CHAPTER X
THE LADY OF THE ROSES
It was a new world, indeed, that David created for Joe after that—a world that had to do with entrancing music where once was silence; delightful companionship where once was loneliness; and toothsome cookies and doughnuts where once was hunger.
The Widow Glaspell, Joe's mother, worked out by the day, scrubbing and washing; and Joe, perforce, was left to the somewhat erratic and decidedly unskillful ministrations of Betty. Betty was no worse, and no better, than any other untaught, irresponsible twelve-year-old girl, and it was not to be expected, perhaps, that she would care to spend all the bright sunny hours shut up with her sorely afflicted and somewhat fretful brother. True, at noon she never failed to appear and prepare something that passed for a dinner for herself and Joe. But the Glaspell larder was frequently almost as empty as were the hungry stomachs that looked to it for refreshment; and it would have taken a far more skillful cook than was the fly-away Betty to evolve anything from it that was either palatable or satisfying.
With the coming of David into Joe's life all this was changed. First, there were the music and the companionship. Joe's father had "played in the band" in his youth, and (according to the Widow Glaspell) had been a "powerful hand for music." It was from him, presumably, that Joe had inherited his passion for melody and harmony; and it was no wonder that David recognized so soon in the blind boy the spirit that made them kin. At the first stroke of David's bow, indeed, the dingy walls about them would crumble into nothingness, and together the two boys were off in a fairy world of loveliness and joy.
Nor was listening always Joe's part. From "just touching" the violin—his first longing plea—he came to drawing a timid bow across the strings. In an incredibly short time, then, he was picking out bits of melody; and by the end of a fortnight David had brought his father's violin for Joe to practice on.
"I can't GIVE it to you—not for keeps," David had explained, a bit tremulously, "because it was daddy's, you know; and when I see it, it seems almost as if I was seeing him. But you may take it. Then you can have it here to play on whenever you like."
After that, in Joe's own hands lay the power to transport himself into another world, for with the violin for company he knew no loneliness.
Nor was the violin all that David brought to the house. There were the doughnuts and the cookies. Very early in his visits David had discovered, much to his surprise, that Joe and Betty were often hungry.
"But why don't you go down to the store and buy something?" he had queried at once.
Upon being told that there was no money to buy with, David's first impulse had been to bring several of the gold-pieces the next time he came; but upon second thoughts David decided that he did not dare. He was not wishing to be called a thief a second time. It would be better, he concluded, to bring some food from the house instead.
In his mountain home everything the house afforded in the way of food had always been freely given to the few strangers that found their way to the cabin door. So now David had no hesitation in going to Mrs. Holly's pantry for supplies, upon the occasion of his next visit to Joe Glaspell's.
Mrs. Holly, coming into the kitchen, found him merging from the pantry with both hands full of cookies and doughnuts.
"Why, David, what in the world does this mean?" she demanded.
"They're for Joe and Betty," smiled David happily.
"For Joe and—But those doughnuts and cookies don't belong to you. They're mine!"
"Yes, I know they are. I told them you had plenty," nodded David.
"Plenty! What if I have?" remonstrated Mrs. Holly, in growing indignation. "That doesn't mean that you can take—" Something in David's face stopped the words half-spoken.
"You don't mean that I CAN'T take them to Joe and Betty, do you? Why, Mrs. Holly, they're hungry! Joe and Betty are. They don't have half enough to eat. Betty said so. And we've got more than we want. There's food left on the table every day. Why, if YOU were hungry, wouldn't you want somebody to bring—"
But Mrs. Holly stopped him with a despairing gesture.
"There, there, never mind. Run along. Of course you can take them. I'm—I'm GLAD to have you," she finished, in a desperate attempt to drive from David's face that look of shocked incredulity with which he was still regarding her.
Never again did Mrs. Holly attempt to thwart David's generosity to the Glaspells; but she did try to regulate it. She saw to it that thereafter, upon his visits to the house, he took only certain things and a certain amount, and invariably things of her own choosing.
But not always toward the Glaspell shanty did David turn his steps. Very frequently it was in quite another direction. He had been at the Holly farmhouse three weeks when he found his Lady of the Roses.
He had passed quite through the village that day, and had come to a road that was new to him. It was a beautiful road, smooth, white, and firm. Two huge granite posts topped with flaming nasturtiums marked the point where it turned off from the main highway. Beyond these, as David soon found, it ran between wide-spreading lawns and flowering shrubs, leading up the gentle slope of a hill. Where it led to, David did not know, but he proceeded unhesitatingly to try to find out. For some time he climbed the slope in silence, his violin, mute, under his arm; but the white road still lay in tantalizing mystery before him when a by-path offered the greater temptation, and lured him to explore its cool shadowy depths instead.
Had David but known it, he was at Sunny-crest, Hinsdale's one "show place," the country home of its one really rich resident, Miss Barbara Holbrook. Had he also but known it, Miss Holbrook was not celebrated for her graciousness to any visitors, certainly not to those who ventured to approach her otherwise than by a conventional ring at her front doorbell. But David did not know all this; and he therefore very happily followed the shady path until he came to the Wonder at the end of it.
The Wonder, in Hinsdale parlance, was only Miss Holbrook's garden, but in David's eyes it was fairyland come true. For one whole minute he could only stand like a very ordinary little boy and stare. At the end of the minute he became himself once more; and being himself, he expressed his delight at once in the only way he knew how to do—by raising his violin and beginning to play.
He had meant to tell of the limpid pool and of the arch of the bridge it reflected; of the terraced lawns and marble steps, and of the gleaming white of the sculptured nymphs and fauns; of the splashes of glorious crimson, yellow, blush-pink, and snowy white against the green, where the roses rioted in luxurious bloom. He had meant, also, to tell of the Queen Rose of them all—the beauteous lady with hair like the gold of sunrise, and a gown like the shimmer of the moon on water—of all this he had meant to tell; but he had scarcely begun to tell it at all when the Beauteous Lady of the Roses sprang to her feet and became so very much like an angry young woman who is seriously displeased that David could only lower his violin in dismay.
"Why, boy, what does this mean?" she demanded.
David sighed a little impatiently as he came forward into the sunlight.
"But I was just telling you," he remonstrated, "and you would not let me finish."
"Telling me!"
"Yes, with my violin. COULDn't you understand?" appealed the boy wistfully. "You looked as if you could!"
"Looked as if I could!"
"Yes. Joe understood, you see, and I was surprised when HE did. But I was just sure you could—with all this to look at."
The lady frowned. Half-unconsciously she glanced about her as if contemplating flight. Then she turned back to the boy.
"But how came you here? Who are you?" she cried.
"I'm David. I walked here through the little path back there. I didn't know where it went to, but I'm so glad now I found out!"
"Oh, are you!" murmured the lady, with slightly uplifted brows.
She was about to tell him very coldly that now that he had found his way there he might occupy himself in finding it home again, when the boy interposed rapturously, his eyes sweeping the scene before him:—
"Yes. I didn't suppose, anywhere, down here, there was a place one half so beautiful!"
An odd feeling of uncanniness sent a swift exclamation to the lady's lips.
"'Down here'! What do you mean by that? You speak as if you came from—above," she almost laughed.
"I did," returned David simply. "But even up there I never found anything quite like this,"—with a sweep of his hands,—"nor like you, O Lady of the Roses," he finished with an admiration that was as open as it was ardent.
This time the lady laughed outright. She even blushed a little.
"Very prettily put, Sir Flatterer" she retorted; "but when you are older, young man, you won't make your compliments quite so broad. I am no Lady of the Roses. I am Miss Holbrook; and—and I am not in the habit of receiving gentlemen callers who are uninvited and—unannounced," she concluded, a little sharply.
Pointless the shaft fell at David's feet. He had turned again to the beauties about him, and at that moment he spied the sundial—something he had never seen before.
"What is it?" he cried eagerly, hurrying forward. "It isn't exactly pretty, and yet it looks as if 't were meant for—something."
"It is. It is a sundial. It marks the time by the sun."
Even as she spoke, Miss Holbrook wondered why she answered the question at all; why she did not send this small piece of nonchalant impertinence about his business, as he so richly deserved. The next instant she found herself staring at the boy in amazement. With unmistakable ease, and with the trained accent of the scholar, he was reading aloud the Latin inscription on the dial: "'Horas non numero nisi serenas,' 'I count—no—hours but—unclouded ones,'" he translated then, slowly, though with confidence. "That's pretty; but what does it mean—about 'counting'?"
Miss Holbrook rose to her feet.
"For Heaven's sake, boy, who, and what are you?" she demanded. "Can YOU read Latin?"
"Why, of course! Can't you?" With a disdainful gesture Miss Holbrook swept this aside.
"Boy, who are you?" she demanded again imperatively.
"I'm David. I told you."
"But David who? Where do you live?"
The boy's face clouded.
"I'm David—just David. I live at Farmer Holly's now; but I did live on the mountain with—father, you know."
A great light of understanding broke over Miss Holbrook's face. She dropped back into her seat.
"Oh, I remember," she murmured. "You're the little—er—boy whom he took. I have heard the story. So THAT is who you are," she added, the old look of aversion coming back to her eyes. She had almost said "the little tramp boy"—but she had stopped in time.
"Yes. And now what do they mean, please,—those words,—'I count no hours but unclouded ones'?"
Miss Holbrook stirred in her seat and frowned.
"Why, it means what it says, of course, boy. A sundial counts its hours by the shadow the sun throws, and when there is no sun there is no shadow; hence it's only the sunny hours that are counted by the dial," she explained a little fretfully.
David's face radiated delight.
"Oh, but I like that!" he exclaimed.
"You like it!"
"Yes. I should like to be one myself, you know."
"Well, really! And how, pray?" In spite of herself a faint gleam of interest came into Miss Holbrook's eyes.
David laughed and dropped himself easily to the ground at her feet. He was holding his violin on his knees now.
"Why, it would be such fun," he chuckled, "to just forget all about the hours when the sun didn't shine, and remember only the nice, pleasant ones. Now for me, there wouldn't be any hours, really, until after four o'clock, except little specks of minutes that I'd get in between when I DID see something interesting."
Miss Holbrook stared frankly.
"What an extraordinary boy you are, to be sure," she murmured. "And what, may I ask, is it that you do every day until four o'clock, that you wish to forget?"
David sighed.
"Well, there are lots of things. I hoed potatoes and corn, first, but they're too big now, mostly; and I pulled up weeds, too, till they were gone. I've been picking up stones, lately, and clearing up the yard. Then, of course, there's always the woodbox to fill, and the eggs to hunt, besides the chickens to feed,—though I don't mind THEM so much; but I do the other things, 'specially the weeds. They were so much prettier than the things I had to let grow, 'most always."
Miss Holbrook laughed.
"Well, they were; and really" persisted the boy, in answer to the merriment in her eyes; "now wouldn't it be nice to be like the sundial, and forget everything the sun didn't shine on? Would n't you like it? Isn't there anything YOU want to forget?"
Miss Holbrook sobered instantly. The change in her face was so very marked, indeed, that involuntarily David looked about for something that might have cast upon it so great a shadow. For a long minute she did not speak; then very slowly, very bitterly, she said aloud—yet as if to herself:—
"Yes. If I had my way I'd forget them every one—these hours; every single one!"
"Oh, Lady of the Roses!" expostulated David in a voice quivering with shocked dismay. "You don't mean—you can't mean that you don't have ANY—sun!"
"I mean just that," bowed Miss Holbrook wearily, her eyes on the somber shadows of the pool; "just that!"
David sat stunned, confounded. Across the marble steps and the terraces the shadows lengthened, and David watched them as the sun dipped behind the tree-tops. They seemed to make more vivid the chill and the gloom of the lady's words—more real the day that had no sun. After a time the boy picked up his violin and began to play, softly, and at first with evident hesitation. Even when his touch became more confident, there was still in the music a questioning appeal that seemed to find no answer—an appeal that even the player himself could not have explained.
For long minutes the young woman and the boy sat thus in the twilight. Then suddenly the woman got to her feet.
"Come, come, boy, what can I be thinking of?" she cried sharply. "I must go in and you must go home. Good-night." And she swept across the grass to the path that led toward the house.
CHAPTER XI
JACK AND JILL
David was tempted to go for a second visit to his Lady of the Roses, but something he could not define held him back. The lady was in his mind almost constantly, however; and very vivid to him was the picture of the garden, though always it was as he had seen it last with the hush and shadow of twilight, and with the lady's face gloomily turned toward the sunless pool. David could not forget that for her there were no hours to count; she had said it herself. He could not understand how this could be so; and the thought filled him with vague unrest and pain.
Perhaps it was this restlessness that drove David to explore even more persistently the village itself, sending him into new streets in search of something strange and interesting. One day the sound of shouts and laughter drew him to an open lot back of the church where some boys were at play.
David still knew very little of boys. In his mountain home he had never had them for playmates, and he had not seen much of them when he went with his father to the mountain village for supplies. There had been, it is true, the boy who frequently brought milk and eggs to the cabin; but he had been very quiet and shy, appearing always afraid and anxious to get away, as if he had been told not to stay. More recently, since David had been at the Holly farmhouse, his experience with boys had been even less satisfying. The boys—with the exception of blind Joe—had very clearly let it be understood that they had little use for a youth who could find nothing better to do than to tramp through the woods and the streets with a fiddle under his arm.
To-day, however, there came a change. Perhaps they were more used to him; or perhaps they had decided suddenly that it might be good fun to satisfy their curiosity, anyway, regardless of consequences. Whatever it was, the lads hailed his appearance with wild shouts of glee.
"Golly, boys, look! Here's the fiddlin' kid," yelled one; and the others joined in the "Hurrah!" he gave.
David smiled delightedly; once more he had found some one who wanted him—and it was so nice to be wanted! Truth to tell, David had felt not a little hurt at the persistent avoidance of all those boys and girls of his own age.
"How—how do you do?" he said diffidently, but still with that beaming smile.
Again the boys shouted gleefully as they hurried forward. Several had short sticks in their hands. One had an old tomato can with a string tied to it. The tallest boy had something that he was trying to hold beneath his coat.
"'H—how do you do?'" they mimicked. "How do you do, fiddlin' kid?"
"I'm David; my name is David." The reminder was graciously given, with a smile.
"David! David! His name is David," chanted the boys, as if they were a comic-opera chorus.
David laughed outright.
"Oh, sing it again, sing it again!" he crowed. "That sounded fine!"
The boys stared, then sniffed disdainfully, and cast derisive glances into each other's eyes—it appeared that this little sissy tramp boy did not even know enough to discover when he was being laughed at!
"David! David! His name is David," they jeered into his face again. "Come on, tune her up! We want ter dance."
"Play? Of course I'll play," cried David joyously, raising his violin and testing a string for its tone.
"Here, hold on," yelled the tallest boy. "The Queen o' the Ballet ain't ready". And he cautiously pulled from beneath his coat a struggling kitten with a perforated bag tied over its head.
"Sure! We want her in the middle," grinned the boy with the tin can. "Hold on till I get her train tied to her," he finished, trying to capture the swishing, fluffy tail of the frightened little cat.
David had begun to play, but he stopped his music with a discordant stroke of the bow.
"What are you doing? What is the matter with that cat?" he demanded.
"'Matter'!" called a derisive voice. "Sure, nothin' 's the matter with her. She's the Queen o' the Ballet—she is!"
"What do you mean?" cried David. At that moment the string bit hard into the captured tail, and the kitten cried out with the pain. "Look out! You're hurting her," cautioned David sharply.
Only a laugh and a jeering word answered. Then the kitten, with the bag on its head and the tin can tied to its tail, was let warily to the ground, the tall boy still holding its back with both hands.
"Ready, now! Come on, play," he ordered; "then we'll set her dancing."
David's eyes flashed.
"I will not play—for that."
The boys stopped laughing suddenly.
"Eh? What?" They could scarcely have been more surprised if the kitten itself had said the words.
"I say I won't play—I can't play—unless you let that cat go."
"Hoity-toity! Won't ye hear that now?" laughed a mocking voice. "And what if we say we won't let her go, eh?"
"Then I'll make you," vowed David, aflame with a newborn something that seemed to have sprung full-grown into being.
"Yow!" hooted the tallest boy, removing both hands from the captive kitten.
The kitten, released, began to back frantically. The can, dangling at its heels, rattled and banged and thumped, until the frightened little creature, crazed with terror, became nothing but a whirling mass of misery. The boys, formed now into a crowing circle of delight, kept the kitten within bounds, and flouted David mercilessly.
"Ah, ha!—stop us, will ye? Why don't ye stop us?" they gibed.
For a moment David stood without movement, his eyes staring. The next instant he turned and ran. The jeers became a chorus of triumphant shouts then—but not for long. David had only hurried to the woodpile to lay down his violin. He came back then, on the run—and before the tallest boy could catch his breath he was felled by a stinging blow on the jaw.
Over by the church a small girl, red-haired and red-eyed, clambered hastily over the fence behind which for long minutes she had been crying and wringing her hands.
"He'll be killed, he'll be killed," she moaned. "And it's my fault, 'cause it's my kitty—it's my kitty," she sobbed, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of the kitten's protector in the squirming mass of legs and arms.
The kitten, unheeded now by the boys, was pursuing its backward whirl to destruction some distance away, and very soon the little girl discovered her. With a bound and a choking cry she reached the kitten, removed the bag and unbound the cruel string. Then, sitting on the ground, a safe distance away, she soothed the palpitating little bunch of gray fur, and watched with fearful eyes the fight.
And what a fight it was! There was no question, of course, as to its final outcome, with six against one; but meanwhile the one was giving the six the surprise of their lives in the shape of well-dealt blows and skillful twists and turns that caused their own strength and weight to react upon themselves in a most astonishing fashion. The one unmistakably was getting the worst of it, however, when the little girl, after a hurried dash to the street, brought back with her to the rescue a tall, smooth-shaven young man whom she had hailed from afar as "Jack."
Jack put a stop to things at once. With vigorous jerks and pulls he unsnarled the writhing mass, boy by boy, each one of whom, upon catching sight of his face, slunk hurriedly away, as if glad to escape so lightly. There was left finally upon the ground only David alone. But when David did at last appear, the little girl burst into tears anew.
"Oh, Jack, he's killed—I know he's killed," she wailed. "And he was so nice and—and pretty. And now—look at him! Ain't he a sight?"
David was not killed, but he was—a sight. His blouse was torn, his tie was gone, and his face and hands were covered with dirt and blood. Above one eye was an ugly-looking lump, and below the other was a red bruise. Somewhat dazedly he responded to the man's helpful hand, pulled himself upright, and looked about him. He did not see the little girl behind him.
"Where's the cat?" he asked anxiously.
The unexpected happened then. With a sobbing cry the little girl flung herself upon him, cat and all.
"Here, right here," she choked. "And it was you who saved her—my Juliette! And I'll love you, love you, love you always for it!"
"There, there, Jill," interposed the man a little hurriedly. "Suppose we first show our gratitude by seeing if we can't do something to make our young warrior here more comfortable." And he began to brush off with his handkerchief some of the accumulated dirt.
"Why can't we take him home, Jack, and clean him up 'fore other folks see him?" suggested the girl.
The boy turned quickly.
"Did you call him 'Jack'?"
"Yes."
"And he called you, Jill'?"
"Yes."
"The real 'Jack and Jill' that 'went up the hill'?" The man and the girl laughed; but the girl shook her head as she answered,—
"Not really—though we do go up a hill, all right, every day. But those aren't even our own names. We just call each other that for fun. Don't YOU ever call things—for fun?"
David's face lighted up in spite of the dirt, the lump, and the bruise.
"Oh, do you do that?" he breathed. "Say, I just know I'd like to play to you! You'd understand!"
"Oh, yes, and he plays, too," explained the little girl, turning to the man rapturously. "On a fiddle, you know, like you."
She had not finished her sentence before David was away, hurrying a little unsteadily across the lot for his violin. When he came back the man was looking at him with an anxious frown.
"Suppose you come home with us, boy," he said. "It isn't far—through the hill pasture, 'cross lots,—and we'll look you over a bit. That lump over your eye needs attention."
"Thank you," beamed David. "I'd like to go, and—I'm glad you want me!" He spoke to the man, but he looked at the little red-headed girl, who still held the gray kitten in her arms.
CHAPTER XII
ANSWERS THAT DID NOT ANSWER
"Jack and Jill," it appeared, were a brother and sister who lived in a tiny house on a hill directly across the creek from Sunnycrest. Beyond this David learned little until after bumps and bruises and dirt had been carefully attended to. He had then, too, some questions to answer concerning himself.
"And now, if you please," began the man smilingly, as he surveyed the boy with an eye that could see no further service to be rendered, "do you mind telling me who you are, and how you came to be the center of attraction for the blows and cuffs of six boys?"
"I'm David, and I wanted the cat," returned the boy simply.
"Well, that's direct and to the point, to say the least," laughed the man. "Evidently, however, you're in the habit of being that. But, David, there were six of them,—those boys,—and some of them were larger than you."
"Yes, sir."
"And they were so bad and cruel," chimed in the little girl.
The man hesitated, then questioned slowly.
"And may I ask you where you—er—learned to—fight like that?"
"I used to box with father. He said I must first be well and strong. He taught me jiujitsu, too, a little; but I couldn't make it work very well—with so many."
"I should say not," adjudged the man grimly. "But you gave them a surprise or two, I'll warrant," he added, his eyes on the cause of the trouble, now curled in a little gray bunch of content on the window sill. "But I don't know yet who you are. Who is your father? Where does he live?"
David shook his head. As was always the case when his father was mentioned, his face grew wistful and his eyes dreamy.
"He doesn't live here anywhere," murmured the boy. "In the far country he is waiting for me to come to him and tell him of the beautiful world I have found, you know."
"Eh? What?" stammered the man, not knowing whether to believe his eyes, or his ears. This boy who fought like a demon and talked like a saint, and who, though battered and bruised, prattled of the "beautiful world" he had found, was most disconcerting.
"Why, Jack, don't you know?" whispered the little girl agitatedly. "He's the boy at Mr. Holly's that they took." Then, still more softly: "He's the little tramp boy. His father died in the barn."
"Oh," said the man, his face clearing, and his eyes showing a quick sympathy. "You're the boy at the Holly farmhouse, are you?"
"Yes, sir."
"And he plays the fiddle everywhere," volunteered the little girl, with ardent admiration. "If you hadn't been shut up sick just now, you'd have heard him yourself. He plays everywhere—everywhere he goes."
"Is that so?" murmured Jack politely, shuddering a little at what he fancied would come from a violin played by a boy like the one before him. (Jack could play the violin himself a little—enough to know it some, and love it more.) "Hm-m; well, and what else do you do?"
"Nothing, except to go for walks and read."
"Nothing!—a big boy like you—and on Simeon Holly's farm?" Voice and manner showed that Jack was not unacquainted with Simeon Holly and his methods and opinions.
David laughed gleefully.
"Oh, of course, REALLY I do lots of things, only I don't count those any more. 'Horas non numero nisi serenas,' you know," he quoted pleasantly, smiling into the man's astonished eyes.
"Jack, what was that—what he said?" whispered the little girl. "It sounded foreign. IS he foreign?"
"You've got me, Jill," retorted the man, with a laughing grimace. "Heaven only knows what he is—I don't. What he SAID was Latin; I do happen to know that. Still"—he turned to the boy ironically—"of course you know the translation of that," he said.
"Oh, yes. 'I count no hours but unclouded ones'—and I liked that. 'T was on a sundial, you know; and I'M going to be a sundial, and not count, the hours I don't like—while I'm pulling up weeds, and hoeing potatoes, and picking up stones, and all that. Don't you see?"
For a moment the man stared dumbly. Then he threw back his head and laughed.
"Well, by George!" he muttered. "By George!" And he laughed again. Then: "And did your father teach you that, too?" he asked.
"Oh, no,—well, he taught me Latin, and so of course I could read it when I found it. But those 'special words I got off the sundial where my Lady of the Roses lives."
"Your—Lady of the Roses! And who is she?"
"Why, don't you know? You live right in sight of her house," cried David, pointing to the towers of Sunnycrest that showed above the trees. "It's over there she lives. I know those towers now, and I look for them wherever I go. I love them. It makes me see all over again the roses—and her."
"You mean—Miss Holbrook?"
The voice was so different from the genial tones that he had heard before that David looked up in surprise.
"Yes; she said that was her name," he answered, wondering at the indefinable change that had come to the man's face.
There was a moment's pause, then the man rose to his feet.
"How's your head? Does it ache?" he asked briskly.
"Not much—some. I—I think I'll be going," replied David, a little awkwardly, reaching for his violin, and unconsciously showing by his manner the sudden chill in the atmosphere.
The little girl spoke then. She overwhelmed him again with thanks, and pointed to the contented kitten on the window sill. True, she did not tell him this time that she would love, love, love him always; but she beamed upon him gratefully and she urged him to come soon again, and often.
David bowed himself off, with many a backward wave of the hand, and many a promise to come again. Not until he had quite reached the bottom of the hill did he remember that the man, "Jack," had said almost nothing at the last. As David recollected him, indeed, he had last been seen standing beside one of the veranda posts, with gloomy eyes fixed on the towers of Sunnycrest that showed red-gold above the tree-tops in the last rays of the setting sun.
It was a bad half-hour that David spent at the Holly farmhouse in explanation of his torn blouse and bruised face. Farmer Holly did not approve of fights, and he said so, very sternly indeed. Even Mrs. Holly, who was usually so kind to him, let David understand that he was in deep disgrace, though she was very tender to his wounds.
David did venture to ask her, however, before he went upstairs to bed:—
"Mrs. Holly, who are those people—Jack and Jill—that were so good to me this afternoon?"
"They are John Gurnsey and his sister, Julia; but the whole town knows them by the names they long ago gave themselves, 'Jack' and 'Jill.'"
"And do they live all alone in the little house?"
"Yes, except for the Widow Glaspell, who comes in several times a week, I believe, to cook and wash and sweep. They aren't very happy, I'm afraid, David, and I'm glad you could rescue the little girl's kitten for her—but you mustn't fight. No good can come of fighting!"
"I got the cat—by fighting."
"Yes, yes, I know; but—" She did not finish her sentence, and David was only waiting for a pause to ask another question.
"Why aren't they happy, Mrs. Holly?"
"Tut, tut, David, it's a long story, and you wouldn't understand it if I told it. It's only that they're all alone in the world, and Jack Gurnsey isn't well. He must be thirty years old now. He had bright hopes not so long ago studying law, or something of the sort, in the city. Then his father died, and his mother, and he lost his health. Something ails his lungs, and the doctors sent him here to be out of doors. He even sleeps out of doors, they say. Anyway, he's here, and he's making a home for his sister; but, of course, with his hopes and ambitions—But there, David, you don't understand, of course!"
"Oh, yes, I do," breathed David, his eyes pensively turned toward a shadowy corner. "He found his work out in the world, and then he had to stop and couldn't do it. Poor Mr. Jack!"
CHAPTER XIII
A SURPRISE FOR MR. JACK
Life at the Holly farmhouse was not what it had been. The coming of David had introduced new elements that promised complications. Not because he was another mouth to feed—Simeon Holly was not worrying about that part any longer. Crops showed good promise, and all ready in the bank even now was the necessary money to cover the dreaded note, due the last of August. The complicating elements in regard to David were of quite another nature.
To Simeon Holly the boy was a riddle to be sternly solved. To Ellen Holly he was an everpresent reminder of the little boy of long ago, and as such was to be loved and trained into a semblance of what that boy might have become. To Perry Larson, David was the "derndest checkerboard of sense an' nonsense goin'"—a game over which to chuckle.
At the Holly farmhouse they could not understand a boy who would leave a supper for a sunset, or who preferred a book to a toy pistol—as Perry Larson found out was the case on the Fourth of July; who picked flowers, like a girl, for the table, yet who unhesitatingly struck the first blow in a fight with six antagonists: who would not go fishing because the fishes would not like it, nor hunting for any sort of wild thing that had life; who hung entranced for an hour over the "millions of lovely striped bugs" in a field of early potatoes, and who promptly and stubbornly refused to sprinkle those same "lovely bugs" with Paris green when discovered at his worship. All this was most perplexing, to say the least.
Yet David worked, and worked well, and in most cases he obeyed orders willingly. He learned much, too, that was interesting and profitable; nor was he the only one that made strange discoveries during those July days. The Hollys themselves learned much. They learned that the rose of sunset and the gold of sunrise were worth looking at; and that the massing of the thunderheads in the west meant more than just a shower. They learned, too, that the green of the hilltop and of the far-reaching meadow was more than grass, and that the purple haze along the horizon was more than the mountains that lay between them and the next State. They were beginning to see the world with David's eyes.
There were, too, the long twilights and evenings when David, on the wings of his violin, would speed away to his mountain home, leaving behind him a man and a woman who seemed to themselves to be listening to the voice of a curly-headed, rosy-cheeked lad who once played at their knees and nestled in their arms when the day was done. And here, too, the Hollys were learning; though the thing thus learned was hidden deep in their hearts.
It was not long after David's first visit that the boy went again to "The House that Jack Built," as the Gurnseys called their tiny home. (Though in reality it had been Jack's father who had built the house. Jack and Jill, however, did not always deal with realities.) It was not a pleasant afternoon. There was a light mist in the air, and David was without his violin.
"I came to—to inquire for the cat—Juliette," he began, a little bashfully. "I thought I'd rather do that than read to-day," he explained to Jill in the doorway.
"Good! I'm so glad! I hoped you'd come," the little girl welcomed him. "Come in and—and see Juliette," she added hastily, remembering at the last moment that her brother had not looked with entire favor on her avowed admiration for this strange little boy.
Juliette, roused from her nap, was at first inclined to resent her visitor's presence. In five minutes, however, she was purring in his lap.
The conquest of the kitten once accomplished, David looked about him a little restlessly. He began to wonder why he had come. He wished he had gone to see Joe Glaspell instead. He wished that Jill would not sit and stare at him like that. He wished that she would say something—anything. But Jill, apparently struck dumb with embarrassment, was nervously twisting the corner of her apron into a little knot. David tried to recollect what he had talked about a few days before, and he wondered why he had so enjoyed himself then. He wished that something would happen—anything!—and then from an inner room came the sound of a violin.
David raised his head.
"It's Jack," stammered the little girl—who also had been wishing something would happen. "He plays, same as you do, on the violin."
"Does he?" beamed David. "But—" He paused, listening, a quick frown on his face.
Over and over the violin was playing a single phrase—and the variations in the phrase showed the indecision of the fingers and of the mind that controlled them. Again and again with irritating sameness, yet with a still more irritating difference, came the succession of notes. And then David sprang to his feet, placing Juliette somewhat unceremoniously on the floor, much to that petted young autocrat's disgust.
"Here, where is he? Let me show him," cried the boy, and at the note of command in his voice, Jill involuntarily rose and opened the door to Jack's den.
"Oh, please, Mr. Jack," burst out David, hurrying into the room. "Don't you see? You don't go at that thing right. If you'll just let me show you a minute, we'll have it fixed in no time!"
The man with the violin stared, and lowered his bow. A slow red came to his face. The phrase was peculiarly a difficult one, and beyond him, as he knew; but that did not make the present intrusion into his privacy any the more welcome.
"Oh, will we, indeed!" he retorted, a little sharply. "Don't trouble yourself, I beg of you, boy."
"But it isn't a mite of trouble, truly," urged David, with an ardor that ignored the sarcasm in the other's words. "I WANT to do it."
Despite his annoyance, the man gave a short laugh.
"Well, David, I believe you. And I'll warrant you'd tackle this Brahms concerto as nonchalantly as you did those six hoodlums with the cat the other day—and expect to win out, too!"
"But, truly, this is easy, when you know how," laughed the boy. "See!"
To his surprise, the man found himself relinquishing the violin and bow into the slim, eager hands that reached for them. The next moment he fell back in amazement. Clear, distinct, yet connected like a string of rounded pearls fell the troublesome notes from David's bow. "You see," smiled the boy again, and played the phrase a second time, more slowly, and with deliberate emphasis at the difficult part. Then, as if in answer to some irresistible summons within him, he dashed into the next phrase and, with marvelous technique, played quite through the rippling cadenza that completed the movement.
"Well, by George!" breathed the man dazedly, as he took the offered violin. The next moment he had demanded vehemently: "For Heaven's sake, who ARE you, boy?"
David's face wrinkled in grieved surprise.
"Why, I'm David. Don't you remember? I was here just the other day!"
"Yes, yes; but who taught you to play like that?"
"Father."
"'Father'!" The man echoed the word with a gesture of comic despair. "First Latin, then jiujitsu, and now the violin! Boy, who was your father?"
David lifted his head and frowned a little. He had been questioned so often, and so unsympathetically, about his father that he was beginning to resent it.
"He was daddy—just daddy; and I loved him dearly."
"But what was his name?"
"I don't know. We didn't seem to have a name like—like yours down here. Anyway, if we did, I didn't know what it was."
"But, David,"—the man was speaking very gently now. He had motioned the boy to a low seat by his side. The little girl was standing near, her eyes alight with wondering interest. "He must have had a name, you know, just the same. Didn't you ever hear any one call him anything? Think, now."
"No." David said the single word, and turned his eyes away. It had occurred to him, since he had come to live in the valley, that perhaps his father did not want to have his name known. He remembered that once the milk-and-eggs boy had asked what to call him; and his father had laughed and answered: "I don't see but you'll have to call me 'The Old Man of the Mountain,' as they do down in the village." That was the only time David could recollect hearing his father say anything about his name. At the time David had not thought much about it. But since then, down here where they appeared to think a name was so important, he had wondered if possibly his father had not preferred to keep his to himself. If such were the case, he was glad now that he did not know this name, so that he might not have to tell all these inquisitive people who asked so many questions about it. He was glad, too, that those men had not been able to read his father's name at the end of his other note that first morning—if his father really did not wish his name to be known.
"But, David, think. Where you lived, wasn't there ever anybody who called him by name?"
David shook his head.
"I told you. We were all alone, father and I, in the little house far up on the mountain."
"And—your mother?" Again David shook his head.
"She is an angel-mother, and angel-mothers don't live in houses, you know."
There was a moment's pause; then gently the man asked:—
"And you always lived there?"
"Six years, father said."
"And before that?"
"I don't remember." There was a touch of injured reserve in the boy's voice which the man was quick to perceive. He took the hint at once.
"He must have been a wonderful man—your father!" he exclaimed.
The boy turned, his eyes luminous with feeling.
"He was—he was perfect! But they—down here—don't seem to know—or care," he choked.
"Oh, but that's because they don't understand," soothed the man. "Now, tell me—you must have practiced a lot to play like that."
"I did—but I liked it."
"And what else did you do? and how did you happen to come—down here?"
Once again David told his story, more fully, perhaps, this time than ever before, because of the sympathetic ears that were listening.
"But now" he finished wistfully, "it's all, so different, and I'm down here alone. Daddy went, you know, to the far country; and he can't come back from there."
"Who told you—that?"
"Daddy himself. He wrote it to me."
"Wrote it to you!" cried the man, sitting suddenly erect.
"Yes. It was in his pocket, you see. They—found it." David's voice was very low, and not quite steady.
"David, may I see—that letter?"
The boy hesitated; then slowly he drew it from his pocket.
"Yes, Mr. Jack. I'll let YOU see it."
Reverently, tenderly, but very eagerly the man took the note and read it through, hoping somewhere to find a name that would help solve the mystery. With a sigh he handed it back. His eyes were wet.
"Thank you, David. That is a beautiful letter," he said softly. "And I believe you'll do it some day, too. You'll go to him with your violin at your chin and the bow drawn across the strings to tell him of the beautiful world you have found."
"Yes, sir," said David simply. Then, with a suddenly radiant smile: "And NOW I can't help finding it a beautiful world, you know, 'cause I don't count the hours I don't like."
"You don't what?—oh, I remember," returned Mr. Jack, a quick change coming to his face.
"Yes, the sundial, you know, where my Lady of the Roses lives."
"Jack, what is a sundial?" broke in Jill eagerly.
Jack turned, as if in relief.
"Hullo, girlie, you there?—and so still all this time? Ask David. He'll tell you what a sundial is. Suppose, anyhow, that you two go out on the piazza now. I've got—er-some work to do. And the sun itself is out; see?—through the trees there. It came out just to say 'good-night,' I'm sure. Run along, quick!" And he playfully drove them from the room.
Alone, he turned and sat down at his desk. His work was before him, but he did not do it. His eyes were out of the window on the golden tops of the towers of Sunnycrest. Motionless, he watched them until they turned gray-white in the twilight. Then he picked up his pencil and began to write feverishly. He went to the window, however, as David stepped off the veranda, and called merrily:—
"Remember, boy, that when there's another note that baffles me, I'm going to send for you."
"He's coming anyhow. I asked him," announced Jill.
And David laughed back a happy "Of course I am!"