"I—I want to tell you 'bout—yo' mother, Sandy—and me! No one ain't all bad; she was all good and yo' must lay hold o' the good. It will help if yo' can cling fast enough."

Oddly enough Sandy found himself against his father's breast without a sense of strangeness. Long years ago he had so lain in the strong arms—the recollection brought others in its wake; memories of safe, happy days—before Mary had come into their lives.

"I was older then her!" Martin spoke as if confessing to one who demanded the best and the truth at last. It was as though he felt that with the neglect and injustice he had of late shown the boy, there had been the holding back of his just due. "Yo' mother came from The Forge, she left a good home for me because she believed in me—she was terrible young and trusting and she didn't live to—find out! I was old enough to be her father, and I tried. God help me! I tried, but it was the old curse and not even the love I had for her could keep me up. But while she lived—it was better. The cabin was clean and tidy and she always sang about her work. She only stopped singing toward the last—when she got thinking about you she got solemner and stiller and then—you came! She—died the day after, and the blackness of it has shut the sunlight out of my life ever since, Sandy. I ought to have took my pay and made no fuss, and for a time I did. You and me lived on in the cabin with a woman's hand to help at the pinch, and for years I kept my head and yours above water. But when yo' are a man, son, you'll think kinder o' me than what yo' do to-day; a man's a man, and a lonely man is the worst of all—and so"—Martin's grizzly head was pressed against Sandy's—"and so—Mary came! She didn't ask much; she only wanted to live along with us-all in the cabin, but——" The dreary years seemed to spread before both man and boy in the silence which followed.

"Good-bye, Sandy, good-bye!" Martin choked and held the boy off at arm's length. "Yo' great-grandfather's name was Sandford Morley. I gave you the name for good luck—maybe it—will help. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye—dear old Dad!"

The one-time trust and affection flooded the moment and place. Quite simply and naturally they kissed and fell apart.

"Yo' go first, lad—yo' ain't got nothing to take?" Sandy shook his head.

"No, Dad. Good-bye. The money will help me on. Some day I'm coming back, Dad, coming back to help! Wait for me, Dad, and hold tight for me—so I'll be glad. Dear, dear, old Dad!"

Then Sandy turned and set his face toward The Appointed Way. It had been hard to see Cynthia flee from him, leaving him lonely and forsaken; but it was harder now to leave the sad, broken father in the desolate blackness of night—and enter the new, hard life alone! But with never a backward look Sandford Morley went to meet his fate.

Martin stood and listened until the last sound dropped into silence. Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin. There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by the rough table in the middle of the room.

"Did you find him?" she asked.

"Yes."

"And you——"

Martin turned and the look on his face silenced the woman.

"That boy," he said slowly, "belongs to me, do you understand? Keep your tongue off him—your hands will never touch him again. He's mine and God Almighty's from now on. You've starve him and beat him for the last time and now—never speak his name again. He's mine and God's—and his mother's!"

Martin was spent. He dropped into a chair and, folding his arms upon the back, bent his head upon them.

Then Mary's wrath broke.

"He's yours, is he?" she sneered, shaking her child off and striding toward the bowed figure—"he's yours and God's and his mother's! He belongs to a fine lot, doesn't he, the ungrateful little beast? And I'm to keep my tongue off him, eh? Ain't I good enough for him and you and the high company you belong to?"

Resentment old and rankling rose fiercely. What ever she had been and was, Mary clung to Morley faithfully according to her light and she writhed under the sting of the implied insult hurled at her now.

Morley did not move. A sense of desolation swept over him. He was following the trail of the lonely boy in the dark and the woman's infuriated words meant no more to him than the rumbling thunder.

"Who do I and mine belong to?" the tense voice went on; "to the devil I suppose! Well, then, Mart Morley, you listen to me now. This child"—she turned fiercely toward Molly—"is yours, mine and the devil's. You're a lazy lot that left us to starve or live as we could, but the devil has taken a hand in the game, do you hear? I reckon he'll see us through and no thanks to you! From now on you take what you can get and keep your mouth shut or—the devil and I will know why."

And then Morley lifted his head. The look of misery on his pinched face should have moved one to pity, but it did not move the heart of Mary Morley.

"What do you mean?" he asked wonderingly. "I—I—didn't follow all—you said."

"And there's to be no questioning," the voice had grown louder. "No questions—just take or leave what's offered; go or stay as you please, but if that brat of yours, God's and his mother's, ever shows his face near me or mine—I'll"—she laughed hoarsely—"I'll make him a discredit to you all! Come move up and eat the food I provided and drink the sour milk that was given you!"

Morley rose unsteadily. He tried to speak and command the situation that in some subtle way had escaped his control, but he felt bereft and desperate. Now that Sandy was quite beyond recall, to whom could he turn? His strength and spirit were crushed and degraded—he moved up and sullenly took the plate and cup that were pushed toward him! Once he glanced at Molly. She leered at him over the edge of her mug and her eyes were hard and cruel.

Martin Morley pushed the untouched food from him and strode to the door of the cabin. The storm was coming up fast now. The lightning flashed and the thunder shook the house. Morley's heart ached for the boy struggling alone and defenceless through the night, but he was glad he was gone! Whatever lay before of defeat or victory—he thanked God that the last of his race had had courage at least to make an attempt for freedom.

The house grew very quiet; Mary had taken Molly to the loft overhead, and presently Martin heard her deep breathing and the nestling of the little girl in the straw mattress. The storm passed at last and above Lost Mountain a bright and glowing star showed through the parting clouds.

Cautiously Martin whistled and then waited. Night after night this was his habit. When the others had departed he called Sandy's dog, fed it from the scraps he could gather, and comforted himself with the companionship of the faithful collie that was too wise to tempt Providence when Mary was around.

Martin whistled a second time and then called softly: "Bob! oh—Bob!"

There was no response. Again the man spoke drawlingly and fondly: "Bob! oh, Bob!" Then he went to the shed near the cabin and looked in. That had been Sandy's bed-chamber since the rule of Mary had begun—how terribly empty and lonely it looked now! How afraid the boy must have been when at first he was driven from the home place to the deserted outhouse! He had never whimpered nor complained. "Poor little lad!" breathed Martin, and leaned against the doorway of the wretched room. There was the ragged mattress and the little nest where the slight boyish body had so often rested after the day's cheerless toil. On the wall were pinned two or three bright pictures that had drifted somehow to the barren place; there was a pitiful little frayed jacket hanging on a nail and a pair of sadly torn shoes in one corner.

The objects caused Martin to groan as he beheld them. He suffered as he had not suffered since Sandy's mother died in his arms! Like a drowning man he relived the years—the hard years when he cared for and loved the baby-child alone in the cabin. He recalled the boy's sunny ways and sweet confidence, until the Woman Mary entered their life. He had been miserable, his lower nature craved its own, and Mary came! He had accepted and he had lost his self-respect; everything! There was nothing left; there would be nothing more until—the end came, unless Sandy succeeded. Just then the moon came over a bank of black clouds and lit The Hollow. It shone full on Lost Mountain and into the deserted shed where but lately Sandy had suffered and slept.

Martin Morley dropped on his knees and turned his haggard, pain-racked face upward. He had once been a religious man; had once been a leader in the little church at The Forge before he gave up hope and ambition. His prayers had been the pride and boast of the mountainside, but that was long ago, and his lips with difficulty formed, now, the sacred words.

"God-a'mighty!" he breathed, "take care of that lil' boy out there alone on The Way. Don't fail him on the big road; keep him to the end! I ain't asking You to do anything more for me; I've give up; but he's just started forth! Watch him; keep him; don't let the sins of his fathers or his enemies tech him. Amen!"

There was a note of command in the prayer. A demand for justice and protection for one who could not defend himself. Having worded his appeal, Martin rose stiffly from his knees and closed the door of the shed after him.

He had done what he could; he must bear the agony and remorse silently from now on. The old laziness and indifference returned slowly as he retraced his steps, and when he entered the silent cabin again he went naturally to the crooked stairs leading up to the loft. The door was closed and locked! Mary had, in this final fashion, proclaimed her independence.

Martin made no effort to force his way or question the proceedings; with a weary sigh he looked about, then went quietly to an old settle by the hearth. Taking off his wet and ragged coat he rolled it up and placed it for a pillow. Finally he stretched his aching body upon the improvised bed and fell into a restless slumber.



VI

The hot, breathless morning followed the storm through which Sandy departed, and fell like a moist blanket over Lost Hollow. Even up at Stoneledge the vapour rose and settled depressingly. Every door and window in the livable part of the house was set wide to any chance stirring of the dead air. Ann Walden in the sitting-room, old Lily Ivy in the kitchen, and the child Cynthia in the dim, shadowy library, in the unlivable part of the house, were listless and indolent. Presently the black woman, having completed the preparations of vegetables for the simple mid-day meal, came to the sitting-room door and contemplated her mistress with respectful eyes. Ivy was fully seventy years old, but she was straight and strong as a woman of fifty and as keen and capable. She had been carefully reared as a house servant in the days of slavery, and she had followed the downward fortunes of the Waldens with dignity and courage worthy a more glorious cause. Her spotless but much patched gown was almost covered by a huge white apron. She wore a kerchief and a turban-like head covering.

"Miss Ann, honey, a leak done sprung in the roof over the west chamber las' night. The rain am permeated through the flo' and marked the ceiling in de libr'y."

Cynthia, lying on the horsehair sofa of the dim room across the hall, looked up and saw the new and ugly spot over her head.

"Well, Ivy, shut the west chamber off from the rest of the house. We have far too much space to care for as it is. When I reconstruct Stoneledge it will be time enough to reopen the disused rooms."

Ivy bowed her head complacently. It had always been the same since the war. One room after another had been shut off until the wide halls dividing the house, the living-room, dining-room, kitchen and three upper bedrooms were all that were left for family use.

"Yes, chile." Then after a pause: "I don' hear how dat wretch, Black Jim, was stricken, by God-a'mighty's justice, on The Way, las' night. He was found plumb dead under a tree whar de lightnin' felled him."

Miss Ann raised her spectacled eyes with something like interest.

"We-all will be safer," she said quietly. "A darky like Jim, who gets a twist in his head about freedom and license, is a mighty dangerous creature."

"Yes, chile, dat's plain truth."

Cynthia held her breath. Sandy had been on The Way—what had God-a'mighty's justice done to him? Surely if any evil had befallen him Ivy would know. By some intangible current the gossip and news of the hills travelled rapidly and more or less accurately.

"Dat boy of Morley's has runned away from home!"

At this Ann Walden took off her spectacles and made no pretence of indifference.

"Run away?" she said. "I didn't know a Morley had spirit enough to do that even with conditions as they must be along of that woman of Martin's in the cabin. Where has he gone?"

"Nobody ain't knowing exactly—just gone! I expect he'll turn up again when his stomick done clutch him. Dat chile never done us-all no 'commodation job, but he was too good to live up to that cabin in de Holler. If I knowed whar he done hide himself, I clar I'd fotch him some victuals even if he was sharp as a sarpint's tooth in a bargain."

"If you hear of him, let me know," Ann Walden said quietly; "he's too good, as you say, to be left to that evil woman Martin lives with. I've had the boy on my mind for some time. He has the mark of cruelty and neglect; he' been mighty silent too, about it all—he resembles his grandfather."

And now Cynthia breathed again freely and happily. A breath of air stole through the window and across the room—the atmosphere was clearing.

"Whar's lil' Miss?"

"Lying down across in the library. Go close the door softly, Ivy, and come back. I have something to say to you about her."

The child upon the sofa wished to be alone with herself, so she shut her eyes and pretended sleep when the lean, black hand reached into the room and drew to the door. Cynthia wanted to think about Sandy; she wanted to follow him, in fancy, after her own fashion, and above all else she wanted to be with him in the Significant Room.

Once the door secured her from intrusion she arose from the sofa and locked it quietly; then she set the window wider to the summer day. The casement was choked with the yellow rosebush and heavy honeysuckle; the fragrance was almost stifling, but Cynthia heeded it not.

"Now," she whispered, with the slow smile coming to her lips, "now, Sandy Morley, I'm going to hang your picture in its place!"

The large gray eyes fastened upon the empty space near the chimney, the space where, when the afternoon was fair and clear, the western sun poured its light through the tangle of vines at the window and fell full upon it.

"The man who cut his way through his enemies." Cynthia knew her "Pilgrim's Progress" as many children know their nursery rhymes. It was her only guide to life, but she interpreted it for herself. "The Biggest of Them All." And then the girl laughed her rich, rippling laugh.

It was Madam Bubble now who stood before the fireplace, a gentle creature with little head bent forward in listening attitude and a waiting, pleading look in the fine eyes. A bit too tall and thin was she for grace, but Time would take care of that—and, fortunately, Cynthia was many-sided. The dull, monotonous life of Stoneledge had retarded development. Never having mingled with children, she was untested and untried along certain lines. Poor, shabby Sandy Morley had been and was her only interpretation of youth as it had touched her personally—he and her ungoverned imagination had supplied the motive power, so far, for the foundation of her emotions.

"I—helped you!" she said softly to "The Biggest of Them All"—"I. And wherever you are you will remember that."

There was an old, cracked, dimmed mirror between the chimney-place and the window, and tiptoeing to that, Cynthia viewed herself as if for the first time in her life. The image was strange to her; confusing and half fearsome. It was not the reflection of the awkward, thin Cynthia Walden that she saw; Cynthia of the long braids of hair and short patched gingham gown of irregular length—owing to many washings and shrinkings. It was the reflection of something Cynthia was to be some day who looked back at the questioning girl. Slowly the colour rose to the pale face and the big eyes flinched.

"Stand straighter!" commanded the inquisitor before the mirror. The shoulders braced, but too long had the slender neck bent forward to obey the sudden exertion now. Cynthia would always carry that waiting pose!

The ugly checked gown next caught the critical eyes and the impotent hands pulled it down at the waist, while a sense of its unloveliness brought a quiver to the sensitive mouth. "Hateful!" was the verdict.

Then with fumbling, unpractised hands Cynthia gathered her two long shining braids and bound them around her head—somewhere she had seen the fashion, and a feminine instinct appropriated it. Next she stepped quietly to the window and broke off a deep yellow rose and a delicate trailing bit of honeysuckle rich with bloom; these she wound with intuitive skill in her twisted braids, the rose nestled close to the left ear. Thus adorned she tested the mirror again. Gone now was the ugly gown; gone was the awkward pose—the face that smiled out at the young judge was a wonderful face with its secret promise of by and by.

"Oh! you pretty honey-girl!" There was absolute detachment and lack of vanity in the words. The woman-nature of Cynthia was simply giving homage to a young creature worthy its admiration. "Oh! I want to kiss you and love you! I want you to kiss and love me!" And then the denied craving for affection and fondling rose supreme. "I want to cuddle you, honey—you are mighty sweet!"

The slow smile touched the lips of the reflection—the dear, slow smile of Madam Bubble.

Cynthia pressed close to the old mirror and laid her lips to that alluring creature she was some time to be!

"Honey!" she whispered, "dear, pretty honey-girl!" The tears clouded the love-filled eyes; a sense of loneliness drove the rapture away, and the hands fell limply.

Going to the window, Cynthia knelt down and, resting her arms upon the sill, laid her pretty head upon them.

She was never to be wholly a child again. Never was she to let her hair fall in the little-girl fashion. Something had happened to her, and tracing the something back she realized that it had been done when Sandy kissed her good-bye!

Vivid was the red now in the girl's face. Her South had brought the bloom forth early, and she was unprepared and unlearned in its demands.

"I want—some one to love me!" No words formed the thought. "I want——" Then all the ties of her barren young life were reviewed and found inadequate. Presently the yearning eyes rested upon the old painting of Queenie Walden. It was a miserable piece of work; an indefinite likeness, but it held the gaze and the fancy of the girl upon the floor. "I want—my mother!" The hunger and longing brought fresh tears to the aching eyes. "Mother!" She had always known the relationship, and had always guarded it as a sacred secret. The flood of repression and denial came in full force now.

"I want to know all!" That was the demand, and straightway Cynthia sprang to her feet and ran from the room. She was still running when she came into Ann Walden's presence.

"What's the matter, Cynthia?"

"Aunt Ann, tell me about my father and mother!"

The sudden question, the sight of the flower-decked head, set Ann Walden into a trembling fit. Since the day of Marcia Lowe's call she had never been the same. She slept badly, ate poorly, and feared greatly. Day after day she had expected the late visitor to return or send a representative. When she heard that the stranger had gone away she breathed more freely for the respite, but dreaded the reason for the going. She had passed through such torture as she had never known or undergone before. Something, unsuspected, rose and reproved her; pride, self-esteem, and faith had perished when many readings of the letter had driven truth home. Finally nerves refused to suffer longer and a kind of revenge took its place.

"Very well!" she had concluded desperately; "Queenie and I will keep the child—at last! You and yours shall have no part in her or for her."

Thus she had decided regarding Cynthia. She meant to break forever with Theodore Starr and all who were connected with him. She would resent, not only for herself, but for the poor sister who had mistakenly, and for love of her, kept silence and left the memory of Starr unclouded as the only gift she could give the woman they both had wronged!

Yes, Ann Walden had thought it all out. When Marcia Lowe came again she would tell her that she believed there had been no marriage! That would end it. No proof could be found—did not Ann Walden know the shiftless mountain ways? Marcia Lowe would never press dishonour upon them all—and the money was no lure to the proud, poverty-stricken woman. She meant to revenge herself upon Theodore Starr by keeping Cynthia even at the price of proclaiming the girl's dishonour to Starr's niece.

From much thinking through wakeful nights and torturing days Ann Walden had evolved a very sincere hatred and bitter resentment. She almost believed that Starr had betrayed her sister, and poor Cynthia, who had always been a duty—not a joy—was to pay the penalty!

"Tell me about my father and mother!"

The strong young voice repeated the commanding words; the lovely flower-twined head bent forward.

There was no wise person to note and take warning of the strange light in Ann Walden's eyes as she met the question put to her; it was, however, the look of insanity—the insanity which feeds upon hallucination; the kind that evolves from isolated repression and the abnormal introspection of the self-cultured.

"When you are older, Cynthia."

"No, now, Aunt Ann. I must know. My mother's picture hangs in the library, but my father's is not there and no one ever speaks of my father."

How could one fling into the simple innocence demanding knowledge, the bare, bold truth? But Ann Walden, driven at bay, worn, embittered and touched already by her doom, answered slowly:

"Your—father was—a bad man! that is why no one speaks of him; why his picture does not hang near your mother's."

"A bad man? What did he do, Aunt Ann?" A childish fear shook Cynthia's face. Bad, to her, was such a crude, primitive thing; "was he bad like—like the men here who drink and beat their women?"

"Worse than that!"

"Worse, Aunt Ann? Did he—beat my mother?'"

The horror, instead of calming Ann Walden, spurred her on.

"He—he killed her!"

"Killed her!" And with that Cynthia dropped beside her aunt and clung desperately to her hand, which lay idle in her lap. "Oh! is—is—he dead? Can he come to hurt us?"

Then Ann Walden laughed such a laugh as Cynthia had never heard before, but with which she was to become familiar.

"He's dead. He cannot hurt us any more. He did his worst—before you were born."

A sigh of relief escaped the girl as she listened and her tense face relaxed.

"But we would not touch his money, would we, Cynthia? nor have anything to do with any kin of his, would we?"

"No, no, Aunt Ann."

"Then——" and now Ann Walden bent close and whispered: "then have nothing to do with her—at Trouble Neck! She comes with money; with a hope of forgiveness—but we do not forgive such things, do we, Cynthia, and we Waldens cannot be bought?"

"No, no!"

"When you see her, tell her so! Tell her to keep away—we do not believe her; we do not want her!"

The flowers on the pretty girlish head were already wilted in the heat of the morning and something more vital and spiritual had faded and drooped in Cynthia Walden's soul. She looked old and haggard as she rose up and drew a long breath like one who had drunk a deep draught too hastily. Even the yearning for love had departed—unless God were good to her she would sink rapidly down, from now on, to the common level.

"I'll tell her, Aunt Ann," she said nonchalantly. "I'm right glad you let me know." Then she wandered aimlessly back to the library and over to the fireplace. Dejected and shrinking, she raised her eyes humbly to her "Biggest of Them All" and deep in her soul sank the truth that she, Cynthia Walden, once so gay and proud, was not the equal of Sandy Morley! If he were brave and fine enough he might help her from very pity—but if she were worthy, she must not permit him to do so.

Then it was that the first wave of actual soul-loneliness enveloped the girl, and when youth recognizes such desolation something overpowers it that no older person can ever understand.

And that very afternoon the great storm came that swept away so much and opened the way to more.

It was four o'clock on that same day that Liza Hope passed Stoneledge on the way down to the store. Liza was always just getting over having a baby or just about to have one and her condition was now of the latter character. Poor, misshapen, down-trodden creature! She accepted her fate indifferently, not because she was hard or bitter, but because she had never had a vision of anything else.

She paused near the chicken house where old Lily Ivy was hovering over a belated brood whose erratic mother had mistaken the season of the year.

"Howdy, Ivy! You-all has a right smart lot of fowls—but ain't it a mighty bad time to hatch?"

"Dis yere hen allus was a fool hen," Ivy vouchsafed, "givin' trouble an' agony to us-all."

"Does you-all like her the best?"

This question brought Ivy to her feet with a stare.

"The little doctor she done say as how we-all loves best the baby-things what be right techersome. She be right, too, I reckon. Them babies o' mine what died, and po' lil' Sammy what ain't clear in his mind, is mighty nigh to me. I ain't never thought 'bout sich till she cum. She steps up to my cabin now an' again an' her and me talks. The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady I calls her, an' nights I lie an' think on her, an' she comes an' brings my daid babies to me in dreams-like, an' then I reach out for Sammy, an' I feel right comforted."

Ivy came close to her caller now and looked into the weary, sunken eyes compassionately. Her contempt of the po' white trash faded before the pathetic desolateness of Liza's glance.

"Liza Hope," she said, fixing the roving stare by her tone, "how be you going to face this winter? You be as fool-like as dis yere old hen-hussy. All your chillens was born during respectable times o' year. What you-all goin' to do wid no wood-pile, no nothin', an' a baby comin' long in the black time of winter?"

Liza faced her accuser blankly as if she had nothing whatever to do with the matter.

"I ain't no wise 'sponsible," she faltered; "de good Lord He knows I ain't hankerin' after no mo' calls and troubles. But the Cup-o'-Water Lady don' promise to come to me in my hour an' bide till I pass through my trial. Seems like I can bear it now when I think o' that. Some say they-all don't believe her is kin to Parson Starr as was, but I does. The Lord He don't make two sich-like less He uses the same mixin's. I knows, I do!"

Ivy started back. Oddly enough this was the first time she had heard the connection between Starr and the newcomer. She had taken for granted the rumour that had reached her concerning Marcia Lowe, and she had disapproved keenly of the call that young woman had made upon her mistress recently, but now, as Liza spoke, sudden recollection startled her. If the stranger were what Liza suggested, why then Ann Walden's condition might be accounted for! The surprise of this new thought turned Ivy giddy, but it also caused her to change the subject of conversation.

"When yo' come back from de sto'," she said with frigid dignity, "stop to de' rear do'. I has some corn bread an' bacon what you can carry 'long wid yo', an' an ole ironin' blanket fo' coverin'."

Liza muttered her thanks and shuffled on, her distorted figure casting a weird shadow as the blazing sun struck across her path as she entered The Way.

It was five o'clock when the reddish sunlight suddenly was blotted out by a huge black cloud. An ominous hush came with the shadows, and with instinctive fear and caution Ann Walden, in the living-room, closed the windows and doors. Cynthia, who was passing through the hall, ran upstairs to do the same, and then returned and stood listlessly by her aunt near the window looking out over the garden place, the little brook, which divided it from the pasture lot below, and the two cows huddling under a clump of trees beside the tiny bridge which spanned the stream.

"I—don't like the look of the sky," Ann Walden murmured; "I reckon it's going to be a mighty bad storm. Seems like the seasons get twisted these-er-days. Now if it was spring——" She did not finish her sentence, for a wave of wind brought the lagging storm on its breast; a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder set it free and then the deluge descended. A wall, seemingly tangible, descended from the clouds to the earth—everything was blotted out.

"Good Lord-a'mighty!" Ivy dashed in from the kitchen, a grayness showing through the black of her skin; "I mus' save dem cows. I jes' mus'—God help me!" She ran through the room to the front hall, pulling her skirt over her head as she ran.

"Ivy, I forbid you leaving the house!"

The black woman paused, for even in that moment of excitement tradition held her—the servant was stopped by the mistress' voice, but too long had Ivy stood for higher things to renounce them now. She had stood between her loved ones and starvation; she had always kept the worst from them and she must continue to do so.

"Miss Ann, honey," she said in her soft, old drawl, "dem cattle down by de Branch is all that stan's 'twixt us-all and we-all becoming white trash! I jis' got-ter go, chile!"

Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking; with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for breath and then—there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea of troubled water.

Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia.

"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?"

Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh rang out.

"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child; "oh! I'm so afraid!"

But again and again the laugh sounded.

"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!"

Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know, but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared for and guarded—one to defend.

"Come," whispered Cynthia, "come away—dear—it's all right! Come, come!"

Alternately laughing and sobbing, Ann Walden followed the guiding of the hand upon her arm; she permitted herself to be placed on the ragged sofa on the opposite side of the room.

"Poor white trash!"

And there Tod Greeley and Liza Hope found them hours after. Cynthia, beside the prostrate woman, was crooning as to a baby, and over and over the desperate old voice wailed:

"We-all are poor white trash!"



CHAPTER VII

When Sandy had departed down The Way he felt weak and stricken. All the fervour and exhilaration were gone; there was no turning back, and he could not stand still. The walk to The Forge could easily be made before morning, with time to sleep on the way, so there was nothing to do but forget his misery and travel on. The storm, too, emphasized the necessity for this. On beyond there was a deserted cabin by the trail; he could sleep there in comparative comfort; under the falling roof there surely must be one dry spot large enough to shelter a thin, tired boy.

A crash of thunder caused Sandy to rush forward. He had the childish fear that many country children have of the extremes of Nature, and superstition swayed his every thought. Gathering his loose coat about him and clutching his money close, he made for The Way, and ran with all the strength remaining in him, for the deserted cabin.

Flash and splintering noise surrounded him. His eyes were blinded by the blue-red lightning; his ears were aching from the thunder's shock. Once he stood still, unable to suffer longer—for his nerves were paralyzed with fear, and at that pause a fork of vivid flame darted from the blackness and ran like the finger of a maniac down the side of a tall tree. The stroke was so near that the boy did not heed the crash that followed immediately; he saw the wood and earth fly and he shuddered as he looked. That was the bolt that ended the life of Jim the negro, but Sandy never knew.

In unconsciousness the boy waited for, he knew not what! He was dead, yet alive, unable to move or feel, yet standing and seeing. Then his blood began to flow once more, and sinking to his knees he wept as he had not since the night when Mary drove him from the cabin to the shed to sleep! Wet and trembling, he finally found strength and courage to go on, but a loneliness of soul and mind almost overcame him. He raised his aching eyes and saw the clouds parting; he heard the rising wind complaining in the tall trees and shaking the water down upon him. At that moment a star broke through the scudding masses of rolling blackness—one kindly eye of light, and at the same instant something touched his body with thrilling familiarity. He groped and felt in the lower darkness, then—because he had never been taught to pray—Sandy Morley bent his head over the wet and shaggy body of Bob, the collie, and laughed and sobbed from sheer gratitude and joy!

Stealthily the faithful creature had followed his friend. Life had taught him, even in his puppy days, to curb his inclinations. Where Sandy was, there was always happiness, but it was generally seasoned with danger, and Bob took no chances.

"Good dog! dear old fellow!"

Bob licked the caressing hands fondly. Never before had such appreciation been shown him even by the one who was lavishly bestowing it now; Bob did not seek to understand, he merely accepted and snuggled closer.

Sandy knew a later parting with the dog was inevitable, but human nature could not contemplate it then, so he bade Bob follow on and, with regained courage and determination, the two plodded down The Appointed Way with firmer tread. The shed was reached, and nestling close in a protected corner, they slept for several hours with no dream to disturb or frighten them. The storm passed; the stars shone out, and a new moon crept up from the east. At four o'clock Sandy started up and began the readjustment of life. Bob was lying across his legs and breathing evenly. The warmth had been grateful even if the weight had been a burden, and a sense of joy flooded the boy as he patted the dear, faithful head.

A few minutes later the two were again on the road. Breakfast would have been acceptable, but both boy and dog had learned that food was not a vital necessity for the day's beginning. A cup of warming fluid would have set Sandy up wonderfully, for his throat was sore and his bones ached, but The Forge was not a great distance away and it was a new sensation to have a pocket full of money.

"Bob, when we get there you and I will fill up—I swear it, Bob!"

The collie resented the oath. He was willing to share and share alike, and between friends surely there was no need for such emphasis.

A soaked wood road on an early August morning is not a cheering place, and the travellers plodded on with weakening limbs and heavy hearts. Sandy comforted himself by the thought that food would set him up, but as he thought this his stomach rejected the idea with sickening insistence. The more he thought of food the more his head ached and his throat throbbed. Bob, unhampered by physical claims, jogged along cheerfully. He was used to hope deferred, and he was appreciative of the company he was in, and the absence of rough words and well-aimed kicks and blows.

The few miles of The Way seemed doubled on the moist August morning; the rising sun merely drew more dampness from the sodden earth; it did not dry it; but at last Sandy saw the opening ahead which marked the clearing around Smith Crothers' factory, he heard the buzzing and warning of machinery—at first he thought it was the strange sensation that was gaining force in his head, but presently he righted things and plucked up courage. Two miles beyond the factory: two miles of lighter woodland and then the sharp little hill at whose foot The Forge lay!

A busy day lay before Sandy. He must eat—the thought now was positive agony—buy some necessary clothing and get into touch with some inspired fellow creature who could give him information about Massachusetts. Over and over Sandy repeated the magic word. For nearly a year it had lain dormant in his consciousness. It was his earthly heaven; the paradise of his longings and desires, but now it had suddenly taken on earthly meaning and proportions. How was he to get there? Had he money enough to carry him to that wonderland where one could exchange work for an education?

So absorbed was the half-sick boy with the problem of his near future that he passed Crothers' factory unheedingly, and was well down the last sharp little hill before he realized it. A fever was gaining control over him and making him light-headed and care-free. Massachusetts lost its agonizing doubts—everything appeared to be coming to him; even the inevitable parting with Bob became vague and blurred. Why not take Bob along with him? Why not, indeed?

And so boy and dog, muddy and fagged, came to the end of the hill, to the edge of the town and the first house, known as Stagg's Place, where room and board could be obtained for a consideration!

Sandy, with that growing nausea, made his way toward it, and Bob, with his sixth sense serving him well, pricked up his ears, put on more style of carriage and estimated his chances at the back door. But at that critical moment an excited old gentleman dashed out of Stagg's Place and gripping a walking stick madly waved it on high. Spying Sandy he sensed probable help.

"Boy!" he shouted lustily, "stop that man! It's—it's life or death. Stop him! Send him back and I'll give you a dollar."

Sandy rallied his last remnants of strength and turned about. Off in the distance he saw the mounted postman jogging on his way toward the village and he dashed ahead! Bob, with his smouldering puppy nature coming unexpectedly to his help, scampered on, crazily barking and yelping as he had never permitted himself to do in the guarded past.

The postman, at last, heard the commotion and stopped short.

"You are to go back!" Sandy panted; "it's life or—death."

The horse was turned about and in the mud raised by the retreating hoofs the boy and dog followed wearily.

Whatever the matter was that had caused the confusion, it was adjusted by the time Sandy again reached the house. The old gentleman, muttering about a weak leg and a degenerate rascal, was sitting on the piazza fanning himself with a panama hat, while a thin, eager-eyed woman urged him to calm himself before worse harm was done.

"The Lord will provide, Levi," she was saying, as Sandy and his dog approached. "His ways are not our ways, but we might as well give credit where credit is due. His leadings are generally clearer sighted than ours be, having—as you might say—wider scope to scan." Then she glanced at the dirty, worn pair on the steps.

"Shoo!" she ejaculated, but neither dog nor boy stirred.

"What do you want?" she next asked.

"What—he said he would—give!" and then to complicate matters Sandy rolled over in a huddled heap and fainted dead away! Bob, bereft and frightened, hovered over him, emitting yelps and howls that shattered the summer calm.

The Markhams only took their meals at Stagg's Place; a small cottage near by was their lodging rooms, and to that Levi Markham ordered two coloured boys to carry the prostrate Sandy.

An hour later Matilda Markham sat beside the couch in the shaded living-room and looked thoughtfully upon the form stretched thereon. From outside the voice of her brother came appealing to all that was reasonable and sensible in Bob.

"Of course you can see your master, my good fellow. Just be patient, patient!"

Levi Markham liked all animals, and something about Bob's rugged ugliness and faithfulness called forth his admiration and sympathy.

"Come, come, old fellow, eat and drink. He's safe enough inside. You know well, you rascal, that he is inside!"

Bob blinked confidingly, but he would not touch the food which stood alluringly near at hand in a shining tin plate.

Sandy had recovered from his faint, but he was strangely weak and an inner stillness bound him speechless and immovable. He lay there—thinking, thinking! He knew a woman was beside him watching his every breath; he heard Bob outside and the sternly kind voice talking to him. But nothing mattered. Yes, one thing did matter. The money was in his pocket and Massachusetts was still in the near future!

Miss Matilda, by the process known only to her sex, had labelled and classified the boy on the sofa.

"He's what these shiftless negroes call quality," she pondered. "Filthy and worn to the bone as he is—he is quality or I miss my guess! Now what on earth has brought him to this pass?"

The lids were drawn close over Sandy's eyes; his thin face was pinched and wan, and the tan had faded mysteriously from the smooth skin. A dignity rested on brow and mouth, and the work-stained, folded hands were delicate and full of character. Sandford Morley had come to the parting of the ways and he had resigned himself to the inevitable. His helplessness put forth an appeal that reached through his sordid misery to the emotions of Matilda Markham. She adored boys—they were her one enthusiasm but, like her brother, the more she felt the less she permitted herself to show. "She knew her duty"—none better; "but she did not intend to have her feelings joggled in the broad light of day for curious folks to witness!"

So she watched Sandy now with her heart painfully in evidence.

"There's a bruise on his left cheek," mused Miss Matilda; "like as not he hit it against something." It was the effect of the last blow Mary Morley was ever to deal him, but of course the watcher in the orderly cottage could not imagine so outrageous a thing as that.

"He's got real nice hair if it wasn't so matted. I daresay it would curl if it had half a chance." Justice called for pity and protection, and while waiting to see what was best to do next, Matilda heeded inspiration.

"You awake?" she whispered. Sandy gave a weak nod. "Want something to eat? No? A drink of water, maybe? No? Very well, lie still and drop off to sleep again. You'll feel better presently, and can tell us about yourself, then brother will send you home."

The room was dim, but Matilda's eyes were keen, and she saw two large tears roll from under the closed lids and down upon the thin cheeks. Because of her understanding of boys, Matilda did not interfere with those mute tokens of weak surrender. Better the traces on the dirty skin than a later misunderstanding, but as the tears took their way a childless woman's pity and tenderness was following them mutely.

"You can't sleep? Well now, never mind. Just don't fuss." Then inspiration came again.

"Maybe you'd like to see your dog, he's just outside. He won't eat or drink and his nose is everlastingly pointed to the door."

At this Sandy's eyes opened so suddenly and so wide that Matilda Markham started. She had never seen such large eyes in any human boy's face and they were such strange, yearning eyes.

"You do want your dog?"

"Yes, ma'am! oh, yes!"

Without a word more, Matilda strode to the door.

"Brother," she said; "we want that dog here!"

Bob leaped up and followed his instincts. He made no noise or cry, he simply went to the low couch, and snuggled his rough head against the shoulder pressed on the pillow.

Matilda Markham could not bear the sight. It made her afraid of herself. Her brother, above all people, must not think her emotional. She knew what he thought of emotional women—he not only believed them incapable, but he mistrusted their moral natures. She walked out to the porch and sat grimly down in a rocker and swayed back and forth energetically.

"It's real hot," she vouchsafed presently. "This is a terrible shut-in place. I haven't any use for mountains unless you can get on the toppest peak."

"Has that boy explained himself?" asked Levi Markham, also swaying to and fro in his rocker. Matilda shook her head.

"What do you think we ought to do? I've been inquiring a bit and I find there is no police station nor hospital nearer than twenty-five miles. I asked the man at Stagg's what they did when men were injured in the factory, and he looked at me as if he thought I was a fool! 'They don't do anything to them,' he confided. It's an evil hole, Matilda. I never saw a place in my life that needed capital and human intelligence more. And what about this boy? He must belong somewhere, I suppose."

"I think he's pretty sick, brother; I guess we'll have to turn to and supply what the town lacks in ambulances and hospitals. He's burning up with fever, and he has a real wild light in his eyes."

"What do you mean, Matilda?"

"Well, brother, not to mince matters, I think if you undress him I'll turn to and clean him up some. After that we'll put him to bed in the little room off the dining-room and send for a doctor. I suppose they have a doctor somewhere around here, haven't they?"

Levi puckered up his lips and frowned.

"I've questioned about that, too," he admitted. "There is a doctor—goes horseback with saddle bags and medicine chest on a circuit covering acres and acres. Kind of a medical bully; brings people into the world and hustles them out. Doses and cuts them according to his lights. He's off on a stabbing case back among the hills—some still, they say, has let itself loose. He will be back when he patches up the worst and turns the rest over to the authorities. Matilda!"

Miss Markham started.

"Yes, brother."

"I don't want any one to see or know about that boy until after we've seen the doctor. He looks badly used and starved to me, and I never turn a dumb brute off when its luck is against it, until I know what I'm turning it to. You get a tub of hot water ready and I'll tackle the lad now."

It was seven that evening when the doctor returned from the hills and was told the "folks from the North" wanted to see him. He did not hurry himself. He rested, ate, and changed his clothes and then sauntered down the road to the cottage. Sandy, the worst of him, as Matilda explained, lay in a comatose state on the narrow, immaculate bed with Bob, now fed and comforted, on the floor beside him.

"That's Morley's boy from Lost Hollow," the doctor drawled, as he gazed upon the restless form. "At first I wasn't sure. I never saw him clean before. As I passed through The Hollow to-day Morley came out and told me the news. The boy's left home; he's going to get an education somehow—the father said he had saved money."

"There's nearly thirty-one dollars in his pants' pocket," Matilda broke in accurately.

"He comes of good stock back about the time of the Revolution. Running to seed since. It's mighty odd how blood bursts out now and again. This fellow's mother came from The Forge—a pretty creature—died when he was born. Took me thirty-six hours to bring him into life—but I couldn't save the mother. The father is a degenerate—the only sign of decency I ever noticed in him is his thought about this boy. Looks like a tussle for Sandy Morley now, I reckon. What you want to do about it? If he lives, which he likely enough won't, he's going to be a right smart bit of care."

Levi looked at Matilda and Matilda looked at Levi, and then they both looked at Sandy. "Massachusetts!" moaned the boy, tossing about restlessly—"I'm going to get there, I tell you! Mass—massa—chu——" The voice trailed off miserably and Bob was alert at once.

"I never cast a beast out——" began Levi.

"Not to mention a human boy," added Matilda.

"We're going to see him through or—out, doctor."

The impassive face of the doctor gave no intimation as to his emotions. He took out his medicine bottles and forthwith began to complicate Sandy's chances in the hand-to-hand struggle.

An old black woman, famed for her charms and nursing, was secured by Matilda Markham to assist in the care of Sandy Morley.

"I shall keep an eye on the witch," Matilda warned her brother, "but she has a sense about nursing that can be relied upon."

And so the battle was on. Gossip about the boy was killed at the bedroom door. No one became interested or cared. The doctor, after a week or two, chancing upon Martin Morley on The Way, told him of Sandy's good fortune.

"Morley, if there's a bit of the man in you," he advised, "let go that boy and leave him to his opportunity. You've almost killed him, body and soul, among you, now; whether it be life or death, let him have a try for the clean thing. It's all you can do for him—forget him!"

And Martin, with bowed head, acquiesced.

"If he dies——" he faltered.

"I'll let you know," the doctor replied.

But Morley never heard of Sandy's death and the summer merged into autumn, and the cold and shadow settled upon The Hollow. When winter drove the mountain folks indoors to closer contact, bad air and poor food, it drove the devil in with them and hard times followed. But before the grip of winter clutched the hills, Sandy decided that in spite of the odds against him he would make another attempt to reach Massachusetts.

A mere shadow of a boy was he when, in late September, Matilda Markham got him out on the piazza one morning and, having tucked him up well in blankets, remarked enlighteningly, "There!"

All the fineness in Sandy had been emphasized during the weeks of sickness. As the bad food, the bruises and tan had disappeared—and what little flesh which his poor body possessed—the native delicacy and dignity grew and grew.

The people of The Forge, taking small interest in the Mountain Whites, for whom they had a contempt, merely relegated Sandy to "Luck with the Yankee who was dickering about a factory site."

As for Sandy himself he had wandered too near the perilous edge of things to be very keen as to his present and future. Often he lay with closed eyes and thought back to Lost Hollow. The actual distance between him and the only home he had ever known was short but, to a community that spoke of Sheridan's Ride as if it had occurred but the day before, and which slunk and shrank from moving out of its shadows, The Forge was a "right smart way off" and, besides, no one but Martin knew of the circumstances surrounding Sandy; and Martin, to the best of his ability, was doing the only thing he could do for his boy. Often on the long weary tramps in the woods he yearned to get a glimpse of things, but the rough doctor's warnings and suggestions held him back.

"Mart Morley, keep your clutches off that lad. You've nearly put an end to him. Give others a try now."

So with a courage and self-denial no one knew or suspected, Martin kept to the hills and made ready for winter as best he could. He and Molly, when the mood seized her, gathered wood and piled it carelessly by the cabin door. It seemed a goodly pile while the days were still warm and fine, but Martin, with a groan, realized how small the accumulation really was with the long, black months lying before.



CHAPTER VIII

The warm sun of September brought a faint tinge to Sandy's hollow cheeks. After Matilda's "There!" the boy had leaned his head back on the pillow of his couch and closed his eyes. Bob, sleek and well-conditioned, lay at his feet, starting now and then as he dreamed of other days rich in kicks and blows, and lean as to platters of nourishing food.

"Sleeping?" asked Levi, coming on the porch with the mail and whispering to his sister.

"I shouldn't wonder."

"He looks——" But Matilda shook her head at Levi and cut the words short. To express an opinion about Sandy's appearance at that moment would not do—it were best passed over lightly. Levi took a chair, drew it up close to his sister, and left Sandy and Bob free to compare, in dreams, the Then and Now of Life.

"It was no use," Markham whispered. "I might just as well have let the letter go that day he"—Levi nodded toward Sandy—"made his entrance on the scene. They won't accept my terms. I wish now I had let them know how I felt when my blood was up."

"Life's too short for that, brother. Up or down, blood hampers when it's hot. Common sense is always best. What does the letter say?"

"The Treadwell woman won't lose her hold on Lansing: not even for four years!"

Matilda's eyes dropped and she kept silent.

"She's about ruined him," Levi went on. "I put it to her plain and solemn, but she always slips through argument like a greased snake. Said I—let me have his next four years. I'll put him through college, give him work in the mills during the summer, and when he graduates I'll give him a choice of taking over the business or following a profession. The knowledge of business and some honest, hard work would bring the scamp's tone up. He's flabby now; flabby as his father before him."

"And she—says?"

Levi turned to the letter.

"She says she will not consider the plan for a moment, but she says she will not mention it to Lansing, and when I return he may choose for himself. I really thought the Treadwell woman would reckon with the money and not be so independent!"

"It's to her credit," Matilda murmured.

"Oh! doubtless she thinks when I have it out with the boy I'll change my mind. She'll find the contrary. It's come to the last ditch now. I'm not going to have any repetition of—the past with my money backing it!"

Again a long silence while Sandy apparently slept, and Bob twitched and grunted. Then:

"Matilda, we must return to Massachusetts. How soon can we go?"

Suddenly Sandy started up and leaned forward. His eyes were the one prominent feature in his face, and they were now hungry and anxious.

"Massachusetts?" he whispered in the weak, hoarse voice of the convalescent; "Massachusetts? That's where I'm going; there's money to pay my way, almost, I reckon. I'll work out the rest and make my schooling, too. I'll promise. Oh! take me with you!"

The agony of earnestness brought both man and woman to his side.

"Now, now!" commanded Matilda, pushing him back on the pillow; "nothing is ever gained by using yourself up in this shallow fashion."

"But I've got to go!" Sandy urged breathlessly; "I started out to go. I saved ever since I was seven years old to get away—and at last I fixed on—Massachusetts because they let you work for your learning there—and I've got to get it—get learning!"

"Come! come!" Levi asserted himself—"just you calm down. But if it will ease your mind any I'll tell you this much, lad. We've got it all fixed up amongst us—and if you want to go to Massachusetts and try your hand at your luck, you're going to be given an opportunity. Now, let go that grip on the arms of your chair! Matilda, get some broth; get——"

But he stopped short. The look in Sandy's eyes held him. Levi Markham often said afterward that the expression on the boy's face at that moment gave him a "turn." It was no boy-look; it was the command from all that had gone to the making of Sandy; command that the boy be dealt fairly with at last.

"I'm a hard man, Matilda," Markham said later, when Sandy had let go the grip of his chair, taken his broth and fallen exhaustedly to sleep; "I'm a hard man who has hewn his own way up, but I hope I'm a just man, and I declare before God I wouldn't dare play unfairly with the lad. He's not the first fellow I've put upon his feet; some have toppled over; some have gone ahead of me and given me the cold shoulder afterward—a few have stood by me in the mills—this youngster shall have a try to prove that look on his face."

So it was that ten days later the Markhams, with their "po' white trash," left The Forge—Bob rebelliously struggling in the baggage car. A certain piece of land high up among the hills had been purchased by Markham and the deed rested secure in his pocket. He knew what he was about, and if a certain fool of a boy thought well of a proposition to be made to him—there might be a future for himself and others later on.

"It's a great factory site," Markham had written home to his lawyer; "plenty of water and power. Land as rich as if it was just made, and labour aching to be utilized—not exploited."

The journey to Massachusetts was taken in slow stages—Sandy and Bob complicated matters.

"You—think, sir, my money will—hold out?" Sandy once asked wearily.

"I've been estimating," Levi thoughtfully returned; "barring accidents, taking to cheap hotels and allowing for a few weeks' rest after we reach home, the amount will about see you through."

"Thank you, sir."

They were talking in Sandy's bedroom in a very good hotel in New York at that moment.

"You look pretty spruce to-day, young man."

"I'm feeling right smart, sir. Could—could I, do you think, write—two notes?"

This was such an unusual request that Markham was curious.

"That's easy," he said; "there's writing things in yonder desk. I'll read the paper while you transact business."

Sandy was strangely sensitive to tones and expressions and now he turned to Markham.

"I want—my father to know I'm all right, sir," he said quietly. "If he knows that—he can wait till—I go back."

Suddenly the long stretches on beyond staggered Sandy and his thin face quivered.

"Then—there is——" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a—a girl, sir. She helped me—earn money. She's—different from me—she's—quality, but she'd like to know, too."

Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from view.

"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much desire.

"Quality, sir, is not made. It—is!"

Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance, snarled resentfully.

"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go. Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors—we only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand up to the best of them in your hills—if it's in you to stand. It all lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out. Afterward I have a plan to propose."

So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice.

The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big, seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no complaints—he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled him and he yearned for the open and the sight of a hill. He dreamed vividly of Lost Mountain, and he always saw it now enveloped in mist—a mist that he felt confident would never again lift for him. It was homesickness in the wide, spiritual sense that overpowered Sandy Morley at that time.

"Sandford, are you strong enough to talk business?"

"Yes, sir, I reckon I am."

The quaint politeness of his protege charmed Markham by its contrasts to the manner of other boys with whom he had come into contact.

"Sit down, and take it easy. Shut the window. You never seem to be able to hear when the sash is raised."

"Us-all's been used, sir, to still places."

"Now, then! In a day or two we will be home, Sandford. Home in Bretherton, Mass. We can't offer you mountains there, but it is a good rolling country and it's—quiet! I'm going to choose a school for you as soon as I can, a country school where you can catch up without having the life nagged out of you."

"And—and where am I to work and—live, sir?"

"You'll find work enough at the school for the regular terms—summers you are going to stop with Miss Markham and me and I'll set you to work in my mills. I always set every one I take an interest in, to work in my mills."

"Yes, sir." Sandy's eyes were growing "strange" again. Markham was learning to watch for that look.

"What's the matter?" he asked on the defensive; "what you thinking about?"

"Only Smith Crothers' factory, sir, and—and the children."

"See here, Sandford; don't you get me mixed with that——" he stopped short. At times his ability to converse with Sandy struck even him with wonder. It was when he forgot the poor figure before him, and was held by the expression in the thin face, that he let himself go.

"My mills," he continued more calmly, "are places of preparation; not—death traps."

"Yes, sir."

"It all depends on you, Sandford. I made my way up from as poor a chap as you are. I've given a lift to a good many other boys because of the boy I once was, but I never take any nonsense. I'm going to be fair with you and I expect you to be fair with me. Take things or leave them—only speak out what's in your mind and act clean. What I do for you isn't done for fun: I expect a return for everything I advance, and I take my own way to get it. While you are at school—it's school returns I want. When you go into the mills—I'll look for returns of a different kind. I'm going to give you an allowance, and it's got to do."

"Sir?"

"Oh!—I mean I'm going, after I get you on your feet, to put up a certain sum of money for you to live on; buy your clothes and get what amusement you can—along your own lines. I'm not going to pry or question you. You've got to feel your way along—it's always my method. They who stumble or run astray must learn their own lesson—not mine! I'll steady you at the start; after that you've got to learn to walk alone or go to——"

"Yes, sir!" The awful weight of responsibility was crushing Sandy as the city did—but he kept clear eyes on Markham.

"The only fun I have in life," Levi said, "is watching the outcome of my investments. You are an investment, Sandford, a flier—I call you! You're a risk and a pick-up, but some of my biggest hauls came from fishing where others scorned to take a chance.

"Yes, sir."

"You are willing to—agree?"

"Oh! yes, sir."

"Sounds like a big chance?"

"I reckon it does, sir, but it's what I saved money for ever since I was seven. The chance, I mean, sir."

"Sandford, when you feel that you can—not now, but some day—I want you to tell me all about yourself."

"Yes, sir." But the thin face twitched.

"And now come down to dinner."

For a few days more the crushing city did its worst for Sandy. The noise and confusion wore upon him cruelly. The memory of the faces of the crowds was to be a nightmare to him for years to come. To one who had dwelt where few crossed his path, the close proximity of hundreds and hundreds of eyes during the day left an impression never to be forgotten. The personal contact, too, drained the small, lately gained strength, but no complaint passed the boy's lips. Matilda pitied Sandy and in her quiet, slow thoughtfulness shielded him how and as she could. Markham had business in the city and was often absorbed, but at odd moments he relaxed and sought to entertain his sister and their charge by showing them the sights of the town. It would have been impossible for him to appreciate the suffering he often, unconsciously, caused Sandy, who, left to himself, would have crouched in some quiet corner and closed his eyes against every unfamiliar thing.

Quite weakened by the experiences of the stay in New York, the boy reached at last the lovely little New England village of Bretherton at the close of a radiant autumn day. He was too weary to feel even gratitude as the carriage that awaited the party bore him away from the noise and smell of the station by the railroad. His untried senses had been taxed to the uttermost since leaving The Forge. His eyes ached; his ears throbbed. Every new odour was an added torture, and his body quivered at every touch. Sleep came to him early, however, and the small, quiet room of the Markham house which had been allotted to him was like a sacred holy of holies to the overstrained nerves. Sandy slept like the dead all that first night, but habit still swayed him, and at five o'clock he wakened suddenly and heard the stir of life out of doors. Some one was calling a dog—his dog! It was Miss Matilda, and Sandy smiled as he listened to her reasoning with Bob as was her custom. Slowly the rested nerves asserted dominion over the boy, but he did not move. He was back, in longing, among the old Lost Hollow scenes. He was too weak to adjust himself into a new environment; changes had worn out his ambition and hope. Miserably he turned upon his pillow and with a sinking of the soul yearned to take his faithful Bob with him and go back to that life which demanded no more of him than he was able to give.

But that very afternoon his future became so involved with that of another, whom he had never seen, that to turn back would have been an impossibility. He and Bob were walking over a stretch of soft, hilly land toward the autumn-tinted woods beyond, when young Lansing Hertford, the son of Levi Markham's dead sister, arrived for a consultation with his uncle. All his life Markham had hungered for something that had never been his—something peculiarly his own! His hard and struggling younger years had denied any personal luxury. He had worked his way up; supported his old father and mother and two sisters; had grimly set his face away from love and marriage, and then when wealth and opportunity came to him the desire was past. But with rigid determination he looked in other directions for compensation. At first it was his younger sister, Caroline. Like so many self-made men, the fine, dainty things of life attracted him. He had dreams of costly oil paintings and rare china, but in the meantime he devoted himself to his sisters. He and Matilda were of one mind: after their parents' death Caroline became their only care.

Exquisite, carefully educated and beautiful, they gloried in her. They endured the loneliness of the old Bretherton home while she visited with schoolmates, or travelled abroad with new and gayer friends. Caroline was the music of their dull lives; the art of their prosaic existences. Then the shock came when she announced her engagement to Lansing Hertford, an idle, useless son of a down-at-the-heel Southern family.

"He's no fit mate for you, Caroline," Markham said alarmedly.

"That may be, brother," the girl had replied, "but I must marry him. You have always said one must learn his own lesson, not another's. I am ready to take the consequences. I could never get away from the sound of Lansing Hertford's voice. I hear him at night. He tells me that when temptation or weakness overpowers him he breathes my name. So, you see, dear, I cannot escape."

"Don't be a fool, Caroline!"

Markham struggled against the sense of impotency surging around him.

"It's my lesson, dear. I'll never wince."

And she never had, even when Hertford's indifference changed to cruelty. After the birth of her child, Caroline Hertford failed rapidly and the end of her lesson came when her boy was two years old. Markham and Matilda had desired to take the baby then, but Mrs. Olive Treadwell, Hertford's married sister, put in a protest.

"It would blight the boy's future if any gossip touched the dead mother or bereaved father; besides he is too young to change nurses or environment."

When little Lansing was seven his father died abroad under conditions shrouded with secrecy, and then it was that Olive Treadwell sought Levi Markham and by methods unknown to the simple, direct man, contrived to interest him in her nephew and his.

"There'll be a mighty big fortune some day for some one to inherit—why not Lans?" she argued to herself and began her campaign. She had grown to love the boy in her vain, worldly way; she wanted him and the Markham money, and she cautiously felt her way through the years while the child was with her.

"I hear my nephew is called by your name," Levi remarked once during a call at the Boston home of the Treadwells.

"Just a childish happening. You know how simple little minds are; having no mother but me, he calls me mommy, and naturally people speak of him carelessly by my name."

"He should bear his own and seek to honour it," Markham returned with simplicity equalling a child's. Mrs. Treadwell winced. She dared not show how she resented any unkind reference to her brother, but she had always looked down upon his Yankee marriage, as she termed it, and never could understand why the plain Markhams failed to realize the honour her brother had paid them by taking Caroline for his wife.

"I must see that the misnomer is corrected," was all Mrs. Treadwell rejoined. So Lansing had passed through preparatory school and was ready for college before Markham could be brought to definite terms. The letter from The Forge was the first proposition, and now on that September day Lansing Hertford, prepared and coached by his aunt Treadwell, presented himself at Bretherton on the two-fifty train.

"He'll probably offer you a beastly little allowance," Olive Treadwell had warned; "but I'll add to that; so accept it like a lamb. Then he'll throw Cornell to you—he has right bad taste in universities—but you must use your tact there, Lans. Tell him about your associates and how your future will be influenced by your college Frat and such things. Men like your uncle Markham are always snobs at heart."

Thus reinforced Lansing Hertford came up for judgment. He was a handsome, rollicking chap—a charming combination of his graceful father and his lovely mother—and he greeted his uncle and aunt with frank affection. Even in those days Lansing Hertford could will his emotions—or his emotions could will him—to sincerity for the time being. He had ideals and enthusiasms—he changed them often, and, as often, they changed him, but outwardly a frankness and openness were his chief attributes and had held his uncle, through the hope-deferred years, to expect big things of him.



CHAPTER IX

Lansing Treadwell, after an hour on the piazza with his aunt and uncle, followed the latter into the study and, taking the broad leather chair, faced Markham across the flat desk with candid, friendly eyes. Levi sat, as he always did when in that room, in his revolving chair; the leather one was reserved for visitors.

"Well, Lansing," he began, sternly endeavouring to obscure the hope, pride, and affection that were welling up in his heart as he looked at the boy; "you're through preparatory; have qualified for college and, after this year, are ready for your career!"

"I've done pretty well, Uncle Levi. I stand third in my class and I'm the youngest."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"You'll be eighteen when you enter college? That's too young."

"I'm older than my years," Lansing gave a boastful laugh, then did a bungling thing. "Won't you smoke, Uncle Levi?" and he passed a handsome silver case forward; "it's a great tie between—well, chums!"

"I've lived over sixty years without the need of that tie," Markham returned stiffly; "I do not think I'll take it up now. I'm not much of a preacher, but at your age, Lansing, I'd advise the collection of good tastes and habits; let the doubtful luxuries await the years of discretion."

Lansing pocketed his silver case and gave an embarrassed laugh. Levi went back to his former line of argument.

"It's Cornell and the beggarly allowance," thought Lansing, but it was no such thing.

"You are too young to go to college, Lans; too immature to really put yourself to any final test. Your assumption of dignity proves this more than anything else. Of course I do not know how much or how little you know of the past, but it is necessary, from now on, that you and I should understand each other perfectly. I was very"—Levi struggled for composure—"very fond of your mother."

"Yes, uncle."

"And I did not want her to marry your father. I feared he would not make her happy—he did not!"

The crisp facts came out with force but with no malignity, and Lansing Hertford dropped his eyes as he replied:

"Aunt Olive has told me they were very uncongenial." A flush rose to the young fellow's face. A pride, not altogether unworthy, rang in the words and for the first time Markham detected a resemblance to the father in the close-shut lips.

"I do not wish to say anything against your father that is avoidable, but for your own safety and my own protection I realize that you and I must be quite open with each other."

"Yes, uncle."

"Your mother died more of a broken heart than of anything else."

The boy set his jaw.

"I know father loved life and took it as it came," he said.

A brief silence rested between the two, then Markham went on:

"Naturally you inherit from both your parents. To a certain extent, certainly, a man, under God, is master of his life and I want to give you the best possible choice that lies in my power, not only for your own sake and mine, but for your mother's and—yes! your father's!"

"Thank you, Uncle Levi."

And now the boy's eyes were raised once more. They swept the room, Markham's face, and then travelled to the broad acres in rich cultivation as far as one could see.

"You have had too much pleasure and luxury, Lans; things have come too easily. You have never been brought face to face with a longing, and been made to understand that sacrifice, on your part, was necessary to obtain it. Unless you have felt so, you are in no position to find yourself, as you put it."

Again the vital silence.

"How do you know whether you want a college education or not? How do you know you are worthy of this great privilege? You may not even be fitted for it by nature."

Had Markham asked if his nephew knew whether he would ever want to eat a meal again, the boy could not have been more surprised. College, to him and his set, was as natural a sequence as dessert after the courses preceding it. For the life of him Lansing could not prevent a stare. His aunt had left him utterly unprepared for this.

"Now this is my proposition:" Markham had his elbows on his desk, his chin resting on the points of his clasped hands; "I will take you into the mills on exactly the same terms as I would any other young fellow—except that you will share my home—until you learn the rudiments of the business and discover whether you have any business sense or not. By the time you have mastered that and experienced some bodily labour, you will be in a position where you can choose, to some degree, your career. Should you, then, wish to enter college, I will permit you to select one, and I will see you through. It is my firm belief that between a preparatory school and college there should be a space of time, except in particular cases, for looking backward and forward—a breathing time; a time for relaxation and the acquiring of fixed aims. College should not be passed out to a boy as a plum or a luxury—it's too grave a matter for that. All my life I have deplored the lack of it—but I had to live and suffer before I realized its importance."

With all his honesty Lansing Hertford was trying at this critical time to get his uncle's point of view. Of one thing alone was he sure—he was, he believed, so far ahead of his uncle in his knowledge of life that the old gentleman seemed but a blurred speck on the social horizon. No longer could he be looked to as a safe adviser. Why, left to himself, the man might sacrifice the family name and prestige! He did not even understand the decent conventions due his own standing in the community! Suddenly Lansing Hertford felt old and anxious as though upon him, instead of Levi, rested the responsibility of the future. He tried to frame a reply that might enlighten and not insult, but it was difficult. At last he spoke.

"Uncle Levi, I cannot see what such effort and success as yours amount to if they do not place the next generation higher. What you say you have deplored in your own life should prove to you what I ought to have. Your experience counts for so much, you know. I expect to work, and work hard—I always have worked hard. I'm two years ahead of most fellows of my age. But I want to start from where you and my Aunt Olive leave off, I want to mingle with my kind—I am all but qualified to enter Yale—I could not go—back!"

"Your kind! Go back!" Levi's eyes flashed under his shaggy brows. "What is your kind? Have you ever mingled with those above or below you? And as to going back—is it degrading to place yourself in a position from which you can accept or decline a great opportunity intelligently? I was forced to learn my lesson in a hard school; you can still learn the lesson even with the limitations of luxury. Your 'kind' is good, bad, and indifferent, and there are other kinds. I see you before me, young and hopeful—but ignorant and blind. I want to open every avenue to you that leads to successful manhood. You are losing nothing by my plan; you are gaining much." Something very pleading rang in Markham's voice, but Lansing was deaf to it.

"Uncle Levi—I cannot! I'd be a disappointment to you if I tried. I've got to go on with the fellows. I'd lose more than you know if I broke away now and—and buried myself in the mill, and then tried later to pick up. You've never been through what I have—the break would be the end of me! You'd know it when it was too late. I mean to try to be the best of my kind, indeed I do—but the fellow I am is the result of my training and it means everything to me."

What Levi Markham saw before him now was the son of Lansing Hertford—all resemblance to the mother was gone. Baffled and defeated by a something invincible and beyond his understanding, the old man faced the calmness of the young fellow in the chair across the desk. When he spoke he addressed a Hertford only.

"You have heard my proposition, Lansing; I mean to stand by it; unless you can accept my terms I shall change my will."

Could Markham only have understood he would have known that it was the pride of his race, not the Hertfords', that spurred Lansing to retort angrily:

"I did not know I was being bought. I thought you were doing it for what you believed was my good!"

"And so I am!" The incongruity of thus arguing with a boy of seventeen did not strike Markham. It was man to man, with the influence of Olive Treadwell in the reckoning!

"Give me my college first, Uncle Levi, and consider the business afterward."

"I have worked this thing out, Lansing. I am not likely to change my mind."

And just then Sandy Morley passed by the window with his dog at his heels.

"Who is that?" asked Lans indifferently, and a blind impulse spoke through Markham.

"The boy who will accept the offer I make if you decline it!"

Lansing Hertford got upon his feet. All the forced affection and respect he had been trained to observe dropped from him. His uncle seemed a coarse, hard stranger, the surroundings distasteful. A certain mental homesickness for all the pleasant luxury and environment of his Aunt Olive's life overcame him. He spoke boyishly.

"I think I will return to Boston to-night, Uncle Levi. There's a train at seven. I couldn't eat dinner feeling as I do. Good-bye, I'm going to walk to the station. Will you be good enough to send my traps up to-morrow. Bid Aunt Tilda good-bye, please."

He put out his hand frankly and was gone before Markham realized the situation.

"It was not Lans you were fighting," Matilda sagely remarked later when her brother explained matters to her, "it was his dead father, and Olive Treadwell. You just better write to the boy, I guess, and get him to finish out his visit and reconsider. I tell you flat-footed, Levi, there ain't much give to you when you've worked yourself up, and I must say I like the lad all the better for the way he stood up for his kin. They are his kin, and good or bad, that Treadwell woman has won his affection when we couldn't. And to throw that—that strange boy at his head in that fashion! It wasn't worthy of you, Levi! It was downright shallow and you prating always of justice and sane reasoning!"

What might have happened when Markham had digested his sister's practical remarks was never to be known, for Olive Treadwell, in blind fury, and what she considered righteous indignation, prevented.

Weak and unbalanced, but with a deep-seated belief in her social superiority and worldly knowledge, she sent a letter, by special delivery, to Bretherton, that left Levi incapable of response:

I suppose you have taken this method of degrading my dead brother and me. That one of your humble origin can estimate the impression upon another of such an offer as you made to my nephew is quite beyond expectation. The Hertfords have always been gentlemen and ladies and you would send the last of the race, by the power of your vulgar money, to work among common labourers in order to break his spirit and pride! You are too blind, apparently, to appreciate the honour my brother paid your sister by marrying her. His personal shortcomings could not possibly outweigh the position that he gained for her when she took his name. Through all these years I have suppressed my feeling as to the matter because I have felt that you and I, working together, might place the son of your sister and my brother in a position that would reflect credit upon us both; but since you have failed to recognize your opportunity and, in sordid revenge, have sought to degrade him, I assume all responsibility in the future. I am, comparatively, a poor woman, but hereafter Lansing Treadwell and I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social position are not to be envied or trusted.

Having read this aloud to Matilda, Levi dropped the closely written sheet to the floor.

"She's got the courage of her convictions," Matilda snapped.

"And an old grudge," Markham returned.

"Well, I will say this for her," Matilda added; "she's upset her kettle of fish and Lans', too."

"So it seems! So it seems!"

Levi was looking at a flaming maple tree outside and thinking of his dead sister.

It was the evening of the day of the letter that Sandy Morley, sitting rigidly in the chair that Lansing Hertford had lounged in, listened to as much of an outline of his future as Levi Markham felt he could comprehend.

"And remember," Markham warned at the end, "I want you to learn how little a hundred dollars is as well as how big! One is as important as the other."

"Yes, sir," Sandy returned with a vague wonder, for he had yet to learn to think in dollars.

"Can you"—Markham considerately paused before putting the next question—"do you feel able to tell me a little more about yourself than I already know? I should like to feel that you trust me."

Sandy was stronger and better for his days in Bretherton and, never having had any great consideration shown him, he looked upon Levi Markham as a veritable God especially upraised for his guidance and protection.

"I want to tell you!" he said in a low, tense voice. Leaning forward until his arms touched the opposite side of the desk, his thin, sensitive face was nearly on a level with Markham's.

"It's—this—er—way."

The shade at the broad window behind Sandy had not been lowered, and a very magnificent black night riddled with stars stood like a shield against which the boyish form and pale face rested. There was a crumbling fire on the hearth, and the lamp on the table was turned low. Markham, listening to the slow, earnest voice, became hypnotized by its quality and pure purpose. He felt the dreariness and hopelessness of the hard childhood, and the hate that Mary Morley had aroused seemed to the listener to be the first vivifying happening. He never took his eyes from Sandy's face from first to last. The years of labour, self-sacrifice and fixed purpose stirred him strangely, and the touch of spirit introduced into the boy's voice when he approached the end found an echo in Markham's heart.

"I'm going to learn and then go back and help them-all who can't help themselves," Sandy explained, "for I know, sir. No one what does not know, could ever do it! Us-all fears strangers. I'm going to get them-all safe some day, sir. I'm going to have a right, big place to gather them in and teach them. No Hertford curse is going to kill what has called me!"

So abstracted had Levi been, so distant in thought from the Bretherton study, and his own inward trouble, that this name, falling from Sandy's lips, shocked him beyond measure.

"What—did—you—say?" he gasped; "what name did you say?"

"Hertford, sir."

"What do you know of the Hertfords?" It was all Markham could do to hold his emotions in abeyance.

Sandy told his father's story, all but that which related to the Waldens, and the listener hung on every word.

"And so, sir, don't you see, I must be what they-all, my kith and kin, couldn't be? I've got to use my chance for them as well as for me."

"It's a big proposition, boy!" Levi relaxed.

"Yes, sir." The young face was tired and worn.

"Well, then, listen"—a strange light shone in Markham's eyes—"if you prove yourself able to tackle this job, by God, I'll back you! You and I will redeem that old Hollow of yours—you with my money! We'll get Smith Crothers by the throat and throttle him; we'll clean up the Speak Easies and cut more windows in the cabins. Where did you get the notion, son, that with more light and air there would be less damnation?"

"I've lived in the cabins, sir."

"Well, we'll cut all the windows you want and have the school and"—Markham was quivering—"we'll see if the Morleys can't rise up in the land of their fathers and stamp the Hertfords under foot!"

"Yes, sir!" And then Sandy gave one of his rare, rich laughs.

From that day the preparations began. A school in the mountains of New Hampshire was selected, and Sandy fitted out with everything necessary and proper.

Markham was noted for a sense of propriety. He kept his mills and lands in good condition because he was wise and sane; he housed his employees decently for the same reason, and he insisted upon their cooeperation. He never let his taxes lapse, nor his money lie fallow. He had, hidden in a drawer of his desk, a valuable diamond ring that he took out in secret moments to enjoy. Occasionally the jewels were sent to Boston and put on the wheel because the artistic soul of Levi Markham demanded that through no carelessness of his should their lustre become dimmed. For much the same reasons Sandy Morley was entered upon his career in a manner befitting the hope that was in Markham for him.

The day Sandy was sent from Bretherton, Olive Treadwell and her adopted son, Lansing Treadwell, sailed for a year's stay in Europe, and Levi and Matilda Markham grimly agreed to leave things as they were.

"There's no use stirring up pudding past a certain point," Matilda said. "If you do it's apt to go heavy."

"And it's the part of wisdom to watch a rising batch of bread," Levi returned humorously. "When you can't get pudding—or when the pudding fails—look to bread and make the best of it!"



CHAPTER X

Cynthia Walden came slowly up the trail leading to the old gray house. Since the day of the flood which bore old Ivy forever from sight, she had confronted so many strange conditions that her eyes had the haunted, frightened expression common to the mountain people. The curse of the hills seemed to have settled upon her. She often said to herself, "poor whites," in order that the significance might be fully understood. Old Ivy had said that the cows were all that stood between them and the fate of others who had, through misfortune, accepted the title despised by the quality.

Well, she, Cynthia Walden, was no longer quality; of that there could be no doubt. Had Ivy and the cows been spared she might have hidden her disgrace of parentage, but now she must, in order to get food and wood, seek the help and charity of others, and she could no longer hold up her head!

At this thought the pretty, drooping head was lifted defiantly. No! she would not go down just yet, for one last motive remained. While she was at the store an hour before to buy a few necessary articles of food with the pitiful supply of money she had found in an old teapot on the kitchen shelf, a wonderful thing had occurred. Tod Greeley, weighing out some tea, remarked casually:

"I reckon, now I think o' it, Miss Cyn, there's a letter come for you. One for you and one for Mr. Morley."