"I've almost concluded that you are—or hopeless," answered his sister. "However, I'm perfectly willing to admit that I would like to see you married to Marion Treville—she's my closest friend, and would certainly make you a perfect wife."

"Too perfect, by far. Can you imagine me hitched with that proud and classic beauty? I should go mad."

"But I want my pretty basket that little Smiles made for me," broke in Muriel, to whom the present remarks held no interest, and who emphasized her demand by seizing his cheeks.

"To be sure you do, and I want to see my present, too. I'll bring them right down."

Not at all ill pleased at this opportunity to escape from his family's jesting, which, for some indefinable reason, aroused his belligerency, Donald jumped up hastily and departed for the sanctuary of his bedroom, to get the bulky bundle with its mysterious enclosure. Minutes slipped by, and he failed to return to the group downstairs.

At last his absorption was broken into by the arrival of Muriel, whose entrance into the room, with the traces of tears on her cheeks, brought him back to the present with a remorseful start.

"You didn't come down, an' you didn't come down, Uncle Don, an' now mother says it's bedtime, an' I want Smiles' basket to take with me."

"Why, I'm terribly sorry that I've been so long, sweetheart-mine. I stopped to read the letter she wrote to me, and, I'm ashamed to say, forgot that you were waiting for me. But see, here's your present. Little Rose made it all herself for you. Isn't it pretty?"

With a cry of delight the child gathered the simple basket into her chubby arms and bent her head over it. "Oh, don't it smell sweet, Uncle Don. Does Smiles smell like that?"

"Perhaps not exactly," he replied, chuckling.

"Now please show me what she sent to you. Was it a basket, too?"

"No, not a basket. It's a very great secret; but, if you'll promise not to tell a soul, no matter how they tease, I'll show it to you."

"Cross my heart, an' hope to die," said the child earnestly, making across her pinafore the mystic sign, so potent to the childish mind.

Donald opened a drawer in the chiffonier and took out a small and obviously cheap glazed blue-and-white vase. The child took it wonderingly and, removing the cover, sniffed audibly and deeply.

"My. This smells like Rose," she said with conviction.

"You're right, it does, indeed, because it is roses—dried wild rose petals which she gathered and preserved herself. I saw it in her little cabin, and know that it was her most precious possession, yet she gave it to 'Uncle Don' as a keepsake, so that he might remember her whenever he smells of it."

"Wasn't she just too sweet to do that. My, how I would like to see her, Uncle Don."

"Well, perhaps you may, some day."

The sentence echoed out of the past, carrying his recollection back to the night when he had heedlessly spoken the identical words to Smiles, and there entered his mind the sudden realization of what amazing potentialities for good or evil often lie hidden in the simplest utterances.

The sound of his sister's light tread in the hallway caused Donald to return his homely gift to its hiding place hurriedly, and little Muriel, with roguishly twinkling eyes, imitated his action as he laid his finger on his lips as a seal of secrecy.

"Well, you two kids," laughed Ethel, as she caught sight of the picture framed by the doorway.

"I'm glad that I haven't wholly forgotten how to be one," answered her brother, as he kissed first his little niece, and then the basket which she held up with the demand that it be paid similar homage, and bade them good-night.

Rejoining the diminished group in the living-room, Donald was preoccupiedly silent, until his father asked,

"Well, have you read your little friend's 'writing'? I confess to a mild curiosity as to what sort of a letter a girl like her would write, and what sort of a request she would be likely to make of you."

Don drew from his pocket the letter, painfully scrawled on cheap, and not overclean paper, and handed it over. Adjusting his eye-glasses the older man read aloud:—

Dear Dr. Mac,

Truly I want to be a nurse like you told me about some day.

"Well," commented the reader, "at least she starts right off with the business in hand, without any palavering.

And I reckon that even a little mountain girl like me can be one if she wishes hard enough and works hard, too.

"Why," he interpolated again, "there doesn't seem to be any evidence of your weirdly wonderful spelling and grammar here."

"Go on," answered Donald, smiling slightly.

I reckon it will take me a long, long time to get education and earn all that money, but I can do it, Dr. Mac. I am sure I can do it. I told my grandfather all that I mean to do, and he won't try to stop me none. Of course he does not want for me to go away from him, but I explained that I had to, and of course that made it all right.

When you was telling us what those nurses done, something seemed like it went jump inside my heart, and straightways I know that the dear Lord meant for me to do it, too. I read a story once about a girl in france named Jone of Ark and I reckon I felt like she done when she see the angel.

I know I can do it, Dr. Mac, if you will help me a little bit like you promised. Most of all I figures I need a heap of book learning, and it is books I wants for you to get me. You know the books I need to have, Dr. Mac, and in this letter I am going to put $10.

It is an awful lot of money; but I reckon books cost a good deal, and you can bring me the change next summer, for I have not got no use for money here. Don't be afeared. It is my own money. It was in my father's pocket among the camp things granddaddy found, and there was some more. Grandfather, he kept it for me until I was a big girl and now I am keeping it for a rainy day, like the copy book says, although I don't think money would be much use to keep off the rain.

Their is a preacher man who lives on our mountain winters, when he can not travel about none, and I know I can get him to help me learn if I help his wife with her work, and I can read pretty well now and write pretty well when I have a spelling book to study the words out of, although I have to go sorter slow, for they do not allus spell words like they sound, and sometimes I cannot find them at all. I guess my book is not a very good one.

I reckon it will take me a long while to earn more than $300; but I am going to work awful hard, making baskets and other things, and I am going to get Judd Amos, our naybor, to sell them for me at the village store, for he goes down their trading every week, and he will do anything I ask him, like I told you.

This is a pretty long letter and it has taken me all the evening to right. I hope that you can read it. Well, I guess that is all now from your loveing little friend.

I most forgot to say please give my love to Mike.

ROSE WEBB.

"Well, I've got to admit that I have seen many a letter, written by a grown-up, that fell a long ways short of that one in clarity of thought and in accomplishment of a definite object," said Mr. MacDonald, as he handed it back. "Do you suppose that her eagerness to become a nurse is just a passing childish whim, or has she really got sand enough to put her almost impossible plan through?"

"Clairvoyancy was not included either in the Harvard or Medical School curriculum," responded Donald, with a shrug.

"Meaning that the things of the future are in the laps of the gods. Of course, but I was merely asking for your personal opinion. I'm not jesting now; that letter really aroused my interest in the child."

"Well, then, I believe that Smiles really possesses the strength of purpose to go through with even so difficult a task as she has set for herself. Remember, she comes of city stock, and hasn't the blood of those unprogressive mountaineers in her veins."

"And you? Are you going to help her as she asks? What about your promise to Big Jerry?"

"I lived up to both the spirit and letter of that, when I tried to explain to the child the almost unsurmountable difficulties which lay between her and the accomplishment of her dream. Besides, I know that she has told the truth in her letter, and has somehow managed actually to win over the old man. I can't help feeling mighty sorry for him, if the foster birdling is really going to fly away from his nest after he has reared and loved her so tenderly, but, after all, it is only the history of the human race. Still, I can't blame him if he looks on me as a serpent who stole into his simple Eden, carrying the apple of discontent."

"There have been, of course, plenty of cases similar to this, where the adventurer's spirit was really big enough and the vision strong enough to carry him or her through to victory," mused Donald's father. "Such a one was the immortal Abe Lincoln, who came from just such surroundings. But the task is doubly hard for a young girl, and the experiment of thus breaking away from the ties and traditions of many years, and seeking a place in a wholly new, wholly dissimilar life, cannot but be fraught with dangers. There, in that simple environment she naturally appealed to you as not only an attractive child, but as a somewhat unusual personality. Tell me, lad, how will, or would, she measure up, if transplanted a few years hence into city life, where the standards of comparison are so utterly different; so much more exacting?"

"Frankly, I don't know," responded Donald. "Since I read her letter I have been asking myself that question, and the answer worries me, since I feel in a way responsible for having opened the gates before her untrained feet. Somehow I cannot disassociate little Rose from her present environment, and, although she certainly has an unusual charm for such a child, I must admit that, in part, at least, it was the result of—no, not that, but made more obvious by—her surroundings."

"Well, she has apparently decided to take the moulding of her life into her own hands and, without knowing the quotation, determined to be 'the master of her fate and captain of her soul.' However, a little more education can scarcely hurt her, and, if she succeeds in saving up some money, it will come in handy enough as a 'dot,' in case she marries your friend, Judd Amos, and raises a family of mountain brats."

Donald's reply was unnecessarily positive.

"I'll wager that she'll never do that." And with that the conversation, as far as it concerned Smiles, ended.

* * * * *

During purloined hours in the next few days the eminently successful young physician might have been seen engaged in strange errands, which took him into such places as a dressmaker's establishment, and several stores which sold textbooks. It was also a noteworthy fact that the decidedly soiled and crumpled ten-dollar bill, with which he had been commissioned to purchase the means through which education might be acquired, was never taken from the special compartment in his bill folder.

Then the flood of fall practice engulfed him, and gradually the memory of little Smiles faded from his busy mind, although it never quite vanished, and from time to time fresh breezes from the distant Cumberlands fanned it to life like a glowing ember.



CHAPTER VIII

SOME OF SEVERAL EPISTLES

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I

Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts. September 15, 1912.

Dear little Smiles:

If you had been able to look inside of my heart when I opened your present and read your letter, you would have beheld as many different lights and shadows there as you can see in your own eyes when you look in the glass over your bureau.

The sight of that little jar, and the scent of the spiced rose-petals, brought you so near to me that I thought I could almost see you by just closing my eyes—which may seem to you a funny way of "seeing" a person. It made me very happy.

The letter, too, pleased me a great deal; but I must tell you that it also troubled me. That is when the shadow fell on my thoughts of you.

The reason? I will tell it to you, because I feel that I should, although please do not think that I want to croak like an old black crow in one of your pine trees.

If you have really set your whole heart upon becoming a nurse when you grow up, and your granddaddy has consented, it is not for me to say that you cannot do it. But I do know the path which you must travel. I know that it is much steeper, much more rocky and full of briary bushes than any one your feet have ever climbed on your mountain, and you will have to keep a very brave little heart inside you, if you hope to reach the summit. And then, if you succeed, instead of finding a fairy castle filled with all sorts of pleasant things, you will only discover another long and weary road which must be traveled until your tired little body, and heart, made heavy by the sufferings of little children, long for the quiet restfulness of your dear old mountain home.

Am I still trying to discourage you? I suppose that I am, for, you see, I can look back along that road which lies before you, and I can remember the rocks I had to climb over, and the bushes I had to struggle through, and yet I know that it was far easier for me than it will be for you.

You have read parables in the Bible. Well, I am preaching a modern parable. "Book learning" is a sword and buckler—or perhaps it would be better to say that it is a suit of strong hunting clothes and thick leather knee-boots, and I was pretty well clad like that when I started my trip, while you are dressed only in thin gingham, with your legs and feet bare—as I first saw you. Please shut your eyes, dear child, and try to see the parable picture I have drawn for you.

Have you done it? The picture is not as pretty as the one I painted the night I told about how fine it was to be a nurse, is it? But it is more nearly true to life.

Now, think hard before you make up your mind as to whether or not you really mean to go ahead, for—after all, little Smiles—each boy and girl has soon to decide, all alone, what he or she is going to do with that strange thing which we call life.

If your courage is really as strong as that of the wonderful Joan of Arc, I, too, believe that you can succeed and make your dream come true, and of course I will help you, gladly—in every way that I can.

Now I am all through preaching. It is out of my line, and I promise not to do it again. Within a few days you will, I hope, get a boxful of the books which I have sent you as you asked me. Most of them are just what you wanted—school books—but on my own hook I added one or two not strictly for study—like plums in a dry bread pudding. And, of course, there is something else in the box and I guess that you can guess what it is.

This, little Smiles, is the longest letter I ever wrote to anybody, I think. Don't you feel proud? It must end now, however; but not before I ask you to give my best regards to your kind granddaddy.

Don't let the cold winter that is coming, chill your warm affection for

Your sincere friend, Donald MacDonald.

P.S. I told Mike what you wrote to him, and he wigwagged a message of love back to you with his tail.

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II

Big Jerry's Cabin in Webb's Gap, Virginia. Sep't. 20, 1912.

Dear Doctor Mac:

Oh, dear doctor, can you ever forgive me for waiting two whole days before I wrote you back to thank you with all my heart for the many wonderful things which came in that box? It was like a fairy's treasure chest. And most of all I am obliged for that letter you wrote me. It was the first letter I ever got from any one and I shall keep it as long as I live. I think, of all the things I got, I like that the best. Those others you could buy, but you had to make that yourself, and it seemed like I could almost hear you talking the words in your strong voice, like the sound of the falls in the Swift River.

When I looked inside that box I could not make up my mind what I liked best. The many books kind of scared me when I opened them and remembered I had got to know all that much; but the book of beautiful poetry I just love. I have read all of the poetrys and know some of them to speak already.

Then there is that nurse's dress. O how I love it, and how I wish for you to see me in it. I plans to put it on a little while everyday and pretend that I am a real nurse like I am going to be. I done it yesterday, and somehow when I shet my eyes and run my hands over its crackely stiff whiteness, it seemed to me that the room was full of sweet little babies for me to take keer of.

And now, doctor, I must tell you that I done what you said for me to do. I closed my eyes up tight like granddaddy does when I say prayers, and I saw little Smiles acliming that rough path, and walking along that rough road you wrote about, but by the side of that long road I kept aseeing beautiful little flowers what were fading and drooping and calling out in tiny voices like baby chickens for Rose to keer for them. So doctor, the picture did not scare me none.

The Lord give Joan of Arc (I know how to spell it now) a silver armor to protect her, and I reckon the white nurse's dress that you give me is my armor.

Now doctor I must tell you about little Lou and the wonderful doll you sent to her. She was so funny when I give it to her that I got a chreek in my side laughing. First thing, she held it up tight against her and when it went Ma-a-a-like a calf, she dropped it quick and run and hide under the bed. But pretty soon she crep out again and I showed her how to make it shut its eyes.

Then she jumped around and cried. 'O Smiles, hit kaint do them things but hit does do them.' Well, pretty soon, Judd Amos, her brother, come in and, when he saw it in Lou's arms, his face got as black as a storm cloud and he went for to take it away from her.

I just stepped in front of him, and said, 'Judd Amos, if you ever go for to take that doll baby away from her, or even touch it, I won't never speak to you again.'

He was powerful mad with me, but he seen that I meant like I said, so Lou can keep her doll. And what do you think she has named it? She has named it Mike. Even Judd had to laugh a little when she said that was the doll baby's name.

I am making baskets as fast as ever I can and Judd is going to take them to the store at Fayville for me. I went down with him and seen the storekeeper man myself last week, and he promised me to buy all that he can from me.

Granddaddy shoots with your rifle gun most every day. He can hit a string like he used to, but he would not shoot a apple off my head like a man did in the book that had about Joan of Arc in it, although I wanted him to.

I have ritten a piece of poetry like Mr. Eugene Fields did, and this is it

The cold may make my lips turn blue, But it can't freeze my love for you.

Your happy and loving little friend

Smiles.

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III

Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts. October 24, 1912.

Proprietor of the General Store, Fayville, —— County, West Virginia.

Dear Sir:

I am informed that you are occasionally purchasing, through one Judd Amos, of Webb's Gap, sweetgrass baskets made by a little mountain girl of that settlement.

I am interested in her work, and herewith enclose a money order in the sum of ten dollars ($10.00) with which I will ask you to purchase at a rate reasonably in advance of the one you are now paying, all the baskets which she sends to you. You may express them to my address each month, and I will forward further funds upon request.

Please do not mention my name in connection with this transaction; but, if any questions are asked, merely say that you have obtained a city market for them.

Very truly yours, (Dr.) Donald MacDonald.

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IV

Webb's Gap. Vir. November 24, 1912.

Dear Dr. McDonald:

How many letters do you guess I have written to you so far this month? 24. Yes, I have written you a long letter every day, telling you all the things I did, and thought, but of course I did not mail them, for I knew that you would get tired of reading them.

But this one I am going to send, for grandfather has asked me to let you know that he has shot that wild turkey bird for your Thanksgiving—which is Thursday—and has sent it to you by express package from Fayville. I was with him when he did it.

Evenings come right early now and we went into the woods just before sun down. It was right beautiful, and I wished that you could have been with us. I will try and tell you what I saw like I do in my daily letters that my teacher says are practice themes. (I could not have spelled that to save my life a month ago.)

Well, except for the big pine trees which never seem to change, just like granddaddy, all the tall forest people and the half grown-up children-bushes, had put on bright new dresses in honor of Thanksgiving time. They were red, made of many colored patches like Bible Joseph's coat,—yellow green and brown, some as bright as God could paint the colors, some soft, like they had been washed and washed.

Granddaddy thought it was beautiful too—although he called it "purty." But he did not like the brown grass and fallen pine needles, and called the marsh near the river an ugly mudflat; but I thought it was beautiful, for that oozy mud was deep purple (the reverend told me the word), and the little pools of water were all gold. Those are the colors that kings dress in, yet that old mudflat wore them, too.

Well, finally, when it began to grow dusk, we found a wild turkey bird roosting on a tree limb and granddaddy said, 'Hush, I aims ter shoot hit right thru ther head.' When you get it look where the bullet went.

Now perhaps you would like to hear about what I have been doing. Well, I have been doing many things, but most of all I have been studying.

The minister, whose name is Reverend John Talmadge, came back to our mountain when it began to get cold, for he is in not very good health and can't go about much, although he sits out doors most of the time.

He is my very good friend, and I have found out a lot about him. One thing is that he went to college like you did, and he knows a great deal more than there is in all those books, even. So you see he can help me a good deal. He is even going to teach me some Latin, D. V. I think that God must have sent him to our mountain.

Every day I study the books you sent, first with him and then at home, and I am getting along so nice that last week, when the teacher in our little school was away, they let me be the teacher.

And who do you think was one of my pupils? It was Judd Amos. He has bought some books and is learning, too. I reckon he does not want a girl to be smarter than he is at book learning, which he says is nonsense for girls. But I know that it is not nonsense. Why, I can travel in far-off lands and see things that I did not even know were, by just reading books, and the reverend has lent me some to read.

Then I am still making my baskets, and what do you think? The storeman is buying all I can send him, and paying me more than he used to for them! He says that city folks like to buy them for they smell so sweet and like the woods. I am saving all my money and, with what I had, have nearly $75 already, and, by next summer, will have over $100. Isn't that wonderful? Granddaddy pays me 10 cents a week for keeping house for him, too. Isn't he good?

Don't you think I ought to be a very happy little girl? Well, I am, and I guess my face is getting all out of shape, I find so many things to smile about.

Your affectionate friend, Rose.

P. S. Please give my love and a turkey drumstick to Mike.

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V

Commonwealth Avenue Boston, Massachusetts. December 23, 1912.

Dear little Smiles:

Although I am very busy, for the Winter has given colds to many little folks here, I can not let Christmastide go by without writing a letter to you, little forest friend. It was very dear of you to send me that basket of holly, which I found waiting for me when I returned, tired out, last night.

Its dark green leaves and bright red berries looked up at me when I undid it, almost as though they were your personal messengers and were trying eagerly to say, "Smiles wishes you a Merry Christmas through us." The basket was indeed a work of art, but to me it seemed even more than that—a labor of love.

I could almost imagine you tramping through the snow-covered mountain woods and gathering the holiday berries, and the picture which my mind painted was so attractive that I heartily wished I might have been there, too.

I am delighted with the accounts of the progress you are making in your studies, and your all-too-infrequent letters themselves tell the story. I'm afraid that I shall not know you next summer. Write me just as often as you feel like doing so, dear, and if I do not always reply you may know that it is only because I am so very busy.

Now I have two pieces of news to tell you. I am sure that you will be very much pleased with one of them and I hope will be with both.

First, Muriel's mother had a wonderful present just a little ahead of Christmas day—not from Santa Claus, but from Old Father Stork. It is a fine baby boy, whose eyes are almost the color of yours, and his name is to be "Donald MacDonald Thayer." I suppose I have now got to be extra good in order to set my namesake the right example.

Knowing how dear all little ones are to your heart, I am sure that you will be almost as pleased as we are over this happy event, and I can almost see your sweet face light up with its wonderful smile as you read this.

Second, I am engaged to be married some day, if I can ever find time. Her name is Marion Treville and she is very good and kind, and every one thinks she is very beautiful, too.

I hope that you have by this time received the little friendship box which I sent to you and your grandfather. The dress is a present from Muriel, who loves your basket more than any of her toys, and continually speaks of you as her "dear friend Smiles"; the hair ribbon is from Mike and the book from

Your sincere friend, Donald MacDonald.

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VI

Webb's Gap January 7, 1913.

Dear Dr. MacDonald:

When I tell you that there has been a great deal of trouble here, you will understand why I have not written you long before this, to thank you for those lovely Christmas presents.

Grandfather was delighted with his tobacco, although he has not smoked it yet, and all my gifts made me very happy. The dress dear little Muriel sent me is so lovely that I don't believe I shall ever dare to wear it, especially as, when grandfather saw me in it, he looked so sorrowful as he said, 'Hit's powerful purty, but hit haint my Smiles no more,' that he almost made me cry. I wonder if I can really ever leave him? He needs me very much now.

Oh, I was so happy for all of you when I read about Muriel having a dear little baby brother. I sat right down and wrote a verse. The reverend helped me with some of the words, but still I'm afraid that it is not very good and I am afraid you will laugh at it. It is the best I can do now, and I guess I will send it to you in this letter.

Now I must tell you that your friend, my grandfather, has been very sick since Christmas. The doctor from Fayville has been to see him several times and he says the trouble is—I know that you will laugh at me now, but I can only write what it sounds like to me—'Aunt Jina pecks her wrist.' He has pains in his heart and has to keep very still, which he does not like to do, so I am the nurse and, whenever I feed him, or give him the medicine that the doctor left, I put on my nurse's dress.

Of course I have not been able to go to the reverend's for my lessons, and I have not been able to study much, except when grandfather is asleep; but he—the reverend, I mean—comes to our house as often as he can, and we take turns in reading aloud to grandfather, sometimes from the book you sent me, but most times from the Holy Bible, which he likes best.

The reverend says that it is better than medicine to sooth a troubled heart, and I reckon it must be so, for it almost always puts grandfather to sleep, and the trouble is with his heart, like I told you.

Then, beside that, a little wild mountain flower was born to a neighbor of ours last week. We tried—oh, so hard—to make it live, but the cold was so bitter here that God took pity on it and took it back to his garden in Paradise.

At first I could not help crying, and I came home and tore up the verses that I wrote, but then I remembered what you told me about the Reaper, and I went back to the poor, sorrowful mother and told her. And I remembered what you said about making people smile by smiling myself, so I did that, too.

This is not a very happy letter, but grandfather is getting better every day, and summer will soon be here now. The new year seems to me like the top of a snow covered mountain. When we have climbed over it, it is not long before we can hurry down into the valley where the sun is warm and the flowers bloom.

Your affectionate friend, Rose Webb.

P. S. I am very glad that you are going to be married.

(The Enclosure)

Deep the world with snow was covered, Cold and barren was the earth, Low the Christmas angels hovered As a little babe had birth.

Just a tender little flower, Dropped upon the world below Out of God's eternal bower— Pink as sunrise, white as snow.

But the little blossom stranger, As its earthly life it starts, Need fear neither cold nor danger, For 'tis planted in our hearts.

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VII

"Thayerhurst" Manchester-by-the-sea. August 15, 1913.

My dear little Smiles:

This is going to be a very short letter, and can you guess why? Early next month I am going to run away from my work and everything here, and hurry down to your mountain for two whole weeks of wonderful vacation. So the next time you hear from me the words will come from my lips instead of my pen.

I have been very glad indeed to hear that Big Jerry has been so well this summer, and I am sure that he has many more years of virile health ahead of him. I am keenly looking forward to seeing him cut a string with the new rifle.

The weather has been terribly hot in Boston this month and caused much suffering, but it is quite cool and very pleasant here by the ocean.

Every night that it is possible, I spend here with my sister's family, partly because I love to see my little namesake, even for a moment, partly to escape the city's heat and obtain some really refreshing rest. It makes me almost ashamed sometimes, when I think how comfortable I am, and how uncomfortable are the little children in the crowded city, most of whom have no woods, fields and streams like yours to play in, and many of whom never see anything out of doors except dirty, paved streets which get so hot that they burn the feet, even though the fire engine men frequently send rushing streams of water through them.

But I know that a fighter must always keep in the best possible condition, and we doctors and nurses have declared war on an enemy who has killed millions and millions, and never takes a day off.

I wonder how you will like the ocean when you see it. Very much, I am sure, it is so immensely big—like the sky—so beautiful, and more full of ever-changing colors than even your mountains.

They tell me that little Muriel plays beside it all day long on the fine white sand and over the rocks, while baby brother lies near by on a blanket, kicking and gurgling, and holding long, wordless conversations with the white clouds and sea birds high overhead.

This has been a much longer letter than I expected it to be, and now I must chop it off short with just five more words,

Your affectionate friend, Donald MacDonald.



CHAPTER IX

THE HIGH HILLS, AND "GOD'S MAN"

Sun hath sunk in radiant splendor, Now the colors fade away And the moon, with light more tender, Sheds its silver on the bay.

Eventide is softly casting O'er the earth a magic spell, And a love-song, everlasting, On the night wind seems to swell.

Deeper grow the lengthening shadows, Darkening the heaven's blue, One by one the stars are gleaming, Night is nigh, would you were, too.

Donald hummed the words in his not unmelodious baritone, as he climbed up the forest path down which, twelve months before, he had rushed headlong, in blind anger.

The spell of the high, forest-clad hills, and the new-born night was upon his spirit. Pleasant anticipations filled his heart, and left no room for painful recollection as he hastened over the needle-strewn pathway on which the white radiance of the full moon, shining through the branches, made a tracery of silver and black.

Let men whose minds are governed wholly by cold commonsense, and whose souls hold no spark of vitalizing imagination, scoff at moon-witchery and lunar madness. Let them declare that the earth's haunting satellite is merely a dead world which cannot even shine with its own light. Magic it does wield. And, just as it distorts and magnifies all commonplace, familiar objects, so it twists the thoughts of men; just as it steals away the natural colors from the things of earth, and substitutes for them those of its own conception, so it alters the hues of man's meditation.

The usually exuberant Mike trotted in silence, close to his master's heels, and now and then cast suspicious glances aloft at the tall spectre things which he knew to be trees.

Donald knew that it was rather absurd of him to be toiling up the five-mile mountain path that night, when the next morning would have done just as well; but he had thankfully thrown off the shackles of civilization along with its habiliments. For two free, full weeks he meant to live like a child of the out-of-doors, and to draw a brimming supply of new energy from Mother Nature's never-failing breasts. Every moment was precious.

As he neared the Gap, his winging thoughts flew ahead to Big Jerry's cabin and to the child-woman who had so attracted him a year before. Once more he told himself that she was nothing to him, and that now, especially, he had no right to allow her, child though she were, to hold so large a place in his heart. Yet what chance has reason in competition with moonlight?

The clearing, with the cabin beyond it, came into view. The little house was likewise a victim of the prevailing necromancy, for its rough, hand-split and weatherbeaten shingles were now a shimmering olive-silver.

Mike gave voice to a joyful yelp, and tried to crowd past his owner's legs, for he had seen, or sensed, Rose even before the latter became aware of the presence of their little friend. She was standing, alone, on the outer edge of the tiny stoop, whose darkened doorway formed a black background, against which her figure appeared, cameo-like. The flooding brightness lifted her form and face, seen in profile, into sharp relief, and the shadow which it cast on the grass made her appear the more tall and slender. Grown and subtly altered she undoubtedly was, thought Donald. The girlish curves and lithesomeness had not departed; but they carried a suggestion of approaching maturity. Her wavy hair no longer hung unbound about her face, but was dressed in two braids, one of which had fallen forward across her breast. Shoes and stockings covered her legs; but the simple dress still left her neck and arms bare, and the flesh was robbed of its color and made alabaster, the golden threads stolen from the dark hair and replaced by a silver sheen, so that there was something ethereal, but startlingly beautiful, in the picture.

Holding the violently wriggling Mike in check, one hand on his collar, the other grasping his jaws, Donald stole silently forward until he had passed the corner of the cabin, and his own shadow had crept forward, and laid itself at the girl's feet.

Suddenly she perceived it, and turned with a question in her shadowy eyes. Her lips parted, then curved into the familiar magic smile, as she cried, "Oh, Doctor MacDonald. You've come."

Mike twisted free, and, with a mad bound and wiggle, threw himself on the girl, who caught him in her arms. Then, holding him against her, she somehow succeeded in extending one hand, shapely and slender, to meet the man's two eager ones.

"Oh, grandpap," she thrilled through the doorway. "Hurry out hyar. Dr. Mac hes come fer ter see ye."

A sense of vague disappointment possessed Donald as he heard her lapse into the musical, but provincial, dialect; but, seeming to read his thought that the year of study had not been able to alter it, she whispered, "I always talk like I used to, to him, for he likes it best."

"I see, and you're quite right, too," was his low-voiced reply, as he heard the old man's heavy tread crossing the bare floor within.

"Wall, wall, stranger. We air shor'ly powerful pleased fer ter welcome ye ergin," came in Big Jerry's deep and hearty voice, as he emerged from the darkness, and caught Donald's hand in the old, crushing vise.

For a few moments they all chatted happily, and then Jerry said, "Erfore I fergits hit, us wants ye ter stay up hyar this trip. Ther loft-room air yourn, an' leetle Rose hes fixed hit up special fer ye—curtains et ther window, er rag rug on ther floor, an' ther Lawd knows what else."

"Do you really want me to?" cried the newcomer in pleased surprise.

"Of course we really want you," answered the happy girl.

"Then, by Jove, I'll be only too glad to, although I had not thought of such a thing."

"I allows thet yo' kin regard this hyar cabin as yo'r home whenever yo're hyarerbouts, an' we wants fer ye ter feel thet hit air home," said the giant with simple courtesy.

"I can't tell you how much that means to me—real hospitality like that," began Donald, hesitatingly. "You know I ... I haven't any real home and haven't had ... since mother left us, and my sister was married. Of course," he added hastily, "my rooms are pleasant and comfortable, and all that; but they're only a place to work, sleep and eat in, and there isn't any of that indefinably vital something—a soul, perhaps—which makes a real home a sacred spot, no matter how big or how small it may be. I get frightfully lonely there, sometimes."

"I didn't allow thet a man could git lonely in the city," replied Jerry.

"'In the city?' My dear man, one can be twice as lonely there as any place I know of. The very life makes for shut-inness, in mind as well as body, and there are thousands and thousands of men, and women, too, there, who know scarcely a soul outside of the very few with whom their daily work brings them in contact; and they are mere acquaintances, not friends. They see only the four walls of the rooms in which they work and sleep, and the walled-in streets between the two.

"These very streets seem to me to typify the city's life—so hard, so filled with hurrying, jostling crowds of people, all equally intent upon their own narrow, selfish affairs, people who would think a fellow crazy if he spoke to them pleasantly, as you did to me the first time I saw you. There are thousands who never even lift their eyes to the narrow strips of sky between the tall buildings. They—and they only—know what real loneliness is.

"Of course I'm not one of those unfortunates," he added quickly, "for I have many friends, and am making new ones daily; but that is the atmosphere I live in fifty weeks of the year. Do you wonder that it gets on my nerves at times, and that I long to run away from it all and get into the big, open spaces in the warm heart of friendly nature?

"Do you think that I can ever feel lonesome in the forest and fields, with living things always about me which are ready to share themselves with me?"

"I reckon I haint never thought uv thet. This hyar mountain country air's whar I hev lived in contentment all my life, an' I allows thet hit's good ernough fer me ter keep on livin' in, twill I dies."

Rose remained silent, although obviously disturbed by Donald's words; but, before she could voice her thoughts, another figure quietly joined the group—a tall, stooping man, clean shaven, and with an aesthetic countenance seemingly out of its natural environment.

"Why, it's my minister man," cried Rose joyfully. "Wherever did you come from?"

"My wanderings brought me close home, and I could not pass by without calling on my two good friends in Webb's Gap."

"An' we air downright glad fer ter see ye, reverend," answered the host. "This hyar air the doctor man from the city, what leetle Rose hes told ye so much erbout."

Donald already felt drawn to the strange divine, their common interest in the girl acting as a lode-stone, and he clasped his hand with friendly pressure. The other returned it less vigorously, but no less sincerely, and Donald experienced a peculiar mesmeric thrill which startled him a little.

"Perhaps I should apologize," began Mr. Talmadge in a low voice, the timbre of which still retained the resonance of early culture. "I came on this happy scene—or at least to the corner of the house—while you were speaking of life in the city, and I could not very well help pausing and listening.

"I know your feelings only too well, Dr. MacDonald. I was born, bred and worked in New York until my health became undermined by just such influences as you mentioned; and I was forced to run away, too, and seek the hills 'whence cometh my help.'"

"And deep in your inner consciousness you don't regret the change, do you?" asked Donald.

"No. Perhaps I am selfish—a shirker—and there are times when the old call to get back where I know that the need is greatest comes like a clarion. But for myself, the disaster—which once seemed like a curse—has turned out to be a blessing, as is so often the case. I have learned a great lesson, doctor."

"What lesson?" queried Rose.

"God's," responded the minister, quietly. "It may seem strange to you, my dear, but, although I was reared in a religious family, went through a great theological school, and was the rector of a city church for ten years, I never fully knew Him until I came here."

"Why, Mr. Talmadge!" gasped the girl in astonishment, while Donald said bluntly, "Do you really believe that you know Him, now?"

"I do. Not, of course, in all the fullness of His mysterious majesty, but as a friend whose ways are no longer hidden from my eyes."

"Frankly, I wish I might say as much," said the doctor. "I, too, was brought up in a religious household, but small good it did me, for, when I became old enough to think for myself, the glaring errors and inconsistencies in my childhood belief became so apparent that I became hopeless of ever understanding the truth which might lie within that astonishing maze. I quit going to church long ago."

"Doctors are generally regarded as an atheistic lot," smiled the minister.

"That's slander. We may—in the aggregate—be agnostic.... I suppose that I am."

"I ... I don't understand," said Rose in distress, "but I don't like for to hear yo' say that, Dr. Mac."

"It may not be as bad as it sounds, my child," laughed Mr. Talmadge. "An atheist is indeed a terrible person, who doesn't believe in our heavenly Father, but an agnostic is only one who confesses that he doesn't know ... but may be quite willing to learn."

"Oh, learn ... I mean teach him, then," she said earnestly. "You are God's man and know everything about Him, Mr. Talmadge."

"Indeed I don't—far from it, and I imagine that your friend doesn't want to hear a sermon on the mount."

"I do," she cried, "there's lot of things I want to hear about, but I've always been afraid to ask you, till now."

Rather gruffly Donald added his word, "I hope that I am broad-minded enough not only to receive, but to welcome, any light on a subject which is, I imagine, the most vitally important one in life."

"Well, then, suppose we hold a little spiritual clinic for our Rose's benefit primarily, remembering that where two or three are gathered together in His name, God will be with them. And, after all, what time could be more fitting than this silent, holy night; what place more suitable than this great temple of the out-of-doors, for us simple children of His to seek understanding?"



CHAPTER X

"SMILES'" CONSECRATION

If, half an hour previous, Donald had been told that, during the first evening of his long anticipated visit to his forest of enchantment, he was to play the part of patient in a spiritual clinic, conducted by a wandering backwood preacher for the instruction of a seventeen-year-old mountain girl—as well as for his own enlightenment—he would have scoffed at the idea; yet, oddly enough, he felt no sense of displeasure or antagonism.

In the company of this unaffected man of God, the simple old mountaineer and the equally simple girl only, vanished all the self-conscious reserve and reticence which usually attacks the modern city dweller when called upon to speak of things spiritual and eternal, and which had so often bound Donald's tongue, even when his inner being cried aloud for expression.

"I hardly blame you for your attitude of mind, doctor," began Mr. Talmadge. "Although it is certain that the knowledge of God starts from Himself a ray of pure white light, the dogmas, creeds and theologies—invented by many men of many minds—have raised between it and our spiritual eyes a glass clouded with earthly murkiness, through which we now see darkly. Only as mankind grows in spiritual stature, and lifts his head above the clouds, can he hope to see the ray in all its purity and glory."

"Yes, I suppose that's so," assented Donald. "But I'm afraid that my difficulties lie deeper than the unessential differences in dogma. However, since our little friend is the one who has questions to ask, let her conduct the catechism."

Rose was speechless with embarrassment, but finally managed to say, "I reckon I'm so ignorant, that I can't say the things that are in my heart. Please, Dr. Mac, you ask the reverend the questions and let me just sit and listen. Only don't use too big words, for I want to understand."

"All right, I'll be cross-examiner, but please believe, Mr. Talmadge, that what I may say is not intended to be argumentative, but rather honestly inquisitive. I really would like to find out if any one can reasonably explain some of the many things in religion to the acceptance of which I have been unable to reconcile myself."

"I'll do it gladly, if I can. But, before you begin, let me apologize for what I said in ill-timed jest about doctors being atheists. I suppose that, in one sense, there isn't a more truly religious class of men in the world."

"I can't agree to that, either," said Donald.

"Perhaps not, but tell me this. Isn't the structure and functionings of the human body infinitely more wonderful to you, who have made an intimate study of it, than it can be to us who have not?"

"Undoubtedly. It's the most marvellous thing on God's earth," answered Donald, unthinkingly employing an expression heard in childhood.

"There!" cried Mr. Talmadge. "He's convicted out of his own mouth, isn't he, Rose? 'God's earth', he says."

"A mere figure of speech," the physician laughed.

"A statement of fact, sir. There are mighty few of you doctors who will not, within your hearts of hearts, agree that a Supreme Being must have designed this earthly temple which we call our body, the world we dwell in, and established the laws that govern both. And, knowing, as none others can, how wonderfully the former is constructed, is not a doctor's appreciation of the Almighty's power bound to be sincere?"

"Granted. But that isn't being religious," Donald protested.

"It is the foundation of all true religion," was the quiet answer.

The physician was still dubious. "Well, perhaps. Still, I doubt if many ministers would agree that merely because a man may believe in a superhuman creative power, he is religious, if, at the same time he says—as I must—that he doesn't and can't subscribe to many of the things which we were taught as children to believe as 'gospel truth.'"

There was the sound of a shocked and troubled "Oh," from Rose, but the minister's composure was in no wise ruffled.

"The trouble is, I imagine, that you have mentally outgrown the willingness to accept certain statements blindly, as children and primitive minds do, and yet have made no really earnest endeavor to lift the veil and look behind it with the intent of finding out if a simple and understandable truth may not lie hidden there."

"But how is one going to get behind a plain statement of what is apparently meant to be fact, such as the description of the creation in Genesis?" demanded Donald, somewhat impatiently. "Science is absolute, and I, for one, know that the Darwinian theory of life, or one substantially like it, is true. Why, a study of human anatomy proves it, even if we did not have conclusive evidence in anthropology and geology. So, in the very first words of the Bible, we start off with a conflict between its tenets, and what human learning shows us to be an indisputable fact."

"Do we?" smiled the minister.

"Don't we?" answered Donald.

Rose sat looking first at one, then at the other, with a puzzled look in her eyes, for it was all Greek to her.

Noticing this, Mr. Talmadge said, "I guess that we've started a bit too strongly for our little listener, but we want her to accompany us from the start," and he briefly, in simple words, outlined the Darwinian theory, which brought an outraged grunt from Big Jerry. Then he turned back to Donald, and said, "Take the story of ... well, say the prodigal son, for an example. Was that the account of real happenings, think you?"

"Of course not. Merely a parable." The other's mind reverted to the one which he himself had preached by letter to little "Smiles."

"The Bible is filled with parables," said Mr. Talmadge, simply. "Why should we regard certain stories as allegories merely, and others as historically accurate statements of fact when they are difficult to credit as such? Especially why should we do so in the face of the obvious fact that the earlier part of the Old Testament is simply tradition, handed down, orally at first, by an intensely patriotic and rather vain race? Sacred tradition it is, to be sure; but that should not deter us from endeavoring to analyze it in the light of reason. Besides, hasn't it ever occurred to you that in a translation from the original Hebrew, some of the finer meanings of the old words are sure to have been lost or distorted?"

"Yes, I suppose that is so."

"As a matter of fact, the Hebrew word 'Yom,' which, in the story of the Creation, has been translated 'day,' also means 'period.' And it is a rather interesting thing, in this connection, that the biblical account mentions an evening to each of the first six 'days,' but not to the seventh, which shows that it isn't finished yet. Science tells us that this last period, since the creation of mankind, has already lasted many thousands of years—although the length of time ascribed to it varies greatly—and this gives us some idea of how long those other 'days' might have been. Besides, in this case, we do not have to be 'finicky' about the meaning of the ancient word, for in the Psalms there is a verse which says that a thousand years in His sight are ..."

"Are but as yesterday," Rose completed the quotation in her gentle voice. "You see, those were God's days, not ours."

"Well, I'll be ... blessed," said Donald. "It is logical enough, isn't it? The trouble in this case, at least, was that I never consciously tried to reconcile what I regarded as the old and new beliefs."

"But, Mr. Talmadge," Smiles' perplexed voice broke in. "If human beings just developed from a kind of monkey ..."

"The anthropoid ape wasn't exactly a monkey, although he may have looked and acted like one," laughed Donald.

"Well, but how could the Good Book say that God created man in His own image?"

"Do you remember what Paul said, in his wonderful epistle to the Corinthians? He answered your question when he wrote, 'There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body ... and as we have borne the image of the earthly, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly.' What does the Bible say that God is, Rose?"

"'God is a spirit,'" whispered Smiles, reverently.

"Exactly. And Dr. MacDonald will tell you that 'spirit' comes from a Latin word which means 'breath.' When God perceived that some of the earth creatures had, according to His plan, developed sufficiently in mind so that they could rule the world, He breathed into them some of His own spirit, and thus created them in His own image—for of course a spirit hasn't form and shape like beings of flesh and blood."

"Hasn't He?" gasped the girl. "Why, there is a picture of Him, like a great big man with long beard, in my Bible."

"Merely symbolic, dear child, and I have always felt that it was a vain symbolism, in both senses of that word. You look them up in your new dictionary to-morrow. In trying hard to picture God, men have made Him in the likeness of the most wonderful things their eyes had ever seen—themselves—and just increased His size. As for the beard, that is supposed to be a sign of power and strength.

"Of course, in fact, God isn't a man or even a super-man, but a spirit, combining the spiritual elements of both male and female."

"I reckon I jest hev ter think of er somebody fer ter worship," broke in the hitherto silent Jerry. "Jest something like ther wind air er bit too onsartain fer me."

"And for millions of others," answered the minister quickly. "Of course there isn't the slightest bit of harm in people thinking of Our Heavenly Father as a Being with a form which our eyes might see if they were only given the power to behold heavenly, as well as earthly, things. The conception of the Omnipotent as a physical embodiment has in the past been of incalculable advantage in making an appeal to an aboriginal type of mind, since it really requires some sort of material personification, which it can at least visualize, the conception of which serves as an incentive for well-doing, and a deterrent from evil doing. It is therefore infinitely preferable as a working basis to an unembodied force."

Big Jerry brought a smile to the lips of the other two men by bursting out, "Durned ef I understand. Them words air too powerful ederkated fer me."

"But," said Rose, "what you say kind of frightens me, Mr. Talmadge. If we can't ever see God, even in Heaven, how can we be sure that He is?"

"Have you ever seen ... love?" queried the minister softly.

"No, sir."

"Yet you know that it is. You've never seen, tasted, touched or smelled thought, but you know that it exists. In the same mysterious way we know, and we shall know more perfectly hereafter, that the Great Spirit—I've always loved that beautiful Indian expression—is."

"Yes," she said, somewhat uncertainly. "I think that I understand. But it's powerful hard to understand how I can be His little child if He isn't a person."

"I don't wonder that it puzzles you, dear. It is hard for even the oldest of us to try to imagine something entirely different from what we have actually seen with our mortal eyes, and we can hardly conceive of a spirit, or even a ghost, as something without some sort of a form, even though it be a very misty one. But the real you isn't the flesh that we can see and touch, but the spirit that dwells inside, and, just as some of your earthly father and mother is in your body, so you have something of God within you, which was given you at birth. We call it ..."

"My soul."

"Yes. And as that was part of Him you are His child ... so are we all—spiritual children."

"And Jesus? Was He His son in the same way?" whispered the girl.

"Exactly, only to a far greater degree than we can hope to be, for to Him the Heavenly Father gave His spirit in fuller measure than He ever had before to mankind, so that He might set an example to the world and teach us the way we should try to live."

There was silence for a moment, and then Smiles spoke the thought that had been troubling her. "But, Mr. Talmadge, if God hasn't any body and our spirits are like him, why heaven ..."

Mr. Talmadge sent a glance of smiling appeal at the doctor as though to say, "Now I'm in for it. How can I explain heaven as a spiritual condition?" Aloud he said, "I won't pretend to know just what heaven is like, but, of course, our spirits won't need an earth like this to walk on."

"But," persisted the child, "the Good Book says that there are many mansions there, and golden streets, and also that it is a land flowing with milk and honey."

"So it does, and very likely there are, in the realms of the spirit, things which correspond to those that we have known on earth, but I am quite sure that they are not material things."

"Ef thar haint no real heaven, thar haint no real hell," broke in Big Jerry, whose mind had been slowly grasping the meaning of the minister's words. "I reckon thar must be a place uv punishment fer sinners."

Painstakingly, as though explaining to a child, Mr. Talmadge answered, "Mr. Webb, did you ever do something wrong, because of which your conscience troubled you later?"

"Reckon I hev. Reckon I suffered the torments uv the damned fer hit."

"Did you ever burn your hand?"

"Yes, I done thet, too; powerful bad."

"Which caused you the most suffering, your conscience or your hand?"

"I erlows thet my conscience done hit."

"That is the answer to your implied question. God doesn't need to give us new bodies, and send them into a place of fire and brimstone to punish us for our sins. If the soul suffers, it is in hell, even though it may still be in our mortal bodies. That it must suffer, when we do wrong, we know. But, Mr. Webb, I do not think that it is meant to be punishment in the sense of retribution—getting even—so much as it is for correction. You know that men put gold through the fire to purge it of the dross that makes it dim and lustreless. That is what the fires of the spirit are for; that is why the Bible speaks of Hell as a place of fire. It is another parable."

"Yes, I see," said Rose, but the old man shook his head, unconvinced. Then the girl asked suddenly, "But why was God so good as to give us part of Himself and let us make it impure and suffer, Mr. Talmadge?"

"Ah, now you are getting into the depths of religion and I'd rather not discuss that until you have had a chance to think over what we have talked about already. All that I wanted to do to-night was to get both you, and the doctor, to thinking for yourselves. Come and see me, doctor, if you want to continue this discussion. I've got theories on any subject that you may mention, I guess," he laughed. "But I won't count the evening wasted—even leaving out the pleasure I have had—if I have helped to open your eyes, ever so little, to the light."

"Oh, you have ... and mine, too," answered Rose. "I mean to think hard, but if I get very puzzled, I'll come to see you about it. But, anyway, I mean to be God's little child all my life—as well as a trained nurse. And I mean to help Dr. Mac, always, to be a child of our heavenly Father, too," she added, simply. As Donald arose to bid the minister good-night, his eyes were a little misty, for the girl's unaffected declaration had moved him more deeply than he had ever been moved in his life.



CHAPTER XI

ADOPTION BY BLOOD

For a little while Donald lay awake under the eaves in his loft room, but his sleeplessness was the result neither of worry or nervous tension. His mind, indeed, was unusually contented. None of the disturbing thoughts of difficult tasks on the morrow assailed it; he felt only an unwonted peace and contentment. The impressions left by the evening's talk still swayed and uplifted his soul. Yet, deep within his consciousness, there was a vague realization that it would be long, if ever, before he could hope to pattern his life by the precepts of the man of God who had so stirred him. Happily, he could not foresee how soon mortal passions were to repossess him wholly, to blot out the new spiritual light which was his.

In her little room below, Rose, too, lay awake, her youthful mind teeming with wonderful, new ideas garnered from the seeds sown by the "reverend"; but the insistent call of slumber to her tired, healthy body in time lulled her busy thoughts to rest.

* * * * *

"Oh, Doctor Mac, come quick! Grandpappy's hurted."

Sound asleep, and even then visioning the girl whose terrified voice suddenly wove itself into the figment of his dream, when the first word fell upon his ears, Donald was wide awake, and he was half out of bed before the last was spoken.

He paused only long enough to draw on his hunting breeches and thrust his bare feet into their tramping boots—which left a hiatus of unstockinged muscular calf—hurriedly dropped down the ladder, and in two strides was out of doors.

Near the wood pile stood the old mountaineer, on his countenance expression of mingled pain and chagrin, the latter dominating. His right hand still grasped the keen-edged axe, while Rose stood beside him, clasping his brawny left forearm with both of her small but sinewy hands.

As Donald approached them on the run he noticed that the girl had sacrificed her treasured hair ribbon to make a tourniquet halfway up the old man's arm, and that blood was running down his hand and falling from the finger tips with slow, rhythmical continuity.

"Hit haint nothin' et all, Smiles," Big Jerry was rumbling forth. "Hit air jest er scratch. I don't know how I come fer ter do hit an' I reckon I ought ter be plumb ershamed. Why, Smiles, I been erchoppin' wood fer nigh onter fifty year, an' I haint never chopped myself erfore. Hit war thet tarnation knot. But hit haint nothin', this hyar haint."

"Come over to the well where we can give it a wash," was Donald's curt command, and Big Jerry followed him obediently, while the girl hastened ahead and drew up a bucket full of pure, sparkling, ice-cold spring water. The doctor tipped it unceremoniously over the giant's arm, and, as the already coagulating blood on the surface was washed away, made a hasty examination of the slanting, ugly gash beneath.

"Superficial wound. No artery or major muscle severed," he announced, as though addressing a class. "Still, you were right in taking the precaution of applying that tourniquet, Rose. I suppose it was bleeding pretty merrily at first."

"Hit war spoutin' powerful," she answered, in her stress of excitement lapsing into the language of childhood.

"Yes, I suppose so. That is in a way a good thing in such cases, however. It automatically cleanses the wound of any infectious matter. Look, Rose," he added, as though explaining to a clinic, "see how the blood is thickening up into a clot? That is chiefly the work of what we call 'white corpuscles'—infinitely tiny little organisms whose sole purpose in life is to eat up disease germs which may get into the veins, and to hurry to the surface when there is a cut, cluster together and die, their bodies forming a wall against the wicked enemies who are always anxious to get inside the blood for the purpose of making trouble."

"I told ye 'twarnt nothin'," said Big Jerry, not without a note of relief in his voice, however. "A leetle blood-lettin' won't do me no hurt. I'll jest wind a rag eround hit, an' ..."

"Not so fast," laughed Donald. "In all probability 'a rag just wound round it' would do the business, for your blood is apparently in first-class condition, with its full share of the red corpuscles; but you might just as well have the benefit of the hospital corps since we are on the ground. The red corpuscles," he added, addressing Smiles, "are the other good little chaps who continually go hurrying through the body, feeding it with oxygen and making it strong. Run into the house and get my 'first aid' kit, from my knapsack, child. You'll remember it when you see it, for I had to dig it out the very first time that I saw you."

The girl hurried cabinwards, fleet as the wind, and, as the two men sat down on a woodpile to wait for her, Donald had an opportunity to take note of his ludicrously inadequate costume.

It seemed little more than a minute before Rose returned with his kit, but it was not brought by a mountain maid. In that almost incredibly short time the child had changed her gingham dress for the immaculate costume of a trained nurse, and the transformation in apparel had been accompanied by one in mien no less noticeable. Dainty and fair as a white wild rose she was, yet seriously businesslike in expression. Donald was startled for a moment. It came to his mind that he was looking upon a vision of the years to come, and the picture caused his heart to beat a little faster; but, although the light of appreciation shone in his eyes, his only comment was, "Are your hands as clean as that dress?"

"Yes, doctor."

"Now how the deuce did she come to use that stereotyped response?" he wondered; then said, aloud, "Then undo that roll of gauze bandage and tear off a piece about six feet long ... be careful! Don't let it touch the ground."

Then he immediately gave his attention to Big Jerry, and smiled with professional callousness as he caught the giant's wince when the antiseptic fluid which he poured on the wound started it smarting.

"Now for your first lesson in the scientific application of a bandage, Smiles," he said.

Very carefully she followed his directions, and at length the split end was tied with professional neatness. But, as his fingers tested the knot, the girl seized one of his hands and exclaimed, with solicitude, "Why, you're hurt, too, Doctor Mac!"

She indicated on one of his fingers a small jagged tear from which the blood was slowly oozing.

"How the dickens did I do that?" he demanded in surprise.

"Sliding down the ladder from the loft-room, I reckon. See, there's a piece of splinter in it still."

"Right-o, Miss Detective." He turned to the old man and remarked, "It looks as though your blood and mine had been mixing, this morning. Why not complete the ceremony and make it an adoption by blood; the way they used to do in some of the Indian tribes, you know?" he added, half jestingly, and acting on a sudden impulse. "You can take me into the clan as ... well, as your foster-son."

"Thar haint no clan nowadays, I reckon, but ef yo' wants fer ter be my foster-son I'd shor' be pleased fer ter hev ye es such, lad."

"Great. I feel like 'one of the family' already, and if you will adopt me as a new son—with all the privileges and obligations of one—I'll appreciate it, no joking."

As a pledge of their compact the city and mountain man clasped hands solemnly, while Rose stood by, delightedly smiling her benediction upon their act. "Why," she cried, "that makes me your little foster sister, Doctor Mac. Oh, I'm so glad!"

"Yes, so it does." Donald answered with a cheery voice, but no sooner were the words spoken than a sense of rebellion took possession of him. "Idiot!" he muttered, shaking off the feeling with an effort of his will.

"But haint ... aren't you going to do up your hurt finger, too?" she queried anxiously.

The man seized the broken sliver with his fingers and jerked it out, examined the tiny incision and then thrust the wounded member into his mouth. "Don't ever tell any of my patients that you saw me do this," he laughed, with a return to good humor, "but that is my way of treating a minor injury ... then I forget it. It's a fearful secret," he added, lowering his voice, "but nature, aided by sun and air, are wonderful healers, and just ordinary saliva, if a person is healthy, is both cleansing and healing."

"Thet air the way anumals cures thar hurts," remarked Jerry.

"Yes, it is nature's way, and if the blood is pure, and the cut not so deep as to make infection likely, there isn't a much better one, after all. However, Miss Nurse, you may practice your art on my finger, too, if you want."

He held his hand out, and, flushing with childish happiness, Rose bound up the little scratch painstakingly, answering Donald's brief word of commendation with a flashing smile. Indeed, experience with many nurses of many grades of ability made him aware that her untrained fingers held an unusual degree of natural knack which augured well for the future.

During a simple breakfast, leisurely eaten, the trio talked over in detail the varied happenings of the year that had passed, and Donald was as astonished as he was pleased to discover what diligent application the girl had exercised in her studying, and what results she had attained, despite the manifold handicaps under which she had labored. Her ministerial friend and mentor had truly guided her feet far along the lower levels of learning. Yet the old and well-remembered childish charm had been in no wise lessened, and the unaffected simplicity with which she dropped into the mountain tongue, when speaking to her grandfather, caused Donald to glow with sympathetic appreciation.

As they finished eating, Big Jerry remarked, "Hit air a powerful fine mornin' fer ter spend huntin', my boy. I reckon yo'll wish ter git inter the woods right smart, an' ef yo' desires ter make a day uv hit, Smiles'll fix ye up er leetle lunch ter take erlong."

"Oh, I'm not exactly sure what I shall do," answered Donald, with slight hesitation. "Perhaps what I need most, to start with, is just plain rest, and I rather guess I'll laze around this morning, and maybe go down to Fayville to get my grip this afternoon."

"Wall, thet air a good idee. Jest make yo'rself ter home. I've got a leetle bizness ter attend to up the mountain a piece, an' I allows yo' kin git erlong 'thout me fer a while." He departed, disappearing with surprising rapidity, and left the man and girl together.

Donald sank onto the doorstep, leaned against the side post, and sucked away at his pipe with lazy contentment, alternately watching Rose as she flew busily about her simple household duties, and sending his gaze out over the broad stretch of peaceful mountainside, which lay dozing in the warm morning sun.



CHAPTER XII

THE THREE OF HEARTS

At length Donald said, abruptly, "You haven't asked me anything about Miss Treville, Smiles."

There was a perceptible pause in the girl's dish-drying, and the simple mountain ballad that she was happily humming broke off in the middle of a minor cadence. The man regarded her with curiosity as she slowly approached him, saying, "I didn't mean to be so forgetful, doctor, and I'm plumb ashamed. I should be pleased to have you tell me all about her."

"Why, I don't know as there is much to tell," he replied, a little nonplussed by the unexpectedness of the implied question. "Of course she is very nice and very lovely, as I wrote you."

"What does she look like?"

"I am afraid that I cannot hope to give a very accurate description of her, Rose. It would perhaps be easier if you had ever visited an art museum, and seen statues of some of the Greek goddesses, for people say that she looks like one of them. You see she is quite tall for a woman—almost as tall as I am myself—and ... well, her form and the way she carries herself is queenly. Then she has hair darker than yours, and ... her eyes are gray, I guess, although, come to think of it, I never noticed particularly. She isn't pretty like a wild-flower, but very beautiful, more like a stately cultivated bloom. When you have seen conservatory blossoms you will know better what I mean. She is very serious, too. Even when she is quite happy it is sometimes a bit hard to tell it, for she seldom really smiles.... I wish she would," he added, as though to himself, "she has wonderful teeth."

"Oh, she must be very lovely," mused Rose, and added with slight hesitancy, "I reckon you must love her powerful."

"Yes, of course," Donald answered, and then added, as though a logical reason for his affection was necessary, "You see, I have known Marion all her life. She is my sister's closest friend, and almost grew up in our house."

"I wish I had," said Rose, the note of envy in her voice being outweighed by the childlike sincerity which her words carried. "What does she do?"

"Do? Why, I don't know, exactly—what all society girls, with plenty of money at their disposal, do, I suppose. Of course she has clubs which she belongs to, and she goes to dances and theatres and ... I think she is interested in some sort of charity, too." He had an uncomfortable feeling that he was failing to make out a very strong case for the woman to whom he was engaged, and at the same time wondering why any vindication of her should seem necessary, since he had always regarded her as a bit too perfect, if anything.

"Oh, that is lovely, for the Bible says that the greatest of all is charity," cried Rose, her eyes sparkling. "And does she go about helping poor, lonesome city people, and the dear little poor children? It must be wonderful to have lots of money, so that you can do all sorts of things to make them happier and better."

"Confound the child," thought Donald, although his exasperation was directed rather at himself, than at her. "It's positively indecent the way she gets inside one. Judged by the standards of her class, Marion is a splendid girl—head and shoulders above the average—yet these unconsciously searching questions of Smiles' are ... Hang it all, I wish I had had sense enough not to open the subject."

Aloud he said non-committally, "Yes, of course it is wonderful and I know that you would do it if you were able."

"I shall do it," was the confident answer. "I can't give money but I can give myself." There was a moment of silence; then Rose added softly, "I guess she loves you a lot, too, you are so good to ... to people, and do such wonderful things. When do you calculate to get married to her, Doctor Mac?"

"Married?" he repeated in a startled voice, "Oh, some day, of course; but you know how terribly busy I am, and ..." He stopped, visualizing himself at that moment as he lolled indolently in the doorway of that mountain cabin, and wondering if the same thought were in her mind as was in his. At the same time came a welcome interruption in the appearance of a small child, brown as the proverbial berry, and bearing in her arms a large and rather dilapidated appearing doll. For an instant Donald failed to recognize her, and said, "Hello, here comes one of your little friends to see you, Smiles. Why, I do believe ... yes, it's Lou. Come along. You're not afraid of the doctor man who sent you that doll."

Lou advanced, one finger in her mouth, the corners of which were lifting in a shy smile. Sensing the approach of another old friend, Mike bounded out of the doorway where he had lain panting in the shadow, and so energetic was his greeting that the child was very nearly upset by it, although as soon as she could regain her equilibrium she flung her little arms around the roughly coated neck, without a trace of fear.

"Mike's got er broken leg," she announced. The words gave Donald a start until he saw that she was holding out to him her doll, one of whose limbs flapped about in piteous substantiation. "Kin yo' make hit well ergin?"

Examining the injured member, whence the sawdust blood had issued through a deep incision in the cloth, Donald replied seriously, "It will require a rather serious operation, but I guess that I can mend it with the assistance of Nurse Smiles. We will have to sew up the wound and put the leg in splints."

"Hit haint ergoin' ter hurt her much, air hit?" begged Lou, with all the solicitude of a young mother.

"No. We'll give her an anesthetic—something to put her sound asleep—and I guess that she won't know anything about it." Rose joined them laughingly, bringing a threaded needle and some bits of cloth for stuffing and in a few minutes the operation was complete, even to the application of splints, roughly shaped by Donald's jack-knife. Throughout the process the physician explained each step to Rose, who cried as they finished, "Oh, I love to do it. It's lots more fun than book studying or weaving baskets."

"Well, we might have a real lesson in 'first aid' this morning, if Lou can stay and be your little patient. Bring out that roll of bandages again."

What a merry hour they spent, helped by Mike, who insisted in doing his share by licking the patient at every opportunity. The air was so warm that Lou's little dress could be taken off, and as she giggled or screamed with merriment, Donald and Rose treated her for every conceivable fracture, sprain or injury, the former all the while explaining in the simplest language at his command the major facts of human anatomy.

Rose proved to be an astonishingly apt pupil, and after each demonstration insisted on going through both the procedure and explanation alone.

Finally, in the course of demonstrating an unusually intricate piece of bandaging, Donald put his arms about Smiles, the better to guide her hands, and impulsively drew her close against him. He could not see her face, but he perceived that a quick flush mantled her neck and delicately rounded cheek. She moved away hastily, saying in a low voice, "I reckon you oughtn't do like that, Doctor Mac."

"Why, Smiles!" came his response in a hurt tone.

"I don't mean for to hurt you, and of course I cares for you like I used to, but I guess it ain't ... isn't ... just right for you to put your arms around me ... that way now. I'm most grown up now, and ... and ... you're pledged to ... to some one else." During her speech the color had flamed brighter and brighter.

The man was both surprised and chagrined. He realized, of course, that in many respects Rose was indeed, 'most a woman now'—that she was far more mature in certain ways than city-bred girls of the same age; for, while they might be infinitely more sophisticated in worldly ways than she, they are still children, whereas she had already entered into the problems of life and for several years had not only been in full charge of a home, but in intimate touch with the issues of life and death in the little community. Understanding all this, he nevertheless looked upon her as a child because of the childlike simplicity which characterized her still.

"I see," he answered slowly and a little ashamed, then added lightly, "but you have apparently forgotten that you adopted me as a foster-brother this morning."

For a moment she said nothing; then the old misty smile touched her lips, and she replied, "I shor' most forgot that, and it makes it all right. Please, Doctor Mac, don't think that I didn't enjoy for you to do it."

There succeeded another brief, awkward silence. Then Smiles slipped her arm about Donald's neck with frank, childlike affection, and leaned close to him, her young, warm being thrilling his senses, as he full well realized Marion's infrequent embraces never had.

Shocked and distressed by his own emotions, Donald was the first to withdraw his encircling arm, with an intent to continue the lesson. But it was ended.

During the brief interlude Lou had stood regarding the man and girl uncomprehendingly. Now she piped up, "Smiles loves ye er heap, I reckon, doctor man, an' so does I. Ef she don't marry with ye, I'll do hit when I gits bigger."

"My, but I'm a fortunate man to have three fair ladies love me, and I won't forget your promise," Donald laughed merrily.

"But my brother Juddy don't love ye none," said the child, innocently bringing a cloud over the friendly sunshine in her hearers' hearts. Donald looked at Rose uneasily as he answered.

"Oh, I hope he will like me some day. We should be the best of friends, for we both care for the same two dear girls."

"Where is Juddy?" came Smiles' somewhat troubled query.

"Oh, he air away ergin; up in ther mountain."

The shadow deepened on Rose's face and Donald caught the sound of a distressed, "Oh."

"What's the matter?" he asked without special thought.

"It haint ... it isn't anything ... leastwise it isn't anything that I can tell you about, doctor Mac. I ... I just don't like for him to go up there."

A feeling closely akin to jealousy stirred Donald's heart. Did that uncouth young mountaineer really mean something to her after all?



CHAPTER XIII

GATHERING CLOUDS

Despite Smiles' ingenuous proffer of a sister's affection, Donald was troubled with an unreasonable dissatisfaction over the course which the events of the morning had taken, and he knew that it was unreasonable, which made it worse. Now he suddenly announced that he guessed he would not wait until the afternoon before going down to Fayville to get his small amount of baggage.

The girl was troubled, also, without knowing just why, and she watched his departure with an unhappy feeling that somehow the changes which the year had made in both their lives had raised a misty barrier between them—intangible, but not easily to be swept away. Furthermore, young as she was, she intuitively sensed that hers was the necessity of reconstructing their friendship on a new foundation, because she was a woman. The man could not do it.

Meanwhile Donald performed his downward journey with none of the lightness of heart which makes a long walk a pleasure, rather than a task. Going down the wooded descent, where the dew still lay wet beneath the heaviest thickets, was not so bad; but, when he had obtained his grip and gun, and started on the back trail, his discomforts commenced. As the main street of the little village changed its character, first to a road and then a cart path through the fields, it grew deep with dust, and, although no air stirred, it seemed to rise, as water does by capillary attraction, until his clothing was saturated and his mouth and nose overlaid with a film of it. Overhead the sky burned, and from the brown fields, which stretched to the wooded base of the mountain, heat waves rose as though the dry earth were panting with visible breath. An insect chirped half-heartedly in the grass, and then left off as though the effort were too great, and a small striped snake leisurely wove a sinuous path through the dust ahead of him, and vanished with a faint hiss.

It was better when he struck the woods, for there was shade; but the air was more sultry and the added exertion of climbing started the perspiration and turned the coating of dust to sticky grime. Still the breeze delayed, and the fragrant odors of the woods were cloying. His luggage grew heavier and yet more heavy; his arm and back began to ache painfully.

When physical discomfort is accompanied by morose introspection, the result is certain to be unpleasant, and Donald's thoughts were in dismal grays and browns, which ill-matched the radiant colors of external nature.

Certainly Smiles was not to blame, he thought, as he trudged up and up. The fact still remained that they lived on utterly different planes, and that he had not the slightest idea of falling in love with her, or, even mentally, violating his pledge to Marion. Pshaw, she was nothing but a child! It was foolish, absurdly so, yet somehow he felt that his world was out of joint, and, since he could not, or would not, determine just what the trouble was, he could not take active measures to bring about a readjustment.

With a conscious effort of his will he put the mountain child out of his thoughts, and attempted to analyze his real feelings for the city girl, to whom he was betrothed. He could assign no reason to the vague, but persistent, feeling which frequently possessed him, when he was apart from her, that she was not his natural mate. Her poise and reserve, which sometimes irritated him, he knew to be really virtues, in a way as desirable as they were rare in women, even of her class; her unusual beauty fully satisfied his eye; she was a reigning queen, the desired of many men and he had won her, although he hesitated a little over the word "won." Finally, he was certain that she loved him, after her fashion. Why should he, a man as reserved as he was, and one who had little time to spend on the romantic embellishments of life, ask for more? Yet there was mute rebellion in the depths of his heart, and even the memory of that milestone night, eight months before, when the spirit of Christmastide had added its spell to the influences of life-long propinquity, and they had, almost without spoken words, crossed the border and pledged themselves to one another, brought no thrill.

"I know that she is a wonderful woman, and a real beauty," mused Donald, half aloud. "The trouble must be ... yes, is, with me. She's too wonderful for my simple tastes; that's the truth, as I told Ethel. Oh, well, perhaps I can learn to live up to her ... but I hate this society stuff."

* * * * *

Donald's return to the cabin, weary and uncomfortable in body and mind, found Big Jerry sitting heavily in a chair, with Smiles hovering about, and, from the expression on the face of each, he sensed at once that something was wrong. The old man was saying, somewhat laboriously, "Hit don't pain me ... much, Rose, gal. Hit haint nothin' ... ter mention. I'll jest set still hyar erwhile, an' ..."

As the girl caught sight of Donald's big form in the doorway, her face brightened momentarily; but it clouded again with swift pain when he touched his heart with a significant gesture, accompanied by a questioning look. She nodded, then said aloud, "Here's our Doctor Mac back ergin, grandpappy. I reckon he kin do somethin' fer ter help ye."

The newcomer attempted a cheery laugh, and said, "Well, I'm not much good unless we can turn Time's flight backward, and make him a child again temporarily. Kiddies are my specialty, you know, and although I've a few grown-up patients, left over from the time when I took whatever came, and was thankful, I am killing them off as fast as I can."

He spoke facetiously, with the design of instilling a lighter element in the conversation; but, although Jerry smiled wryly, the girl looked so shocked that Donald hastened to add, "Please don't be alarmed, dear, of course I didn't mean that literally. And you know that I will do anything in my power to help. I only wish that I knew more about troubles affecting the heart," he added.

"Reckon the doctor down in Fayville hed ought ter say the same thing," interposed the old man. "I erlows he didn't do me no good, fer I got better es soon's I quit takin' the stuff he left me."

"Don't be too hard on him, foster father. After all, what you probably needed most was to give that big heart of yours a rest, and that is what did the business then, and will now. Well, I'll look you over anyway. I guess professional ethics won't be outraged, with the other physician five steep, uphill miles away."