A HOMESICK BOY.
The sights of New York filled Dick Merriwell with wonder and awe.
Brought up in the peace and quietude of Pleasant Valley, under the
shadow of the snow-capped Rockies, the rush and roar of the great
city overwhelmed the boy at first. The tall buildings filled him with
fear, the rush and racket of the elevated trains shocked him, the
whiz of the clanging surface cars sent cold shivers over his body.
Although he did not confess it, he was seized by a great longing
to fly from the mighty city and return to his quiet home near Lake
Sunshine. The feeling smote upon his heart with a pain that took
away his strength and made him sick. He thought of Felicia far away,
and longed to look into her bright eyes again--longed to feel her
caressing arms flung about him.
But he had given up everything that once was his to go with Frank
and do what Frank desired, and he fought against the terrible
homesickness. No one seemed to read him like Old Joe Crowfoot, the
withered Indian, who loved him with the affection of a devoted animal.
If Old Joe sickened and longed for the mountains and plains, he kept
the fact concealed beneath a calm demeanor and a stoical countenance.
But he found the boy quite alone in the solitude of his room in
the hotel, and placed a wrinkled hand on his shoulder, saying with
surprising softness:
“Heap bad feel now--git over him bimeby. Old Joe him know. You wait.”
“Oh, Joe!” gasped the boy, starting and trembling. “I did not hear
you come in.”
“Injun Heart lose all Joe he teach um to know. Always must hear.
Never be ketched surprise.”
“But I was thinking, and I----”
“Better not think more of that. Heap bad. Forget.”
“You, Joe--you tell me to forget?” cried the boy, in amazement. “Why,
it was not long ago you tried to make me remember. You would not let
me forget. You told me of the sunlight playing on the bosom of the
lake I love--of the moonshine making a silver path across the water.
You told me of the birds, and squirrels, and wild things I used to
call round me. You told me of the silent mountains piled against the
sky. And then you told me of Felicia, Little Star Eyes, whom I heard
calling to me night after night in my dreams. It was you who aroused
my mad longing to go back to my home--and to Felicia!”
Gravely Old Joe squatted on the carpeted floor, taking out his black
pipe and beginning to fill it.
“Heap so,” he confessed.
“But now----”
“Heap diffrunt.”
“You want me to forget those things--you, you?” panted Dick, starting
up and staring at the cool redskin. “It’s not like you, Joe!”
“Ugh!” grunted the old fellow, as he stuffed the tobacco into the
bowl of the pipe. “No git excite’.”
“I can’t help it! This city lays on me like an awful load. It is more
terrible than anything of which I ever dreamed! Sometimes, when on
the street, I feel that I am being crowded and smothered, and I have
hard work to breathe.”
“Bad for you,” said Crowfoot, producing a match; “heap wuss for me.
You young; me old. I live heap long time where plent’ room. City
crowd big much.”
“Yet you make no murmur; offer no complaint!”
“What use? Joe him come with Injun Heart. Him know it be hard for
Injun Heart. Why him make it wuss?”
“Joe, Joe! you are so good! You think of me, not of yourself! And
still you tell me to forget Felicia and my dear home!”
Crowfoot gravely lighted his pipe, puffing forth big whiffs of smoke,
and then threw the burning match upon the carpet. Dick quickly picked
it up and tossed it in a cuspidor.
“Joe him your friend,” said the old fellow. “You know.”
“I have thought you my friend--I know, Joe. You have been my friend.
But you love the great West, where there is plenty of room. You feel
the awful crowding of the city.”
“Steady Hand him your broder.”
“Yes, but he is used to all this; I am not. With me it is different.
And what you told me is true, Joe--what you told me of the men of the
East. They are not big, and strong, and healthy; they dress in fine
clothes, wear high collars, and look weak. They are all striving to
become rich. That is all they think about. And it costs so much money
to live here!”
“Heap big lot,” nodded Joe.
“My brother wants to make me like them! I do not wish to live that
way.”
“Him different,” said Old Joe.
“Yes,” admitted Dick, “he does seem different in many ways, and
yet----”
“White man different from red man. Steady Hand him know what best for
Injun Heart.”
“How you have changed, Joe! Once you told me he would spoil me, but
now----”
“That when Joe him think Steady Hand not do right thing. Joe him
think odder way now. Steady Hand him no fool; him know what best for
Injun Heart. You do what him say. Joe hate him once. Think him take
Injun Heart away.”
“But now Frank has won even you for a friend, and there was a time
when you longed to kill him! He seems to have a way of making friends
of everybody.”
The old Indian nodded gravely, continuing to puff at his pipe.
“Right,” he admitted. “Joe he know it. He know it all the time. Him
see how ev’rybody think Steady Hand be heap smart.”
“And you advise me to do as he wishes me to?”
“That so.”
“But Felicia--am I to see her no more?” cried the boy, in a
heart-broken way.
“Some time.”
“When?”
“Soon mebbe.”
“How can I? I am not to go to her.”
“Mebbe she come.”
“No, no! I shall never see her any more! And Frank says I am to begin
going to school very soon.”
“Make you like him, heap good school.”
More than ever was the boy amazed.
“Why, you told me many times that no school was good! You have
changed, Joe.”
“Mebbe some. I know Steady Hand now much better. Good school make man
like him.”
“And you think it will do me good to go to school there?”
“Guess so some.”
Dick made a despairing gesture.
“Then I’ll have to go!” he said dejectedly. “I’ll have to do it, even
if it kills me!”
“No kill; make man. Mebbe you not be like Old Joe thought you be some
time; you be like Steady Hand, that much good.”
“When you say that I know what it means. I shall do it, Joe. But you
will stay near, won’t you? Promise that you will.”
“Stay long as can stand him. Steady Hand say Joe can stay. Bimeby Joe
him git much sick for mountains and prairies. Then him go ’way.”
“And never come back?” cried Dick.
“Mebbe so some time.”
“Oh, you never will! If you go away, Joe, I’ll never see you again!”
“Not gone yit.”
“But you said you might.”
“Wait. Trouble him come soon if not hurry um. Joe him go with you to
place where school be. Him want to see um place.”
“But if I do not wish to stay there, Joe--what if it makes me sick
and I want to get away?”
“Then mebbe we do somethin’.”
“You will help me run away, Joe?” panted the lad.
The old redskin smoked in silence for some moments, finally answering:
“No.”
“You won’t? Why not?”
“Promise Steady Hand.”
“But it is for me, Joe--for me!”
“Joe him give Steady Hand promise; never break it. Steady Hand him
say Joe may go with you, but him must never git you run away. Joe him
promise.”
“It’s no use!” Dick murmured. “I see that I’ll have to do as he
wishes me to. I must give up! Oh, I wish he had never found me!
Sometimes I think I hate him!”
“Bad mistake. Injun Heart no hate Steady Hand. He ready to fight for
Steady Hand. Only think him hate some time. Somebody hurt Steady
Hand, him fight heap much.”
Deep down in his heart Dick Merriwell knew this was true. Still, the
homesickness that had seized him would not depart, and not even the
words of Old Joe could banish it.