THE VOICE OF THE TURTLE
IN THE mean time, however, Mrs. Barrows and her offspring had not been
idle. Indeed, no sooner had they become convinced that no information
could be had out of Ambrose than they both set off at once hurrying
across back lots, the younger preceding her mother like an outrider,
thrusting her head and her news into every open door.
Within a few minutes the mother and daughter had arrived together at a
small house set midway in the next street, and there, without even
pausing to knock, Mrs. Barrows, pulling at a side door, entered a
dining-room. Seated at a breakfast table were six girls and one young
man, and immediately the six pairs of inquiring feminine eyes were
upraised toward Susan, although the solitary male continued the eating
of three large fried eggs in spite of the fact that his appearance
plainly indicated a bilious temperament.
"Miner Hobbs, he's gone!" said Susan. "Got off most without my seein'
him, though I ain't had a good night's rest come this month of May!"
Obviously this information should have been regarded as interesting, and
yet, except for a curt nod, Miner apparently had not heard. From
earliest boyhood notwithstanding that two more unlike fellow creatures
could not be imagined, he and Ambrose Thompson had been closest friends.
For while Ambrose was long and fair, Miner was considerably below medium
height and dark, with one gloomy, indestructible curl rising above his
already furrowed brow. Alike only in both being orphans, Ambrose was
untroubled by other ties, while Miner was guardian to six beautiful
blond sisters, all exceeding him in size and tranquillity. The drygoods
firm of Hobbs & Thompson had been opened up in Pennyroyal a year before,
so that to-day Ambrose's unexplained disappearance was not only a
failure in personal confidence but a downright business backsliding.
By and by, Miner arose. Still his fit of abstraction appeared too deep
to have been pierced from the outside, and yet, sliding past Mrs.
Barrows, he attempted to get out of the door. However, his visitor
sprang upon him.
"You're sneakin' off to try to catch up with Ambrose," she announced
triumphantly. "Well, the Lord knows I ain't one to want to hinder you.
But I'm thinkin' you won't succeed, for Ambrose Thompson will lead all
of us that aims to keep up with him a powerful long journey before ever
we are through with him."
Notwithstanding, in the following of his partner Miner Hobbs fully
understood that one must proceed warily; therefore he did not attempt
starting until after Ambrose was well out of town, and then he rode
slowly along on horseback, never coming into the range of the other
traveller's vision, but trying to keep his wheel tracks in evidence, and
now and then making inquiries of wayfarers. So that about an hour after
Ambrose's entrance into the woods his friend came to the same place and
there sought the thicket in which he believed him to have hidden
himself.
[Illustration: "Miner rode slowly along on horseback, now and then
making inquiries of wayfarers"]
Face downward Ambrose was lying on the soft earth; but if he felt
surprise or anger at hearing the sound of a horse's hoofs, and later a
human footfall, he made no sign. Flopping over he merely called,
"Hello," keeping his eyes fixed upon the line of hills on the opposite
bank of the river. His fishing-pole, fastened to a bush near by, was
extended over the water, but Ambrose's only visible occupation was the
chewing of a blade of "pennyrile" grass.
In contrast, Miner Hobbs appeared fatigued and harassed.
"I got to find out why you come off to yourself every year, Ambrose," he
began angrily. "I know you're doin' somethin' you're ashamed of or you
wouldn't be hidin'."
"Wherefore?" smiled the other boy. "Look here, Miner, we're friends,
have been since the first hour we met, yet I can't see as that gives you
the right to know my business. Friends has got their places, and in my
opinion a man can tell his friend just what he wants him to know, no
more, and no less, and the friend ain't the privilege to spy out a
single other thing."
"But you're doin' somethin' sinful or you would 'a' told me," Miner
repeated doggedly, and then, although uninvited, he sat down on the
ground close by, commencing to smooth out the Hyperion curl over his
brow which his dejection and the heat of his trip had considerably
tightened.
"Then we'll let it go at that," drawled Ambrose.
And for the next five minutes both boys sulked, Miner gnawing savagely
at his plug of tobacco, Ambrose still chewing on the blade of
"pennyrile" grass.
There were no informing signs about the place, so Miner decided that the
truant must now merely be resting on his journey.
"You hadn't a right to run off from business," Miner spluttered next.
Having made up his mind not to make this accusation, the little man was
surprised upon hearing it explode of its own strength.
However, Ambrose, instead of appearing disturbed, attempted to arrange
himself more comfortably on the grass, but finding this impossible, his
voice suggested richer repose.
"Miner, ain't it ever come to you that the Lord has given human bein's
time for more than one thing?" he queried, resting his chin upon his
hand. "I hold with work myself most always, but now and then there comes
a time, maybe it's just a short time, that is meant for something else,
something that belongs to you and is intended for you to do same as your
work. Maybe it's restin' and maybe it ain't."
But at this the little man rose up on his feet. "As you've made up your
mind you are not goin' to tell me, Ambrose, what is the use of talkin'
so much? I suppose you're sure you are not goin' to tell me?"
His companion bowed his head.
"All right then, it ain't necessary," Miner rejoined. "I know what 'tis.
There ain't but one thing that could ever come between you and me and
that's--a girl. If it ain't Peachy Williams that has lured you from
home, then it's some one else. I've been expectin' this to happen a long
time, and I've been tryin' to prepare myself for this day,"--here Miner
choked, and coughed in order to conceal his emotion--"but I've always
said to myself: Ambrose's easy, but he's open, and he'll surely tell me
in time to get a brace. Of course I know, Ambrose, that you've been
plumb crazy about girls since the Lord knows when, and been sendin'
mottoes and valentines since you were able to talk, but I didn't think
you would reach the marryin' stage fer quite a spell. Still I can see
for myself that this spring trip looks like business. It passes my
knowledge,"--Miner relented--"but it's you. Seems as if I couldn't bear
havin' females worritin' me save those my parents and the Lord put on me
to the last day I live, but you, Ambrose, you ain't never had petticoat
sense and never will. Good-bye." And there was unutterable scorn in
Miner's last words, as he moved away, mingled with the affection he was
to feel for no living thing save Ambrose. When with head bowed, he was
unconsciously treading underfoot the flowers that sprinkled his path, a
fishing-pole and line deftly circled through the air caught its hook in
his coat sleeve.
The one boy struggled, while the other jerked, and then a rich voice
drawled: "Please come back, old man, for if you really want to know why
I've run off to myself each spring for these past five years so it
clean hurts you not to know, I reckon I've got to tell you."
Then Miner returned and sat down again. His friend's behaviour was now
even more puzzling than before, for although Ambrose was close by, his
eyes had a faraway look in them, his eyebrows were twitching, his
slender nostrils quivering, and indeed, he had the appearance of a man
having strayed off some great distance by himself.
"Swear you'll never give me away, Miner," he began, and holding up one
of his big hands in the sunlight--his hands which were the truly
beautiful thing about him--he made a mystic sign to which his companion
swore.
"You won't understand when I do tell you," he hedged, "but I've been
comin' away off to myself every spring since I was a boy on account of
the 'Second Song of Solomon.'"
And at this Miner groaned, shutting his near-sighted eyes. "Lord, he's
the chap that had a thousand wives!"
Then back to earth came Ambrose, his blue eyes swimming in mists of
laughter and his shouts waking all the echoes in the hills.
"Wives!" he cried, rolling his long body over and over in the grass, and
kicking out his legs in sheer ecstasy, "Miner Hobbs, if ever you git an
idea fixed in your head, earthquakes won't shake it. Wives, is it? Why,
I ain't given Peachy Williams a thought of my own accord since I started
on this trip, nor any other girl, for that matter, so I can't for the
land sakes see why I have been havin' her poked at me so continual!
'Course there wouldn't be sense in me denyin' that I have a hankerin'
for girls; flesh and blood, 'ceptin' yours, Miner Hobbs, cannot deny the
kind we raise in Kentucky. However, they ain't been on my mind this
trip. Old King Solomon done a lot of things besides havin' a thousand
wives--they was his recreation. He builded a temple and founded a nation
and wrote pretty nigh the greatest poetry heard in these parts."
Here the speaker commenced pulling at the damp earth to hide his
embarrassment, and then made a pretence of examining the soil that came
up in his hand.
"It's the 'Second Song of Solomon' I'm meanin', Miner, and I've already
told you you ain't goin' to comprehend me when I do explain," he
continued patiently, "but bein's as it's you, I reckon I've got to try.
It's that song about spring. Ever since I was a little boy and first
heard it, why it began a-callin' me to get away for a little space to
myself to try and kind of hear things grow. It's a disappointin' reason
for me sneakin' off, ain't it, and foolish? I wish I had been doin'
somethin' with more snap to it, just to gratify Pennyroyal. But at
first, you see, I didn't mean nothin' in particular by not tellin',
knowin' that folks would think my real reason outlandish, but by and by
when the town got so all-fired curious and kept sayin' I was up to
different sorts of mischief, I just thought I'd keep 'em guessin'." Now
the long face was quivering in its eagerness to make things clear. "Why,
it seems to me from the time that the first green tips come peepin' up
between the stubble in the winter fields I kin hear that Solomon Song
a-beatin' and a-beatin' in my ears. 'Rise up, my love, my fair one, and
come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; the
flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.'"
But poor Miner was making a cup for his ear with his hand. "But turtles
ain't voices, Ambrose, that anybody knows of," he murmured dimly; "it's
frogs we hear croakin' along the river bank."
And this time Ambrose laughed to himself. "It's croaks you're always
hearin', old fellow, ain't it?" he whispered affectionately. And
then--"I reckon it makes no difference to me whether it's a frog or a
turtle, a bird or even a tree toad. It's the song of life, I'm listenin'
for, Miner."