupps' "rules to roomers," as affixed to the walls, were explicit: "No
cooking or washing allowed in rooms." But Mrs. Tupps, like her fires,
was nearly always out, for she was a member of the Woman's Relief
Corps, Ladies' Aid, Ladies' Guild, Woman's League, Suffragette
Society, Pioneer Society, and Eastern Star. At the meetings of these
various societies she was constant in attendance, so in her absence
her roomers "made hay," as David termed it, cooking their provender
and illicitly performing laundry work in the bathtub. Still, there
must always be "on guard" duty, for Mrs. Tupps was a stealthy stalker.
One saw her not, but now and then there was a faint rustle on the
stair. David's eyes and ears, trained to keenness, were patient and
vigilant, so he was generally chosen as sentinel, and he acquired new
caution, adroitness, and a quietness of movement.

There had been three or four close calls. Once, she had knocked at
his door as he was in the act of boiling eggs over the gas jet. In
the twinkling of an eye the saucepan was thrust under the bed, and
David, sweet and serene of expression, opened the door to the
inquisitive-eyed Tupps.

"I came to borrow a pen," she said shamelessly, her eyes penetrating
the cracks and crevices of the little room.

David politely regretted that he used an indelible pencil and
possessed no pens.

In the act of removing all records and remains of feasts, David became
an adept. Neat, unsuspicious looking parcels were made and conveyed,
after retiring hours, to a near-by vacant lot, where once had been
visible an excavation for a cellar, but this had been filled to street
level with tin cans, paper bags, butter bowls, cracker cases, egg
shells, and pie plates from the House of Tupps.

His miscellaneous employment, mentioned in his letter, was any sort of
work he could find to do.

David became popular with professors by reason of his record in
classes and the application and concentration he brought to his
studies. His prowess in all sports, his fairness, and the spirit of
_camaraderie_ he always maintained with his associates, made him a
general favorite. He wore fairly good clothes, was well groomed, and
always in good spirits, so of his privations and poverty only one or
two of those closest to him were even suspicious. He was entirely
reticent on the subject, though open and free in all other discourse,
and permitted no encroachment on personal matters. One or two chance
offenders intuitively perceived a slight but impassable barrier.

"Dunne has grown a little gaunt-eyed since he first came here," said
one of his chosen friends to a classmate one evening. "He's outdoors
enough to counteract overstudy. But do you suppose he has enough to
eat? So many of these fellows live on next to nothing."

"I shouldn't be surprised if he were on rations. You know he always
makes some excuse when we invite him to a spread. He's too proud to
accept favors and not reciprocate, I believe."

David overheard these remarks, and a very long walk was required to
restore his serenity. During this walk he planned to get some extra
work that would insure him compensation requisite to provide a modest
spread so that he might allay their suspicions. Upon his return to his
lodgings he found an enormous box which had come by express from
Lafferton. It contained Pennyroyal's best culinary efforts; also four
dozen eggs, a two-pound pat of butter, coffee, and a can of cream.

He propitiated Mrs. Tupps by the proffer of a dozen of the eggs and
told her of his desire to entertain his friends. It would be
impossible to do this in his room, for when he lay in bed he could
touch every piece of furniture with but little effort.

David had become his landlady's confidant and refuge in time of
trouble, and she was willing to allow him the privilege of the dining
room.

"I am going away to-night for a couple of days, but I would rather you
wouldn't mention it to the others. You may have the use of the dining
room and the dishes."

David's friends were surprised to receive an off-hand invitation from
him to "drop in for a little country spread." They were still more
surprised when they beheld the long table with its sumptuous array of
edibles,--raised biscuits, golden butter, cold chicken, pickles,
jelly, sugared doughnuts, pork cake, gold and silver cake, crullers,
mince pie, apple pie, cottage cheese, cider, and coffee.

"It looks like a county fair exhibit, Dunne," said a city-bred chap.

Six healthy young appetites did justice to this repast and insured
David's acceptance of five invitations to dine. It took Mrs. Tupps and
David fully a week to consume the remnants of this collation. The eggs
he bestowed upon an anemic-faced lodger who had been prescribed a milk
and egg diet, but with eggs at fifty cents a dozen he had not filled
his prescription.

[Illustration: "_David's friends were surprised to receive an off-hand
invitation
from him to 'drop in for a little country spread'_"]

At the end of the college year David went back to the farm, and a snug
sense of comfort and a home-longing filled him at the sight of the old
farmhouse, its lawn stretching into gardens, its gardens into
orchards, orchards into meadows, and meadows into woodlands. Through
the long, hot summer he tilled the fields, and invested the proceeds
in clothes and books for the ensuing year.

There followed three similar years of a hand-to-mouth existence, the
privations of which he endured in silence. There were little
occasional oases, such as boxes from Pennyroyal, or extra revenue now
and then from tutoring, but there were many, many days when his
healthy young appetite clamored in vain for appeasement. On such days
came the temptation to borrow from Barnabas the money to finish his
course in comfort, but the young conqueror never yielded to this
enticement. He grew stronger and sturdier in spirit after each
conflict, but lost something from his young buoyancy and elasticity
which he could never regain. His struggles added a touch of grimness
to his old sense of humor, but when he was admitted to the bar he was
a man in courage, strength, and endurance.

CHAPTER IV

It seemed to David, when he was at the farm again, that in his absence
time had stood still, except with Janey. She was a slender slip of a
girl, gentle voiced and soft hearted. Her eyes were infinitely blue
and lovely, and there was a glad little ring in her voice when she