"YOU'RE WANTED--YOU'RE WANTED!"
It was Saturday night, and the end of David's third day at the
farmhouse. Upstairs, in the hot little room over the kitchen, the boy
knelt at the window and tried to find a breath of cool air from the
hills. Downstairs on the porch Simeon Holly and his wife discussed the
events of the past few days, and talked of what should be done with
David.
"But what shall we do with him?" moaned Mrs. Holly at last, breaking a
long silence that had fallen between them. "What can we do with him?
Doesn't anybody want him?"
"No, of course, nobody wants him," retorted her husband relentlessly.
And at the words a small figure in a yellow-white nightshirt stopped
short. David, violin in hand, had fled from the little hot room, and
stood now just inside the kitchen door.
"Who can want a child that has been brought up in that heathenish
fashion?" continued Simeon Holly. "According to his own story, even his
father did nothing but play the fiddle and tramp through the woods day
in and day out, with an occasional trip to the mountain village to get
food and clothing when they had absolutely nothing to eat and wear. Of
course nobody wants him!"
David, at the kitchen door, caught his breath chokingly. Then he sped
across the floor to the back hall, and on through the long sheds to the
hayloft in the barn--the place where his father seemed always nearest.
David was frightened and heartsick. NOBODY WANTED HIM. He had heard it
with his own ears, so there was no mistake. What now about all those
long days and nights ahead before he might go, violin in hand, to meet
his father in that far-away country? How was he to live those days and
nights if nobody wanted him? How was his violin to speak in a voice
that was true and pure and full, and tell of the beautiful world, as
his father had said that it must do? David quite cried aloud at the
thought. Then he thought of something else that his father had said:
"Remember this, my boy,--in your violin lie all the things you long
for. You have only to play, and the broad skies of your mountain home
will be over you, and the dear friends and comrades of your mountain
forests will be all about you." With a quick cry David raised his
violin and drew the bow across the strings.
Back on the porch at that moment Mrs. Holly was saying:--
"Of course there's the orphan asylum, or maybe the poorhouse--if they'd
take him; but--Simeon," she broke off sharply, "where's that child
playing now?"
Simeon listened with intent ears.
"In the barn, I should say."
"But he'd gone to bed!"
"And he'll go to bed again," asserted Simeon Holly grimly, as he rose
to his feet and stalked across the moonlit yard to the barn.
As before, Mrs. Holly followed him, and as before, both involuntarily
paused just inside the barn door to listen. No runs and trills and
rollicking bits of melody floated down the stairway to-night. The notes
were long-drawn, and plaintively sweet; and they rose and swelled and
died almost into silence while the man and the woman by the door stood
listening.
They were back in the long ago--Simeon Holly and his wife--back with a
boy of their own who had made those same rafters ring with shouts of
laughter, and who, also, had played the violin--though not like this;
and the same thought had come to each: "What if, after all, it were
John playing all alone in the moonlight!"
It had not been the violin, in the end, that had driven John Holly from
home. It had been the possibilities in a piece of crayon. All through
childhood the boy had drawn his beloved "pictures" on every inviting
space that offered,--whether it were the "best-room" wall-paper, or the
fly leaf of the big plush album,--and at eighteen he had announced his
determination to be an artist. For a year after that Simeon Holly
fought with all the strength of a stubborn will, banished chalk and
crayon from the house, and set the boy to homely tasks that left no
time for anything but food and sleep--then John ran away.
That was fifteen years ago, and they had not seen him since; though two
unanswered letters in Simeon Holly's desk testified that perhaps this,
at least, was not the boy's fault.
It was not of the grown-up John, the willful boy and runaway son,
however, that Simeon Holly and his wife were thinking, as they stood
just inside the barn door; it was of Baby John, the little curly-headed
fellow that had played at their knees, frolicked in this very barn, and
nestled in their arms when the day was done.
Mrs. Holly spoke first--and it was not as she had spoken on the porch.
"Simeon," she began tremulously, "that dear child must go to bed!" And
she hurried across the floor and up the stairs, followed by her
husband. "Come, David," she said, as she reached the top; "it's time
little boys were asleep! Come!"
Her voice was low, and not quite steady. To David her voice sounded as
her eyes looked when there was in them the far-away something that
hurt. Very slowly he came forward into the moonlight, his gaze
searching the woman's face long and earnestly.
"And do you--want me?" he faltered.
The woman drew in her breath with a little sob. Before her stood the
slender figure in the yellow-white gown--John's gown. Into her eyes
looked those other eyes, dark and wistful,--like John's eyes. And her
arms ached with emptiness.
"Yes, yes, for my very own--and for always!" she cried with sudden
passion, clasping the little form close. "For always!"
And David sighed his content.
Simeon Holly's lips parted, but they closed again with no words said.
The man turned then, with a curiously baffled look, and stalked down
the stairs.
On the porch long minutes later, when once more David had gone to bed,
Simeon Holly said coldly to his wife:--
"I suppose you realize, Ellen, just what you've pledged yourself to, by
that absurd outburst of yours in the barn to-night--and all because
that ungodly music and the moonshine had gone to your head!"
"But I want the boy, Simeon. He--he makes me think of--John."
Harsh lines came to the man's mouth, but there was a perceptible shake
in his voice as he answered:--
"We're not talking of John, Ellen. We're talking of this irresponsible,
hardly sane boy upstairs. He can work, I suppose, if he's taught, and
in that way he won't perhaps be a dead loss. Still, he's another mouth
to feed, and that counts now. There's the note, you know,--it's due in
August."
"But you say there's money--almost enough for it--in the bank." Mrs.
Holly's voice was anxiously apologetic.
"Yes, I know" vouchsafed the man. "But almost enough is not quite
enough."
"But there's time--more than two months. It isn't due till the last of
August, Simeon."
"I know, I know. Meanwhile, there's the boy. What are you going to do
with him?"
"Why, can't you use him--on the farm--a little?"
"Perhaps. I doubt it, though," gloomed the man. "One can't hoe corn nor
pull weeds with a fiddle-bow--and that's all he seems to know how to
handle."
"But he can learn--and he does play beautifully," murmured the woman;
whenever before had Ellen Holly ventured to use words of argument with
her husband, and in extenuation, too, of an act of her own!
There was no reply except a muttered "Humph!" under the breath. Then
Simeon Holly rose and stalked into the house.
The next day was Sunday, and Sunday at the farmhouse was a thing of
stern repression and solemn silence. In Simeon Holly's veins ran the
blood of the Puritans, and he was more than strict as to what he
considered right and wrong. When half-trained for the ministry,
ill-health had forced him to resort to a less confining life, though
never had it taken from him the uncompromising rigor of his views. It
was a distinct shock to him, therefore, on this Sunday morning to be
awakened by a peal of music such as the little house had never known
before. All the while that he was thrusting his indignant self into his
clothing, the runs and turns and crashing chords whirled about him
until it seemed that a whole orchestra must be imprisoned in the little
room over the kitchen, so skillful was the boy's double stopping.
Simeon Holly was white with anger when he finally hurried down the hall
and threw open David's bedroom door.
"Boy, what do you mean by this?" he demanded.
David laughed gleefully.
"And didn't you know?" he asked. "Why, I thought my music would tell
you. I was so happy, so glad! The birds in the trees woke me up
singing, 'You're wanted--you're wanted;' and the sun came over the hill
there and said, 'You're wanted--you're wanted;' and the little
tree-branch tapped on my window pane and said 'You're wanted--you're
wanted!' And I just had to take up my violin and tell you about it!"
"But it's Sunday--the Lord's Day," remonstrated the man sternly.
David stood motionless, his eyes questioning.
"Are you quite a heathen, then?" catechised the man sharply. "Have they
never told you anything about God, boy?"
"Oh, 'God'?--of course," smiled David, in open relief. "God wraps up
the buds in their little brown blankets, and covers the roots with--"
"I am not talking about brown blankets nor roots," interrupted the man
severely. "This is God's day, and as such should be kept holy."
"'Holy'?"
"Yes. You should not fiddle nor laugh nor sing."
"But those are good things, and beautiful things," defended David, his
eyes wide and puzzled.
"In their place, perhaps," conceded the man, stiffly, "but not on God's
day."
"You mean--He wouldn't like them?"
"Yes."
"Oh!"--and David's face cleared. "That's all right, then. Your God
isn't the same one, sir, for mine loves all beautiful things every day
in the year."
There was a moment's silence. For the first time in his life Simeon
Holly found himself without words.
"We won't talk of this any more, David," he said at last; "but we'll
put it another way--I don't wish you to play your fiddle on Sunday.
Now, put it up till to-morrow." And he turned and went down the hall.
Breakfast was a very quiet meal that morning. Meals were never things
of hilarious joy at the Holly farmhouse, as David had already found
out; but he had not seen one before quite so somber as this. It was
followed immediately by a half-hour of Scripture-reading and prayer,
with Mrs. Holly and Perry Larson sitting very stiff and solemn in their
chairs, while Mr. Holly read. David tried to sit very stiff and solemn
in his chair, also; but the roses at the window were nodding their
heads and beckoning; and the birds in the bushes beyond were sending to
him coaxing little chirps of "Come out, come out!" And how could one
expect to sit stiff and solemn in the face of all that, particularly
when one's fingers were tingling to take up the interrupted song of the
morning and tell the whole world how beautiful it was to be wanted!
Yet David sat very still,--or as still as he could sit,--and only the
tapping of his foot, and the roving of his wistful eyes told that his
mind was not with Farmer Holly and the Children of Israel in their
wanderings in the wilderness.
After the devotions came an hour of subdued haste and confusion while
the family prepared for church. David had never been to church. He
asked Perry Larson what it was like; but Perry only shrugged his
shoulders and said, to nobody, apparently:--
"Sugar! Won't ye hear that, now?"--which to David was certainly no
answer at all.
That one must be spick and span to go to church, David soon found
out--never before had he been so scrubbed and brushed and combed. There
was, too, brought out for him to wear a little clean white blouse and a
red tie, over which Mrs. Holly cried a little as she had over the
nightshirt that first evening.
The church was in the village only a quarter of a mile away; and in due
time David, open-eyed and interested, was following Mr. and Mrs. Holly
down its long center aisle. The Hollys were early as usual, and service
had not begun. Even the organist had not taken his seat beneath the
great pipes of blue and gold that towered to the ceiling.
It was the pride of the town--that organ. It had been given by a great
man (out in the world) whose birthplace the town was. More than that, a
yearly donation from this same great man paid for the skilled organist
who came every Sunday from the city to play it. To-day, as the organist
took his seat, he noticed a new face in the Holly pew, and he almost
gave a friendly smile as he met the wondering gaze of the small boy
there; then he lost himself, as usual, in the music before him.
Down in the Holly pew the small boy held his breath. A score of violins
were singing in his ears; and a score of other instruments that he
could not name, crashed over his head, and brought him to his feet in
ecstasy. Before a detaining hand could stop him, he was out in the
aisle, his eyes on the blue-and-gold pipes from which seemed to come
those wondrous sounds. Then his gaze fell on the man and on the banks
of keys; and with soft steps he crept along the aisle and up the stairs
to the organ-loft.
For long minutes he stood motionless, listening; then the music died
into silence and the minister rose for the invocation. It was a boy's
voice, and not a man's, however, that broke the pause.
"Oh, sir, please," it said, "would you--could you teach ME to do that?"
The organist choked over a cough, and the soprano reached out and drew
David to her side, whispering something in his ear. The minister, after
a dazed silence, bowed his head; while down in the Holly pew an angry
man and a sorely mortified woman vowed that, before David came to
church again, he should have learned some things.