There had been times in the past when, strange to say, with good food in plenty about him, he had yearned with hungry longing for the rough ash cakes and sour milk of his early home; and there would always be hours when he would raise his eyes in soul-sickness and pray for a glimpse of Lost Mountain—the one lofty thing in his one-time little world. And the first few springs after his leaving his home he was ill when he saw the dogwood blossoms—they called to the depths of his nature and the depths answered not! He had kept the vow made to himself—he would neither write nor seek word from the hills until he were ready to go back to his own.

The first days at school were tortured experiences, but he mastered them first by physical courage, then by sheer fineness of character. He made great strides after the second year, and when he graduated from the New Hampshire Preparatory he was ready, with some tutoring, to enter Harvard. Oddly enough Lansing Treadwell became his tutor, neither knowing more of the other than the circumstances demanded. Again Sandy's rare disposition won for him a place in Treadwell's good will and liking. The young tutor prided himself upon his own popularity and social position; he made a virtue of his necessity for earning money and, in good natured, lordly fashion, blazed a trail for his uncle's protege with a laugh of indifference at his own defeat with his austere relative.

When in due time Morley graduated with honours from college none was more generous with praise and pride than Lansing Treadwell.

"By Jove! my friend," he said, "I'm nothing but a big, bungling giant without genius or talent. Let me set you on my shoulders and you'll conquer the world—our nice, little world of Boston!"

But Sandy had no social ambitions. When his summer work in the mills was over, he found his greatest pleasure at Bretherton with Markham and Matilda and old Bob. And then, when sudden necessity lashed him to unexpected endeavour, he went to young Treadwell and said simply:

"I am not going to work in the mills this vacation; Mr. Markham has offered me a trip somewhere, but I have need of money for personal uses and I must—earn some. Can you help me?"

And again Lansing Treadwell, with a grin of amused understanding, put Sandy in the way of tutoring a rich man's sons.

And now, Morley, tired, sad at heart, needing what he was too generous and unselfish to ask for, was responding to Markham's summons and was on his way to Bretherton.

Of course neither Markham nor his sister could understand his need of sympathy and tenderness. Proudly he had withheld his private cares and troubles. He accepted from others only what he might some day hope to return; he never drew a check on the bank of sympathy without taking account of his savings!

When Sandy came in sight of the beautiful old house on the hill, and when but a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet bird-call and waited. A second time he called and then he saw Bob loping over the front lawn and, with upraised sniffing nose, caper about. A third trill settled the dog's doubts, and with an abandon that age could not overcome he ran and jumped to the unseen friend.

"Good old fellow!" cried Sandy when Bob drew near; "good old pal!" And then the dog was in the young fellow's arms. After a few moments they sedately went on their homeward way together—Sandy's hand resting upon the uplifted yellow head.

"Sandy, you look thin!" Matilda remarked at dinner as she eyed him over her spectacles. "You make me think of the lean days after your fever seven years ago."

"I reckon I am still growing, Miss Markham."

Levi scanned the young face.

"Mill work never used you up," he said slowly.

"It's not work, sir. It's been right hot in town, and you know the city a ways stifles me."

"Umph!" said Markham.

After Matilda had gone to bed that evening Levi sat on the broad piazza with Sandy, while a late yellow-red moon rode majestically in the sky and lighted the dew-touched meadow land.

"Looks hot," Levi murmured; "hot and dry."

"Yes," agreed Sandy. Then quite suddenly Markham asked:

"Sandford, I wish you to tell me exactly why you wanted extra money this summer. I say wish, because I know I have no right to demand your confidence, but I do think I have a right to protect you against—well, against yourself when it comes to personal injury. You trusted me seven years ago with your confidence; you've talked pretty openly to me during your school and college years. Reports speak louder than words—but we've kept in touch with each other. I make no claims, but I'd like to think you know I am your friend."

Just then the moonlight shifted to Sandy's face and lay across it in brilliant clearness.

"I can tell you better to-night, sir, than I could have a week ago, for the need is past now. I have only kept it to myself because it has never seemed right that I should ask more of you than you offered to give—and this was my affair—mine alone."

"I see!" muttered Markham, and his jaw set, not with doubt of Sandy, but with detestation of the woman who earlier in the day had driven him to attack this boy's sacred privilege of independence and privacy.

"It began, sir, when I was in the midst of class work in June. I was having a particularly good time, you may remember, when, one night, a messenger came to my rooms and said some one wanted to see me near the gate of the Square. It was a girl, sir, though she looked a woman; a poor, sad, sick creature from my home—my half sister, Molly! I did not know her at first. She was right little and pretty when I last saw her, but cruelty and want had turned her into——"

Levi's eyes were riveted on the still, white face of the speaker, and his heart hurt him for very pity. He could not let the boy say the word.

"And she—what did she want?" he asked so sternly that Sandy, even with his reverence for Markham, took up arms in his sister's defence.

"Don't judge her harshly, sir; you do not know our hills. Molly was a mighty weak little girl, and when temptation came to her, she hadn't strength to resist, and they who should have defended her—sold her! I was not there, so I cannot be hard upon her, though she thought I meant to be at first. You see I was so shocked and surprised, and amid all the happenings I had almost forgotten. She threatened me, sir. It was right pitiful. She said every one was dead—her mother; our father——" Sandy's voice faltered—"she was alone. She hadn't forgotten her old ways either. You remember that I told you how as a little girl she had threatened the—the treasure under the rock beyond the Branch?" Markham nodded.

"Well—she threatened the treasure of to-day. She was for finding you out and begging—so—well, I bought her off! for I would not have you haggled and be made to repent your helping of me. I have kept her, sir, in a little room in a corner of Boston all summer. It was a neat and comfortable place, with a tree at the window. After a time she trusted me! At first it was hard for her to keep—well!—I reckon when one let's go as poor Molly did—it is right difficult to hold on long to a new and safer course. But—she died four days ago! She was alone, sir, with her head on the window sill; her poor little face set toward the tree. I had had a doctor for her—she had been feeling ill—it was heart trouble—she went without pain. I saw her buried to-day—some time in the future I am going to take her body to Lost Mountain. She'll really rest there, I reckon."

The moonlight passed from the white, tired face and Levi's aching eyes closed, taking the vision of Sandy with them. He recalled the boy's manner through the closing scenes of his college life; the outward calmness and grateful appreciation while the hideous trouble was eating the joy from the hours of triumph he had so bravely won. He reflected upon the following weeks of toil and lonely labour with that poor, dying girl in the background taking his life blood as once she had taken his hard-earned money. Then when he could bear no more Levi Markham got up and walked over to Sandy. He laid a trembling hand on his shoulder and by stern effort controlled his voice.

"My boy!" he murmured; "my—boy! words come hard; I'm not an easy talker—but—you and I are both tuckered out. I have never had a vacation in my life—a real vacation. I've always packed business and worry in my satchel. Will you come across the water with me, lad? Let us try to see if there is any play in us. Let's have a look at some regular mountains and some second-rate cities—and when we get back I want you to travel up to that tumble down Hollow you hailed from, and take my money along; we'll begin repairs at once—you bossing, I paying the bills. We'll set it going some—you and I! As to this trip abroad we'll take 'Tilda along to keep us straight and—and make us comfortable, Sandy!"

But Sandy's head was bowed on his clasped hands and the first tears he had shed in years were trickling through his fingers.

"You'll come, Sandy Morley?"

"Yes, sir."

"And—I want to tell you, my boy—that I'm satisfied with my flyer of an investment. Come! Come! You've acted the part of a man before you've been a boy. You and I have earned—a vacation."

An hour later Markham tapped at Matilda's door and the prompt, "Come in, Levi," caused him a moment's uneasiness.

"Insomnia?" he asked, drawing a chair close to his sister's bed.

"Just a little wakefulness, brother. Now don't get fidgetty. I'm real satisfied to lie here and think of my blessedness and comfort. It's gratifying to recall all your possessions in the night. They say worries stand out clearest then, but with me it's the other way. My troubles just vanish and every living, breathing pleasantness comes to the fore. Now, you, for example, Levi. I was praising God about you as you knocked. You're a changed man, brother. You were always a good man, but to be flat-footed I must say that there was a time when conversation with you was like jogging along over a stony road. One got so many bumps that it didn't seem worth while. I used to get terrible lonely at times, for I wouldn't take pleasures and leave you out—it always has seemed to me that you never got the right change for what you spent, and I wanted to do my share in keeping you company if you ever felt the lack. And then that poor little fellow came tumbling into our lives same as if God had sent him rolling down the mountain to our door. If ever there was a blessing in disguise, it was Sandy! I tell you he's a pretty comforting creature to hold to when you lie awake nights. A minute ago I was saying over and over—"thank God for Sandy!" He gets closer to you than you think, Levi—it's his way and he's the strongest, gratefullest fellow. Every time I look at him lately I think of the saying—strength of the hills."

And now Levi sought and found the thin, blue-veined hands folded peacefully upon the white coverlid.

"Sandy found the starved mother and father in us, Matilda. His need met ours, and God blessed us all."

"That's a true word, brother. You and I were real pinched in our aims and longings in the offset. Do you remember how you always wanted learning and college, and how I actually was besotted about traipsing around the world? Such dreams as we managed to make up! I have the old geography now with pin points all up the side of the Alps where you and I counted the height and then said we didn't believe it! Well, you've found success without college, and I've found peace without travel."

Levi patted the cool, old hands tenderly. Sandy's story had somehow made Matilda very precious.

"But lands, Levi! We are all old children and go on with our foolish dreams till we're tucked in at last for good and all. Maybe I ought to be ashamed to own to this, but I lie here nights and actually make believe I'm Sandy's mother. Mother's an awful comforting word to women as well as children."

"Well, Matilda, I'll own up to the same side play." Levi laughed softly; "the night he graduated I closed my eyes and listened to him reading off that fine stuff and—for a spell I fathered him and got real thrilled. But what I came to say to you to-night, 'Tilda, is no dream unless you can class it as a dream come true. Beginning to-morrow morning, I want that you should go into town and shop."

"Shop, Levi?" Matilda leaned up on her thin elbow and scanned her brother's face in the white light of the moon. "Shop, Levi? Shop for what?"

"Why—things! Have all the help you can get and take a reasonable time, but I'd like to have you get real stylish fixings. I'd like real well for you to have a lavender frock, something like that Treadwell woman wears. You and Sandy and I are going vacationing!"

"Lands, Levi! Vacationing just as canning time is coming?"

"That's about the size of it. What's the fun in a vacation if you ain't running away from plain duty?"

"Why, Levi, I do declare! Where are we going?"

The dear old face was shining in the ghostly gleam.

"Oh! we're going to see mountains that will make Mt. Washington and Lost Mountain look foolish."

"Levi, don't trifle lightly with God's handiwork. I've always held that scenes of nature ought not be compared—it's real presumptious."

"Well, then, Matilda, we're going to do the grand tour!"

"Levi, you surely are romancing."

"I'm going to buy tickets to-morrow for about the middle of September!"

"You can't be serious, brother?"

"I am going to spend money—for nothing once in my life! I'm going to get what we want and not count the change!"

"It sounds scandalous, Levi!"

"It's going to be a—scandal."

"What a sight we three will be, Levi." The dear old soul chuckled. Like a child she had at last caught the contagion of Markham's humour. "I just know them foreigners will think we are a pair of fond parents with our one chick and child. Do you think we need tell right out that we ain't, Levi? When it isn't necessary, couldn't we keep ourselves to ourselves and—make believe, with the ocean between us and them that know, that Sandy is ours?"

"We can, Matilda. And I want that Sandy should get his fill of paintings. Did you ever know how he leans to art? Why, he's got about a square acre of sketches among his belongings—he's shown me some, and while I do not set myself up for a critic I do say that there is feeling in his stuff."

"I've seen that dogwood one he carries about with him," Matilda answered, leaning back on her pillow. "It gives me the creeps. Times are when I fancy there is a ghost of a girl face in the flowers. Sandy laughs at me—but I've caught the sight more than once in certain lights and its real upsetting."

"Well, I want that he should take all the art in that he's capable of digesting, and I want you to see mountains and what not that you've hungered after all your days and I want to see—Paris!"

"It's a real outlandish city for morals, Levi."

"Well, it will make me glad to get back to Boston, Matilda," Levi chuckled. "Now lie down and try to sleep."

"I feel real drowsy, Levi. My! how much I have got to be grateful for. You are a good man, brother. Time was when I feared success might harden you."

Levi did not rest well that night. Alone in his prim, old-fashioned chamber he lay and made plans for the future.

"And after we come back," he thought, "I'm going to send Sandy up to the hills with blank checks in his pocket. I'm going to see what he can do in the way of redeeming Lost Hollow. He'll never be happy away from that God-forsaken place—it's in his soul and system. There's that land, too, I bought seven years ago! That oughtn't to be lying fallow."

Then his roving thoughts settled on his sister. "Matilda must consent to more help here in the house—she looks peaked."

A sharp pang brought him to an upright position. He seemed to be beside lonely Sandy as he had stood that very day by an obscure grave—somewhere in a shabby little graveyard.

"Matilda has been one sister in ten thousand and she's asked precious little. Caroline got things quite naturally while she lived at home—'Tilda took the leavings always and patched, somehow, a thankful, beautiful life out of them. She's going to get whole pieces of cloth from now——" he muttered, "with Sandy thrown in."



CHAPTER XVII

Perhaps it was the spring air; perhaps it was the turn in the tide of Cynthia Walden's life, but whatever it was it roused her and gripped her from early morning. At six o'clock on that May day she awoke in her shabby room of Stoneledge and looked out of the vine-covered window, heard a bird sing a wild, delicious little song, and then sat up with the strange thrill of happiness flooding her heart and soul.

It was a warm morning, more like late June than late May, and both the bird and the girl felt the joy in the promise of summer.

At nineteen Cynthia, like the spring morn, bore the mark of her coming fulfillment of beauty. She was very lovely, tall, slim, slightly bending, like a reed that had bowed to the wind instead of resisting. The child look, full of question and waiting, was still in her clear blue-gray eyes; the well-formed mouth had not forgotten its pretty, slow smile, and the pale, exquisite whiteness of the smooth skin was touched with a delicate tan and colour that did credit totally Taber's care and culinary art.

"I feel," whispered the girl, tossing the braids of her smooth gold-brown hair back from her face; "I declare I feel as if something was going to happen long o' me!"

Not for a moment did Cynthia imagine anything ill. Out of a barren, isolated life she had evolved and held to the strict philosophy she had once confided to Marcia Lowe in the little church. If trouble overtook her, she shielded herself as well as possible, smiled pleadingly and stepped aside. At such courtesy Trouble had obligingly gone on leaving the girl of nineteen as trusting and hopeful as a child. The old house had crumbled and tottered. Ann Walden had sunk into positive imbecility—but Cynthia had kept her faith and love. Sally Taber still ruled the Great House under the disguise of grateful dependent. She slept in the loft over the kitchen, made life a possible thing for a helpless woman and a young girl, and asked nothing for herself in return.

"If that woman doesn't have a crown studded two deep with jewels some day," Marcia Lowe confided to Tod Greeley, "I'll miss my guess."

And Tod, for various reasons, did what he could to show his appreciation of the old woman's nobility.

"Yo' sho' do give proper weight to us-all." Sally often told him. "Things do las' mor'n one could expect, fo' de money."

"I ain't goin' to run the risk of any pesky government investigation," Greeley replied. "Better be on the safe side, I reckon."

And now Cynthia again remarked to the pretty May morning:

"I feel as if something was going to happen 'long o' me."

Then she got up and made her simple toilet. The shining braids were wound coronet-style about the shapely head, and some moments were devoted to the choice of a gown. There were three hanging on nails behind the door leading to the hall; a checked gingham, brown, ugly and serviceable; a faded pink chambray, and a new, dull blue linen. This last was a gift from Marcia Lowe. It was the longest, most modern garment Cynthia possessed, and the colour filled her awakening artistic sense with delight.

"This one!" she murmured, and smiled at her own senseless extravagance.

"I reckon it's right silly," she said; "but it's mighty good fun to wear your Sunday frock on a Thursday!"

Then arrayed and glowing with pride Cynthia contemplated herself in her tiny mirror.

"If something happens 'long o' me," she nodded in friendly fashion into the glass, "it will find me ready."

After breakfast she meant to go to Trouble Neck and help Marcia Lowe with her "school." The little doctor's school was the newest and most exciting innovation in The Hollow. The student list was elastic and all embracing. Every department of life was taught, as and how it were possible. The timid, blighted little folks were lured to the cabin by all means at Miss Lowe's command and fed such crumbs as their poor wits could comprehend.

"Let's flip out the grains, Cynthia, dear," the little doctor urged; "perhaps some chick can swallow them. We must make hay while the sun shines. Crothers' new factory is looming up and when that whistle blows, good-bye to the Trouble Neck Academy!"

It had taken nearly seven years for Smith Crothers to collect his insurance, recover his health, and begin his business career again. He had left The Forge for two years, and since his return had gone slowly about his work of rebuilding and entering the arena. Whatever he thought or remembered of the night when his factory was burned, no one, but himself, knew. From a grim shadow of his former self he regained his health and looks; he nodded to Cynthia when he met her on The Way and the girl tossed her head at him indifferently. Only Marcia Lowe was anxious.

"Cynthia," she said, "promise me that you will not wander in the woods alone!"

"Not without a pistol," the girl replied. "I'm a mighty good shot, dear Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady!"

But Marcia Lowe shook her head.

When Cynthia went downstairs that May morning, Sally Taber had the plain breakfast on the dining-room table, and her face looked drawn and worried.

"Miss Cyn," she said, when she had set the corn bread and milk before the girl, "las' night ole Miss war right troublesome."

"You have been up a good deal, Sally?"

"I sho' have. Ole Miss took to wandering and nothing would suit her but de libry. I done made a fire there and let her play. She done dig at the hearthstone an' laughed and babbled 'til long 'bout three o'clock, then I carried her upstairs and laid her in her bed same as if she was a lil' tired out babby."

"Dear Sally!" Cynthia's eyes shone. "I'll stay home to-day and let you sleep."

"I reckon you will do nothin' like that! Ole Miss will be good for mos' the mornin' an' I'se goin' to patch up the libry. If ole Miss takes a fancy to that-er-room, she goin' to have what she wants! If she wants to pick 'long o' the hearthstone, she is goin' to do that; I'll loosen it up."

"I will watch her to-night, then!" Cynthia said, "and I'll be back right early this evening, Sally."

Just as Cynthia reached The Way, she met Martin Morley.

"Good morning, lil' Miss Cyn," he greeted; "seems like you be part of this yere pretty day."

"Good morning, Mr. Morley. You look right smart and dandified."

Morley was neatly and decently attired and his calm, clear eyes were steady and full of purpose. The "charm" had held good with him, and ever since the well-fought battle in the little doctor's lean-to chamber, he had gradually worked his way back to self-respect and content. Mary and Molly had drifted from his life so effectually that he had accepted the inevitable and never mentioned their names.

"Where you going, Mr. Morley?"

"I am going down to The Forge," Martin answered. "They-all say the young manager for that company what's going to build a factory up higher has come, and I'm going to try and get a job."

"Do you believe there is going to be a factory, Mr. Morley? Do you believe Smith Crothers would let any one have a factory so near his?"

"They-all do say, Miss Cynthia, that that-er company what sends this young man, is powerful rich and upperty. They-all do say that-er company ain't so much as consulted with Smith Crothers."

"It must be a mighty brave company!" The slow smile touched the sweet lips.

"Mr. Morley, I wonder if you will ever hear from Sandy?"

"Sho'! Miss Cynthia, you-all make me right creepy. I woke up this-er morning from a dream 'bout Sandy. It was a right techersome dream, but dreams be techersome. I dreamed that Sandy was daid, and yet I woke up right cheerful. I've reasoned it out this-er-way. Sandy is daid to me, lil' Miss Cynthia, but alive out in a bigger, wider life and sho' a right minded father should be mighty glad of that. I'm willing to give Sandy to a better life."

The old face twitched. "It's 'bout all I can do for my son."

"Oh! Mr. Morley, you're right noble but I don't believe Sandy's like that. He's just waiting 'till he has a mighty fine something to bring back to us-all, and then we'll see him coming up The Way as brave and smiling as can be."

Martin shook his head slowly.

"I don' doubt it, lil' Miss Cynthia. It's seven long years now! I've taken a right smart heap of comfort mending up the cabin and painting it and planting vines and flowers about. It has been the happiness I've allowed myself—getting ready for Sandy that ain't never coming! Good morning, just wish me luck 'bout the job. The getting ready means something even if you don't ever get what you're making ready for."

And with this Martin Morley went down The Way toward The Forge to seek his luck with the stranger who had arrived a few days before to begin operations on a certain piece of land which had been bought by a man—no one could recall his name—seven years ago!

Cynthia stood under the trees by the road after Martin left and fell into a reverie. It was early. By walking a little faster she could reach Trouble Neck in time for the possible pupils, and the lure of the morning held her. Looking up to catch more distinctly the note of a bird, she noticed how white and splendid the dogwood flowers were on the tree under which she stood.

"They certainly do look like stars!" she whispered. The day seemed pulsing with thoughts of Sandy Morley! Not for years had he been so in her mind. To be sure the hole in the tree near Stoneledge was quite filled with letters written to an imaginary somebody called, for convenience, Sandy—the "Biggest of Them All." But Cynthia's ideal bore little likeness to the actual Sandy, and her letters had become but the outpourings of a heart that must create its own Paradise or perish. Sandy Morley had faded into an indistinct blur, but the romance he had awakened bore the girl far and away from the common life of The Hollow.

"I thought," the uplifted face glowed rosily; "I thought I heard—a new note! Some strange bird!" Then, with a toss of the head which threw the broad brimmed hat back on the shoulders, "I must be getting right daffy! That's the bird Sandy Morley used to copy mighty cleverly. I could do it myself once—I wonder!" The pretty lips curved deliciously, and an effort was made to reproduce the sound. Sweetly, faintly it trilled and ended in a light laugh.

From the underbrush lower down beside The Way, a young man looked at the upraised face under the dogwood tree; listened to the answer to his call and felt his heart throb with such force that his lips drew close with the pain of joy. For a few moments he gazed and struggled for self-control but great waves of happiness and delight overpowered him. He dared not move, but he sent a swift prayer to heaven—a prayer for guidance in a new life amid the old home-scenes for which his faithful heart had yearned while he had wandered far.

Cynthia's quick ears caught the rustle of the bushes across The Way and instantly her face changed and her hand gripped something in a little bag at her side. The stranger thought it wisest to step out. This he did with a laugh of understanding.

"Oh!" exclaimed Cynthia Walden, "I certainly do beg your pardon. I—thought—I thought you were Smith Crothers."

The sudden fear wrung this candid confession from the girl. "I reckon you don't know Smith Crothers."

"I—I've heard of him recently."

"I expect," Cynthia was full of interest now. "I expect you are the man from the North."

"You are quite right."

"Now I'm right sorry you didn't get here fifteen minutes ago."

The stranger's face flushed under its tan and the broad felt hat, in the right hand, shook perceptibly.

"Mr. Martin Morley has gone down The Way to see you. He reckons you will give him a job."

At this the man leaned heavily against a pine tree and stared at the girl. Had he heard aright? For months he had believed Martin Morley was dead—long dead!

"Yes, Mr. Morley was just here talking about the new factory up in the mountain."

To hear Cynthia say mountain was to love the high places better all the days of your life. So lingeringly and tenderly did the soft voice deal with the vowels and consonants that they suggested all the beauty and strength of the hills. The man opposite closed his eyes from sheer delight while the word sank into his consciousness and filled the empty places of his heart.

"He'll miss you, I reckon, but could you save a job for him?"

"I can and—will." The man opened his eyes and courageously walked across The Way and stood still, hat in hand, before the girl. He was tall and broad and good to look upon and youth went out to youth cordially and frankly.

"I reckon"—the homely word took the place of the Yankee "guess" naturally, "I reckon you are—Miss Cynthia Walden?"

"Yes." Cynthia's eyes shone. "Who—told you?"

"I heard about you." This was very lame, but it answered.

"And you—sir?"

"Oh, I am—the man from the North."

"You sound like you had Southern blood."

"My father and mother were Southerners."

"From round this-er-way?"

Again the man closed his eyes; the sweet voice and dear familiar expressions were almost more than he could bear.

"Not very far away."

A very little seemed enough to pacify the girl's curiosity.

"I reckon the North's mighty big," she ventured presently.

"It's—it's—tremendous."

"Do you know anything about—Massachusetts?"

"I came from there."

"Oh! And is that—so mighty big?"

"Not so big as the whole North. Though some still think it is."

"Did you ever hear——" Cynthia paused and clasped her hands together; "of a—a boy named Sandy Morley? He went from here to there—long ago?"

It was a wild question, but the day was so haunted by Sandy that the words came of their own volition.

"I've met him; yes, I know him slightly."

The colour rose and faded in Cynthia's face and her breath came quick and hard.

"Oh! tell me about him. He came from this—Hollow! He went away years and years ago. Tell me—what has he become?"

Yearning, curiosity and honest interest marked the words, but the face of the girl was a child's face, not a woman's. "He must be a right big boy now!"

The man standing in The Way could not repress a smile. He saw that Cynthia Walden had in fancy enshrined the boy Sandy, but would she welcome the man Sandy had become? Fearfully, dreading the test that must be made, he drew nearer, and with lowered eyes bowed, and said:

"I am Sandy Morley!"

Cynthia gave a frightened glance at the tall, dark stranger in the road. She noticed, as if for the first time, his high laced boots, his corduroy trousers fastened in them, his flannel shirt and felt hat. All was fine and different, oh! so different from the ragged ugliness of the hills. That a stranger should be so clad did not interest her, but that her childhood's friend and slave should wear this livery of position shattered the beautiful portrait of the "Biggest of Them All" by one cruel blow.

"No! You cannot be Sandy—not Sandy Morley." Cynthia stepped back with outstretched hands as if to ward off an attack. The light faded from Sandy Morley's face and his eyes grew dark and pleading.

"I've been right homesick all the years," he faltered. "I've tried to make myself worthy to come back. Always I have dreamed of you standing as you stand now under the dogwoods, to welcome me, but now that I have come up The Way I find myself a—stranger!"

Cynthia was clutching the bough of a tree for support; her eyes were strained and pathetic.

"I—I do not know what I have expected," she whispered, her eyes clinging to his; "but it is this-er-way. I have made a different Sandy, and I've kept him so long in my dreams and fancies, that to see him a man, hurts. Oh! it hurts here!"

The clasped hands touched the panting bosom. Then Sandy came close to her and laid his firm, thin hand upon hers. The touch, the contact, brought sharply to the girl the memory of their parting when, beside The Way, she had asked him to marry her some day and Sandy had kissed her!

"Little Cynthia, try to make a place in Lost Hollow for the man Sandy, who has come home a lonely stranger."

He seemed old and detached, but his nearness and the memory of their last interview composed Cynthia. She drew back and the withdrawal hurt Sandy more than she could know.

"I—I must go!" she panted and turned, as in the old parting, and ran without one backward look.

Sandy stood and gazed after her with yearning eyes. Outwardly she was all his faithful heart could have asked. Her face, as he had seen it a few moments ago under the dogwoods, seemed placed there by some kind and good Providence to welcome him to his own after all the waiting years; the child, Cynthia, he had lost while he tarried afar. Manlike he was ready to accept the woman. But Cynthia was not a woman, and her immature nature was shocked and betrayed by him who had come claiming what she had ready, only for the boy of her childish faith and love.

Sad at heart, Sandy, after a few moments of readjustment, went mournfully up the trail leading to the old home-cabin. One bright gleam, alone, cheered him. There had been some mistake. Martin Morley was evidently alive and to him Sandy must look for welcome and the renewing of old ties.

The change in the cabin was startling. Empty, but neat and pleasant, the living-room stood open to the fair spring day. Flowers were standing in the windows in dented tin cans; the hearth was swept free of ashes and there was a small garden in the rear of the house, nicely laid out and planted. It seemed so like his own old garden that Sandy gazed upon it with strange emotions. He relived sharply the starved years of preparation, the cruelty and neglect. He went inside finally and sat down upon the settle by the hearth and, with bowed head, gave himself up to memory.

An hour passed and then a step outside roused him, but he did not turn.

"Sir, I reckon you be the boss of the new factory. I was a-going down to The Forge to seek you out and ask for work, but Tansey Moore, down to the store, 'lowed that 'twas you who had passed up this-er-way. If you be the boss could you——"

But he got no further. Sandy could not run the risk of another clash of words.

"Father!" he said, standing up and stretching his arms out pitifully to Martin. "Father!"

Morley recoiled for an instant and his eyes, old and dim, struggled to see clearly the figure and face before him. But it was not the mortal eyes of the man that saw and knew. It was the father that reached out with unerring instinct to its own! Martin had never had his dreams of what his boy was to become; he was there to accept whatever God in His mercy sent to him.

"Sandy! lil' Sandy! My boy!"

And then the tottering old frame was gathered in the strong young arms.

"Dad, dear old Dad. I've got a right good job for you!"

That was all. For a few minutes the clock on the high shelf ticked so loudly that it seemed to fill the room with noise. Neither man spoke, but they clung desperately. Presently a shadow fell across the floor and Sandy turned his head. Old Bob had found his way up from The Forge and panting and wheezing began to sniff around the room. Almost blind, yet guided by that sense we cannot understand, he had sought his own and found them. With a soft cry he crouched close to the two standing by the hearth and whined piteously. Martin aroused and stood upright.

"It's—it's Bob!" he cried. "Oh, Bob! Oh, Bob!" Then falteringly: "It's all right, Bob, she won't trouble you now—she's gone for good and all!"

That was the only reference to Mary, and Sandy did not tell Martin of little Molly's fate for many a day.



CHAPTER XVIII

If one can forget the languor of the summer and the fear of the winter, a September day among the hills is an experience to set the heart singing. The fluttering birds in busy preparation for flight, the carpet of Persian colours and the subtle charm of the smell of wood smoke in the air, all combine to arouse tender thoughts and pensive desires.

On such a day Cynthia Walden ran down the trail from Stoneledge and kept to the side of The Way where the leaves were thickest and the damp sweetness the richest. She wore her blue linen—it had been laundried many times since that May morning when Sandy first saw her in it; but, as Sally Taber, working under strict instructions, dried it in a pillow case—the colour was still true blue and the shrinkage slight.

Many things had occurred during the past four months. Wonderful breath-taking things; things that aroused many emotions and many passions. For one thing, that brave company in the North, which Sandy represented, had actually had the audacity and daring to start operations on a splendid factory building! Smith Crothers was sullenly, silently watching operations and making, apparently, indifferent threats as to what might be expected to happen to any Hollowite—"man, woman or child"—who turned from him and his interests to the factory back of Lost Hollow.

"There ain't any known head to the concern," he said one night at the County Club, "lest you count that youngster of Morley's as a head. I leave it to you—can you-all trust a Morley?"

The solemn pause before Mason Hope ventured a "no" gave Crothers food for reflection. Sandy was making his way into the confidence and appreciation of his people. Slowly, to be sure, so slowly that often he sighed disheartedly, but the change in attitude was noticeable and Sandy knew it when the sun shone and Cynthia Walden deigned to speak a pleasant word to him.

Beside the factory and near to it ground had been broken and a foundation laid for a building about which people, especially mothers, spoke in hushed voices.

"It can't be true," Liza Hope had said to Mrs. Tansey Moore one day as they dropped in to Theodore Starr's church to take breath and a dip of snuff. "A Home-school! that's what the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady said it was, and when I axed her to say it plainer and not so polite, she done 'splain as how the chillens, our chillens, war to be gathered in from everywhere—even factories,—and teached and—and mothered! That's her word—mothered!"

"Don't them-all think us-all is—mothers?" Mrs. Moore sniffed contemptuously. "Us as borned them reckons we-all is mothers."

"But it's this-er-way." Liza was Marcia Lowe's interpreter to the cabin-folk and was gradually drawing them to the point where more than one had gone voluntarily to Trouble Neck and, after a chat and a cup of tea, had uttered the mystic word "youcum," which meant, "you call on me." No higher honour could a mountain woman bestow than this!

But Mrs. Tansey Moore had never taken the little doctor up socially.

"It's this-er-way. We-all can't act out what's in us-all. You know, Rose-Lily"—Mrs. Moore had one of the funeral-design names which so often decorated the plainest of her sex among the hills—"we-all just get caught in the wheels and go round like what we-all have to. I reckon you wouldn't have let your Sammy-Jo into the factory if the heart of you could ha' spoke. Seems like yesterday when I saw them-all totin' Sammy-Jo up The Way to kiss you good-bye, an' him only ten years old an' dyin' o' the hurt o' the wheels."

Rose-Lily bowed her head on her work-roughened hands and sobbed miserably.

"An' I reckon I wouldn' ha' let my po' lil' half-wit chile go—if I could ha' helped it. When Mason licked him down The Way o' mornin' it made the soul o' me sick. When the factory burned I thanked A'mighty God for, starvin' or not starvin,' the po' lil' feller couldn't go! The night he died in Miss Lowe's cabin when she war tryin' her charm on him—I jes' war right glad, for the factory down to The Forge war jes' about done and I war thankful he couldn't get caught in the wheels agin! I tell yo', Rose-Lily, the mother in us-all don't get a chance in The Hollow, but the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady don' say things is goin' to be different. She 'lows that the Home-school will jes' make up to us-all for what's been denied."

Mrs. Moore moaned softly and shook her head. "It don't sound—earthly!" she muttered.

But Cynthia, tripping light-heartedly over the gold and red leaves by The Way, sang her gayest songs and cared not a rap for the new factory or the unearthly Home-school; she was thinking of Martin Morley's cabin and the miracle that had been performed there. She was bound for the cabin. Martin would surely be away, for his "job" demanded that he should watch the men working in gangs on the new buildings. Sandy was up North. He had been summoned there by Levi Markham, who had wanted to come to The Hollow but had been held back by Sandy.

"They are taking me hard," Sandy had written; "let me have time to win them over before you come. Your money is a great drawback to me."

Then Markham wrote a characteristic command. The faithful old heart throbbed through every line and had caused poor Sandy to laugh until he cried:

Then come up North at once with reports and plans. I'm not going to let you make ducks and drakes of my hard earnings without knowing why. Matilda—isn't very strong. She's taken to counting her blessings nights instead of sleeping. By the way—have you heard anything of Treadwell? His new fangled moral van has gone smash, they say; not called by its old-fashioned name, and he's—skipped. If you hear anything of him, let me know.

Sandy had been away ten days and every day Cynthia had gone to the cabin, set it in order for Martin's comfort; revelled in the wonder of it all and feasted her soul on the books in Sandy's study.

Cynthia had slowly, reluctantly but finally given up her ideal Sandy of the past. She still kept his one letter to her and her hundred and one letters to him in an oil-cloth package in the old tree. Sometimes she stole away and read them and cried a little, softly, forlornly, as a little girl might do for a broken doll. "The Biggest of Them All" relegated to his fate, Cynthia had turned to this new son of the Hills with frank and open mind. She weighed him, considered him and found him interesting. She was sensitive to success, and this practical, good natured, kindly Sandy was decidedly successful. He was as modest and unassuming as one could desire, but he had only to wave his hand and say so-and-so and lo! the old cabin grew and became beautiful, a factory sprang up, then a dream of a school which included everyone and everything. It was like a modern fairy story—the most exciting and compelling thing one could imagine.

Slowly, cautiously, Cynthia with childish curiosity approached this new being who had arisen on her horizon. Sandy, wise in the lore of the hills, lured her as cautiously. He had subdued his own emotions. He was a man; his life had developed him; she was still a child with the radiant woman of her blindly, gropingly, looking forth from the dear, blue-gray eyes. He could wait. She would be his dream of the hills and some day she would come true and he would tell her how he had always loved her; how her pale, sweet face, under the dogwood flowers, had kept him strong and pure and unspoiled through all the yearning years. He could wait until Cynthia, the woman, awoke and—looked at him! In the meantime he worked and grew marvellously happy in his earnest, quiet way. He made a seat for her in his study window—though she never knew how carefully he had arranged it, or how desperately he had struggled to get the right colour for the cushions. "Red," Levi had suggested when approached as to window-seat coverings. "Green, a good dark tone, is a wearing shade," Matilda had informed him, but Sandy chose blue—"the shade that looks as if it sank deeper and deeper," he explained to an artistic designer, and the man had not laughed!

Sandy bought and scattered books about in his study where Cynthia might run across them at will, and sometimes during his rare moments of leisure and enjoyment she would nestle on her window seat in his study while he, his back to her, painted at his easel near the north window. At such times Cynthia liked the new Sandy almost as well as the old and was gloriously content and happy. Poetry entered her life then for the first time—poetry through books, through Sandy's modest attempts at art, and through Sandy himself.

"Let us go out windowing," he coaxed her one day when they had had a golden hour together.

"Windowing, Sandy? What is windowing?"

"Why, we'll go around to the cabins and coax or bully the people to let us make windows in their homes—big, fine windows with glass that slides easy, up and down or sideways as one may prefer. I want it done before winter sets in."

"They-all will think us all-around cracked!"

"Let's try! Windows for sale! we'll cry. It will be mighty jolly."

So they had set forth with the result that by August Tod Greeley remarked to Marcia Lowe that he was "dog-dickered if the cabins didn't look like showcases surrounded by clapboards!"

When Cynthia reached the Morley cabin that rare September day she paused to look upon the splendour, and was thrilled anew at the changes and improvements. To the southwest end of the cabin three new rooms had been added. Two bed-chambers and a cosy sitting-room.

"For that Company up North when it comes down!" Sandy explained.

"It must be a mighty upperty Company!" Cynthia replied, looking in awe at the furniture which had been sent from some magic workshop.

"It is!" Sandy assented—viewing solemnly the enamelled bedstead, the cheap chairs and plain bureau.

"And real carpets on the floors!"

"Yes. The Company has tender feet."

The old living-room of the cabin had been more leniently dealt with. Sandy's passion for windows had been indulged, but its furnishings were designed for comfort without shock to Martin's habits. The kitchen in the lean-to, also windowed to the limit of space, had been given over to the imagination—nothing else could possibly have accounted for it—of Marcia Lowe. Shining rows of things never dreamed of in The Hollow hung on the walls or graced the shelves. The future might prove them, but the present wreathed them in the charm of mystery. The women came and looked upon them in silent wonder and talked of them afterward in hushed voices. A good-sized range, also, stood where once the dirty hearth was the only shrine to which the family food was intrusted during preparation. Even Sandy approached this innovation with ingrained reluctance, but Marcia Lowe was overcoming his timidity and Cynthia had already conquered its mysteries and was instructing Martin.

The greatest change on the Morley place, however, was the one-time shed bedroom of Sandy. The first time Sandy entered the crumbling shanty such a wave of bitterness and depression engulfed him that he realized he must either reclaim it or it would triumph over him. To tear it down would not have solved the problem; its absence would have been a more final acknowledgment of his defeat. The years of fear, loneliness, and want were ever to be vital realities of his life; the shed was the setting of his childish agony and spiritual growth—oh, that was it! He must not stamp the poor shell from sight; he must redeem it as his patient suffering had redeemed him. He must make it a place to which those he loved, those who needed him, might come knowing that welcome and understanding awaited them.

It seemed a miracle to see the dusty, crumbling place evolve into that bright study with its big, open fireplace, outside chimney, and the sacred window-seat. Overhead were two small bedrooms, opening into each other—Martin's and Sandy's. Plain, severe rooms they were; rooms into which the morning sun shone and into which the setting sun glowed when nature smiled. On the shingle roof the rain pattered musically, and no winter cold could conquer the heat which a certain drum stove in Martin's room managed to create and diffuse. On Martin's stand beside his narrow bed a lamp stood and near it a Bible. Martin had learned again to pray and often Sandy read the sacred book to him respecting always the fiction as to poor eyes and ignoring the illiteracy which the old man bitterly and secretly deplored.

At last Cynthia entered the study after a minute inspection of the house. The breakfast dishes were washed and put away; Martin was neat and orderly. His bed had been made and Sandy's was untouched.

"Still away!" whispered the girl and sank upon the window-seat while a thrill of pleasure brought the slow smile to the sensitive lips.

"Oh, the pretty day!" Then a desire to set the place in perfect order for Sandy's possibly near-return caused her to spring up and dart quickly from place to place, straightening a picture here, flicking the dust off the shelves and chairs, and lastly attacking the cluttered desk which had not been touched since the master went away.

Sandy was not orderly by instinct. Dirt distressed him, but superficial chaos seemed never to disturb him. He could lay his hand on whatever he wanted amid the layers of papers, books, and writing material.

"It's right Sandyish," murmured Cynthia; "I wonder if he will—mind?" Never before had she thought of arranging the desk. Carefully, almost breathlessly, she piled some magazines in one place; some papers in another. The pens and pencils were stuck together in the yawning mouth of a particularly fierce silver gargoyle who evidently had been created to devour such articles, and then—at the bottom of the mass Cynthia came upon a book which had been quite hidden from sight. It was an open book; a book marked at a certain place. There was a strange familiarity about the book which caused the girl to take it up with trembling surprise. The blue and gold cover recalled emotions long since forgotten. How could she know that Sandy had scoured many a Boston book store for just that edition, causing the proprietors much annoyance and trouble?

"Pilgrim's Progress!"

Then backing to the window-seat, Cynthia sat down and feasted her eyes first upon the cover, then upon the words marked by an illuminating pencil:

Without doubt her designs were bad. But stay, now you talk of her, methinks I either have seen her, or have read some story of her. . . . Doth she not speak very smoothly and give you a smile at the end of a sentence?

The book fell from Cynthia's hands and lay motionless on her lap. Her fair face raised itself rigidly and the clear eyes looked, not at the cheerful, home-room, but back through the years: the sombre, shabby years—until they caught and held a girl of twelve demanding something—something so tremendous!—from a poor, trembling boy but a little older than herself! Then the old, half-doubting promise sounded and—a kiss fell upon Madam Bubble's lifted mouth!

"Oh!" The word came on a shuddering sigh and the fixed eyes faltered in their rapt look. A flood of rosy colour spread from brow to chin, and shame—not joy—claimed Cynthia Walden. Understanding rushed upon her, a blind, hideous, wrong understanding, but none the less terrible. Cynthia had forgotten the shadow of her parentage—for many years it had sunk into insignificance. The years had ignored it, no call had come for its recognition, but now—she understood. She had always been more the daughter of her bad father than of her sad mother! That was why she, a little girl, had spoken so to Sandy and brought that strange look to his face! She had not comprehended it then, but she remembered it now! It confronted her like a tangible thing. Because she was her father's daughter Smith Crothers had—kissed her! Men wanted to kiss her! On that fearsome night of the fire Crothers had only shocked and wounded the outer fold of Cynthia's soul; the innermost shrine had been guarded by the woman Cynthia was by and by to become; but now Cynthia felt she was that woman and all subterfuge was denied.

Sandy understood. He had not forgotten. Out in his big, free world he had learned what Madam Bubbles were and still he had come back and been kind to her! Sandy never forgot. Big, brave, and tender, he had set himself to the task of keeping his word and fulfilling his vision. He had shielded poor Molly—he had told her the pitiful story without its gruesome details! He had come back to Lost Mountain to help the men and women and save the baby-things! He had come home to—keep his word with her, with Madam Bubble! That was why he was so gentle, so thoughtful.

"Oh! oh!" The moan was almost a wail, but no tear dimmed the large eyes.

"The Biggest of Them All!" Then the strained face relaxed and a glory touched it.

"But I—I can be next biggest," she faltered. "You are right noble—but I can help you, Sandy!"

Then very reverently the book was replaced upon the desk and a pencil taken from the gargoyle's mouth. Clearly, distinctly, another passage was traced by a wavering mark:

The man in the cage, the man and his dream, the man that cut his way through his enemies—the biggest of them all!

Sandy was to read those words by and by with varied emotions!

Then, having marked and turned to the page originally left open, Cynthia drew herself up and looked about the dear room as if taking a last look before going on a long journey.

And so Sandy came upon her. He had arrived at The Forge earlier in the day and had walked up The Way because his heart was full of the joy of life and he wanted to be alone and think his thoughts. He had been so lonely without his father, Lost Mountain, his people and—Cynthia! Not even the love and gratitude he held for Levi Markham and Matilda could hold him long from his own, without regret. And they were coming to him soon—the Markhams—they were coming for the holidays and he must make ready!

Noiselessly he entered his study and stood for a moment revelling in the sight of the girl of his thoughts, materializing before his amazed eyes. He could hardly believe his senses; the day, the place, were bewitched, and he had been so hungry for—just this! Unconsciously he stretched out his arms and his strong, dark face was flushed; his serious eyes glad and kind.

"Little Cyn!"

She turned, and her colour faded. Pale, imploring, she almost ran to him.

"Sandy!"

Now that she had understood and triumphed she could afford to be kind, too, and strong and brave. Something in the frank, unflinching eyes warned Sandy to content himself with the outstretched hands, although the soul of him yearned to hold the girl to him.

"You are glad to see me back, lil' Cyn?"

The old intonation thrilled the listener, but her eyes held true.

"Oh! so glad. 'Tis a mighty empty room you leave, Sandy Morley, when you go away."

"Cynthia—I wonder if I dare tell you something?"

"Yes." It were better now and over with!

"Do you remember that once I made a promise to you, dear?"

This was unfortunate, but the girl took it without a quiver of the white lids.

"All my life, since manhood came to me, and it came early, little girl, I have lived and dreamed of the hour when—I might keep that promise. I have waited because you seem still a child to me, dear, but I—want you! I want the child of you—I will hold it sacred and win the woman of you by and by. Do you not remember how in those old, old days it was you who taught me, awoke my imagination and—helped me to my own? Dear lil' Cyn—help me now! Help me help these dear people, yours and mine! I need you so, sweetheart, and I will be good to you! Marry me, lil' Cyn, marry me right away and let us go on together! I can do so much for you and yours—sweet——"

But Sandy got no farther. The hands in his wrenched themselves free and sought his shoulders. The very frankness and simplicity of the gesture sent a chill to Sandy's heart.

"Big, good Sandy!" There was a subtle plea in glance and words. The girlish need was driving the desperate woman back and out of sight. Cynthia could not kill the truth that had been born within her, but she could blind it, stun it and still keep for her own what the childish craving demanded.

"Big, good Sandy! Please be my Sandy, like you were a brother. I would be so lonely without you; I would miss this—this dear place mighty bad—but if you say such words, if you forget I am still lil' Cyn, why don't you see—I cannot come up this-er-way any more?"

So perfect was the attempt that it took all the girl's pride and strength to hold it. It was a bit overdone and Sandy fell back a step with a memory that Cynthia would never have resurrected had she had her way.

"I—am not worthy of you, Cynthia. I had forgotten, dear. You see, for seven years I have lived where such things did not matter; I have learned that they do not matter when all is said and done. Can you not trust me and forget that a Walden and a Morley are different——"

"Oh! Sandy!" and now the white, white face turned scarlet—"you think that of me?"

"It's in the blood of us all, Cynthia, but you and I, by forgetting it—can do so much."

"It is not that, Sandy."

"I know, dear, that I am old beside you—I know that I dare much when I say I am willing to take you, child as you are, and run the risk of making you love me while the woman of you—grows! I will help it grow—God help me! How I will glory in the task and if I fail——"

Sandy had drawn her hands from his shoulders and now held them fast and close.

"I will make you free, set you as free as you are to-day, my white blossom girl! You cannot understand; but God hears me and I swear it!"

Cynthia did not understand, but his fine passion flooded her soul with white light.

"How wonderful you are," she whispered. "You stand out big and high like our mountain——"

At that word Sandy closed his eyes, for he dared not look upon the dear, slow-smiling lips.

"But, Sandy, you are covered with—with mist like Lost Mountain sometimes is. Let me find you, Sandy, not as you would help me find you, but in my own way. Will you do this for—lil' Cyn?"

Without opening his eyes Sandy drew the clinging hands to his lips and kissed them.

"When you find me, dear heart, dear heart, will you tell me or give me a sign?"

"Yes, Sandy."

"And now—where are you going, Cynthia?"

For the girl was turning from him.

"Just down The Way. I must watch with Aunt Ann. She is a mighty troublesome lil' child these days. Good-bye."

They looked tenderly, frankly, in each other's eyes and then the girl was gone.

And that night Cynthia sat beside Ann Walden and kept watch and guard while faithful Sally slept. The bedchamber was very quiet and only a tallow candle lighted the gloom. The figure stretched out upon the bed was deathlike in its rigid motionlessness, and Cynthia's hand lay over the thin, old wrinkled ones for fear in a drowsy moment the woman might elude her.

It was past midnight when Ann Walden stirred and opened her eyes. Cynthia was alert at once, but the light that shone on the old face revealed an expression which had not rested there for many a day.

"Queenie!"

A cold horror overcame Cynthia, but she held her position and whispered:

"Yes."

"Go to bed, honey. I'm—I'm sorry."

"Never mind, dear." Cynthia meant to play the old sad game that was the only one possible with the poor creature on the bed.

"I reckon it was—Thorndyke Bothwell over by Susie May Lanley's, wasn't it?"

"Yes, dear."

"Why didn't you tell me, Queenie? Why didn't you-all trust me. I—I didn't mean to—be hard."

"No, dear. Never mind. Go—to sleep now."

"Thorndyke Bothwell, he went away—but there must be—some one to remember. The—letter—take it—to——"

Then a spasm passed over the grim face upon the pillow. The fleeting sanity was vanishing—"The hearthstone—her—down at Trouble——"

The candle flickered up luridly. The weak voice of the old woman shook and the eyes lost the lustre.

"You must bide with her—at Trouble——"

Cynthia could not understand; she had never seen the light fade from the face of one she loved, so the fixed stare, the cessation of speech, did not alarm her.

"See, dear Aunt Ann, I will put my head down on your pillow, so! There now! Shut your eyes right close, and I'll sing you to sleep, honey."

The candle decided to splutter once more, and give up the struggle. The long wick curled over, the tiny beam faded, and was—gone.

Through the long night watches, May Thine angels spread Their white wings above me, Watching round my bed.

Like a little mother crooning over her frightened child, Cynthia sang the words tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights by repeating the tender words:

Through the long night watches——

and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them.

Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she ran, panting, stumbling—often pausing to rest—to Trouble Neck.

"Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to Marcia Lowe.

"And little Cyn?"

"Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on."

"And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!"



CHAPTER XIX

Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the homestretch.

Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin and gloried in the title of "housekeeper."

"Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up; her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the oven of the stove.

"Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something better."

With that she got up, went to a corner cupboard and brought out her can of vaseline.

"Yo' lyin' ole chile," she muttered; "yo' can sho' res' from yo' labours. This am a lan' o' honey an' the honeycomb."

Then voluntarily Sally raised the lid of the stove and pushed the tin can in upon a blazing piece of wood. The flames caught the grease and licked it greedily from the outer side of the box:

"Massa Fire," laughed Sally; "yo' like dat po'k chop?"

Then the heat hungrily battled for more and "pop" flew the cork and back leaped Sally.

"Gawd!" she gasped. "I sho' didn't think yo' would take it that-er-way. I was only foolin'!"

Sally had made great strides. She could laugh and joke with assurance in her heart. Sandy Morley had promised that she might have a home to the end of her days in Martin's cabin—the glorified cabin—and Sally, like many another, was learning to trust Sandy as no one had ever been trusted in Lost Hollow before. Sally rarely gave expression to her sentiments; she did not mean to permit the child whom she had helped Martin bring through his "teething," and whom she had spanked many a time, to get the upper hand; but she prayed by her very comfortable bed in the loft over the living-room that she might cook to Sandy's liking and prove herself worthy the blessing God bestowed upon her in her old age.

Glaring at the stove and not daring to risk another outburst of indignation, Sally stood helpless when Sandy entered the sunny kitchen.

"What's the matter?" he asked.

"Dat stove done have a real human sense," Sally replied; "an open fire we-all can reckon with an' keep an eye on, but yo' shet fire up in a packin' box an' who knows what's goin' on in its min'?"

Sandy laughed, put the lid in its place and sat on the table, swinging one long leg comfortably. He gloried in the element of home that he had brought about him and to see Sally in the kitchen always gave him a distinct thrill.

"Make some gingerbread for supper," he pleaded, "and give me the lickings, Sally. Do you know I never had lickings until I went to Massachusetts."

"Lands! Sandy Morley, I don' gave you millions mysef! Yo' pa was allas fur lettin' yo' off, but I lathered yo' mo'n once, chile, an' so saved yo' fo' yo' luck."

"I mean 'leavings' in the bowl when the cake's ready for the oven. Come Sally, let me help you get things together. Molasses, spices, milk——"

"I'll get the res'. Now, son, do tackle this yere can o' risin' powder. Take this yere Handy Andy an' pry the kiver. Seems like these new-fangled cookin' yarbs is put up jes' ter try the patience ob de saints."

Sandy took the instrument, and utilizing one of its many powers, loosened the cover and handed the baking powder to Sally.

"I wonder how you ever kept your hand in at cooking?" he said musingly as he reflected upon the past. But Sally was on guard.

"Lor, chile! an' why not? Ain't I allas had my own po'k and bacon? Ain't I lived up to the Great House fo' years an' years?"

"Of course. And Sally, that reminds me. I'm going to buy the Great House and—make it as it was before the war!"

"Gawd!" gasped Sally.

"I shall want you to tell me exactly how it looked—you can remember?"

"Why, yes, chile!" Sally's hand paused, spoon in air. "I can see it same as it was yesterday. That-er Yankee man they called Sheridan—he passed up by The Way an' he stopt right on the home-place o' Stoneledge, an' General Walden he was there, an' old Miss, an' lil' Miss Ann—she was right little an' young then but mighty peart. I was stayin' at the Great House then, fo' it was near the time when lil' Miss Queenie was goin' ter be born—her as died up Norf at a horse-pittal. Well, that-er-Yankee Sheridan he don' say to General Walden, 'We-all is near starvin'.' Jes' like a-that! An' General Walden he don' say, standin' upperty an' mighty, 'We-all will share with yo', general, bein' war is war.' Then what-er-yo' think? Lil' Miss Ann she pearked up an' says right to his face: 'Yo' can't have Anna Isabel!' She never batted an eye when she spoke up, an' I thought I'd bust. The Yankee he don' ax who Anna Isabel was, an' lil' Miss Ann said right stiff, 'She be my turkey—she be our Christmas dinner.' An' jes' then Anna Isabel stalked straight-er-way befo' dat man Sheridan an' lil' Miss Ann pointed an' says 'There's Anna Isabel!' Well, we-all laughed an' I will say this for that Yank, he was powerful 'spectful to us-all. 'I'm bleeged to come in an' res' an' have a meal,' he don' said, and then he went on with his pack totin' at his heels.

"Fo' de Lord, Sandy Morley, shet off that snortin', roarin' fire or I'll fetch yo' a real old-time lick!"

Sandy ran to regulate the dampers, his face radiant and boyish. He was enjoying, as he never had enjoyed anything in his life before, the dear home-atmosphere of his hills.

Sally Taber returned to her task with energy born of appreciation.

"We'll fix the old house of Stoneledge up in great shape," Sandy said, coming back to the table and leaning forward on his hands to follow Sally's energetic manipulation of the gingerbread; "that ought to be something for the rest of us to live up to. I'd like to see little Miss Cynthia installed there as mistress!"

"Her ain't of the Walden blood——" Sally remarked, breathlessly beating the golden brown batter. Sandy winced. "But her has caught the manners."

"And," Sandy steered away from the danger ground, "we'll have the Home-school. It must be a home first; a school afterward, Sally. I want the baby-things to have the 'lickings' of cakes and puddings in the kitchen—it is to be a great, big, sunny kitchen! And I want them to have bedtime stories and soft songs." Sandy's eyes, tender and luminous, looked beyond Sally and rested on the gentle slope of Lost Mountain. "I want them to have what every child has a right to and which our children have never had."

Sally was thoughtfully baling the light cake into the long, shallow tins:

"I clar' I don't know," she muttered, "how Smith Crothers is goin' to 'commodate hisself to yo'!" Then she shivered and stood upright, her nostrils sniffing and her eyes alert like a deer in the wilds. "I don' thought," she murmured, "dat I heard a step and saw a shadder fallin'! Seems like the wind is changin', fetchin' chill an' storm!"

Sandy, with the superstition of The Hollow responding in his blood, went to the window overlooking The Way. Just turning into the trail leading up to the cabin a tall, lithe form swung in sight. Well dressed, carrying a modern suitcase, and whistling, gayly came the stranger. At the moment of recognition Sandy felt a cold aloofness overpower him. He spoke, as if to convince a doubting listener: "I—I reckon that is Lans Treadwell! Treadwell, of all people!"

But Sandy pulled himself together and went to greet his visitor with characteristic warmth and cordiality. He believed it was only surprise that had swayed him earlier. Lans, somehow, could not easily be fixed into place in the rough hill life. Lans, always at his ease in Boston, seemed oddly out of tune in Lost Hollow. But try as he might, Sandy could not feel like himself, with Treadwell's cheerful laugh and big-hearted, patronizing jollity resounding through the cabin. He was too desperately and determinedly bent upon being "one of them" to be comfortable.

"By Jove! Morley," he exclaimed, when Sandy had drawn him into the living room; "this is a place. You've worked wonders here. I have always wanted to see you in your family—is that your—your mother?" For Sally Taber could be seen and heard through the half-open door leading to the kitchen.

"No. My mother has been long dead. My father will return by evening meal time. Come in here, Lans—you see I have unoccupied quarters——" He led him to Levi's apartments. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll start a fire on the hearth in this bedroom and the adjoining sitting-room."

"Well, I'll be"—Treadwell glanced about at the plain luxury—"eternally flambusted! If you are not a——" Then he laughed.

It was after the evening meal which Sally served in silent, morose dignity, that the three men went to Sandy's study. The shed-rooms were attached to the main cabin by a narrow hallway and this passage was dark and cold. Coming from it into the warmth and glow of the room filled with books and pictures, Treadwell paused to glance about and exclaim before he took the easiest chair by the hearth and accepted pipe and tobacco. Martin was ill at ease and looked helplessly now and again to his son for leadings with this stranger who laughed so constantly and regarded him as if he were a person of inferiority and lack of intelligence who must, nevertheless, be treated with kindness and tolerance.

"I suppose," Treadwell remarked when the three had finally settled into some kind of comfort, "I suppose, Sand, you wonder how I found you out?"

Sandy had wondered but had restrained his curiosity. He looked now at the big, handsome fellow and again was seized with the sense of chill that he had felt in the afternoon.

"It sounds like a fairy story—a best seller or what you will. By and by"—he glanced at Martin as though to suggest a time when he would be absent—"I've got a lot to tell you, but something turned turtle in my affairs and got on to my nerves. Aunt Olive made me consult Doctor Travers, he's my uncle's pet aversion, you know, because he wanted Aunt Matilda to go into his sanatorium and Uncle Levi considered it an insult. Well, I saw Travers and he advised a vacation. 'Get to the hills,' he suggested, 'and browse a bit. Why don't you go up to that place—a hole in the ground,' he called it, 'where your uncle has sent—Morley?' And then it all came out, and by Jove! I found out that you hailed from the place of my forefathers!"

At this Martin dropped his pipe on the hearth and fixed his dim eyes on the stranger's face. Back rolled the years that had been but stagnant pools in poor Martin Morley's life; into focus came the simple hates and injustices that had brought him where he was.

"Your—forefathers!" he gasped, while a weird familiarity and resemblance to—he knew not what—made Treadwell something tangible and actual at last.

"Yes. We still own a good bit of land over beyond the place called The Forge. I've been having a look at it. It's run wild and rank, but it might be reclaimed, I suppose. There is a depraved old squatter on the place; lives in an old smoke-house. He actually remembered my grandfather and what do you think, Morley"—Lans had turned his back upon Martin, whose fixed stare and rigid pose disturbed him—"the old codger actually told me half of a story the other half of which Aunt Olive and I have often laughed over. Oddly enough it is a new and another connecting link between you and me. We're throw-backs, old fellow! Throw-backs and neither of us realizing it, but just naturally coming together."

Sandy was looking at his father. Martin was pale and haggard and his bony hands clutched his thin knees until the knuckles were strained and white.

"Hertford!" whispered Martin; "Hertford!"

"Sure thing!" Lans gave a laugh. "See, I'm discovered even in this disguise." He nodded toward the old man as one might toward an imbecile who had shown a gleam of intelligence. "Lansing Hertford is my real name; named for a grandfather just as you are, Sandy Morley. You see I've patched the scraps together. It was your grandfather and mine who were good pals way back in the musty ages. Some one played a practical joke on them and the friendship went up in thin air. It's left for you and me to pick up the pieces and—cement them together. I wonder if you ever heard about the bottle of stuff my grandfather gave your grandfather to bring home from—from Turkey, I think it was. Our forebears were globe trotters in a day when to trot meant to make history."

"I—I've heard it," Sandy muttered, his eyes still fixed on his father's rigid face.

"Did you ever hear the—joke?"

"Joke? No! Was there a joke?"

"Yes. Your relative stopped in Paris—he was a jolly old buck according to reports—and he hugged that everlasting bottle so close to him that some fellows—sounds beastly frivolous to refer to those dignified shades as fellows—but, anyway, some chaps from round about here were doing gay Paree just then and they caught on to your grandsire's devotion to that phial; they called it his Passion, his mistress, and one night when he had left it hidden in his room they found it, emptied out the contents—some kind of cologne it was—and filled it with water! They never heard the outcome, but Aunt Olive and I have often wondered how—some mountain girl probably enjoyed her smelling salts, or perfume, or whatever it was!"

Sandy could not move. He was spellbound, but Martin struggled to his feet and stood towering over Lans Treadwell, shaking as with ague.

"I reckon I can tell you how it—turned out," he said, while his poor old chin quivered as if the effort was almost more than he could endure. "It war this-er-way. He came home to The Hollow, Sandy's grandfather, an' he brought the bottle of—water! Oh! my God—and them as opened the bottle—found out and began—to whisper! They all whispered an' nudged ole Sandford Morley out of life an' inter his grave. They-all hinted that he war a thief, a betrayer of his friend, but he war that upright and clean that he war deaf to whispers an' he—he didn't know the language of dirty slurs and off looks from them as war once his friends! He went to his grave without knowing what had edged him outer the respect of his neighbours. Then the lie grew an' grew an' took the life an' souls outer us-all an' made us po' whites—us as war as good an' better than your kin!"

A terrible fury was rising in Martin, and Sandy, unable to clarify the situation, paused before entering the fray.

"Then Sandy here, he got his call an' rose up to save us-all. Out in the world he found—you. You've come here—for what? for what?"

"Father!" At last Sandy was beside the old man. "Father, remember he is our guest! He has come to clear—can you not see—he has cleared—our name!"

Exultation and joy flooded Sandy; and his touch on his father's arm, the thrill in his voice had power to calm the old man.

"Good God!" Treadwell exclaimed, rising and facing the two; "is it out of such stuff, such dreams, such grudges, such shabby jokes, the life of the hills is made?"

"Yes." Sandy whispered, "out of such stuff we come—or remain! You can never know what you have done for us, Lans. Father will realize it later—he's nearer the past than I am. For myself I—thank you! You have, well, you cannot understand, but it's like you had put a broad, wide window in our lives, letting in sunshine and sweet air where mould and rot had once been."

He stretched his hand out frankly and tried to push his father forward to do the same, but Martin turned away, the tears streaming from his eyes. Sandy was looking to the future; Martin to the past; and Lansing Treadwell stood between the two with a light laugh upon his lips and a vague, contemptuous wonder in his eyes.



CHAPTER XX

They had tramped the hills together, Sandy and Lans. They had gone carefully over the plans for the factory and Home-school, had seen the growing building of the former and revelled in the dreams of the latter.

"It proves my liking for you, old chap," Lans had said, "when I can look at all this and not envy you. You see, Uncle Levi wanted to train me in the way I should go, but I got a twist in the wrong direction and—well! I never squeal. That's about all the philosophy or religion I have—I never squeal! Live your life; take your chances and squeal not! Then you remember I used to tell you that I was a big bungling giant? You've got the vision and the leading. But to think of Uncle Levi putting the reins in your hands! I can imagine him letting any one he likes hold the end of the reins—but he's leaned back and is letting you drive."

"Yes—but only because his big, wise head and loving heart tell him this is a safe road to travel."

"Oh! I don't know. Who's going to be any the better for—all this? There's a lot of Tommyrot about charity. If I were going to splurge I'd do it in the middle of the stage and make an advertisement of it at the same time. It's cheaper and more sensible. Why, if Uncle Levi would spend in Boston what he's spending up here—he'd have the world talking about his mills."

Sandy turned away. He was thinking of what Levi had said to him a few weeks before as he was ending his visit in Bretherton.

"Son"—he was "son" to the old brother and sister after that trip abroad—"son, go back to your hills and see in every ragged boy—Sandy Morley! In every little lass—your sister Molly! Gather them in, son, gather them in, and let us help them as we helped you to—come out cleaner and better. Work up there, son, as if God Almighty's eye alone was upon you. Men have forgotten the hill people, but God called you to lead them out of bondage."

"It pays to advertise," Lans was remarking.

"Yes," Sandy returned; "and Mr. Markham advertises in a most original and picturesque way."

Through all the walks and drives round about The Hollow, Sandy inwardly prayed that Cynthia might not materialize. Why he so strongly desired this he could not tell. He liked Lans; enjoyed his visit and companionship, but he hoped he would leave before Cynthia appeared. He grew restless at times and found himself longing to tell Treadwell that the Markhams were coming to The Hollow for Christmas, and the rooms occupied by Lans would be needed. But the days went by and Cynthia kept from sight. The truth was, Sally Taber had gone to Trouble Neck and spread the news and warning.

"You-all bes' stay away," she said; "dis yere Yank be right triflin' and polite. He makes us-all feel like we war dirt under his feet. I clar' I'd like to work an evil charm on him! Ole Mr. Morley he don' take naturally to the woods an' leaves them young gem'men to themselves. I keep the do' closed 'twixt them an' me—he makes me feel like there was traps set fo' my feet."

"You must be having a real gay time up there!" Marcia Lowe replied, laughing at poor old Sally's indignation.

"Well, I'se cookin' mo' an' mo' monstrous every day. If that Yank can stan' what I have in store fo' him from now on, I reckon he don' got a stummick like a beast o' burden."

"Ah! poor Sandy," Cynthia cried; "you'll kill him, too. I reckon I'll come up and bring him food at night and put it in his study."

"Not just yet, little Cyn," Marcia Lowe replied, putting a protecting arm about the girl. "Cynthia's a bit run down," she explained to Sally; "off her feed a little. We're going to have a holiday. What do you think?—Mr. Greeley is going to take us 'over the hills and far away'—about twenty-five miles away! He's going over to make a will for an old man who is dying and he's invited us to share his carriage. Take good care of the Morleys, Sally, and let's hope the stranger will leave before we return. I'm getting real Southern in my tastes and am positively suspicious of Northerners!"

And it was a few nights after the night that Tod Greeley, with Marcia Lowe and Cynthia tucked comfortably away in the back seat of his carry-all, started on their trip, that Lans Treadwell and Sandy Morley sat before the fire in the study and had their talk—the talk that illumined the path on ahead for Sandy.

"Old fellow!" exclaimed Lans, taking the cushions from the window-seat and tossing them back again from where he stood in the middle of the room; "never place sofa pillows—chuck 'em! Only by so doing can you give that free and easy grace that distinguishes a Frat cosy corner from a drawingroom torture chamber."

Every cushion that Treadwell tossed seemed to strike with a thud on Sandy's heart. It was as if Treadwell were hurting little Cyn as she sat in her window-seat with her dear face turned toward them.

"Come, sit down, Lans. You are as nervous as a ghost-candle."

"Thanks!" Treadwell took a chair across the hearth from his host. "There's a devil of a storm rising out of doors."

"They're right common this season of the year. About six or seven years ago there was one up here that came mighty near ending the existence of a good many—it did carry one poor old darky woman away."

"That's cheerful! Sand, forgive me if I seem brutal, but do you know I believe the cooking up here is giving me indigestion. I wouldn't mind this if I didn't have your anatomy in mind, too. Those—what do you call them?"

"Ash cakes?"

"Yes. They were, to put it mildly, damnable."

Sandy laughed.

"They were right ashy," he admitted. "Sally is old and careless."

"She'll murder you, if you don't look out."

Sandy kicked a log farther back on the hearth and the room was filled with rosy light and warmth.

"Your father doesn't seem particularly drawn to me, Sand. Does he always retire to his chamber as soon as he has finished his—his evening meal? Somehow it looks pointed!"

Lans was not his usual, sunny self. The rising storm, his own thoughts, and the evil ash cakes were having their way with him.

"I never question father, Lans. He is old. I want him to do exactly as he chooses. You must not take offence."

"Certainly not. Only I do not want to feel I drive him away or deprive you of his companionship. Ever since I told the joke about that bottle of perfumery he seems to avoid me."

"Father hasn't a sense of humour," Sandy ventured, striving to keep the bitterness of resentment from his voice.

"The devil!" ejaculated Lans. "That log spits like a hag. A spark fell straight on my ankle."

"Excuse it," Sandy murmured, smiling as Lans nursed his silk-enclosed ankle.

"Hang it all, Sand! I've got to get back to civilization!"

Sandy bent over the fire to conceal his feelings. "Not to-night, surely," he said.

"No, but in a day or so. Morley, I—I want to tell you something. Tell you why I cut and came up here right in the middle of things at home."

The storm outside pounded on the windows; the fire flared and chuckled crisply. Sandy thought about Cynthia, wondered where she was, and then he became conscious of something Treadwell was saying.

"There was a time, Sand, when I couldn't have come to you with this. I thought you were such an infernal puritan—but Aunt Olive has told me of that—that little affair of yours which ended so—well so happily tragical, and it has made you seem more human. Of course there could have been no better way out for you and—her, and Uncle Levi was a brick to overlook it. I've liked him better for it, but my affair is another matter."

Sandy gazed dumbly at Treadwell and could not frame words to call the other to a halt. Not comprehending what Lans knew or misunderstood, having no intention of explaining—he simply stared and then turned to mend the fire.

"My affair—is different. You know about it—partially?"

"I've heard something. It was none of my business." A sternness crept into Sandy's voice which Treadwell entirely misunderstood.

"Well, because it was possible for me to come to you; because of all my friends, you seemed in this hour of trouble, the only one I could come to, I want you to make it your business, Sand."

The low-pitched, pleading voice awoke sympathy. It was that tone and manner which had caused people to straighten out the snarls of Lans Treadwell's life from babyhood up. There was capitulation. It was as if he had said: "I deserve no pity, no comfort, but—give them to me!" It awoke all the spontaneous desire for his happiness in every tender-hearted person who knew and liked him.