THE PARTING PLEDGE AND PASSING DAYS
"Doctor Mac," began Smiles timidly, at length. "I'm sorry for what I
said to you this afternoon, and I want to take it back. I guess when
you're angry you don't see things as they are, and I'm sure that you
were only being very, very kind to me when you ... you bought those
baskets. I love you for it, really I do, and if ... if you want me to
keep the money, and it would hurt your feelings if I...."
"Of course I want you to keep it, dear. Yesterday you took me for a
foster-brother, and I hope that you will always let me do for you as I
would for a real flesh-and-blood sister."
"I promise, and I will always do the same for you if I can, dear Don,"
she whispered softly, adding, "but somehow to-night--oh please don't
laugh at me now--somehow to-night I feel more like ... like a mother,
than a sister to you."
"And I truly think you are--a spiritual mother, little woman. I need you
much more than you need me, I guess."
"Do you know," he went on, after a moment, "I am beginning to believe
that I was wrong this afternoon when I said that ... that Judd lied
about adding to the money he received for your baskets. Of course I
have no way of making sure, unless you have kept accounts, but I
actually begin to think that he did."
"I _know_ it," she replied promptly; but with a troubled voice. "Judd
has been very wicked, but he doesn't lie. I think that he meant it the
way ... the way you did, too; but he's different and I mean to give it
all back to him." There was another pause, and then Smiles said gently,
"Donald, it makes my heart ache like, to tell you this, but I've got to
now. I want that you should go away early to-morrow morning."
"What?" he burst out angrily, springing to his feet. "And have him
believe that I ran away from him again? No, how can you ask it, Rose?"
"It isn't that. We know, and _he_ knows now, that you're not afraid of
him. But this mountain is his home, and, if you stay here, there is sure
to be more trouble, and I couldn't bear that, Don. Even if one of you
wasn't ... wasn't hurt in the body, wicked thoughts would hurt your
souls. I know it is so, and you _must_ go ... but, oh, how I am going to
miss you."
For a moment Donald stood tense; then his body relaxed weakly and he
answered, "Yes, you are right, Smiles. It _is_ up to me to go; but I
know that some day these clouds are going to be lifted somehow, and we
shall see each other again and be happy together."
"I know it, too," she answered, with a sob catching her breath. As she
spoke, the clouds, which had been covering the moon for some time,
broke, letting the cool, white light flood the mountain side like a
promise, and her face lit up with the old wondrous smile. "Of course we
will," she cried. "Why, I mean to be your own special nurse some day,
and help you always. Good-night, dear Don."
She turned and ran quickly into the cabin, so that he should not see the
tears which followed the smile.
"Rose war right erbout yo'r goin',--I reckon she air allus right," came
Big Jerry's voice. "Yo' hev got ter go; but I'm ergoin' ter miss ye
powerful, likewise, lad."
"But I'll see you again, too, before long. I've got some of my sense
back, and I mean to write Judd that I am engaged to a girl in the
city--not that I want his friendship after what has happened,
however--and I will be down here again, for a few days at least, when
the atmosphere has cleared--perhaps early this winter."
"Taint likely yo'll ever see me ergin on earth, son," Jerry said
heavily. "Reckon I'm most done fer."
"Your heart? Is it very bad?" queried Donald.
"I allows hit's nigh ter bustin'," was the steady response. "But mebbe
I'll last some while yet--I hopes so, fer leetle Smiles' sake. I haint
blind ter what hes happened, an' I knows thet the time air comin' when
she's es plumb sartain ter fly erway from this hyar mountain es a
homein' dove; fer she hes heard the call uv her city blood, an' hit
haint ter be denied. But I reckon she haint ready ter leave the old nest
yet, so I aims ter stay on erwhile longer ... fer her, though hit haint
goin' ter be in no wise easy fer ter do."
The younger man knew not what answer to make to this affecting
declaration; but the necessity of a reply was forestalled, for Big Jerry
stepped closer and continued earnestly, "Since yo' wished fer ter be a
son ter me, I air ergoin' ter treat ye es sich, an' tell ye something
thet I've done fer the leetle gal, an' thet she don't yet know erbout.
"Back in the spring when I seen thet her mind war made up ter be a
nurse, an' I knowed thet my own time war comin', I sold the timber
rights ter these hyar woods ter a city lumber company fer a thousand
dollars. They haint ergoin' ter cut fer some years yet, an' by thet time
I won't be hyar ter grieve, an' Smiles won't neither.
"Thet money, an' a leetle more what I hev saved, air ter be hern ...
hit's in er savin' bank down ter the city now. But thet haint all I
wants ye ter know. The reverend drawed a last will an' testiment fer me,
leavin' this hyar land ter her--she haint blood kin of mine, yo' know,
nor adopted by law-an' I reckons hit will be val'able some day, fer a
city stranger told me oncet thet thar's coal on hit. So my leetle gal
haint ergoin' ter start her new life penniless, an' ... an' now I wants
ter name ye ter be her guardeen till she air growed up. I hopes yo'll
accept ther charge, fer I trusts ye, son."
"Accept? Indeed I will, and it makes me mighty happy to realize that I
mean something to both of you. I've been playing that she was my sister,
but now she will really be as much to me as though she were."
The two men clasped hands again in full understanding, and as a symbol
of a trust bestowed and accepted.
* * * * *
At sunrise the following morning Donald once more turned his face toward
the valley, whence he had climbed lightheartedly less than two days
previous. He had come with a beloved companion. He went alone, save for
crowding memories--some bright, but far more black as storm-clouds and
shot with malignant flashes of lightning.
His vacation--a travesty on the name--was ended; the castle which his
dreams had built on this remote mountain was a shattered ruin. Yet,
through the dark series of crowding events, ran a fine thread of
gleaming gold, and Donald felt that it had not been broken by his
departure. No, it was spun by Destiny to stretch on and on into the
unseen future, at once for him a guide-line to a higher manhood, and a
tie binding his life to that of the girl whose pathway--starting so far
removed from his--had so strangely converged with it.
To continue his hunting trip in another location, with Mike no longer
his companion in it, was unthinkable. The empty spaces made the void in
his heart unbearable, and he at once returned to Boston and joined his
family at their summer home, to their amazement and delight.
But the man now returned to them after little more than a week's absence
was vastly different from the one who had left. All marked the
alteration in him, and over and over in family council tried, vainly, to
account for it, for Donald had withheld far more than he told of his
experiences, and minimized what he did tell.
But he knew, as well as they, that a new chord had been struck within
him, and by its vibrations his whole life was being tuned anew.
Something of the old boyishness and impetuosity was gone, a new
purposefulness--not of the will but rather of the spirit--had supplanted
it and engendered an unwonted serenity. Was it born of the words of the
strange mountain prophet, or the impelling appeal of the no-less-strange
mountain child, whose mysterious smile, though seen less frequently than
on his first visit, still cast a spell over his senses, even in memory?
He could not say.
Whatever uncertainties had disturbed his heart before, when his thoughts
had turned upon her, none now remained. The die was cast. Smiles had
made her place in his life, and would always occupy it, but merely as a
dear charge and comrade. Half-child, half-woman, she still appealed to
him in both capacities as perhaps none other ever had; yet he could now
admit that fact frankly, and at the same time tell himself that there
was, there could be, nothing else.
With the mists of uncertainty dispelled, and his mind purged of the
passions which had, so unexpectedly, possessed it, Donald's life
returned to its old ruts. His work absorbed him as before, he accepted
Marion as more fully a part of his life than she had previously been,
and, in so doing, found an unexpected contentment. If, at times, he
still felt that she was not all that he might desire, at least she was
of his class and he understood her thoroughly.
"My work furnishes enough of romance for me," he sometimes thought.
"And, if I want to remain a civilized human being, I had better stick to
the life in which I was brought up. I never suspected how much of a
'cave man' I was until I got into the heart of the primitive. Whew!
Supposing I had killed Judd that afternoon! There were a few moments
when it would have been a pleasure to have done it. Or supposing he had
killed me! He wanted to, right enough. Puck was right."
And so, while the months passed, Fortune smiled on the brilliant young
physician, and daily laid new tributes of wealth, honor and affection at
his feet.
* * * * *
In the mountain cabin it was otherwise.
Changes, born of the travail of tragic happenings, cast their
ever-lengthening shadows over Smiles' life, blotting out the golden
sunlight of childhood, and overlaying it with the deeper tones of
womanhood.
Judd, her companion since baby days, she no longer called "friend," and
he, for his part, steadily avoided her and the cabin which had once been
a second home to him. Big Jerry, uncomplaining ever, day by day grew
more feeble and pain-wracked, and so became more and more a dear burden
to her. Only Mr. Talmadge, of her real intimates, remained unchanged in
his relations with her, unless it was that in his deep and understanding
sympathy he brought her greater spiritual and mental comfort than ever.
The other neighbors were kind always, in their rough, well-meaning way;
but he was her chief guide and comforter, and in him, and the books
which Donald conscientiously sent to her every few weeks, she found the
strength to carry forward.
So, in the never-ending tasks which her daily life provided, and which
she performed with distress in her heart, but a smile on her lips, Rose
saw the weeks come and go, bringing in their slow-moving, but
inexorable, train, autumn, fall and another winter.