THE LITTLE LAD
"Better to be driven out from among men, than to be disliked of
children."
--Dana.
Pepeeta took her place in this hospitable household as an orphan child
might have done. Just as a flower unfolding from a plant, or a bird
building its nest in a tree is almost instantly "at home," so it was
with Pepeeta.
When she was strong enough to work, she began to assume domestic cares
and to discharge them in a quiet and beautiful way which brought a sweet
relief to the full hands of the overburdened housewife. And her
companionship was no less grateful to Dorothea than her help, for life
in a frontier household in those pioneer days was none too full of
animation and brightness, even for a quiet nature like hers. To Steven
she soon became a companion; and Jacob, the father, yielded no less
quickly and easily to the charms of this strange guest than did mother
and child.
He was a man of earnest piety and of deep insight into human nature. He
had, as Dorothea said, made shrewd guesses at Pepeeta's story before she
told it, and had formed his own theories as to her nature and her
errand.
"I tell thee, Dorothea, she is a lady," were the words in which he had
uttered his conclusions to his wife, in one of their many conversations
about the mysterious stranger.
"What makes thee think so?" she asked.
"Every feature of that delicate face tells its own history. These three
years of contact with David and a different life could never have so
completely wiped out the traces of the vulgar breeding of a gypsy camp
and the low education of a rogue's society, unless there were good blood
in those veins. Mark my word, there is a story about that life that
would stir the heart if it were known."
"No wonder David loved her," said the wife.
"No wonder, indeed. But if it is as it seems, there is a mystery in
their influence on each other that would confound the subtlest student
of life."
"To what does thee refer?"
"Two such natures ought to have made each other better instead of worse
by contact. You can predict what frost and sunlight, water and oil, seed
and soil will do when they meet; but not men and women! Two bads
sometimes make a good, and two goods sometimes make a bad."
"Thee thinks strange thoughts, Jacob, and I do not always follow thee,
but even if it be wrong, I cannot help wishing that our dear David could
have had her for his lawful wife," said Dorothea.
"The tale is not all told yet," responded her husband, opening his book
and beginning to read.
With feelings like these in their hearts, they could not but extend to
Pepeeta that sympathy which alone could soothe the sorrow of her soul.
The sweet atmosphere of this home; the consciousness that she was among
friends; the knowledge that they would do all they could to find the
wanderer whom every one loved with such devotion, gave to Pepeeta's
overwrought feelings an exquisite relief.
Her natural spirits and buoyant nature, repressed so long, began to
reassert themselves, and soon burst forth in gladness. The change was
slow, but sure, and by the time the spring days came and it was possible
to get out into the open air, the color had come back to the pale face
and the light to the dimmed eyes. She was like a flower transplanted
from some dark corner into an open, sunny spot in a garden. But that
which, more than all else, tended to develop within her graces still
unfolded, was her constant contact with Steven. A subtle sympathy had
been established between them from their very first meeting and they
gradually became almost inseparable comrades. Their common love of
outdoor life took them on long walks into the woods, from which they
came burdened with the first blossoms of the springtime, or they would
return from the river, laden with fish, for Steven insisted upon making
Pepeeta his companion in every excursion; nor was it hard to persuade
her to join him, she was so naturally a creature of the open air and
sunlight.
Among the many happy days thus passed, one was especially memorable.
Steven had told her much of a famous fishing place in the big Miami,
several miles away, and had promised that if she would go with him on
the next Saturday he would show it to her and also reveal a secret which
no one knew but himself and in which she could not but take the greatest
interest. The day dawned bright and clear, and while the dew was still
on the grass they started.
One of Pepeeta's sources of enjoyment in these excursions was the
constant prattle of the boy about that uncle whose long absence had
served rather to increase than to diminish the idolatry of his heart.
This morning, so like the one on which Pepeeta had seen David by the
side of the brook when first they met, awakened all the fervor of her
love and she could think of nothing else.
"You must point out to me all the places where you and your uncle have
ever been together, little brother," she said to him, as they crossed
the field where she had first caught sight of David at the plow.
"Why does thee care to know so much about him?" he asked, näively
looking up into her face.
"Do you not know?" she inquired.
"No, I have asked father and mother, but they will not tell me."
"If I tell you, will you be true to me?"
"Won't I, though? I love thee. I would fight for thee, if I were not a
Quaker's son! Perhaps I would fight for thee anyway."
"You will not need to fight for me, dearest. I could tell you a story
about fighting that would make you wish never to fight again. Perhaps I
will, sometime; but not now, for this must be a happy day and I do not
want to sadden it by telling you too much about the shadows that cloud
my life."
He looked up with a pained expression. "Has thee had troubles?" he
asked.
"Great troubles, and they are not ended yet. I should be very wretched,
but for you and your dear parents. You are but a child, and yet it would
comfort me to tell you that I love your uncle with a love that can never
die. And so when I ask you about him you will tell me everything you
know, will you not? And remember that in doing so you are helping to
make happy a poor heart that carries heavy burdens. There, that will do.
I have told you more, perhaps, than I ought; but although you are young,
I am sure that you are brave and true. And so, if there is any story
about your uncle which you have never told me, let me hear it now. And
if there is not, tell me one that you have told me over and over again."
"Did I ever tell thee how he saved a little lamb from drowning?"
"No! did he do that?"
"Yes, he did! Thee knows that when the snow melts, this little brook
swells up into a great river and sometimes it happens so suddenly that
even the grown people are scared. It did that day, and came just pouring
out of those woods and through the meadow where our old Maisie was
playing with two little lambs. One of them was bounding around her, and
it slipped over the edge of the bank and fell into the bed of the creek.
It wasn't a very high bank, you know; but the lamb was little, and it
just stood bleating in the bed, and its mother stood bleating on the
bank. Well, Uncle David heard them and started to see what was the
matter, and though the rain had begun to fall, he ran across the field
as hard as he could. But by the time he reached the place the flood
caught up the little lamb and rolled it over and over like a ball. Uncle
Dave didn't even wait to take off his coat, but plunged right into that
water, boiling like a soap kettle, and swam out and grabbed that little
lamb and hung to it until he landed down there on a high bank a quarter
of a mile away. What does thee think of that, Pepeeta?"
Her eyes kindled; pride swelled in her heart, and her spirits rose with
that wild feeling of joy with which women always hear of the bold deeds
of those they love.
"How beautiful and noble he is," she cried.
"And strong!" added the boy, to whose youthful imagination physical
prowess was still the greatest grace of life. And as he said it they
reached a little rivulet so swollen by the spring rains as to be a
formidable obstacle to their progress. Steven had not considered it in
laying out their route and stood before it in dismay.
"How is thee ever going to get across?" he asked, and then under the
impulse of a sudden inspiration rushed to the fence, took off the top
rail and hurrying to the side of the brook flung it across for a
bridge, with all the gallantry of a Sir Walter Raleigh.
But the spirits of his companion were too high to accept of aid! The
strength of her lover had communicated itself to her, and with a light,
free bound, she leaped to the other side.
The boy's first feeling was one of chagrin at having his offer so
proudly scorned; but his second was that of boundless pride at a feat so
worthy of the hero whose praises they had just been sounding. "Hurrah!"
he cried, bounding after her and flinging his hat into the air.
"Thee is as good a jumper as a man," he exclaimed, regarding her with
astonishment and admiration.
As they moved forward Nature wove her spells around them and they gave
themselves utterly to her charms, pausing to look and listen, rapt in an
ecstasy of communion and sympathy. Pepeeta's familiarity with the
flowers was greater than Steven's, but she knew little about birds, and
propounded many questions to the young naturalist whose knowledge of the
inhabitants of field, forest and river seemed to be communicated by the
objects themselves, rather than by human teachers.
"Hark! What is that bird, singing on the top of that tall stake?" she
asked, pausing to listen, her hand lifted as if to invoke silence.
"That? Why, it's a meadow lark," said Steven.
"And there is another, 'way up in the top of that tall tree. Oh! how
sweet and rich his song is. What is his name?"
"That's a red bird, and if thee listens thee can hear a brown thrasher
over there in the woods."
They paused and drank in the rich music until each of these voices was
silenced, and out of a copse of dense shade by the brookside there began
to bubble a spring of melody so liquid, so clear, and withal of such
beauty, that Pepeeta trembled with delight, hearing in that audible
melody the unheard songs of the soul itself.
"What is it, Steven?" she asked in a whisper.
"Why, that is a cat bird! Doesn't thee know a cat bird? I cannot
remember when I did not know what that song was! It is such a crazy
bird! It has only two tunes and is like our teacher at school. She
either praises or else scolds us. And that is the way with the cat bird.
It is either talking love to its mate, or else abusing it! I don't like
such people or such birds; I like those who have more tunes. Now thee
has a lot of tunes, Pepeeta!"
This quaint reflection and delicate compliment broke the bird's spell
and made Pepeeta laugh,--a laugh as musical and sweet as the song of the
bird itself. It passed through the fringe of trees along the river bank,
rippled across it over against the smooth face of a cliff and came back
sweetly on the spring air.
"Oh! did you hear the echo?" Pepeeta exclaimed.
"That is what I brought thee here for!" he said. "Uncle David taught me
how to make it answer and told me what it was. It frightened me at
first. Let us get close up to the water and listen!"
He took her by the hand and drew her along.
"Is it here that you are to tell me the secret?" she asked.
"Oh, no," he said. "The echo tells its secrets! It is nothing but a blab
any way. But I do not tell mine until the right time comes! Thee must
wait."
They came out upon the edge of the river which makes a sweep around a
sharp corner on the opposite side of which was "Echo Rock." There they
stood and shouted and laughed as their voices came back upon the still
air softened and etherealized.
Becoming tired of this sport at last, the boy picked up a flat stone
from the river's edge and said, "Can thee skip a stone, Pepeeta? I never
saw a girl that could skip a stone."
"But I am not a girl," she said.
"Oh, but thee was a girl once, and if thee did not learn then thee
cannot do it now. Come, let me see thee try. Here is a stone, and a
beauty, too; round, flat and smooth. That stone ought to make sixteen
jumps!"
"But you must show me how," she said.
"All right, I will," he replied, and sent one skimming along the smooth
surface of the water.
"Beautiful," she said, clapping her hands as it bounded in ever
diminishing saltations and with a finer skill than that of Giotto, drew
perfect circles on the watery canvas.
Delighted with the applause, the child found another stone and gave it
to Pepeeta. She took it, drew her hand back and tossed it awkwardly from
her shoulder. It sank with a dull plunge into the stream, while out of
the throat of the lad came a great and joyous shout of laughter. "I knew
thee could not," he said. "No girl that ever lived could skip a stone!"
And then he threw another and another, and they stood enchanted as the
beautiful circles widened away from their centers and crossed each other
in ever-increasing complexity of curve.
Steven did his best to teach Pepeeta this very simple art; but after
many failures, she exclaimed:
"Oh dear, I shall never learn! I am nothing but a woman after all! Let
us hasten to the fishing pool, perhaps I shall do better there."
"Don't be discouraged. Thee can learn, if thee tries long enough!"
Steven said encouragingly, and led the way to a deep pool a few rods
farther up the river. It was a cool, sequestered, lovely spot. Great
trees overhung it, dark waters swirled swiftly but quietly round the
base of a great rock jutting out into it; little bubbles of froth glided
dreamily across it and burst on its edges; kingfishers dropped,
stone-like, into it from the limbs of a dead sycamore, and the low, deep
murmurs of the flood, as it hurried by, whispered inarticulately of
mysteries too deep for the mind of man to comprehend. Except for this
ceaseless murmur, silence brooded over the place, for the song-birds had
hidden themselves in the wood, and the two intruders upon the sacred
privacy, by an unconscious sense of fitness, spoke in whispers.
"Beautiful!" said Pepeeta.
"Hush! See there!" Steven exclaimed, in an undertone, and pointing to a
spot where a fish had broken the still surface as he leaped for a fly
and plunged back again into the depths.
His eye glowed, and his whole figure vibrated with excitement.
"And did your Uncle David used to bring you here?" Pepeeta asked.
"Well, I should say," he whispered. "He used to bring me here when I was
such a little fellow that he sometimes had to carry me on his back. He
was the greatest fisherman thee ever saw. I cannot fish so well myself!"
And with this ingenuous avowal, at which Pepeeta smiled appreciatively,
they laid their baskets down, and Steven began preparing the rude
tackle.
"Did thee ever bait a hook, Pepeeta?" he asked under his breath.
"I never did, but I think I can," she answered doubtfully.
And then he laughed again, not loudly, but in a fine chuckle which gave
vent to his joy and expressed his incredulity in a manner fitting such
solitude.
"If thee cannot skip a stone I should like to know what makes thee think
that thee can bait a hook," he said, still speaking in low whispers. "I
have seen lots of girls try it, but I never saw one succeed. Just the
minute they touch the worm they begin to squeal, and when they try to
stick it on the hook, they generally, have a sort of fit. So I guess
thee had better not try. Just let me do it for thee; I'll fix it just as
my Uncle David used to for me when I was a little fellow, and helpless
like a girl." Pepeeta laughed, and Steven laughed with her, although he
did not know for what, and they took their poles and sat down by the
side of the stream, the child intent on the sport and the woman intent
on the child.
He was an adept in that gentle art which has claimed the devotion of so
many elect spirits, and gave his soul up to his work with an entire
abandon. The waters were seldom disturbed in those early days when the
country was sparsely settled, and the fish took the bait recklessly. One
after another the boy flung them out upon the bank with smothered
exclamations of delight, with which he mingled reproaches and sympathy
for Pepeeta's lack of success.
She was catching fish he knew not of, drawing them one by one out of the
deep pools of memory and imagination.
There is one thing dearer to a boy than catching fish. That is cooking
and eating them.
Hunger began at last to gnaw at Steven's vitals and to make itself
imperatively felt. He looked up at the sun as if to tell the time by its
location, though in reality he regulated his movements by that
infallible horologue ticking beneath his jacket.
"It must be after twelve," he said, although it was not yet eleven.
"Where are we going to have our dinner?" Pepeeta asked.
"Come, and I will show thee," he replied, flinging down his pole and
gathering his fish together.
Pepeeta followed him as he led the way up from the river's side to a
ledge of rocks that frowned above it.
Rounding a cliff, they came suddenly upon the mouth of a cave where
Steven threw down the fish, assumed an air of secrecy, took Pepeeta by
the hand and led her toward it, whispering:
"This is the robbers' cave."
"And is it within its dark recesses that we are to eat our dinner?"
Pepeeta asked, imitating his melodramatic manner.
"Yes! No one in the world knows of it, but Uncle Dave and me. We always
used to cook our dinner here, and play we were robbers."
Pepeeta saw the ashes of fires which had been built at the entrance, an
old iron kettle hanging on a projecting root, a coffee pot standing on a
ledge of a rock, and fragments of broken dishes scattered about, and
entered with all her heart into an adventure so suddenly recalling the
vanished scenes of her gypsy childhood. The eyes of the boy glistened
with delight as he perceived the unmistakable evidences of her
enjoyment.
"And so this is your secret!" she exclaimed.
"Not by a good deal!" he answered, "Thee is not to know the real secret
until we have had our dinner. I will build the fire and clean the fish,
and if thee knows how, thee can cook them."
"Oh, you need not think I don't know anything--just because I cannot
skip stones and bait hooks," Pepeeta said gaily, and with that they both
bustled about and before long the smoke was curling up into the still
air, and the fragrant odor of coffee was perfuming the wilderness.
While they were waiting for the fish to fry, Pepeeta regaled her
enchanted listener with such fragments of the story of her gypsy life as
she could piece together out of the wrecks of that time. He was
overpowered with astonishment, and the idea that he was sitting opposite
to a real gypsy, at the mouth of a cave, filled up the measure of his
romantic fancy and perfected his happiness. He hung upon her words and
kept her talking until the last crust had been devoured and she had
repeated again and again the most trivial remembrances of those far off
days.
The boy's bliss had reached its utmost limit, and yet had not surpassed
the woman's. The vigorous walk through the woods; the silent
ministrations of nature; the simple food; the sweet imaginative
associations with David; but above all that most recreative force in
nature,--the presence and prattle of a child,--filled her sad heart
with a happiness of which she had believed herself forever incapable.
They sat for a few moments in silence, after Pepeeta had finished one of
her most charming reminiscences, and then Steven, springing to his feet,
exclaimed:
"Why, Pepeeta, we have forgotten the secret! Come and I will show it to
thee."
She took his proffered hand and was led into the depths of the cavern.
"Thee must shut thy eyes," he said.
"Oh! but I am so frightened," she answered, pretending to shudder and
draw back.
"Thee need not be afraid. I will protect thee," he said, reassuringly.
She obeyed him, and they moved forward.
"Are thy eyes shut tight? How many fingers do I hold up?" he asked,
raising his hand.
"Six," she answered.
"All right; there were only two," he said, convinced and satisfied.
He led her along a dozen steps or so, and then halted.
"Turn this way," swinging her about; "do not open thy eyes till I tell
thee. There--now!"
For an instant the darkness seemed impenetrable; but there was enough of
a faint light, rather like pale belated moonbeams than the brightness of
the sun, to enable her to read her own name carved upon the smooth wall
of rock.
"Ah! little deceiver, when did you do this?" she asked, touched by his
gallantry.
"Do this! Why, Pepeeta, I did not do it," he answered, surprised and
taken back by her misunderstanding.
"You did not do it?" she asked, astonished in her turn. "Who did it if
you did not?"
"Why--can't thee guess?" he asked.
And then it slowly dawned upon her that it was the work of her lover,
done in those days when he wandered about the country restless and
tormented by his passion. His own dear hand had traced those letters on
the rock!
She kissed them, and burst into tears.
This was an indescribable shock to the child, who had anticipated a
result so different, and he sprang to her side, embraced her in his
young arms and cried:
"What is the matter, Pepeeta? I did not mean to make thee sad; I meant
to make thee happy! Oh, do not cry!"
"You have made me a thousand times glad, my dear boy," she said, kissing
him gratefully. "You could not in any other way in the world give me
such happiness as this. But did you not know that we can cry because we
are glad as well as because we are sad?"
"I have never heard of that," he answered wonderingly.
She did not reply, for her attention reverted to the letters on the wall
and she stood feeding her hungry eyes upon that indubitable proof of
the devotion of her lover.
The child's instinct taught him the sacredness of the privacy of grief
and love. He freed himself from her embrace, slipped out of the cave and
left her alone. She laid her cheek against the rude letters, patted them
with her hand, and kissed them again and again. It was bliss to know
that she had inspired this passion, although it was agony to know that
it was only a memory.
The remembrance of feasts once eaten is not only no solace to physical
hunger, but adds unmitigated torment to it. It is different with the
hunger of the heart, which finds a melancholy alleviation in feeding
upon those shadows which reality has left. The food is bitter-sweet and
the alleviation is not satisfaction, but neither is it starvation!
Probably a real interview with a living, present lover, would not have
given to Pepeeta that intense, though poignant, happiness which
transfigured her face when she came forth into the daylight world, and
which subdued and softened the noisy welcome of the boy.