"Yes—no—well, sometimes." David's eyes were still on the harp. "Lady of the Roses, won't you please play again—on that?"

"David, you are incorrigible! Why did you come into my house like this?"

"The music said 'come'; and the towers, too. You see, I KNOW the towers."

"You KNOW them!"

"Yes. I can see them from so many places, and I always watch for them. They show best of anywhere, though, from Jack and Jill's. And now won't you play?"

Miss Holbrook had almost risen to her feet when she turned abruptly.

"From—where?" she asked.

"From Jack and Jill's—the House that Jack Built, you know."

"You mean—Mr. John Gurnsey's house?" A deeper color had come into Miss Holbrook's cheeks.

"Yes. Over there at the top of the little hill across the brook, you know. You can't see THEIR house from here, but from over there we can see the towers finely, and the little window—Oh, Lady of the Roses," he broke off excitedly, at the new thought that had come to him, "if we, now, were in that little window, we COULD see their house. Let's go up. Can't we?"

Explicit as this was, Miss Holbrook evidently did not hear, or at least did not understand, this request. She settled back on the divan, indeed, almost determinedly. Her cheeks were very red now.

"And do you know—this Mr. Jack?" she asked lightly.

"Yes, and Jill, too. Don't you? I like them, too. DO you know them?"

Again Miss Holbrook ignored the question put to her. "And did you walk into their house, unannounced and uninvited, like this?" she queried.

"No. He asked me. You see he wanted to get off some of the dirt and blood before other folks saw me."

"The dirt and—and—why, David, what do you mean? What was it—an accident?"

David frowned and reflected a moment.

"No. I did it on purpose. I HAD to, you see," he finally elucidated. "But there were six of them, and I got the worst of it."

"David!" Miss Holbrook's voice was horrified. "You don't mean—a fight!"

"Yes'm. I wanted the cat—and I got it, but I wouldn't have if Mr. Jack hadn't come to help me."

"Oh! So Mr. Jack—fought, too?"

"Well, he pulled the others off, and of course that helped me," explained David truthfully. "And then he took me home—he and Jill."

"Jill! Was she in it?"

"No, only her cat. They had tied a bag over its head and a tin can to its tail, and of course I couldn't let them do that. They were hurting her. And now, Lady of the Roses, won't you please play?"

For a moment Miss Holbrook did not speak. She was gazing at David with an odd look in her eyes. At last she drew a long sigh.

"David, you are the—the LIMIT!" she breathed, as she rose and seated herself at the harp.

David was manifestly delighted with her playing, and begged for more when she had finished; but Miss Holbrook shook her head. She seemed to have grown suddenly restless, and she moved about the room calling David's attention to something new each moment. Then, very abruptly, she suggested that they go upstairs. From room to room she hurried the boy, scarcely listening to his ardent comments, or answering his still more ardent questions. Not until they reached the highest tower room, indeed, did she sink wearily into a chair, and seem for a moment at rest.

David looked about him in surprise. Even his untrained eye could see that he had entered a different world. There were no sumptuous rugs, no silken hangings; no mirrors, no snowflake curtains. There were books, to be sure, but besides those there were only a plain low table, a work-basket, and three or four wooden-seated though comfortable chairs. With increasing wonder he looked into Miss Holbrook's eyes.

"Is it here that you stay—all day?" he asked diffidently.

Miss Holbrook's face turned a vivid scarlet.

"Why, David, what a question! Of course not! Why should you think I did?"

"Nothing; only I've been wondering all the time I've been here how you could—with all those beautiful things around you downstairs—say what you did."

"Say what?—when?"

"That other day in the garden—about ALL your hours being cloudy ones. So I didn't know to-day but what you LIVED up here, same as Mrs. Holly doesn't use her best rooms; and that was why your hours were all cloudy ones."

With a sudden movement Miss Holbrook rose to her feet.

"Nonsense, David! You shouldn't always remember everything that people say to you. Come, you haven't seen one of the views from the windows yet. We are in the larger tower, you know. You can see Hinsdale village on this side, and there's a fine view of the mountains over there. Oh yes, and from the other side there's your friend's house—Mr. Jack's. By the way, how is Mr. Jack these days?" Miss Holbrook stooped as she asked the question and picked up a bit of thread from the rug.

David ran at once to the window that looked toward the House that Jack Built. From the tower the little house appeared to be smaller than ever. It was in the shadow, too, and looked strangely alone and forlorn. Unconsciously, as he gazed at it, David compared it with the magnificence he had just seen. His voice choked as he answered.

"He isn't well, Lady of the Roses, and he's unhappy. He's awfully unhappy."

Miss Holbrook's slender figure came up with a jerk.

"What do you mean, boy? How do you know he's unhappy? Has he said so?"

"No; but Mrs. Holly told me about him. He's sick; and he'd just found his work to do out in the world when he had to stop and come home. But—oh, quick, there he is! See?"

Instead of coming nearer Miss Holbrook fell back to the center of the room; but her eyes were still turned toward the little house.

"Yes, I see," she murmured. The next instant she had snatched a handkerchief from David's outstretched hand. "No—no—I wouldn't wave," she remonstrated hurriedly. "Come—come downstairs with me."

"But I thought—I was sure he was looking this way," asserted David, turning reluctantly from the window. "And if he HAD seen me wave to him, he'd have been so glad; now, wouldn't he?"

There was no answer. The Lady of the Roses did not apparently hear. She had gone on down the stairway.



CHAPTER XV

SECRETS

David had so much to tell Jack and Jill that he went to see them the very next day after his second visit to Sunnycrest. He carried his violin with him. He found, however, only Jill at home. She was sitting on the veranda steps.

There was not so much embarrassment between them this time, perhaps because they were in the freedom of the wide out-of-doors, and David felt more at ease. He was plainly disappointed, however, that Mr. Jack was not there.

"But I wanted to see him! I wanted to see him 'specially," he lamented.

"You'd better stay, then. He'll be home by and by," comforted Jill. "He's gone pot-boiling."

"Pot-boiling! What's that?"

Jill chuckled.

"Well, you see, really it's this way: he sells something to boil in other people's pots so he can have something to boil in ours, he says. It's stuff from the garden, you know. We raise it to sell. Poor Jack—and he does hate it so!"

David nodded sympathetically.

"I know—and it must be awful, just hoeing and weeding all the time."

"Still, of course he knows he's got to do it, because it's out of doors, and he just has to be out of doors all he can," rejoined the girl. "He's sick, you know, and sometimes he's so unhappy! He doesn't say much. Jack never says much—only with his face. But I know, and it—it just makes me want to cry."

At David's dismayed exclamation Jill jumped to her feet. It owned to her suddenly that she was telling this unknown boy altogether too many of the family secrets. She proposed at once a race to the foot of the hill; and then, to drive David's mind still farther away from the subject under recent consideration, she deliberately lost, and proclaimed him the victor.

Very soon, however, there arose new complications in the shape of a little gate that led to a path which, in its turn, led to a footbridge across the narrow span of the little stream.

Above the trees on the other side peeped the top of Sunnycrest's highest tower.

"To the Lady of the Roses!" cried David eagerly. "I know it goes there. Come, let's see!"

The little girl shook her head.

"I can't."

"Why not?"

"Jack won't let me."

"But it goes to a beautiful place; I was there yesterday," argued David. "And I was up in the tower and almost waved to Mr. Jack on the piazza back there. I saw him. And maybe she'd let you and me go up there again to-day."

"But I can't, I say," repeated Jill, a little impatiently. "Jack won't let me even start."

"Why not? Maybe he doesn't know where it goes to."

Jill hung her head. Then she raised it defiantly.

"Oh, yes, he does, 'cause I told him. I used to go when I was littler and he wasn't here. I went once, after he came,—halfway,—and he saw me and called to me. I had got halfway across the bridge, but I had to come back. He was very angry, yet sort of—queer, too. His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shut after every word. He said never, never, never to let him find me the other side of that gate."

David frowned as they turned to go up the hill. Unhesitatingly he determined to instruct Mr. Jack in this little matter. He would tell him what a beautiful place Sunnycrest was, and he would try to convince him how very desirable it was that he and Jill, and even Mr. Jack himself, should go across the bridge at the very first opportunity that offered.

Mr. Jack came home before long, but David quite forgot to speak of the footbridge just then, chiefly because Mr. Jack got out his violin and asked David to come in and play a duet with him. The duet, however, soon became a solo, for so great was Mr. Jack's delight in David's playing that he placed before the boy one sheet of music after another, begging and still begging for more.

David, nothing loath, played on and on. Most of the music he knew, having already learned it in his mountain home. Like old friends the melodies seemed, and so glad was David to see their notes again that he finished each production with a little improvised cadenza of ecstatic welcome—to Mr. Jack's increasing surprise and delight.

"Great Scott! you're a wonder, David," he exclaimed, at last.

"Pooh! as if that was anything wonderful," laughed the boy. "Why, I knew those ages ago, Mr. Jack. It's only that I'm so glad to see them again—the notes, you know. You see, I haven't any music now. It was all in the bag (what we brought), and we left that on the way."

"You left it!"

"Yes, 't was so, heavy" murmured David abstractedly, his fingers busy with the pile of music before him. "Oh, and here's another one," he cried exultingly. "This is where the wind sighs, 'oou—OOU—OOU' through the pines. Listen!" And he was away again on the wings of his violin. When he had returned Mr. Jack drew a long breath.

"David, you are a wonder," he declared again. "And that violin of yours is a wonder, too, if I'm not mistaken,—though I don't know enough to tell whether it's really a rare one or not. Was it your father's?"

"Oh, no. He had one, too, and they both are good ones. Father said so. Joe's got father's now."

"Joe?"

"Joe Glaspell."

"You don't mean Widow Glaspell's Joe, the blind boy? I didn't know he could play."

"He couldn't till I showed him. But he likes to hear me play. And he understood—right away, I mean."

"UNDERSTOOD!"

"What I was playing, you know. And he was almost the first one that did—since father went away. And now I play every time I go there. Joe says he never knew before how trees and grass and sunsets and sunrises and birds and little brooks did look, till I told him with my violin. Now he says he thinks he can see them better than I can, because as long as his OUTSIDE eyes can't see anything, they can't see those ugly things all around him, and so he can just make his INSIDE eyes see only the beautiful things that he'd LIKE to see. And that's the kind he does see when I play. That's why I said he understood."

For a moment there was silence. In Mr. Jack's eyes there was an odd look as they rested on David's face. Then, abruptly, he spoke.

"David, I wish I had money. I'd put you then where you belonged," he sighed.

"Do you mean—where I'd find my work to do?" asked the boy softly.

"Well—yes; you might say it that way," smiled the man, after a moment's hesitation—not yet was Mr. Jack quite used to this boy who was at times so very un-boylike.

"Father told me 't was waiting for me—somewhere."

Mr. Jack frowned thoughtfully.

"And he was right, David. The only trouble is, we like to pick it out for ourselves, pretty well,—too well, as we find out sometimes, when we're called off—for another job."

"I know, Mr. Jack, I know," breathed David. And the man, looking into the glowing dark eyes, wondered at what he found there. It was almost as if the boy really understood about his own life's disappointment—and cared; though that, of course, could not be!

"And it's all the harder to keep ourselves in tune then, too, is n't it?" went on David, a little wistfully.

"In tune?"

"With the rest of the Orchestra."

"Oh!" And Mr. Jack, who had already heard about the "Orchestra of Life," smiled a bit sadly. "That's just it, my boy. And if we're handed another instrument to play on than the one we WANT to play on, we're apt to—to let fly a discord. Anyhow, I am. But"—he went on more lightly—"now, in your case, David, little as I know about the violin, I know enough to understand that you ought to be where you can take up your study of it again; where you can hear good music, and where you can be among those who know enough to appreciate what you do."

David's eyes sparkled.

"And where there wouldn't be any pulling weeds or hoeing dirt?"

"Well, I hadn't thought of including either of those pastimes."

"My, but I would like that, Mr. Jack!—but THAT wouldn't be WORK, so that couldn't be what father meant." David's face fell.

"Hm-m; well, I wouldn't worry about the 'work' part," laughed Mr. Jack, "particularly as you aren't going to do it just now. There's the money, you know,—and we haven't got that."

"And it takes money?"

"Well—yes. You can't get those things here in Hinsdale, you know; and it takes money, to get away, and to live away after you get there."

A sudden light transfigured David's face.

"Mr. Jack, would gold do it?—lots of little round gold-pieces?"

"I think it would, David, if there were enough of them."

"Many as a hundred?"

"Sure—if they were big enough. Anyway, David, they'd start you, and I'm thinking you wouldn't need but a start before you'd be coining gold-pieces of your own out of that violin of yours. But why? Anybody you know got as 'many as a hundred' gold-pieces he wants to get rid of?"

For a moment David, his delighted thoughts flying to the gold-pieces in the chimney cupboard of his room, was tempted to tell his secret. Then he remembered the woman with the bread and the pail of milk, and decided not to. He would wait. When he knew Mr. Jack better—perhaps then he would tell; but not now. NOW Mr. Jack might think he was a thief, and that he could not bear. So he took up his violin and began to play; and in the charm of the music Mr. Jack seemed to forget the gold-pieces—which was exactly what David had intended should happen.

Not until David had said good-bye some time later, did he remember the purpose—the special purpose—for which he had come. He turned back with a radiant face.

"Oh, and Mr. Jack, I 'most forgot," he cried. "I was going to tell you. I saw you yesterday—I did, and I almost waved to you."

"Did you? Where were you?"

"Over there in the window—the tower window" he crowed jubilantly.

"Oh, you went again, then, I suppose, to see Miss Holbrook."

The man's voice sounded so oddly cold and distant that David noticed it at once. He was reminded suddenly of the gate and the footbridge which Jill was forbidden to cross; but he dared not speak of it then—not when Mr. Jack looked like that. He did say, however:—

"Oh, but, Mr. Jack, it's such a beautiful place! You don't know what a beautiful place it is."

"Is it? Then, you like it so much?"

"Oh, so much! But—didn't you ever—see it?"

"Why, yes, I believe I did, David, long ago," murmured Mr. Jack with what seemed to David amazing indifference.

"And did you see HER—my Lady of the Roses?"

"Why, y—yes—I believe so."

"And is THAT all you remember about it?" resented David, highly offended.

The man gave a laugh—a little short, hard laugh that David did not like.

"But, let me see; you said you almost waved, didn't you? Why did n't you, quite?" asked the man.

David drew himself suddenly erect. Instinctively he felt that his Lady of the Roses needed defense.

"Because SHE didn't want me to; so I didn't, of course," he rejoined with dignity. "She took away my handkerchief."

"I'll warrant she did," muttered the man, behind his teeth. Aloud he only laughed again, as he turned away.

David went on down the steps, dissatisfied vaguely with himself, with Mr. Jack, and even with the Lady of the Roses.



CHAPTER XVI

DAVID'S CASTLE IN SPAIN

On his return from the House that Jack Built, David decided to count his gold-pieces. He got them out at once from behind the books, and stacked them up in little shining rows. As he had surmised, there were a hundred of them. There were, indeed, a hundred and six. He was pleased at that. One hundred and six were surely enough to give him a "start."

A start! David closed his eyes and pictured it. To go on with his violin, to hear good music, to be with people who understood what he said when he played! That was what Mr. Jack had said a "start" was. And this gold—these round shining bits of gold—could bring him this! David swept the little piles into a jingling heap, and sprang to his feet with both fists full of his suddenly beloved wealth. With boyish glee he capered about the room, jingling the coins in his hands. Then, very soberly, he sat down again, and began to gather the gold to put away.

He would be wise—he would be sensible. He would watch his chance, and when it came he would go away. First, however, he would tell Mr. Jack and Joe, and the Lady of the Roses; yes, and the Hollys, too. Just now there seemed to be work, real work that he could do to help Mr. Holly. But later, possibly when September came and school,—they had said he must go to school,—he would tell them then, and go away instead. He would see. By that time they would believe him, perhaps, when he showed the gold-pieces. They would not think he had—STOLEN them. It was August now; he would wait. But meanwhile he could think—he could always be thinking of the wonderful thing that this gold was one day to bring to him.

Even work, to David, did not seem work now. In the morning he was to rake hay behind the men with the cart. Yesterday he had not liked it very well; but now—nothing mattered now. And with a satisfied sigh David put his precious gold away again behind the books in the cupboard.

David found a new song in his violin the next morning. To be sure, he could not play it—much of it—until four o'clock in the afternoon came; for Mr. Holly did not like violins to be played in the morning, even on days that were not especially the Lord's. There was too much work to do. So David could only snatch a strain or two very, very softly, while he was dressing; but that was enough to show him what a beautiful song it was going to be. He knew what it was, at once, too. It was the gold-pieces, and what they would bring. All through the day it tripped through his consciousness, and danced tantalizingly just out of reach. Yet he was wonderfully happy, and the day seemed short in spite of the heat and the weariness.

At four o'clock he hurried home and put his violin quickly in tune. It came then—that dancing sprite of tantalization—and joyously abandoned itself to the strings of the violin, so that David knew, of a surety, what a beautiful song it was.

It was this song that sent him the next afternoon to see his Lady of the Roses. He found her this time out of doors in her garden. Unceremoniously, as usual, he rushed headlong into her presence.

"Oh, Lady—Lady of the Roses," he panted. "I've found out, and I came quickly to tell you."

"Why, David, what—what do you mean?" Miss Holbrook looked unmistakably startled.

"About the hours, you know,—the unclouded ones," explained David eagerly. "You know you said they were ALL cloudy to you."

Miss Holbrook's face grew very white.

"You mean—you've found out WHY my hours are—are all cloudy ones?" she stammered.

"No, oh, no. I can't imagine why they are," returned David, with an emphatic shake of his head. "It's just that I've found a way to make all my hours sunny ones, and you can do it, too. So I came to tell you. You know you said yours were all cloudy."

"Oh," ejaculated Miss Holbrook, falling back into her old listless attitude. Then, with some asperity: "Dear me, David! Did n't I tell you not to be remembering that all the time?"

"Yes, I know, but I've LEARNED something," urged the boy; "something that you ought to know. You see, I did think, once, that because you had all these beautiful things around you, the hours ought to be all sunny ones. But now I know it isn't what's around you; it's what is IN you!"

"Oh, David, David, you curious boy!"

"No, but really! Let me tell you," pleaded David. "You know I haven't liked them,—all those hours till four o'clock came,—and I was so glad, after I saw the sundial, to find out that they didn't count, anyhow. But to-day they HAVE counted—they've all counted, Lady of the Roses; and it's just because there was something inside of me that shone and shone, and made them all sunny—those hours."

"Dear me! And what was this wonderful thing?"

David smiled, but he shook his head.

"I can't tell you that yet—in words; but I'll play it. You see, I can't always play them twice alike,—those little songs that I find,—but this one I can. It sang so long in my head, before my violin had a chance to tell me what it really was, that I sort of learned it. Now, listen!" And he began to play.

It was, indeed, a beautiful song, and Miss Holbrook said so with promptness and enthusiasm; yet still David frowned.

"Yes, yes," he answered, "but don't you see? That was telling you about something inside of me that made all my hours sunshiny ones. Now, what you want is something inside of you to make yours sunshiny, too. Don't you see?"

An odd look came into Miss Holbrook's eyes.

"That's all very well for you to say, David, but you haven't told me yet, you know, just what it is that's made all this brightness for you."

The boy changed his position, and puckered his forehead into a deeper frown.

"I don't seem to explain so you can understand," he sighed. "It isn't the SPECIAL thing. It's only that it's SOMETHING. And it's thinking about it that does it. Now, mine wouldn't make yours shine, but—still,"—he broke off, a happy relief in his eyes,—"yours could be LIKE mine, in one way. Mine is something that is going to happen to me—something just beautiful; and you could have that, you know,—something that was going to happen to you, to think about."

Miss Holbrook smiled, but only with her lips, Her eyes had grown somber.

"But there isn't anything 'just beautiful' going to happen to me, David," she demurred.

"There could, couldn't there?"

Miss Holbrook bit, her lip; then she gave an odd little laugh that seemed, in some way, to go with the swift red that had come to her cheeks.

"I used to think there could—once," she admitted; "but I've given that up long ago. It—it didn't happen."

"But couldn't you just THINK it was going to?" persisted the boy. "You see I found out yesterday that it's the THINKING that does it. All day long I was thinking—only thinking. I wasn't DOING it, at all. I was really raking behind the cart; but the hours all were sunny."

Miss Holbrook laughed now outright.

"What a persistent little mental-science preacher you are!" she exclaimed. "And there's truth—more truth than you know—in it all, too. But I can't do it, David,—not that—not that. 'T would take more than THINKING—to bring that," she added, under her breath, as if to herself.

"But thinking does bring things," maintained David earnestly. "There's Joe—Joe Glaspell. His mother works out all day; and he's blind."

"Blind? Oh-h!" shuddered Miss Holbrook.

"Yes; and he has to stay all alone, except for Betty, and she is n't there much. He THINKS ALL his things. He has to. He can't SEE anything with his outside eyes. But he sees everything with his inside eyes—everything that I play. Why, Lady of the Roses, he's even seen this—all this here. I told him about it, you know, right away after I'd found you that first day: the big trees and the long shadows across the grass, and the roses, and the shining water, and the lovely marble people peeping through the green leaves; and the sundial, and you so beautiful sitting here in the middle of it all. Then I played it for him; and he said he could see it all just as plain! And THAT was with his inside eyes! And so, if Joe, shut up there in his dark little room, can make his THINK bring him all that, I should think that YOU, here in this beautiful, beautiful place, could make your think bring you anything you wanted it to."

But Miss Holbrook sighed again and shook her head.

"Not that, David, not that," she murmured. "It would take more than thinking to bring—that." Then, with a quick change of manner, she cried: "Come, come, suppose we don't worry any more about MY hours. Let's think of yours. Tell me, what have you been doing since I saw you last? Perhaps you have been again to—to see Mr. Jack, for instance."

"I have; but I saw Jill mostly, till the last." David hesitated, then he blurted it out: "Lady of the Roses, do you know about the gate and the footbridge?"

Miss Holbrook looked up quickly.

"Know—what, David?"

"Know about them—that they're there?"

"Why—yes, of course; at least, I suppose you mean the footbridge that crosses the little stream at the foot of the hill over there."

"That's the one." Again David hesitated, and again he blurted out the burden of his thoughts. "Lady of the Roses, did you ever—cross that bridge?"

Miss Holbrook stirred uneasily.

"Not—recently."

"But you don't MIND folks crossing it?"

"Certainly not—if they wish to."

"There! I knew 't wasn't your blame," triumphed David.

"MY blame!"

"Yes; that Mr. Jack wouldn't let Jill come across, you know. He called her back when she'd got halfway over once." Miss Holbrook's face changed color.

"But I do object," she cried sharply, "to their crossing it when they DON'T want to! Don't forget that, please."

"But Jill did want to."

"How about her brother—did he want her to?"

"N—no."

"Very well, then. I didn't, either."

David frowned. Never had he seen his beloved Lady of the Roses look like this before. He was reminded of what Jill had said about Jack: "His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shut after every word." So, too, looked Miss Holbrook's face; so, too, had her lips snapped tight shut after her last words. David could not understand it. He said nothing more, however; but, as was usually the case when he was perplexed, he picked up his violin and began to play. And as he played, there gradually came to Miss Holbrook's eyes a softer light, and to her lips lines less tightly drawn. Neither the footbridge nor Mr. Jack, however, was mentioned again that afternoon.



CHAPTER XVII

"THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER"

It was in the early twilight that Mr. Jack told the story. He, Jill, and David were on the veranda, as usual watching the towers of Sunnycrest turn from gold to silver as the sun dropped behind the hills. It was Jill who had asked for the story.

"About fairies and princesses, you know," she had ordered.

"But how will David like that?" Mr. Jack had demurred. "Maybe he doesn't care for fairies and princesses."

"I read one once about a prince—'t was 'The Prince and the Pauper,' and I liked that," averred David stoutly.

Mr. Jack smiled; then his brows drew together in a frown. His eyes were moodily fixed on the towers.

"Hm-m; well," he said, "I might, I suppose, tell you a story about a PRINCESS and—a Pauper. I—know one well enough."

"Good!—then tell it," cried both Jill and David. And Mr. Jack began his story.

"She was not always a Princess, and he was not always a Pauper,—and that's where the story came in, I suppose," sighed the man. "She was just a girl, once, and he was a boy; and they played together and—liked each other. He lived in a little house on a hill."

"Like this?" demanded Jill.

"Eh? Oh—er—yes, SOMETHING like this," returned Mr. Jack, with an odd half-smile. "And she lived in another bit of a house in a town far away from the boy."

"Then how could they play together?" questioned David.

"They couldn't, ALWAYS. It was only summers when she came to visit in the boy's town. She was very near him then, for the old aunt whom she visited lived in a big stone house with towers, on another hill, in plain sight from the boy's home."

"Towers like those—where the Lady of the Roses lives?" asked David.

"Eh? What? Oh—er—yes," murmured Mr. Jack. "We'll say the towers were something like those over there." He paused, then went on musingly: "The girl used to signal, sometimes, from one of the tower windows. One wave of the handkerchief meant, 'I'm coming, over'; two waves, with a little pause between, meant, 'You are to come over here.' So the boy used to wait always, after that first wave to see if another followed; so that he might know whether he were to be host or guest that day. The waves always came at eight o'clock in the morning, and very eagerly the boy used to watch for them all through the summer when the girl was there."

"Did they always come, every morning?" Asked Jill.

"No; sometimes the girl had other things to do. Her aunt would want her to go somewhere with her, or other cousins were expected whom the girl must entertain; and she knew the boy did not like other guests to be there when he was, so she never asked him to come over at such times. On such occasions she did sometimes run up to the tower at eight o'clock and wave three times, and that meant, 'Dead Day.' So the boy, after all, never drew a real breath of relief until he made sure that no dreaded third wave was to follow the one or the two."

"Seems to me," observed David, "that all this was sort of one-sided. Didn't the boy say anything?"

"Oh, yes," smiled Mr. Jack. "But the boy did not have any tower to wave from, you must remember. He had only the little piazza on his tiny bit of a house. But he rigged up a pole, and he asked his mother to make him two little flags, a red and a blue one. The red meant 'All right'; and the blue meant 'Got to work'; and these he used to run up on his pole in answer to her waving 'I'm coming over,' or 'You are to come over here.' So, you see, occasionally it was the boy who had to bring the 'Dead Day,' as there were times when he had to work. And, by the way, perhaps you would be interested to know that after a while he thought up a third flag to answer her three waves. He found an old black silk handkerchief of his father's, and he made that into a flag. He told the girl it meant 'I'm heartbroken,' and he said it was a sign of the deepest mourning. The girl laughed and tipped her head saucily to one side, and said, 'Pooh! as if you really cared!' But the boy stoutly maintained his position, and it was that, perhaps, which made her play the little joke one day.

"The boy was fourteen that summer, and the girl thirteen. They had begun their signals years before, but they had not had the black one so long. On this day that I tell you of, the girl waved three waves, which meant, 'Dead Day,' you remember, and watched until the boy had hoisted his black flag which said, 'I'm heart-broken,' in response. Then, as fast as her mischievous little feet could carry her, she raced down one hill and across to the other. Very stealthily she advanced till she found the boy bent over a puzzle on the back stoop, and—and he was whistling merrily.

"How she teased him then! How she taunted him with 'Heart-broken, indeed—and whistling like that!' In vain he blushed and stammered, and protested that his whistling was only to keep up his spirits. The girl only laughed and tossed her yellow curls; then she hunted till she found some little jingling bells, and these she tied to the black badge of mourning and pulled it high up on the flagpole. The next instant she was off with a run and a skip, and a saucy wave of her hand; and the boy was left all alone with an hour's work ahead of him to untie the knots from his desecrated badge of mourning.

"And yet they were wonderfully good friends—this boy and girl. From the very first, when they were seven and eight, they had said that they would marry each other when they grew up, and always they spoke of it as the expected thing, and laid many happy plans for the time when it should come. To be sure, as they grew older, it was not mentioned quite so often, perhaps; but the boy at least thought—if he thought of it all—that that was only because it was already so well understood."

"What did the girl think?" It was Jill who asked the question.

"Eh? The girl? Oh," answered Mr. Jack, a little bitterly, "I'm afraid I don't know exactly what the girl did think, but—it was n't that, anyhow—that is, judging from what followed."

"What did follow?"

"Well, to begin with, the old aunt died. The girl was sixteen then. It was in the winter that this happened, and the girl was far away at school. She came to the funeral, however, but the boy did not see her, save in the distance; and then he hardly knew her, so strange did she look in her black dress and hat. She was there only two days, and though he gazed wistfully up at the gray tower, he knew well enough that of course she could not wave to him at such a time as that. Yet he had hoped—almost believed that she would wave two waves that last day, and let him go over to see her.

"But she didn't wave, and he didn't go over. She went away. And then the town learned a wonderful thing. The old lady, her aunt, who had been considered just fairly rich, turned out to be the possessor of almost fabulous wealth, owing to her great holdings of stock in a Western gold mine which had suddenly struck it rich. And to the girl she willed it all. It was then, of course, that the girl became the Princess, but the boy did not realize that—just then. To him she was still 'the girl.'

"For three years he did not see her. She was at school, or traveling abroad, he heard. He, too, had been away to school, and was, indeed, just ready to enter college. Then, that summer, he heard that she was coming to the old home, and his heart sang within him. Remember, to him she was still the girl. He knew, of course, that she was not the LITTLE girl who had promised to marry him. But he was sure she was the merry comrade, the true-hearted young girl who used to smile frankly into his eyes, and whom he was now to win for his wife. You see he had forgotten—quite forgotten about the Princess and the money. Such a foolish, foolish boy as he was!

"So he got out his flags gleefully, and one day, when his mother wasn't in the kitchen, he ironed out the wrinkles and smoothed them all ready to be raised on the pole. He would be ready when the girl waved—for of course she would wave; he would show her that he had not forgotten. He could see just how the sparkle would come to her eyes, and just how the little fine lines of mischief would crinkle around her nose when she was ready to give that first wave. He could imagine that she would like to find him napping; that she would like to take him by surprise, and make him scurry around for his flags to answer her.

"But he would show her! As if she, a girl, were to beat him at their old game! He wondered which it would be: 'I'm coming over,' or, 'You are to come over here.' Whichever it was, he would answer, of course, with the red 'All right.' Still, it WOULD be a joke to run up the blue 'Got to work,' and then slip across to see her, just as she, so long ago, had played the joke on him! On the whole, however, he thought the red flag would be better. And it was that one which he laid uppermost ready to his hand, when he arranged them.

"At last she came. He heard of it at once. It was already past four o'clock, but he could not forbear, even then, to look toward the tower. It would be like her, after all, to wave then, that very night, just so as to catch him napping, he thought. She did not wave, however. The boy was sure of that, for he watched the tower till dark.

"In the morning, long before eight o'clock, the boy was ready. He debated for some time whether to stand out of doors on the piazza, or to hide behind the screened window, where he could still watch the tower. He decided at last that it would be better not to let her see him when she looked toward the house; then his triumph would be all the more complete when he dashed out to run up his answer.

"Eight o'clock came and passed. The boy waited until nine, but there was no sign of life from the tower. The boy was angry then, at himself. He called himself, indeed, a fool, to hide as he did. Of course she wouldn't wave when he was nowhere in sight—when he had apparently forgotten! And here was a whole precious day wasted!

"The next morning, long before eight, the boy stood in plain sight on the piazza. As before he waited until nine; and as before there was no sign of life at the tower window. The next morning he was there again, and the next, and the next. It took just five days, indeed, to convince the boy—as he was convinced at last—that the girl did not intend to wave at all."

"But how unkind of her!" exclaimed David.

"She couldn't have been nice one bit!" decided Jill.

"You forget," said Mr. Jack. "She was the Princess."

"Huh!" grunted Jill and David in unison.

"The boy remembered it then," went on Mr. Jack, after a pause,—"about the money, and that she was a Princess. And of course he knew—when he thought of it—that he could not expect that a Princess would wave like a girl—just a girl. Besides, very likely she did not care particularly about seeing him. Princesses did forget, he fancied,—they had so much, so very much to fill their lives. It was this thought that kept him from going to see her—this, and the recollection that, after all, if she really HAD wanted to see him, she could have waved.

"There came a day, however, when another youth, who did not dare to go alone, persuaded him, and together they paid her a call. The boy understood, then, many things. He found the Princess; there was no sign of the girl. The Princess was tall and dignified, with a cold little hand and a smooth, sweet voice. There was no frank smile in her eyes, neither were there any mischievous crinkles about her nose and lips. There was no mention of towers or flags; no reference to wavings or to childhood's days. There was only a stiffly polite little conversation about colleges and travels, with a word or two about books and plays. Then the callers went home. On the way the boy smiled scornfully to himself. He was trying to picture the beauteous vision he had seen, this unapproachable Princess in her filmy lace gown,—standing in the tower window and waving—waving to a bit of a house on the opposite hill. As if that could happen!

"The boy, during those last three years, had known only books. He knew little of girls—only one girl—and he knew still less of Princesses. So when, three days after the call, there came a chance to join a summer camp with a man who loved books even better than did the boy himself, he went gladly. Once he had refused to go on this very trip; but then there had been the girl. Now there was only the Princess—and the Princess didn't count."

"Like the hours that aren't sunshiny," interpreted David.

"Yes," corroborated Mr. Jack. "Like the hours when the sun does n't shine."

"And then?" prompted Jill.

"Well, then,—there wasn't much worth telling," rejoined Mr. Jack gloomily. "Two more years passed, and the Princess grew to be twenty-one. She came into full control of her property then, and after a while she came back to the old stone house with the towers and turned it into a fairyland of beauty. She spent money like water. All manner of artists, from the man who painted her ceilings to the man who planted her seeds, came and bowed to her will. From the four corners of the earth she brought her treasures and lavished them through the house and grounds. Then, every summer, she came herself, and lived among them, a very Princess indeed."

"And the boy?—what became of the boy?" demanded David. "Didn't he see her—ever?"

Mr. Jack shook his head.

"Not often, David; and when he did, it did not make him any—happier. You see, the boy had become the Pauper; you must n't forget that."

"But he wasn't a Pauper when you left him last."

"Wasn't he? Well, then, I'll tell you about that. You see, the boy, even though he did go away, soon found out that in his heart the Princess was still the girl, just the same. He loved her, and he wanted her to be his wife; so for a little—for a very little—he was wild enough to think that he might work and study and do great things in the world until he was even a Prince himself, and then he could marry the Princess."

"Well, couldn't he?"

"No. To begin with, he lost his health. Then, away back in the little house on the hill something happened—a something that left a very precious charge for him to keep; and he had to go back and keep it, and to try to see if he couldn't find that lost health, as well. And that is all."

"All! You don't mean that that is the end!" exclaimed Jill.

"That's the end."

"But that isn't a mite of a nice end," complained David. "They always get married and live happy ever after—in stories."

"Do they?" Mr. Jack smiled a little sadly. "Perhaps they do, David,—in stories."

"Well, can't they in this one?"

"I don't see how."

"Why can't he go to her and ask her to marry him?"

Mr. Jack drew himself up proudly.

"The Pauper and the Princess? Never! Paupers don't go to Princesses, David, and say, 'I love you.'"

David frowned.

"Why not? I don't see why—if they want to do it. Seems as if somehow it might be fixed."

"It can't be," returned Mr. Jack, his gaze on the towers that crowned the opposite hill; "not so long as always before the Pauper's eyes there are those gray walls behind which he pictures the Princess in the midst of her golden luxury."

To neither David nor Jill did the change to the present tense seem strange. The story was much too real to them for that.

"Well, anyhow, I think it ought to be fixed," declared David, as he rose to his feet.

"So do I—but we can't fix it," laughed Jill. "And I'm hungry. Let's see what there is to eat!"



CHAPTER XVIII

DAVID TO THE RESCUE

It was a beautiful moonlight night, but for once David was not thinking of the moon. All the way to the Holly farmhouse he was thinking of Mr. Jack's story, "The Princess and the Pauper." It held him strangely. He felt that he never could forget it. For some reason that he could not have explained, it made him sad, too, and his step was very quiet as he went up the walk toward the kitchen door.

It was after eight o'clock. David had taken supper with Mr. Jack and Jill, and not for some hours had he been at the farmhouse. In the doorway now he stopped short; then instinctively he stepped back into the shadow. In the kitchen a kerosene light was burning. It showed Mrs. Holly crying at the table, and Mr. Holly, white-faced and stern-lipped, staring at nothing. Then Mrs. Holly raised her face, drawn and tear-stained, and asked a trembling question.

"Simeon, have you thought? We might go—to John—for—help."

David was frightened then, so angry was the look that came into Simeon Holly's face.

"Ellen, we'll have no more of this," said the man harshly. "Understand, I'd rather lose the whole thing and—and starve, than go to—John."

David fled then. Up the back stairs he crept to his room and left his violin. A moment later he stole down again and sought Perry Larson whom he had seen smoking in the barn doorway.

"Perry, what is it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "What has happened—in there?" He pointed toward the house.

The man puffed for a moment in silence before he took his pipe from his mouth.

"Well, sonny, I s'pose I may as well tell ye. You'll have ter know it sometime, seein' as 't won't be no secret long. They've had a stroke o' bad luck—Mr. an' Mis' Holly has."

"What is it?"

The man hitched in his seat.

"By sugar, boy, I s'pose if I tell ye, there ain't no sartinty that you'll sense it at all. I reckon it ain't in your class."

"But what is it?"

"Well, it's money—and one might as well talk moonshine to you as money, I s'pose; but here goes it. It's a thousand dollars, boy, that they owed. Here, like this," he explained, rummaging his pockets until he had found a silver dollar to lay on his open palm. "Now, jest imagine a thousand of them; that's heaps an' heaps—more 'n I ever see in my life."

"Like the stars?" guessed David.

The man nodded.

"Ex-ACTLY! Well, they owed this—Mr. an' Mis' Holly did—and they had agreed ter pay it next Sat'day. And they was all right, too. They had it plum saved in the bank, an' was goin' ter draw it Thursday, ter make sure. An' they was feelin' mighty pert over it, too, when ter-day along comes the news that somethin's broke kersmash in that bank, an' they've shet it up. An' nary a cent can the Hollys git now—an' maybe never. Anyhow, not 'fore it's too late for this job."

"But won't he wait?—that man they owe it to? I should think he'd have to, if they didn't have it to pay."

"Not much he will, when it's old Streeter that's got the mortgage on a good fat farm like this!"

David drew his brows together perplexedly.

"What is a—a mortgage?" he asked. "Is it anything like a porte-cochere? I KNOW what that is, 'cause my Lady of the Roses has one; but we haven't got that—down here."

Perry Larson sighed in exasperation.

"Gosh, if that ain't 'bout what I expected of ye! No, it ain't even second cousin to a—a-that thing you're a-talkin' of. In plain wordin', it's jest this: Mr. Holly, he says ter Streeter: 'You give me a thousand dollars and I'll pay ye back on a sartin day; if I don't pay, you can sell my farm fur what it'll bring, an' TAKE yer pay. Well, now here 't is. Mr. Holly can't pay, an' so Streeter will put up the farm fur sale."

"What, with Mr. and Mrs. Holly LIVING here?"

"Sure! Only they'll have ter git out, ye know."

"Where'll they go?"

"The Lord knows; I don't."

"And is THAT what they're crying for—in there?—because they've got to go?"

"Sure!"

"But isn't there anything, anywhere, that can be done to—stop it?"

"I don't see how, kid,—not unless some one ponies up with the money 'fore next Sat'day,—an' a thousand o' them things don't grow on ev'ry bush," he finished, gently patting the coin in his hand.

At the words a swift change came to David's face. His cheeks paled and his eyes dilated in terror. It was as if ahead of him he saw a yawning abyss, eager to engulf him.

"And you say—MONEY would—fix it?" he asked thickly.

"Ex-ACT-ly!—a thousand o' them, though, 't would take."

A dawning relief came into David's eyes—it was as if he saw a bridge across the abyss.

"You mean—that there wouldn't ANYTHING do, only silver pieces—like those?" he questioned hopefully.

"Sugar, kid, 'course there would! Gosh, but you BE a checkerboard o' sense an' nonsense, an' no mistake! Any money would do the job—any money! Don't ye see? Anything that's money."

"Would g-gold do it?" David's voice was very faint now.

"Sure!—gold, or silver, or greenbacks, or—or a check, if it had the dough behind it."

David did not appear to hear the last. With an oddly strained look he had hung upon the man's first words; but at the end of the sentence he only murmured, "Oh, thank you," and turned away. He was walking slowly now toward the house. His head was bowed. His step lagged.

"Now, ain't that jest like that chap," muttered the man, "ter slink off like that as if he was a whipped cur. I'll bet two cents an' a doughnut, too, that in five minutes he'll be what he calls 'playin' it' on that 'ere fiddle o' his. An' I'll be derned, too, if I ain't curious ter see what he WILL make of it. It strikes me this ought ter fetch somethin' first cousin to a dirge!"

On the porch steps David paused a breathless instant. From the kitchen came the sound of Mrs. Holly's sobs and of a stern voice praying. With a shudder and a little choking cry the boy turned then and crept softly upstairs to his room.

He played, too, as Perry Larson had wagered. But it was not the tragedy of the closed bank, nor the honor of the threatened farm-selling that fell from his violin. It was, instead, the swan song of a little pile of gold—gold which lay now in a chimney cupboard, but which was soon to be placed at the feet of the mourning man and woman downstairs. And in the song was the sob of a boy who sees his house of dreams burn to ashes; who sees his wonderful life and work out in the wide world turn to endless days of weed-pulling and dirt-digging in a narrow valley. There was in the song, too, something of the struggle, the fierce yea and nay of the conflict. But, at the end, there was the wild burst of exaltation of renunciation, so that the man in the barn door below fairly sprang to his feet with an angry:—

"Gosh! if he hain't turned the thing into a jig—durn him! Don't he know more'n that at such a time as this?"

Later, a very little later, the shadowy figure of the boy stood before him.

"I've been thinking," stammered David, "that maybe I—could help, about that money, you know."

"Now, look a-here, boy," exploded Perry, in open exasperation, "as I said in the first place, this ain't in your class. 'T ain't no pink cloud sailin' in the sky, nor a bluebird singin' in a blackb'rry bush. An' you might 'play it'—as you call it—till doomsday, an' 't wouldn't do no good—though I'm free ter confess that your playin' of them 'ere other things sounds real pert an' chirky at times; but 't won't do no good here."

David stepped forward, bringing his small, anxious face full into the moonlight.

"But 't was the money, Perry; I meant about, the money," he explained. "They were good to me and wanted me when there wasn't any one else that did; and now I'd like to do something for them. There aren't so MANY pieces, and they aren't silver. There's only one hundred and six of them; I counted. But maybe they 'd help some. It—it would be a—start." His voice broke over the once beloved word, then went on with renewed strength. "There, see! Would these do?" And with both hands he held up to view his cap sagging under its weight of gold.

Perry Larson's jaw fell open. His eyes bulged. Dazedly he reached out and touched with trembling fingers the heap of shining disks that seemed in the mellow light like little earth-born children of the moon itself. The next instant he recoiled sharply.

"Great snakes, boy, where'd you git that money?" he demanded.

"Of father. He went to the far country, you know."

Perry Larson snorted angrily.

"See here, boy, for once, if ye can, talk horse-sense! Surely, even YOU don't expect me ter believe that he's sent you that money from—from where he's gone to!"

"Oh, no. He left it."

"Left it! Why, boy, you know better! There wa'n't a cent—hardly—found on him."

"He gave it to me before—by the roadside."

"Gave it to you! Where in the name of goodness has it been since?"

"In the little cupboard in my room, behind the books."

"Great snakes!" muttered Perry Larson, reaching out his hand and gingerly picking up one of the gold-pieces.

David eyed him anxiously.

"Won't they—do?" he faltered. "There aren't a thousand; there's only a hundred and six; but—"

"Do!" cut in the man, excitedly. He had been examining the gold-piece at close range. "Do! Well, I reckon they'll do. By Jiminy!—and ter think you've had this up yer sleeve all this time! Well, I'll believe anythin' of yer now—anythin'! You can't stump me with nuthin'! Come on." And he hurriedly led the way toward the house.

"But they weren't up my sleeve," corrected David, as he tried to keep up with the long strides of the man. "I SAID they were in the cupboard in my room."

There was no answer. Larson had reached the porch steps, and had paused there hesitatingly. From the kitchen still came the sound of sobs. Aside from that there was silence. The boy, however, did not hesitate. He went straight up the steps and through the open kitchen door. At the table sat the man and the woman, their eyes covered with their hands.

With a swift overturning of his cap, David dumped his burden onto the table, and stepped back respectfully.

"If you please, sir, would this—help any?" he asked.

At the jingle of the coins Simeon Holly and his wife lifted their heads abruptly. A half-uttered sob died on the woman's lips. A quick cry came from the man's. He reached forth an eager hand and had almost clutched the gold when a sudden change came to his face. With a stern ejaculation he drew back.

"Boy, where did that money come from?" he challenged.

David sighed in a discouraged way. It seemed that, always, the showing of this gold mean't questioning—eternal questioning.

"Surely," continued Simeon Holly, "you did not—" With the boy's frank gaze upturned to his, the man could not finish his sentence.

Before David could answer came the voice of Perry Larson from the kitchen doorway.

"No, sir, he didn't, Mr. Holly; an' it's all straight, I'm thinkin'—though I'm free ter confess it does sound nutty. His dad give it to him."

"His—father! But where—where has it been ever since?"

"In the chimney cupboard in his room, he says, sir."

Simeon Holly turned in frowning amazement.

"David, what does this mean? Why have you kept this gold in a place like that?"

"Why, there wasn't anything else to do with it," answered the boy perplexedly. "I hadn't any use for it, you know, and father said to keep it till I needed it."

"'Hadn't any use for it'!" blustered Larson from the doorway. "Jiminy! Now, ain't that jest like that boy?"

But David hurried on with his explanation.

"We never used to use them—father and I—except to buy things to eat and wear; and down here YOU give me those, you know."

"Gorry!" interjected Perry Larson. "Do you reckon, boy, that Mr. Holly himself was give them things he gives ter you?"

The boy turned sharply, a startled question in his eyes.

"What do you mean? Do you mean that—" His face changed suddenly. His cheeks turned a shamed red. "Why, he did—he did have to buy them, of course, just as father did. And I never even thought of it before! Then, it's yours, anyway—it belongs to you," he argued, turning to Farmer Holly, and shoving the gold nearer to his hands. "There isn't enough, maybe—but 't will help!"

"They're ten-dollar gold pieces, sir," spoke up Larson importantly; "an' there's a hundred an' six of them. That's jest one thousand an' sixty dollars, as I make it."

Simeon Holly, self-controlled man that he was, almost leaped from his chair.

"One thousand and sixty dollars!" he gasped. Then, to David: "Boy, in Heaven's name, who are you?"

"I don't know—only David." The boy spoke wearily, with a grieved sob in his voice. He was very tired, a good deal perplexed, and a little angry. He wished, if no one wanted this gold, that he could take it upstairs again to the chimney cupboard; or, if they objected to that, that they would at least give it to him, and let him go away now to that beautiful music he was to hear, and to those kind people who were always to understand what he said when he played.

"Of course," ventured Perry Larson diffidently, "I ain't professin' ter know any great shakes about the hand of the Lord, Mr. Holly, but it do strike me that this 'ere gold comes mighty near bein' proverdential—fur you."

Simeon Holly fell back in his seat. His eyes clung to the gold, but his lips set into rigid lines.

"That money is the boy's, Larson. It isn't mine," he said.

"He's give it to ye."

Simeon Holly shook his head.

"David is nothing but a child, Perry. He doesn't realize at all what he is doing, nor how valuable his gift is."

"I know, sir, but you DID take him in, when there wouldn't nobody else do it," argued Larson. "An', anyhow, couldn't you make a kind of an I O U of it, even if he is a kid? Then, some day you could pay him back. Meanwhile you'd be a-keepin' him, an' a-schoolin' him; an' that's somethin'."

"I know, I know," nodded Simeon Holly thoughtfully, his eyes going from the gold to David's face. Then, aloud, yet as if to himself, he breathed: "Boy, boy, who was your father? How came he by all that gold—and he—a tramp!"

David drew himself suddenly erect. His eyes flashed.

"I don't know, sir. But I do know this: he didn't STEAL it!"

Across the table Mrs. Holly drew a quick breath, but she did not speak—save with her pleading eyes. Mrs. Holly seldom spoke—save with her eyes—when her husband was solving a knotty problem. She was dumfounded now that he should listen so patiently to the man, Larson,—though she was not more surprised than was Larson himself. For both of them, however, there came at this moment a still greater surprise. Simeon Holly leaned forward suddenly, the stern lines quite gone from his lips, and his face working with emotion as he drew David toward him.

"You're a good son, boy,—a good loyal son; and—and I wish you were mine! I believe you. He didn't steal it, and I won't steal it, either. But I will use it, since you are so good as to offer it. But it shall be a loan, David, and some day, God helping me, you shall have it back. Meanwhile, you're my boy, David,—my boy!"

"Oh, thank you, sir," rejoiced David. "And, really, you know, being wanted like that is better than the start would be, isn't it?"

"Better than—what?"

David shifted his position. He had not meant to say just that.

"N—nothing," he stammered, looking about for a means of quick escape. "I—I was just talking," he finished. And he was immeasurably relieved to find that Mr. Holly did not press the matter further.



CHAPTER XIX

THE UNBEAUTIFUL WORLD

In spite of the exaltation of renunciation, and in spite of the joy of being newly and especially "wanted," those early September days were sometimes hard for David. Not until he had relinquished all hope of his "start" did he fully realize what that hope had meant to him.

There were times, to be sure, when there was nothing but rejoicing within him that he was able thus to aid the Hollys. There were other times when there was nothing but the sore heartache because of the great work out in the beautiful world that could now never be done; and because of the unlovely work at hand that must be done. To tell the truth, indeed, David's entire conception of life had become suddenly a chaos of puzzling contradictions.

To Mr. Jack, one day, David went with his perplexities. Not that he told him of the gold-pieces and of the unexpected use to which they had been put—indeed, no. David had made up his mind never, if he could help himself, to mention those gold-pieces to any one who did not already know of them. They meant questions, and the questions, explanations. And he had had enough of both on that particular subject. But to Mr. Jack he said one day, when they were alone together:—

"Mr. Jack, how many folks have you got inside of your head?"

"Eh—what, David?"

David repeated his question and attached an explanation.

"I mean, the folks that—that make you do things."

Mr. Jack laughed.

"Well," he said, "I believe some people make claims to quite a number, and perhaps almost every one owns to a Dr. Jekyll and a Mr. Hyde."

"Who are they?"

"Never mind, David. I don't think you know the gentlemen, anyhow. They're only something like the little girl with a curl. One is very, very good, indeed, and the other is horrid."

"Oh, yes, I know them; they're the ones that come to me," returned David, with a sigh. "I've had them a lot, lately."

Mr. Jack stared.

"Oh, have you?"

"Yes; and that's what's the trouble. How can you drive them off—the one that is bad, I mean?"

"Well, really," confessed Mr. Jack, "I'm not sure I can tell. You see—the gentlemen visit me sometimes."

"Oh, do they?"

"Yes."

"I'm so glad—that is, I mean," amended David, in answer to Mr. Jack's uplifted eyebrows, "I'm glad that you understand what I'm talking about. You see, I tried Perry Larson last night on it, to get him to tell me what to do. But he only stared and laughed. He didn't know the names of 'em, anyhow, as you do, and at last he got really almost angry and said I made him feel so 'buggy' and 'creepy' that he wouldn't dare look at himself in the glass if I kept on, for fear some one he'd never known was there should jump out at him."

Mr. Jack chuckled.

"Well, I suspect, David, that Perry knew one of your gentlemen by the name of 'conscience,' perhaps; and I also suspect that maybe conscience does pretty nearly fill the bill, and that you've been having a bout with that. Eh? Now, what is the trouble? Tell me about it."

David stirred uneasily. Instead of answering, he asked another question.

"Mr. Jack, it is a beautiful world, isn't it?"

For a moment there was no, answer; then a low voice replied:—

"Your father said it was, David."

Again David moved restlessly.

"Yes; but father was on the mountain. And down here—well, down here there are lots of things that I don't believe he knew about."

"What, for instance?"

"Why, lots of things—too many to tell. Of course there are things like catching fish, and killing birds and squirrels and other things to eat, and plaguing cats and dogs. Father never would have called those beautiful. Then there are others like little Jimmy Clark who can't walk, and the man at the Marstons' who's sick, and Joe Glaspell who is blind. Then there are still different ones like Mr. Holly's little boy. Perry says he ran away years and years ago, and made his people very unhappy. Father wouldn't call that a beautiful world, would he? And how can people like that always play in tune? And there are the Princess and the Pauper that you told about."

"Oh, the story?"

"Yes; and people like them can't be happy and think the world is beautiful, of course."

"Why not?"

"Because they didn't end right. They didn't get married and live happy ever after, you know."

"Well, I don't think I'd worry about that, David,—at least, not about the Princess. I fancy the world was very beautiful to her, all right. The Pauper—well, perhaps he wasn't very happy. But, after all, David, you know happiness is something inside of yourself. Perhaps half of these people are happy, in their way."

"There! and that's another thing," sighed David. "You see, I found that out—that it was inside of yourself—quite a while ago, and I told the Lady of the Roses. But now I—can't make it work myself."

"What's the matter?"

"Well, you see then something was going to happen—something that I liked; and I found that just thinking of it made it so that I didn't mind raking or hoeing, or anything like that; and I told the Lady of the Roses. And I told her that even if it wasn't going to happen she could THINK it was going to, and that that would be just the same, because 't was the thinking that made my hours sunny ones. It wasn't the DOING at all. I said I knew because I hadn't DONE it yet. See?"

"I—think so, David."

"Well, I've found out that it isn't the same at all; for now that I KNOW that this beautiful thing isn't ever going to happen to me, I can think and think all day, and it doesn't do a mite of good. The sun is just as hot, and my back aches just as hard, and the field is just as big and endless as it used to be when I had to call it that those hours didn't count. Now, what is the matter?"

Mr. Jack laughed, but he shook his head a little sadly.

"You're getting into too deep waters for me, David. I suspect you're floundering in a sea that has upset the boats of sages since the world began. But what is it that was so nice, and that isn't going to happen? Perhaps I MIGHT help on that."

"No, you couldn't," frowned David; "and there couldn't anybody, either, you see, because I wouldn't go back now and LET it happen, anyhow, as long as I know what I do. Why, if I did, there wouldn't be ANY hours that were sunny then—not even the ones after four o'clock; I—I'd feel so mean! But what I don't see is just how I can fix it up with the Lady of the Roses."

"What has she to do with it?"

"Why, at the very first, when she said she didn't have ANY sunshiny hours, I told her—"

"When she said what?" interposed Mr. Jack, coming suddenly erect in his chair.

"That she didn't have any hours to count, you know."

"To—COUNT?"

"Yes; it was the sundial. Didn't I tell you? Yes, I know I did—about the words on it—not counting any hours that weren't sunny, you know. And she said she wouldn't have ANY hours to count; that the sun never shone for her."

"Why, David," demurred Mr. Jack in a voice that shook a little, "are you sure? Did she say just that? You—you must be mistaken—when she has—has everything to make her happy."

"I wasn't, because I said that same thing to her myself—afterwards. And then I told her—when I found out myself, you know—about its being what was inside of you, after all, that counted; and then is when I asked her if she couldn't think of something nice that was going to happen to her sometime."

"Well, what did she say?"

"She shook her head, and said 'No.' Then she looked away, and her eyes got soft and dark like little pools in the brook where the water stops to rest. And she said she had hoped once that this something would happen; but that it hadn't, and that it would take something more than thinking to bring it. And I know now what she meant, because thinking isn't all that counts, is it?"

Mr. Jack did not answer. He had risen to his feet, and was pacing restlessly up and down the veranda. Once or twice he turned his eyes toward the towers of Sunnycrest, and David noticed that there was a new look on his face.

Very soon, however, the old tiredness came back to his eyes, and he dropped into his seat again, muttering "Fool! of course it couldn't be—that!"

"Be what?" asked David.

Mr. Jack started.

"Er—nothing; nothing that you would understand, David. Go on—with what you were saying."

"There isn't any more. It's all done. It's only that I'm wondering how I'm going to learn here that it's a beautiful world, so that I can—tell father."

Mr. Jack roused himself. He had the air of a man who determinedly throws to one side a heavy burden.

"Well, David," he smiled, "as I said before, you are still out on that sea where there are so many little upturned boats. There might be a good many ways of answering that question."

"Mr. Holly says," mused the boy, aloud, a little gloomily, "that it doesn't make any difference whether we find things beautiful or not; that we're here to do something serious in the world."

"That is about what I should have expected of Mr. Holly" retorted Mr. Jack grimly. "He acts it—and looks it. But—I don't believe you are going to tell your father just that."

"No, sir, I don't believe I am," accorded David soberly.

"I have an idea that you're going to find that answer just where your father said you would—in your violin. See if you don't. Things that aren't beautiful you'll make beautiful—because we find what we are looking for, and you're looking for beautiful things. After all, boy, if we march straight ahead, chin up, and sing our own little song with all our might and main, we shan't come so far amiss from the goal, I'm thinking. There! that's preaching, and I didn't mean to preach; but—well, to tell the truth, that was meant for myself, for—I'm hunting for the beautiful world, too."

"Yes, sir, I know," returned David fervently. And again Mr. Jack, looking into the sympathetic, glowing dark eyes, wondered if, after all, David really could—know.

Even yet Mr. Jack was not used to David; there were "so many of him," he told himself. There were the boy, the artist, and a third personality so evanescent that it defied being named. The boy was jolly, impetuous, confidential, and delightful—plainly reveling in all manner of fun and frolic. The artist was nothing but a bunch of nervous alertness, ready to find melody and rhythm in every passing thought or flying cloud. The third—that baffling third that defied the naming—was a dreamy, visionary, untouchable creature who floated so far above one's head that one's hand could never pull him down to get a good square chance to see what he did look like. All this thought Mr. Jack as he gazed into David's luminous eyes.



CHAPTER XX

THE UNFAMILIAR WAY

In September David entered the village school. School and David did not assimilate at once. Very confidently the teacher set to work to grade her new pupil; but she was not so confident when she found that while in Latin he was perilously near herself (and in French—which she was not required to teach—disastrously beyond her!), in United States history he knew only the barest outlines of certain portions, and could not name a single battle in any of its wars. In most studies he was far beyond boys of his own age, yet at every turn she encountered these puzzling spots of discrepancy, which rendered grading in the ordinary way out of the question.

David's methods of recitation, too, were peculiar, and somewhat disconcerting. He also did not hesitate to speak aloud when he chose, nor to rise from his seat and move to any part of the room as the whim seized him. In time, of course, all this was changed; but it was several days before the boy learned so to conduct himself that he did not shatter to atoms the peace and propriety of the schoolroom.

Outside of school David had little work to do now, though there were still left a few light tasks about the house. Home life at the Holly farmhouse was the same for David, yet with a difference—the difference that comes from being really wanted instead of being merely dutifully kept. There were other differences, too, subtle differences that did not show, perhaps, but that still were there.

Mr. and Mrs. Holly, more than ever now, were learning to look at the world through David's eyes. One day—one wonderful day—they even went to walk in the woods with the boy; and whenever before had Simeon Holly left his work for so frivolous a thing as a walk in the woods!

It was not accomplished, however, without a struggle, as David could have told. The day was a Saturday, clear, crisp, and beautiful, with a promise of October in the air; and David fairly tingled to be free and away. Mrs. Holly was baking—and the birds sang unheard outside her pantry window. Mr. Holly was digging potatoes—and the clouds sailed unnoticed above his head.

All the morning David urged and begged. If for once, just this once, they would leave everything and come, they would not regret it, he was sure. But they shook their heads and said, "No, no, impossible!" In the afternoon the pies were done and the potatoes dug, and David urged and pleaded again. If once, only this once, they would go to walk with him in the woods, he would be so happy, so very happy! And to please the boy—they went.

It was a curious walk. Ellen Holly trod softly, with timid feet. She threw hurried, frightened glances from side to side. It was plain that Ellen Holly did not know how to play. Simeon Holly stalked at her elbow, stern, silent, and preoccupied. It was plain that Simeon Holly not only did not know how to play, but did not even care to find out.

The boy tripped ahead and talked. He had the air of a monarch displaying his kingdom. On one side was a bit of moss worthy of the closest attention; on another, a vine that carried allurement in every tendril. Here was a flower that was like a story for interest, and there was a bush that bore a secret worth the telling. Even Simeon Holly glowed into a semblance of life when David had unerringly picked out and called by name the spruce, and fir, and pine, and larch, and then, in answer to Mrs. Holly's murmured: "But, David, where's the difference? They look so much alike!" he had said:—

"Oh, but they aren't, you know. Just see how much more pointed at the top that fir is than that spruce back there; and the branches grow straight out, too, like arms, and they're all smooth and tapering at the ends like a pussy-cat's tail. But the spruce back there—ITS branches turned down and out—didn't you notice?—and they're all bushy at the ends like a squirrel's tail. Oh, they're lots different! That's a larch 'way ahead—that one with the branches all scraggly and close down to the ground. I could start to climb that easy; but I couldn't that pine over there. See, it's 'way up, up, before there's a place for your foot! But I love pines. Up there on the mountains where I lived, the pines were so tall that it seemed as if God used them sometimes to hold up the sky."

And Simeon Holly heard, and said nothing; and that he did say nothing—especially nothing in answer to David's confident assertions concerning celestial and terrestrial architecture—only goes to show how well, indeed, the man was learning to look at the world through David's eyes.

Nor were these all of David's friends to whom Mr. and Mrs. Holly were introduced on that memorable walk. There were the birds, and the squirrels, and, in fact, everything that had life. And each one he greeted joyously by name, as he would greet a friend whose home and habits he knew. Here was a wonderful woodpecker, there was a beautiful bluejay. Ahead, that brilliant bit of color that flashed across their path was a tanager. Once, far up in the sky, as they crossed an open space, David spied a long black streak moving southward.

"Oh, see!" he exclaimed. "The crows! See them?—'way up there? Wouldn't it be fun if we could do that, and fly hundreds and hundreds of miles, maybe a thousand?"

"Oh, David," remonstrated Mrs. Holly, unbelievingly.

"But they do! These look as if they'd started on their winter journey South, too; but if they have, they're early. Most of them don't go till October. They come back in March, you know. Though I've had them, on the mountain, that stayed all the year with me."

"My! but I love to watch them go," murmured David, his eyes following the rapidly disappearing blackline. "Lots of birds you can't see, you know, when they start for the South. They fly at night—the woodpeckers and orioles and cuckoos, and lots of others. They're afraid, I guess, don't you? But I've seen them. I've watched them. They tell each other when they're going to start."

"Oh, David," remonstrated Mrs. Holly, again, her eyes reproving, but plainly enthralled.

"But they do tell each other," claimed the boy, with sparkling eyes. "They must! For, all of a sudden, some night, you'll hear the signal, and then they'll begin to gather from all directions. I've seen them. Then, suddenly, they're all up and off to the South—not in one big flock, but broken up into little flocks, following one after another, with such a beautiful whir of wings. Oof—OOF—OOF!—and they're gone! And I don't see them again till next year. But you've seen the swallows, haven't you? They go in the daytime, and they're the easiest to tell of any of them. They fly so swift and straight. Haven't you seen the swallows go?"

"Why, I—I don't know, David," murmured Mrs. Holly, with a helpless glance at her husband stalking on ahead. "I—I didn't know there were such things to—to know."

There was more, much more, that David said before the walk came to an end. And though, when it did end, neither Simeon Holly nor his wife said a word of its having been a pleasure or a profit, there was yet on their faces something of the peace and rest and quietness that belonged to the woods they had left.

It was a beautiful month—that September, and David made the most of it. Out of school meant out of doors for him. He saw Mr. Jack and Jill often. He spent much time, too, with the Lady of the Roses. She was still the Lady of the ROSES to David, though in the garden now were the purple and scarlet and yellow of the asters, salvia, and golden glow, instead of the blush and perfume of the roses.

David was very much at home at Sunnycrest. He was welcome, he knew, to go where he pleased. Even the servants were kind to him, as well as was the elderly cousin whom he seldom saw, but who, he knew, lived there as company for his Lady of the Roses.

Perhaps best, next to the garden, David loved the tower room; possibly because Miss Holbrook herself so often suggested that they go there. And it was there that they were when he said, dreamily, one day:—

"I like this place—up here so high, only sometimes it does make me think of that Princess, because it was in a tower like this that she was, you know."

"Fairy stories, David?" asked Miss Holbrook lightly.

"No, not exactly, though there was a Princess in it. Mr. Jack told it." David's eyes were still out of the window.

"Oh, Mr. Jack! And does Mr. Jack often tell you stories?"

"No. He never told only this one—and maybe that's why I remember it so."

"Well, and what did the Princess do?" Miss Holbrook's voice was still light, still carelessly preoccupied. Her attention, plainly, was given to the sewing in her hand.

"She didn't do and that's what was the trouble," sighed I David. "She didn't wave, you know."

The needle in Miss Holbrook's fingers stopped short in mid-air, the thread half-drawn.

"Didn't—wave!" she stammered. "What do you—mean?"

"Nothing," laughed the boy, turning away from the window. "I forgot that you didn't know the story."

"But maybe I do—that is—what was the story?" asked Miss Holbrook, wetting her lips as if they had grown suddenly very dry.

"Oh, do you? I wonder now! It wasn't 'The PRINCE and the Pauper,' but the PRINCESS and the Pauper," cited David; "and they used to wave signals, and answer with flags. Do you know the story?"

There was no answer. Miss Holbrook was putting away her work, hurriedly, and with hands that shook. David noticed that she even pricked herself in her anxiety to get the needle tucked away. Then she drew him to a low stool at her side.

"David, I want you to tell me that story, please," she said, "just as Mr. Jack told it to you. Now, be careful and put it all in, because I—I want to hear it," she finished, with an odd little laugh that seemed to bring two bright red spots to her cheeks.

"Oh, do you want to hear it? Then I will tell it," cried David joyfully. To David, almost as delightful as to hear a story was to tell one himself. "You see, first—" And he plunged headlong into the introduction.

David knew it well—that story: and there was, perhaps, little that he forgot. It might not have been always told in Mr. Jack's language; but his meaning was there, and very intently Miss Holbrook listened while David told of the boy and the girl, the wavings, and the flags that were blue, black, and red. She laughed once,—that was at the little joke with the bells that the girl played,—but she did not speak until sometime later when David was telling of the first home-coming of the Princess, and of the time when the boy on his tiny piazza watched and watched in vain for a waving white signal from the tower.

"Do you mean to say," interposed Miss Holbrook then, almost starting to her feet, "that that boy expected—" She stopped suddenly, and fell back in her chair. The two red spots on her cheeks had become a rosy glow now, all over her face.

"Expected what?" asked David.

"N—nothing. Go on. I was so—so interested," explained Miss Holbrook faintly. "Go on."

And David did go on; nor did the story lose by his telling. It gained, indeed, something, for now it had woven through it the very strong sympathy of a boy who loved the Pauper for his sorrow and hated the Princess for causing that sorrow.

"And so," he concluded mournfully, "you see it isn't a very nice story, after all, for it didn't end well a bit. They ought to have got married and lived happy ever after. But they didn't."

Miss Holbrook drew in her breath a little uncertainly, and put her hand to her throat. Her face now, instead of being red, was very white.

"But, David," she faltered, after a moment, "perhaps he—the—Pauper—did not—not love the Princess any longer."

"Mr. Jack said that he did."

The white face went suddenly pink again.

"Then, why didn't he go to her and—and—tell her?"

David lifted his chin. With all his dignity he answered, and his words and accent were Mr. Jack's.

"Paupers don't go to Princesses, and say 'I love you.'"

"But perhaps if they did—that is—if—" Miss Holbrook bit her lips and did not finish her sentence. She did not, indeed, say anything more for a long time. But she had not forgotten the story. David knew that, because later she began to question him carefully about many little points—points that he was very sure he had already made quite plain. She talked about it, indeed, until he wondered if perhaps she were going to tell it to some one else sometime. He asked her if she were; but she only shook her head. And after that she did not question him any more. And a little later David went home.



CHAPTER XXI

HEAVY HEARTS

For a week David had not been near the House that Jack Built, and that, too, when Jill had been confined within doors for several days with a cold. Jill, indeed, was inclined to be grieved at this apparent lack of interest on the part of her favorite playfellow; but upon her return from her first day of school, after her recovery, she met her brother with startled eyes.

"Jack, it hasn't been David's fault at all," she cried remorsefully. "He's sick."

"Sick!"

"Yes; awfully sick. They've had to send away for doctors and everything."

"Why, Jill, are you sure? Where did you hear this?"

"At school to-day. Every one was talking about it."

"But what is the matter?"

"Fever—some sort. Some say it's typhoid, and some scarlet, and some say another kind that I can't remember; but everybody says he's awfully sick. He got it down to Glaspell's, some say,—and some say he didn't. But, anyhow, Betty Glaspell has been sick with something, and they haven't let folks in there this week," finished Jill, her eyes big with terror.

"The Glaspells? But what was David doing down there?"

"Why, you know,—he told us once,—teaching Joe to play. He's been there lots. Joe is blind, you know, and can't see, but he just loves music, and was crazy over David's violin; so David took down his other one—the one that was his father's, you know—and showed him how to pick out little tunes, just to take up his time so he wouldn't mind so much that he couldn't see. Now, Jack, wasn't that just like David? Jack, I can't have anything happen to David!"

"No, dear, no; of course not! I'm afraid we can't any of us, for that matter," sighed Jack, his forehead drawn into anxious lines. "I'll go down to the Hollys', Jill, the first thing tomorrow morning, and see how he is and if there's anything we can do. Meanwhile, don't take it too much to heart, dear. It may not be half so bad as you think. School-children always get things like that exaggerated, you must remember," he finished, speaking with a lightness that he did not feel.

To himself the man owned that he was troubled, seriously troubled. He had to admit that Jill's story bore the earmarks of truth; and overwhelmingly he realized now just how big a place this somewhat puzzling small boy had come to fill in his own heart. He did not need Jill's anxious "Now, hurry, Jack," the next morning to start him off in all haste for the Holly farmhouse. A dozen rods from the driveway he met Perry Larson and stopped him abruptly.

"Good morning, Larson; I hope this isn't true—what I hear—that David is very ill."

Larson pulled off his hat and with his free hand sought the one particular spot on his head to which he always appealed when he was very much troubled.

"Well, yes, sir, I'm afraid 't is, Mr. Jack—er—Mr. Gurnsey, I mean. He is turrible sick, poor little chap, an' it's too bad—that's what it is—too bad!"

"Oh, I'm sorry! I hoped the report was exaggerated. I came down to see if—if there wasn't something I could do."

"Well, 'course you can ask—there ain't no law ag'in' that; an' ye needn't be afraid, neither. The report has got 'round that it's ketchin'—what he's got, and that he got it down to the Glaspells'; but 't ain't so. The doctor says he didn't ketch nothin', an' he can't give nothin'. It's his head an' brain that ain't right, an' he's got a mighty bad fever. He's been kind of flighty an' nervous, anyhow, lately.

"As I was sayin', 'course you can ask, but I'm thinkin' there won't be nothin' you can do ter help. Ev'rythin' that can be done is bein' done. In fact, there ain't much of anythin' else that is bein' done down there jest now but, tendin' ter him. They've got one o' them 'ere edyercated nurses from the Junction—what wears caps, ye know, an' makes yer feel as if they knew it all, an' you didn't know nothin'. An' then there's Mr. an' Mis' Holly besides. If they had THEIR way, there wouldn't neither of, em let him out o' their sight fur a minute, they're that cut up about it."

"I fancy they think a good deal of the boy—as we all do," murmured the younger man, a little unsteadily.

Larson winkled his forehead in deep thought.

"Yes; an' that's what beats me," he answered slowly; "'bout HIM,—Mr. Holly, I mean. 'Course we'd 'a' expected it of HER—losin' her own boy as she did, an' bein' jest naturally so sweet an' lovin'-hearted. But HIM—that's diff'rent. Now, you know jest as well as I do what Mr. Holly is—every one does, so I ain't sayin' nothin' sland'rous. He's a good man—a powerful good man; an' there ain't a squarer man goin' ter work fur. But the fact is, he was made up wrong side out, an' the seams has always showed bad—turrible bad, with ravelin's all stickin' out every which way ter ketch an' pull. But, gosh! I'm blamed if that, ere boy ain't got him so smoothed down, you wouldn't know, scursely, that he had a seam on him, sometimes; though how he's done it beats me. Now, there's Mis' Holly—she's tried ter smooth 'em, I'll warrant, lots of times. But I'm free ter say she hain't never so much as clipped a ravelin' in all them forty years they've lived tergether. Fact is, it's worked the other way with her. All that HER rubbin' up ag'in' them seams has amounted to is ter git herself so smoothed down that she don't never dare ter say her soul's her own, most generally,—anyhow, not if he happens ter intermate it belongs ter anybody else!"

Jack Gurnsey suddenly choked over a cough.

"I wish I could—do something," he murmured uncertainly.

"'T ain't likely ye can—not so long as Mr. an' Mis' Holly is on their two feet. Why, there ain't nothin' they won't do, an' you'll believe it, maybe, when I tell you that yesterday Mr. Holly, he tramped all through Sawyer's woods in the rain, jest ter find a little bit of moss that the boy was callin' for. Think o' that, will ye? Simeon Holly huntin' moss! An' he got it, too, an' brung it home, an' they say it cut him up somethin' turrible when the boy jest turned away, and didn't take no notice. You understand, 'course, sir, the little chap ain't right in his head, an' so half the time he don't know what he says."

"Oh, I'm sorry, sorry!" exclaimed Gurnsey, as he turned away, and hurried toward the farmhouse.

Mrs. Holly herself answered his low knock. She looked worn and pale.

"Thank you, sir," she said gratefully, in reply to his offer of assistance, "but there isn't anything you can do, Mr. Gurnsey. We're having everything done that can be, and every one is very kind. We have a very good nurse, and Dr. Kennedy has had consultation with Dr. Benson from the Junction. They are doing all in their power, of course, but they say that—that it's going to be the nursing that will count now."

"Then I don't fear for him, surely" declared the man, with fervor.

"I know, but—well, he shall have the very best possible—of that."

"I know he will; but isn't there anything—anything that I can do?"

She shook her head.

"No. Of course, if he gets better—" She hesitated; then lifted her chin a little higher; "WHEN he gets better," she corrected with courageous emphasis, "he will want to see you."

"And he shall see me," asserted Gurnsey. "And he will be better, Mrs. Holly,—I'm sure he will."

"Yes, yes, of course, only—oh, Mr. Jack, he's so sick—so very sick! The doctor says he's a peculiarly sensitive nature, and that he thinks something's been troubling him lately." Her voice broke.

"Poor little chap!" Mr. Jack's voice, too, was husky.

She looked up with swift gratefulness for his sympathy.

"And you loved him, too, I know" she choked. "He talks of you often—very often."

"Indeed I love him! Who could help it?"

"There couldn't anybody, Mr. Jack,—and that's just it. Now, since he's been sick, we've wondered more than ever who he is. You see, I can't help thinking that somewhere he's got friends who ought to know about him—now."

"Yes, I see," nodded the man.

"He isn't an ordinary boy, Mr. Jack. He's been trained in lots of ways—about his manners, and at the table, and all that. And lots of things his father has told him are beautiful, just beautiful! He isn't a tramp. He never was one. And there's his playing. YOU know how he can play."

"Indeed I do! You must miss his playing, too."

"I do; he talks of that, also," she hurried on, working her fingers nervously together; "but oftenest he—he speaks of singing, and I can't quite understand that, for he didn't ever sing, you know."

"Singing? What does he say?" The man asked the question because he saw that it was affording the overwrought little woman real relief to free her mind; but at the first words of her reply he became suddenly alert.

"It's 'his song,' as he calls it, that he talks about, always. It isn't much—what he says—but I noticed it because he always says the same thing, like this: I'll just hold up my chin and march straight on and on, and I'll sing it with all my might and main.' And when I ask him what he's going to sing, he always says, 'My song—my song,' just like that. Do you think, Mr. Jack, he did have—a song?"

For a moment the man did not answer. Something in his throat tightened, and held the words. Then, in a low voice he managed to stammer:—

"I think he did, Mrs. Holly, and—I think he sang it, too." The next moment, with a quick lifting of his hat and a murmured "I'll call again soon," he turned and walked swiftly down the driveway.

So very swiftly, indeed, was Mr. Jack walking, and so self-absorbed was he, that he did not see the carriage until it was almost upon him; then he stepped aside to let it pass. What he saw as he gravely raised his hat was a handsome span of black horses, a liveried coachman, and a pair of startled eyes looking straight into his. What he did not see was the quick gesture with which Miss Holbrook almost ordered her carriage stopped the minute it had passed him by.



CHAPTER XXII

AS PERRY SAW IT

One by one the days passed, and there came from the anxious watchers at David's bedside only the words, "There's very little change." Often Jack Gurnsey went to the farmhouse to inquire for the boy. Often, too, he saw Perry Larson; and Perry was never loath to talk of David. It was from Perry, indeed, that Gurnsey began to learn some things of David that he had never known before.

"It does beat all," Perry Larson said to him one day, "how many folks asks me how that boy is—folks that you'd never think knew him, anyhow, ter say nothin' of carin' whether he lived or died. Now, there's old Mis' Somers, fur instance. YOU know what she is—sour as a lemon an' puckery as a chokecherry. Well, if she didn't give me yesterday a great bo-kay o' posies she'd growed herself, an' said they was fur him—that they berlonged ter him, anyhow.

"'Course, I didn't exactly sense what she meant by that, so I asked her straight out; an' it seems that somehow, when the boy first come, he struck her place one day an' spied a great big red rose on one of her bushes. It seems he had his fiddle, an' he, played it,—that rose a-growin' (you know his way!), an' she heard an' spoke up pretty sharp an' asked him what in time he was doin'. Well, most kids would 'a' run,—knowin' her temper as they does,—but not much David. He stands up as pert as ye please, an' tells her how happy that red rose must be ter make all that dreary garden look so pretty; an' then he goes on, merry as a lark, a-playin' down the hill.

"Well, Mis' Somers owned up ter me that she was pretty mad at the time, 'cause her garden did look like tunket, an' she knew it. She said she hadn't cared ter do a thing with it since her Bessie died that thought so much of it. But after what David had said, even mad as she was, the thing kind o' got on her nerves, an' she couldn't see a thing, day or night, but that red rose a-growin' there so pert an' courageous-like, until at last, jest ter quiet herself, she fairly had ter set to an' slick that garden up! She said she raked an' weeded, an' fixed up all the plants there was, in good shape, an' then she sent down to the Junction fur some all growed in pots, 'cause 't was too late ter plant seeds. An, now it's doin' beautiful, so she jest could n't help sendin' them posies ter David. When I told Mis' Holly, she said she was glad it happened, 'cause what Mis' Somers needed was somethin' ter git her out of herself—an' I'm free ter say she did look better-natured, an' no mistake,—kind o' like a chokecherry in blossom, ye might say."

"An' then there's the Widder Glaspell," continued Perry, after a pause. "'Course, any one would expect she'd feel bad, seein' as how good David was ter her boy—teachin' him ter play, ye know. But Mis' Glaspell says Joe jest does take on somethin' turrible, an' he won't tech the fiddle, though he was plum carried away with it when David was well an' teachin' of him. An' there's the Clark kid. He's lame, ye know, an' he thought the world an' all of David's playin'.

"'Course, there's you an' Miss Holbrook, always askin' an' sendin' things—but that ain't so strange, 'cause you was 'specially his friends. But it's them others what beats me. Why, some days it's 'most ev'ry soul I meet, jest askin' how he is, an' sayin' they hopes he'll git well. Sometimes it's kids that he's played to, an' I'll be triggered if one of 'em one day didn't have no excuse to offer except that David had fit him—'bout a cat, or somethin'—an' that ever since then he'd thought a heap of him—though he guessed David didn't know it. Listen ter that, will ye!

"An' once a woman held me up, an' took on turrible, but all I could git from her was that he'd sat on her doorstep an' played ter her baby once or twice;—as if that was anythin'! But one of the derndest funny ones was the woman who said she could wash her dishes a sight easier after she'd a-seen him go by playin'. There was Bill Dowd, too. You know he really HAS got a screw loose in his head somewheres, an' there ain't any one but what says he's the town fool, all right. Well, what do ye think HE said?"