DISCORDS
The dead man found in Farmer Holly's barn created a decided stir in the
village of Hinsdale. The case was a peculiar one for many reasons.
First, because of the boy--Hinsdale supposed it knew boys, but it felt
inclined to change its mind after seeing this one. Second, because of
the circumstances. The boy and his father had entered the town like
tramps, yet Higgins, who talked freely of his having given the pair a
"lift" on that very evening, did not hesitate to declare that he did
not believe them to be ordinary tramps at all.
As there had been little found in the dead man's pockets, save the two
notes, and as nobody could be found who wanted the violins, there
seemed to be nothing to do but to turn the body over to the town for
burial. Nothing was said of this to David; indeed, as little as
possible was said to David about anything after that morning when
Higgins had given him his father's letter. At that time the men had
made one more effort to "get track of SOMETHING," as Higgins had
despairingly put it. But the boy's answers to their questions were
anything but satisfying, anything but helpful, and were often most
disconcerting. The boy was, in fact, regarded by most of the men, after
that morning, as being "a little off"; and was hence let severely alone.
Who the man was the town authorities certainly did not know, neither
could they apparently find out. His name, as written by himself, was
unreadable. His notes told nothing; his son could tell little more--of
consequence. A report, to be sure, did come from the village, far up
the mountain, that such a man and boy had lived in a hut that was
almost inaccessible; but even this did not help solve the mystery.
David was left at the Holly farmhouse, though Simeon Holly mentally
declared that he should lose no time in looking about for some one to
take the boy away.
On that first day Higgins, picking up the reins preparatory to driving
from the yard, had said, with a nod of his head toward David:--
"Well, how about it, Holly? Shall we leave him here till we find
somebody that wants him?"
"Why, y--yes, I suppose so," hesitated Simeon Holly, with uncordial
accent.
But his wife, hovering in the background, hastened forward at once.
"Oh, yes; yes, indeed," she urged. "I'm sure he--he won't be a mite of
trouble, Simeon."
"Perhaps not," conceded Simeon Holly darkly. "Neither, it is safe to
say, will he be anything else--worth anything."
"That's it exactly," spoke up Streeter, from his seat in the wagon. "If
I thought he'd be worth his salt, now, I'd take him myself; but--well,
look at him this minute," he finished, with a disdainful shrug.
David, on the lowest step, was very evidently not hearing a word of
what was being said. With his sensitive face illumined, he was again
poring over his father's letter.
Something in the sudden quiet cut through his absorption as the noisy
hum of voices had not been able to do, and he raised his head. His eyes
were starlike.
"I'm so glad father told me what to do," he breathed. "It'll be easier
now."
Receiving no answer from the somewhat awkwardly silent men, he went on,
as if in explanation:--
"You know he's waiting for me--in the far country, I mean. He said he
was. And when you've got somebody waiting, you don't mind staying
behind yourself for a little while. Besides, I've GOT to stay to find
out about the beautiful world, you know, so I can tell him, when _I_
go. That's the way I used to do back home on the mountain, you
see,--tell him about things. Lots of days we'd go to walk; then, when
we got home, he'd have me tell him, with my violin, what I'd seen. And
now he says I'm to stay here."
"Here!" It was the quick, stern voice of Simeon Holly.
"Yes," nodded David earnestly; "to learn about the beautiful world.
Don't you remember? And he said I was not to want to go back to my
mountains; that I would not need to, anyway, because the mountains, and
the sky, and the birds and squirrels and brooks are really in my
violin, you know. And--" But with an angry frown Simeon Holly stalked
away, motioning Larson to follow him; and with a merry glance and a low
chuckle Higgins turned his horse about and drove from the yard. A
moment later David found himself alone with Mrs. Holly, who was looking
at him with wistful, though slightly fearful eyes.
"Did you have all the breakfast you wanted?" she asked timidly,
resorting, as she had resorted the night before, to the everyday things
of her world in the hope that they might make this strange little boy
seem less wild, and more nearly human.
"Oh, yes, thank you." David's eyes had strayed back to the note in his
hand. Suddenly he looked up, a new something in his eyes. "What is it
to be a--a tramp?" he asked. "Those men said daddy and I were tramps."
"A tramp? Oh--er--why, just a--a tramp," stammered Mrs. Holly. "But
never mind that, David. I--I wouldn't think any more about it."
"But what is a tramp?" persisted David, a smouldering fire beginning to
show in his eyes. "Because if they meant THIEVES--"
"No, no, David," interrupted Mrs. Holly soothingly. "They never meant
thieves at all."
"Then, what is it to be a tramp?"
"Why, it's just to--to tramp," explained Mrs. Holly desperately;--"walk
along the road from one town to another, and--and not live in a house
at all."
"Oh!" David's face cleared. "That's all right, then. I'd love to be a
tramp, and so'd father. And we were tramps, sometimes, too, 'cause lots
of times, in the summer, we didn't stay in the cabin hardly any--just
lived out of doors all day and all night. Why, I never knew really what
the pine trees were saying till I heard them at night, lying under
them. You know what I mean. You've heard them, haven't you?"
"At night? Pine trees?" stammered Mrs. Holly helplessly.
"Yes. Oh, haven't you ever heard them at night?" cried the boy, in his
voice a very genuine sympathy as for a grievous loss. "Why, then, if
you've only heard them daytimes, you don't know a bit what pine trees
really are. But I can tell you. Listen! This is what they say,"
finished the boy, whipping his violin from its case, and, after a swift
testing of the strings, plunging into a weird, haunting little melody.
In the doorway, Mrs. Holly, bewildered, yet bewitched, stood
motionless, her eyes half-fearfully, half-longingly fixed on David's
glorified face. She was still in the same position when Simeon Holly
came around the corner of the house.
"Well, Ellen," he began, with quiet scorn, after a moment's stern
watching of the scene before him, "have you nothing better to do this
morning than to listen to this minstrel fellow?"
"Oh, Simeon! Why, yes, of course. I--I forgot--what I was doing,"
faltered Mrs. Holly, flushing guiltily from neck to brow as she turned
and hurried into the house.
David, on the porch steps, seemed to have heard nothing. He was still
playing, his rapt gaze on the distant sky-line, when Simeon Holly
turned upon him with disapproving eyes.
"See here, boy, can't you do anything but fiddle?" he demanded. Then,
as David still continued to play, he added sharply: "Did n't you hear
me, boy?"
The music stopped abruptly. David looked up with the slightly dazed air
of one who has been summoned as from another world.
"Did you speak to me, sir?" he asked.
"I did--twice. I asked if you never did anything but play that fiddle."
"You mean at home?" David's face expressed mild wonder without a trace
of anger or resentment. "Why, yes, of course. I couldn't play ALL the
time, you know. I had to eat and sleep and study my books; and every
day we went to walk--like tramps, as you call them," he elucidated, his
face brightening with obvious delight at being able, for once, to
explain matters in terms that he felt sure would be understood.
"Tramps, indeed!" muttered Simeon Holly, under his breath. Then,
sharply: "Did you never perform any useful labor, boy? Were your days
always spent in this ungodly idleness?"
Again David frowned in mild wonder.
"Oh, I wasn't idle, sir. Father said I must never be that. He said
every instrument was needed in the great Orchestra of Life; and that I
was one, you know, even if I was only a little boy. And he said if I
kept still and didn't do my part, the harmony wouldn't be complete,
and--"
"Yes, yes, but never mind that now, boy," interrupted Simeon Holly,
with harsh impatience. "I mean, did he never set you to work--real
work?"
"Work?" David meditated again. Then suddenly his face cleared. "Oh,
yes, sir, he said I had a beautiful work to do, and that it was waiting
for me out in the world. That's why we came down from the mountain, you
know, to find it. Is that what you mean?"
"Well, no," retorted the man, "I can't say that it was. I was referring
to work--real work about the house. Did you never do any of that?"
David gave a relieved laugh.
"Oh, you mean getting the meals and tidying up the house," he replied.
"Oh, yes, I did that with father, only"--his face grew wistful--"I'm
afraid I didn't do it very well. My bacon was never as nice and crisp
as father's, and the fire was always spoiling my potatoes."
"Humph! bacon and potatoes, indeed!" scorned Simeon Holly. "Well, boy,
we call that women's work down here. We set men to something else. Do
you see that woodpile by the shed door?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very good. In the kitchen you'll find an empty woodbox. Do you think
you could fill it with wood from that woodpile? You'll find plenty of
short, small sticks already chopped."
"Oh, yes, sir, I'd like to," nodded David, hastily but carefully
tucking his violin into its case. A minute later he had attacked the
woodpile with a will; and Simeon Holly, after a sharply watchful
glance, had turned away.
But the woodbox, after all, was not filled. At least, it was not filled
immediately, for at the very beginning of gathering the second armful
of wood, David picked up a stick that had long lain in one position on
the ground, thereby disclosing sundry and diverse crawling things of
many legs, which filled David's soul with delight, and drove away every
thought of the empty woodbox.
It was only a matter of some strength and more patience, and still more
time, to overturn other and bigger sticks, to find other and bigger of
the many-legged, many-jointed creatures. One, indeed, was so very
wonderful that David, with a whoop of glee, summoned Mrs. Holly from
the shed doorway to come and see.
So urgent was his plea that Mrs. Holly came with hurried steps--but she
went away with steps even more hurried; and David, sitting back on his
woodpile seat, was left to wonder why she should scream and shudder and
say "Ugh-h-h!" at such a beautiful, interesting thing as was this
little creature who lived in her woodpile.
Even then David did not think of that empty woodbox waiting behind the
kitchen stove. This time it was a butterfly, a big black butterfly
banded with gold; and it danced and fluttered all through the back yard
and out into the garden, David delightedly following with soft-treading
steps, and movements that would not startle. From the garden to the
orchard, and from the orchard back to the garden danced the
butterfly--and David; and in the garden, near the house, David came
upon Mrs. Holly's pansy-bed. Even the butterfly was forgotten then, for
down in the path by the pansy-bed David dropped to his knees in
veritable worship.
"Why, you're just like little people," he cried softly. "You've got
faces; and some of you are happy, and some of you are sad. And you--you
big spotted yellow one--you're laughing at me. Oh, I'm going to play
you--all of you. You'll make such a pretty song, you're so different
from each other!" And David leaped lightly to his feet and ran around
to the side porch for his violin.
Five minutes later, Simeon Holly, coming into the kitchen, heard the
sound of a violin through the open window. At the same moment his eyes
fell on the woodbox, empty save for a few small sticks at the bottom.
With an angry frown he strode through the outer door and around the
corner of the house to the garden. At once then he came upon David,
sitting Turk-fashion in the middle of the path before the pansy-bed,
his violin at his chin, and his whole face aglow.
"Well, boy, is this the way you fill the woodbox?" demanded the man
crisply.
David shook his head.
"Oh, no, sir, this isn't filling the woodbox," he laughed, softening
his music, but not stopping it. "Did you think that was what I was
playing? It's the flowers here that I'm playing--the little faces, like
people, you know. See, this is that big yellow one over there that's
laughing," he finished, letting the music under his fingers burst into
a gay little melody.
Simeon Holly raised an imperious hand; and at the gesture David stopped
his melody in the middle of a run, his eyes flying wide open in plain
wonderment.
"You mean--I'm not playing--right?" he asked.
"I'm not talking of your playing," retorted Simeon Holly severely. "I'm
talking of that woodbox I asked you to fill."
David's face cleared.
"Oh, yes, sir. I'll go and do it," he nodded, getting cheerfully to his
feet.
"But I told you to do it before."
David's eyes grew puzzled again.
"I know, sir, and I started to," he answered, with the obvious patience
of one who finds himself obliged to explain what should be a
self-evident fact; "but I saw so many beautiful things, one after
another, and when I found these funny little flower-people I just had
to play them. Don't you see?"
"No, I can't say that I do, when I'd already told you to fill the
woodbox," rejoined the man, with uncompromising coldness.
"You mean--even then that I ought to have filled the woodbox first?"
"I certainly do."
David's eyes flew wide open again.
"But my song--I'd have lost it!" he exclaimed. "And father said always
when a song came to me to play it at once. Songs are like the mists of
the morning and the rainbows, you know, and they don't stay with you
long. You just have to catch them quick, before they go. Now, don't you
see?"
But Simeon Holly, with a despairingly scornful gesture, had turned
away; and David, after a moment's following him with wistful eyes,
soberly walked toward the kitchen door. Two minutes later he was
industriously working at his task of filling the woodbox.
That for David the affair was not satisfactorily settled was evidenced
by his thoughtful countenance and preoccupied air, however; nor were
matters helped any by the question David put to Mr. Holly just before
dinner.
"Do you mean," he asked, "that because I didn't fill the woodbox right
away, I was being a discord?"
"You were what?" demanded the amazed Simeon Holly.
"Being a discord--playing out of tune, you know," explained David, with
patient earnestness. "Father said--" But again Simeon Holly had turned
irritably away; and David was left with his perplexed questions still
unanswered.