CASTLE BUILDING.
The corn was big enough to cultivate the first time, and Young Matt
with Old Kate was hard at work in the field west of the house.
It was nearly three weeks since the incident at the mill, since which
time the young fellow had not met Sammy Lane to talk with her. He had
seen her, though, at a distance nearly every day, for the girl had
taken up her studies again, and spent most of her time out on the hills
with the shepherd. That day he saw her as she turned into the mill road
at the lower corner of the field, on her way to the Forks. And he was
still thinking of her three hours later, as he sat on a stump in the
shade of the forest’s edge, while his horse was resting.
Young Matt recalled the fight at the mill with a wild joy in his heart.
Under any circumstances it was no small thing to have defeated the
champion strong man and terror of the hills. It was a glorious thing to
have done the deed for the girl he loved, and under her eyes. Sammy
might give herself to Ollie, now, and go far away to the great world,
but she could never forget the man who had saved her from insult, when
her lover was far too weak to save even himself. And Young Matt would
stay in the hills alone, but always he would have the knowledge and the
triumph of this thing that he had done. Yes, it would be easier now,
but still—still the days would be years when there was no longer each
morning the hope that somewhere before the day was gone he would see
her.
The sun fell hot and glaring on the hillside field, and in the air was
the smell of the freshly turned earth. High up in the blue a hawk
circled and circled again. A puff of air came sighing through the
forest, touched lightly the green blades in the open, slipped over the
ridge, and was lost in the sky beyond. Old Kate, with head down, was
dreaming of cool springs in shady dells, and a little shiny brown
lizard with a bright blue tail crept from under the bottom rail of the
fence to see why the man was so still.
The man turned his head quickly; the lizard dodged under the rail; and
old Kate awoke with a start. Someone was coming along the road below.
Young Matt knew the step of that horse, as well as he knew the sound of
old Kate’s bell, or the neigh of his own sorrel.
The brown pony stopped at the lower corner of the field, and a voice
called, “You’d better be at work. I don’t believe you have ploughed
three rows since I passed.”
The big fellow went eagerly down the hill to the fence. “I sure ought
to o’ done better’n that, for it’s been long enough since you went by.
I always notice, though, that it gets a heap farther to the other side
of the field and back about this time o’ day. What’s new over to the
Forks?”
Sammy laughed, “Couldn’t hear a thing but how the champion strong man
was beaten at his own game. Uncle Ike says, ‘Ba thundas! You tell Young
Matt that he’d better come over. A man what can ride Wash Gibbs a bug
huntin’ is too blamed good a man t’ stay at home all th’ time. We want
him t’ tell us how he done it. Ba thundas! He’ll be gittin’ a job with
th’ gov’ment next. What!’”
The man crossed his arms on the top rail of the worm fence, and
laughed. It was good to have Sammy deliver her message in just that
way. “I reckon Uncle Ike thinks I ought to go dancin’ all over the
hills now, with a chip on my shoulder,” he said.
“I don’t think you’ll do that,” she returned. “Dad Howitt wouldn’t,
would he? But I must hurry on now, or Daddy’s supper won’t be ready
when he comes in. I stopped to give you these papers for your father.”
She handed him the package. “And—and I want to thank you, Matt, for
what you did at the mill. All my life you have been fighting for me,
and—and I have never done anything for you. I wish I could do
something—something that would show you how—how I care.”
Her voice faltered. He was so big and strong, and there was such a look
of hopeless love and pain on his rugged face—a face that was as frank
and open as a child’s. Here was a man who had no need for the shallow
cunning of little fox-like men. This one would go open and bold on his
way, and that which he could not take by his strength he would not
have. Had she not seen him in battle? Had she not seen his eyes like
polished steel points? Deep down in her heart, the woman felt a thrill
of triumph that such a man should stand so before her. She must go
quickly.
Young Matt climbed slowly up the hill again to his seat on the stump.
Here he watched until across the Hollow he saw the pony and his rider
come out of the timber and move swiftly along the ridge; watched until
they faded into a tiny spot, rounded the mountain and disappeared from
sight. Then, lifting his eyes, he looked away beyond the long blue line
that marked the distant horizon. Some day he would watch Sammy ride
away and she would go on, and on, and on, beyond that blue line, put of
his life forever.
Ollie had gone over there to live, and the shepherd had come from
there. What was that world like, he wondered. Between the young man of
the mountains and that big world yonder there had always been a closely
shut door. He had seen the door open to Ollie, and now Sammy stood on
the threshold. Would it ever open for him? And, if it did, what? Then
came a thought that made his blood leap. Might he not force it open?
The shepherd had told him of others who had done so.
Young Matt felt a strong man’s contempt for the things Ollie had gotten
out of the world, but he stood in awe before Mr. Howitt. He told
himself, now, that he would look for and find the things yonder that
made Dad the man he was. He would carry to the task his splendid
strength. Nothing should stop him. And Sammy, when she understood that
he was going away to be like the shepherd, would wait awhile to give
him his chance. Surely, she would wait when he told her that. But how
should he begin?
Looking up again, his eye caught a slow, shifting patch of white on the
bench above Lost Creek, where the little stream begins its underground
course. The faint bark of a dog came to him through the thin still air,
and the patch of white turned off into the trail that leads to the
ranch. “Dad!” exclaimed the young man in triumph. Dad should tell him
how. He had taught Sammy.
And so while the sunlight danced on the green field, and old Kate slept
in the lengthening shadows of the timber, the lad gave himself to his
dreams and built his castles—as we all have builded.
His dreaming was interrupted as the supper bell rang, and, with the
familiar sound, a multitude of other thoughts came crowding in; the
father and mother—they were growing old. Would it do to leave them
alone with the graves on the hill yonder, and the mystery of the
Hollow? And there was the place to care for, and the mill. Who but
Young Matt could get work from the old engine?
It was like the strong man that the fight did not last long. Young
Matt’s fights never lasted very long. By the time he had unhitched old
Kate from the cultivator, it was finished. The lad went down the hill,
his bright castles in ruin—even as we all have gone, or must sometime
go down the hill with our brightest castles in ruin.