Sandy came down from Boston that evening, tired-eyed and dusty. He
walked up from the station because he had taken an earlier train and he
wanted the walk through the quiet, sweet woods and fields before he met
the two friends from whom he always kept his worries and troubles. By
the time he entered the house on the hill he would be himself again!
And what had the seven years done for and with Sandy Morley? Outwardly
they had wrought wonders with him. He was over six feet tall, broad
and good to look upon. His clean-cut dark face was rather stern and
serious, but his eyes had caught and held the light and kindness the
world had shown him since he left Lost Mountain. When Sandy smiled you
forgot his sternness; he could look very joyous, but recent happenings
had set a seal upon his brighter side. Well dressed and well cared for
he strode ahead, taking a cut be knew well through the woods and
pastures leading up to the farmhouse, and for the first time in years
the homesickness for Lost Hollow surged over him. Always in his
deeper, more thoughtful moods the old home-place had a part. For years
he rarely ate a meal, when he was hungry, without a grip of memory
taking a flavour from the food. His hours of ease and pleasure were
haunted by grim recollections of toil and dreariness which he had once
endured, and which others, like him, were still undergoing. He never
forgot, never became callous; but as time went on and success became
more certain, he learned to estimate the value of utilizing his chances
and economizing his strength and powers. As in the old days of
preparation among the hills, he put in safe keeping his earnings, never
counting them; never trusting himself to the encouragement or
depression of their amount for good or ill--he awaited his hour and
call. And, too, as in the old days he mistrusted and feared Molly, so
now there were moments when he, superstitiously, expected some one or
some thing to defeat him in his aims and ideals. For never had his
vision faltered. He was still preparing to help Lost Hollow and all
them who dwelt therein.
There had been times in the past when, strange to say, with good food
in plenty about him, he had yearned with hungry longing for the rough
ash cakes and sour milk of his early home; and there would always be
hours when he would raise his eyes in soul-sickness and pray for a
glimpse of Lost Mountain--the one lofty thing in his one-time little
world. And the first few springs after his leaving his home he was ill
when he saw the dogwood blossoms--they called to the depths of his
nature and the depths answered not! He had kept the vow made to
himself--he would neither write nor seek word from the hills until he
were ready to go back to his own.
The first days at school were tortured experiences, but he mastered
them first by physical courage, then by sheer fineness of character.
He made great strides after the second year, and when he graduated from
the New Hampshire Preparatory he was ready, with some tutoring, to
enter Harvard. Oddly enough Lansing Treadwell became his tutor,
neither knowing more of the other than the circumstances demanded.
Again Sandy's rare disposition won for him a place in Treadwell's good
will and liking. The young tutor prided himself upon his own
popularity and social position; he made a virtue of his necessity for
earning money and, in good natured, lordly fashion, blazed a trail for
his uncle's protégé with a laugh of indifference at his own defeat with
his austere relative.
When in due time Morley graduated with honours from college none was
more generous with praise and pride than Lansing Treadwell.
"By Jove! my friend," he said, "I'm nothing but a big, bungling giant
without genius or talent. Let me set you on my shoulders and you'll
conquer the world--our nice, little world of Boston!"
But Sandy had no social ambitions. When his summer work in the mills
was over, he found his greatest pleasure at Bretherton with Markham and
Matilda and old Bob. And then, when sudden necessity lashed him to
unexpected endeavour, he went to young Treadwell and said simply:
"I am not going to work in the mills this vacation; Mr. Markham has
offered me a trip somewhere, but I have need of money for personal uses
and I must--earn some. Can you help me?"
And again Lansing Treadwell, with a grin of amused understanding, put
Sandy in the way of tutoring a rich man's sons.
And now, Morley, tired, sad at heart, needing what he was too generous
and unselfish to ask for, was responding to Markham's summons and was
on his way to Bretherton.
Of course neither Markham nor his sister could understand his need of
sympathy and tenderness. Proudly he had withheld his private cares and
troubles. He accepted from others only what he might some day hope to
return; he never drew a check on the bank of sympathy without taking
account of his savings!
When Sandy came in sight of the beautiful old house on the hill, and
when but a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet
bird-call and waited. A second time he called and then he saw Bob
loping over the front lawn and, with upraised sniffing nose, caper
about. A third trill settled the dog's doubts, and with an abandon
that age could not overcome he ran and jumped to the unseen friend.
"Good old fellow!" cried Sandy when Bob drew near; "good old pal!" And
then the dog was in the young fellow's arms. After a few moments they
sedately went on their homeward way together--Sandy's hand resting upon
the uplifted yellow head.
"Sandy, you look thin!" Matilda remarked at dinner as she eyed him over
her spectacles. "You make me think of the lean days after your fever
seven years ago."
"I reckon I am still growing, Miss Markham."
Levi scanned the young face.
"Mill work never used you up," he said slowly.
"It's not work, sir. It's been right hot in town, and you know the
city a ways stifles me."
"Umph!" said Markham.
After Matilda had gone to bed that evening Levi sat on the broad piazza
with Sandy, while a late yellow-red moon rode majestically in the sky
and lighted the dew-touched meadow land.
"Looks hot," Levi murmured; "hot and dry."
"Yes," agreed Sandy. Then quite suddenly Markham asked:
"Sandford, I wish you to tell me exactly why you wanted extra money
this summer. I say wish, because I know I have no right to demand your
confidence, but I do think I have a right to protect you against--well,
against yourself when it comes to personal injury. You trusted me
seven years ago with your confidence; you've talked pretty openly to me
during your school and college years. Reports speak louder than
words--but we've kept in touch with each other. I make no claims, but
I'd like to think you know I am your friend."
Just then the moonlight shifted to Sandy's face and lay across it in
brilliant clearness.
"I can tell you better to-night, sir, than I could have a week ago, for
the need is past now. I have only kept it to myself because it has
never seemed right that I should ask more of you than you offered to
give--and this was my affair--mine alone."
"I see!" muttered Markham, and his jaw set, not with doubt of Sandy,
but with detestation of the woman who earlier in the day had driven him
to attack this boy's sacred privilege of independence and privacy.
"It began, sir, when I was in the midst of class work in June. I was
having a particularly good time, you may remember, when, one night, a
messenger came to my rooms and said some one wanted to see me near the
gate of the Square. It was a girl, sir, though she looked a woman; a
poor, sad, sick creature from my home--my half sister, Molly! I did
not know her at first. She was right little and pretty when I last saw
her, but cruelty and want had turned her into----"
Levi's eyes were riveted on the still, white face of the speaker, and
his heart hurt him for very pity. He could not let the boy say the
word.
"And she--what did she want?" he asked so sternly that Sandy, even with
his reverence for Markham, took up arms in his sister's defence.
"Don't judge her harshly, sir; you do not know our hills. Molly was a
mighty weak little girl, and when temptation came to her, she hadn't
strength to resist, and they who should have defended her--sold her! I
was not there, so I cannot be hard upon her, though she thought I meant
to be at first. You see I was so shocked and surprised, and amid all
the happenings I had almost forgotten. She threatened me, sir. It was
right pitiful. She said every one was dead--her mother; our
father----" Sandy's voice faltered--"she was alone. She hadn't
forgotten her old ways either. You remember that I told you how as a
little girl she had threatened the--the treasure under the rock beyond
the Branch?" Markham nodded.
"Well--she threatened the treasure of to-day. She was for finding you
out and begging--so--well, I bought her off! for I would not have you
haggled and be made to repent your helping of me. I have kept her,
sir, in a little room in a corner of Boston all summer. It was a neat
and comfortable place, with a tree at the window. After a time she
trusted me! At first it was hard for her to keep--well!--I reckon when
one let's go as poor Molly did--it is right difficult to hold on long
to a new and safer course. But--she died four days ago! She was
alone, sir, with her head on the window sill; her poor little face set
toward the tree. I had had a doctor for her--she had been feeling
ill--it was heart trouble--she went without pain. I saw her buried
to-day--some time in the future I am going to take her body to Lost
Mountain. She'll really rest there, I reckon."
The moonlight passed from the white, tired face and Levi's aching eyes
closed, taking the vision of Sandy with them. He recalled the boy's
manner through the closing scenes of his college life; the outward
calmness and grateful appreciation while the hideous trouble was eating
the joy from the hours of triumph he had so bravely won. He reflected
upon the following weeks of toil and lonely labour with that poor,
dying girl in the background taking his life blood as once she had
taken his hard-earned money. Then when he could bear no more Levi
Markham got up and walked over to Sandy. He laid a trembling hand on
his shoulder and by stern effort controlled his voice.
"My boy!" he murmured; "my--boy! words come hard; I'm not an easy
talker--but--you and I are both tuckered out. I have never had a
vacation in my life--a real vacation. I've always packed business and
worry in my satchel. Will you come across the water with me, lad? Let
us try to see if there is any play in us. Let's have a look at some
regular mountains and some second-rate cities--and when we get back I
want you to travel up to that tumble down Hollow you hailed from, and
take my money along; we'll begin repairs at once--you bossing, I paying
the bills. We'll set it going some--you and I! As to this trip abroad
we'll take 'Tilda along to keep us straight and--and make us
comfortable, Sandy!"
But Sandy's head was bowed on his clasped hands and the first tears he
had shed in years were trickling through his fingers.
"You'll come, Sandy Morley?"
"Yes, sir."
"And--I want to tell you, my boy--that I'm satisfied with my flyer of
an investment. Come! Come! You've acted the part of a man before
you've been a boy. You and I have earned--a vacation."
An hour later Markham tapped at Matilda's door and the prompt, "Come
in, Levi," caused him a moment's uneasiness.
"Insomnia?" he asked, drawing a chair close to his sister's bed.
"Just a little wakefulness, brother. Now don't get fidgetty. I'm real
satisfied to lie here and think of my blessedness and comfort. It's
gratifying to recall all your possessions in the night. They say
worries stand out clearest then, but with me it's the other way. My
troubles just vanish and every living, breathing pleasantness comes to
the fore. Now, you, for example, Levi. I was praising God about you
as you knocked. You're a changed man, brother. You were always a good
man, but to be flat-footed I must say that there was a time when
conversation with you was like jogging along over a stony road. One
got so many bumps that it didn't seem worth while. I used to get
terrible lonely at times, for I wouldn't take pleasures and leave you
out--it always has seemed to me that you never got the _right_ change
for what you spent, and I wanted to do my share in keeping you company
if you ever felt the lack. And then that poor little fellow came
tumbling into our lives same as if God had sent him rolling down the
mountain to our door. If ever there was a blessing in disguise, it was
Sandy! I tell you he's a pretty comforting creature to hold to when
you lie awake nights. A minute ago I was saying over and over--"thank
God for Sandy!" He gets closer to you than you think, Levi--it's his
way and he's the strongest, gratefullest fellow. Every time I look at
him lately I think of the saying--strength of the hills."
And now Levi sought and found the thin, blue-veined hands folded
peacefully upon the white coverlid.
"Sandy found the starved mother and father in us, Matilda. His need
met ours, and God blessed us all."
"That's a true word, brother. You and I were real pinched in our aims
and longings in the offset. Do you remember how you always wanted
learning and college, and how I actually was besotted about traipsing
around the world? Such dreams as we managed to make up! I have the
old geography now with pin points all up the side of the Alps where you
and I counted the height and then said we didn't believe it! Well,
you've found success without college, and I've found peace without
travel."
Levi patted the cool, old hands tenderly. Sandy's story had somehow
made Matilda very precious.
"But lands, Levi! We are all old children and go on with our foolish
dreams till we're tucked in at last for good and all. Maybe I ought to
be ashamed to own to this, but I lie here nights and actually make
believe I'm Sandy's mother. Mother's an awful comforting word to women
as well as children."
"Well, Matilda, I'll own up to the same side play." Levi laughed
softly; "the night he graduated I closed my eyes and listened to him
reading off that fine stuff and--for a spell I fathered him and got
real thrilled. But what I came to say to you to-night, 'Tilda, is no
dream unless you can class it as a dream come true. Beginning
to-morrow morning, I want that you should go into town and shop."
"Shop, Levi?" Matilda leaned up on her thin elbow and scanned her
brother's face in the white light of the moon. "Shop, Levi? Shop for
what?"
"Why--things! Have all the help you can get and take a reasonable
time, but I'd like to have you get real stylish fixings. I'd like real
well for you to have a lavender frock, something like that Treadwell
woman wears. You and Sandy and I are going vacationing!"
"Lands, Levi! Vacationing just as canning time is coming?"
"That's about the size of it. What's the fun in a vacation if you
ain't running away from plain duty?"
"Why, Levi, I do declare! Where are we going?"
The dear old face was shining in the ghostly gleam.
"Oh! we're going to see mountains that will make Mt. Washington and
Lost Mountain look foolish."
"Levi, don't trifle lightly with God's handiwork. I've always held
that scenes of nature ought not be compared--it's real presumptious."
"Well, then, Matilda, we're going to do the grand tour!"
"Levi, you surely are romancing."
"I'm going to buy tickets to-morrow for about the middle of September!"
"You can't be serious, brother?"
"I am going to spend money--for _nothing_ once in my life! I'm going
to get what we want and not count the change!"
"It sounds scandalous, Levi!"
"It's going to be a--scandal."
"What a sight we three will be, Levi." The dear old soul chuckled.
Like a child she had at last caught the contagion of Markham's humour.
"I just know them foreigners will think we are a pair of fond parents
with our one chick and child. Do you think we need tell right out that
we ain't, Levi? When it isn't necessary, couldn't we keep ourselves to
ourselves and--make believe, with the ocean between us and them that
know, that Sandy is ours?"
"We can, Matilda. And I want that Sandy should get his fill of
paintings. Did you ever know how he leans to art? Why, he's got about
a square acre of sketches among his belongings--he's shown me some, and
while I do not set myself up for a critic I do say that there is
feeling in his stuff."
"I've seen that dogwood one he carries about with him," Matilda
answered, leaning back on her pillow. "It gives me the creeps. Times
are when I fancy there is a ghost of a girl face in the flowers. Sandy
laughs at me--but I've caught the sight more than once in certain
lights and its real upsetting."
"Well, I want that he should take all the art in that he's capable of
digesting, and I want you to see mountains and what not that you've
hungered after all your days and I want to see--Paris!"
"It's a real outlandish city for morals, Levi."
"Well, it will make me glad to get back to Boston, Matilda," Levi
chuckled. "Now lie down and try to sleep."
"I feel real drowsy, Levi. My! how much I have got to be grateful for.
You are a good man, brother. Time was when I feared success might
harden you."
Levi did not rest well that night. Alone in his prim, old-fashioned
chamber he lay and made plans for the future.
"And after we come back," he thought, "I'm going to send Sandy up to
the hills with blank checks in his pocket. I'm going to see what he
can do in the way of redeeming Lost Hollow. He'll never be happy away
from that God-forsaken place--it's in his soul and system. There's
that land, too, I bought seven years ago! That oughtn't to be lying
fallow."
Then his roving thoughts settled on his sister. "Matilda must consent
to more help here in the house--she looks peaked."
A sharp pang brought him to an upright position. He seemed to be
beside lonely Sandy as he had stood that very day by an obscure
grave--somewhere in a shabby little graveyard.
"Matilda has been one sister in ten thousand and she's asked precious
little. Caroline got things quite naturally while she lived at
home--'Tilda took the leavings always and patched, somehow, a thankful,
beautiful life out of them. She's going to get whole pieces of cloth
from now----" he muttered, "with Sandy thrown in."