Sandy Morley came out of his shed and turned his bruised and aching
face to Lost Mountain. It was very early, and the first touch of a red
morn was turning the mists on the highest peak to flaming films of
feathery lightness.
There had been a desperate quarrel in the Morley cabin the night
before, and Sandy, defending his father for the first time in his life
against the assault of Mary, had reaped the results of the woman's
outraged surprise and resentment.
"You!" she had shrieked, rushing at him; "you, taking on the man-trick,
are you? Then----" and the heavy blow dealt him carried Sandy to the
floor by its force. Later he crept to his shelter and suffered the
growing pangs of maturity. The words of Mary had roused him more than
the hurt she had inflicted. No longer could he submit--why? All the
years he had borne the shame and degradation, but of a sudden something
rose up within him that rebelled and defied. He no longer hated as he
had in his first impotent childish heat; he seemed now to be a new and
changed creature looking on with surprise and abhorrence at the
suffering of some one over whom he had charge and for whom he was
responsible. The some one was Sandy Morley, but who was this strange
and suddenly evolved guardian who rose supreme over conditions and
demanded justice for the hurt boy lying on the straw mattress in the
wretched outhouse?
All night, sleeping only at intervals, Sandy Morley strove to
understand. Morning found him still confused and tormented. He went
outside and with aching eyes looked upon the cloud. Presently, as if
ordered by a supreme artist, the rosy films parted majestically and
Lost Mountain, stern and grim, stood clearly defined! Just then a
bird-note broke the mystic stillness; it filled The Hollow with
triumphant joy--it became part of the tumult of Sandy's soul compelling
the discord to lose itself in harmony.
"I must go away!" Sandy murmured as if in prayer. "I must go away!"
The new man into which he was merging felt its way cautiously through
the brightening prospect. "I must go away, now."
That was it. The years of preparation were past. Little or much, he
must take his savings and go forth! For a moment a soul loneliness
possessed him.
"Where?" he faltered in that rosy quiet that was moved and stirred by
the bird-song. "Where?" There was only one place on earth to him
beyond his mountain home--he must go to that state which recognized so
generously the yearning for knowledge he must go to Massachusetts! But
now that the hour had arrived he found his day-dreamings of the past
were as vague and unreliable as guides as his idea of heaven, that
state of mind which Marcia Lowe always insisted was here and now, or
nowhere at all!
Well, he would go to the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady and get a more concise
conception of heaven and Massachusetts, if possible.
Sandy turned his bruised face to earth as he reached this decision;
like a condemned man on his last earthly day, he set about the doing of
the unimportant but necessary duties that lay between the dawn and the
night. With no joy did Sandy Morley anticipate his great change. He
only realized the "call," and in a subtle, compelling way he felt
himself driven by forces, quite beyond his control, to bear himself
bravely.
He filled the rusty pail with water from the spring down by the Branch;
he brought wood and lighted a fire on the ashy hearth before which, the
night before, the quarrel had waged. Having finished the homely tasks
he gathered some scraps of ash cakes and bacon together and made for
himself a breakfast, which he washed down with some thin, sour
buttermilk. After this he went to his shed and arrayed himself in a
suit of clothes, old but decent, that some one at The Forge had
charitably given him; then, packing a basket with some luscious late
peas and berries that he had been fostering for weeks in a tiny garden
patch back of the cabin, he started out on his last day's journey on
the hills for many and many a year. He had thought it out clearly
while he was performing his tasks. He would bargain and sell; he would
draw Miss Lowe out as to particulars of direction, cost and details; he
would bid her good-bye--she a stranger who had been so kind to him! He
would miss her teaching and guidance; miss her strange inspiration of
joyousness and courage. After leaving Trouble Neck he must see Cynthia
Walden and tell her that the great hour had come! Then there was to be
the final scene. He was going to ask his father to go away with him!
The quarrel of the night before had decided him. Together he and his
father might make a place for themselves beyond the touch of Mary and
the sound of her terrible voice. Tenderly and with a beating heart
Sandy recalled the old, old days--the days when Martin sang, and prayed
his wonderful prayers to a little happy child. Yes, they would go away
together and then nothing would be quite so hard or impossible.
Thus arranged, Sandy began his day. He sold his basketful at the first
house--a place five miles away where some strange artist-folks were
boarding. Sandy got a great deal of money there, for not only did the
mistress of the house pay him well, but a man and woman gave him a
dollar for posing for them while they sketched him. Reaching Trouble
Neck, Sandy met his first setback. Miss Lowe was away; the little
cabin was closed and on the door was pinned a scrap of paper which
confided to any chance visitor that the owner would be gone for several
days. Marcia Lowe had set out for that far place among the hills where
her uncle's body had been laid years before. She had gone to make it
beautiful, when she located it, and the task was to take longer than
she knew.
Sandy sat down upon the doorstep dejected and disappointed. He had
depended more than he knew upon what he felt sure the little doctor
could give him, and yet, not for a moment, did he contemplate waiting
for her return--his order had been given. As his great-grandfather had
taken up arms unquestioningly long ago, so Sandy now responded to this
later command. He must go that night!
After resting for a few moments and struggling against the dreariness
that was spreading through his thought he roused and set forth for the
Walden place. Having no legitimate business at the back door of
Stoneledge, the boy had no intention of braving old Ivy's sombre stare
or the chance meeting with the mistress of the Great House, but there
were other ways of communicating with Cynthia besides the back door and
the vicarious personalities of those who ruled over her. Youth has its
own methods of telegraphy, and the hills people are master hands at
secrecy. There was a certain bird-note for which Sandy was famous: a
low but shrill pipe that had startled old Ivy more than once and was
nearly always successful in causing Cynthia to materialize in due time.
So Sandy, from the shelter of trees back of the Stoneledge smoke-house,
gave his peculiar and penetrating call. A second time he gave it and
then Ivy issued forth and, cocking her weird old head on one side,
listened. A long silence followed. The hot afternoon palpitated and
throbbed in The Hollow, but the hidden bird did not break it by another
call. At last it became evident that Cynthia was beyond the reach of
her slave's desires, and so poor Sandy gathered together his flagging
strength and spirits and turned toward home with the forlorn hope that
he might meet Cynthia on the way there. Now that the parting time had
come he knew that the girl was his only real friend on earth in the
sense that youth knows a friend. They were near each other, though so
far apart. They spoke a common tongue and there were hours when the
girl of the Great House and Sandy of the cabin reached across the gulf
of tradition and class distinction and opened their souls to each
other. During such moments Cynthia had awakened and called forth
Sandy's dormant imagination. Through Cynthia he had been shown the
beauty of the flowers; been taught the note of the birds and the thrill
of life under winter's cold and hard wing. Poverty sharpened the
senses of The Hollow people alike in hovel and great house; it drove
Miss Ann and Cynthia into close quarters with Ivy and her weird
superstitions; it drove Sandy and his kind into dangerous contact with
each other, for behind closed doors and in the semi-darkness of the
one-windowed cabins evil traits grew apace and the cold and the poor
food were fuel for passion and hate.
But no little enchantress met lonely Sandy on his homeward way.
"I reckon I must--go without!" he muttered with something much like a
sob in his voice. Not even then did he dream of procrastinating. He
was hungry and weary and when he reached the cabin he paused to eat
again before going to the rock with his day's earnings. Mary, Molly,
and Martin were absent, but that was no new thing. Sandy meant to hide
his money, come back and speak to his father and then, by the dark of
the moon, start out either with Martin or alone. Grimly the young,
tired face set into stern lines; a paleness dimmed his freckles and a
fever brightened his eyes, but the heat in his blood, now at the day's
end, acted like a stimulant to his thoughts. No longer did he fear or
doubt--he had passed that stage and, like a warrior reinforced and
exhilarated, he began to whistle confidently and almost joyously. He
meant to give Mary her share of his profits, but he would leave them in
the box beside the stone that so long had hid his secret.
Over the Branch and up the hill to the woods went Sandy with an
uplifted expression on his poor, bruised face and the dignity of his
clothing adding a strange touch of age to him. Near the sacred spot he
paused and the tune died on his lips. Some one or some thing was
stirring just beyond, and, of a sudden, fear and past doubt drove the
blood from his heart. His only thought was of Molly! All the years,
perhaps, she had deceived and betrayed him. He had, like a coward,
failed to count his money; to guard it as he should!
Creeping forward on hands and knees he made his way silently through
the bushes. He knew the trick of the beasts; knew how to pad the
underbrush beneath his hands before he trusted the weight of his body
to it. When within a few feet of the spot whence the sound of moving
came, Sandy started up and dashed with one bound into the open. His
hands were spread wide with eagerness to grip that which had betrayed
him, and so he came upon--Cynthia Walden! He fell back panting, when
his brain, at last, interpreted for him what he saw. The girl sat with
the tin box of money in her lap; the overturned stone beside her and
the last rays of the hot sun filtering through the dogwood trees and
pines upon her sweet, pale beauty. By a sharp trick of memory Sandy
recalled how the dogwood blossoms one spring long past had looked like
stars under the dark pines and now he thought that Cynthia's face was
like the pale, starry blossoms. He was always to remember her so when,
in the hard years on before, she was to come to him in fancy and
longing. A pure girl-face, radiant with hope and bravery, touched,
just then, with startled fear which faded into laughing triumph as she
recognized Sandy.
"You thought it was--Molly?" she whispered, holding her hands clasped
over the box in her lap. "So did I. Once I found her here--found her
hunting under one rock after another. I gave her a lick on the back I
reckon she has always remembered." The slow, sweet laugh rippled
out--"Molly is mighty afraid of me."
Then Sandy managed to command his thought and motions. He stepped to
Cynthia and knelt beside her.
"I am going away," he said softly.
"Yes, I know. When?"
"To-night."
"To-night?" Fourteen and twelve have no perspective--everything is
final and vital to them. The past has been but a witchery of
preparation in a fairy tale of wonder and delight; the actual
experience of action found them both unfitted for the ordeal, but in
each boy and girl is the potential man and woman, and Sandy and Cynthia
met the present moment characteristically.
"I dreamed two dreams," said the girl with a shade of mysticism in her
tones. "Once I saw you going down The Way, Sandy, with the look on
your face that you now have. I stood by the big pine just where the
trail ends in The Way, and watched you. Then I dreamed last night that
I stood by the big pine again and you were coming up The Way a-waving
to me like you knew I would be there. There was a look on your face--a
new look--but I knew it, for I've seen it before in the Significant
Room." Cynthia paused, for the question in Sandy's eyes held her.
"You know my story?" she said with her delicious laugh thrilling her
listener; "the story part of my life?"
"Oh!" It came to Sandy then, in this strained, prosaic moment, the
memory of Cynthia's fancy to set her little world in the frame of her
"Pilgrim's Progress," the only book of fiction free to her. "Oh! yes,
now I remember."
"Sandy, all these years I have tried and tried to make you fit in--but
you wouldn't until--until last night. When it was right dark and still
and everybody was sleeping, I went down into the old library--that's
where Aunt Ann had the queer spell the day Miss Lowe came--the room is
all dirty and full of ashes, for the chimney fell that afternoon; but
right beside the fireplace there is an empty space on the wall that
I've always saved for you!"
Cynthia had forgot the present in her fantastic play and she held Sandy
as she always had before by the trick of her fascination.
"Yes," he murmured; "there is your mother's picture and the old
general's and the frame that holds your father's portrait--the father
that no one knows about but you--and now--am I hanging in the
Significant Room?"
Sandy was all boy now; the strange new dignity fell wearily from
him--he was playing, after a hard lesson, with little Cyn.
"And what am I?" he asked, "what have you made me?"
"Oh! I did not make you, Sandy. You just were! The moonlight was
streaming in through the window where the roses and honeysuckle are--it
was a leafy moonlight and all ripply like dancing water. I was not
afraid--I went right boldly up to--your picture, Sandy, and I knew you
at once. You know in the Significant Room of my book it says there was
a man in a cage; the man and his dream; and the man that cut his way
through his enemies--the biggest of them all! But, oh! Sandy, mighty
plain and fine I saw you like you were all three of the book folks.
You were Sandy of the cage--and the cage was Lost Hollow! You were
Sandy with your dream of helping us-all. Me, the po' lil' white trash
in Crothers' factory--everybody! Then you were Sandy cutting your way
through your enemies like the Hertfords are to your family; I heard
Aunt Ann telling Ivy--and then right sudden I saw you hanging up in a
gold frame with the ripply moonlight shining on you---- The Biggest of
Them All!"
Sandy's eyes were brilliant and glittering; his breath came quick and
hard, and to steady himself he whispered:
"I am going away--to-night!"
The vision vanished and Cynthia felt two large tears roll down her
cheeks. They left no sorry stains upon the pale smoothness of the
girl's skin; Cynthia's eyes could always hold a smile even when dimmed;
her eyes were gray with blue tints and her straight, thick hair was the
dull gold that caught and held light and shade. Some day she was going
to be very handsome in an original and peculiar fashion, and Sandy
unconsciously caught a glimpse of it now, and it disturbed him.
"I am going--to-night. I wonder if there is enough?"
He glanced at the box. "I have never counted it."
"Never counted it? I have counted it every week. That's because I am
I, and you are you, Sandy. There's over thirty dollars."
At this Sandy gasped.
"I--reckon it will take me to Massachusetts," he said.
"I reckon it will take you to the world's end," Cynthia, the mystic
exclaimed, "and back again!"
"Back again!" Sandy's imagination could not stretch past a certain
limit.
"But you are coming back, Sandy?" A startled fear crept into the
girl's eyes; "you promised!"
"I shall come back--yes!"
"Let us count the money together, Sandy."
Dishevelled dark head and smooth bright one bent close in the dimming
light. There was a far-distant rumble of thunder, but neither heeded
it; showers were almost daily occurrences, and excitement and
concentration ran high. Suddenly Sandy started back and pointed to a
small roll of bills--three one-dollar bills they were--but Sandy had
never put a piece of paper money in the box!
"That!" he whispered hoarsely; "how did that get here?"
Too late Cynthia saw her mistake. All the small savings and sacrifices
of her life she had exchanged that very day at the post-office for the
three bills. Tod Greeley had picked out the cleanest and newest, and
now they had betrayed her.
Sandy was on his feet at once, and a stern frown drew his brows
together; the bruise on his cheek stung as the blood rushed to it, and
then he waited.
Presently Cynthia rose to her feet and from her slim height faced Sandy
on the level--eye to eye.
"I put it there!" defiance and pride touched the words, "it means as
much to me as it does to you--the going away, I mean. I've thought it
all out--you'll have to pay it back--pay it as I want it."
Sandy's mind worked more slowly; gropingly he strove to understand.
"How did you get it?" he asked relentlessly.
Cynthia laughed a little.
"Just scratches and pricks--it was great fun! I've been gathering the
wool from the bushes under which the sheep go, for years and years;
ever since you began to save, Sandy. Lily Ivy sold the wool to the
darkies--and I got Mr. Greeley to change the pennies--for bills. It is
all mine, every bit!"
A mist rose to Sandy's eyes--it almost hid that pure flower-like face
shining under the dark trees.
"You mustn't be mean, Sandy; besides, you are to pay it all back."
"How?" That word was all Sandy could master for a sharp pain in his
throat drove all else he meant to say back.
"Why, you are going to set me free--you must marry me!"
Like a child playing with fire Cynthia heedlessly spoke these words.
They had no deeper significance to her than the lilt of a world-old
song. Marriage was the end-all and consummation of her magic stories
and, in this case, it had simply been a trifle more difficult to
consider on account of the social difference between Sandy and her.
However, that had been overcome by the wand of imagination. Sandy
would evolve into something so peculiarly splendid that the chasm could
be bridged!
The effect of Cynthia's words upon Sandy was tragic. He closed his
eyes in order that he might shut out the hurting power of her face and
commanding eyes--but between the lids and his vision the girl mocked
him--he could not escape her!
The night before his manhood had been stung to life by Mary's cruelty;
it was fanned into live flame now by the childish tenderness of this
girl so near to womanhood that the coming charm and sweetness glorified
her. Then she touched him and a wave of delicious pain coursed through
his body.
"How did--this happen?" A finger lightly passed over the bruise on his
cheek. He could not answer.
"I know! But they couldn't hurt the you of you, Sandy. I see the
bigness shining through everything. Why do you keep your eyes shut?"
Sandy opened his eyes desperately and saw only the child until eye met
eye again, and then the vision of what Cynthia foretold shook him once
more.
"My head--spins," he said vaguely; "the day's heat made it ache."
"You will take my money, Sandy?"
"Yes."
"And you will come back and--marry me?"
"I'll come back and--and----"
"Will you marry me, Sandy, like they do in books?"
"If--if--that is the best way, yes."
"Oh! it always is! It's a mighty fine way, because then no one
can--make you do things. I shall make you do whatever I choose,
Sandy--will you mind?"
"No."
"You know in my book, Sandy, there is a Madam Bubble and I'm making
myself like her. You can make yourself into anything, I reckon, Sandy,
if you just _will_, and dream about it. Listen to me!" Cynthia had
Sandy by the shoulders now in frank, playful mood. "I am tall and
comely--I looked up the word, and it says it means to be agreeable and
good-looking. Well, I'm good-looking--or I'm going to be. Then the
book says Madam Bubble speaks smoothly and smiles at the end of a
sentence. I've tried and tried and now I can smile that way. Look,
Sandy!"
Again Sandy forced himself to fasten his eyes on the sweet, tender
mouth.
"I love to smile, Sandy."
Suddenly the girl's gay tone changed; she came back to grim facts with
a catch in her voice.
"How I shall miss you, Sandy. The woods will be right empty--till you
come again! I shall make believe find you on the hills even when I
know you are not here, but always I will be able to see you in the
Significant Room! I'm going to study and make myself fit for you--I
shall be right busy. I am going to ask Aunt Ann to let me learn of the
little doctor. I shall study the books you have and--it won't seem
long, Sandy!"
The brave attempt at cheer, the tender renunciation in the soft voice,
wrung Sandy's heart.
"I'm sorry I hated the little doctor for teaching you, Sandy. She
helped you--to--to come back quicker, only I did not know then. She'll
help me now, I reckon, to be ready for you. Sandy, I just couldn't see
you go down The Way! You stand here like you were going to stay on
forever and I'll run down the trail. I won't look back once, Sandy,
but--kiss me good-bye."
It was the little Cyn of the past playful days who pleaded so
pathetically--forgetting caste and dividing line. The little Cyn who
had always clung to her comrade when danger or fear threatened; but
behind the childish words rang the woman's alluring sweetness--the
woman little Cyn was some time to be. By a mighty effort Sandy Morley
bent and kissed the pretty upturned mouth. The rough, unlovely
clothing could not disguise the dignity of the stiff, boyish form; the
bluish bruise on his face grew darker as the hot blood surged through
it, but the clear, boyish eyes were frank and simple at last as the:
"Good-bye, Cynthia!" rang sharply.
There was one look more, full of brave sorrow, then Cynthia turned
abruptly and ran like a wild thing of the woods into the shadow of the
pines.
Sandy stood and watched her, with his thin face twitching miserably,
until the sound of her going died away; then he groaned and bent to
pick up the box of money that had lain unheeded while bigger things had
been conceived and born. Slowly, mechanically he counted the small
fortune to the last piece, then he placed two half dollars in the box
and left it where any one could easily find it. Poor Sandy was beyond
suffering now, or indeed beyond any sensation except that of dull
action. His head was aching excruciatingly; fever throbbed in his body
and a heavy weariness overcame him. He would rest before he went to
his father!
Sinking to the ground he leaned against the tree under which Cynthia
had stood and, for a moment, lost consciousness.