"Tom," said one of the younger ones, "bring her out 'n' let's see her. You've been braggin' on her all day, but ye hain't let us see her."

Half a dozen others joined in the cry.

"Yes," they said, "bring her out, Tom."

Tom did not rise from his seat. He tilted his chair back and balanced himself on his heels, his hands thrust into his pockets.

"Boys," he said, "I'll bring her out on one condition, and that is that there shall be no shines. I wouldn't have her scared or upset for a good deal. There's a joke in this sort of thing, I daresay; but it ain't all joke. If I bring her out and show her, there's to be no crowding and no row."

It was agreed that there should be none, and he left his chair and went to the inner room again. When he returned, the men who had been lounging in the porch had come in, though perhaps not one among them understood his own unusual interest in the affair. Babies were not rarities in Hamlin County, every cabin and farm-house in the region being filled to overflowing with white-headed, sunburnt youngsters. And yet when Tom appeared there was a moment of silence. The child was asleep, its tiny black head resting peacefully against the huge chest of its bearer. There was no trace of confusion or awkwardness in his face, he seemed well content with his burden, and perhaps it was the quiet of his manner as much as anything else which caused the slight hush to fall upon those around him.

At last a middle-aged farmer stepped forward. He gave the child a long and rather curious look.

"Gal, ain't it?" he enquired.

"Yes," Tom answered.

"Wal, 'tain't a bad thing fer her she's got some un to stan' by her; gals needs it."

Tom gave her a long look too. She was sleeping very quietly; it might have been her mother's breast she was lying against.

"Well," he said, "here's a man to stand by her," and then he raised his head and looked at the rest of them.

"Boys," he said, "that's a promise. Remember it."

And he carried her back.



CHAPTER VI

The rooms at the back had never seemed so quiet before as when, at the close of the day, he went into them. They seemed all the quieter by contrast with the excitement of the past hours. In the kitchen Mornin was giving the final touches to the supper, and in the room which was at once sitting-room and bedroom, the wooden cradle had fitted itself in a corner near the fireplace and wore an air of permanent establishment remarkable to contemplate when one considered how unlooked-for an incident it was.

On the threshold of this apartment Tom paused a moment. Such silence reigned that he could hear the soft, faint breathing of the child as it lay asleep. He stopped a second or so to listen to it. Then he stooped down, and began to loosen his shoes gently. As he was doing it, Mornin caught sight of him in passing the open door.

"Mars Tom," she said, "what's ye a-gwine fer to do?"

"I'm going to take them off," he answered, seriously. "They'll make too much noise."

The good soul in the kitchen chuckled.

"Now," she said, "now, Mars Tom, dar ye go right now a-settin' out to ruinate a good chile, 'stead o' ustin' it ter things—a-settin' out ter ruinate it. Don't never tip aroun' fer no chile. Don't ye never do it, 'n' ye won't never haf ter. Tippin' roun' jest spiles 'em. Tell ye, Mornin never tipped roun' when she had em' ter raise. Mornin started out right from de fust."

Tom looked at the cradle.

"She'll rest easier," he said. "And so shall I. I must get a pair of slippers." And he slipped out of his shoes and stood ready to spend the evening in his stocking-feet. A solitary tallow candle stood upon the table, shedding its yellow light upon all surrounding objects to the best of its ability, and, seeing that its flickering brightness fell upon the small sleeper's face, he placed it at the farther end of the high mantel.

"She'll be more comfortable," he said. And then sat down feeling at ease with his conscience.

Mornin went back to her supper shaking her head.

"By de time she's a year old, dar won't be no managin' her," she said. "Da's allus de way wid de men folks, allus too hard or too soft; better leav' her to Mornin 'n' ust'n her to things right at de start."

There seemed little chance that she would be so "ustened." Having finished his supper, Tom carried his pipe and newspaper into the kitchen.

"I'll sit here awhile," he said. "The smoke might be too much for her, and the paper rustles so. We'd better let her have her sleep out."

But when the pipe was out and the last page of the paper read, he went back to his own room. The small ark stranded in his chimney corner was attractive enough to draw him there. It was a stronger attraction than it would have been to most men. He had always been fond of children and curious concerning them. There was not a child in the surrounding region who had not some remembrance of his rather too lavish good-nature. A visit to the Cross-roads was often held out as a reward for circumspect behaviour, and the being denied the treat was considered punishment heavy enough for most juvenile crimes.

"Ef ye'd had young uns of yer own, Tom, ye'd hev ruined them, shore," the secretly delighted matrons frequently remarked. "You'd let 'em run right over ye. I reckon ye keep that candy thar right a-purpose to feed 'em on now, don't yer?"

His numerous admirers, whose affection for him was founded on their enjoyment of his ponderous witticisms and the humour which was the little leavening of their unexciting lives, had once or twice during the past few days found themselves unprepared for, and so somewhat bewildered by, the new mood which had now and then revealed itself.

"It's kinder outer Tom's way to take things like he takes this; it looks onnat'ral," they said.

If they had seen him as he drew up to the cradle's side, they would have discovered that they were confronting a side of the man of which they knew nothing. It was the man whose youth had been sore-hearted and desolate, while he had been too humble to realise that it was so, and with reason. If he had known lonely hours in the past eight years, only the four walls of the little back room had seen them. He had always enacted his role well outside; but it was only natural that the three silent rooms must have seemed too empty now and again. As he bent over the cradle, he remembered such times, and somehow felt as if they were altogether things of the past and not to trouble him again.

"She'll be life in the place," he said. "When she sleeps less and is old enough to make more noise, it will be quite cheerful."

He spoke with the self-congratulating innocence of inexperience. A speculative smile settled upon his countenance.

"When she begins to crawl around and—and needs looking after, it will be lively enough," he reflected. "She'll keep us busy, I daresay."

It was a circumstance perhaps worthy of mention that he never spoke of the little creature as "it."

"She'll need a good deal of looking after," he went on. "It won't do to let her tumble around and take care of herself, as a boy might. We must be tender of her."

He bent forward and drew the cover cautiously over the red flannel sleeve.

"They think it a good joke, those fellows," he said; "but it isn't a joke with us, is it, young woman? We've a pretty big job to engineer between us, but I daresay we shall come out all right. We shall be good friends in the end, and that's a pretty nice thing for a lonely fellow to look forward to."

Then he arose stealthily and returned to the kitchen.

"I want you to tell me," he said to Mornin, "what she needs. I suppose she needs something or other."

"She needs mos' ev'rything, Mars Tom," was the answer; "seems like she hain't bin pervided fer 't all, no more 'n ef she was a-gwine ter be a youn' tukky dat de Lord hisself hed fitted out at de start."

"Well," said Tom, "I'll go to Barnesville to-morrow and talk to Judge Rutherford's wife about it. She'll know what she ought to have."

And, after a few moments given to apparently agreeable reflection, he went back to the room he had left.

He had barely seated himself, however, when he was disturbed by a low-sounding tap on the side door, which stood so far open as to allow of any stray evening breeze entering without reaching the corner of the chimney.

"Come in!" said Tom, not in a friendly roar, as usual, but in a discreetly guarded voice.

The door was pushed gently open and the visitor stood revealed, blinking with an impartial air at the light within.

"Don't push it wide open," said Tom; "come in if you are going to, and leave it as it was."

Mr. Stamps obeyed without making any noise whatever. It was one of his amiable peculiarities that he never made any noise, but appeared and disappeared without giving any warning, making himself very agreeable thereby at inopportune moments. He slipped in without a sound, deftly left the door in its previous position, and at once slipped into a chair, or rather took possession of one, by balancing himself on the extreme edge of it, arranging his legs on the lower bar with some dexterity.

"Howdy?" he said, meekly, having accomplished this.

Tom's manner was not cordial. He stretched himself, put his hands in his pockets, and made no response to the greeting which was, upon the whole, a rather unnecessary one, as Mr. Stamps had been hanging about the post-office through the whole day, and had only wended his way homeward a few hours before.

"Want anything?" he enquired.

Mr. Stamps turned his hat around in his hands hurriedly.

"No, I don't want nothin', Tom," he said. Then, after a pause, he added, very softly:

"I jest thought I'd step in."

"Where are you going?" asked Tom.

The hat was turned round again.

"Whar wus I a-gwine?" deprecatingly. "Whar? Oh! I—I was a-gwine—I was a-gwine to Marthy's, I guess."

"You're pretty late," remarked Tom; "better lose no time; it's a pretty bad road between here and there."

"So 'tis," replied Mr. Stamps, apparently struck with the originality of the suggestion. "So 'tis!" He appeared to reflect deeply for a few seconds, but suddenly his eyes began to wander across the room and rested finally upon the corner in which the cradle stood. He jerked his head towards it.

"It's thar, is it?" he enquired.

"Yes, she's thar," Tom answered, rather crustily. "What of it?"

"Oh! nothin', nothin', Tom, only it's kinder curi's—kinder curi's."

"Well," said Tom, "I've not begun to look at it in that light yet myself."

"Hain't ye, now?" softly. "Hain't ye, Tom?"

Then a faint little chuckle broke from him—not an intrusive chuckle, quite the contrary; a deprecatory and inadvertent sort of chuckle.

"That ain't me," he ventured, inoffensively. "I've been a-thinkin' it was curi's all along."

"That ain't going to hurt anybody," responded Tom.

"Lord, no!" quite in a hurry. "Lord, no! 'tain't likely; but it kinder int'rusted me—int'rusted me, findin' out what I did."

And he ended with a gently suggestive cough.

Tom thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and covered as large an area of floor with his legs as was possible without upsetting Mr. Stamps's chair and at the same time that stealthy little man himself.

"Oh! found out!" he replied, "Found out h——"

He checked himself with much suddenness, glancing at the cradle as he did so.

"What did you find out?" he demanded, unceremoniously, and with manifest contempt. "Let's hear."

Mr. Stamps coughed again.

"'Twan't much, mebbe," he replied, cautiously, "'n' then again, mebbe 'twas. It was kinder int'rusting, though. That—that thar was a good prayer o' his'n, warn't it?"

"Yes," admitted Tom, rather blusteringly. "I daresay it was; I suppose you are a better judge of prayers than I am."

"I'm a purty good judge on 'em," modestly. "I'd orter be, bein' a class-leader 'n' uster kinder critykisin'. I don't never do it much in public myself, but I've allus critikised them as did. Thet sounded more professionaller then they air mostly—unless comin' frum them, as has bin raised to it."

"Did it?" said Tom.

"Yes, it was more professionaller."

Then he turned his hat again, setting it more carefully on his knee. He also fixed his eyes on Tom with a harmless smile.

"They wus North'ners."

Tom started, but managed to recover himself.

"You might have mentioned that before," he remarked, with sarcasm.

"I did," said Mr. Stamps, "along at the start, Tom; but ye wouldn't none on ye believe me."

Tom remembered that this was true, it having been Mr. Stamps who suggested the Northern theory which had been so unitedly scouted by his hearers at the time of its propounding.

"I h'ain't stayed as stiddy in North Car'lina as the rest on 'em," repeated Mr. Stamps. "When I was younger, I kinder launched out wunct. I thought I could make money faster ef I wus in a more money-makin'er place, 'n' I launched out. I went North a spell 'n' was thar a right smart while. I sorter stedded the folks' ways 'n' I got to knowin' 'em when I seed 'em 'n' heerd 'em talk. I know'd her for one the minit I set eyes on her 'n' heern her speak. I didn't say nuthin' much to the rest on ye, 'cause I know's ye'd make light on it; but I know'd it wus jest that ar way with the Northerners."

"Well," said Tom, "it's valuable information, I suppose."

Mr. Stamps coughed. He turned his hat over and looked into its greasy and battered crown modestly.

"It mout be," he replied, "'n' then again it moughtent. It moughtent be if thar' wus nuthin' else to go 'long with it. They wus hidin' sumthin', ye know, 'n' they sot a heap on keepin' it hid. Ef a body know'd the whole thing from the start, thet'd be int'rustin', 'n' it 'ud be vallyable too."

"Valuable be d——" Tom began, but he checked himself once more on glancing at the cradle.

But Mr. Stamps was so far interested that he did not read the warning he might have read in the suddenly repressed outbreak. As he neared his goal he became a little excited and incautious. He leaned forward, blinking rapidly.

"They wasn't no man 'n' wife," he said. "Lord, no! 'N' ef the two as knowed most on 'em 'n' was kinder quickest at readin' signs 'd kinder go partners 'n' heve confydence in one another, 'n' sorter lay to 'n' work it out 'n' foller it up, it ud be vallybler than stores, or post-offices, or farms to both on 'em." And he leaned so far forward and blinked so fast that he lost his balance and almost fell off his chair.

It was Tom who saved him from his fall, but not from that tender consideration for his physical security which such an act would argue. Tom gathered up his legs and strode across to him almost before he had finished speaking. For the time being he had apparently forgotten the cradle and its occupant. He seized the little man by the back of his collar and lifted him bodily out of his chair and shook him as a huge mastiff might have shaken a rat, agitating the little legs in the large trousers with a force which gave them, for a few seconds, the most active employment.

"You confounded, sneaking, underhanded little thief!" he thundered. "You damned little scoundrel! You—you——"

And he bore him out of doors, set him struggling astride his mule which was cropping the grass, and struck that sagacious animal a blow upon her quarters which sent her galloping along the Barnesville Road at a pace which caused her rider to cling to her neck and body with arms and legs, in which inconvenient posture he remained, unable to recover himself, for a distance of at least half a mile.

Tom returned to the back room in some excitement. As he crossed the threshold, he was greeted by a shrill cry from the cradle. He ruefully regarded the patchwork quilt which seemed to be struggling violently with some unseen agency.

"Doggone him!" he said, innocently, "he's wakened her—wakened her, by thunder!"

And he sat down, breathing heavily from his bodily exertion, and began to rock the cradle with a vigour and gravity which might have been expected to achieve great results, if Mornin had not appeared and taken his charge into her own hands.



CHAPTER VII

The next day Tom went to Barnesville. He left the Cross-roads on horseback early in the morning, and reached his journey's end at noon. He found on arriving at the town that the story of his undertaking had preceded him.

When he drew rein before Judge Rutherford's house and having dismounted and tied his horse to the fence, entered the gate, the Judge's wife came out upon the porch to meet him with her baby in her arms.

She greeted him with a smile.

"Well," she said, "I must say I am glad to see you. The Judge brought us a nice story from the country yesterday. What have you been doing at the Cross-roads? I told the Judge I didn't believe a word of it. There, sit down in this chair and tell me right away."

"Well," answered Tom in a business-like manner, "it's true or I shouldn't be here to-day. I've come to ask your advice about—well, about things in general."

Mrs. Rutherford uttered a little cry of delighted curiosity and surprise.

"Gracious!" she exclaimed, "I never heard such a thing! Mother!" turning her head to call to someone in the room beyond, "it's all true about the baby. Do come and hear Mr. De Willoughby tell about it."

She sat down on the steps of the porch laughing and yet regarding Tom with a half sympathetic, half curious look. It was not the first time she had found him unexpectedly mysterious.

"Where's the father?" she said. "Didn't he care for the poor little thing at all? The Judge heard that he was so poor that he couldn't take care of it. Hadn't he any friends? It has a kind of heartless sound to me—his going away that way."

"He was poor," said Tom, quietly. "And he had no relatives who could take the child. He didn't know what to do with it. I—I think he had a chance of making a living out West and—the blow seemed to have stunned him."

"And you took the baby?" put in Mrs. Rutherford.

"Yes," Tom answered, "I took the baby."

"Is it a pretty baby?"

"Yes," said Tom, "I think it is."

Just then the Judge's mother came out and he was called upon to tell the story again, when it was received with interest even more excited and wondering than before. The older Mrs. Rutherford exclaimed and looked dubious alternately.

"Are you sure you know what to do with it?" she asked.

"Well, no," said Tom, "I'm not. I suppose I shall have to educate myself up to it gradually. There'll be a good deal to learn, I suppose."

But he did not appear at all discouraged, and presently broached the object of his visit, displaying such modest readiness to accept advice and avail himself of all opportunities for acquiring valuable information, that his young hostess was aroused to the deepest admiration, and when he proceeded to produce quite a large memorandum book with a view to taking an immediate list of all required articles, and established rules, she could scarcely contain her delight.

"I want to do it all up in the proper way," he said.

Thereupon he was borne into the house and a consultation of the most serious practical nature was held. Piles of the last baby's pretty garments being produced to illustrate any obscure point. The sight of those garments with their embroidery and many frills fired Tom with new enthusiasm. He could not resist the temptation to pick up one after another of the prettiest and most elaborate and hold them out at arm's length, his fingers stuck through the sleeves the better to survey and display them to advantage.

"Yes," he kept saying, "that's the kind of thing she wants—pretty and with plenty of frills."

He seemed to set his heart especially upon this abundance of frills and kept it in view throughout the entire arrangements. Little Mrs. Rutherford was to take charge of the matter, purchasing all necessaries and superintending the work of placing it in competent hands.

"Why," she said, laughing at him delightedly, "she'll be the best dressed baby in the county."

"I'd like her to be among the best," said Tom, with a grave face, "among the best."

Whereupon Mrs. Rutherford laughed a little again, and then quite suddenly stopped and regarded him for a moment with some thoughtfulness.

"He has some curious notions about that baby, mother," she said afterwards. "I can see it in all he says. Everyone mightn't understand it. I'm not sure I do myself, but he has a big, kind heart, that Tom de Willoughby, a big, kind heart."

She understood more clearly the workings of the big, kind heart before he left them the next morning.

At night after she had put her child to sleep, she joined him on the front porch, where he sat in the moonlight, and there he spoke more fully to her.

He had seated himself upon the steps of the porch and wore a deeper reflective air, as he played with a spray of honeysuckle he had broken from its vine.

She drew up her rocking-chair and sat down near him.

"I actually believe you are thinking of that baby now," she said, with a laugh. "You really look as if you were."

"Well," he admitted, "the fact is that's just what I was doing—thinking of her."

"Well, and what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking—" holding his spray of honeysuckle between his thumb and forefinger and looking at it in an interested way, "I was thinking about what name I should give her."

"Oh!" she said, "she hasn't any name?"

"No," Tom answered, without removing his eyes from his honeysuckle, "she hasn't any name yet."

"Well," she exclaimed, "they were queer people."

There was a moment's silence which she spent in looking curiously both at him and his honeysuckle.

"What was her mother's name?" she asked at last.

"I don't know."

Mrs. Rutherford sat up in her chair.

"You don't know!"

"She was dying when I saw her first, and I never thought of asking."

"But her father?"

"I didn't think of asking that either, and nobody knew anything of them. I suppose he was not in the frame of mind to think of such things himself. It was all over and done with so soon. He went away as soon as she was buried."

Mrs. Rutherford sank back into her chair.

"It's the strangest story I ever heard of in my life," she commented, with a sigh of amazement. "The man must have been crazed with grief. I suppose he was very fond of his wife?"

"I suppose so," said Tom.

There was another pause of a few moments, and from the thoughts with which they occupied it Mrs. Rutherford roused herself with a visible effort.

"Well," she said, cheerily, "let it be a pretty name."

"Yes," answered Tom, "it must be a pretty one."

He turned the bit of honeysuckle so that the moonlight fell on its faintly tinted flower. It really seemed as if he felt he should get on better for having it to look at and refer to.

"I want it to be a pretty name," he went on, "and I've thought of a good many that sounded well enough, but none of them seemed exactly to hit my fancy in the right way until I thought of one that came into my mind a few moments ago as I sat here. It has a pleasant meaning—I don't know that there's anything in that, of course; but I've got a sort of whim about it. I suppose it's a whim. What do you think—" looking very hard at the honeysuckle, "of Felicia?"

"I think," said his companion, "that it is likely to be the best name you could give her, for if she isn't a happy creature it won't be your fault."

"Well," said Tom, "I've set out to do my best and I'd like to give her a fair start in every way, even in her name, though there mayn't be anything in it, but I'd like to do it. I suppose it's time I should be having some object in life. I've never had one before, and I've been a useless fellow. Well, I've got one now by chance, and I'm bound to hold on to it and do what I can. I want her to have what chances I can give her on her side, and it came into my mind that Felicia——"

He stopped to consult the honeysuckle, as it were, and Jenny Rutherford broke in:

"Yes," she said, "Felicia is the name for her, and it's a beautiful thought——"

"Oh!" interrupted Tom, bestirring himself uneasily, "it's a natural thought. She needs all she can get to balance the trouble she began life with. Most other little chaps begin it in a livelier way—in a way that's more natural, born into a home, and all that. It's a desolate business that she should have no one but a clumsy fellow like me to pick her up, and that there should be a shadow of—of trouble and pain and death over her from the first. Good Lord!" with a sudden movement of his big arm, "let's sweep it away if we can."

The thought so stirred him, that he turned quite around as he sat.

"Look here," he said, "that's what I was aiming at when I set my mind on having her things frilled up and ornamented. I want them to be what they might have been if she had been born of a woman who was happy and well cared for and—and loved—as if she had been thought of and looked forward to and provided for in a—in a tender way—as they say young mothers do such things: you know how that is; I don't, perhaps, I've only thought of it sometimes——" his voice suddenly dropping.

But he had thought of it often, in his lonely back room one winter a few years ago, when it had drifted to him that his brother De Courcy was the father of a son.

Mrs. Rutherford leaned forward in her seat, tears rose in her eyes, and she put her hand impulsively on his shoulder.

"Oh!" she cried, "you are a good man. You're a good man, and if she lives, she will tell you so and love you with all her heart. I will see to the little clothes just as if they were Nellie's own" (Nellie being the baby, or more properly speaking, the last baby, as there were others in the household). "And if there is anything I can ever do for the little thing, let me do it for her poor young mother's sake."

Tom thanked her gratefully.

"I shall be glad to come to you often enough, I reckon," he said. "I guess she'll have her little sick spells, as they all do, and it'll help wonderfully to have someone to call on. There's her teeth now," anxiously, "they'll be coming through in a few months, and then there'll be the deuce to pay."

He was so overweighted by this reflection, that he was silent for some minutes afterwards and was only roused by a question requiring a reply.

Later the Judge came in and engaged him in political conversation, all the Judge's conversation being of a political nature and generally tending to vigorous denunciations of some candidate for election who belonged to the opposite party. In Barnesville political feeling ran high, never running low, even when there was no one to be elected or defeated, which was very seldom the case, for between such elections and defeat there was always what had been done or what ought to have been done at Washington to discuss, it being strongly felt that without the assistance of Barnesville, Washington would be in a sorry plight indeed.

To-day the Judge had been engaged in a livelier discussion than usual as he rode homeward with a select party of legal brethren from court at Brownsboro, and consequently made his appearance blustering and joyous. He bestowed upon his wife a sounding kiss, and, with one arm around her waist, shook hands with Tom in a gust of hospitality, speaking to both at once.

"Howdy, Jenny? Howdy, Tom? It's a coon's age since we've seen you, Tom. Time you showed yourself. How are the children, Jenny—and what's Tom Scott been doing? What's this we hear about that stray young one? Nice tale that is to tell on a fellow. Fowler heard it at Brownsboro and like to have killed himself. Lord! how hot it's been! I'm ready for supper, Jenny. Sit down, Tom. As soon as I get through supper, we'll have a real old-fashioned talk. I've been suffering for one for three months. Jenny, tell Sophronia to spread herself on her waffles, for I've been getting some mighty poor stuff for the last few days. What do you think of Thatcher running for the Legislature? Lord! Lord! what a fool that fellow is! Most unpopular man in the county, and about the meanest too. Mean? Lord! mean ain't the name for it! He'll be beat so that any other man wouldn't want to show his head, and it won't make a mark on him. Nellie's asleep, ain't she, Jenny? I've got to go and look at her and the rest of them. Don't you want to come along, Tom? You're a family man yourself now, and you ought to take an interest!"

He led the way into the family-room at the back and, taking the candle from the high mantel, moved it triumphantly over the beds in which the children slept.

"Here's Tom Scott!" he announced. "Tom Scott's got to have a crib to himself. Look at him now. What do you think of that for a boy? He's five years old next month, and he about runs Barnesville. The boys round here are just ruining him with making much of him and setting him up to tricks. He just lives round at the stores and the post-office. And what Tom Scott don't know ain't worth knowing. Came home with six jack-knives in his pockets the first day Jenny turned him out in pantaloons. The boys tried themselves to see who could do best by him. You could hear them shouting and laughing all over the town at the things they got him to say. I tell you he's a case, Tom is. Last election he was as stirred up as any of us. Hollered ''Rah for Collins' until he was hoarse and his mother brought him home and gave him syrup of squills because she thought he had the croup. What do you think he did, now? Went into Barton's store and ordered a bushel of chestnuts to be sent down to my account and brought 'em out and set on the horse-block and gave a treat for Collins. I was coming up home and saw the crowd and heard the hollering and laughing, and there was Tom in the middle baling out his chestnuts and hollering at the top of his voice: 'Come on, boys, all you Collins men, here's a treat for Collins!' I thought Collins would have died when he heard it. He laughed until he choked, and the next day he came to see Tom and gave him a gold eagle and a colt. He says he is going to give him a little nigger to look after it, and he'll do it. Oh, Tom Scott's the boy! He'll be in the White House forty years from now. He's making a bee-line for it right now."

And he bent and kissed the little fellow's sunburnt rosy cheek.

"His mother and his grandmother can't do a thing with him," he said, rapturously, "and it's as much as I can do to manage him. Oh, he's a case, is Tom Scott!"

And with this tribute to his character, he left him to his slumbers, with his sturdy little legs occupying an extensive area of crib and his face resting on his small brown arm.

After this, the Judge went to his supper and consumed a large quantity of fried chicken, waffles, and coffee, afterwards joining Tom on the porch, smoking his pipe and stigmatising Thatcher in a loud and jovial voice as the meanest man in Hamlin.

But for this resonant jovialness of voice, his denunciation of the Democratic Party, which was not his party, might have appeared rather startling.

"There isn't an honest man among them," he announced. "Not a durned one! They're all the same. Cut each other's throats for a dime, the whole caboodle. Oh! damn a Democrat anyhow, Tom, 'tain't in the nature of things that they should be anything but thieves and rascals. Just look at the whole thing. It's founded on lies and corruption and scoundrelism. That's their foundation. They start out on it, and it ain't reasonable to expect anything better of them. Good Lord! If I thought Tom Scott would join the Democrats, I believe I'd blow his brains out in his crib this minute."

Tom's part in this discussion was that of a large-minded and strictly impartial listener. This was the position he invariably assumed when surrounded by political argument. He was not a politician. His comments upon political subjects being usually of a sarcastic nature, and likely to prove embarrassing to both parties.

"Yes," he said in reply to the Judge's outpourings, "you're right. There ain't a chance for them, not an eternal chance. You can't expect it, and it ain't all their fault either. Where are they to get their decent men from, unless some of you fellows go over? Here you are without a liar or a fool among you—not a durned one—made a clean sweep of all the intellect and honesty and incorruptible worth in the country and hold on to it too, and then let out on these fellows because there isn't any left for 'em. I'm a lazy man myself and not much on argument, but I must say that's a weak place in your logic. You don't give 'em a show at the start—that's their misfortune."

"Oh, go to thunder!" roared the Judge, amiably. "You don't know the first thing about it and never did. That's where you fail—in politics. The country would be in a mighty poor fix if we had many fellows like you—in a mighty poor fix. You're a good citizen, Tom, but you ain't a politician."

"That's so," said Tom. "I ain't good enough for your party or bad enough for the other, when a man's got to be either a seraphim or a Democrat, there isn't much chance for an ordinary fellow to spread himself."

Whereupon the Judge in an altogether friendly manner consigned him to thunder again and, evidently enjoying himself immensely, proceeded to the most frightful denunciations of Thatcher and his party, the mere list of whose crimes and mental incapacities should have condemned them to perdition and the lunatic asylum upon the spot without further delay.

While he was in the midst of this genial loud-voiced harangue, his wife, who had been in the back room with the baby, came out and, on seeing her, he seemed suddenly to forget his animosities and the depraved political condition of the country altogether, becoming a placable, easily pleased, domesticated creature at once.

"Got Nellie to sleep again, have you?" he said, putting his hand on her shoulder. "Well, let's go in and have some music. Come and sing 'The Last Rose of Summer.' That's my favourite; it beats all the new-fangled opera things all to pieces."

He led the way into the parlour, which was a large square room, regarded by Barnesville as the most sumptuous of reception chambers, inasmuch as its floor was covered by a Brussels carpet adorned with exotics of multifarious colours, its walls ornamented with massively framed photographs, and its corners fitted up with whatnots and shining hair-cloth seats known in Hamlin County as "tater-tates," and in that impressive character admired beyond expression. Its crowning glory, however, was the piano, which had belonged to Jenny Rutherford in her boarding-school days, and was the delight of the Judge's heart. It furnished him with his most cherished recreation in his hours of repose from political conflict and argument, inasmuch as he regarded his wife's performance seldom to be equalled and never surpassed, and the soft, pleasant voice with which she sang "The Last Rose of Summer" and other simple and sentimental melodies as that of a cantatrice whose renown might have been world-wide if she had chosen to turn her attention to its development.

"Lord!" he said, throwing himself into one of the shining arm-chairs. "There's nothing like music, nothing under the shining sun. 'Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.'"

This in his most sonorous quotation tones: "Let a man get tired or out of sorts, or infernal mad at a pack of cursed fools, and music's the thing that'll set him straight every time, if he's any sort of a fellow. A man that ain't fond of music ain't of any account on God's green earth. I wouldn't trust him beyond a broom-straw. There's a mean streak in a man that don't care for music, sure. Why, the time the Democrats elected Peyton, the only thing that saved me from bursting a blood-vessel was Jenny's playing 'My Lodging's on the Cold Ground' with variations. I guess she played it for two hours hand-running, because when I found it was sort of soothing me, I didn't want her to break in on the effect by beginning another. Play it for Tom, Jenny, after you've sung awhile. There's one thing I've made up my mind to—if I had fifty girls, I'd have 'em all learn music if they didn't know anything—not the operatic kind, you know, but enough to teach them to sing to a man like Jenny does. Go on, Jenny."

The sustaining and cheering effects of Sophronia's fried chicken and waffles probably added to his comfortable enjoyment, which was without limit. He leaned back in his armchair as far as the stiffly ornamented back would admit of his so doing and kept time with his head or his feet, occasionally joining in on a chorus with startling suddenness in an evidently subdued roar, which, though subdued, was still roaring enough, and, despite the excellence of its intention, quite out of tune enough to cause the wax flowers in their wax basket on the table (both done by Jenny at boarding-school) to shake under the glass shade until they tapped against its side with a delicate tinkle.

It was while this was going on that Tom, sitting near a side table, picked up a book and almost unconsciously opened it and read its title. Having read its title, an expression of interest showed itself on his countenance and he turned over a leaf or so, and as he turned them over dipped into them here and there.

He had the book in his hand when Jenny Rutherford ended her last chorus and came towards him.

"Do you go much by this?" he asked.

She took it from him and glanced at it.

"I brought Tom Scott up on it," she said. "Mother wasn't with me then, and I was such a child I did not know what to do with him."

"Seems to be a good sort of book," said Tom, and he turned over the leaves again.

"It is," she answered, smiling at him. "There are lots of things in it every doctor don't know. It was written by a woman."

"That's the reason, I reckon," said Tom.

He laid the book down and seemed to forget it, but about an hour after when his bedroom candle was brought and he was on the point of retiring for the night, he turned upon the threshold of the sitting-room and spoke to his hostess in the tone of one suddenly recollecting himself.

"Where did you say you got that book?" he inquired, snuffing his candle with his thumb and forefinger.

"I didn't say at all," answered Jenny. "I got it from Brough & Bros., Baltimore."

"Oh, there!" he remarked. "Good-night."

When he reached his room and shut himself in, he set his candlestick on a table and proceeded to draw from his pocket the memorandum-book, also producing the stump of a lead pencil.

Then he made as he stood up before the looking-glass and in the flickering light of the candle, an entry which was as follows: "Advice to Young Mothers, Brough & Bros." He made it with a grave countenance and a business-like manner, and somehow, owing it may be to the small size of the room, its low ceilings and many shadows, or the flickering of the candle, his colossal height and breadth of body and tremendous look of strength had never seemed so marked nor appeared so to overpower the objects surrounding him.

Having completed the entry, he shut up the book and returned it to his pocket with a relieved air.

"If a man ain't a young mother," he remarked, "I guess he can get the good of it, if he gives himself time. And what she wants"—rather hurriedly—"is to get as good a start as if she had a young mother."

And he sat down and pulled off his right boot in so absorbed a frame of mind, that he aroused presently with a start to find that he was holding it as if it had been made of much less tough material and required handling tenderly.



CHAPTER VIII

He was on his way homeward early the next morning, and by noon his horse had climbed the rising ground from which he could look down on the Cross-roads and the post-office baking itself brown in the sun. Catching sight of the latter edifice, he smiled a little and shook the bridle against his steed's warm neck.

"Get along, Jake," he said. "I'm in a little more of a hurry to get home than usual—seems that way anyhow."

The eagerness he felt was a new experience with him and stirred his sense of humour even while it warmed his always easily moved heart. It had been his wont during the last eight years to return from any absence readily but never eagerly or with any touch of excited pleasure. Even at their brightest aspect, with the added glow of fire and warmth and good cheer, and contrast to winter's cold and appetite sharpened by it, the back rooms had always suffered from the disadvantage of offering no prospect of companionship or human interest to him. After the supper had been disposed of and the newspapers read and the pipe smoked, there had only been the fire to watch, and it was quite natural to brood as its blaze died down and its logs changed to a bed of glowing cinders. Under such circumstances it was easy to fall into a habit of brooding too much and thinking of things which had better been forgotten. When there was no fire, it had been lonelier still, and he had found the time hang heavily, on his hands.

"But now," he said, shaking his bridle again, "there she is, and it's quite queer, by thunder, how much she seems to give a man to think of and what will it be when she begins to talk." And his smile ended in a jovial laugh which rather startled Jake, who was not expecting it, and caused him to shy promptly.

She was not asleep when he entered her presence, which was so unusual a state of affairs that he found it a little alarming.

"Hello!" he exclaimed, "there's nothing wrong, I hope."

"Wid dat chile?" chuckled Mornin, delightedly. "I sh'd think not, Mars' D'Willerby! Dat ar chile's a-thrivin' an' a-comin' 'long jes' like she'd orter. Dar ain't a-gwine to be nothin' wrong wid dat chile."

"That's a good thing," said Tom.

He sat down by the cradle's side and regarded its occupant with an interest as fresh as if she had just appeared for the first time upon his horizon. She had been imbibing a large quantity of milk, and the effect of this nourishment had been to at once compose her spirits and slightly enliven them. So she employed the passing moments by looking at Tom with steadfast and solemn eyes—not, perhaps, very intelligently, but still with a vacant air of interest in him in his character of an object.

"Why," he said, "she's grown; she's grown in thirty-six hours, and she's improved too. Oh, yes! she's coming along nicely."

He touched her very carefully with his large forefinger, a liberty which she did not resent or even notice, unless the fact that she winked both eyes might be regarded as a token of recognition.

"We'll have a box full of things here for her in a couple of weeks," he said. "And then she can start out in life—start out in life."

The last four words seemed to please him; as he repeated them he touched her cheek again, carefully as before.

"And start out fair, too!" he added. "Fair and square—as fair and square as any of them."

He remained a little longer in his seat by the cradle, talking to Mornin, asking her questions and delivering messages laden with advice from little Mrs. Rutherford, which instructions Aunt Mornin plainly regarded as superfluous.

"Now, Mars' D'Willerby," she giggled in amiable scorn, "didn't I raise fo' o' my young Mistes's? Mornin ain't no spring chicken. Dar ain't nuffin 'bout chillun Mornin h'aint heerd. Leeve dis yere chile to Mornin."

"She ain't going to be left to anyone," said Tom, cheerfully, "not to the best woman in Hamlin County. We've got to make up to her for two or three things, and we're going to do it."

Having relieved himself of which sentiment, he went to his place at the table and ate a mighty dinner, during his enjoyment of which meal he did not lose interest in his small silent partner at all, but cast proud glances and jocular sallies at her every few mouthfuls, partaking of her, as it were, with his mountain trout, and finding her add flavour and zest to his hot corn-bread and fried ham.

When he had ended his repast with an astonishing draught of buttermilk, and was ready to go into the store, she had dozed off cosily again and was making the best of her opportunities, so he only paused for a moment to give her a farewell glance.

"Yes," he said, "Felicia—that'll do. When you come to the meaning of it, I don't know of anything else that'd seem to start her out as fair—Felicia!"

And though he said the word in a whisper it seemed to reach her ear in some mysterious way, for she stirred slightly, though not as through any sense of disturbance, opened her eyes upon his big figure and, closing them the next instant, sank into soft sleep again with the faintest dawn or ghost of a baby smile upon her face.

So, nestling under the patchwork quilt and sleeping the hours away in the small ark stranded in the chimney corner, she began life.

* * * * *

Felicia was received by Talbot's Cross-roads with some difference of opinion.

"I'd rather had Mirandy or Lucretia," said Mrs. Doty. "Flishyer ain't nigh as showy as a heap o' other names, 'n' like as not, folks'll be callin' her F'lish. Now thar's Vangerline 'n' Clementine 'n' Everlyne that'd ha' bin showier then Flishyer."

"Tom," put in Mr. Doty, with his usual enjoyment of his friend's weakness and strength, "Tom he'd a notion 'bout it. He said it meant som'n 'bout her a'bein' happy, 'n' he 'lowed it'd kinder give her a start in the right direction. It's jes' like Tom. He's full o' notions when he gits started. I'll back him agin any man in Hamlin fur notions when he gits started. Lord! it's jes' Tom all over!"

Through a disposition to take even names easily and avoid in all cases any unnecessary exertion, Mrs. Doty's pronunciation was adopted at once, which was perhaps the principal reason for a fanciful change being made not long afterwards.

Against "F'lishyer" Tom rebelled loudly and without ceasing, but without effect.

The fanciful change came about and was adopted in this wise. In the course of a couple of weeks the box of little garments arrived from Barnesville, accompanied by a warm-hearted note from Jenny Rutherford.

The unpacking of the box—which was not a large one, though it seemed to contain an astonishing number of things, most of them of great length and elaborateness—was to Tom a singularly exciting event, so exciting that he found himself wondering and not at all sure that he understood it.

When he opened the box—Mornin standing at his side, her charge in her arms—he did it with tremulous fingers, and when, having laid one article after another in a snowy drift upon the bed, he drew back to look at them, he found it necessary after a few moments' inspection to turn about and pace the floor, not uneasily, but to work off steam as it were, while Mornin uttered her ejaculations of rapture.

"I never seen nuthin' like 'em afore, Mars' D'Willerby," she said with many excitable giggles. "Dis yer chile's a-gwine to take the flo' shore as yo' bawn! Sich a settin' out as dat is! She'll git ter puttin' on airs afore she's a year ole. We'll hev ter give her a settin' down wunce 'n a while to keep her straight. Mis' Rutherford, she wus boun' to do it up in style, she wus!"

Tom took one hand out of his pocket and ruffled his hair with it, and then put it back again.

"Your young mistresses now," he suggested, "I suppose they are about such things as their mothers made for them."

"Lordy, dey's a heap finer, Mars' D'Willerby—a heap finer! Dey wus rich folks' chillun, but dey never hed sich a settin' out as dis yere—not one on 'em."

"They didn't?" said Tom, with secretly repressed exultation. "Well, if they didn't, I guess she'll do. They are rather nice, I reckon—and I meant they should be. Say, Mornin, suppose you dress her up and let me show her to the boys."

He himself picked out the sumptuous long-skirted garments she was to wear and watched with the deepest interest the rather slow process of her attiring. He was particularly pleased with a wonderfully embroidered white cloak and lace cap, which latter article he abstractedly tied on his great fist and found much too small for it. His triumph, when she was given to his arms, he did not attempt to conceal, but carried her into the store with the manner of a large victor bearing his spoils.

"Now look here, boys," he announced, being greeted with the usual laughter and jocular remarks. "This ain't the style of thing we want. Hand a man a chair."

His customary support being produced, he seated himself in it, keeping his charge balanced with a dexterity and ease quite wonderful to behold.

"What we want," he proceeded, "is a more respectful tone. Something in the elaborate chivalric style, and we're going to have it. What we want is to come into this establishment feeling that there's no risk of our being scared or upset by any durned fool startling us and setting our delicate machinery wrong. We've come here to stay, and we expect to be more familiar with things as we grow older, and the thing for us is to start out right without any disagreeable impressions. We don't want to say when we're brought in here—'Why, here's the place where that fool gave me such a start last week. I wonder if he's here again?' What we want is to feel that here's a place that's home, and a place that a person's likely to look forward to coming to with the view to ah—I should say to a high old time of an agreeable description."

"She's a-goin' to be a doggoned purty critter," said a lounger who sat on a barrel near by.

"She ain't nuthin' like her mother," said another; "though she wus a purty critter when I seed her."

He had only seen her in her coffin.

"She ain't like her father," put in another.

Tom moved in his chair uneasily.

"She won't be like either of them," he said. "Let that go."

There was a tone in his voice which more than one among them had now and again noticed with some slow bewilderment during the last few weeks—a tone new to them, but which in time they grew used to, though they never understood its meaning.

"Kinder," they used to say, "as ef he wus mad or—ruffed up, though it warn't that exactly, either."

"Black eyes, h'ain't she?" inquired the man on the barrel.

"Yes."

"An har. That's my kind er women, black eyes an' har, and kinder spirity. They've more devil to 'em 'n' is better able to take care of 'emselves."

"She's got some one to take care of her," answered Tom. "That's my business."

"You've got her mightily fixed up, Tom," remarked Mr. Doty, who had just entered. "You'll hev all the women in the country flocking up. She sorter makes me think o' the Queen o' Sheby. Sheby, she wus great on fixin'."

Every man who entered, seeing her as she lay in state in Tom's lap, was drawn towards her to stand and wonder at her vaguely. There developed a tendency to form small and rather silent groups about her. Infancy was no novelty in this region of numerous progenies, but the fine softness of raiment and delicate sumptuousness of infancy were. More than one man, having looked at her and wandered away, was unable to resist the temptation to wander back again and finally to settle in some seat or box upon a barrel, that he might the better indulge his curiosity and interest.

"Ye must hev spent a heap on her, Tom," was said respectfully again and again.

The fact that "a heap had been spent on her" inspired the audience with a sense of her importance, which amounted to reverence. That she represented an apparently unaccountable expenditure, was considered to reflect credit upon her, however vaguely, and to give her a value not to be lightly regarded. To Mr. Doty the idea of the "Queen of Sheby" appeared to recur persistently, all his imaginings of the poetic, the dramatic, and luxurious being drawn from Scriptural sources.

"I can't think o' nuthin' else but Sheby when I look at her," he remarked several times. "She 'minds me more o' Sheby then anything else 'n Scripter. Minty'll jest hev to come ter see her."

This boldness of imagery struck a chord in the breast of his hearers which responded at once. It was discovered that more than one of them had been reminded in some indefinite manner of the same distinguished personage.

"When she was consider'ble younger then in Solomon's time," said one gentleman with much solemnity.

Tom himself was caught by the fancy and when his charge was referred to occasionally in a most friendly spirit as "Sheby thar," he made no protest against it.

"It's a thunderation sight better than 'Flishyer,'" he said, "and if it comes easier to you fellows, I've no objection. Sheba ain't bad. There's a kind of swing to it, and you can't get it very far wrong. The other's a good name spoiled, and it's a name I've a fancy for saving for her. I gave it to her—I'll save it for her, and it shall be a thing between us two. Call her Sheba if you like."

So it fell out that Mr. Doty's Oriental imaginings sealed her fate and gradually, by a natural process, Felicia was abandoned for Sheba, even Tom using it upon all ordinary occasions.

Having in this manner begun life, a day rarely passed in which she did not spend an hour or so in the post-office. Each afternoon during the first few months of her existence Tom brought her forth attired in all her broidery, and it was not long before the day came when he began to cherish the fancy that she knew when the time for her visit was near, and enjoyed it when it came.

"She looks as if she did," he said to Mornin. "She wouldn't go to sleep yesterday after I came into the room, and I'll swear I saw her eyes following me as I walked about; and when I carried her in after she was dressed, she turned her head over her shoulder to look round her and smiled when she had done it and found nothing was missing. Oh! she knows well enough when she gets in there."

The fancy was a wonderfully pleasant one to him, and when, as time went on, she developed a bright baby habit of noticing all about her, and expressing her pleasure in divers soft little sounds, he was a happier man than he had ever thought to be. His greatest pleasure was the certain knowledge that she had first noticed himself—that her first greeting had been given to him, that her first conscious caress had been his. She was a loving little creature, showing her affection earlier than most children do. Before she could sit upright, she recognised his in-comings and out-goings, and when he took her in his arms to walk to and fro with her, as was his habit at night, she dropped her tiny head upon his shoulders with a soft yielding to his tenderness which never failed to quicken the beatings of his heart.

"There's something in her face," he used to say to himself, "something that's not in every child's face. It's a look about her eyes and mouth that seems to tell a man that she understands him—whether his spirits are up or down."

But his spirits were not often down in those days. The rooms at the back no longer wore an air of loneliness, and the evenings never hung heavily on his hands. In the course of a few months he sent to Brownsboro for a high chair and tried the experiment of propping his small companion up in it at his side when he ate his supper. It was an experiment which succeeded very well and filled him with triumph. From her place in the kitchen Mornin could hear during every meal the sound of conversation of the most animated description. Tom's big, kind voice rambling cheerily and replied to by the soft and unformed murmuring of the child. He was never tired of her, never willing to give her up.

"What I might have given to others if they'd cared for it," was his thought, "I give to her and she knows it."

It seemed too that she did know it, that from her first gleaming of consciousness she had turned to him as her friend, her protector, and her best beloved. When she heard his footsteps, she turned in Mornin's arms, or in her cradle, to look for him, and when she saw his face her whole little body yearned towards him.

One afternoon when she was about eight months old, he left her at the usual time. Mornin, who was working, had spread a big red shawl upon the floor and seated her upon it, and when Tom went out of the room, she sat still playing in the quiet way peculiar to her, with the gay fringe. She gave him a long earnest look as he crossed the threshold, a look which he remembered afterwards as having been more thoughtful than usual and which must have represented a large amount of serious speculation mingled with desire.

Tom went into the store, and proceeded to the performance of his usual duty of entertaining his customers. He was in a jovial mood, and, having a larger number of visitors than ordinarily, was kept actively employed in settling the political problems of the day and disposing of all public difficulties.

"What's most wanted at the head of things," he proclaimed, "is a man that's capable of exerting himself (Mis' Doty, if you choose that calico, Job can cut it off for you!) a man who ain't afraid of work. (Help yourself, Jim!) Lord! where'd this post-office be if some men had to engineer it—a man who would stand at things and loaf instead of taking right hold. (For Heaven's sake, Bill, don't hurry! Jake'll give you the tea as soon as he's cut off his wife's dress!) That's the kind of men we want in office now—in every kind of office—in every kind of office. If there's one thing I've no use for on God's green earth, it's a man with no energy. (Nicholson, just kick that box over here so I can get my feet on it!)"

He was sitting near the door which connected the back part of the establishment with the front, and it was just at this juncture that there fell upon his ear a familiar sound as of something being dragged over the floor. The next moment he felt his foot touched and then pressed upon by some soft unsteady weight.

He looked down with a start and saw first a small round face upturned, its dark eyes tired but rejoicing and faithful, and then a short white dress much soiled and dusted by being dragged over the bare boards of the two storerooms.

His heart gave a leap and all the laughter died out of his face.

"My God, boys!" he said, as he bent down, "she's followed me! She's followed me!"

It was quite true. She had never crawled far beyond the limits of the shawl before, but this morning her longing had given her courage and strength, and she had set out upon her journey in search of him.

Those about him burst into loud, admiring laughter, but Tom did not laugh at all. He lifted the child to his knee and held her encircled by one arm. She was weary with her exertion and settled at once into an easy sitting posture, her head resting against him while she gazed quietly from under her upcurled lashes at the faces grouped about her. Their laughter did not disturb her now that she had reached her haven of safety.

"To think of her a-followin' him!" said Mis' Doty, "'n' her never sot off nowhars afore. The purty little critter! Lord! Tom, she's a-gwine ter be a sight when she's grown—with them eyes and har! An' ter think of her a-slippin' off from Mornin an' makin' up her little mind to follow ye. I've never had a young 'un to try it that early in all I've raised."

"Lordy!" said Mr. Doty, "she's as sot on Tom 's he's on her, 'n' ef ever a man wus a doggoned fool about a young 'un, he is about that'n; 'n' fur bein' a doggoned fool"—triumphantly—"when he sets out ter be, I'll back Tom agin any man in Hamlin."

Tom said but little. He made no more jokes. He kept the child with him through the rest of the day, holding her upon his knee or carrying her out upon the porch.

When at supper-time he carried her back to the room, she was asleep and he laid her in her cradle himself. He moved about very quietly afterwards and ate his supper alone with frequent glances at the sleeper.

"Don't take her away," he said to Mornin when she came in; "leave her here."

"'N' hev her a-wakin' 'n' disturbin' uv ye, Mars' Tom!" she responded.

"Leave her here," he said, laying his hand on the head of the cradle. "She'll not disturb me. We shall get along finely together."

She was left, Mornin taking her departure with manifest disbelief in the practicability of the plan. And then, having drawn the cradle to his bedside, Tom put out the light and retired himself.

But he did not sleep for some time; having flung his mighty body upon the couch, he lay with his arms thrown above his head gazing at the darkness and listening to the soft breathing at his side. He was thinking over the one event of the day.

What might have seemed a slight thing to many men had struck deep into his great heart.

"My God!" he said, a touch of reverential tone in his whisper, "to think of her following me!"

And he stretched out his hand in the darkness and laid it upon the side of the cradle lightly, and afterwards fell asleep.



CHAPTER IX

Just at this time, which was the year before the Civil War, that fashionable summer resort, the White Briar Springs, was at its gayest. Rarely before had the hotel been filled with so brilliant a company. A few extra cases of yellow fever had been the cause of an unusual exodus from the fever districts, and in consequence the various summer resorts flourished and grew strong. The "White Briar" especially exerted and arrayed itself in its most festive garments. The great dining-room was filled to overflowing, the waiters were driven to desperation by the demands made upon them as they flew from table to table and endeavoured with laudable zeal to commit to memory fifty orders at once and at the same time to answer "Comin', sah" to the same number of snapped fingers. There were belles from Louisiana, beauties from Mississippi, and enslavers from Virginia, accompanied by their mothers, their fathers, their troops of younger brothers and sisters, and their black servants. There were nurses and valets and maids of all shades from ebony to cream-colour, and of all varieties of picturesqueness. All day the immense piazzas were crowded with promenaders, sitters, talkers, fancy-workers, servants attired in rainbow hues and apparently enjoying their idleness or their pretence at work to the utmost. Every morning parties played ten-pins, rode, strolled, gossipped; every afternoon the daring few who did not doze away the heated hours in the shaded rooms, flirted in couples under trees on the lawn, or in the woods, or by the creek. Every evening there was to be found ardent youth to dance in the ballroom, and twice a week at least did this same youth, arrayed in robes suited to honour the occasion, disport itself joyfully and with transcendent delight in the presence of its elders assembled in rooms around the walls of the same glittering apartment with the intention of bestowing distinction upon what was known as "the hop."

Sometimes, in dull seasons, there was a scarcity of partners upon such occasions; but this year such was not the case. Aside from the brothers of the belles and beauties before referred to, who mustered in full force, there was a reserved corps of cavaliers who, though past the early and crude bloom of their first youth, were still malleable material. Who could desire a more gallant attendant than the agile though elderly Major Beaufort, who, with a large party of nieces, daughters, and granddaughters, made the tour of the watering-places each succeeding year, pervading the atmosphere of each with the subtle essence of his gallantry and hilariousness?

"I should be a miserable man, sir," proclaimed the Major, chivalrously upon each succeeding Thursday—"I should be a miserable man in seeing before me such grace and youth and beauty, feeling that I am no longer young, if I did not possess a heart which will throb for Woman as long as it beats with life."

Having distinguished himself by which poetic remark, he usually called up a waiter with champagne and glasses, in which beverage he gallantly drank the health of the admiring circle which partook of it with him.

Attached to the Beaufort party were various lesser luminaries, each of whom, it must be confessed, might well, under ordinary circumstances, have formed the centre of a circle himself; legal luminaries, social luminaries, political luminaries, each playing ten-pins and whist, each riding, each showing in all small gallantries, and adding by their presence to the exhilaration of the hour.

There was one gentleman, however, who, though he was not of the Beaufort party, could still not be considered among the lesser luminaries. He was a planet with an orbit of his own. This gentleman had ridden up to the hotel one afternoon on a fine horse, accompanied by a handsome, gloomy boy on another animal as fine, and followed by a well-dressed young negro carrying various necessary trappings, and himself mounted in a manner which did no discredit to his owner. The air of the party was such as to occasion some sensation on the front gallery, where the greater number of the guests were congregated.

"Oh," cried one of the Beauforts, "what a distinguished-looking man. Oh, what a handsome boy! and what splendid horses."

At that moment one of the other ladies—a dark, quiet, clever matron from South Carolina—uttered an exclamation.

"Is it possible," she said. "There is Colonel De Willoughby."

The new arrival recognised her at once and made his way towards her with the most graceful air of ease and pleasure, notwithstanding that it was necessary that he should wind his way dexterously round numerous groups in and out among a dozen chairs.

He was a strikingly handsome man, dark, aquiline, tall and lithe of figure; his clothes fitted him marvellously well at the waist, his slender arched foot was incased in a marvel of a boot, his black hair was rather long, and his superb eyes gained a mysterious depth and mellowness from the length and darkness of their lashes; altogether, it was quite natural that for the moment the Beauforts and their satellites should pale somewhat by comparison.

When he bowed over Mrs. Marvin's hand, a thrill of pleasure made itself manifest in those surrounding them. He spoke in the most melodious of voices.

"The greatest of pleasures," he was heard to say. "I did not expect this." And then, in response to some question: "My health since—since my loss has been very poor. I hope to recover strength and spirits," with an air of delicate and gentle melancholy. "May I present my boy—Rupert?"

In response to the summons the boy came forward—not awkwardly, or with any embarrassment, but with a bearing not at all likely to create a pleasant impression. The guests could see that he was even a handsomer boy than he had seemed at a greater distance. He was very like his father in the matter of aquiline features, clear pale-olive skin and superb dark eyes: his face had even a fineness the older man's lacked, but the straight marks of a fixed frown were upon his forehead, and his mouth wore a look which accorded well with the lines.

He approached and bared his head, making his boyish bow in a manner which did credit to his training, but though he blushed slightly on being addressed, his manner was by no means a responsive one, and he moved away as soon as an opportunity presented itself, leaving his father making himself very fascinating in a gently chivalric way, and establishing himself as a planet by the mere manner of his address towards a woman who was neither pretty, young, nor enthusiastic.

There was no woman in the hotel so little prone to enthusiasm as this one. She was old enough and clever enough to have few illusions. It was thought singular that though she admitted she had known the Colonel from his youth, she showed very little partiality for his society, and, indeed, treated him with marked reserve. She never joined in the choruses of praise which were chanted daily around her.

"I know the De Willoughbys very well," she said. "Oh, yes, very well indeed—in a way. We hear a good deal of them. De Courcy's wife was a friend of mine. This one is De Courcy, the other is Romaine, and there was one who was considered a sort of black sheep and broke with the family altogether. They don't know where he is and don't care to know, I suppose. They have their own views of the matter. Oh, yes; I know them very well, in a way."

When questioned by enthusiasts, she was obliged to confess that the hero of the hour was bountifully supplied with all outward gifts of nature, was to be envied his charm of manner and the air of romance surrounding him, though, in admitting this, she added a little comment not generally approved of.

"It's a little of the Troubadour order," she said; "but I dare say no woman would deny that it is rather taking. I don't deny it, it is taking—if you don't go below the surface."

Never was a man so popular as the Colonel, and never a man so missed as he on the days of his indisposition. He had such days when he did not leave his room and his negro was kept busy attending to his wants. The nature of his attacks was not definitely understood, but after them he always appeared wearing an interesting air of languor and melancholy, and was more admired than ever.

"The boy seems to feel it very much," the lady remarked. "He always looks so uneasy and anxious, and never goes away from the house at all. I suppose they are very fond of each other."

"I dare say he does feel it very much," said Mrs. Marvin with her reserved little smile. "He is De Willoughby enough for that."

It was not agreed to that he inherited his father's grace of manner however. He was a definitely unamiable boy, if one might judge from appearances. He always wore a dark little scowl, as if he were either on the point of falling into a secret rage or making his way out of one; instead of allowing himself to be admired and made a pet of, he showed an unnatural preference for prowling around the grounds and galleries alone, sometimes sitting in corners and professing to read, but generally appearing to be meditating resentfully upon his wrongs in a manner which in a less handsome boy would have been decidedly unpleasant. Even Mrs. Marvin's advances did not meet with any show of cordiality, though it was allowed that he appeared less averse to her society than to that of any other woman, including the half dozen belles and beauties who would have enjoyed his boyish admiration greatly.

"I knew your mother," said Mrs. Marvin to him one day as he sat near her upon the gallery.

"Did you?" he answered, in a rather encouraging way. "When did you know her?"

"When she was young. We were girls together. She was a beauty and I wasn't, but we were very fond of each other."

He gave his closed book a sullen look.

"What makes women break so?" he asked. "I don't see why they break so. She had pretty eyes when she died, but,——"

He drew his handsome black brows down and scowled; and, seeing that he was angry at himself for having spoken, Mrs. Marvin made another remark.

"You miss her very much?" she said, gravely.

He turned his face away.

"She's better off where she is, I suppose," he said. "That's what they always say of dead people."

And then still frowning he got up and walked away.

The negro servants about the hotel were all fond of him, though his manner towards them was that of a fiery and enthusiastic young potentate, brooking no delay or interference. His beauty and his high-handed way impressed them as being the belongings of one favoured by fortune and worthy of admiration and respect.

"He's a D'Willoughby out and out," said his father's negro, Tip. "Ain't no mistake 'bout dat. He's a young devil when his spirit's up, 'n it's easy raised. But he's a powerful gen'lman sort o' boy—powerful. Throw's you a quarter soon's look at ye, 'n he's got the right kind o' high ways—dough der ain't no sayin' he ain't a young devil; de Kurnel hisself cayn't outcuss him when his spirit's up."

The Colonel and his son had been at the springs a month, when the fancy-dress ball took place which was the occasion of a very unpleasant episode in the annals of this summer.

For several days before the greatest excitement had prevailed at the hotel. A pleasant air of mystery had prevailed over the preparations that were being made. The rural proprietors of the two stores in which the neighbourhood rejoiced were driven to distraction by constant demands made upon them for articles and materials of which they had never before heard, and which were not procurable within a hundred miles of the place. Bedrooms were overflowing with dresses in process of alteration from ordinary social aspects to marvellous combinations of imagination and ingenuity, while an amiable borrowing and exchanging went on through all the corridors.

On the day before the ball the Colonel's popularity reached its height. As it was the time of a certain local election, there was held upon the grounds a political meeting, giving such individuals as chose to avail themselves of it the opportunity of expressing their opinions to the assembled guests and the thirty or forty mountaineers who had suddenly and without any warning of previous existence appeared upon the scene.

The Colonel had been one of the first called upon, and, to the delight of his admirers, he responded at once with the utmost grace to the call.

When he ascended the little platform with the slow, light step which was numbered among his chief attractions and stood before his audience for a moment looking down at them gently and reflectively from under his beautiful lashes, a throb of expectation was felt in every tender bosom.

His speech fell short of no desire, being decided to be simple perfection. His soft voice, his quiet ease of movement, his eloquence, were all that could be hoped for from mortal man. He mentioned with high-bred depreciation the fact that he could not fairly call himself a politician unless as any son of the fair South must be one at least at heart, however devoid of the gifts which have made her greatest heard from continent to continent. He was only one of the many who had at stake their cherished institutions, the homes they loved, the beloved who brightened those homes, and their own happiness as it was centred in those homes, and irrevocably bound in that of the fairest land upon which the fair sun shone.

The applause at this juncture was so great as to oblige him to pause for a few moments; but it was to be regretted that nine out of ten of the mountaineers remained entirely unresponsive, crossing their jean-covered legs and rubbing their lean and grizzled jaws in a soulless manner. They displayed this apathetic indifference to the most graceful flight of rhetoric, to the most musical appeals to the hearts of all men loving freedom, to the announcement that matters had reached a sad and significant crisis, that the peculiar institutions left as a legacy by their forefathers were threatened by the Northern fanatics, and that in the near future the blood of patriots might be poured forth as a libation upon the soil they loved; to eloquent denunciations of the hirelings and would-be violators of our rights under the constitution. To all these they listened, evidently devoting all their slow energies to the comprehension of it, but they were less moved than might have been expected of men little used to oratory.

But it was the termination of the speech that stirred all hearts. With a dexterity only to be compared to its easy grace, the orator left the sterner side of the question for a tenderer one to which he had already referred in passing, and which was the side of all political questions which presented themselves to such men as he. Every man, it was to be hoped, knew the meaning of home and love and tenderness in some form, however poor and humble and unpatriotic; to every man was given a man's privilege of defending the rights and sacredness of this home, this love, with his strength, with his might, with the blood of his beating heart if need be. To a Southern man, as to all men, his right to be first in his own land in ruling, in choosing rulers, in carrying out the laws, meant his right to defend this home and that which was precious to him within it. There were a few before him upon this summer's day, alas, alas! that Fate should will it so, who had not somewhere a grave whose grass moved in the softness of the wind over dead loves and hopes cherished even in this hour as naught else was cherished. "And these graves——"

He faltered and paused, glancing towards the doorway with a singular expression. For a few seconds he could not go on. He was obliged to raise to his lips the glass of water which had been provided for him.

"Oh!" was sighed softly through the room, "his emotion has overpowered him. Poor fellow! how sad he looks."

Mrs. Marvin simply followed the direction his eyes had taken. She was a practical person. The object her eye met was the figure of the boy who had come in a few minutes before. He was leaning against the doorpost, attired in a cool suit of white linen, his hands in his pockets, the expression of his handsome darkling young face a most curious one. He was staring at his father steadily, his fine eyes wide open holding a spark of inward rage, his nostrils dilated and quivering. He seemed bent upon making the orator meet his glance, but the orator showed no desire to do so. He gave his sole attention to his glass of water. To this clever, elderly Southern matron it was an interesting scene.

"If he sprang up in two minutes and threw something deadly and murderous at him," she said to herself, "I should not be in the least surprised; and I should not be the first to blame him."

But the rest of the audience was intent upon the Colonel, who, recovering himself, finished his harangue with an appeal that the land made sacred by those loves, those homes, those graves, might be left solely in the hands of the men who loved it best, who knew its needs, who yearned for its highest development, and who, when the needful hour arrived, would lay down their lives to save its honour.

When he concluded, and was on the point of seating himself very quietly, without any appearance of being conscious of the great sensation he had created, and still wearing an admirable touch of melancholy upon his fine countenance, Major Beaufort rushed towards him, almost upsetting a chair in his eagerness, and grasped his hand and shook it with a congratulatory ardour so impressive and enthusiastic as to be a sensation in itself.

There were other speeches afterwards. Fired by the example of his friend, Major Beaufort distinguished himself by an harangue overflowing with gallantry and adorned throughout with amiable allusions to the greatest power of all, the power of Youth, Beauty, and Womanhood. The political perspicuity of the address was perhaps somewhat obscured by its being chivalrously pointed towards those fair beings who brighten our existence and lengthen our griefs. Without the Ladies, the speaker found, we may be politicians, but we cannot be gentlemen. He discovered (upon the spot, and with a delicate suggestion of pathos) that by a curious coincidence, the Ladies were the men's mothers, their wives, their sisters, their daughters. This being greatly applauded, he added that over these husbands, these fathers, these brothers—and might be added "these lovers"—the Ladies wielded a mighty influence. The position of Woman, even in the darkest ages, had been the position of one whose delicate hand worked the lever of the world; but to-day, in these more enlightened times, in the age of advancement and discovery, before what great and sublime power did the nobleman, the inventor, the literary man, the warrior, bow, as he bowed before the shrine of the Ladies?

But it was the Colonel who bore away the palm and was the hero of the hour. When the audience rose he was surrounded at once by groups of enthusiasts, who shook hands with him, who poured forth libations of praise, who hung upon his every word with rapture.

"How proud of you he must be," said one of the fairest in the group of worshippers; "boys of his age feel things so strongly. I wonder why he doesn't come forward and say something to you? He is too shy, I suppose."

"I dare say," said the Colonel with his most fascinating gentle smile. "One must not expect enthusiasm of boys. I have no doubt he thought it a great bore and wondered what I was aiming at."

"Impossible," exclaimed the fair enslaver. "Don't do him an injustice, Colonel de Willoughby."

But as she glanced towards the doorway her voice died down and the expression of her face changed somewhat. The boy—still with his hands in his pockets—was looking on with an air which was as insolent as it was remarkable, an air of youthful scorn and malignant derision which staggered even the enthusiast.

She turned uneasily to the Colonel, who faintly smiled.

"He is a handsome fellow," he said, "and I must own to being a vain parent, but he has a demon of a temper and he has been spoiled. He'll get over it when he is older."

It was a great blow to his admirers when it became known the next morning that the Colonel was suffering from one of his attacks, and even a worse one than usual. Neb was shut up in his room with him all day, and it was rumoured that the boy would not come down, but wandered up and down the corridors restlessly, looking miserable enough to have touched the stoniest heart.

During the morning quite a gloom pervaded the atmosphere; only the excitement of preparations for the evening could have proved an antidote to the general depression.

It was to be a brilliant occasion. The county had been scoured for guests, some of whom were to travel in their carriages from other watering-places for twenty or thirty miles. The ballroom had been decorated by a committee of ladies; the costumes, it was anticipated, would be dazzling beyond measure. No disappointment was felt when the festal hour arrived, but the very keen emotion attendant upon the absence of the interesting invalid.

"If he had only been well enough to be here," it was said, "how he would have enjoyed it."

Major Beaufort, attired as a Sultan and appropriately surrounded by his harem in sarsenet trousers and spangled veils, gave universal satisfaction. Minnehaha in feathers and moccasins, and Hiawatha in moccasins and feathers, gave a touch of mild poetry to the evening. Sisters of Charity in white cambric caps told their beads through the mazes of the lancers. Night and Morning, attired respectively in black and white tarletan, and both profusely adorned with silver paper stars, combined their forces to add romance and vividness to the festive scene.

There had been dancing and flirtation, upon which those of the guests who did not join gazed for an hour or so as they sat in the chairs arranged around the walls, doubtless enjoying themselves intensely, and the gaiety was at its height, when some commotion became manifest at one of the doors. Those grouped about it appeared to be startled at finding something or somebody behind them, and almost immediately it was seen that this something or somebody was bent upon crowding past them. A loud, insane-sounding laugh was heard. The dancers stopped and turned towards it with one accord, their alarm and astonishment depicted on their faces. The spectators bent forward in their seats.

"What is it?" was the general exclamation. "Oh! Oh!"

This last interjection took the form of a chorus as two of the group at the doorway were pushed headlong into the room, and a tall, unsteady, half-dressed figure made its violent entrance.

At the first glance it was not easy to recognize it; it was simply the figure of a very tall man in an ungirt costume, composed of shirt and pantaloons. He was crushed and dishevelled. His hair hung over his forehead. He strode into the middle of the quadrille, and stood with his hands in his pockets, swaying to and fro, with a stare at once malicious and vacant.

"Oh," he remarked, sardonically, as he took in his surroundings, and then everyone recognized at once that it was Colonel De Willoughby, and that Colonel De Willoughby was mad drunk.

He caught sight of Major Beaufort, and staggered towards him with another frantic laugh.

"Good God, Major," he cried; "how becomin' 'tis, how damned becomin'. Harem an' all. Only trouble is you're too fat—too fat; if you weren't so fat wouldn't look such a damned fool."

It was to be regretted there was no longer an air of refinement about his intoxication, no suggestion of melancholy grace, no ghost of his usual high-bred suavity; with his laugh and stare and unsteady legs he was simply a more drunken lunatic than one generally sees.

There was a rush at him from all sides—Major Beaufort, in his Turkish trousers, being the first to fall upon him and have his turban stamped upon in the encounter. He was borne across the room, shouting and struggling and indulging in profanity of the most frightful kind. Just as they got him to the door his black boy Neb appeared, looking ashen with fright.

"De Lord o' massey," he cried. "I ain't lef' him more'n a minit. He sent me down hisself. One o' his cunnin' ways to get rid o' me when he's at de wust. Opium 'n whiskey, dats what gets him dis way. Bof togedder a-gwine ter kill him some dese days, 'n de opium am de wustest. For de Lord's sake some o' you gen'men cum 'n hep me till I git him quieted down."

It was all over in a few moments, but the effort made to return to hilariousness was a failure; the shock to the majority of the gay throng had been great. Mrs. Marvin, sitting in her special corner, was besieged with questions, and at length was prevailed upon through the force of circumstances to speak the truth as she knew it.

"Has he ever done it before?" she said. "Yes, he has done it before—he has done it a dozen times since he has been here, only to-night he was madder than usual and got away from his servant. What is it? It is opium when it isn't whiskey, and whiskey when it isn't opium, and oftenest it is both together. He is the worst of a bad lot, and if you haven't understood that miserable angry boy before you may understand him now. His mother died of a broken heart when he was twelve years old, and he watched her die of it and knew what killed her, and is proud enough to feel the shame that rests upon him. That's as much as I care to say, and yet it isn't the half."

When those bearing the Colonel to his room turned into the corridor leading to it they encountered his son, who met them with a white-lipped rage, startling to every man of them in its incongruous contrast to the boyish face and figure.

"What?" he said, panting. "You've got him, have you?"

"Yes," responded the Colonel hilariously; "'ve got me safe 'nuff; pick me up ad' car' me. If man won't go out, tote 'm out."

They carried him into his rooms and laid him down, and more than one among them turned curiously to the boy as he stood near the bed looking down at the dishevelled, incoherent, gibbering object upon it.

"Damn him," he said in a sudden outburst; "damn him."

"Hello, youngster," said one of the party, "that's not the thing exactly."

"Go to the devil," roared the lad, livid with wrath and shame. "Do you think I'll not say what I please? A nice one he is for a fellow to have for a father—to be tied to and dragged about by—drinking himself mad and disgracing himself after his palaver and sentiment and playing the gentleman. He ought to be a gentleman—he's got a gentleman's name, and"—choking a little—"all the rest of it. I hate him! He makes me sick. I wish he was dead. He's a liar and a bully and a fool. I'd kill him if he wasn't my father. I should like to kill him for being my father!"

Suddenly his voice faltered and his face turned white. He walked to the other side of the room, turning his back to them all, and, flinging himself into a chair, dropped his curly head on his arm on the window-sill and sobbed aloud with a weakness and broken-down fury pitiful to see.

The Colonel burst into a frantic shriek of laughter.

"Queer little devil," he said. "Prou' lit'l devil! Like's moth'—don' like it. Moth' used er cry. She didn't like it."



CHAPTER X

As the Cross-roads had regarded Tom as a piece of personal property to be proud of, so it fell into the habit of regarding his protegee. The romance of her history was considered to confer distinction upon the vicinity, and Tom's affection for her was approved of as a sentiment worthy of the largeness of the Cross-roads nature.

"They kinder set one anuther off," it was frequently remarked, "her a-bein' so little and him so big, an' both of 'em stickin' to each other so clost. Lordy! 'tain't no use a-tryin' to part 'em. Sheby, she ain't a-goin' nowhar 'thout Tom, an' Tom, he h'aint a-goin' nowhars 'thout Sheby!"

When the child was five years old the changes which had taken place in the store were followed by still greater changes in the house. Up to her fifth birthday the experiences had balanced themselves between the store and the three back rooms with their bare floors and rough walls. She had had her corner, her small chair behind the counter or near the stove, and there she had amused herself with her playthings through long or short days, and in the evening Tom had taken her upon his shoulder and carried her back to the house, as it was called, leaving his careless, roystering gaiety behind him locked up in the store, ready to be resumed for the edification of his customers the next morning.

"He don't hev no pore folkses ways wid dat chile," said Mornin once to Mrs. Doty; "he don't never speak to her no other then gen'leman way. He's a-raisin' her to be fitten fur de highes'. He's mighty keerful ob her way ob speakin' an' settin' to de table. Mornin's got to stand 'hind her cheer an' wait on her hersel'; an' sence she was big 'nuff to set dar, she's had a silver fork an' spoon an' napkin-ring same's de President himself. Ah; he's a-raisin' her keerful, is Mars D'Willerby."

"Waal," said Mrs. Doty, "ef 'twarn't Tom D'Willerby, I shed say it was a puttin' on airs; but thar ain't no airs 'bout Tom D'Willerby."

From the first Mr. Stamps's interest in Tom's protegee had been unfailing though quiet. When he came into the store, which he did some three times a week, it was his habit to fix his small, pale eyes upon her and follow her movements stealthily but with unflagging watchfulness. Occasionally this occupation so absorbed him that when she moved to her small corner behind the counter, vaguely oppressed by his surveillance, he sauntered across the room and took his seat upon the counter itself, persisting in his mild, furtive gaze, until it became too much for her and she sought refuge at Tom's knee.

"He looks at me," she burst out distressedly on one such day. "Don't let him look at me."

Tom gave a start and turned round, and Mr. Stamps gave a start also, at once mildly recovering himself.

"Leave her alone," said Tom, "what are you lookin' at her for?"

Mr. Stamps smiled.

"Thar's no law agin it, Tom," he replied. "An' she's wuth a lookin' at. She's that kind, an' it'll grow on her. Ten year from now thar ain't no law es 'ed keep 'em from lookin' at her, 'thout it was made an' passed in Congrist. She'll hev to git reckonciled to a-bein' looked at."

"Leave her alone," repeated Tom, quite fiercely. "I'll not have her troubled."

"I didn't go to trouble her, Tom," said Mr. Stamps, softly; and he slipped down from the counter and sidled out of the store and went home.

With Mr. Stamps Sheba always connected her first knowledge of the fact that her protector's temper could be disturbed. She had never seen him angry until she saw Mr. Stamps rouse him to wrath on the eventful fifth birthday, from which the first exciting events of her life dated themselves. Up to that time she had seen only in his great strength and broad build a power to protect and shield her own fragility and smallness from harm or fear. When he took her in his huge arms and held her at what seemed to be an incredible height from the ordinary platform of existence, she had only felt the cautious tenderness of his touch and recognised her own safety, and it had never occurred to her that his tremendous voice, which was so strong and deep by nature, that it might have been a terrible one if he had chosen to make it so, could express any other feeling than kindliness in its cheery roar.

But on this fifth birthday Tom presented himself to her childish mind in a new light.

She had awakened early to find him standing at her small bedside and a new doll lying in her arms. It was a bigger doll than she had ever owned before, and so gaily dressed, that in her first rapture her breath quite forsook her. When she recovered it, she scrambled up, holding her new possession in one arm and clung with the other around Tom's neck.

"Oh, the lovely, lovely doll!" she cried, and then hid her face on his shoulder.

"Hallo," said Tom, hugging her, "what is she hiding her eyes for?"

She nestled closer to him with a little sob of loving delight.

"Because—because of the doll," she answered, bewildered by her own little demonstration and yet perfect in her confidence that he would understand her.

"Well," said Tom, cheerfully, "that's a queer thing, ain't it? Look here, did you know it was your birthday? Five years old to-day—think of that."

He sat down and settled her in her usual place on his knee, her doll in her arms.

"To think," he said, "of her setting up a birthday on purpose to be five years old and have a doll given her. That's a nice business, ain't it?"

After they had breakfasted together in state, the doll was carried into the store to be played with there. It was a wet day, and, the air being chilled by a heavy mountain rain, a small fire was burning in the stove, and by this fire the two settled themselves to enjoy the morning together, the weather precluding the possibility of their being disturbed by many customers. But in the height of their quiet enjoyment they were broken in upon by the sound of horse's hoofs splashing in the mud outside and Mr. Stamps's hat appeared above the window-sill.

It was Sheba who saw it first, and in the strength of her desire to avoid the wearer, she formed a desperate plan. She rose so quietly that Tom, who was reading a paper, did not hear her, and, having risen, drew her small chair behind the counter in the hope that, finding her place vacant, the visitor would not suspect her presence.

In this she was not disappointed. Having brushed the mud from his feet on the porch, Mr. Stamps appeared at the doorway, and, after his usual precautionary glance about him, made his way to the stove. His manner was at once propitiatory and friendly. He drew up a chair and put his wet feet on the stove, where they kept up a comfortable hissing sound as they dried.

"Howdy, Tom," he said, "howdy?" And from her hiding-place Sheba saw him rubbing his legs from the knee downwards as he said it, with an air of solid enjoyment which suggested that he was congratulating himself upon something he had in his mind.

"Morning," responded Tom.

Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs again quite luxuriously.

"You're a lookin' well, Tom," he remarked. "Lord, yes, ye're a lookin' powerful well."

Tom laid his paper down and folded it on his knee.

"Lookin' well, am I?" he answered. "Well, I'm a delicate weakly sort of fellow in general, I am, and it's encouraging to hear that I'm looking well."

Mr. Stamps laughed rather spasmodically.

"I wouldn't be agin bein' the same kind o' weakly myself," he said, "nor the same kind o' delycate. You're a powerfle hansum man, Tom."

"Yes," replied Tom, drily, "I'm a handsome man. That's what carried me along this far. It's what I've always had to rely on—that and a knock-down intellect."

Mr. Stamps rubbed his legs with his air of luxury again.

"Folks is fond o' sayin' beauty ain't but skin deep," he said; "but I wouldn't hev it no deeper myself—bein' so that it kivers. An', talkin' o' beauty, she's one—Lord, yes. She's one."

"Look here," said Tom, "leave her alone."

"'Tain't a gwine to harm her, Tom," replied Mr. Stamps, "'tain't a gwine to harm her none. What made me think of it was it a bein' jest five years since she was born—a makin' it her birthday an' her jest five years old."

"What," cried Tom, "you've been counting it up, have you?"

"No," replied Mr. Stamps, with true modesty of demeanour, "I ain't ben a countin' of it up, Tom." And he drew a dirty memorandum book softly from his pocket. "I set it down at the time es it happened."

He laid the dirty book on his knee and turned over its pages carefully as if looking for some note.

"I ain't much on readin' an' writin'," he said, "an' 'rithmetick it goes kinder hard with me now an' agin, but a man's got to know suthin' on 'em if he 'lows to keep anyways even. I 'low to keep even, sorter, an' I've give a good deal o' time to steddyin' of 'em. I never went to no school, but I've sot things down es I want to remember, an' I kin count out money. I never was imposed on none I rekin, an' I never lost nothin'. Yere's whar I sot it down about her a-bein' born an' the woman a-dyin' an' him a-gwine away. Ye cayn't read it, mebbe." He bent forward, pointing to the open page and looking up at Tom as if he expected him to be interested. "Thar it is," he added in his thin, piping, little voice, "even to the time o' day. Mornin, she told me that. 'Bout three o'clock in the mornin' in thet thar little front room. Ef anyone shed ever want to know particular, thar it is."