THE TRAIL
A curious strength seemed to have come to the man. With almost steady
hands he took down the photographs and the Sistine Madonna, packing
them neatly away in a box to be left. From beneath his bunk he dragged
a large, dusty traveling-bag, and in this he stowed a little food, a
few garments, and a great deal of the music scattered about the room.
David, in the doorway, stared in dazed wonder. Gradually into his eyes
crept a look never seen there before.
"Father, where are we going?" he asked at last in a shaking voice, as
he came slowly into the room.
"Back, son; we're going back."
"To the village, where we get our eggs and bacon?"
"No, no, lad, not there. The other way. We go down into the valley this
time."
"The valley--MY valley, with the Silver Lake?"
"Yes, my son; and beyond--far beyond." The man spoke dreamily. He was
looking at a photograph in his hand. It had slipped in among the loose
sheets of music, and had not been put away with the others. It was the
likeness of a beautiful woman.
For a moment David eyed him uncertainly; then he spoke.
"Daddy, who is that? Who are all these people in the pictures? You've
never told me about any of them except the little round one that you
wear in your pocket. Who are they?"
Instead of answering, the man turned faraway eyes on the boy and smiled
wistfully.
"Ah, David, lad, how they'll love you! How they will love you! But you
mustn't let them spoil you, son. You must remember--remember all I've
told you."
Once again David asked his question, but this time the man only turned
back to the photograph, muttering something the boy could not
understand.
After that David did not question any more. He was too amazed, too
distressed. He had never before seen his father like this. With nervous
haste the man was setting the little room to rights, crowding things
into the bag, and packing other things away in an old trunk. His cheeks
were very red, and his eyes very bright. He talked, too, almost
constantly, though David could understand scarcely a word of what was
said. Later, the man caught up his violin and played; and never before
had David heard his father play like that. The boy's eyes filled, and
his heart ached with a pain that choked and numbed--though why, David
could not have told. Still later, the man dropped his violin and sank
exhausted into a chair; and then David, worn and frightened with it
all, crept to his bunk and fell asleep.
In the gray dawn of the morning David awoke to a different world. His
father, white-faced and gentle, was calling him to get ready for
breakfast. The little room, dismantled of its decorations, was bare and
cold. The bag, closed and strapped, rested on the floor by the door,
together with the two violins in their cases, ready to carry.
"We must hurry, son. It's a long tramp before we take the cars."
"The cars--the real cars? Do we go in those?" David was fully awake now.
"Yes."
"And is that all we're to carry?"
"Yes. Hurry, son."
"But we come back--sometime?"
There was no answer.
"Father, we're coming back--sometime?" David's voice was insistent now.
The man stooped and tightened a strap that was already quite tight
enough. Then he laughed lightly.
"Why, of course you're coming back sometime, David. Only think of all
these things we're leaving!"
When the last dish was put away, the last garment adjusted, and the
last look given to the little room, the travelers picked up the bag and
the violins, and went out into the sweet freshness of the morning. As
he fastened the door the man sighed profoundly; but David did not
notice this. His face was turned toward the east--always David looked
toward the sun.
"Daddy, let's not go, after all! Let's stay here," he cried ardently,
drinking in the beauty of the morning.
"We must go, David. Come, son." And the man led the way across the
green slope to the west.
It was a scarcely perceptible trail, but the man found it, and followed
it with evident confidence. There was only the pause now and then to
steady his none-too-sure step, or to ease the burden of the bag. Very
soon the forest lay all about them, with the birds singing over their
heads, and with numberless tiny feet scurrying through the underbrush
on all sides. Just out of sight a brook babbled noisily of its delight
in being alive; and away up in the treetops the morning sun played
hide-and-seek among the dancing leaves.
And David leaped, and laughed, and loved it all, nor was any of it
strange to him. The birds, the trees, the sun, the brook, the scurrying
little creatures of the forest, all were friends of his. But the
man--the man did not leap or laugh, though he, too, loved it all. The
man was afraid.
He knew now that he had undertaken more than he could carry out. Step
by step the bag had grown heavier, and hour by hour the insistent,
teasing pain in his side had increased until now it was a torture. He
had forgotten that the way to the valley was so long; he had not
realized how nearly spent was his strength before he even started down
the trail. Throbbing through his brain was the question, what if, after
all, he could not--but even to himself he would not say the words.
At noon they paused for luncheon, and at night they camped where the
chattering brook had stopped to rest in a still, black pool. The next
morning the man and the boy picked up the trail again, but without the
bag. Under some leaves in a little hollow, the man had hidden the bag,
and had then said, as if casually:--
"I believe, after all, I won't carry this along. There's nothing in it
that we really need, you know, now that I've taken out the luncheon
box, and by night we'll be down in the valley."
"Of course!" laughed David. "We don't need that." And he laughed again,
for pure joy. Little use had David for bags or baggage!
They were more than halfway down the mountain now, and soon they
reached a grass-grown road, little traveled, but yet a road. Still
later they came to where four ways crossed, and two of them bore the
marks of many wheels. By sundown the little brook at their side
murmured softly of quiet fields and meadows, and David knew that the
valley was reached.
David was not laughing now. He was watching his father with startled
eyes. David had not known what anxiety was. He was finding out
now--though he but vaguely realized that something was not right. For
some time his father had said but little, and that little had been in a
voice that was thick and unnatural-sounding. He was walking fast, yet
David noticed that every step seemed an effort, and that every breath
came in short gasps. His eyes were very bright, and were fixedly bent
on the road ahead, as if even the haste he was making was not haste
enough. Twice David spoke to him, but he did not answer; and the boy
could only trudge along on his weary little feet and sigh for the dear
home on the mountain-top which they had left behind them the morning
before.
They met few fellow travelers, and those they did meet paid scant
attention to the man and the boy carrying the violins. As it chanced,
there was no one in sight when the man, walking in the grass at the
side of the road, stumbled and fell heavily to the ground.
David sprang quickly forward.
"Father, what is it? WHAT IS IT?"
There was no answer.
"Daddy, why don't you speak to me? See, it's David!"
With a painful effort the man roused himself and sat up. For a moment
he gazed dully into the boy's face; then a half-forgotten something
seemed to stir him into feverish action. With shaking fingers he handed
David his watch and a small ivory miniature. Then he searched his
pockets until on the ground before him lay a shining pile of
gold-pieces--to David there seemed to be a hundred of them.
"Take them--hide them--keep them. David, until you--need them," panted
the man. "Then go--go on. I can't."
"Alone? Without you?" demurred the boy, aghast. "Why, father, I
couldn't! I don't know the way. Besides, I'd rather stay with you," he
added soothingly, as he slipped the watch and the miniature into his
pocket; "then we can both go." And he dropped himself down at his
father's side.
The man shook his head feebly, and pointed again to the gold-pieces.
"Take them, David,--hide them," he chattered with pale lips.
Almost impatiently the boy began picking up the money and tucking it
into his pockets.
"But, father, I'm not going without you," he declared stoutly, as the
last bit of gold slipped out of sight, and a horse and wagon rattled
around the turn of the road above.
The driver of the horse glanced disapprovingly at the man and the boy
by the roadside; but he did not stop. After he had passed, the boy
turned again to his father. The man was fumbling once more in his
pockets. This time from his coat he produced a pencil and a small
notebook from which he tore a page, and began to write, laboriously,
painfully.
David sighed and looked about him. He was tired and hungry, and he did
not understand things at all. Something very wrong, very terrible, must
be the matter with his father. Here it was almost dark, yet they had no
place to go, no supper to eat, while far, far up on the mountain-side
was their own dear home sad and lonely without them. Up there, too, the
sun still shone, doubtless,--at least there were the rose-glow and the
Silver Lake to look at, while down here there was nothing, nothing but
gray shadows, a long dreary road, and a straggling house or two in
sight. From above, the valley might look to be a fairyland of
loveliness, but in reality it was nothing but a dismal waste of gloom,
decided David.
David's father had torn a second page from his book and was beginning
another note, when the boy suddenly jumped to his feet. One of the
straggling houses was near the road where they sat, and its presence
had given David an idea. With swift steps he hurried to the front door
and knocked upon it. In answer a tall, unsmiling woman appeared, and
said, "Well?"
David removed his cap as his father had taught him to do when one of
the mountain women spoke to him.
"Good evening, lady; I'm David," he began frankly. "My father is so
tired he fell down back there, and we should like very much to stay
with you all night, if you don't mind."
The woman in the doorway stared. For a moment she was dumb with
amazement. Her eyes swept the plain, rather rough garments of the boy,
then sought the half-recumbent figure of the man by the roadside. Her
chin came up angrily.
"Oh, would you, indeed! Well, upon my word!" she scouted. "Humph! We
don't accommodate tramps, little boy." And she shut the door hard.
It was David's turn to stare. Just what a tramp might be, he did not
know; but never before had a request of his been so angrily refused. He
knew that. A fierce something rose within him--a fierce new something
that sent the swift red to his neck and brow. He raised a determined
hand to the doorknob--he had something to say to that woman!--when the
door suddenly opened again from the inside.
"See here, boy," began the woman, looking out at him a little less
unkindly, "if you're hungry I'll give you some milk and bread. Go
around to the back porch and I'll get it for you." And she shut the
door again.
David's hand dropped to his side. The red still stayed on his face and
neck, however, and that fierce new something within him bade him refuse
to take food from this woman.... But there was his father--his poor
father, who was so tired; and there was his own stomach clamoring to be
fed. No, he could not refuse. And with slow steps and hanging head
David went around the corner of the house to the rear.
As the half-loaf of bread and the pail of milk were placed in his
hands, David remembered suddenly that in the village store on the
mountain, his father paid money for his food. David was glad, now, that
he had those gold-pieces in his pocket, for he could pay money.
Instantly his head came up. Once more erect with self-respect, he
shifted his burdens to one hand and thrust the other into his pocket. A
moment later he presented on his outstretched palm a shining disk of
gold.
"Will you take this, to pay, please, for the bread and milk?" he asked
proudly.
The woman began to shake her head; but, as her eyes fell on the money,
she started, and bent closer to examine it. The next instant she jerked
herself upright with an angry exclamation.
"It's gold! A ten-dollar gold-piece! So you're a thief, too, are you,
as well as a tramp? Humph! Well, I guess you don't need this then," she
finished sharply, snatching the bread and the pail of milk from the
boy's hand.
The next moment David stood alone on the doorstep, with the sound of a
quickly thrown bolt in his ears.
A thief! David knew little of thieves, but he knew what they were. Only
a month before a man had tried to steal the violins from the cabin; and
he was a thief, the milk-boy said. David flushed now again, angrily, as
he faced the closed door. But he did not tarry. He turned and ran to
his father.
"Father, come away, quick! You must come away," he choked.
So urgent was the boy's voice that almost unconsciously the sick man
got to his feet. With shaking hands he thrust the notes he had been
writing into his pocket. The little book, from which he had torn the
leaves for this purpose, had already dropped unheeded into the grass at
his feet.
"Yes, son, yes, we'll go," muttered the man. "I feel better now. I
can--walk."
And he did walk, though very slowly, ten, a dozen, twenty steps. From
behind came the sound of wheels that stopped close beside them.
"Hullo, there! Going to the village?" called a voice.
"Yes, sir." David's answer was unhesitating. Where "the village" was,
he did not know; he knew only that it must be somewhere away from the
woman who had called him a thief. And that was all he cared to know.
"I'm going 'most there myself. Want a lift?" asked the man, still
kindly.
"Yes, sir. Thank you!" cried the boy joyfully. And together they aided
his father to climb into the roomy wagon-body.
There were few words said. The man at the reins drove rapidly, and paid
little attention to anything but his horses. The sick man dozed and
rested. The boy sat, wistful-eyed and silent, watching the trees and
houses flit by. The sun had long ago set, but it was not dark, for the
moon was round and bright, and the sky was cloudless. Where the road
forked sharply the man drew his horses to a stop.
"Well, I'm sorry, but I guess I'll have to drop you here, friends. I
turn off to the right; but 't ain't more 'n a quarter of a mile for
you, now" he finished cheerily, pointing with his whip to a cluster of
twinkling lights.
"Thank you, sir, thank you," breathed David gratefully, steadying his
father's steps. "You've helped us lots. Thank you!"
In David's heart was a wild desire to lay at his good man's feet all of
his shining gold-pieces as payment for this timely aid. But caution
held him back: it seemed that only in stores did money pay; outside it
branded one as a thief!
Alone with his father, David faced once more his problem. Where should
they go for the night? Plainly his father could not walk far. He had
begun to talk again, too,--low, half-finished sentences that David
could not understand, and that vaguely troubled him. There was a house
near by, and several others down the road toward the village; but David
had had all the experience he wanted that night with strange houses,
and strange women. There was a barn, a big one, which was nearest of
all; and it was toward this barn that David finally turned his father's
steps.
"We'll go there, daddy, if we can get in," he proposed softly. "And
we'll stay all night and rest."