David struck out from the shelter of the woodland and made his way to
his home, a pathetically small, rudely constructed house. The patch of
land supposed to be a garden, and in proportion to the dimensions of
the building, showed a few feeble efforts at vegetation. It was not
positively known that the Widow Dunne had a clear title to her
homestead, but one would as soon think of foreclosing a mortgage on a
playhouse, or taking a nest from a bird, as to press any claim on this
fallow fragment in the midst of prosperous farmlands.
Some discouraged looking fowls picked at the scant grass, a lean cow
switched a lackadaisical tail, and in a pen a pig grunted his
discontent.
David went into the little kitchen, where a woman was bending wearily
over a washtub.
"Mother," cried the boy in dismay, "you said you'd let the washing go
till to-morrow. That's why I didn't come right back."
She paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment and wrung the suds from
her tired and swollen hands.
"I felt better, David, and I thought I'd get them ready for you to
hang out."
David took the garment from her.
"Sit down and eat this ice cream Miss M'ri sent--no, I mean Joe Forbes
sent you. There was more, but I sold it for half a dollar; and here's
a pail of eggs and a drawing of tea she wants you to sample. She says
she is no judge of black tea."
"Joe Forbes!" exclaimed his mother interestedly. "I thought maybe he
would be coming back to look after the estate. Is he going to stay?"
"I'll tell you all about him, mother, if you will sit down."
He began a vigorous turning of the wringer.
The patient, tired-looking eyes of the woman brightened as she dished
out a saucer of the cream. The weariness in the sensitive lines of her
face and the prominence of her knuckles bore evidence of a life of
sordid struggle, but, above all, the mother love illumined her
features with a flash of radiance.
"You're a good provider, David; but tell me where you have been for so
long, and where did you see Joe?"
He gave her a faithful account of his dinner at the Brumble farm and
his subsequent meeting with Joe, working the wringer steadily as he
talked.
"There!" he exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction, "they are ready for
the line, but before I hang them out I am going to cook your dinner."
"I am rested now, David. I will cook me an egg."
"No, I will," insisted the boy, going to the stove.
A few moments later, with infinite satisfaction, he watched her
partake of crisp toast, fresh eggs, and savory tea.
"Did you see Jud and Janey?" she asked suddenly.
"No; they were at school."
"David, you shall go regularly to school next fall."
"No," said David stoutly; "next fall I am going to work regularly for
some of the farmers, and you are not going to wash any more."
Her eyes grew moist.
"David, will you always be good--will you grow up to be as good a man
as I want you to be?"
"How good do you want me to be?" he asked dubiously.
A radiant and tender smile played about her mouth.
"Not goodygood, David; but will you always be honest, and brave, and
kind, as you are now?"
"I'll try, mother."
"And never forget those who do you a kindness, David; always show your
gratitude."
"Yes, mother."
"And, David, watch your temper and, whatever happens, I shall have no
fears for your future."
His mother seldom talked to him in this wise. He thought about it
after he lay in his little cot in the sitting room that night; then
his mind wandered to Joe Forbes and his wonderful tales of the West.
He fell asleep to dream of cowboys and prairies. When he awoke the sun
was sending golden beams through the eastward window.
"Mother isn't up," he thought in surprise. He stole quietly out to the
kitchen, kindled a fire with as little noise as possible, put the
kettle over, set the table, and then went into the one tiny bedroom
where his mother lay in her bed, still--very still.
"Mother," he said softly.
There was no response.
"Mother," he repeated. Then piercingly, in excitement and fear,
"Mother!"
At last he knew.
He ran wildly to the outer door. Bill Winters, fortunately sober, was
driving slowly by.
"Bill!"
"What's the matter, Dave?" looking into the boy's white face. "Your ma
ain't sick, is she?"
David's lips quivered, but seemed almost unable to articulate.
"She's dead," he finally whispered.
"I'll send Zine right over," exclaimed Bill, slapping the reins
briskly across the drooping neck of his horse.
Very soon the little house was filled to overflowing with kind and
sympathetic neighbors who had come to do all that had to be done.
David sat on the back doorstep until M'ri came; before the expression
in his eyes she felt powerless to comfort him.
"The doctor says your mother died in her sleep," she told him. "She
didn't suffer any."
He made no reply. Oppressed by the dull pain for which there is no
ease, he wandered from the house to the garden, and from the garden
back to the house throughout the day. At sunset Barnabas drove over.
"I shall stay here to-night, Barnabas," said M'ri, "but I want you to
drive back and get some things. I've made out a list. Janey will know
where to find them."
"Sha'n't I take Dave back to stay to-night?" he suggested.
M'ri hesitated, and looked at David.
"No," he said dully, following Barnabas listlessly down the path to
the road.
Barnabas, keen, shrewd, and sharp at a bargain, had a heart that ever
softened to motherless children.
"Dave," he said gently, "your ma won't never hev to wash no more, and
she'll never be sick nor tired agen."
It was the first leaven to his loss, and he held tight to the horny
hand of his comforter. After Barnabas had driven away there came
trudging down the road the little, lithe figure of an old man, who was
carrying a large box. His mildly blue, inquiring eyes looked out from
beneath their hedge of shaggy eyebrows. His hair and his beard were
thick and bushy. Joe Forbes maintained that Uncle Larimy would look no
different if his head were turned upside down.
"David," he said softly, "I've brung yer ma some posies. She liked my
yaller roses, you know. I'm sorry my laylocks are gone. They come
early this year."
"Thank you, Uncle Larimy."
A choking sensation warned David to say no more.
"Things go 'skew sometimes, Dave, but the sun will shine agen,"
reminded the old man, as he went on into the house.
Later, when sundown shadows had vanished and the first glimmer of the
stars radiated from a pale sky, Joe came over. David felt no thrill at
sight of his hero. The halo was gone. He only remembered with a dull
ache that the half dollar had brought his mother none of the luxuries
he had planned to buy for her.
"David," said the young ranchman, his deep voice softened, "my mother
died when I was younger than you are, but you won't have a stepmother
to make life unbearable for you."
The boy looked at him with inscrutable eyes.
"Don't you want to go back with me to the ranch, David? You can learn
to ride and shoot."
David shook his head forlornly. His spirit of adventure was
smothered.
"We'll talk about it again, David," he said, as he went in to consult
M'ri.
"Don't you think the only thing for the boy to do is to go back with
me? I am going to buy the ranch on which I've been foreman, and I'll
try to do for David all that should have been done for me when I, at
his age, felt homeless and alone. He's the kind that takes things hard
and quiet; life in the open will pull him up."
"No, Joe," replied M'ri resolutely. "He's not ready for that kind of
life yet. He needs to be with women and children a while longer.
Barnabas and I are going to take him. Barnabas suggested it, and I
told Mrs. Dunne one day, when her burdens were getting heavy, that we
would do so if anything like this should happen."
Joe looked at her with revering eyes.
"Miss M'ri, you are so good to other people's children, what would you
be to your own!"
The passing of M'ri's youth had left a faint flush of prettiness like
the afterglow of a sunset faded into twilight. She was of the kind
that old age would never wither. In the deep blue eyes was a patient,
reflective look that told of a past but unforgotten romance. She
turned from his gaze, but not before he had seen the wistfulness his
speech had evoked. After he had gone, she sought David.
"I am going to stay here with you, David, for two or three days. Then
Barnabas and I want you to come to live with us. I had a long talk
with your mother one day, and I told her if anything happened to her
you should be our boy. That made her less anxious about the future,
David. Will you come?"
The boy looked up with his first gleam of interest in mundane things.
"I'd like it, but would--Jud?"
"I am afraid Jud doesn't like anything, David," she replied with a
sigh. "That's one reason I want you--to be a big brother to Janey, for
I think that is what she needs, and what Jud can never be."
The boy remembered what his mother had counseled.
"I'll always take care of Janey," he earnestly assured her.
"I know you will, David."
Two dreary days passed in the way that such days do pass, and then
David rode to his new home with Barnabas and M'ri.
Jud Brumble, a refractory, ungovernable lad of fifteen, didn't look
altogether unfavorably upon the addition to the household, knowing
that his amount of work would thereby be lessened, and that he would
have a new victim for his persecutions and tyrannies.
Janey, a little rosebud of a girl with dimples and flaxen curls, hung
back shyly and looked at David with awed eyes. She had been frightened
by what she had heard about his mother, and in a vague, disconnected
way she associated him with Death. M'ri went to the child's bedside
that night and explained the situation. "Poor Davey is all alone, now,
and very unhappy, so we must be kind to him. I told him you were to be
his little sister."
Then M'ri took David to a gabled room, at each end of which was a
swinging window--"one for seeing the sun rise, and one for seeing it
set," she said, as she turned back the covers from the spotless white
bed. She yearned to console him, but before the mute look of grief in
his big eyes she was silent.
"I wish he would cry," she said wistfully to Barnabas, "he hasn't shed
a tear since his mother died."
No sooner had the sound of her footsteps ceased than David threw off
his armor of self-restraint and burst into a passion of sobs, the
wilder for their long repression. He didn't hear the patter of little
feet on the floor, and not until two mothering arms were about his
neck did he see the white-robed figure of Janey.
"Don't cry, Davey," she implored, her quivering red mouth against his
cheek. "I'm sorry; but I am your little sister now, so you must love
me, Davey. Aunt M'ri told me so."