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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/20424-8.txt b/20424-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f6a1711 --- /dev/null +++ b/20424-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11505 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Son of the Hills, by Harriet T. Comstock + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Son of the Hills + +Author: Harriet T. Comstock + +Release Date: January 22, 2007 [EBook #20424] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE HILLS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Cautiously Cynthia stepped close +and looked in . . . Sandy was painting at his easel"] + + + + + + +A SON OF THE HILLS + + +BY + +HARRIET T. COMSTOCK + + + +AUTHOR OF + +JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, + +JANET OF THE DUNES, ETC. + + + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK + + + + +Copyright, 1913, by + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + + _All rights reserved, including that of + translation into foreign languages, + including the Scandinavian_ + + + + +A Son of the Hills + + +CHAPTER I + +Lost Hollow lies close at the foot of the mountain which gives it its +name. The height of neither is great, geographically considered; the +peak is perhaps eighteen hundred feet above sea level: The Hollow, a +thousand, and from that down to The Forge there is a gradual descent by +several trails and one road, a very deplorable one, known as The +Appointed Way, but abbreviated into--The Way. + +There are a few wretched cabins in Lost Hollow, detached and dreary; +between The Hollow and The Forge are some farms showing more or less +cultivation, and there is the Walden Place, known before the war--they +still speak of that event among the southern hills as if Sheridan had +ridden through in the morning and might be expected back at night--as +the Great House. + +Among the crevasses of the mountains there are Blind Tigers, or Speak +Easies--as the stills are called--and, although there is little trading +done with the whiskey outside the country side, there is much mischief +achieved among the natives who have no pleasure of relaxation except +such as is evolved from the delirium brought about by intoxication. + +The time of this story is not to-day nor is it very many yesterdays +ago; it was just before young Sandy Morley had his final "call" and +obeyed it; just after the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady came to Trouble +Neck--three miles from The Hollow--and while she was still distrusted +and feared. + +Away back in the days of the Revolution the people of the hills were of +the best. All of them who could serve their country then, did it nobly +and well. Some of them signed the Declaration of Independence and then +returned to their homes with the dignity and courage of men in whose +veins flowed aristocratic blood as well as that of adventurous freemen. +There they waited for the recognition they expected and deserved. But +the new-born republic was too busy and breathless to seek them out or +pause to listen to their voices, which were softer, less insistent than +others nearer by. In those far past times the Morleys and the +Hertfords were equals and the Walden Place deserved its name of the +Great House. The Appointed Way was the Big Road, and was kept in good +order by well-fed and contented slaves who had not then dreamed of +freedom. + +The final acceptance of the hill people's fate came like a deadening +shock to the men and women of the Lost Mountain district--they were +forgotten in the new dispensation; in the readjustment they were +overlooked! The Hertfords left the hills with uplifted and indignant +heads--they had the courage of their convictions and meant to take what +little was left to them and demand recognition elsewhere--they had +always been rovers. Besides, just at that time Lansing Hertford and +Sandford Morley, sworn friends and close comrades, had had that secret +misunderstanding that was only whispered about then, and it made it +easier for Hertford to turn his back upon his home lands and leave them +to the gradual decay to which they were already doomed. The Waldens +had retained enough of this world's goods to enable them to descend the +social scale slower than their neighbours. Inch by inch they debated +the ground, and it was only after the Civil War that Fate gripped them +noticeably. Up to that time they had been able to hide, from the none +too discriminating natives, the true state of affairs. + +The Morleys and the Tabers, the Townleys and the Moores, once they +recognized the true significance of what had happened, made no +struggle; uttered no defiance. They slunk farther back into the hills; +they shrank from observation and depended more and more upon +themselves. They intermarried and reaped the results with sullen +indifference. Their hopes and longings sank into voiceless silence. +Now and then Inheritance, in one form or another, flared forth, but +before it could form itself into expression it was stilled and +forbidden, by circumstances, to assert itself. + +Sad, depressed Lost Hollow! Over it loomed darkly the mountain whose +peak was so often shrouded in clouds. The people loved the hills and +the shadows; they glided like wan ghosts up and down The Way or took to +the more sheltered trails. When they were sober they were gentle, +harmless folk, but when whiskey overpowered them the men became dully +brutal, the women wretchedly slavish, and the children what one might +expect such sad little creatures to become! Lacking in intellect, +misshapen and timid, they rustled among the underbrush like frightened +animals; peered forth like uncanny gnomes, and ate and slept how and as +they could. + +After the Civil War these people became "poor whites" and were ground +between the nether millstone of their more prosperous neighbours and +that of the blacks, until they sank to the lowest level. Their voices +were hushed and forgotten; their former estate blotted out in their +present degradation, and just then Sandy Morley and Cynthia Walden were +born and some high and just God seemed to strengthen their childish +voices; vouchsafe to them a vision and give their Inheritance charge +over them. + +Marriage form was not largely in vogue among the Lost Hollow people; it +was too expensive and unnecessary. The rector of the small church at +The Forge looked upon the hill people as altogether beyond and below +the need of any attention of his, and was genuinely surprised and +annoyed when one of them called upon him for service. He had not come +to The Forge from an ardour to save souls; he had been placed there +because he had not been wanted elsewhere, and he was rebellious and +bitter. Occasionally he was summoned to the mountain fastnesses for a +burial or wedding, but he showed his disapproval of such interferences +with his dignified rights, and was not imposed upon often. But Martin +Morley, Sandy's father, had married Sandy's mother. She was a Forge +girl who believed in Martin and loved him, so he took her boldly to the +parsonage, paid for the service the rector performed, and went his way. + +There was one happy year following in the Morley cabin under Lost +Mountain. Martin worked as he never had before; the hut was mended +without and made homelike within. The little wife sang at her tasks +and inspired Martin to a degree of fervour that brought him to the +conclusion that he must get away! Get away from the poverty and +squalor of The Hollow; get away farther than The Forge--far, far away! + +"After the baby comes!" the little wife whispered, "we'll take it to a +better, sunnier place and--give it a chance!" + +The baby came on a bad, stormy night. Sandford Morley they called him. +The Forge doctor, travelling up The Way, stopped at the Morley cabin +for a bite of supper and found how things were. Sally Taber was in +command, and Martin, frightened and awed, crouched by the chimney +corner in the living-room, while his girl-wife (she was much younger +than he) made her desperate fight. + +"There's only a broken head or two up at Teale's Blind Tiger," the +doctor said grimly; "they can wait, I reckon, while I steer this +youngster into port." The doctor had come from the coast on account of +his lungs and his speech still held the flavour of the sea. + +Sandy Morley made a difficult mooring with more vigour and +determination than one would have expected, but the cost was great. +All night the battle waged. The doctor, with coat off and haggard +face, fought with the little mother inch by inch, but at sunrise, just +two hours after Sandy lustily announced his arrival, she let go the +hand of her husband who knelt by her hard, narrow bed, and whispered in +the dialect of her hills, "Youcum!"--which meant that Morley must come +to her some where, some how, some time, for she no longer could bide +with him. + +After that Martin stayed on in the cabin with the baby. One woman +after another lent her aid in an hour of need, but on the whole Sandy +and his father made it out together as best they could. The little, +clinging fingers held Martin back for a time--the boy had his mother's +fine, clear eyes and when he looked at Martin something commanded the +man to stand firm. In those days Martin found comfort in religion and +became a power at the camp meetings; his prayers were renowned far and +near, but the evil clutched him in an unguarded hour and one bleak, +dreary springtime he met the Woman Mary and--let go! That was when +Sandy was seven. He brought Mary to the cabin and almost shamefacedly +explained, to the wondering boy, his act. + +"Son, she's come to take care of us--mind your ways, lad." + +Sandy gave Mary's handsome smiling face one quick look, then fled down +the hill, across the bottom pasture and Branch, up on the farther side +to the woods--his sanctury and haven, and there, lifting his eyes and +little clenched fists, he moaned over and over: + +"Curse her! curse her! I hate her!" + +He had never hated before; never cursed, but at that moment he cursed +that which he hated. + +It was early spring then, and under the tall, dark trees the dogwood +bushes were in full bloom. Sandy was touched, always, by beauty, and +in his excited state he thought in that desperate hour that the dogwood +blossoms were like stars under a stormy cloud. Heaven seemed reaching +down to him, and closing him in--his thoughts were tinged by Martin's +religious outbursts and the native superstition of the hills. It was +then and there that the child first knew he must go away! The call was +distinct and compelling--he must go away! And from that hour he made +preparation. At first the effort was small and pitiful. He began to +gather whatever Nature provided freely, and turn it into money. With +shrewd perception he realized he must overcome his deadly shyness and +carry his wares farther than The Hollow if he wished to achieve that +upon which he was bent. The Hollow people were poor; The Forge people +would give food and clothing for berries and sassafras roots; but Sandy +demanded money or that which could be exchanged for money, and so he +travelled far with his basket of fragrant berries or shining nuts and +in time he found himself at the Waldens' back door facing a tall black +woman, in turban and kerchief, with the child Cynthia beside her. + +"Do you-all want to buy eight quarts of wild strawberries?" he asked in +that low fine voice of his. + +"Buy?" demanded Lily Ivy scornfully. "Miss Cyn, honey, go fotch Miss +Ann and tell her one ob dem Morleys is here axing us-all to buy his +berries, and him in shreds and tatters!" + +Presently Cynthia returned with her aunt. Miss Walden was then sixty, +but she looked seventy-five at least; she was a stern, detached woman +who dealt with things individually and as she could--she never sought +to comprehend that which was not writ large and clear. She was not a +dull nor an ignorant woman, but she had been carried on the sluggish +current of life with small effort or resistance. She did her task and +made no demands. + +"So you're Morley's boy?" she asked curiously; she had still the +interest of the great lady for her dependents. The Morleys had become +long since "poor whites," but Ann Walden knew their traditions. The +family had slunk into hiding ever since Martin had taken the Woman Mary +into his cabin, and Miss Walden was surprised and aroused to find one +of them coming to the surface at her back door with so unusual a +request as Cynthia had repeated. + +"Yes, ma'am;" Sandy replied, his strange eyes fixed upon the calm old +face. + +"And what do you want?" + +"I want to sell eight quarts of strawberries, ma'am. They are five +cents a quart; that's what they are giving down to The Forge." + +"Then why don't you take them to The Forge?" + +"The heat, ma'am, will wilt them. They are right fresh now--I thought +I'd give you-all the first chance." + +"And you want money for the berries--and you in rags and starved, I +warrant?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +Ann Walden grew more interested. + +"Would you--take eggs for them?" she asked; "eggs are bringing twenty +cents a dozen now." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"How do I know you are honest? How do I know the basket isn't stuffed +with leaves in the bottom? What's your name?" + +"Sandy, ma'am. And please, ma'am, you can measure the berries." + +"Ivy, bring the quart measure, and the earthen bowl." + +When the implements were brought, Miss Walden took things in her own +hands, while Ivy, with the disdain of the old family black servant for +the poor white, stood by like an avenging Fate. The child Cynthia was +all a-tremble. She was young, lovely, and vital. Youth took up arms +for youth, and watched the outcome with jealous and anxious eyes. + +"One, two, three----" the rich, fragrant fruit fell into the bowl with +luscious, soft thuds; the red juice oozed out like fresh blood. + +"Five, six, seven--eight, and----" + +"A lot left over, Aunt Ann, counting dents in the measure and all." + +It was Cynthia who spoke, and her big, gray eyes were dancing in +triumph. + +"More'n eight quarts, Aunt Ann." + +"Umph!" ejaculated Ivy. + +"Give the boy two dozen eggs and three over," commanded Miss Walden. +"Take them to Tod Greeley at the post office and tell him they are +Walden eggs." + +After Sandy had departed Ivy aired her views. + +"I reckon we-all better make jam of dem berries right soon. I clar I +allers 'spect to find a yaller streak in dem Morleys." + +Cynthia was leaning against the kitchen table, her eyes shining and her +breath coming a bit quickly. + +"Perhaps," she said, with the slow smile which curled the corners of +her mouth so deliciously, "perhaps the yellow streak in Sandy Morley +is--gold!" + +That was the beginning of Sandy's first great inspiration. Again and +again he went to the Walden place with his wares and exchanged them for +things that could be readily turned into money. Then Cynthia, from out +her own generous loveliness, offered to pass over the instruction Ann +Walden imparted to her, to the boy; he had before that told her of his +ambition and determination to go away, and her vivid imagination was +stirred. + +"It's not only money," Cynthia had astutely warned him--"not only money +you must have, Sandy, but learning; no one can take that away from you!" + +With a fine air of the benefactress, Cynthia Walden took Sandy Morley's +dense ignorance in charge. It was quite in keeping with the girl's +idea of things as they ought to be, that she should thus illumine and +guide the boy's path. + +She was charmingly firm but delightfully playful. She was a hard +mistress but a lovely child, and the youth that was starving in her met +Sandy on a level, untouched by conventions or traditions. Presently a +palpitating sense of power and possession came to her. The creature +who was at first but the recipient of her charity and nobility +displayed traits that compelled respect and admiration. Sandy easily +outstripped her after a time. His questions put her on her mettle. He +never overstepped the bounds that she in her pretty childish fancy set, +but he reached across them with pleading adoration and hungry mind. He +seemed to urge her to get for him what he could not get for himself. +And so, with the freedom of knowledge, Sandy, still keeping to his +place, began to assume proportions and importance quite thrilling. +Then it was that Cynthia Walden, with keenness and foresight, made her +claims upon the boy. + +With a pretty show of condescending kindness she clutched him to her +with invisible ties. For _her_ he must do thus and so! He must become +a great--oh! a very great--man and give her all the credit! If he went +away--_when_ he went away--he must never, never, never forget her or +what she had done for him! In short, he must be her abject slave and +pay homage to her all the days of his life! + +Sandy was quite willing to comply with all these demands; they were +made in a spirit so sweet and winsome, and they were so obviously +simple and just, that he rose to the call with grateful response, but +with that strange something in reserve that Cynthia could not then +understand or classify. It was as though Sandy had said to her: "Your +slave? Yes, but no fetters or chains, thank you!" + +Soon after Mary came to live in the Morley cabin Sandy was relegated to +an old outhouse for sleeping quarters. The child had been horribly +frightened at first, but, as the quarrels and disturbances grew in +power between Martin and the woman, he was grateful for the quiet and +detachment of his bed-chamber. A child was born to Mary and Martin +during the year following the change in the family, but Sandy looked +upon his half-sister with little interest. That the boy was not driven +entirely from the home place was due to the fact that through him came +the only money available. Martin exchanged his spasmodic labour for +clothing or food, but Sandy brought cash. Mary thought he gave her +all, and because of that he was tolerated. + +Sandy did not, however, give the woman all, or even half, of what he +earned. He gave her one third; the rest was placed in a tin box and +hidden under a rock in the woods beyond the Branch. The boy never +counted the money, he could not put himself to that test of +discouragement or elation. The time was not yet, and it was +significant of him that he plodded along, doing the best that was in +him, until the call came; the last final call to leave all and go forth. + +Once, during the years between seven and fourteen, Sandy had had an +awakening and a warning. Then it was that his half-sister, Molly, +became a distinct and potent factor in his life; one with which he must +reckon. Going to the rock on a certain evening to bury his share of +the day's profit he wearily raised the stone, deposited the money and +turned to go home, when he encountered Molly peering at him with elfish +and menacing eyes from behind a bush. + +"What you doing there, yo' Sandy?" she asked half coaxingly, half +threateningly. + +"Nothing." + +"I seen you--a-hiding something. I'm going to look!" She made a +movement forward. + +"Hyar! you Molly!" Sandy clung to her. "If you raise that stone 'twill +be the last of you. I've got a horned toad there and--a poison +sarpint." + +"Then I'll--I'll tell Dad." Molly shrank back, though not wholly +convinced. It was time for compromise, and Sandy, with a sickening +fear, recognized it and blindly fell upon the one thing that could have +swayed the girl. + +"I'm a-training and taming them," he lied desperately, "and when they +are ready we-all can make money out of them, but if you tell--Dad will +kill 'em! I tell you, Molly, if you don't say a single thing +I'll--I'll give you a cent every week. A cent to buy candy with!" + +The promise was given, and from that day Sandy paid his blood money, +hoping that greed would hold the child to her bargain, but with always +a feeling of insecurity. He changed his box to another rock, but a +certain uncanniness about Molly gained a power over him and he never +felt safe. + +Things went rapidly from bad to worse in the Morley cabin. Martin +forgot his prayers and ambitions; he grew subservient to Mary and never +strove against her, even when her wrath and temper were directed toward +him and Sandy. Discredited and disliked by his neighbours, flouted by +the woman who had used him for her own gain, the man became a +detestable and pitiable creature. Sandy endured the blows and ratings +that became his portion, in the family disturbances, with proud +silence. He was making ready and until the hour of his departure came +he must bear his part. + +It was during the probation and preparatory period that Marcia Lowe, +the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady, came up The Way one golden afternoon and +stopped her horse before the post office, General Store and County Club +of The Hollow, and, leaning out from the ramshackle buggy, gave a +rather high, nasal call to whoever might be within. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Tod Greeley, the postmaster, was sitting on his cracker box +contemplatively eying the rusty stove enthroned upon its sawdust +platform, in the middle of the store. Every man in The Hollow had his +own particular chair or box when the circle, known as the County Club, +formed for recreation or business. No one presumed to occupy another's +place: Tod Greeley's pedestal was a cracker box and its sides were well +battered from the blows his heels gave it when emotions ran high or his +sentiments differed from his neighbour's. Greeley was not a Hollow man; +he had been selected by Providence, as he himself would have said, to +perform a service for his country: namely, that of postmaster, +storekeeper, and arbiter of things in general. He was a tall, lean man +of forty, good looking, indolent, and with some force of character which +was mainly evinced by his power of keeping his temper when he was facing +a critical situation. While not of The Hollow, he was still _with_ The +Hollow on principle. + +When Marcia Lowe paused before the store and emitted her call, which +flavoured of friendliness and the North, Greeley was vacantly looking +into space, hugging his bony knees, and listening to an indignant fly +buzzing on the dirty glass of the back window, protesting against any +exit being barred to its egress. + +It was three o'clock of a late July day and, while the sun was hot, the +breeze gave promise of a cool night. + +"Ooh! ooh!" + +Just at first Greeley thought the fly had adopted a more militant tone. + +"Oooh--ooh!" + +Greeley pulled himself together, mentally and physically, and stalked to +the porch; there he encountered the very frank, smiling face of a rather +attractive youngish woman who greeted him cordially with a high-pitched +but sweet: + +"Good afternoon." + +"Good evening, ma'am," Tod returned. + +"I just came up from The Forge; your roads are really scandalous, but the +scenery is beautiful. I want to see if there is any place near here +where I can get board? I've come to stay for a while, anyway; probably +for years, at least." + +The young person seemed so eager to share her confidence that Greeley was +on his guard at once. He did not approve of the stills back among the +hills, but he did not feel called upon to assist any government spy in +her work, no matter how attractive and subtle the spy was. + +It was two years now since a certain consumptive-looking young man had +caused the upheaval of a private enterprise back of The Hollow and made +so much unpleasantness, but Norman Teale had served his term in prison +and had got on his feet once more, and Greeley had a momentary touch of +sympathy for the Speak-Easy magnates as he glanced up at this new style +of spy. + +"Nobody stays on in The Hollow lest he has to," he said cautiously, "and +as for boarding-places, there never was such a thing here, I reckon. I +certainly don't expect they would take any one in at the Walden place, +not if they-all was starving. Miss Ann Walden is quality from way back. +The Morleys couldn't entertain, and what's true of the Morleys is true of +all the others." + +"Couldn't you folks take me?" + +At this Greeley collapsed on the one chair of the porch, and actually +gasped. + +"I ain't got what you might call folks," he managed to say, "unless you +call a brace of dogs, folks." + +"Oh! I beg your pardon." Miss Lowe flushed and gave a nervous laugh. +"You see I just must manage to find a home here, and--and I've heard so +much of Southern chivalry and hospitality I rather hoped some one would +take me in until I could look around. The place at The Forge, where I've +been for two nights is--impossible, and the darkies have their hands +stretched out for tips until I feel like a palmist, and a bankrupt one at +that!" + +A merry laugh rang out and in spite of himself and his grave doubts +Greeley relaxed. + +"If you don't mind doing for yourself," he ventured, "there's a cabin +over to Trouble Neck that you might get." + +"Do for myself?" Miss Lowe cried energetically. "I'd just favour that +plan, I can tell you! I could get all the furniture I need at The Forge, +I am sure. The name of the place isn't exactly cheering, but then I've +waded through trouble and got on top all my life long. Who owns the +cabin over at Trouble Neck?" + +Property rights in and around The Hollow were rarely discussed; it was a +delicate question, but what was not actually held down by another +generally was conceded to a certain Smith Crothers and to his credit Tod +Greeley now put the Trouble Neck cabin. + +"Oh! He's the man who owns the factory a few miles from The Forge? I +drove past it yesterday at noon time. I thought it was an orphan asylum +at first. I never saw such babies put to work before. It's monstrous +and the law ought to shut down on your Smith Crothers!" + +At this Greeley had a distinct sensation of pain in the region known as +the pit of his stomach. That Smith Crothers should fall under any law +had never been dreamed of by mortal man or woman in Greeley's presence +before. The right of free whiskey was one thing; the right of a man to +utilize the children of the district was another! + +"He ain't my Smith Crothers!" Greeley inanely returned, feeling in a +dazed way that he did not want to put in any claim for Crothers with +those apparently innocent eyes upon him. + +"Well, I'll try to buy the Trouble Neck place from Smith Crothers at +once. You see I've been very sick; they said I'd lost my health, but I +know I've only misplaced it." + +Again the cheerful laugh set Greeley's nerves tingling. + +"They-all say that when they-all come up here." + +Greeley felt in honour bound to give the young woman a hint as to his +reading of her and her mission. + +"It's a good spot, then, for weak lungs?" + +"None better," Tod nodded sagely, "but they don't last long." + +"What? The weak lungs? That's splendid! And now would you mind giving +my horse a drink? Isn't it funny what nice horses they manage to evolve +in the South on food that would end a cart-horse's existence up North? +But such vehicles! Do look at this buggy! And no springs to mention. +My! but my back will ache to-morrow." + +By this time Greeley had procured a pail of water and was courteously +holding it to the nose of the very grateful horse. + +"I wonder," Miss Lowe casually remarked, as she let the reins fall in lap +and looked about, "if you happen to have known a Theodore Starr who once +lived here?" + +"I've heard of him," Tod returned; "I ain't a Hollow man. I only came +here on business six years ago, but the memory of Starr sort of clings +like it was a good thing to keep alive." + +"How beautifully you put it!" + +Greeley was thinking how well the government had stocked this dangerous +spy with facts, and so he did not observe the tears in her eyes. + +"There was a little church he built himself--is it still standing? You +may not have heard, but he had a very simple little religion quite his +own. He thought the people up here were more in need of help than +foreign folks, but no regular sect would--would handle him. So he came +up a road he used to call The Appointed Way and just settled down and +learned to love all--the people and the work!" + +Greeley was so utterly amazed that the hands which held the pail shook +with excitement. + +"That road what you came up is called The Way--short for Appointed Way. +Yon is the little church." + +Marcia Lowe raised up and through the thicket behind her she saw the +deserted structure, which still bore the outlines of a church. + +"Why, it's all boarded up!" she exclaimed. "Who owns it now?" + +The exacting nature of the stranger's questions was unsettling to +Greeley. She seemed determined to tag and classify all the real estate +in the county. + +"No one ain't damaged the building," he said drawlingly; "some of the +folks think it is han'ted. I reckon Smith Crothers owns it." + +"That man owns too much!" Marcia Lowe gave again her penetrating laugh. +"And I should think the place would be haunted. Just think of boarding +Uncle Theodore up! He who loved sunshine and air and sweetness so much!" + +At this Greeley dropped the pail to the ground, and the indignant horse +reared angrily. This was carrying things too far, and the man's eyes +flashed. + +"Uncle?" he gasped sternly. + +"Yes, Uncle Theodore Starr. He was my mother's brother. I have no one +to keep me away now--and I loved him so when I was a little child. They +say I am much like him--but then you never saw him. Lately I've been +real homesick for him. He seemed to be calling me from the hills. I'm +going to get your Smith Crothers to let me open up the little church. I +want the sunshine to get in and--and Uncle Theodore to--get out! I'm +going to find where they buried him, and make that a beautiful place too. +You see I've a good deal to do up here! Besides," and now the cheerful +face beamed radiantly on the gaping postmaster, "I'm like Uncle Starr in +more ways than one. He learned to mend men's souls and I have learned to +mend their bodies--it's much the same, you know--when you love it. +I'm--well, I'm an M. D., a medical doctor--Doctor Marcia Lowe!" + +At this Greeley dropped on the bottom step of the porch, wiped the +perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand, and emitted one +word. + +"Gawd!" He was not a profane man, but the audacity of this stranger who +was about to settle down among them for purposes best known to herself, +and them who sent her, quite overcame him. Marcia Lowe gave a hearty +laugh and gathered the reins. + +"I suppose you never heard of such a thing up here?" she asked amusedly, +"but they are getting commoner down where I hail from. It's all very +foolish--the restrictions about a woman, you know. She can nurse a body +up to the doors of death, but it's taken a good while to bring people +around to seeing that she can mend a body as well, just as well as a man. +You will let me stay among you anyway, I am sure. I do not want to +physic you. It is so much more interesting to live close and help along. +Good-bye, Mr. Greeley--you see your name is over the door! I am, do not +forget"--the woman's eyes twinkled mischievously--"Doctor Marcia Lowe of +Torrance, Mass. Good-bye! You have been very kind and helpful. I feel +that you and I will be good friends. Get-up, pony!" + +She flapped the reins in the most unprofessional manner, and the horse +turned to The Appointed Way with briskness that bespoke his impatience +and a desire for more familiar scenes. + +With curious eyes Greeley watched the ramshackle buggy bounce up and down +over the rutty road; he saw the small, slight figure bob about +uncomfortably on the uneven seat, and when the conveyance was lost behind +the trees he went inside with a sure sense that something was going to +happen in The Hollow. + +Once again within his own domain he sought his cracker box as if it were +his sanctuary. The fly was still protesting against the dirty window, +and the stillness, except for the buzzing, was unbroken. + +Presently, from out the nowhere apparently, old Andrew Townley came in +and shuffled across the floor to the armchair by the stove. Then Mason +Hope appeared, hands in pockets and lank hair falling on his shoulders. +Norman Teale came next, with Tansey Moore in tow. + +"Howdy, Tod?" was the universal greeting as the County Club took its +place. The chair of Smith Crothers, and two or three overturned potato +baskets--seats of the junior members of the club--were empty. It was +beneath the dignity of any man present to question what had just +occurred, but every son of them had witnessed it and in due time would +touch upon the subject. + +The stove, summer and winter, focussed their wandering eyes and acted as +a stimulus to their dormant faculties. From long practice and +inheritance every man could aim and hit the sawdust under the stove when +he expectorated. Even old Andrew Townley had never been known to fail. + +"There be some right good horses down to The Forge," Tansey Moore +ventured after a while. + +"It's a blamed risky thing, though," said Mason Hope, "to let a--lady +drive 'em. I've allus noticed that a woman is more sot on gittin' where +she wants to git--than to considering _how_ to git there. It's mighty +risky to trust horseflesh to a female. They seem to reckon all horses is +machines." + +"I've seen men as didn't know a hoss from a steam engine," Norman Teale +broke in, glancing sharply at Moore. "Times is when a hoss has to be +sacrificed to man--but I reckon The Forge folks was taking some risks +when they-all hired out a team to a stranger." + +"That stranger," said Greeley, hitting the nail on the head with a +violence that brought his audience to an upright position, "ain't nothing +short of, to my mind, than"--he glanced at Teale--"well, she ain't, and +that's my opinion! She comes loaded with facts up to her teeth. Knows +all the names, and says she's going to settle down over to Trouble Neck +and--live along with us-all quite a spell. Weak lungs and all, but she's +a right new brand." + +"Hell!" ejaculated Teale, springing to his feet. "If the government has +got so low that it has to trifle with ladies--it's in a bad way. I +reckon I better git a-moving. Any mail, Tod? I take it right friendly +that you give me this hint. A lady may be hard to handle in some ways, +but we-all can at least know where she is--that's something." + +After the departure of Teale the club fell into moody gloom. It was +always upsetting to have outside interference with their affairs. Even +if Teale wasn't arrested the whiskey would be limited for a time, and +that was a drawback to manly rights. + +Andrew Townley fell into an audible doze; he was the oldest inhabitant +and a respected citizen. He was given to periods of senile dementia +preceded or followed by flashes of almost superhuman intelligence. There +were times when, arousing suddenly from sleep, he would bring some +startling memory with him that would electrify his hearers. He was an +institution and a relic--every one revered him and looked to his simple +comfort. Suddenly now, as the dense silence enveloped the club, old +Andrew awoke and remarked vividly: + +"I was a-dreaming of Theodore Starr!" + +"Now what in thunder!" cried Tod Greeley, who had purposely refrained +from mentioning some part of his late visitor's conversation,--"what made +you think of--Theodore Starr?" + +"I reckon," whined the trembling old voice, "that it was 'long o' Liza +Hope. I was a-passing by and I heard her calling on God-a'mighty to +stand by her in her hour. Theodore Starr was mighty pitiful of women in +their hours." + +Mason Hope felt called upon, at this, to explain and apologize. He did +so with the patient air of one detached and disdainful. + +"Liza do make a powerful scene when she is called to pass through her +trial. This is her ninth, and I done urged her to act sensible, but when +I saw how it was going with her, I just left her to reason it out along +her own lines. Sally Taber is sitting 'long of her ready to help when +the time comes. I done all I could." Tansey Moore nodded significantly. +He had an unreasonable wife of his own, and he had no sympathy with women +in their "hours." + +"Theodore Starr, he done say," Townley was becoming lachrymose, "that +women got mighty nigh to God when they reached up to Him in their trial +and offered life for a life. He done say if God didn't forgive a woman +every earthly thing for such suffering, he was no good God. He done say +that to me onct." + +"That be plain blasphemy," Tansey Moore remarked. "I reckon he was a +right poor parson. The religion he doctored with was all soothin' syrup +and mighty diluted at that, where women was concerned. I never trusted +that Yankee." + +"The women, children, and old folks counted some on him in his day." +Greeley was getting interested in this heretofore myth. Moore nodded his +head suspiciously. + +"They sho' did, and a mess they made of it. Did you ever hear 'bout his +mix-up with the Walden girls?" + +Greeley never had and, as the last Walden "girl" was a woman of sixty and +over, he looked puzzled. + +"Miss Ann, her as _is_ now, was considerable older than Theodore Starr, +but she shined up to him and let him lead her about considerable--some +said him and her was--engaged to marry. Then there was the Walden girl +as _isn't_ now, her they called Queenie. She was a right pert little +thing what growed into a woman like a Jonas gourd, sudden and startling! +That was the summer that young Lansing Hertford came back to the old home +place of his forebears to look about--there was a general mess of things +up to Stoneledge those days, and all I know is that Starr he went up into +the hills to nurse a fever plague and there he died. Lansing Hertford +went off like a shot--but them Hertfords allus lit out like they was +chased--never could stand loneliness and lack of luxury. Queenie, she +done died the winter following that summer; died of lung trouble off to +some hospital way off somewhere, and Miss Ann she settled down--an old +woman from that time on! You can't get her to speak Starr's name. You +never could. Us-all tried. When things got too hard for Miss Ann she +done adopt little Miss Cyn--that chile has considerable brightened up +Miss Ann, but Lord! she never was the same after that summer, and I hold, +and allus shall, that Starr wasn't what we-all thought him at first. A +man don't go dying off in the hills for folks what hadn't any call upon +him, lest he has a reason for doing so." + +Moore loved to talk. Some one always has to be the orator of a club, and +Tansey, self-elected, filled this position in the circle around the old +stove. Greeley was bored. Past history did not concern him and Moore's +opinions he ignored. He had not been listening closely, for his thoughts +would, in spite of him, follow the ramshackle buggy down The Way. + +"She had a right pleasant look and manner," he pondered. "I reckon +she'll get some fun out of her job, no matter what that job is." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe +actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility +of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She +had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers, +and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before. + +Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house +stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the +tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the +rear of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and +dozed on the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by +night. + +"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale +confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over +her. I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come +to Trouble Neck?" + +Tansey thought not, decidedly. + +"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?" + +Again Tansey shook his head. + +"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and +I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its +place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person +from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to +treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse." + +Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon +what was, at best, a doubtful business. + +But Marcia Lowe did not seek Teale out, and if his affairs interested +her, she hid her sentiments in a charming manner. Her aim, apparently, +was to reach the women and children. To her door she won Sandy Morley +with the lure of money for his wares. The second time Sandy called he +told her of his ambitions and she fired him to greater effort by +telling him of her home state, Massachusetts. + +"Why, Sandy," she explained, "when you are ready, do go there. In +exchange for certain work they will make it possible for you to get an +education. I know plenty of boys who have worked their way through +college with less than you have to offer. Get a little more money and +learning, and then go direct to Massachusetts!" + +Sandy's breath came quick and fast. Work was part of his daily life, +but that it and education could be combined he had not considered. +From that time on his aim became localized and vital. + +"Perhaps I can help you a bit?" Miss Lowe had suggested. She was often +so lonely that the idea of having this bright, interesting boy with her +at times was delightful. + +"I'll--I'll bring all your vegetables to you if you will," Sandy +panted. "I'll dig your garden and weed it. I'll----" + +"Stop! stop! Sandy." Miss Lowe laughed, delighted. "If you offer so +much in Massachusetts they will give you _two_ educations. They're +terribly honest folks and cannot abide being under obligations." + +So Sandy came; did certain chores and was given glimpses of fields of +learning that filled him at first with alternate despair and +exultation. He confided his new opportunity to Cynthia Walden and to +his amazement that young woman greeted his success with anything but +joy. + +"I thought you'd be right glad," said Sandy, somewhat dashed. "I +thought you wanted me to learn and get on." + +"So I do," Cynthia admitted, "but I wanted to do it all for you, until +you went away." + +"What's the difference?" argued poor Sandy. + +It was middle August before Marcia Lowe took her courage in her hands +and went to see Miss Ann Walden. With city ways still asserting +themselves now and again in her thought, she had waited for Miss Walden +to call, but, apparently, no such intention was in the mind of the +mistress of Stoneledge. + +"Perhaps after a bit she will write and invite me up there," Marcia +Lowe then pondered. But no invitation came, and finally the little +doctor's temper rose. + +"Very well," she concluded, "I'll go to her and have it out. I'm not a +bit afraid, and, besides, Uncle Theodore's business is too important to +delay any longer. She doesn't know, but she _must_ know." + +So upon a fine afternoon Marcia Lowe set forth. Grim determination +made her face stern, and she looked older than she really was. When +she passed the Morleys' cabin she smiled up at Mary, who was standing +near by, but the amiable mistress ran in and slammed the door upon the +passerby. A little farther on she came to Andrew Townley's home and +she paused there to speak to the old man sunning himself by the doorway. + +"You certainly do favour your uncle, Miss Marching," Andrew mumbled; he +had heard the stranger's claim of relationship and trustingly accepted +it; but her name was too much for him. + +"Since you come I git to thinking more and more of Parson Starr. He +was the pleasantest thing that ever happened to us-all." + +"Oh! thank you, Mr. Townley!" + +So lonely and homesick was the little doctor that any word of +friendliness and good-will drew the tears to her eyes. They talked a +little more of Theodore Starr and then the walk to Stoneledge was +continued. + +Marcia Lowe had never seen any of the family except from a distance, +and she dreaded, more than she cared to own, the meeting now. Still +she had come to set right, as far as in her lay, a bitter wrong and +injustice, and she was not one to spare herself. + +Her advance had been watched ever since she left Andrew Townley's +cabin, but in reply to her timid knock on the front door, Lily Ivy +responded with such an air of polite surprise that no one could have +suspected her of deceit. + +"Certainly, ma'am, Miss Ann is to home. She am receiving in the +libr'y. Rest your umbril' on the table, ma'am, and take a char. I'll +go and 'nounce you to Miss Ann." + +Left alone, Marcia did not know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. +The brave attempt at grand manner in the half-ruined house was pitiful +as well as amusing. + +"This way, ma'am. My mistress done say she'll receive you in the +libr'y." + +And there, in solemn state, sat the mistress of the Great House. She, +too, had had time to prepare for the meeting, and she was sitting +gauntly by the west window awaiting her guest. + +"It was right kind of you to overlook my neglect," Miss Walden began, +pointing to a low chair near her own, "but I never leave home and I am +an old woman." + +The soft drawl did not utterly hide the tone of reflection on the +caller's audacity in presuming to enter a home where she was not wanted. + +The window was almost covered by a honeysuckle vine and a tall yellow +rose bush; the afternoon breeze came into the room heavy with the rare, +spicy fragrance, and after a moment's resentment at the measured +welcome, Marcia said cheerfully: + +"You see--I had to come, Miss Walden. I've only waited until I could +become less a shock to you. You believe I _am_ Theodore Starr's niece, +do you not? I know there are all sorts of silly ideas floating around +concerning me, but I need not prove my identity to you, need I?" + +The winning charm of the plain little visitor only served to brace Miss +Walden to greater sternness. + +"I have no doubt about you. You are very like your uncle, Theodore +Starr." + +"Then let me tell you what I must, quickly. It is very hard for me to +say; the hardest thing I ever had to do--but I must do it!" + +Ann Walden sank back in her stiff armchair. + +"Go on," she said, and her eyes fastened themselves on the visitor. +She wanted to look away, but she could not. She was more alive and +alert than she had been in many a year--but the reawakening was painful. + +"I only knew--the truth after mother died. I found a letter among her +things. Why she acted as she did I can never know, for she was a good +woman, Miss Walden, and a just one in everything else. You may not +understand; we New Englanders are said to love money, but we must have +it clean. I am sure mother meant nothing dishonest--we had our own +little income from my father and--the other was not used to any +extent--I have made it all up." + +"I--do not understand you!" + +This was partly true, but the suffering woman knew enough to guide her +and put her on the defence. + +"There was a will made before my uncle came here--in that he left +everything to mother and me in case of his death, but the letter +changed all that--he wanted you to have the money!" + +"Your mother was quite right!" the sternness was over-powering now; +"the will was the only thing to carry out. I could not possibly accept +any money from Theodore Starr nor his people." + +For a moment Marcia Lowe felt the shrinking a less confident person +feels in the presence of one in full command of the situation. She +paused and trembled, but in a moment her sense of right and +determination came to her aid. Her eyes flashed, and with some spirit +she said: + +"You are only speaking for yourself now." + +"For whom else is there to speak?" + +"The child!" + +Had Marcia dealt Ann Walden a physical blow the result could not have +been different. Horrified and appalled, the older woman gasped: + +"What child?" + +"My uncle's and your sister's! Miss Walden, you could not expect me to +believe the story that the people tell around here. You perhaps think +your sister was not married to my uncle--but I trust him. I think you +and I, no matter what has passed, owe it to this little girl to do the +best we can for her. I have left my home to help; I have no one +besides her in the world--please consider this and be forgiving and +generous. Oh! what is the matter?" + +For Ann Walden had risen and stood facing Marcia with such trembling +anger that the younger woman quailed. + +"I wish you to leave my house!"--the words came through clenched +teeth--"leave it and never return." + +"If you resist me in this way," anger met anger now, "I will have to +consult a lawyer. I mean to carry out my uncle's desires; I will not +be party to any fraud where his child is concerned. I hoped that you +and I might do this together for her--but if I have to do it alone I am +prepared to do so. I have brought the letter I found among my mother's +things--may I read it to you?" + +"No!" Ann Walden stared blankly at the firm face almost on a level +with her own, for Marcia Lowe had risen also. + +"You--you cannot forgive us for the long silence? But at least do me +this justice: I came when I could--as soon as possible. I was ill--oh! +Miss Walden can you not understand how hard this is for me to do? +Think how I must put my own mother at your mercy--my own, dear mother!" + +Only one thought held Ann Walden--would her visitor never go? The few +moments were like agonized hours; the shock she had received had been +so fearful that for a moment she was stunned, and before the true +significance overwhelmed her she must be alone! + +"I--have nothing to forgive. You and yours, Miss Lowe, have nothing to +do with me and mine--you must indeed--go! I cannot talk of--the past +to you. You--have made a great mistake--a fearful mistake. My sister +has--has nothing----" + +The stern young eyes compelled silence. + +"I--I wish you would let me help you--for the love you once had for +Uncle Theodore," said Marcia Lowe; "you must have forgiven your sister +when she told you; can you not forgive him?" + +"Stop! You do not know what you are talking about----" Vainly, almost +roughly, the older woman strove to push the knife away that the +ruthless, misunderstanding young hands were plunging deeper and deeper +into the suddenly opened wound. + +"Oh! yes, Miss Walden, I know--here's the letter!" + +She held it out frankly as if it must, at least, be the tie to bind +them. + +"I spoke perhaps too quickly, too unexpectedly; but it is as hard for +me as it is for you. I thought you would know that. I could not talk +of little things when this big thing lay between us. It is our--duty." + +Pleadingly, pitifully, the words were spoken, but they did not move the +listener. Hurriedly, as if all but spent, Ann Walden panted: + +"I reckon it is because you are young you cannot understand how +impossible it is for you and me to--be friends. You must forgive +me--and you must go!" + +"But the money!" + +"What money?" Something bitterer and crueller than the money had taken +the memory of that away. + +"Uncle Theodore's money. You see it is not mine--neither you nor I +should keep it from Uncle Theodore's----" + +"Oh! go, go; I cannot talk to you now. I will see you again--some +other day--go!" + +At last the look in Ann Walden's face attracted and held Marcia Lowe's +mercy. She forgot her own trouble and mission; her impetuosity died +before the dumb misery of the woman near her. Realizing that she could +gain nothing more at present by staying, she placed the letter upon the +table as she passed out of the room and the house. + +For a few moments Ann Walden stood and looked at the vacant spot whence +the blow had come. The restraint she had put upon herself in Marcia +Lowe's presence faded gradually; but presently a sensation of faintness +warned the awakening senses of self-preservation. Slowly she reached +for the letter which lay near--no one must ever see that! She would +not read it, but it must be destroyed. And even as she argued, Ann +Walden's hot, keen eyes were scanning the pages that unconsciously she +had taken from the envelope. + +The date recalled to her the time and place--it had been written that +summer when Theodore Starr had gone to the plague-stricken people back +in the hills; after he had told her they, he and she, could never +marry; that it had all been a mistake. How deadly kind he had been; +how grieved and--honest! Yes, that was it; he had seemed so honest +that the woman who listened and from whose life he was taking the only +beautiful thing that had ever been purely her own, struggled to hide +her suffering, and even in that humiliating hour had sought to help +him. But--if what had been said were true, Theodore Starr had not been +honest with her; even that comfort was to be dashed from her after all +these years. She remembered that he had said that while he lived he +would always honour her, but that love had overcome him and conquered +him. Queenie had always seemed a child to him, he had told her, until +the coming of Hertford, and the sudden unfolding of the child into the +woman. He could no longer conceal the truth--in his concealment danger +lay for them all, and his life's work as well. When he came back--they +would all understand each other better! But he had not come back and +then, when she had discovered poor Queenie's state, it was for Starr as +well as herself that she sternly followed the course she had. She +struck a blow for him who no longer could speak for himself--for he had +died among his people. + +"I loved him better than life," those were the words Ann Walden had +spoken to her sister in that very room twelve years ago. The air +seemed ringing with them still; "loved him as you never could have; but +he loved you; he told me so, and because of my love for him--I hid what +I felt. I could have died to make him happy, but you--why, you were +another man's idle fancy while you lured Theodore Starr to his doom. +The only thing you have left me for comfort and solace is this: I can +now keep his dear, pure memory for my own, and love it to the day of my +death." + +Ann Walden looked quickly toward the chimney-place. There Queenie had +stood shrinking before her like a little guilty ghost. She seemed to +be standing there still listening to the truth, and avenging herself at +last. + +"Hertford is the father of your unborn child. You----" + +And then it was that Queenie had fallen! had hit her head against the +andirons and was never again to suffer sanely. After that there were +the dreary weeks when the changed girl had paced the upper balcony with +her poor, vacant face set toward the hills. The pitiful story of her +weak lungs was started, the journey to the far away sanatorium, which +really ended in the cabin of a one-time slave of the family twenty +miles away! The hideous secret; the journeys by night and that last +terrible scene when the blank mind refused to interpret the agony of +the riven body and the wild screams and moans rang through the cabin +chamber. Alone, the old black woman and Ann Walden had witnessed the +struggle of life and death, which ended in the birth of Cynthia and the +release of Queenie Walden. + +The four following years were nightmares of torture to Ann Walden. +After bringing her sister's body home from the supposed sanatorium she +lived a double life. As often as she dared she went to that cabin in +the far woods. She carried clothes and food to her old servant and the +little secreted child. She watched with fear-filled eyes the baby's +development, and to her great relief she knew at last that no mark of +mental evil had touched her! Then, when the old black woman died she +brought the baby thing home; had explained it according to her +knowledge of the people; they would believe what she told them--but +this stranger who had left the letter--she had not been deceived for +one moment! + +The letter! While she had been reliving the past the words were +entering her consciousness. What she knew she passed unheedingly; what +she was yet to know rose as if to strike her by its force. + +"I had believed that love," so Starr had written to his sister, "as men +know it, was not for me; my work, my joy in the service had always +seemed my recompense. I had asked Ann Walden to marry me because I +felt sure of myself, and in this lonely place I needed the +companionship, the wisdom and the social position her presence would +give to this great work of lifting up those worthy of recognition. +Then came the day when I saw the little sister--Ann Walden's and mine, +for we had always called her that--a woman! She cast her childhood off +like a disguise--I saw another man look at her and I saw her look at +him! Something was born in me then after all the slow, sombre +years--and I wanted--love! I think a madness overcame me, for, blinded +and almost beside myself--I spoke to her--that child-woman, and told +her how it was with me. She is the sort that wins your heart secrets +by a glance of her tender eyes. And then----" Then came sharp words; +disconnected and flashing like flame; but Ann Walden read on while her +brain beat and ached. + +"It was I she loved. I had aroused her--she saw only one man in the +world--me! + +"She lay in my arms--I kissed her. + +"I took her with me on a long drive through the mountains--there was a +dying woman and my dear love carried the poor soul unto the parting of +the ways with such divine tenderness as I had never before beheld. She +sang and almost played with her until the sad creature forgot her death +pangs. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw--that dying hour was +perhaps the only joyous hour the woman ever had known--and my +sun-touched darling gave it to her! + +"We were married on our way home. I wanted to speak at once, but +Queenie pleaded. She did not wish, just in her own first moment of +joy, to hurt the sister who was mother to her as well as sister. I +listened, but I realized that my child-wife was afraid! That was it. +With all her brave, splendid characteristics, Ann Walden is one to call +forth fear. I felt myself shrinking hourly from confession. She is +all judge; she can be just, but she cannot, I think, be merciful. Hers +it is to carry out the law, not sympathize with those who fall under +the law. She makes cowards of us all! She is too detached to reach +humanity, or for humanity, erring, sinning humanity, to reach her. + +"The call came--I had to come to the sick and dying. I made half peace +with myself by telling Ann Walden that I could not carry out our +compact. I told her, what is the hardest thing for any man to tell a +woman--that I did not love her. I could not love her! and that it was +her sister I loved. I meant to explain everything later and confess--I +expected to be back in a day or so--but I am here still and the chances +are I must stay on for a long time, and I may lose my life; conditions +are terrible, and only once a week a doctor comes! + +"She, Ann Walden, is not the hard judge alone. I must not give you a +wrong impression. When I told her, she shielded me against myself; +would not let me suffer as I should--she excused me. She, to excuse +me! But if anything happens to me--I want all my money to go to Ann +Walden. By this act she will understand my trust in her and, accepting +it, she will do for Queenie what otherwise she could not do--and do it +more wisely than my darling could for herself. It must be the common +tie, this little fortune. + +"I am feeling very ill. + +"I fear--my time--has come! + +"I recall--there was no marriage certificate, but the service was +performed by----" + +Ann Walden dropped the blurred sheet and steadied herself against the +window. Evidently Theodore Starr had forgotten the name, or perhaps +the deadly dizziness of the disease had overcome him. It did not +matter. Ann Walden, like Marcia Lowe, had no doubts--but his sister +evidently had had, and suddenly a bitter hatred filled Ann Walden's +soul toward the dead woman she had never known. + +"She who should have known him best," Ann Walden's thoughts ran +burningly on--"she to doubt him and let all the years of injustice go +on!" + +And then the eyes of the tormented woman turned fearfully toward the +far side of the room. The late afternoon was turning into twilight and +the corner by the chimney was dim and full of shadow. + +"And I--who should have trusted Queenie--I who knew her best of all--I +let her suffer----" + +The wraith by the hearth had her full revenge at that hour, for Ann +Walden bowed beneath the memories that crowded upon her; the vivid, +torturing memories. That last night--when the moans and calls of the +dumb mind strove to express the agony of the poor body! The solemn +hour when God entrusted a living soul to a mother incapable of +realizing anything but the mortal pangs that were costing her her life! + +The child dishonoured, shamed and hidden because of--misunderstanding. +Humbly Ann Walden confessed that Theodore Starr's sister was no more to +blame than she herself. + +Outside a sudden shower had come over Lost Mountain; the room in which +Ann Walden stood became dark and still, then a sharp crash shook the +house--something white fell upon the hearth; ashes, long dead ashes +were blown hither and yon by a rising wind. With a wild cry of--"My +God!" Ann Walden sank in a chair. Wornout nerves could stand no more. + +When she recovered consciousness she was lying upon the old horsehair +sofa in the library. Ivy had gone on an errand, but Cynthia stood over +her and the girl's face shocked the reviving woman into alertness. +Familiarity had dulled her in the past, but now she saw the expression +and outline of Theodore Starr's features bending near her. + +"Oh!" she moaned shudderingly. "Oh! oh!" + +"Aunt Ann, it is little Cyn! The tree by the smoke-house was struck, +but we-all are safe." + +"I must be alone!" Then gropingly and tremblingly Ann Walden got upon +her feet. + +"The letter," she panted, "the letter." + +"Here it is--I found it on the floor where you fell." + +At the time Cynthia was too distressed to attach any importance to the +matter, but she recalled the incident later. + +"Yes, yes!" Ann Walden gripped the closely written sheets; "and now +I--I want to be alone!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"So you've come home to be fed, eh?" + +Martin Morley slunk into a chair and eyed the woman by the cook-stove +ingratiatingly. + +"I sho' have," he replied; "it smells like ash cakes, and I've brought +a bucket of buttermilk from ole Mis' Walden's place. She certainly is +a techersome woman but a powerful good manager." + +"Where's the buttermilk?" + +"Outside the do'!" + +"Run and fetch it, Molly." + +The child, glaring at Martin, sprang to do her mother's bidding and as +she passed Morley he seemed to note, for the first time in his life, +her fantastic beauty. And then Morley stared after her--she looked +like _his_ mother! With the thought a blush of shame rose to his thin, +sallow face. + +His mother! Between his mother and him lay a black abyss. What right +had anything, holding part in that shadow, to look like his mother? He +arose and almost snatched from the child the pail she had brought in. + +"Hyar!" he cried, "let me take that, you're slopping it over the floor. +Whar's yo' brother?" + +With this Mary Morley turned from her task with hot, blazing face? She +had been handsome once--but the fleeting beauty was gone. + +"Sho'! _whar's_ that blessed son of yours?" Mary screamed. "You better +go and find out. Do you know what the brat has been doing all these +years? Years, I say! While we-all have been slaving and starving he's +been saving up; cheating us-all out of his earnings. Eating us-all out +of house and home while he--saved and glutted!" + +Martin stared at the woman as if she were speaking a foreign language. + +"Who--tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the +moment's confusion. + +"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone +beyond the Branch--dollars and dollars while we-all done without." + +"Whar did he--get it?" + +"He only gave us part of what he earned--he made us-all fools while he +hid the rest." + +This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the +girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted +him with something like fear in it. + +"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that--that Cynthia Walden." + +This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward +angrily. + +"None of your lying!" she commanded--"nobody's going to hurt you so +long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with +the stolen money?" + +"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I--tried to +find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let +on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss +Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why +should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?" + +Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not +tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so +hard and--young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was +angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure, +but--hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him. + +"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her +growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying +lot. I'll find the boy----" Martin reached up and took down a lash +whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find +the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he +may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply. + +Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen +amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading +to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he +saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as +he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His +brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a +shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body. +Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct +warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the +two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that +Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree. + +"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley. + +"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you--and then----" + +"Well----" + +"I'm going away!" + +"Going away?" + +"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She----" The +boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She +don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it--but +she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got +to go and--I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little +for years--there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out +beyond--somewhere--Dad, there's something better for us than--this. By +and by we'll come back. We'll come and help----" and a sob choked the +words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel--called!" + +Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost. +And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself +as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had +wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope. + +"You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself +standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as +allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in +grandfather's day--it's settled on us-all like a death grip." + +Sandy listened as if already he was far and apart from all the sordid, +little hampering things that made up the life of Lost Hollow. + +"What did--grandfather do?" he asked, like one who had no special +interest in the matter. + +"It was my grandfather, he was the friend of Lansing Hertford. They +said he betrayed his friend--but they-all lied. First it was a +whisper, then in your grandfather's time they-all spoke louder. The +lie took away the faith of men from us-all and--that ended it! The lie +slinks low till some Morley raises his head and then it springs up and +strikes him down." + +"It will not strike me down!" Sandy, weak and forlorn, straightened +against the tree with the darkness almost blotting him from the eyes +fastened tenderly on his face, spoke firmly. "I'll kill the lie +whatever it was! What did they say, Dad?" + +Never before had Sandy cared. He knew there was something lurking in +the past that caused his father to slink from the mountain people, +caused the men and women to avoid and shun him, but it had always +existed. It was part of Lost Hollow and the Morley fate. + +Then, alone with the last of his race, Martin Morley told the old story +that had sapped the vitality of his family. Such a small, mean thing +it seemed to have downed the once good stock! But in a place where +tradition thrives on starvation, lack of ambition and misunderstanding, +it had done its work. As Morley drawled the ancient wrong to light, as +he eased his soul of the burden and so shared it with his boy, his eye +brightened and he sat straighter upon the fallen log for--at its +completion--Sandy laughed! + +"It was this--er--way. In them days us-all and the Hertfords was +equals. The plantation lying off to the east of the old Hertford home +place belonged to us-all"--many and many were the quarts of berries and +bushels of nuts Sandy had gathered from there!--"but it slipped +away--it's all gone years past. My grandfather and Lansing Hertford +was close friends--none closer. They fought and loved side by side +till Hertford--he got some kind of government order to go to furrin' +parts a mighty distance from Lost Hollow. Some time after he went my +grandfather followed on a pleasure trip--a pleasure trip, Sandy, think +of that! He went away for pleasure! His pockets full of money and him +right well fixed! On his travels he stopped and called on Hertford in +them furrin' parts and Hertford he gave to grandfather a mighty +precious bottle of stuff to bring back home to a big merchant down +Lynchburg way. What happened the Lord only knows, Sandy, but when the +merchant opened the bottle there wasn't nothing but water in it! No +one ever spoke out in grandfather's day--they dassent. He was a mighty +proud and upperty man, but a whisper and a nudge can do the work, and +little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's +time they spoke louder--they don' said how grandfather had sold the +precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you, +son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?" + +"No!" Sandy breathed the word like a hiss, and in the darkness and his +weakness he felt the poison of the lie stealing into his thought, but +he flung his head up proudly. "No! No!" he repeated clearly and +defiantly; "No!" + +"But they-all never trusted none of us again." + +Sandy recalled his first visit to the Walden back door and his courage +rose--they had learned to trust him even in Lost Hollow! + +"Grandfather tried to rise up and failed. Father had his hope, but it +was killed; I strove, Sandy, I sho' did, God knows! but you see how it +has been with me. There's no use, son, we-all is damned!" + +"I am--going to succeed!" + +Sandy's voice struck through the gloom and stillness like a tangible +blow. Martin started and gave a nervous laugh. + +"Come home!" he said; "come home and bring your money with you. It +will buy peace and pardon--them's better than any fool idees. And just +remember this, Sandy Morley, we-all may be dastards and hard drinkers +and what not, but we sho' don't desert women and children. They, down +there, belong to us, son, and I expect you and me belong to them!" + +Martin rose hurriedly and dropped the whip in the underbrush. + +"Come on home, son!" + +But Sandy did not move. + +"It's come with me or I go alone, Dad." + +The child was master of the man! + +"You mean it? You mean you dare to disobey--me?" + +"I'm going to--take my chance, Dad, out among--folks!" + +"You--will--obey--me!" But even as the words were spoken, Martin felt +how impotent they were. + +"It's good-bye, Dad?" + +It was good-bye. Both man and boy realized it. The night closed them +in and the protecting trees sheltered them for a moment more. + +"You po' little lad! you mean it?" + +"Yes, Dad. Will you come?" + +Martin turned one glance to where the light from his cabin door shone; +then he groaned and said: + +"No! God knows they do belong to me and I'm too old, too broken. The +curse will get the best of you, boy, and you'll come trailing home. +I'll be here--then! But----" And now Martin came closer and held him +by the thin, trembling shoulders. + +"Grandfather never done it! It was one man's word agin another's and +the Hertfords have the luck--they allus had. Onct one of them come +back"--and here Morley came closer to Sandy--"it was back in ole Miss +Ann Walden's early days--he came back and something happened!" The +whisper made Sandy creep with chill. + +"What?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"He done a mighty wrong to--Miss Ann's little sister, her that was +called Queenie and looked it! We-all knew, but we-all stood by Miss +Ann, even such as me stood by her! it was the only thing we-all could +do for her. He got away! Then that po' chile took to watching from +the balcony for him who never come--and then she went away--and by and +by--the baby come home!" + +"The baby?" + +Sandy trembled and grew faint. He had eaten little and the burden +being laid upon him was more than his strength could bear. + +"Cynthia--the lil' girl with the face of Queenie, her mother?" + +"No! No!" What he feared and abhorred the boy could not tell, but +every instinct in him rose to do battle for the child--friend of his +starved and empty life. + +"It's your part, son, to stand by and never let on! We-all have done +it; we-all took what Miss Ann said for gospel truth--and so must you!" + +Then it was that Sandy laughed! The sound startled and shocked Martin +and he almost reeled from before it, but strangely enough it seemed to +brighten the heavy darkness. + +"I don't believe it!" said Sandy between his bursts of laughter. "It's +a bad dream--we-all must wake up." + +"We can't fight them, Sandy!" + +The poor legacy of hatred, wrong, loyalty, and despair was all that +Martin Morley had to offer his boy as a weapon in the coming fight. +The uselessness and weakness of it struck Sandy even then as he stood +on the threshold of the new life. What did it matter? But it was the +small thing, the old past that made up the shabby present of The +Hollow. He was going to leave everything--even the old grudge--already +the wider thought called him and gave a touch of daring to his laugh. + +"Good-bye, Dad!" + +And then Morley staggered toward Sandy and stretched his arms out to +him. There was one thing more he had to offer! + +"I--I want to tell you 'bout--yo' mother, Sandy--and me! No one ain't +all bad; she was all good and yo' must lay hold o' the good. It will +help if yo' can cling fast enough." + +Oddly enough Sandy found himself against his father's breast without a +sense of strangeness. Long years ago he had so lain in the strong +arms--the recollection brought others in its wake; memories of safe, +happy days--before Mary had come into their lives. + +"I was older then her!" Martin spoke as if confessing to one who +demanded the best and the truth at last. It was as though he felt that +with the neglect and injustice he had of late shown the boy, there had +been the holding back of his just due. "Yo' mother came from The +Forge, she left a good home for me because she believed in me--she was +terrible young and trusting and she didn't live to--find out! I was +old enough to be her father, and I tried. God help me! I tried, but +it was the old curse and not even the love I had for her could keep me +up. But while she lived--it was better. The cabin was clean and tidy +and she always sang about her work. She only stopped singing toward +the last--when she got thinking about you she got solemner and stiller +and then--you came! She--died the day after, and the blackness of it +has shut the sunlight out of my life ever since, Sandy. I ought to +have took my pay and made no fuss, and for a time I did. You and me +lived on in the cabin with a woman's hand to help at the pinch, and for +years I kept my head and yours above water. But when yo' are a man, +son, you'll think kinder o' me than what yo' do to-day; a man's a man, +and a lonely man is the worst of all--and so"--Martin's grizzly head +was pressed against Sandy's--"and so--Mary came! She didn't ask much; +she only wanted to live along with us-all in the cabin, but----" The +dreary years seemed to spread before both man and boy in the silence +which followed. + +"Good-bye, Sandy, good-bye!" Martin choked and held the boy off at +arm's length. "Yo' great-grandfather's name was Sandford Morley. I +gave you the name for good luck--maybe it--will help. Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye--dear old Dad!" + +The one-time trust and affection flooded the moment and place. Quite +simply and naturally they kissed and fell apart. + +"Yo' go first, lad--yo' ain't got nothing to take?" Sandy shook his +head. + +"No, Dad. Good-bye. The money will help me on. Some day I'm coming +back, Dad, coming back to help! Wait for me, Dad, and hold tight for +me--so I'll be glad. Dear, dear, old Dad!" + +Then Sandy turned and set his face toward The Appointed Way. It had +been hard to see Cynthia flee from him, leaving him lonely and +forsaken; but it was harder now to leave the sad, broken father in the +desolate blackness of night--and enter the new, hard life alone! But +with never a backward look Sandford Morley went to meet his fate. + +Martin stood and listened until the last sound dropped into silence. +Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin. +There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour +of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by +the rough table in the middle of the room. + +"Did you find him?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"And you----" + +Martin turned and the look on his face silenced the woman. + +"That boy," he said slowly, "belongs to me, do you understand? Keep +your tongue off him--your hands will never touch him again. He's mine +and God Almighty's from now on. You've starve him and beat him for the +last time and now--never speak his name again. He's mine and +God's--and his mother's!" + +Martin was spent. He dropped into a chair and, folding his arms upon +the back, bent his head upon them. + +Then Mary's wrath broke. + +"He's yours, is he?" she sneered, shaking her child off and striding +toward the bowed figure--"he's yours and God's and his mother's! He +belongs to a fine lot, doesn't he, the ungrateful little beast? And +I'm to keep my tongue off him, eh? Ain't I good enough for him and you +and the high company you belong to?" + +Resentment old and rankling rose fiercely. What ever she had been and +was, Mary clung to Morley faithfully according to her light and she +writhed under the sting of the implied insult hurled at her now. + +Morley did not move. A sense of desolation swept over him. He was +following the trail of the lonely boy in the dark and the woman's +infuriated words meant no more to him than the rumbling thunder. + +"Who do I and mine belong to?" the tense voice went on; "to the devil I +suppose! Well, then, Mart Morley, you listen to me now. This +child"--she turned fiercely toward Molly--"is yours, mine and the +devil's. You're a lazy lot that left us to starve or live as we could, +but the devil has taken a hand in the game, do you hear? I reckon +he'll see us through and no thanks to you! From now on you take what +you can get and keep your mouth shut or--the devil and I will know why." + +And then Morley lifted his head. The look of misery on his pinched +face should have moved one to pity, but it did not move the heart of +Mary Morley. + +"What do you mean?" he asked wonderingly. "I--I--didn't follow +all--you said." + +"And there's to be no questioning," the voice had grown louder. "No +questions--just take or leave what's offered; go or stay as you please, +but if that brat of yours, God's and his mother's, ever shows his face +near me or mine--I'll"--she laughed hoarsely--"I'll make him a +discredit to you all! Come move up and eat the food I provided and +drink the sour milk that was given you!" + +Morley rose unsteadily. He tried to speak and command the situation +that in some subtle way had escaped his control, but he felt bereft and +desperate. Now that Sandy was quite beyond recall, to whom could he +turn? His strength and spirit were crushed and degraded--he moved up +and sullenly took the plate and cup that were pushed toward him! Once +he glanced at Molly. She leered at him over the edge of her mug and +her eyes were hard and cruel. + +Martin Morley pushed the untouched food from him and strode to the door +of the cabin. The storm was coming up fast now. The lightning flashed +and the thunder shook the house. Morley's heart ached for the boy +struggling alone and defenceless through the night, but he was glad he +was gone! Whatever lay before of defeat or victory--he thanked God +that the last of his race had had courage at least to make an attempt +for freedom. + +The house grew very quiet; Mary had taken Molly to the loft overhead, +and presently Martin heard her deep breathing and the nestling of the +little girl in the straw mattress. The storm passed at last and above +Lost Mountain a bright and glowing star showed through the parting +clouds. + +Cautiously Martin whistled and then waited. Night after night this was +his habit. When the others had departed he called Sandy's dog, fed it +from the scraps he could gather, and comforted himself with the +companionship of the faithful collie that was too wise to tempt +Providence when Mary was around. + +Martin whistled a second time and then called softly: "Bob! oh--Bob!" + +There was no response. Again the man spoke drawlingly and fondly: +"Bob! oh, Bob!" Then he went to the shed near the cabin and looked in. +That had been Sandy's bed-chamber since the rule of Mary had begun--how +terribly empty and lonely it looked now! How afraid the boy must have +been when at first he was driven from the home place to the deserted +outhouse! He had never whimpered nor complained. "Poor little lad!" +breathed Martin, and leaned against the doorway of the wretched room. +There was the ragged mattress and the little nest where the slight +boyish body had so often rested after the day's cheerless toil. On the +wall were pinned two or three bright pictures that had drifted somehow +to the barren place; there was a pitiful little frayed jacket hanging +on a nail and a pair of sadly torn shoes in one corner. + +The objects caused Martin to groan as he beheld them. He suffered as +he had not suffered since Sandy's mother died in his arms! Like a +drowning man he relived the years--the hard years when he cared for and +loved the baby-child alone in the cabin. He recalled the boy's sunny +ways and sweet confidence, until the Woman Mary entered their life. He +had been miserable, his lower nature craved its own, and Mary came! He +had accepted and he had lost his self-respect; everything! There was +nothing left; there would be nothing more until--the end came, unless +Sandy succeeded. Just then the moon came over a bank of black clouds +and lit The Hollow. It shone full on Lost Mountain and into the +deserted shed where but lately Sandy had suffered and slept. + +Martin Morley dropped on his knees and turned his haggard, pain-racked +face upward. He had once been a religious man; had once been a leader +in the little church at The Forge before he gave up hope and ambition. +His prayers had been the pride and boast of the mountainside, but that +was long ago, and his lips with difficulty formed, now, the sacred +words. + +"God-a'mighty!" he breathed, "take care of that lil' boy out there +alone on The Way. Don't fail him on the big road; keep him to the end! +I ain't asking You to do anything more for me; I've give up; but he's +just started forth! Watch him; keep him; don't let the sins of his +fathers or his enemies tech him. Amen!" + +There was a note of command in the prayer. A demand for justice and +protection for one who could not defend himself. Having worded his +appeal, Martin rose stiffly from his knees and closed the door of the +shed after him. + +He had done what he could; he must bear the agony and remorse silently +from now on. The old laziness and indifference returned slowly as he +retraced his steps, and when he entered the silent cabin again he went +naturally to the crooked stairs leading up to the loft. The door was +closed and locked! Mary had, in this final fashion, proclaimed her +independence. + +Martin made no effort to force his way or question the proceedings; +with a weary sigh he looked about, then went quietly to an old settle +by the hearth. Taking off his wet and ragged coat he rolled it up and +placed it for a pillow. Finally he stretched his aching body upon the +improvised bed and fell into a restless slumber. + + + + +VI + +The hot, breathless morning followed the storm through which Sandy +departed, and fell like a moist blanket over Lost Hollow. Even up at +Stoneledge the vapour rose and settled depressingly. Every door and +window in the livable part of the house was set wide to any chance +stirring of the dead air. Ann Walden in the sitting-room, old Lily Ivy +in the kitchen, and the child Cynthia in the dim, shadowy library, in +the unlivable part of the house, were listless and indolent. Presently +the black woman, having completed the preparations of vegetables for +the simple mid-day meal, came to the sitting-room door and contemplated +her mistress with respectful eyes. Ivy was fully seventy years old, +but she was straight and strong as a woman of fifty and as keen and +capable. She had been carefully reared as a house servant in the days +of slavery, and she had followed the downward fortunes of the Waldens +with dignity and courage worthy a more glorious cause. Her spotless +but much patched gown was almost covered by a huge white apron. She +wore a kerchief and a turban-like head covering. + +"Miss Ann, honey, a leak done sprung in the roof over the west chamber +las' night. The rain am permeated through the flo' and marked the +ceiling in de libr'y." + +Cynthia, lying on the horsehair sofa of the dim room across the hall, +looked up and saw the new and ugly spot over her head. + +"Well, Ivy, shut the west chamber off from the rest of the house. We +have far too much space to care for as it is. When I reconstruct +Stoneledge it will be time enough to reopen the disused rooms." + +Ivy bowed her head complacently. It had always been the same since the +war. One room after another had been shut off until the wide halls +dividing the house, the living-room, dining-room, kitchen and three +upper bedrooms were all that were left for family use. + +"Yes, chile." Then after a pause: "I don' hear how dat wretch, Black +Jim, was stricken, by God-a'mighty's justice, on The Way, las' night. +He was found plumb dead under a tree whar de lightnin' felled him." + +Miss Ann raised her spectacled eyes with something like interest. + +"We-all will be safer," she said quietly. "A darky like Jim, who gets +a twist in his head about freedom and license, is a mighty dangerous +creature." + +"Yes, chile, dat's plain truth." + +Cynthia held her breath. Sandy had been on The Way--what had +God-a'mighty's justice done to him? Surely if any evil had befallen +him Ivy would know. By some intangible current the gossip and news of +the hills travelled rapidly and more or less accurately. + +"Dat boy of Morley's has runned away from home!" + +At this Ann Walden took off her spectacles and made no pretence of +indifference. + +"Run away?" she said. "I didn't know a Morley had spirit enough to do +that even with conditions as they must be along of that woman of +Martin's in the cabin. Where has he gone?" + +"Nobody ain't knowing exactly--just gone! I expect he'll turn up again +when his stomick done clutch him. Dat chile never done us-all no +'commodation job, but he was too good to live up to that cabin in de +Holler. If I knowed whar he done hide himself, I clar I'd fotch him +some victuals even if he _was_ sharp as a sarpint's tooth in a bargain." + +"If you hear of him, let me know," Ann Walden said quietly; "he's too +good, as you say, to be left to that evil woman Martin lives with. +I've had the boy on my mind for some time. He has the mark of cruelty +and neglect; he' been mighty silent too, about it all--he resembles his +grandfather." + +And now Cynthia breathed again freely and happily. A breath of air +stole through the window and across the room--the atmosphere was +clearing. + +"Whar's lil' Miss?" + +"Lying down across in the library. Go close the door softly, Ivy, and +come back. I have something to say to you about her." + +The child upon the sofa wished to be alone with herself, so she shut +her eyes and pretended sleep when the lean, black hand reached into the +room and drew to the door. Cynthia wanted to think about Sandy; she +wanted to follow him, in fancy, after her own fashion, and above all +else she wanted to be with him in the Significant Room. + +Once the door secured her from intrusion she arose from the sofa and +locked it quietly; then she set the window wider to the summer day. +The casement was choked with the yellow rosebush and heavy honeysuckle; +the fragrance was almost stifling, but Cynthia heeded it not. + +"Now," she whispered, with the slow smile coming to her lips, "now, +Sandy Morley, I'm going to hang your picture in its place!" + +The large gray eyes fastened upon the empty space near the chimney, the +space where, when the afternoon was fair and clear, the western sun +poured its light through the tangle of vines at the window and fell +full upon it. + +"The man who cut his way through his enemies." Cynthia knew her +"Pilgrim's Progress" as many children know their nursery rhymes. It +was her only guide to life, but she interpreted it for herself. "The +Biggest of Them All." And then the girl laughed her rich, rippling +laugh. + +It was Madam Bubble now who stood before the fireplace, a gentle +creature with little head bent forward in listening attitude and a +waiting, pleading look in the fine eyes. A bit too tall and thin was +she for grace, but Time would take care of that--and, fortunately, +Cynthia was many-sided. The dull, monotonous life of Stoneledge had +retarded development. Never having mingled with children, she was +untested and untried along certain lines. Poor, shabby Sandy Morley +had been and was her only interpretation of youth as it had touched her +personally--he and her ungoverned imagination had supplied the motive +power, so far, for the foundation of her emotions. + +"I--helped you!" she said softly to "The Biggest of Them All"--"I. And +wherever you are you will remember that." + +There was an old, cracked, dimmed mirror between the chimney-place and +the window, and tiptoeing to that, Cynthia viewed herself as if for the +first time in her life. The image was strange to her; confusing and +half fearsome. It was not the reflection of the awkward, thin Cynthia +Walden that she saw; Cynthia of the long braids of hair and short +patched gingham gown of irregular length--owing to many washings and +shrinkings. It was the reflection of something Cynthia was to be some +day who looked back at the questioning girl. Slowly the colour rose to +the pale face and the big eyes flinched. + +"Stand straighter!" commanded the inquisitor before the mirror. The +shoulders braced, but too long had the slender neck bent forward to +obey the sudden exertion now. Cynthia would always carry that waiting +pose! + +The ugly checked gown next caught the critical eyes and the impotent +hands pulled it down at the waist, while a sense of its unloveliness +brought a quiver to the sensitive mouth. "Hateful!" was the verdict. + +Then with fumbling, unpractised hands Cynthia gathered her two long +shining braids and bound them around her head--somewhere she had seen +the fashion, and a feminine instinct appropriated it. Next she stepped +quietly to the window and broke off a deep yellow rose and a delicate +trailing bit of honeysuckle rich with bloom; these she wound with +intuitive skill in her twisted braids, the rose nestled close to the +left ear. Thus adorned she tested the mirror again. Gone now was the +ugly gown; gone was the awkward pose--the face that smiled out at the +young judge was a wonderful face with its secret promise of by and by. + +"Oh! you pretty honey-girl!" There was absolute detachment and lack of +vanity in the words. The woman-nature of Cynthia was simply giving +homage to a young creature worthy its admiration. "Oh! I want to kiss +you and love you! I want you to kiss and love me!" And then the +denied craving for affection and fondling rose supreme. "I want to +cuddle you, honey--you are mighty sweet!" + +The slow smile touched the lips of the reflection--the dear, slow smile +of Madam Bubble. + +Cynthia pressed close to the old mirror and laid her lips to that +alluring creature she was some time to be! + +"Honey!" she whispered, "dear, pretty honey-girl!" The tears clouded +the love-filled eyes; a sense of loneliness drove the rapture away, and +the hands fell limply. + +Going to the window, Cynthia knelt down and, resting her arms upon the +sill, laid her pretty head upon them. + +She was never to be wholly a child again. Never was she to let her +hair fall in the little-girl fashion. Something had happened to her, +and tracing the something back she realized that it had been done when +Sandy kissed her good-bye! + +Vivid was the red now in the girl's face. Her South had brought the +bloom forth early, and she was unprepared and unlearned in its demands. + +"I want--some one to love me!" No words formed the thought. "I +want----" Then all the ties of her barren young life were reviewed and +found inadequate. Presently the yearning eyes rested upon the old +painting of Queenie Walden. It was a miserable piece of work; an +indefinite likeness, but it held the gaze and the fancy of the girl +upon the floor. "I want--my mother!" The hunger and longing brought +fresh tears to the aching eyes. "Mother!" She had always known the +relationship, and had always guarded it as a sacred secret. The flood +of repression and denial came in full force now. + +"I want to know all!" That was the demand, and straightway Cynthia +sprang to her feet and ran from the room. She was still running when +she came into Ann Walden's presence. + +"What's the matter, Cynthia?" + +"Aunt Ann, tell me about my father and mother!" + +The sudden question, the sight of the flower-decked head, set Ann +Walden into a trembling fit. Since the day of Marcia Lowe's call she +had never been the same. She slept badly, ate poorly, and feared +greatly. Day after day she had expected the late visitor to return or +send a representative. When she heard that the stranger had gone away +she breathed more freely for the respite, but dreaded the reason for +the going. She had passed through such torture as she had never known +or undergone before. Something, unsuspected, rose and reproved her; +pride, self-esteem, and faith had perished when many readings of the +letter had driven truth home. Finally nerves refused to suffer longer +and a kind of revenge took its place. + +"Very well!" she had concluded desperately; "Queenie and I will keep +the child--at last! You and yours shall have no part in her or for +her." + +Thus she had decided regarding Cynthia. She meant to break forever +with Theodore Starr and all who were connected with him. She would +resent, not only for herself, but for the poor sister who had +mistakenly, and for love of her, kept silence and left the memory of +Starr unclouded as the only gift she could give the woman they both had +wronged! + +Yes, Ann Walden had thought it all out. When Marcia Lowe came again +she would tell her that she believed there had been no marriage! That +would end it. No proof could be found--did not Ann Walden know the +shiftless mountain ways? Marcia Lowe would never press dishonour upon +them all--and the money was no lure to the proud, poverty-stricken +woman. She meant to revenge herself upon Theodore Starr by keeping +Cynthia even at the price of proclaiming the girl's dishonour to +Starr's niece. + +From much thinking through wakeful nights and torturing days Ann Walden +had evolved a very sincere hatred and bitter resentment. She almost +believed that Starr had betrayed her sister, and poor Cynthia, who had +always been a duty--not a joy--was to pay the penalty! + +"Tell me about my father and mother!" + +The strong young voice repeated the commanding words; the lovely +flower-twined head bent forward. + +There was no wise person to note and take warning of the strange light +in Ann Walden's eyes as she met the question put to her; it was, +however, the look of insanity--the insanity which feeds upon +hallucination; the kind that evolves from isolated repression and the +abnormal introspection of the self-cultured. + +"When you are older, Cynthia." + +"No, now, Aunt Ann. I must know. My mother's picture hangs in the +library, but my father's is not there and no one ever speaks of my +father." + +How could one fling into the simple innocence demanding knowledge, the +bare, bold truth? But Ann Walden, driven at bay, worn, embittered and +touched already by her doom, answered slowly: + +"Your--father was--a bad man! that is why no one speaks of him; why his +picture does not hang near your mother's." + +"A bad man? What did he do, Aunt Ann?" A childish fear shook +Cynthia's face. Bad, to her, was such a crude, primitive thing; "was +he bad like--like the men here who drink and beat their women?" + +"Worse than that!" + +"Worse, Aunt Ann? Did he--beat my mother?'" + +The horror, instead of calming Ann Walden, spurred her on. + +"He--he killed her!" + +"Killed her!" And with that Cynthia dropped beside her aunt and clung +desperately to her hand, which lay idle in her lap. "Oh! is--is--he +dead? Can he come to hurt us?" + +Then Ann Walden laughed such a laugh as Cynthia had never heard before, +but with which she was to become familiar. + +"He's dead. He cannot hurt us any more. He did his worst--before you +were born." + +A sigh of relief escaped the girl as she listened and her tense face +relaxed. + +"But we would not touch his money, would we, Cynthia? nor have anything +to do with any kin of his, would we?" + +"No, no, Aunt Ann." + +"Then----" and now Ann Walden bent close and whispered: "then have +nothing to do with her--at Trouble Neck! She comes with money; with a +hope of forgiveness--but we do not forgive such things, do we, Cynthia, +and we Waldens cannot be bought?" + +"No, no!" + +"When you see her, tell her so! Tell her to keep away--we do not +believe her; we do not want her!" + +The flowers on the pretty girlish head were already wilted in the heat +of the morning and something more vital and spiritual had faded and +drooped in Cynthia Walden's soul. She looked old and haggard as she +rose up and drew a long breath like one who had drunk a deep draught +too hastily. Even the yearning for love had departed--unless God were +good to her she would sink rapidly down, from now on, to the common +level. + +"I'll tell her, Aunt Ann," she said nonchalantly. "I'm right glad you +let me know." Then she wandered aimlessly back to the library and over +to the fireplace. Dejected and shrinking, she raised her eyes humbly +to her "Biggest of Them All" and deep in her soul sank the truth that +she, Cynthia Walden, once so gay and proud, was not the equal of Sandy +Morley! If he were brave and fine enough he might help her from very +pity--but if she were worthy, she must not permit him to do so. + +Then it was that the first wave of actual soul-loneliness enveloped the +girl, and when youth recognizes such desolation something overpowers it +that no older person can ever understand. + +And that very afternoon the great storm came that swept away so much +and opened the way to more. + +It was four o'clock on that same day that Liza Hope passed Stoneledge +on the way down to the store. Liza was always just getting over having +a baby or just about to have one and her condition was now of the +latter character. Poor, misshapen, down-trodden creature! She +accepted her fate indifferently, not because she was hard or bitter, +but because she had never had a vision of anything else. + +She paused near the chicken house where old Lily Ivy was hovering over +a belated brood whose erratic mother had mistaken the season of the +year. + +"Howdy, Ivy! You-all has a right smart lot of fowls--but ain't it a +mighty bad time to hatch?" + +"Dis yere hen allus was a fool hen," Ivy vouchsafed, "givin' trouble +an' agony to us-all." + +"Does you-all like her the best?" + +This question brought Ivy to her feet with a stare. + +"The little doctor she done say as how we-all loves best the +baby-things what be right techersome. She be right, too, I reckon. +Them babies o' mine what died, and po' lil' Sammy what ain't clear in +his mind, is mighty nigh to me. I ain't never thought 'bout sich till +she cum. She steps up to my cabin now an' again an' her and me talks. +The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady I calls her, an' nights I lie an' think on +her, an' she comes an' brings my daid babies to me in dreams-like, an' +then I reach out for Sammy, an' I feel right comforted." + +Ivy came close to her caller now and looked into the weary, sunken eyes +compassionately. Her contempt of the po' white trash faded before the +pathetic desolateness of Liza's glance. + +"Liza Hope," she said, fixing the roving stare by her tone, "how be you +going to face this winter? You be as fool-like as dis yere old +hen-hussy. All your chillens was born during respectable times o' +year. What you-all goin' to do wid no wood-pile, no nothin', an' a +baby comin' long in the black time of winter?" + +Liza faced her accuser blankly as if she had nothing whatever to do +with the matter. + +"I ain't no wise 'sponsible," she faltered; "de good Lord He knows I +ain't hankerin' after no mo' calls and troubles. But the Cup-o'-Water +Lady don' promise to come to me in my hour an' bide till I pass through +my trial. Seems like I can bear it now when I think o' that. Some say +they-all don't believe her is kin to Parson Starr as was, but I does. +The Lord He don't make two sich-like less He uses the same mixin's. I +knows, I do!" + +Ivy started back. Oddly enough this was the first time she had heard +the connection between Starr and the newcomer. She had taken for +granted the rumour that had reached her concerning Marcia Lowe, and she +had disapproved keenly of the call that young woman had made upon her +mistress recently, but now, as Liza spoke, sudden recollection startled +her. If the stranger were what Liza suggested, why then Ann Walden's +condition might be accounted for! The surprise of this new thought +turned Ivy giddy, but it also caused her to change the subject of +conversation. + +"When yo' come back from de sto'," she said with frigid dignity, "stop +to de' rear do'. I has some corn bread an' bacon what you can carry +'long wid yo', an' an ole ironin' blanket fo' coverin'." + +Liza muttered her thanks and shuffled on, her distorted figure casting +a weird shadow as the blazing sun struck across her path as she entered +The Way. + +It was five o'clock when the reddish sunlight suddenly was blotted out +by a huge black cloud. An ominous hush came with the shadows, and with +instinctive fear and caution Ann Walden, in the living-room, closed the +windows and doors. Cynthia, who was passing through the hall, ran +upstairs to do the same, and then returned and stood listlessly by her +aunt near the window looking out over the garden place, the little +brook, which divided it from the pasture lot below, and the two cows +huddling under a clump of trees beside the tiny bridge which spanned +the stream. + +"I--don't like the look of the sky," Ann Walden murmured; "I reckon +it's going to be a mighty bad storm. Seems like the seasons get +twisted these-er-days. Now if it was spring----" She did not finish +her sentence, for a wave of wind brought the lagging storm on its +breast; a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder set it +free and then the deluge descended. A wall, seemingly tangible, +descended from the clouds to the earth--everything was blotted out. + +"Good Lord-a'mighty!" Ivy dashed in from the kitchen, a grayness +showing through the black of her skin; "I mus' save dem cows. I jes' +mus'--God help me!" She ran through the room to the front hall, +pulling her skirt over her head as she ran. + +"Ivy, I forbid you leaving the house!" + +The black woman paused, for even in that moment of excitement tradition +held her--the servant was stopped by the mistress' voice, but too long +had Ivy stood for higher things to renounce them now. She had stood +between her loved ones and starvation; she had always kept the worst +from them and she must continue to do so. + +"Miss Ann, honey," she said in her soft, old drawl, "dem cattle down by +de Branch is all that stan's 'twixt us-all and we-all becoming white +trash! I jis' got-ter go, chile!" + +Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They +watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking; +with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at +the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little +foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for +breath and then--there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood +was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea +of troubled water. + +Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a +frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia. + +"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?" + +Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With +large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once +the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her +comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh +rang out. + +"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child; +"oh! I'm so afraid!" + +But again and again the laugh sounded. + +"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!" + +Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know, +but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared +for and guarded--one to defend. + +"Come," whispered Cynthia, "come away--dear--it's all right! Come, +come!" + +Alternately laughing and sobbing, Ann Walden followed the guiding of +the hand upon her arm; she permitted herself to be placed on the ragged +sofa on the opposite side of the room. + +"Poor white trash!" + +And there Tod Greeley and Liza Hope found them hours after. Cynthia, +beside the prostrate woman, was crooning as to a baby, and over and +over the desperate old voice wailed: + +"We-all are poor white trash!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +When Sandy had departed down The Way he felt weak and stricken. All +the fervour and exhilaration were gone; there was no turning back, and +he could not stand still. The walk to The Forge could easily be made +before morning, with time to sleep on the way, so there was nothing to +do but forget his misery and travel on. The storm, too, emphasized the +necessity for this. On beyond there was a deserted cabin by the trail; +he could sleep there in comparative comfort; under the falling roof +there surely must be one dry spot large enough to shelter a thin, tired +boy. + +A crash of thunder caused Sandy to rush forward. He had the childish +fear that many country children have of the extremes of Nature, and +superstition swayed his every thought. Gathering his loose coat about +him and clutching his money close, he made for The Way, and ran with +all the strength remaining in him, for the deserted cabin. + +Flash and splintering noise surrounded him. His eyes were blinded by +the blue-red lightning; his ears were aching from the thunder's shock. +Once he stood still, unable to suffer longer--for his nerves were +paralyzed with fear, and at that pause a fork of vivid flame darted +from the blackness and ran like the finger of a maniac down the side of +a tall tree. The stroke was so near that the boy did not heed the +crash that followed immediately; he saw the wood and earth fly and he +shuddered as he looked. That was the bolt that ended the life of Jim +the negro, but Sandy never knew. + +In unconsciousness the boy waited for, he knew not what! He was dead, +yet alive, unable to move or feel, yet standing and seeing. Then his +blood began to flow once more, and sinking to his knees he wept as he +had not since the night when Mary drove him from the cabin to the shed +to sleep! Wet and trembling, he finally found strength and courage to +go on, but a loneliness of soul and mind almost overcame him. He +raised his aching eyes and saw the clouds parting; he heard the rising +wind complaining in the tall trees and shaking the water down upon him. +At that moment a star broke through the scudding masses of rolling +blackness--one kindly eye of light, and at the same instant something +touched his body with thrilling familiarity. He groped and felt in the +lower darkness, then--because he had never been taught to pray--Sandy +Morley bent his head over the wet and shaggy body of Bob, the collie, +and laughed and sobbed from sheer gratitude and joy! + +Stealthily the faithful creature had followed his friend. Life had +taught him, even in his puppy days, to curb his inclinations. Where +Sandy was, there was always happiness, but it was generally seasoned +with danger, and Bob took no chances. + +"Good dog! dear old fellow!" + +Bob licked the caressing hands fondly. Never before had such +appreciation been shown him even by the one who was lavishly bestowing +it now; Bob did not seek to understand, he merely accepted and snuggled +closer. + +Sandy knew a later parting with the dog was inevitable, but human +nature could not contemplate it then, so he bade Bob follow on and, +with regained courage and determination, the two plodded down The +Appointed Way with firmer tread. The shed was reached, and nestling +close in a protected corner, they slept for several hours with no dream +to disturb or frighten them. The storm passed; the stars shone out, +and a new moon crept up from the east. At four o'clock Sandy started +up and began the readjustment of life. Bob was lying across his legs +and breathing evenly. The warmth had been grateful even if the weight +had been a burden, and a sense of joy flooded the boy as he patted the +dear, faithful head. + +A few minutes later the two were again on the road. Breakfast would +have been acceptable, but both boy and dog had learned that food was +not a vital necessity for the day's beginning. A cup of warming fluid +would have set Sandy up wonderfully, for his throat was sore and his +bones ached, but The Forge was not a great distance away and it was a +new sensation to have a pocket full of money. + +"Bob, when we get there you and I will fill up--I swear it, Bob!" + +The collie resented the oath. He was willing to share and share alike, +and between friends surely there was no need for such emphasis. + +A soaked wood road on an early August morning is not a cheering place, +and the travellers plodded on with weakening limbs and heavy hearts. +Sandy comforted himself by the thought that food would set him up, but +as he thought this his stomach rejected the idea with sickening +insistence. The more he thought of food the more his head ached and +his throat throbbed. Bob, unhampered by physical claims, jogged along +cheerfully. He was used to hope deferred, and he was appreciative of +the company he was in, and the absence of rough words and well-aimed +kicks and blows. + +The few miles of The Way seemed doubled on the moist August morning; +the rising sun merely drew more dampness from the sodden earth; it did +not dry it; but at last Sandy saw the opening ahead which marked the +clearing around Smith Crothers' factory, he heard the buzzing and +warning of machinery--at first he thought it was the strange sensation +that was gaining force in his head, but presently he righted things and +plucked up courage. Two miles beyond the factory: two miles of lighter +woodland and then the sharp little hill at whose foot The Forge lay! + +A busy day lay before Sandy. He must eat--the thought now was positive +agony--buy some necessary clothing and get into touch with some +inspired fellow creature who could give him information about +Massachusetts. Over and over Sandy repeated the magic word. For +nearly a year it had lain dormant in his consciousness. It was his +earthly heaven; the paradise of his longings and desires, but now it +had suddenly taken on earthly meaning and proportions. How was he to +get there? Had he money enough to carry him to that wonderland where +one could exchange work for an education? + +So absorbed was the half-sick boy with the problem of his near future +that he passed Crothers' factory unheedingly, and was well down the +last sharp little hill before he realized it. A fever was gaining +control over him and making him light-headed and care-free. +Massachusetts lost its agonizing doubts--everything appeared to be +coming to him; even the inevitable parting with Bob became vague and +blurred. Why not take Bob along with him? Why not, indeed? + +And so boy and dog, muddy and fagged, came to the end of the hill, to +the edge of the town and the first house, known as Stagg's Place, where +room and board could be obtained for a consideration! + +Sandy, with that growing nausea, made his way toward it, and Bob, with +his sixth sense serving him well, pricked up his ears, put on more +style of carriage and estimated his chances at the back door. But at +that critical moment an excited old gentleman dashed out of Stagg's +Place and gripping a walking stick madly waved it on high. Spying +Sandy he sensed probable help. + +"Boy!" he shouted lustily, "stop that man! It's--it's life or death. +Stop him! Send him back and I'll give you a dollar." + +Sandy rallied his last remnants of strength and turned about. Off in +the distance he saw the mounted postman jogging on his way toward the +village and he dashed ahead! Bob, with his smouldering puppy nature +coming unexpectedly to his help, scampered on, crazily barking and +yelping as he had never permitted himself to do in the guarded past. + +The postman, at last, heard the commotion and stopped short. + +"You are to go back!" Sandy panted; "it's life or--death." + +The horse was turned about and in the mud raised by the retreating +hoofs the boy and dog followed wearily. + +Whatever the matter was that had caused the confusion, it was adjusted +by the time Sandy again reached the house. The old gentleman, +muttering about a weak leg and a degenerate rascal, was sitting on the +piazza fanning himself with a panama hat, while a thin, eager-eyed +woman urged him to calm himself before worse harm was done. + +"The Lord will provide, Levi," she was saying, as Sandy and his dog +approached. "His ways are not our ways, but we might as well give +credit where credit is due. His leadings are generally clearer sighted +than ours be, having--as you might say--wider scope to scan." Then she +glanced at the dirty, worn pair on the steps. + +"Shoo!" she ejaculated, but neither dog nor boy stirred. + +"What do you want?" she next asked. + +"What--he said he would--give!" and then to complicate matters Sandy +rolled over in a huddled heap and fainted dead away! Bob, bereft and +frightened, hovered over him, emitting yelps and howls that shattered +the summer calm. + +The Markhams only took their meals at Stagg's Place; a small cottage +near by was their lodging rooms, and to that Levi Markham ordered two +coloured boys to carry the prostrate Sandy. + +An hour later Matilda Markham sat beside the couch in the shaded +living-room and looked thoughtfully upon the form stretched thereon. +From outside the voice of her brother came appealing to all that was +reasonable and sensible in Bob. + +"Of course you can see your master, my good fellow. Just be patient, +patient!" + +Levi Markham liked all animals, and something about Bob's rugged +ugliness and faithfulness called forth his admiration and sympathy. + +"Come, come, old fellow, eat and drink. He's safe enough inside. You +know well, you rascal, that he _is_ inside!" + +Bob blinked confidingly, but he would not touch the food which stood +alluringly near at hand in a shining tin plate. + +Sandy had recovered from his faint, but he was strangely weak and an +inner stillness bound him speechless and immovable. He lay +there--thinking, thinking! He knew a woman was beside him watching his +every breath; he heard Bob outside and the sternly kind voice talking +to him. But nothing mattered. Yes, one thing did matter. The money +was in his pocket and Massachusetts was still in the near future! + +Miss Matilda, by the process known only to her sex, had labelled and +classified the boy on the sofa. + +"He's what these shiftless negroes call quality," she pondered. +"Filthy and worn to the bone as he is--he is quality or I miss my +guess! Now what on earth has brought him to this pass?" + +The lids were drawn close over Sandy's eyes; his thin face was pinched +and wan, and the tan had faded mysteriously from the smooth skin. A +dignity rested on brow and mouth, and the work-stained, folded hands +were delicate and full of character. Sandford Morley had come to the +parting of the ways and he had resigned himself to the inevitable. His +helplessness put forth an appeal that reached through his sordid misery +to the emotions of Matilda Markham. She adored boys--they were her one +enthusiasm but, like her brother, the more she felt the less she +permitted herself to show. "She knew her duty"--none better; "but she +did not intend to have her feelings joggled in the broad light of day +for curious folks to witness!" + +So she watched Sandy now with her heart painfully in evidence. + +"There's a bruise on his left cheek," mused Miss Matilda; "like as not +he hit it against something." It was the effect of the last blow Mary +Morley was ever to deal him, but of course the watcher in the orderly +cottage could not imagine so outrageous a thing as that. + +"He's got real nice hair if it wasn't so matted. I daresay it would +curl if it had half a chance." Justice called for pity and protection, +and while waiting to see what was best to do next, Matilda heeded +inspiration. + +"You awake?" she whispered. Sandy gave a weak nod. "Want something to +eat? No? A drink of water, maybe? No? Very well, lie still and drop +off to sleep again. You'll feel better presently, and can tell us +about yourself, then brother will send you home." + +The room was dim, but Matilda's eyes were keen, and she saw two large +tears roll from under the closed lids and down upon the thin cheeks. +Because of her understanding of boys, Matilda did not interfere with +those mute tokens of weak surrender. Better the traces on the dirty +skin than a later misunderstanding, but as the tears took their way a +childless woman's pity and tenderness was following them mutely. + +"You can't sleep? Well now, never mind. Just don't fuss." Then +inspiration came again. + +"Maybe you'd like to see your dog, he's just outside. He won't eat or +drink and his nose is everlastingly pointed to the door." + +At this Sandy's eyes opened so suddenly and so wide that Matilda +Markham started. She had never seen such large eyes in any human boy's +face and they were such strange, yearning eyes. + +"You _do_ want your dog?" + +"Yes, ma'am! oh, yes!" + +Without a word more, Matilda strode to the door. + +"Brother," she said; "we want that dog here!" + +Bob leaped up and followed his instincts. He made no noise or cry, he +simply went to the low couch, and snuggled his rough head against the +shoulder pressed on the pillow. + +Matilda Markham could not bear the sight. It made her afraid of +herself. Her brother, above all people, must not think her emotional. +She knew what he thought of emotional women--he not only believed them +incapable, but he mistrusted their moral natures. She walked out to +the porch and sat grimly down in a rocker and swayed back and forth +energetically. + +"It's real hot," she vouchsafed presently. "This is a terrible shut-in +place. I haven't any use for mountains unless you can get on the +toppest peak." + +"Has that boy explained himself?" asked Levi Markham, also swaying to +and fro in his rocker. Matilda shook her head. + +"What do you think we ought to do? I've been inquiring a bit and I +find there is no police station nor hospital nearer than twenty-five +miles. I asked the man at Stagg's what they did when men were injured +in the factory, and he looked at me as if he thought I was a fool! +'They don't do anything to them,' he confided. It's an evil hole, +Matilda. I never saw a place in my life that needed capital and human +intelligence more. And what about this boy? He must belong somewhere, +I suppose." + +"I think he's pretty sick, brother; I guess we'll have to turn to and +supply what the town lacks in ambulances and hospitals. He's burning +up with fever, and he has a real wild light in his eyes." + +"What do you mean, Matilda?" + +"Well, brother, not to mince matters, I think if you undress him I'll +turn to and clean him up some. After that we'll put him to bed in the +little room off the dining-room and send for a doctor. I suppose they +have a doctor somewhere around here, haven't they?" + +Levi puckered up his lips and frowned. + +"I've questioned about that, too," he admitted. "There is a +doctor--goes horseback with saddle bags and medicine chest on a circuit +covering acres and acres. Kind of a medical bully; brings people into +the world and hustles them out. Doses and cuts them according to his +lights. He's off on a stabbing case back among the hills--some still, +they say, has let itself loose. He will be back when he patches up the +worst and turns the rest over to the authorities. Matilda!" + +Miss Markham started. + +"Yes, brother." + +"I don't want any one to see or know about that boy until after we've +seen the doctor. He looks badly used and starved to me, and I never +turn a dumb brute off when its luck is against it, until I know what +I'm turning it to. You get a tub of hot water ready and I'll tackle +the lad now." + +It was seven that evening when the doctor returned from the hills and +was told the "folks from the North" wanted to see him. He did not +hurry himself. He rested, ate, and changed his clothes and then +sauntered down the road to the cottage. Sandy, the worst of him, as +Matilda explained, lay in a comatose state on the narrow, immaculate +bed with Bob, now fed and comforted, on the floor beside him. + +"That's Morley's boy from Lost Hollow," the doctor drawled, as he gazed +upon the restless form. "At first I wasn't sure. I never saw him +clean before. As I passed through The Hollow to-day Morley came out +and told me the news. The boy's left home; he's going to get an +education somehow--the father said he had saved money." + +"There's nearly thirty-one dollars in his pants' pocket," Matilda broke +in accurately. + +"He comes of good stock back about the time of the Revolution. Running +to seed since. It's mighty odd how blood bursts out now and again. +This fellow's mother came from The Forge--a pretty creature--died when +he was born. Took me thirty-six hours to bring him into life--but I +couldn't save the mother. The father is a degenerate--the only sign of +decency I ever noticed in him is his thought about this boy. Looks +like a tussle for Sandy Morley now, I reckon. What you want to do +about it? If he lives, which he likely enough won't, he's going to be +a right smart bit of care." + +Levi looked at Matilda and Matilda looked at Levi, and then they both +looked at Sandy. "Massachusetts!" moaned the boy, tossing about +restlessly--"I'm going to get there, I tell you! Mass--massa--chu----" +The voice trailed off miserably and Bob was alert at once. + +"I never cast a beast out----" began Levi. + +"Not to mention a human boy," added Matilda. + +"We're going to see him through or--out, doctor." + +The impassive face of the doctor gave no intimation as to his emotions. +He took out his medicine bottles and forthwith began to complicate +Sandy's chances in the hand-to-hand struggle. + +An old black woman, famed for her charms and nursing, was secured by +Matilda Markham to assist in the care of Sandy Morley. + +"I shall keep an eye on the witch," Matilda warned her brother, "but +she has a sense about nursing that can be relied upon." + +And so the battle was on. Gossip about the boy was killed at the +bedroom door. No one became interested or cared. The doctor, after a +week or two, chancing upon Martin Morley on The Way, told him of +Sandy's good fortune. + +"Morley, if there's a bit of the man in you," he advised, "let go that +boy and leave him to his opportunity. You've almost killed him, body +and soul, among you, now; whether it be life or death, let him have a +try for the clean thing. It's all you can do for him--forget him!" + +And Martin, with bowed head, acquiesced. + +"If he dies----" he faltered. + +"I'll let you know," the doctor replied. + +But Morley never heard of Sandy's death and the summer merged into +autumn, and the cold and shadow settled upon The Hollow. When winter +drove the mountain folks indoors to closer contact, bad air and poor +food, it drove the devil in with them and hard times followed. But +before the grip of winter clutched the hills, Sandy decided that in +spite of the odds against him he would make another attempt to reach +Massachusetts. + +A mere shadow of a boy was he when, in late September, Matilda Markham +got him out on the piazza one morning and, having tucked him up well in +blankets, remarked enlighteningly, "There!" + +All the fineness in Sandy had been emphasized during the weeks of +sickness. As the bad food, the bruises and tan had disappeared--and +what little flesh which his poor body possessed--the native delicacy +and dignity grew and grew. + +The people of The Forge, taking small interest in the Mountain Whites, +for whom they had a contempt, merely relegated Sandy to "Luck with the +Yankee who was dickering about a factory site." + +As for Sandy himself he had wandered too near the perilous edge of +things to be very keen as to his present and future. Often he lay with +closed eyes and thought back to Lost Hollow. The actual distance +between him and the only home he had ever known was short but, to a +community that spoke of Sheridan's Ride as if it had occurred but the +day before, and which slunk and shrank from moving out of its shadows, +The Forge was a "right smart way off" and, besides, no one but Martin +knew of the circumstances surrounding Sandy; and Martin, to the best of +his ability, was doing the only thing he could do for his boy. Often +on the long weary tramps in the woods he yearned to get a glimpse of +things, but the rough doctor's warnings and suggestions held him back. + +"Mart Morley, keep your clutches off that lad. You've nearly put an +end to him. Give others a try now." + +So with a courage and self-denial no one knew or suspected, Martin kept +to the hills and made ready for winter as best he could. He and Molly, +when the mood seized her, gathered wood and piled it carelessly by the +cabin door. It seemed a goodly pile while the days were still warm and +fine, but Martin, with a groan, realized how small the accumulation +really was with the long, black months lying before. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The warm sun of September brought a faint tinge to Sandy's hollow +cheeks. After Matilda's "There!" the boy had leaned his head back on +the pillow of his couch and closed his eyes. Bob, sleek and +well-conditioned, lay at his feet, starting now and then as he dreamed +of other days rich in kicks and blows, and lean as to platters of +nourishing food. + +"Sleeping?" asked Levi, coming on the porch with the mail and +whispering to his sister. + +"I shouldn't wonder." + +"He looks----" But Matilda shook her head at Levi and cut the words +short. To express an opinion about Sandy's appearance at that moment +would not do--it were best passed over lightly. Levi took a chair, +drew it up close to his sister, and left Sandy and Bob free to compare, +in dreams, the Then and Now of Life. + +"It was no use," Markham whispered. "I might just as well have let the +letter go that day he"--Levi nodded toward Sandy--"made his entrance on +the scene. They won't accept my terms. I wish now I had let them know +how I felt when my blood was up." + +"Life's too short for that, brother. Up or down, blood hampers when +it's hot. Common sense is always best. What does the letter say?" + +"The Treadwell woman won't lose her hold on Lansing: not even for four +years!" + +Matilda's eyes dropped and she kept silent. + +"She's about ruined him," Levi went on. "I put it to her plain and +solemn, but she always slips through argument like a greased snake. +Said I--let me have his next four years. I'll put him through college, +give him work in the mills during the summer, and when he graduates +I'll give him a choice of taking over the business or following a +profession. The knowledge of business and some honest, hard work would +bring the scamp's tone up. He's flabby now; flabby as his father +before him." + +"And she--says?" + +Levi turned to the letter. + +"She says she will not consider the plan for a moment, but she says she +will not mention it to Lansing, and when I return he may choose for +himself. I really thought the Treadwell woman would reckon with the +money and not be so independent!" + +"It's to her credit," Matilda murmured. + +"Oh! doubtless she thinks when I have it out with the boy I'll change +my mind. She'll find the contrary. It's come to the last ditch now. +I'm not going to have any repetition of--the past with my money backing +it!" + +Again a long silence while Sandy apparently slept, and Bob twitched and +grunted. Then: + +"Matilda, we must return to Massachusetts. How soon can we go?" + +Suddenly Sandy started up and leaned forward. His eyes were the one +prominent feature in his face, and they were now hungry and anxious. + +"Massachusetts?" he whispered in the weak, hoarse voice of the +convalescent; "Massachusetts? That's where I'm going; there's money to +pay my way, almost, I reckon. I'll work out the rest and make my +schooling, too. I'll promise. Oh! take me with you!" + +The agony of earnestness brought both man and woman to his side. + +"Now, now!" commanded Matilda, pushing him back on the pillow; "nothing +is ever gained by using yourself up in this shallow fashion." + +"But I've got to go!" Sandy urged breathlessly; "I started out to go. +I saved ever since I was seven years old to get away--and at last I +fixed on--Massachusetts because they let you work for your learning +there--and I've got to get it--get learning!" + +"Come! come!" Levi asserted himself--"just you calm down. But if it +will ease your mind any I'll tell you this much, lad. We've got it all +fixed up amongst us--and if you want to go to Massachusetts and try +your hand at your luck, you're going to be given an opportunity. Now, +let go that grip on the arms of your chair! Matilda, get some broth; +get----" + +But he stopped short. The look in Sandy's eyes held him. Levi Markham +often said afterward that the expression on the boy's face at that +moment gave him a "turn." It was no boy-look; it was the command from +all that had gone to the making of Sandy; command that the boy be dealt +fairly with at last. + +"I'm a hard man, Matilda," Markham said later, when Sandy had let go +the grip of his chair, taken his broth and fallen exhaustedly to sleep; +"I'm a hard man who has hewn his own way up, but I hope I'm a just man, +and I declare before God I wouldn't dare play unfairly with the lad. +He's not the first fellow I've put upon his feet; some have toppled +over; some have gone ahead of me and given me the cold shoulder +afterward--a few have stood by me in the mills--this youngster shall +have a try to prove that look on his face." + +So it was that ten days later the Markhams, with their "po' white +trash," left The Forge--Bob rebelliously struggling in the baggage car. +A certain piece of land high up among the hills had been purchased by +Markham and the deed rested secure in his pocket. He knew what he was +about, and if a certain fool of a boy thought well of a proposition to +be made to him--there might be a future for himself and others later on. + +"It's a great factory site," Markham had written home to his lawyer; +"plenty of water and power. Land as rich as if it was just made, and +labour aching to be utilized--not exploited." + +The journey to Massachusetts was taken in slow stages--Sandy and Bob +complicated matters. + +"You--think, sir, my money will--hold out?" Sandy once asked wearily. + +"I've been estimating," Levi thoughtfully returned; "barring accidents, +taking to cheap hotels and allowing for a few weeks' rest after we +reach home, the amount will about see you through." + +"Thank you, sir." + +They were talking in Sandy's bedroom in a very good hotel in New York +at that moment. + +"You look pretty spruce to-day, young man." + +"I'm feeling right smart, sir. Could--could I, do you think, +write--two notes?" + +This was such an unusual request that Markham was curious. + +"That's easy," he said; "there's writing things in yonder desk. I'll +read the paper while you transact business." + +Sandy was strangely sensitive to tones and expressions and now he +turned to Markham. + +"I want--my father to know I'm all right, sir," he said quietly. "If +he knows that--he can wait till--I go back." + +Suddenly the long stretches on beyond staggered Sandy and his thin face +quivered. + +"Then--there is----" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this +man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any +intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a--a girl, sir. She +helped me--earn money. She's--different from me--she's--quality, but +she'd like to know, too." + +Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from +view. + +"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a +man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested +him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was +something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were +discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much +desire. + +"Quality, sir, is not made. It--is!" + +Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance, +snarled resentfully. + +"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go. +Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good +honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human +soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors--we +only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand +up to the best of them in your hills--if it's in you to stand. It all +lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out. +Afterward I have a plan to propose." + +So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed +them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice. + +The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open +window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big, +seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and +crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he +had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no +complaints--he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how +and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he +should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled him and he +yearned for the open and the sight of a hill. He dreamed vividly of +Lost Mountain, and he always saw it now enveloped in mist--a mist that +he felt confident would never again lift for him. It was homesickness +in the wide, spiritual sense that overpowered Sandy Morley at that time. + +"Sandford, are you strong enough to talk business?" + +"Yes, sir, I reckon I am." + +The quaint politeness of his protégé charmed Markham by its contrasts +to the manner of other boys with whom he had come into contact. + +"Sit down, and take it easy. Shut the window. You never seem to be +able to hear when the sash is raised." + +"Us-all's been used, sir, to still places." + +"Now, then! In a day or two we will be home, Sandford. Home in +Bretherton, Mass. We can't offer you mountains there, but it is a good +rolling country and it's--quiet! I'm going to choose a school for you +as soon as I can, a country school where you can catch up without +having the life nagged out of you." + +"And--and where am I to work and--live, sir?" + +"You'll find work enough at the school for the regular terms--summers +you are going to stop with Miss Markham and me and I'll set you to work +in my mills. I always set every one I take an interest in, to work in +my mills." + +"Yes, sir." Sandy's eyes were growing "strange" again. Markham was +learning to watch for that look. + +"What's the matter?" he asked on the defensive; "what you thinking +about?" + +"Only Smith Crothers' factory, sir, and--and the children." + +"See here, Sandford; don't you get me mixed with that----" he stopped +short. At times his ability to converse with Sandy struck even him +with wonder. It was when he forgot the poor figure before him, and was +held by the expression in the thin face, that he let himself go. + +"My mills," he continued more calmly, "are places of preparation; +not--death traps." + +"Yes, sir." + +"It all depends on you, Sandford. I made my way up from as poor a chap +as you are. I've given a lift to a good many other boys because of the +boy I once was, but I never take any nonsense. I'm going to be fair +with you and I expect you to be fair with me. Take things or leave +them--only speak out what's in your mind and act clean. What I do for +you isn't done for fun: I expect a return for everything I advance, and +I take my own way to get it. While you are at school--it's school +returns I want. When you go into the mills--I'll look for returns of a +different kind. I'm going to give you an allowance, and it's got to +do." + +"Sir?" + +"Oh!--I mean I'm going, after I get you on your feet, to put up a +certain sum of money for you to live on; buy your clothes and get what +amusement you can--along your own lines. I'm not going to pry or +question you. You've got to feel your way along--it's always my +method. They who stumble or run astray must learn their own +lesson--not mine! I'll steady you at the start; after that you've got +to learn to walk alone or go to----" + +"Yes, sir!" The awful weight of responsibility was crushing Sandy as +the city did--but he kept clear eyes on Markham. + +"The only fun I have in life," Levi said, "is watching the outcome of +my investments. You are an investment, Sandford, a flier--I call you! +You're a risk and a pick-up, but some of my biggest hauls came from +fishing where others scorned to take a chance. + +"Yes, sir." + +"You are willing to--agree?" + +"Oh! yes, sir." + +"Sounds like a big chance?" + +"I reckon it does, sir, but it's what I saved money for ever since I +was seven. The _chance_, I mean, sir." + +"Sandford, when you feel that you can--not now, but some day--I want +you to tell me all about yourself." + +"Yes, sir." But the thin face twitched. + +"And now come down to dinner." + +For a few days more the crushing city did its worst for Sandy. The +noise and confusion wore upon him cruelly. The memory of the faces of +the crowds was to be a nightmare to him for years to come. To one who +had dwelt where few crossed his path, the close proximity of hundreds +and hundreds of eyes during the day left an impression never to be +forgotten. The personal contact, too, drained the small, lately gained +strength, but no complaint passed the boy's lips. Matilda pitied Sandy +and in her quiet, slow thoughtfulness shielded him how and as she +could. Markham had business in the city and was often absorbed, but at +odd moments he relaxed and sought to entertain his sister and their +charge by showing them the sights of the town. It would have been +impossible for him to appreciate the suffering he often, unconsciously, +caused Sandy, who, left to himself, would have crouched in some quiet +corner and closed his eyes against every unfamiliar thing. + +Quite weakened by the experiences of the stay in New York, the boy +reached at last the lovely little New England village of Bretherton at +the close of a radiant autumn day. He was too weary to feel even +gratitude as the carriage that awaited the party bore him away from the +noise and smell of the station by the railroad. His untried senses had +been taxed to the uttermost since leaving The Forge. His eyes ached; +his ears throbbed. Every new odour was an added torture, and his body +quivered at every touch. Sleep came to him early, however, and the +small, quiet room of the Markham house which had been allotted to him +was like a sacred holy of holies to the overstrained nerves. Sandy +slept like the dead all that first night, but habit still swayed him, +and at five o'clock he wakened suddenly and heard the stir of life out +of doors. Some one was calling a dog--his dog! It was Miss Matilda, +and Sandy smiled as he listened to her reasoning with Bob as was her +custom. Slowly the rested nerves asserted dominion over the boy, but +he did not move. He was back, in longing, among the old Lost Hollow +scenes. He was too weak to adjust himself into a new environment; +changes had worn out his ambition and hope. Miserably he turned upon +his pillow and with a sinking of the soul yearned to take his faithful +Bob with him and go back to that life which demanded no more of him +than he was able to give. + +But that very afternoon his future became so involved with that of +another, whom he had never seen, that to turn back would have been an +impossibility. He and Bob were walking over a stretch of soft, hilly +land toward the autumn-tinted woods beyond, when young Lansing +Hertford, the son of Levi Markham's dead sister, arrived for a +consultation with his uncle. All his life Markham had hungered for +something that had never been his--something peculiarly his own! His +hard and struggling younger years had denied any personal luxury. He +had worked his way up; supported his old father and mother and two +sisters; had grimly set his face away from love and marriage, and then +when wealth and opportunity came to him the desire was past. But with +rigid determination he looked in other directions for compensation. At +first it was his younger sister, Caroline. Like so many self-made men, +the fine, dainty things of life attracted him. He had dreams of costly +oil paintings and rare china, but in the meantime he devoted himself to +his sisters. He and Matilda were of one mind: after their parents' +death Caroline became their only care. + +Exquisite, carefully educated and beautiful, they gloried in her. They +endured the loneliness of the old Bretherton home while she visited +with schoolmates, or travelled abroad with new and gayer friends. +Caroline was the music of their dull lives; the art of their prosaic +existences. Then the shock came when she announced her engagement to +Lansing Hertford, an idle, useless son of a down-at-the-heel Southern +family. + +"He's no fit mate for you, Caroline," Markham said alarmedly. + +"That may be, brother," the girl had replied, "but I must marry him. +You have always said one must learn his own lesson, not another's. I +am ready to take the consequences. I could never get away from the +sound of Lansing Hertford's voice. I hear him at night. He tells me +that when temptation or weakness overpowers him he breathes my name. +So, you see, dear, I cannot escape." + +"Don't be a fool, Caroline!" + +Markham struggled against the sense of impotency surging around him. + +"It's my lesson, dear. I'll never wince." + +And she never had, even when Hertford's indifference changed to +cruelty. After the birth of her child, Caroline Hertford failed +rapidly and the end of her lesson came when her boy was two years old. +Markham and Matilda had desired to take the baby then, but Mrs. Olive +Treadwell, Hertford's married sister, put in a protest. + +"It would blight the boy's future if any gossip touched the dead mother +or bereaved father; besides he is too young to change nurses or +environment." + +When little Lansing was seven his father died abroad under conditions +shrouded with secrecy, and then it was that Olive Treadwell sought Levi +Markham and by methods unknown to the simple, direct man, contrived to +interest him in her nephew and his. + +"There'll be a mighty big fortune some day for some one to inherit--why +not Lans?" she argued to herself and began her campaign. She had grown +to love the boy in her vain, worldly way; she wanted him _and_ the +Markham money, and she cautiously felt her way through the years while +the child was with her. + +"I hear my nephew is called by your name," Levi remarked once during a +call at the Boston home of the Treadwells. + +"Just a childish happening. You know how simple little minds are; +having no mother but me, he calls me mommy, and naturally people speak +of him carelessly by my name." + +"He should bear his own and seek to honour it," Markham returned with +simplicity equalling a child's. Mrs. Treadwell winced. She dared not +show how she resented any unkind reference to her brother, but she had +always looked down upon his Yankee marriage, as she termed it, and +never could understand why the plain Markhams failed to realize the +honour her brother had paid them by taking Caroline for his wife. + +"I must see that the misnomer is corrected," was all Mrs. Treadwell +rejoined. So Lansing had passed through preparatory school and was +ready for college before Markham could be brought to definite terms. +The letter from The Forge was the first proposition, and now on that +September day Lansing Hertford, prepared and coached by his aunt +Treadwell, presented himself at Bretherton on the two-fifty train. + +"He'll probably offer you a beastly little allowance," Olive Treadwell +had warned; "but I'll add to that; so accept it like a lamb. Then +he'll throw Cornell to you--he has right bad taste in universities--but +you must use your tact there, Lans. Tell him about your associates and +how your future will be influenced by your college Frat and such +things. Men like your uncle Markham are always snobs at heart." + +Thus reinforced Lansing Hertford came up for judgment. He was a +handsome, rollicking chap--a charming combination of his graceful +father and his lovely mother--and he greeted his uncle and aunt with +frank affection. Even in those days Lansing Hertford could will his +emotions--or his emotions could will him--to sincerity for the time +being. He had ideals and enthusiasms--he changed them often, and, as +often, they changed him, but outwardly a frankness and openness were +his chief attributes and had held his uncle, through the hope-deferred +years, to expect big things of him. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Lansing Treadwell, after an hour on the piazza with his aunt and uncle, +followed the latter into the study and, taking the broad leather chair, +faced Markham across the flat desk with candid, friendly eyes. Levi +sat, as he always did when in that room, in his revolving chair; the +leather one was reserved for visitors. + +"Well, Lansing," he began, sternly endeavouring to obscure the hope, +pride, and affection that were welling up in his heart as he looked at +the boy; "you're through preparatory; have qualified for college and, +after this year, are ready for your career!" + +"I've done pretty well, Uncle Levi. I stand third in my class and I'm +the youngest." + +"How old are you?" + +"Seventeen." + +"You'll be eighteen when you enter college? That's too young." + +"I'm older than my years," Lansing gave a boastful laugh, then did a +bungling thing. "Won't you smoke, Uncle Levi?" and he passed a +handsome silver case forward; "it's a great tie between--well, chums!" + +"I've lived over sixty years without the need of that tie," Markham +returned stiffly; "I do not think I'll take it up now. I'm not much of +a preacher, but at your age, Lansing, I'd advise the collection of good +tastes and habits; let the doubtful luxuries await the years of +discretion." + +Lansing pocketed his silver case and gave an embarrassed laugh. Levi +went back to his former line of argument. + +"It's Cornell and the beggarly allowance," thought Lansing, but it was +no such thing. + +"You are too young to go to college, Lans; too immature to really put +yourself to any final test. Your assumption of dignity proves this +more than anything else. Of course I do not know how much or how +little you know of the past, but it is necessary, from now on, that you +and I should understand each other perfectly. I was very"--Levi +struggled for composure--"very fond of your mother." + +"Yes, uncle." + +"And I did not want her to marry your father. I feared he would not +make her happy--he did not!" + +The crisp facts came out with force but with no malignity, and Lansing +Hertford dropped his eyes as he replied: + +"Aunt Olive has told me they were very uncongenial." A flush rose to +the young fellow's face. A pride, not altogether unworthy, rang in the +words and for the first time Markham detected a resemblance to the +father in the close-shut lips. + +"I do not wish to say anything against your father that is avoidable, +but for your own safety and my own protection I realize that you and I +must be quite open with each other." + +"Yes, uncle." + +"Your mother died more of a broken heart than of anything else." + +The boy set his jaw. + +"I know father loved life and took it as it came," he said. + +A brief silence rested between the two, then Markham went on: + +"Naturally you inherit from both your parents. To a certain extent, +certainly, a man, under God, is master of his life and I want to give +you the best possible choice that lies in my power, not only for your +own sake and mine, but for your mother's and--yes! your father's!" + +"Thank you, Uncle Levi." + +And now the boy's eyes were raised once more. They swept the room, +Markham's face, and then travelled to the broad acres in rich +cultivation as far as one could see. + +"You have had too much pleasure and luxury, Lans; things have come too +easily. You have never been brought face to face with a longing, and +been made to understand that sacrifice, on your part, was necessary to +obtain it. Unless you have felt so, you are in no position to find +yourself, as you put it." + +Again the vital silence. + +"How do you know whether you want a college education or not? How do +you know you are worthy of this great privilege? You may not even be +fitted for it by nature." + +Had Markham asked if his nephew knew whether he would ever want to eat +a meal again, the boy could not have been more surprised. College, to +him and his set, was as natural a sequence as dessert after the courses +preceding it. For the life of him Lansing could not prevent a stare. +His aunt had left him utterly unprepared for this. + +"Now this is my proposition:" Markham had his elbows on his desk, his +chin resting on the points of his clasped hands; "I will take you into +the mills on exactly the same terms as I would any other young +fellow--except that you will share my home--until you learn the +rudiments of the business and discover whether you have any business +sense or not. By the time you have mastered that and experienced some +bodily labour, you will be in a position where you can choose, to some +degree, your career. Should you, then, wish to enter college, I will +permit you to select one, and I will see you through. It is my firm +belief that between a preparatory school and college there should be a +space of time, except in particular cases, for looking backward and +forward--a breathing time; a time for relaxation and the acquiring of +fixed aims. College should not be passed out to a boy as a plum or a +luxury--it's too grave a matter for that. All my life I have deplored +the lack of it--but I had to live and suffer before I realized its +importance." + +With all his honesty Lansing Hertford was trying at this critical time +to get his uncle's point of view. Of one thing alone was he sure--he +was, he believed, so far ahead of his uncle in his knowledge of life +that the old gentleman seemed but a blurred speck on the social +horizon. No longer could he be looked to as a safe adviser. Why, left +to himself, the man might sacrifice the family name and prestige! He +did not even understand the decent conventions due his own standing in +the community! Suddenly Lansing Hertford felt old and anxious as +though upon him, instead of Levi, rested the responsibility of the +future. He tried to frame a reply that might enlighten and not insult, +but it was difficult. At last he spoke. + +"Uncle Levi, I cannot see what such effort and success as yours amount +to if they do not place the next generation higher. What you say you +have deplored in your own life should prove to you what I ought to +have. Your experience counts for so much, you know. I expect to work, +and work hard--I always have worked hard. I'm two years ahead of most +fellows of my age. But I want to start from where you and my Aunt +Olive leave off, I want to mingle with my kind--I am all but qualified +to enter Yale--I could not go--back!" + +"Your kind! Go back!" Levi's eyes flashed under his shaggy brows. +"What is your kind? Have you ever mingled with those above or below +you? And as to going back--is it degrading to place yourself in a +position from which you can accept or decline a great opportunity +intelligently? I was forced to learn my lesson in a hard school; you +can still learn the lesson even with the limitations of luxury. Your +'kind' is good, bad, and indifferent, and there are other kinds. I see +you before me, young and hopeful--but ignorant and blind. I want to +open every avenue to you that leads to successful manhood. You are +losing nothing by my plan; you are gaining much." Something very +pleading rang in Markham's voice, but Lansing was deaf to it. + +"Uncle Levi--I cannot! I'd be a disappointment to you if I tried. +I've got to go on with the fellows. I'd lose more than you know if I +broke away now and--and buried myself in the mill, and then tried later +to pick up. You've never been through what I have--the break would be +the end of me! You'd know it when it was too late. I mean to try to +be the best of my kind, indeed I do--but the fellow I am is the result +of my training and it means everything to me." + +What Levi Markham saw before him now was the son of Lansing +Hertford--all resemblance to the mother was gone. Baffled and defeated +by a something invincible and beyond his understanding, the old man +faced the calmness of the young fellow in the chair across the desk. +When he spoke he addressed a Hertford only. + +"You have heard my proposition, Lansing; I mean to stand by it; unless +you can accept my terms I shall change my will." + +Could Markham only have understood he would have known that it was the +pride of his race, not the Hertfords', that spurred Lansing to retort +angrily: + +"I did not know I was being bought. I thought you were doing it for +what you believed was my good!" + +"And so I am!" The incongruity of thus arguing with a boy of seventeen +did not strike Markham. It was man to man, with the influence of Olive +Treadwell in the reckoning! + +"Give me my college first, Uncle Levi, and consider the business +afterward." + +"I have worked this thing out, Lansing. I am not likely to change my +mind." + +And just then Sandy Morley passed by the window with his dog at his +heels. + +"Who is that?" asked Lans indifferently, and a blind impulse spoke +through Markham. + +"The boy who will accept the offer I make if you decline it!" + +Lansing Hertford got upon his feet. All the forced affection and +respect he had been trained to observe dropped from him. His uncle +seemed a coarse, hard stranger, the surroundings distasteful. A +certain mental homesickness for all the pleasant luxury and environment +of his Aunt Olive's life overcame him. He spoke boyishly. + +"I think I will return to Boston to-night, Uncle Levi. There's a train +at seven. I couldn't eat dinner feeling as I do. Good-bye, I'm going +to walk to the station. Will you be good enough to send my traps up +to-morrow. Bid Aunt Tilda good-bye, please." + +He put out his hand frankly and was gone before Markham realized the +situation. + +"It was not Lans you were fighting," Matilda sagely remarked later when +her brother explained matters to her, "it was his dead father, and +Olive Treadwell. You just better write to the boy, I guess, and get +him to finish out his visit and reconsider. I tell you flat-footed, +Levi, there ain't much give to you when you've worked yourself up, and +I must say I like the lad all the better for the way he stood up for +his kin. They are his kin, and good or bad, that Treadwell woman has +won his affection when we couldn't. And to throw that--that strange +boy at his head in that fashion! It wasn't worthy of you, Levi! It +was downright shallow and you prating always of justice and sane +reasoning!" + +What might have happened when Markham had digested his sister's +practical remarks was never to be known, for Olive Treadwell, in blind +fury, and what she considered righteous indignation, prevented. + +Weak and unbalanced, but with a deep-seated belief in her social +superiority and worldly knowledge, she sent a letter, by special +delivery, to Bretherton, that left Levi incapable of response: + + +I suppose you have taken this method of degrading my dead brother and +me. That one of your humble origin can estimate the impression upon +another of such an offer as you made to my nephew is quite beyond +expectation. The Hertfords have always been gentlemen and ladies and +_you_ would send the last of the race, by the power of your vulgar +money, to work among common labourers in order to break his spirit and +pride! You are too blind, apparently, to appreciate the honour my +brother paid your sister by marrying her. His personal shortcomings +could not possibly outweigh the position that he gained for her when +she took his name. Through all these years I have suppressed my +feeling as to the matter because I have felt that you and I, working +together, might place the son of your sister and my brother in a +position that would reflect credit upon us both; but since you have +failed to recognize your opportunity and, in sordid revenge, have +sought to degrade him, I assume _all_ responsibility in the future. I +am, comparatively, a poor woman, but hereafter _Lansing Treadwell_ and +I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is +in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world +back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social +position are not to be envied or trusted. + + +Having read this aloud to Matilda, Levi dropped the closely written +sheet to the floor. + +"She's got the courage of her convictions," Matilda snapped. + +"And an old grudge," Markham returned. + +"Well, I will say this for her," Matilda added; "she's upset her kettle +of fish and Lans', too." + +"So it seems! So it seems!" + +Levi was looking at a flaming maple tree outside and thinking of his +dead sister. + +It was the evening of the day of the letter that Sandy Morley, sitting +rigidly in the chair that Lansing Hertford had lounged in, listened to +as much of an outline of his future as Levi Markham felt he could +comprehend. + +"And remember," Markham warned at the end, "I want you to learn how +_little_ a hundred dollars is as well as how big! One is as important +as the other." + +"Yes, sir," Sandy returned with a vague wonder, for he had yet to learn +to think in dollars. + +"Can you"--Markham considerately paused before putting the next +question--"do you feel able to tell me a little more about yourself +than I already know? I should like to feel that you trust me." + +Sandy was stronger and better for his days in Bretherton and, never +having had any great consideration shown him, he looked upon Levi +Markham as a veritable God especially upraised for his guidance and +protection. + +"I want to tell you!" he said in a low, tense voice. Leaning forward +until his arms touched the opposite side of the desk, his thin, +sensitive face was nearly on a level with Markham's. + +"It's--this--er--way." + +The shade at the broad window behind Sandy had not been lowered, and a +very magnificent black night riddled with stars stood like a shield +against which the boyish form and pale face rested. There was a +crumbling fire on the hearth, and the lamp on the table was turned low. +Markham, listening to the slow, earnest voice, became hypnotized by its +quality and pure purpose. He felt the dreariness and hopelessness of +the hard childhood, and the hate that Mary Morley had aroused seemed to +the listener to be the first vivifying happening. He never took his +eyes from Sandy's face from first to last. The years of labour, +self-sacrifice and fixed purpose stirred him strangely, and the touch +of spirit introduced into the boy's voice when he approached the end +found an echo in Markham's heart. + +"I'm going to learn and then go back and help them-all who can't help +themselves," Sandy explained, "for _I_ know, sir. No one what does not +know, could ever do it! Us-all fears strangers. I'm going to get +them-all safe some day, sir. I'm going to have a right, big place to +gather them in and teach them. No Hertford curse is going to kill what +has called me!" + +So abstracted had Levi been, so distant in thought from the Bretherton +study, and his own inward trouble, that this name, falling from Sandy's +lips, shocked him beyond measure. + +"What--did--you--say?" he gasped; "what name did you say?" + +"Hertford, sir." + +"What do you know of the Hertfords?" It was all Markham could do to +hold his emotions in abeyance. + +Sandy told his father's story, all but that which related to the +Waldens, and the listener hung on every word. + +"And so, sir, don't you see, I must be what they-all, my kith and kin, +couldn't be? I've got to use my chance for them as well as for me." + +"It's a big proposition, boy!" Levi relaxed. + +"Yes, sir." The young face was tired and worn. + +"Well, then, listen"--a strange light shone in Markham's eyes--"if you +prove yourself able to tackle this job, by God, I'll back you! You and +I will redeem that old Hollow of yours--you with my money! We'll get +Smith Crothers by the throat and throttle him; we'll clean up the Speak +Easies and cut more windows in the cabins. Where did you get the +notion, son, that with more light and air there would be less +damnation?" + +"I've lived in the cabins, sir." + +"Well, we'll cut all the windows you want and have the school +and"--Markham was quivering--"we'll see if the Morleys can't rise up in +the land of their fathers and stamp the Hertfords under foot!" + +"Yes, sir!" And then Sandy gave one of his rare, rich laughs. + +From that day the preparations began. A school in the mountains of New +Hampshire was selected, and Sandy fitted out with everything necessary +and proper. + +Markham was noted for a sense of propriety. He kept his mills and +lands in good condition because he was wise and sane; he housed his +employees decently for the same reason, and he insisted upon their +coöperation. He never let his taxes lapse, nor his money lie fallow. +He had, hidden in a drawer of his desk, a valuable diamond ring that he +took out in secret moments to enjoy. Occasionally the jewels were sent +to Boston and put on the wheel because the artistic soul of Levi +Markham demanded that through no carelessness of his should their +lustre become dimmed. For much the same reasons Sandy Morley was +entered upon his career in a manner befitting the hope that was in +Markham for him. + +The day Sandy was sent from Bretherton, Olive Treadwell and her adopted +son, Lansing Treadwell, sailed for a year's stay in Europe, and Levi +and Matilda Markham grimly agreed to leave things as they were. + +"There's no use stirring up pudding past a certain point," Matilda +said. "If you do it's apt to go heavy." + +"And it's the part of wisdom to watch a rising batch of bread," Levi +returned humorously. "When you can't get pudding--or when the pudding +fails--look to bread and make the best of it!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Cynthia Walden came slowly up the trail leading to the old gray house. +Since the day of the flood which bore old Ivy forever from sight, she +had confronted so many strange conditions that her eyes had the +haunted, frightened expression common to the mountain people. The +curse of the hills seemed to have settled upon her. She often said to +herself, "poor whites," in order that the significance might be fully +understood. Old Ivy had said that the cows were all that stood between +them and the fate of others who had, through misfortune, accepted the +title despised by the quality. + +Well, she, Cynthia Walden, was no longer quality; of that there could +be no doubt. Had Ivy and the cows been spared she might have hidden +her disgrace of parentage, but now she must, in order to get food and +wood, seek the help and charity of others, and she could no longer hold +up her head! + +At this thought the pretty, drooping head was lifted defiantly. No! +she would not go down just yet, for one last motive remained. While +she was at the store an hour before to buy a few necessary articles of +food with the pitiful supply of money she had found in an old teapot on +the kitchen shelf, a wonderful thing had occurred. Tod Greeley, +weighing out some tea, remarked casually: + +"I reckon, now I think o' it, Miss Cyn, there's a letter come for you. +One for you and one for Mr. Morley." + +"A letter!" Cynthia almost staggered. "A letter!" + +Never in all her life had Cynthia received a letter, never had her +imagination soared to such a height as to conceive of such a thing. +Tod finished his careful weighing, then added a reckless handful and, +having tied the tea up in a bulky package, wandered to the dirty row of +letter boxes. + +"Here it is!" he exclaimed after thumbing the morning mail over and +remarking about each article. + +"Yours and Mr. Morley's bear the same writing--Noo York! There ain't +been a Noo York letter in this yere post-office since I came to The +Hollow. It's a right smart compliment, Miss Cyn!" + +Trembling and pale with excitement, Cynthia grasped the letter, tucked +her little bundles under her arm and ran from the store. + +The cold, crisp air of late autumn spurred her to action, and she kept +on running, with the letter burning her hand like flame, so tightly did +she grip it. Before she reached the broken and dilapidated fence +separating the home place of Stoneledge from the trail, she paused +beneath a tree to take breath and reconnoitre. She looked at the +letter then for the first time, and she was sure it was from Sandy. +Her heart beat painfully and her eyes widened. Looking about to make +sure of privacy she tore open the envelope and lo! at the first words +the gray autumn day glowed like gold, and the world was set to music. +Poor Sandy, distracted by the noise and confusion of the big city, had +permitted himself, when writing to Cynthia, the solace of imagination +and memory. + +"Dear Madam Bubble!" Why, Cynthia had almost forgotten her pretty, +fascinating story-self! Her dear, slow smile had almost lost its +cunning. However, it returned, now, and drew the corners of the stern +young mouth up pathetically. + + +DEAR MADAM BUBBLE: + +I am remembering everything and holding to it. I shut my eyes and I +see you standing by The Way with your face like the dogwood flowers in +the spring--shining and white and happy! That--er--way is how it is +going always to look till I come back. No matter what happens to me; +no matter how mighty hard things are, I am just going to stop short, +when I feel I can't bear life, and shut my eyes and see you a-standing +waiting like what you said. I've met much kindness and a great +friend--it's the noise and strangeness and many folks what turn me +crazy-like, but always when I shut my eyes--you come and it seems +_home_ again. If I don't write, please Madam Bubble, know it's because +I'm fighting hard to get something fit to bring to you when I come +back. And I reckon you better not write to me--I couldn't stand it. +You know how I couldn't count the money till the time came! That is +the sort I am and, besides, I've got to find out what this--er--life is +going to make me into. If I shouldn't be worthy to come up The Way to +you--you better not know. But I will be! I will be! Thank you for +what you've done for me and most for letting me think you'll wait and +be ready. + + +Cynthia dropped the letter in her lap--for she was crouching beneath +the tree. It was a badly written and much-soiled letter but no missive +straight from heaven could have performed a greater miracle upon her. +A radiance flooded her face from brow to chin, and her eyes glistened +with the happy tears that never overflowed the blue-gray wells that +held them. + +"Sandy!" The familiar name passed her lips like the word of a prayer; +"Sandy--'The Biggest of Them All!' I'll be a-waiting by The Way like +what I said!" + +There were consecration and joy in the words, and the transformation in +the girl was wonderful. Gone was the look of despair and surrender. +Madam Bubble was herself again! + +Springing up, the girl began to dance about among the sodden autumn +leaves. She sang, too, as the wild things of the woods sing. There +was no tune; no sustained sound, but mad little trills and unexpected +breaks. She imitated the bird-note that was Sandy's signal; she meant +to practise it every day and keep it for his return lest he lost it +among the noises and crowds in which he must do battle. Then Cynthia +spied a hole in the trunk of the tree and with sudden abandonment she +pushed her letter into it. + +"There!" she panted; "and I'll put my answers in it, too, and give them +all to Sandy when he comes up The Way." + +But hunger and recent trouble laid restraining hands upon the girl at +that moment. She sank down and shivered nervously. Between this +moment and the one of Sandy's return stretched a dreary space, and how +was she to keep her heart light and meet the dreary problems that +confronted her? Winter was at hand; the wood pile had been swept from +the door, and there were only a few dollars in the cracked teapot. Old +Ivy's body, rescued a week after the flood, was buried from sight in +the Walden "plot," and Ann Walden was greatly changed. Cynthia did not +understand, but she was terribly afraid. Ann Walden laughed a great +deal, slyly and cunningly. She never mentioned Ivy except to question +where she had gone. The mistress of the Great House, too, took to +pacing the upper balcony and repeating over and over: + +"The hills--whence cometh my strength!" + +It was quite fearful, but Cynthia had already learned to keep away from +her aunt at moments of excitement; her presence always made matters +worse. And once, soon after her return, Marcia Lowe had ventured to +call at Stoneledge, but the outcome of her visit had been so deplorable +that the little doctor was driven to despair. She had knocked at the +outer door, which stood ajar, and, receiving no reply, had walked into +the hall and to the library. There sat Ann Walden just as Miss Lowe +had left her on the fateful afternoon of the letter. When Miss Walden +raised her eyes to her unannounced caller a madness, with strange +flashes of lucidity, overcame her. + +"Out!" she shouted--"it was all a lie--there never was a marriage! +Never! Would you kill me and the child? Leave us alone. We will not +take the money or the shame! Leave me! leave me!" + +Then running to the far corner of the fireplace she sank upon the floor +and with outstretched hands she moaned: + +"He killed her! killed her! and I damned her; leave us alone!" + +At that point Cynthia rushed into the room and caught the poor, old, +shrinking form in her arms; then, with flashing eyes she turned upon +Marcia Lowe. + +"Go!" she commanded with sudden courage and desperation. "Go! Don't +you hear Aunt Ann?" + +"You promised, little Cyn!" whined Miss Walden, "you promised!" + +"I know--all about it!" Cynthia murmured, still keeping her fear-filled +eyes upon the caller--"I, too, want you--to go away!" + +Her training had fitted Marcia Lowe to understand and take alarm at +what she beheld, but it also demanded that she leave at once. Since +then Cynthia had never seen the little doctor, and the change in Ann +Walden did not include another furious outburst such as that. + +The excitement of the letter faded when the magic sheet of paper was +hidden from sight, and stern necessity brought the severe lines back to +the thin, pale face. It was just at that moment that Smith Crothers +came down the path, crunching under his heavy boots the damp leaves and +branches. Seeing Cynthia beneath the tree he paused and took off his +hat. Whatever the girl felt and believed of the man was gained though +indirect information--he had meant nothing personal to her before, and +it was something of a surprise for her to realize that he was a good +looking man and could smile in kindly fashion. + +"Little Miss Walden," he said courteously, "I've just been a-hearing +how you-all suffered from the storm. Mr. Greeley done told me the old +lady is all around cracked!" + +"Cracked!" The mountain interpretation of this word flooded Cynthia's +consciousness like a flame that made plain all the subtle fear of the +past few weeks. That was it, of course! "All around cracked!" + +"Oh!" came in a shuddering cry; "oh! oh! oh!" + +"Now don't take on that-er-way," comforted Crothers, coming nearer. +"Us-all mean to stand by you. I expect you-all ain't over-rich either, +and we-all can help in a right practical way. What do you say, little +Miss Cyn, to coming down to the factory and doing light work and +getting mighty good pay?" + +A new horror shook Cynthia's pallid face; but Crothers met it with a +laugh. + +"Don't take on without reason," he soothed. "Ain't I done something +for the mountings?" he asked; "I know what some folks think about me, +little Miss Cyn, but you be a right peart miss, and I ask you straight +and true--wouldn't things be worse, bad as they be, if I didn't take +folks and pay 'em? Chillun is better 'long o' their mothers, when +all's said and done, and they don't have to come if they don't want to, +and when they do come the work don't hurt them. Just 'nough to keep +'em from mischief and me a-paying their parents for what is play to the +young-uns." + +Cynthia thought of Sandy's moan over the baby-things of the factory and +her eyes filled. She did not know, perhaps Sandy did not understand, +but once he had said to her during a flight of fancy: + +"Some day I'm going to gather them-all away from old Smith Crothers and +save them!" + +"Come and see for yourself, little Miss Cyn." + +The tone was friendly and kind, and the actual necessity of the future +gripped Cynthia. + +"Come and see. I know what is due to you and your folks, Miss Cynthia; +I don't ask you to work 'long of the others. I have work for you right +in my office where I can have an eye to your comfort and pleasure. +Just copying letters and addressing envelopes and I will give +you"--Crothers paused; his sudden desire was carrying him perilously +near the danger point of being ridiculous--"I'll give you three dollars +every week. Three whole dollars!" + +With vivid memory Cynthia recalled the long years that it had taken to +earn the three dollars for Sandy's venture and she gave a little gasp. + +"Three whole dollars! And you can get down to the factory after you +make the old lady comfortable, and I can let you have a little +mule--all for yourself--to tote you to and fro." + +"It's--it's very kind of you, Mr. Crothers," Cynthia panted; "I'll +ask----" Then of a sudden she recollected that there was no one to +ask. For the first time in her life she was confronted by an +overpowering condition that she must meet alone! Just then a sharp +touch of cold struck her as the changing wind found the thin place in +her coarse gown. + +"I'll--I'll come, and thank you, Mr. Crothers," she said in shaking +voice. "I'll come, next week!" + +"Good!" cried Crothers, "and I'll send up the mule--we'll put its feed +in saddle bags--I'll throw that in and----" the smile on the man's face +almost frightened Cynthia, though the words that followed seemed to +give it the lie. + +"I'm going to have one of the men stack wood for you, too, and lay in +some winter vegetables. I don't want you to think badly of me, little +Miss Cyn. I want to help you-all." + +When he had gone Cynthia drew a long breath, and shivered as though +some evil thing had threatened or touched her in passing, but an hour +later she was thankful her sudden impulse had led her to accept +Crothers' offer, for the wind changed and brought from its new quarter +a biting warning of winter. Fires had to be kindled to warm the damp, +dreary rooms, and Ann Walden, crouching by the blaze, looked gratefully +up into Cynthia's face and laughed that vacant, childish laugh that +aroused in the girl the fear that youth knows, and the pity that woman +learns. And late that afternoon the little doctor, astride her rugged +horse, rode up to the cabin of Sally Taber, and made a business +proposition. + +Sally was gathering wood behind her cabin with a fervour born of fear +and knowledge. She knew what the change of wind meant and her wood +pile was far from satisfactory. Long before Marcia Lowe came into +sight the old woman stood up and listened with keen, flashing eyes +alert. + +"Horse!" she muttered, and then rapidly considered "whose horse?" + +Not the old doctor's from The Forge, for he never used up horseflesh in +that reckless fashion. His circuit was too far and wide for such +foolish extravagance. + +"It's coming this-er-way!" Sally concluded, and since there was no +other human habitation on that particular route but her own she +rightfully appropriated the approaching visitor. With a quickness of +motion one would not have suspected in such an old body, the woman ran +into her cabin and, as a society belle might have rushed for her toilet +table, Sally made for a closet in the corner of her living room. From +there she brought forth a can of vaseline and daubed some of the +contents artistically around her lips; then she tied over her shabby +gown a clean and well-preserved apron and smoothed her thin, white hair. + +"Now," she muttered, composedly taking her knitting and sitting before +her hastily replenished hearth-fire; "now, I reckon who-sumever it may +be, will think I've had a po'ful feast o' po'k chops, judging from my +mouf, an' no quality ain't mo' comfortable than I be?" + +A smile of content spread over the old face as this vision of +respectability enfolded the poor soul. At that moment Marcia Lowe +jumped from her horse, tied it to a tree and came rapidly up to the +open door. There was an anxious look in her eyes and the corners of +her lips drooped a trifle more than they did when she first rode up The +Way. The life of The Hollow was claiming her as it had her uncle +before her. As she looked in the cabin and saw the composed figure of +the mistress a gleam of humour lighted her face and she secretly +rebelled at the sensation of lack of ease which often overcame her in +the presence of these calm, self-possessed "poor whites." + +"They are so inhumanly superior!" she thought, and then a kindlier +feeling came. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Taber." + +Sally looked up with an assumed surprise worthy of her race and +tradition. + +"If it ain't Miss Lowe!" she exclaimed, coming forward cordially. "It +sho' am, Miss Lowe! Come in, ma'am and rest yourself." + +Sally's idioms savoured of darky dialect and her mountain quaintness: + +"I'll brew a dish o' tea, ma'am." + +Marcia Lowe refused this attention and stayed Sally by her first words. + +"Miss Taber, I want you to help me out with a very difficult matter. +No one can help me--but you!" + +People might think what they cared to about this stranger from Trouble +Neck--the men still distrusted her--but the women were rapidly being +won to her. + +"I 'low you can count on me, ma'am. I says to myself often, says +I--Sally Taber, jes' so long as you can make a friend or do a +'commodation job, you is useful to de community--when yo' +can't--why--den!" And with that Sally gave a "pouf!" as if blowing +away a feather. + +Marcia Lowe could not keep her eyes from the shining, greased lips; she +was becoming acquainted with mountain peculiarities, but she was +perplexed by the neat Sally's daubed face. + +"It's about--Miss Walden," she said softly, moving her chair closer to +Sally. + +"What's happened 'long o' her?" An anxious look crept into Sally's +eyes. + +"I fear--she is not exactly right." + +"It's in the family," Sally murmured; "when things go awry 'long o' +them, they jes' naturally take to queerness. The ole general, Miss +Ann's father, he done think he was God-a'mighty, long toward the last. +I kin see him now a-coming up The Way blessing us-all. They ain't none +o' them dangerous, jes' all around cracked, ma'am." + +"But the little girl, Miss Taber, she ought not to be alone there with +Miss Walden. You see I have studied medicine and I know--it is +dangerous and--it mustn't be. See here! I cannot do anything without +making more trouble. I'm not one of them, but you could go and--well, +just take control! Say that you--need shelter and help--you know Miss +Walden would do anything for her friends; put it that way and +then"--here Marcia Lowe laid some money in the old shrivelled hands, +"there will always be money for you to buy what is necessary for the +comfort of you all." + +The keen eyes glittered, and the quick mind was caught by the subtlety +of the suggestion. Here was a chance to play great lady; to return +favours that long had been conferred upon her, and at the same time +retain her respectability and dignity. It was a master stroke and +Marcia Lowe felt a glow of self-appreciation. + +"You can care for her, Miss Taber; you can see that Cynthia is properly +looked after, and you can give Miss Walden the joy of her life in +thinking that she is able to help you. It is a pardonable bit of +deceit, but will you assist me?" + +After a decent show of hesitation, Sally decided that she would and, at +the close of the afternoon, was seated behind the little doctor--with +her pitiful store of clothing, jogging in a bundle at her back, on the +way to Stoneledge. Miss Lowe set her down at the trail leading up to +the old crumbling house, with these words: + +"If ever my uncle did a kind deed, for you, Miss Taber, do this for him +now." + +Toting up the hill, Sally's thoughts wandered back to Theodore Starr +and settled on a certain dark, cold night when he sat in her cabin +piling the wood on her fire, while she lay shivering with chill upon +her wretched bed. All the charms had failed, the rabbit foot, under +the dripping of the north end of the roof had not eased a single pang, +and hope was about gone when Starr chanced by. He had meant to ask for +a bite and a night's shelter, for he was worn by travel and service, +but instead he sat beside her the night through and fought death by the +bravery of his spirit and the homely task of keeping warm the shivering +body. He had put his coat over her and aroused her to interest and +courage. + +"The Lord does not let one of us off until our day's work is done," he +had said even when he himself feared Sally's duties were over. + +"Ah' mighty right He war'," Sally now muttered, panting up the last +rise. "I reckon I got something yet to do." + +Her advent at Stoneledge was nothing less than consummate acting. +Knocking at the kitchen door she responded to the call from within and +stood before Ann Walden crouching by the fire, and Cynthia awkwardly +trying to evolve an evening meal from some materials on the table. + +"Miss Ann, I've come to ax mercy o' you." + +Miss Walden laughed foolishly. + +"Everything is plumb gone an' I got to tell some one o' my misery. +Nothing to eat; nothing to hold onto 'cept a trifle o' money what I'se +afraid to let any one know I'se got. Miss Ann, chile, there ain't any +one goin' to be s'prised at money coming from the Great House, so jes' +let me bide long o' you an' lil' miss, for God's sake, ma'am." + +The old tie between the family and its dependents held true now even +through the growing mists of Ann Walden's brain. + +"Cyn," she commanded, "get Ivy--where is Ivy? Tell her to make up a +bed for Sally in the loft over the kitchen." + +And then again she laughed that meaningless laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Life in the Morley cabin was tense and dangerously vital. The cold had +settled down now with serious intent; the door was permanently closed +except of entrances and exits and the two small sliding windows in the +front and back of the living-room were never opened, and they were +coated with grease and dirt until even the brightest day filtered +through but dimly. + +Martin was depressed and forlorn, he took what was offered him, asked +no questions and seemed far and away from any hope of reasserting +himself. He brought water and wood indoors; he made and kept the fire; +he slept on the settle before the hearth and always he was dreaming or +thinking of Sandy. The letter that had, after many weeks, drifted to +him, had been read to him by The Forge doctor who happened to be riding +by when Martin tremblingly pleaded with him for help. + +"It's this-er-way," Morley had explained, striving to hide the depths +of his illiteracy; "my eyes don' gone back on me. I reckon I better go +down to The Forge and get specs, but jes' now I'd like to have light on +this yere letter." + +The doctor read poor Sandy's effusion with some emotion. With broader +experience he saw the effort the boy had made to withhold his own +lonely state from the father. There was an attempt at cheer in the +words weighted, as the reader saw, with homesickness and longing. + +"Now, Morley," he cautioned, when the letter was ended, "you keep your +hands off that boy. If there is a spark of love for him in your heart, +let him fight his battle off there alone. He's found a good friend and +it's his one chance. If you want to do anything for him keep yourself +above water; have the family respectable for him to come back to. I'm +not much on prophesying, but remembering what you once were and what +his mother was, I have hopes of Sandy." + +No one knew or could have guessed that poor Martin was heeding the +doctor's words, but he was. He had stopped drinking. Not a drop of +liquor had passed his lips for weeks, and the craving was stronger at +times than Martin could endure. At such moments he stole to the +outshed and, gripping a certain little ragged jacket, which still hung +there, to his twitching face, would moan: "Oh! God, help me for +Sandy's sake." Not for his own--but for Sandy's sake always. And God +heard and upheld the weak creature. + +Then came the night when Mary and Molly aroused Martin from his sleep +as they came in about midnight. Martin had supposed them upstairs long +before. He had come in at nine o'clock from the shed where he had +wrestled with his craving and, by the help of God, had come out +victorious once again. He had fallen asleep soon after and a vivid and +strange dream had held him captive by its power. Sandy had come to him +clearly, and comfortingly; had sat close to him and laid his hand in +his. They had talked familiarly, and then suddenly the boy had asked: + +"Dad, how about Molly? She belongs to us-all, you said. I've been +thinking about Molly; where is she?" + +Just then the dream faded; the man on the hard settle pulled himself +up, looked dazedly at the almost dead fire and--listened! Some one was +fumbling at the door; some one was coming in! Martin's heart stood +still for, with the dream fresh in his mind, he thought it was Sandy, +and even through his sick longing for the boy a fear seized him. But +Mary came into the dim room with Molly clinging to her. They tiptoed +across the floor toward the stairway and had almost reached it when +Martin flung a log of wood on the fire, and in the quick flash of light +that followed stood up and asked in a clear, forceful voice: + +"Whar you-all been?" + +The strangeness and surprise took Mary off her guard, and she faltered: + +"What's that to you, Mart Morley?" + +Martin threw another log on the fire, as if by so doing he could +illuminate more than the cold black room. + +"What yo-all been doing? Molly, come here." + +Frightened and trembling the girl came forward. She looked far older +than her years. Her bold, coarse beauty had developed amazingly during +the past few months, and the expression on her face now roused all the +dormant manhood in Morley's nature. Ignoring the woman by the +stairway, he gripped Molly by the shoulders, and holding her so that +the lurid light of the flaming logs fell upon her, he drove his +questions into the girl's consciousness and brought alarmed truth forth +before a lie could master it. + +"Whar yo' been, Molly?" + +"Up to--to Teale's." + +"What--doing?" + +"Dancing for 'em." + +Martin's eyes flashed. It was quite plain to him now--the hideous, +drunken orgy, and this little girl fanning ugly passions into fire by +her youth and beauty! + +"You----" Morley rarely swore, but the eloquent pause was more +thrilling than the word he might have spoken. While he clutched Molly, +his infuriated eyes held Mary like something tangible, and drew her +forth from her shadows. + +"She's--mine!" the woman panted. For the first time in her life she +was awed by Morley; "she's mine and--the devil's. That was the bargain +and no questions asked. The devil pays good wages, Mart. We'll--we'll +share with you!" + +The woman was actually whining and seeking to propitiate the man. + +"I've been true to you, Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause +I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, Mart--but--we-all +have got to live!" + +Morley tried to control himself before he spoke, and finally managed to +say, not unkindly: + +"Molly, you go upstairs. Shut--shut and lock the door!" + +"Mart!" Genuine terror rang in Mary's tones. "Mart--she's mine +and----" + +"Go!" commanded Morley, and the child almost ran to do his bidding. +Then alone the man and woman faced each other. Desperation gave +courage to Mary. If all were lost but her physical strength and +bravado, then she must use them. + +"You did what you wanted to do with him as was yours," she panted; "you +helped him away, and left us-all to starve. You leave--Molly to me +and----" + +"Stop!" cried Morley, unable to hear the brutal repetition. "You would +sell the--the child to Teale and his kind?" + +"It's the only way, Mart. I'll keep my hold on her--they----" + +"You!" And then, driven by the outraged virtue of the suppressed and +forgotten past, Morley gave expression to his emotions in the language +of The Hollow. For the first time in his life he struck a woman! + +Once the deed was done he reeled back, calmed at once into frozen +horror. Mary staggered and fell. In falling she struck her head +against the andirons on the hearth and lay quite, quite still while a +stream of blood from a cut behind the left ear mingled with the ashes +and turned them dark and moist. It seemed hours that Morley looked and +looked before he could master himself and move toward the woman upon +the floor. Finally he listened to her heart, but his own pulsing ears +deceived him; he tried to raise her up, but his strength was gone, and +he let the lifeless body drop again on the hearth. Then a craven +desperation overcame him. Gone were his courage and power, like a +maddened criminal he strode to the stairway and wrenched the locked +door from its hinges and sprang up to where Molly, sobbing and moaning, +crouched in the far corner. + +"Come," he whispered; "come!" + +"Where's--mother?" + +"Her's gone--to--Teale!" The lie rang out fiercely, boldly. Then +wrapping an old bedspread about Molly and keeping her close to him, he +made his way down the stairs and out of the house. Molly did not turn +to look into the lower room, she believed Martin, and she was numb with +terror. + +"Whar we-all going?" she panted, as Martin dragged her on. This +question roused Morley. Up to that instant he had not considered where +he was going; he only felt the necessity of flight. + +"To--to Trouble Neck," he answered as if some one else were speaking +through him. + +"To her as--as they call the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady." + +Molly did not speak again, but the answer had stilled somewhat her fear +and anguish. By the time she and Martin reached the Trouble Neck cabin +her uncanny shrewdness and cunning were well to the fore. + +The little clock on the mantelshelf had just struck two when Marcia +Lowe raised her tired eyes from the book spread out on the table before +her. + +The one large room of the cabin was kitchen, dining-room, parlour, +library; all that was not included in bed-chamber. The lean-to was +Marcia Lowe's sleeping apartment and a tiny room above reached only by +a ladder from outside, served as a trim, cleanly resting-place for a +chance guest or a needy traveller. + +The little doctor lifted her aching eyes and took in the rude comfort +of her home-place with a deep sigh. + +"Oh!" she whispered--for she had adopted the compromise of the lonely +woman and talked aloud to herself--"oh! if they could forget my sex!" + +She was thinking of a conversation she had had with The Forge doctor +that very day. + +"I--I wish you would work with me," she had pleaded; "they would accept +you; obey what you say and--give me a chance." + +The doctor had laughed good-naturedly. Miss Lowe amused him hugely. +She seemed to him like a child playing with sugar and bread pills. + +"My dear young lady," he had said; "they'd shoot me, and with good +reason, if I let any petticoat Saw Bones tamper with them; no insult +intended--only compliment, dear lady! Your books read like fairy +stories; I'm too old a hand to be taken in. The revised Bible, ma'am, +is dangerous for souls, and new ideas in physic are about the same for +bodies. I read when I can--but I'm too human to experiment on my kind. +A few old remedies and a good stiff bluff are all that are needed +up-er-here. Now as to you, my dear young miss, I'd have to put you +under lock and key or buy you a return ticket to that +fly-in-the-face-of-Providence state of yours if you tampered with the +bodies of these people. That uncle of yours juggled considerable in +his day, but souls are one thing; bodies, another." + +Marcia Lowe now clasped her hands behind her tired head and raised her +eyes to the low ceiling. + +"Just for one faithful soul!" she murmured; "no, one faithful body that +would trust itself to me for--a month; a month! A few days of +starvation; a magic little pill; a spell of patient waiting and then--a +miracle." + +But no response came from the stillness of the night and Miss Lowe was +about to make preparations for bed when a sound outside stayed her. +Then came a knock on the door! She went to the small window beside the +door, drew aside the dainty white curtain, opened it halfway and asked: + +"Is that you, Hope?" She had promised Liza to bide with her when her +hour came, but it was not Hope who replied: + +"This is Martin Morley, ma'am. Me and lil' Molly." + +The door was opened at once and closed after the two. + +"Now," said the little doctor, stirring the fire to greater effort and +seeing that her callers had the easiest chairs in the room, "now, then, +Mr. Morley." + +Molly followed every motion of Marcia Lowe with unchildlike interest. +Fear was gone from the girl's face, but an alert sharpness marked it. + +"Can you give her," Martin nodded toward Molly, "a bed for--for +to-night? I have something to tell you." + +Marcia Lowe sensed that something serious lay behind the request, and +rose at once and went to Molly. + +"Come into my bedroom," she said; "I can make you very comfy, I'm sure. +Will you sleep with me?" + +Molly nodded and followed meekly. After a time Marcia Lowe came back +and, standing in front of Morley, said quickly: + +"What is it?" + +The haggard, haunted face was raised to her. + +"I've--I've done killed Mary!" he said simply. + +The little doctor shuddered, but controlled her features; her eyes did +not fall from the wretched man's face. + +"Tell me!" was all she said. Then Martin slowly in a hushed voice, +described all that had passed, even the vision of Sandy. + +"The Lord-a'mighty, He knows I didn't mean to kill," Martin quivered; +"but who-all will believe that? I meant to stay clean and fair for the +boy's coming back, Miss Lowe, ma'am, deed I did, and now he'll come +back to----" Martin could not frame the hideous truth in words; he +gulped miserably and went on; "please, ma'am, keep--her, Molly, from +Teale and them-all!" + +"And you?" So simply did the question come that the man replied in +kind. + +"I--I can't let them-all cotch me, ma'am. Come morning, I'll be past +hurting any one, more." + +The childlike pathos in this criminal's voice and attitude confused the +listener. For the life of her she could not deal with the situation in +any ordinary fashion; it seemed like a dramatic incident bungled by +amateurs. Presently she asked gently: + +"Are you _sure_ she is dead, Mr. Morley?" + +The unreality held Martin, too. + +"I reckon she is," he faltered; "I--I couldn't hear her heart--and she +laid right still. I expect she is dead." + +The ludicrous overpowered even the turn of possibility, and the little +doctor said: + +"You just mustn't kill yourself or harm Sandy unless it is necessary, +you know. If you will go out and harness my horse to the buggy, you +and I will make sure." + +By the time Morley had mechanically fulfilled these commands, Marcia +Lowe had decided, from the sound of Molly's breathing, that she might +safely be left alone, and, cloaked and hooded, joined Martin outside. + +It was a dreary ride, and the two spoke seldom. + +"You are to be no coward, Morley," Marcia Lowe had said; "you're to +face your future like a man--like Sandy's father. He will well +understand. I will stand by you and see fair play for you; I'll pay +for a good lawyer, and you will take your medicine, whatever it is, and +be clean and decent for your boy and girl. I'll take care of Molly." + +After a time Martin agreed to this, but from the shivering of the form +beside her, the little doctor realized the struggle. + +And so they reached Morley's cabin and entered, like ghosts, into the +fear-haunted place. Mary was gone. The fire was smouldering in the +last flashes, the damp ashes were drying--but Mary had made a bodily +escape. + +"So!" whispered Marcia Lowe. "It was better to make sure. Go +upstairs, see if she is there." + +Mary was not there. + +"Now come back." + +Through the chill of the early morning the two drove silently back to +Trouble Neck and with strange foreboding the little doctor made her way +at once to the lean-to bed-chamber--Molly, too, was gone! She had made +her way to Teale's, Miss Lowe felt sure. + +The next morning the news spread fast, garbled by many tongues. + +Teale's place had been raided! Teale had escaped and the Morleys had +accompanied him. + +"Well!" said Sally Taber to Cynthia; "I 'spect Mart Morley had to get +his livin' somehow. The yaller streak's got the best of him." + +Cynthia made no reply. Oddly enough in her fancy she was gazing upon +the portrait of "The Biggest of Them All." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Martin Morley slept, in the clean loft over Marcia Lowe's living-room. +There was a good warm bed there, and before he had gone up the ladder +to his much-needed rest, the little doctor had fed him and given him +hot coffee to drink. + +"You are safe," she had comforted him. "God has been good to you, +Martin Morley. Molly is with her mother and, sad as it is, we can do +nothing more for her. Forget it all, and to-morrow you and I will +consider the future." + +So Martin slept and slept, and the front door of the cabin was kept +closed and locked. + +Refreshed and humble, Martin, on the evening of the following day, +cautiously crept down the ladder from his loft-chamber and tapped upon +the outer door of the cabin. + +It was a very smiling and trim little body that welcomed him and bade +him sit down to a table laid for an evening meal. + +"You see I've waited for you, Mr. Morley; we have a slice of ham, some +hot biscuits, and baked potatoes. There's a loaf of cake, too, and +coffee and a try at a pudding for which my mother used to be famous." + +Every nerve of Martin's starved stomach thrilled, but his eyes did not +meet Marcia Lowe's. + +"You are feeling better, Martin Morley?" + +"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am." + +"Well, then I want you to share my meal." + +"I--I ain't worthy, ma'am. I can never pay you, ma'am, for what you've +done and meant to me. I'm ready to go now, ma'am." + +"Where, Martin Morley?" The little doctor was pouring the coffee, and +the odour made Morley dizzy with longing. + +"I ain't just settled in my mind as to that, ma'am. The world's big, +beyond The Hollow." + +"Too big for you, Mr. Morley, until you are yourself--your best self +again. And you can pay me--I have my bill ready." + +Martin eyed her furtively and tried to steady his hand as he reached +out for the plate of savoury food she was passing to him. They ate +silently for a while, then Marcia Lowe tried to cheer him by scraps of +gossip that had drifted to her during the day. + +"They think you have gone with Teale," she said with a little laugh; +"the idea of your flying off in that company! Have another potato, Mr. +Morley; the staying power of a baked potato is simply marvellous." + +When the meal was finished and the dishes put away, Marcia Lowe faced +her gloomy guest with deep, serious eyes. + +"You feel you owe me something, Mr. Morley?" she asked. They were +sitting opposite each other by the hearth; a pouring rain dashed +against the window and a rising wind howled through the trees. A sleek +yellow cat turned around two or three times and then settled +comfortably at Marcia Lowe's feet and purred happily. + +"I do that, mum." + +"You are--willing to do something for me--for Sandy, but most of all +for yourself?" + +Morley was becoming accustomed to the little doctor's quaint way of +putting questions, but her manner still puzzled him. + +"Yes, ma'am," he answered confusedly. + +"Then listen, Martin Morley. I want to save you, first of all for +yourself--next for that boy of yours, who, I somehow feel confident, +will come back to honour us all. I believe I can do what I have in +mind--there is a little risk, very little, but will you run it for me?" + +Morley's thin face twitched. Many emotions swayed him. Doubt, +suspicion, superstition, the ingrained revolt of sex--the male +resenting this power of the female--all, all held part in Morley's +mind, weakened by trouble and malnutrition, but above all was the +innate yearning to prove himself for Sandy. Martin had the supreme +instinct of parenthood. + +"You know you were willing to die for him, Mr. Morley. Are you not +willing to run the chance of a better, cleaner life?" + +Marcia Lowe was bending forward now, her face radiant and inspired--she +looked young, lovely and compassionate. + +"I--I--don't follow you, ma'am." Poor Martin was caught in the toils +of the enthusiast. + +"Then listen. I have studied and--conquered to a certain extent--a +great and noble help for humanity--but I am hampered in my work because +I am a woman. Oh! no one--no man can understand how terrible it is for +us women to look beyond the man and woman part of life and see _human +beings_ needing us, crying out to us, and for us, to realize that often +we might help, in our own way best of all--if only something, over +which we have no control, did not bar us. You see, men have no right +to deprive human beings of any assistance the world can give. If we +women tell men of our hopes and our beliefs, they accept or decline as +they think best--and so much is lost! Why, I have been pleading with +The Forge doctor ever since I came, to work with me in doing what I +long to do, and he will not--he laughs! I am not rich enough or +important enough to bring a big doctor from my home to do this thing +for you, all that I could do alone. So here I stand with, I solemnly +believe, a precious gift and I--I--cannot give it to you because--you +won't trust a woman!" + +Marcia Lowe was talking far and beyond Morley; he stared bewildered at +her, but something within himself was reaching out and touching, with +soul-intensity, the tragic appeal from the little woman opposite. + +"Uncle Theodore Starr came here because he loved his kind and felt that +you all needed him most. Because you had no choice, he believed you +would accept him. Can you remember how he worked among you? served you +and died for you?" + +"I--do, mum!" An old sense of gratitude gave force to the words. + +"Well, I feel as he did, only I want to mend your poor, sick bodies; +make you strong enough to want to help yourselves like men and women! +I want you to know that you have _souls_." + +But now Martin was lost again. The stare settled on his face and only +the hypnotism of the woman across the hearth guided him. Marcia Lowe +saw this, and grew desperate. + +"Oh! dear, what shall I do?" she cried helplessly. "Can I say anything +that will make you understand? The thing I have is safe and sure. It +might go wrong with you--only _might_--but I want, I must have, your +consent. Just suppose it did go wrong with you, but that you knew it +would help hundreds of others--would you be willing to try?" + +Morley did not attempt an answer. + +"Let me put it another way!" and now the little doctor arose and stood +in the full glow of the fire, while the roar of the wind and the +flaring of the red light filled the room with sound and colour. The +slim, pale woman looked very weak and small to be the leading actor in +this tragic drama of the hills, and the big, stupidly staring man +opposite seemed very insignificant as a great sacrifice. + +"See, I will put it this way. They call me the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady +because--I give them all a little drink of water and it makes them +better! I made the little Hope boy well; ask Liza, she knows. I gave +your Sandy a cup of cold water and it helped his throat--I could have +helped him more, poor boy, if he had not gone away. Martin Morley, I +want to give _you_ a cup of cold water--oh! please trust me! You must +do what I ask you to do--just for one little week. It will be hard, +but I will watch with you and share every suffering hour. I will nurse +you and care for you as a daughter might, and then, at the end, I +believe as truly as God hears me, that you win stand straight and take +your place--_your_ place--among men!" + +"A charm?" Morley panted, for he was quite overcome by the power +exerted over him. + +Full of zeal and trust, seizing upon anything to gain her end, Marcia +Lowe replied: + +"Exactly--a charm! See!" and suddenly she turned to the closet beside +the chimney-place; taking out a small bottle she held it up to the +light with a glow of reverence upon her uplifted face. "Fifteen tiny +grains of this!" + +Morley was fascinated. + +"Fifteen grains," he repeated, like a man talking in his +sleep--"fifteen grains!" + +"Yes, yes! and then you must have--faith! You know you always _must_ +have faith in charms." + +Morley assented to this. + +"Will--you--will you try?" + +"I--reckon I will, mum!" + +"Will you promise? Oh! If I have ever done anything to make you +grateful, promise! promise!" + +"I promise!" + +From that night the cure began. Shut away against the mountain-world, +favoured by one of the hill storms, prolonged and depressing, the +little doctor tested her charm. She was nurse and companion as well as +physician. Willing to do battle and take the consequences for the +faith that was in her, she wrestled with her problem. Men had proven +the thing elsewhere--why not she, here among her dead uncle's people? + +"You cannot eat until I tell you to, Martin Morley," she said. + +For the first day or so the weakened man, used to deprivation, made no +demur; then his haggard face and imploring eyes pleaded for food, and +on the third day he asked for it, cried for it like a starving child. +This wrung Marcia Lowe's heart. + +"Oh! we women," she whispered to herself scornfully; "I declare I must +put a watch upon myself or I will find myself going to the cupboard and +betraying the faith of Doctor Marcia Lowe!" + +Then she resorted to subterfuge, and playfully bullied poor Morley. + +"See! If I do not eat, can you not keep me company? What manners have +you, Martin Morley, to eat while a lady starves?" + +The wretched fellow tried to smile, but wept instead. + +After that, Marcia Lowe rarely left the room; never unless Morley +slept. She stole like a thief to her closet and ate her food when, and +as she could. + +"It's the nurse of Martin Morley who refreshes herself," she thought +comfortingly. + +It was on the fifth evening of the battle with the deadly foe of the +mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin +door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a +demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was +sleeping--he lay in the lean-to chamber--so on tiptoe the little doctor +went to answer the summons. + +The storm had passed unnoticed by Marcia Lowe, and a bright starry +heaven lay behind the tall figure of Tod Greeley on the doorstep. + +"Oh! Come in, come in!" whispered Marcia--and oddly enough she felt a +glow of relief and welcome. Greeley came in and grimly took a chair by +the cheerful fire on the ashless hearth. + +"I've come on a mighty unpleasant errand, ma'am," he said; "and I ain't +one as can pass around sweets before the bitters." + +All the way to Trouble Neck Greeley had arranged this speech, and the +medical flavour of it had given him courage. + +"You're very kind to come yourself, Mr. Greeley," Marcia Lowe was +smiling; "another might not have been so welcome. And now for the +bitter! I'll gulp it bravely, for I like sweets better." + +She sat down in her own rough little rocker, and swayed calmly to and +fro. + +"Well, mum, the County Club, in session down to the store, delegated me +to call on you. Leastway, I done told them I reckoned no one else +_but_ me should come first!" + +"Thank you again, Mr. Greeley." + +"Since the raid on Teale's----" Tod drawled uncomfortably--"there's +them as is scared. I ain't standing up or setting down for them Speak +Easies back o' The Hollow, but business is business, and no man knows +who's going to get struck so long as----" Greeley glanced cautiously +about--"so long as--you're hiding what you _are_ hiding!" + +For a moment Marcia Lowe tried to readjust her thoughts and get them +into some sort of connection; finally she laughed, laughed so long and +so noiselessly that Greeley grew nervous. + +"Lord, ma'am!" he faltered, "you can't afford to take it that-er-way +lest you've got your place _full_ of 'em!" + +"Oh! Mr. Greeley. They think, the club thinks I have something to do +with the raid? Why I did not know, until some one told me, that there +had been one. Come, I want you to see what I am hiding!" + +She motioned her guest to the doorway of the lean-to. + +"Look!" she whispered. + +For a moment Greeley did not recognize the wan, helpless creature +huddled on the bed; so small, so pitiful was the unconscious man that +he seemed a stranger. Then in amaze and half terror, Tod breathed: + +"Mart Morley! What you--doing--to--him?" + +Marcia Lowe's eyes were full of tears, and her trembling lips were +hardly able to frame the words: + +"I'm helping him to lead his people back to their heritage! Oh! you do +not understand; but he and I--with God on our side, are fighting--just +plain fighting a--a worm!" + +At that moment Morley stirred and opened his hollow, starving eyes. + +"Food," he gasped in a voice Greeley never forgot; "God-a'mighty--food!" + +Then Greeley beheld a miracle. He saw Marcia Lowe run to the fire in +the living-room and bring to the bedside of the sick man a tiny kettle +of some smooth liquid; he saw her dip a spoon in and then hold it to +the lips of Morley. She had forgotten Greeley; forgotten all but the +man upon the bed. + +"Slowly, slowly!" she whispered; "we've won! we've won! There! there! +It's going to be all right from now on--the charm's worked!" + +Awed and afraid, Greeley tiptoed from the house, and all the way back +to the waiting County Club he muttered like a half-wit: + +"Fighting a worm! Fighting a worm!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The day that civilization and education took Sandy Morley into its +keeping, saw Cynthia Walden astride Crothers' mule jogging down The Way +to the factory. Sandy, arrayed in immaculate attire, was borne to his +school among the New Hampshire hills by train and coach. He was +desperately lonely; thoroughly frightened, but he was well in body; +healthfully sustained by good food, and he had so much money in his +pockets that he was in deadly fear of being waylaid and robbed. +Cynthia, on the contrary, was dressed in a shabby gingham gown freshly +laundried and stiffly starched, but much mended, and her pocket was +guiltless of money. She had no fear of being attacked, so she sang +sweetly and joyously as she bobbed about getting her blood circulating, +for the old coat and hood she wore were pitifully inadequate for the +crisp weather. Cynthia was young and hope led her on; besides, she had +just deposited a most poetic letter to Sandy in the hole of the tree. +Old Sally Taber had smoothed the problem of Stoneledge for the time +being, and there was going to be plenty of money now that Crothers had +opened the way for Cynthia to employ her talents! + +Cynthia tried the bird-note Sandy had conquered so successfully. + +"Why don't we-all have birds in winter 'stead of summer?" babbled Madam +Bubble from her mule; "and moons on dark nights, and hot suns at +Christmas?" Then she laughed, and the laugh left the dear, slow smile +as a reminder after the joyous sound died away. + +"The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady is in the church," Cynthia exclaimed +suddenly as she neared Theodore Starr's small edifice from whose +chimney smoke was rising. Then she kicked the fat sides of her mule +and turned her supercilious head aside in order to escape Marcia Lowe's +eyes, were they scanning The Way. + +"It's right noble of her to take care of Sandy's father," the just mind +granted; "but Aunt Ann and I--must do without her!" + +A touch of yearning lay in the words. Cynthia needed what Marcia Lowe +might mean to her, and only loyalty to Ann Walden restrained her. + +But Marcia Lowe did not see Cynthia pass. For months now, through the +doors and unbarred windows, the light and air had come into the little +church, and the spirit of Theodore Starr had, in some subtle manner, +been permitted to live again. People dropped in occasionally and sat +and thought of the dead parson. Sometimes Marcia Lowe welcomed them +and coaxed them to tell her of her dear uncle. She always sat in what +she called "the minister's pew," and there were times in her lonely +detached life when she seemed to see the calm, fine face looking down +at her from the poor pulpit. He never looked the weak man who was +afraid of Ann Walden; to his loving niece he was ever the strong +brother-of-men who had died while serving them not worthy of him! As +Cynthia rode by, Marcia was building a fire in the drum stove, lately +placed in the church, and singing, prayerfully, a favourite hymn. + + "Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows, + The solemn hush of Nature newly born; + Alone with Thee in breathless adoration, + In the calm dew and freshness of the dawn. + + "So shall it be at last, in that bright morning + When the soul waketh and life's shadows flee." + + +The fire responded and outside the shadows of the dark trees of The Way +enshrouded Cynthia as she hurried on. + +That day in the factory was the hardest day of Cynthia's life. To a +young girl born in freedom, be that freedom of the meanest, the +confinement and authority were deadly. Then, too, to witness the +utilization of the baby-things that were mere cogs in the machinery of +Crothers' business, hurt the mother-heart of the girl cruelly. At the +noon hour she tried to make the sad little creatures play--but they had +forgotten how, if they ever knew; they, stared at her with wondering +eyes; ate all of her lunch she offered, and shivered in their thin +clothes by the wretched fire in a shed provided for their leisure time. + +"Oh, Sandy, Sandy," murmured Cynthia as she looked about, "I'll help +you get them away from here some day." + +A new fear and hate of Crothers grew in her heart as she impotently +suffered for the children, but Crothers was as gentle and kind to her +as any wise and considerate father could have been. He was patient +with her bungling and errors; he did not turn her off to his clerks for +instruction, he spent his own time upon her. Every moment that he was +near her Cynthia trembled, and when he accidentally touched her she +recoiled sharply. Crothers noticed this, and at first it angered him; +then caused him much amusement. Unconsciously the girl was fanning +into sudden and violent flame that which might have slumbered on for +months. Before the end of the first week Crothers had noticed how +lovely Cynthia's shining braids were as they twined around her pretty, +bent head. His eyes grew thoughtful as he noted the lines of the +softly rounded shoulders and dainty girlish bosom. The little dent in +the back of the slim neck was like a dimple and even the small +roughened hands were shapely and beautiful. + +"How old are you, little miss?" Crothers asked her the third day of her +business life, and Cynthia fearing that her youth might prove an +obstacle answered blindly: + +"Going on--fourteen!" She looked more, for her South, in spite of all +her meagre upbringing, had developed her rapidly. Crothers smiled +indulgently. + +When Saturday night came four dollars was handed to Cynthia by Crothers +himself. + +"It was to be three," she said, holding the money toward him. He took +the fingers in his, closed them over the bills, and said: + +"Just a little present for a nice little girl who has tried so hard to +be good." + +Cynthia drew back and her eyes flashed dangerously. + +"I do not want it!" she said quickly, and flung a dollar on the desk. +"I only want what is mine!" After she had gone Crothers swore a little; +then laughed. The laugh was more evil than the oath, but no one was +there to hear. + +Cynthia had no one to speak to about her fear and loathing of Crothers. +Besides, she had entered upon her career and dared not turn back. She +did not understand herself, nor the man who was her employer; she did +not understand conditions nor the yearnings that possessed her; she +only knew that she must fight against becoming a poor white, and learn +to overcome the limitations of her birth, and Crothers seemed her only +chance. On the long rides to and from the factory she thought often of +her poor mother and wondered about her bad father. She wished she had +learned more about them while Ann Walden was capable of telling her. +The time was past now when the mistress of Stoneledge could impart any +reliable information to the girl. When the weather permitted the old +woman paced the upper balcony crooning to the hills, and as cold and +storm shut her inside she seemed only happy in the library. So Sally +Taber, reinforced by the money which supposedly she so miraculously had +saved, had the room made habitable. Mason Hope was coaxed into giving +some of his valuable time to the repairing and by mid-winter the place +was comfortable. + +"Ole miss is jes' a plain moon-chile now," Sally confided to Marcia +Lowe at one of their private conferences; "it's right silly to oppose +her." + +"Yes, give her everything you can, Sally, and oh! if she ever has +flashes of reason get her to talk and--remember what she says!" + +"Deed and deed I will," promised Sally. "And if she ever do get her +wits back it will be in dat ole libr'y-room. She acts right human thar +at times." + +Marcia Lowe was sorely puzzled about Cynthia those days. If she were +only sure that Ann Walden would never recover her reason she would take +her chances with the girl and plead Theodore Starr's cause, but with no +actual proof, and with Ann Walden's evident past instruction to +Cynthia, she hesitated to make her own claims. Then, too, there were +times when doubt rose in her mind, not as to her uncle, but Cynthia's +parentage. There might never have been a child born to Queenie Walden. +The Hollow story of adoption might be true after all. That would have +accounted for old Miss Walden's bitter resentment. It was all very +difficult and confusing, but in the meantime she could love the girl, +and do, indirectly, for her what personally she could not. + +Oftener and oftener the little doctor went to the church by The Way and +"sat with Uncle Theodore," as she put it. It was less lonely there; +the store was near by and the passers-by were becoming more friendly. +Occasionally they dropped in. Tod Greeley and old Townley more than +the others, and chatted sociably. Marcia Lowe had much to be grateful +for, and when, one morning two weeks after Morley had been pronounced +cured by his faithful doctor-nurse, he came to her, as she sat in the +church, and said quietly: + +"Miss Lowe, I'm going up yon----" pointing to his own cabin, seen now +between the bare trees, "to straighten it up a bit," she wept as if her +heart would break. Martin did not witness the outbreak; he had set +forth upon his task. Marcia Lowe was alone and upon her knees. + +"Dear God!" she repeated over and over; "dear God! he is saved. He'll +open the way to others." + +Martin Morley went upon his new course unheeded for a time, for a +tragic happening to Cynthia and a calamity to the community threw the +little doctor and many others into chaos. + +Cynthia had been a month in Crothers' factory, when one late afternoon +he said to her: + +"Little miss, could you bide at The Forge tonight?" Cynthia started +back and looked at him. + +"It's this-er-way; you've become mighty helpful to me and I've got a +batch of letters to get off by the morning's mail. It looks like there +is going to be snow, too, and I'd hate to keep you late and then send +you toting home after dark. Now if you can stop over and work 'long o' +me till--say ten o'clock, we can finish the work and I'll set you down +safe and sound at my boarding-house for a good night's rest." + +Cynthia gave her usual shudder and sought about for an excuse. She +knew Crothers' boarding-house keeper; knew her to be a decent soul who +had more than once, lately, brought a hot meal to her at midday when +she brought Crothers'. There was snow in the air, too, and a late ride +through the woods at night was almost more awful than to stay at the +factory. + +"They-all will worry," she faltered in her pretty, slow way. + +"I sent word by Hope's boys," Crothers reassured her, "they've just +gone. I knew I could depend upon you." + +Cynthia struggled to control herself, and finally gave her smile and +shrugged her shoulders. + +The mistress of the boarding-house brought to the factory a piping hot +supper for two at seven o'clock. She seemed to know all about +Cynthia's proposed stay, and showed no sign of misunderstanding it. + +"You better fotch the chile in 'bout nine," she suggested to Crothers +as she went out; "she do look clean beat now. Quality don't last out +at work like trash do; they certainly do tucker out sooner." + +Crothers bade the garrulous woman a pleasant good night, and then set +himself busily to the task of mastering a pile of correspondence on his +desk. Cynthia went to the little table by the window that served as +her writing-desk and asked quietly what she should do. Crothers handed +her a list of names and a package of envelopes and told her to address +them. The old clock on the wall ticked away comfortably; the warmth +and the late hearty meal combined to drive away fear and apprehension +of, she knew not what, and Cynthia was soon absorbed in the task set +her. + +Presently the kerosene lamp on her table flickered and went out; then +glancing over at Crothers' back she asked timidly: + +"Please, may I sit by your desk, sir? The light's failed." + +Crothers turned about and smiled at the pale little creature in the +shadows. + +"Come right along, little miss! Here, let me fetch your chair. There, +now!" + +Seated at the end of the flat-topped desk, Cynthia tried to resume her +work, but the unrest of the early afternoon possessed her and she felt +a tear roll down her cheek--the cheek nearest the man at her left side. + +What happened after that Cynthia never could tell clearly; she only +knew that a large, hot hand wiped the tear away and a burning kiss fell +upon her cheek! + +Horrified, and shaking with fear, the girl sprang to her feet and +reached the opposite side of the desk near the window looking out +toward The Way. She had but one thought: she would break the window +and make a dash for safety! But Crothers was upon his feet also. He +did not offer to come nearer, but he leaned over the desk and said +quietly: + +"What you afraid of, lil' girl?" + +"You!" The word was like a hiss. + +"Of me? Can't you give me a kiss? I don't want to hurt you; I'm your +best friend; why, see here, I'll give you a right smart new coat and +hat and dress--for a kiss; just a little kiss." + +Cynthia's eyes seemed fastened to the smiling, cruel face, but she did +not tremble now. Calmly, clearly, she was thinking what she could take +with which to defend herself. + +"Just--one--more--kiss--lil' girl," and now Crothers was coming around +the corner of the desk. It seemed like some fearful nightmare, but +Cynthia was ready! + +"Just one--more--kiss right on the pretty mouth!" The large, white +hands were extended and the teeth showed through the red lips. At that +instant Cynthia seized the lighted lamp which stood near, and with +desperate strength flung it toward the reaching body! There was a +crash, a curse, a fall, and then the room was blotted out by darkness. + +For a moment there was a deathlike stillness and in it the girl crept +toward the door, unfastened it and gained the open. There were +feathery snowflakes in the air and they touched Cynthia's face like +holy kisses, wiping away the evil one that had burned there but a +moment before. Groping and running she reached The Way and, from +behind a tree, paused to take breath. Never had she felt more +self-possessed or secure; her mind was clear and sane. If Crothers +came out, she could outstrip him in a race for the boarding-house, and +she meant to go to the boarding-house that night! Something within her +guided her now; something was protecting her and saving her--it was the +Woman Cynthia was by and by to be! + +As the girl by the tree panted and reasoned, she saw, from the factory +window--the window of Crothers' office--a darting tongue of light; +another followed and in a moment the glass was ruddy--and smoke was +issuing from the door left open when she ran out. + +"The place is on fire!" Then--"why does he not come out?" + +For a moment only a madness seized Cynthia while hate and revenge had +their way: + +"Let him die!" she muttered, setting her teeth close and gripping her +hands; "let him!" + +But even as the words were spoken she was running back to the factory. +She rushed into the smoke-filled hallway and, by the light of the fire, +she saw Crothers lying full length where he had fallen. The flames +were feasting on the rug by the desk and the unconscious man's head lay +upon that rug! + +Cynthia knelt beside Crothers and called his name, but the ugly smiling +lips made no motion of reply. Then she seized him under the arms and +frantically tugged and tugged at the heavy body. The flames were +almost at her feet, the wool of the carpet had caught first and the +licking tongues followed the burden she bore, greedily. At last she +was at the door; outside, and the safe, black night surrounded them! +She lay Crothers down and breathed fast and hard. The snowflakes were +larger; thicker now, and there was a harshness in their touch. + +Presently Cynthia began to call louder and louder, and the fire gaining +power lighted the night and crackled merrily. + +"Help! help! help!" + +And help came. First on the scene were the boarding-house mistress and +her sons; then followed others of The Forge, and soon a group had +gathered and were aimlessly running about, giving orders and foolishly +bemoaning the havoc that was spreading. + +Quite calm and uncaring Cynthia answered the questions put to her. She +defended herself without once realizing that she was doing so. + +"Crothers got up suddenly--and fell!" she said to the mistress of the +boarding-house who was working over the man on the ground, bathing his +face with snow and slapping his hands with her own rough ones. + +"Yes, the lamp overturned--and the fire was so quick!" + +"Yes, I could not let Crothers die; I had to pull him out!" + +Then a man near by said: + +"Plucky little devil." The words rang in Cynthia's ears strangely. +Why did they praise her? What had she done? She wanted Crothers to +die. Now that he was out of the fire, she did not want to see his eyes +open again, and yet she was straining her own to get the first sign in +his. Of a sudden Crothers looked full at her wonderingly, dazedly, and +at that sight Cynthia fled, and, in the confusion, no one missed her. +She did not go to the shed for her mule, she made for The Way uncloaked +and unhooded and ran for her life until, overcome by weariness, she +paused to take breath. Looking back she saw only a dull glow where the +factory had stood and black smoke was rolling thick up into the pure, +falling snow. + +It was fear of Man that haunted Cynthia as she toiled up the hillside; +Man as he had loomed first on her horizon, cruel, seeking, and selfish. +When the hard branches of the tree touched her she stifled a scream, +for they felt like the demanding hands of Man; when a hungry animal +darted across her path she recoiled, remembering another animal with +face and form of Man. + +It was three o'clock in the morning when Cynthia left The Forge--though +how the hours had passed from nine till three she was never able to +explain;--it was eight o'clock when she passed Andrew Townley's cabin +and saw smoke curling from his chimney. Sensation was slowly returning +to her; she felt cold, weak, and hungry, but with the senses aroused +she realized that she could not go home! She could not face Ann +Walden's vacant stare, or Sally Taber's coarse cheerfulness. In all +her world she was alone, alone! But even as she thought this her weary +feet were bearing her to Theodore Starr's little church which was never +locked by day or night. She reached the door at last, and with all her +remaining strength pushed it open and staggered up to where the steps +led to the small raised altar. Dropping down she bent her aching head +upon her arm and sobbed: + +"Father! Mother!" simply because in all God's world no other words +came to her relief. + +Theodore Starr's little daughter had come to him quite naturally in her +first great sorrow! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +And there Marcia Lowe found her. Fortunately the little doctor went +early to the church, for she had conceived of a Christmas such as The +Hollow had never known, and it seemed fitting that Theodore Starr +should be the host! + +Quite merrily she entered and went directly to the stove to start a +fire. As she drew near, the outstretched form of Cynthia Walden caught +her eyes and she cried aloud in astonishment and fright. At first she +thought the girl was frozen to death, for she lay so still and her thin +clothing was evidence of the danger run. + +"Dear heart! dear heart!" whispered Miss Lowe, overcoming her desire to +take the girl in her arms until she had made a fire. Once the genial +heat began to spread Marcia Lowe set a kettle of water on the stove and +then gave her maternal instincts full play. She gathered the slight +form close and kissed again and again the thin oval cheek and close +shut mouth. + +"Poor little, little girl!" + +The warmth and sound stole into Cynthia's far place and summoned her +back. Her first look was full of terror; her second was one of +unearthly joyousness, and then because the woman of Cynthia had no need +to battle longer for her, the child made its claims and, clinging and +sobbing to the little doctor she moaned again and again: + +"I am so afraid; so afraid!" + +It was long before Miss Lowe could quiet her. She wrapped her heavy +coat about her and forced some drops of hot water between the stiff, +chilled lips. Then she bathed the face and hands gently with water +cooled with snow, murmuring tenderly meanwhile: + +"Dear little girl; poor little Cynthia! It's all right now." + +When the girl was soothed and comforted she went to the store to buy +food--anything to be had, for she knew instinctively that whatever was +the cause, Cynthia had tasted no food that day. + +"Come back soon!" moaned the girl crouching by the stove, "I am so +afraid." + +After she had eaten some stale crackers, soaked in diluted condensed +milk, Cynthia sat up, still and pale, and faced Marcia Lowe dumbly, +imploringly. + +"Can you tell me, little Cyn?" + +"No!" The voice was distant and monotonous. + +"But something has happened, dear. I want to help you." + +"The factory--is burned down!" A shudder ran over the rigid young +figure. Marcia Lowe saw that she might hope to win her way if she did +not startle the benumbed mind. + +"Were you hurt, dear? Was any one hurt? When did it happen? How did +you hear?" + +After each question Marcia waited, and then put another. Still that +fixed, steady gaze. + +"I--I was there. It was night. He--he kissed me--don't look like +that! look away! your eyes hurt me!" + +Marcia came closer and took the girl in her arms. + +"Now, darling," she whispered, "close your eyes and I'll close +mine--there are only you and I and--God here." + +"He--he kissed me, Crothers did! Then he wanted me to do +something--oh! I do not know what, but something he thought I could +do--I felt it, and--and I threw the lamp at him. It was lighted and he +went down in a heap and I--I ran right hard, but I went back and pulled +him out when the fire started. I do not know why--for I want him out +of the world. I shall be afraid always while he is in the world!" + +"It's all right now, little Cyn, all, all right." + +This only could the horrified woman repeat over and over, as she swayed +to and fro with closed eyes and Cynthia on her breast. + +Vividly she seemed to see the late scene. The helpless girl; the +brutish man; the lonely night shutting them in and only a miracle to +save. Details did not matter, and the miracle had come, but the after +effects were here and now. + +It was near noon before Marcia Lowe dared take Cynthia away from the +shelter of the church, and when she did so she chose an hour when all +but Greeley were absent from the store, and he was in the rear, eating +his dinner. + +"You must come to Trouble Neck, little Cyn," she said firmly; "you'll +be safe there, and we must think this out." + +Cynthia made no demur, and wrapped in Marcia Lowe's coat--Marcia had a +lighter one beside--she clung close to the little doctor and walked the +three miles to Trouble Neck without a word of complaint. + +"It's plain good luck," Marcia Lowe thought, "that Martin Morley is out +of hospital." And then she smiled grimly up into the girl-face beside +her, for Cynthia was fully as tall as she. + +It was late afternoon when Tod Greeley strode over to Trouble Neck for +no particular reason. Outside the door he stood and listened to +low-spoken words and snatches of song. + +"'Taint nowise normal, I reckon," mused he; "a woman's tongue and mind +has got to have some one to hit up against, or the recoil is going to +do some right smart damage to the woman herself." Then he knocked, and +went in at the word of command to enter. + +"Just conversationing with yourself?" he asked. + +"Yes. Poor company's better than none. Sit down, Mr. Greeley; you're +always welcome." + +"I brought some news. Crothers' factory is plumb burnt to the ground." + +"Land sakes!" ejaculated the little doctor in the idiom of her home +town; "any damage besides the factory?" + +"Crothers is right used up. They say he tipped over the lamp in his +hurry to get up and--things happened." + +"Dear suz!" Marcia Lowe was lapsing into old-fashioned speech. + +"And Miss Lowe, little Miss Cynthia was thar after hours! They do say +she acted like she was possessed. She pulled Crothers out of the +flames and saved his life I reckon--that is, if it _is_ saved! He +ain't perked up much yet, 'cording to reports. But Miss Lowe--little +Miss Cyn ain't come home! I'm tumble feared lest she went back again +for something, and----" + +Miss Lowe got up from her chair and cautiously motioned Tod to the +doorway of the lean-to. + +"Look!" she whispered. Greeley expected still to see Martin, but +instead he saw the delicate, sleeping face of Cynthia Walden. He drew +back with a stifled cry. + +"That there room o' yours," he faintly said when he reached the +fireside again, "is right nerve-racking. It's like one of them +Jack-boxes at Christmas." + +"She only stopped here because she was tired. When she awakens I will +take her home," explained Miss Lowe. + +Greeley was nonplussed, but when he was in doubt he turned the subject +and talked more than usual. + +The following day Cynthia was taken home. Providence and the strain +and excitement saved her from serious harm, but when Marcia Lowe left +her by the gate of Stoneledge there seemed to be something tragic in +the fact that after such an experience, no explanations were necessary. +Ann Walden was past any earthly worriment, and Sally Taber could not +understand then, or ever, the soul-hurt little Cynthia had received. + +"It's good friends now and always, little Cyn?" + +"Yes, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" + +They stood by the dilapidated gate. + +"And you will come often to Trouble Neck?" + +"Right often." + +"And you are not afraid? Remember I have a care over you." + +"I am not afraid." + +"Then kiss, little Cyn, and God bless you." + +On her way home Marcia Lowe stopped at the church to rest and "talk it +over with Uncle Theodore." + +The golden winter sunset streamed through the window and lay bright and +fair like a shining way up to the altar. Marcia walked the brilliant +strip and sat down in the minister's pew. Wrapping her heavy coat +about her she raised her eyes to the pulpit and a great comfort came. +Then she closed her eyes and the pale, fine face of her uncle seemed to +rise before her. + +"If you could only tell me all about it, dear," she whispered. "I +would help any little girl. God knows, but I could help yours so much +easier! Isn't there some way, uncle, that you can make me understand? +Is your place so far away?" + +A step fell upon the floor; a shambling, tottering footstep. Miss Lowe +turned and saw Andrew Townley. + +"Sit here beside me," she said; "this is a good place to be." + +"It's a right good place, ma'am. Seems like we-all can't kill Parson +Starr. I seem to feel like it was only yesterday when he rode up The +Way and sorter settled down like a blessing long o' us-all. Lately, as +I pass by or turn in yere I get a call back to something what he spoke. +To-day it came to me right sharp how he said 'greater love' and then +went on to explanify. I'm right old in years, ma'am, and I'm +doddering, I expect, but I reckon I knows as much as that po' moon +chile o' Hope's. You know Crothers has got him, too, 'mong the wheels, +and the po' lil' boy he comes home all wild and sicklike, and mornings +Hope has to lick him down The Way--he hates that-er-much to go. Come +to-morrow, I'm going down to Crothers' and I'm going to offer up myself +'stead o' that moon chile. When I go to join Parson Starr I'd like to +have something to offer him by way o' excusing myself. 'Parson, I'll +say to him, parson, this I done 'long o' "Greater Love."'" + +Marcia Lowe's eyes filled with tears as she took the poor old fumbling +hands in her own. + +"Dear, dear friend," she faltered, "God will not need your service. He +has chosen a burnt offering instead of a human sacrifice. The factory +is in ashes now, and for a time, the children may rest." + +"Sho'!" murmured Andrew. "Sho' to be sure." Then he wandered back to +that past which held Starr. + +"The last time I saw the parson was that-er-day when he went a riding +off to the Gulch to help ole Miss Lanley out o' life. He had lil' Miss +Queenie long o' him--she was the Walden girl as _was_." + +Marcia Lowe sat up straighter and again gripped the wandering, wrinkled +hands. Her uncle's letter came vividly to mind and she felt suddenly +that she was being led by old Townley back to clear vision. + +"Go on!" she whispered soothingly, seeking not to confuse the rambling +wits. "Just where was old Miss Lanley's place?" + +Andrew laughed foolishly. + +"Lanley!" he pattered on. "Susie May Lanley! I reckon she was a right +putty one in her day. I uster set and watch her and say this-er-way: +'plenty o' them! I'm going to get one!' meaning to make her jealous +long o' gals, but she never took no heed--but Landy! she died forsaken +and lone, and times is when I think she would have been a mighty sight +better off if she had took me!" + +Townley's long reminiscence had tired him woefully and he began to cry +pitifully, swaying to and fro and repeating: + +"She done died forsaken and lone!" + +Then he fell asleep, his white head on Marcia Lowe's shoulder, the full +radiance of the late sun flooding over them through the western window. +For a half hour he slept and when he awakened he seemed hopelessly +addled. Muttering and groping, hardly seeming to notice his companion, +he made his way out of the church. + +"Old Miss Susie May Lanley!" the little doctor repeated over and over. +"I must hold to that until I get it on paper. I guess Uncle Theodore +was married by some one living near old Miss Susie May Lanley's!" + +Just as Marcia Lowe was leaving the church, Cynthia came running down +the trail. She was smiling and calm. + +"I came back," she said confidingly, "to tell you something. I've +worked it out myself." + +"Yes, dear;" the girl's face struck Marcia strangely. A new expression +rested upon it. + +"I'm--not--going--to suffer any more." + +"Why, little Cyn?" + +"No. No more! It hurts and hurts and then you get over it, and go on +just the same. I'm not going to suffer!" + +Miss Lowe went close and took the pretty face in her hands. + +"See here, little girl, if suffering is a teacher it is not such a +cruel thing; be a good learner." + +"No. Last night in the blackness and fear something happened--here!" +The girl put her hand over her heart. "But now with the sun shining +over Lost Mountain, it's all so right safe and still and happy that I'm +sorry for the hurt of last night. No, I am not going to suffer. I'm +going to be just lil' Cyn again. I thought you would like to know." + +"Oh, dear," and then Marcia laughed. "You-all make me want to cry so +easily! I am glad, dear. Surely I do not _want_ any one to suffer; +but see here, will you come to me every day, Cynthia? I want to teach +you some necessary things. Things like--well--book things! Things +that Sandy just loved." + +"I reckon I will, Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" + +Then she was gone as she had come. Crothers' touch had only alarmed +her; it had not soiled her. + +"Thank God!" murmured the little doctor; "the woman in the child +shielded her from all but physical shock! And what a quaint philosophy +for a girl to evolve." + +That evening as Marcia Lowe stood before her little mirror in the +lean-to, braiding her long smooth hair, she talked a bit for comfort's +sake. + +"It's plain luxury to lie in my own bed again," she said, "the bench in +the other room can never be made anything but a martyr's cot." Then +she glanced up and faced her own smiling image with the braids twisted +about the head. + +"Oh!" she faltered, falling back, "oh! Uncle Theodore!" For there, +smiling at her with the slow, lingering smile, the face of Cynthia +seemed to shine out by the flickering candlelight, instead of her own! + +The long dressing-gown gave a childish setting to the little doctor's +form, the coronet braids; the happy, smiling face was young and +wonderfully, strikingly like Cynthia's. + +"They always said I was so like Uncle Theodore! I've got Cynthia to +her father by way of--me!" + +Then the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady did a most unaccountable thing--she +fairly pranced about the room. + +"I've found it!" she sang; "without resurrecting old Miss Susie May +Lanley! What's a stupid marriage certificate compared to God's plain +handwriting? I can keep my secret now, Uncle Theodore, until the right +time. It was so good of you, dear, to give me proof." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Seven years passed, leaving their traces, and upon a certain afternoon +in August Levi Markham and Matilda sat on the piazza of the Bretherton +home and awaited the arrival of Mrs. Olive Treadwell. + +Old Bob, Sandy's collie, lay at Levi's feet. Bob was fat and full of +years; he wore a heavily studded collar with perfect dignity and had, +apparently, quite forgotten lean days and promiscuous kicks. Levi +could now shuffle his feet with impunity. Bob never suspected ulterior +motives and the sight of a broom or club had lost all terrors for him. + +Markham did not look any older than he looked seven years ago. Indeed, +his interest in Sandy Morley, his pride in that young man's +achievement, and Sandy's absolute love and loyalty to his benefactor, +had done much to relieve Markham of years instead of adding them to +him. Matilda had not fared so well. She looked like fragile ware, but +she never complained and with quiet courage she went her westering way +thankfully. + +"Levi is wonderfully softened," she often thought; "it doesn't hurt him +so much these days to praise instead of blame, and naturally folks +respond. It's mostly on account of Sandy. Levi does so mortally hate +to lose that when he wins out he thaws out!" + +The broad acres of Bretherton were rich and full of harvest as the old +brother and sister waited that afternoon. At last Levi snapped his +watch cover and said sharply: + +"That three-fifty train is always late! Do you suppose--she--Mrs. +Treadwell, will expect to be put up for the night?" + +"I hope not," Matilda replied, knitting away gently with closed eyes. +"I'm not one who takes pleasure in folks' disappointments and I'm glad +to say the village inn is comfortable and not over crowded. I _can_, +if it is necessary, tell Mary Jane to put an extra plate on for the +evening meal." + +"Wait and see how things turn out," cautiously advised Levi. + +"What time is it now, brother?" + +"Two-forty-five! But I put no faith in that train." + +"Was that a letter from Sandy you got in the noon mail?" + +"It was, Matilda. I think it would be safe to have an extra plate put +on for him." + +Matilda opened her eyes. + +"Levi," she said; "I'm not one to nose about much, but what is the +meaning of all this?" + +Levi set his lips grimly. + +"I never knew that Treadwell woman to break in after a long silence but +for two things," he replied; "either she wants something or she wants +to get rid of something. Three years back she asked for help when she +found that precious nephew of hers----" + +"And ours, Levi," Matilda put in; "we can't disown him. Blood is blood +even if it clots." + +"Well, our nephew, then! When she found young Lansing Treadwell eating +up her income, she begged for some scraps of what she pleased to term +'his mother's rights!'" + +"And you gave them to her, Levi!" + +"I couldn't let Caroline's boy die in a hole even if Hertford's son put +him there!" + +"You speak real comically sometimes, Levi. There are times when I +could think Sandy was talking through your voice!" + +"Well! well! every man has a streak of the dramatic in him!" Markham's +lips relaxed, "and I must say that to see Sandy Morley and Lans +Treadwell good friends without either sensing the true relations of +birth and tradition, tickles me through and through. I guess that +Treadwell woman would have done her prettiest if she had caught on. +But she doesn't know where Sandy hailed from and she's covered the +Hertford name out of sight for personal grudge, and those two +youngsters sailed into each other as if they were steered by Fate and +no one interfering. Lans Treadwell can't get anything but good out of +Sandy, and there isn't a soul living--you and I included--who could +draw Morley from his course, so I've looked on and chuckled +considerably." + +"Brother, I sometimes wonder how it is that you trust Sandy as you +do--you never question." + +"Not out loud, 'Tilda." + +"But he does not always explain. Now his working this summer as he +has! Every other summer it has been in the mills, but this summer he +had to have more money than you gave him. What for, Levi? I ask you +flat-footed and not casting any suspicion, but what did he want it for?" + +"That's the reason I've asked him down to-night. I want to find out. +I never have questioned him over much. When he said he wanted more +money I took for granted that he did and so long as he didn't hint for +me to give it, I sort of allowed it wasn't any of my business. He's +mastered the rudiments at the mills; he's over twenty-one--just +over--and I rather enjoyed seeing him take the bit in his teeth. But I +sensed that Mrs. Treadwell was coming to get rid of something to-day +and I thought it might be just as well for Sandy to be on hand later. +Matilda, if they two lap over each other, you steer Sandy away till I +march her off." + +Matilda nodded and again shut her eyes while she knitted her soft wools +into a "rainbow scarf." When she spoke, her thoughts had taken a +sudden and new turn. + +"I'll admit, Levi, that Sandy's clothes set on him as I never saw a +man's clothes set. They are the making of him. He's terrible good +looking--considering!" + +"Considering--what?" Markham frowned at the placid face and close-shut +eyes. "Considering! ugh! Why, 'Tilda, there is blood running in that +boy's veins that we Americans ought to bow down before! There are +times when he looks at me in his big, kind, loving fashion, that I feel +as I did the first time the poor little dirty devil raised his eyes to +me, only now all that went to the making of the lad seems to be saying, +'thank you, Markham, and God bless you!'" + +"Levi, you're an awful good man, and time's mellowing you more than any +one would have looked for." + +"Thank you,'Tilda." + +And then for a long time they sat in silence and thought their own +thoughts. Bob grunted and turned around facing the brother and sister, +blinked, grunted again, and probably thought of Sandy also. + +The train that afternoon was on time, and the carriage Markham sent to +the station presently appeared bearing Mrs. Treadwell. + +Olive Treadwell was handsomer than ever, for her gray hair softened her +features and the years had added just enough flesh to her bones to +insure grace, not angularity. + +"I am going back on the six-two train, Mr. Markham, if you will permit +your coachman to take me to the station. Lans and I have a very +important engagement this evening." + +Levi gave the order and handed his visitor to a chair. + +"Matilda has some iced tea for us," he said, "and then we will go +inside." + +Mrs. Treadwell greeted her hostess and sat languidly down, taking off, +as she did so, her long dust coat and displaying an exquisite gown of +pale violet. + +There was a little desultory conversation, two cups of delicious tea +and one of Matilda's choice sandwiches and then Markham led the way to +the library. + +Mrs. Treadwell took the deep leather chair, Levi lowered the awning +over the west window, and courteously sat down opposite his visitor. + +"It is years since we met, Mr. Markham," Olive Treadwell said; "but you +have been very kind to me, meanwhile. I am not one to forget." + +Markham nodded his head and lowered his eyes. After a decent pause +Mrs. Treadwell continued, feeling her way through her remarks like a +cautious person stepping gingerly over a mental ice pond. She always +seemed to leave a subject open to more than one interpretation and by +the lifting of Markham's eyebrows or the raising of his eyes she chose +her footing. The raising of his keen eyes under the shaggy brows was +very disconcerting and illuminating. + +"I know, my dear Mr. Markham, that you are not as worldly as I am; I am +confident that along certain lines of conventions we will differ now, +as we have in the past, but, being worldly I cannot bear that an +injustice should be done that would cause you to act in such a way as +to defeat your own aims and ideals." + +The eyebrows went up as if they were on springs, and Mrs. Treadwell +leaped to a safer footing. + +"Of course, when I refer to worldliness, I mean social worldliness. I +have learned, I have been forced to learn, the justice of your +once-proposed dealing with my Lans before he went to college. Your +business sense cannot be questioned. Had the boy been placed in your +hands then, I really believe his outlook on life would have been +clearer and finer. He has associated with those who have coloured his +views by--well, let us say, artificial lights. Still, the boy is the +best of his kind--I will say that for him. I hope I can make you +believe that I have come to you to-day entirely for your own best +interests--not his!" + +And now the steely eyes met the soft brown ones and demanded the +nearest approach to truth that Olive Treadwell had to offer. She +flushed and went back to her former place of safety and tried again. + +"Let us resort to no subterfuge," she said with a charming smile. + +"Thank you," Levi nodded and again lowered his lids. + +"To be quite frank, then, what I mean is this: I recognize that you are +one of the few men who regard your wealth as a trust; your capacity for +acquiring wealth a talent for which you are responsible. As I said +before, I feel that had I realized your true motives at the time Lans +graduated from preparatory school, I would have been eager to place him +in your charge to learn the great business of life and the use of +wealth in your way. I made an error; I confess it willingly. Since +then I have heard of your wise and private charities----" + +"I never give charity, madam!" + +"You are so modest! Well, your understanding helpfulness." + +"Simply good business, madam." + +"Very well--good business! and that brings me to my point. I have +always said that if I must trust myself, my confidence, or my money to +anyone, I would choose a person who, by training, instincts, and +possibilities most nearly was akin to myself. I sincerely believe +inheritance and blood do count. Now just suppose----" Mrs. Treadwell +gingerly put her weight on the next footing; "suppose you were obliged +to intrust your wealth and future interests to one of two men, would +you not feel safer in the hands of the man who, for family reasons and +by inherited tastes, could understand you and your ideals?" + +"Certainly, madam." + +"You know when a test comes you have to take a good deal for granted in +one who has no tie of blood to hold him to you?" + +"May I request, madam, that you tell me exactly what you mean in as few +words as possible? I see that you are embarrassed by what you have +been kind enough to come to tell me--I believe it will help us both if +you state your facts without further explanation or preparation." + +The tide had carried Olive Treadwell out into midstream--it was sink or +swim now! + +"I will do so. I cannot bear to see you duped by your adopted--shall I +say, son?" + +"I have never held the position of father to young Morley. I've helped +him to find himself as I have many another young man. He has no reason +to dupe me. We understand each other fairly well; better, I think than +most old men and young ones." + +"Exactly! That is what you think." + +"It is." + +"Very well, then listen. Remember I would not have come to you if I +had not had evidence. You take exception to Lans and his ways of life, +I have been informed that you have even called him a--a--libertine!" + +"With modifications--yes!" + +"I do not ask, Mr. Markham, that you try to withhold your judgments +until you know all the facts about my boy. You were never fair to him; +you saw him--you see him now--through his father, my poor brother!" + +"Madam, for his mother's sake I have always kept in touch with his +career even when I knew he was beyond any caution or judgment of mine. +I know that he has shamefully compromised a young woman and quite +openly flaunts his relations with her by calling them some new-fangled +name. Perhaps I am a narrow-gauge man, madam. All my life I have been +obliged to travel from a certain point to a certain point--I'm made +that way. I have endeavoured to look about to help my fellow-men, when +I could in justice do so, but I have stuck to the tracks that seem to +me to lead safely through the land of my journey. I am not interested +in branch roads or sidings." + +Mrs. Treadwell was a bit breathless and angry but she was too far from +shore yet to indulge in relaxation. + +"Lans is not an evil fellow; he is high-minded and will prove himself +in due time. I really am only seeking to help you be patient until he +has had his opportunity, and not, in the meantime, make a fatal +mistake. A new era is about to dawn when men and women, for the good +of the race, will attack social conditions from a different plane from +what you and I have been taught to consider right. Lans is in the +vanguard of this movement--but I only implore you to give him time and +while we are waiting let me ask you this--would you be more lenient +to--to this protégé of yours than you are to Lans, if I could prove to +you that he has been hiding his private life from you entirely? Has, +apparently, laid himself bare to your confidence and good-will while, +in a secret and shameful manner, he has had very disreputable relations +with a young woman in Boston?" + +Levi Markham took this blow characteristically: he sighed, raised his +eyes to the speaker's face, and said calmly: + +"I thank you, madam, for your interest in my affairs. I can readily +see that you would not dare come to me with this matter unless you had +facts. I appreciate your good-will toward me and Lans, but I am just +wondering if this--this relationship of Sandford Morley's with a--with +the young woman, might not be viewed as leniently as Lansing's--if all +were known? He might call it by a new-fangled name, you know." + +"Why, Mr. Markham! His intrigue is a low, vulgar thing. That is +exactly what I am trying to make you understand. The difference lies +right there. Lans is open and above-board; he's a gentleman. This +young Morley is----" + +"Well, well, madam!" Levi held up his hand calmly silencing the +indignant voice. "I know Lansing has taken every one into his +confidence who chose to lend an ear; we have all shared his life +whether we approved or not and I will say this: young Morley has never +asked any one to play confessor for him, but I am going to give him an +opportunity to speak for himself if he wants to." + +"He will lie, sir." + +"He's the worst liar you ever saw, Mrs. Treadwell." + +Just how to take this Olive Treadwell did not know. She was +distracted. She felt that Markham was playing with her! Perhaps he +knew all about Morley's escapades and preferred them to Lans' newer +ideals. + +"You will investigate for yourself?" she pleaded; "in justice to Lans?" + +"In my own way, Madam." + +"You mean----" + +"That I will look to my own interests as I always have. When all is +said and done, ma'am, there's no law in the State that confines me to +leaving my savings to any particular young man. I have still, I hope, +a few years to my credit. I promise you I will devote them to securing +the best possible good for the _trust_, as you so well put it, in my +keeping. You are quite right also in saying that I consider the power +of money-making a talent. It is my only talent and I do not +underestimate it." + +"You are a--hard man, Markham. Time has not softened you." + +"I will still endeavour to be just, madam. I will tell you this--if I +discover that I have been duped, I'll give, outright, a good sum of +money to you in trust for Lansing!" + +"You think I--I have simply tried to blacken Morley's character for +personal gain?" + +"No, no, Mrs. Treadwell. I ascribed the best possible motives to you!" + +"Levi Markham--I cannot understand you." + +"Why should you try, madam?" + +Olive Treadwell got up and paced the room. + +"You humiliate me!" she said angrily. "Of course I desire my brother's +son to inherit rightfully. He will have all that I die possessed of. +I am seeking his interests but only justly and humanly. When he first +came in contact with this--this investment of yours--as you call him, +it was as _tutor_ to this Morley. Consider! _tutor_, my brother's son, +to your--your waif! And the dear, noble fellow--my Lans, fell in love +with him. Has trusted and helped him socially. Why, he made his +college life easy for him by his own popularity. Quite by accident I +discovered the vulgar intrigue of this--this Morley. I saw him go into +a house where a little seamstress of mine lives! I inquired; I found +him out; and--and, not for any low gain, but gain in the larger, higher +sense I pocketed my pride and came to you as helpless women do come to +strong men and you make me feel like a--village scandal-monger!" + +"I beg your pardon, madam. I am sorry that my manner suggests this to +you. But can you not see that I must master this situation in my own +way? I cannot sell out my interest in my investment without reason. +Give me a--week--no forty-eight hours!" + +"Thank heaven!" Olive Treadwell exclaimed, "there is the carriage. No +matter what the outcome of this is, Levi Markham, I reckon you'll live +to thank me for putting you on the right track." + +"I'm still on my narrow gauge, madam." Markham smiled not unkindly and +put out his hand. + +"Please bid your sister farewell. I shall not return to Bretherton, I +imagine. I will never willingly abase myself again, not even for Lans!" + +When she had gone Markham sank into the big leather chair and looked +blankly before him. His eyes were fixed across the desk where he +himself generally sat, and a kind of pity moved him for the part of him +that no one ever knew or suspected. In Sandy Morley, he had realized +nearer his yearning and ambition than he ever had before. His paternal +instincts had been, to a certain degree, gratified. The boy had seemed +so entirely his; had responded so splendidly to his efforts for him. +They had grown so close together during the past years in their silent, +undemonstrative fashion. Could it be possible that he had been +deceived? + +And then Markham pulled himself together and went around the desk to +his revolving chair. It was as if the stern man of affairs took +control and demanded of the doubting creature opposite, common sense +and plain justice. "Hold your horses, Levi," he cautioned; "bide your +time. Don't get scared off. Do you remember that old mine that no one +else took stock in? It bought and feathered your first nest! Just you +hold to that and keep your mind easy until you get onto the job +yourself!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +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." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Perhaps it was the spring air; perhaps it was the turn in the tide of +Cynthia Walden's life, but whatever it was it roused her and gripped +her from early morning. At six o'clock on that May day she awoke in +her shabby room of Stoneledge and looked out of the vine-covered +window, heard a bird sing a wild, delicious little song, and then sat +up with the strange thrill of happiness flooding her heart and soul. + +It was a warm morning, more like late June than late May, and both the +bird and the girl felt the joy in the promise of summer. + +At nineteen Cynthia, like the spring morn, bore the mark of her coming +fulfillment of beauty. She was very lovely, tall, slim, slightly +bending, like a reed that had bowed to the wind instead of resisting. +The child look, full of question and waiting, was still in her clear +blue-gray eyes; the well-formed mouth had not forgotten its pretty, +slow smile, and the pale, exquisite whiteness of the smooth skin was +touched with a delicate tan and colour that did credit totally Taber's +care and culinary art. + +"I feel," whispered the girl, tossing the braids of her smooth +gold-brown hair back from her face; "I declare I feel as if something +was going to happen long o' me!" + +Not for a moment did Cynthia imagine anything ill. Out of a barren, +isolated life she had evolved and held to the strict philosophy she had +once confided to Marcia Lowe in the little church. If trouble overtook +her, she shielded herself as well as possible, smiled pleadingly and +stepped aside. At such courtesy Trouble had obligingly gone on leaving +the girl of nineteen as trusting and hopeful as a child. The old house +had crumbled and tottered. Ann Walden had sunk into positive +imbecility--but Cynthia had kept her faith and love. Sally Taber still +ruled the Great House under the disguise of grateful dependent. She +slept in the loft over the kitchen, made life a possible thing for a +helpless woman and a young girl, and asked nothing for herself in +return. + +"If that woman doesn't have a crown studded two deep with jewels some +day," Marcia Lowe confided to Tod Greeley, "I'll miss my guess." + +And Tod, for various reasons, did what he could to show his +appreciation of the old woman's nobility. + +"Yo' sho' do give proper weight to us-all." Sally often told him. +"Things do las' mor'n one could expect, fo' de money." + +"I ain't goin' to run the risk of any pesky government investigation," +Greeley replied. "Better be on the safe side, I reckon." + +And now Cynthia again remarked to the pretty May morning: + +"I feel as if something was going to happen 'long o' me." + +Then she got up and made her simple toilet. The shining braids were +wound coronet-style about the shapely head, and some moments were +devoted to the choice of a gown. There were three hanging on nails +behind the door leading to the hall; a checked gingham, brown, ugly and +serviceable; a faded pink chambray, and a new, dull blue linen. This +last was a gift from Marcia Lowe. It was the longest, most modern +garment Cynthia possessed, and the colour filled her awakening artistic +sense with delight. + +"This one!" she murmured, and smiled at her own senseless extravagance. + +"I reckon it's right silly," she said; "but it's mighty good fun to +wear your Sunday frock on a Thursday!" + +Then arrayed and glowing with pride Cynthia contemplated herself in her +tiny mirror. + +"If something happens 'long o' me," she nodded in friendly fashion into +the glass, "it will find me ready." + +After breakfast she meant to go to Trouble Neck and help Marcia Lowe +with her "school." The little doctor's school was the newest and most +exciting innovation in The Hollow. The student list was elastic and +all embracing. Every department of life was taught, as and how it were +possible. The timid, blighted little folks were lured to the cabin by +all means at Miss Lowe's command and fed such crumbs as their poor wits +could comprehend. + +"Let's flip out the grains, Cynthia, dear," the little doctor urged; +"perhaps some chick can swallow them. We must make hay while the sun +shines. Crothers' new factory is looming up and when that whistle +blows, good-bye to the Trouble Neck Academy!" + +It had taken nearly seven years for Smith Crothers to collect his +insurance, recover his health, and begin his business career again. He +had left The Forge for two years, and since his return had gone slowly +about his work of rebuilding and entering the arena. Whatever he +thought or remembered of the night when his factory was burned, no one, +but himself, knew. From a grim shadow of his former self he regained +his health and looks; he nodded to Cynthia when he met her on The Way +and the girl tossed her head at him indifferently. Only Marcia Lowe +was anxious. + +"Cynthia," she said, "promise me that you will not wander in the woods +alone!" + +"Not without a pistol," the girl replied. "I'm a mighty good shot, +dear Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady!" + +But Marcia Lowe shook her head. + +When Cynthia went downstairs that May morning, Sally Taber had the +plain breakfast on the dining-room table, and her face looked drawn and +worried. + +"Miss Cyn," she said, when she had set the corn bread and milk before +the girl, "las' night ole Miss war right troublesome." + +"You have been up a good deal, Sally?" + +"I sho' have. Ole Miss took to wandering and nothing would suit her +but de libry. I done made a fire there and let her play. She done dig +at the hearthstone an' laughed and babbled 'til long 'bout three +o'clock, then I carried her upstairs and laid her in her bed same as if +she was a lil' tired out babby." + +"Dear Sally!" Cynthia's eyes shone. "I'll stay home to-day and let +you sleep." + +"I reckon you will do nothin' like that! Ole Miss will be good for +mos' the mornin' an' I'se goin' to patch up the libry. If ole Miss +takes a fancy to that-er-room, she goin' to have what she wants! If +she wants to pick 'long o' the hearthstone, she is goin' to do that; +I'll loosen it up." + +"I will watch her to-night, then!" Cynthia said, "and I'll be back +right early this evening, Sally." + +Just as Cynthia reached The Way, she met Martin Morley. + +"Good morning, lil' Miss Cyn," he greeted; "seems like you be part of +this yere pretty day." + +"Good morning, Mr. Morley. You look right smart and dandified." + +Morley was neatly and decently attired and his calm, clear eyes were +steady and full of purpose. The "charm" had held good with him, and +ever since the well-fought battle in the little doctor's lean-to +chamber, he had gradually worked his way back to self-respect and +content. Mary and Molly had drifted from his life so effectually that +he had accepted the inevitable and never mentioned their names. + +"Where you going, Mr. Morley?" + +"I am going down to The Forge," Martin answered. "They-all say the +young manager for that company what's going to build a factory up +higher has come, and I'm going to try and get a job." + +"Do you believe there _is_ going to be a factory, Mr. Morley? Do you +believe Smith Crothers would let any one have a factory so near his?" + +"They-all do say, Miss Cynthia, that that-er company what sends this +young man, is powerful rich and upperty. They-all do say that-er +company ain't so much as consulted with Smith Crothers." + +"It must be a mighty brave company!" The slow smile touched the sweet +lips. + +"Mr. Morley, I wonder if you will ever hear from Sandy?" + +"Sho'! Miss Cynthia, you-all make me right creepy. I woke up this-er +morning from a dream 'bout Sandy. It was a right techersome dream, but +dreams be techersome. I dreamed that Sandy was daid, and yet I woke up +right cheerful. I've reasoned it out this-er-way. Sandy _is_ daid to +me, lil' Miss Cynthia, but alive out in a bigger, wider life and sho' a +right minded father should be mighty glad of that. I'm willing to give +Sandy to a better life." + +The old face twitched. "It's 'bout all I can do for my son." + +"Oh! Mr. Morley, you're right noble but I don't believe Sandy's like +that. He's just waiting 'till he has a mighty fine something to bring +back to us-all, and then we'll see him coming up The Way as brave and +smiling as can be." + +Martin shook his head slowly. + +"I don' doubt it, lil' Miss Cynthia. It's seven long years now! I've +taken a right smart heap of comfort mending up the cabin and painting +it and planting vines and flowers about. It has been the happiness +I've allowed myself--getting ready for Sandy that ain't never coming! +Good morning, just wish me luck 'bout the job. The getting ready means +something even if you don't ever get what you're making ready for." + +And with this Martin Morley went down The Way toward The Forge to seek +his luck with the stranger who had arrived a few days before to begin +operations on a certain piece of land which had been bought by a +man--no one could recall his name--seven years ago! + +Cynthia stood under the trees by the road after Martin left and fell +into a reverie. It was early. By walking a little faster she could +reach Trouble Neck in time for the possible pupils, and the lure of the +morning held her. Looking up to catch more distinctly the note of a +bird, she noticed how white and splendid the dogwood flowers were on +the tree under which she stood. + +"They certainly do look like stars!" she whispered. The day seemed +pulsing with thoughts of Sandy Morley! Not for years had he been so in +her mind. To be sure the hole in the tree near Stoneledge was quite +filled with letters written to an imaginary somebody called, for +convenience, Sandy--the "Biggest of Them All." But Cynthia's ideal +bore little likeness to the actual Sandy, and her letters had become +but the outpourings of a heart that must create its own Paradise or +perish. Sandy Morley had faded into an indistinct blur, but the +romance he had awakened bore the girl far and away from the common life +of The Hollow. + +"I thought," the uplifted face glowed rosily; "I thought I heard--a new +note! Some strange bird!" Then, with a toss of the head which threw +the broad brimmed hat back on the shoulders, "I must be getting right +daffy! That's the bird Sandy Morley used to copy mighty cleverly. I +could do it myself once--I wonder!" The pretty lips curved +deliciously, and an effort was made to reproduce the sound. Sweetly, +faintly it trilled and ended in a light laugh. + +From the underbrush lower down beside The Way, a young man looked at +the upraised face under the dogwood tree; listened to the answer to his +call and felt his heart throb with such force that his lips drew close +with the pain of joy. For a few moments he gazed and struggled for +self-control but great waves of happiness and delight overpowered him. +He dared not move, but he sent a swift prayer to heaven--a prayer for +guidance in a new life amid the old home-scenes for which his faithful +heart had yearned while he had wandered far. + +Cynthia's quick ears caught the rustle of the bushes across The Way and +instantly her face changed and her hand gripped something in a little +bag at her side. The stranger thought it wisest to step out. This he +did with a laugh of understanding. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Cynthia Walden, "I certainly do beg your pardon. +I--thought--I thought you were Smith Crothers." + +The sudden fear wrung this candid confession from the girl. "I reckon +you don't know Smith Crothers." + +"I--I've heard of him recently." + +"I expect," Cynthia was full of interest now. "I expect you are the +man from the North." + +"You are quite right." + +"Now I'm right sorry you didn't get here fifteen minutes ago." + +The stranger's face flushed under its tan and the broad felt hat, in +the right hand, shook perceptibly. + +"Mr. Martin Morley has gone down The Way to see you. He reckons you +will give him a job." + +At this the man leaned heavily against a pine tree and stared at the +girl. Had he heard aright? For months he had believed Martin Morley +was dead--long dead! + +"Yes, Mr. Morley was just here talking about the new factory up in the +mountain." + +To hear Cynthia say mountain was to love the high places better all the +days of your life. So lingeringly and tenderly did the soft voice deal +with the vowels and consonants that they suggested all the beauty and +strength of the hills. The man opposite closed his eyes from sheer +delight while the word sank into his consciousness and filled the empty +places of his heart. + +"He'll miss you, I reckon, but could you save a job for him?" + +"I can and--will." The man opened his eyes and courageously walked +across The Way and stood still, hat in hand, before the girl. He was +tall and broad and good to look upon and youth went out to youth +cordially and frankly. + +"I reckon"--the homely word took the place of the Yankee "guess" +naturally, "I reckon you are--Miss Cynthia Walden?" + +"Yes." Cynthia's eyes shone. "Who--told you?" + +"I heard about you." This was very lame, but it answered. + +"And you--sir?" + +"Oh, I am--the man from the North." + +"You sound like you had Southern blood." + +"My father and mother were Southerners." + +"From round this-er-way?" + +Again the man closed his eyes; the sweet voice and dear familiar +expressions were almost more than he could bear. + +"Not very far away." + +A very little seemed enough to pacify the girl's curiosity. + +"I reckon the North's mighty big," she ventured presently. + +"It's--it's--tremendous." + +"Do you know anything about--Massachusetts?" + +"I came from there." + +"Oh! And is that--so mighty big?" + +"Not so big as the whole North. Though some still think it is." + +"Did you ever hear----" Cynthia paused and clasped her hands together; +"of a--a boy named Sandy Morley? He went from here to there--long ago?" + +It was a wild question, but the day was so haunted by Sandy that the +words came of their own volition. + +"I've met him; yes, I know him slightly." + +The colour rose and faded in Cynthia's face and her breath came quick +and hard. + +"Oh! tell me about him. He came from this--Hollow! He went away years +and years ago. Tell me--what has he become?" + +Yearning, curiosity and honest interest marked the words, but the face +of the girl was a child's face, not a woman's. "He must be a right big +boy now!" + +The man standing in The Way could not repress a smile. He saw that +Cynthia Walden had in fancy enshrined the boy Sandy, but would she +welcome the man Sandy had become? Fearfully, dreading the test that +must be made, he drew nearer, and with lowered eyes bowed, and said: + +"I am Sandy Morley!" + +Cynthia gave a frightened glance at the tall, dark stranger in the +road. She noticed, as if for the first time, his high laced boots, his +corduroy trousers fastened in them, his flannel shirt and felt hat. +All was fine and different, oh! so different from the ragged ugliness +of the hills. That a stranger should be so clad did not interest her, +but that her childhood's friend and slave should wear this livery of +position shattered the beautiful portrait of the "Biggest of Them All" +by one cruel blow. + +"No! You cannot be Sandy--not Sandy Morley." Cynthia stepped back +with outstretched hands as if to ward off an attack. The light faded +from Sandy Morley's face and his eyes grew dark and pleading. + +"I've been right homesick all the years," he faltered. "I've tried to +make myself worthy to come back. Always I have dreamed of you standing +as you stand now under the dogwoods, to welcome me, but now that I have +come up The Way I find myself a--stranger!" + +Cynthia was clutching the bough of a tree for support; her eyes were +strained and pathetic. + +"I--I do not know what I have expected," she whispered, her eyes +clinging to his; "but it is this-er-way. I have made a different +Sandy, and I've kept him so long in my dreams and fancies, that to see +him a _man_, hurts. Oh! it hurts here!" + +The clasped hands touched the panting bosom. Then Sandy came close to +her and laid his firm, thin hand upon hers. The touch, the contact, +brought sharply to the girl the memory of their parting when, beside +The Way, she had asked him to marry her some day and Sandy had kissed +her! + +"Little Cynthia, try to make a place in Lost Hollow for the man Sandy, +who has come home a lonely stranger." + +He seemed old and detached, but his nearness and the memory of their +last interview composed Cynthia. She drew back and the withdrawal hurt +Sandy more than she could know. + +"I--I must go!" she panted and turned, as in the old parting, and ran +without one backward look. + +Sandy stood and gazed after her with yearning eyes. Outwardly she was +all his faithful heart could have asked. Her face, as he had seen it a +few moments ago under the dogwoods, seemed placed there by some kind +and good Providence to welcome him to his own after all the waiting +years; the child, Cynthia, he had lost while he tarried afar. Manlike +he was ready to accept the woman. But Cynthia was not a woman, and her +immature nature was shocked and betrayed by him who had come claiming +what she had ready, only for the boy of her childish faith and love. + +Sad at heart, Sandy, after a few moments of readjustment, went +mournfully up the trail leading to the old home-cabin. One bright +gleam, alone, cheered him. There had been some mistake. Martin Morley +was evidently alive and to him Sandy must look for welcome and the +renewing of old ties. + +The change in the cabin was startling. Empty, but neat and pleasant, +the living-room stood open to the fair spring day. Flowers were +standing in the windows in dented tin cans; the hearth was swept free +of ashes and there was a small garden in the rear of the house, nicely +laid out and planted. It seemed so like his own old garden that Sandy +gazed upon it with strange emotions. He relived sharply the starved +years of preparation, the cruelty and neglect. He went inside finally +and sat down upon the settle by the hearth and, with bowed head, gave +himself up to memory. + +An hour passed and then a step outside roused him, but he did not turn. + +"Sir, I reckon you be the boss of the new factory. I was a-going down +to The Forge to seek you out and ask for work, but Tansey Moore, down +to the store, 'lowed that 'twas you who had passed up this-er-way. If +you be the boss could you----" + +But he got no further. Sandy could not run the risk of another clash +of words. + +"Father!" he said, standing up and stretching his arms out pitifully to +Martin. "Father!" + +Morley recoiled for an instant and his eyes, old and dim, struggled to +see clearly the figure and face before him. But it was not the mortal +eyes of the man that saw and knew. It was the _father_ that reached +out with unerring instinct to its own! Martin had never had his dreams +of what his boy was to become; he was there to accept whatever God in +His mercy sent to him. + +"Sandy! lil' Sandy! My boy!" + +And then the tottering old frame was gathered in the strong young arms. + +"Dad, dear old Dad. I've got a right good job for you!" + +That was all. For a few minutes the clock on the high shelf ticked so +loudly that it seemed to fill the room with noise. Neither man spoke, +but they clung desperately. Presently a shadow fell across the floor +and Sandy turned his head. Old Bob had found his way up from The Forge +and panting and wheezing began to sniff around the room. Almost blind, +yet guided by that sense we cannot understand, he had sought his own +and found them. With a soft cry he crouched close to the two standing +by the hearth and whined piteously. Martin aroused and stood upright. + +"It's--it's Bob!" he cried. "Oh, Bob! Oh, Bob!" Then falteringly: +"It's all right, Bob, she won't trouble you now--she's gone for good +and all!" + +That was the only reference to Mary, and Sandy did not tell Martin of +little Molly's fate for many a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +If one can forget the languor of the summer and the fear of the winter, +a September day among the hills is an experience to set the heart +singing. The fluttering birds in busy preparation for flight, the +carpet of Persian colours and the subtle charm of the smell of wood +smoke in the air, all combine to arouse tender thoughts and pensive +desires. + +On such a day Cynthia Walden ran down the trail from Stoneledge and +kept to the side of The Way where the leaves were thickest and the damp +sweetness the richest. She wore her blue linen--it had been laundried +many times since that May morning when Sandy first saw her in it; but, +as Sally Taber, working under strict instructions, dried it in a pillow +case--the colour was still true blue and the shrinkage slight. + +Many things had occurred during the past four months. Wonderful +breath-taking things; things that aroused many emotions and many +passions. For one thing, that brave company in the North, which Sandy +represented, had actually had the audacity and daring to start +operations on a splendid factory building! Smith Crothers was +sullenly, silently watching operations and making, apparently, +indifferent threats as to what might be expected to happen to any +Hollowite--"man, woman or child"--who turned from him and his interests +to the factory back of Lost Hollow. + +"There ain't any known head to the concern," he said one night at the +County Club, "lest you count that youngster of Morley's as a head. I +leave it to you--can you-all trust a Morley?" + +The solemn pause before Mason Hope ventured a "no" gave Crothers food +for reflection. Sandy was making his way into the confidence and +appreciation of his people. Slowly, to be sure, so slowly that often +he sighed disheartedly, but the change in attitude was noticeable and +Sandy knew it when the sun shone and Cynthia Walden deigned to speak a +pleasant word to him. + +Beside the factory and near to it ground had been broken and a +foundation laid for a building about which people, especially mothers, +spoke in hushed voices. + +"It can't be true," Liza Hope had said to Mrs. Tansey Moore one day as +they dropped in to Theodore Starr's church to take breath and a dip of +snuff. "A Home-school! that's what the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady said it +was, and when I axed her to say it plainer and not so polite, she done +'splain as how the chillens, our chillens, war to be gathered in from +everywhere--even factories,--and teached and--and mothered! That's her +word--mothered!" + +"Don't them-all think us-all is--mothers?" Mrs. Moore sniffed +contemptuously. "Us as borned them reckons we-all is mothers." + +"But it's this-er-way." Liza was Marcia Lowe's interpreter to the +cabin-folk and was gradually drawing them to the point where more than +one had gone voluntarily to Trouble Neck and, after a chat and a cup of +tea, had uttered the mystic word "youcum," which meant, "you call on +me." No higher honour could a mountain woman bestow than this! + +But Mrs. Tansey Moore had never taken the little doctor up socially. + +"It's this-er-way. We-all can't act out what's in us-all. You know, +Rose-Lily"--Mrs. Moore had one of the funeral-design names which so +often decorated the plainest of her sex among the hills--"we-all just +get caught in the wheels and go round like what we-all have to. I +reckon you wouldn't have let your Sammy-Jo into the factory if the +heart of you could ha' spoke. Seems like yesterday when I saw them-all +totin' Sammy-Jo up The Way to kiss you good-bye, an' him only ten years +old an' dyin' o' the hurt o' the wheels." + +Rose-Lily bowed her head on her work-roughened hands and sobbed +miserably. + +"An' I reckon I wouldn' ha' let my po' lil' half-wit chile go--if I +could ha' helped it. When Mason licked him down The Way o' mornin' it +made the soul o' me sick. When the factory burned I thanked A'mighty +God for, starvin' or not starvin,' the po' lil' feller couldn't go! +The night he died in Miss Lowe's cabin when she war tryin' her charm on +him--I jes' war right glad, for the factory down to The Forge war jes' +about done and I war thankful he couldn't get caught in the wheels +agin! I tell yo', Rose-Lily, the mother in us-all don't get a chance +in The Hollow, but the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady don' say things is goin' +to be different. She 'lows that the Home-school will jes' make up to +us-all for what's been denied." + +Mrs. Moore moaned softly and shook her head. "It don't +sound--earthly!" she muttered. + +But Cynthia, tripping light-heartedly over the gold and red leaves by +The Way, sang her gayest songs and cared not a rap for the new factory +or the unearthly Home-school; she was thinking of Martin Morley's cabin +and the miracle that had been performed there. She was bound for the +cabin. Martin would surely be away, for his "job" demanded that he +should watch the men working in gangs on the new buildings. Sandy was +up North. He had been summoned there by Levi Markham, who had wanted +to come to The Hollow but had been held back by Sandy. + +"They are taking me hard," Sandy had written; "let me have time to win +them over before you come. Your money is a great drawback to me." + +Then Markham wrote a characteristic command. The faithful old heart +throbbed through every line and had caused poor Sandy to laugh until he +cried: + + +Then come up North at once with reports and plans. I'm not going to +let you make ducks and drakes of my hard earnings without knowing why. +Matilda--isn't very strong. She's taken to counting her blessings +nights instead of sleeping. By the way--have you heard anything of +Treadwell? His new fangled moral van has gone smash, they say; not +called by its old-fashioned name, and he's--skipped. If you hear +anything of him, let me know. + + +Sandy had been away ten days and every day Cynthia had gone to the +cabin, set it in order for Martin's comfort; revelled in the wonder of +it all and feasted her soul on the books in Sandy's study. + +Cynthia had slowly, reluctantly but finally given up her ideal Sandy of +the past. She still kept his one letter to her and her hundred and one +letters to him in an oil-cloth package in the old tree. Sometimes she +stole away and read them and cried a little, softly, forlornly, as a +little girl might do for a broken doll. "The Biggest of Them All" +relegated to his fate, Cynthia had turned to this new son of the Hills +with frank and open mind. She weighed him, considered him and found +him interesting. She was sensitive to success, and this practical, +good natured, kindly Sandy was decidedly successful. He was as modest +and unassuming as one could desire, but he had only to wave his hand +and say so-and-so and lo! the old cabin grew and became beautiful, a +factory sprang up, then a dream of a school which included everyone and +everything. It was like a modern fairy story--the most exciting and +compelling thing one could imagine. + +Slowly, cautiously, Cynthia with childish curiosity approached this new +being who had arisen on her horizon. Sandy, wise in the lore of the +hills, lured her as cautiously. He had subdued his own emotions. He +was a man; his life had developed him; she was still a child with the +radiant woman of her blindly, gropingly, looking forth from the dear, +blue-gray eyes. He could wait. She would be his dream of the hills +and some day she would come true and he would tell her how he had +always loved her; how her pale, sweet face, under the dogwood flowers, +had kept him strong and pure and unspoiled through all the yearning +years. He could wait until Cynthia, the woman, awoke and--looked at +him! In the meantime he worked and grew marvellously happy in his +earnest, quiet way. He made a seat for her in his study window--though +she never knew how carefully he had arranged it, or how desperately he +had struggled to get the right colour for the cushions. "Red," Levi +had suggested when approached as to window-seat coverings. "Green, a +good dark tone, is a wearing shade," Matilda had informed him, but +Sandy chose blue--"the shade that looks as if it sank deeper and +deeper," he explained to an artistic designer, and the man had not +laughed! + +Sandy bought and scattered books about in his study where Cynthia might +run across them at will, and sometimes during his rare moments of +leisure and enjoyment she would nestle on _her_ window seat in his +study while he, his back to her, painted at his easel near the north +window. At such times Cynthia liked the new Sandy almost as well as +the old and was gloriously content and happy. Poetry entered her life +then for the first time--poetry through books, through Sandy's modest +attempts at art, and through Sandy himself. + +"Let us go out windowing," he coaxed her one day when they had had a +golden hour together. + +"Windowing, Sandy? What is windowing?" + +"Why, we'll go around to the cabins and coax or bully the people to let +us make windows in their homes--big, fine windows with glass that +slides easy, up and down or sideways as one may prefer. I want it done +before winter sets in." + +"They-all will think us all-around cracked!" + +"Let's try! Windows for sale! we'll cry. It will be mighty jolly." + +So they had set forth with the result that by August Tod Greeley +remarked to Marcia Lowe that he was "dog-dickered if the cabins didn't +look like showcases surrounded by clapboards!" + +When Cynthia reached the Morley cabin that rare September day she +paused to look upon the splendour, and was thrilled anew at the changes +and improvements. To the southwest end of the cabin three new rooms +had been added. Two bed-chambers and a cosy sitting-room. + +"For that Company up North when it comes down!" Sandy explained. + +"It must be a mighty upperty Company!" Cynthia replied, looking in awe +at the furniture which had been sent from some magic workshop. + +"It is!" Sandy assented--viewing solemnly the enamelled bedstead, the +cheap chairs and plain bureau. + +"And real carpets on the floors!" + +"Yes. The Company has tender feet." + +The old living-room of the cabin had been more leniently dealt with. +Sandy's passion for windows had been indulged, but its furnishings were +designed for comfort without shock to Martin's habits. The kitchen in +the lean-to, also windowed to the limit of space, had been given over +to the imagination--nothing else could possibly have accounted for +it--of Marcia Lowe. Shining rows of things never dreamed of in The +Hollow hung on the walls or graced the shelves. The future might prove +them, but the present wreathed them in the charm of mystery. The women +came and looked upon them in silent wonder and talked of them afterward +in hushed voices. A good-sized range, also, stood where once the dirty +hearth was the only shrine to which the family food was intrusted +during preparation. Even Sandy approached this innovation with +ingrained reluctance, but Marcia Lowe was overcoming his timidity and +Cynthia had already conquered its mysteries and was instructing Martin. + +The greatest change on the Morley place, however, was the one-time shed +bedroom of Sandy. The first time Sandy entered the crumbling shanty +such a wave of bitterness and depression engulfed him that he realized +he must either reclaim it or it would triumph over him. To tear it +down would not have solved the problem; its absence would have been a +more final acknowledgment of his defeat. The years of fear, +loneliness, and want were ever to be vital realities of his life; the +shed was the setting of his childish agony and spiritual growth--oh, +that was it! He must not stamp the poor shell from sight; he must +redeem it as his patient suffering had redeemed him. He must make it a +place to which those he loved, those who needed him, might come knowing +that welcome and understanding awaited them. + +It seemed a miracle to see the dusty, crumbling place evolve into that +bright study with its big, open fireplace, outside chimney, and the +sacred window-seat. Overhead were two small bedrooms, opening into +each other--Martin's and Sandy's. Plain, severe rooms they were; rooms +into which the morning sun shone and into which the setting sun glowed +when nature smiled. On the shingle roof the rain pattered musically, +and no winter cold could conquer the heat which a certain drum stove in +Martin's room managed to create and diffuse. On Martin's stand beside +his narrow bed a lamp stood and near it a Bible. Martin had learned +again to pray and often Sandy read the sacred book to him respecting +always the fiction as to poor eyes and ignoring the illiteracy which +the old man bitterly and secretly deplored. + +At last Cynthia entered the study after a minute inspection of the +house. The breakfast dishes were washed and put away; Martin was neat +and orderly. His bed had been made and Sandy's was untouched. + +"Still away!" whispered the girl and sank upon the window-seat while a +thrill of pleasure brought the slow smile to the sensitive lips. + +"Oh, the pretty day!" Then a desire to set the place in perfect order +for Sandy's possibly near-return caused her to spring up and dart +quickly from place to place, straightening a picture here, flicking the +dust off the shelves and chairs, and lastly attacking the cluttered +desk which had not been touched since the master went away. + +Sandy was not orderly by instinct. Dirt distressed him, but +superficial chaos seemed never to disturb him. He could lay his hand +on whatever he wanted amid the layers of papers, books, and writing +material. + +"It's right Sandyish," murmured Cynthia; "I wonder if he will--mind?" +Never before had she thought of arranging the desk. Carefully, almost +breathlessly, she piled some magazines in one place; some papers in +another. The pens and pencils were stuck together in the yawning mouth +of a particularly fierce silver gargoyle who evidently had been created +to devour such articles, and then--at the bottom of the mass Cynthia +came upon a book which had been quite hidden from sight. It was an +open book; a book marked at a certain place. There was a strange +familiarity about the book which caused the girl to take it up with +trembling surprise. The blue and gold cover recalled emotions long +since forgotten. How could she know that Sandy had scoured many a +Boston book store for just that edition, causing the proprietors much +annoyance and trouble? + + "Pilgrim's Progress!" + +Then backing to the window-seat, Cynthia sat down and feasted her eyes +first upon the cover, then upon the words marked by an illuminating +pencil: + + +Without doubt her designs were bad. But stay, now you talk of her, +methinks I either have seen her, or have read some story of her. . . . +Doth she not speak very smoothly and give you a smile at the end of a +sentence? + + +The book fell from Cynthia's hands and lay motionless on her lap. Her +fair face raised itself rigidly and the clear eyes looked, not at the +cheerful, home-room, but back through the years: the sombre, shabby +years--until they caught and held a girl of twelve demanding +something--something so tremendous!--from a poor, trembling boy but a +little older than herself! Then the old, half-doubting promise sounded +and--a kiss fell upon Madam Bubble's lifted mouth! + +"Oh!" The word came on a shuddering sigh and the fixed eyes faltered +in their rapt look. A flood of rosy colour spread from brow to chin, +and shame--not joy--claimed Cynthia Walden. Understanding rushed upon +her, a blind, hideous, wrong understanding, but none the less terrible. +Cynthia had forgotten the shadow of her parentage--for many years it +had sunk into insignificance. The years had ignored it, no call had +come for its recognition, but now--she understood. She had always been +more the daughter of her bad father than of her sad mother! That was +why she, a little girl, had spoken so to Sandy and brought that strange +look to his face! She had not comprehended it then, but she remembered +it now! It confronted her like a tangible thing. Because she was her +father's daughter Smith Crothers had--kissed her! Men wanted to kiss +her! On that fearsome night of the fire Crothers had only shocked and +wounded the outer fold of Cynthia's soul; the innermost shrine had been +guarded by the woman Cynthia was by and by to become; but now Cynthia +felt she _was_ that woman and all subterfuge was denied. + +Sandy understood. He had not forgotten. Out in his big, free world he +had learned what Madam Bubbles were and still he had come back and been +kind to her! Sandy never forgot. Big, brave, and tender, he had set +himself to the task of keeping his word and fulfilling his vision. He +had shielded poor Molly--he had told her the pitiful story without its +gruesome details! He had come back to Lost Mountain to help the men +and women and save the baby-things! He had come home to--keep his word +with her, with Madam Bubble! That was why he was so gentle, so +thoughtful. + +"Oh! oh!" The moan was almost a wail, but no tear dimmed the large +eyes. + +"The Biggest of Them All!" Then the strained face relaxed and a glory +touched it. + +"But I--I can be next biggest," she faltered. "You are right +noble--but I can help you, Sandy!" + +Then very reverently the book was replaced upon the desk and a pencil +taken from the gargoyle's mouth. Clearly, distinctly, another passage +was traced by a wavering mark: + + +The man in the cage, the man and his dream, the man that cut his way +through his enemies--the biggest of them all! + + +Sandy was to read those words by and by with varied emotions! + +Then, having marked and turned to the page originally left open, +Cynthia drew herself up and looked about the dear room as if taking a +last look before going on a long journey. + +And so Sandy came upon her. He had arrived at The Forge earlier in the +day and had walked up The Way because his heart was full of the joy of +life and he wanted to be alone and think his thoughts. He had been so +lonely without his father, Lost Mountain, his people and--Cynthia! Not +even the love and gratitude he held for Levi Markham and Matilda could +hold him long from his own, without regret. And they were coming to +him soon--the Markhams--they were coming for the holidays and he must +make ready! + +Noiselessly he entered his study and stood for a moment revelling in +the sight of the girl of his thoughts, materializing before his amazed +eyes. He could hardly believe his senses; the day, the place, were +bewitched, and he had been so hungry for--just this! Unconsciously he +stretched out his arms and his strong, dark face was flushed; his +serious eyes glad and kind. + +"Little Cyn!" + +She turned, and her colour faded. Pale, imploring, she almost ran to +him. + +"Sandy!" + +Now that she had understood and triumphed she could afford to be kind, +too, and strong and brave. Something in the frank, unflinching eyes +warned Sandy to content himself with the outstretched hands, although +the soul of him yearned to hold the girl to him. + +"You are glad to see me back, lil' Cyn?" + +The old intonation thrilled the listener, but her eyes held true. + +"Oh! so glad. 'Tis a mighty empty room you leave, Sandy Morley, when +you go away." + +"Cynthia--I wonder if I dare tell you something?" + +"Yes." It were better now and over with! + +"Do you remember that once I made a promise to you, dear?" + +This was unfortunate, but the girl took it without a quiver of the +white lids. + +"All my life, since manhood came to me, and it came early, little girl, +I have lived and dreamed of the hour when--I might keep that promise. +I have waited because you seem still a child to me, dear, but I--want +you! I want the child of you--I will hold it sacred and win the woman +of you by and by. Do you not remember how in those old, old days it +was you who taught me, awoke my imagination and--helped me to my own? +Dear lil' Cyn--help me now! Help me help these dear people, yours and +mine! I need you so, sweetheart, and I will be good to you! Marry me, +lil' Cyn, marry me right away and let us go on together! I can do so +much for you and yours--sweet----" + +But Sandy got no farther. The hands in his wrenched themselves free +and sought his shoulders. The very frankness and simplicity of the +gesture sent a chill to Sandy's heart. + +"Big, good Sandy!" There was a subtle plea in glance and words. The +girlish need was driving the desperate woman back and out of sight. +Cynthia could not kill the truth that had been born within her, but she +could blind it, stun it and still keep for her own what the childish +craving demanded. + +"Big, good Sandy! Please be my Sandy, like you were a brother. I +would be so lonely without you; I would miss this--this dear place +mighty bad--but if you say such words, if you forget I am still lil' +Cyn, why don't you see--I cannot come up this-er-way any more?" + +So perfect was the attempt that it took all the girl's pride and +strength to hold it. It was a bit overdone and Sandy fell back a step +with a memory that Cynthia would never have resurrected had she had her +way. + +"I--am not worthy of you, Cynthia. I had forgotten, dear. You see, +for seven years I have lived where such things did not matter; I have +learned that they do _not_ matter when all is said and done. Can you +not trust me and forget that a Walden and a Morley are different----" + +"Oh! Sandy!" and now the white, white face turned scarlet--"you think +that of me?" + +"It's in the blood of us all, Cynthia, but you and I, by forgetting +it--can do so much." + +"It is not that, Sandy." + +"I know, dear, that I am old beside you--I know that I dare much when I +say I am willing to take you, child as you are, and run the risk of +making you love me while the woman of you--grows! I will help it +grow--God help me! How I will glory in the task and if I fail----" + +Sandy had drawn her hands from his shoulders and now held them fast and +close. + +"I will make you free, set you as free as you are to-day, my white +blossom girl! You cannot understand; but God hears me and I swear it!" + +Cynthia did _not_ understand, but his fine passion flooded her soul +with white light. + +"How wonderful you are," she whispered. "You stand out big and high +like our mountain----" + +At that word Sandy closed his eyes, for he dared not look upon the +dear, slow-smiling lips. + +"But, Sandy, you are covered with--with mist like Lost Mountain +sometimes is. Let me find you, Sandy, not as you would help me find +you, but in my own way. Will you do this for--lil' Cyn?" + +Without opening his eyes Sandy drew the clinging hands to his lips and +kissed them. + +"When you find me, dear heart, dear heart, will you tell me or give me +a sign?" + +"Yes, Sandy." + +"And now--where are you going, Cynthia?" + +For the girl was turning from him. + +"Just down The Way. I must watch with Aunt Ann. She is a mighty +troublesome lil' child these days. Good-bye." + +They looked tenderly, frankly, in each other's eyes and then the girl +was gone. + +And that night Cynthia sat beside Ann Walden and kept watch and guard +while faithful Sally slept. The bedchamber was very quiet and only a +tallow candle lighted the gloom. The figure stretched out upon the bed +was deathlike in its rigid motionlessness, and Cynthia's hand lay over +the thin, old wrinkled ones for fear in a drowsy moment the woman might +elude her. + +It was past midnight when Ann Walden stirred and opened her eyes. +Cynthia was alert at once, but the light that shone on the old face +revealed an expression which had not rested there for many a day. + +"Queenie!" + +A cold horror overcame Cynthia, but she held her position and whispered: + +"Yes." + +"Go to bed, honey. I'm--I'm sorry." + +"Never mind, dear." Cynthia meant to play the old sad game that was +the only one possible with the poor creature on the bed. + +"I reckon it was--Thorndyke Bothwell over by Susie May Lanley's, wasn't +it?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Why didn't you tell me, Queenie? Why didn't you-all trust me. I--I +didn't mean to--be hard." + +"No, dear. Never mind. Go--to sleep now." + +"Thorndyke Bothwell, he went away--but there must be--some one to +remember. The--letter--take it--to----" + +Then a spasm passed over the grim face upon the pillow. The fleeting +sanity was vanishing--"The hearthstone--her--down at Trouble----" + +The candle flickered up luridly. The weak voice of the old woman shook +and the eyes lost the lustre. + +"You must bide with her--at Trouble----" + +Cynthia could not understand; she had never seen the light fade from +the face of one she loved, so the fixed stare, the cessation of speech, +did not alarm her. + +"See, dear Aunt Ann, I will put my head down on your pillow, so! There +now! Shut your eyes right close, and I'll sing you to sleep, honey." + +The candle decided to splutter once more, and give up the struggle. +The long wick curled over, the tiny beam faded, and was--gone. + + Through the long night watches, + May Thine angels spread + Their white wings above me, + Watching round my bed. + + +Like a little mother crooning over her frightened child, Cynthia sang +the words tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune +after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first +evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights +by repeating the tender words: + + Through the long night watches---- + +and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and +Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them. + +Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the +girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her +turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she +ran, panting, stumbling--often pausing to rest--to Trouble Neck. + +"Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to +Marcia Lowe. + +"And little Cyn?" + +"Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on." + +"And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally +astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle +Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October +afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from +the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated +from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and +respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in +Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and +fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the +homestretch. + +Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia +had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin +and gloried in the title of "housekeeper." + +"Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up; +her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the +oven of the stove. + +"Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something +better." + +With that she got up, went to a corner cupboard and brought out her can +of vaseline. + +"Yo' lyin' ole chile," she muttered; "yo' can sho' res' from yo' +labours. This am a lan' o' honey an' the honeycomb." + +Then voluntarily Sally raised the lid of the stove and pushed the tin +can in upon a blazing piece of wood. The flames caught the grease and +licked it greedily from the outer side of the box: + +"Massa Fire," laughed Sally; "yo' like dat po'k chop?" + +Then the heat hungrily battled for more and "pop" flew the cork and +back leaped Sally. + +"Gawd!" she gasped. "I sho' didn't think yo' would take it +that-er-way. I was only foolin'!" + +Sally had made great strides. She could laugh and joke with assurance +in her heart. Sandy Morley had promised that she might have a home to +the end of her days in Martin's cabin--the glorified cabin--and Sally, +like many another, was learning to trust Sandy as no one had ever been +trusted in Lost Hollow before. Sally rarely gave expression to her +sentiments; she did not mean to permit the child whom she had helped +Martin bring through his "teething," and whom she had spanked many a +time, to get the upper hand; but she prayed by her very comfortable bed +in the loft over the living-room that she might cook to Sandy's liking +and prove herself worthy the blessing God bestowed upon her in her old +age. + +Glaring at the stove and not daring to risk another outburst of +indignation, Sally stood helpless when Sandy entered the sunny kitchen. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +"Dat stove done have a real human sense," Sally replied; "an open fire +we-all can reckon with an' keep an eye on, but yo' shet fire up in a +packin' box an' who knows what's goin' on in its min'?" + +Sandy laughed, put the lid in its place and sat on the table, swinging +one long leg comfortably. He gloried in the element of home that he +had brought about him and to see Sally in the kitchen always gave him a +distinct thrill. + +"Make some gingerbread for supper," he pleaded, "and give me the +lickings, Sally. Do you know I never had lickings until I went to +Massachusetts." + +"Lands! Sandy Morley, I don' gave you millions mysef! Yo' pa was +allas fur lettin' yo' off, but I lathered yo' mo'n once, chile, an' so +saved yo' fo' yo' luck." + +"I mean 'leavings' in the bowl when the cake's ready for the oven. +Come Sally, let me help you get things together. Molasses, spices, +milk----" + +"I'll get the res'. Now, son, do tackle this yere can o' risin' +powder. Take this yere Handy Andy an' pry the kiver. Seems like these +new-fangled cookin' yarbs is put up jes' ter try the patience ob de +saints." + +Sandy took the instrument, and utilizing one of its many powers, +loosened the cover and handed the baking powder to Sally. + +"I wonder how you ever kept your hand in at cooking?" he said musingly +as he reflected upon the past. But Sally was on guard. + +"Lor, chile! an' why not? Ain't I allas had my own po'k and bacon? +Ain't I lived up to the Great House fo' years an' years?" + +"Of course. And Sally, that reminds me. I'm going to buy the Great +House and--make it as it was before the war!" + +"Gawd!" gasped Sally. + +"I shall want you to tell me exactly how it looked--you can remember?" + +"Why, yes, chile!" Sally's hand paused, spoon in air. "I can see it +same as it was yesterday. That-er Yankee man they called Sheridan--he +passed up by The Way an' he stopt right on the home-place o' +Stoneledge, an' General Walden he was there, an' old Miss, an' lil' +Miss Ann--she was right little an' young then but mighty peart. I was +stayin' at the Great House then, fo' it was near the time when lil' +Miss Queenie was goin' ter be born--her as died up Norf at a +horse-pittal. Well, that-er-Yankee Sheridan he don' say to General +Walden, 'We-all is near starvin'.' Jes' like a-that! An' General +Walden he don' say, standin' upperty an' mighty, 'We-all will share +with yo', general, bein' war is war.' Then what-er-yo' think? Lil' +Miss Ann she pearked up an' says right to his face: 'Yo' can't have +Anna Isabel!' She never batted an eye when she spoke up, an' I thought +I'd bust. The Yankee he don' ax who Anna Isabel was, an' lil' Miss Ann +said right stiff, 'She be my turkey--she be our Christmas dinner.' An' +jes' then Anna Isabel stalked straight-er-way befo' dat man Sheridan +an' lil' Miss Ann pointed an' says 'There's Anna Isabel!' Well, we-all +laughed an' I will say this for that Yank, he was powerful 'spectful to +us-all. 'I'm bleeged to come in an' res' an' have a meal,' he don' +said, and then he went on with his pack totin' at his heels. + +"Fo' de Lord, Sandy Morley, shet off that snortin', roarin' fire or +I'll fetch yo' a real old-time lick!" + +Sandy ran to regulate the dampers, his face radiant and boyish. He was +enjoying, as he never had enjoyed anything in his life before, the dear +home-atmosphere of his hills. + +Sally Taber returned to her task with energy born of appreciation. + +"We'll fix the old house of Stoneledge up in great shape," Sandy said, +coming back to the table and leaning forward on his hands to follow +Sally's energetic manipulation of the gingerbread; "that ought to be +something for the rest of us to live up to. I'd like to see little +Miss Cynthia installed there as mistress!" + +"Her ain't of the Walden blood----" Sally remarked, breathlessly +beating the golden brown batter. Sandy winced. "But her has caught +the manners." + +"And," Sandy steered away from the danger ground, "we'll have the +Home-school. It must be a home first; a school afterward, Sally. I +want the baby-things to have the 'lickings' of cakes and puddings in +the kitchen--it is to be a great, big, sunny kitchen! And I want them +to have bedtime stories and soft songs." Sandy's eyes, tender and +luminous, looked beyond Sally and rested on the gentle slope of Lost +Mountain. "I want them to have what every child has a right to and +which our children have never had." + +Sally was thoughtfully baling the light cake into the long, shallow +tins: + +"I clar' I don't know," she muttered, "how Smith Crothers is goin' to +'commodate hisself to yo'!" Then she shivered and stood upright, her +nostrils sniffing and her eyes alert like a deer in the wilds. "I don' +thought," she murmured, "dat I heard a step and saw a shadder fallin'! +Seems like the wind is changin', fetchin' chill an' storm!" + +Sandy, with the superstition of The Hollow responding in his blood, +went to the window overlooking The Way. Just turning into the trail +leading up to the cabin a tall, lithe form swung in sight. Well +dressed, carrying a modern suitcase, and whistling, gayly came the +stranger. At the moment of recognition Sandy felt a cold aloofness +overpower him. He spoke, as if to convince a doubting listener: "I--I +reckon that is Lans Treadwell! Treadwell, of all people!" + +But Sandy pulled himself together and went to greet his visitor with +characteristic warmth and cordiality. He believed it was only surprise +that had swayed him earlier. Lans, somehow, could not easily be fixed +into place in the rough hill life. Lans, always at his ease in Boston, +seemed oddly out of tune in Lost Hollow. But try as he might, Sandy +could not feel like himself, with Treadwell's cheerful laugh and +big-hearted, patronizing jollity resounding through the cabin. He was +too desperately and determinedly bent upon being "one of them" to be +comfortable. + +"By Jove! Morley," he exclaimed, when Sandy had drawn him into the +living room; "this is a place. You've worked wonders here. I have +always wanted to see you in your family--is that your--your mother?" +For Sally Taber could be seen and heard through the half-open door +leading to the kitchen. + +"No. My mother has been long dead. My father will return by evening +meal time. Come in here, Lans--you see I have unoccupied quarters----" +He led him to Levi's apartments. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll +start a fire on the hearth in this bedroom and the adjoining +sitting-room." + +"Well, I'll be"--Treadwell glanced about at the plain +luxury--"eternally flambusted! If you are not a----" Then he laughed. + +It was after the evening meal which Sally served in silent, morose +dignity, that the three men went to Sandy's study. The shed-rooms were +attached to the main cabin by a narrow hallway and this passage was +dark and cold. Coming from it into the warmth and glow of the room +filled with books and pictures, Treadwell paused to glance about and +exclaim before he took the easiest chair by the hearth and accepted +pipe and tobacco. Martin was ill at ease and looked helplessly now and +again to his son for leadings with this stranger who laughed so +constantly and regarded him as if he were a person of inferiority and +lack of intelligence who must, nevertheless, be treated with kindness +and tolerance. + +"I suppose," Treadwell remarked when the three had finally settled into +some kind of comfort, "I suppose, Sand, you wonder how I found you out?" + +Sandy had wondered but had restrained his curiosity. He looked now at +the big, handsome fellow and again was seized with the sense of chill +that he had felt in the afternoon. + +"It sounds like a fairy story--a best seller or what you will. By and +by"--he glanced at Martin as though to suggest a time when he would be +absent--"I've got a lot to tell you, but something turned turtle in my +affairs and got on to my nerves. Aunt Olive made me consult Doctor +Travers, he's my uncle's pet aversion, you know, because he wanted Aunt +Matilda to go into his sanatorium and Uncle Levi considered it an +insult. Well, I saw Travers and he advised a vacation. 'Get to the +hills,' he suggested, 'and browse a bit. Why don't you go up to that +place--a hole in the ground,' he called it, 'where your uncle has +sent--Morley?' And then it all came out, and by Jove! I found out +that you hailed from the place of my forefathers!" + +At this Martin dropped his pipe on the hearth and fixed his dim eyes on +the stranger's face. Back rolled the years that had been but stagnant +pools in poor Martin Morley's life; into focus came the simple hates +and injustices that had brought him where he was. + +"Your--forefathers!" he gasped, while a weird familiarity and +resemblance to--he knew not what--made Treadwell something tangible and +actual at last. + +"Yes. We still own a good bit of land over beyond the place called The +Forge. I've been having a look at it. It's run wild and rank, but it +might be reclaimed, I suppose. There is a depraved old squatter on the +place; lives in an old smoke-house. He actually remembered my +grandfather and what do you think, Morley"--Lans had turned his back +upon Martin, whose fixed stare and rigid pose disturbed him--"the old +codger actually told me half of a story the other half of which Aunt +Olive and I have often laughed over. Oddly enough it is a new and +another connecting link between you and me. We're throw-backs, old +fellow! Throw-backs and neither of us realizing it, but just naturally +coming together." + +Sandy was looking at his father. Martin was pale and haggard and his +bony hands clutched his thin knees until the knuckles were strained and +white. + +"Hertford!" whispered Martin; "Hertford!" + +"Sure thing!" Lans gave a laugh. "See, I'm discovered even in this +disguise." He nodded toward the old man as one might toward an +imbecile who had shown a gleam of intelligence. "Lansing Hertford is +my real name; named for a grandfather just as you are, Sandy Morley. +You see I've patched the scraps together. It was your grandfather and +mine who were good pals way back in the musty ages. Some one played a +practical joke on them and the friendship went up in thin air. It's +left for you and me to pick up the pieces and--cement them together. I +wonder if you ever heard about the bottle of stuff my grandfather gave +your grandfather to bring home from--from Turkey, I think it was. Our +forebears were globe trotters in a day when to trot meant to make +history." + +"I--I've heard it," Sandy muttered, his eyes still fixed on his +father's rigid face. + +"Did you ever hear the--joke?" + +"Joke? No! Was there a joke?" + +"Yes. Your relative stopped in Paris--he was a jolly old buck +according to reports--and he hugged that everlasting bottle so close to +him that some fellows--sounds beastly frivolous to refer to those +dignified shades as fellows--but, anyway, some chaps from round about +here were doing gay Paree just then and they caught on to your +grandsire's devotion to that phial; they called it his Passion, his +mistress, and one night when he had left it hidden in his room they +found it, emptied out the contents--some kind of cologne it was--and +filled it with water! They never heard the outcome, but Aunt Olive and +I have often wondered how--some mountain girl probably enjoyed her +smelling salts, or perfume, or whatever it was!" + +Sandy could not move. He was spellbound, but Martin struggled to his +feet and stood towering over Lans Treadwell, shaking as with ague. + +"I reckon I can tell you how it--turned out," he said, while his poor +old chin quivered as if the effort was almost more than he could +endure. "It war this-er-way. He came home to The Hollow, Sandy's +grandfather, an' he brought the bottle of--water! Oh! my God--and them +as opened the bottle--found out and began--to whisper! They all +whispered an' nudged ole Sandford Morley out of life an' inter his +grave. They-all hinted that he war a thief, a betrayer of his friend, +but he war that upright and clean that he war deaf to whispers an' +he--he didn't know the language of dirty slurs and off looks from them +as war once his friends! He went to his grave without knowing what had +edged him outer the respect of his neighbours. Then the lie grew an' +grew an' took the life an' souls outer us-all an' made us po' +whites--us as war as good an' better than your kin!" + +A terrible fury was rising in Martin, and Sandy, unable to clarify the +situation, paused before entering the fray. + +"Then Sandy here, he got his call an' rose up to save us-all. Out in +the world he found--you. You've come here--for what? for what?" + +"Father!" At last Sandy was beside the old man. "Father, remember he +is our guest! He has come to clear--can you not see--he has +cleared--our name!" + +Exultation and joy flooded Sandy; and his touch on his father's arm, +the thrill in his voice had power to calm the old man. + +"Good God!" Treadwell exclaimed, rising and facing the two; "is it out +of such stuff, such dreams, such grudges, such shabby jokes, the life +of the hills is made?" + +"Yes." Sandy whispered, "out of such stuff we come--or remain! You +can never know what you have done for us, Lans. Father will realize it +later--he's nearer the past than I am. For myself I--thank you! You +have, well, you cannot understand, but it's like you had put a broad, +wide window in our lives, letting in sunshine and sweet air where mould +and rot had once been." + +He stretched his hand out frankly and tried to push his father forward +to do the same, but Martin turned away, the tears streaming from his +eyes. Sandy was looking to the future; Martin to the past; and Lansing +Treadwell stood between the two with a light laugh upon his lips and a +vague, contemptuous wonder in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +They had tramped the hills together, Sandy and Lans. They had gone +carefully over the plans for the factory and Home-school, had seen the +growing building of the former and revelled in the dreams of the latter. + +"It proves my liking for you, old chap," Lans had said, "when I can +look at all this and not envy you. You see, Uncle Levi wanted to train +me in the way I should go, but I got a twist in the wrong direction +and--well! I never squeal. That's about all the philosophy or +religion I have--I never squeal! Live your life; take your chances and +squeal not! Then you remember I used to tell you that I was a big +bungling giant? You've got the vision and the leading. But to think +of Uncle Levi putting the reins in your hands! I can imagine him +letting any one he likes hold the _end_ of the reins--but he's leaned +back and is letting you drive." + +"Yes--but only because his big, wise head and loving heart tell him +this is a safe road to travel." + +"Oh! I don't know. Who's going to be any the better for--all this? +There's a lot of Tommyrot about charity. If I were going to splurge +I'd do it in the middle of the stage and make an advertisement of it at +the same time. It's cheaper and more sensible. Why, if Uncle Levi +would spend in Boston what he's spending up here--he'd have the world +talking about his mills." + +Sandy turned away. He was thinking of what Levi had said to him a few +weeks before as he was ending his visit in Bretherton. + +"Son"--he was "son" to the old brother and sister after that trip +abroad--"son, go back to your hills and see in every ragged boy--Sandy +Morley! In every little lass--your sister Molly! Gather them in, son, +gather them in, and let us help them as we helped you to--come out +cleaner and better. Work up there, son, as if God Almighty's eye alone +was upon you. Men have forgotten the hill people, but God called you +to lead them out of bondage." + +"It pays to advertise," Lans was remarking. + +"Yes," Sandy returned; "and Mr. Markham advertises in a most original +and picturesque way." + +Through all the walks and drives round about The Hollow, Sandy inwardly +prayed that Cynthia might not materialize. Why he so strongly desired +this he could not tell. He liked Lans; enjoyed his visit and +companionship, but he hoped he would leave before Cynthia appeared. He +grew restless at times and found himself longing to tell Treadwell that +the Markhams were coming to The Hollow for Christmas, and the rooms +occupied by Lans would be needed. But the days went by and Cynthia +kept from sight. The truth was, Sally Taber had gone to Trouble Neck +and spread the news and warning. + +"You-all bes' stay away," she said; "dis yere Yank be right triflin' +and polite. He makes us-all feel like we war dirt under his feet. I +clar' I'd like to work an evil charm on him! Ole Mr. Morley he don' +take naturally to the woods an' leaves them young gem'men to +themselves. I keep the do' closed 'twixt them an' me--he makes me feel +like there was traps set fo' my feet." + +"You must be having a real gay time up there!" Marcia Lowe replied, +laughing at poor old Sally's indignation. + +"Well, I'se cookin' mo' an' mo' monstrous every day. If that Yank can +stan' what I have in store fo' him from now on, I reckon he don' got a +stummick like a beast o' burden." + +"Ah! poor Sandy," Cynthia cried; "you'll kill him, too. I reckon I'll +come up and bring him food at night and put it in his study." + +"Not just yet, little Cyn," Marcia Lowe replied, putting a protecting +arm about the girl. "Cynthia's a bit run down," she explained to +Sally; "off her feed a little. We're going to have a holiday. What do +you think?--Mr. Greeley is going to take us 'over the hills and far +away'--about twenty-five miles away! He's going over to make a will +for an old man who is dying and he's invited us to share his carriage. +Take good care of the Morleys, Sally, and let's hope the stranger will +leave before we return. I'm getting real Southern in my tastes and am +positively suspicious of Northerners!" + +And it was a few nights after the night that Tod Greeley, with Marcia +Lowe and Cynthia tucked comfortably away in the back seat of his +carry-all, started on their trip, that Lans Treadwell and Sandy Morley +sat before the fire in the study and had their talk--the talk that +illumined the path on ahead for Sandy. + +"Old fellow!" exclaimed Lans, taking the cushions from the window-seat +and tossing them back again from where he stood in the middle of the +room; "never _place_ sofa pillows--chuck 'em! Only by so doing can you +give that free and easy grace that distinguishes a Frat cosy corner +from a drawingroom torture chamber." + +Every cushion that Treadwell tossed seemed to strike with a thud on +Sandy's heart. It was as if Treadwell were hurting little Cyn as she +sat in her window-seat with her dear face turned toward them. + +"Come, sit down, Lans. You are as nervous as a ghost-candle." + +"Thanks!" Treadwell took a chair across the hearth from his host. +"There's a devil of a storm rising out of doors." + +"They're right common this season of the year. About six or seven +years ago there was one up here that came mighty near ending the +existence of a good many--it did carry one poor old darky woman away." + +"That's cheerful! Sand, forgive me if I seem brutal, but do you know I +believe the cooking up here is giving me indigestion. I wouldn't mind +this if I didn't have your anatomy in mind, too. Those--what do you +call them?" + +"Ash cakes?" + +"Yes. They were, to put it mildly, damnable." + +Sandy laughed. + +"They were right ashy," he admitted. "Sally is old and careless." + +"She'll murder you, if you don't look out." + +Sandy kicked a log farther back on the hearth and the room was filled +with rosy light and warmth. + +"Your father doesn't seem particularly drawn to me, Sand. Does he +always retire to his chamber as soon as he has finished his--his +evening meal? Somehow it looks pointed!" + +Lans was not his usual, sunny self. The rising storm, his own +thoughts, and the evil ash cakes were having their way with him. + +"I never question father, Lans. He is old. I want him to do exactly +as he chooses. You must not take offence." + +"Certainly not. Only I do not want to feel I drive him away or deprive +you of his companionship. Ever since I told the joke about that bottle +of perfumery he seems to avoid me." + +"Father hasn't a sense of humour," Sandy ventured, striving to keep the +bitterness of resentment from his voice. + +"The devil!" ejaculated Lans. "That log spits like a hag. A spark +fell straight on my ankle." + +"Excuse it," Sandy murmured, smiling as Lans nursed his silk-enclosed +ankle. + +"Hang it all, Sand! I've got to get back to civilization!" + +Sandy bent over the fire to conceal his feelings. "Not to-night, +surely," he said. + +"No, but in a day or so. Morley, I--I want to tell you something. +Tell you why I cut and came up here right in the middle of things at +home." + +The storm outside pounded on the windows; the fire flared and chuckled +crisply. Sandy thought about Cynthia, wondered where she was, and then +he became conscious of something Treadwell was saying. + +"There was a time, Sand, when I couldn't have come to you with this. I +thought you were such an infernal puritan--but Aunt Olive has told me +of that--that little affair of yours which ended so--well so happily +tragical, and it has made you seem more human. Of course there could +have been no better way out for you and--her, and Uncle Levi was a +brick to overlook it. I've liked him better for it, but my affair is +another matter." + +Sandy gazed dumbly at Treadwell and could not frame words to call the +other to a halt. Not comprehending what Lans knew or misunderstood, +having no intention of explaining--he simply stared and then turned to +mend the fire. + +"My affair--is different. You know about it--partially?" + +"I've heard something. It was none of my business." A sternness crept +into Sandy's voice which Treadwell entirely misunderstood. + +"Well, because it was possible for me to come to you; because of all my +friends, you seemed in this hour of trouble, the only one I _could_ +come to, I want you to make it your business, Sand." + +The low-pitched, pleading voice awoke sympathy. It was that tone and +manner which had caused people to straighten out the snarls of Lans +Treadwell's life from babyhood up. There was capitulation. It was as +if he had said: "I deserve no pity, no comfort, but--give them to me!" +It awoke all the spontaneous desire for his happiness in every +tender-hearted person who knew and liked him. + +"I'm not indifferent, Lans. I only meant that in your friendship and +mine there have always been reservations. You took me up because of +your generous friendliness; you helped me mightily. I never felt the +slightest inclination to penetrate into your private life, and my own +was of such a nature that I was obliged to live it alone. My years +away from the mountains were years of preparation to come back. Every +hand held out to me was but a power to help me on my course. I have +never--except recently with the Markhams--ever taken anything +personally. I have always recognized that I was called to serve my +people; I have been grateful, but I have never appropriated." + +Treadwell looked hard at the fine, dark face touched now to vivid +beauty by the rich glow of the fire. + +"And I know few fellows who have won out as you have," he said +admiringly. "You have that in you, about you, that attracts and +compels. People trust you, like you--need you when a pinch comes." + +"Thank you, Lans." + +"And God knows I want you, need you, now!" + +Sandy put out his hand, Treadwell gripped it, then both leaned back in +their chairs and the story came, set to the wild strains of the +mountain storm. + +"She was one of those little creatures born to be the plaything of +Fate. When she was seventeen she married Jack Spaulding--he was part +genius, but more fool. He was caught by the girl's spirituality and +brightness and he couldn't any more comprehend her than a raw-boned +Indian could understand a water sprite. To him she was a woman he +wanted--nothing more. He got her and when he wasn't lost in the maze +of invention he permitted her--Good God!--he permitted her to supply +the needs and yearnings of the--the man in him. Poor, little entrapped +soul! She struggled between duty and loathing until her Guardian Angel +saved her. When Spaulding was going through his ups and downs of +fortune she stood by him. His downs were oftener and longer than his +ups and she was pure grit and a bully little sport. Then he got on his +feet with a vengeance. He could give her anything and, like a big, +blundering savage he began to load her down with _things_ and make his +demands for payment and she--up and left him!" + +Sandy felt that the heat of the room was oppressive, but he held his +position and flinched not. + +"Poor, little white-souled girl! She left him and tackled life with +her wits and her two pretty hands. I met her during my senior year. +She was reporting for a Boston paper, getting starvation wages; living +like a bird in two rooms of a high-pitched house off in a desolate +corner of town and thanking God for her--escape and freedom. Well, I +lost my heart to her and you know how I and my set feel about certain +things. Laws are all right for the--herd; a present help for the +helpless; protection for the happy, and all the rest, but they should +be handled wisely and discriminately by the intelligent minority. +She--Marian Spaulding held the same views!" + +"Why--didn't she divorce him--her husband?" Somehow the question +sounded crude and unnecessary on Sandy's lips. + +"For form's sake, she tried. Spaulding would not let her. He was an +ugly devil and he just couldn't understand any woman snapping her +fingers at his big money. He meant to starve her out, but he--well, he +got left! + +"I took rooms out near Cambridge. At first we were--friends! I wanted +her to have time and quiet to think it out her own way. Learn to trust +me; come to me of her own accord and because she was large enough to +choose the braver course." + +The heat was stifling Sandy, but he gripped the arms of his chair and +kept still. + +"She--she came to me willingly--three months ago! I've known and she +has known, Sand, such bliss as only free, untrammeled souls can know +who have gone through hell fire and proven themselves!" + +Sandy almost sprang up. "You won't mind," he said jerkily, "if I raise +the window? The room is like a furnace." + +When he came back to his place, Lans, head bent forward in clasped +hands, was ready for him. + +"Women are all alike in some ways. They never dare let go entirely and +plunge! They hold on to something, get frightened, and scurry back to +tradition. Three weeks ago Spaulding sent for her--for Marian. He'd +lost everything; was ill and needed her. She went! I found a +note--that's all." + +"Well!" Then having said that one word, Sandy sought about in his +confused mind for another. Again he said, "Well!" and waited. + +"I--I cannot be happy without her. The longer I stay away the stronger +her claim seems to me. I must go back and--try again." + +"Try--what?" + +Sandy felt the cool, wet outer air touch his face as he leaned forward, +for at last Lans Treadwell had aroused him. He was not, however, +thinking of Lans and his yearnings; he was thinking of a little, +unknown woman who was following the gleam of her conscience, while +love, selfish love, was ready to spring upon her with its demands, +before she had wrestled with and solved her own problem. + +"Try--what?" + +"To get her away from Spaulding; get her back to me and--happiness. We +were happy, God knows we were!" + +"If you--if she were happy, then her going proved something stronger +than happiness called her." + +"Women are like that. They hold the world back by their conventions +and conservations. They ask for freedom and--and equality, and then +they cling to tradition in spite of all." + +"I reckon," Sandy's eyes were troubled and tender, "I reckon we-all +better keep our hands off for a while and watch out to see them, the +women, solve what is their business. They-all may want freedom and the +rest--but it must be--as they see freedom and equality, Lans. I'm +mighty sure in every woman's heart there is the beginning of a path +leading--out and up, that they can find better alone. Why don't you +wait until--until this little"--Sandy dropped into the sweet +"lil"--"this little woman comes to you." + +"She'd never come!" Lans half groaned; "you do not know how tradition +would hold her there. She'd starve rather than to call me now." + +Sandy was thoughtful a moment. He saw that Treadwell probably was +right there, but a strange sense of protection rose in his heart. He +felt he must protect that distant, strange woman from Lans in his +present mood. + +"Then I reckon you better stand off and watch unseen, Lans." Sandy +made a bold stroke: "Are you thinking of her only? I'm mighty sure, +Treadwell, in a case like this you ought not, you--dare not think of +any one but her!" + +The bald, rigid reasoning struck Lans Treadwell like the cold draught +from the open window. + +"Good God! Sand," he ejaculated, "let me shut that sash down. The cold +gets into your heart as if it were driven by some infernal machine." + +Sandy got up and pulled the glass down sharply, but he could not, +thereby, bring comfort to Lans' conscience. + +"What do you mean by a case like this, Sand? No case between man and +woman can be separated that way. Her need is my need; mine is hers!" + +"Is it?" + +"Thunder! Sand, of course it is." + +"I--I do not know. Things come so slowly, but I'm trying to learn for +the sake of my people. The women and children, Lans, have got a clutch +on me; they must always come first. Even when we want women happy, we +want to give them happiness; give them the liberty _we_ think is good +for them. Treadwell, I'm mighty sure there are times when we-all +better get out and leave them alone! We only make matters worse. You +do not know these hills as I do--I don't want to preach, heaven knows! +As I talk I am only feeling my own way, not pointing yours; but I know +my hill people, and the women and children tug right hard at my heart. +When love--such love as our mountain men know--takes a woman into a +cabin--it generally shuts God out! I know this, and the children that +come into life by way of our cabins are--well! I was a cabin boy, +Lans! Women need God oftener than we-all do. Love puts a claim on +them that it never does on us-all. Love demands suffering of them; +responsibility that man never knows. Treadwell, we men must never clog +up the trail that leads woman to her God. I know I'm right there! But +tell me, are women and men different, so different in the lowlands and +highlands?" + +Treadwell was bent over, his face hidden in his hands. He made no +answer. + +"That little woman--down there"--Sandy's eyes were far and away from +the warm, rude comfort of the room which held him and that stricken +figure by the hearth--"is battling for what she believes is right. +Something in her was strong enough to take her from you, your love, and +the safety you stand for in her life. She has gone back to--what has +stood for hell in her past. Do you, can you, understand her, +Treadwell?" + +"No!" + +"Then, keep away until God, as she knows God, has had His way with her. +Stand off and watch. Be ready, but let her fight her fight and come to +you, if that is the end--with clean soul!" + +And now Lans Treadwell was weeping as only men and children can weep +when they are defeated by a stronger will they cannot understand, and +cannot resist. + +The great logs crackled and the wind roared in the chimney. Above, the +shambling steps of Martin Morley sounded as he made his preparations +for bed. Suddenly Sandy started up and listened. + +"There's a call of distress from The Way," he said, getting upon his +feet. Then he stood waiting for the next sound. Treadwell pulled +himself together and listened also. + +No call came, but presently steps were heard outside--a tap on the door +of the room which led directly to the open. + +"Come!" said Sandy, and in walked Marcia Lowe and Cynthia Walden. They +were rain-soaked and wind-blown. Their faces shone and their eyes +danced. + +"This is the end of our holiday," Marcia said with a laugh. Neither +she nor Cynthia paid attention to the man in the chair; he was hardly +visible behind the high back. "Tod Greeley's shaft broke just as we +were coming into The Way from the cross cut. We called and called, but +finally we decided to find where we were--it is as black as a pocket +out of doors--we were all completely lost. Cynthia and I felt our way +along, while Greeley stayed with the horse--the beast acted like a +fiend--and then we saw a light: your light! No other man in The Hollow +wastes oil like you--and here we are!" + +At this Treadwell made himself evident. Turning sharply, he met the +big, lovely eyes of the girl beside the talkative little woman. The +fair, damp face was inframed by tendrils of light hair under a hood of +dullish red; the long, coarse, brown coat clung to the slim figure, and +the mouth of the girl was smiling. Treadwell had never seen a mouth +smile so before. + +Sandy introduced his friend and then said: "Lans, make the ladies +comfortable; I'll lend Greeley a hand." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Lance Treadwell did not leave the mountains the next day. The storm +poured, and Sandy's words sunk deep in his light mind. + +"Yes," he thought to himself virtuously, "I'll let Marian have it out +with her conscience or whatever it was that took her from me. I'll +write and tell her I'm waiting up here!" + +In the meanwhile Treadwell took a new interest in the mountains, +especially in that part of them known as Trouble Neck. Marcia Lowe and +her "charm" appealed to him hugely. + +"Why, it's been introduced in many other places," he said to the little +doctor; "why can't you get your representative at Washington to get an +appropriation for you?" + +Marcia Lowe laughed long and merrily at this. "I really do not know +who represents us at Washington," she replied; "it is some distant man, +like as not, with axes galore of his own to grind, with these mystic +votes of the mountains to help along. Doubtless he has a soul above +names, and if a petticoat doctor should go to him and plead her cause +for these people he would probably have me shut up as a maniac. The +Forge doctor is making himself very unpleasant. He told me the other +day that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he +would have me--investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to +laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional +people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric. +The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman, +to that sort of man, is either a joke or a menace." + +Treadwell laughed gayly. Marcia Lowe was a delight to him; besides, +Cynthia Walden was always present when he visited Trouble Neck, and +Cynthia was bewitching. Treadwell did not talk of the girl to Sandy. +He had no special reason for not doing so, but, having posed as a +tragic creature--a man confronting a great soul-problem--he did not +like to come down from his pedestal and stand revealed as a human being +interested in a mountain girl. + +"Her smile," he said to Marcia Lowe one day when Cynthia had left the +room for a moment--"how do you account for that?" + +"I never account for Cynthia," the little doctor replied. "I just take +her and thank God. She and I live our beautiful little life with mists +all about us. It's very fascinating and inspiring. She is such a +child, and until there is some call to do otherwise, I am going to play +with her. We actually have dolls! Of course there are all sorts of +bones in the cupboard to pass out to the darling, but I'm waiting until +she is hungry." + +And so Cynthia played her part and smiled and dreamed. Things just +were! There was no perspective, no contrast--the sun was always +flooding her hours with the one small, white cloud of Sandy's marked +passage in the "Pilgrim's Progress," to sail across her sky now and +then. Treadwell did not surprise or shock her. He seemed a big, +splendid happening from the world beyond the mountains. He was strong +and pleasant and made one laugh, but he would go presently and they +would talk about him as they talked about Sheridan's raid and Smith +Crothers' fire--he was not part of Lost Mountain! + +Cynthia, nevertheless, walked with Lans Treadwell through the trails, +and once they had followed the Branch and come upon the new factory +near The Forge. The girl told Treadwell of the fire, but she +eliminated herself utterly from the story. She understood better now +than she once had--her part in that snowy night. Then they spoke of +Sandy and his hopes. + +It was a gray, still day when they so freely discussed Sandy, and they +were strolling up from Trouble Neck to the Morley cabin; Miss Lowe and +Sandy were to meet them there later, coming from an opposite direction. + +"Yes, Sandy is right noble," Cynthia said softly; "he was born, I +reckon, to do a mighty big thing. When he was little it seemed like +God said, 'Sandy Morley, I choose you!' There never was any one like +Sandy." + +Treadwell scanned the face near him, but saw only admiration and pride, +detached and pure. + +"We-all just waited like we were holding our breaths till he came +marching up The Way. I can laugh now, Mr. Lans, but the morning I saw +him first I was standing right there"--she pointed to the tree by the +road where she had listened to Sandy's bird call--"and he came along, +and when I knew that that big man was--my Sandy that went all raggedy +down The Way years before--I expect I hated him! It seemed like he had +stolen the nice boy, eaten him up and swallowed him! But no one hates +Sandy. We-all want to do something big and fine. Why, every time I +look at him, Mr. Lans, I feel like I must show him how glad I am +he--well, he didn't swallow the old Sandy whole!" + +Treadwell laughed delightedly. + +"He's mighty good to get near to when you feel--troubled," Cynthia +added; "and, too, you feel like you wanted to keep him from hurting +himself!" + +"How well you put it!" Treadwell's face grew serious. He recalled his +hour of confession in Sandy's study and felt an honest glow of +appreciation. + +"When I was a right little girl," Cynthia went on, "I lived up at +Stoneledge with Aunt Ann; she was my real aunt. I had a mighty queer +life for a little girl and I reckon I would have fared mighty bad if I +hadn't had a secret life!" + +"You bad child!" Treadwell cried, shaking his finger at her; "a double +life, eh?" + +"Yes." The sweet smile gave Lans a bad moment. "Yes. In that-er-life +I had all the things I wanted; all the folks I liked, and it just kept +me--going! Sometimes I wish, oh! how I wish, that Sandy had a nice +little other life, free of work and worry and loneliness, where he +could--let go! Sandy does hold on so!" + +"I wish I could have been in your 'other life'," Lans whispered. + +"Oh! real folks never got there!" + +"Well, if it will comfort you any," Treadwell broke in with an +uncomfortable sense of being an off-mountaineer, "Sandy has--another +life." + +"Really?" Cynthia flushed and curiosity swayed her. She had never had +so good an opportunity to know the man Sandy; she might never have +again. "Really? and folks, right magic folks to--to play with?" + +Treadwell thought of the Markhams and grinned; then he thought of +Sandy's secret relations with the girl his aunt had told him of and he +grew imaginative. "Yes. Now there is a man in Sandy's other world, a +grim, rather stern man, but he has a magic wand that he lets Sandy wave +now and then--it's great fun!" + +"Oh! you mean the Company?" + +"Exactly. That's his pet name. And there is a nice old fairy +godmother who brews wonderful mixtures for Sandy and darns his socks +and makes believe, when no one is listening, that she is his mother." + +"I should love her, the honey!" + +Treadwell stopped and gave a big, hearty laugh. Matilda Markham as a +"honey" was about the most comical thing he had ever dreamed of. + +"And is there"--the drawling sweetness of Cynthia's voice was moving +Treadwell dangerously--"is there something young and pretty and mighty +bright, too?" + +"Yes." Treadwell's laugh was gone. + +"A--girl--I reckon?" + +"Yes, a girl--just girl enough, you know, to keep him--like--well--like +other fellows." + +"Oh!" Cynthia smiled, but her eyes grew as gray as the day; the blue +faded from them. "I hope she is a mighty nice, upperty girl." + +"I'm only playing, you know," Lans broke in. "I am imagining a life +for Sandy something like your old secret life. It's all fun." + +"You mean--Sandy has an--an imagination?" + +"Precisely." + +But the "girl" part of the make-believe remained in Cynthia's memory. +Sandy had had his pretty story down there, away from Lost Hollow! Now +he had come back; had left it all behind him! She saw it quite +clearly. Perhaps when he was on that recent visit he had looked upon +all the dear playthings as she used to look at her "Pilgrim's +Progress," the portraits on the walls of the Interpreter's House, and +her letters to her soul. Perhaps Sandy had played with the wand of the +grim old Company; had tasted the brews of the dear Fairy Godmother and +he had--bidden good-bye to the pretty girl-thing! It was very plain +now; Sandy had accepted his life of duty in the hills, he had shut the +door between him and his playroom. + +Just then Smith Crothers crossed The Way, lifting his hat as he did so, +to Cynthia. So silently had he come, so suddenly had he materialized, +that Cynthia was taken off her guard. Her hand went to her side--but +the pistol was not there! In her safer, saner life she often forgot +the dangerous thing. A shudder ran through her body and she drew +nearer Treadwell. The soft, gray day grew dark, and Crothers, like +something evil, seemed to pervade everything. Instinctively Lans put +his hand out and laid it protectingly on the shoulder beside him. The +touch shared the taint, too. + +"Oh! do not do that," pleaded Cynthia recoiling. "I was only startled +because--he--the man came so suddenly." + +"But I--I only wanted you to know you have--nothing to fear with me +here." + +Cynthia made an effort to smile, but it was a sad, little shadowy +wraith of a smile. + +The touch, the resentment, began their work from that moment. As +Cynthia's shudder at Crothers' touch in the past had fanned the evil +passions of the man, so her recoil now drew Treadwell's attention to +the fact that she was not a child--but a woman; a woman who recognized +him as man! The thought thrilled and interested him. It made him +forget to write that letter to Marian Spaulding; it made him conscious +that he did not care to talk about his many visits to Trouble Neck with +Sandy Morley. + +And Sandy, during the days of the prolonged visit, was often absent +from home. The factory and the Home-school claimed his care and +presence. He feared, at first, that Treadwell would have a dreary time +by himself, but there were books, and Lans repeatedly told him the rest +and quiet were doing him a world of good. Then--and the desire +confused Sandy--he wished Treadwell would cut his visit short. The +confession in the study had not drawn Treadwell nearer; it had driven +him farther away. It was as if, by keener insight, Sandy had been +cruelly disillusioned; had discovered that he, not Lans, was bound to +bear a new burden of responsibility. Having confided in his friend, +Treadwell, apparently, was eased and comforted; while Sandy was +constantly thinking of a certain, vague, little suffering creature who, +by a word of his, was left to a hard fight with no help at hand. + +"Why in thunder!" Sandy thought as he and Martin worked with the men +over at the factory; "why in thunder doesn't he go home and--stand by?" + +But Lans did not go away, and more than Sandy grew restive. Martin had +taken a deep dislike to the visitor and was only held in check by +Sandy's reasoning and demands. + +"Why, Dad, Lans had nothing to do with the old misunderstanding. He +has really done us a good turn by throwing light on the past." + +"He--he laughed!" muttered Martin. "They-all laugh that-er-way. Big +things is little to them-all; and little things is--big! Them +Hertfords be--no-count! They all sound upperty and look upperty, but +they-all is--trash!" + +"Come, come, Dad! Lans isn't trash. He's done me more than one good +turn." + +"I reckon he'll do you a right smart bad one some day, son." + +"Dad!" + +"Yes, son. Now, why didn't the old general come an' tell us-all 'bout +the joke? Why didn't he give us-all a chance to jine in the laugh? +Then this lad's father--why didn't he come back to Lost Hollow and find +out 'bout--Queenie Walden, as was?" + +Martin's voice sank into a whisper, but the words had a terrific effect +upon Sandy. So naturally had he accepted the life of The Hollow again, +so happily had he permitted his hills to draw close about him, shutting +away the noises and interpretations of the big outer world, that the +old doubt about Cynthia's poor mother, the loyal outward holding to the +story Ann Walden had told of her birth, had escaped him. Now it came +thundering through Martin's whisper like a heavy blow. + +If that hushed belief were true, then--Sandy could not stand; he sat +down upon a fallen tree and stared at his father. + +"If that is true, then Cynthia and Treadwell are----" The thought +burned itself into the mind and soul of Sandy Morley. No longer could +he permit things to drift past him; here, among his hills, vital truths +were vital truths and might make or mar the people he was bent upon +helping. + +"Cold cramp yo', son?" Martin gazed at his boy. + +"For a minute--yes, Dad." + +From that day Sandy knew that Treadwell must go away. Just how to +bring it about he did not know, for his shadowy doubt could not be +voiced; there was not the least reason why it should be--but Cynthia +must be kept from the intangible something that could never touch her +but to bring dishonour. And after Lans departed, Sandy thought, he +would try to know more of the hideous uncertainty; seek to find out +what ground there was for the doubt. In rebuilding Stoneledge, he must +do more--he must try to take the blight from the old name. "But +suppose"--and at that Sandy raised his head--"more glory in the end and +more need to win Cynthia to him!" + +While Sandy was struggling to work his way out of the snare, struggling +to discover some social plank down which Treadwell could be courteously +slid from Lost Mountain to Boston without damage to his dignity or the +Morley sense of hospitality, Smith Crothers got his inspiration. + +Filled with hate and envy, appreciating the fact that Sandy's business +enterprises were menaces to his future prosperity, the man silently and +morosely plotted and planned some kind, any kind of revenge. Cynthia, +he dared not approach personally; even his evil thoughts dared not rest +upon her directly. He had nothing with which to lure her; not even a +decent approach could be made. The girl was always on guard; he could +make no apology; he could hope from no self-abasement to win her faith. +To harm her brutishly would be to secure his own death, for well he +knew that the subtle force that was coming into life in The Hollow was +making the men remember they were men and the women to realize it also. +Then, too, the factory back of The Hollow would be running in a year's +time. It would put on the market a different line of merchandise than +his, but it would draw its labour from the same sources from which he +drew. + +"That damned yellow cur," Crothers thought, "will put up prices; shut +down on the brats, and backed by the money of a fool who thinks to get +a big name this-er-way, will get me by the throat if I don't get him +first." + +Vaguely, stupidly, Crothers desired to get Sandy away from The Hollow. +If only he could cause him to lose interest, give up the job and turn +the Company up North sick of the venture, all might be well. Crothers +had even fancied the good effect of a plague in The Hollow that would +wipe out the labouring class; of course, that would cripple him, but +he'd have the ground to himself and he could make up for that. +However, at the plague suggestion Marcia Lowe rose grimly with warning +gesture. The little doctor was undermining several things. She was +teaching the women to live decently, cook decently, and take a human +interest in their children. Her charm, too, was having effect; more +than Martin Morley had tested its potency and taken to holier ways. +The Forge doctor often told Crothers that the She-Saw-Bones ought to be +behind bars, but even in Lost Hollow you couldn't put a person behind +bars for cleaning souls and homes. + +And then, at that juncture, Crothers came upon Treadwell and Cynthia. +He saw the girl's shudder and her look at her companion, and he +understood the shudder but misunderstood the look! Lansing Treadwell +had not cared to cover his true identity; rather boastfully he had +proclaimed himself a Hertford and meant, some day, to reclaim his +family lands and bring back the glory of the past. But Lost Hollow had +its private opinion of the Hertfords, and when the County Club had been +permitted to share the joke about that old story which had damned the +Morleys, the club refused to laugh. Oddly enough they took sides with +Martin Morley, and in their late understanding of facts made flattering +overtures to Martin that embarrassed him deeply. + +"Morley," Tod Greeley urged, "you-cum down to the club and set in +Townley's armchair. Andrew Townley ain't ever going to sit anywhere +again, I reckon; he's flat on his back for keeps now. His chair is +mighty empty-looking and there ain't a man round the store but would +welcome you to that seat of honour." + +With no idea of resentment Martin replied: "You're mighty kind, +Greeley, and time was when I'd like to have jined you-all, but now +Sandy and me is right companionable and--him not being a smokin' man, +I'd be mighty lonesome in the circle, and Sandy would miss me to home." + +"And serves us-all right, too," Greeley said to the club. "Us-all +pitting a Hertford agin a Morley!" + +So the situation was ripe for Crothers to use Cynthia and the doubtful +Hertford against Morley, and, incidentally, the Company against Morley. + +"Sandy Morley would like to get the girl," Crothers reasoned +primitively; "and if this-er-Treadwell or Hertford can smirch her--it +will finish Sandy; take his appetite for The Hollow away and--clean up +the whole business--getting me even for past hurts, too--damn her!" + +Like many another blindly passionate man, Crothers hit out in the dark +with what weapons he had and landed a blow where he least expected, the +recoil of which stunned and downed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Crothers was a man who approached his ends by the use of his better +qualities. The man whom the children of the factory shrank before in +trembling fear, the man whom the men fawned before, and the women +loathed and hated in dumb acquiescence, was not the man who years ago +crept around the desk in his office to implore a kiss from "little +Miss." Crothers could smile and speak courteously; his hard eyes could +soften and attract, and there was no doubt as to his business capacity +and positive genius in bargaining. + +With a more or less clear idea as to the outcome of his desires, +Crothers was perfectly explicit as to his desires. He wanted to get +Sandy Morley away, permanently away, from Lost Hollow. Could he +achieve this, his business might prosper as in old days, his command of +the community gain power and his future be secure. If he could bring +this desired consummation to pass, by harming Sandy and, incidentally, +Cynthia Walden and Marcia Lowe, so much the better. They were +disturbing elements in the place and nothing was secure, not even the +suppression of the women and the degeneracy of the men. + +"In the family and the town," Crothers had said once to Tod Greeley, +"there must always be a head; a final voice, or there will be hell." + +"Who do you want to boss your family and town?" Greeley had innocently +asked. Crothers had not committed himself; he believed actions should +speak louder than words! + +Seeking about for a beginning of his campaign to turn Sandy Morley from +his course, Crothers landed upon Lans Treadwell. + +Treadwell could not always be at Trouble Neck while Sandy and Martin +were at the factory-building back in the woods; reading palled upon +Lans, too, and the bad cooking for his private meals began to attract +his attention. That he did not resent anything in his friend's home +and make his farewell bow was characteristic of Lansing Treadwell. He +was thoroughly good-natured, inordinately selfish, and was consumed by +deep-rooted conviction that Sandy Morley owed him a great deal and that +he was conferring a mighty honour upon the young man by accepting his +hospitality. No doubt arose as to his right in sharing Sandy's home, +but as time went on he did, as all weak and vacillating natures do, +resent young Morley's strength of character, simplicity and capacity +for winning to himself that which Lans felt belonged to him by inherent +justice. It had been one thing to know that his Uncle Levi Markham had +taken another young man and set him on his feet, but quite another to +realize that his uncle had adopted a poor white from the native hills +of the Hertfords and was providing him with wings. A new element had +entered into Lans. + +"It's like Uncle Levi," he bitterly thought, with his Aunt Olive's +instructions well in mind, "to so degrade me, my father, and our +family. If he could put every upstart on a throne who had hewed his +way to the throne, he would be supremely happy." + +In these frames of mind Crothers and Treadwell met and exchanged views. +If Morley could put a factory up and hope for success, Lans wanted to +see the workings of a similar business already on the ground. So, +during listless hours, the young man frequented Crothers' +neighbourhood, ate at Crothers' boarding-house, and drank with him at +The Forge hotel. Not looking for any shortcomings, Lans did not +observe them. He found Crothers an agreeable man with a desire to +uplift The Hollow by practical, legitimate methods, not fool-flights of +fancy. Then, too, Crothers had a fine sense of the fitness of things. +He deplored the fact that a man of Sandy Morley's antecedents should, +by the vulgar power of money, gain control over the people. + +"I tell you, sir," Crothers exclaimed, "the South has got to be +reclaimed through blood; not mongrel blood backed by dirty money!" + +This sounded very fine to Lans Treadwell. + +"Now, I was a thinking this-er-way lately: 'Spose young Hertford came +and took command 'stead of young Morley? 'Spose the old place of the +Hertfords was rebuilt and the family established here again--what would +happen, sir? I put it to you right plain and friendly." + +Lans was thrilled. He rose to any vision called up by another; as for +himself he was no vision-builder. His face flushed and his eyes +flashed. + +"I have never thought of it that way," he said; "as you put it, it +seems almost an imperative duty that the best Southern blood should +return to the hills and reconstruct where and in the manner it alone +understands." + +"Exactly. Now I reckon you don't know, sir, but there are mighty big +back taxes unpaid on the Walden place and--and your forefathers' land, +sir. I'm thinking of buying both places in simply from a sense of +public spirit. I ain't going to let those smiling acres go into alien +hands if I know myself--not if I ruin myself in the deal." + +"Few men would show such spirit as that, Mr. Crothers!" + +Lans was deeply impressed. + +"Well, sir, a man as has the right stuff in him gets sentimental about +something. My weakness is my--South! I came from mighty good stock, +sir. I was in the university when the war broke out; I left and did my +share of fighting and then came back to--well!" Crothers' eyes grew +misty. His feelings almost overcame him and Lans Treadwell was equally +moved. + +"Since then it has been an upward climb. I gave up love, home, and +marriage. I've become a coarse man in the fight, but my heart is true +to the ideals and principles of the South. I have dreams, too, of the +day when the best blood--blood such as yours, sir, recognizes the need +of the hills and comes back with its tradition and force +to--to--reclaim us-all socially, religiously, and--and--morally. It +will mean sacrifice, sir. The North, with its luxury and ease, will be +hard to leave, but life is sacrifice to men, sir, and the day will dawn +when the Hertfords will come to The Hollow with determination to +control affairs. I'm going to hold their place ready, sir, for that +day!" This sounded almost too fine to be true, and even Lans demanded +details. + +Then it was that Crothers laid his foundations. He would buy the +Hertford plantation; the Walden, also, if he could. He suspected that +back taxes could not be met by the legitimate owners--if they could be +disentangled from the mists that surrounded their possessions--he meant +to get them into his own power. Then it further appeared that should +Lans Treadwell desire to return to the hills of his fathers, the way +would be made easy, and with Crothers to back the efforts of the "blue +blood" a very respectable opposition would evolve to check the growing +strength of such men as Sandy Morley. + +"Morley's all right as far as he goes," Crothers interjected; "I ain't +got nothing to say against Morley as Morley, but what I do say is--does +the South want to be led out of darkness by a poor white when its own +blue blood only needs a chance to flow through?" + +Lans looked serious. He felt disloyal to Sandy; old associations +tugged at his heart; but all at once the story of Sandy's relations +with a girl in Boston, the story coloured and underlined by Olive +Treadwell, rose and confronted him. If Sandy could deceive and +hoodwink Levi Markham, what could others expect? Personally, Lans had +no desire to stone Sandy, but a fine glow was filling his heart. If +the way could be opened for him to help his people, could he not +achieve as much as Sandy: defeat his uncle's revenge--it seemed only +that to Lans, then--and, perhaps, when Sandy had come to terms, work +with him for the good of Lost Hollow? + +It was splendid! Purpose and strength came to Treadwell. He was ready +for sacrifice; ready to forego the ease and joy of his city life; ready +to renounce his claims upon a certain little woman fighting her battle +apart from him! He would show Morley that he _could_ be pure and +resourceful, he could put his longings aside for the greater good! + +Lans must always have his mental, spiritual, and physical food served +on dainty dishes! While he stood by Crothers he saw, in fancy, a noble +home arise above the trees on the old Hertford place. He saw his Aunt +Olive--no! it was not his Aunt Olive that he saw; it was--Treadwell's +breath came fast--it was Cynthia Walden who stood at the door of the +uprisen house of the Hertfords and smiled her radiant smile of welcome +to him! + +Lansing Treadwell was always a victim of suggestion and flashes of +passion. The polished brutality of his father and the mystic +gentleness of his mother had been blended in him by a droll Fate and, +later, confused and corrupted by his Aunt Olive's ignorant training. + +From that day Lansing Treadwell fell into the hands of Smith Crothers, +and the plotting evolved so naturally, so apparently wisely, that no +shock or sense of injustice aroused all that was good in the last of +the Hertfords. Crothers gradually assumed the guise of public +benefactor, a man who, resenting the obvious stupidity of men like Levi +Markham, for no ulterior motive other than human rights, undertook the +placing of Lansing Hertford upon the throne of his ancestors! + +Secrecy was absolutely necessary. Conditions might arise to defeat +Crothers' philanthropic schemes, but when all was concluded Morley must +be taken into their confidence and made to understand that open and +fair competition was both right and democratic. + +And while all this was going on Sandy toiled at the buildings all day, +reported progress to Levi every evening, tried to do his duty by +Treadwell, while he sought for some reason to get him away before any +harm was done. + +It was difficult to account for what happened to Cynthia Walden at that +critical time. It all happened so quickly, so breathlessly. The child +in the girl was flattered, amused and uplifted by Lans Treadwell. He +was so gay, so captivating. He taught her to play on Marcia Lowe's +mandolin, and when he discovered how splendidly and sweetly she could +sing the plaintive songs of her hills and the melodies of the old +plantation days, he was enraptured and gave such praise as turned +Cynthia's head and filled Marcia Lowe with delight. + +"You little genius!" Lans exclaimed one day; "try to dance, too. You +look like a spirit of the hills." + +Then Cynthia danced and danced and forgot Sandy away among his +buildings; forgot his grim determination and serious manner. It was +song and dance for Cynthia, and the little doctor looking on, charmed +by the turn their dull life had taken, saw no danger. To her Cynthia +was a child still, and she was grateful that she should have this bit +of brightness and joy in her narrow, drab-coloured life. + +The arrested elements in Cynthia grew apace and with abnormal force. +Through Lans Treadwell she realized all the froth and sunshine girlhood +craves--she forgot Sandy because at that moment he held no part in the +gay drama that was set to music and song. And then, quite naturally, +too, the woman in the girl pleaded for recognition. Here was a man who +appreciated her; would accept her as she was, although he asked no +questions of her, regarding her poor little past. He talked splendidly +of the big vital things of life which Cynthia thrilled at, but could +not express in word or thought. Oh! it was most sure that Lans +Treadwell would never care what had brought her into being--it was the +woman! Sandy might do a big thing from duty; Lans would do big things +because with him duty was but love of--humanity! Cynthia did not know +much about humanity and Lans never said he loved her--but it came upon +the girl all at once one day that she--she, little Cynthia Walden, was +needed, desperately, sufferingly needed by a great-souled man to help +in saving Lost Hollow! How magnificent! Sandy meant to save The +Hollow alone and single-handed--Sandy was limited, that was Lans's +modest interpretation--but Treadwell had his vision, too, and his +vision included her! It was breath-taking and alluring. + +Treadwell did not make any physical or emotional claims upon the +girl--something led him dangerously, but wisely. He taught her to call +him brother and he spoke to her as "little sister." This was +particularly blinding to Marcia Lowe. + +"Brother and sister in the broad human sense," pleaded Lans, and so the +net drew close around little Cyn, and she did not struggle, because the +mesh was so open and free that it did not chafe the delicate nature nor +stunt the yet blind soul. + +At the end of the third week Crothers, in fatherly manner, suggested to +Lans that he was compromising Cynthia. So considerately and humanely +did the man speak of this that Lans could take no offence, particularly +as Crothers just then had brought their common interests to such a pass +that to resent anything would have been fatal. A very beautiful and +many-coloured bubble was well in sight! + +"You see," Crothers explained, "them men up to Greeley's store are a +right evil lot. Knowing that Cynthia Walden was a nameless waif when +old Miss Ann adopted her, they cannot believe a right smart feller like +you has honest motives and they are getting ugly." + +Lans had heard the report of Cynthia's early childhood; the girl +herself had sweetly and pathetically referred to it--and they thought +he was that kind, eh? Well, he would show them! Having accepted the +fate of the man on a desert island, Lans Treadwell meant to treat the +natives he found there, fairly and nobly. In his mind he had cut +himself adrift forever from the old life and its claims; Cynthia was +the most attractive little savage on his isolated, safety isle--he +would claim her virtuously and bravely; he would train her; educate her +to be no unworthy mate for him in his god-like sacrifice for his family +honour. + +Never had Lans Treadwell been so dramatic nor such a fool, but he had +caught little Cyn, and before she realized what had happened or why she +had permitted it to happen, she drove away with Treadwell over the +hills one day to see some land Crothers had urged him to look at and, a +storm overtaking them, they were delayed in an old cabin where they +sought shelter over night and then and there Lans brought her to see +that for all their sakes they should be married before going home. + +"Married?" gasped Cynthia, as if the word were foreign; "married! me, +little Cyn? Why, only _women_ marry!" + +"And you are a woman, sweet!" Even then Lans did not touch her, though +she looked more divine with her big eyes shining and the blessed smile +parting her lips than he had ever seen her. + +"I--a woman? Well, I reckon I am--but it seems mighty queer when you +first think of it. And--the folks would say evil things of me because +you took care of me and didn't risk my neck on the bad roads in the +dark? What could they-all say?" + +For the life of him Lans could not frame the words with that lovely +face turned to his. "You must trust me, Cynthia. I will protect you +and you must protect me." + +"I--protect you? You are right funny. What could they-all do to you?" + +"They could horsewhip me; tar and feather me----" + +"Oh! no!" And now the light faded from the girl's face. Once at The +Forge a man was treated so--yes! there was something about a woman, too! + +The storm had raged all night. Lans made a fire and laughed and joked +the dark lonely hours through. After midnight Cynthia fell asleep from +sheer exhaustion and Lans placed his overcoat under her head while he +smoked by the fire and grew--as imagination fed upon itself--into a +being so immaculate and saint-like that the morning found him prepared +for the final and dramatic climax. He awoke Cynthia, touched her as if +she was a spirit, and took her to the little town known as Sudley's Gap +and there--married her! + +Cynthia was excited and worn from her night's experience, but the +ceremony and Lans's manner made it all seem like a new play. They were +always playing together, he and she. Big brother and little sister +lived in the moment and had no care for the past or future. They had +breakfast together, after the visit to the missionary, and it was +afternoon before they started for home. At last Cynthia grew very +quiet--the play had tired her; she was frightened and unhappy. How +could what had happened secure Lans from the anger of The Hollow folks, +if staying away were wrong? It was all very foolish. They could have +gone to Sandy and explained. Already Sandy stood in the girl's life as +safety and strength. + +Just then Lans turned and looked at her. To him it was beyond +comprehension that a girl of nineteen could be what Cynthia was. +Ignorant she might be, surely was, but she was vital and human; she had +witnessed life and its meaning in The Hollow--she was primitive and +childish--but she understood! + +Lans felt himself, by that time, to be about the highest-minded man any +one could hope to find. He had practised great self-repression; he had +accepted his future life suddenly, but with all its significant +responsibilities. When he reached The Hollow there would be tumult, no +doubt, but every man and woman there would count on the hot, impulsive +Southern blood and, after the first shock, would glory in a Hertford +who could carry things with such a high hand and, withal, a clean hand! + +Laying the reins down over the dash-board, Lans turned to Cynthia, his +passion gaining power over him as the sense of possession lashed it +sharply. The pretty big-eyed girl was his! He had secured her by the +sacredest ties, but for that very reason he need withhold himself no +longer. + +"Wife!" he whispered. "Wife, come; sweet, come!" + +This was no play. The call awakened no response, but fear laid its +guarding hand upon the girl as it had on that terrible night when Smith +Crothers asked of her what Treadwell was now seeking in a different +way, but in the same language. + +"No!" Cynthia shuddered, shrinking from him. "No!" + +The denial had awakened evil in Crothers; it aroused the best in +Treadwell. For a moment he looked at the wild, fear-filled eyes and +then a mighty pity surged over him. + +"I--I would not hurt you for all the world, little Cyn," he said, +taking up the reins. "I've done the best I could for you, dear; when +you can you will come to me--won't you? In the meantime it's 'brother +and little sister!'" + +Come to him! Thus Sandy had spoken, too! The memory hurt. + +The strain of the Markham blood rushed hotly, at the instant, in Lans's +veins. It gave him courage and strength to forget--the Hertfords. + +He took Cynthia to Trouble Neck and manfully told Marcia Lowe what had +occurred. The little doctor, worn by anxiety, was almost prostrated. + +"No one knows but what Cynthia was here all last night," she said. +"I've lied to Tod Greeley. I told him you had not taken Cynthia; that +she was ill with headache." + +"Now!" Cynthia laughed lightly; "you see we need not have done that +silly thing at Sudley's Gap." + +Marcia Lowe began to cry softly. + +"Oh! dear," she faltered, "but Smith Crothers knows and Sandy Morley, +too. Oh! I have been so blind, so foolish, and you have been such mad +children." + +"I am going to Sandy at once," Lans explained. The plain common-sense +atmosphere of the cabin and the little doctor's evident suffering were +calming Treadwell's hot Southern blood and giving a touch of stern +prosaic grimness to the business. + +Cynthia, once she was safe with Marcia Lowe, was so unflatteringly +happy that Lans Treadwell might well be pardoned for thinking her +lacking in ordinary mentality, and this thought was like a dash of ice +water on his growing chilliness. He became awkward and nervous. He +felt like a man who had run headlong to a goal only to find that it was +the wrong one, with no strength or power to retrace his steps he owed +to defeat and failure, and in that mood he sought Sandy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Marcia Lowe was mistaken. Sandy did not know. He knew that Treadwell +had not returned the evening before, but Tansey Moore, who was now +manager of Crothers' new factory, had told him that Treadwell had gone +to look up a piece of land back of Sudley's Gap, and the storm had +naturally detained him. + +The sudden growth of intimacy between Crothers and Lans surprised and +amused Sandy. Full well he realized Crothers' motive, and he could +afford to laugh at that, but he felt annoyed and hurt at Lans's weak +falling into the trap. The disloyalty to himself did not affect Sandy, +he was far too sensible and simple a man to care deeply for that, and +it somehow made it easier for him to reconcile his conscience to the +growing distrust and contempt he had for Treadwell, but he disliked the +idea of Crothers using his friend to gain his mean ends. + +"Lans is not one to tie up to," he said to himself, and then smiled at +the quaint expression which he had learned from Levi. "And to-morrow I +will tell him that I must make ready for the Markhams." + +The day after Cynthia's marriage Sandy had gone early to the buildings. +He and Martin had worked hard; settled a difficulty among the men, +which they both felt confident Crothers had instigated, and, upon +reaching home late in the afternoon Sandy was told that Old Andrew +Townley was ill and wanted him. Liza Hope had sent word. + +"I reckon you can wait to eat," Sally Taber had suggested; "ole Andy +has been dyin' with consumption ever since dat time when he went to The +Forge an' got baptized in his wife's night shift--him not being able to +get a robe! Andy took a mighty stiff chill that-er-day an' it war like +a finger pintin' the way to his grave. Andy war thirty when he waddled +into de Branch in dem swaddling clothes, an' he's over ninety now. I +expect he can hol' on till you've tended to yo' stummick." + +But Sandy had not waited. He went to Andrew and found the old man +wandering on to the end of his journey in a very happy frame of mind. +He was, to himself, no longer the weak creature dying in his poor +cabin. Lying on the comfortable cot Sandy had provided, smilingly +gazing through the broad window Sandy's inspired saw and hammer had +designed, he believed himself to be a young and strong man helping +another up The Way with guiding hand and cheerful courage. Sitting by +the bed, Sandy took the cold, shrivelled fingers in his warm young +ones, and the comforting touch focussed the wavering mind. + +"Eh, there, son, it's a right smart climb, but the end's just yonder! +See that-er-light?" + +"Yes, old friend, I see the light." + +Sandy bent low and whispered gently. + +"That-er-light, son, is in Parson Starr's window. Starr, Starr! He +war a mighty clear star an' his light ain't going out, I reckon. Hold +fast, son! A few more steps and the totin' will be over. It's been +right heavy goin'--but----" + +The poor old body struggled to rise and Sandy, putting an arm under the +shoulders, lifted Andrew to a sitting position. + +"Do you see the--light, old friend?" + +"I--see--the star!" + +"Yes. The star and the light, Andy?" + +"Yes--that's--home!" + +Facing the west with wide welcoming eyes, Andrew slipped from life so +gently and quietly that for some minutes Sandy held him without knowing +that the light had gone out and the weary soul had reached home by The +Appointed Way. When the knowledge came to him, his eyes dimmed and +reverently he lay the stiffening form back upon the pillow; crossed the +thin, worn hands upon the peaceful breast, and turned to his next duty +with a murmured farewell to ears that no longer could be comforted by +his kind words. + +Sandy went home and ate his evening meal with his father. He did not +mention Andrew's death. Martin was so genuinely happy at having his +son to himself and Lansing Treadwell out of the house, that Sandy +disliked to shadow the joy. + +"Suppose we read a bit," he suggested when the two were seated in the +study. Martin accepted joyously. "What shall it be, Dad?" + +"Well, son, it do seem triflin' to set your mind to anything but Holy +Writ when you're idle, but to-day I found an ole paper up to the works +with a mighty stirrin' picture on it; a real techersome picture of a +man danglin' from a high cliff by his two hands, and nothin' 'twixt him +an' certain death, I reckon, but the writingman's understandin' of the +scene. Yo' know, Sandy, I ain't had my specs fitted yet an' so I +couldn't fin' out about the picture an' it's been right upsettin' to me +all day." + +Sandy took the crumpled paper Martin produced from an inside pocket and +began to read the hair-raising tale. Toward the end he discovered it +was a serial which left the hero, at the most breathless point, still +hanging. Thereupon Sandy evolved from his own imagination a fitting +and lurid ending that appeased Martin's sense of crude justice and left +nothing to his yearning soul unanswered. + +"I call that-er-tale a mighty good one," Martin remarked when, hands +upon knees, eyes staring, and chin hanging, he heard the grand finale. +"Taint allas as the ungodly gets fetched up with so cutely. It's right +comfortin' to think o' that low-down trash a-festerin' in the bottom o' +the gulch." + +Then Martin, the gentlest of creatures, went pattering up to bed in his +stocking feet, muttering cheerfully to himself as he mounted the dark +stairs, candle in outstretched hand: + +"A festerin' eternally at the bottom!" + +After his father departed Sandy sat by his fire alone and waited. So +Lans found him, and gloomily took a chair across the hearth. + +"Have you had supper, Lans?" Sandy asked after greeting him cordially. + +"Yes. The storm kept me last night. I got back--not long ago. I had +a bite while I waited for the horse to be seen to. The poor beast was +pretty well worn out." + +There did not seem to be anything more to say on that subject, so Sandy +remarked: + +"Smoke if you care to, Lans; don't mind me." + +But Lans did not care to smoke and suddenly he jumped up, plunged his +hands in his pockets and faced Sandy with crimson cheeks and wide eyes. + +"Sand," he blurted out, "I'm in a devil of a hole; I've pulled about +all Lost Hollow in with me. I'm a fool and worse, but you know how I +am. Any big passion that seizes me--holds me! I'm not responsible +while the clutch is on me. I ought to be taken out and shot. I----" + +But Sandy's blank stare called a halt. + +"I--I wouldn't take it that way, Treadwell," he said, thinking that +some obvious villainy of Crothers' had opened Lans's eyes to facts; "I +may be able to get you out of the hole." + +Then, ludicrously, the story he had just read to his father came into +his mind. Lans seemed to be the creature at the bottom of the gulch, +and it was up to him, Sandy, to rescue the knave in spite of Martin's +satisfaction in leaving him there to fester. Sandy smiled. + +"Good God, Morley, what are you laughing at?" Lans cried; "this is no +laughing matter." + +"I beg your pardon, Lans. An idiotic thing occurred to me and you are +such a tragic cuss that I never can think things are as bad with you as +you imagine." + +"Sand, this is a--hell of a thing! I don't know what you will say. +Fellows like you with their hands always on their tillers, fellows with +cool heads and calm passions never can understand us who fly off at +every spark that's set to us. All I can promise you is this--help me +now and, by God! I'll let your hand rest on my tiller till I get into +smooth waters again and--I've learned my lesson! What I've got to tell +you sounds like a yarn, Sand. All the time I was coming up The Way I +kept repeating 'it's not true!' but good Lord--it is! Morley, I'm +married. I was married early this morning!" + +The little woman struggling with her problem up North came to Sandy's +mind. She had not been able to keep up the fight; she had followed +Lans and--but no! If there had been a wedding then the husband must +have died! Sandy looked puzzled. + +"If it was the best, the only way, old man," he said, "I don't see why +you should take it this fashion. You--loved her; you cannot have +changed in so short a time." + +And now it was Lans's turn to stare blankly. With his temperament, +time and place had no part. He was either travelling through space at +a thundering speed or stagnating in a vacuum. He had almost forgotten +Marian Spaulding and his present affair took on new and more potent +meanings. + +"I--I married Cynthia Walden!" he gasped. "I married her--this +morning. We were out alone all last night. The--storm--you--know! +She didn't understand--I tried to--to shield her--she doesn't +understand--now. Good God! Morley, stop staring! Say something, for +heaven's sake!" + +But Sandy could not speak, and his brain whirled so dizzily that he +dared not shut his eyes for fear of falling. Like a man facing death +with only a moment in which to speak volumes, he groped among the +staggering mass of facts that were hurtling around him, for one, one +only, that would save the hour. He remembered vividly the old story of +Cynthia's mother which Ann Walden had proclaimed, but he remembered, +also, the hideous belief that lay low in Lost Hollow. Dead and buried +was the doubt, but now it rose grim and commanding. Sandy tried to +form the words: "She is your sister!" But the words would not come +through the stiff, parted lips. Honesty held them in check; they must +not become a living thought unless absolute proof were there to +substantiate them. + +The two men confronted each other helplessly, silently, and then Lans +Treadwell, overcome by sudden remorse, and a kind of fear, strove to +propitiate the sternness that found no expression in words. + +"I've been devilishly wrong, Sand, and returned your hospitality and +friendship with bad grace, old fellow, but I drifted into it and when +it was too late--I did what seemed the only decent thing. I know I +couldn't have explained, and she turned my senses by her sweetness. +She's like a baby, Morley, and I mean to--to do the right by her, as +God hears me!" + +Treadwell used the name of God so frequently and ardently that it +sickened Sandy. + +"Yes," he groaned, "you will do right by her or----" the dark eyes +flashed dangerously; "and you'll do right by her--in my way!" + +This was unfortunate and Sandy saw his mistake. Lans Treadwell's +shoulders straightened and his jaw set in ugly lines. + +"If it's going to be man to man, Sand," he muttered, "I reckon I've got +the whip hand. She's my wife, you know, and the laws of this nice +little state are pretty explicit along certain lines. When all's said +and done--what are you, as a man, mind you, going to do about it?" + +Again the staggering doubt was like a weapon for Sandy's use, but he +hesitated still. + +"I--I wonder if you know what you have done?" he groaned again. + +"When you talk like that, Sand," Lans whispered, his face softening, "I +don't! And I implore you to help me." + +"You don't know our South, our Hollow," Sandy went on, with a pitiful +tone in his unsteady voice. "It takes us so long to--wake up! It's +something in the air, the sun, the winters--the life. Cynthia has not +roused--she is only dreaming in her sleep. She's a child, a little +girl, and you have dragged her into----" + +"Hold on, Sand!" Lans warned once more. + +"I have been waiting"--Sandy did not seem to heed the caution--"I've +been waiting and watching for the hour when she would realize that she +was a woman. I've loved her all my life, worshipped her, but I would +not have startled her before her time to have saved my soul from death! +Had she realized, Treadwell--had things been open and fair, I would +have taken my chance--but--you!" + +Again the blaze darted to Treadwell's eyes. + +"And what do you insinuate?" he asked--but he got no farther. There +was the sound of quick, approaching steps outside and a moment later a +sharp knock on the door; Sandy strode forward and opened it, then +closed it upon Marcia Lowe and Cynthia. + +Quickened by spiritual insight Sandy saw that the girl was awake to the +reality of things. Shock had shattered her childishness forever, but +she was not afraid. Uncertainty and ignorance were there, but no sense +of danger in the clear, wonderful eyes. + +"Oh! Sandy," she panted, going close to him and holding her hands out, +"Sandy, you know?" + +"Yes." + +"I wanted to be here with you-all after she"--the sweet eyes turned to +Marcia Lowe--"told me. I--I thought maybe he"--she glanced toward +Treadwell--"might not tell you, till morning. Poor dear!" + +This last was to Sandy, for the look in his eyes wrung the tender heart +with divine pity. + +"Sit down," Sandy urged, placing chairs near the hearth and bending to +lay on more wood, "there is much to say." + +Then it was that the little doctor took command. She did not sit down +as the others had; she stood by the table with some loose papers in her +hand. + +"I feel as if it were all my fault," she began. "Things lie so still +here; we seem so shut in. Cynthia has been like a child to me--I +haven't thought ahead and I just played with her and worked out--my +puzzle piece by piece. It was only a week ago that I felt sure; I +meant to tell Cynthia slowly and little by little--and then this +happened!" + +Marcia Lowe's face was fixed and white. No one spoke. Then she went +on again. + +"I have always believed Cynthia's father was--my uncle, Theodore Starr! +I came to Lost Hollow because I believed that, but I had no absolute +proof and Ann Walden denied me support. But look at her--look at +Cynthia and me! Of course I am old, old, and she's a baby, but can't +you read God's handwriting in our faces? See the colour, +form--expression----" + +Morley and Treadwell stared at the two faces and into their benumbed +consciousness something vital struggled to life. It brought a gleam to +Lans's eyes; a groan of surrender to Sandy's lips! The contrite voice +was going on and on. + +"There was no marriage certificate. There had been an unhappy +engagement between my uncle and Ann Walden--he, poor, timid, gentle +soul, dared not speak at the proper moment, he dreaded giving pain, and +he married Cynthia's mother privately, and before things could be made +plain--he died up in the hills, serving men! The man that married them +went away--only a year ago he came back; recently Mr. Greeley drove +over to Sudley's Gulch to make a will for this man; Cynthia and I went +with him. The man died a few days ago. Among his papers was a +notebook in which was recorded the marriage of Queenie Walden and +Theodore Starr! The man was a--a magistrate, the thing was +legal--Little Cyn is--my niece!" + +An empty room never seems so still as one in which living, wordless men +and women are held by breathless silence. Treadwell dared not speak. +He seemed a stranger; one who had no right to be there. Cynthia's eyes +were lifted to Sandy Morley's face and did not fall away. Having said +what she had come to say, Marcia Lowe held out her written words of +proof and waited. After a long pause Cynthia spoke and her voice was +electrical in its effect. + +"Sandy," she said, going close to him and holding him with her clear +gaze and slow, brave smile, "you know I did not mean--to do wrong?" + +"Yes, little Cyn." + +"I'm right glad I'm--I'm my dear father's child. All my life he's been +a happy name to me--and I'm mighty proud to be his, really. I'm going +to be brave for him and my mother! Sandy--I am not afraid--I am not +afraid!" The words came slowly, drawlingly but unbrokenly. + +"My aunt," and for an instant the eyes rested on the bowed head of +Marcia Lowe, "has told me many things--I understand right many things, +now! I know you-all want to help me; want the best for me--but what's +done, is done, Sandy Morley, and I can do my part. If--if--my husband +wants me--I am ready--to go to him. Sandy, I am not afraid!" + +Then they waited. Sandy stood with his back to the fire, motionless +and white; Marcia Lowe had sunk into a chair and bending forward hid +her face in her hands; Cynthia drew back from Sandy and stood alone in +the middle of the room. + +What emotions and thoughts swayed Lans Treadwell, who could know? But +looking from one to the other of the little group the craven distrust +died from his face and an uplifted expression took its place. He stood +straight and tall and good to look upon as he realized that he was at +last the final judge. + +"Cynthia!" he said calmly, and his voice was low and firm; "I do--want +you! you are my wife! You are not afraid?" + +Slowly he stepped over to her; he forgot the others--he and she were +all! He put out his hands and Cynthia laid hers in them. + +"I am not afraid," she whispered. And before the light in her upraised +eyes Lans Treadwell did not flinch. + +"I, too, wish to help you--in my own way. Can you trust me?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you leave the hills with me--me alone?" + +For an instant the sweet smile faded, but it was for the loss of her +mountains; not her doubt of her husband which drove it away. + +"Yes," she murmured. + +Then Sandy found his way back from his place of torment and he strode +to the two in the middle of the room. He laid his hand upon +Treadwell's shoulder, and all the smouldering passion in his heart rang +in his words. + +"Lansing Treadwell, swear to me, that you will leave her soul to her +own keeping until----" + +Treadwell gave him a long, steady look. + +"I swear!" he said. + +"When--her hour comes to--understand and choose--let her be white and +pure as she is now!" + +"I swear it, Sandy Morley." + +"Then," and now Sandy's eyes dimmed, "good-bye, little Cyn. You'll +miss the mountains--but there are good, true hearts--down beyond The +Way." + +At this Marcia Lowe drew near: + +"Little girl--come home! She is mine until you take her from Lost +Hollow, Lansing Treadwell." + +The hands that held Cynthia's let her free. A pause followed. Then: + +"Good-night--good-night!" The pretty, pale face flushed tenderly. +"Good-night. And now come, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" + +The sweet attempt at cheer all but crushed those who heard and +understood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +The Markhams came to Lost Mountain early in December. The weather was +fair and mild and much of the time could be spent out of doors. +Matilda, frail but with that gentle tenacity of life that marks many +women for longevity, settled at once into the semi-rough life of the +cabin with innate delicacy and aptness. The rooms Sandy had so +lovingly planned and furnished became _hers_ after the first day, and +no truer compliment could have been paid her host than this homelike +acceptance of his thoughtfulness. To see her soft, bright knitting in +the sitting-room gave Sandy a positive thrill and when he came back, +after a long day of tramping about with Levi, and found the dear, +smiling woman awaiting him, he knew the first touch of the mother in +his own home that had ever been his. And sorely the poor fellow needed +it just then! + +Levi, too, was a saving grace in those empty hours after Cynthia's +going. Swelling with pride, he followed Sandy about from cabin to +factory; from factory to Home-school. In vain he struggled to suppress +any outward show of the pride and delight he took in everything he saw. +He sought to keep things upon a dull, business level, but exultation at +times overcame him when Sandy was well out of sight. To Martin or +Matilda he permitted himself a bit of relaxation. + +"Well," he had said to Martin after the first strangeness had worn off, +"so you are the father of this boy, eh?" + +"I am, sir!" + +The pride that rang in Morley's voice was never veiled, and his native +dignity was touching. + +"I reckon any one might doubt it, sir, seeing him and me, but he's mine +and I'm his." + +"Well, well!" Markham put his hand out frankly. "I hope you're +grateful." + +"I am mighty grateful, sir. Mornin' an' night I kneel an' thank my +God, an' day in an' out I live the poor best I can, sir, my +thankfulness." + +Markham gripped the thin, hard hand appreciatively. He knew more of +Martin than Martin suspected, for Marcia Lowe had made it her first +duty, after the Markhams' arrival, to get into touch with them. Not +Sandy alone had been the theme of the little doctor's discourse; +Martin's grim and self-sacrificing fight in her cabin was given in +detail with other happenings in The Hollow. + +"Oh! they are so big and silent and patient," Miss Lowe had explained, +"they cannot for one moment comprehend their own importance in the +scheme of things. I feel it a duty to shine up their virtues." + +Levi was deeply touched by all he heard, and when things puzzled him he +gruffly insisted that he needed a walk to calm his nerves, and always +it was the little doctor who straightened the tangle. + +"Miss Interpreter," Markham dubbed her, and through her he became +acquainted with Smith Crothers and Crothers' mark upon recent +occurrences. Of course Levi knew of Lans Treadwell's visit to the +hills. Markham was not a superstitious man, but he had remarked to +Matilda before they came to Lost Hollow that it "looked like the hand +of God." After a séance or so at Trouble Neck, Levi changed his mind. + +"I tell you, Matilda," he confided by her fireside one night after a +particularly satisfying day with Sandy, "we take for granted that God +Almighty's hand is the only guiding in the final analysis, but the +devil gets in a twist now and again, and I guess he had more to do with +Lansing's heading up here than God did. Once old Nick got the boy here +he did his best to use him, too, but from what I can learn Lans spunked +up at the end and showed himself more of a man than we might have +expected. He played a good deal of havoc in a few short weeks, though." + +Marcia Lowe had eliminated Sandy from poor Cynthia's romance or +tragedy. She had put a purely commercial valuation upon Crothers' +interference, for the look on Sandy's face the night he bade Cynthia +good-bye haunted the little doctor and would to the last day of her +life. Before it her eyes had fallen, and whenever she recalled the +scene a silence fell upon her. No thought or word could express what +she, too late, surmised, and her lips guarded the sanctity of Sandy's +secret. + +When Levi confided Marcia Lowe's interpretations to his sister she was +very unresponsive. She listened but made no comment other than: + +"Sandy works too hard. He looks real peaked to me. It don't count to +your credit, Levi, or his either, for that matter, if he feels he's got +to pay you back in bone and muscle past a certain point." + +"Now, 'Tilda," Levi put in, "what do you mean by that?" + +"I mean----" Matilda condensed her impressions: "I think he looks real +pinched and peaked." + +This put Markham on a new track, and the next day he fell upon Sandy +with the one weapon which, more than any other, caused Sandy to love +and honour him. + +"See here, son,"--it was oftener "son" than "boy" now--"don't get any +fool idea in your head that you owe me more than an eight hour day's +work." + +They were going over the plans of the Home-school as Levi spoke, and +Sandy laughed lightly. "You are my agent, my--my promoter, son, and, +as such, you hold a responsible position at--at good pay!" + +"Thank you, sir. I understand that and I am anxious to carry out your +wishes. I am eager to get this thing running, not for you, sir, alone, +but my people. Crothers seems hell-bound just now in frightening them +into signing contracts for themselves and their children for years to +come. Of course the contracts are not worth the paper they are written +on, but a general belief is spreading that our works cannot be relied +upon and, in order to benefit The Hollow, Crothers is offering to +protect the people against us by securing positions for them if they +will agree to stand by him. When I think of the baby-things, sir, and +the long, deadly hours of toil that lead to no preparation for +betterment, my soul sickens. Now this, sir"--Sandy pointed to a +particularly high and open space on the blue print--"is the hospital +room." + +"The--the what?" Levi put on his glasses. + +"The hospital room, sir, I'm going to put Miss Lowe in control; I'd +like to have another physician too, sir, and a few nurses. Right up +there"--Sandy's eyes gleamed as they followed his finger to the space +on the blue print--"we want to tackle the real trouble of the South, +sir. Why, do you know I only heard the other day that Tod Greeley went +to our representative, a year ago, and begged him to get an +appropriation from Congress to start the work against the hook worm in +this district and the request was refused." Sandy gave a hard laugh. +"Well, I reckon Greeley and I know why, sir. Lost Hollow is too +ignorant. Our votes can be got without the appropriation. The big, +human need does not matter! Where there is more intelligence the +representatives have to understand conditions. But it will matter by +and by, sir! I know what that little doctor did for my father. I know +what she's done for one or two of Mason Hope's children and the girl of +Tansey Moore's who was--who was like my sister Molly! I want Miss Lowe +and her helpers to have that high and bright place, sir, for their +workshop. It must have sun and air, sir, and books and toys and--and +music, too, for the fight is a hard and bitter one and the days and +nights, at best, are terrible." + +Levi Markham leaned back, took off his glasses and fixed Sandy with his +keen glance. For a few moments he could not speak; he had been carried +far and beyond his normal depth. When he got command of himself, he +said slowly: + +"Son, it looks to me as if we would need all we can make up North to +stamp out some of the evils of the South, but, God willing, we're going +to make a stab at it! See here, who is the representative for this +district?" + +Sandy gave the name of a man many miles away. + +"Well, I guess he can be brought to learn the language of Lost Hollow, +son, if some one shows him his duty. Some good laws, too, that would +put a quietus on this Smith Crothers' ambitions ought to be looked +after. He shouldn't be the say-all up here. No man is good enough or +safe enough to take the bit in his own teeth--not even you, Sandy +Morley!" + +"Law, well carried out, is the best way, sir." + +"Exactly! And now for the rest of the building, boy. What are these +little cubby holes?" + +"Bedrooms, sir. This is only an idea of my own. It's rather +extravagant and it's subject to your decision, of course. I'd like to +have each child have his own room, sir. A boy or girl grows so in a +special little corner that is quite his own. I have a design of a +small chest of drawers that I'd like to show you later. It does not +take up much space and it combines washstand, bureau, table and--a +place for the boy or girl's things." + +"Things?" Levi was again bending over the blue print. + +"Yes, sir. Things dear to each child's heart. Stones, sticks, +anything that cannot be--explained." Sandy gave a low laugh. He was +harking back to the old shed beside his father's cabin and the gay +prints tacked to the worm-eaten boards. + +"The separate rooms can stand, son, and those little jimcracks of +drawers are favourably passed on, too. And these?" Levi's thick +forefinger stopped at the elevation of the first floor. + +Sandy gave a rich, satisfied laugh of content. + +"Well, sir, it is this-er-way"--The Hollow's soft running of the words +together delighted Levi's ear--"when the poor little creatures have had +their fight out on the upper floor and have got down to these small +rooms and have realized that they are human beings, then we're going to +fix them--fix them, sir, right here!" Sandy's eyes flashed and his jaw +set in the stern, grim fashion that Levi had long since grown to watch +for and admire. + +"By the time they reach the ground floor, sir, I reckon we can tackle +them and begin to make them pay for themselves. By that time they will +have something to draw on and we'll exact payment. Right here and +here"--Sandy's forefinger was going rapidly from point to point, and +Levi's stubby digit was laboriously following--"are the workshops, the +school rooms, the kitchens and conservatories. Why, sir, even the +idiot children can be utilized. They love flowers and animals; we must +find their one gleam and guide their poor feet on the way. Good food, +honest hours of work, systematic exercise and proper amusement--why, +sir, from this ground floor we are to send men and women out into the +world who will reflect credit on Lost Hollow and redeem its name. And +you, sir----" + +The two men faced each other suddenly. Markham seemed to realize anew +the delicacy and fineness of the thin, brown face---Matilda's words +rang in his ears, "he looks real pinched and peaked." The homely +phrase carried more weight to Markham than any scientific terms of a +specialist. A sharp pain shot through his heart; he had the quick +impulse to shield and protect this young fellow who was being carried +afield on the wings of his enthusiasm. Protect him from what? + +"See here, son, we cannot afford to go too fast with this hobby of +yours. Get the buildings up as soon as you can; carry out all the +material plans just as you have designed, but we've got to get our feet +on good firm ground before we tackle the human problems. You know I am +against paternalism, first and last. I'm willing to give opportunity, +but nothing else." + +"That is all they need, sir. Some must be shown opportunity--others +are strong enough to grip it, but it's mighty good common sense, sir, +to open the eyes of the blind and strengthen the feet of the weak--it's +what you-all did for me, sir." + +"Umph!" Markham exclaimed and then got suddenly up. "I'm going to take +a stroll down The Way," he said. "Fix things here in an hour or two +and see if you can get some kind of a rig for a drive this afternoon. +I want Matilda to get the lay of the land before the winter sets in." + +And then, confused by mingled emotions, Markham bore down upon Smith +Crothers in his factory, a mile or so down the mountain, and attacked +that gentleman in such a blunt and utterly unlooked-for manner that +Crothers was startled and helpless. + +The directness of the blows left Smith Crothers without defence; he was +obliged to use his own crude weapons with the ever-growing conviction +that they were worse than useless. Markham availed himself of no +propitiation--he rushed his opponent into the open at the first +onslaught, and thereafter he attacked him fore and aft mercilessly. + +"See here, Crothers," he began, when the head of the factory had +invited him into his private office and, with smiles and bows, had +seated his guest; "you and I had better understand each other right +now. You know, and I know that you know, that I am The Company up +North which you are maligning here in The Hollow. Now I'm willing to +lay down my hand and show my cards. I'm going to back this boy of +Morley's by millions, if necessary, and there are millions to count +on--not millions to be made. _Why_ I am doing this is my concern--all +that matters is--I'm going to do it! Maybe it is a whim; maybe it is +plain tomfoolery; every man has his weak side--I have mine. That +factory up the hill is going to run as soon as it is finished; the +Home-school is going to open its doors likewise; and both institutions +are going to pay and don't you forget it! You put one product on the +market; I another. We won't clash there--the rock we may split on is +the labour question." + +Crothers gasped feebly. + +"I reckon I understand conditions here, sir, better than"--he longed to +say "any damned Yankee," but he controlled the impulse--"any stranger +from the North." + +"No you don't!" Markham flashed back. "Exploitation isn't any fairer +here than where I come from. Because these people don't realize it is +no excuse for men like you and me. I know all about what you set forth +as explanation and excuse--it goes up North the same as it does here. +Supply and demand; business is business and all the rest of it, but you +and I know that it ought not go! We have no right to take it out of +the people." + +"You've managed to take out your pile"--Crothers' smile was +vanishing,--"'cording to your own telling. Millions ain't got by +magic, these times." + +Markham fixed the ugly eyes with his calm gaze. + +"You are free to come and see how I have made my money," he said. "I +have a system that includes every employee in my money-getting. They, +every mother's son of them, have a chance with me to better themselves. +I have never worked a child in my mills nor a woman about to become a +mother, or for months after. I don't talk about these things--I live +them! Now I mean to make money up here--honest money; my just share, +and I'm going to follow my past line of action. I find it pays. Young +Morley knows conditions here, and I'm going to pay him a big salary as +interpreter. He's a high class man. Why, good God! Crothers, I +sometimes think he was called to lead his people out of bondage." + +Having permitted himself this flight Markham struck another blow that +completed Crothers' dismay. + +"There have got to be laws protecting these mountain folks from +themselves. I'm not casting reflections, but you have all been passed +by in the general scuffle, down yonder, and some one has got to sit up +and take notice. There should be child labour laws, educational laws +and sanitary laws. There should be appropriations made for carrying on +good work in the mountains!" The light of Sandy's torch was flaring +well ahead of Markham and he was following eagerly. + +"Such men as you ought to be up and doing. It's going to be an open +fight, as far as I'm concerned, and I want to tell you now that so long +as there is decent and clean methods used, all may be well, but I'm +going to see fair play, and I thought it was only friendly to come to +you and show my cards." + +"Thank you!" Crothers moistened his lips and plunged his hands in his +pockets. "Is this a threat, sir?" + +"No; a warning." + +"Well, sir, I mean to do business along my own lines." + +"I mean to do the same, Crothers, and I'd like to add, that in any +clash please remember you are up against me--not Sandford Morley." + +"I'm not likely to forget that, sir." + +There was a little more talk, pro and con, and then the two men parted +as men can do, after a heated and vital discussion, apparently on the +best of terms. + +It was the night of that day when, before the fire in the little +sitting-room devoted to the Markhams' use, Levi sought to ease his +sister's mind concerning Sandy. + +"The boy was up against it with Crothers," he explained, "and making no +outcry. You know Sandy's way. He wouldn't confide in us about that +poor little sister of his--he thought it wasn't in the bargain. He +meant to fight this big bully in his own fashion without calling on me, +but I've taken a hand in the game and put Crothers wise as to +principles. I may have to get a few knocks before I am done, but Sandy +won't be the buffer. I guess the boy will pick up from now on. He's +nervy and stronger than he looks." + +Matilda sat in her low, broad rocker. Her dressing gown of pale violet +enshrouded her tiny figure like the soft petals of a flower; her faded +eyes and gentle face were lowered, and her gaze fixed upon the burning +logs. + +"Brother," she said tenderly and wistfully; "the boy has had a mortal +hurt. This evil man has not dealt it, and neither you nor I can cure +it. It has not killed his mind and spirit, but it's killed the heart +of the lad." + +Levi Markham got up and stood with his back to the fire. He was going +to be enlightened--he knew that--but in man fashion he pushed the +inevitable from him. + +"Whim-whams, 'Tilda! Now what do you mean in plain American? Who's +given the boy a blow--a hurt, or whatever you fancy?" + +"It's the--the little girl, brother, that Land has run away with." + +"Good God, Matilda!" + +"Levi, I do wish you would curb your language. You know how I dislike +profanity." + +"I beg your pardon, 'Tilda." + +"While you have been sensing business conditions, brother, I've sensed +something else. I've sort of gathered this Cynthia Walden up piece by +piece. The old woman who works here gave me a bit; that dear little +woman doctor--the aunt of the girl--has told me some of the story; from +Martin Morley I've taken a mite. Little by little it has come to me, +until I've patched the whole together and I can see real plain and +clear, now, the spirit of Lost Hollow that led Sandy out and up and +then--escaped to a place he cannot reach! Oh! brother, when one is +lonely and old and not over strong, it is so easy to get at the heart +of a thing for them one loves." + +Matilda was crying gently into her dainty little handkerchief, and +Markham stared at her, speechless and helpless. + +"There! there! 'Tilda," was all he could think to say, but his tone was +loving beyond description. + +"She's the girl whose face haunted that picture of the dogwood flowers, +brother. She's the girl he wrote to just once, you remember, that time +when we stopped in New York on our way from here to Bretherton. I +guess she's called and called to him from these hills ever since he +left, and now----" + +"Well, 'Tilda?" + +"She's gone away and the call is--stilled." + +Markham sat down again before the fire and buried his head in his +hands. Quietly the old brother and sister sat for a full half hour, +then Levi got up. + +"Good-night, sister," he said. + +"Good-night, brother." + +That was all. They knew that they were unable to reach the hurt that +Sandy had received. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +But Matilda Markham could not sit down under her weight of conviction +in protracted silence. The winter at last gripped The Hollow, and +doors and windows were closed against the cold and storm. Markham, +Martin, and Sandy were always away together much of the day, but +Matilda sat by her fire, chatted a little with Sally, revelled in +Marcia Lowe's frequent calls, and managed to weave a tender story from +all she heard. She knitted her endless rainbow scarfs and gave them to +the mountain women who received them in stolid amazement and doted upon +them in secret. Once Matilda did a very daring and tremendous thing. +She wrote to Olive Treadwell and asked some pointed and vital questions +about Lansing's wife! + +Having sent the letter away impulsively, the poor little lady had a +week of real torture. Daily she walked to the post-office, when no one +was watching, and caused Tod Greeley much amusement by her nervous +anxiety. + +"Meaning no offence," he confided to Marcia Lowe, "and respecting her +age and gray hairs, I reckon the old miss is in love. It comes late to +some folks," he sighed pathetically, "and it comes right hard when it +strikes past the time limit, but nothing but love takes it out of folks +like what this old miss is suffering." + +At last the answer came and Matilda read it with the door of her +bedroom bolted and the washstand barricading it as well. + +Olive Treadwell wrote: + + +I'm mighty glad to say something about this affair to some one who can +understand me. Imagine my feelings when, out of the blue, as one might +say, Lans brought this girl home and said, "I'm going to leave her with +you, Aunt Olive, until I can see my way clear. I am brother to her and +she is sister to me until--the way's made plain." That was all and +then Lans betook himself to his old quarters and began to work. He's +taken a position on the _Boston Beacon_ and calls, actually _calls_, on +his wife evenings or takes her and me out to theatres and dinners. I'm +supposed to be training this young woman, for what, heaven only knows! +but I have my hands full. Lans was always erratic and poetic, but this +is beyond my comprehension, He has had affairs of the heart, of course, +but this is different. The girl is the strangest creature I ever saw; +she is uncanny. After I got her into proper clothing I saw she had +beauty and charm of a certain kind. She takes to ways and expressions +mighty quick, and she is the sweet appealing kind that attracts even +while one disapproves. I confess I am utterly dumb-founded and if you +can throw any light on this matter, pray do so. The girl seems to me +to be half here and half somewhere else; she isn't unhappy, and she +seems to adore Lans in a detached and pretty childish way, but why did +he marry her and why should he, having married her, regard her in this +platonic fashion? + + +Of course Matilda could not answer these questions but she cried over +the letter a great deal and brooded over Sandy with all the motherhood +that nature had not legitimately utilized. And then, one night, Sandy +came to her quite simply and directly and claimed, in his great +suffering need, what she alone had to give. + +It was the week before Christmas. The cabin was gay and festive, for +Marcia Lowe, in a lavishness of good cheer, had decorated everything +she could command beginning with the little chapel and ending with the +post-office. The County Club sat now 'neath an arbour of greens, and +the lowliest cabin had its spray of pine or holly. + +Martin and Levi were bent over a backgammon board in Sandy's study. +Markham had undertaken to correct Morley's neglected education as to +games; and Martin had, after the first week, so outstripped his +instructor that Levi was put upon his mettle and every victory he +wrenched now from Martin gave him a glow of pride he was not slow to +exhibit. Seeing the two men engrossed, Sandy stole to Matilda +Markham's little sitting-room and there found the dear lady asleep +before the fire, her thin white hands sunk in a mass of beautiful +wools. He stood and looked at the quiet, peaceful old face; he +recalled, one by one, her kindnesses to him, her growing pride and love +for him, and presently his eyes grew misty. The frail creature before +him became touched by the magic of his gratitude and need, the most +vital and mighty factor in his life. She, in this hour of his hidden +craving, was the only one to whom he could turn, and right well he knew +that she would stand by him. + +Suddenly Matilda Markham opened her eyes and looked directly into +Sandy's. It may have been that some dream had prepared her, God may +have spoken to her in vision; however that may be she said gently: + +"Son, you need me? Come, tell me all about it." + +Quite naturally Sandy sat down at her feet and looked frankly into the +dear, old face. + +"I am going to ask you to do a great thing for me," he said; "I must +ask you to do it without my explaining things to you to any extent--I +want you to do it as a mother might for her son--trusting me if you +can." + +"Dear boy, I think I can promise to do what you ask." + +Then the thin hands found their way to the bent head, and as they +touched the thick, dark hair a thrill shot to the woman's very heart. + +"Mother!" Sandy seemed inspired to meet her soul's longing. "Mother!" + +"Son, go on. I am waiting." + +"It--it is about the girl--Lansing Treadwell married." + +"Yes." + +"I must know how things are with her. Our mountain people can be so +lonely and homesick away from the hills. At times nothing, nothing can +take the place of the yearning. I--I can forget everything that has +even been, if I know she is right happy and content--but I must know!" + +A fierceness struck through the low-spoken words. "The doubt is--is +killing me." + +"Shall I go now, son, or wait until after the holidays?" + +"Could you go now--and alone?" + +"I can manage Levi, son. Travelling is real easy these days. It will +take management, but I can get what I want." + +"You would understand if you saw her." + +Sandy's voice trailed off forgetful of the woman at whose knees he +knelt. + +"She can smile and make right merry, but you would know and understand. +She is such a pretty, sweet thing, but she has the iron of the hills in +her. She must"--again Sandy's voice shook with passion,--"she must +have happiness! If--if the noise and confusion of the city have +distracted her she must come back to the mountains. Lans will agree to +this--I do not doubt him! She must not--kill herself--you will know +when you see her. You must come back and tell me--you will?" + +"I will, son." + +Matilda yearned to show him Olive Treadwell's letter, but something +kept her from doing it. She wanted to do what she could for Sandy in +her own way, and suddenly she felt herself a giant of strength and +purpose. + +"Travel alone!" she said to Levi later when she had cowed the poor man +by her determination and exactions, "of course I can travel alone. Am +I an idiot, Levi, or a fool? Haven't I a good American tongue to ask +questions with? I remember our mother once told us she would spank us +well if we ever got lost in a place where folks talked the same +language we did. You put me on the train at The Forge with a through +seat in a Pullman, telegraph to Mary Jane to meet me in New York, and I +guess I can manage." + +"But, 'Tilda, what on earth has seized you to act so uncertain in the +middle of this visit? What will they think of you and me?" + +Then Matilda made her master stroke and, by virtue of her +sex-privilege, completed her triumph over her brother. + +"Levi," she said--she was standing before him, her thin hands on his +shoulders--"I ain't ever had what you might call a real fling where my +emotions and sentiments were concerned. Let go of me, just this once, +and trust me! I've always been sort of held back. First it was father +and mother; then Caroline, and lastly you! I ain't never done exactly +what I wanted to do without explaining, and now I want to be left free +even if I die for it!" + +"Well, well!" blurted Levi, but he caught the idea. "I guess women do +have a sense of the tight rein now and then; it may lie loose mostly, +but it never is quite laid off. 'Tilda, you may cut and run now, for +all of me. I'll see to what, you may say, are your animal +comforts--parlour car seats, tickets, and some one waiting for you in +town, but you kick the heels of your inclinations good and high for +once and I bet you and me will run the rest of the race together +better, forever after. Whoop it up, 'Tilda, and remember money needn't +be a hold back. You've got a big, fat slice coming to you, old girl." + +Now that Levi had dropped the reins, the spirit of adventure possessed +him. He and Sandy saw Matilda off on her journey three days later, in +high spirits. + +"I tell you, boy," he confided on the way back to the cabin, "it's a +mighty good sign when a woman wants to jump the traces, and a good man +isn't going to lick her into submission for doing it. The chances are +a woman wouldn't take to kicking if the traces didn't chafe. I've +meant to be kind to Matilda, but kindness can be chafing at times. A +woman like Matilda, a little, self-sacrificing woman, is real +enlightening if you pay attention." + +Matilda seemed to develop and expand during that trip North. She +ordered her meals with an abandon that electrified the waiters on the +train, and then her sense of economy demanded that she should eat what +she had ordered. Her tips were dazzling and erratic, but they, and her +quaint personality, won for her great comfort and care. She was in +better condition, physically, than she had been for many a day when, +one golden winter afternoon, she stood in Olive Treadwell's +drawing-room in Boston and waited for Cynthia. Mrs. Treadwell was out, +but the "young lady," the maid said, was in. + +"How very fortunate," thought Matilda and then took her rigid stand +across the room. Unconsciously she was waiting to see what Lansing +Treadwell had done to this girl of the hills whom he had so ruthlessly +and breath-takingly borne away. Lans was, unknowingly, before the most +awful bar of judgment he had ever stood--the bar of pure womanhood! + +There was a step upon the stairs; a quick, yet faltering step, and then +Cynthia entered the room and came toward Matilda Markham with deep, +questioning eyes and slow smile. The impression the girl made was to +last the rest of Matilda's life. Once, years before, Matilda had seen +a rare and lovely butterfly caught in the meshes of a net, and, oddly +enough, the memory came to her now as she looked at the sweet, +starry-eyed creature advancing. She was as surely caught in an +invisible net of some kind as the long-ago butterfly had been. Matilda +Markham noted the conventional gown of dull blue with silver trimming; +the little slippers to match, and the silken stockings; her eyes rested +upon the string of small silver beads wound around the slim throat; +all, all were but part of the mesh that caught and held the spirit that +had ceased to struggle. + +How lovely she was, this Cynthia of Lost Hollow, in spite of the crude +conventions! The frank, waiting eyes were as gray-blue as her mountain +skies; the lips, half-parted, had not forgotten to smile above the hurt +and pain of her tiring days and homesick nights; the smooth braids of +shining hair bound the lifted head just as dear Madam Bubble had +designed them on the morning when the portrait of "The Biggest of Them +All" was hung in the Significant Room. + +"You--wanted to see--me?" + +The drawl had become sacred to Matilda's ears. + +"Yes, my child. I have come from your old home just to see--you." + +A faint colour stole into the whiteness of the fair face. + +"From Lost Mountain?" Oh! if Sandy could have heard her say that word +how it would have rested his soul! "From Lost Mountain?" + +"Yes, my dear. Come and sit here beside me." + +Matilda could not stand longer. Her knees shook beneath her for, like +a blinding light, the knowledge came to her that poor Lans, with all +his faults, was exonerated from any wrong to this young girl! The +innocent old eyes and the radiant young ones had no veil between them. +Sitting side by side they smiled bravely at each other and then Cynthia +reached out her hands. + +"You are"--she whispered--"you are Sandy Morley's fairy godmother! Oh! +I know all about you. Lans has told me. I am right glad--oh! mighty +glad to see you!" + +The voice shook with emotion and Matilda Markham could not answer for a +moment. Never in her life had she been so moved. She longed to take +this girl to her heart and hold her there, but instead she found +herself, presently, telling the homely news of the hills to the hungry +soul whose yearning eyes never fell from her face. + +"And the little doctor is my own aunt, you know?" + +"Yes, child. They told me all about it." + +"It's right good to have one's own--at last;" this was plaintively +whispered; "and my dear, dear father. You know his story, too?" + +"Yes. It lives in the hills and speaks for him even to-day." + +"They-all say I'm like my father." + +"I am sure you must be. You are like Miss Lowe, and I guess one can +always tell which parent a boy or girl is like. I guess Sandy, now, is +like his mother. He doesn't favour his father." + +"Yes. I reckon Sandy must be like his mother. I had never thought of +that before." + +Cynthia's eyes were fixed and dreamy. + +"And you, child, are you happy and content?"--the words of Sandy were +the only ones possible--"I must tell them all about you when I go back." + +"You are--going back?" the yearning was unmistakable--"I thought, +maybe, you were going to stay here--I'd be mighty glad to have you +near." + +"I'm coming home, to my own home a little later. I'll see you often +then." + +Slowly they were advancing and retreating, this woman and girl, but +each venture brought them a little nearer. Like the incoming waters of +a rising tide a slight gain was made, moment by moment. Then suddenly +and unexpectedly a rushing current bore them to the high mark. + +"You poor, homesick child! Come cry it out and have done with it!" + +It was not like Matilda Markham to so assert herself; it was not like +the dear, brave Madam Bubble to succumb as she now did; but, in another +instant she was kneeling where Sandy had knelt a few nights before, and +clinging to the dear hands which had, then, rested upon his bowed head. + +The wall of suppression that Cynthia had raised, during the past weeks, +between her mountain life and this artificial one of the city, crumbled +at the message from the hills. Her part in the strange drama sank to +insignificance, and in her weakness she was able to view it clearly and +dispassionately with this plain little woman who had come to serve her. + +"I did not understand," she sobbed; "I was tired--there had been the +night in the storm, you know. I did not want to make trouble and--oh! +how can I tell you, but it was only when the little doctor--my +aunt--explained everything that I saw myself standing alone in the +confusion with something I must say and do! I couldn't let them do my +work for me, dear lady,"--the quaint expression caused Matilda Markham +to draw in her breath sharply--"I was no longer a child and I had to +bear my part. When we-all stood in Sandy's cabin and the truth came to +us-all, at once, I reckon for the first time in my life, I realized I +was a woman. I couldn't take my chance and leave Lans out. They-all +wanted to save me from myself, but they forgot him and then when he +said"--the girl gasped--"that he wanted me--I had to go! I did not go +because any one compelled me--I just had to go! I was led like when I +married Lans. More and more I see it now; I feel it in the night. It +did not _happen_, dear lady; it all leads up to something God wants me +to do; something no one can do as well as I. Sandy had his call--you +know how he responded? Well, I have my leading. We-all, of the hills, +get near God, dear lady. We are lonelier; we need Him more and He +speaks more plainly to us, I reckon." + +The superstition and mysticism of Lost Hollow held every thought and +fancy of this girl, but Matilda Markham realized that they gave her +strength and purpose as they had poor Sandy before her. + +"Oh! my dear, my dear!" was all she could say, but she freed one of her +cool hands from Cynthia's hot one, and laid it like a benediction on +the girlish head. + +"I am waiting, dear lady, for the thing I am to do, and Lans is mighty +kind. He is my big brother and I am his little sister--until I can +read my way plain. You did not know he was so good?" + +"I thank God that he is!" breathed Matilda Markham devoutly. + +"I wish I could make--Mrs. Treadwell understand. She--laughs!" + +Matilda felt her ire rise. The laugh of Olive Treadwell could be +brutal and cruel in its sweetest ripple! + +"It seems right long and wearying waiting, waiting for the meaning." + +Cynthia's slow words flowed on. She had ceased crying and was looking +up now with brave, clear eyes, "and part of me is there--in Lost +Hollow. That part of me comes to comfort _this_ part of me--can you +understand, dear lady?" + +Matilda nodded. She did, indeed, understand. + +"And that part of me makes this part of me--stay here! After that +mighty hurry and trouble when Lans and I came away alone I was right +frightened. There was just once--while we stayed a few hours in New +York that I--that something happened. I was in a room, Lans had gone +out to order luncheon and I felt I had to run away! I stood with my +back against the wall when he came in and I reckon I was wild, for he +came close and took my hands this-er-way----" Cynthia was acting the +vivid scene standing now before Matilda Markham and holding her +hands--"and he said slow and firm, 'lil' girl, I'm not going to hurt +you. You and Sandy Morley are not going to see me fail!' And then +that part of me that lives always in Lost Hollow went back mighty safe +and strong. I haven't been afraid, dear lady, since." + +Then it was that Miss Markham arose and realized her strength to its +full extent. + +"Child," she said, "I've changed my mind about going back to Lost +Hollow to-morrow. I'm going to Bretherton and that is only a half hour +by rail from here. I want you to come to me, there. I must see you +again. I'll explain to Mrs. Treadwell and Lans. I declare I haven't +felt so like my old self for years and years." + +"Oh! dear lady!" Cynthia's shining eyes were large and happy; "dear +lady! you mean you will let me see you in your own home?" + +"I mean--just that." + +"Oh! Oh! why sometimes I think that soon God will say, 'lil' girl, +your task is done. Run back home now! Run back to your hills.' Maybe +I can go back with you!" + +A gayety rang in the sweet voice that almost reduced Matilda to tears. +The abandon and inconsequence were so oddly mingled with the strange +determined strength that the elderly woman was confused and irrational. + +The wayward, wild creature of the hills, ensnared in the net woven by +Lans's blind passion and irresponsibility, seemed so incapable of +fulfilling any role that demanded the recognition of her as a wife in +this superficial environment that Matilda felt immoral and +sacrilegious. She wanted to say, instead of leaving it to a higher +power, "Your task is done, lil' girl! Run back to your hills!" but +instead she said brokenly: + +"You will come to Bretherton?" + +"Indeed, yes; dear lady!" + +"Perhaps you will go out with me to-morrow if I stay over night in +town?" + +"If--oh! if they will let me. But you see, there are a mighty lot of +things to do--I'm learning!" + +"Good-bye then, dear child." + +And that night, on the paper of a quiet little hotel, Matilda wrote a +brief note to Lost Hollow. She addressed it to Levi. + + +I'm going to stay on a spell. I never felt better in my life. It was +the thinking that life didn't need me any more, that was running me +down. It's awful foolish for old folks to let go of things. By the +way, I called at Olive Treadwell's to-day and saw Lans's wife. She's +real fascinating and real good looking. Brother, I want you to +reconsider about leaving Lans out of your will. He's coming out real +strong and blood is blood! Tell Sandy this girl, Cynthia, sends kind +regards and is enjoying her stay in Boston better than she expected. + + +This letter had a marvellous effect upon Levi and Sandy. + +"What do you think of that?" Levi exclaimed shaking with laughter. "If +that ain't spunk and real grit." + +Sandy was looking out of the study window and did not reply. + +"That's the old New England spirit. Never say die and all the rest!" +Levi chuckled. + +"Thank God for it!" was all Sandy said in return. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +The work God had sent Cynthia to do came to hand very shortly after Miss +Markham's return to Bretherton. Cynthia had spent one blessed day at the +quiet old farm, then Mrs. Treadwell and she went down together and stayed +over one night, and once Lans ran down and had an hour's talk with his +Aunt 'Tilda before she slipped back to Lost Hollow and Cynthia's task +came for her doing. + +Lans's visit had sent Matilda to her knees beside the four-post bedstead +in the room that had once been Caroline Markham's. + +"Caroline," the trembling old lips had breathed, "it was _your_ boy who +came home to-day. _Your_ boy!" + +For Lans quite frankly and naturally had told his story. The hot blood +of the South was well in command and the light of reason was in the sorry +eyes. + +"Aunt 'Tilda, all my life I've been excused and forgiven for my +faults--bat I'm going to work my way out now, God helping me! I'm going +to take whatever punishment and joy comes. Up there in the hills I was +like a devil caged. I had passed through a trouble and been worsted; I +saw Morley standing where I should have stood, had I been less a fool +years ago. I couldn't seem to see, up there, how he deserved all that +was his. I was just maddened. I wanted to get on top and--I let go +myself! Cynthia seemed a child at first but all of a sudden she flashed +upon all that was evil in me--and I went blindly ahead until I stood +among them all in Morley's cabin. They all seemed so big and fine and +true and I saw--myself! All at once I found myself wanting more than I +had ever wanted anything in my life--to make good! I took my own way. +Some day you will all understand. That little girl is going to have her +choice by and by--I only wanted my fair chance to win out. When she +makes her choice her soul will be hers--I promised Sandy Morley that!" + +It was this that had sent Matilda to her knees beside the bed of Lans's +mother. + +And one evening--it was two days before Christmas, Lans took Cynthia and +his Aunt Olive Treadwell to a theatre in Boston. The play was a popular +one and, being late, Lans was obliged to take a box in order to get +seats. Cynthia felt and looked like a child. The excitement and +brilliancy brought colour to her cheeks and made her eyes dance. She +hardly spoke and only now and then heard what her companions said. + +"Lans," Olive Treadwell said during the first act, "there is Marian +Spaulding in the tenth row!" + +This did not interest Cynthia but Lans's sharp start did. She turned and +looked at him and then followed his eyes. A pale, slim woman in black +was looking at them from the orchestra seats. The expression on the thin +face remained in Cynthia's memory even when the scenes of the enthralling +play drove it, for the time being, into shadow. + +"Blue is Cynthia's colour," Mrs. Treadwell next remarked apropos of +nothing. "She's right handsome, Lans. You ought to be less a fool and +behave normally. She'd make a mighty sensation if----" But this did not +interest the absorbed third party in the box at all. + +When the play was over and the audience was crowding into the lobby, +Cynthia noticed the girl of the tenth row near them. She was not looking +at them, but she gave the impression of listening to what they said. +Again the face claimed Cynthia's attention. + +"Brother," she said softly to Lans, "is that a friend of yours? She +looks mighty sad." + +Lans gave another sharp start and rather abruptly replied: + +"I knew her once. Come, little sister, that is our number being called. +We must not hold up the line of taxis. Aunt Olive is out of sight." + +Strangely enough Cynthia did not dream of the play that night; nor did +the sad, fair face of Lans's one-time friend hold part in her visions, +but she did dream of Lost Mountain as she had not dreamed of it in many a +night. She was back among the dear, plain home scenes. She was planning +with Sandy the Home-school; she was in the cabin at Trouble Neck with the +little doctor. The sun was shining in the broad, opened door and she and +Marcia Lowe were sitting where the warm brightness flooded them. And at +that juncture of the dream something very vivid occurred. Quite +distinctly she heard the little doctor say: + +"In all the world there is nothing so important as this, Cyn. Remember +it as long as you live." + +Upon awakening, Cynthia, in her still, dark room, found herself haunted +by the dream and the little doctor's words. They were startling, yet +strangely familiar. When, before, had Marcia Lowe spoken them; what had +she meant? Then suddenly it came back to Cynthia. It was about little +children! + +"Our loves and our poor selves!" Marcia Lowe had often said, and +especially when she and Cynthia were working over the little ones of the +hill cabins, "what do they matter compared to the sacred lives of these +helpless creatures?" + +She had been quite fierce about it once when she had told Liza Hope that +God would hold her responsible if she brought any more blighted souls +into existence through Mason's passion and her own weak yielding. + +Lying awake and trembling in the small room off of Olive Treadwell's, +Marcia Lowe's words returned with sharp insistence and kept Cynthia +wakeful for many an hour. + +The next morning she was alone when the maid came to her and said a lady +wanted to see her on very important business and had asked that they +might be undisturbed for a half hour. Cynthia, puzzled and half afraid, +bade the girl bring the caller to the sitting-room in which she then was. + +What followed was so vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was +to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight +streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick +of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire +on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously +preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time +the slow, light steps were at the room door, Cynthia seemed to know who +the stranger was. The maid closed the door after the guest and then +Cynthia said quietly to the tall, black-robed girl: + +"You--are--Marian Spaulding!" + +"He--he has told you?" + +"No. Mrs. Treadwell--told me! Please sit down." + +They faced each other with only a few feet between them. Cynthia was +obsessed with but one conscious thought--she must go on as she was led; +say what she would be told to say. She could not think for herself. But +the stranger--distracted and ill at ease, leaped at conclusions; hurried +to her goal and took no heed of the obstacles in her path. + +"I did not know until last night that he--that Lans had a sister," she +said. "Our own affairs were so engrossing and--and exclusive--at that +time!" + +Marian Spaulding had an odd habit of spacing her words as if the sharp +breaths in between were dashes to emphasize her thought. "I knew Mrs. +Treadwell was aware of--of our arrangement--I knew, from Lans, that she +was broad minded and generous but when I saw you two together last +night--I--I wanted to come to you instead of to her!" + +An overpowering excitement in the speaker began to affect Cynthia. She +drew her chair closer and whispered: + +"Please tell me--all about it!" + +The significant words rushed Marian Spaulding breathlessly onward. + +"I--I could not go to him--to Lans--until I made sure--as sure as +possible--that I would not be injuring him by--by my demands. I wanted +to tell some one who loved him and would think of him, first. He was +always so heavenly good to me--I would not harm him even--now!" + +"No!" Cynthia's deep eyes were fastened on the white, strained face. "I +reckon no one would want to hurt Lans." + +"I was so unhappy when--when he saved me from my life of shame and +misery. There was no other way--and--and we had to choose! He was so +noble--it was I who--who--gave myself to him; he never exacted--anything. +I--loved him as only God and I can know! Poor Lans never comprehended +why I left--but he--my husband was ill; dying and I could not help it. +Something made me go back. It was the good in me that Lans had created +that most of all compelled me to go. If Lans could believe that! oh! if +he only could! A woman could, but could a man?" + +Poor Cynthia was struggling to understand a strange language. + +"I'm right sure," she faltered, "that Lans could understand." + +"Do you think so? Oh! I have been so tortured. He told me to come to +him if I needed him and God knows I need him now--but I wanted most of +all--not to hurt him--or exact too much from his goodness. You see----" +a palpitating pause followed. Then: "I did not _know_ of my condition +when I went away; I only heard and saw the wretched man who was once, who +was still--my husband. I stayed and nursed him; he died--a month +ago--and now--I must think of--of--the child!" + +"The child?" Faintly Cynthia repeated the words and her bewildered mind +struggled with them and fitted them, somehow, into the Hopes' cabin, and +that scene where Marcia Lowe arraigned Liza. + +The door of the sitting-room opened and Lans entered noiselessly. Marian +Spaulding's back was toward it and in her slow, vague way Cynthia was +wondering why he should be there just then. The last shielding crust of +childhood was breaking away from Cynthia--her womanhood, full and +glowing, was being fanned to flame by the appeal this strange woman was +making upon it. Cynthia, the girl who had been caught in the net, had no +longer any part in this tragedy--she was free! + +"The child?" she again repeated, "what child?" + +"Why, Lans's and mine!" + +Then Cynthia stood up quite firm and straight. She looked full and +commandingly at Lans who was leaning, deadly white, against the door he +had closed behind him. + +"Here is Lans, now," she said, more to the haggard man than to the pale +woman. + +It was as if, in those four simple words, she appealed to the best and +finest of him to deal with this fearful responsibility which was his, not +hers. In that instant she relinquished all the forced ties that held him +and her--she cast him off superbly at this critical time of his life; not +bitterly or unkindly--but faithfully. + +Marian Spaulding turned and rose unsteadily to her feet, then with +outstretched arms, she staggered toward Lans. Over her pitiful, wan face +a flood of passion and love surged--her lonely, desperate soul claimed +its own at last! + +"Lans! Lans!" she cried, falling into his arms; "you will understand! +you must understand--and there is--our child!" + +Lansing Treadwell held the little form close, but his wide, haunted eyes +sought Cynthia's over the head pressed against his breast. Cynthia +smiled at him; smiled from a far, far place, helpfully, bravely. She +demanded his best of him with confidence, and the unreality of it all +held no part in the thought of either. + +"I must take her--away!" Lans found words at last to say. + +"Yes," Cynthia nodded, still smiling her wonderful smile at him. + +"I will return--soon. Come--Marian!" + +Cynthia saw them depart, heard the lower door close upon them and then +she awoke from her spell. Sitting down in a deep chair before the fire +she took the incidents of the past few moments, one by one, and set them +in order. Like an ignorant child selecting block after block and asking +some wiser one what they meant, she demanded of her new self the answer +to all she had witnessed. + +The travail was long and desperate--and when Lans Treadwell found her, an +hour later, he was shocked at the sight of her face. + +"My God!" was all he could say. + +"We must--talk it over," Cynthia said gravely. "I can understand now. +You see, dear, I couldn't have her hurt--her and--and the child." + +Lans dropped in the chair Marian Spaulding had sat in and bowed his head +in his hands. + +"Was there ever such a cruel situation?" he groaned. Cynthia came to him +and knelt beside the arm of his chair. She had never come to him so +before and the touch of her body thrilled the man. + +"You did not tell her--about me, big brother? did you? You let her +believe I am your sister." + +"Good God! how could I tell the truth? I was afraid of killing her." + +"And--the child. Of course you must not tell--now." + +"Cynthia, in heaven's name, don't be too hard upon me--you are my wife!" + +Fiercely Lans proclaimed this as if, by so doing, he could find refuge +for her as well as himself. But Cynthia shook her head and drove him +back upon his better self again. + +"Those little words spoken by that man in the hills," she whispered, +"couldn't count, I reckon, against--all the rest." + +"They can! They shall, Cynthia. I can make the past clear to you, +little girl----" Then he stopped still before the look in Cynthia's eyes. + +"I am a--woman, Lans!" it seemed to say. + +Presently he heard her speak. + +"You told Sandy, dear, that night in the cabin, that you would leave my +soul to me--until--well! You have left it to me, and the time has come! +I have much to learn; but I understand a mighty lot now. It came to me +while I waited, for you to come back from her! My soul would never be +clean again, Lans, if--I forgot--the little child--hers and yours! God +will be very kind to us-all, dear, if we do right. It's mighty +puzzling--but it will come straight. You once loved her?" + +"Yes, Cynthia--yes!" + +"And you never loved me in _that_ way, dear?" + +"You are my wife!" Again the fierceness, "you must and shall come first." + +"No, Lans; I am not your wife!" + +And with this Cynthia stood up and clasped her hands close. + +"Every law in the land says you are!" Treadwell flung his head back and +faced her; "this is a hideous tangle, but above all--through all--you are +my wife!" + +"I do not know, I cannot make you feel how I see it--but I am not your +wife! I--I do not want to be! Why, when I saw the light in--in Marian +Spaulding's eyes a little time ago as she ran to you--I seemed to know +all at once--that it was not to you, Lans dear, that I wanted to run in +my trouble, but to----" + +"Whom?" + +"To Sandy, dear. Sandy, up there in Lost Hollow." + +"Cynthia!" + +Was she shamming? Was she striving, ignorantly, to make escape easy for +them all? Was she utterly devoid of moral sense? "Moral sense!" At +that Lans Treadwell paused. The glory shining from Cynthia's eyes as she +stood before him, made him shrink and drop his own. The strength and +purity of the high places was upon her. She was lovely and tender, but +primitively firm. The law of the cities she did not know; but the law of +the secret places of the hills was hers. The law of love and Love's God. + +"You must take her away, Lans, dear, and be right good to her as you have +been to me, big brother," the sweet voice, the unutterable tenderness and +firmness more and more carried everything before them; "and let the +little child have its chance--poor lil' child! And by and by--oh! a long +time perhaps--when you are all mighty happy and safe, you must tell her +all about it, Lans, and make her love me--a little! Tell her--it was all +I could do. She will understand and be right glad." + +"And you--little Cyn?" The words came in a groan. + +"I? oh! I reckon this is what God meant me to do, Lans. For this he +brought me down The Way, and now he will let me go home!" + +Mrs. Treadwell's step outside the door brought them both back to the poor +artificial environment that bound them. + +"I--I cannot see her now!" + +Cynthia crouched before the stern, conventional tread of the approaching +woman as if she were in a place she had no right to be and Lans quickly +opened a door leading from the sitting-room to a bedroom through which +she might escape. And as the slight figure ran from his sight he had a +sickening feeling as if, wakening from a dream of mystery and +enchantment, he found himself in the midst of sordid reality. The sweet +purity of the hills passed with Cynthia and the actualities of his future +entered with Olive Treadwell. + +"Lans," she asked sharply, looking about the room, "who was the woman who +called here this morning? The woman Cynthia saw?" + +"It was--Marian Spaulding." + +"Good heavens! Did she talk to Cynthia?" + +"She--tried to--Cynthia--could not understand." + +"She will some day, though, Lans! Can you buy Marian off? I wouldn't +have believed she was so vicious. Did she--lie?" + +"I rather imagine she spoke only--truth." + +"Well! I reckon this is about the worst confusion that was ever brought +about. Without being positively bad, Lans, you've managed to create a +mighty lot of trouble for a good many innocent people." + +"Yes, Aunt Olive." + +Lans was standing by the window looking down into the empty street. + +"What are you--going to do about it?" + +Then Lans turned. + +"Aunt Olive, I'm going to untangle the snarl--somehow! And I'm going to +stand by--Marian!" + +"Marian? You talk like a madman, Lans, or a fool--and a depraved one at +that. You owe everything to Cynthia--you'll be held to it, too, by law!" + +"Aunt Olive," and then Lans laughed a mirthless, cold laugh, "I wonder if +either you or I ever really seriously thought we could--hold Cynthia? +There is no law that could keep her here. She is of the hills. She came +into our lives just long enough to purify our air and--clear my vision. +She'll go back now. We--cannot keep her!" + +"Go back--to whom?" + +This practical question took the smile from Lans's lips. + +"To Sandy Morley, I reckon," he said grimly; "most of every noble thing I +might have had--gets to him--sooner or later. He always loved her; she +has just confessed to me that she loves him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +There was a crust of glistening snow upon The Way; every branch of the +tall, bare trees was outlined with a feathery whiteness which shone, as +one looked deep into the woods, like the tracery of some fantastic +spirit going where it listeth without design or purpose. From Lost +Mountain the shadows had long since fled, and the gaunt peak rose clear +and protectingly over The Hollow, which, somehow, had undergone a +mysterious change in a few short months--or, was the change due to the +magic touch of love that dwelt in the eyes of a young girl who had left +the early train at The Forge and, on foot and alone, was wandering up +The Way with a song of joy trembling upon her lips? So quietly and +quickly had she run from the station, that Smith Crothers, standing by +the door of the saloon opposite, had been the only one to notice the +passenger in the long coat, rich furs, and quaint little velvet hat. + +"Who's that?" he asked of the bartender inside. The man, on his knees, +scrubbing the floor, rose stiffly and came to Crothers. + +"Ole miss from The Holler?" he ventured vaguely. + +"Ole miss--be damned!" Crothers was in an ill humour. + +"Company, maybe, for the Morley cabin. It's mighty 'mazing how many +folks, first and last, do tote up The Way these days. But I don't +see--nobody!" + +Neither did Crothers, now, for the stranger was hidden from sight. +Then he began to wonder if there really had been any one. The night's +revel had been rather wilder than usual, and Crothers was not as young +as he once was. + +The bell of his factory was ringing, however, and he unsteadily made +his way thither. + +It was Cynthia who was treading lightly up The Way, but not the Cynthia +who a few months before had gone so blindly to do the bidding of that +inner voice of conscience. + +"It was here," murmured she, standing behind a tall tree by the road, +"that you fled from Crothers the night of the fire. Poor little Cyn!" + +That was it! The child, Cynthia, walked beside the woman, Cynthia, +now, and the woman with clear, awakened eyes--understood at last! + +"Poor little Cyn! How frightened you were and how bravely you fought +for--me! Or was it I who fought for you? Never mind! we have come +home. Come home together, dear, you and I! How heavenly good it is +for us to come--together!" + +At every step the weariness and sense of peril, engendered by her +experience, dropped from Cynthia. She was a woman, but Lans had left +her soul to her, and she could clasp hands with the past quite +confidently and joyously. + +"Home! home!" The word thrilled and thrilled through her being, and on +every hand she noted the touch of Sandy Morley with tender +appreciation. She laughed, too, this thin, pale girl, and could Sandy +have seen her then he would have thought her shining white face, set in +the dark furs, more like, than ever, the dogwood bloom under the pines! + +"And here I met him on The Way!" Cynthia paused at the spot where she +had stood that spring morning, and saw, with a shock of disappointment, +the man who had usurped her childish ideal of Sandy Morley. + +"How lonely he must have been--when I did not know him! Oh! Sandy--to +think I did not know you. You, with your brave, kind eyes and your +tender heart!" + +A tear rolled down the uplifted face. It was a tear of joy, for +Cynthia was going to Sandy. From the unrest and unreality she had fled +to him feeling confident that he would gather up the tangled and +dropped threads of her life, and weave them, somehow, into a new and +perfect pattern. She had so much to tell him! And he was there, close +to her! Waiting, waiting for her to come to him and she could afford +to dally by the wayside; gather up the precious memories--so like toys +of the child she once had been and, by and by, she would go to him like +a little girl tired of her day's wandering, and he would comfort her! + +By the time Cynthia reached Theodore Starr's church all the heaviness +of recent happenings was forgotten; it had no part in her thought. The +church was gay in Christmas green and red holly berries. The morning +sun, quite high by now, shone in the windows. + +"Father!" whispered the girl as if in prayer, and then she knelt, where +once her childish feet had borne her in terror, and buried her face in +her hands. How well she now understood her dear, dead father! Strong +in human love and sympathy, incapable of inflicting pain--even when +pain would have been better and kinder than the lack of it--how like +him she, the daughter, was! How she had slipped aside from the right +path because weak desire to escape, or inflict pain, had been her +portion. Well, she had suffered; had endured her exile; been +mercifully spared from worse things, and now God had led her--home! + +The unseen presence seemed to bend pityingly from the rude desk-pulpit +and comfort the gentle heart of the returned wanderer. + +Presently, choosing a time when the store near by was deserted, Cynthia +ran from the church, across The Way, and escaped, unseen, to the trail +leading up to Stoneledge. Her gay spirits returned and she sang +snatches of song as she once used to sing. There was no sequence, no +meaning of words, but the short sharp turns and trills were as wild and +sweet as the bird notes. She tried Sandy's call--but her memory failed +her there! + +"Oh! the old tree," Cynthia ran to it. For months and months she had +forgotten it, and the secret it held in its dead heart. Yes, the box +was there! The box in which lay the outbursts of a girl's fancy and +imaginings. With a mischievous laugh Cynthia removed the old letters +and put them in the bag that hung from a girdle at her waist. Then she +walked on to the old Walden Place. There a shock awaited her. What +had happened? The crumbling walls had fallen in many places; but there +were props and scaffoldings, too! Sandy had begun his work of +redemption on the Great House. It was to be the home of the Markhams, +but the surprised onlooker could not know that the property, taken by +the county for unpaid taxes, had been bought in by Levi Markham in +Sandy's name. + +"Dear old Stoneledge!" And then Cynthia sat down upon a fallen log and +knew the heavy heartedness of one who arrives too late to receive the +welcome that was hushed forever. But suddenly her face brightened. In +the general demoralization a portion of the house still stood--it was +the wing, the library! + +The roof had caved in, but the Significant Room stood open and stark to +the glittering winter sunlight! Reverent hands had removed the +furniture, books, and pictures; the stark and staring walls, with their +stained and torn paper, were bared to the gaze of every chance +passerby. Suddenly, to the yearning heart of the onlooker, a miracle +appeared. The scene of devastation disappeared; there was a fragrance +of honeysuckle and yellow roses in the sharp air and, in a dim, sweet, +old, sheltered room stood a little girl with patched gingham gown and +long smooth-hanging braids of hair, gazing up at a portrait that no +eyes but hers had ever seen. It was little Madam Bubble and she was +lovingly, proudly, exultingly, looking at "The Biggest of Them All!" + +Unheeded, the tears rained down the cheeks of the woman standing by the +ruins of her old home; she stretched her arms out tremblingly as if to +hold the vision to the exclusion of all the rest of life. + +"Oh! my Sandy, you have indeed cut your way through your enemies. Oh! +my love; my dear, dear love." + +How long she stood rapt in her vision Cynthia never knew. Her day of +wonders enchanted and held her oblivious of weariness, hunger, or +physical pain, but she must get to Trouble Neck; she must throw herself +into the safe arms of the little doctor and--find peace and guidance. +Later they--the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady and she--would go to Sandy's +cabin as they had that night when Lans had claimed her and then--well, +beyond that Cynthia could not see! + +At Trouble Neck another disappointment met her. The trim cabin was +empty! The unlocked door gave way to the eager pressure; the sunny +room was full of generous welcome, and a gleam of fire on the hearth +showed that the little mistress had not been gone long. + +Some people leave a room more vacant than others. Like the breath of +perfume, after the flower has been removed, their personality and +dearness linger, making one miss them more, and long for them more +keenly. As a child might suffer at not finding its mother awaiting it +at the close of day Cynthia suffered then. She wandered to the table +on which lay the little doctor's work--a child's dress! Beside it was +a medical book opened at a chapter on the diseases of--children. And +on the widespread book lay an unsealed note addressed to--Tod Greeley! + +A smile, a wan, understanding smile touched Cynthia's lips, but +presently it softened into the dear, old, slow smile, and the girl bent +and kissed the penciled name of the postmaster, for the dear, absent +hand had rested there last! + +There were bread and milk and bacon in the pantry, and with happy +familiarity Cynthia made a meal for herself, and ate heartily. After +this she went into the lean-to chamber and taking off her hat and +wraps, lay down upon the couch, for she began to realize how weary she +was. She slept several hours and was awakened by a step in the outer +room. Thinking it was Marcia Lowe she raised herself and looked +through the half-opened door. It was Tod Greeley! He had lighted the +oil lamp and stood by the table with Marcia's note in his hand. Over +and again he read it, then folded it slowly and put it in his breast +pocket. + +A change had been wrought upon Greeley. He stood straight and firm; he +was shaven and shorn and neatly dressed; his face was happier, too, +than Cynthia had ever seen it. The lazy good humour was merged into +purpose and dignity. + +"To-morrow, then!" Cynthia heard him murmur; "to-morrow then!" + +He extinguished the light and passed from the house, leaving Cynthia +more lonely than she had been since she left the train that morning. + +For an hour or two Cynthia struggled with herself. Abstractedly she +knew that she ought not to go to Sandy Morley alone. Something that +some one--she could not remember who or where--taught her, warned her +that it was not right for her to leave Trouble Neck that evening. + +"But why?" asked the great longing, "why?" + +"You are Lans Treadwell's wife; his wife!" + +At this Cynthia laughed outright. That part of her life had touched +her only as her awful experience with Crothers had done; except that +Lans had gained her confidence in Man while Crothers had imperilled it. +The real self of Cynthia was pure and untouched; ready to offer now, to +offer itself, upon the true altar of love and consecration. Nothing +could change that; nothing could blind her to it; but over and through +the knowledge ran the discord of suggestion left by the contact with +convention, down, and far, from Lost Mountain. + +It was eight o'clock when Cynthia gained her triumph over the claim +upon her, and cloaked and hooded, started out. + +She wore her own, old cloak and the red hood that Marcia Lowe's loving +fingers had knitted for her. Sandy must not be disappointed in her; it +must be little Cyn, not the Cynthia Lans Treadwell had claimed, who was +to put forth her appeal for help. + +The crisp, starry night was still and fine; the walk from Trouble Neck +to Sandy's cabin brought the blood to the pale cheeks, light to the +large eyes. How quiet the cabin was--and dark! Only one light shone +forth and that was from the study. Cautiously Cynthia stepped close +and looked in; the curtains were parted where a hasty hand had left +them. Sandy, seated near the glowing fire, was painting at his easel. +After a long day's work in the open air he was indulging his fancy, +forgetting the trials and disappointments of his life in the poor +talent that was his. The canvas was so placed that the watcher from +outside could see it plainly over the back bent toward it. A face +gleamed from a crown of dogwood blossoms--pink and white blossoms! It +was the face of--Madam Bubble! The girl-face with the slow, alluring +smile and the waiting eyes! + +The woman outside bent her head upon her cold clasped hands while the +waves of love and surrender engulfed her. All her life she had been +coming to--Sandy! He had cut down every barrier but one! He must +crush that! How strong he looked, how fine! + +A tap as gentle as the touch of a bird's wing fell upon the frosty +glass and Sandy turned sharply. He waited a moment, then came to the +window. Cynthia, frightened at her daring, shrank into the shadow and +breathed hard. Sandy waited a moment longer and then drew the heavy +curtains together close, leaving the outer world in darkness. + +A moment later Cynthia, regaining courage, crept close to the glass and +tapped again. This time Sandy strode to the door, flung it wide and, +standing in the panel of warmth and light with uplifted head, said +sternly: + +"Who is there? What is wanted?" + +Who he expected he hardly knew himself, but the answer he received +caused him to reel backward. + +"It's--it's lil' Cyn, Sandy, and she wants--you!" + +Then he drew her in, closed the door upon the world and, holding her +before him by the shoulders, looked deep and searchingly into her eyes +which met his unflinchingly and trustfully. + +"Thank God!" was all he said, but in that moment poor Lans Treadwell +passed unscathed before his last judge. + +"How thin you are, little Cyn!" + +Sandy had drawn the big leather chair to the hearth and seated her in +it. He took off the cloak and hood and then stood back. + +"I reckon the longing for home did it, Sandy." + +"You have--been homesick?" + +"Oh! mighty homesick. I have wanted the mountain until my soul hurt." + +"Poor lil' Cyn." + +"Say it again, Sandy, say it again!" The dimmed eyes implored him. + +"Poor lil' Cyn." + +No suggestion of impropriety had entered with Cynthia. Sandy was too +fine and self-forgetful to be touched by worldliness. Cynthia had come +to him; he and she were safe! + +"And Lans, Cynthia?" + +"Come close, Sandy. There, sit so, on the stool. I want to touch you, +I want to see you near while I go back--go away from our mountain for a +time. Come with me, Sandy, down to Lans!" + +Then she told him. The red firelight played on her pale, sweet face; +her hand sometimes reached out and lay upon the shoulder by the arm of +her chair; once the fingers touched his cheek--but Sandy did not move +and his eyes never looked up from the heart of the glowing log. + +"It was a long journey to the day when I understood, Sandy. It was a +hard path for ignorant feet and blind eyes--but God was very good to +me. The South is slow with us-all, dear, but up there in the North--I +awakened! I think it came--the truth, dear, when she--the girl, ran to +Lans. In the mighty times of a woman's life she can only run that +way--to one man! And like the mists, clearing from Lost Mountain, the +shadows left me and I knew right well that come what might, Sandy dear, +in all the time on ahead, in joy or sorrow, pain or--death it would be +to you I would want to run." + +The log fell apart in rich glory and then Sandy looked up into the +drooping, flower-like face. + +"Don't, lil' Cyn," he whispered, "you do not understand, but--you must +not speak so to me." + +Then she laughed. + +"Oh! I reckon I know what you mean, Sandy. I've been through it all +and--run away from it! Sandy, tell me true; before the good and great +God, doesn't that poor girl belong to Lans more than I do?" + +"Yes!" + +"Isn't his duty to her?" + +"Yes, yes, lil' Cyn." + +"Then what is left? Just--you and me, I reckon, Sandy." + +Sandy gripped his clasped hands close as if by so doing he could better +control the rising passion of his love for the girl beside him. Her +ignoring of stern fact turned his reason. She was right--but she was +wrong! He must protect her and never fail her; he must not be less +than Lans. + +Then her words came to him in the chaos of his emotions; a new thought +had claimed her. She had finished, at last, with the story of her +exile; she was back among her hills. + +"And the factory, Sandy, it is coming on right fast, I reckon?" + +"It is nearly done." + +"And--the Home-school?" + +"That, too, is nearly ready." + +"You haven't forgotten the lil' room, off in the corner, have you, +Sandy? The lil' room where the baby-things are to come to me to +be--cuddled?" + +Sandy shivered. + +"You--haven't left _that_ out, have you, Sandy?" + +"I had, lil' Cyn, but I am going to put it aback--to-morrow." + +"I'm right glad, Sandy, for I've learned some mighty sweet lil' tunes, +and I've bought some pictures and books with stories that will make +them-all laugh when we've taught them how. My trunk is full of things +for the babies." + +Sandy permitted himself one look at the dear face so close to his own. +It wore the white rapt look he remembered so well; the wonderful, +brooding tenderness as fancy held it. It was so she had looked upon +him when, as a ragged boy, he sat beside her. She had awakened +imagination within his starved soul and given his ambition wings with +which to soar. + +He and she were now bent forward toward the smouldering fire; he on the +stool, she in the deep chair. + +"Do you remember, Sandy, lil' Madam Bubble?" + +"I reckon I remember nothing else so--clearly." + +He looked away, he could trust himself no farther. + +"And the 'Biggest of Them All'--you remember him?" + +"I--I have forgotten him, Cynthia." + +"No--you have not forgotten him, Sandy!" + +"He--he does not seem to have any place, lil' Cyn." + +"Oh! yes and yes he does! I reckon he is bigger than even you or +I--know!" + +Did she suspect the terrible weakness of desire that was overpowering +him? At this thought Sandy gripped his hands closer; he felt her deep, +true eyes upon him and a rush of blood dyed his dark face to crimson. +Cynthia saw this and laid her cool hand upon his shoulder while she +asked bravely, daringly: + +"Do you love me--Sandy?" + +What other woman on earth could have put that question at such a time? +He and she were alone in the empty woods and the night held them. +Sandy turned to her. + +"As God hears me--yes, lil' Cyn, with all my heart and soul. I have +loved you all my life." + +"In this bag," Cynthia touched the bag at her waist, "are the letters I +wrote to you, Sandy, while you were away. I hid them in an old tree by +Stoneledge. The tree kept them safe for--me. There are a right +many--all answers to the one you sent me. Do you want them, Sandy?" + +"Yes." + +"Here--Sandy!" + +The letters, more precious than any other gift, lay in his keeping at +last. + +"God bless you, lil' Cyn." + +She smiled divinely. + +"I wandered far down in the valley, Sandy, and I had a hard lesson to +learn; a hard thing to do, and I've come home to find you waiting for +me. Oh! tell me, dear, isn't there one law, just one in our land to +set a lil' girl free who has made a mistake?" + +Behind the two by the fire a door opened and, on the threshold stood +Levi Markham perplexed and awed. Slowly the meaning of the scene came +to him; Matilda had somewhat prepared him; the question of the girl by +Sandy's side shed a blinding light upon the confusion of his thoughts. +Standing there, rugged and strong, he seemed the personification of +power and solution. But he was waiting; he must know what Sandy felt! +He drew back into the cold, dark passage and played the eavesdropper +for the first and last time in his life. + +"Mine! mine!" Never had Sandy's voice known that tone before. Levi +bowed his head. + +"You are mine! Yes, lil' Cyn, there is a law, there must be a law that +can give us to each other; I have been waiting for you by The Way all +my life, and you have come to me, lil' girl, at last--my lil' Cyn." + +Then Levi Markham stole away. He felt along the passage with +outstretched hands for his eyes were blinded. He must waken Matilda; +he must--but there he paused. The door, at which he had just stood, +was opening! He had time, only, to crouch in the shadow of a turn of +the hallway before Sandy and Cynthia came out. Sandy had his right arm +protectingly around the girl; her bright head rested on his shoulder; +in his left hand Sandy held high a lighted candle. + +"We must tell them, dear heart," he was whispering; "they two before +any one else." + +And then Levi, seeing flight possible, ran to his sister's room in +order that he might share the confidence that he already possessed. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Son of the Hills, by Harriet T. 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Comstock + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Son of the Hills + +Author: Harriet T. Comstock + +Release Date: January 22, 2007 [EBook #20424] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE HILLS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + +</pre> + + +<A NAME="img-front"></A> +<CENTER> +<IMG SRC="images/img-front.jpg" ALT=""Cautiously Cynthia stepped close and looked in . . . Sandy was painting at his easel"" BORDER="2" WIDTH="392" HEIGHT="579"> +<H3 STYLE="width: 392px"> +"Cautiously Cynthia stepped close and looked in . . . Sandy was painting at his easel" +</H3> +</CENTER> + +<BR><BR> + +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +A SON OF THE HILLS +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +BY +</H3> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +HARRIET T. COMSTOCK +</H2> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +AUTHOR OF +<BR> +JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, +<BR> +JANET OF THE DUNES, ETC. +</H3> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H4 ALIGN="center"> +GROSSET & DUNLAP +<BR> +PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK +</H4> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H5 ALIGN="center"> +Copyright, 1913, by +<BR> +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY +<BR><BR> +<I>All rights reserved, including that of<BR> +translation into foreign languages,<BR> +including the Scandinavian</I><BR> +</H5> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<H2 ALIGN="center"> +CONTENTS +</H2> + +<BR> + +<TABLE ALIGN="center" WIDTH="100%"> +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap01">CHAPTER I</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap08">CHAPTER VIII</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap15">CHAPTER XV</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap22">CHAPTER XXII</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap02">CHAPTER II</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap09">CHAPTER IX</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap16">CHAPTER XVI</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap23">CHAPTER XXIII</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap03">CHAPTER III</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap10">CHAPTER X</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap17">CHAPTER XVII</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap24">CHAPTER XXIV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap04">CHAPTER IV</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap11">CHAPTER XI</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap18">CHAPTER XVIII</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap25">CHAPTER XXV</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap05">CHAPTER V</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap12">CHAPTER XII</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap19">CHAPTER XIX</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap26">CHAPTER XXVI</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap06">CHAPTER VI</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap13">CHAPTER XIII</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap20">CHAPTER XX</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap27">CHAPTER XXVII</A> +</TD> +</TR> + +<TR ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top"> +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap07">CHAPTER VII</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap14">CHAPTER XIV</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> +<A HREF="#chap21">CHAPTER XXI</A> +</TD> + +<TD ALIGN="left" VALIGN="top" WIDTH="25%"> </TD> +</TR> + +</TABLE> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap01"></A> +<H1 ALIGN="center"> +A Son of the Hills +</H1> + +<BR> + +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER I +</H3> + +<P> +Lost Hollow lies close at the foot of the mountain which gives it its +name. The height of neither is great, geographically considered; the +peak is perhaps eighteen hundred feet above sea level: The Hollow, a +thousand, and from that down to The Forge there is a gradual descent by +several trails and one road, a very deplorable one, known as The +Appointed Way, but abbreviated into—The Way. +</P> + +<P> +There are a few wretched cabins in Lost Hollow, detached and dreary; +between The Hollow and The Forge are some farms showing more or less +cultivation, and there is the Walden Place, known before the war—they +still speak of that event among the southern hills as if Sheridan had +ridden through in the morning and might be expected back at night—as +the Great House. +</P> + +<P> +Among the crevasses of the mountains there are Blind Tigers, or Speak +Easies—as the stills are called—and, although there is little trading +done with the whiskey outside the country side, there is much mischief +achieved among the natives who have no pleasure of relaxation except +such as is evolved from the delirium brought about by intoxication. +</P> + +<P> +The time of this story is not to-day nor is it very many yesterdays +ago; it was just before young Sandy Morley had his final "call" and +obeyed it; just after the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady came to Trouble +Neck—three miles from The Hollow—and while she was still distrusted +and feared. +</P> + +<P> +Away back in the days of the Revolution the people of the hills were of +the best. All of them who could serve their country then, did it nobly +and well. Some of them signed the Declaration of Independence and then +returned to their homes with the dignity and courage of men in whose +veins flowed aristocratic blood as well as that of adventurous freemen. +There they waited for the recognition they expected and deserved. But +the new-born republic was too busy and breathless to seek them out or +pause to listen to their voices, which were softer, less insistent than +others nearer by. In those far past times the Morleys and the +Hertfords were equals and the Walden Place deserved its name of the +Great House. The Appointed Way was the Big Road, and was kept in good +order by well-fed and contented slaves who had not then dreamed of +freedom. +</P> + +<P> +The final acceptance of the hill people's fate came like a deadening +shock to the men and women of the Lost Mountain district—they were +forgotten in the new dispensation; in the readjustment they were +overlooked! The Hertfords left the hills with uplifted and indignant +heads—they had the courage of their convictions and meant to take what +little was left to them and demand recognition elsewhere—they had +always been rovers. Besides, just at that time Lansing Hertford and +Sandford Morley, sworn friends and close comrades, had had that secret +misunderstanding that was only whispered about then, and it made it +easier for Hertford to turn his back upon his home lands and leave them +to the gradual decay to which they were already doomed. The Waldens +had retained enough of this world's goods to enable them to descend the +social scale slower than their neighbours. Inch by inch they debated +the ground, and it was only after the Civil War that Fate gripped them +noticeably. Up to that time they had been able to hide, from the none +too discriminating natives, the true state of affairs. +</P> + +<P> +The Morleys and the Tabers, the Townleys and the Moores, once they +recognized the true significance of what had happened, made no +struggle; uttered no defiance. They slunk farther back into the hills; +they shrank from observation and depended more and more upon +themselves. They intermarried and reaped the results with sullen +indifference. Their hopes and longings sank into voiceless silence. +Now and then Inheritance, in one form or another, flared forth, but +before it could form itself into expression it was stilled and +forbidden, by circumstances, to assert itself. +</P> + +<P> +Sad, depressed Lost Hollow! Over it loomed darkly the mountain whose +peak was so often shrouded in clouds. The people loved the hills and +the shadows; they glided like wan ghosts up and down The Way or took to +the more sheltered trails. When they were sober they were gentle, +harmless folk, but when whiskey overpowered them the men became dully +brutal, the women wretchedly slavish, and the children what one might +expect such sad little creatures to become! Lacking in intellect, +misshapen and timid, they rustled among the underbrush like frightened +animals; peered forth like uncanny gnomes, and ate and slept how and as +they could. +</P> + +<P> +After the Civil War these people became "poor whites" and were ground +between the nether millstone of their more prosperous neighbours and +that of the blacks, until they sank to the lowest level. Their voices +were hushed and forgotten; their former estate blotted out in their +present degradation, and just then Sandy Morley and Cynthia Walden were +born and some high and just God seemed to strengthen their childish +voices; vouchsafe to them a vision and give their Inheritance charge +over them. +</P> + +<P> +Marriage form was not largely in vogue among the Lost Hollow people; it +was too expensive and unnecessary. The rector of the small church at +The Forge looked upon the hill people as altogether beyond and below +the need of any attention of his, and was genuinely surprised and +annoyed when one of them called upon him for service. He had not come +to The Forge from an ardour to save souls; he had been placed there +because he had not been wanted elsewhere, and he was rebellious and +bitter. Occasionally he was summoned to the mountain fastnesses for a +burial or wedding, but he showed his disapproval of such interferences +with his dignified rights, and was not imposed upon often. But Martin +Morley, Sandy's father, had married Sandy's mother. She was a Forge +girl who believed in Martin and loved him, so he took her boldly to the +parsonage, paid for the service the rector performed, and went his way. +</P> + +<P> +There was one happy year following in the Morley cabin under Lost +Mountain. Martin worked as he never had before; the hut was mended +without and made homelike within. The little wife sang at her tasks +and inspired Martin to a degree of fervour that brought him to the +conclusion that he must get away! Get away from the poverty and +squalor of The Hollow; get away farther than The Forge—far, far away! +</P> + +<P> +"After the baby comes!" the little wife whispered, "we'll take it to a +better, sunnier place and—give it a chance!" +</P> + +<P> +The baby came on a bad, stormy night. Sandford Morley they called him. +The Forge doctor, travelling up The Way, stopped at the Morley cabin +for a bite of supper and found how things were. Sally Taber was in +command, and Martin, frightened and awed, crouched by the chimney +corner in the living-room, while his girl-wife (she was much younger +than he) made her desperate fight. +</P> + +<P> +"There's only a broken head or two up at Teale's Blind Tiger," the +doctor said grimly; "they can wait, I reckon, while I steer this +youngster into port." The doctor had come from the coast on account of +his lungs and his speech still held the flavour of the sea. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy Morley made a difficult mooring with more vigour and +determination than one would have expected, but the cost was great. +All night the battle waged. The doctor, with coat off and haggard +face, fought with the little mother inch by inch, but at sunrise, just +two hours after Sandy lustily announced his arrival, she let go the +hand of her husband who knelt by her hard, narrow bed, and whispered in +the dialect of her hills, "Youcum!"—which meant that Morley must come +to her some where, some how, some time, for she no longer could bide +with him. +</P> + +<P> +After that Martin stayed on in the cabin with the baby. One woman +after another lent her aid in an hour of need, but on the whole Sandy +and his father made it out together as best they could. The little, +clinging fingers held Martin back for a time—the boy had his mother's +fine, clear eyes and when he looked at Martin something commanded the +man to stand firm. In those days Martin found comfort in religion and +became a power at the camp meetings; his prayers were renowned far and +near, but the evil clutched him in an unguarded hour and one bleak, +dreary springtime he met the Woman Mary and—let go! That was when +Sandy was seven. He brought Mary to the cabin and almost shamefacedly +explained, to the wondering boy, his act. +</P> + +<P> +"Son, she's come to take care of us—mind your ways, lad." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy gave Mary's handsome smiling face one quick look, then fled down +the hill, across the bottom pasture and Branch, up on the farther side +to the woods—his sanctury and haven, and there, lifting his eyes and +little clenched fists, he moaned over and over: +</P> + +<P> +"Curse her! curse her! I hate her!" +</P> + +<P> +He had never hated before; never cursed, but at that moment he cursed +that which he hated. +</P> + +<P> +It was early spring then, and under the tall, dark trees the dogwood +bushes were in full bloom. Sandy was touched, always, by beauty, and +in his excited state he thought in that desperate hour that the dogwood +blossoms were like stars under a stormy cloud. Heaven seemed reaching +down to him, and closing him in—his thoughts were tinged by Martin's +religious outbursts and the native superstition of the hills. It was +then and there that the child first knew he must go away! The call was +distinct and compelling—he must go away! And from that hour he made +preparation. At first the effort was small and pitiful. He began to +gather whatever Nature provided freely, and turn it into money. With +shrewd perception he realized he must overcome his deadly shyness and +carry his wares farther than The Hollow if he wished to achieve that +upon which he was bent. The Hollow people were poor; The Forge people +would give food and clothing for berries and sassafras roots; but Sandy +demanded money or that which could be exchanged for money, and so he +travelled far with his basket of fragrant berries or shining nuts and +in time he found himself at the Waldens' back door facing a tall black +woman, in turban and kerchief, with the child Cynthia beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you-all want to buy eight quarts of wild strawberries?" he asked in +that low fine voice of his. +</P> + +<P> +"Buy?" demanded Lily Ivy scornfully. "Miss Cyn, honey, go fotch Miss +Ann and tell her one ob dem Morleys is here axing us-all to buy his +berries, and him in shreds and tatters!" +</P> + +<P> +Presently Cynthia returned with her aunt. Miss Walden was then sixty, +but she looked seventy-five at least; she was a stern, detached woman +who dealt with things individually and as she could—she never sought +to comprehend that which was not writ large and clear. She was not a +dull nor an ignorant woman, but she had been carried on the sluggish +current of life with small effort or resistance. She did her task and +made no demands. +</P> + +<P> +"So you're Morley's boy?" she asked curiously; she had still the +interest of the great lady for her dependents. The Morleys had become +long since "poor whites," but Ann Walden knew their traditions. The +family had slunk into hiding ever since Martin had taken the Woman Mary +into his cabin, and Miss Walden was surprised and aroused to find one +of them coming to the surface at her back door with so unusual a +request as Cynthia had repeated. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am;" Sandy replied, his strange eyes fixed upon the calm old +face. +</P> + +<P> +"And what do you want?" +</P> + +<P> +"I want to sell eight quarts of strawberries, ma'am. They are five +cents a quart; that's what they are giving down to The Forge." +</P> + +<P> +"Then why don't you take them to The Forge?" +</P> + +<P> +"The heat, ma'am, will wilt them. They are right fresh now—I thought +I'd give you-all the first chance." +</P> + +<P> +"And you want money for the berries—and you in rags and starved, I +warrant?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +Ann Walden grew more interested. +</P> + +<P> +"Would you—take eggs for them?" she asked; "eggs are bringing twenty +cents a dozen now." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"How do I know you are honest? How do I know the basket isn't stuffed +with leaves in the bottom? What's your name?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy, ma'am. And please, ma'am, you can measure the berries." +</P> + +<P> +"Ivy, bring the quart measure, and the earthen bowl." +</P> + +<P> +When the implements were brought, Miss Walden took things in her own +hands, while Ivy, with the disdain of the old family black servant for +the poor white, stood by like an avenging Fate. The child Cynthia was +all a-tremble. She was young, lovely, and vital. Youth took up arms +for youth, and watched the outcome with jealous and anxious eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"One, two, three——" the rich, fragrant fruit fell into the bowl with +luscious, soft thuds; the red juice oozed out like fresh blood. +</P> + +<P> +"Five, six, seven—eight, and——" +</P> + +<P> +"A lot left over, Aunt Ann, counting dents in the measure and all." +</P> + +<P> +It was Cynthia who spoke, and her big, gray eyes were dancing in +triumph. +</P> + +<P> +"More'n eight quarts, Aunt Ann." +</P> + +<P> +"Umph!" ejaculated Ivy. +</P> + +<P> +"Give the boy two dozen eggs and three over," commanded Miss Walden. +"Take them to Tod Greeley at the post office and tell him they are +Walden eggs." +</P> + +<P> +After Sandy had departed Ivy aired her views. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon we-all better make jam of dem berries right soon. I clar I +allers 'spect to find a yaller streak in dem Morleys." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia was leaning against the kitchen table, her eyes shining and her +breath coming a bit quickly. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps," she said, with the slow smile which curled the corners of +her mouth so deliciously, "perhaps the yellow streak in Sandy Morley +is—gold!" +</P> + +<P> +That was the beginning of Sandy's first great inspiration. Again and +again he went to the Walden place with his wares and exchanged them for +things that could be readily turned into money. Then Cynthia, from out +her own generous loveliness, offered to pass over the instruction Ann +Walden imparted to her, to the boy; he had before that told her of his +ambition and determination to go away, and her vivid imagination was +stirred. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not only money," Cynthia had astutely warned him—"not only money +you must have, Sandy, but learning; no one can take that away from you!" +</P> + +<P> +With a fine air of the benefactress, Cynthia Walden took Sandy Morley's +dense ignorance in charge. It was quite in keeping with the girl's +idea of things as they ought to be, that she should thus illumine and +guide the boy's path. +</P> + +<P> +She was charmingly firm but delightfully playful. She was a hard +mistress but a lovely child, and the youth that was starving in her met +Sandy on a level, untouched by conventions or traditions. Presently a +palpitating sense of power and possession came to her. The creature +who was at first but the recipient of her charity and nobility +displayed traits that compelled respect and admiration. Sandy easily +outstripped her after a time. His questions put her on her mettle. He +never overstepped the bounds that she in her pretty childish fancy set, +but he reached across them with pleading adoration and hungry mind. He +seemed to urge her to get for him what he could not get for himself. +And so, with the freedom of knowledge, Sandy, still keeping to his +place, began to assume proportions and importance quite thrilling. +Then it was that Cynthia Walden, with keenness and foresight, made her +claims upon the boy. +</P> + +<P> +With a pretty show of condescending kindness she clutched him to her +with invisible ties. For <I>her</I> he must do thus and so! He must become +a great—oh! a very great—man and give her all the credit! If he went +away—<I>when</I> he went away—he must never, never, never forget her or +what she had done for him! In short, he must be her abject slave and +pay homage to her all the days of his life! +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was quite willing to comply with all these demands; they were +made in a spirit so sweet and winsome, and they were so obviously +simple and just, that he rose to the call with grateful response, but +with that strange something in reserve that Cynthia could not then +understand or classify. It was as though Sandy had said to her: "Your +slave? Yes, but no fetters or chains, thank you!" +</P> + +<P> +Soon after Mary came to live in the Morley cabin Sandy was relegated to +an old outhouse for sleeping quarters. The child had been horribly +frightened at first, but, as the quarrels and disturbances grew in +power between Martin and the woman, he was grateful for the quiet and +detachment of his bed-chamber. A child was born to Mary and Martin +during the year following the change in the family, but Sandy looked +upon his half-sister with little interest. That the boy was not driven +entirely from the home place was due to the fact that through him came +the only money available. Martin exchanged his spasmodic labour for +clothing or food, but Sandy brought cash. Mary thought he gave her +all, and because of that he was tolerated. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy did not, however, give the woman all, or even half, of what he +earned. He gave her one third; the rest was placed in a tin box and +hidden under a rock in the woods beyond the Branch. The boy never +counted the money, he could not put himself to that test of +discouragement or elation. The time was not yet, and it was +significant of him that he plodded along, doing the best that was in +him, until the call came; the last final call to leave all and go forth. +</P> + +<P> +Once, during the years between seven and fourteen, Sandy had had an +awakening and a warning. Then it was that his half-sister, Molly, +became a distinct and potent factor in his life; one with which he must +reckon. Going to the rock on a certain evening to bury his share of +the day's profit he wearily raised the stone, deposited the money and +turned to go home, when he encountered Molly peering at him with elfish +and menacing eyes from behind a bush. +</P> + +<P> +"What you doing there, yo' Sandy?" she asked half coaxingly, half +threateningly. +</P> + +<P> +"Nothing." +</P> + +<P> +"I seen you—a-hiding something. I'm going to look!" She made a +movement forward. +</P> + +<P> +"Hyar! you Molly!" Sandy clung to her. "If you raise that stone 'twill +be the last of you. I've got a horned toad there and—a poison +sarpint." +</P> + +<P> +"Then I'll—I'll tell Dad." Molly shrank back, though not wholly +convinced. It was time for compromise, and Sandy, with a sickening +fear, recognized it and blindly fell upon the one thing that could have +swayed the girl. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a-training and taming them," he lied desperately, "and when they +are ready we-all can make money out of them, but if you tell—Dad will +kill 'em! I tell you, Molly, if you don't say a single thing +I'll—I'll give you a cent every week. A cent to buy candy with!" +</P> + +<P> +The promise was given, and from that day Sandy paid his blood money, +hoping that greed would hold the child to her bargain, but with always +a feeling of insecurity. He changed his box to another rock, but a +certain uncanniness about Molly gained a power over him and he never +felt safe. +</P> + +<P> +Things went rapidly from bad to worse in the Morley cabin. Martin +forgot his prayers and ambitions; he grew subservient to Mary and never +strove against her, even when her wrath and temper were directed toward +him and Sandy. Discredited and disliked by his neighbours, flouted by +the woman who had used him for her own gain, the man became a +detestable and pitiable creature. Sandy endured the blows and ratings +that became his portion, in the family disturbances, with proud +silence. He was making ready and until the hour of his departure came +he must bear his part. +</P> + +<P> +It was during the probation and preparatory period that Marcia Lowe, +the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady, came up The Way one golden afternoon and +stopped her horse before the post office, General Store and County Club +of The Hollow, and, leaning out from the ramshackle buggy, gave a +rather high, nasal call to whoever might be within. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap02"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER II +</H3> + + +<P> +Tod Greeley, the postmaster, was sitting on his cracker box +contemplatively eying the rusty stove enthroned upon its sawdust +platform, in the middle of the store. Every man in The Hollow had his +own particular chair or box when the circle, known as the County Club, +formed for recreation or business. No one presumed to occupy another's +place: Tod Greeley's pedestal was a cracker box and its sides were well +battered from the blows his heels gave it when emotions ran high or his +sentiments differed from his neighbour's. Greeley was not a Hollow man; +he had been selected by Providence, as he himself would have said, to +perform a service for his country: namely, that of postmaster, +storekeeper, and arbiter of things in general. He was a tall, lean man +of forty, good looking, indolent, and with some force of character which +was mainly evinced by his power of keeping his temper when he was facing +a critical situation. While not of The Hollow, he was still <I>with</I> The +Hollow on principle. +</P> + +<P> +When Marcia Lowe paused before the store and emitted her call, which +flavoured of friendliness and the North, Greeley was vacantly looking +into space, hugging his bony knees, and listening to an indignant fly +buzzing on the dirty glass of the back window, protesting against any +exit being barred to its egress. +</P> + +<P> +It was three o'clock of a late July day and, while the sun was hot, the +breeze gave promise of a cool night. +</P> + +<P> +"Ooh! ooh!" +</P> + +<P> +Just at first Greeley thought the fly had adopted a more militant tone. +</P> + +<P> +"Oooh—ooh!" +</P> + +<P> +Greeley pulled himself together, mentally and physically, and stalked to +the porch; there he encountered the very frank, smiling face of a rather +attractive youngish woman who greeted him cordially with a high-pitched +but sweet: +</P> + +<P> +"Good afternoon." +</P> + +<P> +"Good evening, ma'am," Tod returned. +</P> + +<P> +"I just came up from The Forge; your roads are really scandalous, but the +scenery is beautiful. I want to see if there is any place near here +where I can get board? I've come to stay for a while, anyway; probably +for years, at least." +</P> + +<P> +The young person seemed so eager to share her confidence that Greeley was +on his guard at once. He did not approve of the stills back among the +hills, but he did not feel called upon to assist any government spy in +her work, no matter how attractive and subtle the spy was. +</P> + +<P> +It was two years now since a certain consumptive-looking young man had +caused the upheaval of a private enterprise back of The Hollow and made +so much unpleasantness, but Norman Teale had served his term in prison +and had got on his feet once more, and Greeley had a momentary touch of +sympathy for the Speak-Easy magnates as he glanced up at this new style +of spy. +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody stays on in The Hollow lest he has to," he said cautiously, "and +as for boarding-places, there never was such a thing here, I reckon. I +certainly don't expect they would take any one in at the Walden place, +not if they-all was starving. Miss Ann Walden is quality from way back. +The Morleys couldn't entertain, and what's true of the Morleys is true of +all the others." +</P> + +<P> +"Couldn't you folks take me?" +</P> + +<P> +At this Greeley collapsed on the one chair of the porch, and actually +gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't got what you might call folks," he managed to say, "unless you +call a brace of dogs, folks." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I beg your pardon." Miss Lowe flushed and gave a nervous laugh. +"You see I just must manage to find a home here, and—and I've heard so +much of Southern chivalry and hospitality I rather hoped some one would +take me in until I could look around. The place at The Forge, where I've +been for two nights is—impossible, and the darkies have their hands +stretched out for tips until I feel like a palmist, and a bankrupt one at +that!" +</P> + +<P> +A merry laugh rang out and in spite of himself and his grave doubts +Greeley relaxed. +</P> + +<P> +"If you don't mind doing for yourself," he ventured, "there's a cabin +over to Trouble Neck that you might get." +</P> + +<P> +"Do for myself?" Miss Lowe cried energetically. "I'd just favour that +plan, I can tell you! I could get all the furniture I need at The Forge, +I am sure. The name of the place isn't exactly cheering, but then I've +waded through trouble and got on top all my life long. Who owns the +cabin over at Trouble Neck?" +</P> + +<P> +Property rights in and around The Hollow were rarely discussed; it was a +delicate question, but what was not actually held down by another +generally was conceded to a certain Smith Crothers and to his credit Tod +Greeley now put the Trouble Neck cabin. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! He's the man who owns the factory a few miles from The Forge? I +drove past it yesterday at noon time. I thought it was an orphan asylum +at first. I never saw such babies put to work before. It's monstrous +and the law ought to shut down on your Smith Crothers!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Greeley had a distinct sensation of pain in the region known as +the pit of his stomach. That Smith Crothers should fall under any law +had never been dreamed of by mortal man or woman in Greeley's presence +before. The right of free whiskey was one thing; the right of a man to +utilize the children of the district was another! +</P> + +<P> +"He ain't my Smith Crothers!" Greeley inanely returned, feeling in a +dazed way that he did not want to put in any claim for Crothers with +those apparently innocent eyes upon him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll try to buy the Trouble Neck place from Smith Crothers at +once. You see I've been very sick; they said I'd lost my health, but I +know I've only misplaced it." +</P> + +<P> +Again the cheerful laugh set Greeley's nerves tingling. +</P> + +<P> +"They-all say that when they-all come up here." +</P> + +<P> +Greeley felt in honour bound to give the young woman a hint as to his +reading of her and her mission. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a good spot, then, for weak lungs?" +</P> + +<P> +"None better," Tod nodded sagely, "but they don't last long." +</P> + +<P> +"What? The weak lungs? That's splendid! And now would you mind giving +my horse a drink? Isn't it funny what nice horses they manage to evolve +in the South on food that would end a cart-horse's existence up North? +But such vehicles! Do look at this buggy! And no springs to mention. +My! but my back will ache to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +By this time Greeley had procured a pail of water and was courteously +holding it to the nose of the very grateful horse. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder," Miss Lowe casually remarked, as she let the reins fall in lap +and looked about, "if you happen to have known a Theodore Starr who once +lived here?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've heard of him," Tod returned; "I ain't a Hollow man. I only came +here on business six years ago, but the memory of Starr sort of clings +like it was a good thing to keep alive." +</P> + +<P> +"How beautifully you put it!" +</P> + +<P> +Greeley was thinking how well the government had stocked this dangerous +spy with facts, and so he did not observe the tears in her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a little church he built himself—is it still standing? You +may not have heard, but he had a very simple little religion quite his +own. He thought the people up here were more in need of help than +foreign folks, but no regular sect would—would handle him. So he came +up a road he used to call The Appointed Way and just settled down and +learned to love all—the people and the work!" +</P> + +<P> +Greeley was so utterly amazed that the hands which held the pail shook +with excitement. +</P> + +<P> +"That road what you came up is called The Way—short for Appointed Way. +Yon is the little church." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe raised up and through the thicket behind her she saw the +deserted structure, which still bore the outlines of a church. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it's all boarded up!" she exclaimed. "Who owns it now?" +</P> + +<P> +The exacting nature of the stranger's questions was unsettling to +Greeley. She seemed determined to tag and classify all the real estate +in the county. +</P> + +<P> +"No one ain't damaged the building," he said drawlingly; "some of the +folks think it is han'ted. I reckon Smith Crothers owns it." +</P> + +<P> +"That man owns too much!" Marcia Lowe gave again her penetrating laugh. +"And I should think the place would be haunted. Just think of boarding +Uncle Theodore up! He who loved sunshine and air and sweetness so much!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Greeley dropped the pail to the ground, and the indignant horse +reared angrily. This was carrying things too far, and the man's eyes +flashed. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle?" he gasped sternly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Uncle Theodore Starr. He was my mother's brother. I have no one +to keep me away now—and I loved him so when I was a little child. They +say I am much like him—but then you never saw him. Lately I've been +real homesick for him. He seemed to be calling me from the hills. I'm +going to get your Smith Crothers to let me open up the little church. I +want the sunshine to get in and—and Uncle Theodore to—get out! I'm +going to find where they buried him, and make that a beautiful place too. +You see I've a good deal to do up here! Besides," and now the cheerful +face beamed radiantly on the gaping postmaster, "I'm like Uncle Starr in +more ways than one. He learned to mend men's souls and I have learned to +mend their bodies—it's much the same, you know—when you love it. +I'm—well, I'm an M. D., a medical doctor—Doctor Marcia Lowe!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Greeley dropped on the bottom step of the porch, wiped the +perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand, and emitted one +word. +</P> + +<P> +"Gawd!" He was not a profane man, but the audacity of this stranger who +was about to settle down among them for purposes best known to herself, +and them who sent her, quite overcame him. Marcia Lowe gave a hearty +laugh and gathered the reins. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose you never heard of such a thing up here?" she asked amusedly, +"but they are getting commoner down where I hail from. It's all very +foolish—the restrictions about a woman, you know. She can nurse a body +up to the doors of death, but it's taken a good while to bring people +around to seeing that she can mend a body as well, just as well as a man. +You will let me stay among you anyway, I am sure. I do not want to +physic you. It is so much more interesting to live close and help along. +Good-bye, Mr. Greeley—you see your name is over the door! I am, do not +forget"—the woman's eyes twinkled mischievously—"Doctor Marcia Lowe of +Torrance, Mass. Good-bye! You have been very kind and helpful. I feel +that you and I will be good friends. Get-up, pony!" +</P> + +<P> +She flapped the reins in the most unprofessional manner, and the horse +turned to The Appointed Way with briskness that bespoke his impatience +and a desire for more familiar scenes. +</P> + +<P> +With curious eyes Greeley watched the ramshackle buggy bounce up and down +over the rutty road; he saw the small, slight figure bob about +uncomfortably on the uneven seat, and when the conveyance was lost behind +the trees he went inside with a sure sense that something was going to +happen in The Hollow. +</P> + +<P> +Once again within his own domain he sought his cracker box as if it were +his sanctuary. The fly was still protesting against the dirty window, +and the stillness, except for the buzzing, was unbroken. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, from out the nowhere apparently, old Andrew Townley came in +and shuffled across the floor to the armchair by the stove. Then Mason +Hope appeared, hands in pockets and lank hair falling on his shoulders. +Norman Teale came next, with Tansey Moore in tow. +</P> + +<P> +"Howdy, Tod?" was the universal greeting as the County Club took its +place. The chair of Smith Crothers, and two or three overturned potato +baskets—seats of the junior members of the club—were empty. It was +beneath the dignity of any man present to question what had just +occurred, but every son of them had witnessed it and in due time would +touch upon the subject. +</P> + +<P> +The stove, summer and winter, focussed their wandering eyes and acted as +a stimulus to their dormant faculties. From long practice and +inheritance every man could aim and hit the sawdust under the stove when +he expectorated. Even old Andrew Townley had never been known to fail. +</P> + +<P> +"There be some right good horses down to The Forge," Tansey Moore +ventured after a while. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a blamed risky thing, though," said Mason Hope, "to let a—lady +drive 'em. I've allus noticed that a woman is more sot on gittin' where +she wants to git—than to considering <I>how</I> to git there. It's mighty +risky to trust horseflesh to a female. They seem to reckon all horses is +machines." +</P> + +<P> +"I've seen men as didn't know a hoss from a steam engine," Norman Teale +broke in, glancing sharply at Moore. "Times is when a hoss has to be +sacrificed to man—but I reckon The Forge folks was taking some risks +when they-all hired out a team to a stranger." +</P> + +<P> +"That stranger," said Greeley, hitting the nail on the head with a +violence that brought his audience to an upright position, "ain't nothing +short of, to my mind, than"—he glanced at Teale—"well, she ain't, and +that's my opinion! She comes loaded with facts up to her teeth. Knows +all the names, and says she's going to settle down over to Trouble Neck +and—live along with us-all quite a spell. Weak lungs and all, but she's +a right new brand." +</P> + +<P> +"Hell!" ejaculated Teale, springing to his feet. "If the government has +got so low that it has to trifle with ladies—it's in a bad way. I +reckon I better git a-moving. Any mail, Tod? I take it right friendly +that you give me this hint. A lady may be hard to handle in some ways, +but we-all can at least know where she is—that's something." +</P> + +<P> +After the departure of Teale the club fell into moody gloom. It was +always upsetting to have outside interference with their affairs. Even +if Teale wasn't arrested the whiskey would be limited for a time, and +that was a drawback to manly rights. +</P> + +<P> +Andrew Townley fell into an audible doze; he was the oldest inhabitant +and a respected citizen. He was given to periods of senile dementia +preceded or followed by flashes of almost superhuman intelligence. There +were times when, arousing suddenly from sleep, he would bring some +startling memory with him that would electrify his hearers. He was an +institution and a relic—every one revered him and looked to his simple +comfort. Suddenly now, as the dense silence enveloped the club, old +Andrew awoke and remarked vividly: +</P> + +<P> +"I was a-dreaming of Theodore Starr!" +</P> + +<P> +"Now what in thunder!" cried Tod Greeley, who had purposely refrained +from mentioning some part of his late visitor's conversation,—"what made +you think of—Theodore Starr?" +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon," whined the trembling old voice, "that it was 'long o' Liza +Hope. I was a-passing by and I heard her calling on God-a'mighty to +stand by her in her hour. Theodore Starr was mighty pitiful of women in +their hours." +</P> + +<P> +Mason Hope felt called upon, at this, to explain and apologize. He did +so with the patient air of one detached and disdainful. +</P> + +<P> +"Liza do make a powerful scene when she is called to pass through her +trial. This is her ninth, and I done urged her to act sensible, but when +I saw how it was going with her, I just left her to reason it out along +her own lines. Sally Taber is sitting 'long of her ready to help when +the time comes. I done all I could." Tansey Moore nodded significantly. +He had an unreasonable wife of his own, and he had no sympathy with women +in their "hours." +</P> + +<P> +"Theodore Starr, he done say," Townley was becoming lachrymose, "that +women got mighty nigh to God when they reached up to Him in their trial +and offered life for a life. He done say if God didn't forgive a woman +every earthly thing for such suffering, he was no good God. He done say +that to me onct." +</P> + +<P> +"That be plain blasphemy," Tansey Moore remarked. "I reckon he was a +right poor parson. The religion he doctored with was all soothin' syrup +and mighty diluted at that, where women was concerned. I never trusted +that Yankee." +</P> + +<P> +"The women, children, and old folks counted some on him in his day." +Greeley was getting interested in this heretofore myth. Moore nodded his +head suspiciously. +</P> + +<P> +"They sho' did, and a mess they made of it. Did you ever hear 'bout his +mix-up with the Walden girls?" +</P> + +<P> +Greeley never had and, as the last Walden "girl" was a woman of sixty and +over, he looked puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Ann, her as <I>is</I> now, was considerable older than Theodore Starr, +but she shined up to him and let him lead her about considerable—some +said him and her was—engaged to marry. Then there was the Walden girl +as <I>isn't</I> now, her they called Queenie. She was a right pert little +thing what growed into a woman like a Jonas gourd, sudden and startling! +That was the summer that young Lansing Hertford came back to the old home +place of his forebears to look about—there was a general mess of things +up to Stoneledge those days, and all I know is that Starr he went up into +the hills to nurse a fever plague and there he died. Lansing Hertford +went off like a shot—but them Hertfords allus lit out like they was +chased—never could stand loneliness and lack of luxury. Queenie, she +done died the winter following that summer; died of lung trouble off to +some hospital way off somewhere, and Miss Ann she settled down—an old +woman from that time on! You can't get her to speak Starr's name. You +never could. Us-all tried. When things got too hard for Miss Ann she +done adopt little Miss Cyn—that chile has considerable brightened up +Miss Ann, but Lord! she never was the same after that summer, and I hold, +and allus shall, that Starr wasn't what we-all thought him at first. A +man don't go dying off in the hills for folks what hadn't any call upon +him, lest he has a reason for doing so." +</P> + +<P> +Moore loved to talk. Some one always has to be the orator of a club, and +Tansey, self-elected, filled this position in the circle around the old +stove. Greeley was bored. Past history did not concern him and Moore's +opinions he ignored. He had not been listening closely, for his thoughts +would, in spite of him, follow the ramshackle buggy down The Way. +</P> + +<P> +"She had a right pleasant look and manner," he pondered. "I reckon +she'll get some fun out of her job, no matter what that job is." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap03"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER III +</H3> + + +<P> +It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe +actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility +of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She +had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers, +and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before. +</P> + +<P> +Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house +stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the +tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the +rear of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and +dozed on the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by +night. +</P> + +<P> +"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale +confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over +her. I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come +to Trouble Neck?" +</P> + +<P> +Tansey thought not, decidedly. +</P> + +<P> +"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?" +</P> + +<P> +Again Tansey shook his head. +</P> + +<P> +"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and +I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its +place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person +from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to +treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse." +</P> + +<P> +Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon +what was, at best, a doubtful business. +</P> + +<P> +But Marcia Lowe did not seek Teale out, and if his affairs interested +her, she hid her sentiments in a charming manner. Her aim, apparently, +was to reach the women and children. To her door she won Sandy Morley +with the lure of money for his wares. The second time Sandy called he +told her of his ambitions and she fired him to greater effort by +telling him of her home state, Massachusetts. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Sandy," she explained, "when you are ready, do go there. In +exchange for certain work they will make it possible for you to get an +education. I know plenty of boys who have worked their way through +college with less than you have to offer. Get a little more money and +learning, and then go direct to Massachusetts!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy's breath came quick and fast. Work was part of his daily life, +but that it and education could be combined he had not considered. +From that time on his aim became localized and vital. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps I can help you a bit?" Miss Lowe had suggested. She was often +so lonely that the idea of having this bright, interesting boy with her +at times was delightful. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll—I'll bring all your vegetables to you if you will," Sandy +panted. "I'll dig your garden and weed it. I'll——" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! stop! Sandy." Miss Lowe laughed, delighted. "If you offer so +much in Massachusetts they will give you <I>two</I> educations. They're +terribly honest folks and cannot abide being under obligations." +</P> + +<P> +So Sandy came; did certain chores and was given glimpses of fields of +learning that filled him at first with alternate despair and +exultation. He confided his new opportunity to Cynthia Walden and to +his amazement that young woman greeted his success with anything but +joy. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought you'd be right glad," said Sandy, somewhat dashed. "I +thought you wanted me to learn and get on." +</P> + +<P> +"So I do," Cynthia admitted, "but I wanted to do it all for you, until +you went away." +</P> + +<P> +"What's the difference?" argued poor Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +It was middle August before Marcia Lowe took her courage in her hands +and went to see Miss Ann Walden. With city ways still asserting +themselves now and again in her thought, she had waited for Miss Walden +to call, but, apparently, no such intention was in the mind of the +mistress of Stoneledge. +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps after a bit she will write and invite me up there," Marcia +Lowe then pondered. But no invitation came, and finally the little +doctor's temper rose. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well," she concluded, "I'll go to her and have it out. I'm not a +bit afraid, and, besides, Uncle Theodore's business is too important to +delay any longer. She doesn't know, but she <I>must</I> know." +</P> + +<P> +So upon a fine afternoon Marcia Lowe set forth. Grim determination +made her face stern, and she looked older than she really was. When +she passed the Morleys' cabin she smiled up at Mary, who was standing +near by, but the amiable mistress ran in and slammed the door upon the +passerby. A little farther on she came to Andrew Townley's home and +she paused there to speak to the old man sunning himself by the doorway. +</P> + +<P> +"You certainly do favour your uncle, Miss Marching," Andrew mumbled; he +had heard the stranger's claim of relationship and trustingly accepted +it; but her name was too much for him. +</P> + +<P> +"Since you come I git to thinking more and more of Parson Starr. He +was the pleasantest thing that ever happened to us-all." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! thank you, Mr. Townley!" +</P> + +<P> +So lonely and homesick was the little doctor that any word of +friendliness and good-will drew the tears to her eyes. They talked a +little more of Theodore Starr and then the walk to Stoneledge was +continued. +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe had never seen any of the family except from a distance, +and she dreaded, more than she cared to own, the meeting now. Still +she had come to set right, as far as in her lay, a bitter wrong and +injustice, and she was not one to spare herself. +</P> + +<P> +Her advance had been watched ever since she left Andrew Townley's +cabin, but in reply to her timid knock on the front door, Lily Ivy +responded with such an air of polite surprise that no one could have +suspected her of deceit. +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, ma'am, Miss Ann is to home. She am receiving in the +libr'y. Rest your umbril' on the table, ma'am, and take a char. I'll +go and 'nounce you to Miss Ann." +</P> + +<P> +Left alone, Marcia did not know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. +The brave attempt at grand manner in the half-ruined house was pitiful +as well as amusing. +</P> + +<P> +"This way, ma'am. My mistress done say she'll receive you in the +libr'y." +</P> + +<P> +And there, in solemn state, sat the mistress of the Great House. She, +too, had had time to prepare for the meeting, and she was sitting +gauntly by the west window awaiting her guest. +</P> + +<P> +"It was right kind of you to overlook my neglect," Miss Walden began, +pointing to a low chair near her own, "but I never leave home and I am +an old woman." +</P> + +<P> +The soft drawl did not utterly hide the tone of reflection on the +caller's audacity in presuming to enter a home where she was not wanted. +</P> + +<P> +The window was almost covered by a honeysuckle vine and a tall yellow +rose bush; the afternoon breeze came into the room heavy with the rare, +spicy fragrance, and after a moment's resentment at the measured +welcome, Marcia said cheerfully: +</P> + +<P> +"You see—I had to come, Miss Walden. I've only waited until I could +become less a shock to you. You believe I <I>am</I> Theodore Starr's niece, +do you not? I know there are all sorts of silly ideas floating around +concerning me, but I need not prove my identity to you, need I?" +</P> + +<P> +The winning charm of the plain little visitor only served to brace Miss +Walden to greater sternness. +</P> + +<P> +"I have no doubt about you. You are very like your uncle, Theodore +Starr." +</P> + +<P> +"Then let me tell you what I must, quickly. It is very hard for me to +say; the hardest thing I ever had to do—but I must do it!" +</P> + +<P> +Ann Walden sank back in her stiff armchair. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on," she said, and her eyes fastened themselves on the visitor. +She wanted to look away, but she could not. She was more alive and +alert than she had been in many a year—but the reawakening was painful. +</P> + +<P> +"I only knew—the truth after mother died. I found a letter among her +things. Why she acted as she did I can never know, for she was a good +woman, Miss Walden, and a just one in everything else. You may not +understand; we New Englanders are said to love money, but we must have +it clean. I am sure mother meant nothing dishonest—we had our own +little income from my father and—the other was not used to any +extent—I have made it all up." +</P> + +<P> +"I—do not understand you!" +</P> + +<P> +This was partly true, but the suffering woman knew enough to guide her +and put her on the defence. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a will made before my uncle came here—in that he left +everything to mother and me in case of his death, but the letter +changed all that—he wanted you to have the money!" +</P> + +<P> +"Your mother was quite right!" the sternness was over-powering now; +"the will was the only thing to carry out. I could not possibly accept +any money from Theodore Starr nor his people." +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Marcia Lowe felt the shrinking a less confident person +feels in the presence of one in full command of the situation. She +paused and trembled, but in a moment her sense of right and +determination came to her aid. Her eyes flashed, and with some spirit +she said: +</P> + +<P> +"You are only speaking for yourself now." +</P> + +<P> +"For whom else is there to speak?" +</P> + +<P> +"The child!" +</P> + +<P> +Had Marcia dealt Ann Walden a physical blow the result could not have +been different. Horrified and appalled, the older woman gasped: +</P> + +<P> +"What child?" +</P> + +<P> +"My uncle's and your sister's! Miss Walden, you could not expect me to +believe the story that the people tell around here. You perhaps think +your sister was not married to my uncle—but I trust him. I think you +and I, no matter what has passed, owe it to this little girl to do the +best we can for her. I have left my home to help; I have no one +besides her in the world—please consider this and be forgiving and +generous. Oh! what is the matter?" +</P> + +<P> +For Ann Walden had risen and stood facing Marcia with such trembling +anger that the younger woman quailed. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish you to leave my house!"—the words came through clenched +teeth—"leave it and never return." +</P> + +<P> +"If you resist me in this way," anger met anger now, "I will have to +consult a lawyer. I mean to carry out my uncle's desires; I will not +be party to any fraud where his child is concerned. I hoped that you +and I might do this together for her—but if I have to do it alone I am +prepared to do so. I have brought the letter I found among my mother's +things—may I read it to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" Ann Walden stared blankly at the firm face almost on a level +with her own, for Marcia Lowe had risen also. +</P> + +<P> +"You—you cannot forgive us for the long silence? But at least do me +this justice: I came when I could—as soon as possible. I was ill—oh! +Miss Walden can you not understand how hard this is for me to do? +Think how I must put my own mother at your mercy—my own, dear mother!" +</P> + +<P> +Only one thought held Ann Walden—would her visitor never go? The few +moments were like agonized hours; the shock she had received had been +so fearful that for a moment she was stunned, and before the true +significance overwhelmed her she must be alone! +</P> + +<P> +"I—have nothing to forgive. You and yours, Miss Lowe, have nothing to +do with me and mine—you must indeed—go! I cannot talk of—the past +to you. You—have made a great mistake—a fearful mistake. My sister +has—has nothing——" +</P> + +<P> +The stern young eyes compelled silence. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I wish you would let me help you—for the love you once had for +Uncle Theodore," said Marcia Lowe; "you must have forgiven your sister +when she told you; can you not forgive him?" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop! You do not know what you are talking about——" Vainly, almost +roughly, the older woman strove to push the knife away that the +ruthless, misunderstanding young hands were plunging deeper and deeper +into the suddenly opened wound. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! yes, Miss Walden, I know—here's the letter!" +</P> + +<P> +She held it out frankly as if it must, at least, be the tie to bind +them. +</P> + +<P> +"I spoke perhaps too quickly, too unexpectedly; but it is as hard for +me as it is for you. I thought you would know that. I could not talk +of little things when this big thing lay between us. It is our—duty." +</P> + +<P> +Pleadingly, pitifully, the words were spoken, but they did not move the +listener. Hurriedly, as if all but spent, Ann Walden panted: +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon it is because you are young you cannot understand how +impossible it is for you and me to—be friends. You must forgive +me—and you must go!" +</P> + +<P> +"But the money!" +</P> + +<P> +"What money?" Something bitterer and crueller than the money had taken +the memory of that away. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Theodore's money. You see it is not mine—neither you nor I +should keep it from Uncle Theodore's——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! go, go; I cannot talk to you now. I will see you again—some +other day—go!" +</P> + +<P> +At last the look in Ann Walden's face attracted and held Marcia Lowe's +mercy. She forgot her own trouble and mission; her impetuosity died +before the dumb misery of the woman near her. Realizing that she could +gain nothing more at present by staying, she placed the letter upon the +table as she passed out of the room and the house. +</P> + +<P> +For a few moments Ann Walden stood and looked at the vacant spot whence +the blow had come. The restraint she had put upon herself in Marcia +Lowe's presence faded gradually; but presently a sensation of faintness +warned the awakening senses of self-preservation. Slowly she reached +for the letter which lay near—no one must ever see that! She would +not read it, but it must be destroyed. And even as she argued, Ann +Walden's hot, keen eyes were scanning the pages that unconsciously she +had taken from the envelope. +</P> + +<P> +The date recalled to her the time and place—it had been written that +summer when Theodore Starr had gone to the plague-stricken people back +in the hills; after he had told her they, he and she, could never +marry; that it had all been a mistake. How deadly kind he had been; +how grieved and—honest! Yes, that was it; he had seemed so honest +that the woman who listened and from whose life he was taking the only +beautiful thing that had ever been purely her own, struggled to hide +her suffering, and even in that humiliating hour had sought to help +him. But—if what had been said were true, Theodore Starr had not been +honest with her; even that comfort was to be dashed from her after all +these years. She remembered that he had said that while he lived he +would always honour her, but that love had overcome him and conquered +him. Queenie had always seemed a child to him, he had told her, until +the coming of Hertford, and the sudden unfolding of the child into the +woman. He could no longer conceal the truth—in his concealment danger +lay for them all, and his life's work as well. When he came back—they +would all understand each other better! But he had not come back and +then, when she had discovered poor Queenie's state, it was for Starr as +well as herself that she sternly followed the course she had. She +struck a blow for him who no longer could speak for himself—for he had +died among his people. +</P> + +<P> +"I loved him better than life," those were the words Ann Walden had +spoken to her sister in that very room twelve years ago. The air +seemed ringing with them still; "loved him as you never could have; but +he loved you; he told me so, and because of my love for him—I hid what +I felt. I could have died to make him happy, but you—why, you were +another man's idle fancy while you lured Theodore Starr to his doom. +The only thing you have left me for comfort and solace is this: I can +now keep his dear, pure memory for my own, and love it to the day of my +death." +</P> + +<P> +Ann Walden looked quickly toward the chimney-place. There Queenie had +stood shrinking before her like a little guilty ghost. She seemed to +be standing there still listening to the truth, and avenging herself at +last. +</P> + +<P> +"Hertford is the father of your unborn child. You——" +</P> + +<P> +And then it was that Queenie had fallen! had hit her head against the +andirons and was never again to suffer sanely. After that there were +the dreary weeks when the changed girl had paced the upper balcony with +her poor, vacant face set toward the hills. The pitiful story of her +weak lungs was started, the journey to the far away sanatorium, which +really ended in the cabin of a one-time slave of the family twenty +miles away! The hideous secret; the journeys by night and that last +terrible scene when the blank mind refused to interpret the agony of +the riven body and the wild screams and moans rang through the cabin +chamber. Alone, the old black woman and Ann Walden had witnessed the +struggle of life and death, which ended in the birth of Cynthia and the +release of Queenie Walden. +</P> + +<P> +The four following years were nightmares of torture to Ann Walden. +After bringing her sister's body home from the supposed sanatorium she +lived a double life. As often as she dared she went to that cabin in +the far woods. She carried clothes and food to her old servant and the +little secreted child. She watched with fear-filled eyes the baby's +development, and to her great relief she knew at last that no mark of +mental evil had touched her! Then, when the old black woman died she +brought the baby thing home; had explained it according to her +knowledge of the people; they would believe what she told them—but +this stranger who had left the letter—she had not been deceived for +one moment! +</P> + +<P> +The letter! While she had been reliving the past the words were +entering her consciousness. What she knew she passed unheedingly; what +she was yet to know rose as if to strike her by its force. +</P> + +<P> +"I had believed that love," so Starr had written to his sister, "as men +know it, was not for me; my work, my joy in the service had always +seemed my recompense. I had asked Ann Walden to marry me because I +felt sure of myself, and in this lonely place I needed the +companionship, the wisdom and the social position her presence would +give to this great work of lifting up those worthy of recognition. +Then came the day when I saw the little sister—Ann Walden's and mine, +for we had always called her that—a woman! She cast her childhood off +like a disguise—I saw another man look at her and I saw her look at +him! Something was born in me then after all the slow, sombre +years—and I wanted—love! I think a madness overcame me, for, blinded +and almost beside myself—I spoke to her—that child-woman, and told +her how it was with me. She is the sort that wins your heart secrets +by a glance of her tender eyes. And then——" Then came sharp words; +disconnected and flashing like flame; but Ann Walden read on while her +brain beat and ached. +</P> + +<P> +"It was I she loved. I had aroused her—she saw only one man in the +world—me! +</P> + +<P> +"She lay in my arms—I kissed her. +</P> + +<P> +"I took her with me on a long drive through the mountains—there was a +dying woman and my dear love carried the poor soul unto the parting of +the ways with such divine tenderness as I had never before beheld. She +sang and almost played with her until the sad creature forgot her death +pangs. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw—that dying hour was +perhaps the only joyous hour the woman ever had known—and my +sun-touched darling gave it to her! +</P> + +<P> +"We were married on our way home. I wanted to speak at once, but +Queenie pleaded. She did not wish, just in her own first moment of +joy, to hurt the sister who was mother to her as well as sister. I +listened, but I realized that my child-wife was afraid! That was it. +With all her brave, splendid characteristics, Ann Walden is one to call +forth fear. I felt myself shrinking hourly from confession. She is +all judge; she can be just, but she cannot, I think, be merciful. Hers +it is to carry out the law, not sympathize with those who fall under +the law. She makes cowards of us all! She is too detached to reach +humanity, or for humanity, erring, sinning humanity, to reach her. +</P> + +<P> +"The call came—I had to come to the sick and dying. I made half peace +with myself by telling Ann Walden that I could not carry out our +compact. I told her, what is the hardest thing for any man to tell a +woman—that I did not love her. I could not love her! and that it was +her sister I loved. I meant to explain everything later and confess—I +expected to be back in a day or so—but I am here still and the chances +are I must stay on for a long time, and I may lose my life; conditions +are terrible, and only once a week a doctor comes! +</P> + +<P> +"She, Ann Walden, is not the hard judge alone. I must not give you a +wrong impression. When I told her, she shielded me against myself; +would not let me suffer as I should—she excused me. She, to excuse +me! But if anything happens to me—I want all my money to go to Ann +Walden. By this act she will understand my trust in her and, accepting +it, she will do for Queenie what otherwise she could not do—and do it +more wisely than my darling could for herself. It must be the common +tie, this little fortune. +</P> + +<P> +"I am feeling very ill. +</P> + +<P> +"I fear—my time—has come! +</P> + +<P> +"I recall—there was no marriage certificate, but the service was +performed by——" +</P> + +<P> +Ann Walden dropped the blurred sheet and steadied herself against the +window. Evidently Theodore Starr had forgotten the name, or perhaps +the deadly dizziness of the disease had overcome him. It did not +matter. Ann Walden, like Marcia Lowe, had no doubts—but his sister +evidently had had, and suddenly a bitter hatred filled Ann Walden's +soul toward the dead woman she had never known. +</P> + +<P> +"She who should have known him best," Ann Walden's thoughts ran +burningly on—"she to doubt him and let all the years of injustice go +on!" +</P> + +<P> +And then the eyes of the tormented woman turned fearfully toward the +far side of the room. The late afternoon was turning into twilight and +the corner by the chimney was dim and full of shadow. +</P> + +<P> +"And I—who should have trusted Queenie—I who knew her best of all—I +let her suffer——" +</P> + +<P> +The wraith by the hearth had her full revenge at that hour, for Ann +Walden bowed beneath the memories that crowded upon her; the vivid, +torturing memories. That last night—when the moans and calls of the +dumb mind strove to express the agony of the poor body! The solemn +hour when God entrusted a living soul to a mother incapable of +realizing anything but the mortal pangs that were costing her her life! +</P> + +<P> +The child dishonoured, shamed and hidden because of—misunderstanding. +Humbly Ann Walden confessed that Theodore Starr's sister was no more to +blame than she herself. +</P> + +<P> +Outside a sudden shower had come over Lost Mountain; the room in which +Ann Walden stood became dark and still, then a sharp crash shook the +house—something white fell upon the hearth; ashes, long dead ashes +were blown hither and yon by a rising wind. With a wild cry of—"My +God!" Ann Walden sank in a chair. Wornout nerves could stand no more. +</P> + +<P> +When she recovered consciousness she was lying upon the old horsehair +sofa in the library. Ivy had gone on an errand, but Cynthia stood over +her and the girl's face shocked the reviving woman into alertness. +Familiarity had dulled her in the past, but now she saw the expression +and outline of Theodore Starr's features bending near her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she moaned shudderingly. "Oh! oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Ann, it is little Cyn! The tree by the smoke-house was struck, +but we-all are safe." +</P> + +<P> +"I must be alone!" Then gropingly and tremblingly Ann Walden got upon +her feet. +</P> + +<P> +"The letter," she panted, "the letter." +</P> + +<P> +"Here it is—I found it on the floor where you fell." +</P> + +<P> +At the time Cynthia was too distressed to attach any importance to the +matter, but she recalled the incident later. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes!" Ann Walden gripped the closely written sheets; "and now +I—I want to be alone!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap04"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IV +</H3> + + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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? +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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! +</P> + +<P> +Well, he would go to the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady and get a more concise +conception of heaven and Massachusetts, if possible. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +But no little enchantress met lonely Sandy on his homeward way. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then Sandy managed to command his thought and motions. He stepped to +Cynthia and knelt beside her. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going away," he said softly. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I know. When?" +</P> + +<P> +"To-night." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"You know my story?" she said with her delicious laugh thrilling her +listener; "the story part of my life?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia had forgot the present in her fantastic play and she held Sandy +as she always had before by the trick of her fascination. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was all boy now; the strange new dignity fell wearily from +him—he was playing, after a hard lesson, with little Cyn. +</P> + +<P> +"And what am I?" he asked, "what have you made me?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy's eyes were brilliant and glittering; his breath came quick and +hard, and to steady himself he whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"I am going away—to-night!" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going—to-night. I wonder if there is enough?" +</P> + +<P> +He glanced at the box. "I have never counted it." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +At this Sandy gasped. +</P> + +<P> +"I—reckon it will take me to Massachusetts," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon it will take you to the world's end," Cynthia, the mystic +exclaimed, "and back again!" +</P> + +<P> +"Back again!" Sandy's imagination could not stretch past a certain +limit. +</P> + +<P> +"But you are coming back, Sandy?" A startled fear crept into the +girl's eyes; "you promised!" +</P> + +<P> +"I shall come back—yes!" +</P> + +<P> +"Let us count the money together, Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +"That!" he whispered hoarsely; "how did that get here?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Cynthia rose to her feet and from her slim height faced Sandy +on the level—eye to eye. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy's mind worked more slowly; gropingly he strove to understand. +</P> + +<P> +"How did you get it?" he asked relentlessly. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia laughed a little. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +A mist rose to Sandy's eyes—it almost hid that pure flower-like face +shining under the dark trees. +</P> + +<P> +"You mustn't be mean, Sandy; besides, you are to pay it all back." +</P> + +<P> +"How?" That word was all Sandy could master for a sharp pain in his +throat drove all else he meant to say back. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, you are going to set me free—you must marry me!" +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"How did—this happen?" A finger lightly passed over the bruise on his +cheek. He could not answer. +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"My head—spins," he said vaguely; "the day's heat made it ache." +</P> + +<P> +"You will take my money, Sandy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And you will come back and—marry me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll come back and—and——" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you marry me, Sandy, like they do in books?" +</P> + +<P> +"If—if—that is the best way, yes." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"No." +</P> + +<P> +"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 <I>will</I>, 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!" +</P> + +<P> +Again Sandy forced himself to fasten his eyes on the sweet, tender +mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"I love to smile, Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the girl's gay tone changed; she came back to grim facts with +a catch in her voice. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +The brave attempt at cheer, the tender renunciation in the soft voice, +wrung Sandy's heart. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye, Cynthia!" rang sharply. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +Sinking to the ground he leaned against the tree under which Cynthia +had stood and, for a moment, lost consciousness. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap05"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER V +</H3> + + +<P> +"So you've come home to be fed, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin Morley slunk into a chair and eyed the woman by the cook-stove +ingratiatingly. +</P> + +<P> +"I sho' have," he replied; "it smells like ash cakes, and I've brought +a bucket of buttermilk from ole Mis' Walden's place. She certainly is +a techersome woman but a powerful good manager." +</P> + +<P> +"Where's the buttermilk?" +</P> + +<P> +"Outside the do'!" +</P> + +<P> +"Run and fetch it, Molly." +</P> + +<P> +The child, glaring at Martin, sprang to do her mother's bidding and as +she passed Morley he seemed to note, for the first time in his life, +her fantastic beauty. And then Morley stared after her—she looked +like <I>his</I> mother! With the thought a blush of shame rose to his thin, +sallow face. +</P> + +<P> +His mother! Between his mother and him lay a black abyss. What right +had anything, holding part in that shadow, to look like his mother? He +arose and almost snatched from the child the pail she had brought in. +</P> + +<P> +"Hyar!" he cried, "let me take that, you're slopping it over the floor. +Whar's yo' brother?" +</P> + +<P> +With this Mary Morley turned from her task with hot, blazing face? She +had been handsome once—but the fleeting beauty was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"Sho'! <I>whar's</I> that blessed son of yours?" Mary screamed. "You better +go and find out. Do you know what the brat has been doing all these +years? Years, I say! While we-all have been slaving and starving he's +been saving up; cheating us-all out of his earnings. Eating us-all out +of house and home while he—saved and glutted!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin stared at the woman as if she were speaking a foreign language. +</P> + +<P> +"Who—tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the +moment's confusion. +</P> + +<P> +"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone +beyond the Branch—dollars and dollars while we-all done without." +</P> + +<P> +"Whar did he—get it?" +</P> + +<P> +"He only gave us part of what he earned—he made us-all fools while he +hid the rest." +</P> + +<P> +This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the +girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted +him with something like fear in it. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that—that Cynthia Walden." +</P> + +<P> +This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward +angrily. +</P> + +<P> +"None of your lying!" she commanded—"nobody's going to hurt you so +long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with +the stolen money?" +</P> + +<P> +"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I—tried to +find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let +on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss +Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why +should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?" +</P> + +<P> +Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not +tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so +hard and—young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was +angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure, +but—hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him. +</P> + +<P> +"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her +growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying +lot. I'll find the boy——" Martin reached up and took down a lash +whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find +the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he +may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply. +</P> + +<P> +Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen +amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading +to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he +saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as +he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His +brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a +shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body. +Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct +warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the +two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that +Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree. +</P> + +<P> +"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you—and then——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going away!" +</P> + +<P> +"Going away?" +</P> + +<P> +"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She——" The +boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She +don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it—but +she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got +to go and—I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little +for years—there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out +beyond—somewhere—Dad, there's something better for us than—this. By +and by we'll come back. We'll come and help——" and a sob choked the +words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel—called!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost. +And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself +as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had +wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself +standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as +allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in +grandfather's day—it's settled on us-all like a death grip." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy listened as if already he was far and apart from all the sordid, +little hampering things that made up the life of Lost Hollow. +</P> + +<P> +"What did—grandfather do?" he asked, like one who had no special +interest in the matter. +</P> + +<P> +"It was my grandfather, he was the friend of Lansing Hertford. They +said he betrayed his friend—but they-all lied. First it was a +whisper, then in your grandfather's time they-all spoke louder. The +lie took away the faith of men from us-all and—that ended it! The lie +slinks low till some Morley raises his head and then it springs up and +strikes him down." +</P> + +<P> +"It will not strike me down!" Sandy, weak and forlorn, straightened +against the tree with the darkness almost blotting him from the eyes +fastened tenderly on his face, spoke firmly. "I'll kill the lie +whatever it was! What did they say, Dad?" +</P> + +<P> +Never before had Sandy cared. He knew there was something lurking in +the past that caused his father to slink from the mountain people, +caused the men and women to avoid and shun him, but it had always +existed. It was part of Lost Hollow and the Morley fate. +</P> + +<P> +Then, alone with the last of his race, Martin Morley told the old story +that had sapped the vitality of his family. Such a small, mean thing +it seemed to have downed the once good stock! But in a place where +tradition thrives on starvation, lack of ambition and misunderstanding, +it had done its work. As Morley drawled the ancient wrong to light, as +he eased his soul of the burden and so shared it with his boy, his eye +brightened and he sat straighter upon the fallen log for—at its +completion—Sandy laughed! +</P> + +<P> +"It was this—er—way. In them days us-all and the Hertfords was +equals. The plantation lying off to the east of the old Hertford home +place belonged to us-all"—many and many were the quarts of berries and +bushels of nuts Sandy had gathered from there!—"but it slipped +away—it's all gone years past. My grandfather and Lansing Hertford +was close friends—none closer. They fought and loved side by side +till Hertford—he got some kind of government order to go to furrin' +parts a mighty distance from Lost Hollow. Some time after he went my +grandfather followed on a pleasure trip—a pleasure trip, Sandy, think +of that! He went away for pleasure! His pockets full of money and him +right well fixed! On his travels he stopped and called on Hertford in +them furrin' parts and Hertford he gave to grandfather a mighty +precious bottle of stuff to bring back home to a big merchant down +Lynchburg way. What happened the Lord only knows, Sandy, but when the +merchant opened the bottle there wasn't nothing but water in it! No +one ever spoke out in grandfather's day—they dassent. He was a mighty +proud and upperty man, but a whisper and a nudge can do the work, and +little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's +time they spoke louder—they don' said how grandfather had sold the +precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you, +son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" Sandy breathed the word like a hiss, and in the darkness and his +weakness he felt the poison of the lie stealing into his thought, but +he flung his head up proudly. "No! No!" he repeated clearly and +defiantly; "No!" +</P> + +<P> +"But they-all never trusted none of us again." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy recalled his first visit to the Walden back door and his courage +rose—they had learned to trust him even in Lost Hollow! +</P> + +<P> +"Grandfather tried to rise up and failed. Father had his hope, but it +was killed; I strove, Sandy, I sho' did, God knows! but you see how it +has been with me. There's no use, son, we-all is damned!" +</P> + +<P> +"I am—going to succeed!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy's voice struck through the gloom and stillness like a tangible +blow. Martin started and gave a nervous laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Come home!" he said; "come home and bring your money with you. It +will buy peace and pardon—them's better than any fool idees. And just +remember this, Sandy Morley, we-all may be dastards and hard drinkers +and what not, but we sho' don't desert women and children. They, down +there, belong to us, son, and I expect you and me belong to them!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin rose hurriedly and dropped the whip in the underbrush. +</P> + +<P> +"Come on home, son!" +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy did not move. +</P> + +<P> +"It's come with me or I go alone, Dad." +</P> + +<P> +The child was master of the man! +</P> + +<P> +"You mean it? You mean you dare to disobey—me?" +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to—take my chance, Dad, out among—folks!" +</P> + +<P> +"You—will—obey—me!" But even as the words were spoken, Martin felt +how impotent they were. +</P> + +<P> +"It's good-bye, Dad?" +</P> + +<P> +It was good-bye. Both man and boy realized it. The night closed them +in and the protecting trees sheltered them for a moment more. +</P> + +<P> +"You po' little lad! you mean it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Dad. Will you come?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin turned one glance to where the light from his cabin door shone; +then he groaned and said: +</P> + +<P> +"No! God knows they do belong to me and I'm too old, too broken. The +curse will get the best of you, boy, and you'll come trailing home. +I'll be here—then! But——" And now Martin came closer and held him +by the thin, trembling shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +"Grandfather never done it! It was one man's word agin another's and +the Hertfords have the luck—they allus had. Onct one of them come +back"—and here Morley came closer to Sandy—"it was back in ole Miss +Ann Walden's early days—he came back and something happened!" The +whisper made Sandy creep with chill. +</P> + +<P> +"What?" he asked, hoarsely. +</P> + +<P> +"He done a mighty wrong to—Miss Ann's little sister, her that was +called Queenie and looked it! We-all knew, but we-all stood by Miss +Ann, even such as me stood by her! it was the only thing we-all could +do for her. He got away! Then that po' chile took to watching from +the balcony for him who never come—and then she went away—and by and +by—the baby come home!" +</P> + +<P> +"The baby?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy trembled and grew faint. He had eaten little and the burden +being laid upon him was more than his strength could bear. +</P> + +<P> +"Cynthia—the lil' girl with the face of Queenie, her mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"No! No!" What he feared and abhorred the boy could not tell, but +every instinct in him rose to do battle for the child—friend of his +starved and empty life. +</P> + +<P> +"It's your part, son, to stand by and never let on! We-all have done +it; we-all took what Miss Ann said for gospel truth—and so must you!" +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that Sandy laughed! The sound startled and shocked Martin +and he almost reeled from before it, but strangely enough it seemed to +brighten the heavy darkness. +</P> + +<P> +"I don't believe it!" said Sandy between his bursts of laughter. "It's +a bad dream—we-all must wake up." +</P> + +<P> +"We can't fight them, Sandy!" +</P> + +<P> +The poor legacy of hatred, wrong, loyalty, and despair was all that +Martin Morley had to offer his boy as a weapon in the coming fight. +The uselessness and weakness of it struck Sandy even then as he stood +on the threshold of the new life. What did it matter? But it was the +small thing, the old past that made up the shabby present of The +Hollow. He was going to leave everything—even the old grudge—already +the wider thought called him and gave a touch of daring to his laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye, Dad!" +</P> + +<P> +And then Morley staggered toward Sandy and stretched his arms out to +him. There was one thing more he had to offer! +</P> + +<P> +"I—I want to tell you 'bout—yo' mother, Sandy—and me! No one ain't +all bad; she was all good and yo' must lay hold o' the good. It will +help if yo' can cling fast enough." +</P> + +<P> +Oddly enough Sandy found himself against his father's breast without a +sense of strangeness. Long years ago he had so lain in the strong +arms—the recollection brought others in its wake; memories of safe, +happy days—before Mary had come into their lives. +</P> + +<P> +"I was older then her!" Martin spoke as if confessing to one who +demanded the best and the truth at last. It was as though he felt that +with the neglect and injustice he had of late shown the boy, there had +been the holding back of his just due. "Yo' mother came from The +Forge, she left a good home for me because she believed in me—she was +terrible young and trusting and she didn't live to—find out! I was +old enough to be her father, and I tried. God help me! I tried, but +it was the old curse and not even the love I had for her could keep me +up. But while she lived—it was better. The cabin was clean and tidy +and she always sang about her work. She only stopped singing toward +the last—when she got thinking about you she got solemner and stiller +and then—you came! She—died the day after, and the blackness of it +has shut the sunlight out of my life ever since, Sandy. I ought to +have took my pay and made no fuss, and for a time I did. You and me +lived on in the cabin with a woman's hand to help at the pinch, and for +years I kept my head and yours above water. But when yo' are a man, +son, you'll think kinder o' me than what yo' do to-day; a man's a man, +and a lonely man is the worst of all—and so"—Martin's grizzly head +was pressed against Sandy's—"and so—Mary came! She didn't ask much; +she only wanted to live along with us-all in the cabin, but——" The +dreary years seemed to spread before both man and boy in the silence +which followed. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye, Sandy, good-bye!" Martin choked and held the boy off at +arm's length. "Yo' great-grandfather's name was Sandford Morley. I +gave you the name for good luck—maybe it—will help. Good-bye!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye—dear old Dad!" +</P> + +<P> +The one-time trust and affection flooded the moment and place. Quite +simply and naturally they kissed and fell apart. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo' go first, lad—yo' ain't got nothing to take?" Sandy shook his +head. +</P> + +<P> +"No, Dad. Good-bye. The money will help me on. Some day I'm coming +back, Dad, coming back to help! Wait for me, Dad, and hold tight for +me—so I'll be glad. Dear, dear, old Dad!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Sandy turned and set his face toward The Appointed Way. It had +been hard to see Cynthia flee from him, leaving him lonely and +forsaken; but it was harder now to leave the sad, broken father in the +desolate blackness of night—and enter the new, hard life alone! But +with never a backward look Sandford Morley went to meet his fate. +</P> + +<P> +Martin stood and listened until the last sound dropped into silence. +Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin. +There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour +of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by +the rough table in the middle of the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you find him?" she asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"And you——" +</P> + +<P> +Martin turned and the look on his face silenced the woman. +</P> + +<P> +"That boy," he said slowly, "belongs to me, do you understand? Keep +your tongue off him—your hands will never touch him again. He's mine +and God Almighty's from now on. You've starve him and beat him for the +last time and now—never speak his name again. He's mine and +God's—and his mother's!" +</P> + +<P> +Martin was spent. He dropped into a chair and, folding his arms upon +the back, bent his head upon them. +</P> + +<P> +Then Mary's wrath broke. +</P> + +<P> +"He's yours, is he?" she sneered, shaking her child off and striding +toward the bowed figure—"he's yours and God's and his mother's! He +belongs to a fine lot, doesn't he, the ungrateful little beast? And +I'm to keep my tongue off him, eh? Ain't I good enough for him and you +and the high company you belong to?" +</P> + +<P> +Resentment old and rankling rose fiercely. What ever she had been and +was, Mary clung to Morley faithfully according to her light and she +writhed under the sting of the implied insult hurled at her now. +</P> + +<P> +Morley did not move. A sense of desolation swept over him. He was +following the trail of the lonely boy in the dark and the woman's +infuriated words meant no more to him than the rumbling thunder. +</P> + +<P> +"Who do I and mine belong to?" the tense voice went on; "to the devil I +suppose! Well, then, Mart Morley, you listen to me now. This +child"—she turned fiercely toward Molly—"is yours, mine and the +devil's. You're a lazy lot that left us to starve or live as we could, +but the devil has taken a hand in the game, do you hear? I reckon +he'll see us through and no thanks to you! From now on you take what +you can get and keep your mouth shut or—the devil and I will know why." +</P> + +<P> +And then Morley lifted his head. The look of misery on his pinched +face should have moved one to pity, but it did not move the heart of +Mary Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean?" he asked wonderingly. "I—I—didn't follow +all—you said." +</P> + +<P> +"And there's to be no questioning," the voice had grown louder. "No +questions—just take or leave what's offered; go or stay as you please, +but if that brat of yours, God's and his mother's, ever shows his face +near me or mine—I'll"—she laughed hoarsely—"I'll make him a +discredit to you all! Come move up and eat the food I provided and +drink the sour milk that was given you!" +</P> + +<P> +Morley rose unsteadily. He tried to speak and command the situation +that in some subtle way had escaped his control, but he felt bereft and +desperate. Now that Sandy was quite beyond recall, to whom could he +turn? His strength and spirit were crushed and degraded—he moved up +and sullenly took the plate and cup that were pushed toward him! Once +he glanced at Molly. She leered at him over the edge of her mug and +her eyes were hard and cruel. +</P> + +<P> +Martin Morley pushed the untouched food from him and strode to the door +of the cabin. The storm was coming up fast now. The lightning flashed +and the thunder shook the house. Morley's heart ached for the boy +struggling alone and defenceless through the night, but he was glad he +was gone! Whatever lay before of defeat or victory—he thanked God +that the last of his race had had courage at least to make an attempt +for freedom. +</P> + +<P> +The house grew very quiet; Mary had taken Molly to the loft overhead, +and presently Martin heard her deep breathing and the nestling of the +little girl in the straw mattress. The storm passed at last and above +Lost Mountain a bright and glowing star showed through the parting +clouds. +</P> + +<P> +Cautiously Martin whistled and then waited. Night after night this was +his habit. When the others had departed he called Sandy's dog, fed it +from the scraps he could gather, and comforted himself with the +companionship of the faithful collie that was too wise to tempt +Providence when Mary was around. +</P> + +<P> +Martin whistled a second time and then called softly: "Bob! oh—Bob!" +</P> + +<P> +There was no response. Again the man spoke drawlingly and fondly: +"Bob! oh, Bob!" Then he went to the shed near the cabin and looked in. +That had been Sandy's bed-chamber since the rule of Mary had begun—how +terribly empty and lonely it looked now! How afraid the boy must have +been when at first he was driven from the home place to the deserted +outhouse! He had never whimpered nor complained. "Poor little lad!" +breathed Martin, and leaned against the doorway of the wretched room. +There was the ragged mattress and the little nest where the slight +boyish body had so often rested after the day's cheerless toil. On the +wall were pinned two or three bright pictures that had drifted somehow +to the barren place; there was a pitiful little frayed jacket hanging +on a nail and a pair of sadly torn shoes in one corner. +</P> + +<P> +The objects caused Martin to groan as he beheld them. He suffered as +he had not suffered since Sandy's mother died in his arms! Like a +drowning man he relived the years—the hard years when he cared for and +loved the baby-child alone in the cabin. He recalled the boy's sunny +ways and sweet confidence, until the Woman Mary entered their life. He +had been miserable, his lower nature craved its own, and Mary came! He +had accepted and he had lost his self-respect; everything! There was +nothing left; there would be nothing more until—the end came, unless +Sandy succeeded. Just then the moon came over a bank of black clouds +and lit The Hollow. It shone full on Lost Mountain and into the +deserted shed where but lately Sandy had suffered and slept. +</P> + +<P> +Martin Morley dropped on his knees and turned his haggard, pain-racked +face upward. He had once been a religious man; had once been a leader +in the little church at The Forge before he gave up hope and ambition. +His prayers had been the pride and boast of the mountainside, but that +was long ago, and his lips with difficulty formed, now, the sacred +words. +</P> + +<P> +"God-a'mighty!" he breathed, "take care of that lil' boy out there +alone on The Way. Don't fail him on the big road; keep him to the end! +I ain't asking You to do anything more for me; I've give up; but he's +just started forth! Watch him; keep him; don't let the sins of his +fathers or his enemies tech him. Amen!" +</P> + +<P> +There was a note of command in the prayer. A demand for justice and +protection for one who could not defend himself. Having worded his +appeal, Martin rose stiffly from his knees and closed the door of the +shed after him. +</P> + +<P> +He had done what he could; he must bear the agony and remorse silently +from now on. The old laziness and indifference returned slowly as he +retraced his steps, and when he entered the silent cabin again he went +naturally to the crooked stairs leading up to the loft. The door was +closed and locked! Mary had, in this final fashion, proclaimed her +independence. +</P> + +<P> +Martin made no effort to force his way or question the proceedings; +with a weary sigh he looked about, then went quietly to an old settle +by the hearth. Taking off his wet and ragged coat he rolled it up and +placed it for a pillow. Finally he stretched his aching body upon the +improvised bed and fell into a restless slumber. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap06"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +VI +</H3> + + +<P> +The hot, breathless morning followed the storm through which Sandy +departed, and fell like a moist blanket over Lost Hollow. Even up at +Stoneledge the vapour rose and settled depressingly. Every door and +window in the livable part of the house was set wide to any chance +stirring of the dead air. Ann Walden in the sitting-room, old Lily Ivy +in the kitchen, and the child Cynthia in the dim, shadowy library, in +the unlivable part of the house, were listless and indolent. Presently +the black woman, having completed the preparations of vegetables for +the simple mid-day meal, came to the sitting-room door and contemplated +her mistress with respectful eyes. Ivy was fully seventy years old, +but she was straight and strong as a woman of fifty and as keen and +capable. She had been carefully reared as a house servant in the days +of slavery, and she had followed the downward fortunes of the Waldens +with dignity and courage worthy a more glorious cause. Her spotless +but much patched gown was almost covered by a huge white apron. She +wore a kerchief and a turban-like head covering. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Ann, honey, a leak done sprung in the roof over the west chamber +las' night. The rain am permeated through the flo' and marked the +ceiling in de libr'y." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia, lying on the horsehair sofa of the dim room across the hall, +looked up and saw the new and ugly spot over her head. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Ivy, shut the west chamber off from the rest of the house. We +have far too much space to care for as it is. When I reconstruct +Stoneledge it will be time enough to reopen the disused rooms." +</P> + +<P> +Ivy bowed her head complacently. It had always been the same since the +war. One room after another had been shut off until the wide halls +dividing the house, the living-room, dining-room, kitchen and three +upper bedrooms were all that were left for family use. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, chile." Then after a pause: "I don' hear how dat wretch, Black +Jim, was stricken, by God-a'mighty's justice, on The Way, las' night. +He was found plumb dead under a tree whar de lightnin' felled him." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Ann raised her spectacled eyes with something like interest. +</P> + +<P> +"We-all will be safer," she said quietly. "A darky like Jim, who gets +a twist in his head about freedom and license, is a mighty dangerous +creature." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, chile, dat's plain truth." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia held her breath. Sandy had been on The Way—what had +God-a'mighty's justice done to him? Surely if any evil had befallen +him Ivy would know. By some intangible current the gossip and news of +the hills travelled rapidly and more or less accurately. +</P> + +<P> +"Dat boy of Morley's has runned away from home!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Ann Walden took off her spectacles and made no pretence of +indifference. +</P> + +<P> +"Run away?" she said. "I didn't know a Morley had spirit enough to do +that even with conditions as they must be along of that woman of +Martin's in the cabin. Where has he gone?" +</P> + +<P> +"Nobody ain't knowing exactly—just gone! I expect he'll turn up again +when his stomick done clutch him. Dat chile never done us-all no +'commodation job, but he was too good to live up to that cabin in de +Holler. If I knowed whar he done hide himself, I clar I'd fotch him +some victuals even if he <I>was</I> sharp as a sarpint's tooth in a bargain." +</P> + +<P> +"If you hear of him, let me know," Ann Walden said quietly; "he's too +good, as you say, to be left to that evil woman Martin lives with. +I've had the boy on my mind for some time. He has the mark of cruelty +and neglect; he' been mighty silent too, about it all—he resembles his +grandfather." +</P> + +<P> +And now Cynthia breathed again freely and happily. A breath of air +stole through the window and across the room—the atmosphere was +clearing. +</P> + +<P> +"Whar's lil' Miss?" +</P> + +<P> +"Lying down across in the library. Go close the door softly, Ivy, and +come back. I have something to say to you about her." +</P> + +<P> +The child upon the sofa wished to be alone with herself, so she shut +her eyes and pretended sleep when the lean, black hand reached into the +room and drew to the door. Cynthia wanted to think about Sandy; she +wanted to follow him, in fancy, after her own fashion, and above all +else she wanted to be with him in the Significant Room. +</P> + +<P> +Once the door secured her from intrusion she arose from the sofa and +locked it quietly; then she set the window wider to the summer day. +The casement was choked with the yellow rosebush and heavy honeysuckle; +the fragrance was almost stifling, but Cynthia heeded it not. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she whispered, with the slow smile coming to her lips, "now, +Sandy Morley, I'm going to hang your picture in its place!" +</P> + +<P> +The large gray eyes fastened upon the empty space near the chimney, the +space where, when the afternoon was fair and clear, the western sun +poured its light through the tangle of vines at the window and fell +full upon it. +</P> + +<P> +"The man who cut his way through his enemies." Cynthia knew her +"Pilgrim's Progress" as many children know their nursery rhymes. It +was her only guide to life, but she interpreted it for herself. "The +Biggest of Them All." And then the girl laughed her rich, rippling +laugh. +</P> + +<P> +It was Madam Bubble now who stood before the fireplace, a gentle +creature with little head bent forward in listening attitude and a +waiting, pleading look in the fine eyes. A bit too tall and thin was +she for grace, but Time would take care of that—and, fortunately, +Cynthia was many-sided. The dull, monotonous life of Stoneledge had +retarded development. Never having mingled with children, she was +untested and untried along certain lines. Poor, shabby Sandy Morley +had been and was her only interpretation of youth as it had touched her +personally—he and her ungoverned imagination had supplied the motive +power, so far, for the foundation of her emotions. +</P> + +<P> +"I—helped you!" she said softly to "The Biggest of Them All"—"I. And +wherever you are you will remember that." +</P> + +<P> +There was an old, cracked, dimmed mirror between the chimney-place and +the window, and tiptoeing to that, Cynthia viewed herself as if for the +first time in her life. The image was strange to her; confusing and +half fearsome. It was not the reflection of the awkward, thin Cynthia +Walden that she saw; Cynthia of the long braids of hair and short +patched gingham gown of irregular length—owing to many washings and +shrinkings. It was the reflection of something Cynthia was to be some +day who looked back at the questioning girl. Slowly the colour rose to +the pale face and the big eyes flinched. +</P> + +<P> +"Stand straighter!" commanded the inquisitor before the mirror. The +shoulders braced, but too long had the slender neck bent forward to +obey the sudden exertion now. Cynthia would always carry that waiting +pose! +</P> + +<P> +The ugly checked gown next caught the critical eyes and the impotent +hands pulled it down at the waist, while a sense of its unloveliness +brought a quiver to the sensitive mouth. "Hateful!" was the verdict. +</P> + +<P> +Then with fumbling, unpractised hands Cynthia gathered her two long +shining braids and bound them around her head—somewhere she had seen +the fashion, and a feminine instinct appropriated it. Next she stepped +quietly to the window and broke off a deep yellow rose and a delicate +trailing bit of honeysuckle rich with bloom; these she wound with +intuitive skill in her twisted braids, the rose nestled close to the +left ear. Thus adorned she tested the mirror again. Gone now was the +ugly gown; gone was the awkward pose—the face that smiled out at the +young judge was a wonderful face with its secret promise of by and by. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! you pretty honey-girl!" There was absolute detachment and lack of +vanity in the words. The woman-nature of Cynthia was simply giving +homage to a young creature worthy its admiration. "Oh! I want to kiss +you and love you! I want you to kiss and love me!" And then the +denied craving for affection and fondling rose supreme. "I want to +cuddle you, honey—you are mighty sweet!" +</P> + +<P> +The slow smile touched the lips of the reflection—the dear, slow smile +of Madam Bubble. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia pressed close to the old mirror and laid her lips to that +alluring creature she was some time to be! +</P> + +<P> +"Honey!" she whispered, "dear, pretty honey-girl!" The tears clouded +the love-filled eyes; a sense of loneliness drove the rapture away, and +the hands fell limply. +</P> + +<P> +Going to the window, Cynthia knelt down and, resting her arms upon the +sill, laid her pretty head upon them. +</P> + +<P> +She was never to be wholly a child again. Never was she to let her +hair fall in the little-girl fashion. Something had happened to her, +and tracing the something back she realized that it had been done when +Sandy kissed her good-bye! +</P> + +<P> +Vivid was the red now in the girl's face. Her South had brought the +bloom forth early, and she was unprepared and unlearned in its demands. +</P> + +<P> +"I want—some one to love me!" No words formed the thought. "I +want——" Then all the ties of her barren young life were reviewed and +found inadequate. Presently the yearning eyes rested upon the old +painting of Queenie Walden. It was a miserable piece of work; an +indefinite likeness, but it held the gaze and the fancy of the girl +upon the floor. "I want—my mother!" The hunger and longing brought +fresh tears to the aching eyes. "Mother!" She had always known the +relationship, and had always guarded it as a sacred secret. The flood +of repression and denial came in full force now. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to know all!" That was the demand, and straightway Cynthia +sprang to her feet and ran from the room. She was still running when +she came into Ann Walden's presence. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter, Cynthia?" +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Ann, tell me about my father and mother!" +</P> + +<P> +The sudden question, the sight of the flower-decked head, set Ann +Walden into a trembling fit. Since the day of Marcia Lowe's call she +had never been the same. She slept badly, ate poorly, and feared +greatly. Day after day she had expected the late visitor to return or +send a representative. When she heard that the stranger had gone away +she breathed more freely for the respite, but dreaded the reason for +the going. She had passed through such torture as she had never known +or undergone before. Something, unsuspected, rose and reproved her; +pride, self-esteem, and faith had perished when many readings of the +letter had driven truth home. Finally nerves refused to suffer longer +and a kind of revenge took its place. +</P> + +<P> +"Very well!" she had concluded desperately; "Queenie and I will keep +the child—at last! You and yours shall have no part in her or for +her." +</P> + +<P> +Thus she had decided regarding Cynthia. She meant to break forever +with Theodore Starr and all who were connected with him. She would +resent, not only for herself, but for the poor sister who had +mistakenly, and for love of her, kept silence and left the memory of +Starr unclouded as the only gift she could give the woman they both had +wronged! +</P> + +<P> +Yes, Ann Walden had thought it all out. When Marcia Lowe came again +she would tell her that she believed there had been no marriage! That +would end it. No proof could be found—did not Ann Walden know the +shiftless mountain ways? Marcia Lowe would never press dishonour upon +them all—and the money was no lure to the proud, poverty-stricken +woman. She meant to revenge herself upon Theodore Starr by keeping +Cynthia even at the price of proclaiming the girl's dishonour to +Starr's niece. +</P> + +<P> +From much thinking through wakeful nights and torturing days Ann Walden +had evolved a very sincere hatred and bitter resentment. She almost +believed that Starr had betrayed her sister, and poor Cynthia, who had +always been a duty—not a joy—was to pay the penalty! +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me about my father and mother!" +</P> + +<P> +The strong young voice repeated the commanding words; the lovely +flower-twined head bent forward. +</P> + +<P> +There was no wise person to note and take warning of the strange light +in Ann Walden's eyes as she met the question put to her; it was, +however, the look of insanity—the insanity which feeds upon +hallucination; the kind that evolves from isolated repression and the +abnormal introspection of the self-cultured. +</P> + +<P> +"When you are older, Cynthia." +</P> + +<P> +"No, now, Aunt Ann. I must know. My mother's picture hangs in the +library, but my father's is not there and no one ever speaks of my +father." +</P> + +<P> +How could one fling into the simple innocence demanding knowledge, the +bare, bold truth? But Ann Walden, driven at bay, worn, embittered and +touched already by her doom, answered slowly: +</P> + +<P> +"Your—father was—a bad man! that is why no one speaks of him; why his +picture does not hang near your mother's." +</P> + +<P> +"A bad man? What did he do, Aunt Ann?" A childish fear shook +Cynthia's face. Bad, to her, was such a crude, primitive thing; "was +he bad like—like the men here who drink and beat their women?" +</P> + +<P> +"Worse than that!" +</P> + +<P> +"Worse, Aunt Ann? Did he—beat my mother?'" +</P> + +<P> +The horror, instead of calming Ann Walden, spurred her on. +</P> + +<P> +"He—he killed her!" +</P> + +<P> +"Killed her!" And with that Cynthia dropped beside her aunt and clung +desperately to her hand, which lay idle in her lap. "Oh! is—is—he +dead? Can he come to hurt us?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Ann Walden laughed such a laugh as Cynthia had never heard before, +but with which she was to become familiar. +</P> + +<P> +"He's dead. He cannot hurt us any more. He did his worst—before you +were born." +</P> + +<P> +A sigh of relief escaped the girl as she listened and her tense face +relaxed. +</P> + +<P> +"But we would not touch his money, would we, Cynthia? nor have anything +to do with any kin of his, would we?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Aunt Ann." +</P> + +<P> +"Then——" and now Ann Walden bent close and whispered: "then have +nothing to do with her—at Trouble Neck! She comes with money; with a +hope of forgiveness—but we do not forgive such things, do we, Cynthia, +and we Waldens cannot be bought?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no!" +</P> + +<P> +"When you see her, tell her so! Tell her to keep away—we do not +believe her; we do not want her!" +</P> + +<P> +The flowers on the pretty girlish head were already wilted in the heat +of the morning and something more vital and spiritual had faded and +drooped in Cynthia Walden's soul. She looked old and haggard as she +rose up and drew a long breath like one who had drunk a deep draught +too hastily. Even the yearning for love had departed—unless God were +good to her she would sink rapidly down, from now on, to the common +level. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll tell her, Aunt Ann," she said nonchalantly. "I'm right glad you +let me know." Then she wandered aimlessly back to the library and over +to the fireplace. Dejected and shrinking, she raised her eyes humbly +to her "Biggest of Them All" and deep in her soul sank the truth that +she, Cynthia Walden, once so gay and proud, was not the equal of Sandy +Morley! If he were brave and fine enough he might help her from very +pity—but if she were worthy, she must not permit him to do so. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that the first wave of actual soul-loneliness enveloped the +girl, and when youth recognizes such desolation something overpowers it +that no older person can ever understand. +</P> + +<P> +And that very afternoon the great storm came that swept away so much +and opened the way to more. +</P> + +<P> +It was four o'clock on that same day that Liza Hope passed Stoneledge +on the way down to the store. Liza was always just getting over having +a baby or just about to have one and her condition was now of the +latter character. Poor, misshapen, down-trodden creature! She +accepted her fate indifferently, not because she was hard or bitter, +but because she had never had a vision of anything else. +</P> + +<P> +She paused near the chicken house where old Lily Ivy was hovering over +a belated brood whose erratic mother had mistaken the season of the +year. +</P> + +<P> +"Howdy, Ivy! You-all has a right smart lot of fowls—but ain't it a +mighty bad time to hatch?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dis yere hen allus was a fool hen," Ivy vouchsafed, "givin' trouble +an' agony to us-all." +</P> + +<P> +"Does you-all like her the best?" +</P> + +<P> +This question brought Ivy to her feet with a stare. +</P> + +<P> +"The little doctor she done say as how we-all loves best the +baby-things what be right techersome. She be right, too, I reckon. +Them babies o' mine what died, and po' lil' Sammy what ain't clear in +his mind, is mighty nigh to me. I ain't never thought 'bout sich till +she cum. She steps up to my cabin now an' again an' her and me talks. +The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady I calls her, an' nights I lie an' think on +her, an' she comes an' brings my daid babies to me in dreams-like, an' +then I reach out for Sammy, an' I feel right comforted." +</P> + +<P> +Ivy came close to her caller now and looked into the weary, sunken eyes +compassionately. Her contempt of the po' white trash faded before the +pathetic desolateness of Liza's glance. +</P> + +<P> +"Liza Hope," she said, fixing the roving stare by her tone, "how be you +going to face this winter? You be as fool-like as dis yere old +hen-hussy. All your chillens was born during respectable times o' +year. What you-all goin' to do wid no wood-pile, no nothin', an' a +baby comin' long in the black time of winter?" +</P> + +<P> +Liza faced her accuser blankly as if she had nothing whatever to do +with the matter. +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't no wise 'sponsible," she faltered; "de good Lord He knows I +ain't hankerin' after no mo' calls and troubles. But the Cup-o'-Water +Lady don' promise to come to me in my hour an' bide till I pass through +my trial. Seems like I can bear it now when I think o' that. Some say +they-all don't believe her is kin to Parson Starr as was, but I does. +The Lord He don't make two sich-like less He uses the same mixin's. I +knows, I do!" +</P> + +<P> +Ivy started back. Oddly enough this was the first time she had heard +the connection between Starr and the newcomer. She had taken for +granted the rumour that had reached her concerning Marcia Lowe, and she +had disapproved keenly of the call that young woman had made upon her +mistress recently, but now, as Liza spoke, sudden recollection startled +her. If the stranger were what Liza suggested, why then Ann Walden's +condition might be accounted for! The surprise of this new thought +turned Ivy giddy, but it also caused her to change the subject of +conversation. +</P> + +<P> +"When yo' come back from de sto'," she said with frigid dignity, "stop +to de' rear do'. I has some corn bread an' bacon what you can carry +'long wid yo', an' an ole ironin' blanket fo' coverin'." +</P> + +<P> +Liza muttered her thanks and shuffled on, her distorted figure casting +a weird shadow as the blazing sun struck across her path as she entered +The Way. +</P> + +<P> +It was five o'clock when the reddish sunlight suddenly was blotted out +by a huge black cloud. An ominous hush came with the shadows, and with +instinctive fear and caution Ann Walden, in the living-room, closed the +windows and doors. Cynthia, who was passing through the hall, ran +upstairs to do the same, and then returned and stood listlessly by her +aunt near the window looking out over the garden place, the little +brook, which divided it from the pasture lot below, and the two cows +huddling under a clump of trees beside the tiny bridge which spanned +the stream. +</P> + +<P> +"I—don't like the look of the sky," Ann Walden murmured; "I reckon +it's going to be a mighty bad storm. Seems like the seasons get +twisted these-er-days. Now if it was spring——" She did not finish +her sentence, for a wave of wind brought the lagging storm on its +breast; a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder set it +free and then the deluge descended. A wall, seemingly tangible, +descended from the clouds to the earth—everything was blotted out. +</P> + +<P> +"Good Lord-a'mighty!" Ivy dashed in from the kitchen, a grayness +showing through the black of her skin; "I mus' save dem cows. I jes' +mus'—God help me!" She ran through the room to the front hall, +pulling her skirt over her head as she ran. +</P> + +<P> +"Ivy, I forbid you leaving the house!" +</P> + +<P> +The black woman paused, for even in that moment of excitement tradition +held her—the servant was stopped by the mistress' voice, but too long +had Ivy stood for higher things to renounce them now. She had stood +between her loved ones and starvation; she had always kept the worst +from them and she must continue to do so. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Ann, honey," she said in her soft, old drawl, "dem cattle down by +de Branch is all that stan's 'twixt us-all and we-all becoming white +trash! I jis' got-ter go, chile!" +</P> + +<P> +Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They +watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking; +with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at +the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little +foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for +breath and then—there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood +was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea +of troubled water. +</P> + +<P> +Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a +frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia. +</P> + +<P> +"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With +large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once +the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her +comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh +rang out. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child; +"oh! I'm so afraid!" +</P> + +<P> +But again and again the laugh sounded. +</P> + +<P> +"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know, +but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared +for and guarded—one to defend. +</P> + +<P> +"Come," whispered Cynthia, "come away—dear—it's all right! Come, +come!" +</P> + +<P> +Alternately laughing and sobbing, Ann Walden followed the guiding of +the hand upon her arm; she permitted herself to be placed on the ragged +sofa on the opposite side of the room. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor white trash!" +</P> + +<P> +And there Tod Greeley and Liza Hope found them hours after. Cynthia, +beside the prostrate woman, was crooning as to a baby, and over and +over the desperate old voice wailed: +</P> + +<P> +"We-all are poor white trash!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap07"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VII +</H3> + + +<P> +When Sandy had departed down The Way he felt weak and stricken. All +the fervour and exhilaration were gone; there was no turning back, and +he could not stand still. The walk to The Forge could easily be made +before morning, with time to sleep on the way, so there was nothing to +do but forget his misery and travel on. The storm, too, emphasized the +necessity for this. On beyond there was a deserted cabin by the trail; +he could sleep there in comparative comfort; under the falling roof +there surely must be one dry spot large enough to shelter a thin, tired +boy. +</P> + +<P> +A crash of thunder caused Sandy to rush forward. He had the childish +fear that many country children have of the extremes of Nature, and +superstition swayed his every thought. Gathering his loose coat about +him and clutching his money close, he made for The Way, and ran with +all the strength remaining in him, for the deserted cabin. +</P> + +<P> +Flash and splintering noise surrounded him. His eyes were blinded by +the blue-red lightning; his ears were aching from the thunder's shock. +Once he stood still, unable to suffer longer—for his nerves were +paralyzed with fear, and at that pause a fork of vivid flame darted +from the blackness and ran like the finger of a maniac down the side of +a tall tree. The stroke was so near that the boy did not heed the +crash that followed immediately; he saw the wood and earth fly and he +shuddered as he looked. That was the bolt that ended the life of Jim +the negro, but Sandy never knew. +</P> + +<P> +In unconsciousness the boy waited for, he knew not what! He was dead, +yet alive, unable to move or feel, yet standing and seeing. Then his +blood began to flow once more, and sinking to his knees he wept as he +had not since the night when Mary drove him from the cabin to the shed +to sleep! Wet and trembling, he finally found strength and courage to +go on, but a loneliness of soul and mind almost overcame him. He +raised his aching eyes and saw the clouds parting; he heard the rising +wind complaining in the tall trees and shaking the water down upon him. +At that moment a star broke through the scudding masses of rolling +blackness—one kindly eye of light, and at the same instant something +touched his body with thrilling familiarity. He groped and felt in the +lower darkness, then—because he had never been taught to pray—Sandy +Morley bent his head over the wet and shaggy body of Bob, the collie, +and laughed and sobbed from sheer gratitude and joy! +</P> + +<P> +Stealthily the faithful creature had followed his friend. Life had +taught him, even in his puppy days, to curb his inclinations. Where +Sandy was, there was always happiness, but it was generally seasoned +with danger, and Bob took no chances. +</P> + +<P> +"Good dog! dear old fellow!" +</P> + +<P> +Bob licked the caressing hands fondly. Never before had such +appreciation been shown him even by the one who was lavishly bestowing +it now; Bob did not seek to understand, he merely accepted and snuggled +closer. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy knew a later parting with the dog was inevitable, but human +nature could not contemplate it then, so he bade Bob follow on and, +with regained courage and determination, the two plodded down The +Appointed Way with firmer tread. The shed was reached, and nestling +close in a protected corner, they slept for several hours with no dream +to disturb or frighten them. The storm passed; the stars shone out, +and a new moon crept up from the east. At four o'clock Sandy started +up and began the readjustment of life. Bob was lying across his legs +and breathing evenly. The warmth had been grateful even if the weight +had been a burden, and a sense of joy flooded the boy as he patted the +dear, faithful head. +</P> + +<P> +A few minutes later the two were again on the road. Breakfast would +have been acceptable, but both boy and dog had learned that food was +not a vital necessity for the day's beginning. A cup of warming fluid +would have set Sandy up wonderfully, for his throat was sore and his +bones ached, but The Forge was not a great distance away and it was a +new sensation to have a pocket full of money. +</P> + +<P> +"Bob, when we get there you and I will fill up—I swear it, Bob!" +</P> + +<P> +The collie resented the oath. He was willing to share and share alike, +and between friends surely there was no need for such emphasis. +</P> + +<P> +A soaked wood road on an early August morning is not a cheering place, +and the travellers plodded on with weakening limbs and heavy hearts. +Sandy comforted himself by the thought that food would set him up, but +as he thought this his stomach rejected the idea with sickening +insistence. The more he thought of food the more his head ached and +his throat throbbed. Bob, unhampered by physical claims, jogged along +cheerfully. He was used to hope deferred, and he was appreciative of +the company he was in, and the absence of rough words and well-aimed +kicks and blows. +</P> + +<P> +The few miles of The Way seemed doubled on the moist August morning; +the rising sun merely drew more dampness from the sodden earth; it did +not dry it; but at last Sandy saw the opening ahead which marked the +clearing around Smith Crothers' factory, he heard the buzzing and +warning of machinery—at first he thought it was the strange sensation +that was gaining force in his head, but presently he righted things and +plucked up courage. Two miles beyond the factory: two miles of lighter +woodland and then the sharp little hill at whose foot The Forge lay! +</P> + +<P> +A busy day lay before Sandy. He must eat—the thought now was positive +agony—buy some necessary clothing and get into touch with some +inspired fellow creature who could give him information about +Massachusetts. Over and over Sandy repeated the magic word. For +nearly a year it had lain dormant in his consciousness. It was his +earthly heaven; the paradise of his longings and desires, but now it +had suddenly taken on earthly meaning and proportions. How was he to +get there? Had he money enough to carry him to that wonderland where +one could exchange work for an education? +</P> + +<P> +So absorbed was the half-sick boy with the problem of his near future +that he passed Crothers' factory unheedingly, and was well down the +last sharp little hill before he realized it. A fever was gaining +control over him and making him light-headed and care-free. +Massachusetts lost its agonizing doubts—everything appeared to be +coming to him; even the inevitable parting with Bob became vague and +blurred. Why not take Bob along with him? Why not, indeed? +</P> + +<P> +And so boy and dog, muddy and fagged, came to the end of the hill, to +the edge of the town and the first house, known as Stagg's Place, where +room and board could be obtained for a consideration! +</P> + +<P> +Sandy, with that growing nausea, made his way toward it, and Bob, with +his sixth sense serving him well, pricked up his ears, put on more +style of carriage and estimated his chances at the back door. But at +that critical moment an excited old gentleman dashed out of Stagg's +Place and gripping a walking stick madly waved it on high. Spying +Sandy he sensed probable help. +</P> + +<P> +"Boy!" he shouted lustily, "stop that man! It's—it's life or death. +Stop him! Send him back and I'll give you a dollar." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy rallied his last remnants of strength and turned about. Off in +the distance he saw the mounted postman jogging on his way toward the +village and he dashed ahead! Bob, with his smouldering puppy nature +coming unexpectedly to his help, scampered on, crazily barking and +yelping as he had never permitted himself to do in the guarded past. +</P> + +<P> +The postman, at last, heard the commotion and stopped short. +</P> + +<P> +"You are to go back!" Sandy panted; "it's life or—death." +</P> + +<P> +The horse was turned about and in the mud raised by the retreating +hoofs the boy and dog followed wearily. +</P> + +<P> +Whatever the matter was that had caused the confusion, it was adjusted +by the time Sandy again reached the house. The old gentleman, +muttering about a weak leg and a degenerate rascal, was sitting on the +piazza fanning himself with a panama hat, while a thin, eager-eyed +woman urged him to calm himself before worse harm was done. +</P> + +<P> +"The Lord will provide, Levi," she was saying, as Sandy and his dog +approached. "His ways are not our ways, but we might as well give +credit where credit is due. His leadings are generally clearer sighted +than ours be, having—as you might say—wider scope to scan." Then she +glanced at the dirty, worn pair on the steps. +</P> + +<P> +"Shoo!" she ejaculated, but neither dog nor boy stirred. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you want?" she next asked. +</P> + +<P> +"What—he said he would—give!" and then to complicate matters Sandy +rolled over in a huddled heap and fainted dead away! Bob, bereft and +frightened, hovered over him, emitting yelps and howls that shattered +the summer calm. +</P> + +<P> +The Markhams only took their meals at Stagg's Place; a small cottage +near by was their lodging rooms, and to that Levi Markham ordered two +coloured boys to carry the prostrate Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +An hour later Matilda Markham sat beside the couch in the shaded +living-room and looked thoughtfully upon the form stretched thereon. +From outside the voice of her brother came appealing to all that was +reasonable and sensible in Bob. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course you can see your master, my good fellow. Just be patient, +patient!" +</P> + +<P> +Levi Markham liked all animals, and something about Bob's rugged +ugliness and faithfulness called forth his admiration and sympathy. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come, old fellow, eat and drink. He's safe enough inside. You +know well, you rascal, that he <I>is</I> inside!" +</P> + +<P> +Bob blinked confidingly, but he would not touch the food which stood +alluringly near at hand in a shining tin plate. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy had recovered from his faint, but he was strangely weak and an +inner stillness bound him speechless and immovable. He lay +there—thinking, thinking! He knew a woman was beside him watching his +every breath; he heard Bob outside and the sternly kind voice talking +to him. But nothing mattered. Yes, one thing did matter. The money +was in his pocket and Massachusetts was still in the near future! +</P> + +<P> +Miss Matilda, by the process known only to her sex, had labelled and +classified the boy on the sofa. +</P> + +<P> +"He's what these shiftless negroes call quality," she pondered. +"Filthy and worn to the bone as he is—he is quality or I miss my +guess! Now what on earth has brought him to this pass?" +</P> + +<P> +The lids were drawn close over Sandy's eyes; his thin face was pinched +and wan, and the tan had faded mysteriously from the smooth skin. A +dignity rested on brow and mouth, and the work-stained, folded hands +were delicate and full of character. Sandford Morley had come to the +parting of the ways and he had resigned himself to the inevitable. His +helplessness put forth an appeal that reached through his sordid misery +to the emotions of Matilda Markham. She adored boys—they were her one +enthusiasm but, like her brother, the more she felt the less she +permitted herself to show. "She knew her duty"—none better; "but she +did not intend to have her feelings joggled in the broad light of day +for curious folks to witness!" +</P> + +<P> +So she watched Sandy now with her heart painfully in evidence. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a bruise on his left cheek," mused Miss Matilda; "like as not +he hit it against something." It was the effect of the last blow Mary +Morley was ever to deal him, but of course the watcher in the orderly +cottage could not imagine so outrageous a thing as that. +</P> + +<P> +"He's got real nice hair if it wasn't so matted. I daresay it would +curl if it had half a chance." Justice called for pity and protection, +and while waiting to see what was best to do next, Matilda heeded +inspiration. +</P> + +<P> +"You awake?" she whispered. Sandy gave a weak nod. "Want something to +eat? No? A drink of water, maybe? No? Very well, lie still and drop +off to sleep again. You'll feel better presently, and can tell us +about yourself, then brother will send you home." +</P> + +<P> +The room was dim, but Matilda's eyes were keen, and she saw two large +tears roll from under the closed lids and down upon the thin cheeks. +Because of her understanding of boys, Matilda did not interfere with +those mute tokens of weak surrender. Better the traces on the dirty +skin than a later misunderstanding, but as the tears took their way a +childless woman's pity and tenderness was following them mutely. +</P> + +<P> +"You can't sleep? Well now, never mind. Just don't fuss." Then +inspiration came again. +</P> + +<P> +"Maybe you'd like to see your dog, he's just outside. He won't eat or +drink and his nose is everlastingly pointed to the door." +</P> + +<P> +At this Sandy's eyes opened so suddenly and so wide that Matilda +Markham started. She had never seen such large eyes in any human boy's +face and they were such strange, yearning eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"You <I>do</I> want your dog?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am! oh, yes!" +</P> + +<P> +Without a word more, Matilda strode to the door. +</P> + +<P> +"Brother," she said; "we want that dog here!" +</P> + +<P> +Bob leaped up and followed his instincts. He made no noise or cry, he +simply went to the low couch, and snuggled his rough head against the +shoulder pressed on the pillow. +</P> + +<P> +Matilda Markham could not bear the sight. It made her afraid of +herself. Her brother, above all people, must not think her emotional. +She knew what he thought of emotional women—he not only believed them +incapable, but he mistrusted their moral natures. She walked out to +the porch and sat grimly down in a rocker and swayed back and forth +energetically. +</P> + +<P> +"It's real hot," she vouchsafed presently. "This is a terrible shut-in +place. I haven't any use for mountains unless you can get on the +toppest peak." +</P> + +<P> +"Has that boy explained himself?" asked Levi Markham, also swaying to +and fro in his rocker. Matilda shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think we ought to do? I've been inquiring a bit and I +find there is no police station nor hospital nearer than twenty-five +miles. I asked the man at Stagg's what they did when men were injured +in the factory, and he looked at me as if he thought I was a fool! +'They don't do anything to them,' he confided. It's an evil hole, +Matilda. I never saw a place in my life that needed capital and human +intelligence more. And what about this boy? He must belong somewhere, +I suppose." +</P> + +<P> +"I think he's pretty sick, brother; I guess we'll have to turn to and +supply what the town lacks in ambulances and hospitals. He's burning +up with fever, and he has a real wild light in his eyes." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean, Matilda?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, brother, not to mince matters, I think if you undress him I'll +turn to and clean him up some. After that we'll put him to bed in the +little room off the dining-room and send for a doctor. I suppose they +have a doctor somewhere around here, haven't they?" +</P> + +<P> +Levi puckered up his lips and frowned. +</P> + +<P> +"I've questioned about that, too," he admitted. "There is a +doctor—goes horseback with saddle bags and medicine chest on a circuit +covering acres and acres. Kind of a medical bully; brings people into +the world and hustles them out. Doses and cuts them according to his +lights. He's off on a stabbing case back among the hills—some still, +they say, has let itself loose. He will be back when he patches up the +worst and turns the rest over to the authorities. Matilda!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Markham started. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, brother." +</P> + +<P> +"I don't want any one to see or know about that boy until after we've +seen the doctor. He looks badly used and starved to me, and I never +turn a dumb brute off when its luck is against it, until I know what +I'm turning it to. You get a tub of hot water ready and I'll tackle +the lad now." +</P> + +<P> +It was seven that evening when the doctor returned from the hills and +was told the "folks from the North" wanted to see him. He did not +hurry himself. He rested, ate, and changed his clothes and then +sauntered down the road to the cottage. Sandy, the worst of him, as +Matilda explained, lay in a comatose state on the narrow, immaculate +bed with Bob, now fed and comforted, on the floor beside him. +</P> + +<P> +"That's Morley's boy from Lost Hollow," the doctor drawled, as he gazed +upon the restless form. "At first I wasn't sure. I never saw him +clean before. As I passed through The Hollow to-day Morley came out +and told me the news. The boy's left home; he's going to get an +education somehow—the father said he had saved money." +</P> + +<P> +"There's nearly thirty-one dollars in his pants' pocket," Matilda broke +in accurately. +</P> + +<P> +"He comes of good stock back about the time of the Revolution. Running +to seed since. It's mighty odd how blood bursts out now and again. +This fellow's mother came from The Forge—a pretty creature—died when +he was born. Took me thirty-six hours to bring him into life—but I +couldn't save the mother. The father is a degenerate—the only sign of +decency I ever noticed in him is his thought about this boy. Looks +like a tussle for Sandy Morley now, I reckon. What you want to do +about it? If he lives, which he likely enough won't, he's going to be +a right smart bit of care." +</P> + +<P> +Levi looked at Matilda and Matilda looked at Levi, and then they both +looked at Sandy. "Massachusetts!" moaned the boy, tossing about +restlessly—"I'm going to get there, I tell you! Mass—massa—chu——" +The voice trailed off miserably and Bob was alert at once. +</P> + +<P> +"I never cast a beast out——" began Levi. +</P> + +<P> +"Not to mention a human boy," added Matilda. +</P> + +<P> +"We're going to see him through or—out, doctor." +</P> + +<P> +The impassive face of the doctor gave no intimation as to his emotions. +He took out his medicine bottles and forthwith began to complicate +Sandy's chances in the hand-to-hand struggle. +</P> + +<P> +An old black woman, famed for her charms and nursing, was secured by +Matilda Markham to assist in the care of Sandy Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall keep an eye on the witch," Matilda warned her brother, "but +she has a sense about nursing that can be relied upon." +</P> + +<P> +And so the battle was on. Gossip about the boy was killed at the +bedroom door. No one became interested or cared. The doctor, after a +week or two, chancing upon Martin Morley on The Way, told him of +Sandy's good fortune. +</P> + +<P> +"Morley, if there's a bit of the man in you," he advised, "let go that +boy and leave him to his opportunity. You've almost killed him, body +and soul, among you, now; whether it be life or death, let him have a +try for the clean thing. It's all you can do for him—forget him!" +</P> + +<P> +And Martin, with bowed head, acquiesced. +</P> + +<P> +"If he dies——" he faltered. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll let you know," the doctor replied. +</P> + +<P> +But Morley never heard of Sandy's death and the summer merged into +autumn, and the cold and shadow settled upon The Hollow. When winter +drove the mountain folks indoors to closer contact, bad air and poor +food, it drove the devil in with them and hard times followed. But +before the grip of winter clutched the hills, Sandy decided that in +spite of the odds against him he would make another attempt to reach +Massachusetts. +</P> + +<P> +A mere shadow of a boy was he when, in late September, Matilda Markham +got him out on the piazza one morning and, having tucked him up well in +blankets, remarked enlighteningly, "There!" +</P> + +<P> +All the fineness in Sandy had been emphasized during the weeks of +sickness. As the bad food, the bruises and tan had disappeared—and +what little flesh which his poor body possessed—the native delicacy +and dignity grew and grew. +</P> + +<P> +The people of The Forge, taking small interest in the Mountain Whites, +for whom they had a contempt, merely relegated Sandy to "Luck with the +Yankee who was dickering about a factory site." +</P> + +<P> +As for Sandy himself he had wandered too near the perilous edge of +things to be very keen as to his present and future. Often he lay with +closed eyes and thought back to Lost Hollow. The actual distance +between him and the only home he had ever known was short but, to a +community that spoke of Sheridan's Ride as if it had occurred but the +day before, and which slunk and shrank from moving out of its shadows, +The Forge was a "right smart way off" and, besides, no one but Martin +knew of the circumstances surrounding Sandy; and Martin, to the best of +his ability, was doing the only thing he could do for his boy. Often +on the long weary tramps in the woods he yearned to get a glimpse of +things, but the rough doctor's warnings and suggestions held him back. +</P> + +<P> +"Mart Morley, keep your clutches off that lad. You've nearly put an +end to him. Give others a try now." +</P> + +<P> +So with a courage and self-denial no one knew or suspected, Martin kept +to the hills and made ready for winter as best he could. He and Molly, +when the mood seized her, gathered wood and piled it carelessly by the +cabin door. It seemed a goodly pile while the days were still warm and +fine, but Martin, with a groan, realized how small the accumulation +really was with the long, black months lying before. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap08"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER VIII +</H3> + + +<P> +The warm sun of September brought a faint tinge to Sandy's hollow +cheeks. After Matilda's "There!" the boy had leaned his head back on +the pillow of his couch and closed his eyes. Bob, sleek and +well-conditioned, lay at his feet, starting now and then as he dreamed +of other days rich in kicks and blows, and lean as to platters of +nourishing food. +</P> + +<P> +"Sleeping?" asked Levi, coming on the porch with the mail and +whispering to his sister. +</P> + +<P> +"I shouldn't wonder." +</P> + +<P> +"He looks——" But Matilda shook her head at Levi and cut the words +short. To express an opinion about Sandy's appearance at that moment +would not do—it were best passed over lightly. Levi took a chair, +drew it up close to his sister, and left Sandy and Bob free to compare, +in dreams, the Then and Now of Life. +</P> + +<P> +"It was no use," Markham whispered. "I might just as well have let the +letter go that day he"—Levi nodded toward Sandy—"made his entrance on +the scene. They won't accept my terms. I wish now I had let them know +how I felt when my blood was up." +</P> + +<P> +"Life's too short for that, brother. Up or down, blood hampers when +it's hot. Common sense is always best. What does the letter say?" +</P> + +<P> +"The Treadwell woman won't lose her hold on Lansing: not even for four +years!" +</P> + +<P> +Matilda's eyes dropped and she kept silent. +</P> + +<P> +"She's about ruined him," Levi went on. "I put it to her plain and +solemn, but she always slips through argument like a greased snake. +Said I—let me have his next four years. I'll put him through college, +give him work in the mills during the summer, and when he graduates +I'll give him a choice of taking over the business or following a +profession. The knowledge of business and some honest, hard work would +bring the scamp's tone up. He's flabby now; flabby as his father +before him." +</P> + +<P> +"And she—says?" +</P> + +<P> +Levi turned to the letter. +</P> + +<P> +"She says she will not consider the plan for a moment, but she says she +will not mention it to Lansing, and when I return he may choose for +himself. I really thought the Treadwell woman would reckon with the +money and not be so independent!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's to her credit," Matilda murmured. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! doubtless she thinks when I have it out with the boy I'll change +my mind. She'll find the contrary. It's come to the last ditch now. +I'm not going to have any repetition of—the past with my money backing +it!" +</P> + +<P> +Again a long silence while Sandy apparently slept, and Bob twitched and +grunted. Then: +</P> + +<P> +"Matilda, we must return to Massachusetts. How soon can we go?" +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Sandy started up and leaned forward. His eyes were the one +prominent feature in his face, and they were now hungry and anxious. +</P> + +<P> +"Massachusetts?" he whispered in the weak, hoarse voice of the +convalescent; "Massachusetts? That's where I'm going; there's money to +pay my way, almost, I reckon. I'll work out the rest and make my +schooling, too. I'll promise. Oh! take me with you!" +</P> + +<P> +The agony of earnestness brought both man and woman to his side. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, now!" commanded Matilda, pushing him back on the pillow; "nothing +is ever gained by using yourself up in this shallow fashion." +</P> + +<P> +"But I've got to go!" Sandy urged breathlessly; "I started out to go. +I saved ever since I was seven years old to get away—and at last I +fixed on—Massachusetts because they let you work for your learning +there—and I've got to get it—get learning!" +</P> + +<P> +"Come! come!" Levi asserted himself—"just you calm down. But if it +will ease your mind any I'll tell you this much, lad. We've got it all +fixed up amongst us—and if you want to go to Massachusetts and try +your hand at your luck, you're going to be given an opportunity. Now, +let go that grip on the arms of your chair! Matilda, get some broth; +get——" +</P> + +<P> +But he stopped short. The look in Sandy's eyes held him. Levi Markham +often said afterward that the expression on the boy's face at that +moment gave him a "turn." It was no boy-look; it was the command from +all that had gone to the making of Sandy; command that the boy be dealt +fairly with at last. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm a hard man, Matilda," Markham said later, when Sandy had let go +the grip of his chair, taken his broth and fallen exhaustedly to sleep; +"I'm a hard man who has hewn his own way up, but I hope I'm a just man, +and I declare before God I wouldn't dare play unfairly with the lad. +He's not the first fellow I've put upon his feet; some have toppled +over; some have gone ahead of me and given me the cold shoulder +afterward—a few have stood by me in the mills—this youngster shall +have a try to prove that look on his face." +</P> + +<P> +So it was that ten days later the Markhams, with their "po' white +trash," left The Forge—Bob rebelliously struggling in the baggage car. +A certain piece of land high up among the hills had been purchased by +Markham and the deed rested secure in his pocket. He knew what he was +about, and if a certain fool of a boy thought well of a proposition to +be made to him—there might be a future for himself and others later on. +</P> + +<P> +"It's a great factory site," Markham had written home to his lawyer; +"plenty of water and power. Land as rich as if it was just made, and +labour aching to be utilized—not exploited." +</P> + +<P> +The journey to Massachusetts was taken in slow stages—Sandy and Bob +complicated matters. +</P> + +<P> +"You—think, sir, my money will—hold out?" Sandy once asked wearily. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been estimating," Levi thoughtfully returned; "barring accidents, +taking to cheap hotels and allowing for a few weeks' rest after we +reach home, the amount will about see you through." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, sir." +</P> + +<P> +They were talking in Sandy's bedroom in a very good hotel in New York +at that moment. +</P> + +<P> +"You look pretty spruce to-day, young man." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm feeling right smart, sir. Could—could I, do you think, +write—two notes?" +</P> + +<P> +This was such an unusual request that Markham was curious. +</P> + +<P> +"That's easy," he said; "there's writing things in yonder desk. I'll +read the paper while you transact business." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was strangely sensitive to tones and expressions and now he +turned to Markham. +</P> + +<P> +"I want—my father to know I'm all right, sir," he said quietly. "If +he knows that—he can wait till—I go back." +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly the long stretches on beyond staggered Sandy and his thin face +quivered. +</P> + +<P> +"Then—there is——" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this +man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any +intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a—a girl, sir. She +helped me—earn money. She's—different from me—she's—quality, but +she'd like to know, too." +</P> + +<P> +Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from +view. +</P> + +<P> +"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a +man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested +him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was +something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were +discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much +desire. +</P> + +<P> +"Quality, sir, is not made. It—is!" +</P> + +<P> +Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance, +snarled resentfully. +</P> + +<P> +"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go. +Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good +honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human +soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors—we +only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand +up to the best of them in your hills—if it's in you to stand. It all +lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out. +Afterward I have a plan to propose." +</P> + +<P> +So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed +them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice. +</P> + +<P> +The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open +window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big, +seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and +crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he +had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no +complaints—he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how +and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he +should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled him and he +yearned for the open and the sight of a hill. He dreamed vividly of +Lost Mountain, and he always saw it now enveloped in mist—a mist that +he felt confident would never again lift for him. It was homesickness +in the wide, spiritual sense that overpowered Sandy Morley at that time. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandford, are you strong enough to talk business?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir, I reckon I am." +</P> + +<P> +The quaint politeness of his protégé charmed Markham by its contrasts +to the manner of other boys with whom he had come into contact. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down, and take it easy. Shut the window. You never seem to be +able to hear when the sash is raised." +</P> + +<P> +"Us-all's been used, sir, to still places." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, then! In a day or two we will be home, Sandford. Home in +Bretherton, Mass. We can't offer you mountains there, but it is a good +rolling country and it's—quiet! I'm going to choose a school for you +as soon as I can, a country school where you can catch up without +having the life nagged out of you." +</P> + +<P> +"And—and where am I to work and—live, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"You'll find work enough at the school for the regular terms—summers +you are going to stop with Miss Markham and me and I'll set you to work +in my mills. I always set every one I take an interest in, to work in +my mills." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." Sandy's eyes were growing "strange" again. Markham was +learning to watch for that look. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" he asked on the defensive; "what you thinking +about?" +</P> + +<P> +"Only Smith Crothers' factory, sir, and—and the children." +</P> + +<P> +"See here, Sandford; don't you get me mixed with that——" he stopped +short. At times his ability to converse with Sandy struck even him +with wonder. It was when he forgot the poor figure before him, and was +held by the expression in the thin face, that he let himself go. +</P> + +<P> +"My mills," he continued more calmly, "are places of preparation; +not—death traps." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"It all depends on you, Sandford. I made my way up from as poor a chap +as you are. I've given a lift to a good many other boys because of the +boy I once was, but I never take any nonsense. I'm going to be fair +with you and I expect you to be fair with me. Take things or leave +them—only speak out what's in your mind and act clean. What I do for +you isn't done for fun: I expect a return for everything I advance, and +I take my own way to get it. While you are at school—it's school +returns I want. When you go into the mills—I'll look for returns of a +different kind. I'm going to give you an allowance, and it's got to +do." +</P> + +<P> +"Sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!—I mean I'm going, after I get you on your feet, to put up a +certain sum of money for you to live on; buy your clothes and get what +amusement you can—along your own lines. I'm not going to pry or +question you. You've got to feel your way along—it's always my +method. They who stumble or run astray must learn their own +lesson—not mine! I'll steady you at the start; after that you've got +to learn to walk alone or go to——" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir!" The awful weight of responsibility was crushing Sandy as +the city did—but he kept clear eyes on Markham. +</P> + +<P> +"The only fun I have in life," Levi said, "is watching the outcome of +my investments. You are an investment, Sandford, a flier—I call you! +You're a risk and a pick-up, but some of my biggest hauls came from +fishing where others scorned to take a chance. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"You are willing to—agree?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Sounds like a big chance?" +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon it does, sir, but it's what I saved money for ever since I +was seven. The <I>chance</I>, I mean, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Sandford, when you feel that you can—not now, but some day—I want +you to tell me all about yourself." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." But the thin face twitched. +</P> + +<P> +"And now come down to dinner." +</P> + +<P> +For a few days more the crushing city did its worst for Sandy. The +noise and confusion wore upon him cruelly. The memory of the faces of +the crowds was to be a nightmare to him for years to come. To one who +had dwelt where few crossed his path, the close proximity of hundreds +and hundreds of eyes during the day left an impression never to be +forgotten. The personal contact, too, drained the small, lately gained +strength, but no complaint passed the boy's lips. Matilda pitied Sandy +and in her quiet, slow thoughtfulness shielded him how and as she +could. Markham had business in the city and was often absorbed, but at +odd moments he relaxed and sought to entertain his sister and their +charge by showing them the sights of the town. It would have been +impossible for him to appreciate the suffering he often, unconsciously, +caused Sandy, who, left to himself, would have crouched in some quiet +corner and closed his eyes against every unfamiliar thing. +</P> + +<P> +Quite weakened by the experiences of the stay in New York, the boy +reached at last the lovely little New England village of Bretherton at +the close of a radiant autumn day. He was too weary to feel even +gratitude as the carriage that awaited the party bore him away from the +noise and smell of the station by the railroad. His untried senses had +been taxed to the uttermost since leaving The Forge. His eyes ached; +his ears throbbed. Every new odour was an added torture, and his body +quivered at every touch. Sleep came to him early, however, and the +small, quiet room of the Markham house which had been allotted to him +was like a sacred holy of holies to the overstrained nerves. Sandy +slept like the dead all that first night, but habit still swayed him, +and at five o'clock he wakened suddenly and heard the stir of life out +of doors. Some one was calling a dog—his dog! It was Miss Matilda, +and Sandy smiled as he listened to her reasoning with Bob as was her +custom. Slowly the rested nerves asserted dominion over the boy, but +he did not move. He was back, in longing, among the old Lost Hollow +scenes. He was too weak to adjust himself into a new environment; +changes had worn out his ambition and hope. Miserably he turned upon +his pillow and with a sinking of the soul yearned to take his faithful +Bob with him and go back to that life which demanded no more of him +than he was able to give. +</P> + +<P> +But that very afternoon his future became so involved with that of +another, whom he had never seen, that to turn back would have been an +impossibility. He and Bob were walking over a stretch of soft, hilly +land toward the autumn-tinted woods beyond, when young Lansing +Hertford, the son of Levi Markham's dead sister, arrived for a +consultation with his uncle. All his life Markham had hungered for +something that had never been his—something peculiarly his own! His +hard and struggling younger years had denied any personal luxury. He +had worked his way up; supported his old father and mother and two +sisters; had grimly set his face away from love and marriage, and then +when wealth and opportunity came to him the desire was past. But with +rigid determination he looked in other directions for compensation. At +first it was his younger sister, Caroline. Like so many self-made men, +the fine, dainty things of life attracted him. He had dreams of costly +oil paintings and rare china, but in the meantime he devoted himself to +his sisters. He and Matilda were of one mind: after their parents' +death Caroline became their only care. +</P> + +<P> +Exquisite, carefully educated and beautiful, they gloried in her. They +endured the loneliness of the old Bretherton home while she visited +with schoolmates, or travelled abroad with new and gayer friends. +Caroline was the music of their dull lives; the art of their prosaic +existences. Then the shock came when she announced her engagement to +Lansing Hertford, an idle, useless son of a down-at-the-heel Southern +family. +</P> + +<P> +"He's no fit mate for you, Caroline," Markham said alarmedly. +</P> + +<P> +"That may be, brother," the girl had replied, "but I must marry him. +You have always said one must learn his own lesson, not another's. I +am ready to take the consequences. I could never get away from the +sound of Lansing Hertford's voice. I hear him at night. He tells me +that when temptation or weakness overpowers him he breathes my name. +So, you see, dear, I cannot escape." +</P> + +<P> +"Don't be a fool, Caroline!" +</P> + +<P> +Markham struggled against the sense of impotency surging around him. +</P> + +<P> +"It's my lesson, dear. I'll never wince." +</P> + +<P> +And she never had, even when Hertford's indifference changed to +cruelty. After the birth of her child, Caroline Hertford failed +rapidly and the end of her lesson came when her boy was two years old. +Markham and Matilda had desired to take the baby then, but Mrs. Olive +Treadwell, Hertford's married sister, put in a protest. +</P> + +<P> +"It would blight the boy's future if any gossip touched the dead mother +or bereaved father; besides he is too young to change nurses or +environment." +</P> + +<P> +When little Lansing was seven his father died abroad under conditions +shrouded with secrecy, and then it was that Olive Treadwell sought Levi +Markham and by methods unknown to the simple, direct man, contrived to +interest him in her nephew and his. +</P> + +<P> +"There'll be a mighty big fortune some day for some one to inherit—why +not Lans?" she argued to herself and began her campaign. She had grown +to love the boy in her vain, worldly way; she wanted him <I>and</I> the +Markham money, and she cautiously felt her way through the years while +the child was with her. +</P> + +<P> +"I hear my nephew is called by your name," Levi remarked once during a +call at the Boston home of the Treadwells. +</P> + +<P> +"Just a childish happening. You know how simple little minds are; +having no mother but me, he calls me mommy, and naturally people speak +of him carelessly by my name." +</P> + +<P> +"He should bear his own and seek to honour it," Markham returned with +simplicity equalling a child's. Mrs. Treadwell winced. She dared not +show how she resented any unkind reference to her brother, but she had +always looked down upon his Yankee marriage, as she termed it, and +never could understand why the plain Markhams failed to realize the +honour her brother had paid them by taking Caroline for his wife. +</P> + +<P> +"I must see that the misnomer is corrected," was all Mrs. Treadwell +rejoined. So Lansing had passed through preparatory school and was +ready for college before Markham could be brought to definite terms. +The letter from The Forge was the first proposition, and now on that +September day Lansing Hertford, prepared and coached by his aunt +Treadwell, presented himself at Bretherton on the two-fifty train. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll probably offer you a beastly little allowance," Olive Treadwell +had warned; "but I'll add to that; so accept it like a lamb. Then +he'll throw Cornell to you—he has right bad taste in universities—but +you must use your tact there, Lans. Tell him about your associates and +how your future will be influenced by your college Frat and such +things. Men like your uncle Markham are always snobs at heart." +</P> + +<P> +Thus reinforced Lansing Hertford came up for judgment. He was a +handsome, rollicking chap—a charming combination of his graceful +father and his lovely mother—and he greeted his uncle and aunt with +frank affection. Even in those days Lansing Hertford could will his +emotions—or his emotions could will him—to sincerity for the time +being. He had ideals and enthusiasms—he changed them often, and, as +often, they changed him, but outwardly a frankness and openness were +his chief attributes and had held his uncle, through the hope-deferred +years, to expect big things of him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap09"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER IX +</H3> + + +<P> +Lansing Treadwell, after an hour on the piazza with his aunt and uncle, +followed the latter into the study and, taking the broad leather chair, +faced Markham across the flat desk with candid, friendly eyes. Levi +sat, as he always did when in that room, in his revolving chair; the +leather one was reserved for visitors. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, Lansing," he began, sternly endeavouring to obscure the hope, +pride, and affection that were welling up in his heart as he looked at +the boy; "you're through preparatory; have qualified for college and, +after this year, are ready for your career!" +</P> + +<P> +"I've done pretty well, Uncle Levi. I stand third in my class and I'm +the youngest." +</P> + +<P> +"How old are you?" +</P> + +<P> +"Seventeen." +</P> + +<P> +"You'll be eighteen when you enter college? That's too young." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm older than my years," Lansing gave a boastful laugh, then did a +bungling thing. "Won't you smoke, Uncle Levi?" and he passed a +handsome silver case forward; "it's a great tie between—well, chums!" +</P> + +<P> +"I've lived over sixty years without the need of that tie," Markham +returned stiffly; "I do not think I'll take it up now. I'm not much of +a preacher, but at your age, Lansing, I'd advise the collection of good +tastes and habits; let the doubtful luxuries await the years of +discretion." +</P> + +<P> +Lansing pocketed his silver case and gave an embarrassed laugh. Levi +went back to his former line of argument. +</P> + +<P> +"It's Cornell and the beggarly allowance," thought Lansing, but it was +no such thing. +</P> + +<P> +"You are too young to go to college, Lans; too immature to really put +yourself to any final test. Your assumption of dignity proves this +more than anything else. Of course I do not know how much or how +little you know of the past, but it is necessary, from now on, that you +and I should understand each other perfectly. I was very"—Levi +struggled for composure—"very fond of your mother." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, uncle." +</P> + +<P> +"And I did not want her to marry your father. I feared he would not +make her happy—he did not!" +</P> + +<P> +The crisp facts came out with force but with no malignity, and Lansing +Hertford dropped his eyes as he replied: +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Olive has told me they were very uncongenial." A flush rose to +the young fellow's face. A pride, not altogether unworthy, rang in the +words and for the first time Markham detected a resemblance to the +father in the close-shut lips. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not wish to say anything against your father that is avoidable, +but for your own safety and my own protection I realize that you and I +must be quite open with each other." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, uncle." +</P> + +<P> +"Your mother died more of a broken heart than of anything else." +</P> + +<P> +The boy set his jaw. +</P> + +<P> +"I know father loved life and took it as it came," he said. +</P> + +<P> +A brief silence rested between the two, then Markham went on: +</P> + +<P> +"Naturally you inherit from both your parents. To a certain extent, +certainly, a man, under God, is master of his life and I want to give +you the best possible choice that lies in my power, not only for your +own sake and mine, but for your mother's and—yes! your father's!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Uncle Levi." +</P> + +<P> +And now the boy's eyes were raised once more. They swept the room, +Markham's face, and then travelled to the broad acres in rich +cultivation as far as one could see. +</P> + +<P> +"You have had too much pleasure and luxury, Lans; things have come too +easily. You have never been brought face to face with a longing, and +been made to understand that sacrifice, on your part, was necessary to +obtain it. Unless you have felt so, you are in no position to find +yourself, as you put it." +</P> + +<P> +Again the vital silence. +</P> + +<P> +"How do you know whether you want a college education or not? How do +you know you are worthy of this great privilege? You may not even be +fitted for it by nature." +</P> + +<P> +Had Markham asked if his nephew knew whether he would ever want to eat +a meal again, the boy could not have been more surprised. College, to +him and his set, was as natural a sequence as dessert after the courses +preceding it. For the life of him Lansing could not prevent a stare. +His aunt had left him utterly unprepared for this. +</P> + +<P> +"Now this is my proposition:" Markham had his elbows on his desk, his +chin resting on the points of his clasped hands; "I will take you into +the mills on exactly the same terms as I would any other young +fellow—except that you will share my home—until you learn the +rudiments of the business and discover whether you have any business +sense or not. By the time you have mastered that and experienced some +bodily labour, you will be in a position where you can choose, to some +degree, your career. Should you, then, wish to enter college, I will +permit you to select one, and I will see you through. It is my firm +belief that between a preparatory school and college there should be a +space of time, except in particular cases, for looking backward and +forward—a breathing time; a time for relaxation and the acquiring of +fixed aims. College should not be passed out to a boy as a plum or a +luxury—it's too grave a matter for that. All my life I have deplored +the lack of it—but I had to live and suffer before I realized its +importance." +</P> + +<P> +With all his honesty Lansing Hertford was trying at this critical time +to get his uncle's point of view. Of one thing alone was he sure—he +was, he believed, so far ahead of his uncle in his knowledge of life +that the old gentleman seemed but a blurred speck on the social +horizon. No longer could he be looked to as a safe adviser. Why, left +to himself, the man might sacrifice the family name and prestige! He +did not even understand the decent conventions due his own standing in +the community! Suddenly Lansing Hertford felt old and anxious as +though upon him, instead of Levi, rested the responsibility of the +future. He tried to frame a reply that might enlighten and not insult, +but it was difficult. At last he spoke. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Levi, I cannot see what such effort and success as yours amount +to if they do not place the next generation higher. What you say you +have deplored in your own life should prove to you what I ought to +have. Your experience counts for so much, you know. I expect to work, +and work hard—I always have worked hard. I'm two years ahead of most +fellows of my age. But I want to start from where you and my Aunt +Olive leave off, I want to mingle with my kind—I am all but qualified +to enter Yale—I could not go—back!" +</P> + +<P> +"Your kind! Go back!" Levi's eyes flashed under his shaggy brows. +"What is your kind? Have you ever mingled with those above or below +you? And as to going back—is it degrading to place yourself in a +position from which you can accept or decline a great opportunity +intelligently? I was forced to learn my lesson in a hard school; you +can still learn the lesson even with the limitations of luxury. Your +'kind' is good, bad, and indifferent, and there are other kinds. I see +you before me, young and hopeful—but ignorant and blind. I want to +open every avenue to you that leads to successful manhood. You are +losing nothing by my plan; you are gaining much." Something very +pleading rang in Markham's voice, but Lansing was deaf to it. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Levi—I cannot! I'd be a disappointment to you if I tried. +I've got to go on with the fellows. I'd lose more than you know if I +broke away now and—and buried myself in the mill, and then tried later +to pick up. You've never been through what I have—the break would be +the end of me! You'd know it when it was too late. I mean to try to +be the best of my kind, indeed I do—but the fellow I am is the result +of my training and it means everything to me." +</P> + +<P> +What Levi Markham saw before him now was the son of Lansing +Hertford—all resemblance to the mother was gone. Baffled and defeated +by a something invincible and beyond his understanding, the old man +faced the calmness of the young fellow in the chair across the desk. +When he spoke he addressed a Hertford only. +</P> + +<P> +"You have heard my proposition, Lansing; I mean to stand by it; unless +you can accept my terms I shall change my will." +</P> + +<P> +Could Markham only have understood he would have known that it was the +pride of his race, not the Hertfords', that spurred Lansing to retort +angrily: +</P> + +<P> +"I did not know I was being bought. I thought you were doing it for +what you believed was my good!" +</P> + +<P> +"And so I am!" The incongruity of thus arguing with a boy of seventeen +did not strike Markham. It was man to man, with the influence of Olive +Treadwell in the reckoning! +</P> + +<P> +"Give me my college first, Uncle Levi, and consider the business +afterward." +</P> + +<P> +"I have worked this thing out, Lansing. I am not likely to change my +mind." +</P> + +<P> +And just then Sandy Morley passed by the window with his dog at his +heels. +</P> + +<P> +"Who is that?" asked Lans indifferently, and a blind impulse spoke +through Markham. +</P> + +<P> +"The boy who will accept the offer I make if you decline it!" +</P> + +<P> +Lansing Hertford got upon his feet. All the forced affection and +respect he had been trained to observe dropped from him. His uncle +seemed a coarse, hard stranger, the surroundings distasteful. A +certain mental homesickness for all the pleasant luxury and environment +of his Aunt Olive's life overcame him. He spoke boyishly. +</P> + +<P> +"I think I will return to Boston to-night, Uncle Levi. There's a train +at seven. I couldn't eat dinner feeling as I do. Good-bye, I'm going +to walk to the station. Will you be good enough to send my traps up +to-morrow. Bid Aunt Tilda good-bye, please." +</P> + +<P> +He put out his hand frankly and was gone before Markham realized the +situation. +</P> + +<P> +"It was not Lans you were fighting," Matilda sagely remarked later when +her brother explained matters to her, "it was his dead father, and +Olive Treadwell. You just better write to the boy, I guess, and get +him to finish out his visit and reconsider. I tell you flat-footed, +Levi, there ain't much give to you when you've worked yourself up, and +I must say I like the lad all the better for the way he stood up for +his kin. They are his kin, and good or bad, that Treadwell woman has +won his affection when we couldn't. And to throw that—that strange +boy at his head in that fashion! It wasn't worthy of you, Levi! It +was downright shallow and you prating always of justice and sane +reasoning!" +</P> + +<P> +What might have happened when Markham had digested his sister's +practical remarks was never to be known, for Olive Treadwell, in blind +fury, and what she considered righteous indignation, prevented. +</P> + +<P> +Weak and unbalanced, but with a deep-seated belief in her social +superiority and worldly knowledge, she sent a letter, by special +delivery, to Bretherton, that left Levi incapable of response: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I suppose you have taken this method of degrading my dead brother and +me. That one of your humble origin can estimate the impression upon +another of such an offer as you made to my nephew is quite beyond +expectation. The Hertfords have always been gentlemen and ladies and +<I>you</I> would send the last of the race, by the power of your vulgar +money, to work among common labourers in order to break his spirit and +pride! You are too blind, apparently, to appreciate the honour my +brother paid your sister by marrying her. His personal shortcomings +could not possibly outweigh the position that he gained for her when +she took his name. Through all these years I have suppressed my +feeling as to the matter because I have felt that you and I, working +together, might place the son of your sister and my brother in a +position that would reflect credit upon us both; but since you have +failed to recognize your opportunity and, in sordid revenge, have +sought to degrade him, I assume <I>all</I> responsibility in the future. I +am, comparatively, a poor woman, but hereafter <I>Lansing Treadwell</I> and +I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is +in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world +back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social +position are not to be envied or trusted. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Having read this aloud to Matilda, Levi dropped the closely written +sheet to the floor. +</P> + +<P> +"She's got the courage of her convictions," Matilda snapped. +</P> + +<P> +"And an old grudge," Markham returned. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I will say this for her," Matilda added; "she's upset her kettle +of fish and Lans', too." +</P> + +<P> +"So it seems! So it seems!" +</P> + +<P> +Levi was looking at a flaming maple tree outside and thinking of his +dead sister. +</P> + +<P> +It was the evening of the day of the letter that Sandy Morley, sitting +rigidly in the chair that Lansing Hertford had lounged in, listened to +as much of an outline of his future as Levi Markham felt he could +comprehend. +</P> + +<P> +"And remember," Markham warned at the end, "I want you to learn how +<I>little</I> a hundred dollars is as well as how big! One is as important +as the other." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir," Sandy returned with a vague wonder, for he had yet to learn +to think in dollars. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you"—Markham considerately paused before putting the next +question—"do you feel able to tell me a little more about yourself +than I already know? I should like to feel that you trust me." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was stronger and better for his days in Bretherton and, never +having had any great consideration shown him, he looked upon Levi +Markham as a veritable God especially upraised for his guidance and +protection. +</P> + +<P> +"I want to tell you!" he said in a low, tense voice. Leaning forward +until his arms touched the opposite side of the desk, his thin, +sensitive face was nearly on a level with Markham's. +</P> + +<P> +"It's—this—er—way." +</P> + +<P> +The shade at the broad window behind Sandy had not been lowered, and a +very magnificent black night riddled with stars stood like a shield +against which the boyish form and pale face rested. There was a +crumbling fire on the hearth, and the lamp on the table was turned low. +Markham, listening to the slow, earnest voice, became hypnotized by its +quality and pure purpose. He felt the dreariness and hopelessness of +the hard childhood, and the hate that Mary Morley had aroused seemed to +the listener to be the first vivifying happening. He never took his +eyes from Sandy's face from first to last. The years of labour, +self-sacrifice and fixed purpose stirred him strangely, and the touch +of spirit introduced into the boy's voice when he approached the end +found an echo in Markham's heart. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to learn and then go back and help them-all who can't help +themselves," Sandy explained, "for <I>I</I> know, sir. No one what does not +know, could ever do it! Us-all fears strangers. I'm going to get +them-all safe some day, sir. I'm going to have a right, big place to +gather them in and teach them. No Hertford curse is going to kill what +has called me!" +</P> + +<P> +So abstracted had Levi been, so distant in thought from the Bretherton +study, and his own inward trouble, that this name, falling from Sandy's +lips, shocked him beyond measure. +</P> + +<P> +"What—did—you—say?" he gasped; "what name did you say?" +</P> + +<P> +"Hertford, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"What do you know of the Hertfords?" It was all Markham could do to +hold his emotions in abeyance. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy told his father's story, all but that which related to the +Waldens, and the listener hung on every word. +</P> + +<P> +"And so, sir, don't you see, I must be what they-all, my kith and kin, +couldn't be? I've got to use my chance for them as well as for me." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a big proposition, boy!" Levi relaxed. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." The young face was tired and worn. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, listen"—a strange light shone in Markham's eyes—"if you +prove yourself able to tackle this job, by God, I'll back you! You and +I will redeem that old Hollow of yours—you with my money! We'll get +Smith Crothers by the throat and throttle him; we'll clean up the Speak +Easies and cut more windows in the cabins. Where did you get the +notion, son, that with more light and air there would be less +damnation?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've lived in the cabins, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, we'll cut all the windows you want and have the school +and"—Markham was quivering—"we'll see if the Morleys can't rise up in +the land of their fathers and stamp the Hertfords under foot!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir!" And then Sandy gave one of his rare, rich laughs. +</P> + +<P> +From that day the preparations began. A school in the mountains of New +Hampshire was selected, and Sandy fitted out with everything necessary +and proper. +</P> + +<P> +Markham was noted for a sense of propriety. He kept his mills and +lands in good condition because he was wise and sane; he housed his +employees decently for the same reason, and he insisted upon their +coöperation. He never let his taxes lapse, nor his money lie fallow. +He had, hidden in a drawer of his desk, a valuable diamond ring that he +took out in secret moments to enjoy. Occasionally the jewels were sent +to Boston and put on the wheel because the artistic soul of Levi +Markham demanded that through no carelessness of his should their +lustre become dimmed. For much the same reasons Sandy Morley was +entered upon his career in a manner befitting the hope that was in +Markham for him. +</P> + +<P> +The day Sandy was sent from Bretherton, Olive Treadwell and her adopted +son, Lansing Treadwell, sailed for a year's stay in Europe, and Levi +and Matilda Markham grimly agreed to leave things as they were. +</P> + +<P> +"There's no use stirring up pudding past a certain point," Matilda +said. "If you do it's apt to go heavy." +</P> + +<P> +"And it's the part of wisdom to watch a rising batch of bread," Levi +returned humorously. "When you can't get pudding—or when the pudding +fails—look to bread and make the best of it!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap10"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER X +</H3> + + +<P> +Cynthia Walden came slowly up the trail leading to the old gray house. +Since the day of the flood which bore old Ivy forever from sight, she +had confronted so many strange conditions that her eyes had the +haunted, frightened expression common to the mountain people. The +curse of the hills seemed to have settled upon her. She often said to +herself, "poor whites," in order that the significance might be fully +understood. Old Ivy had said that the cows were all that stood between +them and the fate of others who had, through misfortune, accepted the +title despised by the quality. +</P> + +<P> +Well, she, Cynthia Walden, was no longer quality; of that there could +be no doubt. Had Ivy and the cows been spared she might have hidden +her disgrace of parentage, but now she must, in order to get food and +wood, seek the help and charity of others, and she could no longer hold +up her head! +</P> + +<P> +At this thought the pretty, drooping head was lifted defiantly. No! +she would not go down just yet, for one last motive remained. While +she was at the store an hour before to buy a few necessary articles of +food with the pitiful supply of money she had found in an old teapot on +the kitchen shelf, a wonderful thing had occurred. Tod Greeley, +weighing out some tea, remarked casually: +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon, now I think o' it, Miss Cyn, there's a letter come for you. +One for you and one for Mr. Morley." +</P> + +<P> +"A letter!" Cynthia almost staggered. "A letter!" +</P> + +<P> +Never in all her life had Cynthia received a letter, never had her +imagination soared to such a height as to conceive of such a thing. +Tod finished his careful weighing, then added a reckless handful and, +having tied the tea up in a bulky package, wandered to the dirty row of +letter boxes. +</P> + +<P> +"Here it is!" he exclaimed after thumbing the morning mail over and +remarking about each article. +</P> + +<P> +"Yours and Mr. Morley's bear the same writing—Noo York! There ain't +been a Noo York letter in this yere post-office since I came to The +Hollow. It's a right smart compliment, Miss Cyn!" +</P> + +<P> +Trembling and pale with excitement, Cynthia grasped the letter, tucked +her little bundles under her arm and ran from the store. +</P> + +<P> +The cold, crisp air of late autumn spurred her to action, and she kept +on running, with the letter burning her hand like flame, so tightly did +she grip it. Before she reached the broken and dilapidated fence +separating the home place of Stoneledge from the trail, she paused +beneath a tree to take breath and reconnoitre. She looked at the +letter then for the first time, and she was sure it was from Sandy. +Her heart beat painfully and her eyes widened. Looking about to make +sure of privacy she tore open the envelope and lo! at the first words +the gray autumn day glowed like gold, and the world was set to music. +Poor Sandy, distracted by the noise and confusion of the big city, had +permitted himself, when writing to Cynthia, the solace of imagination +and memory. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Madam Bubble!" Why, Cynthia had almost forgotten her pretty, +fascinating story-self! Her dear, slow smile had almost lost its +cunning. However, it returned, now, and drew the corners of the stern +young mouth up pathetically. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="salutation"> +DEAR MADAM BUBBLE: +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I am remembering everything and holding to it. I shut my eyes and I +see you standing by The Way with your face like the dogwood flowers in +the spring—shining and white and happy! That—er—way is how it is +going always to look till I come back. No matter what happens to me; +no matter how mighty hard things are, I am just going to stop short, +when I feel I can't bear life, and shut my eyes and see you a-standing +waiting like what you said. I've met much kindness and a great +friend—it's the noise and strangeness and many folks what turn me +crazy-like, but always when I shut my eyes—you come and it seems +<I>home</I> again. If I don't write, please Madam Bubble, know it's because +I'm fighting hard to get something fit to bring to you when I come +back. And I reckon you better not write to me—I couldn't stand it. +You know how I couldn't count the money till the time came! That is +the sort I am and, besides, I've got to find out what this—er—life is +going to make me into. If I shouldn't be worthy to come up The Way to +you—you better not know. But I will be! I will be! Thank you for +what you've done for me and most for letting me think you'll wait and +be ready. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Cynthia dropped the letter in her lap—for she was crouching beneath +the tree. It was a badly written and much-soiled letter but no missive +straight from heaven could have performed a greater miracle upon her. +A radiance flooded her face from brow to chin, and her eyes glistened +with the happy tears that never overflowed the blue-gray wells that +held them. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy!" The familiar name passed her lips like the word of a prayer; +"Sandy—'The Biggest of Them All!' I'll be a-waiting by The Way like +what I said!" +</P> + +<P> +There were consecration and joy in the words, and the transformation in +the girl was wonderful. Gone was the look of despair and surrender. +Madam Bubble was herself again! +</P> + +<P> +Springing up, the girl began to dance about among the sodden autumn +leaves. She sang, too, as the wild things of the woods sing. There +was no tune; no sustained sound, but mad little trills and unexpected +breaks. She imitated the bird-note that was Sandy's signal; she meant +to practise it every day and keep it for his return lest he lost it +among the noises and crowds in which he must do battle. Then Cynthia +spied a hole in the trunk of the tree and with sudden abandonment she +pushed her letter into it. +</P> + +<P> +"There!" she panted; "and I'll put my answers in it, too, and give them +all to Sandy when he comes up The Way." +</P> + +<P> +But hunger and recent trouble laid restraining hands upon the girl at +that moment. She sank down and shivered nervously. Between this +moment and the one of Sandy's return stretched a dreary space, and how +was she to keep her heart light and meet the dreary problems that +confronted her? Winter was at hand; the wood pile had been swept from +the door, and there were only a few dollars in the cracked teapot. Old +Ivy's body, rescued a week after the flood, was buried from sight in +the Walden "plot," and Ann Walden was greatly changed. Cynthia did not +understand, but she was terribly afraid. Ann Walden laughed a great +deal, slyly and cunningly. She never mentioned Ivy except to question +where she had gone. The mistress of the Great House, too, took to +pacing the upper balcony and repeating over and over: +</P> + +<P> +"The hills—whence cometh my strength!" +</P> + +<P> +It was quite fearful, but Cynthia had already learned to keep away from +her aunt at moments of excitement; her presence always made matters +worse. And once, soon after her return, Marcia Lowe had ventured to +call at Stoneledge, but the outcome of her visit had been so deplorable +that the little doctor was driven to despair. She had knocked at the +outer door, which stood ajar, and, receiving no reply, had walked into +the hall and to the library. There sat Ann Walden just as Miss Lowe +had left her on the fateful afternoon of the letter. When Miss Walden +raised her eyes to her unannounced caller a madness, with strange +flashes of lucidity, overcame her. +</P> + +<P> +"Out!" she shouted—"it was all a lie—there never was a marriage! +Never! Would you kill me and the child? Leave us alone. We will not +take the money or the shame! Leave me! leave me!" +</P> + +<P> +Then running to the far corner of the fireplace she sank upon the floor +and with outstretched hands she moaned: +</P> + +<P> +"He killed her! killed her! and I damned her; leave us alone!" +</P> + +<P> +At that point Cynthia rushed into the room and caught the poor, old, +shrinking form in her arms; then, with flashing eyes she turned upon +Marcia Lowe. +</P> + +<P> +"Go!" she commanded with sudden courage and desperation. "Go! Don't +you hear Aunt Ann?" +</P> + +<P> +"You promised, little Cyn!" whined Miss Walden, "you promised!" +</P> + +<P> +"I know—all about it!" Cynthia murmured, still keeping her fear-filled +eyes upon the caller—"I, too, want you—to go away!" +</P> + +<P> +Her training had fitted Marcia Lowe to understand and take alarm at +what she beheld, but it also demanded that she leave at once. Since +then Cynthia had never seen the little doctor, and the change in Ann +Walden did not include another furious outburst such as that. +</P> + +<P> +The excitement of the letter faded when the magic sheet of paper was +hidden from sight, and stern necessity brought the severe lines back to +the thin, pale face. It was just at that moment that Smith Crothers +came down the path, crunching under his heavy boots the damp leaves and +branches. Seeing Cynthia beneath the tree he paused and took off his +hat. Whatever the girl felt and believed of the man was gained though +indirect information—he had meant nothing personal to her before, and +it was something of a surprise for her to realize that he was a good +looking man and could smile in kindly fashion. +</P> + +<P> +"Little Miss Walden," he said courteously, "I've just been a-hearing +how you-all suffered from the storm. Mr. Greeley done told me the old +lady is all around cracked!" +</P> + +<P> +"Cracked!" The mountain interpretation of this word flooded Cynthia's +consciousness like a flame that made plain all the subtle fear of the +past few weeks. That was it, of course! "All around cracked!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" came in a shuddering cry; "oh! oh! oh!" +</P> + +<P> +"Now don't take on that-er-way," comforted Crothers, coming nearer. +"Us-all mean to stand by you. I expect you-all ain't over-rich either, +and we-all can help in a right practical way. What do you say, little +Miss Cyn, to coming down to the factory and doing light work and +getting mighty good pay?" +</P> + +<P> +A new horror shook Cynthia's pallid face; but Crothers met it with a +laugh. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't take on without reason," he soothed. "Ain't I done something +for the mountings?" he asked; "I know what some folks think about me, +little Miss Cyn, but you be a right peart miss, and I ask you straight +and true—wouldn't things be worse, bad as they be, if I didn't take +folks and pay 'em? Chillun is better 'long o' their mothers, when +all's said and done, and they don't have to come if they don't want to, +and when they do come the work don't hurt them. Just 'nough to keep +'em from mischief and me a-paying their parents for what is play to the +young-uns." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia thought of Sandy's moan over the baby-things of the factory and +her eyes filled. She did not know, perhaps Sandy did not understand, +but once he had said to her during a flight of fancy: +</P> + +<P> +"Some day I'm going to gather them-all away from old Smith Crothers and +save them!" +</P> + +<P> +"Come and see for yourself, little Miss Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +The tone was friendly and kind, and the actual necessity of the future +gripped Cynthia. +</P> + +<P> +"Come and see. I know what is due to you and your folks, Miss Cynthia; +I don't ask you to work 'long of the others. I have work for you right +in my office where I can have an eye to your comfort and pleasure. +Just copying letters and addressing envelopes and I will give +you"—Crothers paused; his sudden desire was carrying him perilously +near the danger point of being ridiculous—"I'll give you three dollars +every week. Three whole dollars!" +</P> + +<P> +With vivid memory Cynthia recalled the long years that it had taken to +earn the three dollars for Sandy's venture and she gave a little gasp. +</P> + +<P> +"Three whole dollars! And you can get down to the factory after you +make the old lady comfortable, and I can let you have a little +mule—all for yourself—to tote you to and fro." +</P> + +<P> +"It's—it's very kind of you, Mr. Crothers," Cynthia panted; "I'll +ask——" Then of a sudden she recollected that there was no one to +ask. For the first time in her life she was confronted by an +overpowering condition that she must meet alone! Just then a sharp +touch of cold struck her as the changing wind found the thin place in +her coarse gown. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll—I'll come, and thank you, Mr. Crothers," she said in shaking +voice. "I'll come, next week!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good!" cried Crothers, "and I'll send up the mule—we'll put its feed +in saddle bags—I'll throw that in and——" the smile on the man's face +almost frightened Cynthia, though the words that followed seemed to +give it the lie. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to have one of the men stack wood for you, too, and lay in +some winter vegetables. I don't want you to think badly of me, little +Miss Cyn. I want to help you-all." +</P> + +<P> +When he had gone Cynthia drew a long breath, and shivered as though +some evil thing had threatened or touched her in passing, but an hour +later she was thankful her sudden impulse had led her to accept +Crothers' offer, for the wind changed and brought from its new quarter +a biting warning of winter. Fires had to be kindled to warm the damp, +dreary rooms, and Ann Walden, crouching by the blaze, looked gratefully +up into Cynthia's face and laughed that vacant, childish laugh that +aroused in the girl the fear that youth knows, and the pity that woman +learns. And late that afternoon the little doctor, astride her rugged +horse, rode up to the cabin of Sally Taber, and made a business +proposition. +</P> + +<P> +Sally was gathering wood behind her cabin with a fervour born of fear +and knowledge. She knew what the change of wind meant and her wood +pile was far from satisfactory. Long before Marcia Lowe came into +sight the old woman stood up and listened with keen, flashing eyes +alert. +</P> + +<P> +"Horse!" she muttered, and then rapidly considered "whose horse?" +</P> + +<P> +Not the old doctor's from The Forge, for he never used up horseflesh in +that reckless fashion. His circuit was too far and wide for such +foolish extravagance. +</P> + +<P> +"It's coming this-er-way!" Sally concluded, and since there was no +other human habitation on that particular route but her own she +rightfully appropriated the approaching visitor. With a quickness of +motion one would not have suspected in such an old body, the woman ran +into her cabin and, as a society belle might have rushed for her toilet +table, Sally made for a closet in the corner of her living room. From +there she brought forth a can of vaseline and daubed some of the +contents artistically around her lips; then she tied over her shabby +gown a clean and well-preserved apron and smoothed her thin, white hair. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," she muttered, composedly taking her knitting and sitting before +her hastily replenished hearth-fire; "now, I reckon who-sumever it may +be, will think I've had a po'ful feast o' po'k chops, judging from my +mouf, an' no quality ain't mo' comfortable than I be?" +</P> + +<P> +A smile of content spread over the old face as this vision of +respectability enfolded the poor soul. At that moment Marcia Lowe +jumped from her horse, tied it to a tree and came rapidly up to the +open door. There was an anxious look in her eyes and the corners of +her lips drooped a trifle more than they did when she first rode up The +Way. The life of The Hollow was claiming her as it had her uncle +before her. As she looked in the cabin and saw the composed figure of +the mistress a gleam of humour lighted her face and she secretly +rebelled at the sensation of lack of ease which often overcame her in +the presence of these calm, self-possessed "poor whites." +</P> + +<P> +"They are so inhumanly superior!" she thought, and then a kindlier +feeling came. +</P> + +<P> +"Good afternoon, Miss Taber." +</P> + +<P> +Sally looked up with an assumed surprise worthy of her race and +tradition. +</P> + +<P> +"If it ain't Miss Lowe!" she exclaimed, coming forward cordially. "It +sho' am, Miss Lowe! Come in, ma'am and rest yourself." +</P> + +<P> +Sally's idioms savoured of darky dialect and her mountain quaintness: +</P> + +<P> +"I'll brew a dish o' tea, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe refused this attention and stayed Sally by her first words. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Taber, I want you to help me out with a very difficult matter. +No one can help me—but you!" +</P> + +<P> +People might think what they cared to about this stranger from Trouble +Neck—the men still distrusted her—but the women were rapidly being +won to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I 'low you can count on me, ma'am. I says to myself often, says +I—Sally Taber, jes' so long as you can make a friend or do a +'commodation job, you is useful to de community—when yo' +can't—why—den!" And with that Sally gave a "pouf!" as if blowing +away a feather. +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe could not keep her eyes from the shining, greased lips; she +was becoming acquainted with mountain peculiarities, but she was +perplexed by the neat Sally's daubed face. +</P> + +<P> +"It's about—Miss Walden," she said softly, moving her chair closer to +Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"What's happened 'long o' her?" An anxious look crept into Sally's +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I fear—she is not exactly right." +</P> + +<P> +"It's in the family," Sally murmured; "when things go awry 'long o' +them, they jes' naturally take to queerness. The ole general, Miss +Ann's father, he done think he was God-a'mighty, long toward the last. +I kin see him now a-coming up The Way blessing us-all. They ain't none +o' them dangerous, jes' all around cracked, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"But the little girl, Miss Taber, she ought not to be alone there with +Miss Walden. You see I have studied medicine and I know—it is +dangerous and—it mustn't be. See here! I cannot do anything without +making more trouble. I'm not one of them, but you could go and—well, +just take control! Say that you—need shelter and help—you know Miss +Walden would do anything for her friends; put it that way and +then"—here Marcia Lowe laid some money in the old shrivelled hands, +"there will always be money for you to buy what is necessary for the +comfort of you all." +</P> + +<P> +The keen eyes glittered, and the quick mind was caught by the subtlety +of the suggestion. Here was a chance to play great lady; to return +favours that long had been conferred upon her, and at the same time +retain her respectability and dignity. It was a master stroke and +Marcia Lowe felt a glow of self-appreciation. +</P> + +<P> +"You can care for her, Miss Taber; you can see that Cynthia is properly +looked after, and you can give Miss Walden the joy of her life in +thinking that she is able to help you. It is a pardonable bit of +deceit, but will you assist me?" +</P> + +<P> +After a decent show of hesitation, Sally decided that she would and, at +the close of the afternoon, was seated behind the little doctor—with +her pitiful store of clothing, jogging in a bundle at her back, on the +way to Stoneledge. Miss Lowe set her down at the trail leading up to +the old crumbling house, with these words: +</P> + +<P> +"If ever my uncle did a kind deed, for you, Miss Taber, do this for him +now." +</P> + +<P> +Toting up the hill, Sally's thoughts wandered back to Theodore Starr +and settled on a certain dark, cold night when he sat in her cabin +piling the wood on her fire, while she lay shivering with chill upon +her wretched bed. All the charms had failed, the rabbit foot, under +the dripping of the north end of the roof had not eased a single pang, +and hope was about gone when Starr chanced by. He had meant to ask for +a bite and a night's shelter, for he was worn by travel and service, +but instead he sat beside her the night through and fought death by the +bravery of his spirit and the homely task of keeping warm the shivering +body. He had put his coat over her and aroused her to interest and +courage. +</P> + +<P> +"The Lord does not let one of us off until our day's work is done," he +had said even when he himself feared Sally's duties were over. +</P> + +<P> +"Ah' mighty right He war'," Sally now muttered, panting up the last +rise. "I reckon I got something yet to do." +</P> + +<P> +Her advent at Stoneledge was nothing less than consummate acting. +Knocking at the kitchen door she responded to the call from within and +stood before Ann Walden crouching by the fire, and Cynthia awkwardly +trying to evolve an evening meal from some materials on the table. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Ann, I've come to ax mercy o' you." +</P> + +<P> +Miss Walden laughed foolishly. +</P> + +<P> +"Everything is plumb gone an' I got to tell some one o' my misery. +Nothing to eat; nothing to hold onto 'cept a trifle o' money what I'se +afraid to let any one know I'se got. Miss Ann, chile, there ain't any +one goin' to be s'prised at money coming from the Great House, so jes' +let me bide long o' you an' lil' miss, for God's sake, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +The old tie between the family and its dependents held true now even +through the growing mists of Ann Walden's brain. +</P> + +<P> +"Cyn," she commanded, "get Ivy—where is Ivy? Tell her to make up a +bed for Sally in the loft over the kitchen." +</P> + +<P> +And then again she laughed that meaningless laugh. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap11"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XI +</H3> + + +<P> +Life in the Morley cabin was tense and dangerously vital. The cold had +settled down now with serious intent; the door was permanently closed +except of entrances and exits and the two small sliding windows in the +front and back of the living-room were never opened, and they were +coated with grease and dirt until even the brightest day filtered +through but dimly. +</P> + +<P> +Martin was depressed and forlorn, he took what was offered him, asked +no questions and seemed far and away from any hope of reasserting +himself. He brought water and wood indoors; he made and kept the fire; +he slept on the settle before the hearth and always he was dreaming or +thinking of Sandy. The letter that had, after many weeks, drifted to +him, had been read to him by The Forge doctor who happened to be riding +by when Martin tremblingly pleaded with him for help. +</P> + +<P> +"It's this-er-way," Morley had explained, striving to hide the depths +of his illiteracy; "my eyes don' gone back on me. I reckon I better go +down to The Forge and get specs, but jes' now I'd like to have light on +this yere letter." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor read poor Sandy's effusion with some emotion. With broader +experience he saw the effort the boy had made to withhold his own +lonely state from the father. There was an attempt at cheer in the +words weighted, as the reader saw, with homesickness and longing. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, Morley," he cautioned, when the letter was ended, "you keep your +hands off that boy. If there is a spark of love for him in your heart, +let him fight his battle off there alone. He's found a good friend and +it's his one chance. If you want to do anything for him keep yourself +above water; have the family respectable for him to come back to. I'm +not much on prophesying, but remembering what you once were and what +his mother was, I have hopes of Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +No one knew or could have guessed that poor Martin was heeding the +doctor's words, but he was. He had stopped drinking. Not a drop of +liquor had passed his lips for weeks, and the craving was stronger at +times than Martin could endure. At such moments he stole to the +outshed and, gripping a certain little ragged jacket, which still hung +there, to his twitching face, would moan: "Oh! God, help me for +Sandy's sake." Not for his own—but for Sandy's sake always. And God +heard and upheld the weak creature. +</P> + +<P> +Then came the night when Mary and Molly aroused Martin from his sleep +as they came in about midnight. Martin had supposed them upstairs long +before. He had come in at nine o'clock from the shed where he had +wrestled with his craving and, by the help of God, had come out +victorious once again. He had fallen asleep soon after and a vivid and +strange dream had held him captive by its power. Sandy had come to him +clearly, and comfortingly; had sat close to him and laid his hand in +his. They had talked familiarly, and then suddenly the boy had asked: +</P> + +<P> +"Dad, how about Molly? She belongs to us-all, you said. I've been +thinking about Molly; where is she?" +</P> + +<P> +Just then the dream faded; the man on the hard settle pulled himself +up, looked dazedly at the almost dead fire and—listened! Some one was +fumbling at the door; some one was coming in! Martin's heart stood +still for, with the dream fresh in his mind, he thought it was Sandy, +and even through his sick longing for the boy a fear seized him. But +Mary came into the dim room with Molly clinging to her. They tiptoed +across the floor toward the stairway and had almost reached it when +Martin flung a log of wood on the fire, and in the quick flash of light +that followed stood up and asked in a clear, forceful voice: +</P> + +<P> +"Whar you-all been?" +</P> + +<P> +The strangeness and surprise took Mary off her guard, and she faltered: +</P> + +<P> +"What's that to you, Mart Morley?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin threw another log on the fire, as if by so doing he could +illuminate more than the cold black room. +</P> + +<P> +"What yo-all been doing? Molly, come here." +</P> + +<P> +Frightened and trembling the girl came forward. She looked far older +than her years. Her bold, coarse beauty had developed amazingly during +the past few months, and the expression on her face now roused all the +dormant manhood in Morley's nature. Ignoring the woman by the +stairway, he gripped Molly by the shoulders, and holding her so that +the lurid light of the flaming logs fell upon her, he drove his +questions into the girl's consciousness and brought alarmed truth forth +before a lie could master it. +</P> + +<P> +"Whar yo' been, Molly?" +</P> + +<P> +"Up to—to Teale's." +</P> + +<P> +"What—doing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Dancing for 'em." +</P> + +<P> +Martin's eyes flashed. It was quite plain to him now—the hideous, +drunken orgy, and this little girl fanning ugly passions into fire by +her youth and beauty! +</P> + +<P> +"You——" Morley rarely swore, but the eloquent pause was more +thrilling than the word he might have spoken. While he clutched Molly, +his infuriated eyes held Mary like something tangible, and drew her +forth from her shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"She's—mine!" the woman panted. For the first time in her life she +was awed by Morley; "she's mine and—the devil's. That was the bargain +and no questions asked. The devil pays good wages, Mart. We'll—we'll +share with you!" +</P> + +<P> +The woman was actually whining and seeking to propitiate the man. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been true to you, Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause +I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, Mart—but—we-all +have got to live!" +</P> + +<P> +Morley tried to control himself before he spoke, and finally managed to +say, not unkindly: +</P> + +<P> +"Molly, you go upstairs. Shut—shut and lock the door!" +</P> + +<P> +"Mart!" Genuine terror rang in Mary's tones. "Mart—she's mine +and——" +</P> + +<P> +"Go!" commanded Morley, and the child almost ran to do his bidding. +Then alone the man and woman faced each other. Desperation gave +courage to Mary. If all were lost but her physical strength and +bravado, then she must use them. +</P> + +<P> +"You did what you wanted to do with him as was yours," she panted; "you +helped him away, and left us-all to starve. You leave—Molly to me +and——" +</P> + +<P> +"Stop!" cried Morley, unable to hear the brutal repetition. "You would +sell the—the child to Teale and his kind?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's the only way, Mart. I'll keep my hold on her—they——" +</P> + +<P> +"You!" And then, driven by the outraged virtue of the suppressed and +forgotten past, Morley gave expression to his emotions in the language +of The Hollow. For the first time in his life he struck a woman! +</P> + +<P> +Once the deed was done he reeled back, calmed at once into frozen +horror. Mary staggered and fell. In falling she struck her head +against the andirons on the hearth and lay quite, quite still while a +stream of blood from a cut behind the left ear mingled with the ashes +and turned them dark and moist. It seemed hours that Morley looked and +looked before he could master himself and move toward the woman upon +the floor. Finally he listened to her heart, but his own pulsing ears +deceived him; he tried to raise her up, but his strength was gone, and +he let the lifeless body drop again on the hearth. Then a craven +desperation overcame him. Gone were his courage and power, like a +maddened criminal he strode to the stairway and wrenched the locked +door from its hinges and sprang up to where Molly, sobbing and moaning, +crouched in the far corner. +</P> + +<P> +"Come," he whispered; "come!" +</P> + +<P> +"Where's—mother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Her's gone—to—Teale!" The lie rang out fiercely, boldly. Then +wrapping an old bedspread about Molly and keeping her close to him, he +made his way down the stairs and out of the house. Molly did not turn +to look into the lower room, she believed Martin, and she was numb with +terror. +</P> + +<P> +"Whar we-all going?" she panted, as Martin dragged her on. This +question roused Morley. Up to that instant he had not considered where +he was going; he only felt the necessity of flight. +</P> + +<P> +"To—to Trouble Neck," he answered as if some one else were speaking +through him. +</P> + +<P> +"To her as—as they call the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady." +</P> + +<P> +Molly did not speak again, but the answer had stilled somewhat her fear +and anguish. By the time she and Martin reached the Trouble Neck cabin +her uncanny shrewdness and cunning were well to the fore. +</P> + +<P> +The little clock on the mantelshelf had just struck two when Marcia +Lowe raised her tired eyes from the book spread out on the table before +her. +</P> + +<P> +The one large room of the cabin was kitchen, dining-room, parlour, +library; all that was not included in bed-chamber. The lean-to was +Marcia Lowe's sleeping apartment and a tiny room above reached only by +a ladder from outside, served as a trim, cleanly resting-place for a +chance guest or a needy traveller. +</P> + +<P> +The little doctor lifted her aching eyes and took in the rude comfort +of her home-place with a deep sigh. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she whispered—for she had adopted the compromise of the lonely +woman and talked aloud to herself—"oh! if they could forget my sex!" +</P> + +<P> +She was thinking of a conversation she had had with The Forge doctor +that very day. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I wish you would work with me," she had pleaded; "they would accept +you; obey what you say and—give me a chance." +</P> + +<P> +The doctor had laughed good-naturedly. Miss Lowe amused him hugely. +She seemed to him like a child playing with sugar and bread pills. +</P> + +<P> +"My dear young lady," he had said; "they'd shoot me, and with good +reason, if I let any petticoat Saw Bones tamper with them; no insult +intended—only compliment, dear lady! Your books read like fairy +stories; I'm too old a hand to be taken in. The revised Bible, ma'am, +is dangerous for souls, and new ideas in physic are about the same for +bodies. I read when I can—but I'm too human to experiment on my kind. +A few old remedies and a good stiff bluff are all that are needed +up-er-here. Now as to you, my dear young miss, I'd have to put you +under lock and key or buy you a return ticket to that +fly-in-the-face-of-Providence state of yours if you tampered with the +bodies of these people. That uncle of yours juggled considerable in +his day, but souls are one thing; bodies, another." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe now clasped her hands behind her tired head and raised her +eyes to the low ceiling. +</P> + +<P> +"Just for one faithful soul!" she murmured; "no, one faithful body that +would trust itself to me for—a month; a month! A few days of +starvation; a magic little pill; a spell of patient waiting and then—a +miracle." +</P> + +<P> +But no response came from the stillness of the night and Miss Lowe was +about to make preparations for bed when a sound outside stayed her. +Then came a knock on the door! She went to the small window beside the +door, drew aside the dainty white curtain, opened it halfway and asked: +</P> + +<P> +"Is that you, Hope?" She had promised Liza to bide with her when her +hour came, but it was not Hope who replied: +</P> + +<P> +"This is Martin Morley, ma'am. Me and lil' Molly." +</P> + +<P> +The door was opened at once and closed after the two. +</P> + +<P> +"Now," said the little doctor, stirring the fire to greater effort and +seeing that her callers had the easiest chairs in the room, "now, then, +Mr. Morley." +</P> + +<P> +Molly followed every motion of Marcia Lowe with unchildlike interest. +Fear was gone from the girl's face, but an alert sharpness marked it. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you give her," Martin nodded toward Molly, "a bed for—for +to-night? I have something to tell you." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe sensed that something serious lay behind the request, and +rose at once and went to Molly. +</P> + +<P> +"Come into my bedroom," she said; "I can make you very comfy, I'm sure. +Will you sleep with me?" +</P> + +<P> +Molly nodded and followed meekly. After a time Marcia Lowe came back +and, standing in front of Morley, said quickly: +</P> + +<P> +"What is it?" +</P> + +<P> +The haggard, haunted face was raised to her. +</P> + +<P> +"I've—I've done killed Mary!" he said simply. +</P> + +<P> +The little doctor shuddered, but controlled her features; her eyes did +not fall from the wretched man's face. +</P> + +<P> +"Tell me!" was all she said. Then Martin slowly in a hushed voice, +described all that had passed, even the vision of Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +"The Lord-a'mighty, He knows I didn't mean to kill," Martin quivered; +"but who-all will believe that? I meant to stay clean and fair for the +boy's coming back, Miss Lowe, ma'am, deed I did, and now he'll come +back to——" Martin could not frame the hideous truth in words; he +gulped miserably and went on; "please, ma'am, keep—her, Molly, from +Teale and them-all!" +</P> + +<P> +"And you?" So simply did the question come that the man replied in +kind. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I can't let them-all cotch me, ma'am. Come morning, I'll be past +hurting any one, more." +</P> + +<P> +The childlike pathos in this criminal's voice and attitude confused the +listener. For the life of her she could not deal with the situation in +any ordinary fashion; it seemed like a dramatic incident bungled by +amateurs. Presently she asked gently: +</P> + +<P> +"Are you <I>sure</I> she is dead, Mr. Morley?" +</P> + +<P> +The unreality held Martin, too. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon she is," he faltered; "I—I couldn't hear her heart—and she +laid right still. I expect she is dead." +</P> + +<P> +The ludicrous overpowered even the turn of possibility, and the little +doctor said: +</P> + +<P> +"You just mustn't kill yourself or harm Sandy unless it is necessary, +you know. If you will go out and harness my horse to the buggy, you +and I will make sure." +</P> + +<P> +By the time Morley had mechanically fulfilled these commands, Marcia +Lowe had decided, from the sound of Molly's breathing, that she might +safely be left alone, and, cloaked and hooded, joined Martin outside. +</P> + +<P> +It was a dreary ride, and the two spoke seldom. +</P> + +<P> +"You are to be no coward, Morley," Marcia Lowe had said; "you're to +face your future like a man—like Sandy's father. He will well +understand. I will stand by you and see fair play for you; I'll pay +for a good lawyer, and you will take your medicine, whatever it is, and +be clean and decent for your boy and girl. I'll take care of Molly." +</P> + +<P> +After a time Martin agreed to this, but from the shivering of the form +beside her, the little doctor realized the struggle. +</P> + +<P> +And so they reached Morley's cabin and entered, like ghosts, into the +fear-haunted place. Mary was gone. The fire was smouldering in the +last flashes, the damp ashes were drying—but Mary had made a bodily +escape. +</P> + +<P> +"So!" whispered Marcia Lowe. "It was better to make sure. Go +upstairs, see if she is there." +</P> + +<P> +Mary was not there. +</P> + +<P> +"Now come back." +</P> + +<P> +Through the chill of the early morning the two drove silently back to +Trouble Neck and with strange foreboding the little doctor made her way +at once to the lean-to bed-chamber—Molly, too, was gone! She had made +her way to Teale's, Miss Lowe felt sure. +</P> + +<P> +The next morning the news spread fast, garbled by many tongues. +</P> + +<P> +Teale's place had been raided! Teale had escaped and the Morleys had +accompanied him. +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" said Sally Taber to Cynthia; "I 'spect Mart Morley had to get +his livin' somehow. The yaller streak's got the best of him." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia made no reply. Oddly enough in her fancy she was gazing upon +the portrait of "The Biggest of Them All." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap12"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XII +</H3> + + +<P> +Martin Morley slept, in the clean loft over Marcia Lowe's living-room. +There was a good warm bed there, and before he had gone up the ladder +to his much-needed rest, the little doctor had fed him and given him +hot coffee to drink. +</P> + +<P> +"You are safe," she had comforted him. "God has been good to you, +Martin Morley. Molly is with her mother and, sad as it is, we can do +nothing more for her. Forget it all, and to-morrow you and I will +consider the future." +</P> + +<P> +So Martin slept and slept, and the front door of the cabin was kept +closed and locked. +</P> + +<P> +Refreshed and humble, Martin, on the evening of the following day, +cautiously crept down the ladder from his loft-chamber and tapped upon +the outer door of the cabin. +</P> + +<P> +It was a very smiling and trim little body that welcomed him and bade +him sit down to a table laid for an evening meal. +</P> + +<P> +"You see I've waited for you, Mr. Morley; we have a slice of ham, some +hot biscuits, and baked potatoes. There's a loaf of cake, too, and +coffee and a try at a pudding for which my mother used to be famous." +</P> + +<P> +Every nerve of Martin's starved stomach thrilled, but his eyes did not +meet Marcia Lowe's. +</P> + +<P> +"You are feeling better, Martin Morley?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then I want you to share my meal." +</P> + +<P> +"I—I ain't worthy, ma'am. I can never pay you, ma'am, for what you've +done and meant to me. I'm ready to go now, ma'am." +</P> + +<P> +"Where, Martin Morley?" The little doctor was pouring the coffee, and +the odour made Morley dizzy with longing. +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't just settled in my mind as to that, ma'am. The world's big, +beyond The Hollow." +</P> + +<P> +"Too big for you, Mr. Morley, until you are yourself—your best self +again. And you can pay me—I have my bill ready." +</P> + +<P> +Martin eyed her furtively and tried to steady his hand as he reached +out for the plate of savoury food she was passing to him. They ate +silently for a while, then Marcia Lowe tried to cheer him by scraps of +gossip that had drifted to her during the day. +</P> + +<P> +"They think you have gone with Teale," she said with a little laugh; +"the idea of your flying off in that company! Have another potato, Mr. +Morley; the staying power of a baked potato is simply marvellous." +</P> + +<P> +When the meal was finished and the dishes put away, Marcia Lowe faced +her gloomy guest with deep, serious eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"You feel you owe me something, Mr. Morley?" she asked. They were +sitting opposite each other by the hearth; a pouring rain dashed +against the window and a rising wind howled through the trees. A sleek +yellow cat turned around two or three times and then settled +comfortably at Marcia Lowe's feet and purred happily. +</P> + +<P> +"I do that, mum." +</P> + +<P> +"You are—willing to do something for me—for Sandy, but most of all +for yourself?" +</P> + +<P> +Morley was becoming accustomed to the little doctor's quaint way of +putting questions, but her manner still puzzled him. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, ma'am," he answered confusedly. +</P> + +<P> +"Then listen, Martin Morley. I want to save you, first of all for +yourself—next for that boy of yours, who, I somehow feel confident, +will come back to honour us all. I believe I can do what I have in +mind—there is a little risk, very little, but will you run it for me?" +</P> + +<P> +Morley's thin face twitched. Many emotions swayed him. Doubt, +suspicion, superstition, the ingrained revolt of sex—the male +resenting this power of the female—all, all held part in Morley's +mind, weakened by trouble and malnutrition, but above all was the +innate yearning to prove himself for Sandy. Martin had the supreme +instinct of parenthood. +</P> + +<P> +"You know you were willing to die for him, Mr. Morley. Are you not +willing to run the chance of a better, cleaner life?" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe was bending forward now, her face radiant and inspired—she +looked young, lovely and compassionate. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I—don't follow you, ma'am." Poor Martin was caught in the toils +of the enthusiast. +</P> + +<P> +"Then listen. I have studied and—conquered to a certain extent—a +great and noble help for humanity—but I am hampered in my work because +I am a woman. Oh! no one—no man can understand how terrible it is for +us women to look beyond the man and woman part of life and see <I>human +beings</I> needing us, crying out to us, and for us, to realize that often +we might help, in our own way best of all—if only something, over +which we have no control, did not bar us. You see, men have no right +to deprive human beings of any assistance the world can give. If we +women tell men of our hopes and our beliefs, they accept or decline as +they think best—and so much is lost! Why, I have been pleading with +The Forge doctor ever since I came, to work with me in doing what I +long to do, and he will not—he laughs! I am not rich enough or +important enough to bring a big doctor from my home to do this thing +for you, all that I could do alone. So here I stand with, I solemnly +believe, a precious gift and I—I—cannot give it to you because—you +won't trust a woman!" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe was talking far and beyond Morley; he stared bewildered at +her, but something within himself was reaching out and touching, with +soul-intensity, the tragic appeal from the little woman opposite. +</P> + +<P> +"Uncle Theodore Starr came here because he loved his kind and felt that +you all needed him most. Because you had no choice, he believed you +would accept him. Can you remember how he worked among you? served you +and died for you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—do, mum!" An old sense of gratitude gave force to the words. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I feel as he did, only I want to mend your poor, sick bodies; +make you strong enough to want to help yourselves like men and women! +I want you to know that you have <I>souls</I>." +</P> + +<P> +But now Martin was lost again. The stare settled on his face and only +the hypnotism of the woman across the hearth guided him. Marcia Lowe +saw this, and grew desperate. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! dear, what shall I do?" she cried helplessly. "Can I say anything +that will make you understand? The thing I have is safe and sure. It +might go wrong with you—only <I>might</I>—but I want, I must have, your +consent. Just suppose it did go wrong with you, but that you knew it +would help hundreds of others—would you be willing to try?" +</P> + +<P> +Morley did not attempt an answer. +</P> + +<P> +"Let me put it another way!" and now the little doctor arose and stood +in the full glow of the fire, while the roar of the wind and the +flaring of the red light filled the room with sound and colour. The +slim, pale woman looked very weak and small to be the leading actor in +this tragic drama of the hills, and the big, stupidly staring man +opposite seemed very insignificant as a great sacrifice. +</P> + +<P> +"See, I will put it this way. They call me the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady +because—I give them all a little drink of water and it makes them +better! I made the little Hope boy well; ask Liza, she knows. I gave +your Sandy a cup of cold water and it helped his throat—I could have +helped him more, poor boy, if he had not gone away. Martin Morley, I +want to give <I>you</I> a cup of cold water—oh! please trust me! You must +do what I ask you to do—just for one little week. It will be hard, +but I will watch with you and share every suffering hour. I will nurse +you and care for you as a daughter might, and then, at the end, I +believe as truly as God hears me, that you win stand straight and take +your place—<I>your</I> place—among men!" +</P> + +<P> +"A charm?" Morley panted, for he was quite overcome by the power +exerted over him. +</P> + +<P> +Full of zeal and trust, seizing upon anything to gain her end, Marcia +Lowe replied: +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly—a charm! See!" and suddenly she turned to the closet beside +the chimney-place; taking out a small bottle she held it up to the +light with a glow of reverence upon her uplifted face. "Fifteen tiny +grains of this!" +</P> + +<P> +Morley was fascinated. +</P> + +<P> +"Fifteen grains," he repeated, like a man talking in his +sleep—"fifteen grains!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes! and then you must have—faith! You know you always <I>must</I> +have faith in charms." +</P> + +<P> +Morley assented to this. +</P> + +<P> +"Will—you—will you try?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—reckon I will, mum!" +</P> + +<P> +"Will you promise? Oh! If I have ever done anything to make you +grateful, promise! promise!" +</P> + +<P> +"I promise!" +</P> + +<P> +From that night the cure began. Shut away against the mountain-world, +favoured by one of the hill storms, prolonged and depressing, the +little doctor tested her charm. She was nurse and companion as well as +physician. Willing to do battle and take the consequences for the +faith that was in her, she wrestled with her problem. Men had proven +the thing elsewhere—why not she, here among her dead uncle's people? +</P> + +<P> +"You cannot eat until I tell you to, Martin Morley," she said. +</P> + +<P> +For the first day or so the weakened man, used to deprivation, made no +demur; then his haggard face and imploring eyes pleaded for food, and +on the third day he asked for it, cried for it like a starving child. +This wrung Marcia Lowe's heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! we women," she whispered to herself scornfully; "I declare I must +put a watch upon myself or I will find myself going to the cupboard and +betraying the faith of Doctor Marcia Lowe!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she resorted to subterfuge, and playfully bullied poor Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"See! If I do not eat, can you not keep me company? What manners have +you, Martin Morley, to eat while a lady starves?" +</P> + +<P> +The wretched fellow tried to smile, but wept instead. +</P> + +<P> +After that, Marcia Lowe rarely left the room; never unless Morley +slept. She stole like a thief to her closet and ate her food when, and +as she could. +</P> + +<P> +"It's the nurse of Martin Morley who refreshes herself," she thought +comfortingly. +</P> + +<P> +It was on the fifth evening of the battle with the deadly foe of the +mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin +door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a +demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was +sleeping—he lay in the lean-to chamber—so on tiptoe the little doctor +went to answer the summons. +</P> + +<P> +The storm had passed unnoticed by Marcia Lowe, and a bright starry +heaven lay behind the tall figure of Tod Greeley on the doorstep. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Come in, come in!" whispered Marcia—and oddly enough she felt a +glow of relief and welcome. Greeley came in and grimly took a chair by +the cheerful fire on the ashless hearth. +</P> + +<P> +"I've come on a mighty unpleasant errand, ma'am," he said; "and I ain't +one as can pass around sweets before the bitters." +</P> + +<P> +All the way to Trouble Neck Greeley had arranged this speech, and the +medical flavour of it had given him courage. +</P> + +<P> +"You're very kind to come yourself, Mr. Greeley," Marcia Lowe was +smiling; "another might not have been so welcome. And now for the +bitter! I'll gulp it bravely, for I like sweets better." +</P> + +<P> +She sat down in her own rough little rocker, and swayed calmly to and +fro. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, mum, the County Club, in session down to the store, delegated me +to call on you. Leastway, I done told them I reckoned no one else +<I>but</I> me should come first!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you again, Mr. Greeley." +</P> + +<P> +"Since the raid on Teale's——" Tod drawled uncomfortably—"there's +them as is scared. I ain't standing up or setting down for them Speak +Easies back o' The Hollow, but business is business, and no man knows +who's going to get struck so long as——" Greeley glanced cautiously +about—"so long as—you're hiding what you <I>are</I> hiding!" +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Marcia Lowe tried to readjust her thoughts and get them +into some sort of connection; finally she laughed, laughed so long and +so noiselessly that Greeley grew nervous. +</P> + +<P> +"Lord, ma'am!" he faltered, "you can't afford to take it that-er-way +lest you've got your place <I>full</I> of 'em!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Mr. Greeley. They think, the club thinks I have something to do +with the raid? Why I did not know, until some one told me, that there +had been one. Come, I want you to see what I am hiding!" +</P> + +<P> +She motioned her guest to the doorway of the lean-to. +</P> + +<P> +"Look!" she whispered. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment Greeley did not recognize the wan, helpless creature +huddled on the bed; so small, so pitiful was the unconscious man that +he seemed a stranger. Then in amaze and half terror, Tod breathed: +</P> + +<P> +"Mart Morley! What you—doing—to—him?" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe's eyes were full of tears, and her trembling lips were +hardly able to frame the words: +</P> + +<P> +"I'm helping him to lead his people back to their heritage! Oh! you do +not understand; but he and I—with God on our side, are fighting—just +plain fighting a—a worm!" +</P> + +<P> +At that moment Morley stirred and opened his hollow, starving eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Food," he gasped in a voice Greeley never forgot; "God-a'mighty—food!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Greeley beheld a miracle. He saw Marcia Lowe run to the fire in +the living-room and bring to the bedside of the sick man a tiny kettle +of some smooth liquid; he saw her dip a spoon in and then hold it to +the lips of Morley. She had forgotten Greeley; forgotten all but the +man upon the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"Slowly, slowly!" she whispered; "we've won! we've won! There! there! +It's going to be all right from now on—the charm's worked!" +</P> + +<P> +Awed and afraid, Greeley tiptoed from the house, and all the way back +to the waiting County Club he muttered like a half-wit: +</P> + +<P> +"Fighting a worm! Fighting a worm!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap13"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIII +</H3> + + +<P> +The day that civilization and education took Sandy Morley into its +keeping, saw Cynthia Walden astride Crothers' mule jogging down The Way +to the factory. Sandy, arrayed in immaculate attire, was borne to his +school among the New Hampshire hills by train and coach. He was +desperately lonely; thoroughly frightened, but he was well in body; +healthfully sustained by good food, and he had so much money in his +pockets that he was in deadly fear of being waylaid and robbed. +Cynthia, on the contrary, was dressed in a shabby gingham gown freshly +laundried and stiffly starched, but much mended, and her pocket was +guiltless of money. She had no fear of being attacked, so she sang +sweetly and joyously as she bobbed about getting her blood circulating, +for the old coat and hood she wore were pitifully inadequate for the +crisp weather. Cynthia was young and hope led her on; besides, she had +just deposited a most poetic letter to Sandy in the hole of the tree. +Old Sally Taber had smoothed the problem of Stoneledge for the time +being, and there was going to be plenty of money now that Crothers had +opened the way for Cynthia to employ her talents! +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia tried the bird-note Sandy had conquered so successfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Why don't we-all have birds in winter 'stead of summer?" babbled Madam +Bubble from her mule; "and moons on dark nights, and hot suns at +Christmas?" Then she laughed, and the laugh left the dear, slow smile +as a reminder after the joyous sound died away. +</P> + +<P> +"The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady is in the church," Cynthia exclaimed +suddenly as she neared Theodore Starr's small edifice from whose +chimney smoke was rising. Then she kicked the fat sides of her mule +and turned her supercilious head aside in order to escape Marcia Lowe's +eyes, were they scanning The Way. +</P> + +<P> +"It's right noble of her to take care of Sandy's father," the just mind +granted; "but Aunt Ann and I—must do without her!" +</P> + +<P> +A touch of yearning lay in the words. Cynthia needed what Marcia Lowe +might mean to her, and only loyalty to Ann Walden restrained her. +</P> + +<P> +But Marcia Lowe did not see Cynthia pass. For months now, through the +doors and unbarred windows, the light and air had come into the little +church, and the spirit of Theodore Starr had, in some subtle manner, +been permitted to live again. People dropped in occasionally and sat +and thought of the dead parson. Sometimes Marcia Lowe welcomed them +and coaxed them to tell her of her dear uncle. She always sat in what +she called "the minister's pew," and there were times in her lonely +detached life when she seemed to see the calm, fine face looking down +at her from the poor pulpit. He never looked the weak man who was +afraid of Ann Walden; to his loving niece he was ever the strong +brother-of-men who had died while serving them not worthy of him! As +Cynthia rode by, Marcia was building a fire in the drum stove, lately +placed in the church, and singing, prayerfully, a favourite hymn. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows,<BR> +The solemn hush of Nature newly born;<BR> +Alone with Thee in breathless adoration,<BR> +In the calm dew and freshness of the dawn.<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +"So shall it be at last, in that bright morning<BR> +When the soul waketh and life's shadows flee."<BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The fire responded and outside the shadows of the dark trees of The Way +enshrouded Cynthia as she hurried on. +</P> + +<P> +That day in the factory was the hardest day of Cynthia's life. To a +young girl born in freedom, be that freedom of the meanest, the +confinement and authority were deadly. Then, too, to witness the +utilization of the baby-things that were mere cogs in the machinery of +Crothers' business, hurt the mother-heart of the girl cruelly. At the +noon hour she tried to make the sad little creatures play—but they had +forgotten how, if they ever knew; they, stared at her with wondering +eyes; ate all of her lunch she offered, and shivered in their thin +clothes by the wretched fire in a shed provided for their leisure time. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, Sandy, Sandy," murmured Cynthia as she looked about, "I'll help +you get them away from here some day." +</P> + +<P> +A new fear and hate of Crothers grew in her heart as she impotently +suffered for the children, but Crothers was as gentle and kind to her +as any wise and considerate father could have been. He was patient +with her bungling and errors; he did not turn her off to his clerks for +instruction, he spent his own time upon her. Every moment that he was +near her Cynthia trembled, and when he accidentally touched her she +recoiled sharply. Crothers noticed this, and at first it angered him; +then caused him much amusement. Unconsciously the girl was fanning +into sudden and violent flame that which might have slumbered on for +months. Before the end of the first week Crothers had noticed how +lovely Cynthia's shining braids were as they twined around her pretty, +bent head. His eyes grew thoughtful as he noted the lines of the +softly rounded shoulders and dainty girlish bosom. The little dent in +the back of the slim neck was like a dimple and even the small +roughened hands were shapely and beautiful. +</P> + +<P> +"How old are you, little miss?" Crothers asked her the third day of her +business life, and Cynthia fearing that her youth might prove an +obstacle answered blindly: +</P> + +<P> +"Going on—fourteen!" She looked more, for her South, in spite of all +her meagre upbringing, had developed her rapidly. Crothers smiled +indulgently. +</P> + +<P> +When Saturday night came four dollars was handed to Cynthia by Crothers +himself. +</P> + +<P> +"It was to be three," she said, holding the money toward him. He took +the fingers in his, closed them over the bills, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"Just a little present for a nice little girl who has tried so hard to +be good." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia drew back and her eyes flashed dangerously. +</P> + +<P> +"I do not want it!" she said quickly, and flung a dollar on the desk. +"I only want what is mine!" After she had gone Crothers swore a little; +then laughed. The laugh was more evil than the oath, but no one was +there to hear. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia had no one to speak to about her fear and loathing of Crothers. +Besides, she had entered upon her career and dared not turn back. She +did not understand herself, nor the man who was her employer; she did +not understand conditions nor the yearnings that possessed her; she +only knew that she must fight against becoming a poor white, and learn +to overcome the limitations of her birth, and Crothers seemed her only +chance. On the long rides to and from the factory she thought often of +her poor mother and wondered about her bad father. She wished she had +learned more about them while Ann Walden was capable of telling her. +The time was past now when the mistress of Stoneledge could impart any +reliable information to the girl. When the weather permitted the old +woman paced the upper balcony crooning to the hills, and as cold and +storm shut her inside she seemed only happy in the library. So Sally +Taber, reinforced by the money which supposedly she so miraculously had +saved, had the room made habitable. Mason Hope was coaxed into giving +some of his valuable time to the repairing and by mid-winter the place +was comfortable. +</P> + +<P> +"Ole miss is jes' a plain moon-chile now," Sally confided to Marcia +Lowe at one of their private conferences; "it's right silly to oppose +her." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, give her everything you can, Sally, and oh! if she ever has +flashes of reason get her to talk and—remember what she says!" +</P> + +<P> +"Deed and deed I will," promised Sally. "And if she ever do get her +wits back it will be in dat ole libr'y-room. She acts right human thar +at times." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe was sorely puzzled about Cynthia those days. If she were +only sure that Ann Walden would never recover her reason she would take +her chances with the girl and plead Theodore Starr's cause, but with no +actual proof, and with Ann Walden's evident past instruction to +Cynthia, she hesitated to make her own claims. Then, too, there were +times when doubt rose in her mind, not as to her uncle, but Cynthia's +parentage. There might never have been a child born to Queenie Walden. +The Hollow story of adoption might be true after all. That would have +accounted for old Miss Walden's bitter resentment. It was all very +difficult and confusing, but in the meantime she could love the girl, +and do, indirectly, for her what personally she could not. +</P> + +<P> +Oftener and oftener the little doctor went to the church by The Way and +"sat with Uncle Theodore," as she put it. It was less lonely there; +the store was near by and the passers-by were becoming more friendly. +Occasionally they dropped in. Tod Greeley and old Townley more than +the others, and chatted sociably. Marcia Lowe had much to be grateful +for, and when, one morning two weeks after Morley had been pronounced +cured by his faithful doctor-nurse, he came to her, as she sat in the +church, and said quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Lowe, I'm going up yon——" pointing to his own cabin, seen now +between the bare trees, "to straighten it up a bit," she wept as if her +heart would break. Martin did not witness the outbreak; he had set +forth upon his task. Marcia Lowe was alone and upon her knees. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear God!" she repeated over and over; "dear God! he is saved. He'll +open the way to others." +</P> + +<P> +Martin Morley went upon his new course unheeded for a time, for a +tragic happening to Cynthia and a calamity to the community threw the +little doctor and many others into chaos. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia had been a month in Crothers' factory, when one late afternoon +he said to her: +</P> + +<P> +"Little miss, could you bide at The Forge tonight?" Cynthia started +back and looked at him. +</P> + +<P> +"It's this-er-way; you've become mighty helpful to me and I've got a +batch of letters to get off by the morning's mail. It looks like there +is going to be snow, too, and I'd hate to keep you late and then send +you toting home after dark. Now if you can stop over and work 'long o' +me till—say ten o'clock, we can finish the work and I'll set you down +safe and sound at my boarding-house for a good night's rest." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia gave her usual shudder and sought about for an excuse. She +knew Crothers' boarding-house keeper; knew her to be a decent soul who +had more than once, lately, brought a hot meal to her at midday when +she brought Crothers'. There was snow in the air, too, and a late ride +through the woods at night was almost more awful than to stay at the +factory. +</P> + +<P> +"They-all will worry," she faltered in her pretty, slow way. +</P> + +<P> +"I sent word by Hope's boys," Crothers reassured her, "they've just +gone. I knew I could depend upon you." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia struggled to control herself, and finally gave her smile and +shrugged her shoulders. +</P> + +<P> +The mistress of the boarding-house brought to the factory a piping hot +supper for two at seven o'clock. She seemed to know all about +Cynthia's proposed stay, and showed no sign of misunderstanding it. +</P> + +<P> +"You better fotch the chile in 'bout nine," she suggested to Crothers +as she went out; "she do look clean beat now. Quality don't last out +at work like trash do; they certainly do tucker out sooner." +</P> + +<P> +Crothers bade the garrulous woman a pleasant good night, and then set +himself busily to the task of mastering a pile of correspondence on his +desk. Cynthia went to the little table by the window that served as +her writing-desk and asked quietly what she should do. Crothers handed +her a list of names and a package of envelopes and told her to address +them. The old clock on the wall ticked away comfortably; the warmth +and the late hearty meal combined to drive away fear and apprehension +of, she knew not what, and Cynthia was soon absorbed in the task set +her. +</P> + +<P> +Presently the kerosene lamp on her table flickered and went out; then +glancing over at Crothers' back she asked timidly: +</P> + +<P> +"Please, may I sit by your desk, sir? The light's failed." +</P> + +<P> +Crothers turned about and smiled at the pale little creature in the +shadows. +</P> + +<P> +"Come right along, little miss! Here, let me fetch your chair. There, +now!" +</P> + +<P> +Seated at the end of the flat-topped desk, Cynthia tried to resume her +work, but the unrest of the early afternoon possessed her and she felt +a tear roll down her cheek—the cheek nearest the man at her left side. +</P> + +<P> +What happened after that Cynthia never could tell clearly; she only +knew that a large, hot hand wiped the tear away and a burning kiss fell +upon her cheek! +</P> + +<P> +Horrified, and shaking with fear, the girl sprang to her feet and +reached the opposite side of the desk near the window looking out +toward The Way. She had but one thought: she would break the window +and make a dash for safety! But Crothers was upon his feet also. He +did not offer to come nearer, but he leaned over the desk and said +quietly: +</P> + +<P> +"What you afraid of, lil' girl?" +</P> + +<P> +"You!" The word was like a hiss. +</P> + +<P> +"Of me? Can't you give me a kiss? I don't want to hurt you; I'm your +best friend; why, see here, I'll give you a right smart new coat and +hat and dress—for a kiss; just a little kiss." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia's eyes seemed fastened to the smiling, cruel face, but she did +not tremble now. Calmly, clearly, she was thinking what she could take +with which to defend herself. +</P> + +<P> +"Just—one—more—kiss—lil' girl," and now Crothers was coming around +the corner of the desk. It seemed like some fearful nightmare, but +Cynthia was ready! +</P> + +<P> +"Just one—more—kiss right on the pretty mouth!" The large, white +hands were extended and the teeth showed through the red lips. At that +instant Cynthia seized the lighted lamp which stood near, and with +desperate strength flung it toward the reaching body! There was a +crash, a curse, a fall, and then the room was blotted out by darkness. +</P> + +<P> +For a moment there was a deathlike stillness and in it the girl crept +toward the door, unfastened it and gained the open. There were +feathery snowflakes in the air and they touched Cynthia's face like +holy kisses, wiping away the evil one that had burned there but a +moment before. Groping and running she reached The Way and, from +behind a tree, paused to take breath. Never had she felt more +self-possessed or secure; her mind was clear and sane. If Crothers +came out, she could outstrip him in a race for the boarding-house, and +she meant to go to the boarding-house that night! Something within her +guided her now; something was protecting her and saving her—it was the +Woman Cynthia was by and by to be! +</P> + +<P> +As the girl by the tree panted and reasoned, she saw, from the factory +window—the window of Crothers' office—a darting tongue of light; +another followed and in a moment the glass was ruddy—and smoke was +issuing from the door left open when she ran out. +</P> + +<P> +"The place is on fire!" Then—"why does he not come out?" +</P> + +<P> +For a moment only a madness seized Cynthia while hate and revenge had +their way: +</P> + +<P> +"Let him die!" she muttered, setting her teeth close and gripping her +hands; "let him!" +</P> + +<P> +But even as the words were spoken she was running back to the factory. +She rushed into the smoke-filled hallway and, by the light of the fire, +she saw Crothers lying full length where he had fallen. The flames +were feasting on the rug by the desk and the unconscious man's head lay +upon that rug! +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia knelt beside Crothers and called his name, but the ugly smiling +lips made no motion of reply. Then she seized him under the arms and +frantically tugged and tugged at the heavy body. The flames were +almost at her feet, the wool of the carpet had caught first and the +licking tongues followed the burden she bore, greedily. At last she +was at the door; outside, and the safe, black night surrounded them! +She lay Crothers down and breathed fast and hard. The snowflakes were +larger; thicker now, and there was a harshness in their touch. +</P> + +<P> +Presently Cynthia began to call louder and louder, and the fire gaining +power lighted the night and crackled merrily. +</P> + +<P> +"Help! help! help!" +</P> + +<P> +And help came. First on the scene were the boarding-house mistress and +her sons; then followed others of The Forge, and soon a group had +gathered and were aimlessly running about, giving orders and foolishly +bemoaning the havoc that was spreading. +</P> + +<P> +Quite calm and uncaring Cynthia answered the questions put to her. She +defended herself without once realizing that she was doing so. +</P> + +<P> +"Crothers got up suddenly—and fell!" she said to the mistress of the +boarding-house who was working over the man on the ground, bathing his +face with snow and slapping his hands with her own rough ones. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, the lamp overturned—and the fire was so quick!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, I could not let Crothers die; I had to pull him out!" +</P> + +<P> +Then a man near by said: +</P> + +<P> +"Plucky little devil." The words rang in Cynthia's ears strangely. +Why did they praise her? What had she done? She wanted Crothers to +die. Now that he was out of the fire, she did not want to see his eyes +open again, and yet she was straining her own to get the first sign in +his. Of a sudden Crothers looked full at her wonderingly, dazedly, and +at that sight Cynthia fled, and, in the confusion, no one missed her. +She did not go to the shed for her mule, she made for The Way uncloaked +and unhooded and ran for her life until, overcome by weariness, she +paused to take breath. Looking back she saw only a dull glow where the +factory had stood and black smoke was rolling thick up into the pure, +falling snow. +</P> + +<P> +It was fear of Man that haunted Cynthia as she toiled up the hillside; +Man as he had loomed first on her horizon, cruel, seeking, and selfish. +When the hard branches of the tree touched her she stifled a scream, +for they felt like the demanding hands of Man; when a hungry animal +darted across her path she recoiled, remembering another animal with +face and form of Man. +</P> + +<P> +It was three o'clock in the morning when Cynthia left The Forge—though +how the hours had passed from nine till three she was never able to +explain;—it was eight o'clock when she passed Andrew Townley's cabin +and saw smoke curling from his chimney. Sensation was slowly returning +to her; she felt cold, weak, and hungry, but with the senses aroused +she realized that she could not go home! She could not face Ann +Walden's vacant stare, or Sally Taber's coarse cheerfulness. In all +her world she was alone, alone! But even as she thought this her weary +feet were bearing her to Theodore Starr's little church which was never +locked by day or night. She reached the door at last, and with all her +remaining strength pushed it open and staggered up to where the steps +led to the small raised altar. Dropping down she bent her aching head +upon her arm and sobbed: +</P> + +<P> +"Father! Mother!" simply because in all God's world no other words +came to her relief. +</P> + +<P> +Theodore Starr's little daughter had come to him quite naturally in her +first great sorrow! +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap14"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIV +</H3> + + +<P> +And there Marcia Lowe found her. Fortunately the little doctor went +early to the church, for she had conceived of a Christmas such as The +Hollow had never known, and it seemed fitting that Theodore Starr +should be the host! +</P> + +<P> +Quite merrily she entered and went directly to the stove to start a +fire. As she drew near, the outstretched form of Cynthia Walden caught +her eyes and she cried aloud in astonishment and fright. At first she +thought the girl was frozen to death, for she lay so still and her thin +clothing was evidence of the danger run. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear heart! dear heart!" whispered Miss Lowe, overcoming her desire to +take the girl in her arms until she had made a fire. Once the genial +heat began to spread Marcia Lowe set a kettle of water on the stove and +then gave her maternal instincts full play. She gathered the slight +form close and kissed again and again the thin oval cheek and close +shut mouth. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little, little girl!" +</P> + +<P> +The warmth and sound stole into Cynthia's far place and summoned her +back. Her first look was full of terror; her second was one of +unearthly joyousness, and then because the woman of Cynthia had no need +to battle longer for her, the child made its claims and, clinging and +sobbing to the little doctor she moaned again and again: +</P> + +<P> +"I am so afraid; so afraid!" +</P> + +<P> +It was long before Miss Lowe could quiet her. She wrapped her heavy +coat about her and forced some drops of hot water between the stiff, +chilled lips. Then she bathed the face and hands gently with water +cooled with snow, murmuring tenderly meanwhile: +</P> + +<P> +"Dear little girl; poor little Cynthia! It's all right now." +</P> + +<P> +When the girl was soothed and comforted she went to the store to buy +food—anything to be had, for she knew instinctively that whatever was +the cause, Cynthia had tasted no food that day. +</P> + +<P> +"Come back soon!" moaned the girl crouching by the stove, "I am so +afraid." +</P> + +<P> +After she had eaten some stale crackers, soaked in diluted condensed +milk, Cynthia sat up, still and pale, and faced Marcia Lowe dumbly, +imploringly. +</P> + +<P> +"Can you tell me, little Cyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" The voice was distant and monotonous. +</P> + +<P> +"But something has happened, dear. I want to help you." +</P> + +<P> +"The factory—is burned down!" A shudder ran over the rigid young +figure. Marcia Lowe saw that she might hope to win her way if she did +not startle the benumbed mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Were you hurt, dear? Was any one hurt? When did it happen? How did +you hear?" +</P> + +<P> +After each question Marcia waited, and then put another. Still that +fixed, steady gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I was there. It was night. He—he kissed me—don't look like +that! look away! your eyes hurt me!" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia came closer and took the girl in her arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, darling," she whispered, "close your eyes and I'll close +mine—there are only you and I and—God here." +</P> + +<P> +"He—he kissed me, Crothers did! Then he wanted me to do +something—oh! I do not know what, but something he thought I could +do—I felt it, and—and I threw the lamp at him. It was lighted and he +went down in a heap and I—I ran right hard, but I went back and pulled +him out when the fire started. I do not know why—for I want him out +of the world. I shall be afraid always while he is in the world!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's all right now, little Cyn, all, all right." +</P> + +<P> +This only could the horrified woman repeat over and over, as she swayed +to and fro with closed eyes and Cynthia on her breast. +</P> + +<P> +Vividly she seemed to see the late scene. The helpless girl; the +brutish man; the lonely night shutting them in and only a miracle to +save. Details did not matter, and the miracle had come, but the after +effects were here and now. +</P> + +<P> +It was near noon before Marcia Lowe dared take Cynthia away from the +shelter of the church, and when she did so she chose an hour when all +but Greeley were absent from the store, and he was in the rear, eating +his dinner. +</P> + +<P> +"You must come to Trouble Neck, little Cyn," she said firmly; "you'll +be safe there, and we must think this out." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia made no demur, and wrapped in Marcia Lowe's coat—Marcia had a +lighter one beside—she clung close to the little doctor and walked the +three miles to Trouble Neck without a word of complaint. +</P> + +<P> +"It's plain good luck," Marcia Lowe thought, "that Martin Morley is out +of hospital." And then she smiled grimly up into the girl-face beside +her, for Cynthia was fully as tall as she. +</P> + +<P> +It was late afternoon when Tod Greeley strode over to Trouble Neck for +no particular reason. Outside the door he stood and listened to +low-spoken words and snatches of song. +</P> + +<P> +"'Taint nowise normal, I reckon," mused he; "a woman's tongue and mind +has got to have some one to hit up against, or the recoil is going to +do some right smart damage to the woman herself." Then he knocked, and +went in at the word of command to enter. +</P> + +<P> +"Just conversationing with yourself?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Poor company's better than none. Sit down, Mr. Greeley; you're +always welcome." +</P> + +<P> +"I brought some news. Crothers' factory is plumb burnt to the ground." +</P> + +<P> +"Land sakes!" ejaculated the little doctor in the idiom of her home +town; "any damage besides the factory?" +</P> + +<P> +"Crothers is right used up. They say he tipped over the lamp in his +hurry to get up and—things happened." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear suz!" Marcia Lowe was lapsing into old-fashioned speech. +</P> + +<P> +"And Miss Lowe, little Miss Cynthia was thar after hours! They do say +she acted like she was possessed. She pulled Crothers out of the +flames and saved his life I reckon—that is, if it <I>is</I> saved! He +ain't perked up much yet, 'cording to reports. But Miss Lowe—little +Miss Cyn ain't come home! I'm tumble feared lest she went back again +for something, and——" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lowe got up from her chair and cautiously motioned Tod to the +doorway of the lean-to. +</P> + +<P> +"Look!" she whispered. Greeley expected still to see Martin, but +instead he saw the delicate, sleeping face of Cynthia Walden. He drew +back with a stifled cry. +</P> + +<P> +"That there room o' yours," he faintly said when he reached the +fireside again, "is right nerve-racking. It's like one of them +Jack-boxes at Christmas." +</P> + +<P> +"She only stopped here because she was tired. When she awakens I will +take her home," explained Miss Lowe. +</P> + +<P> +Greeley was nonplussed, but when he was in doubt he turned the subject +and talked more than usual. +</P> + +<P> +The following day Cynthia was taken home. Providence and the strain +and excitement saved her from serious harm, but when Marcia Lowe left +her by the gate of Stoneledge there seemed to be something tragic in +the fact that after such an experience, no explanations were necessary. +Ann Walden was past any earthly worriment, and Sally Taber could not +understand then, or ever, the soul-hurt little Cynthia had received. +</P> + +<P> +"It's good friends now and always, little Cyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" +</P> + +<P> +They stood by the dilapidated gate. +</P> + +<P> +"And you will come often to Trouble Neck?" +</P> + +<P> +"Right often." +</P> + +<P> +"And you are not afraid? Remember I have a care over you." +</P> + +<P> +"I am not afraid." +</P> + +<P> +"Then kiss, little Cyn, and God bless you." +</P> + +<P> +On her way home Marcia Lowe stopped at the church to rest and "talk it +over with Uncle Theodore." +</P> + +<P> +The golden winter sunset streamed through the window and lay bright and +fair like a shining way up to the altar. Marcia walked the brilliant +strip and sat down in the minister's pew. Wrapping her heavy coat +about her she raised her eyes to the pulpit and a great comfort came. +Then she closed her eyes and the pale, fine face of her uncle seemed to +rise before her. +</P> + +<P> +"If you could only tell me all about it, dear," she whispered. "I +would help any little girl. God knows, but I could help yours so much +easier! Isn't there some way, uncle, that you can make me understand? +Is your place so far away?" +</P> + +<P> +A step fell upon the floor; a shambling, tottering footstep. Miss Lowe +turned and saw Andrew Townley. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit here beside me," she said; "this is a good place to be." +</P> + +<P> +"It's a right good place, ma'am. Seems like we-all can't kill Parson +Starr. I seem to feel like it was only yesterday when he rode up The +Way and sorter settled down like a blessing long o' us-all. Lately, as +I pass by or turn in yere I get a call back to something what he spoke. +To-day it came to me right sharp how he said 'greater love' and then +went on to explanify. I'm right old in years, ma'am, and I'm +doddering, I expect, but I reckon I knows as much as that po' moon +chile o' Hope's. You know Crothers has got him, too, 'mong the wheels, +and the po' lil' boy he comes home all wild and sicklike, and mornings +Hope has to lick him down The Way—he hates that-er-much to go. Come +to-morrow, I'm going down to Crothers' and I'm going to offer up myself +'stead o' that moon chile. When I go to join Parson Starr I'd like to +have something to offer him by way o' excusing myself. 'Parson, I'll +say to him, parson, this I done 'long o' "Greater Love."'" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe's eyes filled with tears as she took the poor old fumbling +hands in her own. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear, dear friend," she faltered, "God will not need your service. He +has chosen a burnt offering instead of a human sacrifice. The factory +is in ashes now, and for a time, the children may rest." +</P> + +<P> +"Sho'!" murmured Andrew. "Sho' to be sure." Then he wandered back to +that past which held Starr. +</P> + +<P> +"The last time I saw the parson was that-er-day when he went a riding +off to the Gulch to help ole Miss Lanley out o' life. He had lil' Miss +Queenie long o' him—she was the Walden girl as <I>was</I>." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe sat up straighter and again gripped the wandering, wrinkled +hands. Her uncle's letter came vividly to mind and she felt suddenly +that she was being led by old Townley back to clear vision. +</P> + +<P> +"Go on!" she whispered soothingly, seeking not to confuse the rambling +wits. "Just where was old Miss Lanley's place?" +</P> + +<P> +Andrew laughed foolishly. +</P> + +<P> +"Lanley!" he pattered on. "Susie May Lanley! I reckon she was a right +putty one in her day. I uster set and watch her and say this-er-way: +'plenty o' them! I'm going to get one!' meaning to make her jealous +long o' gals, but she never took no heed—but Landy! she died forsaken +and lone, and times is when I think she would have been a mighty sight +better off if she had took me!" +</P> + +<P> +Townley's long reminiscence had tired him woefully and he began to cry +pitifully, swaying to and fro and repeating: +</P> + +<P> +"She done died forsaken and lone!" +</P> + +<P> +Then he fell asleep, his white head on Marcia Lowe's shoulder, the full +radiance of the late sun flooding over them through the western window. +For a half hour he slept and when he awakened he seemed hopelessly +addled. Muttering and groping, hardly seeming to notice his companion, +he made his way out of the church. +</P> + +<P> +"Old Miss Susie May Lanley!" the little doctor repeated over and over. +"I must hold to that until I get it on paper. I guess Uncle Theodore +was married by some one living near old Miss Susie May Lanley's!" +</P> + +<P> +Just as Marcia Lowe was leaving the church, Cynthia came running down +the trail. She was smiling and calm. +</P> + +<P> +"I came back," she said confidingly, "to tell you something. I've +worked it out myself." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear;" the girl's face struck Marcia strangely. A new expression +rested upon it. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm—not—going—to suffer any more." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, little Cyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. No more! It hurts and hurts and then you get over it, and go on +just the same. I'm not going to suffer!" +</P> + +<P> +Miss Lowe went close and took the pretty face in her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"See here, little girl, if suffering is a teacher it is not such a +cruel thing; be a good learner." +</P> + +<P> +"No. Last night in the blackness and fear something happened—here!" +The girl put her hand over her heart. "But now with the sun shining +over Lost Mountain, it's all so right safe and still and happy that I'm +sorry for the hurt of last night. No, I am not going to suffer. I'm +going to be just lil' Cyn again. I thought you would like to know." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, dear," and then Marcia laughed. "You-all make me want to cry so +easily! I am glad, dear. Surely I do not <I>want</I> any one to suffer; +but see here, will you come to me every day, Cynthia? I want to teach +you some necessary things. Things like—well—book things! Things +that Sandy just loved." +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon I will, Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she was gone as she had come. Crothers' touch had only alarmed +her; it had not soiled her. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" murmured the little doctor; "the woman in the child +shielded her from all but physical shock! And what a quaint philosophy +for a girl to evolve." +</P> + +<P> +That evening as Marcia Lowe stood before her little mirror in the +lean-to, braiding her long smooth hair, she talked a bit for comfort's +sake. +</P> + +<P> +"It's plain luxury to lie in my own bed again," she said, "the bench in +the other room can never be made anything but a martyr's cot." Then +she glanced up and faced her own smiling image with the braids twisted +about the head. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" she faltered, falling back, "oh! Uncle Theodore!" For there, +smiling at her with the slow, lingering smile, the face of Cynthia +seemed to shine out by the flickering candlelight, instead of her own! +</P> + +<P> +The long dressing-gown gave a childish setting to the little doctor's +form, the coronet braids; the happy, smiling face was young and +wonderfully, strikingly like Cynthia's. +</P> + +<P> +"They always said I was so like Uncle Theodore! I've got Cynthia to +her father by way of—me!" +</P> + +<P> +Then the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady did a most unaccountable thing—she +fairly pranced about the room. +</P> + +<P> +"I've found it!" she sang; "without resurrecting old Miss Susie May +Lanley! What's a stupid marriage certificate compared to God's plain +handwriting? I can keep my secret now, Uncle Theodore, until the right +time. It was so good of you, dear, to give me proof." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap15"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XV +</H3> + + +<P> +Seven years passed, leaving their traces, and upon a certain afternoon +in August Levi Markham and Matilda sat on the piazza of the Bretherton +home and awaited the arrival of Mrs. Olive Treadwell. +</P> + +<P> +Old Bob, Sandy's collie, lay at Levi's feet. Bob was fat and full of +years; he wore a heavily studded collar with perfect dignity and had, +apparently, quite forgotten lean days and promiscuous kicks. Levi +could now shuffle his feet with impunity. Bob never suspected ulterior +motives and the sight of a broom or club had lost all terrors for him. +</P> + +<P> +Markham did not look any older than he looked seven years ago. Indeed, +his interest in Sandy Morley, his pride in that young man's +achievement, and Sandy's absolute love and loyalty to his benefactor, +had done much to relieve Markham of years instead of adding them to +him. Matilda had not fared so well. She looked like fragile ware, but +she never complained and with quiet courage she went her westering way +thankfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Levi is wonderfully softened," she often thought; "it doesn't hurt him +so much these days to praise instead of blame, and naturally folks +respond. It's mostly on account of Sandy. Levi does so mortally hate +to lose that when he wins out he thaws out!" +</P> + +<P> +The broad acres of Bretherton were rich and full of harvest as the old +brother and sister waited that afternoon. At last Levi snapped his +watch cover and said sharply: +</P> + +<P> +"That three-fifty train is always late! Do you suppose—she—Mrs. +Treadwell, will expect to be put up for the night?" +</P> + +<P> +"I hope not," Matilda replied, knitting away gently with closed eyes. +"I'm not one who takes pleasure in folks' disappointments and I'm glad +to say the village inn is comfortable and not over crowded. I <I>can</I>, +if it is necessary, tell Mary Jane to put an extra plate on for the +evening meal." +</P> + +<P> +"Wait and see how things turn out," cautiously advised Levi. +</P> + +<P> +"What time is it now, brother?" +</P> + +<P> +"Two-forty-five! But I put no faith in that train." +</P> + +<P> +"Was that a letter from Sandy you got in the noon mail?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was, Matilda. I think it would be safe to have an extra plate put +on for him." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda opened her eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Levi," she said; "I'm not one to nose about much, but what is the +meaning of all this?" +</P> + +<P> +Levi set his lips grimly. +</P> + +<P> +"I never knew that Treadwell woman to break in after a long silence but +for two things," he replied; "either she wants something or she wants +to get rid of something. Three years back she asked for help when she +found that precious nephew of hers——" +</P> + +<P> +"And ours, Levi," Matilda put in; "we can't disown him. Blood is blood +even if it clots." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, our nephew, then! When she found young Lansing Treadwell eating +up her income, she begged for some scraps of what she pleased to term +'his mother's rights!'" +</P> + +<P> +"And you gave them to her, Levi!" +</P> + +<P> +"I couldn't let Caroline's boy die in a hole even if Hertford's son put +him there!" +</P> + +<P> +"You speak real comically sometimes, Levi. There are times when I +could think Sandy was talking through your voice!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well! well! every man has a streak of the dramatic in him!" Markham's +lips relaxed, "and I must say that to see Sandy Morley and Lans +Treadwell good friends without either sensing the true relations of +birth and tradition, tickles me through and through. I guess that +Treadwell woman would have done her prettiest if she had caught on. +But she doesn't know where Sandy hailed from and she's covered the +Hertford name out of sight for personal grudge, and those two +youngsters sailed into each other as if they were steered by Fate and +no one interfering. Lans Treadwell can't get anything but good out of +Sandy, and there isn't a soul living—you and I included—who could +draw Morley from his course, so I've looked on and chuckled +considerably." +</P> + +<P> +"Brother, I sometimes wonder how it is that you trust Sandy as you +do—you never question." +</P> + +<P> +"Not out loud, 'Tilda." +</P> + +<P> +"But he does not always explain. Now his working this summer as he +has! Every other summer it has been in the mills, but this summer he +had to have more money than you gave him. What for, Levi? I ask you +flat-footed and not casting any suspicion, but what did he want it for?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's the reason I've asked him down to-night. I want to find out. +I never have questioned him over much. When he said he wanted more +money I took for granted that he did and so long as he didn't hint for +me to give it, I sort of allowed it wasn't any of my business. He's +mastered the rudiments at the mills; he's over twenty-one—just +over—and I rather enjoyed seeing him take the bit in his teeth. But I +sensed that Mrs. Treadwell was coming to get rid of something to-day +and I thought it might be just as well for Sandy to be on hand later. +Matilda, if they two lap over each other, you steer Sandy away till I +march her off." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda nodded and again shut her eyes while she knitted her soft wools +into a "rainbow scarf." When she spoke, her thoughts had taken a +sudden and new turn. +</P> + +<P> +"I'll admit, Levi, that Sandy's clothes set on him as I never saw a +man's clothes set. They are the making of him. He's terrible good +looking—considering!" +</P> + +<P> +"Considering—what?" Markham frowned at the placid face and close-shut +eyes. "Considering! ugh! Why, 'Tilda, there is blood running in that +boy's veins that we Americans ought to bow down before! There are +times when he looks at me in his big, kind, loving fashion, that I feel +as I did the first time the poor little dirty devil raised his eyes to +me, only now all that went to the making of the lad seems to be saying, +'thank you, Markham, and God bless you!'" +</P> + +<P> +"Levi, you're an awful good man, and time's mellowing you more than any +one would have looked for." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you,'Tilda." +</P> + +<P> +And then for a long time they sat in silence and thought their own +thoughts. Bob grunted and turned around facing the brother and sister, +blinked, grunted again, and probably thought of Sandy also. +</P> + +<P> +The train that afternoon was on time, and the carriage Markham sent to +the station presently appeared bearing Mrs. Treadwell. +</P> + +<P> +Olive Treadwell was handsomer than ever, for her gray hair softened her +features and the years had added just enough flesh to her bones to +insure grace, not angularity. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going back on the six-two train, Mr. Markham, if you will permit +your coachman to take me to the station. Lans and I have a very +important engagement this evening." +</P> + +<P> +Levi gave the order and handed his visitor to a chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Matilda has some iced tea for us," he said, "and then we will go +inside." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Treadwell greeted her hostess and sat languidly down, taking off, +as she did so, her long dust coat and displaying an exquisite gown of +pale violet. +</P> + +<P> +There was a little desultory conversation, two cups of delicious tea +and one of Matilda's choice sandwiches and then Markham led the way to +the library. +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Treadwell took the deep leather chair, Levi lowered the awning +over the west window, and courteously sat down opposite his visitor. +</P> + +<P> +"It is years since we met, Mr. Markham," Olive Treadwell said; "but you +have been very kind to me, meanwhile. I am not one to forget." +</P> + +<P> +Markham nodded his head and lowered his eyes. After a decent pause +Mrs. Treadwell continued, feeling her way through her remarks like a +cautious person stepping gingerly over a mental ice pond. She always +seemed to leave a subject open to more than one interpretation and by +the lifting of Markham's eyebrows or the raising of his eyes she chose +her footing. The raising of his keen eyes under the shaggy brows was +very disconcerting and illuminating. +</P> + +<P> +"I know, my dear Mr. Markham, that you are not as worldly as I am; I am +confident that along certain lines of conventions we will differ now, +as we have in the past, but, being worldly I cannot bear that an +injustice should be done that would cause you to act in such a way as +to defeat your own aims and ideals." +</P> + +<P> +The eyebrows went up as if they were on springs, and Mrs. Treadwell +leaped to a safer footing. +</P> + +<P> +"Of course, when I refer to worldliness, I mean social worldliness. I +have learned, I have been forced to learn, the justice of your +once-proposed dealing with my Lans before he went to college. Your +business sense cannot be questioned. Had the boy been placed in your +hands then, I really believe his outlook on life would have been +clearer and finer. He has associated with those who have coloured his +views by—well, let us say, artificial lights. Still, the boy is the +best of his kind—I will say that for him. I hope I can make you +believe that I have come to you to-day entirely for your own best +interests—not his!" +</P> + +<P> +And now the steely eyes met the soft brown ones and demanded the +nearest approach to truth that Olive Treadwell had to offer. She +flushed and went back to her former place of safety and tried again. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us resort to no subterfuge," she said with a charming smile. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you," Levi nodded and again lowered his lids. +</P> + +<P> +"To be quite frank, then, what I mean is this: I recognize that you are +one of the few men who regard your wealth as a trust; your capacity for +acquiring wealth a talent for which you are responsible. As I said +before, I feel that had I realized your true motives at the time Lans +graduated from preparatory school, I would have been eager to place him +in your charge to learn the great business of life and the use of +wealth in your way. I made an error; I confess it willingly. Since +then I have heard of your wise and private charities——" +</P> + +<P> +"I never give charity, madam!" +</P> + +<P> +"You are so modest! Well, your understanding helpfulness." +</P> + +<P> +"Simply good business, madam." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well—good business! and that brings me to my point. I have +always said that if I must trust myself, my confidence, or my money to +anyone, I would choose a person who, by training, instincts, and +possibilities most nearly was akin to myself. I sincerely believe +inheritance and blood do count. Now just suppose——" Mrs. Treadwell +gingerly put her weight on the next footing; "suppose you were obliged +to intrust your wealth and future interests to one of two men, would +you not feel safer in the hands of the man who, for family reasons and +by inherited tastes, could understand you and your ideals?" +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly, madam." +</P> + +<P> +"You know when a test comes you have to take a good deal for granted in +one who has no tie of blood to hold him to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"May I request, madam, that you tell me exactly what you mean in as few +words as possible? I see that you are embarrassed by what you have +been kind enough to come to tell me—I believe it will help us both if +you state your facts without further explanation or preparation." +</P> + +<P> +The tide had carried Olive Treadwell out into midstream—it was sink or +swim now! +</P> + +<P> +"I will do so. I cannot bear to see you duped by your adopted—shall I +say, son?" +</P> + +<P> +"I have never held the position of father to young Morley. I've helped +him to find himself as I have many another young man. He has no reason +to dupe me. We understand each other fairly well; better, I think than +most old men and young ones." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly! That is what you think." +</P> + +<P> +"It is." +</P> + +<P> +"Very well, then listen. Remember I would not have come to you if I +had not had evidence. You take exception to Lans and his ways of life, +I have been informed that you have even called him a—a—libertine!" +</P> + +<P> +"With modifications—yes!" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not ask, Mr. Markham, that you try to withhold your judgments +until you know all the facts about my boy. You were never fair to him; +you saw him—you see him now—through his father, my poor brother!" +</P> + +<P> +"Madam, for his mother's sake I have always kept in touch with his +career even when I knew he was beyond any caution or judgment of mine. +I know that he has shamefully compromised a young woman and quite +openly flaunts his relations with her by calling them some new-fangled +name. Perhaps I am a narrow-gauge man, madam. All my life I have been +obliged to travel from a certain point to a certain point—I'm made +that way. I have endeavoured to look about to help my fellow-men, when +I could in justice do so, but I have stuck to the tracks that seem to +me to lead safely through the land of my journey. I am not interested +in branch roads or sidings." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Treadwell was a bit breathless and angry but she was too far from +shore yet to indulge in relaxation. +</P> + +<P> +"Lans is not an evil fellow; he is high-minded and will prove himself +in due time. I really am only seeking to help you be patient until he +has had his opportunity, and not, in the meantime, make a fatal +mistake. A new era is about to dawn when men and women, for the good +of the race, will attack social conditions from a different plane from +what you and I have been taught to consider right. Lans is in the +vanguard of this movement—but I only implore you to give him time and +while we are waiting let me ask you this—would you be more lenient +to—to this protégé of yours than you are to Lans, if I could prove to +you that he has been hiding his private life from you entirely? Has, +apparently, laid himself bare to your confidence and good-will while, +in a secret and shameful manner, he has had very disreputable relations +with a young woman in Boston?" +</P> + +<P> +Levi Markham took this blow characteristically: he sighed, raised his +eyes to the speaker's face, and said calmly: +</P> + +<P> +"I thank you, madam, for your interest in my affairs. I can readily +see that you would not dare come to me with this matter unless you had +facts. I appreciate your good-will toward me and Lans, but I am just +wondering if this—this relationship of Sandford Morley's with a—with +the young woman, might not be viewed as leniently as Lansing's—if all +were known? He might call it by a new-fangled name, you know." +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Mr. Markham! His intrigue is a low, vulgar thing. That is +exactly what I am trying to make you understand. The difference lies +right there. Lans is open and above-board; he's a gentleman. This +young Morley is——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well, madam!" Levi held up his hand calmly silencing the +indignant voice. "I know Lansing has taken every one into his +confidence who chose to lend an ear; we have all shared his life +whether we approved or not and I will say this: young Morley has never +asked any one to play confessor for him, but I am going to give him an +opportunity to speak for himself if he wants to." +</P> + +<P> +"He will lie, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"He's the worst liar you ever saw, Mrs. Treadwell." +</P> + +<P> +Just how to take this Olive Treadwell did not know. She was +distracted. She felt that Markham was playing with her! Perhaps he +knew all about Morley's escapades and preferred them to Lans' newer +ideals. +</P> + +<P> +"You will investigate for yourself?" she pleaded; "in justice to Lans?" +</P> + +<P> +"In my own way, Madam." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean——" +</P> + +<P> +"That I will look to my own interests as I always have. When all is +said and done, ma'am, there's no law in the State that confines me to +leaving my savings to any particular young man. I have still, I hope, +a few years to my credit. I promise you I will devote them to securing +the best possible good for the <I>trust</I>, as you so well put it, in my +keeping. You are quite right also in saying that I consider the power +of money-making a talent. It is my only talent and I do not +underestimate it." +</P> + +<P> +"You are a—hard man, Markham. Time has not softened you." +</P> + +<P> +"I will still endeavour to be just, madam. I will tell you this—if I +discover that I have been duped, I'll give, outright, a good sum of +money to you in trust for Lansing!" +</P> + +<P> +"You think I—I have simply tried to blacken Morley's character for +personal gain?" +</P> + +<P> +"No, no, Mrs. Treadwell. I ascribed the best possible motives to you!" +</P> + +<P> +"Levi Markham—I cannot understand you." +</P> + +<P> +"Why should you try, madam?" +</P> + +<P> +Olive Treadwell got up and paced the room. +</P> + +<P> +"You humiliate me!" she said angrily. "Of course I desire my brother's +son to inherit rightfully. He will have all that I die possessed of. +I am seeking his interests but only justly and humanly. When he first +came in contact with this—this investment of yours—as you call him, +it was as <I>tutor</I> to this Morley. Consider! <I>tutor</I>, my brother's son, +to your—your waif! And the dear, noble fellow—my Lans, fell in love +with him. Has trusted and helped him socially. Why, he made his +college life easy for him by his own popularity. Quite by accident I +discovered the vulgar intrigue of this—this Morley. I saw him go into +a house where a little seamstress of mine lives! I inquired; I found +him out; and—and, not for any low gain, but gain in the larger, higher +sense I pocketed my pride and came to you as helpless women do come to +strong men and you make me feel like a—village scandal-monger!" +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, madam. I am sorry that my manner suggests this to +you. But can you not see that I must master this situation in my own +way? I cannot sell out my interest in my investment without reason. +Give me a—week—no forty-eight hours!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank heaven!" Olive Treadwell exclaimed, "there is the carriage. No +matter what the outcome of this is, Levi Markham, I reckon you'll live +to thank me for putting you on the right track." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm still on my narrow gauge, madam." Markham smiled not unkindly and +put out his hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Please bid your sister farewell. I shall not return to Bretherton, I +imagine. I will never willingly abase myself again, not even for Lans!" +</P> + +<P> +When she had gone Markham sank into the big leather chair and looked +blankly before him. His eyes were fixed across the desk where he +himself generally sat, and a kind of pity moved him for the part of him +that no one ever knew or suspected. In Sandy Morley, he had realized +nearer his yearning and ambition than he ever had before. His paternal +instincts had been, to a certain degree, gratified. The boy had seemed +so entirely his; had responded so splendidly to his efforts for him. +They had grown so close together during the past years in their silent, +undemonstrative fashion. Could it be possible that he had been +deceived? +</P> + +<P> +And then Markham pulled himself together and went around the desk to +his revolving chair. It was as if the stern man of affairs took +control and demanded of the doubting creature opposite, common sense +and plain justice. "Hold your horses, Levi," he cautioned; "bide your +time. Don't get scared off. Do you remember that old mine that no one +else took stock in? It bought and feathered your first nest! Just you +hold to that and keep your mind easy until you get onto the job +yourself!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap16"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVI +</H3> + + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +When in due time Morley graduated with honours from college none was +more generous with praise and pride than Lansing Treadwell. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +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: +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +And again Lansing Treadwell, with a grin of amused understanding, put +Sandy in the way of tutoring a rich man's sons. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +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! +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon I am still growing, Miss Markham." +</P> + +<P> +Levi scanned the young face. +</P> + +<P> +"Mill work never used you up," he said slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"It's not work, sir. It's been right hot in town, and you know the +city a ways stifles me." +</P> + +<P> +"Umph!" said Markham. +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"Looks hot," Levi murmured; "hot and dry." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," agreed Sandy. Then quite suddenly Markham asked: +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Just then the moonlight shifted to Sandy's face and lay across it in +brilliant clearness. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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——" +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy's head was bowed on his clasped hands and the first tears he +had shed in years were trickling through his fingers. +</P> + +<P> +"You'll come, Sandy Morley?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +An hour later Markham tapped at Matilda's door and the prompt, "Come +in, Levi," caused him a moment's uneasiness. +</P> + +<P> +"Insomnia?" he asked, drawing a chair close to his sister's bed. +</P> + +<P> +"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 <I>right</I> 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." +</P> + +<P> +And now Levi sought and found the thin, blue-veined hands folded +peacefully upon the white coverlid. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy found the starved mother and father in us, Matilda. His need +met ours, and God blessed us all." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Levi patted the cool, old hands tenderly. Sandy's story had somehow +made Matilda very precious. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"Lands, Levi! Vacationing just as canning time is coming?" +</P> + +<P> +"That's about the size of it. What's the fun in a vacation if you +ain't running away from plain duty?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Levi, I do declare! Where are we going?" +</P> + +<P> +The dear old face was shining in the ghostly gleam. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! we're going to see mountains that will make Mt. Washington and +Lost Mountain look foolish." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, then, Matilda, we're going to do the grand tour!" +</P> + +<P> +"Levi, you surely are romancing." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm going to buy tickets to-morrow for about the middle of September!" +</P> + +<P> +"You can't be serious, brother?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to spend money—for <I>nothing</I> once in my life! I'm going +to get what we want and not count the change!" +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds scandalous, Levi!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's going to be a—scandal." +</P> + +<P> +"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?" +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +"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!" +</P> + +<P> +"It's a real outlandish city for morals, Levi." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, it will make me glad to get back to Boston, Matilda," Levi +chuckled. "Now lie down and try to sleep." +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Levi did not rest well that night. Alone in his prim, old-fashioned +chamber he lay and made plans for the future. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<P> +Then his roving thoughts settled on his sister. "Matilda must consent +to more help here in the house—she looks peaked." +</P> + +<P> +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. +</P> + +<P> +"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." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap17"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVII +</H3> + + +<P> +Perhaps it was the spring air; perhaps it was the turn in the tide of +Cynthia Walden's life, but whatever it was it roused her and gripped +her from early morning. At six o'clock on that May day she awoke in +her shabby room of Stoneledge and looked out of the vine-covered +window, heard a bird sing a wild, delicious little song, and then sat +up with the strange thrill of happiness flooding her heart and soul. +</P> + +<P> +It was a warm morning, more like late June than late May, and both the +bird and the girl felt the joy in the promise of summer. +</P> + +<P> +At nineteen Cynthia, like the spring morn, bore the mark of her coming +fulfillment of beauty. She was very lovely, tall, slim, slightly +bending, like a reed that had bowed to the wind instead of resisting. +The child look, full of question and waiting, was still in her clear +blue-gray eyes; the well-formed mouth had not forgotten its pretty, +slow smile, and the pale, exquisite whiteness of the smooth skin was +touched with a delicate tan and colour that did credit totally Taber's +care and culinary art. +</P> + +<P> +"I feel," whispered the girl, tossing the braids of her smooth +gold-brown hair back from her face; "I declare I feel as if something +was going to happen long o' me!" +</P> + +<P> +Not for a moment did Cynthia imagine anything ill. Out of a barren, +isolated life she had evolved and held to the strict philosophy she had +once confided to Marcia Lowe in the little church. If trouble overtook +her, she shielded herself as well as possible, smiled pleadingly and +stepped aside. At such courtesy Trouble had obligingly gone on leaving +the girl of nineteen as trusting and hopeful as a child. The old house +had crumbled and tottered. Ann Walden had sunk into positive +imbecility—but Cynthia had kept her faith and love. Sally Taber still +ruled the Great House under the disguise of grateful dependent. She +slept in the loft over the kitchen, made life a possible thing for a +helpless woman and a young girl, and asked nothing for herself in +return. +</P> + +<P> +"If that woman doesn't have a crown studded two deep with jewels some +day," Marcia Lowe confided to Tod Greeley, "I'll miss my guess." +</P> + +<P> +And Tod, for various reasons, did what he could to show his +appreciation of the old woman's nobility. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo' sho' do give proper weight to us-all." Sally often told him. +"Things do las' mor'n one could expect, fo' de money." +</P> + +<P> +"I ain't goin' to run the risk of any pesky government investigation," +Greeley replied. "Better be on the safe side, I reckon." +</P> + +<P> +And now Cynthia again remarked to the pretty May morning: +</P> + +<P> +"I feel as if something was going to happen 'long o' me." +</P> + +<P> +Then she got up and made her simple toilet. The shining braids were +wound coronet-style about the shapely head, and some moments were +devoted to the choice of a gown. There were three hanging on nails +behind the door leading to the hall; a checked gingham, brown, ugly and +serviceable; a faded pink chambray, and a new, dull blue linen. This +last was a gift from Marcia Lowe. It was the longest, most modern +garment Cynthia possessed, and the colour filled her awakening artistic +sense with delight. +</P> + +<P> +"This one!" she murmured, and smiled at her own senseless extravagance. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon it's right silly," she said; "but it's mighty good fun to +wear your Sunday frock on a Thursday!" +</P> + +<P> +Then arrayed and glowing with pride Cynthia contemplated herself in her +tiny mirror. +</P> + +<P> +"If something happens 'long o' me," she nodded in friendly fashion into +the glass, "it will find me ready." +</P> + +<P> +After breakfast she meant to go to Trouble Neck and help Marcia Lowe +with her "school." The little doctor's school was the newest and most +exciting innovation in The Hollow. The student list was elastic and +all embracing. Every department of life was taught, as and how it were +possible. The timid, blighted little folks were lured to the cabin by +all means at Miss Lowe's command and fed such crumbs as their poor wits +could comprehend. +</P> + +<P> +"Let's flip out the grains, Cynthia, dear," the little doctor urged; +"perhaps some chick can swallow them. We must make hay while the sun +shines. Crothers' new factory is looming up and when that whistle +blows, good-bye to the Trouble Neck Academy!" +</P> + +<P> +It had taken nearly seven years for Smith Crothers to collect his +insurance, recover his health, and begin his business career again. He +had left The Forge for two years, and since his return had gone slowly +about his work of rebuilding and entering the arena. Whatever he +thought or remembered of the night when his factory was burned, no one, +but himself, knew. From a grim shadow of his former self he regained +his health and looks; he nodded to Cynthia when he met her on The Way +and the girl tossed her head at him indifferently. Only Marcia Lowe +was anxious. +</P> + +<P> +"Cynthia," she said, "promise me that you will not wander in the woods +alone!" +</P> + +<P> +"Not without a pistol," the girl replied. "I'm a mighty good shot, +dear Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady!" +</P> + +<P> +But Marcia Lowe shook her head. +</P> + +<P> +When Cynthia went downstairs that May morning, Sally Taber had the +plain breakfast on the dining-room table, and her face looked drawn and +worried. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Cyn," she said, when she had set the corn bread and milk before +the girl, "las' night ole Miss war right troublesome." +</P> + +<P> +"You have been up a good deal, Sally?" +</P> + +<P> +"I sho' have. Ole Miss took to wandering and nothing would suit her +but de libry. I done made a fire there and let her play. She done dig +at the hearthstone an' laughed and babbled 'til long 'bout three +o'clock, then I carried her upstairs and laid her in her bed same as if +she was a lil' tired out babby." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear Sally!" Cynthia's eyes shone. "I'll stay home to-day and let +you sleep." +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon you will do nothin' like that! Ole Miss will be good for +mos' the mornin' an' I'se goin' to patch up the libry. If ole Miss +takes a fancy to that-er-room, she goin' to have what she wants! If +she wants to pick 'long o' the hearthstone, she is goin' to do that; +I'll loosen it up." +</P> + +<P> +"I will watch her to-night, then!" Cynthia said, "and I'll be back +right early this evening, Sally." +</P> + +<P> +Just as Cynthia reached The Way, she met Martin Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"Good morning, lil' Miss Cyn," he greeted; "seems like you be part of +this yere pretty day." +</P> + +<P> +"Good morning, Mr. Morley. You look right smart and dandified." +</P> + +<P> +Morley was neatly and decently attired and his calm, clear eyes were +steady and full of purpose. The "charm" had held good with him, and +ever since the well-fought battle in the little doctor's lean-to +chamber, he had gradually worked his way back to self-respect and +content. Mary and Molly had drifted from his life so effectually that +he had accepted the inevitable and never mentioned their names. +</P> + +<P> +"Where you going, Mr. Morley?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am going down to The Forge," Martin answered. "They-all say the +young manager for that company what's going to build a factory up +higher has come, and I'm going to try and get a job." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you believe there <I>is</I> going to be a factory, Mr. Morley? Do you +believe Smith Crothers would let any one have a factory so near his?" +</P> + +<P> +"They-all do say, Miss Cynthia, that that-er company what sends this +young man, is powerful rich and upperty. They-all do say that-er +company ain't so much as consulted with Smith Crothers." +</P> + +<P> +"It must be a mighty brave company!" The slow smile touched the sweet +lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Morley, I wonder if you will ever hear from Sandy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Sho'! Miss Cynthia, you-all make me right creepy. I woke up this-er +morning from a dream 'bout Sandy. It was a right techersome dream, but +dreams be techersome. I dreamed that Sandy was daid, and yet I woke up +right cheerful. I've reasoned it out this-er-way. Sandy <I>is</I> daid to +me, lil' Miss Cynthia, but alive out in a bigger, wider life and sho' a +right minded father should be mighty glad of that. I'm willing to give +Sandy to a better life." +</P> + +<P> +The old face twitched. "It's 'bout all I can do for my son." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Mr. Morley, you're right noble but I don't believe Sandy's like +that. He's just waiting 'till he has a mighty fine something to bring +back to us-all, and then we'll see him coming up The Way as brave and +smiling as can be." +</P> + +<P> +Martin shook his head slowly. +</P> + +<P> +"I don' doubt it, lil' Miss Cynthia. It's seven long years now! I've +taken a right smart heap of comfort mending up the cabin and painting +it and planting vines and flowers about. It has been the happiness +I've allowed myself—getting ready for Sandy that ain't never coming! +Good morning, just wish me luck 'bout the job. The getting ready means +something even if you don't ever get what you're making ready for." +</P> + +<P> +And with this Martin Morley went down The Way toward The Forge to seek +his luck with the stranger who had arrived a few days before to begin +operations on a certain piece of land which had been bought by a +man—no one could recall his name—seven years ago! +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia stood under the trees by the road after Martin left and fell +into a reverie. It was early. By walking a little faster she could +reach Trouble Neck in time for the possible pupils, and the lure of the +morning held her. Looking up to catch more distinctly the note of a +bird, she noticed how white and splendid the dogwood flowers were on +the tree under which she stood. +</P> + +<P> +"They certainly do look like stars!" she whispered. The day seemed +pulsing with thoughts of Sandy Morley! Not for years had he been so in +her mind. To be sure the hole in the tree near Stoneledge was quite +filled with letters written to an imaginary somebody called, for +convenience, Sandy—the "Biggest of Them All." But Cynthia's ideal +bore little likeness to the actual Sandy, and her letters had become +but the outpourings of a heart that must create its own Paradise or +perish. Sandy Morley had faded into an indistinct blur, but the +romance he had awakened bore the girl far and away from the common life +of The Hollow. +</P> + +<P> +"I thought," the uplifted face glowed rosily; "I thought I heard—a new +note! Some strange bird!" Then, with a toss of the head which threw +the broad brimmed hat back on the shoulders, "I must be getting right +daffy! That's the bird Sandy Morley used to copy mighty cleverly. I +could do it myself once—I wonder!" The pretty lips curved +deliciously, and an effort was made to reproduce the sound. Sweetly, +faintly it trilled and ended in a light laugh. +</P> + +<P> +From the underbrush lower down beside The Way, a young man looked at +the upraised face under the dogwood tree; listened to the answer to his +call and felt his heart throb with such force that his lips drew close +with the pain of joy. For a few moments he gazed and struggled for +self-control but great waves of happiness and delight overpowered him. +He dared not move, but he sent a swift prayer to heaven—a prayer for +guidance in a new life amid the old home-scenes for which his faithful +heart had yearned while he had wandered far. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia's quick ears caught the rustle of the bushes across The Way and +instantly her face changed and her hand gripped something in a little +bag at her side. The stranger thought it wisest to step out. This he +did with a laugh of understanding. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" exclaimed Cynthia Walden, "I certainly do beg your pardon. +I—thought—I thought you were Smith Crothers." +</P> + +<P> +The sudden fear wrung this candid confession from the girl. "I reckon +you don't know Smith Crothers." +</P> + +<P> +"I—I've heard of him recently." +</P> + +<P> +"I expect," Cynthia was full of interest now. "I expect you are the +man from the North." +</P> + +<P> +"You are quite right." +</P> + +<P> +"Now I'm right sorry you didn't get here fifteen minutes ago." +</P> + +<P> +The stranger's face flushed under its tan and the broad felt hat, in +the right hand, shook perceptibly. +</P> + +<P> +"Mr. Martin Morley has gone down The Way to see you. He reckons you +will give him a job." +</P> + +<P> +At this the man leaned heavily against a pine tree and stared at the +girl. Had he heard aright? For months he had believed Martin Morley +was dead—long dead! +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Mr. Morley was just here talking about the new factory up in the +mountain." +</P> + +<P> +To hear Cynthia say mountain was to love the high places better all the +days of your life. So lingeringly and tenderly did the soft voice deal +with the vowels and consonants that they suggested all the beauty and +strength of the hills. The man opposite closed his eyes from sheer +delight while the word sank into his consciousness and filled the empty +places of his heart. +</P> + +<P> +"He'll miss you, I reckon, but could you save a job for him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can and—will." The man opened his eyes and courageously walked +across The Way and stood still, hat in hand, before the girl. He was +tall and broad and good to look upon and youth went out to youth +cordially and frankly. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon"—the homely word took the place of the Yankee "guess" +naturally, "I reckon you are—Miss Cynthia Walden?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." Cynthia's eyes shone. "Who—told you?" +</P> + +<P> +"I heard about you." This was very lame, but it answered. +</P> + +<P> +"And you—sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, I am—the man from the North." +</P> + +<P> +"You sound like you had Southern blood." +</P> + +<P> +"My father and mother were Southerners." +</P> + +<P> +"From round this-er-way?" +</P> + +<P> +Again the man closed his eyes; the sweet voice and dear familiar +expressions were almost more than he could bear. +</P> + +<P> +"Not very far away." +</P> + +<P> +A very little seemed enough to pacify the girl's curiosity. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon the North's mighty big," she ventured presently. +</P> + +<P> +"It's—it's—tremendous." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you know anything about—Massachusetts?" +</P> + +<P> +"I came from there." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! And is that—so mighty big?" +</P> + +<P> +"Not so big as the whole North. Though some still think it is." +</P> + +<P> +"Did you ever hear——" Cynthia paused and clasped her hands together; +"of a—a boy named Sandy Morley? He went from here to there—long ago?" +</P> + +<P> +It was a wild question, but the day was so haunted by Sandy that the +words came of their own volition. +</P> + +<P> +"I've met him; yes, I know him slightly." +</P> + +<P> +The colour rose and faded in Cynthia's face and her breath came quick +and hard. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! tell me about him. He came from this—Hollow! He went away years +and years ago. Tell me—what has he become?" +</P> + +<P> +Yearning, curiosity and honest interest marked the words, but the face +of the girl was a child's face, not a woman's. "He must be a right big +boy now!" +</P> + +<P> +The man standing in The Way could not repress a smile. He saw that +Cynthia Walden had in fancy enshrined the boy Sandy, but would she +welcome the man Sandy had become? Fearfully, dreading the test that +must be made, he drew nearer, and with lowered eyes bowed, and said: +</P> + +<P> +"I am Sandy Morley!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia gave a frightened glance at the tall, dark stranger in the +road. She noticed, as if for the first time, his high laced boots, his +corduroy trousers fastened in them, his flannel shirt and felt hat. +All was fine and different, oh! so different from the ragged ugliness +of the hills. That a stranger should be so clad did not interest her, +but that her childhood's friend and slave should wear this livery of +position shattered the beautiful portrait of the "Biggest of Them All" +by one cruel blow. +</P> + +<P> +"No! You cannot be Sandy—not Sandy Morley." Cynthia stepped back +with outstretched hands as if to ward off an attack. The light faded +from Sandy Morley's face and his eyes grew dark and pleading. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been right homesick all the years," he faltered. "I've tried to +make myself worthy to come back. Always I have dreamed of you standing +as you stand now under the dogwoods, to welcome me, but now that I have +come up The Way I find myself a—stranger!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia was clutching the bough of a tree for support; her eyes were +strained and pathetic. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I do not know what I have expected," she whispered, her eyes +clinging to his; "but it is this-er-way. I have made a different +Sandy, and I've kept him so long in my dreams and fancies, that to see +him a <I>man</I>, hurts. Oh! it hurts here!" +</P> + +<P> +The clasped hands touched the panting bosom. Then Sandy came close to +her and laid his firm, thin hand upon hers. The touch, the contact, +brought sharply to the girl the memory of their parting when, beside +The Way, she had asked him to marry her some day and Sandy had kissed +her! +</P> + +<P> +"Little Cynthia, try to make a place in Lost Hollow for the man Sandy, +who has come home a lonely stranger." +</P> + +<P> +He seemed old and detached, but his nearness and the memory of their +last interview composed Cynthia. She drew back and the withdrawal hurt +Sandy more than she could know. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I must go!" she panted and turned, as in the old parting, and ran +without one backward look. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy stood and gazed after her with yearning eyes. Outwardly she was +all his faithful heart could have asked. Her face, as he had seen it a +few moments ago under the dogwoods, seemed placed there by some kind +and good Providence to welcome him to his own after all the waiting +years; the child, Cynthia, he had lost while he tarried afar. Manlike +he was ready to accept the woman. But Cynthia was not a woman, and her +immature nature was shocked and betrayed by him who had come claiming +what she had ready, only for the boy of her childish faith and love. +</P> + +<P> +Sad at heart, Sandy, after a few moments of readjustment, went +mournfully up the trail leading to the old home-cabin. One bright +gleam, alone, cheered him. There had been some mistake. Martin Morley +was evidently alive and to him Sandy must look for welcome and the +renewing of old ties. +</P> + +<P> +The change in the cabin was startling. Empty, but neat and pleasant, +the living-room stood open to the fair spring day. Flowers were +standing in the windows in dented tin cans; the hearth was swept free +of ashes and there was a small garden in the rear of the house, nicely +laid out and planted. It seemed so like his own old garden that Sandy +gazed upon it with strange emotions. He relived sharply the starved +years of preparation, the cruelty and neglect. He went inside finally +and sat down upon the settle by the hearth and, with bowed head, gave +himself up to memory. +</P> + +<P> +An hour passed and then a step outside roused him, but he did not turn. +</P> + +<P> +"Sir, I reckon you be the boss of the new factory. I was a-going down +to The Forge to seek you out and ask for work, but Tansey Moore, down +to the store, 'lowed that 'twas you who had passed up this-er-way. If +you be the boss could you——" +</P> + +<P> +But he got no further. Sandy could not run the risk of another clash +of words. +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" he said, standing up and stretching his arms out pitifully to +Martin. "Father!" +</P> + +<P> +Morley recoiled for an instant and his eyes, old and dim, struggled to +see clearly the figure and face before him. But it was not the mortal +eyes of the man that saw and knew. It was the <I>father</I> that reached +out with unerring instinct to its own! Martin had never had his dreams +of what his boy was to become; he was there to accept whatever God in +His mercy sent to him. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy! lil' Sandy! My boy!" +</P> + +<P> +And then the tottering old frame was gathered in the strong young arms. +</P> + +<P> +"Dad, dear old Dad. I've got a right good job for you!" +</P> + +<P> +That was all. For a few minutes the clock on the high shelf ticked so +loudly that it seemed to fill the room with noise. Neither man spoke, +but they clung desperately. Presently a shadow fell across the floor +and Sandy turned his head. Old Bob had found his way up from The Forge +and panting and wheezing began to sniff around the room. Almost blind, +yet guided by that sense we cannot understand, he had sought his own +and found them. With a soft cry he crouched close to the two standing +by the hearth and whined piteously. Martin aroused and stood upright. +</P> + +<P> +"It's—it's Bob!" he cried. "Oh, Bob! Oh, Bob!" Then falteringly: +"It's all right, Bob, she won't trouble you now—she's gone for good +and all!" +</P> + +<P> +That was the only reference to Mary, and Sandy did not tell Martin of +little Molly's fate for many a day. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap18"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XVIII +</H3> + + +<P> +If one can forget the languor of the summer and the fear of the winter, +a September day among the hills is an experience to set the heart +singing. The fluttering birds in busy preparation for flight, the +carpet of Persian colours and the subtle charm of the smell of wood +smoke in the air, all combine to arouse tender thoughts and pensive +desires. +</P> + +<P> +On such a day Cynthia Walden ran down the trail from Stoneledge and +kept to the side of The Way where the leaves were thickest and the damp +sweetness the richest. She wore her blue linen—it had been laundried +many times since that May morning when Sandy first saw her in it; but, +as Sally Taber, working under strict instructions, dried it in a pillow +case—the colour was still true blue and the shrinkage slight. +</P> + +<P> +Many things had occurred during the past four months. Wonderful +breath-taking things; things that aroused many emotions and many +passions. For one thing, that brave company in the North, which Sandy +represented, had actually had the audacity and daring to start +operations on a splendid factory building! Smith Crothers was +sullenly, silently watching operations and making, apparently, +indifferent threats as to what might be expected to happen to any +Hollowite—"man, woman or child"—who turned from him and his interests +to the factory back of Lost Hollow. +</P> + +<P> +"There ain't any known head to the concern," he said one night at the +County Club, "lest you count that youngster of Morley's as a head. I +leave it to you—can you-all trust a Morley?" +</P> + +<P> +The solemn pause before Mason Hope ventured a "no" gave Crothers food +for reflection. Sandy was making his way into the confidence and +appreciation of his people. Slowly, to be sure, so slowly that often +he sighed disheartedly, but the change in attitude was noticeable and +Sandy knew it when the sun shone and Cynthia Walden deigned to speak a +pleasant word to him. +</P> + +<P> +Beside the factory and near to it ground had been broken and a +foundation laid for a building about which people, especially mothers, +spoke in hushed voices. +</P> + +<P> +"It can't be true," Liza Hope had said to Mrs. Tansey Moore one day as +they dropped in to Theodore Starr's church to take breath and a dip of +snuff. "A Home-school! that's what the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady said it +was, and when I axed her to say it plainer and not so polite, she done +'splain as how the chillens, our chillens, war to be gathered in from +everywhere—even factories,—and teached and—and mothered! That's her +word—mothered!" +</P> + +<P> +"Don't them-all think us-all is—mothers?" Mrs. Moore sniffed +contemptuously. "Us as borned them reckons we-all is mothers." +</P> + +<P> +"But it's this-er-way." Liza was Marcia Lowe's interpreter to the +cabin-folk and was gradually drawing them to the point where more than +one had gone voluntarily to Trouble Neck and, after a chat and a cup of +tea, had uttered the mystic word "youcum," which meant, "you call on +me." No higher honour could a mountain woman bestow than this! +</P> + +<P> +But Mrs. Tansey Moore had never taken the little doctor up socially. +</P> + +<P> +"It's this-er-way. We-all can't act out what's in us-all. You know, +Rose-Lily"—Mrs. Moore had one of the funeral-design names which so +often decorated the plainest of her sex among the hills—"we-all just +get caught in the wheels and go round like what we-all have to. I +reckon you wouldn't have let your Sammy-Jo into the factory if the +heart of you could ha' spoke. Seems like yesterday when I saw them-all +totin' Sammy-Jo up The Way to kiss you good-bye, an' him only ten years +old an' dyin' o' the hurt o' the wheels." +</P> + +<P> +Rose-Lily bowed her head on her work-roughened hands and sobbed +miserably. +</P> + +<P> +"An' I reckon I wouldn' ha' let my po' lil' half-wit chile go—if I +could ha' helped it. When Mason licked him down The Way o' mornin' it +made the soul o' me sick. When the factory burned I thanked A'mighty +God for, starvin' or not starvin,' the po' lil' feller couldn't go! +The night he died in Miss Lowe's cabin when she war tryin' her charm on +him—I jes' war right glad, for the factory down to The Forge war jes' +about done and I war thankful he couldn't get caught in the wheels +agin! I tell yo', Rose-Lily, the mother in us-all don't get a chance +in The Hollow, but the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady don' say things is goin' +to be different. She 'lows that the Home-school will jes' make up to +us-all for what's been denied." +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Moore moaned softly and shook her head. "It don't +sound—earthly!" she muttered. +</P> + +<P> +But Cynthia, tripping light-heartedly over the gold and red leaves by +The Way, sang her gayest songs and cared not a rap for the new factory +or the unearthly Home-school; she was thinking of Martin Morley's cabin +and the miracle that had been performed there. She was bound for the +cabin. Martin would surely be away, for his "job" demanded that he +should watch the men working in gangs on the new buildings. Sandy was +up North. He had been summoned there by Levi Markham, who had wanted +to come to The Hollow but had been held back by Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +"They are taking me hard," Sandy had written; "let me have time to win +them over before you come. Your money is a great drawback to me." +</P> + +<P> +Then Markham wrote a characteristic command. The faithful old heart +throbbed through every line and had caused poor Sandy to laugh until he +cried: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Then come up North at once with reports and plans. I'm not going to +let you make ducks and drakes of my hard earnings without knowing why. +Matilda—isn't very strong. She's taken to counting her blessings +nights instead of sleeping. By the way—have you heard anything of +Treadwell? His new fangled moral van has gone smash, they say; not +called by its old-fashioned name, and he's—skipped. If you hear +anything of him, let me know. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Sandy had been away ten days and every day Cynthia had gone to the +cabin, set it in order for Martin's comfort; revelled in the wonder of +it all and feasted her soul on the books in Sandy's study. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia had slowly, reluctantly but finally given up her ideal Sandy of +the past. She still kept his one letter to her and her hundred and one +letters to him in an oil-cloth package in the old tree. Sometimes she +stole away and read them and cried a little, softly, forlornly, as a +little girl might do for a broken doll. "The Biggest of Them All" +relegated to his fate, Cynthia had turned to this new son of the Hills +with frank and open mind. She weighed him, considered him and found +him interesting. She was sensitive to success, and this practical, +good natured, kindly Sandy was decidedly successful. He was as modest +and unassuming as one could desire, but he had only to wave his hand +and say so-and-so and lo! the old cabin grew and became beautiful, a +factory sprang up, then a dream of a school which included everyone and +everything. It was like a modern fairy story—the most exciting and +compelling thing one could imagine. +</P> + +<P> +Slowly, cautiously, Cynthia with childish curiosity approached this new +being who had arisen on her horizon. Sandy, wise in the lore of the +hills, lured her as cautiously. He had subdued his own emotions. He +was a man; his life had developed him; she was still a child with the +radiant woman of her blindly, gropingly, looking forth from the dear, +blue-gray eyes. He could wait. She would be his dream of the hills +and some day she would come true and he would tell her how he had +always loved her; how her pale, sweet face, under the dogwood flowers, +had kept him strong and pure and unspoiled through all the yearning +years. He could wait until Cynthia, the woman, awoke and—looked at +him! In the meantime he worked and grew marvellously happy in his +earnest, quiet way. He made a seat for her in his study window—though +she never knew how carefully he had arranged it, or how desperately he +had struggled to get the right colour for the cushions. "Red," Levi +had suggested when approached as to window-seat coverings. "Green, a +good dark tone, is a wearing shade," Matilda had informed him, but +Sandy chose blue—"the shade that looks as if it sank deeper and +deeper," he explained to an artistic designer, and the man had not +laughed! +</P> + +<P> +Sandy bought and scattered books about in his study where Cynthia might +run across them at will, and sometimes during his rare moments of +leisure and enjoyment she would nestle on <I>her</I> window seat in his +study while he, his back to her, painted at his easel near the north +window. At such times Cynthia liked the new Sandy almost as well as +the old and was gloriously content and happy. Poetry entered her life +then for the first time—poetry through books, through Sandy's modest +attempts at art, and through Sandy himself. +</P> + +<P> +"Let us go out windowing," he coaxed her one day when they had had a +golden hour together. +</P> + +<P> +"Windowing, Sandy? What is windowing?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, we'll go around to the cabins and coax or bully the people to let +us make windows in their homes—big, fine windows with glass that +slides easy, up and down or sideways as one may prefer. I want it done +before winter sets in." +</P> + +<P> +"They-all will think us all-around cracked!" +</P> + +<P> +"Let's try! Windows for sale! we'll cry. It will be mighty jolly." +</P> + +<P> +So they had set forth with the result that by August Tod Greeley +remarked to Marcia Lowe that he was "dog-dickered if the cabins didn't +look like showcases surrounded by clapboards!" +</P> + +<P> +When Cynthia reached the Morley cabin that rare September day she +paused to look upon the splendour, and was thrilled anew at the changes +and improvements. To the southwest end of the cabin three new rooms +had been added. Two bed-chambers and a cosy sitting-room. +</P> + +<P> +"For that Company up North when it comes down!" Sandy explained. +</P> + +<P> +"It must be a mighty upperty Company!" Cynthia replied, looking in awe +at the furniture which had been sent from some magic workshop. +</P> + +<P> +"It is!" Sandy assented—viewing solemnly the enamelled bedstead, the +cheap chairs and plain bureau. +</P> + +<P> +"And real carpets on the floors!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. The Company has tender feet." +</P> + +<P> +The old living-room of the cabin had been more leniently dealt with. +Sandy's passion for windows had been indulged, but its furnishings were +designed for comfort without shock to Martin's habits. The kitchen in +the lean-to, also windowed to the limit of space, had been given over +to the imagination—nothing else could possibly have accounted for +it—of Marcia Lowe. Shining rows of things never dreamed of in The +Hollow hung on the walls or graced the shelves. The future might prove +them, but the present wreathed them in the charm of mystery. The women +came and looked upon them in silent wonder and talked of them afterward +in hushed voices. A good-sized range, also, stood where once the dirty +hearth was the only shrine to which the family food was intrusted +during preparation. Even Sandy approached this innovation with +ingrained reluctance, but Marcia Lowe was overcoming his timidity and +Cynthia had already conquered its mysteries and was instructing Martin. +</P> + +<P> +The greatest change on the Morley place, however, was the one-time shed +bedroom of Sandy. The first time Sandy entered the crumbling shanty +such a wave of bitterness and depression engulfed him that he realized +he must either reclaim it or it would triumph over him. To tear it +down would not have solved the problem; its absence would have been a +more final acknowledgment of his defeat. The years of fear, +loneliness, and want were ever to be vital realities of his life; the +shed was the setting of his childish agony and spiritual growth—oh, +that was it! He must not stamp the poor shell from sight; he must +redeem it as his patient suffering had redeemed him. He must make it a +place to which those he loved, those who needed him, might come knowing +that welcome and understanding awaited them. +</P> + +<P> +It seemed a miracle to see the dusty, crumbling place evolve into that +bright study with its big, open fireplace, outside chimney, and the +sacred window-seat. Overhead were two small bedrooms, opening into +each other—Martin's and Sandy's. Plain, severe rooms they were; rooms +into which the morning sun shone and into which the setting sun glowed +when nature smiled. On the shingle roof the rain pattered musically, +and no winter cold could conquer the heat which a certain drum stove in +Martin's room managed to create and diffuse. On Martin's stand beside +his narrow bed a lamp stood and near it a Bible. Martin had learned +again to pray and often Sandy read the sacred book to him respecting +always the fiction as to poor eyes and ignoring the illiteracy which +the old man bitterly and secretly deplored. +</P> + +<P> +At last Cynthia entered the study after a minute inspection of the +house. The breakfast dishes were washed and put away; Martin was neat +and orderly. His bed had been made and Sandy's was untouched. +</P> + +<P> +"Still away!" whispered the girl and sank upon the window-seat while a +thrill of pleasure brought the slow smile to the sensitive lips. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh, the pretty day!" Then a desire to set the place in perfect order +for Sandy's possibly near-return caused her to spring up and dart +quickly from place to place, straightening a picture here, flicking the +dust off the shelves and chairs, and lastly attacking the cluttered +desk which had not been touched since the master went away. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was not orderly by instinct. Dirt distressed him, but +superficial chaos seemed never to disturb him. He could lay his hand +on whatever he wanted amid the layers of papers, books, and writing +material. +</P> + +<P> +"It's right Sandyish," murmured Cynthia; "I wonder if he will—mind?" +Never before had she thought of arranging the desk. Carefully, almost +breathlessly, she piled some magazines in one place; some papers in +another. The pens and pencils were stuck together in the yawning mouth +of a particularly fierce silver gargoyle who evidently had been created +to devour such articles, and then—at the bottom of the mass Cynthia +came upon a book which had been quite hidden from sight. It was an +open book; a book marked at a certain place. There was a strange +familiarity about the book which caused the girl to take it up with +trembling surprise. The blue and gold cover recalled emotions long +since forgotten. How could she know that Sandy had scoured many a +Boston book store for just that edition, causing the proprietors much +annoyance and trouble? +</P> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +"Pilgrim's Progress!"<BR> +</P> + +<P> +Then backing to the window-seat, Cynthia sat down and feasted her eyes +first upon the cover, then upon the words marked by an illuminating +pencil: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +Without doubt her designs were bad. But stay, now you talk of her, +methinks I either have seen her, or have read some story of her.… +Doth she not speak very smoothly and give you a smile at the end of a +sentence? +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +The book fell from Cynthia's hands and lay motionless on her lap. Her +fair face raised itself rigidly and the clear eyes looked, not at the +cheerful, home-room, but back through the years: the sombre, shabby +years—until they caught and held a girl of twelve demanding +something—something so tremendous!—from a poor, trembling boy but a +little older than herself! Then the old, half-doubting promise sounded +and—a kiss fell upon Madam Bubble's lifted mouth! +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" The word came on a shuddering sigh and the fixed eyes faltered +in their rapt look. A flood of rosy colour spread from brow to chin, +and shame—not joy—claimed Cynthia Walden. Understanding rushed upon +her, a blind, hideous, wrong understanding, but none the less terrible. +Cynthia had forgotten the shadow of her parentage—for many years it +had sunk into insignificance. The years had ignored it, no call had +come for its recognition, but now—she understood. She had always been +more the daughter of her bad father than of her sad mother! That was +why she, a little girl, had spoken so to Sandy and brought that strange +look to his face! She had not comprehended it then, but she remembered +it now! It confronted her like a tangible thing. Because she was her +father's daughter Smith Crothers had—kissed her! Men wanted to kiss +her! On that fearsome night of the fire Crothers had only shocked and +wounded the outer fold of Cynthia's soul; the innermost shrine had been +guarded by the woman Cynthia was by and by to become; but now Cynthia +felt she <I>was</I> that woman and all subterfuge was denied. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy understood. He had not forgotten. Out in his big, free world he +had learned what Madam Bubbles were and still he had come back and been +kind to her! Sandy never forgot. Big, brave, and tender, he had set +himself to the task of keeping his word and fulfilling his vision. He +had shielded poor Molly—he had told her the pitiful story without its +gruesome details! He had come back to Lost Mountain to help the men +and women and save the baby-things! He had come home to—keep his word +with her, with Madam Bubble! That was why he was so gentle, so +thoughtful. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! oh!" The moan was almost a wail, but no tear dimmed the large +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"The Biggest of Them All!" Then the strained face relaxed and a glory +touched it. +</P> + +<P> +"But I—I can be next biggest," she faltered. "You are right +noble—but I can help you, Sandy!" +</P> + +<P> +Then very reverently the book was replaced upon the desk and a pencil +taken from the gargoyle's mouth. Clearly, distinctly, another passage +was traced by a wavering mark: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +The man in the cage, the man and his dream, the man that cut his way +through his enemies—the biggest of them all! +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Sandy was to read those words by and by with varied emotions! +</P> + +<P> +Then, having marked and turned to the page originally left open, +Cynthia drew herself up and looked about the dear room as if taking a +last look before going on a long journey. +</P> + +<P> +And so Sandy came upon her. He had arrived at The Forge earlier in the +day and had walked up The Way because his heart was full of the joy of +life and he wanted to be alone and think his thoughts. He had been so +lonely without his father, Lost Mountain, his people and—Cynthia! Not +even the love and gratitude he held for Levi Markham and Matilda could +hold him long from his own, without regret. And they were coming to +him soon—the Markhams—they were coming for the holidays and he must +make ready! +</P> + +<P> +Noiselessly he entered his study and stood for a moment revelling in +the sight of the girl of his thoughts, materializing before his amazed +eyes. He could hardly believe his senses; the day, the place, were +bewitched, and he had been so hungry for—just this! Unconsciously he +stretched out his arms and his strong, dark face was flushed; his +serious eyes glad and kind. +</P> + +<P> +"Little Cyn!" +</P> + +<P> +She turned, and her colour faded. Pale, imploring, she almost ran to +him. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy!" +</P> + +<P> +Now that she had understood and triumphed she could afford to be kind, +too, and strong and brave. Something in the frank, unflinching eyes +warned Sandy to content himself with the outstretched hands, although +the soul of him yearned to hold the girl to him. +</P> + +<P> +"You are glad to see me back, lil' Cyn?" +</P> + +<P> +The old intonation thrilled the listener, but her eyes held true. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! so glad. 'Tis a mighty empty room you leave, Sandy Morley, when +you go away." +</P> + +<P> +"Cynthia—I wonder if I dare tell you something?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." It were better now and over with! +</P> + +<P> +"Do you remember that once I made a promise to you, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +This was unfortunate, but the girl took it without a quiver of the +white lids. +</P> + +<P> +"All my life, since manhood came to me, and it came early, little girl, +I have lived and dreamed of the hour when—I might keep that promise. +I have waited because you seem still a child to me, dear, but I—want +you! I want the child of you—I will hold it sacred and win the woman +of you by and by. Do you not remember how in those old, old days it +was you who taught me, awoke my imagination and—helped me to my own? +Dear lil' Cyn—help me now! Help me help these dear people, yours and +mine! I need you so, sweetheart, and I will be good to you! Marry me, +lil' Cyn, marry me right away and let us go on together! I can do so +much for you and yours—sweet——" +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy got no farther. The hands in his wrenched themselves free +and sought his shoulders. The very frankness and simplicity of the +gesture sent a chill to Sandy's heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Big, good Sandy!" There was a subtle plea in glance and words. The +girlish need was driving the desperate woman back and out of sight. +Cynthia could not kill the truth that had been born within her, but she +could blind it, stun it and still keep for her own what the childish +craving demanded. +</P> + +<P> +"Big, good Sandy! Please be my Sandy, like you were a brother. I +would be so lonely without you; I would miss this—this dear place +mighty bad—but if you say such words, if you forget I am still lil' +Cyn, why don't you see—I cannot come up this-er-way any more?" +</P> + +<P> +So perfect was the attempt that it took all the girl's pride and +strength to hold it. It was a bit overdone and Sandy fell back a step +with a memory that Cynthia would never have resurrected had she had her +way. +</P> + +<P> +"I—am not worthy of you, Cynthia. I had forgotten, dear. You see, +for seven years I have lived where such things did not matter; I have +learned that they do <I>not</I> matter when all is said and done. Can you +not trust me and forget that a Walden and a Morley are different——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Sandy!" and now the white, white face turned scarlet—"you think +that of me?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's in the blood of us all, Cynthia, but you and I, by forgetting +it—can do so much." +</P> + +<P> +"It is not that, Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +"I know, dear, that I am old beside you—I know that I dare much when I +say I am willing to take you, child as you are, and run the risk of +making you love me while the woman of you—grows! I will help it +grow—God help me! How I will glory in the task and if I fail——" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy had drawn her hands from his shoulders and now held them fast and +close. +</P> + +<P> +"I will make you free, set you as free as you are to-day, my white +blossom girl! You cannot understand; but God hears me and I swear it!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia did <I>not</I> understand, but his fine passion flooded her soul +with white light. +</P> + +<P> +"How wonderful you are," she whispered. "You stand out big and high +like our mountain——" +</P> + +<P> +At that word Sandy closed his eyes, for he dared not look upon the +dear, slow-smiling lips. +</P> + +<P> +"But, Sandy, you are covered with—with mist like Lost Mountain +sometimes is. Let me find you, Sandy, not as you would help me find +you, but in my own way. Will you do this for—lil' Cyn?" +</P> + +<P> +Without opening his eyes Sandy drew the clinging hands to his lips and +kissed them. +</P> + +<P> +"When you find me, dear heart, dear heart, will you tell me or give me +a sign?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +"And now—where are you going, Cynthia?" +</P> + +<P> +For the girl was turning from him. +</P> + +<P> +"Just down The Way. I must watch with Aunt Ann. She is a mighty +troublesome lil' child these days. Good-bye." +</P> + +<P> +They looked tenderly, frankly, in each other's eyes and then the girl +was gone. +</P> + +<P> +And that night Cynthia sat beside Ann Walden and kept watch and guard +while faithful Sally slept. The bedchamber was very quiet and only a +tallow candle lighted the gloom. The figure stretched out upon the bed +was deathlike in its rigid motionlessness, and Cynthia's hand lay over +the thin, old wrinkled ones for fear in a drowsy moment the woman might +elude her. +</P> + +<P> +It was past midnight when Ann Walden stirred and opened her eyes. +Cynthia was alert at once, but the light that shone on the old face +revealed an expression which had not rested there for many a day. +</P> + +<P> +"Queenie!" +</P> + +<P> +A cold horror overcame Cynthia, but she held her position and whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Go to bed, honey. I'm—I'm sorry." +</P> + +<P> +"Never mind, dear." Cynthia meant to play the old sad game that was +the only one possible with the poor creature on the bed. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon it was—Thorndyke Bothwell over by Susie May Lanley's, wasn't +it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, dear." +</P> + +<P> +"Why didn't you tell me, Queenie? Why didn't you-all trust me. I—I +didn't mean to—be hard." +</P> + +<P> +"No, dear. Never mind. Go—to sleep now." +</P> + +<P> +"Thorndyke Bothwell, he went away—but there must be—some one to +remember. The—letter—take it—to——" +</P> + +<P> +Then a spasm passed over the grim face upon the pillow. The fleeting +sanity was vanishing—"The hearthstone—her—down at Trouble——" +</P> + +<P> +The candle flickered up luridly. The weak voice of the old woman shook +and the eyes lost the lustre. +</P> + +<P> +"You must bide with her—at Trouble——" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia could not understand; she had never seen the light fade from +the face of one she loved, so the fixed stare, the cessation of speech, +did not alarm her. +</P> + +<P> +"See, dear Aunt Ann, I will put my head down on your pillow, so! There +now! Shut your eyes right close, and I'll sing you to sleep, honey." +</P> + +<P> +The candle decided to splutter once more, and give up the struggle. +The long wick curled over, the tiny beam faded, and was—gone. +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Through the long night watches,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">May Thine angels spread</SPAN><BR> +Their white wings above me,<BR> +<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 1em">Watching round my bed.</SPAN><BR> +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Like a little mother crooning over her frightened child, Cynthia sang +the words tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune +after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first +evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights +by repeating the tender words: +</P> + +<P CLASS="poem"> +Through the long night watches——<BR> +</P> + +<P CLASS="noindent"> +and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and +Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them. +</P> + +<P> +Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the +girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her +turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she +ran, panting, stumbling—often pausing to rest—to Trouble Neck. +</P> + +<P> +"Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to +Marcia Lowe. +</P> + +<P> +"And little Cyn?" +</P> + +<P> +"Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on." +</P> + +<P> +"And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally +astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle +Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!" +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap19"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XIX +</H3> + + +<P> +Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October +afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from +the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated +from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and +respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in +Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and +fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the +homestretch. +</P> + +<P> +Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia +had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin +and gloried in the title of "housekeeper." +</P> + +<P> +"Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up; +her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the +oven of the stove. +</P> + +<P> +"Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something +better." +</P> + +<P> +With that she got up, went to a corner cupboard and brought out her can +of vaseline. +</P> + +<P> +"Yo' lyin' ole chile," she muttered; "yo' can sho' res' from yo' +labours. This am a lan' o' honey an' the honeycomb." +</P> + +<P> +Then voluntarily Sally raised the lid of the stove and pushed the tin +can in upon a blazing piece of wood. The flames caught the grease and +licked it greedily from the outer side of the box: +</P> + +<P> +"Massa Fire," laughed Sally; "yo' like dat po'k chop?" +</P> + +<P> +Then the heat hungrily battled for more and "pop" flew the cork and +back leaped Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"Gawd!" she gasped. "I sho' didn't think yo' would take it +that-er-way. I was only foolin'!" +</P> + +<P> +Sally had made great strides. She could laugh and joke with assurance +in her heart. Sandy Morley had promised that she might have a home to +the end of her days in Martin's cabin—the glorified cabin—and Sally, +like many another, was learning to trust Sandy as no one had ever been +trusted in Lost Hollow before. Sally rarely gave expression to her +sentiments; she did not mean to permit the child whom she had helped +Martin bring through his "teething," and whom she had spanked many a +time, to get the upper hand; but she prayed by her very comfortable bed +in the loft over the living-room that she might cook to Sandy's liking +and prove herself worthy the blessing God bestowed upon her in her old +age. +</P> + +<P> +Glaring at the stove and not daring to risk another outburst of +indignation, Sally stood helpless when Sandy entered the sunny kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +"What's the matter?" he asked. +</P> + +<P> +"Dat stove done have a real human sense," Sally replied; "an open fire +we-all can reckon with an' keep an eye on, but yo' shet fire up in a +packin' box an' who knows what's goin' on in its min'?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy laughed, put the lid in its place and sat on the table, swinging +one long leg comfortably. He gloried in the element of home that he +had brought about him and to see Sally in the kitchen always gave him a +distinct thrill. +</P> + +<P> +"Make some gingerbread for supper," he pleaded, "and give me the +lickings, Sally. Do you know I never had lickings until I went to +Massachusetts." +</P> + +<P> +"Lands! Sandy Morley, I don' gave you millions mysef! Yo' pa was +allas fur lettin' yo' off, but I lathered yo' mo'n once, chile, an' so +saved yo' fo' yo' luck." +</P> + +<P> +"I mean 'leavings' in the bowl when the cake's ready for the oven. +Come Sally, let me help you get things together. Molasses, spices, +milk——" +</P> + +<P> +"I'll get the res'. Now, son, do tackle this yere can o' risin' +powder. Take this yere Handy Andy an' pry the kiver. Seems like these +new-fangled cookin' yarbs is put up jes' ter try the patience ob de +saints." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy took the instrument, and utilizing one of its many powers, +loosened the cover and handed the baking powder to Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"I wonder how you ever kept your hand in at cooking?" he said musingly +as he reflected upon the past. But Sally was on guard. +</P> + +<P> +"Lor, chile! an' why not? Ain't I allas had my own po'k and bacon? +Ain't I lived up to the Great House fo' years an' years?" +</P> + +<P> +"Of course. And Sally, that reminds me. I'm going to buy the Great +House and—make it as it was before the war!" +</P> + +<P> +"Gawd!" gasped Sally. +</P> + +<P> +"I shall want you to tell me exactly how it looked—you can remember?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, yes, chile!" Sally's hand paused, spoon in air. "I can see it +same as it was yesterday. That-er Yankee man they called Sheridan—he +passed up by The Way an' he stopt right on the home-place o' +Stoneledge, an' General Walden he was there, an' old Miss, an' lil' +Miss Ann—she was right little an' young then but mighty peart. I was +stayin' at the Great House then, fo' it was near the time when lil' +Miss Queenie was goin' ter be born—her as died up Norf at a +horse-pittal. Well, that-er-Yankee Sheridan he don' say to General +Walden, 'We-all is near starvin'.' Jes' like a-that! An' General +Walden he don' say, standin' upperty an' mighty, 'We-all will share +with yo', general, bein' war is war.' Then what-er-yo' think? Lil' +Miss Ann she pearked up an' says right to his face: 'Yo' can't have +Anna Isabel!' She never batted an eye when she spoke up, an' I thought +I'd bust. The Yankee he don' ax who Anna Isabel was, an' lil' Miss Ann +said right stiff, 'She be my turkey—she be our Christmas dinner.' An' +jes' then Anna Isabel stalked straight-er-way befo' dat man Sheridan +an' lil' Miss Ann pointed an' says 'There's Anna Isabel!' Well, we-all +laughed an' I will say this for that Yank, he was powerful 'spectful to +us-all. 'I'm bleeged to come in an' res' an' have a meal,' he don' +said, and then he went on with his pack totin' at his heels. +</P> + +<P> +"Fo' de Lord, Sandy Morley, shet off that snortin', roarin' fire or +I'll fetch yo' a real old-time lick!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy ran to regulate the dampers, his face radiant and boyish. He was +enjoying, as he never had enjoyed anything in his life before, the dear +home-atmosphere of his hills. +</P> + +<P> +Sally Taber returned to her task with energy born of appreciation. +</P> + +<P> +"We'll fix the old house of Stoneledge up in great shape," Sandy said, +coming back to the table and leaning forward on his hands to follow +Sally's energetic manipulation of the gingerbread; "that ought to be +something for the rest of us to live up to. I'd like to see little +Miss Cynthia installed there as mistress!" +</P> + +<P> +"Her ain't of the Walden blood——" Sally remarked, breathlessly +beating the golden brown batter. Sandy winced. "But her has caught +the manners." +</P> + +<P> +"And," Sandy steered away from the danger ground, "we'll have the +Home-school. It must be a home first; a school afterward, Sally. I +want the baby-things to have the 'lickings' of cakes and puddings in +the kitchen—it is to be a great, big, sunny kitchen! And I want them +to have bedtime stories and soft songs." Sandy's eyes, tender and +luminous, looked beyond Sally and rested on the gentle slope of Lost +Mountain. "I want them to have what every child has a right to and +which our children have never had." +</P> + +<P> +Sally was thoughtfully baling the light cake into the long, shallow +tins: +</P> + +<P> +"I clar' I don't know," she muttered, "how Smith Crothers is goin' to +'commodate hisself to yo'!" Then she shivered and stood upright, her +nostrils sniffing and her eyes alert like a deer in the wilds. "I don' +thought," she murmured, "dat I heard a step and saw a shadder fallin'! +Seems like the wind is changin', fetchin' chill an' storm!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy, with the superstition of The Hollow responding in his blood, +went to the window overlooking The Way. Just turning into the trail +leading up to the cabin a tall, lithe form swung in sight. Well +dressed, carrying a modern suitcase, and whistling, gayly came the +stranger. At the moment of recognition Sandy felt a cold aloofness +overpower him. He spoke, as if to convince a doubting listener: "I—I +reckon that is Lans Treadwell! Treadwell, of all people!" +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy pulled himself together and went to greet his visitor with +characteristic warmth and cordiality. He believed it was only surprise +that had swayed him earlier. Lans, somehow, could not easily be fixed +into place in the rough hill life. Lans, always at his ease in Boston, +seemed oddly out of tune in Lost Hollow. But try as he might, Sandy +could not feel like himself, with Treadwell's cheerful laugh and +big-hearted, patronizing jollity resounding through the cabin. He was +too desperately and determinedly bent upon being "one of them" to be +comfortable. +</P> + +<P> +"By Jove! Morley," he exclaimed, when Sandy had drawn him into the +living room; "this is a place. You've worked wonders here. I have +always wanted to see you in your family—is that your—your mother?" +For Sally Taber could be seen and heard through the half-open door +leading to the kitchen. +</P> + +<P> +"No. My mother has been long dead. My father will return by evening +meal time. Come in here, Lans—you see I have unoccupied quarters——" +He led him to Levi's apartments. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll +start a fire on the hearth in this bedroom and the adjoining +sitting-room." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'll be"—Treadwell glanced about at the plain +luxury—"eternally flambusted! If you are not a——" Then he laughed. +</P> + +<P> +It was after the evening meal which Sally served in silent, morose +dignity, that the three men went to Sandy's study. The shed-rooms were +attached to the main cabin by a narrow hallway and this passage was +dark and cold. Coming from it into the warmth and glow of the room +filled with books and pictures, Treadwell paused to glance about and +exclaim before he took the easiest chair by the hearth and accepted +pipe and tobacco. Martin was ill at ease and looked helplessly now and +again to his son for leadings with this stranger who laughed so +constantly and regarded him as if he were a person of inferiority and +lack of intelligence who must, nevertheless, be treated with kindness +and tolerance. +</P> + +<P> +"I suppose," Treadwell remarked when the three had finally settled into +some kind of comfort, "I suppose, Sand, you wonder how I found you out?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy had wondered but had restrained his curiosity. He looked now at +the big, handsome fellow and again was seized with the sense of chill +that he had felt in the afternoon. +</P> + +<P> +"It sounds like a fairy story—a best seller or what you will. By and +by"—he glanced at Martin as though to suggest a time when he would be +absent—"I've got a lot to tell you, but something turned turtle in my +affairs and got on to my nerves. Aunt Olive made me consult Doctor +Travers, he's my uncle's pet aversion, you know, because he wanted Aunt +Matilda to go into his sanatorium and Uncle Levi considered it an +insult. Well, I saw Travers and he advised a vacation. 'Get to the +hills,' he suggested, 'and browse a bit. Why don't you go up to that +place—a hole in the ground,' he called it, 'where your uncle has +sent—Morley?' And then it all came out, and by Jove! I found out +that you hailed from the place of my forefathers!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Martin dropped his pipe on the hearth and fixed his dim eyes on +the stranger's face. Back rolled the years that had been but stagnant +pools in poor Martin Morley's life; into focus came the simple hates +and injustices that had brought him where he was. +</P> + +<P> +"Your—forefathers!" he gasped, while a weird familiarity and +resemblance to—he knew not what—made Treadwell something tangible and +actual at last. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. We still own a good bit of land over beyond the place called The +Forge. I've been having a look at it. It's run wild and rank, but it +might be reclaimed, I suppose. There is a depraved old squatter on the +place; lives in an old smoke-house. He actually remembered my +grandfather and what do you think, Morley"—Lans had turned his back +upon Martin, whose fixed stare and rigid pose disturbed him—"the old +codger actually told me half of a story the other half of which Aunt +Olive and I have often laughed over. Oddly enough it is a new and +another connecting link between you and me. We're throw-backs, old +fellow! Throw-backs and neither of us realizing it, but just naturally +coming together." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was looking at his father. Martin was pale and haggard and his +bony hands clutched his thin knees until the knuckles were strained and +white. +</P> + +<P> +"Hertford!" whispered Martin; "Hertford!" +</P> + +<P> +"Sure thing!" Lans gave a laugh. "See, I'm discovered even in this +disguise." He nodded toward the old man as one might toward an +imbecile who had shown a gleam of intelligence. "Lansing Hertford is +my real name; named for a grandfather just as you are, Sandy Morley. +You see I've patched the scraps together. It was your grandfather and +mine who were good pals way back in the musty ages. Some one played a +practical joke on them and the friendship went up in thin air. It's +left for you and me to pick up the pieces and—cement them together. I +wonder if you ever heard about the bottle of stuff my grandfather gave +your grandfather to bring home from—from Turkey, I think it was. Our +forebears were globe trotters in a day when to trot meant to make +history." +</P> + +<P> +"I—I've heard it," Sandy muttered, his eyes still fixed on his +father's rigid face. +</P> + +<P> +"Did you ever hear the—joke?" +</P> + +<P> +"Joke? No! Was there a joke?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. Your relative stopped in Paris—he was a jolly old buck +according to reports—and he hugged that everlasting bottle so close to +him that some fellows—sounds beastly frivolous to refer to those +dignified shades as fellows—but, anyway, some chaps from round about +here were doing gay Paree just then and they caught on to your +grandsire's devotion to that phial; they called it his Passion, his +mistress, and one night when he had left it hidden in his room they +found it, emptied out the contents—some kind of cologne it was—and +filled it with water! They never heard the outcome, but Aunt Olive and +I have often wondered how—some mountain girl probably enjoyed her +smelling salts, or perfume, or whatever it was!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy could not move. He was spellbound, but Martin struggled to his +feet and stood towering over Lans Treadwell, shaking as with ague. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon I can tell you how it—turned out," he said, while his poor +old chin quivered as if the effort was almost more than he could +endure. "It war this-er-way. He came home to The Hollow, Sandy's +grandfather, an' he brought the bottle of—water! Oh! my God—and them +as opened the bottle—found out and began—to whisper! They all +whispered an' nudged ole Sandford Morley out of life an' inter his +grave. They-all hinted that he war a thief, a betrayer of his friend, +but he war that upright and clean that he war deaf to whispers an' +he—he didn't know the language of dirty slurs and off looks from them +as war once his friends! He went to his grave without knowing what had +edged him outer the respect of his neighbours. Then the lie grew an' +grew an' took the life an' souls outer us-all an' made us po' +whites—us as war as good an' better than your kin!" +</P> + +<P> +A terrible fury was rising in Martin, and Sandy, unable to clarify the +situation, paused before entering the fray. +</P> + +<P> +"Then Sandy here, he got his call an' rose up to save us-all. Out in +the world he found—you. You've come here—for what? for what?" +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" At last Sandy was beside the old man. "Father, remember he +is our guest! He has come to clear—can you not see—he has +cleared—our name!" +</P> + +<P> +Exultation and joy flooded Sandy; and his touch on his father's arm, +the thrill in his voice had power to calm the old man. +</P> + +<P> +"Good God!" Treadwell exclaimed, rising and facing the two; "is it out +of such stuff, such dreams, such grudges, such shabby jokes, the life +of the hills is made?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." Sandy whispered, "out of such stuff we come—or remain! You +can never know what you have done for us, Lans. Father will realize it +later—he's nearer the past than I am. For myself I—thank you! You +have, well, you cannot understand, but it's like you had put a broad, +wide window in our lives, letting in sunshine and sweet air where mould +and rot had once been." +</P> + +<P> +He stretched his hand out frankly and tried to push his father forward +to do the same, but Martin turned away, the tears streaming from his +eyes. Sandy was looking to the future; Martin to the past; and Lansing +Treadwell stood between the two with a light laugh upon his lips and a +vague, contemptuous wonder in his eyes. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap20"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XX +</H3> + + +<P> +They had tramped the hills together, Sandy and Lans. They had gone +carefully over the plans for the factory and Home-school, had seen the +growing building of the former and revelled in the dreams of the latter. +</P> + +<P> +"It proves my liking for you, old chap," Lans had said, "when I can +look at all this and not envy you. You see, Uncle Levi wanted to train +me in the way I should go, but I got a twist in the wrong direction +and—well! I never squeal. That's about all the philosophy or +religion I have—I never squeal! Live your life; take your chances and +squeal not! Then you remember I used to tell you that I was a big +bungling giant? You've got the vision and the leading. But to think +of Uncle Levi putting the reins in your hands! I can imagine him +letting any one he likes hold the <I>end</I> of the reins—but he's leaned +back and is letting you drive." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—but only because his big, wise head and loving heart tell him +this is a safe road to travel." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I don't know. Who's going to be any the better for—all this? +There's a lot of Tommyrot about charity. If I were going to splurge +I'd do it in the middle of the stage and make an advertisement of it at +the same time. It's cheaper and more sensible. Why, if Uncle Levi +would spend in Boston what he's spending up here—he'd have the world +talking about his mills." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy turned away. He was thinking of what Levi had said to him a few +weeks before as he was ending his visit in Bretherton. +</P> + +<P> +"Son"—he was "son" to the old brother and sister after that trip +abroad—"son, go back to your hills and see in every ragged boy—Sandy +Morley! In every little lass—your sister Molly! Gather them in, son, +gather them in, and let us help them as we helped you to—come out +cleaner and better. Work up there, son, as if God Almighty's eye alone +was upon you. Men have forgotten the hill people, but God called you +to lead them out of bondage." +</P> + +<P> +"It pays to advertise," Lans was remarking. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Sandy returned; "and Mr. Markham advertises in a most original +and picturesque way." +</P> + +<P> +Through all the walks and drives round about The Hollow, Sandy inwardly +prayed that Cynthia might not materialize. Why he so strongly desired +this he could not tell. He liked Lans; enjoyed his visit and +companionship, but he hoped he would leave before Cynthia appeared. He +grew restless at times and found himself longing to tell Treadwell that +the Markhams were coming to The Hollow for Christmas, and the rooms +occupied by Lans would be needed. But the days went by and Cynthia +kept from sight. The truth was, Sally Taber had gone to Trouble Neck +and spread the news and warning. +</P> + +<P> +"You-all bes' stay away," she said; "dis yere Yank be right triflin' +and polite. He makes us-all feel like we war dirt under his feet. I +clar' I'd like to work an evil charm on him! Ole Mr. Morley he don' +take naturally to the woods an' leaves them young gem'men to +themselves. I keep the do' closed 'twixt them an' me—he makes me feel +like there was traps set fo' my feet." +</P> + +<P> +"You must be having a real gay time up there!" Marcia Lowe replied, +laughing at poor old Sally's indignation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I'se cookin' mo' an' mo' monstrous every day. If that Yank can +stan' what I have in store fo' him from now on, I reckon he don' got a +stummick like a beast o' burden." +</P> + +<P> +"Ah! poor Sandy," Cynthia cried; "you'll kill him, too. I reckon I'll +come up and bring him food at night and put it in his study." +</P> + +<P> +"Not just yet, little Cyn," Marcia Lowe replied, putting a protecting +arm about the girl. "Cynthia's a bit run down," she explained to +Sally; "off her feed a little. We're going to have a holiday. What do +you think?—Mr. Greeley is going to take us 'over the hills and far +away'—about twenty-five miles away! He's going over to make a will +for an old man who is dying and he's invited us to share his carriage. +Take good care of the Morleys, Sally, and let's hope the stranger will +leave before we return. I'm getting real Southern in my tastes and am +positively suspicious of Northerners!" +</P> + +<P> +And it was a few nights after the night that Tod Greeley, with Marcia +Lowe and Cynthia tucked comfortably away in the back seat of his +carry-all, started on their trip, that Lans Treadwell and Sandy Morley +sat before the fire in the study and had their talk—the talk that +illumined the path on ahead for Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +"Old fellow!" exclaimed Lans, taking the cushions from the window-seat +and tossing them back again from where he stood in the middle of the +room; "never <I>place</I> sofa pillows—chuck 'em! Only by so doing can you +give that free and easy grace that distinguishes a Frat cosy corner +from a drawingroom torture chamber." +</P> + +<P> +Every cushion that Treadwell tossed seemed to strike with a thud on +Sandy's heart. It was as if Treadwell were hurting little Cyn as she +sat in her window-seat with her dear face turned toward them. +</P> + +<P> +"Come, sit down, Lans. You are as nervous as a ghost-candle." +</P> + +<P> +"Thanks!" Treadwell took a chair across the hearth from his host. +"There's a devil of a storm rising out of doors." +</P> + +<P> +"They're right common this season of the year. About six or seven +years ago there was one up here that came mighty near ending the +existence of a good many—it did carry one poor old darky woman away." +</P> + +<P> +"That's cheerful! Sand, forgive me if I seem brutal, but do you know I +believe the cooking up here is giving me indigestion. I wouldn't mind +this if I didn't have your anatomy in mind, too. Those—what do you +call them?" +</P> + +<P> +"Ash cakes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. They were, to put it mildly, damnable." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"They were right ashy," he admitted. "Sally is old and careless." +</P> + +<P> +"She'll murder you, if you don't look out." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy kicked a log farther back on the hearth and the room was filled +with rosy light and warmth. +</P> + +<P> +"Your father doesn't seem particularly drawn to me, Sand. Does he +always retire to his chamber as soon as he has finished his—his +evening meal? Somehow it looks pointed!" +</P> + +<P> +Lans was not his usual, sunny self. The rising storm, his own +thoughts, and the evil ash cakes were having their way with him. +</P> + +<P> +"I never question father, Lans. He is old. I want him to do exactly +as he chooses. You must not take offence." +</P> + +<P> +"Certainly not. Only I do not want to feel I drive him away or deprive +you of his companionship. Ever since I told the joke about that bottle +of perfumery he seems to avoid me." +</P> + +<P> +"Father hasn't a sense of humour," Sandy ventured, striving to keep the +bitterness of resentment from his voice. +</P> + +<P> +"The devil!" ejaculated Lans. "That log spits like a hag. A spark +fell straight on my ankle." +</P> + +<P> +"Excuse it," Sandy murmured, smiling as Lans nursed his silk-enclosed +ankle. +</P> + +<P> +"Hang it all, Sand! I've got to get back to civilization!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy bent over the fire to conceal his feelings. "Not to-night, +surely," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"No, but in a day or so. Morley, I—I want to tell you something. +Tell you why I cut and came up here right in the middle of things at +home." +</P> + +<P> +The storm outside pounded on the windows; the fire flared and chuckled +crisply. Sandy thought about Cynthia, wondered where she was, and then +he became conscious of something Treadwell was saying. +</P> + +<P> +"There was a time, Sand, when I couldn't have come to you with this. I +thought you were such an infernal puritan—but Aunt Olive has told me +of that—that little affair of yours which ended so—well so happily +tragical, and it has made you seem more human. Of course there could +have been no better way out for you and—her, and Uncle Levi was a +brick to overlook it. I've liked him better for it, but my affair is +another matter." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy gazed dumbly at Treadwell and could not frame words to call the +other to a halt. Not comprehending what Lans knew or misunderstood, +having no intention of explaining—he simply stared and then turned to +mend the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"My affair—is different. You know about it—partially?" +</P> + +<P> +"I've heard something. It was none of my business." A sternness crept +into Sandy's voice which Treadwell entirely misunderstood. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, because it was possible for me to come to you; because of all my +friends, you seemed in this hour of trouble, the only one I <I>could</I> +come to, I want you to make it your business, Sand." +</P> + +<P> +The low-pitched, pleading voice awoke sympathy. It was that tone and +manner which had caused people to straighten out the snarls of Lans +Treadwell's life from babyhood up. There was capitulation. It was as +if he had said: "I deserve no pity, no comfort, but—give them to me!" +It awoke all the spontaneous desire for his happiness in every +tender-hearted person who knew and liked him. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not indifferent, Lans. I only meant that in your friendship and +mine there have always been reservations. You took me up because of +your generous friendliness; you helped me mightily. I never felt the +slightest inclination to penetrate into your private life, and my own +was of such a nature that I was obliged to live it alone. My years +away from the mountains were years of preparation to come back. Every +hand held out to me was but a power to help me on my course. I have +never—except recently with the Markhams—ever taken anything +personally. I have always recognized that I was called to serve my +people; I have been grateful, but I have never appropriated." +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell looked hard at the fine, dark face touched now to vivid +beauty by the rich glow of the fire. +</P> + +<P> +"And I know few fellows who have won out as you have," he said +admiringly. "You have that in you, about you, that attracts and +compels. People trust you, like you—need you when a pinch comes." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, Lans." +</P> + +<P> +"And God knows I want you, need you, now!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy put out his hand, Treadwell gripped it, then both leaned back in +their chairs and the story came, set to the wild strains of the +mountain storm. +</P> + +<P> +"She was one of those little creatures born to be the plaything of +Fate. When she was seventeen she married Jack Spaulding—he was part +genius, but more fool. He was caught by the girl's spirituality and +brightness and he couldn't any more comprehend her than a raw-boned +Indian could understand a water sprite. To him she was a woman he +wanted—nothing more. He got her and when he wasn't lost in the maze +of invention he permitted her—Good God!—he permitted her to supply +the needs and yearnings of the—the man in him. Poor, little entrapped +soul! She struggled between duty and loathing until her Guardian Angel +saved her. When Spaulding was going through his ups and downs of +fortune she stood by him. His downs were oftener and longer than his +ups and she was pure grit and a bully little sport. Then he got on his +feet with a vengeance. He could give her anything and, like a big, +blundering savage he began to load her down with <I>things</I> and make his +demands for payment and she—up and left him!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy felt that the heat of the room was oppressive, but he held his +position and flinched not. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor, little white-souled girl! She left him and tackled life with +her wits and her two pretty hands. I met her during my senior year. +She was reporting for a Boston paper, getting starvation wages; living +like a bird in two rooms of a high-pitched house off in a desolate +corner of town and thanking God for her—escape and freedom. Well, I +lost my heart to her and you know how I and my set feel about certain +things. Laws are all right for the—herd; a present help for the +helpless; protection for the happy, and all the rest, but they should +be handled wisely and discriminately by the intelligent minority. +She—Marian Spaulding held the same views!" +</P> + +<P> +"Why—didn't she divorce him—her husband?" Somehow the question +sounded crude and unnecessary on Sandy's lips. +</P> + +<P> +"For form's sake, she tried. Spaulding would not let her. He was an +ugly devil and he just couldn't understand any woman snapping her +fingers at his big money. He meant to starve her out, but he—well, he +got left! +</P> + +<P> +"I took rooms out near Cambridge. At first we were—friends! I wanted +her to have time and quiet to think it out her own way. Learn to trust +me; come to me of her own accord and because she was large enough to +choose the braver course." +</P> + +<P> +The heat was stifling Sandy, but he gripped the arms of his chair and +kept still. +</P> + +<P> +"She—she came to me willingly—three months ago! I've known and she +has known, Sand, such bliss as only free, untrammeled souls can know +who have gone through hell fire and proven themselves!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy almost sprang up. "You won't mind," he said jerkily, "if I raise +the window? The room is like a furnace." +</P> + +<P> +When he came back to his place, Lans, head bent forward in clasped +hands, was ready for him. +</P> + +<P> +"Women are all alike in some ways. They never dare let go entirely and +plunge! They hold on to something, get frightened, and scurry back to +tradition. Three weeks ago Spaulding sent for her—for Marian. He'd +lost everything; was ill and needed her. She went! I found a +note—that's all." +</P> + +<P> +"Well!" Then having said that one word, Sandy sought about in his +confused mind for another. Again he said, "Well!" and waited. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I cannot be happy without her. The longer I stay away the stronger +her claim seems to me. I must go back and—try again." +</P> + +<P> +"Try—what?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy felt the cool, wet outer air touch his face as he leaned forward, +for at last Lans Treadwell had aroused him. He was not, however, +thinking of Lans and his yearnings; he was thinking of a little, +unknown woman who was following the gleam of her conscience, while +love, selfish love, was ready to spring upon her with its demands, +before she had wrestled with and solved her own problem. +</P> + +<P> +"Try—what?" +</P> + +<P> +"To get her away from Spaulding; get her back to me and—happiness. We +were happy, God knows we were!" +</P> + +<P> +"If you—if she were happy, then her going proved something stronger +than happiness called her." +</P> + +<P> +"Women are like that. They hold the world back by their conventions +and conservations. They ask for freedom and—and equality, and then +they cling to tradition in spite of all." +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon," Sandy's eyes were troubled and tender, "I reckon we-all +better keep our hands off for a while and watch out to see them, the +women, solve what is their business. They-all may want freedom and the +rest—but it must be—as they see freedom and equality, Lans. I'm +mighty sure in every woman's heart there is the beginning of a path +leading—out and up, that they can find better alone. Why don't you +wait until—until this little"—Sandy dropped into the sweet +"lil"—"this little woman comes to you." +</P> + +<P> +"She'd never come!" Lans half groaned; "you do not know how tradition +would hold her there. She'd starve rather than to call me now." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was thoughtful a moment. He saw that Treadwell probably was +right there, but a strange sense of protection rose in his heart. He +felt he must protect that distant, strange woman from Lans in his +present mood. +</P> + +<P> +"Then I reckon you better stand off and watch unseen, Lans." Sandy +made a bold stroke: "Are you thinking of her only? I'm mighty sure, +Treadwell, in a case like this you ought not, you—dare not think of +any one but her!" +</P> + +<P> +The bald, rigid reasoning struck Lans Treadwell like the cold draught +from the open window. +</P> + +<P> +"Good God! Sand," he ejaculated, "let me shut that sash down. The cold +gets into your heart as if it were driven by some infernal machine." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy got up and pulled the glass down sharply, but he could not, +thereby, bring comfort to Lans' conscience. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you mean by a case like this, Sand? No case between man and +woman can be separated that way. Her need is my need; mine is hers!" +</P> + +<P> +"Is it?" +</P> + +<P> +"Thunder! Sand, of course it is." +</P> + +<P> +"I—I do not know. Things come so slowly, but I'm trying to learn for +the sake of my people. The women and children, Lans, have got a clutch +on me; they must always come first. Even when we want women happy, we +want to give them happiness; give them the liberty <I>we</I> think is good +for them. Treadwell, I'm mighty sure there are times when we-all +better get out and leave them alone! We only make matters worse. You +do not know these hills as I do—I don't want to preach, heaven knows! +As I talk I am only feeling my own way, not pointing yours; but I know +my hill people, and the women and children tug right hard at my heart. +When love—such love as our mountain men know—takes a woman into a +cabin—it generally shuts God out! I know this, and the children that +come into life by way of our cabins are—well! I was a cabin boy, +Lans! Women need God oftener than we-all do. Love puts a claim on +them that it never does on us-all. Love demands suffering of them; +responsibility that man never knows. Treadwell, we men must never clog +up the trail that leads woman to her God. I know I'm right there! But +tell me, are women and men different, so different in the lowlands and +highlands?" +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell was bent over, his face hidden in his hands. He made no +answer. +</P> + +<P> +"That little woman—down there"—Sandy's eyes were far and away from +the warm, rude comfort of the room which held him and that stricken +figure by the hearth—"is battling for what she believes is right. +Something in her was strong enough to take her from you, your love, and +the safety you stand for in her life. She has gone back to—what has +stood for hell in her past. Do you, can you, understand her, +Treadwell?" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" +</P> + +<P> +"Then, keep away until God, as she knows God, has had His way with her. +Stand off and watch. Be ready, but let her fight her fight and come to +you, if that is the end—with clean soul!" +</P> + +<P> +And now Lans Treadwell was weeping as only men and children can weep +when they are defeated by a stronger will they cannot understand, and +cannot resist. +</P> + +<P> +The great logs crackled and the wind roared in the chimney. Above, the +shambling steps of Martin Morley sounded as he made his preparations +for bed. Suddenly Sandy started up and listened. +</P> + +<P> +"There's a call of distress from The Way," he said, getting upon his +feet. Then he stood waiting for the next sound. Treadwell pulled +himself together and listened also. +</P> + +<P> +No call came, but presently steps were heard outside—a tap on the door +of the room which led directly to the open. +</P> + +<P> +"Come!" said Sandy, and in walked Marcia Lowe and Cynthia Walden. They +were rain-soaked and wind-blown. Their faces shone and their eyes +danced. +</P> + +<P> +"This is the end of our holiday," Marcia said with a laugh. Neither +she nor Cynthia paid attention to the man in the chair; he was hardly +visible behind the high back. "Tod Greeley's shaft broke just as we +were coming into The Way from the cross cut. We called and called, but +finally we decided to find where we were—it is as black as a pocket +out of doors—we were all completely lost. Cynthia and I felt our way +along, while Greeley stayed with the horse—the beast acted like a +fiend—and then we saw a light: your light! No other man in The Hollow +wastes oil like you—and here we are!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Treadwell made himself evident. Turning sharply, he met the +big, lovely eyes of the girl beside the talkative little woman. The +fair, damp face was inframed by tendrils of light hair under a hood of +dullish red; the long, coarse, brown coat clung to the slim figure, and +the mouth of the girl was smiling. Treadwell had never seen a mouth +smile so before. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy introduced his friend and then said: "Lans, make the ladies +comfortable; I'll lend Greeley a hand." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap21"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXI +</H3> + + +<P> +Lance Treadwell did not leave the mountains the next day. The storm +poured, and Sandy's words sunk deep in his light mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he thought to himself virtuously, "I'll let Marian have it out +with her conscience or whatever it was that took her from me. I'll +write and tell her I'm waiting up here!" +</P> + +<P> +In the meanwhile Treadwell took a new interest in the mountains, +especially in that part of them known as Trouble Neck. Marcia Lowe and +her "charm" appealed to him hugely. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, it's been introduced in many other places," he said to the little +doctor; "why can't you get your representative at Washington to get an +appropriation for you?" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe laughed long and merrily at this. "I really do not know +who represents us at Washington," she replied; "it is some distant man, +like as not, with axes galore of his own to grind, with these mystic +votes of the mountains to help along. Doubtless he has a soul above +names, and if a petticoat doctor should go to him and plead her cause +for these people he would probably have me shut up as a maniac. The +Forge doctor is making himself very unpleasant. He told me the other +day that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he +would have me—investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to +laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional +people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric. +The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman, +to that sort of man, is either a joke or a menace." +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell laughed gayly. Marcia Lowe was a delight to him; besides, +Cynthia Walden was always present when he visited Trouble Neck, and +Cynthia was bewitching. Treadwell did not talk of the girl to Sandy. +He had no special reason for not doing so, but, having posed as a +tragic creature—a man confronting a great soul-problem—he did not +like to come down from his pedestal and stand revealed as a human being +interested in a mountain girl. +</P> + +<P> +"Her smile," he said to Marcia Lowe one day when Cynthia had left the +room for a moment—"how do you account for that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I never account for Cynthia," the little doctor replied. "I just take +her and thank God. She and I live our beautiful little life with mists +all about us. It's very fascinating and inspiring. She is such a +child, and until there is some call to do otherwise, I am going to play +with her. We actually have dolls! Of course there are all sorts of +bones in the cupboard to pass out to the darling, but I'm waiting until +she is hungry." +</P> + +<P> +And so Cynthia played her part and smiled and dreamed. Things just +were! There was no perspective, no contrast—the sun was always +flooding her hours with the one small, white cloud of Sandy's marked +passage in the "Pilgrim's Progress," to sail across her sky now and +then. Treadwell did not surprise or shock her. He seemed a big, +splendid happening from the world beyond the mountains. He was strong +and pleasant and made one laugh, but he would go presently and they +would talk about him as they talked about Sheridan's raid and Smith +Crothers' fire—he was not part of Lost Mountain! +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia, nevertheless, walked with Lans Treadwell through the trails, +and once they had followed the Branch and come upon the new factory +near The Forge. The girl told Treadwell of the fire, but she +eliminated herself utterly from the story. She understood better now +than she once had—her part in that snowy night. Then they spoke of +Sandy and his hopes. +</P> + +<P> +It was a gray, still day when they so freely discussed Sandy, and they +were strolling up from Trouble Neck to the Morley cabin; Miss Lowe and +Sandy were to meet them there later, coming from an opposite direction. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Sandy is right noble," Cynthia said softly; "he was born, I +reckon, to do a mighty big thing. When he was little it seemed like +God said, 'Sandy Morley, I choose you!' There never was any one like +Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell scanned the face near him, but saw only admiration and pride, +detached and pure. +</P> + +<P> +"We-all just waited like we were holding our breaths till he came +marching up The Way. I can laugh now, Mr. Lans, but the morning I saw +him first I was standing right there"—she pointed to the tree by the +road where she had listened to Sandy's bird call—"and he came along, +and when I knew that that big man was—my Sandy that went all raggedy +down The Way years before—I expect I hated him! It seemed like he had +stolen the nice boy, eaten him up and swallowed him! But no one hates +Sandy. We-all want to do something big and fine. Why, every time I +look at him, Mr. Lans, I feel like I must show him how glad I am +he—well, he didn't swallow the old Sandy whole!" +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell laughed delightedly. +</P> + +<P> +"He's mighty good to get near to when you feel—troubled," Cynthia +added; "and, too, you feel like you wanted to keep him from hurting +himself!" +</P> + +<P> +"How well you put it!" Treadwell's face grew serious. He recalled his +hour of confession in Sandy's study and felt an honest glow of +appreciation. +</P> + +<P> +"When I was a right little girl," Cynthia went on, "I lived up at +Stoneledge with Aunt Ann; she was my real aunt. I had a mighty queer +life for a little girl and I reckon I would have fared mighty bad if I +hadn't had a secret life!" +</P> + +<P> +"You bad child!" Treadwell cried, shaking his finger at her; "a double +life, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." The sweet smile gave Lans a bad moment. "Yes. In that-er-life +I had all the things I wanted; all the folks I liked, and it just kept +me—going! Sometimes I wish, oh! how I wish, that Sandy had a nice +little other life, free of work and worry and loneliness, where he +could—let go! Sandy does hold on so!" +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could have been in your 'other life'," Lans whispered. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! real folks never got there!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, if it will comfort you any," Treadwell broke in with an +uncomfortable sense of being an off-mountaineer, "Sandy has—another +life." +</P> + +<P> +"Really?" Cynthia flushed and curiosity swayed her. She had never had +so good an opportunity to know the man Sandy; she might never have +again. "Really? and folks, right magic folks to—to play with?" +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell thought of the Markhams and grinned; then he thought of +Sandy's secret relations with the girl his aunt had told him of and he +grew imaginative. "Yes. Now there is a man in Sandy's other world, a +grim, rather stern man, but he has a magic wand that he lets Sandy wave +now and then—it's great fun!" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! you mean the Company?" +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. That's his pet name. And there is a nice old fairy +godmother who brews wonderful mixtures for Sandy and darns his socks +and makes believe, when no one is listening, that she is his mother." +</P> + +<P> +"I should love her, the honey!" +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell stopped and gave a big, hearty laugh. Matilda Markham as a +"honey" was about the most comical thing he had ever dreamed of. +</P> + +<P> +"And is there"—the drawling sweetness of Cynthia's voice was moving +Treadwell dangerously—"is there something young and pretty and mighty +bright, too?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." Treadwell's laugh was gone. +</P> + +<P> +"A—girl—I reckon?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, a girl—just girl enough, you know, to keep him—like—well—like +other fellows." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh!" Cynthia smiled, but her eyes grew as gray as the day; the blue +faded from them. "I hope she is a mighty nice, upperty girl." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm only playing, you know," Lans broke in. "I am imagining a life +for Sandy something like your old secret life. It's all fun." +</P> + +<P> +"You mean—Sandy has an—an imagination?" +</P> + +<P> +"Precisely." +</P> + +<P> +But the "girl" part of the make-believe remained in Cynthia's memory. +Sandy had had his pretty story down there, away from Lost Hollow! Now +he had come back; had left it all behind him! She saw it quite +clearly. Perhaps when he was on that recent visit he had looked upon +all the dear playthings as she used to look at her "Pilgrim's +Progress," the portraits on the walls of the Interpreter's House, and +her letters to her soul. Perhaps Sandy had played with the wand of the +grim old Company; had tasted the brews of the dear Fairy Godmother and +he had—bidden good-bye to the pretty girl-thing! It was very plain +now; Sandy had accepted his life of duty in the hills, he had shut the +door between him and his playroom. +</P> + +<P> +Just then Smith Crothers crossed The Way, lifting his hat as he did so, +to Cynthia. So silently had he come, so suddenly had he materialized, +that Cynthia was taken off her guard. Her hand went to her side—but +the pistol was not there! In her safer, saner life she often forgot +the dangerous thing. A shudder ran through her body and she drew +nearer Treadwell. The soft, gray day grew dark, and Crothers, like +something evil, seemed to pervade everything. Instinctively Lans put +his hand out and laid it protectingly on the shoulder beside him. The +touch shared the taint, too. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! do not do that," pleaded Cynthia recoiling. "I was only startled +because—he—the man came so suddenly." +</P> + +<P> +"But I—I only wanted you to know you have—nothing to fear with me +here." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia made an effort to smile, but it was a sad, little shadowy +wraith of a smile. +</P> + +<P> +The touch, the resentment, began their work from that moment. As +Cynthia's shudder at Crothers' touch in the past had fanned the evil +passions of the man, so her recoil now drew Treadwell's attention to +the fact that she was not a child—but a woman; a woman who recognized +him as man! The thought thrilled and interested him. It made him +forget to write that letter to Marian Spaulding; it made him conscious +that he did not care to talk about his many visits to Trouble Neck with +Sandy Morley. +</P> + +<P> +And Sandy, during the days of the prolonged visit, was often absent +from home. The factory and the Home-school claimed his care and +presence. He feared, at first, that Treadwell would have a dreary time +by himself, but there were books, and Lans repeatedly told him the rest +and quiet were doing him a world of good. Then—and the desire +confused Sandy—he wished Treadwell would cut his visit short. The +confession in the study had not drawn Treadwell nearer; it had driven +him farther away. It was as if, by keener insight, Sandy had been +cruelly disillusioned; had discovered that he, not Lans, was bound to +bear a new burden of responsibility. Having confided in his friend, +Treadwell, apparently, was eased and comforted; while Sandy was +constantly thinking of a certain, vague, little suffering creature who, +by a word of his, was left to a hard fight with no help at hand. +</P> + +<P> +"Why in thunder!" Sandy thought as he and Martin worked with the men +over at the factory; "why in thunder doesn't he go home and—stand by?" +</P> + +<P> +But Lans did not go away, and more than Sandy grew restive. Martin had +taken a deep dislike to the visitor and was only held in check by +Sandy's reasoning and demands. +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Dad, Lans had nothing to do with the old misunderstanding. He +has really done us a good turn by throwing light on the past." +</P> + +<P> +"He—he laughed!" muttered Martin. "They-all laugh that-er-way. Big +things is little to them-all; and little things is—big! Them +Hertfords be—no-count! They all sound upperty and look upperty, but +they-all is—trash!" +</P> + +<P> +"Come, come, Dad! Lans isn't trash. He's done me more than one good +turn." +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon he'll do you a right smart bad one some day, son." +</P> + +<P> +"Dad!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, son. Now, why didn't the old general come an' tell us-all 'bout +the joke? Why didn't he give us-all a chance to jine in the laugh? +Then this lad's father—why didn't he come back to Lost Hollow and find +out 'bout—Queenie Walden, as was?" +</P> + +<P> +Martin's voice sank into a whisper, but the words had a terrific effect +upon Sandy. So naturally had he accepted the life of The Hollow again, +so happily had he permitted his hills to draw close about him, shutting +away the noises and interpretations of the big outer world, that the +old doubt about Cynthia's poor mother, the loyal outward holding to the +story Ann Walden had told of her birth, had escaped him. Now it came +thundering through Martin's whisper like a heavy blow. +</P> + +<P> +If that hushed belief were true, then—Sandy could not stand; he sat +down upon a fallen tree and stared at his father. +</P> + +<P> +"If that is true, then Cynthia and Treadwell are——" The thought +burned itself into the mind and soul of Sandy Morley. No longer could +he permit things to drift past him; here, among his hills, vital truths +were vital truths and might make or mar the people he was bent upon +helping. +</P> + +<P> +"Cold cramp yo', son?" Martin gazed at his boy. +</P> + +<P> +"For a minute—yes, Dad." +</P> + +<P> +From that day Sandy knew that Treadwell must go away. Just how to +bring it about he did not know, for his shadowy doubt could not be +voiced; there was not the least reason why it should be—but Cynthia +must be kept from the intangible something that could never touch her +but to bring dishonour. And after Lans departed, Sandy thought, he +would try to know more of the hideous uncertainty; seek to find out +what ground there was for the doubt. In rebuilding Stoneledge, he must +do more—he must try to take the blight from the old name. "But +suppose"—and at that Sandy raised his head—"more glory in the end and +more need to win Cynthia to him!" +</P> + +<P> +While Sandy was struggling to work his way out of the snare, struggling +to discover some social plank down which Treadwell could be courteously +slid from Lost Mountain to Boston without damage to his dignity or the +Morley sense of hospitality, Smith Crothers got his inspiration. +</P> + +<P> +Filled with hate and envy, appreciating the fact that Sandy's business +enterprises were menaces to his future prosperity, the man silently and +morosely plotted and planned some kind, any kind of revenge. Cynthia, +he dared not approach personally; even his evil thoughts dared not rest +upon her directly. He had nothing with which to lure her; not even a +decent approach could be made. The girl was always on guard; he could +make no apology; he could hope from no self-abasement to win her faith. +To harm her brutishly would be to secure his own death, for well he +knew that the subtle force that was coming into life in The Hollow was +making the men remember they were men and the women to realize it also. +Then, too, the factory back of The Hollow would be running in a year's +time. It would put on the market a different line of merchandise than +his, but it would draw its labour from the same sources from which he +drew. +</P> + +<P> +"That damned yellow cur," Crothers thought, "will put up prices; shut +down on the brats, and backed by the money of a fool who thinks to get +a big name this-er-way, will get me by the throat if I don't get him +first." +</P> + +<P> +Vaguely, stupidly, Crothers desired to get Sandy away from The Hollow. +If only he could cause him to lose interest, give up the job and turn +the Company up North sick of the venture, all might be well. Crothers +had even fancied the good effect of a plague in The Hollow that would +wipe out the labouring class; of course, that would cripple him, but +he'd have the ground to himself and he could make up for that. +However, at the plague suggestion Marcia Lowe rose grimly with warning +gesture. The little doctor was undermining several things. She was +teaching the women to live decently, cook decently, and take a human +interest in their children. Her charm, too, was having effect; more +than Martin Morley had tested its potency and taken to holier ways. +The Forge doctor often told Crothers that the She-Saw-Bones ought to be +behind bars, but even in Lost Hollow you couldn't put a person behind +bars for cleaning souls and homes. +</P> + +<P> +And then, at that juncture, Crothers came upon Treadwell and Cynthia. +He saw the girl's shudder and her look at her companion, and he +understood the shudder but misunderstood the look! Lansing Treadwell +had not cared to cover his true identity; rather boastfully he had +proclaimed himself a Hertford and meant, some day, to reclaim his +family lands and bring back the glory of the past. But Lost Hollow had +its private opinion of the Hertfords, and when the County Club had been +permitted to share the joke about that old story which had damned the +Morleys, the club refused to laugh. Oddly enough they took sides with +Martin Morley, and in their late understanding of facts made flattering +overtures to Martin that embarrassed him deeply. +</P> + +<P> +"Morley," Tod Greeley urged, "you-cum down to the club and set in +Townley's armchair. Andrew Townley ain't ever going to sit anywhere +again, I reckon; he's flat on his back for keeps now. His chair is +mighty empty-looking and there ain't a man round the store but would +welcome you to that seat of honour." +</P> + +<P> +With no idea of resentment Martin replied: "You're mighty kind, +Greeley, and time was when I'd like to have jined you-all, but now +Sandy and me is right companionable and—him not being a smokin' man, +I'd be mighty lonesome in the circle, and Sandy would miss me to home." +</P> + +<P> +"And serves us-all right, too," Greeley said to the club. "Us-all +pitting a Hertford agin a Morley!" +</P> + +<P> +So the situation was ripe for Crothers to use Cynthia and the doubtful +Hertford against Morley, and, incidentally, the Company against Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy Morley would like to get the girl," Crothers reasoned +primitively; "and if this-er-Treadwell or Hertford can smirch her—it +will finish Sandy; take his appetite for The Hollow away and—clean up +the whole business—getting me even for past hurts, too—damn her!" +</P> + +<P> +Like many another blindly passionate man, Crothers hit out in the dark +with what weapons he had and landed a blow where he least expected, the +recoil of which stunned and downed him. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap22"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXII +</H3> + + +<P> +Crothers was a man who approached his ends by the use of his better +qualities. The man whom the children of the factory shrank before in +trembling fear, the man whom the men fawned before, and the women +loathed and hated in dumb acquiescence, was not the man who years ago +crept around the desk in his office to implore a kiss from "little +Miss." Crothers could smile and speak courteously; his hard eyes could +soften and attract, and there was no doubt as to his business capacity +and positive genius in bargaining. +</P> + +<P> +With a more or less clear idea as to the outcome of his desires, +Crothers was perfectly explicit as to his desires. He wanted to get +Sandy Morley away, permanently away, from Lost Hollow. Could he +achieve this, his business might prosper as in old days, his command of +the community gain power and his future be secure. If he could bring +this desired consummation to pass, by harming Sandy and, incidentally, +Cynthia Walden and Marcia Lowe, so much the better. They were +disturbing elements in the place and nothing was secure, not even the +suppression of the women and the degeneracy of the men. +</P> + +<P> +"In the family and the town," Crothers had said once to Tod Greeley, +"there must always be a head; a final voice, or there will be hell." +</P> + +<P> +"Who do you want to boss your family and town?" Greeley had innocently +asked. Crothers had not committed himself; he believed actions should +speak louder than words! +</P> + +<P> +Seeking about for a beginning of his campaign to turn Sandy Morley from +his course, Crothers landed upon Lans Treadwell. +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell could not always be at Trouble Neck while Sandy and Martin +were at the factory-building back in the woods; reading palled upon +Lans, too, and the bad cooking for his private meals began to attract +his attention. That he did not resent anything in his friend's home +and make his farewell bow was characteristic of Lansing Treadwell. He +was thoroughly good-natured, inordinately selfish, and was consumed by +deep-rooted conviction that Sandy Morley owed him a great deal and that +he was conferring a mighty honour upon the young man by accepting his +hospitality. No doubt arose as to his right in sharing Sandy's home, +but as time went on he did, as all weak and vacillating natures do, +resent young Morley's strength of character, simplicity and capacity +for winning to himself that which Lans felt belonged to him by inherent +justice. It had been one thing to know that his Uncle Levi Markham had +taken another young man and set him on his feet, but quite another to +realize that his uncle had adopted a poor white from the native hills +of the Hertfords and was providing him with wings. A new element had +entered into Lans. +</P> + +<P> +"It's like Uncle Levi," he bitterly thought, with his Aunt Olive's +instructions well in mind, "to so degrade me, my father, and our +family. If he could put every upstart on a throne who had hewed his +way to the throne, he would be supremely happy." +</P> + +<P> +In these frames of mind Crothers and Treadwell met and exchanged views. +If Morley could put a factory up and hope for success, Lans wanted to +see the workings of a similar business already on the ground. So, +during listless hours, the young man frequented Crothers' +neighbourhood, ate at Crothers' boarding-house, and drank with him at +The Forge hotel. Not looking for any shortcomings, Lans did not +observe them. He found Crothers an agreeable man with a desire to +uplift The Hollow by practical, legitimate methods, not fool-flights of +fancy. Then, too, Crothers had a fine sense of the fitness of things. +He deplored the fact that a man of Sandy Morley's antecedents should, +by the vulgar power of money, gain control over the people. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you, sir," Crothers exclaimed, "the South has got to be +reclaimed through blood; not mongrel blood backed by dirty money!" +</P> + +<P> +This sounded very fine to Lans Treadwell. +</P> + +<P> +"Now, I was a thinking this-er-way lately: 'Spose young Hertford came +and took command 'stead of young Morley? 'Spose the old place of the +Hertfords was rebuilt and the family established here again—what would +happen, sir? I put it to you right plain and friendly." +</P> + +<P> +Lans was thrilled. He rose to any vision called up by another; as for +himself he was no vision-builder. His face flushed and his eyes +flashed. +</P> + +<P> +"I have never thought of it that way," he said; "as you put it, it +seems almost an imperative duty that the best Southern blood should +return to the hills and reconstruct where and in the manner it alone +understands." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly. Now I reckon you don't know, sir, but there are mighty big +back taxes unpaid on the Walden place and—and your forefathers' land, +sir. I'm thinking of buying both places in simply from a sense of +public spirit. I ain't going to let those smiling acres go into alien +hands if I know myself—not if I ruin myself in the deal." +</P> + +<P> +"Few men would show such spirit as that, Mr. Crothers!" +</P> + +<P> +Lans was deeply impressed. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, a man as has the right stuff in him gets sentimental about +something. My weakness is my—South! I came from mighty good stock, +sir. I was in the university when the war broke out; I left and did my +share of fighting and then came back to—well!" Crothers' eyes grew +misty. His feelings almost overcame him and Lans Treadwell was equally +moved. +</P> + +<P> +"Since then it has been an upward climb. I gave up love, home, and +marriage. I've become a coarse man in the fight, but my heart is true +to the ideals and principles of the South. I have dreams, too, of the +day when the best blood—blood such as yours, sir, recognizes the need +of the hills and comes back with its tradition and force +to—to—reclaim us-all socially, religiously, and—and—morally. It +will mean sacrifice, sir. The North, with its luxury and ease, will be +hard to leave, but life is sacrifice to men, sir, and the day will dawn +when the Hertfords will come to The Hollow with determination to +control affairs. I'm going to hold their place ready, sir, for that +day!" This sounded almost too fine to be true, and even Lans demanded +details. +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that Crothers laid his foundations. He would buy the +Hertford plantation; the Walden, also, if he could. He suspected that +back taxes could not be met by the legitimate owners—if they could be +disentangled from the mists that surrounded their possessions—he meant +to get them into his own power. Then it further appeared that should +Lans Treadwell desire to return to the hills of his fathers, the way +would be made easy, and with Crothers to back the efforts of the "blue +blood" a very respectable opposition would evolve to check the growing +strength of such men as Sandy Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"Morley's all right as far as he goes," Crothers interjected; "I ain't +got nothing to say against Morley as Morley, but what I do say is—does +the South want to be led out of darkness by a poor white when its own +blue blood only needs a chance to flow through?" +</P> + +<P> +Lans looked serious. He felt disloyal to Sandy; old associations +tugged at his heart; but all at once the story of Sandy's relations +with a girl in Boston, the story coloured and underlined by Olive +Treadwell, rose and confronted him. If Sandy could deceive and +hoodwink Levi Markham, what could others expect? Personally, Lans had +no desire to stone Sandy, but a fine glow was filling his heart. If +the way could be opened for him to help his people, could he not +achieve as much as Sandy: defeat his uncle's revenge—it seemed only +that to Lans, then—and, perhaps, when Sandy had come to terms, work +with him for the good of Lost Hollow? +</P> + +<P> +It was splendid! Purpose and strength came to Treadwell. He was ready +for sacrifice; ready to forego the ease and joy of his city life; ready +to renounce his claims upon a certain little woman fighting her battle +apart from him! He would show Morley that he <I>could</I> be pure and +resourceful, he could put his longings aside for the greater good! +</P> + +<P> +Lans must always have his mental, spiritual, and physical food served +on dainty dishes! While he stood by Crothers he saw, in fancy, a noble +home arise above the trees on the old Hertford place. He saw his Aunt +Olive—no! it was not his Aunt Olive that he saw; it was—Treadwell's +breath came fast—it was Cynthia Walden who stood at the door of the +uprisen house of the Hertfords and smiled her radiant smile of welcome +to him! +</P> + +<P> +Lansing Treadwell was always a victim of suggestion and flashes of +passion. The polished brutality of his father and the mystic +gentleness of his mother had been blended in him by a droll Fate and, +later, confused and corrupted by his Aunt Olive's ignorant training. +</P> + +<P> +From that day Lansing Treadwell fell into the hands of Smith Crothers, +and the plotting evolved so naturally, so apparently wisely, that no +shock or sense of injustice aroused all that was good in the last of +the Hertfords. Crothers gradually assumed the guise of public +benefactor, a man who, resenting the obvious stupidity of men like Levi +Markham, for no ulterior motive other than human rights, undertook the +placing of Lansing Hertford upon the throne of his ancestors! +</P> + +<P> +Secrecy was absolutely necessary. Conditions might arise to defeat +Crothers' philanthropic schemes, but when all was concluded Morley must +be taken into their confidence and made to understand that open and +fair competition was both right and democratic. +</P> + +<P> +And while all this was going on Sandy toiled at the buildings all day, +reported progress to Levi every evening, tried to do his duty by +Treadwell, while he sought for some reason to get him away before any +harm was done. +</P> + +<P> +It was difficult to account for what happened to Cynthia Walden at that +critical time. It all happened so quickly, so breathlessly. The child +in the girl was flattered, amused and uplifted by Lans Treadwell. He +was so gay, so captivating. He taught her to play on Marcia Lowe's +mandolin, and when he discovered how splendidly and sweetly she could +sing the plaintive songs of her hills and the melodies of the old +plantation days, he was enraptured and gave such praise as turned +Cynthia's head and filled Marcia Lowe with delight. +</P> + +<P> +"You little genius!" Lans exclaimed one day; "try to dance, too. You +look like a spirit of the hills." +</P> + +<P> +Then Cynthia danced and danced and forgot Sandy away among his +buildings; forgot his grim determination and serious manner. It was +song and dance for Cynthia, and the little doctor looking on, charmed +by the turn their dull life had taken, saw no danger. To her Cynthia +was a child still, and she was grateful that she should have this bit +of brightness and joy in her narrow, drab-coloured life. +</P> + +<P> +The arrested elements in Cynthia grew apace and with abnormal force. +Through Lans Treadwell she realized all the froth and sunshine girlhood +craves—she forgot Sandy because at that moment he held no part in the +gay drama that was set to music and song. And then, quite naturally, +too, the woman in the girl pleaded for recognition. Here was a man who +appreciated her; would accept her as she was, although he asked no +questions of her, regarding her poor little past. He talked splendidly +of the big vital things of life which Cynthia thrilled at, but could +not express in word or thought. Oh! it was most sure that Lans +Treadwell would never care what had brought her into being—it was the +woman! Sandy might do a big thing from duty; Lans would do big things +because with him duty was but love of—humanity! Cynthia did not know +much about humanity and Lans never said he loved her—but it came upon +the girl all at once one day that she—she, little Cynthia Walden, was +needed, desperately, sufferingly needed by a great-souled man to help +in saving Lost Hollow! How magnificent! Sandy meant to save The +Hollow alone and single-handed—Sandy was limited, that was Lans's +modest interpretation—but Treadwell had his vision, too, and his +vision included her! It was breath-taking and alluring. +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell did not make any physical or emotional claims upon the +girl—something led him dangerously, but wisely. He taught her to call +him brother and he spoke to her as "little sister." This was +particularly blinding to Marcia Lowe. +</P> + +<P> +"Brother and sister in the broad human sense," pleaded Lans, and so the +net drew close around little Cyn, and she did not struggle, because the +mesh was so open and free that it did not chafe the delicate nature nor +stunt the yet blind soul. +</P> + +<P> +At the end of the third week Crothers, in fatherly manner, suggested to +Lans that he was compromising Cynthia. So considerately and humanely +did the man speak of this that Lans could take no offence, particularly +as Crothers just then had brought their common interests to such a pass +that to resent anything would have been fatal. A very beautiful and +many-coloured bubble was well in sight! +</P> + +<P> +"You see," Crothers explained, "them men up to Greeley's store are a +right evil lot. Knowing that Cynthia Walden was a nameless waif when +old Miss Ann adopted her, they cannot believe a right smart feller like +you has honest motives and they are getting ugly." +</P> + +<P> +Lans had heard the report of Cynthia's early childhood; the girl +herself had sweetly and pathetically referred to it—and they thought +he was that kind, eh? Well, he would show them! Having accepted the +fate of the man on a desert island, Lans Treadwell meant to treat the +natives he found there, fairly and nobly. In his mind he had cut +himself adrift forever from the old life and its claims; Cynthia was +the most attractive little savage on his isolated, safety isle—he +would claim her virtuously and bravely; he would train her; educate her +to be no unworthy mate for him in his god-like sacrifice for his family +honour. +</P> + +<P> +Never had Lans Treadwell been so dramatic nor such a fool, but he had +caught little Cyn, and before she realized what had happened or why she +had permitted it to happen, she drove away with Treadwell over the +hills one day to see some land Crothers had urged him to look at and, a +storm overtaking them, they were delayed in an old cabin where they +sought shelter over night and then and there Lans brought her to see +that for all their sakes they should be married before going home. +</P> + +<P> +"Married?" gasped Cynthia, as if the word were foreign; "married! me, +little Cyn? Why, only <I>women</I> marry!" +</P> + +<P> +"And you are a woman, sweet!" Even then Lans did not touch her, though +she looked more divine with her big eyes shining and the blessed smile +parting her lips than he had ever seen her. +</P> + +<P> +"I—a woman? Well, I reckon I am—but it seems mighty queer when you +first think of it. And—the folks would say evil things of me because +you took care of me and didn't risk my neck on the bad roads in the +dark? What could they-all say?" +</P> + +<P> +For the life of him Lans could not frame the words with that lovely +face turned to his. "You must trust me, Cynthia. I will protect you +and you must protect me." +</P> + +<P> +"I—protect you? You are right funny. What could they-all do to you?" +</P> + +<P> +"They could horsewhip me; tar and feather me——" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! no!" And now the light faded from the girl's face. Once at The +Forge a man was treated so—yes! there was something about a woman, too! +</P> + +<P> +The storm had raged all night. Lans made a fire and laughed and joked +the dark lonely hours through. After midnight Cynthia fell asleep from +sheer exhaustion and Lans placed his overcoat under her head while he +smoked by the fire and grew—as imagination fed upon itself—into a +being so immaculate and saint-like that the morning found him prepared +for the final and dramatic climax. He awoke Cynthia, touched her as if +she was a spirit, and took her to the little town known as Sudley's Gap +and there—married her! +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia was excited and worn from her night's experience, but the +ceremony and Lans's manner made it all seem like a new play. They were +always playing together, he and she. Big brother and little sister +lived in the moment and had no care for the past or future. They had +breakfast together, after the visit to the missionary, and it was +afternoon before they started for home. At last Cynthia grew very +quiet—the play had tired her; she was frightened and unhappy. How +could what had happened secure Lans from the anger of The Hollow folks, +if staying away were wrong? It was all very foolish. They could have +gone to Sandy and explained. Already Sandy stood in the girl's life as +safety and strength. +</P> + +<P> +Just then Lans turned and looked at her. To him it was beyond +comprehension that a girl of nineteen could be what Cynthia was. +Ignorant she might be, surely was, but she was vital and human; she had +witnessed life and its meaning in The Hollow—she was primitive and +childish—but she understood! +</P> + +<P> +Lans felt himself, by that time, to be about the highest-minded man any +one could hope to find. He had practised great self-repression; he had +accepted his future life suddenly, but with all its significant +responsibilities. When he reached The Hollow there would be tumult, no +doubt, but every man and woman there would count on the hot, impulsive +Southern blood and, after the first shock, would glory in a Hertford +who could carry things with such a high hand and, withal, a clean hand! +</P> + +<P> +Laying the reins down over the dash-board, Lans turned to Cynthia, his +passion gaining power over him as the sense of possession lashed it +sharply. The pretty big-eyed girl was his! He had secured her by the +sacredest ties, but for that very reason he need withhold himself no +longer. +</P> + +<P> +"Wife!" he whispered. "Wife, come; sweet, come!" +</P> + +<P> +This was no play. The call awakened no response, but fear laid its +guarding hand upon the girl as it had on that terrible night when Smith +Crothers asked of her what Treadwell was now seeking in a different +way, but in the same language. +</P> + +<P> +"No!" Cynthia shuddered, shrinking from him. "No!" +</P> + +<P> +The denial had awakened evil in Crothers; it aroused the best in +Treadwell. For a moment he looked at the wild, fear-filled eyes and +then a mighty pity surged over him. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I would not hurt you for all the world, little Cyn," he said, +taking up the reins. "I've done the best I could for you, dear; when +you can you will come to me—won't you? In the meantime it's 'brother +and little sister!'" +</P> + +<P> +Come to him! Thus Sandy had spoken, too! The memory hurt. +</P> + +<P> +The strain of the Markham blood rushed hotly, at the instant, in Lans's +veins. It gave him courage and strength to forget—the Hertfords. +</P> + +<P> +He took Cynthia to Trouble Neck and manfully told Marcia Lowe what had +occurred. The little doctor, worn by anxiety, was almost prostrated. +</P> + +<P> +"No one knows but what Cynthia was here all last night," she said. +"I've lied to Tod Greeley. I told him you had not taken Cynthia; that +she was ill with headache." +</P> + +<P> +"Now!" Cynthia laughed lightly; "you see we need not have done that +silly thing at Sudley's Gap." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe began to cry softly. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! dear," she faltered, "but Smith Crothers knows and Sandy Morley, +too. Oh! I have been so blind, so foolish, and you have been such mad +children." +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to Sandy at once," Lans explained. The plain common-sense +atmosphere of the cabin and the little doctor's evident suffering were +calming Treadwell's hot Southern blood and giving a touch of stern +prosaic grimness to the business. +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia, once she was safe with Marcia Lowe, was so unflatteringly +happy that Lans Treadwell might well be pardoned for thinking her +lacking in ordinary mentality, and this thought was like a dash of ice +water on his growing chilliness. He became awkward and nervous. He +felt like a man who had run headlong to a goal only to find that it was +the wrong one, with no strength or power to retrace his steps he owed +to defeat and failure, and in that mood he sought Sandy. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap23"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIII +</H3> + + +<P> +Marcia Lowe was mistaken. Sandy did not know. He knew that Treadwell +had not returned the evening before, but Tansey Moore, who was now +manager of Crothers' new factory, had told him that Treadwell had gone +to look up a piece of land back of Sudley's Gap, and the storm had +naturally detained him. +</P> + +<P> +The sudden growth of intimacy between Crothers and Lans surprised and +amused Sandy. Full well he realized Crothers' motive, and he could +afford to laugh at that, but he felt annoyed and hurt at Lans's weak +falling into the trap. The disloyalty to himself did not affect Sandy, +he was far too sensible and simple a man to care deeply for that, and +it somehow made it easier for him to reconcile his conscience to the +growing distrust and contempt he had for Treadwell, but he disliked the +idea of Crothers using his friend to gain his mean ends. +</P> + +<P> +"Lans is not one to tie up to," he said to himself, and then smiled at +the quaint expression which he had learned from Levi. "And to-morrow I +will tell him that I must make ready for the Markhams." +</P> + +<P> +The day after Cynthia's marriage Sandy had gone early to the buildings. +He and Martin had worked hard; settled a difficulty among the men, +which they both felt confident Crothers had instigated, and, upon +reaching home late in the afternoon Sandy was told that Old Andrew +Townley was ill and wanted him. Liza Hope had sent word. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon you can wait to eat," Sally Taber had suggested; "ole Andy +has been dyin' with consumption ever since dat time when he went to The +Forge an' got baptized in his wife's night shift—him not being able to +get a robe! Andy took a mighty stiff chill that-er-day an' it war like +a finger pintin' the way to his grave. Andy war thirty when he waddled +into de Branch in dem swaddling clothes, an' he's over ninety now. I +expect he can hol' on till you've tended to yo' stummick." +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy had not waited. He went to Andrew and found the old man +wandering on to the end of his journey in a very happy frame of mind. +He was, to himself, no longer the weak creature dying in his poor +cabin. Lying on the comfortable cot Sandy had provided, smilingly +gazing through the broad window Sandy's inspired saw and hammer had +designed, he believed himself to be a young and strong man helping +another up The Way with guiding hand and cheerful courage. Sitting by +the bed, Sandy took the cold, shrivelled fingers in his warm young +ones, and the comforting touch focussed the wavering mind. +</P> + +<P> +"Eh, there, son, it's a right smart climb, but the end's just yonder! +See that-er-light?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, old friend, I see the light." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy bent low and whispered gently. +</P> + +<P> +"That-er-light, son, is in Parson Starr's window. Starr, Starr! He +war a mighty clear star an' his light ain't going out, I reckon. Hold +fast, son! A few more steps and the totin' will be over. It's been +right heavy goin'—but——" +</P> + +<P> +The poor old body struggled to rise and Sandy, putting an arm under the +shoulders, lifted Andrew to a sitting position. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you see the—light, old friend?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—see—the star!" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. The star and the light, Andy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes—that's—home!" +</P> + +<P> +Facing the west with wide welcoming eyes, Andrew slipped from life so +gently and quietly that for some minutes Sandy held him without knowing +that the light had gone out and the weary soul had reached home by The +Appointed Way. When the knowledge came to him, his eyes dimmed and +reverently he lay the stiffening form back upon the pillow; crossed the +thin, worn hands upon the peaceful breast, and turned to his next duty +with a murmured farewell to ears that no longer could be comforted by +his kind words. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy went home and ate his evening meal with his father. He did not +mention Andrew's death. Martin was so genuinely happy at having his +son to himself and Lansing Treadwell out of the house, that Sandy +disliked to shadow the joy. +</P> + +<P> +"Suppose we read a bit," he suggested when the two were seated in the +study. Martin accepted joyously. "What shall it be, Dad?" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, son, it do seem triflin' to set your mind to anything but Holy +Writ when you're idle, but to-day I found an ole paper up to the works +with a mighty stirrin' picture on it; a real techersome picture of a +man danglin' from a high cliff by his two hands, and nothin' 'twixt him +an' certain death, I reckon, but the writingman's understandin' of the +scene. Yo' know, Sandy, I ain't had my specs fitted yet an' so I +couldn't fin' out about the picture an' it's been right upsettin' to me +all day." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy took the crumpled paper Martin produced from an inside pocket and +began to read the hair-raising tale. Toward the end he discovered it +was a serial which left the hero, at the most breathless point, still +hanging. Thereupon Sandy evolved from his own imagination a fitting +and lurid ending that appeased Martin's sense of crude justice and left +nothing to his yearning soul unanswered. +</P> + +<P> +"I call that-er-tale a mighty good one," Martin remarked when, hands +upon knees, eyes staring, and chin hanging, he heard the grand finale. +"Taint allas as the ungodly gets fetched up with so cutely. It's right +comfortin' to think o' that low-down trash a-festerin' in the bottom o' +the gulch." +</P> + +<P> +Then Martin, the gentlest of creatures, went pattering up to bed in his +stocking feet, muttering cheerfully to himself as he mounted the dark +stairs, candle in outstretched hand: +</P> + +<P> +"A festerin' eternally at the bottom!" +</P> + +<P> +After his father departed Sandy sat by his fire alone and waited. So +Lans found him, and gloomily took a chair across the hearth. +</P> + +<P> +"Have you had supper, Lans?" Sandy asked after greeting him cordially. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. The storm kept me last night. I got back—not long ago. I had +a bite while I waited for the horse to be seen to. The poor beast was +pretty well worn out." +</P> + +<P> +There did not seem to be anything more to say on that subject, so Sandy +remarked: +</P> + +<P> +"Smoke if you care to, Lans; don't mind me." +</P> + +<P> +But Lans did not care to smoke and suddenly he jumped up, plunged his +hands in his pockets and faced Sandy with crimson cheeks and wide eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Sand," he blurted out, "I'm in a devil of a hole; I've pulled about +all Lost Hollow in with me. I'm a fool and worse, but you know how I +am. Any big passion that seizes me—holds me! I'm not responsible +while the clutch is on me. I ought to be taken out and shot. I——" +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy's blank stare called a halt. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I wouldn't take it that way, Treadwell," he said, thinking that +some obvious villainy of Crothers' had opened Lans's eyes to facts; "I +may be able to get you out of the hole." +</P> + +<P> +Then, ludicrously, the story he had just read to his father came into +his mind. Lans seemed to be the creature at the bottom of the gulch, +and it was up to him, Sandy, to rescue the knave in spite of Martin's +satisfaction in leaving him there to fester. Sandy smiled. +</P> + +<P> +"Good God, Morley, what are you laughing at?" Lans cried; "this is no +laughing matter." +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, Lans. An idiotic thing occurred to me and you are +such a tragic cuss that I never can think things are as bad with you as +you imagine." +</P> + +<P> +"Sand, this is a—hell of a thing! I don't know what you will say. +Fellows like you with their hands always on their tillers, fellows with +cool heads and calm passions never can understand us who fly off at +every spark that's set to us. All I can promise you is this—help me +now and, by God! I'll let your hand rest on my tiller till I get into +smooth waters again and—I've learned my lesson! What I've got to tell +you sounds like a yarn, Sand. All the time I was coming up The Way I +kept repeating 'it's not true!' but good Lord—it is! Morley, I'm +married. I was married early this morning!" +</P> + +<P> +The little woman struggling with her problem up North came to Sandy's +mind. She had not been able to keep up the fight; she had followed +Lans and—but no! If there had been a wedding then the husband must +have died! Sandy looked puzzled. +</P> + +<P> +"If it was the best, the only way, old man," he said, "I don't see why +you should take it this fashion. You—loved her; you cannot have +changed in so short a time." +</P> + +<P> +And now it was Lans's turn to stare blankly. With his temperament, +time and place had no part. He was either travelling through space at +a thundering speed or stagnating in a vacuum. He had almost forgotten +Marian Spaulding and his present affair took on new and more potent +meanings. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I married Cynthia Walden!" he gasped. "I married her—this +morning. We were out alone all last night. The—storm—you—know! +She didn't understand—I tried to—to shield her—she doesn't +understand—now. Good God! Morley, stop staring! Say something, for +heaven's sake!" +</P> + +<P> +But Sandy could not speak, and his brain whirled so dizzily that he +dared not shut his eyes for fear of falling. Like a man facing death +with only a moment in which to speak volumes, he groped among the +staggering mass of facts that were hurtling around him, for one, one +only, that would save the hour. He remembered vividly the old story of +Cynthia's mother which Ann Walden had proclaimed, but he remembered, +also, the hideous belief that lay low in Lost Hollow. Dead and buried +was the doubt, but now it rose grim and commanding. Sandy tried to +form the words: "She is your sister!" But the words would not come +through the stiff, parted lips. Honesty held them in check; they must +not become a living thought unless absolute proof were there to +substantiate them. +</P> + +<P> +The two men confronted each other helplessly, silently, and then Lans +Treadwell, overcome by sudden remorse, and a kind of fear, strove to +propitiate the sternness that found no expression in words. +</P> + +<P> +"I've been devilishly wrong, Sand, and returned your hospitality and +friendship with bad grace, old fellow, but I drifted into it and when +it was too late—I did what seemed the only decent thing. I know I +couldn't have explained, and she turned my senses by her sweetness. +She's like a baby, Morley, and I mean to—to do the right by her, as +God hears me!" +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell used the name of God so frequently and ardently that it +sickened Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," he groaned, "you will do right by her or——" the dark eyes +flashed dangerously; "and you'll do right by her—in my way!" +</P> + +<P> +This was unfortunate and Sandy saw his mistake. Lans Treadwell's +shoulders straightened and his jaw set in ugly lines. +</P> + +<P> +"If it's going to be man to man, Sand," he muttered, "I reckon I've got +the whip hand. She's my wife, you know, and the laws of this nice +little state are pretty explicit along certain lines. When all's said +and done—what are you, as a man, mind you, going to do about it?" +</P> + +<P> +Again the staggering doubt was like a weapon for Sandy's use, but he +hesitated still. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I wonder if you know what you have done?" he groaned again. +</P> + +<P> +"When you talk like that, Sand," Lans whispered, his face softening, "I +don't! And I implore you to help me." +</P> + +<P> +"You don't know our South, our Hollow," Sandy went on, with a pitiful +tone in his unsteady voice. "It takes us so long to—wake up! It's +something in the air, the sun, the winters—the life. Cynthia has not +roused—she is only dreaming in her sleep. She's a child, a little +girl, and you have dragged her into——" +</P> + +<P> +"Hold on, Sand!" Lans warned once more. +</P> + +<P> +"I have been waiting"—Sandy did not seem to heed the caution—"I've +been waiting and watching for the hour when she would realize that she +was a woman. I've loved her all my life, worshipped her, but I would +not have startled her before her time to have saved my soul from death! +Had she realized, Treadwell—had things been open and fair, I would +have taken my chance—but—you!" +</P> + +<P> +Again the blaze darted to Treadwell's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"And what do you insinuate?" he asked—but he got no farther. There +was the sound of quick, approaching steps outside and a moment later a +sharp knock on the door; Sandy strode forward and opened it, then +closed it upon Marcia Lowe and Cynthia. +</P> + +<P> +Quickened by spiritual insight Sandy saw that the girl was awake to the +reality of things. Shock had shattered her childishness forever, but +she was not afraid. Uncertainty and ignorance were there, but no sense +of danger in the clear, wonderful eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Sandy," she panted, going close to him and holding her hands out, +"Sandy, you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"I wanted to be here with you-all after she"—the sweet eyes turned to +Marcia Lowe—"told me. I—I thought maybe he"—she glanced toward +Treadwell—"might not tell you, till morning. Poor dear!" +</P> + +<P> +This last was to Sandy, for the look in his eyes wrung the tender heart +with divine pity. +</P> + +<P> +"Sit down," Sandy urged, placing chairs near the hearth and bending to +lay on more wood, "there is much to say." +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that the little doctor took command. She did not sit down +as the others had; she stood by the table with some loose papers in her +hand. +</P> + +<P> +"I feel as if it were all my fault," she began. "Things lie so still +here; we seem so shut in. Cynthia has been like a child to me—I +haven't thought ahead and I just played with her and worked out—my +puzzle piece by piece. It was only a week ago that I felt sure; I +meant to tell Cynthia slowly and little by little—and then this +happened!" +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe's face was fixed and white. No one spoke. Then she went +on again. +</P> + +<P> +"I have always believed Cynthia's father was—my uncle, Theodore Starr! +I came to Lost Hollow because I believed that, but I had no absolute +proof and Ann Walden denied me support. But look at her—look at +Cynthia and me! Of course I am old, old, and she's a baby, but can't +you read God's handwriting in our faces? See the colour, +form—expression——" +</P> + +<P> +Morley and Treadwell stared at the two faces and into their benumbed +consciousness something vital struggled to life. It brought a gleam to +Lans's eyes; a groan of surrender to Sandy's lips! The contrite voice +was going on and on. +</P> + +<P> +"There was no marriage certificate. There had been an unhappy +engagement between my uncle and Ann Walden—he, poor, timid, gentle +soul, dared not speak at the proper moment, he dreaded giving pain, and +he married Cynthia's mother privately, and before things could be made +plain—he died up in the hills, serving men! The man that married them +went away—only a year ago he came back; recently Mr. Greeley drove +over to Sudley's Gulch to make a will for this man; Cynthia and I went +with him. The man died a few days ago. Among his papers was a +notebook in which was recorded the marriage of Queenie Walden and +Theodore Starr! The man was a—a magistrate, the thing was +legal—Little Cyn is—my niece!" +</P> + +<P> +An empty room never seems so still as one in which living, wordless men +and women are held by breathless silence. Treadwell dared not speak. +He seemed a stranger; one who had no right to be there. Cynthia's eyes +were lifted to Sandy Morley's face and did not fall away. Having said +what she had come to say, Marcia Lowe held out her written words of +proof and waited. After a long pause Cynthia spoke and her voice was +electrical in its effect. +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy," she said, going close to him and holding him with her clear +gaze and slow, brave smile, "you know I did not mean—to do wrong?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, little Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm right glad I'm—I'm my dear father's child. All my life he's been +a happy name to me—and I'm mighty proud to be his, really. I'm going +to be brave for him and my mother! Sandy—I am not afraid—I am not +afraid!" The words came slowly, drawlingly but unbrokenly. +</P> + +<P> +"My aunt," and for an instant the eyes rested on the bowed head of +Marcia Lowe, "has told me many things—I understand right many things, +now! I know you-all want to help me; want the best for me—but what's +done, is done, Sandy Morley, and I can do my part. If—if—my husband +wants me—I am ready—to go to him. Sandy, I am not afraid!" +</P> + +<P> +Then they waited. Sandy stood with his back to the fire, motionless +and white; Marcia Lowe had sunk into a chair and bending forward hid +her face in her hands; Cynthia drew back from Sandy and stood alone in +the middle of the room. +</P> + +<P> +What emotions and thoughts swayed Lans Treadwell, who could know? But +looking from one to the other of the little group the craven distrust +died from his face and an uplifted expression took its place. He stood +straight and tall and good to look upon as he realized that he was at +last the final judge. +</P> + +<P> +"Cynthia!" he said calmly, and his voice was low and firm; "I do—want +you! you are my wife! You are not afraid?" +</P> + +<P> +Slowly he stepped over to her; he forgot the others—he and she were +all! He put out his hands and Cynthia laid hers in them. +</P> + +<P> +"I am not afraid," she whispered. And before the light in her upraised +eyes Lans Treadwell did not flinch. +</P> + +<P> +"I, too, wish to help you—in my own way. Can you trust me?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Will you leave the hills with me—me alone?" +</P> + +<P> +For an instant the sweet smile faded, but it was for the loss of her +mountains; not her doubt of her husband which drove it away. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," she murmured. +</P> + +<P> +Then Sandy found his way back from his place of torment and he strode +to the two in the middle of the room. He laid his hand upon +Treadwell's shoulder, and all the smouldering passion in his heart rang +in his words. +</P> + +<P> +"Lansing Treadwell, swear to me, that you will leave her soul to her +own keeping until——" +</P> + +<P> +Treadwell gave him a long, steady look. +</P> + +<P> +"I swear!" he said. +</P> + +<P> +"When—her hour comes to—understand and choose—let her be white and +pure as she is now!" +</P> + +<P> +"I swear it, Sandy Morley." +</P> + +<P> +"Then," and now Sandy's eyes dimmed, "good-bye, little Cyn. You'll +miss the mountains—but there are good, true hearts—down beyond The +Way." +</P> + +<P> +At this Marcia Lowe drew near: +</P> + +<P> +"Little girl—come home! She is mine until you take her from Lost +Hollow, Lansing Treadwell." +</P> + +<P> +The hands that held Cynthia's let her free. A pause followed. Then: +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night—good-night!" The pretty, pale face flushed tenderly. +"Good-night. And now come, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" +</P> + +<P> +The sweet attempt at cheer all but crushed those who heard and +understood. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap24"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXIV +</H3> + + +<P> +The Markhams came to Lost Mountain early in December. The weather was +fair and mild and much of the time could be spent out of doors. +Matilda, frail but with that gentle tenacity of life that marks many +women for longevity, settled at once into the semi-rough life of the +cabin with innate delicacy and aptness. The rooms Sandy had so +lovingly planned and furnished became <I>hers</I> after the first day, and +no truer compliment could have been paid her host than this homelike +acceptance of his thoughtfulness. To see her soft, bright knitting in +the sitting-room gave Sandy a positive thrill and when he came back, +after a long day of tramping about with Levi, and found the dear, +smiling woman awaiting him, he knew the first touch of the mother in +his own home that had ever been his. And sorely the poor fellow needed +it just then! +</P> + +<P> +Levi, too, was a saving grace in those empty hours after Cynthia's +going. Swelling with pride, he followed Sandy about from cabin to +factory; from factory to Home-school. In vain he struggled to suppress +any outward show of the pride and delight he took in everything he saw. +He sought to keep things upon a dull, business level, but exultation at +times overcame him when Sandy was well out of sight. To Martin or +Matilda he permitted himself a bit of relaxation. +</P> + +<P> +"Well," he had said to Martin after the first strangeness had worn off, +"so you are the father of this boy, eh?" +</P> + +<P> +"I am, sir!" +</P> + +<P> +The pride that rang in Morley's voice was never veiled, and his native +dignity was touching. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon any one might doubt it, sir, seeing him and me, but he's mine +and I'm his." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" Markham put his hand out frankly. "I hope you're +grateful." +</P> + +<P> +"I am mighty grateful, sir. Mornin' an' night I kneel an' thank my +God, an' day in an' out I live the poor best I can, sir, my +thankfulness." +</P> + +<P> +Markham gripped the thin, hard hand appreciatively. He knew more of +Martin than Martin suspected, for Marcia Lowe had made it her first +duty, after the Markhams' arrival, to get into touch with them. Not +Sandy alone had been the theme of the little doctor's discourse; +Martin's grim and self-sacrificing fight in her cabin was given in +detail with other happenings in The Hollow. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! they are so big and silent and patient," Miss Lowe had explained, +"they cannot for one moment comprehend their own importance in the +scheme of things. I feel it a duty to shine up their virtues." +</P> + +<P> +Levi was deeply touched by all he heard, and when things puzzled him he +gruffly insisted that he needed a walk to calm his nerves, and always +it was the little doctor who straightened the tangle. +</P> + +<P> +"Miss Interpreter," Markham dubbed her, and through her he became +acquainted with Smith Crothers and Crothers' mark upon recent +occurrences. Of course Levi knew of Lans Treadwell's visit to the +hills. Markham was not a superstitious man, but he had remarked to +Matilda before they came to Lost Hollow that it "looked like the hand +of God." After a séance or so at Trouble Neck, Levi changed his mind. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you, Matilda," he confided by her fireside one night after a +particularly satisfying day with Sandy, "we take for granted that God +Almighty's hand is the only guiding in the final analysis, but the +devil gets in a twist now and again, and I guess he had more to do with +Lansing's heading up here than God did. Once old Nick got the boy here +he did his best to use him, too, but from what I can learn Lans spunked +up at the end and showed himself more of a man than we might have +expected. He played a good deal of havoc in a few short weeks, though." +</P> + +<P> +Marcia Lowe had eliminated Sandy from poor Cynthia's romance or +tragedy. She had put a purely commercial valuation upon Crothers' +interference, for the look on Sandy's face the night he bade Cynthia +good-bye haunted the little doctor and would to the last day of her +life. Before it her eyes had fallen, and whenever she recalled the +scene a silence fell upon her. No thought or word could express what +she, too late, surmised, and her lips guarded the sanctity of Sandy's +secret. +</P> + +<P> +When Levi confided Marcia Lowe's interpretations to his sister she was +very unresponsive. She listened but made no comment other than: +</P> + +<P> +"Sandy works too hard. He looks real peaked to me. It don't count to +your credit, Levi, or his either, for that matter, if he feels he's got +to pay you back in bone and muscle past a certain point." +</P> + +<P> +"Now, 'Tilda," Levi put in, "what do you mean by that?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean——" Matilda condensed her impressions: "I think he looks real +pinched and peaked." +</P> + +<P> +This put Markham on a new track, and the next day he fell upon Sandy +with the one weapon which, more than any other, caused Sandy to love +and honour him. +</P> + +<P> +"See here, son,"—it was oftener "son" than "boy" now—"don't get any +fool idea in your head that you owe me more than an eight hour day's +work." +</P> + +<P> +They were going over the plans of the Home-school as Levi spoke, and +Sandy laughed lightly. "You are my agent, my—my promoter, son, and, +as such, you hold a responsible position at—at good pay!" +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you, sir. I understand that and I am anxious to carry out your +wishes. I am eager to get this thing running, not for you, sir, alone, +but my people. Crothers seems hell-bound just now in frightening them +into signing contracts for themselves and their children for years to +come. Of course the contracts are not worth the paper they are written +on, but a general belief is spreading that our works cannot be relied +upon and, in order to benefit The Hollow, Crothers is offering to +protect the people against us by securing positions for them if they +will agree to stand by him. When I think of the baby-things, sir, and +the long, deadly hours of toil that lead to no preparation for +betterment, my soul sickens. Now this, sir"—Sandy pointed to a +particularly high and open space on the blue print—"is the hospital +room." +</P> + +<P> +"The—the what?" Levi put on his glasses. +</P> + +<P> +"The hospital room, sir, I'm going to put Miss Lowe in control; I'd +like to have another physician too, sir, and a few nurses. Right up +there"—Sandy's eyes gleamed as they followed his finger to the space +on the blue print—"we want to tackle the real trouble of the South, +sir. Why, do you know I only heard the other day that Tod Greeley went +to our representative, a year ago, and begged him to get an +appropriation from Congress to start the work against the hook worm in +this district and the request was refused." Sandy gave a hard laugh. +"Well, I reckon Greeley and I know why, sir. Lost Hollow is too +ignorant. Our votes can be got without the appropriation. The big, +human need does not matter! Where there is more intelligence the +representatives have to understand conditions. But it will matter by +and by, sir! I know what that little doctor did for my father. I know +what she's done for one or two of Mason Hope's children and the girl of +Tansey Moore's who was—who was like my sister Molly! I want Miss Lowe +and her helpers to have that high and bright place, sir, for their +workshop. It must have sun and air, sir, and books and toys and—and +music, too, for the fight is a hard and bitter one and the days and +nights, at best, are terrible." +</P> + +<P> +Levi Markham leaned back, took off his glasses and fixed Sandy with his +keen glance. For a few moments he could not speak; he had been carried +far and beyond his normal depth. When he got command of himself, he +said slowly: +</P> + +<P> +"Son, it looks to me as if we would need all we can make up North to +stamp out some of the evils of the South, but, God willing, we're going +to make a stab at it! See here, who is the representative for this +district?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy gave the name of a man many miles away. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, I guess he can be brought to learn the language of Lost Hollow, +son, if some one shows him his duty. Some good laws, too, that would +put a quietus on this Smith Crothers' ambitions ought to be looked +after. He shouldn't be the say-all up here. No man is good enough or +safe enough to take the bit in his own teeth—not even you, Sandy +Morley!" +</P> + +<P> +"Law, well carried out, is the best way, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Exactly! And now for the rest of the building, boy. What are these +little cubby holes?" +</P> + +<P> +"Bedrooms, sir. This is only an idea of my own. It's rather +extravagant and it's subject to your decision, of course. I'd like to +have each child have his own room, sir. A boy or girl grows so in a +special little corner that is quite his own. I have a design of a +small chest of drawers that I'd like to show you later. It does not +take up much space and it combines washstand, bureau, table and—a +place for the boy or girl's things." +</P> + +<P> +"Things?" Levi was again bending over the blue print. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, sir. Things dear to each child's heart. Stones, sticks, +anything that cannot be—explained." Sandy gave a low laugh. He was +harking back to the old shed beside his father's cabin and the gay +prints tacked to the worm-eaten boards. +</P> + +<P> +"The separate rooms can stand, son, and those little jimcracks of +drawers are favourably passed on, too. And these?" Levi's thick +forefinger stopped at the elevation of the first floor. +</P> + +<P> +Sandy gave a rich, satisfied laugh of content. +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, it is this-er-way"—The Hollow's soft running of the words +together delighted Levi's ear—"when the poor little creatures have had +their fight out on the upper floor and have got down to these small +rooms and have realized that they are human beings, then we're going to +fix them—fix them, sir, right here!" Sandy's eyes flashed and his jaw +set in the stern, grim fashion that Levi had long since grown to watch +for and admire. +</P> + +<P> +"By the time they reach the ground floor, sir, I reckon we can tackle +them and begin to make them pay for themselves. By that time they will +have something to draw on and we'll exact payment. Right here and +here"—Sandy's forefinger was going rapidly from point to point, and +Levi's stubby digit was laboriously following—"are the workshops, the +school rooms, the kitchens and conservatories. Why, sir, even the +idiot children can be utilized. They love flowers and animals; we must +find their one gleam and guide their poor feet on the way. Good food, +honest hours of work, systematic exercise and proper amusement—why, +sir, from this ground floor we are to send men and women out into the +world who will reflect credit on Lost Hollow and redeem its name. And +you, sir——" +</P> + +<P> +The two men faced each other suddenly. Markham seemed to realize anew +the delicacy and fineness of the thin, brown face—-Matilda's words +rang in his ears, "he looks real pinched and peaked." The homely +phrase carried more weight to Markham than any scientific terms of a +specialist. A sharp pain shot through his heart; he had the quick +impulse to shield and protect this young fellow who was being carried +afield on the wings of his enthusiasm. Protect him from what? +</P> + +<P> +"See here, son, we cannot afford to go too fast with this hobby of +yours. Get the buildings up as soon as you can; carry out all the +material plans just as you have designed, but we've got to get our feet +on good firm ground before we tackle the human problems. You know I am +against paternalism, first and last. I'm willing to give opportunity, +but nothing else." +</P> + +<P> +"That is all they need, sir. Some must be shown opportunity—others +are strong enough to grip it, but it's mighty good common sense, sir, +to open the eyes of the blind and strengthen the feet of the weak—it's +what you-all did for me, sir." +</P> + +<P> +"Umph!" Markham exclaimed and then got suddenly up. "I'm going to take +a stroll down The Way," he said. "Fix things here in an hour or two +and see if you can get some kind of a rig for a drive this afternoon. +I want Matilda to get the lay of the land before the winter sets in." +</P> + +<P> +And then, confused by mingled emotions, Markham bore down upon Smith +Crothers in his factory, a mile or so down the mountain, and attacked +that gentleman in such a blunt and utterly unlooked-for manner that +Crothers was startled and helpless. +</P> + +<P> +The directness of the blows left Smith Crothers without defence; he was +obliged to use his own crude weapons with the ever-growing conviction +that they were worse than useless. Markham availed himself of no +propitiation—he rushed his opponent into the open at the first +onslaught, and thereafter he attacked him fore and aft mercilessly. +</P> + +<P> +"See here, Crothers," he began, when the head of the factory had +invited him into his private office and, with smiles and bows, had +seated his guest; "you and I had better understand each other right +now. You know, and I know that you know, that I am The Company up +North which you are maligning here in The Hollow. Now I'm willing to +lay down my hand and show my cards. I'm going to back this boy of +Morley's by millions, if necessary, and there are millions to count +on—not millions to be made. <I>Why</I> I am doing this is my concern—all +that matters is—I'm going to do it! Maybe it is a whim; maybe it is +plain tomfoolery; every man has his weak side—I have mine. That +factory up the hill is going to run as soon as it is finished; the +Home-school is going to open its doors likewise; and both institutions +are going to pay and don't you forget it! You put one product on the +market; I another. We won't clash there—the rock we may split on is +the labour question." +</P> + +<P> +Crothers gasped feebly. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon I understand conditions here, sir, better than"—he longed to +say "any damned Yankee," but he controlled the impulse—"any stranger +from the North." +</P> + +<P> +"No you don't!" Markham flashed back. "Exploitation isn't any fairer +here than where I come from. Because these people don't realize it is +no excuse for men like you and me. I know all about what you set forth +as explanation and excuse—it goes up North the same as it does here. +Supply and demand; business is business and all the rest of it, but you +and I know that it ought not go! We have no right to take it out of +the people." +</P> + +<P> +"You've managed to take out your pile"—Crothers' smile was +vanishing,—"'cording to your own telling. Millions ain't got by +magic, these times." +</P> + +<P> +Markham fixed the ugly eyes with his calm gaze. +</P> + +<P> +"You are free to come and see how I have made my money," he said. "I +have a system that includes every employee in my money-getting. They, +every mother's son of them, have a chance with me to better themselves. +I have never worked a child in my mills nor a woman about to become a +mother, or for months after. I don't talk about these things—I live +them! Now I mean to make money up here—honest money; my just share, +and I'm going to follow my past line of action. I find it pays. Young +Morley knows conditions here, and I'm going to pay him a big salary as +interpreter. He's a high class man. Why, good God! Crothers, I +sometimes think he was called to lead his people out of bondage." +</P> + +<P> +Having permitted himself this flight Markham struck another blow that +completed Crothers' dismay. +</P> + +<P> +"There have got to be laws protecting these mountain folks from +themselves. I'm not casting reflections, but you have all been passed +by in the general scuffle, down yonder, and some one has got to sit up +and take notice. There should be child labour laws, educational laws +and sanitary laws. There should be appropriations made for carrying on +good work in the mountains!" The light of Sandy's torch was flaring +well ahead of Markham and he was following eagerly. +</P> + +<P> +"Such men as you ought to be up and doing. It's going to be an open +fight, as far as I'm concerned, and I want to tell you now that so long +as there is decent and clean methods used, all may be well, but I'm +going to see fair play, and I thought it was only friendly to come to +you and show my cards." +</P> + +<P> +"Thank you!" Crothers moistened his lips and plunged his hands in his +pockets. "Is this a threat, sir?" +</P> + +<P> +"No; a warning." +</P> + +<P> +"Well, sir, I mean to do business along my own lines." +</P> + +<P> +"I mean to do the same, Crothers, and I'd like to add, that in any +clash please remember you are up against me—not Sandford Morley." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm not likely to forget that, sir." +</P> + +<P> +There was a little more talk, pro and con, and then the two men parted +as men can do, after a heated and vital discussion, apparently on the +best of terms. +</P> + +<P> +It was the night of that day when, before the fire in the little +sitting-room devoted to the Markhams' use, Levi sought to ease his +sister's mind concerning Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +"The boy was up against it with Crothers," he explained, "and making no +outcry. You know Sandy's way. He wouldn't confide in us about that +poor little sister of his—he thought it wasn't in the bargain. He +meant to fight this big bully in his own fashion without calling on me, +but I've taken a hand in the game and put Crothers wise as to +principles. I may have to get a few knocks before I am done, but Sandy +won't be the buffer. I guess the boy will pick up from now on. He's +nervy and stronger than he looks." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda sat in her low, broad rocker. Her dressing gown of pale violet +enshrouded her tiny figure like the soft petals of a flower; her faded +eyes and gentle face were lowered, and her gaze fixed upon the burning +logs. +</P> + +<P> +"Brother," she said tenderly and wistfully; "the boy has had a mortal +hurt. This evil man has not dealt it, and neither you nor I can cure +it. It has not killed his mind and spirit, but it's killed the heart +of the lad." +</P> + +<P> +Levi Markham got up and stood with his back to the fire. He was going +to be enlightened—he knew that—but in man fashion he pushed the +inevitable from him. +</P> + +<P> +"Whim-whams, 'Tilda! Now what do you mean in plain American? Who's +given the boy a blow—a hurt, or whatever you fancy?" +</P> + +<P> +"It's the—the little girl, brother, that Land has run away with." +</P> + +<P> +"Good God, Matilda!" +</P> + +<P> +"Levi, I do wish you would curb your language. You know how I dislike +profanity." +</P> + +<P> +"I beg your pardon, 'Tilda." +</P> + +<P> +"While you have been sensing business conditions, brother, I've sensed +something else. I've sort of gathered this Cynthia Walden up piece by +piece. The old woman who works here gave me a bit; that dear little +woman doctor—the aunt of the girl—has told me some of the story; from +Martin Morley I've taken a mite. Little by little it has come to me, +until I've patched the whole together and I can see real plain and +clear, now, the spirit of Lost Hollow that led Sandy out and up and +then—escaped to a place he cannot reach! Oh! brother, when one is +lonely and old and not over strong, it is so easy to get at the heart +of a thing for them one loves." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda was crying gently into her dainty little handkerchief, and +Markham stared at her, speechless and helpless. +</P> + +<P> +"There! there! 'Tilda," was all he could think to say, but his tone was +loving beyond description. +</P> + +<P> +"She's the girl whose face haunted that picture of the dogwood flowers, +brother. She's the girl he wrote to just once, you remember, that time +when we stopped in New York on our way from here to Bretherton. I +guess she's called and called to him from these hills ever since he +left, and now——" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, 'Tilda?" +</P> + +<P> +"She's gone away and the call is—stilled." +</P> + +<P> +Markham sat down again before the fire and buried his head in his +hands. Quietly the old brother and sister sat for a full half hour, +then Levi got up. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, sister," he said. +</P> + +<P> +"Good-night, brother." +</P> + +<P> +That was all. They knew that they were unable to reach the hurt that +Sandy had received. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap25"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXV +</H3> + + +<P> +But Matilda Markham could not sit down under her weight of conviction +in protracted silence. The winter at last gripped The Hollow, and +doors and windows were closed against the cold and storm. Markham, +Martin, and Sandy were always away together much of the day, but +Matilda sat by her fire, chatted a little with Sally, revelled in +Marcia Lowe's frequent calls, and managed to weave a tender story from +all she heard. She knitted her endless rainbow scarfs and gave them to +the mountain women who received them in stolid amazement and doted upon +them in secret. Once Matilda did a very daring and tremendous thing. +She wrote to Olive Treadwell and asked some pointed and vital questions +about Lansing's wife! +</P> + +<P> +Having sent the letter away impulsively, the poor little lady had a +week of real torture. Daily she walked to the post-office, when no one +was watching, and caused Tod Greeley much amusement by her nervous +anxiety. +</P> + +<P> +"Meaning no offence," he confided to Marcia Lowe, "and respecting her +age and gray hairs, I reckon the old miss is in love. It comes late to +some folks," he sighed pathetically, "and it comes right hard when it +strikes past the time limit, but nothing but love takes it out of folks +like what this old miss is suffering." +</P> + +<P> +At last the answer came and Matilda read it with the door of her +bedroom bolted and the washstand barricading it as well. +</P> + +<P> +Olive Treadwell wrote: +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm mighty glad to say something about this affair to some one who can +understand me. Imagine my feelings when, out of the blue, as one might +say, Lans brought this girl home and said, "I'm going to leave her with +you, Aunt Olive, until I can see my way clear. I am brother to her and +she is sister to me until—the way's made plain." That was all and +then Lans betook himself to his old quarters and began to work. He's +taken a position on the <I>Boston Beacon</I> and calls, actually <I>calls</I>, on +his wife evenings or takes her and me out to theatres and dinners. I'm +supposed to be training this young woman, for what, heaven only knows! +but I have my hands full. Lans was always erratic and poetic, but this +is beyond my comprehension, He has had affairs of the heart, of course, +but this is different. The girl is the strangest creature I ever saw; +she is uncanny. After I got her into proper clothing I saw she had +beauty and charm of a certain kind. She takes to ways and expressions +mighty quick, and she is the sweet appealing kind that attracts even +while one disapproves. I confess I am utterly dumb-founded and if you +can throw any light on this matter, pray do so. The girl seems to me +to be half here and half somewhere else; she isn't unhappy, and she +seems to adore Lans in a detached and pretty childish way, but why did +he marry her and why should he, having married her, regard her in this +platonic fashion? +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +Of course Matilda could not answer these questions but she cried over +the letter a great deal and brooded over Sandy with all the motherhood +that nature had not legitimately utilized. And then, one night, Sandy +came to her quite simply and directly and claimed, in his great +suffering need, what she alone had to give. +</P> + +<P> +It was the week before Christmas. The cabin was gay and festive, for +Marcia Lowe, in a lavishness of good cheer, had decorated everything +she could command beginning with the little chapel and ending with the +post-office. The County Club sat now 'neath an arbour of greens, and +the lowliest cabin had its spray of pine or holly. +</P> + +<P> +Martin and Levi were bent over a backgammon board in Sandy's study. +Markham had undertaken to correct Morley's neglected education as to +games; and Martin had, after the first week, so outstripped his +instructor that Levi was put upon his mettle and every victory he +wrenched now from Martin gave him a glow of pride he was not slow to +exhibit. Seeing the two men engrossed, Sandy stole to Matilda +Markham's little sitting-room and there found the dear lady asleep +before the fire, her thin white hands sunk in a mass of beautiful +wools. He stood and looked at the quiet, peaceful old face; he +recalled, one by one, her kindnesses to him, her growing pride and love +for him, and presently his eyes grew misty. The frail creature before +him became touched by the magic of his gratitude and need, the most +vital and mighty factor in his life. She, in this hour of his hidden +craving, was the only one to whom he could turn, and right well he knew +that she would stand by him. +</P> + +<P> +Suddenly Matilda Markham opened her eyes and looked directly into +Sandy's. It may have been that some dream had prepared her, God may +have spoken to her in vision; however that may be she said gently: +</P> + +<P> +"Son, you need me? Come, tell me all about it." +</P> + +<P> +Quite naturally Sandy sat down at her feet and looked frankly into the +dear, old face. +</P> + +<P> +"I am going to ask you to do a great thing for me," he said; "I must +ask you to do it without my explaining things to you to any extent—I +want you to do it as a mother might for her son—trusting me if you +can." +</P> + +<P> +"Dear boy, I think I can promise to do what you ask." +</P> + +<P> +Then the thin hands found their way to the bent head, and as they +touched the thick, dark hair a thrill shot to the woman's very heart. +</P> + +<P> +"Mother!" Sandy seemed inspired to meet her soul's longing. "Mother!" +</P> + +<P> +"Son, go on. I am waiting." +</P> + +<P> +"It—it is about the girl—Lansing Treadwell married." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"I must know how things are with her. Our mountain people can be so +lonely and homesick away from the hills. At times nothing, nothing can +take the place of the yearning. I—I can forget everything that has +even been, if I know she is right happy and content—but I must know!" +</P> + +<P> +A fierceness struck through the low-spoken words. "The doubt is—is +killing me." +</P> + +<P> +"Shall I go now, son, or wait until after the holidays?" +</P> + +<P> +"Could you go now—and alone?" +</P> + +<P> +"I can manage Levi, son. Travelling is real easy these days. It will +take management, but I can get what I want." +</P> + +<P> +"You would understand if you saw her." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy's voice trailed off forgetful of the woman at whose knees he +knelt. +</P> + +<P> +"She can smile and make right merry, but you would know and understand. +She is such a pretty, sweet thing, but she has the iron of the hills in +her. She must"—again Sandy's voice shook with passion,—"she must +have happiness! If—if the noise and confusion of the city have +distracted her she must come back to the mountains. Lans will agree to +this—I do not doubt him! She must not—kill herself—you will know +when you see her. You must come back and tell me—you will?" +</P> + +<P> +"I will, son." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda yearned to show him Olive Treadwell's letter, but something +kept her from doing it. She wanted to do what she could for Sandy in +her own way, and suddenly she felt herself a giant of strength and +purpose. +</P> + +<P> +"Travel alone!" she said to Levi later when she had cowed the poor man +by her determination and exactions, "of course I can travel alone. Am +I an idiot, Levi, or a fool? Haven't I a good American tongue to ask +questions with? I remember our mother once told us she would spank us +well if we ever got lost in a place where folks talked the same +language we did. You put me on the train at The Forge with a through +seat in a Pullman, telegraph to Mary Jane to meet me in New York, and I +guess I can manage." +</P> + +<P> +"But, 'Tilda, what on earth has seized you to act so uncertain in the +middle of this visit? What will they think of you and me?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Matilda made her master stroke and, by virtue of her +sex-privilege, completed her triumph over her brother. +</P> + +<P> +"Levi," she said—she was standing before him, her thin hands on his +shoulders—"I ain't ever had what you might call a real fling where my +emotions and sentiments were concerned. Let go of me, just this once, +and trust me! I've always been sort of held back. First it was father +and mother; then Caroline, and lastly you! I ain't never done exactly +what I wanted to do without explaining, and now I want to be left free +even if I die for it!" +</P> + +<P> +"Well, well!" blurted Levi, but he caught the idea. "I guess women do +have a sense of the tight rein now and then; it may lie loose mostly, +but it never is quite laid off. 'Tilda, you may cut and run now, for +all of me. I'll see to what, you may say, are your animal +comforts—parlour car seats, tickets, and some one waiting for you in +town, but you kick the heels of your inclinations good and high for +once and I bet you and me will run the rest of the race together +better, forever after. Whoop it up, 'Tilda, and remember money needn't +be a hold back. You've got a big, fat slice coming to you, old girl." +</P> + +<P> +Now that Levi had dropped the reins, the spirit of adventure possessed +him. He and Sandy saw Matilda off on her journey three days later, in +high spirits. +</P> + +<P> +"I tell you, boy," he confided on the way back to the cabin, "it's a +mighty good sign when a woman wants to jump the traces, and a good man +isn't going to lick her into submission for doing it. The chances are +a woman wouldn't take to kicking if the traces didn't chafe. I've +meant to be kind to Matilda, but kindness can be chafing at times. A +woman like Matilda, a little, self-sacrificing woman, is real +enlightening if you pay attention." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda seemed to develop and expand during that trip North. She +ordered her meals with an abandon that electrified the waiters on the +train, and then her sense of economy demanded that she should eat what +she had ordered. Her tips were dazzling and erratic, but they, and her +quaint personality, won for her great comfort and care. She was in +better condition, physically, than she had been for many a day when, +one golden winter afternoon, she stood in Olive Treadwell's +drawing-room in Boston and waited for Cynthia. Mrs. Treadwell was out, +but the "young lady," the maid said, was in. +</P> + +<P> +"How very fortunate," thought Matilda and then took her rigid stand +across the room. Unconsciously she was waiting to see what Lansing +Treadwell had done to this girl of the hills whom he had so ruthlessly +and breath-takingly borne away. Lans was, unknowingly, before the most +awful bar of judgment he had ever stood—the bar of pure womanhood! +</P> + +<P> +There was a step upon the stairs; a quick, yet faltering step, and then +Cynthia entered the room and came toward Matilda Markham with deep, +questioning eyes and slow smile. The impression the girl made was to +last the rest of Matilda's life. Once, years before, Matilda had seen +a rare and lovely butterfly caught in the meshes of a net, and, oddly +enough, the memory came to her now as she looked at the sweet, +starry-eyed creature advancing. She was as surely caught in an +invisible net of some kind as the long-ago butterfly had been. Matilda +Markham noted the conventional gown of dull blue with silver trimming; +the little slippers to match, and the silken stockings; her eyes rested +upon the string of small silver beads wound around the slim throat; +all, all were but part of the mesh that caught and held the spirit that +had ceased to struggle. +</P> + +<P> +How lovely she was, this Cynthia of Lost Hollow, in spite of the crude +conventions! The frank, waiting eyes were as gray-blue as her mountain +skies; the lips, half-parted, had not forgotten to smile above the hurt +and pain of her tiring days and homesick nights; the smooth braids of +shining hair bound the lifted head just as dear Madam Bubble had +designed them on the morning when the portrait of "The Biggest of Them +All" was hung in the Significant Room. +</P> + +<P> +"You—wanted to see—me?" +</P> + +<P> +The drawl had become sacred to Matilda's ears. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my child. I have come from your old home just to see—you." +</P> + +<P> +A faint colour stole into the whiteness of the fair face. +</P> + +<P> +"From Lost Mountain?" Oh! if Sandy could have heard her say that word +how it would have rested his soul! "From Lost Mountain?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, my dear. Come and sit here beside me." +</P> + +<P> +Matilda could not stand longer. Her knees shook beneath her for, like +a blinding light, the knowledge came to her that poor Lans, with all +his faults, was exonerated from any wrong to this young girl! The +innocent old eyes and the radiant young ones had no veil between them. +Sitting side by side they smiled bravely at each other and then Cynthia +reached out her hands. +</P> + +<P> +"You are"—she whispered—"you are Sandy Morley's fairy godmother! Oh! +I know all about you. Lans has told me. I am right glad—oh! mighty +glad to see you!" +</P> + +<P> +The voice shook with emotion and Matilda Markham could not answer for a +moment. Never in her life had she been so moved. She longed to take +this girl to her heart and hold her there, but instead she found +herself, presently, telling the homely news of the hills to the hungry +soul whose yearning eyes never fell from her face. +</P> + +<P> +"And the little doctor is my own aunt, you know?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, child. They told me all about it." +</P> + +<P> +"It's right good to have one's own—at last;" this was plaintively +whispered; "and my dear, dear father. You know his story, too?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. It lives in the hills and speaks for him even to-day." +</P> + +<P> +"They-all say I'm like my father." +</P> + +<P> +"I am sure you must be. You are like Miss Lowe, and I guess one can +always tell which parent a boy or girl is like. I guess Sandy, now, is +like his mother. He doesn't favour his father." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes. I reckon Sandy must be like his mother. I had never thought of +that before." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia's eyes were fixed and dreamy. +</P> + +<P> +"And you, child, are you happy and content?"—the words of Sandy were +the only ones possible—"I must tell them all about you when I go back." +</P> + +<P> +"You are—going back?" the yearning was unmistakable—"I thought, +maybe, you were going to stay here—I'd be mighty glad to have you +near." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm coming home, to my own home a little later. I'll see you often +then." +</P> + +<P> +Slowly they were advancing and retreating, this woman and girl, but +each venture brought them a little nearer. Like the incoming waters of +a rising tide a slight gain was made, moment by moment. Then suddenly +and unexpectedly a rushing current bore them to the high mark. +</P> + +<P> +"You poor, homesick child! Come cry it out and have done with it!" +</P> + +<P> +It was not like Matilda Markham to so assert herself; it was not like +the dear, brave Madam Bubble to succumb as she now did; but, in another +instant she was kneeling where Sandy had knelt a few nights before, and +clinging to the dear hands which had, then, rested upon his bowed head. +</P> + +<P> +The wall of suppression that Cynthia had raised, during the past weeks, +between her mountain life and this artificial one of the city, crumbled +at the message from the hills. Her part in the strange drama sank to +insignificance, and in her weakness she was able to view it clearly and +dispassionately with this plain little woman who had come to serve her. +</P> + +<P> +"I did not understand," she sobbed; "I was tired—there had been the +night in the storm, you know. I did not want to make trouble and—oh! +how can I tell you, but it was only when the little doctor—my +aunt—explained everything that I saw myself standing alone in the +confusion with something I must say and do! I couldn't let them do my +work for me, dear lady,"—the quaint expression caused Matilda Markham +to draw in her breath sharply—"I was no longer a child and I had to +bear my part. When we-all stood in Sandy's cabin and the truth came to +us-all, at once, I reckon for the first time in my life, I realized I +was a woman. I couldn't take my chance and leave Lans out. They-all +wanted to save me from myself, but they forgot him and then when he +said"—the girl gasped—"that he wanted me—I had to go! I did not go +because any one compelled me—I just had to go! I was led like when I +married Lans. More and more I see it now; I feel it in the night. It +did not <I>happen</I>, dear lady; it all leads up to something God wants me +to do; something no one can do as well as I. Sandy had his call—you +know how he responded? Well, I have my leading. We-all, of the hills, +get near God, dear lady. We are lonelier; we need Him more and He +speaks more plainly to us, I reckon." +</P> + +<P> +The superstition and mysticism of Lost Hollow held every thought and +fancy of this girl, but Matilda Markham realized that they gave her +strength and purpose as they had poor Sandy before her. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! my dear, my dear!" was all she could say, but she freed one of her +cool hands from Cynthia's hot one, and laid it like a benediction on +the girlish head. +</P> + +<P> +"I am waiting, dear lady, for the thing I am to do, and Lans is mighty +kind. He is my big brother and I am his little sister—until I can +read my way plain. You did not know he was so good?" +</P> + +<P> +"I thank God that he is!" breathed Matilda Markham devoutly. +</P> + +<P> +"I wish I could make—Mrs. Treadwell understand. She—laughs!" +</P> + +<P> +Matilda felt her ire rise. The laugh of Olive Treadwell could be +brutal and cruel in its sweetest ripple! +</P> + +<P> +"It seems right long and wearying waiting, waiting for the meaning." +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia's slow words flowed on. She had ceased crying and was looking +up now with brave, clear eyes, "and part of me is there—in Lost +Hollow. That part of me comes to comfort <I>this</I> part of me—can you +understand, dear lady?" +</P> + +<P> +Matilda nodded. She did, indeed, understand. +</P> + +<P> +"And that part of me makes this part of me—stay here! After that +mighty hurry and trouble when Lans and I came away alone I was right +frightened. There was just once—while we stayed a few hours in New +York that I—that something happened. I was in a room, Lans had gone +out to order luncheon and I felt I had to run away! I stood with my +back against the wall when he came in and I reckon I was wild, for he +came close and took my hands this-er-way——" Cynthia was acting the +vivid scene standing now before Matilda Markham and holding her +hands—"and he said slow and firm, 'lil' girl, I'm not going to hurt +you. You and Sandy Morley are not going to see me fail!' And then +that part of me that lives always in Lost Hollow went back mighty safe +and strong. I haven't been afraid, dear lady, since." +</P> + +<P> +Then it was that Miss Markham arose and realized her strength to its +full extent. +</P> + +<P> +"Child," she said, "I've changed my mind about going back to Lost +Hollow to-morrow. I'm going to Bretherton and that is only a half hour +by rail from here. I want you to come to me, there. I must see you +again. I'll explain to Mrs. Treadwell and Lans. I declare I haven't +felt so like my old self for years and years." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! dear lady!" Cynthia's shining eyes were large and happy; "dear +lady! you mean you will let me see you in your own home?" +</P> + +<P> +"I mean—just that." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! Oh! why sometimes I think that soon God will say, 'lil' girl, +your task is done. Run back home now! Run back to your hills.' Maybe +I can go back with you!" +</P> + +<P> +A gayety rang in the sweet voice that almost reduced Matilda to tears. +The abandon and inconsequence were so oddly mingled with the strange +determined strength that the elderly woman was confused and irrational. +</P> + +<P> +The wayward, wild creature of the hills, ensnared in the net woven by +Lans's blind passion and irresponsibility, seemed so incapable of +fulfilling any role that demanded the recognition of her as a wife in +this superficial environment that Matilda felt immoral and +sacrilegious. She wanted to say, instead of leaving it to a higher +power, "Your task is done, lil' girl! Run back to your hills!" but +instead she said brokenly: +</P> + +<P> +"You will come to Bretherton?" +</P> + +<P> +"Indeed, yes; dear lady!" +</P> + +<P> +"Perhaps you will go out with me to-morrow if I stay over night in +town?" +</P> + +<P> +"If—oh! if they will let me. But you see, there are a mighty lot of +things to do—I'm learning!" +</P> + +<P> +"Good-bye then, dear child." +</P> + +<P> +And that night, on the paper of a quiet little hotel, Matilda wrote a +brief note to Lost Hollow. She addressed it to Levi. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P CLASS="letter"> +I'm going to stay on a spell. I never felt better in my life. It was +the thinking that life didn't need me any more, that was running me +down. It's awful foolish for old folks to let go of things. By the +way, I called at Olive Treadwell's to-day and saw Lans's wife. She's +real fascinating and real good looking. Brother, I want you to +reconsider about leaving Lans out of your will. He's coming out real +strong and blood is blood! Tell Sandy this girl, Cynthia, sends kind +regards and is enjoying her stay in Boston better than she expected. +</P> + +<BR> + +<P> +This letter had a marvellous effect upon Levi and Sandy. +</P> + +<P> +"What do you think of that?" Levi exclaimed shaking with laughter. "If +that ain't spunk and real grit." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy was looking out of the study window and did not reply. +</P> + +<P> +"That's the old New England spirit. Never say die and all the rest!" +Levi chuckled. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God for it!" was all Sandy said in return. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap26"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVI +</H3> + + +<P> +The work God had sent Cynthia to do came to hand very shortly after Miss +Markham's return to Bretherton. Cynthia had spent one blessed day at the +quiet old farm, then Mrs. Treadwell and she went down together and stayed +over one night, and once Lans ran down and had an hour's talk with his +Aunt 'Tilda before she slipped back to Lost Hollow and Cynthia's task +came for her doing. +</P> + +<P> +Lans's visit had sent Matilda to her knees beside the four-post bedstead +in the room that had once been Caroline Markham's. +</P> + +<P> +"Caroline," the trembling old lips had breathed, "it was <I>your</I> boy who +came home to-day. <I>Your</I> boy!" +</P> + +<P> +For Lans quite frankly and naturally had told his story. The hot blood +of the South was well in command and the light of reason was in the sorry +eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt 'Tilda, all my life I've been excused and forgiven for my +faults—bat I'm going to work my way out now, God helping me! I'm going +to take whatever punishment and joy comes. Up there in the hills I was +like a devil caged. I had passed through a trouble and been worsted; I +saw Morley standing where I should have stood, had I been less a fool +years ago. I couldn't seem to see, up there, how he deserved all that +was his. I was just maddened. I wanted to get on top and—I let go +myself! Cynthia seemed a child at first but all of a sudden she flashed +upon all that was evil in me—and I went blindly ahead until I stood +among them all in Morley's cabin. They all seemed so big and fine and +true and I saw—myself! All at once I found myself wanting more than I +had ever wanted anything in my life—to make good! I took my own way. +Some day you will all understand. That little girl is going to have her +choice by and by—I only wanted my fair chance to win out. When she +makes her choice her soul will be hers—I promised Sandy Morley that!" +</P> + +<P> +It was this that had sent Matilda to her knees beside the bed of Lans's +mother. +</P> + +<P> +And one evening—it was two days before Christmas, Lans took Cynthia and +his Aunt Olive Treadwell to a theatre in Boston. The play was a popular +one and, being late, Lans was obliged to take a box in order to get +seats. Cynthia felt and looked like a child. The excitement and +brilliancy brought colour to her cheeks and made her eyes dance. She +hardly spoke and only now and then heard what her companions said. +</P> + +<P> +"Lans," Olive Treadwell said during the first act, "there is Marian +Spaulding in the tenth row!" +</P> + +<P> +This did not interest Cynthia but Lans's sharp start did. She turned and +looked at him and then followed his eyes. A pale, slim woman in black +was looking at them from the orchestra seats. The expression on the thin +face remained in Cynthia's memory even when the scenes of the enthralling +play drove it, for the time being, into shadow. +</P> + +<P> +"Blue is Cynthia's colour," Mrs. Treadwell next remarked apropos of +nothing. "She's right handsome, Lans. You ought to be less a fool and +behave normally. She'd make a mighty sensation if——" But this did not +interest the absorbed third party in the box at all. +</P> + +<P> +When the play was over and the audience was crowding into the lobby, +Cynthia noticed the girl of the tenth row near them. She was not looking +at them, but she gave the impression of listening to what they said. +Again the face claimed Cynthia's attention. +</P> + +<P> +"Brother," she said softly to Lans, "is that a friend of yours? She +looks mighty sad." +</P> + +<P> +Lans gave another sharp start and rather abruptly replied: +</P> + +<P> +"I knew her once. Come, little sister, that is our number being called. +We must not hold up the line of taxis. Aunt Olive is out of sight." +</P> + +<P> +Strangely enough Cynthia did not dream of the play that night; nor did +the sad, fair face of Lans's one-time friend hold part in her visions, +but she did dream of Lost Mountain as she had not dreamed of it in many a +night. She was back among the dear, plain home scenes. She was planning +with Sandy the Home-school; she was in the cabin at Trouble Neck with the +little doctor. The sun was shining in the broad, opened door and she and +Marcia Lowe were sitting where the warm brightness flooded them. And at +that juncture of the dream something very vivid occurred. Quite +distinctly she heard the little doctor say: +</P> + +<P> +"In all the world there is nothing so important as this, Cyn. Remember +it as long as you live." +</P> + +<P> +Upon awakening, Cynthia, in her still, dark room, found herself haunted +by the dream and the little doctor's words. They were startling, yet +strangely familiar. When, before, had Marcia Lowe spoken them; what had +she meant? Then suddenly it came back to Cynthia. It was about little +children! +</P> + +<P> +"Our loves and our poor selves!" Marcia Lowe had often said, and +especially when she and Cynthia were working over the little ones of the +hill cabins, "what do they matter compared to the sacred lives of these +helpless creatures?" +</P> + +<P> +She had been quite fierce about it once when she had told Liza Hope that +God would hold her responsible if she brought any more blighted souls +into existence through Mason's passion and her own weak yielding. +</P> + +<P> +Lying awake and trembling in the small room off of Olive Treadwell's, +Marcia Lowe's words returned with sharp insistence and kept Cynthia +wakeful for many an hour. +</P> + +<P> +The next morning she was alone when the maid came to her and said a lady +wanted to see her on very important business and had asked that they +might be undisturbed for a half hour. Cynthia, puzzled and half afraid, +bade the girl bring the caller to the sitting-room in which she then was. +</P> + +<P> +What followed was so vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was +to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight +streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick +of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire +on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously +preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time +the slow, light steps were at the room door, Cynthia seemed to know who +the stranger was. The maid closed the door after the guest and then +Cynthia said quietly to the tall, black-robed girl: +</P> + +<P> +"You—are—Marian Spaulding!" +</P> + +<P> +"He—he has told you?" +</P> + +<P> +"No. Mrs. Treadwell—told me! Please sit down." +</P> + +<P> +They faced each other with only a few feet between them. Cynthia was +obsessed with but one conscious thought—she must go on as she was led; +say what she would be told to say. She could not think for herself. But +the stranger—distracted and ill at ease, leaped at conclusions; hurried +to her goal and took no heed of the obstacles in her path. +</P> + +<P> +"I did not know until last night that he—that Lans had a sister," she +said. "Our own affairs were so engrossing and—and exclusive—at that +time!" +</P> + +<P> +Marian Spaulding had an odd habit of spacing her words as if the sharp +breaths in between were dashes to emphasize her thought. "I knew Mrs. +Treadwell was aware of—of our arrangement—I knew, from Lans, that she +was broad minded and generous but when I saw you two together last +night—I—I wanted to come to you instead of to her!" +</P> + +<P> +An overpowering excitement in the speaker began to affect Cynthia. She +drew her chair closer and whispered: +</P> + +<P> +"Please tell me—all about it!" +</P> + +<P> +The significant words rushed Marian Spaulding breathlessly onward. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I could not go to him—to Lans—until I made sure—as sure as +possible—that I would not be injuring him by—by my demands. I wanted +to tell some one who loved him and would think of him, first. He was +always so heavenly good to me—I would not harm him even—now!" +</P> + +<P> +"No!" Cynthia's deep eyes were fastened on the white, strained face. "I +reckon no one would want to hurt Lans." +</P> + +<P> +"I was so unhappy when—when he saved me from my life of shame and +misery. There was no other way—and—and we had to choose! He was so +noble—it was I who—who—gave myself to him; he never exacted—anything. +I—loved him as only God and I can know! Poor Lans never comprehended +why I left—but he—my husband was ill; dying and I could not help it. +Something made me go back. It was the good in me that Lans had created +that most of all compelled me to go. If Lans could believe that! oh! if +he only could! A woman could, but could a man?" +</P> + +<P> +Poor Cynthia was struggling to understand a strange language. +</P> + +<P> +"I'm right sure," she faltered, "that Lans could understand." +</P> + +<P> +"Do you think so? Oh! I have been so tortured. He told me to come to +him if I needed him and God knows I need him now—but I wanted most of +all—not to hurt him—or exact too much from his goodness. You see——" +a palpitating pause followed. Then: "I did not <I>know</I> of my condition +when I went away; I only heard and saw the wretched man who was once, who +was still—my husband. I stayed and nursed him; he died—a month +ago—and now—I must think of—of—the child!" +</P> + +<P> +"The child?" Faintly Cynthia repeated the words and her bewildered mind +struggled with them and fitted them, somehow, into the Hopes' cabin, and +that scene where Marcia Lowe arraigned Liza. +</P> + +<P> +The door of the sitting-room opened and Lans entered noiselessly. Marian +Spaulding's back was toward it and in her slow, vague way Cynthia was +wondering why he should be there just then. The last shielding crust of +childhood was breaking away from Cynthia—her womanhood, full and +glowing, was being fanned to flame by the appeal this strange woman was +making upon it. Cynthia, the girl who had been caught in the net, had no +longer any part in this tragedy—she was free! +</P> + +<P> +"The child?" she again repeated, "what child?" +</P> + +<P> +"Why, Lans's and mine!" +</P> + +<P> +Then Cynthia stood up quite firm and straight. She looked full and +commandingly at Lans who was leaning, deadly white, against the door he +had closed behind him. +</P> + +<P> +"Here is Lans, now," she said, more to the haggard man than to the pale +woman. +</P> + +<P> +It was as if, in those four simple words, she appealed to the best and +finest of him to deal with this fearful responsibility which was his, not +hers. In that instant she relinquished all the forced ties that held him +and her—she cast him off superbly at this critical time of his life; not +bitterly or unkindly—but faithfully. +</P> + +<P> +Marian Spaulding turned and rose unsteadily to her feet, then with +outstretched arms, she staggered toward Lans. Over her pitiful, wan face +a flood of passion and love surged—her lonely, desperate soul claimed +its own at last! +</P> + +<P> +"Lans! Lans!" she cried, falling into his arms; "you will understand! +you must understand—and there is—our child!" +</P> + +<P> +Lansing Treadwell held the little form close, but his wide, haunted eyes +sought Cynthia's over the head pressed against his breast. Cynthia +smiled at him; smiled from a far, far place, helpfully, bravely. She +demanded his best of him with confidence, and the unreality of it all +held no part in the thought of either. +</P> + +<P> +"I must take her—away!" Lans found words at last to say. +</P> + +<P> +"Yes," Cynthia nodded, still smiling her wonderful smile at him. +</P> + +<P> +"I will return—soon. Come—Marian!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia saw them depart, heard the lower door close upon them and then +she awoke from her spell. Sitting down in a deep chair before the fire +she took the incidents of the past few moments, one by one, and set them +in order. Like an ignorant child selecting block after block and asking +some wiser one what they meant, she demanded of her new self the answer +to all she had witnessed. +</P> + +<P> +The travail was long and desperate—and when Lans Treadwell found her, an +hour later, he was shocked at the sight of her face. +</P> + +<P> +"My God!" was all he could say. +</P> + +<P> +"We must—talk it over," Cynthia said gravely. "I can understand now. +You see, dear, I couldn't have her hurt—her and—and the child." +</P> + +<P> +Lans dropped in the chair Marian Spaulding had sat in and bowed his head +in his hands. +</P> + +<P> +"Was there ever such a cruel situation?" he groaned. Cynthia came to him +and knelt beside the arm of his chair. She had never come to him so +before and the touch of her body thrilled the man. +</P> + +<P> +"You did not tell her—about me, big brother? did you? You let her +believe I am your sister." +</P> + +<P> +"Good God! how could I tell the truth? I was afraid of killing her." +</P> + +<P> +"And—the child. Of course you must not tell—now." +</P> + +<P> +"Cynthia, in heaven's name, don't be too hard upon me—you are my wife!" +</P> + +<P> +Fiercely Lans proclaimed this as if, by so doing, he could find refuge +for her as well as himself. But Cynthia shook her head and drove him +back upon his better self again. +</P> + +<P> +"Those little words spoken by that man in the hills," she whispered, +"couldn't count, I reckon, against—all the rest." +</P> + +<P> +"They can! They shall, Cynthia. I can make the past clear to you, +little girl——" Then he stopped still before the look in Cynthia's eyes. +</P> + +<P> +"I am a—woman, Lans!" it seemed to say. +</P> + +<P> +Presently he heard her speak. +</P> + +<P> +"You told Sandy, dear, that night in the cabin, that you would leave my +soul to me—until—well! You have left it to me, and the time has come! +I have much to learn; but I understand a mighty lot now. It came to me +while I waited, for you to come back from her! My soul would never be +clean again, Lans, if—I forgot—the little child—hers and yours! God +will be very kind to us-all, dear, if we do right. It's mighty +puzzling—but it will come straight. You once loved her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Cynthia—yes!" +</P> + +<P> +"And you never loved me in <I>that</I> way, dear?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are my wife!" Again the fierceness, "you must and shall come first." +</P> + +<P> +"No, Lans; I am not your wife!" +</P> + +<P> +And with this Cynthia stood up and clasped her hands close. +</P> + +<P> +"Every law in the land says you are!" Treadwell flung his head back and +faced her; "this is a hideous tangle, but above all—through all—you are +my wife!" +</P> + +<P> +"I do not know, I cannot make you feel how I see it—but I am not your +wife! I—I do not want to be! Why, when I saw the light in—in Marian +Spaulding's eyes a little time ago as she ran to you—I seemed to know +all at once—that it was not to you, Lans dear, that I wanted to run in +my trouble, but to——" +</P> + +<P> +"Whom?" +</P> + +<P> +"To Sandy, dear. Sandy, up there in Lost Hollow." +</P> + +<P> +"Cynthia!" +</P> + +<P> +Was she shamming? Was she striving, ignorantly, to make escape easy for +them all? Was she utterly devoid of moral sense? "Moral sense!" At +that Lans Treadwell paused. The glory shining from Cynthia's eyes as she +stood before him, made him shrink and drop his own. The strength and +purity of the high places was upon her. She was lovely and tender, but +primitively firm. The law of the cities she did not know; but the law of +the secret places of the hills was hers. The law of love and Love's God. +</P> + +<P> +"You must take her away, Lans, dear, and be right good to her as you have +been to me, big brother," the sweet voice, the unutterable tenderness and +firmness more and more carried everything before them; "and let the +little child have its chance—poor lil' child! And by and by—oh! a long +time perhaps—when you are all mighty happy and safe, you must tell her +all about it, Lans, and make her love me—a little! Tell her—it was all +I could do. She will understand and be right glad." +</P> + +<P> +"And you—little Cyn?" The words came in a groan. +</P> + +<P> +"I? oh! I reckon this is what God meant me to do, Lans. For this he +brought me down The Way, and now he will let me go home!" +</P> + +<P> +Mrs. Treadwell's step outside the door brought them both back to the poor +artificial environment that bound them. +</P> + +<P> +"I—I cannot see her now!" +</P> + +<P> +Cynthia crouched before the stern, conventional tread of the approaching +woman as if she were in a place she had no right to be and Lans quickly +opened a door leading from the sitting-room to a bedroom through which +she might escape. And as the slight figure ran from his sight he had a +sickening feeling as if, wakening from a dream of mystery and +enchantment, he found himself in the midst of sordid reality. The sweet +purity of the hills passed with Cynthia and the actualities of his future +entered with Olive Treadwell. +</P> + +<P> +"Lans," she asked sharply, looking about the room, "who was the woman who +called here this morning? The woman Cynthia saw?" +</P> + +<P> +"It was—Marian Spaulding." +</P> + +<P> +"Good heavens! Did she talk to Cynthia?" +</P> + +<P> +"She—tried to—Cynthia—could not understand." +</P> + +<P> +"She will some day, though, Lans! Can you buy Marian off? I wouldn't +have believed she was so vicious. Did she—lie?" +</P> + +<P> +"I rather imagine she spoke only—truth." +</P> + +<P> +"Well! I reckon this is about the worst confusion that was ever brought +about. Without being positively bad, Lans, you've managed to create a +mighty lot of trouble for a good many innocent people." +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, Aunt Olive." +</P> + +<P> +Lans was standing by the window looking down into the empty street. +</P> + +<P> +"What are you—going to do about it?" +</P> + +<P> +Then Lans turned. +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Olive, I'm going to untangle the snarl—somehow! And I'm going to +stand by—Marian!" +</P> + +<P> +"Marian? You talk like a madman, Lans, or a fool—and a depraved one at +that. You owe everything to Cynthia—you'll be held to it, too, by law!" +</P> + +<P> +"Aunt Olive," and then Lans laughed a mirthless, cold laugh, "I wonder if +either you or I ever really seriously thought we could—hold Cynthia? +There is no law that could keep her here. She is of the hills. She came +into our lives just long enough to purify our air and—clear my vision. +She'll go back now. We—cannot keep her!" +</P> + +<P> +"Go back—to whom?" +</P> + +<P> +This practical question took the smile from Lans's lips. +</P> + +<P> +"To Sandy Morley, I reckon," he said grimly; "most of every noble thing I +might have had—gets to him—sooner or later. He always loved her; she +has just confessed to me that she loves him." +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<A NAME="chap27"></A> +<H3 ALIGN="center"> +CHAPTER XXVII +</H3> + + +<P> +There was a crust of glistening snow upon The Way; every branch of the +tall, bare trees was outlined with a feathery whiteness which shone, as +one looked deep into the woods, like the tracery of some fantastic +spirit going where it listeth without design or purpose. From Lost +Mountain the shadows had long since fled, and the gaunt peak rose clear +and protectingly over The Hollow, which, somehow, had undergone a +mysterious change in a few short months—or, was the change due to the +magic touch of love that dwelt in the eyes of a young girl who had left +the early train at The Forge and, on foot and alone, was wandering up +The Way with a song of joy trembling upon her lips? So quietly and +quickly had she run from the station, that Smith Crothers, standing by +the door of the saloon opposite, had been the only one to notice the +passenger in the long coat, rich furs, and quaint little velvet hat. +</P> + +<P> +"Who's that?" he asked of the bartender inside. The man, on his knees, +scrubbing the floor, rose stiffly and came to Crothers. +</P> + +<P> +"Ole miss from The Holler?" he ventured vaguely. +</P> + +<P> +"Ole miss—be damned!" Crothers was in an ill humour. +</P> + +<P> +"Company, maybe, for the Morley cabin. It's mighty 'mazing how many +folks, first and last, do tote up The Way these days. But I don't +see—nobody!" +</P> + +<P> +Neither did Crothers, now, for the stranger was hidden from sight. +Then he began to wonder if there really had been any one. The night's +revel had been rather wilder than usual, and Crothers was not as young +as he once was. +</P> + +<P> +The bell of his factory was ringing, however, and he unsteadily made +his way thither. +</P> + +<P> +It was Cynthia who was treading lightly up The Way, but not the Cynthia +who a few months before had gone so blindly to do the bidding of that +inner voice of conscience. +</P> + +<P> +"It was here," murmured she, standing behind a tall tree by the road, +"that you fled from Crothers the night of the fire. Poor little Cyn!" +</P> + +<P> +That was it! The child, Cynthia, walked beside the woman, Cynthia, +now, and the woman with clear, awakened eyes—understood at last! +</P> + +<P> +"Poor little Cyn! How frightened you were and how bravely you fought +for—me! Or was it I who fought for you? Never mind! we have come +home. Come home together, dear, you and I! How heavenly good it is +for us to come—together!" +</P> + +<P> +At every step the weariness and sense of peril, engendered by her +experience, dropped from Cynthia. She was a woman, but Lans had left +her soul to her, and she could clasp hands with the past quite +confidently and joyously. +</P> + +<P> +"Home! home!" The word thrilled and thrilled through her being, and on +every hand she noted the touch of Sandy Morley with tender +appreciation. She laughed, too, this thin, pale girl, and could Sandy +have seen her then he would have thought her shining white face, set in +the dark furs, more like, than ever, the dogwood bloom under the pines! +</P> + +<P> +"And here I met him on The Way!" Cynthia paused at the spot where she +had stood that spring morning, and saw, with a shock of disappointment, +the man who had usurped her childish ideal of Sandy Morley. +</P> + +<P> +"How lonely he must have been—when I did not know him! Oh! Sandy—to +think I did not know you. You, with your brave, kind eyes and your +tender heart!" +</P> + +<P> +A tear rolled down the uplifted face. It was a tear of joy, for +Cynthia was going to Sandy. From the unrest and unreality she had fled +to him feeling confident that he would gather up the tangled and +dropped threads of her life, and weave them, somehow, into a new and +perfect pattern. She had so much to tell him! And he was there, close +to her! Waiting, waiting for her to come to him and she could afford +to dally by the wayside; gather up the precious memories—so like toys +of the child she once had been and, by and by, she would go to him like +a little girl tired of her day's wandering, and he would comfort her! +</P> + +<P> +By the time Cynthia reached Theodore Starr's church all the heaviness +of recent happenings was forgotten; it had no part in her thought. The +church was gay in Christmas green and red holly berries. The morning +sun, quite high by now, shone in the windows. +</P> + +<P> +"Father!" whispered the girl as if in prayer, and then she knelt, where +once her childish feet had borne her in terror, and buried her face in +her hands. How well she now understood her dear, dead father! Strong +in human love and sympathy, incapable of inflicting pain—even when +pain would have been better and kinder than the lack of it—how like +him she, the daughter, was! How she had slipped aside from the right +path because weak desire to escape, or inflict pain, had been her +portion. Well, she had suffered; had endured her exile; been +mercifully spared from worse things, and now God had led her—home! +</P> + +<P> +The unseen presence seemed to bend pityingly from the rude desk-pulpit +and comfort the gentle heart of the returned wanderer. +</P> + +<P> +Presently, choosing a time when the store near by was deserted, Cynthia +ran from the church, across The Way, and escaped, unseen, to the trail +leading up to Stoneledge. Her gay spirits returned and she sang +snatches of song as she once used to sing. There was no sequence, no +meaning of words, but the short sharp turns and trills were as wild and +sweet as the bird notes. She tried Sandy's call—but her memory failed +her there! +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! the old tree," Cynthia ran to it. For months and months she had +forgotten it, and the secret it held in its dead heart. Yes, the box +was there! The box in which lay the outbursts of a girl's fancy and +imaginings. With a mischievous laugh Cynthia removed the old letters +and put them in the bag that hung from a girdle at her waist. Then she +walked on to the old Walden Place. There a shock awaited her. What +had happened? The crumbling walls had fallen in many places; but there +were props and scaffoldings, too! Sandy had begun his work of +redemption on the Great House. It was to be the home of the Markhams, +but the surprised onlooker could not know that the property, taken by +the county for unpaid taxes, had been bought in by Levi Markham in +Sandy's name. +</P> + +<P> +"Dear old Stoneledge!" And then Cynthia sat down upon a fallen log and +knew the heavy heartedness of one who arrives too late to receive the +welcome that was hushed forever. But suddenly her face brightened. In +the general demoralization a portion of the house still stood—it was +the wing, the library! +</P> + +<P> +The roof had caved in, but the Significant Room stood open and stark to +the glittering winter sunlight! Reverent hands had removed the +furniture, books, and pictures; the stark and staring walls, with their +stained and torn paper, were bared to the gaze of every chance +passerby. Suddenly, to the yearning heart of the onlooker, a miracle +appeared. The scene of devastation disappeared; there was a fragrance +of honeysuckle and yellow roses in the sharp air and, in a dim, sweet, +old, sheltered room stood a little girl with patched gingham gown and +long smooth-hanging braids of hair, gazing up at a portrait that no +eyes but hers had ever seen. It was little Madam Bubble and she was +lovingly, proudly, exultingly, looking at "The Biggest of Them All!" +</P> + +<P> +Unheeded, the tears rained down the cheeks of the woman standing by the +ruins of her old home; she stretched her arms out tremblingly as if to +hold the vision to the exclusion of all the rest of life. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! my Sandy, you have indeed cut your way through your enemies. Oh! +my love; my dear, dear love." +</P> + +<P> +How long she stood rapt in her vision Cynthia never knew. Her day of +wonders enchanted and held her oblivious of weariness, hunger, or +physical pain, but she must get to Trouble Neck; she must throw herself +into the safe arms of the little doctor and—find peace and guidance. +Later they—the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady and she—would go to Sandy's +cabin as they had that night when Lans had claimed her and then—well, +beyond that Cynthia could not see! +</P> + +<P> +At Trouble Neck another disappointment met her. The trim cabin was +empty! The unlocked door gave way to the eager pressure; the sunny +room was full of generous welcome, and a gleam of fire on the hearth +showed that the little mistress had not been gone long. +</P> + +<P> +Some people leave a room more vacant than others. Like the breath of +perfume, after the flower has been removed, their personality and +dearness linger, making one miss them more, and long for them more +keenly. As a child might suffer at not finding its mother awaiting it +at the close of day Cynthia suffered then. She wandered to the table +on which lay the little doctor's work—a child's dress! Beside it was +a medical book opened at a chapter on the diseases of—children. And +on the widespread book lay an unsealed note addressed to—Tod Greeley! +</P> + +<P> +A smile, a wan, understanding smile touched Cynthia's lips, but +presently it softened into the dear, old, slow smile, and the girl bent +and kissed the penciled name of the postmaster, for the dear, absent +hand had rested there last! +</P> + +<P> +There were bread and milk and bacon in the pantry, and with happy +familiarity Cynthia made a meal for herself, and ate heartily. After +this she went into the lean-to chamber and taking off her hat and +wraps, lay down upon the couch, for she began to realize how weary she +was. She slept several hours and was awakened by a step in the outer +room. Thinking it was Marcia Lowe she raised herself and looked +through the half-opened door. It was Tod Greeley! He had lighted the +oil lamp and stood by the table with Marcia's note in his hand. Over +and again he read it, then folded it slowly and put it in his breast +pocket. +</P> + +<P> +A change had been wrought upon Greeley. He stood straight and firm; he +was shaven and shorn and neatly dressed; his face was happier, too, +than Cynthia had ever seen it. The lazy good humour was merged into +purpose and dignity. +</P> + +<P> +"To-morrow, then!" Cynthia heard him murmur; "to-morrow then!" +</P> + +<P> +He extinguished the light and passed from the house, leaving Cynthia +more lonely than she had been since she left the train that morning. +</P> + +<P> +For an hour or two Cynthia struggled with herself. Abstractedly she +knew that she ought not to go to Sandy Morley alone. Something that +some one—she could not remember who or where—taught her, warned her +that it was not right for her to leave Trouble Neck that evening. +</P> + +<P> +"But why?" asked the great longing, "why?" +</P> + +<P> +"You are Lans Treadwell's wife; his wife!" +</P> + +<P> +At this Cynthia laughed outright. That part of her life had touched +her only as her awful experience with Crothers had done; except that +Lans had gained her confidence in Man while Crothers had imperilled it. +The real self of Cynthia was pure and untouched; ready to offer now, to +offer itself, upon the true altar of love and consecration. Nothing +could change that; nothing could blind her to it; but over and through +the knowledge ran the discord of suggestion left by the contact with +convention, down, and far, from Lost Mountain. +</P> + +<P> +It was eight o'clock when Cynthia gained her triumph over the claim +upon her, and cloaked and hooded, started out. +</P> + +<P> +She wore her own, old cloak and the red hood that Marcia Lowe's loving +fingers had knitted for her. Sandy must not be disappointed in her; it +must be little Cyn, not the Cynthia Lans Treadwell had claimed, who was +to put forth her appeal for help. +</P> + +<P> +The crisp, starry night was still and fine; the walk from Trouble Neck +to Sandy's cabin brought the blood to the pale cheeks, light to the +large eyes. How quiet the cabin was—and dark! Only one light shone +forth and that was from the study. Cautiously Cynthia stepped close +and looked in; the curtains were parted where a hasty hand had left +them. Sandy, seated near the glowing fire, was painting at his easel. +After a long day's work in the open air he was indulging his fancy, +forgetting the trials and disappointments of his life in the poor +talent that was his. The canvas was so placed that the watcher from +outside could see it plainly over the back bent toward it. A face +gleamed from a crown of dogwood blossoms—pink and white blossoms! It +was the face of—Madam Bubble! The girl-face with the slow, alluring +smile and the waiting eyes! +</P> + +<P> +The woman outside bent her head upon her cold clasped hands while the +waves of love and surrender engulfed her. All her life she had been +coming to—Sandy! He had cut down every barrier but one! He must +crush that! How strong he looked, how fine! +</P> + +<P> +A tap as gentle as the touch of a bird's wing fell upon the frosty +glass and Sandy turned sharply. He waited a moment, then came to the +window. Cynthia, frightened at her daring, shrank into the shadow and +breathed hard. Sandy waited a moment longer and then drew the heavy +curtains together close, leaving the outer world in darkness. +</P> + +<P> +A moment later Cynthia, regaining courage, crept close to the glass and +tapped again. This time Sandy strode to the door, flung it wide and, +standing in the panel of warmth and light with uplifted head, said +sternly: +</P> + +<P> +"Who is there? What is wanted?" +</P> + +<P> +Who he expected he hardly knew himself, but the answer he received +caused him to reel backward. +</P> + +<P> +"It's—it's lil' Cyn, Sandy, and she wants—you!" +</P> + +<P> +Then he drew her in, closed the door upon the world and, holding her +before him by the shoulders, looked deep and searchingly into her eyes +which met his unflinchingly and trustfully. +</P> + +<P> +"Thank God!" was all he said, but in that moment poor Lans Treadwell +passed unscathed before his last judge. +</P> + +<P> +"How thin you are, little Cyn!" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy had drawn the big leather chair to the hearth and seated her in +it. He took off the cloak and hood and then stood back. +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon the longing for home did it, Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +"You have—been homesick?" +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! mighty homesick. I have wanted the mountain until my soul hurt." +</P> + +<P> +"Poor lil' Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +"Say it again, Sandy, say it again!" The dimmed eyes implored him. +</P> + +<P> +"Poor lil' Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +No suggestion of impropriety had entered with Cynthia. Sandy was too +fine and self-forgetful to be touched by worldliness. Cynthia had come +to him; he and she were safe! +</P> + +<P> +"And Lans, Cynthia?" +</P> + +<P> +"Come close, Sandy. There, sit so, on the stool. I want to touch you, +I want to see you near while I go back—go away from our mountain for a +time. Come with me, Sandy, down to Lans!" +</P> + +<P> +Then she told him. The red firelight played on her pale, sweet face; +her hand sometimes reached out and lay upon the shoulder by the arm of +her chair; once the fingers touched his cheek—but Sandy did not move +and his eyes never looked up from the heart of the glowing log. +</P> + +<P> +"It was a long journey to the day when I understood, Sandy. It was a +hard path for ignorant feet and blind eyes—but God was very good to +me. The South is slow with us-all, dear, but up there in the North—I +awakened! I think it came—the truth, dear, when she—the girl, ran to +Lans. In the mighty times of a woman's life she can only run that +way—to one man! And like the mists, clearing from Lost Mountain, the +shadows left me and I knew right well that come what might, Sandy dear, +in all the time on ahead, in joy or sorrow, pain or—death it would be +to you I would want to run." +</P> + +<P> +The log fell apart in rich glory and then Sandy looked up into the +drooping, flower-like face. +</P> + +<P> +"Don't, lil' Cyn," he whispered, "you do not understand, but—you must +not speak so to me." +</P> + +<P> +Then she laughed. +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! I reckon I know what you mean, Sandy. I've been through it all +and—run away from it! Sandy, tell me true; before the good and great +God, doesn't that poor girl belong to Lans more than I do?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes!" +</P> + +<P> +"Isn't his duty to her?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes, yes, lil' Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +"Then what is left? Just—you and me, I reckon, Sandy." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy gripped his clasped hands close as if by so doing he could better +control the rising passion of his love for the girl beside him. Her +ignoring of stern fact turned his reason. She was right—but she was +wrong! He must protect her and never fail her; he must not be less +than Lans. +</P> + +<P> +Then her words came to him in the chaos of his emotions; a new thought +had claimed her. She had finished, at last, with the story of her +exile; she was back among her hills. +</P> + +<P> +"And the factory, Sandy, it is coming on right fast, I reckon?" +</P> + +<P> +"It is nearly done." +</P> + +<P> +"And—the Home-school?" +</P> + +<P> +"That, too, is nearly ready." +</P> + +<P> +"You haven't forgotten the lil' room, off in the corner, have you, +Sandy? The lil' room where the baby-things are to come to me to +be—cuddled?" +</P> + +<P> +Sandy shivered. +</P> + +<P> +"You—haven't left <I>that</I> out, have you, Sandy?" +</P> + +<P> +"I had, lil' Cyn, but I am going to put it aback—to-morrow." +</P> + +<P> +"I'm right glad, Sandy, for I've learned some mighty sweet lil' tunes, +and I've bought some pictures and books with stories that will make +them-all laugh when we've taught them how. My trunk is full of things +for the babies." +</P> + +<P> +Sandy permitted himself one look at the dear face so close to his own. +It wore the white rapt look he remembered so well; the wonderful, +brooding tenderness as fancy held it. It was so she had looked upon +him when, as a ragged boy, he sat beside her. She had awakened +imagination within his starved soul and given his ambition wings with +which to soar. +</P> + +<P> +He and she were now bent forward toward the smouldering fire; he on the +stool, she in the deep chair. +</P> + +<P> +"Do you remember, Sandy, lil' Madam Bubble?" +</P> + +<P> +"I reckon I remember nothing else so—clearly." +</P> + +<P> +He looked away, he could trust himself no farther. +</P> + +<P> +"And the 'Biggest of Them All'—you remember him?" +</P> + +<P> +"I—I have forgotten him, Cynthia." +</P> + +<P> +"No—you have not forgotten him, Sandy!" +</P> + +<P> +"He—he does not seem to have any place, lil' Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +"Oh! yes and yes he does! I reckon he is bigger than even you or +I—know!" +</P> + +<P> +Did she suspect the terrible weakness of desire that was overpowering +him? At this thought Sandy gripped his hands closer; he felt her deep, +true eyes upon him and a rush of blood dyed his dark face to crimson. +Cynthia saw this and laid her cool hand upon his shoulder while she +asked bravely, daringly: +</P> + +<P> +"Do you love me—Sandy?" +</P> + +<P> +What other woman on earth could have put that question at such a time? +He and she were alone in the empty woods and the night held them. +Sandy turned to her. +</P> + +<P> +"As God hears me—yes, lil' Cyn, with all my heart and soul. I have +loved you all my life." +</P> + +<P> +"In this bag," Cynthia touched the bag at her waist, "are the letters I +wrote to you, Sandy, while you were away. I hid them in an old tree by +Stoneledge. The tree kept them safe for—me. There are a right +many—all answers to the one you sent me. Do you want them, Sandy?" +</P> + +<P> +"Yes." +</P> + +<P> +"Here—Sandy!" +</P> + +<P> +The letters, more precious than any other gift, lay in his keeping at +last. +</P> + +<P> +"God bless you, lil' Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +She smiled divinely. +</P> + +<P> +"I wandered far down in the valley, Sandy, and I had a hard lesson to +learn; a hard thing to do, and I've come home to find you waiting for +me. Oh! tell me, dear, isn't there one law, just one in our land to +set a lil' girl free who has made a mistake?" +</P> + +<P> +Behind the two by the fire a door opened and, on the threshold stood +Levi Markham perplexed and awed. Slowly the meaning of the scene came +to him; Matilda had somewhat prepared him; the question of the girl by +Sandy's side shed a blinding light upon the confusion of his thoughts. +Standing there, rugged and strong, he seemed the personification of +power and solution. But he was waiting; he must know what Sandy felt! +He drew back into the cold, dark passage and played the eavesdropper +for the first and last time in his life. +</P> + +<P> +"Mine! mine!" Never had Sandy's voice known that tone before. Levi +bowed his head. +</P> + +<P> +"You are mine! Yes, lil' Cyn, there is a law, there must be a law that +can give us to each other; I have been waiting for you by The Way all +my life, and you have come to me, lil' girl, at last—my lil' Cyn." +</P> + +<P> +Then Levi Markham stole away. He felt along the passage with +outstretched hands for his eyes were blinded. He must waken Matilda; +he must—but there he paused. The door, at which he had just stood, +was opening! He had time, only, to crouch in the shadow of a turn of +the hallway before Sandy and Cynthia came out. Sandy had his right arm +protectingly around the girl; her bright head rested on his shoulder; +in his left hand Sandy held high a lighted candle. +</P> + +<P> +"We must tell them, dear heart," he was whispering; "they two before +any one else." +</P> + +<P> +And then Levi, seeing flight possible, ran to his sister's room in +order that he might share the confidence that he already possessed. +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR> + +<P CLASS="finis"> +THE END +</P> + +<BR><BR><BR><BR> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Son of the Hills, by Harriet T. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Son of the Hills + +Author: Harriet T. Comstock + +Release Date: January 22, 2007 [EBook #20424] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A SON OF THE HILLS *** + + + + +Produced by Al Haines + + + + + + + + + + +[Frontispiece: "Cautiously Cynthia stepped close +and looked in . . . Sandy was painting at his easel"] + + + + + + +A SON OF THE HILLS + + +BY + +HARRIET T. COMSTOCK + + + +AUTHOR OF + +JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS, + +JANET OF THE DUNES, ETC. + + + + +GROSSET & DUNLAP + +PUBLISHERS : NEW YORK + + + + +Copyright, 1913, by + +DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY + + + _All rights reserved, including that of + translation into foreign languages, + including the Scandinavian_ + + + + +A Son of the Hills + + +CHAPTER I + +Lost Hollow lies close at the foot of the mountain which gives it its +name. The height of neither is great, geographically considered; the +peak is perhaps eighteen hundred feet above sea level: The Hollow, a +thousand, and from that down to The Forge there is a gradual descent by +several trails and one road, a very deplorable one, known as The +Appointed Way, but abbreviated into--The Way. + +There are a few wretched cabins in Lost Hollow, detached and dreary; +between The Hollow and The Forge are some farms showing more or less +cultivation, and there is the Walden Place, known before the war--they +still speak of that event among the southern hills as if Sheridan had +ridden through in the morning and might be expected back at night--as +the Great House. + +Among the crevasses of the mountains there are Blind Tigers, or Speak +Easies--as the stills are called--and, although there is little trading +done with the whiskey outside the country side, there is much mischief +achieved among the natives who have no pleasure of relaxation except +such as is evolved from the delirium brought about by intoxication. + +The time of this story is not to-day nor is it very many yesterdays +ago; it was just before young Sandy Morley had his final "call" and +obeyed it; just after the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady came to Trouble +Neck--three miles from The Hollow--and while she was still distrusted +and feared. + +Away back in the days of the Revolution the people of the hills were of +the best. All of them who could serve their country then, did it nobly +and well. Some of them signed the Declaration of Independence and then +returned to their homes with the dignity and courage of men in whose +veins flowed aristocratic blood as well as that of adventurous freemen. +There they waited for the recognition they expected and deserved. But +the new-born republic was too busy and breathless to seek them out or +pause to listen to their voices, which were softer, less insistent than +others nearer by. In those far past times the Morleys and the +Hertfords were equals and the Walden Place deserved its name of the +Great House. The Appointed Way was the Big Road, and was kept in good +order by well-fed and contented slaves who had not then dreamed of +freedom. + +The final acceptance of the hill people's fate came like a deadening +shock to the men and women of the Lost Mountain district--they were +forgotten in the new dispensation; in the readjustment they were +overlooked! The Hertfords left the hills with uplifted and indignant +heads--they had the courage of their convictions and meant to take what +little was left to them and demand recognition elsewhere--they had +always been rovers. Besides, just at that time Lansing Hertford and +Sandford Morley, sworn friends and close comrades, had had that secret +misunderstanding that was only whispered about then, and it made it +easier for Hertford to turn his back upon his home lands and leave them +to the gradual decay to which they were already doomed. The Waldens +had retained enough of this world's goods to enable them to descend the +social scale slower than their neighbours. Inch by inch they debated +the ground, and it was only after the Civil War that Fate gripped them +noticeably. Up to that time they had been able to hide, from the none +too discriminating natives, the true state of affairs. + +The Morleys and the Tabers, the Townleys and the Moores, once they +recognized the true significance of what had happened, made no +struggle; uttered no defiance. They slunk farther back into the hills; +they shrank from observation and depended more and more upon +themselves. They intermarried and reaped the results with sullen +indifference. Their hopes and longings sank into voiceless silence. +Now and then Inheritance, in one form or another, flared forth, but +before it could form itself into expression it was stilled and +forbidden, by circumstances, to assert itself. + +Sad, depressed Lost Hollow! Over it loomed darkly the mountain whose +peak was so often shrouded in clouds. The people loved the hills and +the shadows; they glided like wan ghosts up and down The Way or took to +the more sheltered trails. When they were sober they were gentle, +harmless folk, but when whiskey overpowered them the men became dully +brutal, the women wretchedly slavish, and the children what one might +expect such sad little creatures to become! Lacking in intellect, +misshapen and timid, they rustled among the underbrush like frightened +animals; peered forth like uncanny gnomes, and ate and slept how and as +they could. + +After the Civil War these people became "poor whites" and were ground +between the nether millstone of their more prosperous neighbours and +that of the blacks, until they sank to the lowest level. Their voices +were hushed and forgotten; their former estate blotted out in their +present degradation, and just then Sandy Morley and Cynthia Walden were +born and some high and just God seemed to strengthen their childish +voices; vouchsafe to them a vision and give their Inheritance charge +over them. + +Marriage form was not largely in vogue among the Lost Hollow people; it +was too expensive and unnecessary. The rector of the small church at +The Forge looked upon the hill people as altogether beyond and below +the need of any attention of his, and was genuinely surprised and +annoyed when one of them called upon him for service. He had not come +to The Forge from an ardour to save souls; he had been placed there +because he had not been wanted elsewhere, and he was rebellious and +bitter. Occasionally he was summoned to the mountain fastnesses for a +burial or wedding, but he showed his disapproval of such interferences +with his dignified rights, and was not imposed upon often. But Martin +Morley, Sandy's father, had married Sandy's mother. She was a Forge +girl who believed in Martin and loved him, so he took her boldly to the +parsonage, paid for the service the rector performed, and went his way. + +There was one happy year following in the Morley cabin under Lost +Mountain. Martin worked as he never had before; the hut was mended +without and made homelike within. The little wife sang at her tasks +and inspired Martin to a degree of fervour that brought him to the +conclusion that he must get away! Get away from the poverty and +squalor of The Hollow; get away farther than The Forge--far, far away! + +"After the baby comes!" the little wife whispered, "we'll take it to a +better, sunnier place and--give it a chance!" + +The baby came on a bad, stormy night. Sandford Morley they called him. +The Forge doctor, travelling up The Way, stopped at the Morley cabin +for a bite of supper and found how things were. Sally Taber was in +command, and Martin, frightened and awed, crouched by the chimney +corner in the living-room, while his girl-wife (she was much younger +than he) made her desperate fight. + +"There's only a broken head or two up at Teale's Blind Tiger," the +doctor said grimly; "they can wait, I reckon, while I steer this +youngster into port." The doctor had come from the coast on account of +his lungs and his speech still held the flavour of the sea. + +Sandy Morley made a difficult mooring with more vigour and +determination than one would have expected, but the cost was great. +All night the battle waged. The doctor, with coat off and haggard +face, fought with the little mother inch by inch, but at sunrise, just +two hours after Sandy lustily announced his arrival, she let go the +hand of her husband who knelt by her hard, narrow bed, and whispered in +the dialect of her hills, "Youcum!"--which meant that Morley must come +to her some where, some how, some time, for she no longer could bide +with him. + +After that Martin stayed on in the cabin with the baby. One woman +after another lent her aid in an hour of need, but on the whole Sandy +and his father made it out together as best they could. The little, +clinging fingers held Martin back for a time--the boy had his mother's +fine, clear eyes and when he looked at Martin something commanded the +man to stand firm. In those days Martin found comfort in religion and +became a power at the camp meetings; his prayers were renowned far and +near, but the evil clutched him in an unguarded hour and one bleak, +dreary springtime he met the Woman Mary and--let go! That was when +Sandy was seven. He brought Mary to the cabin and almost shamefacedly +explained, to the wondering boy, his act. + +"Son, she's come to take care of us--mind your ways, lad." + +Sandy gave Mary's handsome smiling face one quick look, then fled down +the hill, across the bottom pasture and Branch, up on the farther side +to the woods--his sanctury and haven, and there, lifting his eyes and +little clenched fists, he moaned over and over: + +"Curse her! curse her! I hate her!" + +He had never hated before; never cursed, but at that moment he cursed +that which he hated. + +It was early spring then, and under the tall, dark trees the dogwood +bushes were in full bloom. Sandy was touched, always, by beauty, and +in his excited state he thought in that desperate hour that the dogwood +blossoms were like stars under a stormy cloud. Heaven seemed reaching +down to him, and closing him in--his thoughts were tinged by Martin's +religious outbursts and the native superstition of the hills. It was +then and there that the child first knew he must go away! The call was +distinct and compelling--he must go away! And from that hour he made +preparation. At first the effort was small and pitiful. He began to +gather whatever Nature provided freely, and turn it into money. With +shrewd perception he realized he must overcome his deadly shyness and +carry his wares farther than The Hollow if he wished to achieve that +upon which he was bent. The Hollow people were poor; The Forge people +would give food and clothing for berries and sassafras roots; but Sandy +demanded money or that which could be exchanged for money, and so he +travelled far with his basket of fragrant berries or shining nuts and +in time he found himself at the Waldens' back door facing a tall black +woman, in turban and kerchief, with the child Cynthia beside her. + +"Do you-all want to buy eight quarts of wild strawberries?" he asked in +that low fine voice of his. + +"Buy?" demanded Lily Ivy scornfully. "Miss Cyn, honey, go fotch Miss +Ann and tell her one ob dem Morleys is here axing us-all to buy his +berries, and him in shreds and tatters!" + +Presently Cynthia returned with her aunt. Miss Walden was then sixty, +but she looked seventy-five at least; she was a stern, detached woman +who dealt with things individually and as she could--she never sought +to comprehend that which was not writ large and clear. She was not a +dull nor an ignorant woman, but she had been carried on the sluggish +current of life with small effort or resistance. She did her task and +made no demands. + +"So you're Morley's boy?" she asked curiously; she had still the +interest of the great lady for her dependents. The Morleys had become +long since "poor whites," but Ann Walden knew their traditions. The +family had slunk into hiding ever since Martin had taken the Woman Mary +into his cabin, and Miss Walden was surprised and aroused to find one +of them coming to the surface at her back door with so unusual a +request as Cynthia had repeated. + +"Yes, ma'am;" Sandy replied, his strange eyes fixed upon the calm old +face. + +"And what do you want?" + +"I want to sell eight quarts of strawberries, ma'am. They are five +cents a quart; that's what they are giving down to The Forge." + +"Then why don't you take them to The Forge?" + +"The heat, ma'am, will wilt them. They are right fresh now--I thought +I'd give you-all the first chance." + +"And you want money for the berries--and you in rags and starved, I +warrant?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +Ann Walden grew more interested. + +"Would you--take eggs for them?" she asked; "eggs are bringing twenty +cents a dozen now." + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"How do I know you are honest? How do I know the basket isn't stuffed +with leaves in the bottom? What's your name?" + +"Sandy, ma'am. And please, ma'am, you can measure the berries." + +"Ivy, bring the quart measure, and the earthen bowl." + +When the implements were brought, Miss Walden took things in her own +hands, while Ivy, with the disdain of the old family black servant for +the poor white, stood by like an avenging Fate. The child Cynthia was +all a-tremble. She was young, lovely, and vital. Youth took up arms +for youth, and watched the outcome with jealous and anxious eyes. + +"One, two, three----" the rich, fragrant fruit fell into the bowl with +luscious, soft thuds; the red juice oozed out like fresh blood. + +"Five, six, seven--eight, and----" + +"A lot left over, Aunt Ann, counting dents in the measure and all." + +It was Cynthia who spoke, and her big, gray eyes were dancing in +triumph. + +"More'n eight quarts, Aunt Ann." + +"Umph!" ejaculated Ivy. + +"Give the boy two dozen eggs and three over," commanded Miss Walden. +"Take them to Tod Greeley at the post office and tell him they are +Walden eggs." + +After Sandy had departed Ivy aired her views. + +"I reckon we-all better make jam of dem berries right soon. I clar I +allers 'spect to find a yaller streak in dem Morleys." + +Cynthia was leaning against the kitchen table, her eyes shining and her +breath coming a bit quickly. + +"Perhaps," she said, with the slow smile which curled the corners of +her mouth so deliciously, "perhaps the yellow streak in Sandy Morley +is--gold!" + +That was the beginning of Sandy's first great inspiration. Again and +again he went to the Walden place with his wares and exchanged them for +things that could be readily turned into money. Then Cynthia, from out +her own generous loveliness, offered to pass over the instruction Ann +Walden imparted to her, to the boy; he had before that told her of his +ambition and determination to go away, and her vivid imagination was +stirred. + +"It's not only money," Cynthia had astutely warned him--"not only money +you must have, Sandy, but learning; no one can take that away from you!" + +With a fine air of the benefactress, Cynthia Walden took Sandy Morley's +dense ignorance in charge. It was quite in keeping with the girl's +idea of things as they ought to be, that she should thus illumine and +guide the boy's path. + +She was charmingly firm but delightfully playful. She was a hard +mistress but a lovely child, and the youth that was starving in her met +Sandy on a level, untouched by conventions or traditions. Presently a +palpitating sense of power and possession came to her. The creature +who was at first but the recipient of her charity and nobility +displayed traits that compelled respect and admiration. Sandy easily +outstripped her after a time. His questions put her on her mettle. He +never overstepped the bounds that she in her pretty childish fancy set, +but he reached across them with pleading adoration and hungry mind. He +seemed to urge her to get for him what he could not get for himself. +And so, with the freedom of knowledge, Sandy, still keeping to his +place, began to assume proportions and importance quite thrilling. +Then it was that Cynthia Walden, with keenness and foresight, made her +claims upon the boy. + +With a pretty show of condescending kindness she clutched him to her +with invisible ties. For _her_ he must do thus and so! He must become +a great--oh! a very great--man and give her all the credit! If he went +away--_when_ he went away--he must never, never, never forget her or +what she had done for him! In short, he must be her abject slave and +pay homage to her all the days of his life! + +Sandy was quite willing to comply with all these demands; they were +made in a spirit so sweet and winsome, and they were so obviously +simple and just, that he rose to the call with grateful response, but +with that strange something in reserve that Cynthia could not then +understand or classify. It was as though Sandy had said to her: "Your +slave? Yes, but no fetters or chains, thank you!" + +Soon after Mary came to live in the Morley cabin Sandy was relegated to +an old outhouse for sleeping quarters. The child had been horribly +frightened at first, but, as the quarrels and disturbances grew in +power between Martin and the woman, he was grateful for the quiet and +detachment of his bed-chamber. A child was born to Mary and Martin +during the year following the change in the family, but Sandy looked +upon his half-sister with little interest. That the boy was not driven +entirely from the home place was due to the fact that through him came +the only money available. Martin exchanged his spasmodic labour for +clothing or food, but Sandy brought cash. Mary thought he gave her +all, and because of that he was tolerated. + +Sandy did not, however, give the woman all, or even half, of what he +earned. He gave her one third; the rest was placed in a tin box and +hidden under a rock in the woods beyond the Branch. The boy never +counted the money, he could not put himself to that test of +discouragement or elation. The time was not yet, and it was +significant of him that he plodded along, doing the best that was in +him, until the call came; the last final call to leave all and go forth. + +Once, during the years between seven and fourteen, Sandy had had an +awakening and a warning. Then it was that his half-sister, Molly, +became a distinct and potent factor in his life; one with which he must +reckon. Going to the rock on a certain evening to bury his share of +the day's profit he wearily raised the stone, deposited the money and +turned to go home, when he encountered Molly peering at him with elfish +and menacing eyes from behind a bush. + +"What you doing there, yo' Sandy?" she asked half coaxingly, half +threateningly. + +"Nothing." + +"I seen you--a-hiding something. I'm going to look!" She made a +movement forward. + +"Hyar! you Molly!" Sandy clung to her. "If you raise that stone 'twill +be the last of you. I've got a horned toad there and--a poison +sarpint." + +"Then I'll--I'll tell Dad." Molly shrank back, though not wholly +convinced. It was time for compromise, and Sandy, with a sickening +fear, recognized it and blindly fell upon the one thing that could have +swayed the girl. + +"I'm a-training and taming them," he lied desperately, "and when they +are ready we-all can make money out of them, but if you tell--Dad will +kill 'em! I tell you, Molly, if you don't say a single thing +I'll--I'll give you a cent every week. A cent to buy candy with!" + +The promise was given, and from that day Sandy paid his blood money, +hoping that greed would hold the child to her bargain, but with always +a feeling of insecurity. He changed his box to another rock, but a +certain uncanniness about Molly gained a power over him and he never +felt safe. + +Things went rapidly from bad to worse in the Morley cabin. Martin +forgot his prayers and ambitions; he grew subservient to Mary and never +strove against her, even when her wrath and temper were directed toward +him and Sandy. Discredited and disliked by his neighbours, flouted by +the woman who had used him for her own gain, the man became a +detestable and pitiable creature. Sandy endured the blows and ratings +that became his portion, in the family disturbances, with proud +silence. He was making ready and until the hour of his departure came +he must bear his part. + +It was during the probation and preparatory period that Marcia Lowe, +the Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady, came up The Way one golden afternoon and +stopped her horse before the post office, General Store and County Club +of The Hollow, and, leaning out from the ramshackle buggy, gave a +rather high, nasal call to whoever might be within. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Tod Greeley, the postmaster, was sitting on his cracker box +contemplatively eying the rusty stove enthroned upon its sawdust +platform, in the middle of the store. Every man in The Hollow had his +own particular chair or box when the circle, known as the County Club, +formed for recreation or business. No one presumed to occupy another's +place: Tod Greeley's pedestal was a cracker box and its sides were well +battered from the blows his heels gave it when emotions ran high or his +sentiments differed from his neighbour's. Greeley was not a Hollow man; +he had been selected by Providence, as he himself would have said, to +perform a service for his country: namely, that of postmaster, +storekeeper, and arbiter of things in general. He was a tall, lean man +of forty, good looking, indolent, and with some force of character which +was mainly evinced by his power of keeping his temper when he was facing +a critical situation. While not of The Hollow, he was still _with_ The +Hollow on principle. + +When Marcia Lowe paused before the store and emitted her call, which +flavoured of friendliness and the North, Greeley was vacantly looking +into space, hugging his bony knees, and listening to an indignant fly +buzzing on the dirty glass of the back window, protesting against any +exit being barred to its egress. + +It was three o'clock of a late July day and, while the sun was hot, the +breeze gave promise of a cool night. + +"Ooh! ooh!" + +Just at first Greeley thought the fly had adopted a more militant tone. + +"Oooh--ooh!" + +Greeley pulled himself together, mentally and physically, and stalked to +the porch; there he encountered the very frank, smiling face of a rather +attractive youngish woman who greeted him cordially with a high-pitched +but sweet: + +"Good afternoon." + +"Good evening, ma'am," Tod returned. + +"I just came up from The Forge; your roads are really scandalous, but the +scenery is beautiful. I want to see if there is any place near here +where I can get board? I've come to stay for a while, anyway; probably +for years, at least." + +The young person seemed so eager to share her confidence that Greeley was +on his guard at once. He did not approve of the stills back among the +hills, but he did not feel called upon to assist any government spy in +her work, no matter how attractive and subtle the spy was. + +It was two years now since a certain consumptive-looking young man had +caused the upheaval of a private enterprise back of The Hollow and made +so much unpleasantness, but Norman Teale had served his term in prison +and had got on his feet once more, and Greeley had a momentary touch of +sympathy for the Speak-Easy magnates as he glanced up at this new style +of spy. + +"Nobody stays on in The Hollow lest he has to," he said cautiously, "and +as for boarding-places, there never was such a thing here, I reckon. I +certainly don't expect they would take any one in at the Walden place, +not if they-all was starving. Miss Ann Walden is quality from way back. +The Morleys couldn't entertain, and what's true of the Morleys is true of +all the others." + +"Couldn't you folks take me?" + +At this Greeley collapsed on the one chair of the porch, and actually +gasped. + +"I ain't got what you might call folks," he managed to say, "unless you +call a brace of dogs, folks." + +"Oh! I beg your pardon." Miss Lowe flushed and gave a nervous laugh. +"You see I just must manage to find a home here, and--and I've heard so +much of Southern chivalry and hospitality I rather hoped some one would +take me in until I could look around. The place at The Forge, where I've +been for two nights is--impossible, and the darkies have their hands +stretched out for tips until I feel like a palmist, and a bankrupt one at +that!" + +A merry laugh rang out and in spite of himself and his grave doubts +Greeley relaxed. + +"If you don't mind doing for yourself," he ventured, "there's a cabin +over to Trouble Neck that you might get." + +"Do for myself?" Miss Lowe cried energetically. "I'd just favour that +plan, I can tell you! I could get all the furniture I need at The Forge, +I am sure. The name of the place isn't exactly cheering, but then I've +waded through trouble and got on top all my life long. Who owns the +cabin over at Trouble Neck?" + +Property rights in and around The Hollow were rarely discussed; it was a +delicate question, but what was not actually held down by another +generally was conceded to a certain Smith Crothers and to his credit Tod +Greeley now put the Trouble Neck cabin. + +"Oh! He's the man who owns the factory a few miles from The Forge? I +drove past it yesterday at noon time. I thought it was an orphan asylum +at first. I never saw such babies put to work before. It's monstrous +and the law ought to shut down on your Smith Crothers!" + +At this Greeley had a distinct sensation of pain in the region known as +the pit of his stomach. That Smith Crothers should fall under any law +had never been dreamed of by mortal man or woman in Greeley's presence +before. The right of free whiskey was one thing; the right of a man to +utilize the children of the district was another! + +"He ain't my Smith Crothers!" Greeley inanely returned, feeling in a +dazed way that he did not want to put in any claim for Crothers with +those apparently innocent eyes upon him. + +"Well, I'll try to buy the Trouble Neck place from Smith Crothers at +once. You see I've been very sick; they said I'd lost my health, but I +know I've only misplaced it." + +Again the cheerful laugh set Greeley's nerves tingling. + +"They-all say that when they-all come up here." + +Greeley felt in honour bound to give the young woman a hint as to his +reading of her and her mission. + +"It's a good spot, then, for weak lungs?" + +"None better," Tod nodded sagely, "but they don't last long." + +"What? The weak lungs? That's splendid! And now would you mind giving +my horse a drink? Isn't it funny what nice horses they manage to evolve +in the South on food that would end a cart-horse's existence up North? +But such vehicles! Do look at this buggy! And no springs to mention. +My! but my back will ache to-morrow." + +By this time Greeley had procured a pail of water and was courteously +holding it to the nose of the very grateful horse. + +"I wonder," Miss Lowe casually remarked, as she let the reins fall in lap +and looked about, "if you happen to have known a Theodore Starr who once +lived here?" + +"I've heard of him," Tod returned; "I ain't a Hollow man. I only came +here on business six years ago, but the memory of Starr sort of clings +like it was a good thing to keep alive." + +"How beautifully you put it!" + +Greeley was thinking how well the government had stocked this dangerous +spy with facts, and so he did not observe the tears in her eyes. + +"There was a little church he built himself--is it still standing? You +may not have heard, but he had a very simple little religion quite his +own. He thought the people up here were more in need of help than +foreign folks, but no regular sect would--would handle him. So he came +up a road he used to call The Appointed Way and just settled down and +learned to love all--the people and the work!" + +Greeley was so utterly amazed that the hands which held the pail shook +with excitement. + +"That road what you came up is called The Way--short for Appointed Way. +Yon is the little church." + +Marcia Lowe raised up and through the thicket behind her she saw the +deserted structure, which still bore the outlines of a church. + +"Why, it's all boarded up!" she exclaimed. "Who owns it now?" + +The exacting nature of the stranger's questions was unsettling to +Greeley. She seemed determined to tag and classify all the real estate +in the county. + +"No one ain't damaged the building," he said drawlingly; "some of the +folks think it is han'ted. I reckon Smith Crothers owns it." + +"That man owns too much!" Marcia Lowe gave again her penetrating laugh. +"And I should think the place would be haunted. Just think of boarding +Uncle Theodore up! He who loved sunshine and air and sweetness so much!" + +At this Greeley dropped the pail to the ground, and the indignant horse +reared angrily. This was carrying things too far, and the man's eyes +flashed. + +"Uncle?" he gasped sternly. + +"Yes, Uncle Theodore Starr. He was my mother's brother. I have no one +to keep me away now--and I loved him so when I was a little child. They +say I am much like him--but then you never saw him. Lately I've been +real homesick for him. He seemed to be calling me from the hills. I'm +going to get your Smith Crothers to let me open up the little church. I +want the sunshine to get in and--and Uncle Theodore to--get out! I'm +going to find where they buried him, and make that a beautiful place too. +You see I've a good deal to do up here! Besides," and now the cheerful +face beamed radiantly on the gaping postmaster, "I'm like Uncle Starr in +more ways than one. He learned to mend men's souls and I have learned to +mend their bodies--it's much the same, you know--when you love it. +I'm--well, I'm an M. D., a medical doctor--Doctor Marcia Lowe!" + +At this Greeley dropped on the bottom step of the porch, wiped the +perspiration from his brow with the back of his hand, and emitted one +word. + +"Gawd!" He was not a profane man, but the audacity of this stranger who +was about to settle down among them for purposes best known to herself, +and them who sent her, quite overcame him. Marcia Lowe gave a hearty +laugh and gathered the reins. + +"I suppose you never heard of such a thing up here?" she asked amusedly, +"but they are getting commoner down where I hail from. It's all very +foolish--the restrictions about a woman, you know. She can nurse a body +up to the doors of death, but it's taken a good while to bring people +around to seeing that she can mend a body as well, just as well as a man. +You will let me stay among you anyway, I am sure. I do not want to +physic you. It is so much more interesting to live close and help along. +Good-bye, Mr. Greeley--you see your name is over the door! I am, do not +forget"--the woman's eyes twinkled mischievously--"Doctor Marcia Lowe of +Torrance, Mass. Good-bye! You have been very kind and helpful. I feel +that you and I will be good friends. Get-up, pony!" + +She flapped the reins in the most unprofessional manner, and the horse +turned to The Appointed Way with briskness that bespoke his impatience +and a desire for more familiar scenes. + +With curious eyes Greeley watched the ramshackle buggy bounce up and down +over the rutty road; he saw the small, slight figure bob about +uncomfortably on the uneven seat, and when the conveyance was lost behind +the trees he went inside with a sure sense that something was going to +happen in The Hollow. + +Once again within his own domain he sought his cracker box as if it were +his sanctuary. The fly was still protesting against the dirty window, +and the stillness, except for the buzzing, was unbroken. + +Presently, from out the nowhere apparently, old Andrew Townley came in +and shuffled across the floor to the armchair by the stove. Then Mason +Hope appeared, hands in pockets and lank hair falling on his shoulders. +Norman Teale came next, with Tansey Moore in tow. + +"Howdy, Tod?" was the universal greeting as the County Club took its +place. The chair of Smith Crothers, and two or three overturned potato +baskets--seats of the junior members of the club--were empty. It was +beneath the dignity of any man present to question what had just +occurred, but every son of them had witnessed it and in due time would +touch upon the subject. + +The stove, summer and winter, focussed their wandering eyes and acted as +a stimulus to their dormant faculties. From long practice and +inheritance every man could aim and hit the sawdust under the stove when +he expectorated. Even old Andrew Townley had never been known to fail. + +"There be some right good horses down to The Forge," Tansey Moore +ventured after a while. + +"It's a blamed risky thing, though," said Mason Hope, "to let a--lady +drive 'em. I've allus noticed that a woman is more sot on gittin' where +she wants to git--than to considering _how_ to git there. It's mighty +risky to trust horseflesh to a female. They seem to reckon all horses is +machines." + +"I've seen men as didn't know a hoss from a steam engine," Norman Teale +broke in, glancing sharply at Moore. "Times is when a hoss has to be +sacrificed to man--but I reckon The Forge folks was taking some risks +when they-all hired out a team to a stranger." + +"That stranger," said Greeley, hitting the nail on the head with a +violence that brought his audience to an upright position, "ain't nothing +short of, to my mind, than"--he glanced at Teale--"well, she ain't, and +that's my opinion! She comes loaded with facts up to her teeth. Knows +all the names, and says she's going to settle down over to Trouble Neck +and--live along with us-all quite a spell. Weak lungs and all, but she's +a right new brand." + +"Hell!" ejaculated Teale, springing to his feet. "If the government has +got so low that it has to trifle with ladies--it's in a bad way. I +reckon I better git a-moving. Any mail, Tod? I take it right friendly +that you give me this hint. A lady may be hard to handle in some ways, +but we-all can at least know where she is--that's something." + +After the departure of Teale the club fell into moody gloom. It was +always upsetting to have outside interference with their affairs. Even +if Teale wasn't arrested the whiskey would be limited for a time, and +that was a drawback to manly rights. + +Andrew Townley fell into an audible doze; he was the oldest inhabitant +and a respected citizen. He was given to periods of senile dementia +preceded or followed by flashes of almost superhuman intelligence. There +were times when, arousing suddenly from sleep, he would bring some +startling memory with him that would electrify his hearers. He was an +institution and a relic--every one revered him and looked to his simple +comfort. Suddenly now, as the dense silence enveloped the club, old +Andrew awoke and remarked vividly: + +"I was a-dreaming of Theodore Starr!" + +"Now what in thunder!" cried Tod Greeley, who had purposely refrained +from mentioning some part of his late visitor's conversation,--"what made +you think of--Theodore Starr?" + +"I reckon," whined the trembling old voice, "that it was 'long o' Liza +Hope. I was a-passing by and I heard her calling on God-a'mighty to +stand by her in her hour. Theodore Starr was mighty pitiful of women in +their hours." + +Mason Hope felt called upon, at this, to explain and apologize. He did +so with the patient air of one detached and disdainful. + +"Liza do make a powerful scene when she is called to pass through her +trial. This is her ninth, and I done urged her to act sensible, but when +I saw how it was going with her, I just left her to reason it out along +her own lines. Sally Taber is sitting 'long of her ready to help when +the time comes. I done all I could." Tansey Moore nodded significantly. +He had an unreasonable wife of his own, and he had no sympathy with women +in their "hours." + +"Theodore Starr, he done say," Townley was becoming lachrymose, "that +women got mighty nigh to God when they reached up to Him in their trial +and offered life for a life. He done say if God didn't forgive a woman +every earthly thing for such suffering, he was no good God. He done say +that to me onct." + +"That be plain blasphemy," Tansey Moore remarked. "I reckon he was a +right poor parson. The religion he doctored with was all soothin' syrup +and mighty diluted at that, where women was concerned. I never trusted +that Yankee." + +"The women, children, and old folks counted some on him in his day." +Greeley was getting interested in this heretofore myth. Moore nodded his +head suspiciously. + +"They sho' did, and a mess they made of it. Did you ever hear 'bout his +mix-up with the Walden girls?" + +Greeley never had and, as the last Walden "girl" was a woman of sixty and +over, he looked puzzled. + +"Miss Ann, her as _is_ now, was considerable older than Theodore Starr, +but she shined up to him and let him lead her about considerable--some +said him and her was--engaged to marry. Then there was the Walden girl +as _isn't_ now, her they called Queenie. She was a right pert little +thing what growed into a woman like a Jonas gourd, sudden and startling! +That was the summer that young Lansing Hertford came back to the old home +place of his forebears to look about--there was a general mess of things +up to Stoneledge those days, and all I know is that Starr he went up into +the hills to nurse a fever plague and there he died. Lansing Hertford +went off like a shot--but them Hertfords allus lit out like they was +chased--never could stand loneliness and lack of luxury. Queenie, she +done died the winter following that summer; died of lung trouble off to +some hospital way off somewhere, and Miss Ann she settled down--an old +woman from that time on! You can't get her to speak Starr's name. You +never could. Us-all tried. When things got too hard for Miss Ann she +done adopt little Miss Cyn--that chile has considerable brightened up +Miss Ann, but Lord! she never was the same after that summer, and I hold, +and allus shall, that Starr wasn't what we-all thought him at first. A +man don't go dying off in the hills for folks what hadn't any call upon +him, lest he has a reason for doing so." + +Moore loved to talk. Some one always has to be the orator of a club, and +Tansey, self-elected, filled this position in the circle around the old +stove. Greeley was bored. Past history did not concern him and Moore's +opinions he ignored. He had not been listening closely, for his thoughts +would, in spite of him, follow the ramshackle buggy down The Way. + +"She had a right pleasant look and manner," he pondered. "I reckon +she'll get some fun out of her job, no matter what that job is." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +It was something of a jog to The Hollow people to find Miss Lowe +actually settled at Trouble Neck. They had looked upon the possibility +of her coming as an evil which threatened but might be averted. She +had come, however; had actually bought the cabin from Smith Crothers, +and fitted it up in a manner never known to cabin folks before. + +Through all the pleasant summer days the broad door of the little house +stood invitingly open and flowers had grown up as if by magic in the +tiny front yard. A few choice hens and roosters strutted around the +rear of the cabin quite at home, and a bright yellow cat purred and +dozed on the tiny porch by day and slept in the lean-to bedroom by +night. + +"She takes a mighty heap of trouble to hide her tracks," Norman Teale +confided to Tansey Moore; "but spy is writ large and plain all over +her. I put it to you, Moore, would any one that didn't have to, come +to Trouble Neck?" + +Tansey thought not, decidedly. + +"And did you ever hear on a woman doctor?" + +Again Tansey shook his head. + +"That woman's bent on mischief," Teale went on. "I got chivalry and +I've got honour for womanhood in my nater when womanhood keeps to its +place, but I tell you, Moore, right here and now, if that young person +from Trouble Neck comes loitering 'round my business, I'm going to +treat her like what I would a man. No better; no worse." + +Moore considered this a very broad and charitable way of looking upon +what was, at best, a doubtful business. + +But Marcia Lowe did not seek Teale out, and if his affairs interested +her, she hid her sentiments in a charming manner. Her aim, apparently, +was to reach the women and children. To her door she won Sandy Morley +with the lure of money for his wares. The second time Sandy called he +told her of his ambitions and she fired him to greater effort by +telling him of her home state, Massachusetts. + +"Why, Sandy," she explained, "when you are ready, do go there. In +exchange for certain work they will make it possible for you to get an +education. I know plenty of boys who have worked their way through +college with less than you have to offer. Get a little more money and +learning, and then go direct to Massachusetts!" + +Sandy's breath came quick and fast. Work was part of his daily life, +but that it and education could be combined he had not considered. +From that time on his aim became localized and vital. + +"Perhaps I can help you a bit?" Miss Lowe had suggested. She was often +so lonely that the idea of having this bright, interesting boy with her +at times was delightful. + +"I'll--I'll bring all your vegetables to you if you will," Sandy +panted. "I'll dig your garden and weed it. I'll----" + +"Stop! stop! Sandy." Miss Lowe laughed, delighted. "If you offer so +much in Massachusetts they will give you _two_ educations. They're +terribly honest folks and cannot abide being under obligations." + +So Sandy came; did certain chores and was given glimpses of fields of +learning that filled him at first with alternate despair and +exultation. He confided his new opportunity to Cynthia Walden and to +his amazement that young woman greeted his success with anything but +joy. + +"I thought you'd be right glad," said Sandy, somewhat dashed. "I +thought you wanted me to learn and get on." + +"So I do," Cynthia admitted, "but I wanted to do it all for you, until +you went away." + +"What's the difference?" argued poor Sandy. + +It was middle August before Marcia Lowe took her courage in her hands +and went to see Miss Ann Walden. With city ways still asserting +themselves now and again in her thought, she had waited for Miss Walden +to call, but, apparently, no such intention was in the mind of the +mistress of Stoneledge. + +"Perhaps after a bit she will write and invite me up there," Marcia +Lowe then pondered. But no invitation came, and finally the little +doctor's temper rose. + +"Very well," she concluded, "I'll go to her and have it out. I'm not a +bit afraid, and, besides, Uncle Theodore's business is too important to +delay any longer. She doesn't know, but she _must_ know." + +So upon a fine afternoon Marcia Lowe set forth. Grim determination +made her face stern, and she looked older than she really was. When +she passed the Morleys' cabin she smiled up at Mary, who was standing +near by, but the amiable mistress ran in and slammed the door upon the +passerby. A little farther on she came to Andrew Townley's home and +she paused there to speak to the old man sunning himself by the doorway. + +"You certainly do favour your uncle, Miss Marching," Andrew mumbled; he +had heard the stranger's claim of relationship and trustingly accepted +it; but her name was too much for him. + +"Since you come I git to thinking more and more of Parson Starr. He +was the pleasantest thing that ever happened to us-all." + +"Oh! thank you, Mr. Townley!" + +So lonely and homesick was the little doctor that any word of +friendliness and good-will drew the tears to her eyes. They talked a +little more of Theodore Starr and then the walk to Stoneledge was +continued. + +Marcia Lowe had never seen any of the family except from a distance, +and she dreaded, more than she cared to own, the meeting now. Still +she had come to set right, as far as in her lay, a bitter wrong and +injustice, and she was not one to spare herself. + +Her advance had been watched ever since she left Andrew Townley's +cabin, but in reply to her timid knock on the front door, Lily Ivy +responded with such an air of polite surprise that no one could have +suspected her of deceit. + +"Certainly, ma'am, Miss Ann is to home. She am receiving in the +libr'y. Rest your umbril' on the table, ma'am, and take a char. I'll +go and 'nounce you to Miss Ann." + +Left alone, Marcia did not know whether she wanted to laugh or cry. +The brave attempt at grand manner in the half-ruined house was pitiful +as well as amusing. + +"This way, ma'am. My mistress done say she'll receive you in the +libr'y." + +And there, in solemn state, sat the mistress of the Great House. She, +too, had had time to prepare for the meeting, and she was sitting +gauntly by the west window awaiting her guest. + +"It was right kind of you to overlook my neglect," Miss Walden began, +pointing to a low chair near her own, "but I never leave home and I am +an old woman." + +The soft drawl did not utterly hide the tone of reflection on the +caller's audacity in presuming to enter a home where she was not wanted. + +The window was almost covered by a honeysuckle vine and a tall yellow +rose bush; the afternoon breeze came into the room heavy with the rare, +spicy fragrance, and after a moment's resentment at the measured +welcome, Marcia said cheerfully: + +"You see--I had to come, Miss Walden. I've only waited until I could +become less a shock to you. You believe I _am_ Theodore Starr's niece, +do you not? I know there are all sorts of silly ideas floating around +concerning me, but I need not prove my identity to you, need I?" + +The winning charm of the plain little visitor only served to brace Miss +Walden to greater sternness. + +"I have no doubt about you. You are very like your uncle, Theodore +Starr." + +"Then let me tell you what I must, quickly. It is very hard for me to +say; the hardest thing I ever had to do--but I must do it!" + +Ann Walden sank back in her stiff armchair. + +"Go on," she said, and her eyes fastened themselves on the visitor. +She wanted to look away, but she could not. She was more alive and +alert than she had been in many a year--but the reawakening was painful. + +"I only knew--the truth after mother died. I found a letter among her +things. Why she acted as she did I can never know, for she was a good +woman, Miss Walden, and a just one in everything else. You may not +understand; we New Englanders are said to love money, but we must have +it clean. I am sure mother meant nothing dishonest--we had our own +little income from my father and--the other was not used to any +extent--I have made it all up." + +"I--do not understand you!" + +This was partly true, but the suffering woman knew enough to guide her +and put her on the defence. + +"There was a will made before my uncle came here--in that he left +everything to mother and me in case of his death, but the letter +changed all that--he wanted you to have the money!" + +"Your mother was quite right!" the sternness was over-powering now; +"the will was the only thing to carry out. I could not possibly accept +any money from Theodore Starr nor his people." + +For a moment Marcia Lowe felt the shrinking a less confident person +feels in the presence of one in full command of the situation. She +paused and trembled, but in a moment her sense of right and +determination came to her aid. Her eyes flashed, and with some spirit +she said: + +"You are only speaking for yourself now." + +"For whom else is there to speak?" + +"The child!" + +Had Marcia dealt Ann Walden a physical blow the result could not have +been different. Horrified and appalled, the older woman gasped: + +"What child?" + +"My uncle's and your sister's! Miss Walden, you could not expect me to +believe the story that the people tell around here. You perhaps think +your sister was not married to my uncle--but I trust him. I think you +and I, no matter what has passed, owe it to this little girl to do the +best we can for her. I have left my home to help; I have no one +besides her in the world--please consider this and be forgiving and +generous. Oh! what is the matter?" + +For Ann Walden had risen and stood facing Marcia with such trembling +anger that the younger woman quailed. + +"I wish you to leave my house!"--the words came through clenched +teeth--"leave it and never return." + +"If you resist me in this way," anger met anger now, "I will have to +consult a lawyer. I mean to carry out my uncle's desires; I will not +be party to any fraud where his child is concerned. I hoped that you +and I might do this together for her--but if I have to do it alone I am +prepared to do so. I have brought the letter I found among my mother's +things--may I read it to you?" + +"No!" Ann Walden stared blankly at the firm face almost on a level +with her own, for Marcia Lowe had risen also. + +"You--you cannot forgive us for the long silence? But at least do me +this justice: I came when I could--as soon as possible. I was ill--oh! +Miss Walden can you not understand how hard this is for me to do? +Think how I must put my own mother at your mercy--my own, dear mother!" + +Only one thought held Ann Walden--would her visitor never go? The few +moments were like agonized hours; the shock she had received had been +so fearful that for a moment she was stunned, and before the true +significance overwhelmed her she must be alone! + +"I--have nothing to forgive. You and yours, Miss Lowe, have nothing to +do with me and mine--you must indeed--go! I cannot talk of--the past +to you. You--have made a great mistake--a fearful mistake. My sister +has--has nothing----" + +The stern young eyes compelled silence. + +"I--I wish you would let me help you--for the love you once had for +Uncle Theodore," said Marcia Lowe; "you must have forgiven your sister +when she told you; can you not forgive him?" + +"Stop! You do not know what you are talking about----" Vainly, almost +roughly, the older woman strove to push the knife away that the +ruthless, misunderstanding young hands were plunging deeper and deeper +into the suddenly opened wound. + +"Oh! yes, Miss Walden, I know--here's the letter!" + +She held it out frankly as if it must, at least, be the tie to bind +them. + +"I spoke perhaps too quickly, too unexpectedly; but it is as hard for +me as it is for you. I thought you would know that. I could not talk +of little things when this big thing lay between us. It is our--duty." + +Pleadingly, pitifully, the words were spoken, but they did not move the +listener. Hurriedly, as if all but spent, Ann Walden panted: + +"I reckon it is because you are young you cannot understand how +impossible it is for you and me to--be friends. You must forgive +me--and you must go!" + +"But the money!" + +"What money?" Something bitterer and crueller than the money had taken +the memory of that away. + +"Uncle Theodore's money. You see it is not mine--neither you nor I +should keep it from Uncle Theodore's----" + +"Oh! go, go; I cannot talk to you now. I will see you again--some +other day--go!" + +At last the look in Ann Walden's face attracted and held Marcia Lowe's +mercy. She forgot her own trouble and mission; her impetuosity died +before the dumb misery of the woman near her. Realizing that she could +gain nothing more at present by staying, she placed the letter upon the +table as she passed out of the room and the house. + +For a few moments Ann Walden stood and looked at the vacant spot whence +the blow had come. The restraint she had put upon herself in Marcia +Lowe's presence faded gradually; but presently a sensation of faintness +warned the awakening senses of self-preservation. Slowly she reached +for the letter which lay near--no one must ever see that! She would +not read it, but it must be destroyed. And even as she argued, Ann +Walden's hot, keen eyes were scanning the pages that unconsciously she +had taken from the envelope. + +The date recalled to her the time and place--it had been written that +summer when Theodore Starr had gone to the plague-stricken people back +in the hills; after he had told her they, he and she, could never +marry; that it had all been a mistake. How deadly kind he had been; +how grieved and--honest! Yes, that was it; he had seemed so honest +that the woman who listened and from whose life he was taking the only +beautiful thing that had ever been purely her own, struggled to hide +her suffering, and even in that humiliating hour had sought to help +him. But--if what had been said were true, Theodore Starr had not been +honest with her; even that comfort was to be dashed from her after all +these years. She remembered that he had said that while he lived he +would always honour her, but that love had overcome him and conquered +him. Queenie had always seemed a child to him, he had told her, until +the coming of Hertford, and the sudden unfolding of the child into the +woman. He could no longer conceal the truth--in his concealment danger +lay for them all, and his life's work as well. When he came back--they +would all understand each other better! But he had not come back and +then, when she had discovered poor Queenie's state, it was for Starr as +well as herself that she sternly followed the course she had. She +struck a blow for him who no longer could speak for himself--for he had +died among his people. + +"I loved him better than life," those were the words Ann Walden had +spoken to her sister in that very room twelve years ago. The air +seemed ringing with them still; "loved him as you never could have; but +he loved you; he told me so, and because of my love for him--I hid what +I felt. I could have died to make him happy, but you--why, you were +another man's idle fancy while you lured Theodore Starr to his doom. +The only thing you have left me for comfort and solace is this: I can +now keep his dear, pure memory for my own, and love it to the day of my +death." + +Ann Walden looked quickly toward the chimney-place. There Queenie had +stood shrinking before her like a little guilty ghost. She seemed to +be standing there still listening to the truth, and avenging herself at +last. + +"Hertford is the father of your unborn child. You----" + +And then it was that Queenie had fallen! had hit her head against the +andirons and was never again to suffer sanely. After that there were +the dreary weeks when the changed girl had paced the upper balcony with +her poor, vacant face set toward the hills. The pitiful story of her +weak lungs was started, the journey to the far away sanatorium, which +really ended in the cabin of a one-time slave of the family twenty +miles away! The hideous secret; the journeys by night and that last +terrible scene when the blank mind refused to interpret the agony of +the riven body and the wild screams and moans rang through the cabin +chamber. Alone, the old black woman and Ann Walden had witnessed the +struggle of life and death, which ended in the birth of Cynthia and the +release of Queenie Walden. + +The four following years were nightmares of torture to Ann Walden. +After bringing her sister's body home from the supposed sanatorium she +lived a double life. As often as she dared she went to that cabin in +the far woods. She carried clothes and food to her old servant and the +little secreted child. She watched with fear-filled eyes the baby's +development, and to her great relief she knew at last that no mark of +mental evil had touched her! Then, when the old black woman died she +brought the baby thing home; had explained it according to her +knowledge of the people; they would believe what she told them--but +this stranger who had left the letter--she had not been deceived for +one moment! + +The letter! While she had been reliving the past the words were +entering her consciousness. What she knew she passed unheedingly; what +she was yet to know rose as if to strike her by its force. + +"I had believed that love," so Starr had written to his sister, "as men +know it, was not for me; my work, my joy in the service had always +seemed my recompense. I had asked Ann Walden to marry me because I +felt sure of myself, and in this lonely place I needed the +companionship, the wisdom and the social position her presence would +give to this great work of lifting up those worthy of recognition. +Then came the day when I saw the little sister--Ann Walden's and mine, +for we had always called her that--a woman! She cast her childhood off +like a disguise--I saw another man look at her and I saw her look at +him! Something was born in me then after all the slow, sombre +years--and I wanted--love! I think a madness overcame me, for, blinded +and almost beside myself--I spoke to her--that child-woman, and told +her how it was with me. She is the sort that wins your heart secrets +by a glance of her tender eyes. And then----" Then came sharp words; +disconnected and flashing like flame; but Ann Walden read on while her +brain beat and ached. + +"It was I she loved. I had aroused her--she saw only one man in the +world--me! + +"She lay in my arms--I kissed her. + +"I took her with me on a long drive through the mountains--there was a +dying woman and my dear love carried the poor soul unto the parting of +the ways with such divine tenderness as I had never before beheld. She +sang and almost played with her until the sad creature forgot her death +pangs. It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw--that dying hour was +perhaps the only joyous hour the woman ever had known--and my +sun-touched darling gave it to her! + +"We were married on our way home. I wanted to speak at once, but +Queenie pleaded. She did not wish, just in her own first moment of +joy, to hurt the sister who was mother to her as well as sister. I +listened, but I realized that my child-wife was afraid! That was it. +With all her brave, splendid characteristics, Ann Walden is one to call +forth fear. I felt myself shrinking hourly from confession. She is +all judge; she can be just, but she cannot, I think, be merciful. Hers +it is to carry out the law, not sympathize with those who fall under +the law. She makes cowards of us all! She is too detached to reach +humanity, or for humanity, erring, sinning humanity, to reach her. + +"The call came--I had to come to the sick and dying. I made half peace +with myself by telling Ann Walden that I could not carry out our +compact. I told her, what is the hardest thing for any man to tell a +woman--that I did not love her. I could not love her! and that it was +her sister I loved. I meant to explain everything later and confess--I +expected to be back in a day or so--but I am here still and the chances +are I must stay on for a long time, and I may lose my life; conditions +are terrible, and only once a week a doctor comes! + +"She, Ann Walden, is not the hard judge alone. I must not give you a +wrong impression. When I told her, she shielded me against myself; +would not let me suffer as I should--she excused me. She, to excuse +me! But if anything happens to me--I want all my money to go to Ann +Walden. By this act she will understand my trust in her and, accepting +it, she will do for Queenie what otherwise she could not do--and do it +more wisely than my darling could for herself. It must be the common +tie, this little fortune. + +"I am feeling very ill. + +"I fear--my time--has come! + +"I recall--there was no marriage certificate, but the service was +performed by----" + +Ann Walden dropped the blurred sheet and steadied herself against the +window. Evidently Theodore Starr had forgotten the name, or perhaps +the deadly dizziness of the disease had overcome him. It did not +matter. Ann Walden, like Marcia Lowe, had no doubts--but his sister +evidently had had, and suddenly a bitter hatred filled Ann Walden's +soul toward the dead woman she had never known. + +"She who should have known him best," Ann Walden's thoughts ran +burningly on--"she to doubt him and let all the years of injustice go +on!" + +And then the eyes of the tormented woman turned fearfully toward the +far side of the room. The late afternoon was turning into twilight and +the corner by the chimney was dim and full of shadow. + +"And I--who should have trusted Queenie--I who knew her best of all--I +let her suffer----" + +The wraith by the hearth had her full revenge at that hour, for Ann +Walden bowed beneath the memories that crowded upon her; the vivid, +torturing memories. That last night--when the moans and calls of the +dumb mind strove to express the agony of the poor body! The solemn +hour when God entrusted a living soul to a mother incapable of +realizing anything but the mortal pangs that were costing her her life! + +The child dishonoured, shamed and hidden because of--misunderstanding. +Humbly Ann Walden confessed that Theodore Starr's sister was no more to +blame than she herself. + +Outside a sudden shower had come over Lost Mountain; the room in which +Ann Walden stood became dark and still, then a sharp crash shook the +house--something white fell upon the hearth; ashes, long dead ashes +were blown hither and yon by a rising wind. With a wild cry of--"My +God!" Ann Walden sank in a chair. Wornout nerves could stand no more. + +When she recovered consciousness she was lying upon the old horsehair +sofa in the library. Ivy had gone on an errand, but Cynthia stood over +her and the girl's face shocked the reviving woman into alertness. +Familiarity had dulled her in the past, but now she saw the expression +and outline of Theodore Starr's features bending near her. + +"Oh!" she moaned shudderingly. "Oh! oh!" + +"Aunt Ann, it is little Cyn! The tree by the smoke-house was struck, +but we-all are safe." + +"I must be alone!" Then gropingly and tremblingly Ann Walden got upon +her feet. + +"The letter," she panted, "the letter." + +"Here it is--I found it on the floor where you fell." + +At the time Cynthia was too distressed to attach any importance to the +matter, but she recalled the incident later. + +"Yes, yes!" Ann Walden gripped the closely written sheets; "and now +I--I want to be alone!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"So you've come home to be fed, eh?" + +Martin Morley slunk into a chair and eyed the woman by the cook-stove +ingratiatingly. + +"I sho' have," he replied; "it smells like ash cakes, and I've brought +a bucket of buttermilk from ole Mis' Walden's place. She certainly is +a techersome woman but a powerful good manager." + +"Where's the buttermilk?" + +"Outside the do'!" + +"Run and fetch it, Molly." + +The child, glaring at Martin, sprang to do her mother's bidding and as +she passed Morley he seemed to note, for the first time in his life, +her fantastic beauty. And then Morley stared after her--she looked +like _his_ mother! With the thought a blush of shame rose to his thin, +sallow face. + +His mother! Between his mother and him lay a black abyss. What right +had anything, holding part in that shadow, to look like his mother? He +arose and almost snatched from the child the pail she had brought in. + +"Hyar!" he cried, "let me take that, you're slopping it over the floor. +Whar's yo' brother?" + +With this Mary Morley turned from her task with hot, blazing face? She +had been handsome once--but the fleeting beauty was gone. + +"Sho'! _whar's_ that blessed son of yours?" Mary screamed. "You better +go and find out. Do you know what the brat has been doing all these +years? Years, I say! While we-all have been slaving and starving he's +been saving up; cheating us-all out of his earnings. Eating us-all out +of house and home while he--saved and glutted!" + +Martin stared at the woman as if she were speaking a foreign language. + +"Who--tole yo?" he asked vaguely, hoping by the question to clarify the +moment's confusion. + +"Molly, she don' keep her eye on him fo' years! It's under a stone +beyond the Branch--dollars and dollars while we-all done without." + +"Whar did he--get it?" + +"He only gave us part of what he earned--he made us-all fools while he +hid the rest." + +This was too bewildering for Martin and he looked helplessly at the +girl who had been informer. The bold little face of Molly confronted +him with something like fear in it. + +"He'll sho' kill me!" she whined, "him and that--that Cynthia Walden." + +This latter betrayal was new to Mary Morley and she came forward +angrily. + +"None of your lying!" she commanded--"nobody's going to hurt you so +long as you tell the truth. What has the Walden girl got to do with +the stolen money?" + +"She watched it! She licked me right smart once because I--tried to +find out how much there was. She told me she'd kill me sho' if I let +on and I ain't till to-day when ma said she'd send me down to Miss +Lowe's to larn things if she only had money to buy me some shoes. Why +should Sandy have that money and me no shoes?" + +Why he yearned to lay the lash on the girl before him, Martin could not +tell, but she filled him with savage anger. She looked so mean, so +hard and--young! Then he tried to think it was Sandy with whom he was +angered. He had left the boy to his own devices, to be sure, +but--hidden money and the Walden girl aroused a sudden hot fear in him. + +"You lie!" he cried in a tone that for many a day Mary, with her +growing power over him, had not heard. "You-all lie; you're a lying +lot. I'll find the boy----" Martin reached up and took down a lash +whip which hung beneath an old rusted sword on the wall. "I'll find +the boy and the truth, and by heaven! the sneak and liar, whoever he +may be, will get a taste of this!" He snapped the lash sharply. + +Molly shrank from his path and Mary gazed after him in sullen +amazement. Led by some intuition, Martin strode down the path leading +to the Branch and, just as he crossed the almost-dry stream bed, he +saw, on the hill opposite, Sandy coming toward him. The boy stopped as +he caught sight of his father and waited at the edge of the woods. His +brief rest had refreshed him and the cool evening breeze, bearing a +shower in its keeping, calmed his aching head and feverish body. +Martin noticed how white and haggard the boy looked and some instinct +warned him to hide the whip behind his back. When he reached Sandy the +two stepped back to where a log lay across the path and upon that +Martin dropped, while Sandy braced against a tree. + +"Whar was yo' going?" asked Morley. + +"Home, Dad. I wanted to see you--and then----" + +"Well----" + +"I'm going away!" + +"Going away?" + +"Come, too, Dad! Come and let us fight it out together. She----" The +boy's eyes, haunted and fierce, turned toward the home place. "She +don't belong to us or with us. I don't know how better to say it--but +she don't. She won't mind; no one will mind after the first. I've got +to go and--I want you! I've been saving and saving little by little +for years--there's enough now and we can go to-night. Out +beyond--somewhere--Dad, there's something better for us than--this. By +and by we'll come back. We'll come and help----" and a sob choked the +words; "we'll come and help all Lost Hollow. Somehow I feel--called!" + +Martin Morley stared at the boy before him as though he saw a ghost. +And indeed a ghost of the grim past did confront him. He saw himself +as he once was ere his Inheritance was downed forever. He, too, had +wanted to break away; get out to the free chance and the new hope. + +"You can't do it!" he said in a faint voice to that ghost of himself +standing opposite in the darkening shadows. "There's something as +allus holds us-all from getting away. It began back there in +grandfather's day--it's settled on us-all like a death grip." + +Sandy listened as if already he was far and apart from all the sordid, +little hampering things that made up the life of Lost Hollow. + +"What did--grandfather do?" he asked, like one who had no special +interest in the matter. + +"It was my grandfather, he was the friend of Lansing Hertford. They +said he betrayed his friend--but they-all lied. First it was a +whisper, then in your grandfather's time they-all spoke louder. The +lie took away the faith of men from us-all and--that ended it! The lie +slinks low till some Morley raises his head and then it springs up and +strikes him down." + +"It will not strike me down!" Sandy, weak and forlorn, straightened +against the tree with the darkness almost blotting him from the eyes +fastened tenderly on his face, spoke firmly. "I'll kill the lie +whatever it was! What did they say, Dad?" + +Never before had Sandy cared. He knew there was something lurking in +the past that caused his father to slink from the mountain people, +caused the men and women to avoid and shun him, but it had always +existed. It was part of Lost Hollow and the Morley fate. + +Then, alone with the last of his race, Martin Morley told the old story +that had sapped the vitality of his family. Such a small, mean thing +it seemed to have downed the once good stock! But in a place where +tradition thrives on starvation, lack of ambition and misunderstanding, +it had done its work. As Morley drawled the ancient wrong to light, as +he eased his soul of the burden and so shared it with his boy, his eye +brightened and he sat straighter upon the fallen log for--at its +completion--Sandy laughed! + +"It was this--er--way. In them days us-all and the Hertfords was +equals. The plantation lying off to the east of the old Hertford home +place belonged to us-all"--many and many were the quarts of berries and +bushels of nuts Sandy had gathered from there!--"but it slipped +away--it's all gone years past. My grandfather and Lansing Hertford +was close friends--none closer. They fought and loved side by side +till Hertford--he got some kind of government order to go to furrin' +parts a mighty distance from Lost Hollow. Some time after he went my +grandfather followed on a pleasure trip--a pleasure trip, Sandy, think +of that! He went away for pleasure! His pockets full of money and him +right well fixed! On his travels he stopped and called on Hertford in +them furrin' parts and Hertford he gave to grandfather a mighty +precious bottle of stuff to bring back home to a big merchant down +Lynchburg way. What happened the Lord only knows, Sandy, but when the +merchant opened the bottle there wasn't nothing but water in it! No +one ever spoke out in grandfather's day--they dassent. He was a mighty +proud and upperty man, but a whisper and a nudge can do the work, and +little by little grandfather was pushed down and out. In my father's +time they spoke louder--they don' said how grandfather had sold the +precious stuff before he came back; Lord, Sandy, I leave it to you, +son, would he have come if he had done that low-down, mean trick?" + +"No!" Sandy breathed the word like a hiss, and in the darkness and his +weakness he felt the poison of the lie stealing into his thought, but +he flung his head up proudly. "No! No!" he repeated clearly and +defiantly; "No!" + +"But they-all never trusted none of us again." + +Sandy recalled his first visit to the Walden back door and his courage +rose--they had learned to trust him even in Lost Hollow! + +"Grandfather tried to rise up and failed. Father had his hope, but it +was killed; I strove, Sandy, I sho' did, God knows! but you see how it +has been with me. There's no use, son, we-all is damned!" + +"I am--going to succeed!" + +Sandy's voice struck through the gloom and stillness like a tangible +blow. Martin started and gave a nervous laugh. + +"Come home!" he said; "come home and bring your money with you. It +will buy peace and pardon--them's better than any fool idees. And just +remember this, Sandy Morley, we-all may be dastards and hard drinkers +and what not, but we sho' don't desert women and children. They, down +there, belong to us, son, and I expect you and me belong to them!" + +Martin rose hurriedly and dropped the whip in the underbrush. + +"Come on home, son!" + +But Sandy did not move. + +"It's come with me or I go alone, Dad." + +The child was master of the man! + +"You mean it? You mean you dare to disobey--me?" + +"I'm going to--take my chance, Dad, out among--folks!" + +"You--will--obey--me!" But even as the words were spoken, Martin felt +how impotent they were. + +"It's good-bye, Dad?" + +It was good-bye. Both man and boy realized it. The night closed them +in and the protecting trees sheltered them for a moment more. + +"You po' little lad! you mean it?" + +"Yes, Dad. Will you come?" + +Martin turned one glance to where the light from his cabin door shone; +then he groaned and said: + +"No! God knows they do belong to me and I'm too old, too broken. The +curse will get the best of you, boy, and you'll come trailing home. +I'll be here--then! But----" And now Martin came closer and held him +by the thin, trembling shoulders. + +"Grandfather never done it! It was one man's word agin another's and +the Hertfords have the luck--they allus had. Onct one of them come +back"--and here Morley came closer to Sandy--"it was back in ole Miss +Ann Walden's early days--he came back and something happened!" The +whisper made Sandy creep with chill. + +"What?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"He done a mighty wrong to--Miss Ann's little sister, her that was +called Queenie and looked it! We-all knew, but we-all stood by Miss +Ann, even such as me stood by her! it was the only thing we-all could +do for her. He got away! Then that po' chile took to watching from +the balcony for him who never come--and then she went away--and by and +by--the baby come home!" + +"The baby?" + +Sandy trembled and grew faint. He had eaten little and the burden +being laid upon him was more than his strength could bear. + +"Cynthia--the lil' girl with the face of Queenie, her mother?" + +"No! No!" What he feared and abhorred the boy could not tell, but +every instinct in him rose to do battle for the child--friend of his +starved and empty life. + +"It's your part, son, to stand by and never let on! We-all have done +it; we-all took what Miss Ann said for gospel truth--and so must you!" + +Then it was that Sandy laughed! The sound startled and shocked Martin +and he almost reeled from before it, but strangely enough it seemed to +brighten the heavy darkness. + +"I don't believe it!" said Sandy between his bursts of laughter. "It's +a bad dream--we-all must wake up." + +"We can't fight them, Sandy!" + +The poor legacy of hatred, wrong, loyalty, and despair was all that +Martin Morley had to offer his boy as a weapon in the coming fight. +The uselessness and weakness of it struck Sandy even then as he stood +on the threshold of the new life. What did it matter? But it was the +small thing, the old past that made up the shabby present of The +Hollow. He was going to leave everything--even the old grudge--already +the wider thought called him and gave a touch of daring to his laugh. + +"Good-bye, Dad!" + +And then Morley staggered toward Sandy and stretched his arms out to +him. There was one thing more he had to offer! + +"I--I want to tell you 'bout--yo' mother, Sandy--and me! No one ain't +all bad; she was all good and yo' must lay hold o' the good. It will +help if yo' can cling fast enough." + +Oddly enough Sandy found himself against his father's breast without a +sense of strangeness. Long years ago he had so lain in the strong +arms--the recollection brought others in its wake; memories of safe, +happy days--before Mary had come into their lives. + +"I was older then her!" Martin spoke as if confessing to one who +demanded the best and the truth at last. It was as though he felt that +with the neglect and injustice he had of late shown the boy, there had +been the holding back of his just due. "Yo' mother came from The +Forge, she left a good home for me because she believed in me--she was +terrible young and trusting and she didn't live to--find out! I was +old enough to be her father, and I tried. God help me! I tried, but +it was the old curse and not even the love I had for her could keep me +up. But while she lived--it was better. The cabin was clean and tidy +and she always sang about her work. She only stopped singing toward +the last--when she got thinking about you she got solemner and stiller +and then--you came! She--died the day after, and the blackness of it +has shut the sunlight out of my life ever since, Sandy. I ought to +have took my pay and made no fuss, and for a time I did. You and me +lived on in the cabin with a woman's hand to help at the pinch, and for +years I kept my head and yours above water. But when yo' are a man, +son, you'll think kinder o' me than what yo' do to-day; a man's a man, +and a lonely man is the worst of all--and so"--Martin's grizzly head +was pressed against Sandy's--"and so--Mary came! She didn't ask much; +she only wanted to live along with us-all in the cabin, but----" The +dreary years seemed to spread before both man and boy in the silence +which followed. + +"Good-bye, Sandy, good-bye!" Martin choked and held the boy off at +arm's length. "Yo' great-grandfather's name was Sandford Morley. I +gave you the name for good luck--maybe it--will help. Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye--dear old Dad!" + +The one-time trust and affection flooded the moment and place. Quite +simply and naturally they kissed and fell apart. + +"Yo' go first, lad--yo' ain't got nothing to take?" Sandy shook his +head. + +"No, Dad. Good-bye. The money will help me on. Some day I'm coming +back, Dad, coming back to help! Wait for me, Dad, and hold tight for +me--so I'll be glad. Dear, dear, old Dad!" + +Then Sandy turned and set his face toward The Appointed Way. It had +been hard to see Cynthia flee from him, leaving him lonely and +forsaken; but it was harder now to leave the sad, broken father in the +desolate blackness of night--and enter the new, hard life alone! But +with never a backward look Sandford Morley went to meet his fate. + +Martin stood and listened until the last sound dropped into silence. +Then he went back. It was pitchy dark when he reached the cabin. +There were mutterings of thunder in the distance again, and the odour +of scorched meal in the air. Mary, with Molly hanging to her, stood by +the rough table in the middle of the room. + +"Did you find him?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"And you----" + +Martin turned and the look on his face silenced the woman. + +"That boy," he said slowly, "belongs to me, do you understand? Keep +your tongue off him--your hands will never touch him again. He's mine +and God Almighty's from now on. You've starve him and beat him for the +last time and now--never speak his name again. He's mine and +God's--and his mother's!" + +Martin was spent. He dropped into a chair and, folding his arms upon +the back, bent his head upon them. + +Then Mary's wrath broke. + +"He's yours, is he?" she sneered, shaking her child off and striding +toward the bowed figure--"he's yours and God's and his mother's! He +belongs to a fine lot, doesn't he, the ungrateful little beast? And +I'm to keep my tongue off him, eh? Ain't I good enough for him and you +and the high company you belong to?" + +Resentment old and rankling rose fiercely. What ever she had been and +was, Mary clung to Morley faithfully according to her light and she +writhed under the sting of the implied insult hurled at her now. + +Morley did not move. A sense of desolation swept over him. He was +following the trail of the lonely boy in the dark and the woman's +infuriated words meant no more to him than the rumbling thunder. + +"Who do I and mine belong to?" the tense voice went on; "to the devil I +suppose! Well, then, Mart Morley, you listen to me now. This +child"--she turned fiercely toward Molly--"is yours, mine and the +devil's. You're a lazy lot that left us to starve or live as we could, +but the devil has taken a hand in the game, do you hear? I reckon +he'll see us through and no thanks to you! From now on you take what +you can get and keep your mouth shut or--the devil and I will know why." + +And then Morley lifted his head. The look of misery on his pinched +face should have moved one to pity, but it did not move the heart of +Mary Morley. + +"What do you mean?" he asked wonderingly. "I--I--didn't follow +all--you said." + +"And there's to be no questioning," the voice had grown louder. "No +questions--just take or leave what's offered; go or stay as you please, +but if that brat of yours, God's and his mother's, ever shows his face +near me or mine--I'll"--she laughed hoarsely--"I'll make him a +discredit to you all! Come move up and eat the food I provided and +drink the sour milk that was given you!" + +Morley rose unsteadily. He tried to speak and command the situation +that in some subtle way had escaped his control, but he felt bereft and +desperate. Now that Sandy was quite beyond recall, to whom could he +turn? His strength and spirit were crushed and degraded--he moved up +and sullenly took the plate and cup that were pushed toward him! Once +he glanced at Molly. She leered at him over the edge of her mug and +her eyes were hard and cruel. + +Martin Morley pushed the untouched food from him and strode to the door +of the cabin. The storm was coming up fast now. The lightning flashed +and the thunder shook the house. Morley's heart ached for the boy +struggling alone and defenceless through the night, but he was glad he +was gone! Whatever lay before of defeat or victory--he thanked God +that the last of his race had had courage at least to make an attempt +for freedom. + +The house grew very quiet; Mary had taken Molly to the loft overhead, +and presently Martin heard her deep breathing and the nestling of the +little girl in the straw mattress. The storm passed at last and above +Lost Mountain a bright and glowing star showed through the parting +clouds. + +Cautiously Martin whistled and then waited. Night after night this was +his habit. When the others had departed he called Sandy's dog, fed it +from the scraps he could gather, and comforted himself with the +companionship of the faithful collie that was too wise to tempt +Providence when Mary was around. + +Martin whistled a second time and then called softly: "Bob! oh--Bob!" + +There was no response. Again the man spoke drawlingly and fondly: +"Bob! oh, Bob!" Then he went to the shed near the cabin and looked in. +That had been Sandy's bed-chamber since the rule of Mary had begun--how +terribly empty and lonely it looked now! How afraid the boy must have +been when at first he was driven from the home place to the deserted +outhouse! He had never whimpered nor complained. "Poor little lad!" +breathed Martin, and leaned against the doorway of the wretched room. +There was the ragged mattress and the little nest where the slight +boyish body had so often rested after the day's cheerless toil. On the +wall were pinned two or three bright pictures that had drifted somehow +to the barren place; there was a pitiful little frayed jacket hanging +on a nail and a pair of sadly torn shoes in one corner. + +The objects caused Martin to groan as he beheld them. He suffered as +he had not suffered since Sandy's mother died in his arms! Like a +drowning man he relived the years--the hard years when he cared for and +loved the baby-child alone in the cabin. He recalled the boy's sunny +ways and sweet confidence, until the Woman Mary entered their life. He +had been miserable, his lower nature craved its own, and Mary came! He +had accepted and he had lost his self-respect; everything! There was +nothing left; there would be nothing more until--the end came, unless +Sandy succeeded. Just then the moon came over a bank of black clouds +and lit The Hollow. It shone full on Lost Mountain and into the +deserted shed where but lately Sandy had suffered and slept. + +Martin Morley dropped on his knees and turned his haggard, pain-racked +face upward. He had once been a religious man; had once been a leader +in the little church at The Forge before he gave up hope and ambition. +His prayers had been the pride and boast of the mountainside, but that +was long ago, and his lips with difficulty formed, now, the sacred +words. + +"God-a'mighty!" he breathed, "take care of that lil' boy out there +alone on The Way. Don't fail him on the big road; keep him to the end! +I ain't asking You to do anything more for me; I've give up; but he's +just started forth! Watch him; keep him; don't let the sins of his +fathers or his enemies tech him. Amen!" + +There was a note of command in the prayer. A demand for justice and +protection for one who could not defend himself. Having worded his +appeal, Martin rose stiffly from his knees and closed the door of the +shed after him. + +He had done what he could; he must bear the agony and remorse silently +from now on. The old laziness and indifference returned slowly as he +retraced his steps, and when he entered the silent cabin again he went +naturally to the crooked stairs leading up to the loft. The door was +closed and locked! Mary had, in this final fashion, proclaimed her +independence. + +Martin made no effort to force his way or question the proceedings; +with a weary sigh he looked about, then went quietly to an old settle +by the hearth. Taking off his wet and ragged coat he rolled it up and +placed it for a pillow. Finally he stretched his aching body upon the +improvised bed and fell into a restless slumber. + + + + +VI + +The hot, breathless morning followed the storm through which Sandy +departed, and fell like a moist blanket over Lost Hollow. Even up at +Stoneledge the vapour rose and settled depressingly. Every door and +window in the livable part of the house was set wide to any chance +stirring of the dead air. Ann Walden in the sitting-room, old Lily Ivy +in the kitchen, and the child Cynthia in the dim, shadowy library, in +the unlivable part of the house, were listless and indolent. Presently +the black woman, having completed the preparations of vegetables for +the simple mid-day meal, came to the sitting-room door and contemplated +her mistress with respectful eyes. Ivy was fully seventy years old, +but she was straight and strong as a woman of fifty and as keen and +capable. She had been carefully reared as a house servant in the days +of slavery, and she had followed the downward fortunes of the Waldens +with dignity and courage worthy a more glorious cause. Her spotless +but much patched gown was almost covered by a huge white apron. She +wore a kerchief and a turban-like head covering. + +"Miss Ann, honey, a leak done sprung in the roof over the west chamber +las' night. The rain am permeated through the flo' and marked the +ceiling in de libr'y." + +Cynthia, lying on the horsehair sofa of the dim room across the hall, +looked up and saw the new and ugly spot over her head. + +"Well, Ivy, shut the west chamber off from the rest of the house. We +have far too much space to care for as it is. When I reconstruct +Stoneledge it will be time enough to reopen the disused rooms." + +Ivy bowed her head complacently. It had always been the same since the +war. One room after another had been shut off until the wide halls +dividing the house, the living-room, dining-room, kitchen and three +upper bedrooms were all that were left for family use. + +"Yes, chile." Then after a pause: "I don' hear how dat wretch, Black +Jim, was stricken, by God-a'mighty's justice, on The Way, las' night. +He was found plumb dead under a tree whar de lightnin' felled him." + +Miss Ann raised her spectacled eyes with something like interest. + +"We-all will be safer," she said quietly. "A darky like Jim, who gets +a twist in his head about freedom and license, is a mighty dangerous +creature." + +"Yes, chile, dat's plain truth." + +Cynthia held her breath. Sandy had been on The Way--what had +God-a'mighty's justice done to him? Surely if any evil had befallen +him Ivy would know. By some intangible current the gossip and news of +the hills travelled rapidly and more or less accurately. + +"Dat boy of Morley's has runned away from home!" + +At this Ann Walden took off her spectacles and made no pretence of +indifference. + +"Run away?" she said. "I didn't know a Morley had spirit enough to do +that even with conditions as they must be along of that woman of +Martin's in the cabin. Where has he gone?" + +"Nobody ain't knowing exactly--just gone! I expect he'll turn up again +when his stomick done clutch him. Dat chile never done us-all no +'commodation job, but he was too good to live up to that cabin in de +Holler. If I knowed whar he done hide himself, I clar I'd fotch him +some victuals even if he _was_ sharp as a sarpint's tooth in a bargain." + +"If you hear of him, let me know," Ann Walden said quietly; "he's too +good, as you say, to be left to that evil woman Martin lives with. +I've had the boy on my mind for some time. He has the mark of cruelty +and neglect; he' been mighty silent too, about it all--he resembles his +grandfather." + +And now Cynthia breathed again freely and happily. A breath of air +stole through the window and across the room--the atmosphere was +clearing. + +"Whar's lil' Miss?" + +"Lying down across in the library. Go close the door softly, Ivy, and +come back. I have something to say to you about her." + +The child upon the sofa wished to be alone with herself, so she shut +her eyes and pretended sleep when the lean, black hand reached into the +room and drew to the door. Cynthia wanted to think about Sandy; she +wanted to follow him, in fancy, after her own fashion, and above all +else she wanted to be with him in the Significant Room. + +Once the door secured her from intrusion she arose from the sofa and +locked it quietly; then she set the window wider to the summer day. +The casement was choked with the yellow rosebush and heavy honeysuckle; +the fragrance was almost stifling, but Cynthia heeded it not. + +"Now," she whispered, with the slow smile coming to her lips, "now, +Sandy Morley, I'm going to hang your picture in its place!" + +The large gray eyes fastened upon the empty space near the chimney, the +space where, when the afternoon was fair and clear, the western sun +poured its light through the tangle of vines at the window and fell +full upon it. + +"The man who cut his way through his enemies." Cynthia knew her +"Pilgrim's Progress" as many children know their nursery rhymes. It +was her only guide to life, but she interpreted it for herself. "The +Biggest of Them All." And then the girl laughed her rich, rippling +laugh. + +It was Madam Bubble now who stood before the fireplace, a gentle +creature with little head bent forward in listening attitude and a +waiting, pleading look in the fine eyes. A bit too tall and thin was +she for grace, but Time would take care of that--and, fortunately, +Cynthia was many-sided. The dull, monotonous life of Stoneledge had +retarded development. Never having mingled with children, she was +untested and untried along certain lines. Poor, shabby Sandy Morley +had been and was her only interpretation of youth as it had touched her +personally--he and her ungoverned imagination had supplied the motive +power, so far, for the foundation of her emotions. + +"I--helped you!" she said softly to "The Biggest of Them All"--"I. And +wherever you are you will remember that." + +There was an old, cracked, dimmed mirror between the chimney-place and +the window, and tiptoeing to that, Cynthia viewed herself as if for the +first time in her life. The image was strange to her; confusing and +half fearsome. It was not the reflection of the awkward, thin Cynthia +Walden that she saw; Cynthia of the long braids of hair and short +patched gingham gown of irregular length--owing to many washings and +shrinkings. It was the reflection of something Cynthia was to be some +day who looked back at the questioning girl. Slowly the colour rose to +the pale face and the big eyes flinched. + +"Stand straighter!" commanded the inquisitor before the mirror. The +shoulders braced, but too long had the slender neck bent forward to +obey the sudden exertion now. Cynthia would always carry that waiting +pose! + +The ugly checked gown next caught the critical eyes and the impotent +hands pulled it down at the waist, while a sense of its unloveliness +brought a quiver to the sensitive mouth. "Hateful!" was the verdict. + +Then with fumbling, unpractised hands Cynthia gathered her two long +shining braids and bound them around her head--somewhere she had seen +the fashion, and a feminine instinct appropriated it. Next she stepped +quietly to the window and broke off a deep yellow rose and a delicate +trailing bit of honeysuckle rich with bloom; these she wound with +intuitive skill in her twisted braids, the rose nestled close to the +left ear. Thus adorned she tested the mirror again. Gone now was the +ugly gown; gone was the awkward pose--the face that smiled out at the +young judge was a wonderful face with its secret promise of by and by. + +"Oh! you pretty honey-girl!" There was absolute detachment and lack of +vanity in the words. The woman-nature of Cynthia was simply giving +homage to a young creature worthy its admiration. "Oh! I want to kiss +you and love you! I want you to kiss and love me!" And then the +denied craving for affection and fondling rose supreme. "I want to +cuddle you, honey--you are mighty sweet!" + +The slow smile touched the lips of the reflection--the dear, slow smile +of Madam Bubble. + +Cynthia pressed close to the old mirror and laid her lips to that +alluring creature she was some time to be! + +"Honey!" she whispered, "dear, pretty honey-girl!" The tears clouded +the love-filled eyes; a sense of loneliness drove the rapture away, and +the hands fell limply. + +Going to the window, Cynthia knelt down and, resting her arms upon the +sill, laid her pretty head upon them. + +She was never to be wholly a child again. Never was she to let her +hair fall in the little-girl fashion. Something had happened to her, +and tracing the something back she realized that it had been done when +Sandy kissed her good-bye! + +Vivid was the red now in the girl's face. Her South had brought the +bloom forth early, and she was unprepared and unlearned in its demands. + +"I want--some one to love me!" No words formed the thought. "I +want----" Then all the ties of her barren young life were reviewed and +found inadequate. Presently the yearning eyes rested upon the old +painting of Queenie Walden. It was a miserable piece of work; an +indefinite likeness, but it held the gaze and the fancy of the girl +upon the floor. "I want--my mother!" The hunger and longing brought +fresh tears to the aching eyes. "Mother!" She had always known the +relationship, and had always guarded it as a sacred secret. The flood +of repression and denial came in full force now. + +"I want to know all!" That was the demand, and straightway Cynthia +sprang to her feet and ran from the room. She was still running when +she came into Ann Walden's presence. + +"What's the matter, Cynthia?" + +"Aunt Ann, tell me about my father and mother!" + +The sudden question, the sight of the flower-decked head, set Ann +Walden into a trembling fit. Since the day of Marcia Lowe's call she +had never been the same. She slept badly, ate poorly, and feared +greatly. Day after day she had expected the late visitor to return or +send a representative. When she heard that the stranger had gone away +she breathed more freely for the respite, but dreaded the reason for +the going. She had passed through such torture as she had never known +or undergone before. Something, unsuspected, rose and reproved her; +pride, self-esteem, and faith had perished when many readings of the +letter had driven truth home. Finally nerves refused to suffer longer +and a kind of revenge took its place. + +"Very well!" she had concluded desperately; "Queenie and I will keep +the child--at last! You and yours shall have no part in her or for +her." + +Thus she had decided regarding Cynthia. She meant to break forever +with Theodore Starr and all who were connected with him. She would +resent, not only for herself, but for the poor sister who had +mistakenly, and for love of her, kept silence and left the memory of +Starr unclouded as the only gift she could give the woman they both had +wronged! + +Yes, Ann Walden had thought it all out. When Marcia Lowe came again +she would tell her that she believed there had been no marriage! That +would end it. No proof could be found--did not Ann Walden know the +shiftless mountain ways? Marcia Lowe would never press dishonour upon +them all--and the money was no lure to the proud, poverty-stricken +woman. She meant to revenge herself upon Theodore Starr by keeping +Cynthia even at the price of proclaiming the girl's dishonour to +Starr's niece. + +From much thinking through wakeful nights and torturing days Ann Walden +had evolved a very sincere hatred and bitter resentment. She almost +believed that Starr had betrayed her sister, and poor Cynthia, who had +always been a duty--not a joy--was to pay the penalty! + +"Tell me about my father and mother!" + +The strong young voice repeated the commanding words; the lovely +flower-twined head bent forward. + +There was no wise person to note and take warning of the strange light +in Ann Walden's eyes as she met the question put to her; it was, +however, the look of insanity--the insanity which feeds upon +hallucination; the kind that evolves from isolated repression and the +abnormal introspection of the self-cultured. + +"When you are older, Cynthia." + +"No, now, Aunt Ann. I must know. My mother's picture hangs in the +library, but my father's is not there and no one ever speaks of my +father." + +How could one fling into the simple innocence demanding knowledge, the +bare, bold truth? But Ann Walden, driven at bay, worn, embittered and +touched already by her doom, answered slowly: + +"Your--father was--a bad man! that is why no one speaks of him; why his +picture does not hang near your mother's." + +"A bad man? What did he do, Aunt Ann?" A childish fear shook +Cynthia's face. Bad, to her, was such a crude, primitive thing; "was +he bad like--like the men here who drink and beat their women?" + +"Worse than that!" + +"Worse, Aunt Ann? Did he--beat my mother?'" + +The horror, instead of calming Ann Walden, spurred her on. + +"He--he killed her!" + +"Killed her!" And with that Cynthia dropped beside her aunt and clung +desperately to her hand, which lay idle in her lap. "Oh! is--is--he +dead? Can he come to hurt us?" + +Then Ann Walden laughed such a laugh as Cynthia had never heard before, +but with which she was to become familiar. + +"He's dead. He cannot hurt us any more. He did his worst--before you +were born." + +A sigh of relief escaped the girl as she listened and her tense face +relaxed. + +"But we would not touch his money, would we, Cynthia? nor have anything +to do with any kin of his, would we?" + +"No, no, Aunt Ann." + +"Then----" and now Ann Walden bent close and whispered: "then have +nothing to do with her--at Trouble Neck! She comes with money; with a +hope of forgiveness--but we do not forgive such things, do we, Cynthia, +and we Waldens cannot be bought?" + +"No, no!" + +"When you see her, tell her so! Tell her to keep away--we do not +believe her; we do not want her!" + +The flowers on the pretty girlish head were already wilted in the heat +of the morning and something more vital and spiritual had faded and +drooped in Cynthia Walden's soul. She looked old and haggard as she +rose up and drew a long breath like one who had drunk a deep draught +too hastily. Even the yearning for love had departed--unless God were +good to her she would sink rapidly down, from now on, to the common +level. + +"I'll tell her, Aunt Ann," she said nonchalantly. "I'm right glad you +let me know." Then she wandered aimlessly back to the library and over +to the fireplace. Dejected and shrinking, she raised her eyes humbly +to her "Biggest of Them All" and deep in her soul sank the truth that +she, Cynthia Walden, once so gay and proud, was not the equal of Sandy +Morley! If he were brave and fine enough he might help her from very +pity--but if she were worthy, she must not permit him to do so. + +Then it was that the first wave of actual soul-loneliness enveloped the +girl, and when youth recognizes such desolation something overpowers it +that no older person can ever understand. + +And that very afternoon the great storm came that swept away so much +and opened the way to more. + +It was four o'clock on that same day that Liza Hope passed Stoneledge +on the way down to the store. Liza was always just getting over having +a baby or just about to have one and her condition was now of the +latter character. Poor, misshapen, down-trodden creature! She +accepted her fate indifferently, not because she was hard or bitter, +but because she had never had a vision of anything else. + +She paused near the chicken house where old Lily Ivy was hovering over +a belated brood whose erratic mother had mistaken the season of the +year. + +"Howdy, Ivy! You-all has a right smart lot of fowls--but ain't it a +mighty bad time to hatch?" + +"Dis yere hen allus was a fool hen," Ivy vouchsafed, "givin' trouble +an' agony to us-all." + +"Does you-all like her the best?" + +This question brought Ivy to her feet with a stare. + +"The little doctor she done say as how we-all loves best the +baby-things what be right techersome. She be right, too, I reckon. +Them babies o' mine what died, and po' lil' Sammy what ain't clear in +his mind, is mighty nigh to me. I ain't never thought 'bout sich till +she cum. She steps up to my cabin now an' again an' her and me talks. +The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady I calls her, an' nights I lie an' think on +her, an' she comes an' brings my daid babies to me in dreams-like, an' +then I reach out for Sammy, an' I feel right comforted." + +Ivy came close to her caller now and looked into the weary, sunken eyes +compassionately. Her contempt of the po' white trash faded before the +pathetic desolateness of Liza's glance. + +"Liza Hope," she said, fixing the roving stare by her tone, "how be you +going to face this winter? You be as fool-like as dis yere old +hen-hussy. All your chillens was born during respectable times o' +year. What you-all goin' to do wid no wood-pile, no nothin', an' a +baby comin' long in the black time of winter?" + +Liza faced her accuser blankly as if she had nothing whatever to do +with the matter. + +"I ain't no wise 'sponsible," she faltered; "de good Lord He knows I +ain't hankerin' after no mo' calls and troubles. But the Cup-o'-Water +Lady don' promise to come to me in my hour an' bide till I pass through +my trial. Seems like I can bear it now when I think o' that. Some say +they-all don't believe her is kin to Parson Starr as was, but I does. +The Lord He don't make two sich-like less He uses the same mixin's. I +knows, I do!" + +Ivy started back. Oddly enough this was the first time she had heard +the connection between Starr and the newcomer. She had taken for +granted the rumour that had reached her concerning Marcia Lowe, and she +had disapproved keenly of the call that young woman had made upon her +mistress recently, but now, as Liza spoke, sudden recollection startled +her. If the stranger were what Liza suggested, why then Ann Walden's +condition might be accounted for! The surprise of this new thought +turned Ivy giddy, but it also caused her to change the subject of +conversation. + +"When yo' come back from de sto'," she said with frigid dignity, "stop +to de' rear do'. I has some corn bread an' bacon what you can carry +'long wid yo', an' an ole ironin' blanket fo' coverin'." + +Liza muttered her thanks and shuffled on, her distorted figure casting +a weird shadow as the blazing sun struck across her path as she entered +The Way. + +It was five o'clock when the reddish sunlight suddenly was blotted out +by a huge black cloud. An ominous hush came with the shadows, and with +instinctive fear and caution Ann Walden, in the living-room, closed the +windows and doors. Cynthia, who was passing through the hall, ran +upstairs to do the same, and then returned and stood listlessly by her +aunt near the window looking out over the garden place, the little +brook, which divided it from the pasture lot below, and the two cows +huddling under a clump of trees beside the tiny bridge which spanned +the stream. + +"I--don't like the look of the sky," Ann Walden murmured; "I reckon +it's going to be a mighty bad storm. Seems like the seasons get +twisted these-er-days. Now if it was spring----" She did not finish +her sentence, for a wave of wind brought the lagging storm on its +breast; a blinding flash of lightning and a crash of thunder set it +free and then the deluge descended. A wall, seemingly tangible, +descended from the clouds to the earth--everything was blotted out. + +"Good Lord-a'mighty!" Ivy dashed in from the kitchen, a grayness +showing through the black of her skin; "I mus' save dem cows. I jes' +mus'--God help me!" She ran through the room to the front hall, +pulling her skirt over her head as she ran. + +"Ivy, I forbid you leaving the house!" + +The black woman paused, for even in that moment of excitement tradition +held her--the servant was stopped by the mistress' voice, but too long +had Ivy stood for higher things to renounce them now. She had stood +between her loved ones and starvation; she had always kept the worst +from them and she must continue to do so. + +"Miss Ann, honey," she said in her soft, old drawl, "dem cattle down by +de Branch is all that stan's 'twixt us-all and we-all becoming white +trash! I jis' got-ter go, chile!" + +Then before Ann Walden could speak again the woman was gone! They +watched her beating her way through the wall of rain, without speaking; +with every emotion gripped and silenced by fear and horror the two at +the living-room window waited. They saw her reach the little +foot-bridge; they saw her pause and hold to the railing as if for +breath and then--there was nothing! The place where old Ivy had stood +was empty. The cows, too, were going fast and helplessly away on a sea +of troubled water. + +Shock numbs the brain and stays suffering, but presently, like a +frightened child rousing from sleep, Ann Walden turned to Cynthia. + +"Ivy," she panted. "Ivy, where is she?" + +Cynthia could not answer. She tried, but speech failed her. With +large, fixed eyes she continued to stare at the blank space where once +the little bridge had stood. What had happened was too awful for her +comprehension. Then in the drear dimness of the room a hideous laugh +rang out. + +"Don't! don't, Aunt Ann!" Words came desperately now to the child; +"oh! I'm so afraid!" + +But again and again the laugh sounded. + +"We-all are poor white trash! poor white trash! ha! ha! ha!" + +Cynthia shrank from Ann Walden. What had happened she could not know, +but of a sudden the old woman became a stranger, a stranger to be cared +for and guarded--one to defend. + +"Come," whispered Cynthia, "come away--dear--it's all right! Come, +come!" + +Alternately laughing and sobbing, Ann Walden followed the guiding of +the hand upon her arm; she permitted herself to be placed on the ragged +sofa on the opposite side of the room. + +"Poor white trash!" + +And there Tod Greeley and Liza Hope found them hours after. Cynthia, +beside the prostrate woman, was crooning as to a baby, and over and +over the desperate old voice wailed: + +"We-all are poor white trash!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +When Sandy had departed down The Way he felt weak and stricken. All +the fervour and exhilaration were gone; there was no turning back, and +he could not stand still. The walk to The Forge could easily be made +before morning, with time to sleep on the way, so there was nothing to +do but forget his misery and travel on. The storm, too, emphasized the +necessity for this. On beyond there was a deserted cabin by the trail; +he could sleep there in comparative comfort; under the falling roof +there surely must be one dry spot large enough to shelter a thin, tired +boy. + +A crash of thunder caused Sandy to rush forward. He had the childish +fear that many country children have of the extremes of Nature, and +superstition swayed his every thought. Gathering his loose coat about +him and clutching his money close, he made for The Way, and ran with +all the strength remaining in him, for the deserted cabin. + +Flash and splintering noise surrounded him. His eyes were blinded by +the blue-red lightning; his ears were aching from the thunder's shock. +Once he stood still, unable to suffer longer--for his nerves were +paralyzed with fear, and at that pause a fork of vivid flame darted +from the blackness and ran like the finger of a maniac down the side of +a tall tree. The stroke was so near that the boy did not heed the +crash that followed immediately; he saw the wood and earth fly and he +shuddered as he looked. That was the bolt that ended the life of Jim +the negro, but Sandy never knew. + +In unconsciousness the boy waited for, he knew not what! He was dead, +yet alive, unable to move or feel, yet standing and seeing. Then his +blood began to flow once more, and sinking to his knees he wept as he +had not since the night when Mary drove him from the cabin to the shed +to sleep! Wet and trembling, he finally found strength and courage to +go on, but a loneliness of soul and mind almost overcame him. He +raised his aching eyes and saw the clouds parting; he heard the rising +wind complaining in the tall trees and shaking the water down upon him. +At that moment a star broke through the scudding masses of rolling +blackness--one kindly eye of light, and at the same instant something +touched his body with thrilling familiarity. He groped and felt in the +lower darkness, then--because he had never been taught to pray--Sandy +Morley bent his head over the wet and shaggy body of Bob, the collie, +and laughed and sobbed from sheer gratitude and joy! + +Stealthily the faithful creature had followed his friend. Life had +taught him, even in his puppy days, to curb his inclinations. Where +Sandy was, there was always happiness, but it was generally seasoned +with danger, and Bob took no chances. + +"Good dog! dear old fellow!" + +Bob licked the caressing hands fondly. Never before had such +appreciation been shown him even by the one who was lavishly bestowing +it now; Bob did not seek to understand, he merely accepted and snuggled +closer. + +Sandy knew a later parting with the dog was inevitable, but human +nature could not contemplate it then, so he bade Bob follow on and, +with regained courage and determination, the two plodded down The +Appointed Way with firmer tread. The shed was reached, and nestling +close in a protected corner, they slept for several hours with no dream +to disturb or frighten them. The storm passed; the stars shone out, +and a new moon crept up from the east. At four o'clock Sandy started +up and began the readjustment of life. Bob was lying across his legs +and breathing evenly. The warmth had been grateful even if the weight +had been a burden, and a sense of joy flooded the boy as he patted the +dear, faithful head. + +A few minutes later the two were again on the road. Breakfast would +have been acceptable, but both boy and dog had learned that food was +not a vital necessity for the day's beginning. A cup of warming fluid +would have set Sandy up wonderfully, for his throat was sore and his +bones ached, but The Forge was not a great distance away and it was a +new sensation to have a pocket full of money. + +"Bob, when we get there you and I will fill up--I swear it, Bob!" + +The collie resented the oath. He was willing to share and share alike, +and between friends surely there was no need for such emphasis. + +A soaked wood road on an early August morning is not a cheering place, +and the travellers plodded on with weakening limbs and heavy hearts. +Sandy comforted himself by the thought that food would set him up, but +as he thought this his stomach rejected the idea with sickening +insistence. The more he thought of food the more his head ached and +his throat throbbed. Bob, unhampered by physical claims, jogged along +cheerfully. He was used to hope deferred, and he was appreciative of +the company he was in, and the absence of rough words and well-aimed +kicks and blows. + +The few miles of The Way seemed doubled on the moist August morning; +the rising sun merely drew more dampness from the sodden earth; it did +not dry it; but at last Sandy saw the opening ahead which marked the +clearing around Smith Crothers' factory, he heard the buzzing and +warning of machinery--at first he thought it was the strange sensation +that was gaining force in his head, but presently he righted things and +plucked up courage. Two miles beyond the factory: two miles of lighter +woodland and then the sharp little hill at whose foot The Forge lay! + +A busy day lay before Sandy. He must eat--the thought now was positive +agony--buy some necessary clothing and get into touch with some +inspired fellow creature who could give him information about +Massachusetts. Over and over Sandy repeated the magic word. For +nearly a year it had lain dormant in his consciousness. It was his +earthly heaven; the paradise of his longings and desires, but now it +had suddenly taken on earthly meaning and proportions. How was he to +get there? Had he money enough to carry him to that wonderland where +one could exchange work for an education? + +So absorbed was the half-sick boy with the problem of his near future +that he passed Crothers' factory unheedingly, and was well down the +last sharp little hill before he realized it. A fever was gaining +control over him and making him light-headed and care-free. +Massachusetts lost its agonizing doubts--everything appeared to be +coming to him; even the inevitable parting with Bob became vague and +blurred. Why not take Bob along with him? Why not, indeed? + +And so boy and dog, muddy and fagged, came to the end of the hill, to +the edge of the town and the first house, known as Stagg's Place, where +room and board could be obtained for a consideration! + +Sandy, with that growing nausea, made his way toward it, and Bob, with +his sixth sense serving him well, pricked up his ears, put on more +style of carriage and estimated his chances at the back door. But at +that critical moment an excited old gentleman dashed out of Stagg's +Place and gripping a walking stick madly waved it on high. Spying +Sandy he sensed probable help. + +"Boy!" he shouted lustily, "stop that man! It's--it's life or death. +Stop him! Send him back and I'll give you a dollar." + +Sandy rallied his last remnants of strength and turned about. Off in +the distance he saw the mounted postman jogging on his way toward the +village and he dashed ahead! Bob, with his smouldering puppy nature +coming unexpectedly to his help, scampered on, crazily barking and +yelping as he had never permitted himself to do in the guarded past. + +The postman, at last, heard the commotion and stopped short. + +"You are to go back!" Sandy panted; "it's life or--death." + +The horse was turned about and in the mud raised by the retreating +hoofs the boy and dog followed wearily. + +Whatever the matter was that had caused the confusion, it was adjusted +by the time Sandy again reached the house. The old gentleman, +muttering about a weak leg and a degenerate rascal, was sitting on the +piazza fanning himself with a panama hat, while a thin, eager-eyed +woman urged him to calm himself before worse harm was done. + +"The Lord will provide, Levi," she was saying, as Sandy and his dog +approached. "His ways are not our ways, but we might as well give +credit where credit is due. His leadings are generally clearer sighted +than ours be, having--as you might say--wider scope to scan." Then she +glanced at the dirty, worn pair on the steps. + +"Shoo!" she ejaculated, but neither dog nor boy stirred. + +"What do you want?" she next asked. + +"What--he said he would--give!" and then to complicate matters Sandy +rolled over in a huddled heap and fainted dead away! Bob, bereft and +frightened, hovered over him, emitting yelps and howls that shattered +the summer calm. + +The Markhams only took their meals at Stagg's Place; a small cottage +near by was their lodging rooms, and to that Levi Markham ordered two +coloured boys to carry the prostrate Sandy. + +An hour later Matilda Markham sat beside the couch in the shaded +living-room and looked thoughtfully upon the form stretched thereon. +From outside the voice of her brother came appealing to all that was +reasonable and sensible in Bob. + +"Of course you can see your master, my good fellow. Just be patient, +patient!" + +Levi Markham liked all animals, and something about Bob's rugged +ugliness and faithfulness called forth his admiration and sympathy. + +"Come, come, old fellow, eat and drink. He's safe enough inside. You +know well, you rascal, that he _is_ inside!" + +Bob blinked confidingly, but he would not touch the food which stood +alluringly near at hand in a shining tin plate. + +Sandy had recovered from his faint, but he was strangely weak and an +inner stillness bound him speechless and immovable. He lay +there--thinking, thinking! He knew a woman was beside him watching his +every breath; he heard Bob outside and the sternly kind voice talking +to him. But nothing mattered. Yes, one thing did matter. The money +was in his pocket and Massachusetts was still in the near future! + +Miss Matilda, by the process known only to her sex, had labelled and +classified the boy on the sofa. + +"He's what these shiftless negroes call quality," she pondered. +"Filthy and worn to the bone as he is--he is quality or I miss my +guess! Now what on earth has brought him to this pass?" + +The lids were drawn close over Sandy's eyes; his thin face was pinched +and wan, and the tan had faded mysteriously from the smooth skin. A +dignity rested on brow and mouth, and the work-stained, folded hands +were delicate and full of character. Sandford Morley had come to the +parting of the ways and he had resigned himself to the inevitable. His +helplessness put forth an appeal that reached through his sordid misery +to the emotions of Matilda Markham. She adored boys--they were her one +enthusiasm but, like her brother, the more she felt the less she +permitted herself to show. "She knew her duty"--none better; "but she +did not intend to have her feelings joggled in the broad light of day +for curious folks to witness!" + +So she watched Sandy now with her heart painfully in evidence. + +"There's a bruise on his left cheek," mused Miss Matilda; "like as not +he hit it against something." It was the effect of the last blow Mary +Morley was ever to deal him, but of course the watcher in the orderly +cottage could not imagine so outrageous a thing as that. + +"He's got real nice hair if it wasn't so matted. I daresay it would +curl if it had half a chance." Justice called for pity and protection, +and while waiting to see what was best to do next, Matilda heeded +inspiration. + +"You awake?" she whispered. Sandy gave a weak nod. "Want something to +eat? No? A drink of water, maybe? No? Very well, lie still and drop +off to sleep again. You'll feel better presently, and can tell us +about yourself, then brother will send you home." + +The room was dim, but Matilda's eyes were keen, and she saw two large +tears roll from under the closed lids and down upon the thin cheeks. +Because of her understanding of boys, Matilda did not interfere with +those mute tokens of weak surrender. Better the traces on the dirty +skin than a later misunderstanding, but as the tears took their way a +childless woman's pity and tenderness was following them mutely. + +"You can't sleep? Well now, never mind. Just don't fuss." Then +inspiration came again. + +"Maybe you'd like to see your dog, he's just outside. He won't eat or +drink and his nose is everlastingly pointed to the door." + +At this Sandy's eyes opened so suddenly and so wide that Matilda +Markham started. She had never seen such large eyes in any human boy's +face and they were such strange, yearning eyes. + +"You _do_ want your dog?" + +"Yes, ma'am! oh, yes!" + +Without a word more, Matilda strode to the door. + +"Brother," she said; "we want that dog here!" + +Bob leaped up and followed his instincts. He made no noise or cry, he +simply went to the low couch, and snuggled his rough head against the +shoulder pressed on the pillow. + +Matilda Markham could not bear the sight. It made her afraid of +herself. Her brother, above all people, must not think her emotional. +She knew what he thought of emotional women--he not only believed them +incapable, but he mistrusted their moral natures. She walked out to +the porch and sat grimly down in a rocker and swayed back and forth +energetically. + +"It's real hot," she vouchsafed presently. "This is a terrible shut-in +place. I haven't any use for mountains unless you can get on the +toppest peak." + +"Has that boy explained himself?" asked Levi Markham, also swaying to +and fro in his rocker. Matilda shook her head. + +"What do you think we ought to do? I've been inquiring a bit and I +find there is no police station nor hospital nearer than twenty-five +miles. I asked the man at Stagg's what they did when men were injured +in the factory, and he looked at me as if he thought I was a fool! +'They don't do anything to them,' he confided. It's an evil hole, +Matilda. I never saw a place in my life that needed capital and human +intelligence more. And what about this boy? He must belong somewhere, +I suppose." + +"I think he's pretty sick, brother; I guess we'll have to turn to and +supply what the town lacks in ambulances and hospitals. He's burning +up with fever, and he has a real wild light in his eyes." + +"What do you mean, Matilda?" + +"Well, brother, not to mince matters, I think if you undress him I'll +turn to and clean him up some. After that we'll put him to bed in the +little room off the dining-room and send for a doctor. I suppose they +have a doctor somewhere around here, haven't they?" + +Levi puckered up his lips and frowned. + +"I've questioned about that, too," he admitted. "There is a +doctor--goes horseback with saddle bags and medicine chest on a circuit +covering acres and acres. Kind of a medical bully; brings people into +the world and hustles them out. Doses and cuts them according to his +lights. He's off on a stabbing case back among the hills--some still, +they say, has let itself loose. He will be back when he patches up the +worst and turns the rest over to the authorities. Matilda!" + +Miss Markham started. + +"Yes, brother." + +"I don't want any one to see or know about that boy until after we've +seen the doctor. He looks badly used and starved to me, and I never +turn a dumb brute off when its luck is against it, until I know what +I'm turning it to. You get a tub of hot water ready and I'll tackle +the lad now." + +It was seven that evening when the doctor returned from the hills and +was told the "folks from the North" wanted to see him. He did not +hurry himself. He rested, ate, and changed his clothes and then +sauntered down the road to the cottage. Sandy, the worst of him, as +Matilda explained, lay in a comatose state on the narrow, immaculate +bed with Bob, now fed and comforted, on the floor beside him. + +"That's Morley's boy from Lost Hollow," the doctor drawled, as he gazed +upon the restless form. "At first I wasn't sure. I never saw him +clean before. As I passed through The Hollow to-day Morley came out +and told me the news. The boy's left home; he's going to get an +education somehow--the father said he had saved money." + +"There's nearly thirty-one dollars in his pants' pocket," Matilda broke +in accurately. + +"He comes of good stock back about the time of the Revolution. Running +to seed since. It's mighty odd how blood bursts out now and again. +This fellow's mother came from The Forge--a pretty creature--died when +he was born. Took me thirty-six hours to bring him into life--but I +couldn't save the mother. The father is a degenerate--the only sign of +decency I ever noticed in him is his thought about this boy. Looks +like a tussle for Sandy Morley now, I reckon. What you want to do +about it? If he lives, which he likely enough won't, he's going to be +a right smart bit of care." + +Levi looked at Matilda and Matilda looked at Levi, and then they both +looked at Sandy. "Massachusetts!" moaned the boy, tossing about +restlessly--"I'm going to get there, I tell you! Mass--massa--chu----" +The voice trailed off miserably and Bob was alert at once. + +"I never cast a beast out----" began Levi. + +"Not to mention a human boy," added Matilda. + +"We're going to see him through or--out, doctor." + +The impassive face of the doctor gave no intimation as to his emotions. +He took out his medicine bottles and forthwith began to complicate +Sandy's chances in the hand-to-hand struggle. + +An old black woman, famed for her charms and nursing, was secured by +Matilda Markham to assist in the care of Sandy Morley. + +"I shall keep an eye on the witch," Matilda warned her brother, "but +she has a sense about nursing that can be relied upon." + +And so the battle was on. Gossip about the boy was killed at the +bedroom door. No one became interested or cared. The doctor, after a +week or two, chancing upon Martin Morley on The Way, told him of +Sandy's good fortune. + +"Morley, if there's a bit of the man in you," he advised, "let go that +boy and leave him to his opportunity. You've almost killed him, body +and soul, among you, now; whether it be life or death, let him have a +try for the clean thing. It's all you can do for him--forget him!" + +And Martin, with bowed head, acquiesced. + +"If he dies----" he faltered. + +"I'll let you know," the doctor replied. + +But Morley never heard of Sandy's death and the summer merged into +autumn, and the cold and shadow settled upon The Hollow. When winter +drove the mountain folks indoors to closer contact, bad air and poor +food, it drove the devil in with them and hard times followed. But +before the grip of winter clutched the hills, Sandy decided that in +spite of the odds against him he would make another attempt to reach +Massachusetts. + +A mere shadow of a boy was he when, in late September, Matilda Markham +got him out on the piazza one morning and, having tucked him up well in +blankets, remarked enlighteningly, "There!" + +All the fineness in Sandy had been emphasized during the weeks of +sickness. As the bad food, the bruises and tan had disappeared--and +what little flesh which his poor body possessed--the native delicacy +and dignity grew and grew. + +The people of The Forge, taking small interest in the Mountain Whites, +for whom they had a contempt, merely relegated Sandy to "Luck with the +Yankee who was dickering about a factory site." + +As for Sandy himself he had wandered too near the perilous edge of +things to be very keen as to his present and future. Often he lay with +closed eyes and thought back to Lost Hollow. The actual distance +between him and the only home he had ever known was short but, to a +community that spoke of Sheridan's Ride as if it had occurred but the +day before, and which slunk and shrank from moving out of its shadows, +The Forge was a "right smart way off" and, besides, no one but Martin +knew of the circumstances surrounding Sandy; and Martin, to the best of +his ability, was doing the only thing he could do for his boy. Often +on the long weary tramps in the woods he yearned to get a glimpse of +things, but the rough doctor's warnings and suggestions held him back. + +"Mart Morley, keep your clutches off that lad. You've nearly put an +end to him. Give others a try now." + +So with a courage and self-denial no one knew or suspected, Martin kept +to the hills and made ready for winter as best he could. He and Molly, +when the mood seized her, gathered wood and piled it carelessly by the +cabin door. It seemed a goodly pile while the days were still warm and +fine, but Martin, with a groan, realized how small the accumulation +really was with the long, black months lying before. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The warm sun of September brought a faint tinge to Sandy's hollow +cheeks. After Matilda's "There!" the boy had leaned his head back on +the pillow of his couch and closed his eyes. Bob, sleek and +well-conditioned, lay at his feet, starting now and then as he dreamed +of other days rich in kicks and blows, and lean as to platters of +nourishing food. + +"Sleeping?" asked Levi, coming on the porch with the mail and +whispering to his sister. + +"I shouldn't wonder." + +"He looks----" But Matilda shook her head at Levi and cut the words +short. To express an opinion about Sandy's appearance at that moment +would not do--it were best passed over lightly. Levi took a chair, +drew it up close to his sister, and left Sandy and Bob free to compare, +in dreams, the Then and Now of Life. + +"It was no use," Markham whispered. "I might just as well have let the +letter go that day he"--Levi nodded toward Sandy--"made his entrance on +the scene. They won't accept my terms. I wish now I had let them know +how I felt when my blood was up." + +"Life's too short for that, brother. Up or down, blood hampers when +it's hot. Common sense is always best. What does the letter say?" + +"The Treadwell woman won't lose her hold on Lansing: not even for four +years!" + +Matilda's eyes dropped and she kept silent. + +"She's about ruined him," Levi went on. "I put it to her plain and +solemn, but she always slips through argument like a greased snake. +Said I--let me have his next four years. I'll put him through college, +give him work in the mills during the summer, and when he graduates +I'll give him a choice of taking over the business or following a +profession. The knowledge of business and some honest, hard work would +bring the scamp's tone up. He's flabby now; flabby as his father +before him." + +"And she--says?" + +Levi turned to the letter. + +"She says she will not consider the plan for a moment, but she says she +will not mention it to Lansing, and when I return he may choose for +himself. I really thought the Treadwell woman would reckon with the +money and not be so independent!" + +"It's to her credit," Matilda murmured. + +"Oh! doubtless she thinks when I have it out with the boy I'll change +my mind. She'll find the contrary. It's come to the last ditch now. +I'm not going to have any repetition of--the past with my money backing +it!" + +Again a long silence while Sandy apparently slept, and Bob twitched and +grunted. Then: + +"Matilda, we must return to Massachusetts. How soon can we go?" + +Suddenly Sandy started up and leaned forward. His eyes were the one +prominent feature in his face, and they were now hungry and anxious. + +"Massachusetts?" he whispered in the weak, hoarse voice of the +convalescent; "Massachusetts? That's where I'm going; there's money to +pay my way, almost, I reckon. I'll work out the rest and make my +schooling, too. I'll promise. Oh! take me with you!" + +The agony of earnestness brought both man and woman to his side. + +"Now, now!" commanded Matilda, pushing him back on the pillow; "nothing +is ever gained by using yourself up in this shallow fashion." + +"But I've got to go!" Sandy urged breathlessly; "I started out to go. +I saved ever since I was seven years old to get away--and at last I +fixed on--Massachusetts because they let you work for your learning +there--and I've got to get it--get learning!" + +"Come! come!" Levi asserted himself--"just you calm down. But if it +will ease your mind any I'll tell you this much, lad. We've got it all +fixed up amongst us--and if you want to go to Massachusetts and try +your hand at your luck, you're going to be given an opportunity. Now, +let go that grip on the arms of your chair! Matilda, get some broth; +get----" + +But he stopped short. The look in Sandy's eyes held him. Levi Markham +often said afterward that the expression on the boy's face at that +moment gave him a "turn." It was no boy-look; it was the command from +all that had gone to the making of Sandy; command that the boy be dealt +fairly with at last. + +"I'm a hard man, Matilda," Markham said later, when Sandy had let go +the grip of his chair, taken his broth and fallen exhaustedly to sleep; +"I'm a hard man who has hewn his own way up, but I hope I'm a just man, +and I declare before God I wouldn't dare play unfairly with the lad. +He's not the first fellow I've put upon his feet; some have toppled +over; some have gone ahead of me and given me the cold shoulder +afterward--a few have stood by me in the mills--this youngster shall +have a try to prove that look on his face." + +So it was that ten days later the Markhams, with their "po' white +trash," left The Forge--Bob rebelliously struggling in the baggage car. +A certain piece of land high up among the hills had been purchased by +Markham and the deed rested secure in his pocket. He knew what he was +about, and if a certain fool of a boy thought well of a proposition to +be made to him--there might be a future for himself and others later on. + +"It's a great factory site," Markham had written home to his lawyer; +"plenty of water and power. Land as rich as if it was just made, and +labour aching to be utilized--not exploited." + +The journey to Massachusetts was taken in slow stages--Sandy and Bob +complicated matters. + +"You--think, sir, my money will--hold out?" Sandy once asked wearily. + +"I've been estimating," Levi thoughtfully returned; "barring accidents, +taking to cheap hotels and allowing for a few weeks' rest after we +reach home, the amount will about see you through." + +"Thank you, sir." + +They were talking in Sandy's bedroom in a very good hotel in New York +at that moment. + +"You look pretty spruce to-day, young man." + +"I'm feeling right smart, sir. Could--could I, do you think, +write--two notes?" + +This was such an unusual request that Markham was curious. + +"That's easy," he said; "there's writing things in yonder desk. I'll +read the paper while you transact business." + +Sandy was strangely sensitive to tones and expressions and now he +turned to Markham. + +"I want--my father to know I'm all right, sir," he said quietly. "If +he knows that--he can wait till--I go back." + +Suddenly the long stretches on beyond staggered Sandy and his thin face +quivered. + +"Then--there is----" Somehow an explanation seemed imperative to this +man who was making life possible for him. There had never been any +intimacy before, but something compelled it now; "a--a girl, sir. She +helped me--earn money. She's--different from me--she's--quality, but +she'd like to know, too." + +Levi shifted his newspaper so that it walled Sandy's grim face from +view. + +"What's to hinder you making quality of yourself?" he asked. He was a +man that liked his beneficiaries to succeed, and while Sandy interested +him, in spite of himself, he disliked the boy's humility. There was +something final and foreordained about it, and unless it were +discouraged it might prevent what Markham was beginning to very much +desire. + +"Quality, sir, is not made. It--is!" + +Levi grunted, and Bob, paying a visit to the room on sufferance, +snarled resentfully. + +"You cut that out, boy!" Markham snapped; "in Yankeeland it doesn't go. +Massachusetts gives a good many things besides an education for good +honest work: it gives opportunity for the man to grow in every human +soul. We don't apologize for ourselves by digging up our ancestors--we +only exhume them to back us up. By the time you go home you can stand +up to the best of them in your hills--if it's in you to stand. It all +lies with you. Now write your letters and leave all foolishness out. +Afterward I have a plan to propose." + +So Sandy painfully scratched his two notes off and sealed and addressed +them. Then he waited for Markham's further notice. + +The day was cool and fine, but the heated air of the room made an open +window necessary. By that Sandy sat and looked out upon the big, +seething city of which he was so horribly afraid. It smothered and +crowded him; its noises and smells sickened him. The few excursions he +had made with his projectors had left him pale and panting. He made no +complaints--he realized that he was on the wheel, and must cling how +and as he might, but he shrank mentally at every proposition that he +should leave his room. The crowds of people appalled him and he +yearned for the open and the sight of a hill. He dreamed vividly of +Lost Mountain, and he always saw it now enveloped in mist--a mist that +he felt confident would never again lift for him. It was homesickness +in the wide, spiritual sense that overpowered Sandy Morley at that time. + +"Sandford, are you strong enough to talk business?" + +"Yes, sir, I reckon I am." + +The quaint politeness of his protege charmed Markham by its contrasts +to the manner of other boys with whom he had come into contact. + +"Sit down, and take it easy. Shut the window. You never seem to be +able to hear when the sash is raised." + +"Us-all's been used, sir, to still places." + +"Now, then! In a day or two we will be home, Sandford. Home in +Bretherton, Mass. We can't offer you mountains there, but it is a good +rolling country and it's--quiet! I'm going to choose a school for you +as soon as I can, a country school where you can catch up without +having the life nagged out of you." + +"And--and where am I to work and--live, sir?" + +"You'll find work enough at the school for the regular terms--summers +you are going to stop with Miss Markham and me and I'll set you to work +in my mills. I always set every one I take an interest in, to work in +my mills." + +"Yes, sir." Sandy's eyes were growing "strange" again. Markham was +learning to watch for that look. + +"What's the matter?" he asked on the defensive; "what you thinking +about?" + +"Only Smith Crothers' factory, sir, and--and the children." + +"See here, Sandford; don't you get me mixed with that----" he stopped +short. At times his ability to converse with Sandy struck even him +with wonder. It was when he forgot the poor figure before him, and was +held by the expression in the thin face, that he let himself go. + +"My mills," he continued more calmly, "are places of preparation; +not--death traps." + +"Yes, sir." + +"It all depends on you, Sandford. I made my way up from as poor a chap +as you are. I've given a lift to a good many other boys because of the +boy I once was, but I never take any nonsense. I'm going to be fair +with you and I expect you to be fair with me. Take things or leave +them--only speak out what's in your mind and act clean. What I do for +you isn't done for fun: I expect a return for everything I advance, and +I take my own way to get it. While you are at school--it's school +returns I want. When you go into the mills--I'll look for returns of a +different kind. I'm going to give you an allowance, and it's got to +do." + +"Sir?" + +"Oh!--I mean I'm going, after I get you on your feet, to put up a +certain sum of money for you to live on; buy your clothes and get what +amusement you can--along your own lines. I'm not going to pry or +question you. You've got to feel your way along--it's always my +method. They who stumble or run astray must learn their own +lesson--not mine! I'll steady you at the start; after that you've got +to learn to walk alone or go to----" + +"Yes, sir!" The awful weight of responsibility was crushing Sandy as +the city did--but he kept clear eyes on Markham. + +"The only fun I have in life," Levi said, "is watching the outcome of +my investments. You are an investment, Sandford, a flier--I call you! +You're a risk and a pick-up, but some of my biggest hauls came from +fishing where others scorned to take a chance. + +"Yes, sir." + +"You are willing to--agree?" + +"Oh! yes, sir." + +"Sounds like a big chance?" + +"I reckon it does, sir, but it's what I saved money for ever since I +was seven. The _chance_, I mean, sir." + +"Sandford, when you feel that you can--not now, but some day--I want +you to tell me all about yourself." + +"Yes, sir." But the thin face twitched. + +"And now come down to dinner." + +For a few days more the crushing city did its worst for Sandy. The +noise and confusion wore upon him cruelly. The memory of the faces of +the crowds was to be a nightmare to him for years to come. To one who +had dwelt where few crossed his path, the close proximity of hundreds +and hundreds of eyes during the day left an impression never to be +forgotten. The personal contact, too, drained the small, lately gained +strength, but no complaint passed the boy's lips. Matilda pitied Sandy +and in her quiet, slow thoughtfulness shielded him how and as she +could. Markham had business in the city and was often absorbed, but at +odd moments he relaxed and sought to entertain his sister and their +charge by showing them the sights of the town. It would have been +impossible for him to appreciate the suffering he often, unconsciously, +caused Sandy, who, left to himself, would have crouched in some quiet +corner and closed his eyes against every unfamiliar thing. + +Quite weakened by the experiences of the stay in New York, the boy +reached at last the lovely little New England village of Bretherton at +the close of a radiant autumn day. He was too weary to feel even +gratitude as the carriage that awaited the party bore him away from the +noise and smell of the station by the railroad. His untried senses had +been taxed to the uttermost since leaving The Forge. His eyes ached; +his ears throbbed. Every new odour was an added torture, and his body +quivered at every touch. Sleep came to him early, however, and the +small, quiet room of the Markham house which had been allotted to him +was like a sacred holy of holies to the overstrained nerves. Sandy +slept like the dead all that first night, but habit still swayed him, +and at five o'clock he wakened suddenly and heard the stir of life out +of doors. Some one was calling a dog--his dog! It was Miss Matilda, +and Sandy smiled as he listened to her reasoning with Bob as was her +custom. Slowly the rested nerves asserted dominion over the boy, but +he did not move. He was back, in longing, among the old Lost Hollow +scenes. He was too weak to adjust himself into a new environment; +changes had worn out his ambition and hope. Miserably he turned upon +his pillow and with a sinking of the soul yearned to take his faithful +Bob with him and go back to that life which demanded no more of him +than he was able to give. + +But that very afternoon his future became so involved with that of +another, whom he had never seen, that to turn back would have been an +impossibility. He and Bob were walking over a stretch of soft, hilly +land toward the autumn-tinted woods beyond, when young Lansing +Hertford, the son of Levi Markham's dead sister, arrived for a +consultation with his uncle. All his life Markham had hungered for +something that had never been his--something peculiarly his own! His +hard and struggling younger years had denied any personal luxury. He +had worked his way up; supported his old father and mother and two +sisters; had grimly set his face away from love and marriage, and then +when wealth and opportunity came to him the desire was past. But with +rigid determination he looked in other directions for compensation. At +first it was his younger sister, Caroline. Like so many self-made men, +the fine, dainty things of life attracted him. He had dreams of costly +oil paintings and rare china, but in the meantime he devoted himself to +his sisters. He and Matilda were of one mind: after their parents' +death Caroline became their only care. + +Exquisite, carefully educated and beautiful, they gloried in her. They +endured the loneliness of the old Bretherton home while she visited +with schoolmates, or travelled abroad with new and gayer friends. +Caroline was the music of their dull lives; the art of their prosaic +existences. Then the shock came when she announced her engagement to +Lansing Hertford, an idle, useless son of a down-at-the-heel Southern +family. + +"He's no fit mate for you, Caroline," Markham said alarmedly. + +"That may be, brother," the girl had replied, "but I must marry him. +You have always said one must learn his own lesson, not another's. I +am ready to take the consequences. I could never get away from the +sound of Lansing Hertford's voice. I hear him at night. He tells me +that when temptation or weakness overpowers him he breathes my name. +So, you see, dear, I cannot escape." + +"Don't be a fool, Caroline!" + +Markham struggled against the sense of impotency surging around him. + +"It's my lesson, dear. I'll never wince." + +And she never had, even when Hertford's indifference changed to +cruelty. After the birth of her child, Caroline Hertford failed +rapidly and the end of her lesson came when her boy was two years old. +Markham and Matilda had desired to take the baby then, but Mrs. Olive +Treadwell, Hertford's married sister, put in a protest. + +"It would blight the boy's future if any gossip touched the dead mother +or bereaved father; besides he is too young to change nurses or +environment." + +When little Lansing was seven his father died abroad under conditions +shrouded with secrecy, and then it was that Olive Treadwell sought Levi +Markham and by methods unknown to the simple, direct man, contrived to +interest him in her nephew and his. + +"There'll be a mighty big fortune some day for some one to inherit--why +not Lans?" she argued to herself and began her campaign. She had grown +to love the boy in her vain, worldly way; she wanted him _and_ the +Markham money, and she cautiously felt her way through the years while +the child was with her. + +"I hear my nephew is called by your name," Levi remarked once during a +call at the Boston home of the Treadwells. + +"Just a childish happening. You know how simple little minds are; +having no mother but me, he calls me mommy, and naturally people speak +of him carelessly by my name." + +"He should bear his own and seek to honour it," Markham returned with +simplicity equalling a child's. Mrs. Treadwell winced. She dared not +show how she resented any unkind reference to her brother, but she had +always looked down upon his Yankee marriage, as she termed it, and +never could understand why the plain Markhams failed to realize the +honour her brother had paid them by taking Caroline for his wife. + +"I must see that the misnomer is corrected," was all Mrs. Treadwell +rejoined. So Lansing had passed through preparatory school and was +ready for college before Markham could be brought to definite terms. +The letter from The Forge was the first proposition, and now on that +September day Lansing Hertford, prepared and coached by his aunt +Treadwell, presented himself at Bretherton on the two-fifty train. + +"He'll probably offer you a beastly little allowance," Olive Treadwell +had warned; "but I'll add to that; so accept it like a lamb. Then +he'll throw Cornell to you--he has right bad taste in universities--but +you must use your tact there, Lans. Tell him about your associates and +how your future will be influenced by your college Frat and such +things. Men like your uncle Markham are always snobs at heart." + +Thus reinforced Lansing Hertford came up for judgment. He was a +handsome, rollicking chap--a charming combination of his graceful +father and his lovely mother--and he greeted his uncle and aunt with +frank affection. Even in those days Lansing Hertford could will his +emotions--or his emotions could will him--to sincerity for the time +being. He had ideals and enthusiasms--he changed them often, and, as +often, they changed him, but outwardly a frankness and openness were +his chief attributes and had held his uncle, through the hope-deferred +years, to expect big things of him. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Lansing Treadwell, after an hour on the piazza with his aunt and uncle, +followed the latter into the study and, taking the broad leather chair, +faced Markham across the flat desk with candid, friendly eyes. Levi +sat, as he always did when in that room, in his revolving chair; the +leather one was reserved for visitors. + +"Well, Lansing," he began, sternly endeavouring to obscure the hope, +pride, and affection that were welling up in his heart as he looked at +the boy; "you're through preparatory; have qualified for college and, +after this year, are ready for your career!" + +"I've done pretty well, Uncle Levi. I stand third in my class and I'm +the youngest." + +"How old are you?" + +"Seventeen." + +"You'll be eighteen when you enter college? That's too young." + +"I'm older than my years," Lansing gave a boastful laugh, then did a +bungling thing. "Won't you smoke, Uncle Levi?" and he passed a +handsome silver case forward; "it's a great tie between--well, chums!" + +"I've lived over sixty years without the need of that tie," Markham +returned stiffly; "I do not think I'll take it up now. I'm not much of +a preacher, but at your age, Lansing, I'd advise the collection of good +tastes and habits; let the doubtful luxuries await the years of +discretion." + +Lansing pocketed his silver case and gave an embarrassed laugh. Levi +went back to his former line of argument. + +"It's Cornell and the beggarly allowance," thought Lansing, but it was +no such thing. + +"You are too young to go to college, Lans; too immature to really put +yourself to any final test. Your assumption of dignity proves this +more than anything else. Of course I do not know how much or how +little you know of the past, but it is necessary, from now on, that you +and I should understand each other perfectly. I was very"--Levi +struggled for composure--"very fond of your mother." + +"Yes, uncle." + +"And I did not want her to marry your father. I feared he would not +make her happy--he did not!" + +The crisp facts came out with force but with no malignity, and Lansing +Hertford dropped his eyes as he replied: + +"Aunt Olive has told me they were very uncongenial." A flush rose to +the young fellow's face. A pride, not altogether unworthy, rang in the +words and for the first time Markham detected a resemblance to the +father in the close-shut lips. + +"I do not wish to say anything against your father that is avoidable, +but for your own safety and my own protection I realize that you and I +must be quite open with each other." + +"Yes, uncle." + +"Your mother died more of a broken heart than of anything else." + +The boy set his jaw. + +"I know father loved life and took it as it came," he said. + +A brief silence rested between the two, then Markham went on: + +"Naturally you inherit from both your parents. To a certain extent, +certainly, a man, under God, is master of his life and I want to give +you the best possible choice that lies in my power, not only for your +own sake and mine, but for your mother's and--yes! your father's!" + +"Thank you, Uncle Levi." + +And now the boy's eyes were raised once more. They swept the room, +Markham's face, and then travelled to the broad acres in rich +cultivation as far as one could see. + +"You have had too much pleasure and luxury, Lans; things have come too +easily. You have never been brought face to face with a longing, and +been made to understand that sacrifice, on your part, was necessary to +obtain it. Unless you have felt so, you are in no position to find +yourself, as you put it." + +Again the vital silence. + +"How do you know whether you want a college education or not? How do +you know you are worthy of this great privilege? You may not even be +fitted for it by nature." + +Had Markham asked if his nephew knew whether he would ever want to eat +a meal again, the boy could not have been more surprised. College, to +him and his set, was as natural a sequence as dessert after the courses +preceding it. For the life of him Lansing could not prevent a stare. +His aunt had left him utterly unprepared for this. + +"Now this is my proposition:" Markham had his elbows on his desk, his +chin resting on the points of his clasped hands; "I will take you into +the mills on exactly the same terms as I would any other young +fellow--except that you will share my home--until you learn the +rudiments of the business and discover whether you have any business +sense or not. By the time you have mastered that and experienced some +bodily labour, you will be in a position where you can choose, to some +degree, your career. Should you, then, wish to enter college, I will +permit you to select one, and I will see you through. It is my firm +belief that between a preparatory school and college there should be a +space of time, except in particular cases, for looking backward and +forward--a breathing time; a time for relaxation and the acquiring of +fixed aims. College should not be passed out to a boy as a plum or a +luxury--it's too grave a matter for that. All my life I have deplored +the lack of it--but I had to live and suffer before I realized its +importance." + +With all his honesty Lansing Hertford was trying at this critical time +to get his uncle's point of view. Of one thing alone was he sure--he +was, he believed, so far ahead of his uncle in his knowledge of life +that the old gentleman seemed but a blurred speck on the social +horizon. No longer could he be looked to as a safe adviser. Why, left +to himself, the man might sacrifice the family name and prestige! He +did not even understand the decent conventions due his own standing in +the community! Suddenly Lansing Hertford felt old and anxious as +though upon him, instead of Levi, rested the responsibility of the +future. He tried to frame a reply that might enlighten and not insult, +but it was difficult. At last he spoke. + +"Uncle Levi, I cannot see what such effort and success as yours amount +to if they do not place the next generation higher. What you say you +have deplored in your own life should prove to you what I ought to +have. Your experience counts for so much, you know. I expect to work, +and work hard--I always have worked hard. I'm two years ahead of most +fellows of my age. But I want to start from where you and my Aunt +Olive leave off, I want to mingle with my kind--I am all but qualified +to enter Yale--I could not go--back!" + +"Your kind! Go back!" Levi's eyes flashed under his shaggy brows. +"What is your kind? Have you ever mingled with those above or below +you? And as to going back--is it degrading to place yourself in a +position from which you can accept or decline a great opportunity +intelligently? I was forced to learn my lesson in a hard school; you +can still learn the lesson even with the limitations of luxury. Your +'kind' is good, bad, and indifferent, and there are other kinds. I see +you before me, young and hopeful--but ignorant and blind. I want to +open every avenue to you that leads to successful manhood. You are +losing nothing by my plan; you are gaining much." Something very +pleading rang in Markham's voice, but Lansing was deaf to it. + +"Uncle Levi--I cannot! I'd be a disappointment to you if I tried. +I've got to go on with the fellows. I'd lose more than you know if I +broke away now and--and buried myself in the mill, and then tried later +to pick up. You've never been through what I have--the break would be +the end of me! You'd know it when it was too late. I mean to try to +be the best of my kind, indeed I do--but the fellow I am is the result +of my training and it means everything to me." + +What Levi Markham saw before him now was the son of Lansing +Hertford--all resemblance to the mother was gone. Baffled and defeated +by a something invincible and beyond his understanding, the old man +faced the calmness of the young fellow in the chair across the desk. +When he spoke he addressed a Hertford only. + +"You have heard my proposition, Lansing; I mean to stand by it; unless +you can accept my terms I shall change my will." + +Could Markham only have understood he would have known that it was the +pride of his race, not the Hertfords', that spurred Lansing to retort +angrily: + +"I did not know I was being bought. I thought you were doing it for +what you believed was my good!" + +"And so I am!" The incongruity of thus arguing with a boy of seventeen +did not strike Markham. It was man to man, with the influence of Olive +Treadwell in the reckoning! + +"Give me my college first, Uncle Levi, and consider the business +afterward." + +"I have worked this thing out, Lansing. I am not likely to change my +mind." + +And just then Sandy Morley passed by the window with his dog at his +heels. + +"Who is that?" asked Lans indifferently, and a blind impulse spoke +through Markham. + +"The boy who will accept the offer I make if you decline it!" + +Lansing Hertford got upon his feet. All the forced affection and +respect he had been trained to observe dropped from him. His uncle +seemed a coarse, hard stranger, the surroundings distasteful. A +certain mental homesickness for all the pleasant luxury and environment +of his Aunt Olive's life overcame him. He spoke boyishly. + +"I think I will return to Boston to-night, Uncle Levi. There's a train +at seven. I couldn't eat dinner feeling as I do. Good-bye, I'm going +to walk to the station. Will you be good enough to send my traps up +to-morrow. Bid Aunt Tilda good-bye, please." + +He put out his hand frankly and was gone before Markham realized the +situation. + +"It was not Lans you were fighting," Matilda sagely remarked later when +her brother explained matters to her, "it was his dead father, and +Olive Treadwell. You just better write to the boy, I guess, and get +him to finish out his visit and reconsider. I tell you flat-footed, +Levi, there ain't much give to you when you've worked yourself up, and +I must say I like the lad all the better for the way he stood up for +his kin. They are his kin, and good or bad, that Treadwell woman has +won his affection when we couldn't. And to throw that--that strange +boy at his head in that fashion! It wasn't worthy of you, Levi! It +was downright shallow and you prating always of justice and sane +reasoning!" + +What might have happened when Markham had digested his sister's +practical remarks was never to be known, for Olive Treadwell, in blind +fury, and what she considered righteous indignation, prevented. + +Weak and unbalanced, but with a deep-seated belief in her social +superiority and worldly knowledge, she sent a letter, by special +delivery, to Bretherton, that left Levi incapable of response: + + +I suppose you have taken this method of degrading my dead brother and +me. That one of your humble origin can estimate the impression upon +another of such an offer as you made to my nephew is quite beyond +expectation. The Hertfords have always been gentlemen and ladies and +_you_ would send the last of the race, by the power of your vulgar +money, to work among common labourers in order to break his spirit and +pride! You are too blind, apparently, to appreciate the honour my +brother paid your sister by marrying her. His personal shortcomings +could not possibly outweigh the position that he gained for her when +she took his name. Through all these years I have suppressed my +feeling as to the matter because I have felt that you and I, working +together, might place the son of your sister and my brother in a +position that would reflect credit upon us both; but since you have +failed to recognize your opportunity and, in sordid revenge, have +sought to degrade him, I assume _all_ responsibility in the future. I +am, comparatively, a poor woman, but hereafter _Lansing Treadwell_ and +I will share and share alike. I shall endeavour, to the best that is +in me, to prove to him that it is such men as you who hold the world +back! Men who over-estimate money and undervalue blood and social +position are not to be envied or trusted. + + +Having read this aloud to Matilda, Levi dropped the closely written +sheet to the floor. + +"She's got the courage of her convictions," Matilda snapped. + +"And an old grudge," Markham returned. + +"Well, I will say this for her," Matilda added; "she's upset her kettle +of fish and Lans', too." + +"So it seems! So it seems!" + +Levi was looking at a flaming maple tree outside and thinking of his +dead sister. + +It was the evening of the day of the letter that Sandy Morley, sitting +rigidly in the chair that Lansing Hertford had lounged in, listened to +as much of an outline of his future as Levi Markham felt he could +comprehend. + +"And remember," Markham warned at the end, "I want you to learn how +_little_ a hundred dollars is as well as how big! One is as important +as the other." + +"Yes, sir," Sandy returned with a vague wonder, for he had yet to learn +to think in dollars. + +"Can you"--Markham considerately paused before putting the next +question--"do you feel able to tell me a little more about yourself +than I already know? I should like to feel that you trust me." + +Sandy was stronger and better for his days in Bretherton and, never +having had any great consideration shown him, he looked upon Levi +Markham as a veritable God especially upraised for his guidance and +protection. + +"I want to tell you!" he said in a low, tense voice. Leaning forward +until his arms touched the opposite side of the desk, his thin, +sensitive face was nearly on a level with Markham's. + +"It's--this--er--way." + +The shade at the broad window behind Sandy had not been lowered, and a +very magnificent black night riddled with stars stood like a shield +against which the boyish form and pale face rested. There was a +crumbling fire on the hearth, and the lamp on the table was turned low. +Markham, listening to the slow, earnest voice, became hypnotized by its +quality and pure purpose. He felt the dreariness and hopelessness of +the hard childhood, and the hate that Mary Morley had aroused seemed to +the listener to be the first vivifying happening. He never took his +eyes from Sandy's face from first to last. The years of labour, +self-sacrifice and fixed purpose stirred him strangely, and the touch +of spirit introduced into the boy's voice when he approached the end +found an echo in Markham's heart. + +"I'm going to learn and then go back and help them-all who can't help +themselves," Sandy explained, "for _I_ know, sir. No one what does not +know, could ever do it! Us-all fears strangers. I'm going to get +them-all safe some day, sir. I'm going to have a right, big place to +gather them in and teach them. No Hertford curse is going to kill what +has called me!" + +So abstracted had Levi been, so distant in thought from the Bretherton +study, and his own inward trouble, that this name, falling from Sandy's +lips, shocked him beyond measure. + +"What--did--you--say?" he gasped; "what name did you say?" + +"Hertford, sir." + +"What do you know of the Hertfords?" It was all Markham could do to +hold his emotions in abeyance. + +Sandy told his father's story, all but that which related to the +Waldens, and the listener hung on every word. + +"And so, sir, don't you see, I must be what they-all, my kith and kin, +couldn't be? I've got to use my chance for them as well as for me." + +"It's a big proposition, boy!" Levi relaxed. + +"Yes, sir." The young face was tired and worn. + +"Well, then, listen"--a strange light shone in Markham's eyes--"if you +prove yourself able to tackle this job, by God, I'll back you! You and +I will redeem that old Hollow of yours--you with my money! We'll get +Smith Crothers by the throat and throttle him; we'll clean up the Speak +Easies and cut more windows in the cabins. Where did you get the +notion, son, that with more light and air there would be less +damnation?" + +"I've lived in the cabins, sir." + +"Well, we'll cut all the windows you want and have the school +and"--Markham was quivering--"we'll see if the Morleys can't rise up in +the land of their fathers and stamp the Hertfords under foot!" + +"Yes, sir!" And then Sandy gave one of his rare, rich laughs. + +From that day the preparations began. A school in the mountains of New +Hampshire was selected, and Sandy fitted out with everything necessary +and proper. + +Markham was noted for a sense of propriety. He kept his mills and +lands in good condition because he was wise and sane; he housed his +employees decently for the same reason, and he insisted upon their +cooeperation. He never let his taxes lapse, nor his money lie fallow. +He had, hidden in a drawer of his desk, a valuable diamond ring that he +took out in secret moments to enjoy. Occasionally the jewels were sent +to Boston and put on the wheel because the artistic soul of Levi +Markham demanded that through no carelessness of his should their +lustre become dimmed. For much the same reasons Sandy Morley was +entered upon his career in a manner befitting the hope that was in +Markham for him. + +The day Sandy was sent from Bretherton, Olive Treadwell and her adopted +son, Lansing Treadwell, sailed for a year's stay in Europe, and Levi +and Matilda Markham grimly agreed to leave things as they were. + +"There's no use stirring up pudding past a certain point," Matilda +said. "If you do it's apt to go heavy." + +"And it's the part of wisdom to watch a rising batch of bread," Levi +returned humorously. "When you can't get pudding--or when the pudding +fails--look to bread and make the best of it!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Cynthia Walden came slowly up the trail leading to the old gray house. +Since the day of the flood which bore old Ivy forever from sight, she +had confronted so many strange conditions that her eyes had the +haunted, frightened expression common to the mountain people. The +curse of the hills seemed to have settled upon her. She often said to +herself, "poor whites," in order that the significance might be fully +understood. Old Ivy had said that the cows were all that stood between +them and the fate of others who had, through misfortune, accepted the +title despised by the quality. + +Well, she, Cynthia Walden, was no longer quality; of that there could +be no doubt. Had Ivy and the cows been spared she might have hidden +her disgrace of parentage, but now she must, in order to get food and +wood, seek the help and charity of others, and she could no longer hold +up her head! + +At this thought the pretty, drooping head was lifted defiantly. No! +she would not go down just yet, for one last motive remained. While +she was at the store an hour before to buy a few necessary articles of +food with the pitiful supply of money she had found in an old teapot on +the kitchen shelf, a wonderful thing had occurred. Tod Greeley, +weighing out some tea, remarked casually: + +"I reckon, now I think o' it, Miss Cyn, there's a letter come for you. +One for you and one for Mr. Morley." + +"A letter!" Cynthia almost staggered. "A letter!" + +Never in all her life had Cynthia received a letter, never had her +imagination soared to such a height as to conceive of such a thing. +Tod finished his careful weighing, then added a reckless handful and, +having tied the tea up in a bulky package, wandered to the dirty row of +letter boxes. + +"Here it is!" he exclaimed after thumbing the morning mail over and +remarking about each article. + +"Yours and Mr. Morley's bear the same writing--Noo York! There ain't +been a Noo York letter in this yere post-office since I came to The +Hollow. It's a right smart compliment, Miss Cyn!" + +Trembling and pale with excitement, Cynthia grasped the letter, tucked +her little bundles under her arm and ran from the store. + +The cold, crisp air of late autumn spurred her to action, and she kept +on running, with the letter burning her hand like flame, so tightly did +she grip it. Before she reached the broken and dilapidated fence +separating the home place of Stoneledge from the trail, she paused +beneath a tree to take breath and reconnoitre. She looked at the +letter then for the first time, and she was sure it was from Sandy. +Her heart beat painfully and her eyes widened. Looking about to make +sure of privacy she tore open the envelope and lo! at the first words +the gray autumn day glowed like gold, and the world was set to music. +Poor Sandy, distracted by the noise and confusion of the big city, had +permitted himself, when writing to Cynthia, the solace of imagination +and memory. + +"Dear Madam Bubble!" Why, Cynthia had almost forgotten her pretty, +fascinating story-self! Her dear, slow smile had almost lost its +cunning. However, it returned, now, and drew the corners of the stern +young mouth up pathetically. + + +DEAR MADAM BUBBLE: + +I am remembering everything and holding to it. I shut my eyes and I +see you standing by The Way with your face like the dogwood flowers in +the spring--shining and white and happy! That--er--way is how it is +going always to look till I come back. No matter what happens to me; +no matter how mighty hard things are, I am just going to stop short, +when I feel I can't bear life, and shut my eyes and see you a-standing +waiting like what you said. I've met much kindness and a great +friend--it's the noise and strangeness and many folks what turn me +crazy-like, but always when I shut my eyes--you come and it seems +_home_ again. If I don't write, please Madam Bubble, know it's because +I'm fighting hard to get something fit to bring to you when I come +back. And I reckon you better not write to me--I couldn't stand it. +You know how I couldn't count the money till the time came! That is +the sort I am and, besides, I've got to find out what this--er--life is +going to make me into. If I shouldn't be worthy to come up The Way to +you--you better not know. But I will be! I will be! Thank you for +what you've done for me and most for letting me think you'll wait and +be ready. + + +Cynthia dropped the letter in her lap--for she was crouching beneath +the tree. It was a badly written and much-soiled letter but no missive +straight from heaven could have performed a greater miracle upon her. +A radiance flooded her face from brow to chin, and her eyes glistened +with the happy tears that never overflowed the blue-gray wells that +held them. + +"Sandy!" The familiar name passed her lips like the word of a prayer; +"Sandy--'The Biggest of Them All!' I'll be a-waiting by The Way like +what I said!" + +There were consecration and joy in the words, and the transformation in +the girl was wonderful. Gone was the look of despair and surrender. +Madam Bubble was herself again! + +Springing up, the girl began to dance about among the sodden autumn +leaves. She sang, too, as the wild things of the woods sing. There +was no tune; no sustained sound, but mad little trills and unexpected +breaks. She imitated the bird-note that was Sandy's signal; she meant +to practise it every day and keep it for his return lest he lost it +among the noises and crowds in which he must do battle. Then Cynthia +spied a hole in the trunk of the tree and with sudden abandonment she +pushed her letter into it. + +"There!" she panted; "and I'll put my answers in it, too, and give them +all to Sandy when he comes up The Way." + +But hunger and recent trouble laid restraining hands upon the girl at +that moment. She sank down and shivered nervously. Between this +moment and the one of Sandy's return stretched a dreary space, and how +was she to keep her heart light and meet the dreary problems that +confronted her? Winter was at hand; the wood pile had been swept from +the door, and there were only a few dollars in the cracked teapot. Old +Ivy's body, rescued a week after the flood, was buried from sight in +the Walden "plot," and Ann Walden was greatly changed. Cynthia did not +understand, but she was terribly afraid. Ann Walden laughed a great +deal, slyly and cunningly. She never mentioned Ivy except to question +where she had gone. The mistress of the Great House, too, took to +pacing the upper balcony and repeating over and over: + +"The hills--whence cometh my strength!" + +It was quite fearful, but Cynthia had already learned to keep away from +her aunt at moments of excitement; her presence always made matters +worse. And once, soon after her return, Marcia Lowe had ventured to +call at Stoneledge, but the outcome of her visit had been so deplorable +that the little doctor was driven to despair. She had knocked at the +outer door, which stood ajar, and, receiving no reply, had walked into +the hall and to the library. There sat Ann Walden just as Miss Lowe +had left her on the fateful afternoon of the letter. When Miss Walden +raised her eyes to her unannounced caller a madness, with strange +flashes of lucidity, overcame her. + +"Out!" she shouted--"it was all a lie--there never was a marriage! +Never! Would you kill me and the child? Leave us alone. We will not +take the money or the shame! Leave me! leave me!" + +Then running to the far corner of the fireplace she sank upon the floor +and with outstretched hands she moaned: + +"He killed her! killed her! and I damned her; leave us alone!" + +At that point Cynthia rushed into the room and caught the poor, old, +shrinking form in her arms; then, with flashing eyes she turned upon +Marcia Lowe. + +"Go!" she commanded with sudden courage and desperation. "Go! Don't +you hear Aunt Ann?" + +"You promised, little Cyn!" whined Miss Walden, "you promised!" + +"I know--all about it!" Cynthia murmured, still keeping her fear-filled +eyes upon the caller--"I, too, want you--to go away!" + +Her training had fitted Marcia Lowe to understand and take alarm at +what she beheld, but it also demanded that she leave at once. Since +then Cynthia had never seen the little doctor, and the change in Ann +Walden did not include another furious outburst such as that. + +The excitement of the letter faded when the magic sheet of paper was +hidden from sight, and stern necessity brought the severe lines back to +the thin, pale face. It was just at that moment that Smith Crothers +came down the path, crunching under his heavy boots the damp leaves and +branches. Seeing Cynthia beneath the tree he paused and took off his +hat. Whatever the girl felt and believed of the man was gained though +indirect information--he had meant nothing personal to her before, and +it was something of a surprise for her to realize that he was a good +looking man and could smile in kindly fashion. + +"Little Miss Walden," he said courteously, "I've just been a-hearing +how you-all suffered from the storm. Mr. Greeley done told me the old +lady is all around cracked!" + +"Cracked!" The mountain interpretation of this word flooded Cynthia's +consciousness like a flame that made plain all the subtle fear of the +past few weeks. That was it, of course! "All around cracked!" + +"Oh!" came in a shuddering cry; "oh! oh! oh!" + +"Now don't take on that-er-way," comforted Crothers, coming nearer. +"Us-all mean to stand by you. I expect you-all ain't over-rich either, +and we-all can help in a right practical way. What do you say, little +Miss Cyn, to coming down to the factory and doing light work and +getting mighty good pay?" + +A new horror shook Cynthia's pallid face; but Crothers met it with a +laugh. + +"Don't take on without reason," he soothed. "Ain't I done something +for the mountings?" he asked; "I know what some folks think about me, +little Miss Cyn, but you be a right peart miss, and I ask you straight +and true--wouldn't things be worse, bad as they be, if I didn't take +folks and pay 'em? Chillun is better 'long o' their mothers, when +all's said and done, and they don't have to come if they don't want to, +and when they do come the work don't hurt them. Just 'nough to keep +'em from mischief and me a-paying their parents for what is play to the +young-uns." + +Cynthia thought of Sandy's moan over the baby-things of the factory and +her eyes filled. She did not know, perhaps Sandy did not understand, +but once he had said to her during a flight of fancy: + +"Some day I'm going to gather them-all away from old Smith Crothers and +save them!" + +"Come and see for yourself, little Miss Cyn." + +The tone was friendly and kind, and the actual necessity of the future +gripped Cynthia. + +"Come and see. I know what is due to you and your folks, Miss Cynthia; +I don't ask you to work 'long of the others. I have work for you right +in my office where I can have an eye to your comfort and pleasure. +Just copying letters and addressing envelopes and I will give +you"--Crothers paused; his sudden desire was carrying him perilously +near the danger point of being ridiculous--"I'll give you three dollars +every week. Three whole dollars!" + +With vivid memory Cynthia recalled the long years that it had taken to +earn the three dollars for Sandy's venture and she gave a little gasp. + +"Three whole dollars! And you can get down to the factory after you +make the old lady comfortable, and I can let you have a little +mule--all for yourself--to tote you to and fro." + +"It's--it's very kind of you, Mr. Crothers," Cynthia panted; "I'll +ask----" Then of a sudden she recollected that there was no one to +ask. For the first time in her life she was confronted by an +overpowering condition that she must meet alone! Just then a sharp +touch of cold struck her as the changing wind found the thin place in +her coarse gown. + +"I'll--I'll come, and thank you, Mr. Crothers," she said in shaking +voice. "I'll come, next week!" + +"Good!" cried Crothers, "and I'll send up the mule--we'll put its feed +in saddle bags--I'll throw that in and----" the smile on the man's face +almost frightened Cynthia, though the words that followed seemed to +give it the lie. + +"I'm going to have one of the men stack wood for you, too, and lay in +some winter vegetables. I don't want you to think badly of me, little +Miss Cyn. I want to help you-all." + +When he had gone Cynthia drew a long breath, and shivered as though +some evil thing had threatened or touched her in passing, but an hour +later she was thankful her sudden impulse had led her to accept +Crothers' offer, for the wind changed and brought from its new quarter +a biting warning of winter. Fires had to be kindled to warm the damp, +dreary rooms, and Ann Walden, crouching by the blaze, looked gratefully +up into Cynthia's face and laughed that vacant, childish laugh that +aroused in the girl the fear that youth knows, and the pity that woman +learns. And late that afternoon the little doctor, astride her rugged +horse, rode up to the cabin of Sally Taber, and made a business +proposition. + +Sally was gathering wood behind her cabin with a fervour born of fear +and knowledge. She knew what the change of wind meant and her wood +pile was far from satisfactory. Long before Marcia Lowe came into +sight the old woman stood up and listened with keen, flashing eyes +alert. + +"Horse!" she muttered, and then rapidly considered "whose horse?" + +Not the old doctor's from The Forge, for he never used up horseflesh in +that reckless fashion. His circuit was too far and wide for such +foolish extravagance. + +"It's coming this-er-way!" Sally concluded, and since there was no +other human habitation on that particular route but her own she +rightfully appropriated the approaching visitor. With a quickness of +motion one would not have suspected in such an old body, the woman ran +into her cabin and, as a society belle might have rushed for her toilet +table, Sally made for a closet in the corner of her living room. From +there she brought forth a can of vaseline and daubed some of the +contents artistically around her lips; then she tied over her shabby +gown a clean and well-preserved apron and smoothed her thin, white hair. + +"Now," she muttered, composedly taking her knitting and sitting before +her hastily replenished hearth-fire; "now, I reckon who-sumever it may +be, will think I've had a po'ful feast o' po'k chops, judging from my +mouf, an' no quality ain't mo' comfortable than I be?" + +A smile of content spread over the old face as this vision of +respectability enfolded the poor soul. At that moment Marcia Lowe +jumped from her horse, tied it to a tree and came rapidly up to the +open door. There was an anxious look in her eyes and the corners of +her lips drooped a trifle more than they did when she first rode up The +Way. The life of The Hollow was claiming her as it had her uncle +before her. As she looked in the cabin and saw the composed figure of +the mistress a gleam of humour lighted her face and she secretly +rebelled at the sensation of lack of ease which often overcame her in +the presence of these calm, self-possessed "poor whites." + +"They are so inhumanly superior!" she thought, and then a kindlier +feeling came. + +"Good afternoon, Miss Taber." + +Sally looked up with an assumed surprise worthy of her race and +tradition. + +"If it ain't Miss Lowe!" she exclaimed, coming forward cordially. "It +sho' am, Miss Lowe! Come in, ma'am and rest yourself." + +Sally's idioms savoured of darky dialect and her mountain quaintness: + +"I'll brew a dish o' tea, ma'am." + +Marcia Lowe refused this attention and stayed Sally by her first words. + +"Miss Taber, I want you to help me out with a very difficult matter. +No one can help me--but you!" + +People might think what they cared to about this stranger from Trouble +Neck--the men still distrusted her--but the women were rapidly being +won to her. + +"I 'low you can count on me, ma'am. I says to myself often, says +I--Sally Taber, jes' so long as you can make a friend or do a +'commodation job, you is useful to de community--when yo' +can't--why--den!" And with that Sally gave a "pouf!" as if blowing +away a feather. + +Marcia Lowe could not keep her eyes from the shining, greased lips; she +was becoming acquainted with mountain peculiarities, but she was +perplexed by the neat Sally's daubed face. + +"It's about--Miss Walden," she said softly, moving her chair closer to +Sally. + +"What's happened 'long o' her?" An anxious look crept into Sally's +eyes. + +"I fear--she is not exactly right." + +"It's in the family," Sally murmured; "when things go awry 'long o' +them, they jes' naturally take to queerness. The ole general, Miss +Ann's father, he done think he was God-a'mighty, long toward the last. +I kin see him now a-coming up The Way blessing us-all. They ain't none +o' them dangerous, jes' all around cracked, ma'am." + +"But the little girl, Miss Taber, she ought not to be alone there with +Miss Walden. You see I have studied medicine and I know--it is +dangerous and--it mustn't be. See here! I cannot do anything without +making more trouble. I'm not one of them, but you could go and--well, +just take control! Say that you--need shelter and help--you know Miss +Walden would do anything for her friends; put it that way and +then"--here Marcia Lowe laid some money in the old shrivelled hands, +"there will always be money for you to buy what is necessary for the +comfort of you all." + +The keen eyes glittered, and the quick mind was caught by the subtlety +of the suggestion. Here was a chance to play great lady; to return +favours that long had been conferred upon her, and at the same time +retain her respectability and dignity. It was a master stroke and +Marcia Lowe felt a glow of self-appreciation. + +"You can care for her, Miss Taber; you can see that Cynthia is properly +looked after, and you can give Miss Walden the joy of her life in +thinking that she is able to help you. It is a pardonable bit of +deceit, but will you assist me?" + +After a decent show of hesitation, Sally decided that she would and, at +the close of the afternoon, was seated behind the little doctor--with +her pitiful store of clothing, jogging in a bundle at her back, on the +way to Stoneledge. Miss Lowe set her down at the trail leading up to +the old crumbling house, with these words: + +"If ever my uncle did a kind deed, for you, Miss Taber, do this for him +now." + +Toting up the hill, Sally's thoughts wandered back to Theodore Starr +and settled on a certain dark, cold night when he sat in her cabin +piling the wood on her fire, while she lay shivering with chill upon +her wretched bed. All the charms had failed, the rabbit foot, under +the dripping of the north end of the roof had not eased a single pang, +and hope was about gone when Starr chanced by. He had meant to ask for +a bite and a night's shelter, for he was worn by travel and service, +but instead he sat beside her the night through and fought death by the +bravery of his spirit and the homely task of keeping warm the shivering +body. He had put his coat over her and aroused her to interest and +courage. + +"The Lord does not let one of us off until our day's work is done," he +had said even when he himself feared Sally's duties were over. + +"Ah' mighty right He war'," Sally now muttered, panting up the last +rise. "I reckon I got something yet to do." + +Her advent at Stoneledge was nothing less than consummate acting. +Knocking at the kitchen door she responded to the call from within and +stood before Ann Walden crouching by the fire, and Cynthia awkwardly +trying to evolve an evening meal from some materials on the table. + +"Miss Ann, I've come to ax mercy o' you." + +Miss Walden laughed foolishly. + +"Everything is plumb gone an' I got to tell some one o' my misery. +Nothing to eat; nothing to hold onto 'cept a trifle o' money what I'se +afraid to let any one know I'se got. Miss Ann, chile, there ain't any +one goin' to be s'prised at money coming from the Great House, so jes' +let me bide long o' you an' lil' miss, for God's sake, ma'am." + +The old tie between the family and its dependents held true now even +through the growing mists of Ann Walden's brain. + +"Cyn," she commanded, "get Ivy--where is Ivy? Tell her to make up a +bed for Sally in the loft over the kitchen." + +And then again she laughed that meaningless laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Life in the Morley cabin was tense and dangerously vital. The cold had +settled down now with serious intent; the door was permanently closed +except of entrances and exits and the two small sliding windows in the +front and back of the living-room were never opened, and they were +coated with grease and dirt until even the brightest day filtered +through but dimly. + +Martin was depressed and forlorn, he took what was offered him, asked +no questions and seemed far and away from any hope of reasserting +himself. He brought water and wood indoors; he made and kept the fire; +he slept on the settle before the hearth and always he was dreaming or +thinking of Sandy. The letter that had, after many weeks, drifted to +him, had been read to him by The Forge doctor who happened to be riding +by when Martin tremblingly pleaded with him for help. + +"It's this-er-way," Morley had explained, striving to hide the depths +of his illiteracy; "my eyes don' gone back on me. I reckon I better go +down to The Forge and get specs, but jes' now I'd like to have light on +this yere letter." + +The doctor read poor Sandy's effusion with some emotion. With broader +experience he saw the effort the boy had made to withhold his own +lonely state from the father. There was an attempt at cheer in the +words weighted, as the reader saw, with homesickness and longing. + +"Now, Morley," he cautioned, when the letter was ended, "you keep your +hands off that boy. If there is a spark of love for him in your heart, +let him fight his battle off there alone. He's found a good friend and +it's his one chance. If you want to do anything for him keep yourself +above water; have the family respectable for him to come back to. I'm +not much on prophesying, but remembering what you once were and what +his mother was, I have hopes of Sandy." + +No one knew or could have guessed that poor Martin was heeding the +doctor's words, but he was. He had stopped drinking. Not a drop of +liquor had passed his lips for weeks, and the craving was stronger at +times than Martin could endure. At such moments he stole to the +outshed and, gripping a certain little ragged jacket, which still hung +there, to his twitching face, would moan: "Oh! God, help me for +Sandy's sake." Not for his own--but for Sandy's sake always. And God +heard and upheld the weak creature. + +Then came the night when Mary and Molly aroused Martin from his sleep +as they came in about midnight. Martin had supposed them upstairs long +before. He had come in at nine o'clock from the shed where he had +wrestled with his craving and, by the help of God, had come out +victorious once again. He had fallen asleep soon after and a vivid and +strange dream had held him captive by its power. Sandy had come to him +clearly, and comfortingly; had sat close to him and laid his hand in +his. They had talked familiarly, and then suddenly the boy had asked: + +"Dad, how about Molly? She belongs to us-all, you said. I've been +thinking about Molly; where is she?" + +Just then the dream faded; the man on the hard settle pulled himself +up, looked dazedly at the almost dead fire and--listened! Some one was +fumbling at the door; some one was coming in! Martin's heart stood +still for, with the dream fresh in his mind, he thought it was Sandy, +and even through his sick longing for the boy a fear seized him. But +Mary came into the dim room with Molly clinging to her. They tiptoed +across the floor toward the stairway and had almost reached it when +Martin flung a log of wood on the fire, and in the quick flash of light +that followed stood up and asked in a clear, forceful voice: + +"Whar you-all been?" + +The strangeness and surprise took Mary off her guard, and she faltered: + +"What's that to you, Mart Morley?" + +Martin threw another log on the fire, as if by so doing he could +illuminate more than the cold black room. + +"What yo-all been doing? Molly, come here." + +Frightened and trembling the girl came forward. She looked far older +than her years. Her bold, coarse beauty had developed amazingly during +the past few months, and the expression on her face now roused all the +dormant manhood in Morley's nature. Ignoring the woman by the +stairway, he gripped Molly by the shoulders, and holding her so that +the lurid light of the flaming logs fell upon her, he drove his +questions into the girl's consciousness and brought alarmed truth forth +before a lie could master it. + +"Whar yo' been, Molly?" + +"Up to--to Teale's." + +"What--doing?" + +"Dancing for 'em." + +Martin's eyes flashed. It was quite plain to him now--the hideous, +drunken orgy, and this little girl fanning ugly passions into fire by +her youth and beauty! + +"You----" Morley rarely swore, but the eloquent pause was more +thrilling than the word he might have spoken. While he clutched Molly, +his infuriated eyes held Mary like something tangible, and drew her +forth from her shadows. + +"She's--mine!" the woman panted. For the first time in her life she +was awed by Morley; "she's mine and--the devil's. That was the bargain +and no questions asked. The devil pays good wages, Mart. We'll--we'll +share with you!" + +The woman was actually whining and seeking to propitiate the man. + +"I've been true to you, Mart. Sure as God hears me, and 'taint cause +I'm old and unsought either. I'll look after her, Mart--but--we-all +have got to live!" + +Morley tried to control himself before he spoke, and finally managed to +say, not unkindly: + +"Molly, you go upstairs. Shut--shut and lock the door!" + +"Mart!" Genuine terror rang in Mary's tones. "Mart--she's mine +and----" + +"Go!" commanded Morley, and the child almost ran to do his bidding. +Then alone the man and woman faced each other. Desperation gave +courage to Mary. If all were lost but her physical strength and +bravado, then she must use them. + +"You did what you wanted to do with him as was yours," she panted; "you +helped him away, and left us-all to starve. You leave--Molly to me +and----" + +"Stop!" cried Morley, unable to hear the brutal repetition. "You would +sell the--the child to Teale and his kind?" + +"It's the only way, Mart. I'll keep my hold on her--they----" + +"You!" And then, driven by the outraged virtue of the suppressed and +forgotten past, Morley gave expression to his emotions in the language +of The Hollow. For the first time in his life he struck a woman! + +Once the deed was done he reeled back, calmed at once into frozen +horror. Mary staggered and fell. In falling she struck her head +against the andirons on the hearth and lay quite, quite still while a +stream of blood from a cut behind the left ear mingled with the ashes +and turned them dark and moist. It seemed hours that Morley looked and +looked before he could master himself and move toward the woman upon +the floor. Finally he listened to her heart, but his own pulsing ears +deceived him; he tried to raise her up, but his strength was gone, and +he let the lifeless body drop again on the hearth. Then a craven +desperation overcame him. Gone were his courage and power, like a +maddened criminal he strode to the stairway and wrenched the locked +door from its hinges and sprang up to where Molly, sobbing and moaning, +crouched in the far corner. + +"Come," he whispered; "come!" + +"Where's--mother?" + +"Her's gone--to--Teale!" The lie rang out fiercely, boldly. Then +wrapping an old bedspread about Molly and keeping her close to him, he +made his way down the stairs and out of the house. Molly did not turn +to look into the lower room, she believed Martin, and she was numb with +terror. + +"Whar we-all going?" she panted, as Martin dragged her on. This +question roused Morley. Up to that instant he had not considered where +he was going; he only felt the necessity of flight. + +"To--to Trouble Neck," he answered as if some one else were speaking +through him. + +"To her as--as they call the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady." + +Molly did not speak again, but the answer had stilled somewhat her fear +and anguish. By the time she and Martin reached the Trouble Neck cabin +her uncanny shrewdness and cunning were well to the fore. + +The little clock on the mantelshelf had just struck two when Marcia +Lowe raised her tired eyes from the book spread out on the table before +her. + +The one large room of the cabin was kitchen, dining-room, parlour, +library; all that was not included in bed-chamber. The lean-to was +Marcia Lowe's sleeping apartment and a tiny room above reached only by +a ladder from outside, served as a trim, cleanly resting-place for a +chance guest or a needy traveller. + +The little doctor lifted her aching eyes and took in the rude comfort +of her home-place with a deep sigh. + +"Oh!" she whispered--for she had adopted the compromise of the lonely +woman and talked aloud to herself--"oh! if they could forget my sex!" + +She was thinking of a conversation she had had with The Forge doctor +that very day. + +"I--I wish you would work with me," she had pleaded; "they would accept +you; obey what you say and--give me a chance." + +The doctor had laughed good-naturedly. Miss Lowe amused him hugely. +She seemed to him like a child playing with sugar and bread pills. + +"My dear young lady," he had said; "they'd shoot me, and with good +reason, if I let any petticoat Saw Bones tamper with them; no insult +intended--only compliment, dear lady! Your books read like fairy +stories; I'm too old a hand to be taken in. The revised Bible, ma'am, +is dangerous for souls, and new ideas in physic are about the same for +bodies. I read when I can--but I'm too human to experiment on my kind. +A few old remedies and a good stiff bluff are all that are needed +up-er-here. Now as to you, my dear young miss, I'd have to put you +under lock and key or buy you a return ticket to that +fly-in-the-face-of-Providence state of yours if you tampered with the +bodies of these people. That uncle of yours juggled considerable in +his day, but souls are one thing; bodies, another." + +Marcia Lowe now clasped her hands behind her tired head and raised her +eyes to the low ceiling. + +"Just for one faithful soul!" she murmured; "no, one faithful body that +would trust itself to me for--a month; a month! A few days of +starvation; a magic little pill; a spell of patient waiting and then--a +miracle." + +But no response came from the stillness of the night and Miss Lowe was +about to make preparations for bed when a sound outside stayed her. +Then came a knock on the door! She went to the small window beside the +door, drew aside the dainty white curtain, opened it halfway and asked: + +"Is that you, Hope?" She had promised Liza to bide with her when her +hour came, but it was not Hope who replied: + +"This is Martin Morley, ma'am. Me and lil' Molly." + +The door was opened at once and closed after the two. + +"Now," said the little doctor, stirring the fire to greater effort and +seeing that her callers had the easiest chairs in the room, "now, then, +Mr. Morley." + +Molly followed every motion of Marcia Lowe with unchildlike interest. +Fear was gone from the girl's face, but an alert sharpness marked it. + +"Can you give her," Martin nodded toward Molly, "a bed for--for +to-night? I have something to tell you." + +Marcia Lowe sensed that something serious lay behind the request, and +rose at once and went to Molly. + +"Come into my bedroom," she said; "I can make you very comfy, I'm sure. +Will you sleep with me?" + +Molly nodded and followed meekly. After a time Marcia Lowe came back +and, standing in front of Morley, said quickly: + +"What is it?" + +The haggard, haunted face was raised to her. + +"I've--I've done killed Mary!" he said simply. + +The little doctor shuddered, but controlled her features; her eyes did +not fall from the wretched man's face. + +"Tell me!" was all she said. Then Martin slowly in a hushed voice, +described all that had passed, even the vision of Sandy. + +"The Lord-a'mighty, He knows I didn't mean to kill," Martin quivered; +"but who-all will believe that? I meant to stay clean and fair for the +boy's coming back, Miss Lowe, ma'am, deed I did, and now he'll come +back to----" Martin could not frame the hideous truth in words; he +gulped miserably and went on; "please, ma'am, keep--her, Molly, from +Teale and them-all!" + +"And you?" So simply did the question come that the man replied in +kind. + +"I--I can't let them-all cotch me, ma'am. Come morning, I'll be past +hurting any one, more." + +The childlike pathos in this criminal's voice and attitude confused the +listener. For the life of her she could not deal with the situation in +any ordinary fashion; it seemed like a dramatic incident bungled by +amateurs. Presently she asked gently: + +"Are you _sure_ she is dead, Mr. Morley?" + +The unreality held Martin, too. + +"I reckon she is," he faltered; "I--I couldn't hear her heart--and she +laid right still. I expect she is dead." + +The ludicrous overpowered even the turn of possibility, and the little +doctor said: + +"You just mustn't kill yourself or harm Sandy unless it is necessary, +you know. If you will go out and harness my horse to the buggy, you +and I will make sure." + +By the time Morley had mechanically fulfilled these commands, Marcia +Lowe had decided, from the sound of Molly's breathing, that she might +safely be left alone, and, cloaked and hooded, joined Martin outside. + +It was a dreary ride, and the two spoke seldom. + +"You are to be no coward, Morley," Marcia Lowe had said; "you're to +face your future like a man--like Sandy's father. He will well +understand. I will stand by you and see fair play for you; I'll pay +for a good lawyer, and you will take your medicine, whatever it is, and +be clean and decent for your boy and girl. I'll take care of Molly." + +After a time Martin agreed to this, but from the shivering of the form +beside her, the little doctor realized the struggle. + +And so they reached Morley's cabin and entered, like ghosts, into the +fear-haunted place. Mary was gone. The fire was smouldering in the +last flashes, the damp ashes were drying--but Mary had made a bodily +escape. + +"So!" whispered Marcia Lowe. "It was better to make sure. Go +upstairs, see if she is there." + +Mary was not there. + +"Now come back." + +Through the chill of the early morning the two drove silently back to +Trouble Neck and with strange foreboding the little doctor made her way +at once to the lean-to bed-chamber--Molly, too, was gone! She had made +her way to Teale's, Miss Lowe felt sure. + +The next morning the news spread fast, garbled by many tongues. + +Teale's place had been raided! Teale had escaped and the Morleys had +accompanied him. + +"Well!" said Sally Taber to Cynthia; "I 'spect Mart Morley had to get +his livin' somehow. The yaller streak's got the best of him." + +Cynthia made no reply. Oddly enough in her fancy she was gazing upon +the portrait of "The Biggest of Them All." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Martin Morley slept, in the clean loft over Marcia Lowe's living-room. +There was a good warm bed there, and before he had gone up the ladder +to his much-needed rest, the little doctor had fed him and given him +hot coffee to drink. + +"You are safe," she had comforted him. "God has been good to you, +Martin Morley. Molly is with her mother and, sad as it is, we can do +nothing more for her. Forget it all, and to-morrow you and I will +consider the future." + +So Martin slept and slept, and the front door of the cabin was kept +closed and locked. + +Refreshed and humble, Martin, on the evening of the following day, +cautiously crept down the ladder from his loft-chamber and tapped upon +the outer door of the cabin. + +It was a very smiling and trim little body that welcomed him and bade +him sit down to a table laid for an evening meal. + +"You see I've waited for you, Mr. Morley; we have a slice of ham, some +hot biscuits, and baked potatoes. There's a loaf of cake, too, and +coffee and a try at a pudding for which my mother used to be famous." + +Every nerve of Martin's starved stomach thrilled, but his eyes did not +meet Marcia Lowe's. + +"You are feeling better, Martin Morley?" + +"Yes, ma'am; thank you, ma'am." + +"Well, then I want you to share my meal." + +"I--I ain't worthy, ma'am. I can never pay you, ma'am, for what you've +done and meant to me. I'm ready to go now, ma'am." + +"Where, Martin Morley?" The little doctor was pouring the coffee, and +the odour made Morley dizzy with longing. + +"I ain't just settled in my mind as to that, ma'am. The world's big, +beyond The Hollow." + +"Too big for you, Mr. Morley, until you are yourself--your best self +again. And you can pay me--I have my bill ready." + +Martin eyed her furtively and tried to steady his hand as he reached +out for the plate of savoury food she was passing to him. They ate +silently for a while, then Marcia Lowe tried to cheer him by scraps of +gossip that had drifted to her during the day. + +"They think you have gone with Teale," she said with a little laugh; +"the idea of your flying off in that company! Have another potato, Mr. +Morley; the staying power of a baked potato is simply marvellous." + +When the meal was finished and the dishes put away, Marcia Lowe faced +her gloomy guest with deep, serious eyes. + +"You feel you owe me something, Mr. Morley?" she asked. They were +sitting opposite each other by the hearth; a pouring rain dashed +against the window and a rising wind howled through the trees. A sleek +yellow cat turned around two or three times and then settled +comfortably at Marcia Lowe's feet and purred happily. + +"I do that, mum." + +"You are--willing to do something for me--for Sandy, but most of all +for yourself?" + +Morley was becoming accustomed to the little doctor's quaint way of +putting questions, but her manner still puzzled him. + +"Yes, ma'am," he answered confusedly. + +"Then listen, Martin Morley. I want to save you, first of all for +yourself--next for that boy of yours, who, I somehow feel confident, +will come back to honour us all. I believe I can do what I have in +mind--there is a little risk, very little, but will you run it for me?" + +Morley's thin face twitched. Many emotions swayed him. Doubt, +suspicion, superstition, the ingrained revolt of sex--the male +resenting this power of the female--all, all held part in Morley's +mind, weakened by trouble and malnutrition, but above all was the +innate yearning to prove himself for Sandy. Martin had the supreme +instinct of parenthood. + +"You know you were willing to die for him, Mr. Morley. Are you not +willing to run the chance of a better, cleaner life?" + +Marcia Lowe was bending forward now, her face radiant and inspired--she +looked young, lovely and compassionate. + +"I--I--don't follow you, ma'am." Poor Martin was caught in the toils +of the enthusiast. + +"Then listen. I have studied and--conquered to a certain extent--a +great and noble help for humanity--but I am hampered in my work because +I am a woman. Oh! no one--no man can understand how terrible it is for +us women to look beyond the man and woman part of life and see _human +beings_ needing us, crying out to us, and for us, to realize that often +we might help, in our own way best of all--if only something, over +which we have no control, did not bar us. You see, men have no right +to deprive human beings of any assistance the world can give. If we +women tell men of our hopes and our beliefs, they accept or decline as +they think best--and so much is lost! Why, I have been pleading with +The Forge doctor ever since I came, to work with me in doing what I +long to do, and he will not--he laughs! I am not rich enough or +important enough to bring a big doctor from my home to do this thing +for you, all that I could do alone. So here I stand with, I solemnly +believe, a precious gift and I--I--cannot give it to you because--you +won't trust a woman!" + +Marcia Lowe was talking far and beyond Morley; he stared bewildered at +her, but something within himself was reaching out and touching, with +soul-intensity, the tragic appeal from the little woman opposite. + +"Uncle Theodore Starr came here because he loved his kind and felt that +you all needed him most. Because you had no choice, he believed you +would accept him. Can you remember how he worked among you? served you +and died for you?" + +"I--do, mum!" An old sense of gratitude gave force to the words. + +"Well, I feel as he did, only I want to mend your poor, sick bodies; +make you strong enough to want to help yourselves like men and women! +I want you to know that you have _souls_." + +But now Martin was lost again. The stare settled on his face and only +the hypnotism of the woman across the hearth guided him. Marcia Lowe +saw this, and grew desperate. + +"Oh! dear, what shall I do?" she cried helplessly. "Can I say anything +that will make you understand? The thing I have is safe and sure. It +might go wrong with you--only _might_--but I want, I must have, your +consent. Just suppose it did go wrong with you, but that you knew it +would help hundreds of others--would you be willing to try?" + +Morley did not attempt an answer. + +"Let me put it another way!" and now the little doctor arose and stood +in the full glow of the fire, while the roar of the wind and the +flaring of the red light filled the room with sound and colour. The +slim, pale woman looked very weak and small to be the leading actor in +this tragic drama of the hills, and the big, stupidly staring man +opposite seemed very insignificant as a great sacrifice. + +"See, I will put it this way. They call me the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady +because--I give them all a little drink of water and it makes them +better! I made the little Hope boy well; ask Liza, she knows. I gave +your Sandy a cup of cold water and it helped his throat--I could have +helped him more, poor boy, if he had not gone away. Martin Morley, I +want to give _you_ a cup of cold water--oh! please trust me! You must +do what I ask you to do--just for one little week. It will be hard, +but I will watch with you and share every suffering hour. I will nurse +you and care for you as a daughter might, and then, at the end, I +believe as truly as God hears me, that you win stand straight and take +your place--_your_ place--among men!" + +"A charm?" Morley panted, for he was quite overcome by the power +exerted over him. + +Full of zeal and trust, seizing upon anything to gain her end, Marcia +Lowe replied: + +"Exactly--a charm! See!" and suddenly she turned to the closet beside +the chimney-place; taking out a small bottle she held it up to the +light with a glow of reverence upon her uplifted face. "Fifteen tiny +grains of this!" + +Morley was fascinated. + +"Fifteen grains," he repeated, like a man talking in his +sleep--"fifteen grains!" + +"Yes, yes! and then you must have--faith! You know you always _must_ +have faith in charms." + +Morley assented to this. + +"Will--you--will you try?" + +"I--reckon I will, mum!" + +"Will you promise? Oh! If I have ever done anything to make you +grateful, promise! promise!" + +"I promise!" + +From that night the cure began. Shut away against the mountain-world, +favoured by one of the hill storms, prolonged and depressing, the +little doctor tested her charm. She was nurse and companion as well as +physician. Willing to do battle and take the consequences for the +faith that was in her, she wrestled with her problem. Men had proven +the thing elsewhere--why not she, here among her dead uncle's people? + +"You cannot eat until I tell you to, Martin Morley," she said. + +For the first day or so the weakened man, used to deprivation, made no +demur; then his haggard face and imploring eyes pleaded for food, and +on the third day he asked for it, cried for it like a starving child. +This wrung Marcia Lowe's heart. + +"Oh! we women," she whispered to herself scornfully; "I declare I must +put a watch upon myself or I will find myself going to the cupboard and +betraying the faith of Doctor Marcia Lowe!" + +Then she resorted to subterfuge, and playfully bullied poor Morley. + +"See! If I do not eat, can you not keep me company? What manners have +you, Martin Morley, to eat while a lady starves?" + +The wretched fellow tried to smile, but wept instead. + +After that, Marcia Lowe rarely left the room; never unless Morley +slept. She stole like a thief to her closet and ate her food when, and +as she could. + +"It's the nurse of Martin Morley who refreshes herself," she thought +comfortingly. + +It was on the fifth evening of the battle with the deadly foe of the +mountain poor-whites, that Marcia Lowe heard a knock upon her cabin +door. So alone and absorbed had she been for the past few days that a +demand from the outer world startled and annoyed her. Martin was +sleeping--he lay in the lean-to chamber--so on tiptoe the little doctor +went to answer the summons. + +The storm had passed unnoticed by Marcia Lowe, and a bright starry +heaven lay behind the tall figure of Tod Greeley on the doorstep. + +"Oh! Come in, come in!" whispered Marcia--and oddly enough she felt a +glow of relief and welcome. Greeley came in and grimly took a chair by +the cheerful fire on the ashless hearth. + +"I've come on a mighty unpleasant errand, ma'am," he said; "and I ain't +one as can pass around sweets before the bitters." + +All the way to Trouble Neck Greeley had arranged this speech, and the +medical flavour of it had given him courage. + +"You're very kind to come yourself, Mr. Greeley," Marcia Lowe was +smiling; "another might not have been so welcome. And now for the +bitter! I'll gulp it bravely, for I like sweets better." + +She sat down in her own rough little rocker, and swayed calmly to and +fro. + +"Well, mum, the County Club, in session down to the store, delegated me +to call on you. Leastway, I done told them I reckoned no one else +_but_ me should come first!" + +"Thank you again, Mr. Greeley." + +"Since the raid on Teale's----" Tod drawled uncomfortably--"there's +them as is scared. I ain't standing up or setting down for them Speak +Easies back o' The Hollow, but business is business, and no man knows +who's going to get struck so long as----" Greeley glanced cautiously +about--"so long as--you're hiding what you _are_ hiding!" + +For a moment Marcia Lowe tried to readjust her thoughts and get them +into some sort of connection; finally she laughed, laughed so long and +so noiselessly that Greeley grew nervous. + +"Lord, ma'am!" he faltered, "you can't afford to take it that-er-way +lest you've got your place _full_ of 'em!" + +"Oh! Mr. Greeley. They think, the club thinks I have something to do +with the raid? Why I did not know, until some one told me, that there +had been one. Come, I want you to see what I am hiding!" + +She motioned her guest to the doorway of the lean-to. + +"Look!" she whispered. + +For a moment Greeley did not recognize the wan, helpless creature +huddled on the bed; so small, so pitiful was the unconscious man that +he seemed a stranger. Then in amaze and half terror, Tod breathed: + +"Mart Morley! What you--doing--to--him?" + +Marcia Lowe's eyes were full of tears, and her trembling lips were +hardly able to frame the words: + +"I'm helping him to lead his people back to their heritage! Oh! you do +not understand; but he and I--with God on our side, are fighting--just +plain fighting a--a worm!" + +At that moment Morley stirred and opened his hollow, starving eyes. + +"Food," he gasped in a voice Greeley never forgot; "God-a'mighty--food!" + +Then Greeley beheld a miracle. He saw Marcia Lowe run to the fire in +the living-room and bring to the bedside of the sick man a tiny kettle +of some smooth liquid; he saw her dip a spoon in and then hold it to +the lips of Morley. She had forgotten Greeley; forgotten all but the +man upon the bed. + +"Slowly, slowly!" she whispered; "we've won! we've won! There! there! +It's going to be all right from now on--the charm's worked!" + +Awed and afraid, Greeley tiptoed from the house, and all the way back +to the waiting County Club he muttered like a half-wit: + +"Fighting a worm! Fighting a worm!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The day that civilization and education took Sandy Morley into its +keeping, saw Cynthia Walden astride Crothers' mule jogging down The Way +to the factory. Sandy, arrayed in immaculate attire, was borne to his +school among the New Hampshire hills by train and coach. He was +desperately lonely; thoroughly frightened, but he was well in body; +healthfully sustained by good food, and he had so much money in his +pockets that he was in deadly fear of being waylaid and robbed. +Cynthia, on the contrary, was dressed in a shabby gingham gown freshly +laundried and stiffly starched, but much mended, and her pocket was +guiltless of money. She had no fear of being attacked, so she sang +sweetly and joyously as she bobbed about getting her blood circulating, +for the old coat and hood she wore were pitifully inadequate for the +crisp weather. Cynthia was young and hope led her on; besides, she had +just deposited a most poetic letter to Sandy in the hole of the tree. +Old Sally Taber had smoothed the problem of Stoneledge for the time +being, and there was going to be plenty of money now that Crothers had +opened the way for Cynthia to employ her talents! + +Cynthia tried the bird-note Sandy had conquered so successfully. + +"Why don't we-all have birds in winter 'stead of summer?" babbled Madam +Bubble from her mule; "and moons on dark nights, and hot suns at +Christmas?" Then she laughed, and the laugh left the dear, slow smile +as a reminder after the joyous sound died away. + +"The Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady is in the church," Cynthia exclaimed +suddenly as she neared Theodore Starr's small edifice from whose +chimney smoke was rising. Then she kicked the fat sides of her mule +and turned her supercilious head aside in order to escape Marcia Lowe's +eyes, were they scanning The Way. + +"It's right noble of her to take care of Sandy's father," the just mind +granted; "but Aunt Ann and I--must do without her!" + +A touch of yearning lay in the words. Cynthia needed what Marcia Lowe +might mean to her, and only loyalty to Ann Walden restrained her. + +But Marcia Lowe did not see Cynthia pass. For months now, through the +doors and unbarred windows, the light and air had come into the little +church, and the spirit of Theodore Starr had, in some subtle manner, +been permitted to live again. People dropped in occasionally and sat +and thought of the dead parson. Sometimes Marcia Lowe welcomed them +and coaxed them to tell her of her dear uncle. She always sat in what +she called "the minister's pew," and there were times in her lonely +detached life when she seemed to see the calm, fine face looking down +at her from the poor pulpit. He never looked the weak man who was +afraid of Ann Walden; to his loving niece he was ever the strong +brother-of-men who had died while serving them not worthy of him! As +Cynthia rode by, Marcia was building a fire in the drum stove, lately +placed in the church, and singing, prayerfully, a favourite hymn. + + "Alone with Thee, amid the mystic shadows, + The solemn hush of Nature newly born; + Alone with Thee in breathless adoration, + In the calm dew and freshness of the dawn. + + "So shall it be at last, in that bright morning + When the soul waketh and life's shadows flee." + + +The fire responded and outside the shadows of the dark trees of The Way +enshrouded Cynthia as she hurried on. + +That day in the factory was the hardest day of Cynthia's life. To a +young girl born in freedom, be that freedom of the meanest, the +confinement and authority were deadly. Then, too, to witness the +utilization of the baby-things that were mere cogs in the machinery of +Crothers' business, hurt the mother-heart of the girl cruelly. At the +noon hour she tried to make the sad little creatures play--but they had +forgotten how, if they ever knew; they, stared at her with wondering +eyes; ate all of her lunch she offered, and shivered in their thin +clothes by the wretched fire in a shed provided for their leisure time. + +"Oh, Sandy, Sandy," murmured Cynthia as she looked about, "I'll help +you get them away from here some day." + +A new fear and hate of Crothers grew in her heart as she impotently +suffered for the children, but Crothers was as gentle and kind to her +as any wise and considerate father could have been. He was patient +with her bungling and errors; he did not turn her off to his clerks for +instruction, he spent his own time upon her. Every moment that he was +near her Cynthia trembled, and when he accidentally touched her she +recoiled sharply. Crothers noticed this, and at first it angered him; +then caused him much amusement. Unconsciously the girl was fanning +into sudden and violent flame that which might have slumbered on for +months. Before the end of the first week Crothers had noticed how +lovely Cynthia's shining braids were as they twined around her pretty, +bent head. His eyes grew thoughtful as he noted the lines of the +softly rounded shoulders and dainty girlish bosom. The little dent in +the back of the slim neck was like a dimple and even the small +roughened hands were shapely and beautiful. + +"How old are you, little miss?" Crothers asked her the third day of her +business life, and Cynthia fearing that her youth might prove an +obstacle answered blindly: + +"Going on--fourteen!" She looked more, for her South, in spite of all +her meagre upbringing, had developed her rapidly. Crothers smiled +indulgently. + +When Saturday night came four dollars was handed to Cynthia by Crothers +himself. + +"It was to be three," she said, holding the money toward him. He took +the fingers in his, closed them over the bills, and said: + +"Just a little present for a nice little girl who has tried so hard to +be good." + +Cynthia drew back and her eyes flashed dangerously. + +"I do not want it!" she said quickly, and flung a dollar on the desk. +"I only want what is mine!" After she had gone Crothers swore a little; +then laughed. The laugh was more evil than the oath, but no one was +there to hear. + +Cynthia had no one to speak to about her fear and loathing of Crothers. +Besides, she had entered upon her career and dared not turn back. She +did not understand herself, nor the man who was her employer; she did +not understand conditions nor the yearnings that possessed her; she +only knew that she must fight against becoming a poor white, and learn +to overcome the limitations of her birth, and Crothers seemed her only +chance. On the long rides to and from the factory she thought often of +her poor mother and wondered about her bad father. She wished she had +learned more about them while Ann Walden was capable of telling her. +The time was past now when the mistress of Stoneledge could impart any +reliable information to the girl. When the weather permitted the old +woman paced the upper balcony crooning to the hills, and as cold and +storm shut her inside she seemed only happy in the library. So Sally +Taber, reinforced by the money which supposedly she so miraculously had +saved, had the room made habitable. Mason Hope was coaxed into giving +some of his valuable time to the repairing and by mid-winter the place +was comfortable. + +"Ole miss is jes' a plain moon-chile now," Sally confided to Marcia +Lowe at one of their private conferences; "it's right silly to oppose +her." + +"Yes, give her everything you can, Sally, and oh! if she ever has +flashes of reason get her to talk and--remember what she says!" + +"Deed and deed I will," promised Sally. "And if she ever do get her +wits back it will be in dat ole libr'y-room. She acts right human thar +at times." + +Marcia Lowe was sorely puzzled about Cynthia those days. If she were +only sure that Ann Walden would never recover her reason she would take +her chances with the girl and plead Theodore Starr's cause, but with no +actual proof, and with Ann Walden's evident past instruction to +Cynthia, she hesitated to make her own claims. Then, too, there were +times when doubt rose in her mind, not as to her uncle, but Cynthia's +parentage. There might never have been a child born to Queenie Walden. +The Hollow story of adoption might be true after all. That would have +accounted for old Miss Walden's bitter resentment. It was all very +difficult and confusing, but in the meantime she could love the girl, +and do, indirectly, for her what personally she could not. + +Oftener and oftener the little doctor went to the church by The Way and +"sat with Uncle Theodore," as she put it. It was less lonely there; +the store was near by and the passers-by were becoming more friendly. +Occasionally they dropped in. Tod Greeley and old Townley more than +the others, and chatted sociably. Marcia Lowe had much to be grateful +for, and when, one morning two weeks after Morley had been pronounced +cured by his faithful doctor-nurse, he came to her, as she sat in the +church, and said quietly: + +"Miss Lowe, I'm going up yon----" pointing to his own cabin, seen now +between the bare trees, "to straighten it up a bit," she wept as if her +heart would break. Martin did not witness the outbreak; he had set +forth upon his task. Marcia Lowe was alone and upon her knees. + +"Dear God!" she repeated over and over; "dear God! he is saved. He'll +open the way to others." + +Martin Morley went upon his new course unheeded for a time, for a +tragic happening to Cynthia and a calamity to the community threw the +little doctor and many others into chaos. + +Cynthia had been a month in Crothers' factory, when one late afternoon +he said to her: + +"Little miss, could you bide at The Forge tonight?" Cynthia started +back and looked at him. + +"It's this-er-way; you've become mighty helpful to me and I've got a +batch of letters to get off by the morning's mail. It looks like there +is going to be snow, too, and I'd hate to keep you late and then send +you toting home after dark. Now if you can stop over and work 'long o' +me till--say ten o'clock, we can finish the work and I'll set you down +safe and sound at my boarding-house for a good night's rest." + +Cynthia gave her usual shudder and sought about for an excuse. She +knew Crothers' boarding-house keeper; knew her to be a decent soul who +had more than once, lately, brought a hot meal to her at midday when +she brought Crothers'. There was snow in the air, too, and a late ride +through the woods at night was almost more awful than to stay at the +factory. + +"They-all will worry," she faltered in her pretty, slow way. + +"I sent word by Hope's boys," Crothers reassured her, "they've just +gone. I knew I could depend upon you." + +Cynthia struggled to control herself, and finally gave her smile and +shrugged her shoulders. + +The mistress of the boarding-house brought to the factory a piping hot +supper for two at seven o'clock. She seemed to know all about +Cynthia's proposed stay, and showed no sign of misunderstanding it. + +"You better fotch the chile in 'bout nine," she suggested to Crothers +as she went out; "she do look clean beat now. Quality don't last out +at work like trash do; they certainly do tucker out sooner." + +Crothers bade the garrulous woman a pleasant good night, and then set +himself busily to the task of mastering a pile of correspondence on his +desk. Cynthia went to the little table by the window that served as +her writing-desk and asked quietly what she should do. Crothers handed +her a list of names and a package of envelopes and told her to address +them. The old clock on the wall ticked away comfortably; the warmth +and the late hearty meal combined to drive away fear and apprehension +of, she knew not what, and Cynthia was soon absorbed in the task set +her. + +Presently the kerosene lamp on her table flickered and went out; then +glancing over at Crothers' back she asked timidly: + +"Please, may I sit by your desk, sir? The light's failed." + +Crothers turned about and smiled at the pale little creature in the +shadows. + +"Come right along, little miss! Here, let me fetch your chair. There, +now!" + +Seated at the end of the flat-topped desk, Cynthia tried to resume her +work, but the unrest of the early afternoon possessed her and she felt +a tear roll down her cheek--the cheek nearest the man at her left side. + +What happened after that Cynthia never could tell clearly; she only +knew that a large, hot hand wiped the tear away and a burning kiss fell +upon her cheek! + +Horrified, and shaking with fear, the girl sprang to her feet and +reached the opposite side of the desk near the window looking out +toward The Way. She had but one thought: she would break the window +and make a dash for safety! But Crothers was upon his feet also. He +did not offer to come nearer, but he leaned over the desk and said +quietly: + +"What you afraid of, lil' girl?" + +"You!" The word was like a hiss. + +"Of me? Can't you give me a kiss? I don't want to hurt you; I'm your +best friend; why, see here, I'll give you a right smart new coat and +hat and dress--for a kiss; just a little kiss." + +Cynthia's eyes seemed fastened to the smiling, cruel face, but she did +not tremble now. Calmly, clearly, she was thinking what she could take +with which to defend herself. + +"Just--one--more--kiss--lil' girl," and now Crothers was coming around +the corner of the desk. It seemed like some fearful nightmare, but +Cynthia was ready! + +"Just one--more--kiss right on the pretty mouth!" The large, white +hands were extended and the teeth showed through the red lips. At that +instant Cynthia seized the lighted lamp which stood near, and with +desperate strength flung it toward the reaching body! There was a +crash, a curse, a fall, and then the room was blotted out by darkness. + +For a moment there was a deathlike stillness and in it the girl crept +toward the door, unfastened it and gained the open. There were +feathery snowflakes in the air and they touched Cynthia's face like +holy kisses, wiping away the evil one that had burned there but a +moment before. Groping and running she reached The Way and, from +behind a tree, paused to take breath. Never had she felt more +self-possessed or secure; her mind was clear and sane. If Crothers +came out, she could outstrip him in a race for the boarding-house, and +she meant to go to the boarding-house that night! Something within her +guided her now; something was protecting her and saving her--it was the +Woman Cynthia was by and by to be! + +As the girl by the tree panted and reasoned, she saw, from the factory +window--the window of Crothers' office--a darting tongue of light; +another followed and in a moment the glass was ruddy--and smoke was +issuing from the door left open when she ran out. + +"The place is on fire!" Then--"why does he not come out?" + +For a moment only a madness seized Cynthia while hate and revenge had +their way: + +"Let him die!" she muttered, setting her teeth close and gripping her +hands; "let him!" + +But even as the words were spoken she was running back to the factory. +She rushed into the smoke-filled hallway and, by the light of the fire, +she saw Crothers lying full length where he had fallen. The flames +were feasting on the rug by the desk and the unconscious man's head lay +upon that rug! + +Cynthia knelt beside Crothers and called his name, but the ugly smiling +lips made no motion of reply. Then she seized him under the arms and +frantically tugged and tugged at the heavy body. The flames were +almost at her feet, the wool of the carpet had caught first and the +licking tongues followed the burden she bore, greedily. At last she +was at the door; outside, and the safe, black night surrounded them! +She lay Crothers down and breathed fast and hard. The snowflakes were +larger; thicker now, and there was a harshness in their touch. + +Presently Cynthia began to call louder and louder, and the fire gaining +power lighted the night and crackled merrily. + +"Help! help! help!" + +And help came. First on the scene were the boarding-house mistress and +her sons; then followed others of The Forge, and soon a group had +gathered and were aimlessly running about, giving orders and foolishly +bemoaning the havoc that was spreading. + +Quite calm and uncaring Cynthia answered the questions put to her. She +defended herself without once realizing that she was doing so. + +"Crothers got up suddenly--and fell!" she said to the mistress of the +boarding-house who was working over the man on the ground, bathing his +face with snow and slapping his hands with her own rough ones. + +"Yes, the lamp overturned--and the fire was so quick!" + +"Yes, I could not let Crothers die; I had to pull him out!" + +Then a man near by said: + +"Plucky little devil." The words rang in Cynthia's ears strangely. +Why did they praise her? What had she done? She wanted Crothers to +die. Now that he was out of the fire, she did not want to see his eyes +open again, and yet she was straining her own to get the first sign in +his. Of a sudden Crothers looked full at her wonderingly, dazedly, and +at that sight Cynthia fled, and, in the confusion, no one missed her. +She did not go to the shed for her mule, she made for The Way uncloaked +and unhooded and ran for her life until, overcome by weariness, she +paused to take breath. Looking back she saw only a dull glow where the +factory had stood and black smoke was rolling thick up into the pure, +falling snow. + +It was fear of Man that haunted Cynthia as she toiled up the hillside; +Man as he had loomed first on her horizon, cruel, seeking, and selfish. +When the hard branches of the tree touched her she stifled a scream, +for they felt like the demanding hands of Man; when a hungry animal +darted across her path she recoiled, remembering another animal with +face and form of Man. + +It was three o'clock in the morning when Cynthia left The Forge--though +how the hours had passed from nine till three she was never able to +explain;--it was eight o'clock when she passed Andrew Townley's cabin +and saw smoke curling from his chimney. Sensation was slowly returning +to her; she felt cold, weak, and hungry, but with the senses aroused +she realized that she could not go home! She could not face Ann +Walden's vacant stare, or Sally Taber's coarse cheerfulness. In all +her world she was alone, alone! But even as she thought this her weary +feet were bearing her to Theodore Starr's little church which was never +locked by day or night. She reached the door at last, and with all her +remaining strength pushed it open and staggered up to where the steps +led to the small raised altar. Dropping down she bent her aching head +upon her arm and sobbed: + +"Father! Mother!" simply because in all God's world no other words +came to her relief. + +Theodore Starr's little daughter had come to him quite naturally in her +first great sorrow! + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +And there Marcia Lowe found her. Fortunately the little doctor went +early to the church, for she had conceived of a Christmas such as The +Hollow had never known, and it seemed fitting that Theodore Starr +should be the host! + +Quite merrily she entered and went directly to the stove to start a +fire. As she drew near, the outstretched form of Cynthia Walden caught +her eyes and she cried aloud in astonishment and fright. At first she +thought the girl was frozen to death, for she lay so still and her thin +clothing was evidence of the danger run. + +"Dear heart! dear heart!" whispered Miss Lowe, overcoming her desire to +take the girl in her arms until she had made a fire. Once the genial +heat began to spread Marcia Lowe set a kettle of water on the stove and +then gave her maternal instincts full play. She gathered the slight +form close and kissed again and again the thin oval cheek and close +shut mouth. + +"Poor little, little girl!" + +The warmth and sound stole into Cynthia's far place and summoned her +back. Her first look was full of terror; her second was one of +unearthly joyousness, and then because the woman of Cynthia had no need +to battle longer for her, the child made its claims and, clinging and +sobbing to the little doctor she moaned again and again: + +"I am so afraid; so afraid!" + +It was long before Miss Lowe could quiet her. She wrapped her heavy +coat about her and forced some drops of hot water between the stiff, +chilled lips. Then she bathed the face and hands gently with water +cooled with snow, murmuring tenderly meanwhile: + +"Dear little girl; poor little Cynthia! It's all right now." + +When the girl was soothed and comforted she went to the store to buy +food--anything to be had, for she knew instinctively that whatever was +the cause, Cynthia had tasted no food that day. + +"Come back soon!" moaned the girl crouching by the stove, "I am so +afraid." + +After she had eaten some stale crackers, soaked in diluted condensed +milk, Cynthia sat up, still and pale, and faced Marcia Lowe dumbly, +imploringly. + +"Can you tell me, little Cyn?" + +"No!" The voice was distant and monotonous. + +"But something has happened, dear. I want to help you." + +"The factory--is burned down!" A shudder ran over the rigid young +figure. Marcia Lowe saw that she might hope to win her way if she did +not startle the benumbed mind. + +"Were you hurt, dear? Was any one hurt? When did it happen? How did +you hear?" + +After each question Marcia waited, and then put another. Still that +fixed, steady gaze. + +"I--I was there. It was night. He--he kissed me--don't look like +that! look away! your eyes hurt me!" + +Marcia came closer and took the girl in her arms. + +"Now, darling," she whispered, "close your eyes and I'll close +mine--there are only you and I and--God here." + +"He--he kissed me, Crothers did! Then he wanted me to do +something--oh! I do not know what, but something he thought I could +do--I felt it, and--and I threw the lamp at him. It was lighted and he +went down in a heap and I--I ran right hard, but I went back and pulled +him out when the fire started. I do not know why--for I want him out +of the world. I shall be afraid always while he is in the world!" + +"It's all right now, little Cyn, all, all right." + +This only could the horrified woman repeat over and over, as she swayed +to and fro with closed eyes and Cynthia on her breast. + +Vividly she seemed to see the late scene. The helpless girl; the +brutish man; the lonely night shutting them in and only a miracle to +save. Details did not matter, and the miracle had come, but the after +effects were here and now. + +It was near noon before Marcia Lowe dared take Cynthia away from the +shelter of the church, and when she did so she chose an hour when all +but Greeley were absent from the store, and he was in the rear, eating +his dinner. + +"You must come to Trouble Neck, little Cyn," she said firmly; "you'll +be safe there, and we must think this out." + +Cynthia made no demur, and wrapped in Marcia Lowe's coat--Marcia had a +lighter one beside--she clung close to the little doctor and walked the +three miles to Trouble Neck without a word of complaint. + +"It's plain good luck," Marcia Lowe thought, "that Martin Morley is out +of hospital." And then she smiled grimly up into the girl-face beside +her, for Cynthia was fully as tall as she. + +It was late afternoon when Tod Greeley strode over to Trouble Neck for +no particular reason. Outside the door he stood and listened to +low-spoken words and snatches of song. + +"'Taint nowise normal, I reckon," mused he; "a woman's tongue and mind +has got to have some one to hit up against, or the recoil is going to +do some right smart damage to the woman herself." Then he knocked, and +went in at the word of command to enter. + +"Just conversationing with yourself?" he asked. + +"Yes. Poor company's better than none. Sit down, Mr. Greeley; you're +always welcome." + +"I brought some news. Crothers' factory is plumb burnt to the ground." + +"Land sakes!" ejaculated the little doctor in the idiom of her home +town; "any damage besides the factory?" + +"Crothers is right used up. They say he tipped over the lamp in his +hurry to get up and--things happened." + +"Dear suz!" Marcia Lowe was lapsing into old-fashioned speech. + +"And Miss Lowe, little Miss Cynthia was thar after hours! They do say +she acted like she was possessed. She pulled Crothers out of the +flames and saved his life I reckon--that is, if it _is_ saved! He +ain't perked up much yet, 'cording to reports. But Miss Lowe--little +Miss Cyn ain't come home! I'm tumble feared lest she went back again +for something, and----" + +Miss Lowe got up from her chair and cautiously motioned Tod to the +doorway of the lean-to. + +"Look!" she whispered. Greeley expected still to see Martin, but +instead he saw the delicate, sleeping face of Cynthia Walden. He drew +back with a stifled cry. + +"That there room o' yours," he faintly said when he reached the +fireside again, "is right nerve-racking. It's like one of them +Jack-boxes at Christmas." + +"She only stopped here because she was tired. When she awakens I will +take her home," explained Miss Lowe. + +Greeley was nonplussed, but when he was in doubt he turned the subject +and talked more than usual. + +The following day Cynthia was taken home. Providence and the strain +and excitement saved her from serious harm, but when Marcia Lowe left +her by the gate of Stoneledge there seemed to be something tragic in +the fact that after such an experience, no explanations were necessary. +Ann Walden was past any earthly worriment, and Sally Taber could not +understand then, or ever, the soul-hurt little Cynthia had received. + +"It's good friends now and always, little Cyn?" + +"Yes, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" + +They stood by the dilapidated gate. + +"And you will come often to Trouble Neck?" + +"Right often." + +"And you are not afraid? Remember I have a care over you." + +"I am not afraid." + +"Then kiss, little Cyn, and God bless you." + +On her way home Marcia Lowe stopped at the church to rest and "talk it +over with Uncle Theodore." + +The golden winter sunset streamed through the window and lay bright and +fair like a shining way up to the altar. Marcia walked the brilliant +strip and sat down in the minister's pew. Wrapping her heavy coat +about her she raised her eyes to the pulpit and a great comfort came. +Then she closed her eyes and the pale, fine face of her uncle seemed to +rise before her. + +"If you could only tell me all about it, dear," she whispered. "I +would help any little girl. God knows, but I could help yours so much +easier! Isn't there some way, uncle, that you can make me understand? +Is your place so far away?" + +A step fell upon the floor; a shambling, tottering footstep. Miss Lowe +turned and saw Andrew Townley. + +"Sit here beside me," she said; "this is a good place to be." + +"It's a right good place, ma'am. Seems like we-all can't kill Parson +Starr. I seem to feel like it was only yesterday when he rode up The +Way and sorter settled down like a blessing long o' us-all. Lately, as +I pass by or turn in yere I get a call back to something what he spoke. +To-day it came to me right sharp how he said 'greater love' and then +went on to explanify. I'm right old in years, ma'am, and I'm +doddering, I expect, but I reckon I knows as much as that po' moon +chile o' Hope's. You know Crothers has got him, too, 'mong the wheels, +and the po' lil' boy he comes home all wild and sicklike, and mornings +Hope has to lick him down The Way--he hates that-er-much to go. Come +to-morrow, I'm going down to Crothers' and I'm going to offer up myself +'stead o' that moon chile. When I go to join Parson Starr I'd like to +have something to offer him by way o' excusing myself. 'Parson, I'll +say to him, parson, this I done 'long o' "Greater Love."'" + +Marcia Lowe's eyes filled with tears as she took the poor old fumbling +hands in her own. + +"Dear, dear friend," she faltered, "God will not need your service. He +has chosen a burnt offering instead of a human sacrifice. The factory +is in ashes now, and for a time, the children may rest." + +"Sho'!" murmured Andrew. "Sho' to be sure." Then he wandered back to +that past which held Starr. + +"The last time I saw the parson was that-er-day when he went a riding +off to the Gulch to help ole Miss Lanley out o' life. He had lil' Miss +Queenie long o' him--she was the Walden girl as _was_." + +Marcia Lowe sat up straighter and again gripped the wandering, wrinkled +hands. Her uncle's letter came vividly to mind and she felt suddenly +that she was being led by old Townley back to clear vision. + +"Go on!" she whispered soothingly, seeking not to confuse the rambling +wits. "Just where was old Miss Lanley's place?" + +Andrew laughed foolishly. + +"Lanley!" he pattered on. "Susie May Lanley! I reckon she was a right +putty one in her day. I uster set and watch her and say this-er-way: +'plenty o' them! I'm going to get one!' meaning to make her jealous +long o' gals, but she never took no heed--but Landy! she died forsaken +and lone, and times is when I think she would have been a mighty sight +better off if she had took me!" + +Townley's long reminiscence had tired him woefully and he began to cry +pitifully, swaying to and fro and repeating: + +"She done died forsaken and lone!" + +Then he fell asleep, his white head on Marcia Lowe's shoulder, the full +radiance of the late sun flooding over them through the western window. +For a half hour he slept and when he awakened he seemed hopelessly +addled. Muttering and groping, hardly seeming to notice his companion, +he made his way out of the church. + +"Old Miss Susie May Lanley!" the little doctor repeated over and over. +"I must hold to that until I get it on paper. I guess Uncle Theodore +was married by some one living near old Miss Susie May Lanley's!" + +Just as Marcia Lowe was leaving the church, Cynthia came running down +the trail. She was smiling and calm. + +"I came back," she said confidingly, "to tell you something. I've +worked it out myself." + +"Yes, dear;" the girl's face struck Marcia strangely. A new expression +rested upon it. + +"I'm--not--going--to suffer any more." + +"Why, little Cyn?" + +"No. No more! It hurts and hurts and then you get over it, and go on +just the same. I'm not going to suffer!" + +Miss Lowe went close and took the pretty face in her hands. + +"See here, little girl, if suffering is a teacher it is not such a +cruel thing; be a good learner." + +"No. Last night in the blackness and fear something happened--here!" +The girl put her hand over her heart. "But now with the sun shining +over Lost Mountain, it's all so right safe and still and happy that I'm +sorry for the hurt of last night. No, I am not going to suffer. I'm +going to be just lil' Cyn again. I thought you would like to know." + +"Oh, dear," and then Marcia laughed. "You-all make me want to cry so +easily! I am glad, dear. Surely I do not _want_ any one to suffer; +but see here, will you come to me every day, Cynthia? I want to teach +you some necessary things. Things like--well--book things! Things +that Sandy just loved." + +"I reckon I will, Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" + +Then she was gone as she had come. Crothers' touch had only alarmed +her; it had not soiled her. + +"Thank God!" murmured the little doctor; "the woman in the child +shielded her from all but physical shock! And what a quaint philosophy +for a girl to evolve." + +That evening as Marcia Lowe stood before her little mirror in the +lean-to, braiding her long smooth hair, she talked a bit for comfort's +sake. + +"It's plain luxury to lie in my own bed again," she said, "the bench in +the other room can never be made anything but a martyr's cot." Then +she glanced up and faced her own smiling image with the braids twisted +about the head. + +"Oh!" she faltered, falling back, "oh! Uncle Theodore!" For there, +smiling at her with the slow, lingering smile, the face of Cynthia +seemed to shine out by the flickering candlelight, instead of her own! + +The long dressing-gown gave a childish setting to the little doctor's +form, the coronet braids; the happy, smiling face was young and +wonderfully, strikingly like Cynthia's. + +"They always said I was so like Uncle Theodore! I've got Cynthia to +her father by way of--me!" + +Then the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady did a most unaccountable thing--she +fairly pranced about the room. + +"I've found it!" she sang; "without resurrecting old Miss Susie May +Lanley! What's a stupid marriage certificate compared to God's plain +handwriting? I can keep my secret now, Uncle Theodore, until the right +time. It was so good of you, dear, to give me proof." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Seven years passed, leaving their traces, and upon a certain afternoon +in August Levi Markham and Matilda sat on the piazza of the Bretherton +home and awaited the arrival of Mrs. Olive Treadwell. + +Old Bob, Sandy's collie, lay at Levi's feet. Bob was fat and full of +years; he wore a heavily studded collar with perfect dignity and had, +apparently, quite forgotten lean days and promiscuous kicks. Levi +could now shuffle his feet with impunity. Bob never suspected ulterior +motives and the sight of a broom or club had lost all terrors for him. + +Markham did not look any older than he looked seven years ago. Indeed, +his interest in Sandy Morley, his pride in that young man's +achievement, and Sandy's absolute love and loyalty to his benefactor, +had done much to relieve Markham of years instead of adding them to +him. Matilda had not fared so well. She looked like fragile ware, but +she never complained and with quiet courage she went her westering way +thankfully. + +"Levi is wonderfully softened," she often thought; "it doesn't hurt him +so much these days to praise instead of blame, and naturally folks +respond. It's mostly on account of Sandy. Levi does so mortally hate +to lose that when he wins out he thaws out!" + +The broad acres of Bretherton were rich and full of harvest as the old +brother and sister waited that afternoon. At last Levi snapped his +watch cover and said sharply: + +"That three-fifty train is always late! Do you suppose--she--Mrs. +Treadwell, will expect to be put up for the night?" + +"I hope not," Matilda replied, knitting away gently with closed eyes. +"I'm not one who takes pleasure in folks' disappointments and I'm glad +to say the village inn is comfortable and not over crowded. I _can_, +if it is necessary, tell Mary Jane to put an extra plate on for the +evening meal." + +"Wait and see how things turn out," cautiously advised Levi. + +"What time is it now, brother?" + +"Two-forty-five! But I put no faith in that train." + +"Was that a letter from Sandy you got in the noon mail?" + +"It was, Matilda. I think it would be safe to have an extra plate put +on for him." + +Matilda opened her eyes. + +"Levi," she said; "I'm not one to nose about much, but what is the +meaning of all this?" + +Levi set his lips grimly. + +"I never knew that Treadwell woman to break in after a long silence but +for two things," he replied; "either she wants something or she wants +to get rid of something. Three years back she asked for help when she +found that precious nephew of hers----" + +"And ours, Levi," Matilda put in; "we can't disown him. Blood is blood +even if it clots." + +"Well, our nephew, then! When she found young Lansing Treadwell eating +up her income, she begged for some scraps of what she pleased to term +'his mother's rights!'" + +"And you gave them to her, Levi!" + +"I couldn't let Caroline's boy die in a hole even if Hertford's son put +him there!" + +"You speak real comically sometimes, Levi. There are times when I +could think Sandy was talking through your voice!" + +"Well! well! every man has a streak of the dramatic in him!" Markham's +lips relaxed, "and I must say that to see Sandy Morley and Lans +Treadwell good friends without either sensing the true relations of +birth and tradition, tickles me through and through. I guess that +Treadwell woman would have done her prettiest if she had caught on. +But she doesn't know where Sandy hailed from and she's covered the +Hertford name out of sight for personal grudge, and those two +youngsters sailed into each other as if they were steered by Fate and +no one interfering. Lans Treadwell can't get anything but good out of +Sandy, and there isn't a soul living--you and I included--who could +draw Morley from his course, so I've looked on and chuckled +considerably." + +"Brother, I sometimes wonder how it is that you trust Sandy as you +do--you never question." + +"Not out loud, 'Tilda." + +"But he does not always explain. Now his working this summer as he +has! Every other summer it has been in the mills, but this summer he +had to have more money than you gave him. What for, Levi? I ask you +flat-footed and not casting any suspicion, but what did he want it for?" + +"That's the reason I've asked him down to-night. I want to find out. +I never have questioned him over much. When he said he wanted more +money I took for granted that he did and so long as he didn't hint for +me to give it, I sort of allowed it wasn't any of my business. He's +mastered the rudiments at the mills; he's over twenty-one--just +over--and I rather enjoyed seeing him take the bit in his teeth. But I +sensed that Mrs. Treadwell was coming to get rid of something to-day +and I thought it might be just as well for Sandy to be on hand later. +Matilda, if they two lap over each other, you steer Sandy away till I +march her off." + +Matilda nodded and again shut her eyes while she knitted her soft wools +into a "rainbow scarf." When she spoke, her thoughts had taken a +sudden and new turn. + +"I'll admit, Levi, that Sandy's clothes set on him as I never saw a +man's clothes set. They are the making of him. He's terrible good +looking--considering!" + +"Considering--what?" Markham frowned at the placid face and close-shut +eyes. "Considering! ugh! Why, 'Tilda, there is blood running in that +boy's veins that we Americans ought to bow down before! There are +times when he looks at me in his big, kind, loving fashion, that I feel +as I did the first time the poor little dirty devil raised his eyes to +me, only now all that went to the making of the lad seems to be saying, +'thank you, Markham, and God bless you!'" + +"Levi, you're an awful good man, and time's mellowing you more than any +one would have looked for." + +"Thank you,'Tilda." + +And then for a long time they sat in silence and thought their own +thoughts. Bob grunted and turned around facing the brother and sister, +blinked, grunted again, and probably thought of Sandy also. + +The train that afternoon was on time, and the carriage Markham sent to +the station presently appeared bearing Mrs. Treadwell. + +Olive Treadwell was handsomer than ever, for her gray hair softened her +features and the years had added just enough flesh to her bones to +insure grace, not angularity. + +"I am going back on the six-two train, Mr. Markham, if you will permit +your coachman to take me to the station. Lans and I have a very +important engagement this evening." + +Levi gave the order and handed his visitor to a chair. + +"Matilda has some iced tea for us," he said, "and then we will go +inside." + +Mrs. Treadwell greeted her hostess and sat languidly down, taking off, +as she did so, her long dust coat and displaying an exquisite gown of +pale violet. + +There was a little desultory conversation, two cups of delicious tea +and one of Matilda's choice sandwiches and then Markham led the way to +the library. + +Mrs. Treadwell took the deep leather chair, Levi lowered the awning +over the west window, and courteously sat down opposite his visitor. + +"It is years since we met, Mr. Markham," Olive Treadwell said; "but you +have been very kind to me, meanwhile. I am not one to forget." + +Markham nodded his head and lowered his eyes. After a decent pause +Mrs. Treadwell continued, feeling her way through her remarks like a +cautious person stepping gingerly over a mental ice pond. She always +seemed to leave a subject open to more than one interpretation and by +the lifting of Markham's eyebrows or the raising of his eyes she chose +her footing. The raising of his keen eyes under the shaggy brows was +very disconcerting and illuminating. + +"I know, my dear Mr. Markham, that you are not as worldly as I am; I am +confident that along certain lines of conventions we will differ now, +as we have in the past, but, being worldly I cannot bear that an +injustice should be done that would cause you to act in such a way as +to defeat your own aims and ideals." + +The eyebrows went up as if they were on springs, and Mrs. Treadwell +leaped to a safer footing. + +"Of course, when I refer to worldliness, I mean social worldliness. I +have learned, I have been forced to learn, the justice of your +once-proposed dealing with my Lans before he went to college. Your +business sense cannot be questioned. Had the boy been placed in your +hands then, I really believe his outlook on life would have been +clearer and finer. He has associated with those who have coloured his +views by--well, let us say, artificial lights. Still, the boy is the +best of his kind--I will say that for him. I hope I can make you +believe that I have come to you to-day entirely for your own best +interests--not his!" + +And now the steely eyes met the soft brown ones and demanded the +nearest approach to truth that Olive Treadwell had to offer. She +flushed and went back to her former place of safety and tried again. + +"Let us resort to no subterfuge," she said with a charming smile. + +"Thank you," Levi nodded and again lowered his lids. + +"To be quite frank, then, what I mean is this: I recognize that you are +one of the few men who regard your wealth as a trust; your capacity for +acquiring wealth a talent for which you are responsible. As I said +before, I feel that had I realized your true motives at the time Lans +graduated from preparatory school, I would have been eager to place him +in your charge to learn the great business of life and the use of +wealth in your way. I made an error; I confess it willingly. Since +then I have heard of your wise and private charities----" + +"I never give charity, madam!" + +"You are so modest! Well, your understanding helpfulness." + +"Simply good business, madam." + +"Very well--good business! and that brings me to my point. I have +always said that if I must trust myself, my confidence, or my money to +anyone, I would choose a person who, by training, instincts, and +possibilities most nearly was akin to myself. I sincerely believe +inheritance and blood do count. Now just suppose----" Mrs. Treadwell +gingerly put her weight on the next footing; "suppose you were obliged +to intrust your wealth and future interests to one of two men, would +you not feel safer in the hands of the man who, for family reasons and +by inherited tastes, could understand you and your ideals?" + +"Certainly, madam." + +"You know when a test comes you have to take a good deal for granted in +one who has no tie of blood to hold him to you?" + +"May I request, madam, that you tell me exactly what you mean in as few +words as possible? I see that you are embarrassed by what you have +been kind enough to come to tell me--I believe it will help us both if +you state your facts without further explanation or preparation." + +The tide had carried Olive Treadwell out into midstream--it was sink or +swim now! + +"I will do so. I cannot bear to see you duped by your adopted--shall I +say, son?" + +"I have never held the position of father to young Morley. I've helped +him to find himself as I have many another young man. He has no reason +to dupe me. We understand each other fairly well; better, I think than +most old men and young ones." + +"Exactly! That is what you think." + +"It is." + +"Very well, then listen. Remember I would not have come to you if I +had not had evidence. You take exception to Lans and his ways of life, +I have been informed that you have even called him a--a--libertine!" + +"With modifications--yes!" + +"I do not ask, Mr. Markham, that you try to withhold your judgments +until you know all the facts about my boy. You were never fair to him; +you saw him--you see him now--through his father, my poor brother!" + +"Madam, for his mother's sake I have always kept in touch with his +career even when I knew he was beyond any caution or judgment of mine. +I know that he has shamefully compromised a young woman and quite +openly flaunts his relations with her by calling them some new-fangled +name. Perhaps I am a narrow-gauge man, madam. All my life I have been +obliged to travel from a certain point to a certain point--I'm made +that way. I have endeavoured to look about to help my fellow-men, when +I could in justice do so, but I have stuck to the tracks that seem to +me to lead safely through the land of my journey. I am not interested +in branch roads or sidings." + +Mrs. Treadwell was a bit breathless and angry but she was too far from +shore yet to indulge in relaxation. + +"Lans is not an evil fellow; he is high-minded and will prove himself +in due time. I really am only seeking to help you be patient until he +has had his opportunity, and not, in the meantime, make a fatal +mistake. A new era is about to dawn when men and women, for the good +of the race, will attack social conditions from a different plane from +what you and I have been taught to consider right. Lans is in the +vanguard of this movement--but I only implore you to give him time and +while we are waiting let me ask you this--would you be more lenient +to--to this protege of yours than you are to Lans, if I could prove to +you that he has been hiding his private life from you entirely? Has, +apparently, laid himself bare to your confidence and good-will while, +in a secret and shameful manner, he has had very disreputable relations +with a young woman in Boston?" + +Levi Markham took this blow characteristically: he sighed, raised his +eyes to the speaker's face, and said calmly: + +"I thank you, madam, for your interest in my affairs. I can readily +see that you would not dare come to me with this matter unless you had +facts. I appreciate your good-will toward me and Lans, but I am just +wondering if this--this relationship of Sandford Morley's with a--with +the young woman, might not be viewed as leniently as Lansing's--if all +were known? He might call it by a new-fangled name, you know." + +"Why, Mr. Markham! His intrigue is a low, vulgar thing. That is +exactly what I am trying to make you understand. The difference lies +right there. Lans is open and above-board; he's a gentleman. This +young Morley is----" + +"Well, well, madam!" Levi held up his hand calmly silencing the +indignant voice. "I know Lansing has taken every one into his +confidence who chose to lend an ear; we have all shared his life +whether we approved or not and I will say this: young Morley has never +asked any one to play confessor for him, but I am going to give him an +opportunity to speak for himself if he wants to." + +"He will lie, sir." + +"He's the worst liar you ever saw, Mrs. Treadwell." + +Just how to take this Olive Treadwell did not know. She was +distracted. She felt that Markham was playing with her! Perhaps he +knew all about Morley's escapades and preferred them to Lans' newer +ideals. + +"You will investigate for yourself?" she pleaded; "in justice to Lans?" + +"In my own way, Madam." + +"You mean----" + +"That I will look to my own interests as I always have. When all is +said and done, ma'am, there's no law in the State that confines me to +leaving my savings to any particular young man. I have still, I hope, +a few years to my credit. I promise you I will devote them to securing +the best possible good for the _trust_, as you so well put it, in my +keeping. You are quite right also in saying that I consider the power +of money-making a talent. It is my only talent and I do not +underestimate it." + +"You are a--hard man, Markham. Time has not softened you." + +"I will still endeavour to be just, madam. I will tell you this--if I +discover that I have been duped, I'll give, outright, a good sum of +money to you in trust for Lansing!" + +"You think I--I have simply tried to blacken Morley's character for +personal gain?" + +"No, no, Mrs. Treadwell. I ascribed the best possible motives to you!" + +"Levi Markham--I cannot understand you." + +"Why should you try, madam?" + +Olive Treadwell got up and paced the room. + +"You humiliate me!" she said angrily. "Of course I desire my brother's +son to inherit rightfully. He will have all that I die possessed of. +I am seeking his interests but only justly and humanly. When he first +came in contact with this--this investment of yours--as you call him, +it was as _tutor_ to this Morley. Consider! _tutor_, my brother's son, +to your--your waif! And the dear, noble fellow--my Lans, fell in love +with him. Has trusted and helped him socially. Why, he made his +college life easy for him by his own popularity. Quite by accident I +discovered the vulgar intrigue of this--this Morley. I saw him go into +a house where a little seamstress of mine lives! I inquired; I found +him out; and--and, not for any low gain, but gain in the larger, higher +sense I pocketed my pride and came to you as helpless women do come to +strong men and you make me feel like a--village scandal-monger!" + +"I beg your pardon, madam. I am sorry that my manner suggests this to +you. But can you not see that I must master this situation in my own +way? I cannot sell out my interest in my investment without reason. +Give me a--week--no forty-eight hours!" + +"Thank heaven!" Olive Treadwell exclaimed, "there is the carriage. No +matter what the outcome of this is, Levi Markham, I reckon you'll live +to thank me for putting you on the right track." + +"I'm still on my narrow gauge, madam." Markham smiled not unkindly and +put out his hand. + +"Please bid your sister farewell. I shall not return to Bretherton, I +imagine. I will never willingly abase myself again, not even for Lans!" + +When she had gone Markham sank into the big leather chair and looked +blankly before him. His eyes were fixed across the desk where he +himself generally sat, and a kind of pity moved him for the part of him +that no one ever knew or suspected. In Sandy Morley, he had realized +nearer his yearning and ambition than he ever had before. His paternal +instincts had been, to a certain degree, gratified. The boy had seemed +so entirely his; had responded so splendidly to his efforts for him. +They had grown so close together during the past years in their silent, +undemonstrative fashion. Could it be possible that he had been +deceived? + +And then Markham pulled himself together and went around the desk to +his revolving chair. It was as if the stern man of affairs took +control and demanded of the doubting creature opposite, common sense +and plain justice. "Hold your horses, Levi," he cautioned; "bide your +time. Don't get scared off. Do you remember that old mine that no one +else took stock in? It bought and feathered your first nest! Just you +hold to that and keep your mind easy until you get onto the job +yourself!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +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 protege 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." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Perhaps it was the spring air; perhaps it was the turn in the tide of +Cynthia Walden's life, but whatever it was it roused her and gripped +her from early morning. At six o'clock on that May day she awoke in +her shabby room of Stoneledge and looked out of the vine-covered +window, heard a bird sing a wild, delicious little song, and then sat +up with the strange thrill of happiness flooding her heart and soul. + +It was a warm morning, more like late June than late May, and both the +bird and the girl felt the joy in the promise of summer. + +At nineteen Cynthia, like the spring morn, bore the mark of her coming +fulfillment of beauty. She was very lovely, tall, slim, slightly +bending, like a reed that had bowed to the wind instead of resisting. +The child look, full of question and waiting, was still in her clear +blue-gray eyes; the well-formed mouth had not forgotten its pretty, +slow smile, and the pale, exquisite whiteness of the smooth skin was +touched with a delicate tan and colour that did credit totally Taber's +care and culinary art. + +"I feel," whispered the girl, tossing the braids of her smooth +gold-brown hair back from her face; "I declare I feel as if something +was going to happen long o' me!" + +Not for a moment did Cynthia imagine anything ill. Out of a barren, +isolated life she had evolved and held to the strict philosophy she had +once confided to Marcia Lowe in the little church. If trouble overtook +her, she shielded herself as well as possible, smiled pleadingly and +stepped aside. At such courtesy Trouble had obligingly gone on leaving +the girl of nineteen as trusting and hopeful as a child. The old house +had crumbled and tottered. Ann Walden had sunk into positive +imbecility--but Cynthia had kept her faith and love. Sally Taber still +ruled the Great House under the disguise of grateful dependent. She +slept in the loft over the kitchen, made life a possible thing for a +helpless woman and a young girl, and asked nothing for herself in +return. + +"If that woman doesn't have a crown studded two deep with jewels some +day," Marcia Lowe confided to Tod Greeley, "I'll miss my guess." + +And Tod, for various reasons, did what he could to show his +appreciation of the old woman's nobility. + +"Yo' sho' do give proper weight to us-all." Sally often told him. +"Things do las' mor'n one could expect, fo' de money." + +"I ain't goin' to run the risk of any pesky government investigation," +Greeley replied. "Better be on the safe side, I reckon." + +And now Cynthia again remarked to the pretty May morning: + +"I feel as if something was going to happen 'long o' me." + +Then she got up and made her simple toilet. The shining braids were +wound coronet-style about the shapely head, and some moments were +devoted to the choice of a gown. There were three hanging on nails +behind the door leading to the hall; a checked gingham, brown, ugly and +serviceable; a faded pink chambray, and a new, dull blue linen. This +last was a gift from Marcia Lowe. It was the longest, most modern +garment Cynthia possessed, and the colour filled her awakening artistic +sense with delight. + +"This one!" she murmured, and smiled at her own senseless extravagance. + +"I reckon it's right silly," she said; "but it's mighty good fun to +wear your Sunday frock on a Thursday!" + +Then arrayed and glowing with pride Cynthia contemplated herself in her +tiny mirror. + +"If something happens 'long o' me," she nodded in friendly fashion into +the glass, "it will find me ready." + +After breakfast she meant to go to Trouble Neck and help Marcia Lowe +with her "school." The little doctor's school was the newest and most +exciting innovation in The Hollow. The student list was elastic and +all embracing. Every department of life was taught, as and how it were +possible. The timid, blighted little folks were lured to the cabin by +all means at Miss Lowe's command and fed such crumbs as their poor wits +could comprehend. + +"Let's flip out the grains, Cynthia, dear," the little doctor urged; +"perhaps some chick can swallow them. We must make hay while the sun +shines. Crothers' new factory is looming up and when that whistle +blows, good-bye to the Trouble Neck Academy!" + +It had taken nearly seven years for Smith Crothers to collect his +insurance, recover his health, and begin his business career again. He +had left The Forge for two years, and since his return had gone slowly +about his work of rebuilding and entering the arena. Whatever he +thought or remembered of the night when his factory was burned, no one, +but himself, knew. From a grim shadow of his former self he regained +his health and looks; he nodded to Cynthia when he met her on The Way +and the girl tossed her head at him indifferently. Only Marcia Lowe +was anxious. + +"Cynthia," she said, "promise me that you will not wander in the woods +alone!" + +"Not without a pistol," the girl replied. "I'm a mighty good shot, +dear Cup-of-Cold-Water Lady!" + +But Marcia Lowe shook her head. + +When Cynthia went downstairs that May morning, Sally Taber had the +plain breakfast on the dining-room table, and her face looked drawn and +worried. + +"Miss Cyn," she said, when she had set the corn bread and milk before +the girl, "las' night ole Miss war right troublesome." + +"You have been up a good deal, Sally?" + +"I sho' have. Ole Miss took to wandering and nothing would suit her +but de libry. I done made a fire there and let her play. She done dig +at the hearthstone an' laughed and babbled 'til long 'bout three +o'clock, then I carried her upstairs and laid her in her bed same as if +she was a lil' tired out babby." + +"Dear Sally!" Cynthia's eyes shone. "I'll stay home to-day and let +you sleep." + +"I reckon you will do nothin' like that! Ole Miss will be good for +mos' the mornin' an' I'se goin' to patch up the libry. If ole Miss +takes a fancy to that-er-room, she goin' to have what she wants! If +she wants to pick 'long o' the hearthstone, she is goin' to do that; +I'll loosen it up." + +"I will watch her to-night, then!" Cynthia said, "and I'll be back +right early this evening, Sally." + +Just as Cynthia reached The Way, she met Martin Morley. + +"Good morning, lil' Miss Cyn," he greeted; "seems like you be part of +this yere pretty day." + +"Good morning, Mr. Morley. You look right smart and dandified." + +Morley was neatly and decently attired and his calm, clear eyes were +steady and full of purpose. The "charm" had held good with him, and +ever since the well-fought battle in the little doctor's lean-to +chamber, he had gradually worked his way back to self-respect and +content. Mary and Molly had drifted from his life so effectually that +he had accepted the inevitable and never mentioned their names. + +"Where you going, Mr. Morley?" + +"I am going down to The Forge," Martin answered. "They-all say the +young manager for that company what's going to build a factory up +higher has come, and I'm going to try and get a job." + +"Do you believe there _is_ going to be a factory, Mr. Morley? Do you +believe Smith Crothers would let any one have a factory so near his?" + +"They-all do say, Miss Cynthia, that that-er company what sends this +young man, is powerful rich and upperty. They-all do say that-er +company ain't so much as consulted with Smith Crothers." + +"It must be a mighty brave company!" The slow smile touched the sweet +lips. + +"Mr. Morley, I wonder if you will ever hear from Sandy?" + +"Sho'! Miss Cynthia, you-all make me right creepy. I woke up this-er +morning from a dream 'bout Sandy. It was a right techersome dream, but +dreams be techersome. I dreamed that Sandy was daid, and yet I woke up +right cheerful. I've reasoned it out this-er-way. Sandy _is_ daid to +me, lil' Miss Cynthia, but alive out in a bigger, wider life and sho' a +right minded father should be mighty glad of that. I'm willing to give +Sandy to a better life." + +The old face twitched. "It's 'bout all I can do for my son." + +"Oh! Mr. Morley, you're right noble but I don't believe Sandy's like +that. He's just waiting 'till he has a mighty fine something to bring +back to us-all, and then we'll see him coming up The Way as brave and +smiling as can be." + +Martin shook his head slowly. + +"I don' doubt it, lil' Miss Cynthia. It's seven long years now! I've +taken a right smart heap of comfort mending up the cabin and painting +it and planting vines and flowers about. It has been the happiness +I've allowed myself--getting ready for Sandy that ain't never coming! +Good morning, just wish me luck 'bout the job. The getting ready means +something even if you don't ever get what you're making ready for." + +And with this Martin Morley went down The Way toward The Forge to seek +his luck with the stranger who had arrived a few days before to begin +operations on a certain piece of land which had been bought by a +man--no one could recall his name--seven years ago! + +Cynthia stood under the trees by the road after Martin left and fell +into a reverie. It was early. By walking a little faster she could +reach Trouble Neck in time for the possible pupils, and the lure of the +morning held her. Looking up to catch more distinctly the note of a +bird, she noticed how white and splendid the dogwood flowers were on +the tree under which she stood. + +"They certainly do look like stars!" she whispered. The day seemed +pulsing with thoughts of Sandy Morley! Not for years had he been so in +her mind. To be sure the hole in the tree near Stoneledge was quite +filled with letters written to an imaginary somebody called, for +convenience, Sandy--the "Biggest of Them All." But Cynthia's ideal +bore little likeness to the actual Sandy, and her letters had become +but the outpourings of a heart that must create its own Paradise or +perish. Sandy Morley had faded into an indistinct blur, but the +romance he had awakened bore the girl far and away from the common life +of The Hollow. + +"I thought," the uplifted face glowed rosily; "I thought I heard--a new +note! Some strange bird!" Then, with a toss of the head which threw +the broad brimmed hat back on the shoulders, "I must be getting right +daffy! That's the bird Sandy Morley used to copy mighty cleverly. I +could do it myself once--I wonder!" The pretty lips curved +deliciously, and an effort was made to reproduce the sound. Sweetly, +faintly it trilled and ended in a light laugh. + +From the underbrush lower down beside The Way, a young man looked at +the upraised face under the dogwood tree; listened to the answer to his +call and felt his heart throb with such force that his lips drew close +with the pain of joy. For a few moments he gazed and struggled for +self-control but great waves of happiness and delight overpowered him. +He dared not move, but he sent a swift prayer to heaven--a prayer for +guidance in a new life amid the old home-scenes for which his faithful +heart had yearned while he had wandered far. + +Cynthia's quick ears caught the rustle of the bushes across The Way and +instantly her face changed and her hand gripped something in a little +bag at her side. The stranger thought it wisest to step out. This he +did with a laugh of understanding. + +"Oh!" exclaimed Cynthia Walden, "I certainly do beg your pardon. +I--thought--I thought you were Smith Crothers." + +The sudden fear wrung this candid confession from the girl. "I reckon +you don't know Smith Crothers." + +"I--I've heard of him recently." + +"I expect," Cynthia was full of interest now. "I expect you are the +man from the North." + +"You are quite right." + +"Now I'm right sorry you didn't get here fifteen minutes ago." + +The stranger's face flushed under its tan and the broad felt hat, in +the right hand, shook perceptibly. + +"Mr. Martin Morley has gone down The Way to see you. He reckons you +will give him a job." + +At this the man leaned heavily against a pine tree and stared at the +girl. Had he heard aright? For months he had believed Martin Morley +was dead--long dead! + +"Yes, Mr. Morley was just here talking about the new factory up in the +mountain." + +To hear Cynthia say mountain was to love the high places better all the +days of your life. So lingeringly and tenderly did the soft voice deal +with the vowels and consonants that they suggested all the beauty and +strength of the hills. The man opposite closed his eyes from sheer +delight while the word sank into his consciousness and filled the empty +places of his heart. + +"He'll miss you, I reckon, but could you save a job for him?" + +"I can and--will." The man opened his eyes and courageously walked +across The Way and stood still, hat in hand, before the girl. He was +tall and broad and good to look upon and youth went out to youth +cordially and frankly. + +"I reckon"--the homely word took the place of the Yankee "guess" +naturally, "I reckon you are--Miss Cynthia Walden?" + +"Yes." Cynthia's eyes shone. "Who--told you?" + +"I heard about you." This was very lame, but it answered. + +"And you--sir?" + +"Oh, I am--the man from the North." + +"You sound like you had Southern blood." + +"My father and mother were Southerners." + +"From round this-er-way?" + +Again the man closed his eyes; the sweet voice and dear familiar +expressions were almost more than he could bear. + +"Not very far away." + +A very little seemed enough to pacify the girl's curiosity. + +"I reckon the North's mighty big," she ventured presently. + +"It's--it's--tremendous." + +"Do you know anything about--Massachusetts?" + +"I came from there." + +"Oh! And is that--so mighty big?" + +"Not so big as the whole North. Though some still think it is." + +"Did you ever hear----" Cynthia paused and clasped her hands together; +"of a--a boy named Sandy Morley? He went from here to there--long ago?" + +It was a wild question, but the day was so haunted by Sandy that the +words came of their own volition. + +"I've met him; yes, I know him slightly." + +The colour rose and faded in Cynthia's face and her breath came quick +and hard. + +"Oh! tell me about him. He came from this--Hollow! He went away years +and years ago. Tell me--what has he become?" + +Yearning, curiosity and honest interest marked the words, but the face +of the girl was a child's face, not a woman's. "He must be a right big +boy now!" + +The man standing in The Way could not repress a smile. He saw that +Cynthia Walden had in fancy enshrined the boy Sandy, but would she +welcome the man Sandy had become? Fearfully, dreading the test that +must be made, he drew nearer, and with lowered eyes bowed, and said: + +"I am Sandy Morley!" + +Cynthia gave a frightened glance at the tall, dark stranger in the +road. She noticed, as if for the first time, his high laced boots, his +corduroy trousers fastened in them, his flannel shirt and felt hat. +All was fine and different, oh! so different from the ragged ugliness +of the hills. That a stranger should be so clad did not interest her, +but that her childhood's friend and slave should wear this livery of +position shattered the beautiful portrait of the "Biggest of Them All" +by one cruel blow. + +"No! You cannot be Sandy--not Sandy Morley." Cynthia stepped back +with outstretched hands as if to ward off an attack. The light faded +from Sandy Morley's face and his eyes grew dark and pleading. + +"I've been right homesick all the years," he faltered. "I've tried to +make myself worthy to come back. Always I have dreamed of you standing +as you stand now under the dogwoods, to welcome me, but now that I have +come up The Way I find myself a--stranger!" + +Cynthia was clutching the bough of a tree for support; her eyes were +strained and pathetic. + +"I--I do not know what I have expected," she whispered, her eyes +clinging to his; "but it is this-er-way. I have made a different +Sandy, and I've kept him so long in my dreams and fancies, that to see +him a _man_, hurts. Oh! it hurts here!" + +The clasped hands touched the panting bosom. Then Sandy came close to +her and laid his firm, thin hand upon hers. The touch, the contact, +brought sharply to the girl the memory of their parting when, beside +The Way, she had asked him to marry her some day and Sandy had kissed +her! + +"Little Cynthia, try to make a place in Lost Hollow for the man Sandy, +who has come home a lonely stranger." + +He seemed old and detached, but his nearness and the memory of their +last interview composed Cynthia. She drew back and the withdrawal hurt +Sandy more than she could know. + +"I--I must go!" she panted and turned, as in the old parting, and ran +without one backward look. + +Sandy stood and gazed after her with yearning eyes. Outwardly she was +all his faithful heart could have asked. Her face, as he had seen it a +few moments ago under the dogwoods, seemed placed there by some kind +and good Providence to welcome him to his own after all the waiting +years; the child, Cynthia, he had lost while he tarried afar. Manlike +he was ready to accept the woman. But Cynthia was not a woman, and her +immature nature was shocked and betrayed by him who had come claiming +what she had ready, only for the boy of her childish faith and love. + +Sad at heart, Sandy, after a few moments of readjustment, went +mournfully up the trail leading to the old home-cabin. One bright +gleam, alone, cheered him. There had been some mistake. Martin Morley +was evidently alive and to him Sandy must look for welcome and the +renewing of old ties. + +The change in the cabin was startling. Empty, but neat and pleasant, +the living-room stood open to the fair spring day. Flowers were +standing in the windows in dented tin cans; the hearth was swept free +of ashes and there was a small garden in the rear of the house, nicely +laid out and planted. It seemed so like his own old garden that Sandy +gazed upon it with strange emotions. He relived sharply the starved +years of preparation, the cruelty and neglect. He went inside finally +and sat down upon the settle by the hearth and, with bowed head, gave +himself up to memory. + +An hour passed and then a step outside roused him, but he did not turn. + +"Sir, I reckon you be the boss of the new factory. I was a-going down +to The Forge to seek you out and ask for work, but Tansey Moore, down +to the store, 'lowed that 'twas you who had passed up this-er-way. If +you be the boss could you----" + +But he got no further. Sandy could not run the risk of another clash +of words. + +"Father!" he said, standing up and stretching his arms out pitifully to +Martin. "Father!" + +Morley recoiled for an instant and his eyes, old and dim, struggled to +see clearly the figure and face before him. But it was not the mortal +eyes of the man that saw and knew. It was the _father_ that reached +out with unerring instinct to its own! Martin had never had his dreams +of what his boy was to become; he was there to accept whatever God in +His mercy sent to him. + +"Sandy! lil' Sandy! My boy!" + +And then the tottering old frame was gathered in the strong young arms. + +"Dad, dear old Dad. I've got a right good job for you!" + +That was all. For a few minutes the clock on the high shelf ticked so +loudly that it seemed to fill the room with noise. Neither man spoke, +but they clung desperately. Presently a shadow fell across the floor +and Sandy turned his head. Old Bob had found his way up from The Forge +and panting and wheezing began to sniff around the room. Almost blind, +yet guided by that sense we cannot understand, he had sought his own +and found them. With a soft cry he crouched close to the two standing +by the hearth and whined piteously. Martin aroused and stood upright. + +"It's--it's Bob!" he cried. "Oh, Bob! Oh, Bob!" Then falteringly: +"It's all right, Bob, she won't trouble you now--she's gone for good +and all!" + +That was the only reference to Mary, and Sandy did not tell Martin of +little Molly's fate for many a day. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +If one can forget the languor of the summer and the fear of the winter, +a September day among the hills is an experience to set the heart +singing. The fluttering birds in busy preparation for flight, the +carpet of Persian colours and the subtle charm of the smell of wood +smoke in the air, all combine to arouse tender thoughts and pensive +desires. + +On such a day Cynthia Walden ran down the trail from Stoneledge and +kept to the side of The Way where the leaves were thickest and the damp +sweetness the richest. She wore her blue linen--it had been laundried +many times since that May morning when Sandy first saw her in it; but, +as Sally Taber, working under strict instructions, dried it in a pillow +case--the colour was still true blue and the shrinkage slight. + +Many things had occurred during the past four months. Wonderful +breath-taking things; things that aroused many emotions and many +passions. For one thing, that brave company in the North, which Sandy +represented, had actually had the audacity and daring to start +operations on a splendid factory building! Smith Crothers was +sullenly, silently watching operations and making, apparently, +indifferent threats as to what might be expected to happen to any +Hollowite--"man, woman or child"--who turned from him and his interests +to the factory back of Lost Hollow. + +"There ain't any known head to the concern," he said one night at the +County Club, "lest you count that youngster of Morley's as a head. I +leave it to you--can you-all trust a Morley?" + +The solemn pause before Mason Hope ventured a "no" gave Crothers food +for reflection. Sandy was making his way into the confidence and +appreciation of his people. Slowly, to be sure, so slowly that often +he sighed disheartedly, but the change in attitude was noticeable and +Sandy knew it when the sun shone and Cynthia Walden deigned to speak a +pleasant word to him. + +Beside the factory and near to it ground had been broken and a +foundation laid for a building about which people, especially mothers, +spoke in hushed voices. + +"It can't be true," Liza Hope had said to Mrs. Tansey Moore one day as +they dropped in to Theodore Starr's church to take breath and a dip of +snuff. "A Home-school! that's what the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady said it +was, and when I axed her to say it plainer and not so polite, she done +'splain as how the chillens, our chillens, war to be gathered in from +everywhere--even factories,--and teached and--and mothered! That's her +word--mothered!" + +"Don't them-all think us-all is--mothers?" Mrs. Moore sniffed +contemptuously. "Us as borned them reckons we-all is mothers." + +"But it's this-er-way." Liza was Marcia Lowe's interpreter to the +cabin-folk and was gradually drawing them to the point where more than +one had gone voluntarily to Trouble Neck and, after a chat and a cup of +tea, had uttered the mystic word "youcum," which meant, "you call on +me." No higher honour could a mountain woman bestow than this! + +But Mrs. Tansey Moore had never taken the little doctor up socially. + +"It's this-er-way. We-all can't act out what's in us-all. You know, +Rose-Lily"--Mrs. Moore had one of the funeral-design names which so +often decorated the plainest of her sex among the hills--"we-all just +get caught in the wheels and go round like what we-all have to. I +reckon you wouldn't have let your Sammy-Jo into the factory if the +heart of you could ha' spoke. Seems like yesterday when I saw them-all +totin' Sammy-Jo up The Way to kiss you good-bye, an' him only ten years +old an' dyin' o' the hurt o' the wheels." + +Rose-Lily bowed her head on her work-roughened hands and sobbed +miserably. + +"An' I reckon I wouldn' ha' let my po' lil' half-wit chile go--if I +could ha' helped it. When Mason licked him down The Way o' mornin' it +made the soul o' me sick. When the factory burned I thanked A'mighty +God for, starvin' or not starvin,' the po' lil' feller couldn't go! +The night he died in Miss Lowe's cabin when she war tryin' her charm on +him--I jes' war right glad, for the factory down to The Forge war jes' +about done and I war thankful he couldn't get caught in the wheels +agin! I tell yo', Rose-Lily, the mother in us-all don't get a chance +in The Hollow, but the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady don' say things is goin' +to be different. She 'lows that the Home-school will jes' make up to +us-all for what's been denied." + +Mrs. Moore moaned softly and shook her head. "It don't +sound--earthly!" she muttered. + +But Cynthia, tripping light-heartedly over the gold and red leaves by +The Way, sang her gayest songs and cared not a rap for the new factory +or the unearthly Home-school; she was thinking of Martin Morley's cabin +and the miracle that had been performed there. She was bound for the +cabin. Martin would surely be away, for his "job" demanded that he +should watch the men working in gangs on the new buildings. Sandy was +up North. He had been summoned there by Levi Markham, who had wanted +to come to The Hollow but had been held back by Sandy. + +"They are taking me hard," Sandy had written; "let me have time to win +them over before you come. Your money is a great drawback to me." + +Then Markham wrote a characteristic command. The faithful old heart +throbbed through every line and had caused poor Sandy to laugh until he +cried: + + +Then come up North at once with reports and plans. I'm not going to +let you make ducks and drakes of my hard earnings without knowing why. +Matilda--isn't very strong. She's taken to counting her blessings +nights instead of sleeping. By the way--have you heard anything of +Treadwell? His new fangled moral van has gone smash, they say; not +called by its old-fashioned name, and he's--skipped. If you hear +anything of him, let me know. + + +Sandy had been away ten days and every day Cynthia had gone to the +cabin, set it in order for Martin's comfort; revelled in the wonder of +it all and feasted her soul on the books in Sandy's study. + +Cynthia had slowly, reluctantly but finally given up her ideal Sandy of +the past. She still kept his one letter to her and her hundred and one +letters to him in an oil-cloth package in the old tree. Sometimes she +stole away and read them and cried a little, softly, forlornly, as a +little girl might do for a broken doll. "The Biggest of Them All" +relegated to his fate, Cynthia had turned to this new son of the Hills +with frank and open mind. She weighed him, considered him and found +him interesting. She was sensitive to success, and this practical, +good natured, kindly Sandy was decidedly successful. He was as modest +and unassuming as one could desire, but he had only to wave his hand +and say so-and-so and lo! the old cabin grew and became beautiful, a +factory sprang up, then a dream of a school which included everyone and +everything. It was like a modern fairy story--the most exciting and +compelling thing one could imagine. + +Slowly, cautiously, Cynthia with childish curiosity approached this new +being who had arisen on her horizon. Sandy, wise in the lore of the +hills, lured her as cautiously. He had subdued his own emotions. He +was a man; his life had developed him; she was still a child with the +radiant woman of her blindly, gropingly, looking forth from the dear, +blue-gray eyes. He could wait. She would be his dream of the hills +and some day she would come true and he would tell her how he had +always loved her; how her pale, sweet face, under the dogwood flowers, +had kept him strong and pure and unspoiled through all the yearning +years. He could wait until Cynthia, the woman, awoke and--looked at +him! In the meantime he worked and grew marvellously happy in his +earnest, quiet way. He made a seat for her in his study window--though +she never knew how carefully he had arranged it, or how desperately he +had struggled to get the right colour for the cushions. "Red," Levi +had suggested when approached as to window-seat coverings. "Green, a +good dark tone, is a wearing shade," Matilda had informed him, but +Sandy chose blue--"the shade that looks as if it sank deeper and +deeper," he explained to an artistic designer, and the man had not +laughed! + +Sandy bought and scattered books about in his study where Cynthia might +run across them at will, and sometimes during his rare moments of +leisure and enjoyment she would nestle on _her_ window seat in his +study while he, his back to her, painted at his easel near the north +window. At such times Cynthia liked the new Sandy almost as well as +the old and was gloriously content and happy. Poetry entered her life +then for the first time--poetry through books, through Sandy's modest +attempts at art, and through Sandy himself. + +"Let us go out windowing," he coaxed her one day when they had had a +golden hour together. + +"Windowing, Sandy? What is windowing?" + +"Why, we'll go around to the cabins and coax or bully the people to let +us make windows in their homes--big, fine windows with glass that +slides easy, up and down or sideways as one may prefer. I want it done +before winter sets in." + +"They-all will think us all-around cracked!" + +"Let's try! Windows for sale! we'll cry. It will be mighty jolly." + +So they had set forth with the result that by August Tod Greeley +remarked to Marcia Lowe that he was "dog-dickered if the cabins didn't +look like showcases surrounded by clapboards!" + +When Cynthia reached the Morley cabin that rare September day she +paused to look upon the splendour, and was thrilled anew at the changes +and improvements. To the southwest end of the cabin three new rooms +had been added. Two bed-chambers and a cosy sitting-room. + +"For that Company up North when it comes down!" Sandy explained. + +"It must be a mighty upperty Company!" Cynthia replied, looking in awe +at the furniture which had been sent from some magic workshop. + +"It is!" Sandy assented--viewing solemnly the enamelled bedstead, the +cheap chairs and plain bureau. + +"And real carpets on the floors!" + +"Yes. The Company has tender feet." + +The old living-room of the cabin had been more leniently dealt with. +Sandy's passion for windows had been indulged, but its furnishings were +designed for comfort without shock to Martin's habits. The kitchen in +the lean-to, also windowed to the limit of space, had been given over +to the imagination--nothing else could possibly have accounted for +it--of Marcia Lowe. Shining rows of things never dreamed of in The +Hollow hung on the walls or graced the shelves. The future might prove +them, but the present wreathed them in the charm of mystery. The women +came and looked upon them in silent wonder and talked of them afterward +in hushed voices. A good-sized range, also, stood where once the dirty +hearth was the only shrine to which the family food was intrusted +during preparation. Even Sandy approached this innovation with +ingrained reluctance, but Marcia Lowe was overcoming his timidity and +Cynthia had already conquered its mysteries and was instructing Martin. + +The greatest change on the Morley place, however, was the one-time shed +bedroom of Sandy. The first time Sandy entered the crumbling shanty +such a wave of bitterness and depression engulfed him that he realized +he must either reclaim it or it would triumph over him. To tear it +down would not have solved the problem; its absence would have been a +more final acknowledgment of his defeat. The years of fear, +loneliness, and want were ever to be vital realities of his life; the +shed was the setting of his childish agony and spiritual growth--oh, +that was it! He must not stamp the poor shell from sight; he must +redeem it as his patient suffering had redeemed him. He must make it a +place to which those he loved, those who needed him, might come knowing +that welcome and understanding awaited them. + +It seemed a miracle to see the dusty, crumbling place evolve into that +bright study with its big, open fireplace, outside chimney, and the +sacred window-seat. Overhead were two small bedrooms, opening into +each other--Martin's and Sandy's. Plain, severe rooms they were; rooms +into which the morning sun shone and into which the setting sun glowed +when nature smiled. On the shingle roof the rain pattered musically, +and no winter cold could conquer the heat which a certain drum stove in +Martin's room managed to create and diffuse. On Martin's stand beside +his narrow bed a lamp stood and near it a Bible. Martin had learned +again to pray and often Sandy read the sacred book to him respecting +always the fiction as to poor eyes and ignoring the illiteracy which +the old man bitterly and secretly deplored. + +At last Cynthia entered the study after a minute inspection of the +house. The breakfast dishes were washed and put away; Martin was neat +and orderly. His bed had been made and Sandy's was untouched. + +"Still away!" whispered the girl and sank upon the window-seat while a +thrill of pleasure brought the slow smile to the sensitive lips. + +"Oh, the pretty day!" Then a desire to set the place in perfect order +for Sandy's possibly near-return caused her to spring up and dart +quickly from place to place, straightening a picture here, flicking the +dust off the shelves and chairs, and lastly attacking the cluttered +desk which had not been touched since the master went away. + +Sandy was not orderly by instinct. Dirt distressed him, but +superficial chaos seemed never to disturb him. He could lay his hand +on whatever he wanted amid the layers of papers, books, and writing +material. + +"It's right Sandyish," murmured Cynthia; "I wonder if he will--mind?" +Never before had she thought of arranging the desk. Carefully, almost +breathlessly, she piled some magazines in one place; some papers in +another. The pens and pencils were stuck together in the yawning mouth +of a particularly fierce silver gargoyle who evidently had been created +to devour such articles, and then--at the bottom of the mass Cynthia +came upon a book which had been quite hidden from sight. It was an +open book; a book marked at a certain place. There was a strange +familiarity about the book which caused the girl to take it up with +trembling surprise. The blue and gold cover recalled emotions long +since forgotten. How could she know that Sandy had scoured many a +Boston book store for just that edition, causing the proprietors much +annoyance and trouble? + + "Pilgrim's Progress!" + +Then backing to the window-seat, Cynthia sat down and feasted her eyes +first upon the cover, then upon the words marked by an illuminating +pencil: + + +Without doubt her designs were bad. But stay, now you talk of her, +methinks I either have seen her, or have read some story of her. . . . +Doth she not speak very smoothly and give you a smile at the end of a +sentence? + + +The book fell from Cynthia's hands and lay motionless on her lap. Her +fair face raised itself rigidly and the clear eyes looked, not at the +cheerful, home-room, but back through the years: the sombre, shabby +years--until they caught and held a girl of twelve demanding +something--something so tremendous!--from a poor, trembling boy but a +little older than herself! Then the old, half-doubting promise sounded +and--a kiss fell upon Madam Bubble's lifted mouth! + +"Oh!" The word came on a shuddering sigh and the fixed eyes faltered +in their rapt look. A flood of rosy colour spread from brow to chin, +and shame--not joy--claimed Cynthia Walden. Understanding rushed upon +her, a blind, hideous, wrong understanding, but none the less terrible. +Cynthia had forgotten the shadow of her parentage--for many years it +had sunk into insignificance. The years had ignored it, no call had +come for its recognition, but now--she understood. She had always been +more the daughter of her bad father than of her sad mother! That was +why she, a little girl, had spoken so to Sandy and brought that strange +look to his face! She had not comprehended it then, but she remembered +it now! It confronted her like a tangible thing. Because she was her +father's daughter Smith Crothers had--kissed her! Men wanted to kiss +her! On that fearsome night of the fire Crothers had only shocked and +wounded the outer fold of Cynthia's soul; the innermost shrine had been +guarded by the woman Cynthia was by and by to become; but now Cynthia +felt she _was_ that woman and all subterfuge was denied. + +Sandy understood. He had not forgotten. Out in his big, free world he +had learned what Madam Bubbles were and still he had come back and been +kind to her! Sandy never forgot. Big, brave, and tender, he had set +himself to the task of keeping his word and fulfilling his vision. He +had shielded poor Molly--he had told her the pitiful story without its +gruesome details! He had come back to Lost Mountain to help the men +and women and save the baby-things! He had come home to--keep his word +with her, with Madam Bubble! That was why he was so gentle, so +thoughtful. + +"Oh! oh!" The moan was almost a wail, but no tear dimmed the large +eyes. + +"The Biggest of Them All!" Then the strained face relaxed and a glory +touched it. + +"But I--I can be next biggest," she faltered. "You are right +noble--but I can help you, Sandy!" + +Then very reverently the book was replaced upon the desk and a pencil +taken from the gargoyle's mouth. Clearly, distinctly, another passage +was traced by a wavering mark: + + +The man in the cage, the man and his dream, the man that cut his way +through his enemies--the biggest of them all! + + +Sandy was to read those words by and by with varied emotions! + +Then, having marked and turned to the page originally left open, +Cynthia drew herself up and looked about the dear room as if taking a +last look before going on a long journey. + +And so Sandy came upon her. He had arrived at The Forge earlier in the +day and had walked up The Way because his heart was full of the joy of +life and he wanted to be alone and think his thoughts. He had been so +lonely without his father, Lost Mountain, his people and--Cynthia! Not +even the love and gratitude he held for Levi Markham and Matilda could +hold him long from his own, without regret. And they were coming to +him soon--the Markhams--they were coming for the holidays and he must +make ready! + +Noiselessly he entered his study and stood for a moment revelling in +the sight of the girl of his thoughts, materializing before his amazed +eyes. He could hardly believe his senses; the day, the place, were +bewitched, and he had been so hungry for--just this! Unconsciously he +stretched out his arms and his strong, dark face was flushed; his +serious eyes glad and kind. + +"Little Cyn!" + +She turned, and her colour faded. Pale, imploring, she almost ran to +him. + +"Sandy!" + +Now that she had understood and triumphed she could afford to be kind, +too, and strong and brave. Something in the frank, unflinching eyes +warned Sandy to content himself with the outstretched hands, although +the soul of him yearned to hold the girl to him. + +"You are glad to see me back, lil' Cyn?" + +The old intonation thrilled the listener, but her eyes held true. + +"Oh! so glad. 'Tis a mighty empty room you leave, Sandy Morley, when +you go away." + +"Cynthia--I wonder if I dare tell you something?" + +"Yes." It were better now and over with! + +"Do you remember that once I made a promise to you, dear?" + +This was unfortunate, but the girl took it without a quiver of the +white lids. + +"All my life, since manhood came to me, and it came early, little girl, +I have lived and dreamed of the hour when--I might keep that promise. +I have waited because you seem still a child to me, dear, but I--want +you! I want the child of you--I will hold it sacred and win the woman +of you by and by. Do you not remember how in those old, old days it +was you who taught me, awoke my imagination and--helped me to my own? +Dear lil' Cyn--help me now! Help me help these dear people, yours and +mine! I need you so, sweetheart, and I will be good to you! Marry me, +lil' Cyn, marry me right away and let us go on together! I can do so +much for you and yours--sweet----" + +But Sandy got no farther. The hands in his wrenched themselves free +and sought his shoulders. The very frankness and simplicity of the +gesture sent a chill to Sandy's heart. + +"Big, good Sandy!" There was a subtle plea in glance and words. The +girlish need was driving the desperate woman back and out of sight. +Cynthia could not kill the truth that had been born within her, but she +could blind it, stun it and still keep for her own what the childish +craving demanded. + +"Big, good Sandy! Please be my Sandy, like you were a brother. I +would be so lonely without you; I would miss this--this dear place +mighty bad--but if you say such words, if you forget I am still lil' +Cyn, why don't you see--I cannot come up this-er-way any more?" + +So perfect was the attempt that it took all the girl's pride and +strength to hold it. It was a bit overdone and Sandy fell back a step +with a memory that Cynthia would never have resurrected had she had her +way. + +"I--am not worthy of you, Cynthia. I had forgotten, dear. You see, +for seven years I have lived where such things did not matter; I have +learned that they do _not_ matter when all is said and done. Can you +not trust me and forget that a Walden and a Morley are different----" + +"Oh! Sandy!" and now the white, white face turned scarlet--"you think +that of me?" + +"It's in the blood of us all, Cynthia, but you and I, by forgetting +it--can do so much." + +"It is not that, Sandy." + +"I know, dear, that I am old beside you--I know that I dare much when I +say I am willing to take you, child as you are, and run the risk of +making you love me while the woman of you--grows! I will help it +grow--God help me! How I will glory in the task and if I fail----" + +Sandy had drawn her hands from his shoulders and now held them fast and +close. + +"I will make you free, set you as free as you are to-day, my white +blossom girl! You cannot understand; but God hears me and I swear it!" + +Cynthia did _not_ understand, but his fine passion flooded her soul +with white light. + +"How wonderful you are," she whispered. "You stand out big and high +like our mountain----" + +At that word Sandy closed his eyes, for he dared not look upon the +dear, slow-smiling lips. + +"But, Sandy, you are covered with--with mist like Lost Mountain +sometimes is. Let me find you, Sandy, not as you would help me find +you, but in my own way. Will you do this for--lil' Cyn?" + +Without opening his eyes Sandy drew the clinging hands to his lips and +kissed them. + +"When you find me, dear heart, dear heart, will you tell me or give me +a sign?" + +"Yes, Sandy." + +"And now--where are you going, Cynthia?" + +For the girl was turning from him. + +"Just down The Way. I must watch with Aunt Ann. She is a mighty +troublesome lil' child these days. Good-bye." + +They looked tenderly, frankly, in each other's eyes and then the girl +was gone. + +And that night Cynthia sat beside Ann Walden and kept watch and guard +while faithful Sally slept. The bedchamber was very quiet and only a +tallow candle lighted the gloom. The figure stretched out upon the bed +was deathlike in its rigid motionlessness, and Cynthia's hand lay over +the thin, old wrinkled ones for fear in a drowsy moment the woman might +elude her. + +It was past midnight when Ann Walden stirred and opened her eyes. +Cynthia was alert at once, but the light that shone on the old face +revealed an expression which had not rested there for many a day. + +"Queenie!" + +A cold horror overcame Cynthia, but she held her position and whispered: + +"Yes." + +"Go to bed, honey. I'm--I'm sorry." + +"Never mind, dear." Cynthia meant to play the old sad game that was +the only one possible with the poor creature on the bed. + +"I reckon it was--Thorndyke Bothwell over by Susie May Lanley's, wasn't +it?" + +"Yes, dear." + +"Why didn't you tell me, Queenie? Why didn't you-all trust me. I--I +didn't mean to--be hard." + +"No, dear. Never mind. Go--to sleep now." + +"Thorndyke Bothwell, he went away--but there must be--some one to +remember. The--letter--take it--to----" + +Then a spasm passed over the grim face upon the pillow. The fleeting +sanity was vanishing--"The hearthstone--her--down at Trouble----" + +The candle flickered up luridly. The weak voice of the old woman shook +and the eyes lost the lustre. + +"You must bide with her--at Trouble----" + +Cynthia could not understand; she had never seen the light fade from +the face of one she loved, so the fixed stare, the cessation of speech, +did not alarm her. + +"See, dear Aunt Ann, I will put my head down on your pillow, so! There +now! Shut your eyes right close, and I'll sing you to sleep, honey." + +The candle decided to splutter once more, and give up the struggle. +The long wick curled over, the tiny beam faded, and was--gone. + + Through the long night watches, + May Thine angels spread + Their white wings above me, + Watching round my bed. + + +Like a little mother crooning over her frightened child, Cynthia sang +the words tenderly. Marcia Lowe had taught her the words and tune +after her fright at the time of the fire. It had been Cynthia's first +evening song; she had often quieted her sudden fears in the dark nights +by repeating the tender words: + + Through the long night watches---- + +and sleeping, surely with white wings above them, Ann Walden and +Cynthia lay side by side when old Sally came to rouse them. + +Shocked and frightened, Sally got Cynthia from the room without the +girl realizing the conditions. Pacifying her by a promise to "take her +turn" at the bedside, she left the girl in her own chamber while she +ran, panting, stumbling--often pausing to rest--to Trouble Neck. + +"Ole Miss Ann don' gone out at the turning o' the tide," she sobbed to +Marcia Lowe. + +"And little Cyn?" + +"Come, oh! come," pleaded Sally; "fo' she cotch on." + +"And now," thought the doctor as she mounted her horse with Sally +astride behind, "I'm going to bring your little girl home, Uncle +Theodore, and take my chance and your chance with her!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Old Sally Taber sat in the full glow and warmth of an early October +afternoon and looked about Sandy Morley's kitchen. The glow came from +the sun which streamed through the broad window; the warmth emanated +from the stove which Marcia Lowe had trained Sally to understand and +respect. The cooking utensils, too, had become tractable objects in +Sally's determined hands, for with a perpetual land of promise and +fulfillment in sight, the old woman had rallied her forces for the +homestretch. + +Since the day when Ann Walden was laid in the family plot and Cynthia +had been taken to Trouble Neck, Sally had lived in Sandy Morley's cabin +and gloried in the title of "housekeeper." + +"Three weeks," muttered Sally, sitting with her skirts well drawn up; +her feet, encased in "old woman's comforts," resting comfortably in the +oven of the stove. + +"Three whole weeks an' po'k chops every day when there ain't something +better." + +With that she got up, went to a corner cupboard and brought out her can +of vaseline. + +"Yo' lyin' ole chile," she muttered; "yo' can sho' res' from yo' +labours. This am a lan' o' honey an' the honeycomb." + +Then voluntarily Sally raised the lid of the stove and pushed the tin +can in upon a blazing piece of wood. The flames caught the grease and +licked it greedily from the outer side of the box: + +"Massa Fire," laughed Sally; "yo' like dat po'k chop?" + +Then the heat hungrily battled for more and "pop" flew the cork and +back leaped Sally. + +"Gawd!" she gasped. "I sho' didn't think yo' would take it +that-er-way. I was only foolin'!" + +Sally had made great strides. She could laugh and joke with assurance +in her heart. Sandy Morley had promised that she might have a home to +the end of her days in Martin's cabin--the glorified cabin--and Sally, +like many another, was learning to trust Sandy as no one had ever been +trusted in Lost Hollow before. Sally rarely gave expression to her +sentiments; she did not mean to permit the child whom she had helped +Martin bring through his "teething," and whom she had spanked many a +time, to get the upper hand; but she prayed by her very comfortable bed +in the loft over the living-room that she might cook to Sandy's liking +and prove herself worthy the blessing God bestowed upon her in her old +age. + +Glaring at the stove and not daring to risk another outburst of +indignation, Sally stood helpless when Sandy entered the sunny kitchen. + +"What's the matter?" he asked. + +"Dat stove done have a real human sense," Sally replied; "an open fire +we-all can reckon with an' keep an eye on, but yo' shet fire up in a +packin' box an' who knows what's goin' on in its min'?" + +Sandy laughed, put the lid in its place and sat on the table, swinging +one long leg comfortably. He gloried in the element of home that he +had brought about him and to see Sally in the kitchen always gave him a +distinct thrill. + +"Make some gingerbread for supper," he pleaded, "and give me the +lickings, Sally. Do you know I never had lickings until I went to +Massachusetts." + +"Lands! Sandy Morley, I don' gave you millions mysef! Yo' pa was +allas fur lettin' yo' off, but I lathered yo' mo'n once, chile, an' so +saved yo' fo' yo' luck." + +"I mean 'leavings' in the bowl when the cake's ready for the oven. +Come Sally, let me help you get things together. Molasses, spices, +milk----" + +"I'll get the res'. Now, son, do tackle this yere can o' risin' +powder. Take this yere Handy Andy an' pry the kiver. Seems like these +new-fangled cookin' yarbs is put up jes' ter try the patience ob de +saints." + +Sandy took the instrument, and utilizing one of its many powers, +loosened the cover and handed the baking powder to Sally. + +"I wonder how you ever kept your hand in at cooking?" he said musingly +as he reflected upon the past. But Sally was on guard. + +"Lor, chile! an' why not? Ain't I allas had my own po'k and bacon? +Ain't I lived up to the Great House fo' years an' years?" + +"Of course. And Sally, that reminds me. I'm going to buy the Great +House and--make it as it was before the war!" + +"Gawd!" gasped Sally. + +"I shall want you to tell me exactly how it looked--you can remember?" + +"Why, yes, chile!" Sally's hand paused, spoon in air. "I can see it +same as it was yesterday. That-er Yankee man they called Sheridan--he +passed up by The Way an' he stopt right on the home-place o' +Stoneledge, an' General Walden he was there, an' old Miss, an' lil' +Miss Ann--she was right little an' young then but mighty peart. I was +stayin' at the Great House then, fo' it was near the time when lil' +Miss Queenie was goin' ter be born--her as died up Norf at a +horse-pittal. Well, that-er-Yankee Sheridan he don' say to General +Walden, 'We-all is near starvin'.' Jes' like a-that! An' General +Walden he don' say, standin' upperty an' mighty, 'We-all will share +with yo', general, bein' war is war.' Then what-er-yo' think? Lil' +Miss Ann she pearked up an' says right to his face: 'Yo' can't have +Anna Isabel!' She never batted an eye when she spoke up, an' I thought +I'd bust. The Yankee he don' ax who Anna Isabel was, an' lil' Miss Ann +said right stiff, 'She be my turkey--she be our Christmas dinner.' An' +jes' then Anna Isabel stalked straight-er-way befo' dat man Sheridan +an' lil' Miss Ann pointed an' says 'There's Anna Isabel!' Well, we-all +laughed an' I will say this for that Yank, he was powerful 'spectful to +us-all. 'I'm bleeged to come in an' res' an' have a meal,' he don' +said, and then he went on with his pack totin' at his heels. + +"Fo' de Lord, Sandy Morley, shet off that snortin', roarin' fire or +I'll fetch yo' a real old-time lick!" + +Sandy ran to regulate the dampers, his face radiant and boyish. He was +enjoying, as he never had enjoyed anything in his life before, the dear +home-atmosphere of his hills. + +Sally Taber returned to her task with energy born of appreciation. + +"We'll fix the old house of Stoneledge up in great shape," Sandy said, +coming back to the table and leaning forward on his hands to follow +Sally's energetic manipulation of the gingerbread; "that ought to be +something for the rest of us to live up to. I'd like to see little +Miss Cynthia installed there as mistress!" + +"Her ain't of the Walden blood----" Sally remarked, breathlessly +beating the golden brown batter. Sandy winced. "But her has caught +the manners." + +"And," Sandy steered away from the danger ground, "we'll have the +Home-school. It must be a home first; a school afterward, Sally. I +want the baby-things to have the 'lickings' of cakes and puddings in +the kitchen--it is to be a great, big, sunny kitchen! And I want them +to have bedtime stories and soft songs." Sandy's eyes, tender and +luminous, looked beyond Sally and rested on the gentle slope of Lost +Mountain. "I want them to have what every child has a right to and +which our children have never had." + +Sally was thoughtfully baling the light cake into the long, shallow +tins: + +"I clar' I don't know," she muttered, "how Smith Crothers is goin' to +'commodate hisself to yo'!" Then she shivered and stood upright, her +nostrils sniffing and her eyes alert like a deer in the wilds. "I don' +thought," she murmured, "dat I heard a step and saw a shadder fallin'! +Seems like the wind is changin', fetchin' chill an' storm!" + +Sandy, with the superstition of The Hollow responding in his blood, +went to the window overlooking The Way. Just turning into the trail +leading up to the cabin a tall, lithe form swung in sight. Well +dressed, carrying a modern suitcase, and whistling, gayly came the +stranger. At the moment of recognition Sandy felt a cold aloofness +overpower him. He spoke, as if to convince a doubting listener: "I--I +reckon that is Lans Treadwell! Treadwell, of all people!" + +But Sandy pulled himself together and went to greet his visitor with +characteristic warmth and cordiality. He believed it was only surprise +that had swayed him earlier. Lans, somehow, could not easily be fixed +into place in the rough hill life. Lans, always at his ease in Boston, +seemed oddly out of tune in Lost Hollow. But try as he might, Sandy +could not feel like himself, with Treadwell's cheerful laugh and +big-hearted, patronizing jollity resounding through the cabin. He was +too desperately and determinedly bent upon being "one of them" to be +comfortable. + +"By Jove! Morley," he exclaimed, when Sandy had drawn him into the +living room; "this is a place. You've worked wonders here. I have +always wanted to see you in your family--is that your--your mother?" +For Sally Taber could be seen and heard through the half-open door +leading to the kitchen. + +"No. My mother has been long dead. My father will return by evening +meal time. Come in here, Lans--you see I have unoccupied quarters----" +He led him to Levi's apartments. "Make yourself comfortable. I'll +start a fire on the hearth in this bedroom and the adjoining +sitting-room." + +"Well, I'll be"--Treadwell glanced about at the plain +luxury--"eternally flambusted! If you are not a----" Then he laughed. + +It was after the evening meal which Sally served in silent, morose +dignity, that the three men went to Sandy's study. The shed-rooms were +attached to the main cabin by a narrow hallway and this passage was +dark and cold. Coming from it into the warmth and glow of the room +filled with books and pictures, Treadwell paused to glance about and +exclaim before he took the easiest chair by the hearth and accepted +pipe and tobacco. Martin was ill at ease and looked helplessly now and +again to his son for leadings with this stranger who laughed so +constantly and regarded him as if he were a person of inferiority and +lack of intelligence who must, nevertheless, be treated with kindness +and tolerance. + +"I suppose," Treadwell remarked when the three had finally settled into +some kind of comfort, "I suppose, Sand, you wonder how I found you out?" + +Sandy had wondered but had restrained his curiosity. He looked now at +the big, handsome fellow and again was seized with the sense of chill +that he had felt in the afternoon. + +"It sounds like a fairy story--a best seller or what you will. By and +by"--he glanced at Martin as though to suggest a time when he would be +absent--"I've got a lot to tell you, but something turned turtle in my +affairs and got on to my nerves. Aunt Olive made me consult Doctor +Travers, he's my uncle's pet aversion, you know, because he wanted Aunt +Matilda to go into his sanatorium and Uncle Levi considered it an +insult. Well, I saw Travers and he advised a vacation. 'Get to the +hills,' he suggested, 'and browse a bit. Why don't you go up to that +place--a hole in the ground,' he called it, 'where your uncle has +sent--Morley?' And then it all came out, and by Jove! I found out +that you hailed from the place of my forefathers!" + +At this Martin dropped his pipe on the hearth and fixed his dim eyes on +the stranger's face. Back rolled the years that had been but stagnant +pools in poor Martin Morley's life; into focus came the simple hates +and injustices that had brought him where he was. + +"Your--forefathers!" he gasped, while a weird familiarity and +resemblance to--he knew not what--made Treadwell something tangible and +actual at last. + +"Yes. We still own a good bit of land over beyond the place called The +Forge. I've been having a look at it. It's run wild and rank, but it +might be reclaimed, I suppose. There is a depraved old squatter on the +place; lives in an old smoke-house. He actually remembered my +grandfather and what do you think, Morley"--Lans had turned his back +upon Martin, whose fixed stare and rigid pose disturbed him--"the old +codger actually told me half of a story the other half of which Aunt +Olive and I have often laughed over. Oddly enough it is a new and +another connecting link between you and me. We're throw-backs, old +fellow! Throw-backs and neither of us realizing it, but just naturally +coming together." + +Sandy was looking at his father. Martin was pale and haggard and his +bony hands clutched his thin knees until the knuckles were strained and +white. + +"Hertford!" whispered Martin; "Hertford!" + +"Sure thing!" Lans gave a laugh. "See, I'm discovered even in this +disguise." He nodded toward the old man as one might toward an +imbecile who had shown a gleam of intelligence. "Lansing Hertford is +my real name; named for a grandfather just as you are, Sandy Morley. +You see I've patched the scraps together. It was your grandfather and +mine who were good pals way back in the musty ages. Some one played a +practical joke on them and the friendship went up in thin air. It's +left for you and me to pick up the pieces and--cement them together. I +wonder if you ever heard about the bottle of stuff my grandfather gave +your grandfather to bring home from--from Turkey, I think it was. Our +forebears were globe trotters in a day when to trot meant to make +history." + +"I--I've heard it," Sandy muttered, his eyes still fixed on his +father's rigid face. + +"Did you ever hear the--joke?" + +"Joke? No! Was there a joke?" + +"Yes. Your relative stopped in Paris--he was a jolly old buck +according to reports--and he hugged that everlasting bottle so close to +him that some fellows--sounds beastly frivolous to refer to those +dignified shades as fellows--but, anyway, some chaps from round about +here were doing gay Paree just then and they caught on to your +grandsire's devotion to that phial; they called it his Passion, his +mistress, and one night when he had left it hidden in his room they +found it, emptied out the contents--some kind of cologne it was--and +filled it with water! They never heard the outcome, but Aunt Olive and +I have often wondered how--some mountain girl probably enjoyed her +smelling salts, or perfume, or whatever it was!" + +Sandy could not move. He was spellbound, but Martin struggled to his +feet and stood towering over Lans Treadwell, shaking as with ague. + +"I reckon I can tell you how it--turned out," he said, while his poor +old chin quivered as if the effort was almost more than he could +endure. "It war this-er-way. He came home to The Hollow, Sandy's +grandfather, an' he brought the bottle of--water! Oh! my God--and them +as opened the bottle--found out and began--to whisper! They all +whispered an' nudged ole Sandford Morley out of life an' inter his +grave. They-all hinted that he war a thief, a betrayer of his friend, +but he war that upright and clean that he war deaf to whispers an' +he--he didn't know the language of dirty slurs and off looks from them +as war once his friends! He went to his grave without knowing what had +edged him outer the respect of his neighbours. Then the lie grew an' +grew an' took the life an' souls outer us-all an' made us po' +whites--us as war as good an' better than your kin!" + +A terrible fury was rising in Martin, and Sandy, unable to clarify the +situation, paused before entering the fray. + +"Then Sandy here, he got his call an' rose up to save us-all. Out in +the world he found--you. You've come here--for what? for what?" + +"Father!" At last Sandy was beside the old man. "Father, remember he +is our guest! He has come to clear--can you not see--he has +cleared--our name!" + +Exultation and joy flooded Sandy; and his touch on his father's arm, +the thrill in his voice had power to calm the old man. + +"Good God!" Treadwell exclaimed, rising and facing the two; "is it out +of such stuff, such dreams, such grudges, such shabby jokes, the life +of the hills is made?" + +"Yes." Sandy whispered, "out of such stuff we come--or remain! You +can never know what you have done for us, Lans. Father will realize it +later--he's nearer the past than I am. For myself I--thank you! You +have, well, you cannot understand, but it's like you had put a broad, +wide window in our lives, letting in sunshine and sweet air where mould +and rot had once been." + +He stretched his hand out frankly and tried to push his father forward +to do the same, but Martin turned away, the tears streaming from his +eyes. Sandy was looking to the future; Martin to the past; and Lansing +Treadwell stood between the two with a light laugh upon his lips and a +vague, contemptuous wonder in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +They had tramped the hills together, Sandy and Lans. They had gone +carefully over the plans for the factory and Home-school, had seen the +growing building of the former and revelled in the dreams of the latter. + +"It proves my liking for you, old chap," Lans had said, "when I can +look at all this and not envy you. You see, Uncle Levi wanted to train +me in the way I should go, but I got a twist in the wrong direction +and--well! I never squeal. That's about all the philosophy or +religion I have--I never squeal! Live your life; take your chances and +squeal not! Then you remember I used to tell you that I was a big +bungling giant? You've got the vision and the leading. But to think +of Uncle Levi putting the reins in your hands! I can imagine him +letting any one he likes hold the _end_ of the reins--but he's leaned +back and is letting you drive." + +"Yes--but only because his big, wise head and loving heart tell him +this is a safe road to travel." + +"Oh! I don't know. Who's going to be any the better for--all this? +There's a lot of Tommyrot about charity. If I were going to splurge +I'd do it in the middle of the stage and make an advertisement of it at +the same time. It's cheaper and more sensible. Why, if Uncle Levi +would spend in Boston what he's spending up here--he'd have the world +talking about his mills." + +Sandy turned away. He was thinking of what Levi had said to him a few +weeks before as he was ending his visit in Bretherton. + +"Son"--he was "son" to the old brother and sister after that trip +abroad--"son, go back to your hills and see in every ragged boy--Sandy +Morley! In every little lass--your sister Molly! Gather them in, son, +gather them in, and let us help them as we helped you to--come out +cleaner and better. Work up there, son, as if God Almighty's eye alone +was upon you. Men have forgotten the hill people, but God called you +to lead them out of bondage." + +"It pays to advertise," Lans was remarking. + +"Yes," Sandy returned; "and Mr. Markham advertises in a most original +and picturesque way." + +Through all the walks and drives round about The Hollow, Sandy inwardly +prayed that Cynthia might not materialize. Why he so strongly desired +this he could not tell. He liked Lans; enjoyed his visit and +companionship, but he hoped he would leave before Cynthia appeared. He +grew restless at times and found himself longing to tell Treadwell that +the Markhams were coming to The Hollow for Christmas, and the rooms +occupied by Lans would be needed. But the days went by and Cynthia +kept from sight. The truth was, Sally Taber had gone to Trouble Neck +and spread the news and warning. + +"You-all bes' stay away," she said; "dis yere Yank be right triflin' +and polite. He makes us-all feel like we war dirt under his feet. I +clar' I'd like to work an evil charm on him! Ole Mr. Morley he don' +take naturally to the woods an' leaves them young gem'men to +themselves. I keep the do' closed 'twixt them an' me--he makes me feel +like there was traps set fo' my feet." + +"You must be having a real gay time up there!" Marcia Lowe replied, +laughing at poor old Sally's indignation. + +"Well, I'se cookin' mo' an' mo' monstrous every day. If that Yank can +stan' what I have in store fo' him from now on, I reckon he don' got a +stummick like a beast o' burden." + +"Ah! poor Sandy," Cynthia cried; "you'll kill him, too. I reckon I'll +come up and bring him food at night and put it in his study." + +"Not just yet, little Cyn," Marcia Lowe replied, putting a protecting +arm about the girl. "Cynthia's a bit run down," she explained to +Sally; "off her feed a little. We're going to have a holiday. What do +you think?--Mr. Greeley is going to take us 'over the hills and far +away'--about twenty-five miles away! He's going over to make a will +for an old man who is dying and he's invited us to share his carriage. +Take good care of the Morleys, Sally, and let's hope the stranger will +leave before we return. I'm getting real Southern in my tastes and am +positively suspicious of Northerners!" + +And it was a few nights after the night that Tod Greeley, with Marcia +Lowe and Cynthia tucked comfortably away in the back seat of his +carry-all, started on their trip, that Lans Treadwell and Sandy Morley +sat before the fire in the study and had their talk--the talk that +illumined the path on ahead for Sandy. + +"Old fellow!" exclaimed Lans, taking the cushions from the window-seat +and tossing them back again from where he stood in the middle of the +room; "never _place_ sofa pillows--chuck 'em! Only by so doing can you +give that free and easy grace that distinguishes a Frat cosy corner +from a drawingroom torture chamber." + +Every cushion that Treadwell tossed seemed to strike with a thud on +Sandy's heart. It was as if Treadwell were hurting little Cyn as she +sat in her window-seat with her dear face turned toward them. + +"Come, sit down, Lans. You are as nervous as a ghost-candle." + +"Thanks!" Treadwell took a chair across the hearth from his host. +"There's a devil of a storm rising out of doors." + +"They're right common this season of the year. About six or seven +years ago there was one up here that came mighty near ending the +existence of a good many--it did carry one poor old darky woman away." + +"That's cheerful! Sand, forgive me if I seem brutal, but do you know I +believe the cooking up here is giving me indigestion. I wouldn't mind +this if I didn't have your anatomy in mind, too. Those--what do you +call them?" + +"Ash cakes?" + +"Yes. They were, to put it mildly, damnable." + +Sandy laughed. + +"They were right ashy," he admitted. "Sally is old and careless." + +"She'll murder you, if you don't look out." + +Sandy kicked a log farther back on the hearth and the room was filled +with rosy light and warmth. + +"Your father doesn't seem particularly drawn to me, Sand. Does he +always retire to his chamber as soon as he has finished his--his +evening meal? Somehow it looks pointed!" + +Lans was not his usual, sunny self. The rising storm, his own +thoughts, and the evil ash cakes were having their way with him. + +"I never question father, Lans. He is old. I want him to do exactly +as he chooses. You must not take offence." + +"Certainly not. Only I do not want to feel I drive him away or deprive +you of his companionship. Ever since I told the joke about that bottle +of perfumery he seems to avoid me." + +"Father hasn't a sense of humour," Sandy ventured, striving to keep the +bitterness of resentment from his voice. + +"The devil!" ejaculated Lans. "That log spits like a hag. A spark +fell straight on my ankle." + +"Excuse it," Sandy murmured, smiling as Lans nursed his silk-enclosed +ankle. + +"Hang it all, Sand! I've got to get back to civilization!" + +Sandy bent over the fire to conceal his feelings. "Not to-night, +surely," he said. + +"No, but in a day or so. Morley, I--I want to tell you something. +Tell you why I cut and came up here right in the middle of things at +home." + +The storm outside pounded on the windows; the fire flared and chuckled +crisply. Sandy thought about Cynthia, wondered where she was, and then +he became conscious of something Treadwell was saying. + +"There was a time, Sand, when I couldn't have come to you with this. I +thought you were such an infernal puritan--but Aunt Olive has told me +of that--that little affair of yours which ended so--well so happily +tragical, and it has made you seem more human. Of course there could +have been no better way out for you and--her, and Uncle Levi was a +brick to overlook it. I've liked him better for it, but my affair is +another matter." + +Sandy gazed dumbly at Treadwell and could not frame words to call the +other to a halt. Not comprehending what Lans knew or misunderstood, +having no intention of explaining--he simply stared and then turned to +mend the fire. + +"My affair--is different. You know about it--partially?" + +"I've heard something. It was none of my business." A sternness crept +into Sandy's voice which Treadwell entirely misunderstood. + +"Well, because it was possible for me to come to you; because of all my +friends, you seemed in this hour of trouble, the only one I _could_ +come to, I want you to make it your business, Sand." + +The low-pitched, pleading voice awoke sympathy. It was that tone and +manner which had caused people to straighten out the snarls of Lans +Treadwell's life from babyhood up. There was capitulation. It was as +if he had said: "I deserve no pity, no comfort, but--give them to me!" +It awoke all the spontaneous desire for his happiness in every +tender-hearted person who knew and liked him. + +"I'm not indifferent, Lans. I only meant that in your friendship and +mine there have always been reservations. You took me up because of +your generous friendliness; you helped me mightily. I never felt the +slightest inclination to penetrate into your private life, and my own +was of such a nature that I was obliged to live it alone. My years +away from the mountains were years of preparation to come back. Every +hand held out to me was but a power to help me on my course. I have +never--except recently with the Markhams--ever taken anything +personally. I have always recognized that I was called to serve my +people; I have been grateful, but I have never appropriated." + +Treadwell looked hard at the fine, dark face touched now to vivid +beauty by the rich glow of the fire. + +"And I know few fellows who have won out as you have," he said +admiringly. "You have that in you, about you, that attracts and +compels. People trust you, like you--need you when a pinch comes." + +"Thank you, Lans." + +"And God knows I want you, need you, now!" + +Sandy put out his hand, Treadwell gripped it, then both leaned back in +their chairs and the story came, set to the wild strains of the +mountain storm. + +"She was one of those little creatures born to be the plaything of +Fate. When she was seventeen she married Jack Spaulding--he was part +genius, but more fool. He was caught by the girl's spirituality and +brightness and he couldn't any more comprehend her than a raw-boned +Indian could understand a water sprite. To him she was a woman he +wanted--nothing more. He got her and when he wasn't lost in the maze +of invention he permitted her--Good God!--he permitted her to supply +the needs and yearnings of the--the man in him. Poor, little entrapped +soul! She struggled between duty and loathing until her Guardian Angel +saved her. When Spaulding was going through his ups and downs of +fortune she stood by him. His downs were oftener and longer than his +ups and she was pure grit and a bully little sport. Then he got on his +feet with a vengeance. He could give her anything and, like a big, +blundering savage he began to load her down with _things_ and make his +demands for payment and she--up and left him!" + +Sandy felt that the heat of the room was oppressive, but he held his +position and flinched not. + +"Poor, little white-souled girl! She left him and tackled life with +her wits and her two pretty hands. I met her during my senior year. +She was reporting for a Boston paper, getting starvation wages; living +like a bird in two rooms of a high-pitched house off in a desolate +corner of town and thanking God for her--escape and freedom. Well, I +lost my heart to her and you know how I and my set feel about certain +things. Laws are all right for the--herd; a present help for the +helpless; protection for the happy, and all the rest, but they should +be handled wisely and discriminately by the intelligent minority. +She--Marian Spaulding held the same views!" + +"Why--didn't she divorce him--her husband?" Somehow the question +sounded crude and unnecessary on Sandy's lips. + +"For form's sake, she tried. Spaulding would not let her. He was an +ugly devil and he just couldn't understand any woman snapping her +fingers at his big money. He meant to starve her out, but he--well, he +got left! + +"I took rooms out near Cambridge. At first we were--friends! I wanted +her to have time and quiet to think it out her own way. Learn to trust +me; come to me of her own accord and because she was large enough to +choose the braver course." + +The heat was stifling Sandy, but he gripped the arms of his chair and +kept still. + +"She--she came to me willingly--three months ago! I've known and she +has known, Sand, such bliss as only free, untrammeled souls can know +who have gone through hell fire and proven themselves!" + +Sandy almost sprang up. "You won't mind," he said jerkily, "if I raise +the window? The room is like a furnace." + +When he came back to his place, Lans, head bent forward in clasped +hands, was ready for him. + +"Women are all alike in some ways. They never dare let go entirely and +plunge! They hold on to something, get frightened, and scurry back to +tradition. Three weeks ago Spaulding sent for her--for Marian. He'd +lost everything; was ill and needed her. She went! I found a +note--that's all." + +"Well!" Then having said that one word, Sandy sought about in his +confused mind for another. Again he said, "Well!" and waited. + +"I--I cannot be happy without her. The longer I stay away the stronger +her claim seems to me. I must go back and--try again." + +"Try--what?" + +Sandy felt the cool, wet outer air touch his face as he leaned forward, +for at last Lans Treadwell had aroused him. He was not, however, +thinking of Lans and his yearnings; he was thinking of a little, +unknown woman who was following the gleam of her conscience, while +love, selfish love, was ready to spring upon her with its demands, +before she had wrestled with and solved her own problem. + +"Try--what?" + +"To get her away from Spaulding; get her back to me and--happiness. We +were happy, God knows we were!" + +"If you--if she were happy, then her going proved something stronger +than happiness called her." + +"Women are like that. They hold the world back by their conventions +and conservations. They ask for freedom and--and equality, and then +they cling to tradition in spite of all." + +"I reckon," Sandy's eyes were troubled and tender, "I reckon we-all +better keep our hands off for a while and watch out to see them, the +women, solve what is their business. They-all may want freedom and the +rest--but it must be--as they see freedom and equality, Lans. I'm +mighty sure in every woman's heart there is the beginning of a path +leading--out and up, that they can find better alone. Why don't you +wait until--until this little"--Sandy dropped into the sweet +"lil"--"this little woman comes to you." + +"She'd never come!" Lans half groaned; "you do not know how tradition +would hold her there. She'd starve rather than to call me now." + +Sandy was thoughtful a moment. He saw that Treadwell probably was +right there, but a strange sense of protection rose in his heart. He +felt he must protect that distant, strange woman from Lans in his +present mood. + +"Then I reckon you better stand off and watch unseen, Lans." Sandy +made a bold stroke: "Are you thinking of her only? I'm mighty sure, +Treadwell, in a case like this you ought not, you--dare not think of +any one but her!" + +The bald, rigid reasoning struck Lans Treadwell like the cold draught +from the open window. + +"Good God! Sand," he ejaculated, "let me shut that sash down. The cold +gets into your heart as if it were driven by some infernal machine." + +Sandy got up and pulled the glass down sharply, but he could not, +thereby, bring comfort to Lans' conscience. + +"What do you mean by a case like this, Sand? No case between man and +woman can be separated that way. Her need is my need; mine is hers!" + +"Is it?" + +"Thunder! Sand, of course it is." + +"I--I do not know. Things come so slowly, but I'm trying to learn for +the sake of my people. The women and children, Lans, have got a clutch +on me; they must always come first. Even when we want women happy, we +want to give them happiness; give them the liberty _we_ think is good +for them. Treadwell, I'm mighty sure there are times when we-all +better get out and leave them alone! We only make matters worse. You +do not know these hills as I do--I don't want to preach, heaven knows! +As I talk I am only feeling my own way, not pointing yours; but I know +my hill people, and the women and children tug right hard at my heart. +When love--such love as our mountain men know--takes a woman into a +cabin--it generally shuts God out! I know this, and the children that +come into life by way of our cabins are--well! I was a cabin boy, +Lans! Women need God oftener than we-all do. Love puts a claim on +them that it never does on us-all. Love demands suffering of them; +responsibility that man never knows. Treadwell, we men must never clog +up the trail that leads woman to her God. I know I'm right there! But +tell me, are women and men different, so different in the lowlands and +highlands?" + +Treadwell was bent over, his face hidden in his hands. He made no +answer. + +"That little woman--down there"--Sandy's eyes were far and away from +the warm, rude comfort of the room which held him and that stricken +figure by the hearth--"is battling for what she believes is right. +Something in her was strong enough to take her from you, your love, and +the safety you stand for in her life. She has gone back to--what has +stood for hell in her past. Do you, can you, understand her, +Treadwell?" + +"No!" + +"Then, keep away until God, as she knows God, has had His way with her. +Stand off and watch. Be ready, but let her fight her fight and come to +you, if that is the end--with clean soul!" + +And now Lans Treadwell was weeping as only men and children can weep +when they are defeated by a stronger will they cannot understand, and +cannot resist. + +The great logs crackled and the wind roared in the chimney. Above, the +shambling steps of Martin Morley sounded as he made his preparations +for bed. Suddenly Sandy started up and listened. + +"There's a call of distress from The Way," he said, getting upon his +feet. Then he stood waiting for the next sound. Treadwell pulled +himself together and listened also. + +No call came, but presently steps were heard outside--a tap on the door +of the room which led directly to the open. + +"Come!" said Sandy, and in walked Marcia Lowe and Cynthia Walden. They +were rain-soaked and wind-blown. Their faces shone and their eyes +danced. + +"This is the end of our holiday," Marcia said with a laugh. Neither +she nor Cynthia paid attention to the man in the chair; he was hardly +visible behind the high back. "Tod Greeley's shaft broke just as we +were coming into The Way from the cross cut. We called and called, but +finally we decided to find where we were--it is as black as a pocket +out of doors--we were all completely lost. Cynthia and I felt our way +along, while Greeley stayed with the horse--the beast acted like a +fiend--and then we saw a light: your light! No other man in The Hollow +wastes oil like you--and here we are!" + +At this Treadwell made himself evident. Turning sharply, he met the +big, lovely eyes of the girl beside the talkative little woman. The +fair, damp face was inframed by tendrils of light hair under a hood of +dullish red; the long, coarse, brown coat clung to the slim figure, and +the mouth of the girl was smiling. Treadwell had never seen a mouth +smile so before. + +Sandy introduced his friend and then said: "Lans, make the ladies +comfortable; I'll lend Greeley a hand." + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Lance Treadwell did not leave the mountains the next day. The storm +poured, and Sandy's words sunk deep in his light mind. + +"Yes," he thought to himself virtuously, "I'll let Marian have it out +with her conscience or whatever it was that took her from me. I'll +write and tell her I'm waiting up here!" + +In the meanwhile Treadwell took a new interest in the mountains, +especially in that part of them known as Trouble Neck. Marcia Lowe and +her "charm" appealed to him hugely. + +"Why, it's been introduced in many other places," he said to the little +doctor; "why can't you get your representative at Washington to get an +appropriation for you?" + +Marcia Lowe laughed long and merrily at this. "I really do not know +who represents us at Washington," she replied; "it is some distant man, +like as not, with axes galore of his own to grind, with these mystic +votes of the mountains to help along. Doubtless he has a soul above +names, and if a petticoat doctor should go to him and plead her cause +for these people he would probably have me shut up as a maniac. The +Forge doctor is making himself very unpleasant. He told me the other +day that if I persisted in working my charm on many more people he +would have me--investigated! Just fancy! investigating me! He used to +laugh at me; it's got past the laughing stage now. When professional +people step on each other's toes the atmosphere is apt to be electric. +The Forge doctor has at last concluded that I am not a joke. A woman, +to that sort of man, is either a joke or a menace." + +Treadwell laughed gayly. Marcia Lowe was a delight to him; besides, +Cynthia Walden was always present when he visited Trouble Neck, and +Cynthia was bewitching. Treadwell did not talk of the girl to Sandy. +He had no special reason for not doing so, but, having posed as a +tragic creature--a man confronting a great soul-problem--he did not +like to come down from his pedestal and stand revealed as a human being +interested in a mountain girl. + +"Her smile," he said to Marcia Lowe one day when Cynthia had left the +room for a moment--"how do you account for that?" + +"I never account for Cynthia," the little doctor replied. "I just take +her and thank God. She and I live our beautiful little life with mists +all about us. It's very fascinating and inspiring. She is such a +child, and until there is some call to do otherwise, I am going to play +with her. We actually have dolls! Of course there are all sorts of +bones in the cupboard to pass out to the darling, but I'm waiting until +she is hungry." + +And so Cynthia played her part and smiled and dreamed. Things just +were! There was no perspective, no contrast--the sun was always +flooding her hours with the one small, white cloud of Sandy's marked +passage in the "Pilgrim's Progress," to sail across her sky now and +then. Treadwell did not surprise or shock her. He seemed a big, +splendid happening from the world beyond the mountains. He was strong +and pleasant and made one laugh, but he would go presently and they +would talk about him as they talked about Sheridan's raid and Smith +Crothers' fire--he was not part of Lost Mountain! + +Cynthia, nevertheless, walked with Lans Treadwell through the trails, +and once they had followed the Branch and come upon the new factory +near The Forge. The girl told Treadwell of the fire, but she +eliminated herself utterly from the story. She understood better now +than she once had--her part in that snowy night. Then they spoke of +Sandy and his hopes. + +It was a gray, still day when they so freely discussed Sandy, and they +were strolling up from Trouble Neck to the Morley cabin; Miss Lowe and +Sandy were to meet them there later, coming from an opposite direction. + +"Yes, Sandy is right noble," Cynthia said softly; "he was born, I +reckon, to do a mighty big thing. When he was little it seemed like +God said, 'Sandy Morley, I choose you!' There never was any one like +Sandy." + +Treadwell scanned the face near him, but saw only admiration and pride, +detached and pure. + +"We-all just waited like we were holding our breaths till he came +marching up The Way. I can laugh now, Mr. Lans, but the morning I saw +him first I was standing right there"--she pointed to the tree by the +road where she had listened to Sandy's bird call--"and he came along, +and when I knew that that big man was--my Sandy that went all raggedy +down The Way years before--I expect I hated him! It seemed like he had +stolen the nice boy, eaten him up and swallowed him! But no one hates +Sandy. We-all want to do something big and fine. Why, every time I +look at him, Mr. Lans, I feel like I must show him how glad I am +he--well, he didn't swallow the old Sandy whole!" + +Treadwell laughed delightedly. + +"He's mighty good to get near to when you feel--troubled," Cynthia +added; "and, too, you feel like you wanted to keep him from hurting +himself!" + +"How well you put it!" Treadwell's face grew serious. He recalled his +hour of confession in Sandy's study and felt an honest glow of +appreciation. + +"When I was a right little girl," Cynthia went on, "I lived up at +Stoneledge with Aunt Ann; she was my real aunt. I had a mighty queer +life for a little girl and I reckon I would have fared mighty bad if I +hadn't had a secret life!" + +"You bad child!" Treadwell cried, shaking his finger at her; "a double +life, eh?" + +"Yes." The sweet smile gave Lans a bad moment. "Yes. In that-er-life +I had all the things I wanted; all the folks I liked, and it just kept +me--going! Sometimes I wish, oh! how I wish, that Sandy had a nice +little other life, free of work and worry and loneliness, where he +could--let go! Sandy does hold on so!" + +"I wish I could have been in your 'other life'," Lans whispered. + +"Oh! real folks never got there!" + +"Well, if it will comfort you any," Treadwell broke in with an +uncomfortable sense of being an off-mountaineer, "Sandy has--another +life." + +"Really?" Cynthia flushed and curiosity swayed her. She had never had +so good an opportunity to know the man Sandy; she might never have +again. "Really? and folks, right magic folks to--to play with?" + +Treadwell thought of the Markhams and grinned; then he thought of +Sandy's secret relations with the girl his aunt had told him of and he +grew imaginative. "Yes. Now there is a man in Sandy's other world, a +grim, rather stern man, but he has a magic wand that he lets Sandy wave +now and then--it's great fun!" + +"Oh! you mean the Company?" + +"Exactly. That's his pet name. And there is a nice old fairy +godmother who brews wonderful mixtures for Sandy and darns his socks +and makes believe, when no one is listening, that she is his mother." + +"I should love her, the honey!" + +Treadwell stopped and gave a big, hearty laugh. Matilda Markham as a +"honey" was about the most comical thing he had ever dreamed of. + +"And is there"--the drawling sweetness of Cynthia's voice was moving +Treadwell dangerously--"is there something young and pretty and mighty +bright, too?" + +"Yes." Treadwell's laugh was gone. + +"A--girl--I reckon?" + +"Yes, a girl--just girl enough, you know, to keep him--like--well--like +other fellows." + +"Oh!" Cynthia smiled, but her eyes grew as gray as the day; the blue +faded from them. "I hope she is a mighty nice, upperty girl." + +"I'm only playing, you know," Lans broke in. "I am imagining a life +for Sandy something like your old secret life. It's all fun." + +"You mean--Sandy has an--an imagination?" + +"Precisely." + +But the "girl" part of the make-believe remained in Cynthia's memory. +Sandy had had his pretty story down there, away from Lost Hollow! Now +he had come back; had left it all behind him! She saw it quite +clearly. Perhaps when he was on that recent visit he had looked upon +all the dear playthings as she used to look at her "Pilgrim's +Progress," the portraits on the walls of the Interpreter's House, and +her letters to her soul. Perhaps Sandy had played with the wand of the +grim old Company; had tasted the brews of the dear Fairy Godmother and +he had--bidden good-bye to the pretty girl-thing! It was very plain +now; Sandy had accepted his life of duty in the hills, he had shut the +door between him and his playroom. + +Just then Smith Crothers crossed The Way, lifting his hat as he did so, +to Cynthia. So silently had he come, so suddenly had he materialized, +that Cynthia was taken off her guard. Her hand went to her side--but +the pistol was not there! In her safer, saner life she often forgot +the dangerous thing. A shudder ran through her body and she drew +nearer Treadwell. The soft, gray day grew dark, and Crothers, like +something evil, seemed to pervade everything. Instinctively Lans put +his hand out and laid it protectingly on the shoulder beside him. The +touch shared the taint, too. + +"Oh! do not do that," pleaded Cynthia recoiling. "I was only startled +because--he--the man came so suddenly." + +"But I--I only wanted you to know you have--nothing to fear with me +here." + +Cynthia made an effort to smile, but it was a sad, little shadowy +wraith of a smile. + +The touch, the resentment, began their work from that moment. As +Cynthia's shudder at Crothers' touch in the past had fanned the evil +passions of the man, so her recoil now drew Treadwell's attention to +the fact that she was not a child--but a woman; a woman who recognized +him as man! The thought thrilled and interested him. It made him +forget to write that letter to Marian Spaulding; it made him conscious +that he did not care to talk about his many visits to Trouble Neck with +Sandy Morley. + +And Sandy, during the days of the prolonged visit, was often absent +from home. The factory and the Home-school claimed his care and +presence. He feared, at first, that Treadwell would have a dreary time +by himself, but there were books, and Lans repeatedly told him the rest +and quiet were doing him a world of good. Then--and the desire +confused Sandy--he wished Treadwell would cut his visit short. The +confession in the study had not drawn Treadwell nearer; it had driven +him farther away. It was as if, by keener insight, Sandy had been +cruelly disillusioned; had discovered that he, not Lans, was bound to +bear a new burden of responsibility. Having confided in his friend, +Treadwell, apparently, was eased and comforted; while Sandy was +constantly thinking of a certain, vague, little suffering creature who, +by a word of his, was left to a hard fight with no help at hand. + +"Why in thunder!" Sandy thought as he and Martin worked with the men +over at the factory; "why in thunder doesn't he go home and--stand by?" + +But Lans did not go away, and more than Sandy grew restive. Martin had +taken a deep dislike to the visitor and was only held in check by +Sandy's reasoning and demands. + +"Why, Dad, Lans had nothing to do with the old misunderstanding. He +has really done us a good turn by throwing light on the past." + +"He--he laughed!" muttered Martin. "They-all laugh that-er-way. Big +things is little to them-all; and little things is--big! Them +Hertfords be--no-count! They all sound upperty and look upperty, but +they-all is--trash!" + +"Come, come, Dad! Lans isn't trash. He's done me more than one good +turn." + +"I reckon he'll do you a right smart bad one some day, son." + +"Dad!" + +"Yes, son. Now, why didn't the old general come an' tell us-all 'bout +the joke? Why didn't he give us-all a chance to jine in the laugh? +Then this lad's father--why didn't he come back to Lost Hollow and find +out 'bout--Queenie Walden, as was?" + +Martin's voice sank into a whisper, but the words had a terrific effect +upon Sandy. So naturally had he accepted the life of The Hollow again, +so happily had he permitted his hills to draw close about him, shutting +away the noises and interpretations of the big outer world, that the +old doubt about Cynthia's poor mother, the loyal outward holding to the +story Ann Walden had told of her birth, had escaped him. Now it came +thundering through Martin's whisper like a heavy blow. + +If that hushed belief were true, then--Sandy could not stand; he sat +down upon a fallen tree and stared at his father. + +"If that is true, then Cynthia and Treadwell are----" The thought +burned itself into the mind and soul of Sandy Morley. No longer could +he permit things to drift past him; here, among his hills, vital truths +were vital truths and might make or mar the people he was bent upon +helping. + +"Cold cramp yo', son?" Martin gazed at his boy. + +"For a minute--yes, Dad." + +From that day Sandy knew that Treadwell must go away. Just how to +bring it about he did not know, for his shadowy doubt could not be +voiced; there was not the least reason why it should be--but Cynthia +must be kept from the intangible something that could never touch her +but to bring dishonour. And after Lans departed, Sandy thought, he +would try to know more of the hideous uncertainty; seek to find out +what ground there was for the doubt. In rebuilding Stoneledge, he must +do more--he must try to take the blight from the old name. "But +suppose"--and at that Sandy raised his head--"more glory in the end and +more need to win Cynthia to him!" + +While Sandy was struggling to work his way out of the snare, struggling +to discover some social plank down which Treadwell could be courteously +slid from Lost Mountain to Boston without damage to his dignity or the +Morley sense of hospitality, Smith Crothers got his inspiration. + +Filled with hate and envy, appreciating the fact that Sandy's business +enterprises were menaces to his future prosperity, the man silently and +morosely plotted and planned some kind, any kind of revenge. Cynthia, +he dared not approach personally; even his evil thoughts dared not rest +upon her directly. He had nothing with which to lure her; not even a +decent approach could be made. The girl was always on guard; he could +make no apology; he could hope from no self-abasement to win her faith. +To harm her brutishly would be to secure his own death, for well he +knew that the subtle force that was coming into life in The Hollow was +making the men remember they were men and the women to realize it also. +Then, too, the factory back of The Hollow would be running in a year's +time. It would put on the market a different line of merchandise than +his, but it would draw its labour from the same sources from which he +drew. + +"That damned yellow cur," Crothers thought, "will put up prices; shut +down on the brats, and backed by the money of a fool who thinks to get +a big name this-er-way, will get me by the throat if I don't get him +first." + +Vaguely, stupidly, Crothers desired to get Sandy away from The Hollow. +If only he could cause him to lose interest, give up the job and turn +the Company up North sick of the venture, all might be well. Crothers +had even fancied the good effect of a plague in The Hollow that would +wipe out the labouring class; of course, that would cripple him, but +he'd have the ground to himself and he could make up for that. +However, at the plague suggestion Marcia Lowe rose grimly with warning +gesture. The little doctor was undermining several things. She was +teaching the women to live decently, cook decently, and take a human +interest in their children. Her charm, too, was having effect; more +than Martin Morley had tested its potency and taken to holier ways. +The Forge doctor often told Crothers that the She-Saw-Bones ought to be +behind bars, but even in Lost Hollow you couldn't put a person behind +bars for cleaning souls and homes. + +And then, at that juncture, Crothers came upon Treadwell and Cynthia. +He saw the girl's shudder and her look at her companion, and he +understood the shudder but misunderstood the look! Lansing Treadwell +had not cared to cover his true identity; rather boastfully he had +proclaimed himself a Hertford and meant, some day, to reclaim his +family lands and bring back the glory of the past. But Lost Hollow had +its private opinion of the Hertfords, and when the County Club had been +permitted to share the joke about that old story which had damned the +Morleys, the club refused to laugh. Oddly enough they took sides with +Martin Morley, and in their late understanding of facts made flattering +overtures to Martin that embarrassed him deeply. + +"Morley," Tod Greeley urged, "you-cum down to the club and set in +Townley's armchair. Andrew Townley ain't ever going to sit anywhere +again, I reckon; he's flat on his back for keeps now. His chair is +mighty empty-looking and there ain't a man round the store but would +welcome you to that seat of honour." + +With no idea of resentment Martin replied: "You're mighty kind, +Greeley, and time was when I'd like to have jined you-all, but now +Sandy and me is right companionable and--him not being a smokin' man, +I'd be mighty lonesome in the circle, and Sandy would miss me to home." + +"And serves us-all right, too," Greeley said to the club. "Us-all +pitting a Hertford agin a Morley!" + +So the situation was ripe for Crothers to use Cynthia and the doubtful +Hertford against Morley, and, incidentally, the Company against Morley. + +"Sandy Morley would like to get the girl," Crothers reasoned +primitively; "and if this-er-Treadwell or Hertford can smirch her--it +will finish Sandy; take his appetite for The Hollow away and--clean up +the whole business--getting me even for past hurts, too--damn her!" + +Like many another blindly passionate man, Crothers hit out in the dark +with what weapons he had and landed a blow where he least expected, the +recoil of which stunned and downed him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Crothers was a man who approached his ends by the use of his better +qualities. The man whom the children of the factory shrank before in +trembling fear, the man whom the men fawned before, and the women +loathed and hated in dumb acquiescence, was not the man who years ago +crept around the desk in his office to implore a kiss from "little +Miss." Crothers could smile and speak courteously; his hard eyes could +soften and attract, and there was no doubt as to his business capacity +and positive genius in bargaining. + +With a more or less clear idea as to the outcome of his desires, +Crothers was perfectly explicit as to his desires. He wanted to get +Sandy Morley away, permanently away, from Lost Hollow. Could he +achieve this, his business might prosper as in old days, his command of +the community gain power and his future be secure. If he could bring +this desired consummation to pass, by harming Sandy and, incidentally, +Cynthia Walden and Marcia Lowe, so much the better. They were +disturbing elements in the place and nothing was secure, not even the +suppression of the women and the degeneracy of the men. + +"In the family and the town," Crothers had said once to Tod Greeley, +"there must always be a head; a final voice, or there will be hell." + +"Who do you want to boss your family and town?" Greeley had innocently +asked. Crothers had not committed himself; he believed actions should +speak louder than words! + +Seeking about for a beginning of his campaign to turn Sandy Morley from +his course, Crothers landed upon Lans Treadwell. + +Treadwell could not always be at Trouble Neck while Sandy and Martin +were at the factory-building back in the woods; reading palled upon +Lans, too, and the bad cooking for his private meals began to attract +his attention. That he did not resent anything in his friend's home +and make his farewell bow was characteristic of Lansing Treadwell. He +was thoroughly good-natured, inordinately selfish, and was consumed by +deep-rooted conviction that Sandy Morley owed him a great deal and that +he was conferring a mighty honour upon the young man by accepting his +hospitality. No doubt arose as to his right in sharing Sandy's home, +but as time went on he did, as all weak and vacillating natures do, +resent young Morley's strength of character, simplicity and capacity +for winning to himself that which Lans felt belonged to him by inherent +justice. It had been one thing to know that his Uncle Levi Markham had +taken another young man and set him on his feet, but quite another to +realize that his uncle had adopted a poor white from the native hills +of the Hertfords and was providing him with wings. A new element had +entered into Lans. + +"It's like Uncle Levi," he bitterly thought, with his Aunt Olive's +instructions well in mind, "to so degrade me, my father, and our +family. If he could put every upstart on a throne who had hewed his +way to the throne, he would be supremely happy." + +In these frames of mind Crothers and Treadwell met and exchanged views. +If Morley could put a factory up and hope for success, Lans wanted to +see the workings of a similar business already on the ground. So, +during listless hours, the young man frequented Crothers' +neighbourhood, ate at Crothers' boarding-house, and drank with him at +The Forge hotel. Not looking for any shortcomings, Lans did not +observe them. He found Crothers an agreeable man with a desire to +uplift The Hollow by practical, legitimate methods, not fool-flights of +fancy. Then, too, Crothers had a fine sense of the fitness of things. +He deplored the fact that a man of Sandy Morley's antecedents should, +by the vulgar power of money, gain control over the people. + +"I tell you, sir," Crothers exclaimed, "the South has got to be +reclaimed through blood; not mongrel blood backed by dirty money!" + +This sounded very fine to Lans Treadwell. + +"Now, I was a thinking this-er-way lately: 'Spose young Hertford came +and took command 'stead of young Morley? 'Spose the old place of the +Hertfords was rebuilt and the family established here again--what would +happen, sir? I put it to you right plain and friendly." + +Lans was thrilled. He rose to any vision called up by another; as for +himself he was no vision-builder. His face flushed and his eyes +flashed. + +"I have never thought of it that way," he said; "as you put it, it +seems almost an imperative duty that the best Southern blood should +return to the hills and reconstruct where and in the manner it alone +understands." + +"Exactly. Now I reckon you don't know, sir, but there are mighty big +back taxes unpaid on the Walden place and--and your forefathers' land, +sir. I'm thinking of buying both places in simply from a sense of +public spirit. I ain't going to let those smiling acres go into alien +hands if I know myself--not if I ruin myself in the deal." + +"Few men would show such spirit as that, Mr. Crothers!" + +Lans was deeply impressed. + +"Well, sir, a man as has the right stuff in him gets sentimental about +something. My weakness is my--South! I came from mighty good stock, +sir. I was in the university when the war broke out; I left and did my +share of fighting and then came back to--well!" Crothers' eyes grew +misty. His feelings almost overcame him and Lans Treadwell was equally +moved. + +"Since then it has been an upward climb. I gave up love, home, and +marriage. I've become a coarse man in the fight, but my heart is true +to the ideals and principles of the South. I have dreams, too, of the +day when the best blood--blood such as yours, sir, recognizes the need +of the hills and comes back with its tradition and force +to--to--reclaim us-all socially, religiously, and--and--morally. It +will mean sacrifice, sir. The North, with its luxury and ease, will be +hard to leave, but life is sacrifice to men, sir, and the day will dawn +when the Hertfords will come to The Hollow with determination to +control affairs. I'm going to hold their place ready, sir, for that +day!" This sounded almost too fine to be true, and even Lans demanded +details. + +Then it was that Crothers laid his foundations. He would buy the +Hertford plantation; the Walden, also, if he could. He suspected that +back taxes could not be met by the legitimate owners--if they could be +disentangled from the mists that surrounded their possessions--he meant +to get them into his own power. Then it further appeared that should +Lans Treadwell desire to return to the hills of his fathers, the way +would be made easy, and with Crothers to back the efforts of the "blue +blood" a very respectable opposition would evolve to check the growing +strength of such men as Sandy Morley. + +"Morley's all right as far as he goes," Crothers interjected; "I ain't +got nothing to say against Morley as Morley, but what I do say is--does +the South want to be led out of darkness by a poor white when its own +blue blood only needs a chance to flow through?" + +Lans looked serious. He felt disloyal to Sandy; old associations +tugged at his heart; but all at once the story of Sandy's relations +with a girl in Boston, the story coloured and underlined by Olive +Treadwell, rose and confronted him. If Sandy could deceive and +hoodwink Levi Markham, what could others expect? Personally, Lans had +no desire to stone Sandy, but a fine glow was filling his heart. If +the way could be opened for him to help his people, could he not +achieve as much as Sandy: defeat his uncle's revenge--it seemed only +that to Lans, then--and, perhaps, when Sandy had come to terms, work +with him for the good of Lost Hollow? + +It was splendid! Purpose and strength came to Treadwell. He was ready +for sacrifice; ready to forego the ease and joy of his city life; ready +to renounce his claims upon a certain little woman fighting her battle +apart from him! He would show Morley that he _could_ be pure and +resourceful, he could put his longings aside for the greater good! + +Lans must always have his mental, spiritual, and physical food served +on dainty dishes! While he stood by Crothers he saw, in fancy, a noble +home arise above the trees on the old Hertford place. He saw his Aunt +Olive--no! it was not his Aunt Olive that he saw; it was--Treadwell's +breath came fast--it was Cynthia Walden who stood at the door of the +uprisen house of the Hertfords and smiled her radiant smile of welcome +to him! + +Lansing Treadwell was always a victim of suggestion and flashes of +passion. The polished brutality of his father and the mystic +gentleness of his mother had been blended in him by a droll Fate and, +later, confused and corrupted by his Aunt Olive's ignorant training. + +From that day Lansing Treadwell fell into the hands of Smith Crothers, +and the plotting evolved so naturally, so apparently wisely, that no +shock or sense of injustice aroused all that was good in the last of +the Hertfords. Crothers gradually assumed the guise of public +benefactor, a man who, resenting the obvious stupidity of men like Levi +Markham, for no ulterior motive other than human rights, undertook the +placing of Lansing Hertford upon the throne of his ancestors! + +Secrecy was absolutely necessary. Conditions might arise to defeat +Crothers' philanthropic schemes, but when all was concluded Morley must +be taken into their confidence and made to understand that open and +fair competition was both right and democratic. + +And while all this was going on Sandy toiled at the buildings all day, +reported progress to Levi every evening, tried to do his duty by +Treadwell, while he sought for some reason to get him away before any +harm was done. + +It was difficult to account for what happened to Cynthia Walden at that +critical time. It all happened so quickly, so breathlessly. The child +in the girl was flattered, amused and uplifted by Lans Treadwell. He +was so gay, so captivating. He taught her to play on Marcia Lowe's +mandolin, and when he discovered how splendidly and sweetly she could +sing the plaintive songs of her hills and the melodies of the old +plantation days, he was enraptured and gave such praise as turned +Cynthia's head and filled Marcia Lowe with delight. + +"You little genius!" Lans exclaimed one day; "try to dance, too. You +look like a spirit of the hills." + +Then Cynthia danced and danced and forgot Sandy away among his +buildings; forgot his grim determination and serious manner. It was +song and dance for Cynthia, and the little doctor looking on, charmed +by the turn their dull life had taken, saw no danger. To her Cynthia +was a child still, and she was grateful that she should have this bit +of brightness and joy in her narrow, drab-coloured life. + +The arrested elements in Cynthia grew apace and with abnormal force. +Through Lans Treadwell she realized all the froth and sunshine girlhood +craves--she forgot Sandy because at that moment he held no part in the +gay drama that was set to music and song. And then, quite naturally, +too, the woman in the girl pleaded for recognition. Here was a man who +appreciated her; would accept her as she was, although he asked no +questions of her, regarding her poor little past. He talked splendidly +of the big vital things of life which Cynthia thrilled at, but could +not express in word or thought. Oh! it was most sure that Lans +Treadwell would never care what had brought her into being--it was the +woman! Sandy might do a big thing from duty; Lans would do big things +because with him duty was but love of--humanity! Cynthia did not know +much about humanity and Lans never said he loved her--but it came upon +the girl all at once one day that she--she, little Cynthia Walden, was +needed, desperately, sufferingly needed by a great-souled man to help +in saving Lost Hollow! How magnificent! Sandy meant to save The +Hollow alone and single-handed--Sandy was limited, that was Lans's +modest interpretation--but Treadwell had his vision, too, and his +vision included her! It was breath-taking and alluring. + +Treadwell did not make any physical or emotional claims upon the +girl--something led him dangerously, but wisely. He taught her to call +him brother and he spoke to her as "little sister." This was +particularly blinding to Marcia Lowe. + +"Brother and sister in the broad human sense," pleaded Lans, and so the +net drew close around little Cyn, and she did not struggle, because the +mesh was so open and free that it did not chafe the delicate nature nor +stunt the yet blind soul. + +At the end of the third week Crothers, in fatherly manner, suggested to +Lans that he was compromising Cynthia. So considerately and humanely +did the man speak of this that Lans could take no offence, particularly +as Crothers just then had brought their common interests to such a pass +that to resent anything would have been fatal. A very beautiful and +many-coloured bubble was well in sight! + +"You see," Crothers explained, "them men up to Greeley's store are a +right evil lot. Knowing that Cynthia Walden was a nameless waif when +old Miss Ann adopted her, they cannot believe a right smart feller like +you has honest motives and they are getting ugly." + +Lans had heard the report of Cynthia's early childhood; the girl +herself had sweetly and pathetically referred to it--and they thought +he was that kind, eh? Well, he would show them! Having accepted the +fate of the man on a desert island, Lans Treadwell meant to treat the +natives he found there, fairly and nobly. In his mind he had cut +himself adrift forever from the old life and its claims; Cynthia was +the most attractive little savage on his isolated, safety isle--he +would claim her virtuously and bravely; he would train her; educate her +to be no unworthy mate for him in his god-like sacrifice for his family +honour. + +Never had Lans Treadwell been so dramatic nor such a fool, but he had +caught little Cyn, and before she realized what had happened or why she +had permitted it to happen, she drove away with Treadwell over the +hills one day to see some land Crothers had urged him to look at and, a +storm overtaking them, they were delayed in an old cabin where they +sought shelter over night and then and there Lans brought her to see +that for all their sakes they should be married before going home. + +"Married?" gasped Cynthia, as if the word were foreign; "married! me, +little Cyn? Why, only _women_ marry!" + +"And you are a woman, sweet!" Even then Lans did not touch her, though +she looked more divine with her big eyes shining and the blessed smile +parting her lips than he had ever seen her. + +"I--a woman? Well, I reckon I am--but it seems mighty queer when you +first think of it. And--the folks would say evil things of me because +you took care of me and didn't risk my neck on the bad roads in the +dark? What could they-all say?" + +For the life of him Lans could not frame the words with that lovely +face turned to his. "You must trust me, Cynthia. I will protect you +and you must protect me." + +"I--protect you? You are right funny. What could they-all do to you?" + +"They could horsewhip me; tar and feather me----" + +"Oh! no!" And now the light faded from the girl's face. Once at The +Forge a man was treated so--yes! there was something about a woman, too! + +The storm had raged all night. Lans made a fire and laughed and joked +the dark lonely hours through. After midnight Cynthia fell asleep from +sheer exhaustion and Lans placed his overcoat under her head while he +smoked by the fire and grew--as imagination fed upon itself--into a +being so immaculate and saint-like that the morning found him prepared +for the final and dramatic climax. He awoke Cynthia, touched her as if +she was a spirit, and took her to the little town known as Sudley's Gap +and there--married her! + +Cynthia was excited and worn from her night's experience, but the +ceremony and Lans's manner made it all seem like a new play. They were +always playing together, he and she. Big brother and little sister +lived in the moment and had no care for the past or future. They had +breakfast together, after the visit to the missionary, and it was +afternoon before they started for home. At last Cynthia grew very +quiet--the play had tired her; she was frightened and unhappy. How +could what had happened secure Lans from the anger of The Hollow folks, +if staying away were wrong? It was all very foolish. They could have +gone to Sandy and explained. Already Sandy stood in the girl's life as +safety and strength. + +Just then Lans turned and looked at her. To him it was beyond +comprehension that a girl of nineteen could be what Cynthia was. +Ignorant she might be, surely was, but she was vital and human; she had +witnessed life and its meaning in The Hollow--she was primitive and +childish--but she understood! + +Lans felt himself, by that time, to be about the highest-minded man any +one could hope to find. He had practised great self-repression; he had +accepted his future life suddenly, but with all its significant +responsibilities. When he reached The Hollow there would be tumult, no +doubt, but every man and woman there would count on the hot, impulsive +Southern blood and, after the first shock, would glory in a Hertford +who could carry things with such a high hand and, withal, a clean hand! + +Laying the reins down over the dash-board, Lans turned to Cynthia, his +passion gaining power over him as the sense of possession lashed it +sharply. The pretty big-eyed girl was his! He had secured her by the +sacredest ties, but for that very reason he need withhold himself no +longer. + +"Wife!" he whispered. "Wife, come; sweet, come!" + +This was no play. The call awakened no response, but fear laid its +guarding hand upon the girl as it had on that terrible night when Smith +Crothers asked of her what Treadwell was now seeking in a different +way, but in the same language. + +"No!" Cynthia shuddered, shrinking from him. "No!" + +The denial had awakened evil in Crothers; it aroused the best in +Treadwell. For a moment he looked at the wild, fear-filled eyes and +then a mighty pity surged over him. + +"I--I would not hurt you for all the world, little Cyn," he said, +taking up the reins. "I've done the best I could for you, dear; when +you can you will come to me--won't you? In the meantime it's 'brother +and little sister!'" + +Come to him! Thus Sandy had spoken, too! The memory hurt. + +The strain of the Markham blood rushed hotly, at the instant, in Lans's +veins. It gave him courage and strength to forget--the Hertfords. + +He took Cynthia to Trouble Neck and manfully told Marcia Lowe what had +occurred. The little doctor, worn by anxiety, was almost prostrated. + +"No one knows but what Cynthia was here all last night," she said. +"I've lied to Tod Greeley. I told him you had not taken Cynthia; that +she was ill with headache." + +"Now!" Cynthia laughed lightly; "you see we need not have done that +silly thing at Sudley's Gap." + +Marcia Lowe began to cry softly. + +"Oh! dear," she faltered, "but Smith Crothers knows and Sandy Morley, +too. Oh! I have been so blind, so foolish, and you have been such mad +children." + +"I am going to Sandy at once," Lans explained. The plain common-sense +atmosphere of the cabin and the little doctor's evident suffering were +calming Treadwell's hot Southern blood and giving a touch of stern +prosaic grimness to the business. + +Cynthia, once she was safe with Marcia Lowe, was so unflatteringly +happy that Lans Treadwell might well be pardoned for thinking her +lacking in ordinary mentality, and this thought was like a dash of ice +water on his growing chilliness. He became awkward and nervous. He +felt like a man who had run headlong to a goal only to find that it was +the wrong one, with no strength or power to retrace his steps he owed +to defeat and failure, and in that mood he sought Sandy. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Marcia Lowe was mistaken. Sandy did not know. He knew that Treadwell +had not returned the evening before, but Tansey Moore, who was now +manager of Crothers' new factory, had told him that Treadwell had gone +to look up a piece of land back of Sudley's Gap, and the storm had +naturally detained him. + +The sudden growth of intimacy between Crothers and Lans surprised and +amused Sandy. Full well he realized Crothers' motive, and he could +afford to laugh at that, but he felt annoyed and hurt at Lans's weak +falling into the trap. The disloyalty to himself did not affect Sandy, +he was far too sensible and simple a man to care deeply for that, and +it somehow made it easier for him to reconcile his conscience to the +growing distrust and contempt he had for Treadwell, but he disliked the +idea of Crothers using his friend to gain his mean ends. + +"Lans is not one to tie up to," he said to himself, and then smiled at +the quaint expression which he had learned from Levi. "And to-morrow I +will tell him that I must make ready for the Markhams." + +The day after Cynthia's marriage Sandy had gone early to the buildings. +He and Martin had worked hard; settled a difficulty among the men, +which they both felt confident Crothers had instigated, and, upon +reaching home late in the afternoon Sandy was told that Old Andrew +Townley was ill and wanted him. Liza Hope had sent word. + +"I reckon you can wait to eat," Sally Taber had suggested; "ole Andy +has been dyin' with consumption ever since dat time when he went to The +Forge an' got baptized in his wife's night shift--him not being able to +get a robe! Andy took a mighty stiff chill that-er-day an' it war like +a finger pintin' the way to his grave. Andy war thirty when he waddled +into de Branch in dem swaddling clothes, an' he's over ninety now. I +expect he can hol' on till you've tended to yo' stummick." + +But Sandy had not waited. He went to Andrew and found the old man +wandering on to the end of his journey in a very happy frame of mind. +He was, to himself, no longer the weak creature dying in his poor +cabin. Lying on the comfortable cot Sandy had provided, smilingly +gazing through the broad window Sandy's inspired saw and hammer had +designed, he believed himself to be a young and strong man helping +another up The Way with guiding hand and cheerful courage. Sitting by +the bed, Sandy took the cold, shrivelled fingers in his warm young +ones, and the comforting touch focussed the wavering mind. + +"Eh, there, son, it's a right smart climb, but the end's just yonder! +See that-er-light?" + +"Yes, old friend, I see the light." + +Sandy bent low and whispered gently. + +"That-er-light, son, is in Parson Starr's window. Starr, Starr! He +war a mighty clear star an' his light ain't going out, I reckon. Hold +fast, son! A few more steps and the totin' will be over. It's been +right heavy goin'--but----" + +The poor old body struggled to rise and Sandy, putting an arm under the +shoulders, lifted Andrew to a sitting position. + +"Do you see the--light, old friend?" + +"I--see--the star!" + +"Yes. The star and the light, Andy?" + +"Yes--that's--home!" + +Facing the west with wide welcoming eyes, Andrew slipped from life so +gently and quietly that for some minutes Sandy held him without knowing +that the light had gone out and the weary soul had reached home by The +Appointed Way. When the knowledge came to him, his eyes dimmed and +reverently he lay the stiffening form back upon the pillow; crossed the +thin, worn hands upon the peaceful breast, and turned to his next duty +with a murmured farewell to ears that no longer could be comforted by +his kind words. + +Sandy went home and ate his evening meal with his father. He did not +mention Andrew's death. Martin was so genuinely happy at having his +son to himself and Lansing Treadwell out of the house, that Sandy +disliked to shadow the joy. + +"Suppose we read a bit," he suggested when the two were seated in the +study. Martin accepted joyously. "What shall it be, Dad?" + +"Well, son, it do seem triflin' to set your mind to anything but Holy +Writ when you're idle, but to-day I found an ole paper up to the works +with a mighty stirrin' picture on it; a real techersome picture of a +man danglin' from a high cliff by his two hands, and nothin' 'twixt him +an' certain death, I reckon, but the writingman's understandin' of the +scene. Yo' know, Sandy, I ain't had my specs fitted yet an' so I +couldn't fin' out about the picture an' it's been right upsettin' to me +all day." + +Sandy took the crumpled paper Martin produced from an inside pocket and +began to read the hair-raising tale. Toward the end he discovered it +was a serial which left the hero, at the most breathless point, still +hanging. Thereupon Sandy evolved from his own imagination a fitting +and lurid ending that appeased Martin's sense of crude justice and left +nothing to his yearning soul unanswered. + +"I call that-er-tale a mighty good one," Martin remarked when, hands +upon knees, eyes staring, and chin hanging, he heard the grand finale. +"Taint allas as the ungodly gets fetched up with so cutely. It's right +comfortin' to think o' that low-down trash a-festerin' in the bottom o' +the gulch." + +Then Martin, the gentlest of creatures, went pattering up to bed in his +stocking feet, muttering cheerfully to himself as he mounted the dark +stairs, candle in outstretched hand: + +"A festerin' eternally at the bottom!" + +After his father departed Sandy sat by his fire alone and waited. So +Lans found him, and gloomily took a chair across the hearth. + +"Have you had supper, Lans?" Sandy asked after greeting him cordially. + +"Yes. The storm kept me last night. I got back--not long ago. I had +a bite while I waited for the horse to be seen to. The poor beast was +pretty well worn out." + +There did not seem to be anything more to say on that subject, so Sandy +remarked: + +"Smoke if you care to, Lans; don't mind me." + +But Lans did not care to smoke and suddenly he jumped up, plunged his +hands in his pockets and faced Sandy with crimson cheeks and wide eyes. + +"Sand," he blurted out, "I'm in a devil of a hole; I've pulled about +all Lost Hollow in with me. I'm a fool and worse, but you know how I +am. Any big passion that seizes me--holds me! I'm not responsible +while the clutch is on me. I ought to be taken out and shot. I----" + +But Sandy's blank stare called a halt. + +"I--I wouldn't take it that way, Treadwell," he said, thinking that +some obvious villainy of Crothers' had opened Lans's eyes to facts; "I +may be able to get you out of the hole." + +Then, ludicrously, the story he had just read to his father came into +his mind. Lans seemed to be the creature at the bottom of the gulch, +and it was up to him, Sandy, to rescue the knave in spite of Martin's +satisfaction in leaving him there to fester. Sandy smiled. + +"Good God, Morley, what are you laughing at?" Lans cried; "this is no +laughing matter." + +"I beg your pardon, Lans. An idiotic thing occurred to me and you are +such a tragic cuss that I never can think things are as bad with you as +you imagine." + +"Sand, this is a--hell of a thing! I don't know what you will say. +Fellows like you with their hands always on their tillers, fellows with +cool heads and calm passions never can understand us who fly off at +every spark that's set to us. All I can promise you is this--help me +now and, by God! I'll let your hand rest on my tiller till I get into +smooth waters again and--I've learned my lesson! What I've got to tell +you sounds like a yarn, Sand. All the time I was coming up The Way I +kept repeating 'it's not true!' but good Lord--it is! Morley, I'm +married. I was married early this morning!" + +The little woman struggling with her problem up North came to Sandy's +mind. She had not been able to keep up the fight; she had followed +Lans and--but no! If there had been a wedding then the husband must +have died! Sandy looked puzzled. + +"If it was the best, the only way, old man," he said, "I don't see why +you should take it this fashion. You--loved her; you cannot have +changed in so short a time." + +And now it was Lans's turn to stare blankly. With his temperament, +time and place had no part. He was either travelling through space at +a thundering speed or stagnating in a vacuum. He had almost forgotten +Marian Spaulding and his present affair took on new and more potent +meanings. + +"I--I married Cynthia Walden!" he gasped. "I married her--this +morning. We were out alone all last night. The--storm--you--know! +She didn't understand--I tried to--to shield her--she doesn't +understand--now. Good God! Morley, stop staring! Say something, for +heaven's sake!" + +But Sandy could not speak, and his brain whirled so dizzily that he +dared not shut his eyes for fear of falling. Like a man facing death +with only a moment in which to speak volumes, he groped among the +staggering mass of facts that were hurtling around him, for one, one +only, that would save the hour. He remembered vividly the old story of +Cynthia's mother which Ann Walden had proclaimed, but he remembered, +also, the hideous belief that lay low in Lost Hollow. Dead and buried +was the doubt, but now it rose grim and commanding. Sandy tried to +form the words: "She is your sister!" But the words would not come +through the stiff, parted lips. Honesty held them in check; they must +not become a living thought unless absolute proof were there to +substantiate them. + +The two men confronted each other helplessly, silently, and then Lans +Treadwell, overcome by sudden remorse, and a kind of fear, strove to +propitiate the sternness that found no expression in words. + +"I've been devilishly wrong, Sand, and returned your hospitality and +friendship with bad grace, old fellow, but I drifted into it and when +it was too late--I did what seemed the only decent thing. I know I +couldn't have explained, and she turned my senses by her sweetness. +She's like a baby, Morley, and I mean to--to do the right by her, as +God hears me!" + +Treadwell used the name of God so frequently and ardently that it +sickened Sandy. + +"Yes," he groaned, "you will do right by her or----" the dark eyes +flashed dangerously; "and you'll do right by her--in my way!" + +This was unfortunate and Sandy saw his mistake. Lans Treadwell's +shoulders straightened and his jaw set in ugly lines. + +"If it's going to be man to man, Sand," he muttered, "I reckon I've got +the whip hand. She's my wife, you know, and the laws of this nice +little state are pretty explicit along certain lines. When all's said +and done--what are you, as a man, mind you, going to do about it?" + +Again the staggering doubt was like a weapon for Sandy's use, but he +hesitated still. + +"I--I wonder if you know what you have done?" he groaned again. + +"When you talk like that, Sand," Lans whispered, his face softening, "I +don't! And I implore you to help me." + +"You don't know our South, our Hollow," Sandy went on, with a pitiful +tone in his unsteady voice. "It takes us so long to--wake up! It's +something in the air, the sun, the winters--the life. Cynthia has not +roused--she is only dreaming in her sleep. She's a child, a little +girl, and you have dragged her into----" + +"Hold on, Sand!" Lans warned once more. + +"I have been waiting"--Sandy did not seem to heed the caution--"I've +been waiting and watching for the hour when she would realize that she +was a woman. I've loved her all my life, worshipped her, but I would +not have startled her before her time to have saved my soul from death! +Had she realized, Treadwell--had things been open and fair, I would +have taken my chance--but--you!" + +Again the blaze darted to Treadwell's eyes. + +"And what do you insinuate?" he asked--but he got no farther. There +was the sound of quick, approaching steps outside and a moment later a +sharp knock on the door; Sandy strode forward and opened it, then +closed it upon Marcia Lowe and Cynthia. + +Quickened by spiritual insight Sandy saw that the girl was awake to the +reality of things. Shock had shattered her childishness forever, but +she was not afraid. Uncertainty and ignorance were there, but no sense +of danger in the clear, wonderful eyes. + +"Oh! Sandy," she panted, going close to him and holding her hands out, +"Sandy, you know?" + +"Yes." + +"I wanted to be here with you-all after she"--the sweet eyes turned to +Marcia Lowe--"told me. I--I thought maybe he"--she glanced toward +Treadwell--"might not tell you, till morning. Poor dear!" + +This last was to Sandy, for the look in his eyes wrung the tender heart +with divine pity. + +"Sit down," Sandy urged, placing chairs near the hearth and bending to +lay on more wood, "there is much to say." + +Then it was that the little doctor took command. She did not sit down +as the others had; she stood by the table with some loose papers in her +hand. + +"I feel as if it were all my fault," she began. "Things lie so still +here; we seem so shut in. Cynthia has been like a child to me--I +haven't thought ahead and I just played with her and worked out--my +puzzle piece by piece. It was only a week ago that I felt sure; I +meant to tell Cynthia slowly and little by little--and then this +happened!" + +Marcia Lowe's face was fixed and white. No one spoke. Then she went +on again. + +"I have always believed Cynthia's father was--my uncle, Theodore Starr! +I came to Lost Hollow because I believed that, but I had no absolute +proof and Ann Walden denied me support. But look at her--look at +Cynthia and me! Of course I am old, old, and she's a baby, but can't +you read God's handwriting in our faces? See the colour, +form--expression----" + +Morley and Treadwell stared at the two faces and into their benumbed +consciousness something vital struggled to life. It brought a gleam to +Lans's eyes; a groan of surrender to Sandy's lips! The contrite voice +was going on and on. + +"There was no marriage certificate. There had been an unhappy +engagement between my uncle and Ann Walden--he, poor, timid, gentle +soul, dared not speak at the proper moment, he dreaded giving pain, and +he married Cynthia's mother privately, and before things could be made +plain--he died up in the hills, serving men! The man that married them +went away--only a year ago he came back; recently Mr. Greeley drove +over to Sudley's Gulch to make a will for this man; Cynthia and I went +with him. The man died a few days ago. Among his papers was a +notebook in which was recorded the marriage of Queenie Walden and +Theodore Starr! The man was a--a magistrate, the thing was +legal--Little Cyn is--my niece!" + +An empty room never seems so still as one in which living, wordless men +and women are held by breathless silence. Treadwell dared not speak. +He seemed a stranger; one who had no right to be there. Cynthia's eyes +were lifted to Sandy Morley's face and did not fall away. Having said +what she had come to say, Marcia Lowe held out her written words of +proof and waited. After a long pause Cynthia spoke and her voice was +electrical in its effect. + +"Sandy," she said, going close to him and holding him with her clear +gaze and slow, brave smile, "you know I did not mean--to do wrong?" + +"Yes, little Cyn." + +"I'm right glad I'm--I'm my dear father's child. All my life he's been +a happy name to me--and I'm mighty proud to be his, really. I'm going +to be brave for him and my mother! Sandy--I am not afraid--I am not +afraid!" The words came slowly, drawlingly but unbrokenly. + +"My aunt," and for an instant the eyes rested on the bowed head of +Marcia Lowe, "has told me many things--I understand right many things, +now! I know you-all want to help me; want the best for me--but what's +done, is done, Sandy Morley, and I can do my part. If--if--my husband +wants me--I am ready--to go to him. Sandy, I am not afraid!" + +Then they waited. Sandy stood with his back to the fire, motionless +and white; Marcia Lowe had sunk into a chair and bending forward hid +her face in her hands; Cynthia drew back from Sandy and stood alone in +the middle of the room. + +What emotions and thoughts swayed Lans Treadwell, who could know? But +looking from one to the other of the little group the craven distrust +died from his face and an uplifted expression took its place. He stood +straight and tall and good to look upon as he realized that he was at +last the final judge. + +"Cynthia!" he said calmly, and his voice was low and firm; "I do--want +you! you are my wife! You are not afraid?" + +Slowly he stepped over to her; he forgot the others--he and she were +all! He put out his hands and Cynthia laid hers in them. + +"I am not afraid," she whispered. And before the light in her upraised +eyes Lans Treadwell did not flinch. + +"I, too, wish to help you--in my own way. Can you trust me?" + +"Yes." + +"Will you leave the hills with me--me alone?" + +For an instant the sweet smile faded, but it was for the loss of her +mountains; not her doubt of her husband which drove it away. + +"Yes," she murmured. + +Then Sandy found his way back from his place of torment and he strode +to the two in the middle of the room. He laid his hand upon +Treadwell's shoulder, and all the smouldering passion in his heart rang +in his words. + +"Lansing Treadwell, swear to me, that you will leave her soul to her +own keeping until----" + +Treadwell gave him a long, steady look. + +"I swear!" he said. + +"When--her hour comes to--understand and choose--let her be white and +pure as she is now!" + +"I swear it, Sandy Morley." + +"Then," and now Sandy's eyes dimmed, "good-bye, little Cyn. You'll +miss the mountains--but there are good, true hearts--down beyond The +Way." + +At this Marcia Lowe drew near: + +"Little girl--come home! She is mine until you take her from Lost +Hollow, Lansing Treadwell." + +The hands that held Cynthia's let her free. A pause followed. Then: + +"Good-night--good-night!" The pretty, pale face flushed tenderly. +"Good-night. And now come, dear Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady!" + +The sweet attempt at cheer all but crushed those who heard and +understood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +The Markhams came to Lost Mountain early in December. The weather was +fair and mild and much of the time could be spent out of doors. +Matilda, frail but with that gentle tenacity of life that marks many +women for longevity, settled at once into the semi-rough life of the +cabin with innate delicacy and aptness. The rooms Sandy had so +lovingly planned and furnished became _hers_ after the first day, and +no truer compliment could have been paid her host than this homelike +acceptance of his thoughtfulness. To see her soft, bright knitting in +the sitting-room gave Sandy a positive thrill and when he came back, +after a long day of tramping about with Levi, and found the dear, +smiling woman awaiting him, he knew the first touch of the mother in +his own home that had ever been his. And sorely the poor fellow needed +it just then! + +Levi, too, was a saving grace in those empty hours after Cynthia's +going. Swelling with pride, he followed Sandy about from cabin to +factory; from factory to Home-school. In vain he struggled to suppress +any outward show of the pride and delight he took in everything he saw. +He sought to keep things upon a dull, business level, but exultation at +times overcame him when Sandy was well out of sight. To Martin or +Matilda he permitted himself a bit of relaxation. + +"Well," he had said to Martin after the first strangeness had worn off, +"so you are the father of this boy, eh?" + +"I am, sir!" + +The pride that rang in Morley's voice was never veiled, and his native +dignity was touching. + +"I reckon any one might doubt it, sir, seeing him and me, but he's mine +and I'm his." + +"Well, well!" Markham put his hand out frankly. "I hope you're +grateful." + +"I am mighty grateful, sir. Mornin' an' night I kneel an' thank my +God, an' day in an' out I live the poor best I can, sir, my +thankfulness." + +Markham gripped the thin, hard hand appreciatively. He knew more of +Martin than Martin suspected, for Marcia Lowe had made it her first +duty, after the Markhams' arrival, to get into touch with them. Not +Sandy alone had been the theme of the little doctor's discourse; +Martin's grim and self-sacrificing fight in her cabin was given in +detail with other happenings in The Hollow. + +"Oh! they are so big and silent and patient," Miss Lowe had explained, +"they cannot for one moment comprehend their own importance in the +scheme of things. I feel it a duty to shine up their virtues." + +Levi was deeply touched by all he heard, and when things puzzled him he +gruffly insisted that he needed a walk to calm his nerves, and always +it was the little doctor who straightened the tangle. + +"Miss Interpreter," Markham dubbed her, and through her he became +acquainted with Smith Crothers and Crothers' mark upon recent +occurrences. Of course Levi knew of Lans Treadwell's visit to the +hills. Markham was not a superstitious man, but he had remarked to +Matilda before they came to Lost Hollow that it "looked like the hand +of God." After a seance or so at Trouble Neck, Levi changed his mind. + +"I tell you, Matilda," he confided by her fireside one night after a +particularly satisfying day with Sandy, "we take for granted that God +Almighty's hand is the only guiding in the final analysis, but the +devil gets in a twist now and again, and I guess he had more to do with +Lansing's heading up here than God did. Once old Nick got the boy here +he did his best to use him, too, but from what I can learn Lans spunked +up at the end and showed himself more of a man than we might have +expected. He played a good deal of havoc in a few short weeks, though." + +Marcia Lowe had eliminated Sandy from poor Cynthia's romance or +tragedy. She had put a purely commercial valuation upon Crothers' +interference, for the look on Sandy's face the night he bade Cynthia +good-bye haunted the little doctor and would to the last day of her +life. Before it her eyes had fallen, and whenever she recalled the +scene a silence fell upon her. No thought or word could express what +she, too late, surmised, and her lips guarded the sanctity of Sandy's +secret. + +When Levi confided Marcia Lowe's interpretations to his sister she was +very unresponsive. She listened but made no comment other than: + +"Sandy works too hard. He looks real peaked to me. It don't count to +your credit, Levi, or his either, for that matter, if he feels he's got +to pay you back in bone and muscle past a certain point." + +"Now, 'Tilda," Levi put in, "what do you mean by that?" + +"I mean----" Matilda condensed her impressions: "I think he looks real +pinched and peaked." + +This put Markham on a new track, and the next day he fell upon Sandy +with the one weapon which, more than any other, caused Sandy to love +and honour him. + +"See here, son,"--it was oftener "son" than "boy" now--"don't get any +fool idea in your head that you owe me more than an eight hour day's +work." + +They were going over the plans of the Home-school as Levi spoke, and +Sandy laughed lightly. "You are my agent, my--my promoter, son, and, +as such, you hold a responsible position at--at good pay!" + +"Thank you, sir. I understand that and I am anxious to carry out your +wishes. I am eager to get this thing running, not for you, sir, alone, +but my people. Crothers seems hell-bound just now in frightening them +into signing contracts for themselves and their children for years to +come. Of course the contracts are not worth the paper they are written +on, but a general belief is spreading that our works cannot be relied +upon and, in order to benefit The Hollow, Crothers is offering to +protect the people against us by securing positions for them if they +will agree to stand by him. When I think of the baby-things, sir, and +the long, deadly hours of toil that lead to no preparation for +betterment, my soul sickens. Now this, sir"--Sandy pointed to a +particularly high and open space on the blue print--"is the hospital +room." + +"The--the what?" Levi put on his glasses. + +"The hospital room, sir, I'm going to put Miss Lowe in control; I'd +like to have another physician too, sir, and a few nurses. Right up +there"--Sandy's eyes gleamed as they followed his finger to the space +on the blue print--"we want to tackle the real trouble of the South, +sir. Why, do you know I only heard the other day that Tod Greeley went +to our representative, a year ago, and begged him to get an +appropriation from Congress to start the work against the hook worm in +this district and the request was refused." Sandy gave a hard laugh. +"Well, I reckon Greeley and I know why, sir. Lost Hollow is too +ignorant. Our votes can be got without the appropriation. The big, +human need does not matter! Where there is more intelligence the +representatives have to understand conditions. But it will matter by +and by, sir! I know what that little doctor did for my father. I know +what she's done for one or two of Mason Hope's children and the girl of +Tansey Moore's who was--who was like my sister Molly! I want Miss Lowe +and her helpers to have that high and bright place, sir, for their +workshop. It must have sun and air, sir, and books and toys and--and +music, too, for the fight is a hard and bitter one and the days and +nights, at best, are terrible." + +Levi Markham leaned back, took off his glasses and fixed Sandy with his +keen glance. For a few moments he could not speak; he had been carried +far and beyond his normal depth. When he got command of himself, he +said slowly: + +"Son, it looks to me as if we would need all we can make up North to +stamp out some of the evils of the South, but, God willing, we're going +to make a stab at it! See here, who is the representative for this +district?" + +Sandy gave the name of a man many miles away. + +"Well, I guess he can be brought to learn the language of Lost Hollow, +son, if some one shows him his duty. Some good laws, too, that would +put a quietus on this Smith Crothers' ambitions ought to be looked +after. He shouldn't be the say-all up here. No man is good enough or +safe enough to take the bit in his own teeth--not even you, Sandy +Morley!" + +"Law, well carried out, is the best way, sir." + +"Exactly! And now for the rest of the building, boy. What are these +little cubby holes?" + +"Bedrooms, sir. This is only an idea of my own. It's rather +extravagant and it's subject to your decision, of course. I'd like to +have each child have his own room, sir. A boy or girl grows so in a +special little corner that is quite his own. I have a design of a +small chest of drawers that I'd like to show you later. It does not +take up much space and it combines washstand, bureau, table and--a +place for the boy or girl's things." + +"Things?" Levi was again bending over the blue print. + +"Yes, sir. Things dear to each child's heart. Stones, sticks, +anything that cannot be--explained." Sandy gave a low laugh. He was +harking back to the old shed beside his father's cabin and the gay +prints tacked to the worm-eaten boards. + +"The separate rooms can stand, son, and those little jimcracks of +drawers are favourably passed on, too. And these?" Levi's thick +forefinger stopped at the elevation of the first floor. + +Sandy gave a rich, satisfied laugh of content. + +"Well, sir, it is this-er-way"--The Hollow's soft running of the words +together delighted Levi's ear--"when the poor little creatures have had +their fight out on the upper floor and have got down to these small +rooms and have realized that they are human beings, then we're going to +fix them--fix them, sir, right here!" Sandy's eyes flashed and his jaw +set in the stern, grim fashion that Levi had long since grown to watch +for and admire. + +"By the time they reach the ground floor, sir, I reckon we can tackle +them and begin to make them pay for themselves. By that time they will +have something to draw on and we'll exact payment. Right here and +here"--Sandy's forefinger was going rapidly from point to point, and +Levi's stubby digit was laboriously following--"are the workshops, the +school rooms, the kitchens and conservatories. Why, sir, even the +idiot children can be utilized. They love flowers and animals; we must +find their one gleam and guide their poor feet on the way. Good food, +honest hours of work, systematic exercise and proper amusement--why, +sir, from this ground floor we are to send men and women out into the +world who will reflect credit on Lost Hollow and redeem its name. And +you, sir----" + +The two men faced each other suddenly. Markham seemed to realize anew +the delicacy and fineness of the thin, brown face---Matilda's words +rang in his ears, "he looks real pinched and peaked." The homely +phrase carried more weight to Markham than any scientific terms of a +specialist. A sharp pain shot through his heart; he had the quick +impulse to shield and protect this young fellow who was being carried +afield on the wings of his enthusiasm. Protect him from what? + +"See here, son, we cannot afford to go too fast with this hobby of +yours. Get the buildings up as soon as you can; carry out all the +material plans just as you have designed, but we've got to get our feet +on good firm ground before we tackle the human problems. You know I am +against paternalism, first and last. I'm willing to give opportunity, +but nothing else." + +"That is all they need, sir. Some must be shown opportunity--others +are strong enough to grip it, but it's mighty good common sense, sir, +to open the eyes of the blind and strengthen the feet of the weak--it's +what you-all did for me, sir." + +"Umph!" Markham exclaimed and then got suddenly up. "I'm going to take +a stroll down The Way," he said. "Fix things here in an hour or two +and see if you can get some kind of a rig for a drive this afternoon. +I want Matilda to get the lay of the land before the winter sets in." + +And then, confused by mingled emotions, Markham bore down upon Smith +Crothers in his factory, a mile or so down the mountain, and attacked +that gentleman in such a blunt and utterly unlooked-for manner that +Crothers was startled and helpless. + +The directness of the blows left Smith Crothers without defence; he was +obliged to use his own crude weapons with the ever-growing conviction +that they were worse than useless. Markham availed himself of no +propitiation--he rushed his opponent into the open at the first +onslaught, and thereafter he attacked him fore and aft mercilessly. + +"See here, Crothers," he began, when the head of the factory had +invited him into his private office and, with smiles and bows, had +seated his guest; "you and I had better understand each other right +now. You know, and I know that you know, that I am The Company up +North which you are maligning here in The Hollow. Now I'm willing to +lay down my hand and show my cards. I'm going to back this boy of +Morley's by millions, if necessary, and there are millions to count +on--not millions to be made. _Why_ I am doing this is my concern--all +that matters is--I'm going to do it! Maybe it is a whim; maybe it is +plain tomfoolery; every man has his weak side--I have mine. That +factory up the hill is going to run as soon as it is finished; the +Home-school is going to open its doors likewise; and both institutions +are going to pay and don't you forget it! You put one product on the +market; I another. We won't clash there--the rock we may split on is +the labour question." + +Crothers gasped feebly. + +"I reckon I understand conditions here, sir, better than"--he longed to +say "any damned Yankee," but he controlled the impulse--"any stranger +from the North." + +"No you don't!" Markham flashed back. "Exploitation isn't any fairer +here than where I come from. Because these people don't realize it is +no excuse for men like you and me. I know all about what you set forth +as explanation and excuse--it goes up North the same as it does here. +Supply and demand; business is business and all the rest of it, but you +and I know that it ought not go! We have no right to take it out of +the people." + +"You've managed to take out your pile"--Crothers' smile was +vanishing,--"'cording to your own telling. Millions ain't got by +magic, these times." + +Markham fixed the ugly eyes with his calm gaze. + +"You are free to come and see how I have made my money," he said. "I +have a system that includes every employee in my money-getting. They, +every mother's son of them, have a chance with me to better themselves. +I have never worked a child in my mills nor a woman about to become a +mother, or for months after. I don't talk about these things--I live +them! Now I mean to make money up here--honest money; my just share, +and I'm going to follow my past line of action. I find it pays. Young +Morley knows conditions here, and I'm going to pay him a big salary as +interpreter. He's a high class man. Why, good God! Crothers, I +sometimes think he was called to lead his people out of bondage." + +Having permitted himself this flight Markham struck another blow that +completed Crothers' dismay. + +"There have got to be laws protecting these mountain folks from +themselves. I'm not casting reflections, but you have all been passed +by in the general scuffle, down yonder, and some one has got to sit up +and take notice. There should be child labour laws, educational laws +and sanitary laws. There should be appropriations made for carrying on +good work in the mountains!" The light of Sandy's torch was flaring +well ahead of Markham and he was following eagerly. + +"Such men as you ought to be up and doing. It's going to be an open +fight, as far as I'm concerned, and I want to tell you now that so long +as there is decent and clean methods used, all may be well, but I'm +going to see fair play, and I thought it was only friendly to come to +you and show my cards." + +"Thank you!" Crothers moistened his lips and plunged his hands in his +pockets. "Is this a threat, sir?" + +"No; a warning." + +"Well, sir, I mean to do business along my own lines." + +"I mean to do the same, Crothers, and I'd like to add, that in any +clash please remember you are up against me--not Sandford Morley." + +"I'm not likely to forget that, sir." + +There was a little more talk, pro and con, and then the two men parted +as men can do, after a heated and vital discussion, apparently on the +best of terms. + +It was the night of that day when, before the fire in the little +sitting-room devoted to the Markhams' use, Levi sought to ease his +sister's mind concerning Sandy. + +"The boy was up against it with Crothers," he explained, "and making no +outcry. You know Sandy's way. He wouldn't confide in us about that +poor little sister of his--he thought it wasn't in the bargain. He +meant to fight this big bully in his own fashion without calling on me, +but I've taken a hand in the game and put Crothers wise as to +principles. I may have to get a few knocks before I am done, but Sandy +won't be the buffer. I guess the boy will pick up from now on. He's +nervy and stronger than he looks." + +Matilda sat in her low, broad rocker. Her dressing gown of pale violet +enshrouded her tiny figure like the soft petals of a flower; her faded +eyes and gentle face were lowered, and her gaze fixed upon the burning +logs. + +"Brother," she said tenderly and wistfully; "the boy has had a mortal +hurt. This evil man has not dealt it, and neither you nor I can cure +it. It has not killed his mind and spirit, but it's killed the heart +of the lad." + +Levi Markham got up and stood with his back to the fire. He was going +to be enlightened--he knew that--but in man fashion he pushed the +inevitable from him. + +"Whim-whams, 'Tilda! Now what do you mean in plain American? Who's +given the boy a blow--a hurt, or whatever you fancy?" + +"It's the--the little girl, brother, that Land has run away with." + +"Good God, Matilda!" + +"Levi, I do wish you would curb your language. You know how I dislike +profanity." + +"I beg your pardon, 'Tilda." + +"While you have been sensing business conditions, brother, I've sensed +something else. I've sort of gathered this Cynthia Walden up piece by +piece. The old woman who works here gave me a bit; that dear little +woman doctor--the aunt of the girl--has told me some of the story; from +Martin Morley I've taken a mite. Little by little it has come to me, +until I've patched the whole together and I can see real plain and +clear, now, the spirit of Lost Hollow that led Sandy out and up and +then--escaped to a place he cannot reach! Oh! brother, when one is +lonely and old and not over strong, it is so easy to get at the heart +of a thing for them one loves." + +Matilda was crying gently into her dainty little handkerchief, and +Markham stared at her, speechless and helpless. + +"There! there! 'Tilda," was all he could think to say, but his tone was +loving beyond description. + +"She's the girl whose face haunted that picture of the dogwood flowers, +brother. She's the girl he wrote to just once, you remember, that time +when we stopped in New York on our way from here to Bretherton. I +guess she's called and called to him from these hills ever since he +left, and now----" + +"Well, 'Tilda?" + +"She's gone away and the call is--stilled." + +Markham sat down again before the fire and buried his head in his +hands. Quietly the old brother and sister sat for a full half hour, +then Levi got up. + +"Good-night, sister," he said. + +"Good-night, brother." + +That was all. They knew that they were unable to reach the hurt that +Sandy had received. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +But Matilda Markham could not sit down under her weight of conviction +in protracted silence. The winter at last gripped The Hollow, and +doors and windows were closed against the cold and storm. Markham, +Martin, and Sandy were always away together much of the day, but +Matilda sat by her fire, chatted a little with Sally, revelled in +Marcia Lowe's frequent calls, and managed to weave a tender story from +all she heard. She knitted her endless rainbow scarfs and gave them to +the mountain women who received them in stolid amazement and doted upon +them in secret. Once Matilda did a very daring and tremendous thing. +She wrote to Olive Treadwell and asked some pointed and vital questions +about Lansing's wife! + +Having sent the letter away impulsively, the poor little lady had a +week of real torture. Daily she walked to the post-office, when no one +was watching, and caused Tod Greeley much amusement by her nervous +anxiety. + +"Meaning no offence," he confided to Marcia Lowe, "and respecting her +age and gray hairs, I reckon the old miss is in love. It comes late to +some folks," he sighed pathetically, "and it comes right hard when it +strikes past the time limit, but nothing but love takes it out of folks +like what this old miss is suffering." + +At last the answer came and Matilda read it with the door of her +bedroom bolted and the washstand barricading it as well. + +Olive Treadwell wrote: + + +I'm mighty glad to say something about this affair to some one who can +understand me. Imagine my feelings when, out of the blue, as one might +say, Lans brought this girl home and said, "I'm going to leave her with +you, Aunt Olive, until I can see my way clear. I am brother to her and +she is sister to me until--the way's made plain." That was all and +then Lans betook himself to his old quarters and began to work. He's +taken a position on the _Boston Beacon_ and calls, actually _calls_, on +his wife evenings or takes her and me out to theatres and dinners. I'm +supposed to be training this young woman, for what, heaven only knows! +but I have my hands full. Lans was always erratic and poetic, but this +is beyond my comprehension, He has had affairs of the heart, of course, +but this is different. The girl is the strangest creature I ever saw; +she is uncanny. After I got her into proper clothing I saw she had +beauty and charm of a certain kind. She takes to ways and expressions +mighty quick, and she is the sweet appealing kind that attracts even +while one disapproves. I confess I am utterly dumb-founded and if you +can throw any light on this matter, pray do so. The girl seems to me +to be half here and half somewhere else; she isn't unhappy, and she +seems to adore Lans in a detached and pretty childish way, but why did +he marry her and why should he, having married her, regard her in this +platonic fashion? + + +Of course Matilda could not answer these questions but she cried over +the letter a great deal and brooded over Sandy with all the motherhood +that nature had not legitimately utilized. And then, one night, Sandy +came to her quite simply and directly and claimed, in his great +suffering need, what she alone had to give. + +It was the week before Christmas. The cabin was gay and festive, for +Marcia Lowe, in a lavishness of good cheer, had decorated everything +she could command beginning with the little chapel and ending with the +post-office. The County Club sat now 'neath an arbour of greens, and +the lowliest cabin had its spray of pine or holly. + +Martin and Levi were bent over a backgammon board in Sandy's study. +Markham had undertaken to correct Morley's neglected education as to +games; and Martin had, after the first week, so outstripped his +instructor that Levi was put upon his mettle and every victory he +wrenched now from Martin gave him a glow of pride he was not slow to +exhibit. Seeing the two men engrossed, Sandy stole to Matilda +Markham's little sitting-room and there found the dear lady asleep +before the fire, her thin white hands sunk in a mass of beautiful +wools. He stood and looked at the quiet, peaceful old face; he +recalled, one by one, her kindnesses to him, her growing pride and love +for him, and presently his eyes grew misty. The frail creature before +him became touched by the magic of his gratitude and need, the most +vital and mighty factor in his life. She, in this hour of his hidden +craving, was the only one to whom he could turn, and right well he knew +that she would stand by him. + +Suddenly Matilda Markham opened her eyes and looked directly into +Sandy's. It may have been that some dream had prepared her, God may +have spoken to her in vision; however that may be she said gently: + +"Son, you need me? Come, tell me all about it." + +Quite naturally Sandy sat down at her feet and looked frankly into the +dear, old face. + +"I am going to ask you to do a great thing for me," he said; "I must +ask you to do it without my explaining things to you to any extent--I +want you to do it as a mother might for her son--trusting me if you +can." + +"Dear boy, I think I can promise to do what you ask." + +Then the thin hands found their way to the bent head, and as they +touched the thick, dark hair a thrill shot to the woman's very heart. + +"Mother!" Sandy seemed inspired to meet her soul's longing. "Mother!" + +"Son, go on. I am waiting." + +"It--it is about the girl--Lansing Treadwell married." + +"Yes." + +"I must know how things are with her. Our mountain people can be so +lonely and homesick away from the hills. At times nothing, nothing can +take the place of the yearning. I--I can forget everything that has +even been, if I know she is right happy and content--but I must know!" + +A fierceness struck through the low-spoken words. "The doubt is--is +killing me." + +"Shall I go now, son, or wait until after the holidays?" + +"Could you go now--and alone?" + +"I can manage Levi, son. Travelling is real easy these days. It will +take management, but I can get what I want." + +"You would understand if you saw her." + +Sandy's voice trailed off forgetful of the woman at whose knees he +knelt. + +"She can smile and make right merry, but you would know and understand. +She is such a pretty, sweet thing, but she has the iron of the hills in +her. She must"--again Sandy's voice shook with passion,--"she must +have happiness! If--if the noise and confusion of the city have +distracted her she must come back to the mountains. Lans will agree to +this--I do not doubt him! She must not--kill herself--you will know +when you see her. You must come back and tell me--you will?" + +"I will, son." + +Matilda yearned to show him Olive Treadwell's letter, but something +kept her from doing it. She wanted to do what she could for Sandy in +her own way, and suddenly she felt herself a giant of strength and +purpose. + +"Travel alone!" she said to Levi later when she had cowed the poor man +by her determination and exactions, "of course I can travel alone. Am +I an idiot, Levi, or a fool? Haven't I a good American tongue to ask +questions with? I remember our mother once told us she would spank us +well if we ever got lost in a place where folks talked the same +language we did. You put me on the train at The Forge with a through +seat in a Pullman, telegraph to Mary Jane to meet me in New York, and I +guess I can manage." + +"But, 'Tilda, what on earth has seized you to act so uncertain in the +middle of this visit? What will they think of you and me?" + +Then Matilda made her master stroke and, by virtue of her +sex-privilege, completed her triumph over her brother. + +"Levi," she said--she was standing before him, her thin hands on his +shoulders--"I ain't ever had what you might call a real fling where my +emotions and sentiments were concerned. Let go of me, just this once, +and trust me! I've always been sort of held back. First it was father +and mother; then Caroline, and lastly you! I ain't never done exactly +what I wanted to do without explaining, and now I want to be left free +even if I die for it!" + +"Well, well!" blurted Levi, but he caught the idea. "I guess women do +have a sense of the tight rein now and then; it may lie loose mostly, +but it never is quite laid off. 'Tilda, you may cut and run now, for +all of me. I'll see to what, you may say, are your animal +comforts--parlour car seats, tickets, and some one waiting for you in +town, but you kick the heels of your inclinations good and high for +once and I bet you and me will run the rest of the race together +better, forever after. Whoop it up, 'Tilda, and remember money needn't +be a hold back. You've got a big, fat slice coming to you, old girl." + +Now that Levi had dropped the reins, the spirit of adventure possessed +him. He and Sandy saw Matilda off on her journey three days later, in +high spirits. + +"I tell you, boy," he confided on the way back to the cabin, "it's a +mighty good sign when a woman wants to jump the traces, and a good man +isn't going to lick her into submission for doing it. The chances are +a woman wouldn't take to kicking if the traces didn't chafe. I've +meant to be kind to Matilda, but kindness can be chafing at times. A +woman like Matilda, a little, self-sacrificing woman, is real +enlightening if you pay attention." + +Matilda seemed to develop and expand during that trip North. She +ordered her meals with an abandon that electrified the waiters on the +train, and then her sense of economy demanded that she should eat what +she had ordered. Her tips were dazzling and erratic, but they, and her +quaint personality, won for her great comfort and care. She was in +better condition, physically, than she had been for many a day when, +one golden winter afternoon, she stood in Olive Treadwell's +drawing-room in Boston and waited for Cynthia. Mrs. Treadwell was out, +but the "young lady," the maid said, was in. + +"How very fortunate," thought Matilda and then took her rigid stand +across the room. Unconsciously she was waiting to see what Lansing +Treadwell had done to this girl of the hills whom he had so ruthlessly +and breath-takingly borne away. Lans was, unknowingly, before the most +awful bar of judgment he had ever stood--the bar of pure womanhood! + +There was a step upon the stairs; a quick, yet faltering step, and then +Cynthia entered the room and came toward Matilda Markham with deep, +questioning eyes and slow smile. The impression the girl made was to +last the rest of Matilda's life. Once, years before, Matilda had seen +a rare and lovely butterfly caught in the meshes of a net, and, oddly +enough, the memory came to her now as she looked at the sweet, +starry-eyed creature advancing. She was as surely caught in an +invisible net of some kind as the long-ago butterfly had been. Matilda +Markham noted the conventional gown of dull blue with silver trimming; +the little slippers to match, and the silken stockings; her eyes rested +upon the string of small silver beads wound around the slim throat; +all, all were but part of the mesh that caught and held the spirit that +had ceased to struggle. + +How lovely she was, this Cynthia of Lost Hollow, in spite of the crude +conventions! The frank, waiting eyes were as gray-blue as her mountain +skies; the lips, half-parted, had not forgotten to smile above the hurt +and pain of her tiring days and homesick nights; the smooth braids of +shining hair bound the lifted head just as dear Madam Bubble had +designed them on the morning when the portrait of "The Biggest of Them +All" was hung in the Significant Room. + +"You--wanted to see--me?" + +The drawl had become sacred to Matilda's ears. + +"Yes, my child. I have come from your old home just to see--you." + +A faint colour stole into the whiteness of the fair face. + +"From Lost Mountain?" Oh! if Sandy could have heard her say that word +how it would have rested his soul! "From Lost Mountain?" + +"Yes, my dear. Come and sit here beside me." + +Matilda could not stand longer. Her knees shook beneath her for, like +a blinding light, the knowledge came to her that poor Lans, with all +his faults, was exonerated from any wrong to this young girl! The +innocent old eyes and the radiant young ones had no veil between them. +Sitting side by side they smiled bravely at each other and then Cynthia +reached out her hands. + +"You are"--she whispered--"you are Sandy Morley's fairy godmother! Oh! +I know all about you. Lans has told me. I am right glad--oh! mighty +glad to see you!" + +The voice shook with emotion and Matilda Markham could not answer for a +moment. Never in her life had she been so moved. She longed to take +this girl to her heart and hold her there, but instead she found +herself, presently, telling the homely news of the hills to the hungry +soul whose yearning eyes never fell from her face. + +"And the little doctor is my own aunt, you know?" + +"Yes, child. They told me all about it." + +"It's right good to have one's own--at last;" this was plaintively +whispered; "and my dear, dear father. You know his story, too?" + +"Yes. It lives in the hills and speaks for him even to-day." + +"They-all say I'm like my father." + +"I am sure you must be. You are like Miss Lowe, and I guess one can +always tell which parent a boy or girl is like. I guess Sandy, now, is +like his mother. He doesn't favour his father." + +"Yes. I reckon Sandy must be like his mother. I had never thought of +that before." + +Cynthia's eyes were fixed and dreamy. + +"And you, child, are you happy and content?"--the words of Sandy were +the only ones possible--"I must tell them all about you when I go back." + +"You are--going back?" the yearning was unmistakable--"I thought, +maybe, you were going to stay here--I'd be mighty glad to have you +near." + +"I'm coming home, to my own home a little later. I'll see you often +then." + +Slowly they were advancing and retreating, this woman and girl, but +each venture brought them a little nearer. Like the incoming waters of +a rising tide a slight gain was made, moment by moment. Then suddenly +and unexpectedly a rushing current bore them to the high mark. + +"You poor, homesick child! Come cry it out and have done with it!" + +It was not like Matilda Markham to so assert herself; it was not like +the dear, brave Madam Bubble to succumb as she now did; but, in another +instant she was kneeling where Sandy had knelt a few nights before, and +clinging to the dear hands which had, then, rested upon his bowed head. + +The wall of suppression that Cynthia had raised, during the past weeks, +between her mountain life and this artificial one of the city, crumbled +at the message from the hills. Her part in the strange drama sank to +insignificance, and in her weakness she was able to view it clearly and +dispassionately with this plain little woman who had come to serve her. + +"I did not understand," she sobbed; "I was tired--there had been the +night in the storm, you know. I did not want to make trouble and--oh! +how can I tell you, but it was only when the little doctor--my +aunt--explained everything that I saw myself standing alone in the +confusion with something I must say and do! I couldn't let them do my +work for me, dear lady,"--the quaint expression caused Matilda Markham +to draw in her breath sharply--"I was no longer a child and I had to +bear my part. When we-all stood in Sandy's cabin and the truth came to +us-all, at once, I reckon for the first time in my life, I realized I +was a woman. I couldn't take my chance and leave Lans out. They-all +wanted to save me from myself, but they forgot him and then when he +said"--the girl gasped--"that he wanted me--I had to go! I did not go +because any one compelled me--I just had to go! I was led like when I +married Lans. More and more I see it now; I feel it in the night. It +did not _happen_, dear lady; it all leads up to something God wants me +to do; something no one can do as well as I. Sandy had his call--you +know how he responded? Well, I have my leading. We-all, of the hills, +get near God, dear lady. We are lonelier; we need Him more and He +speaks more plainly to us, I reckon." + +The superstition and mysticism of Lost Hollow held every thought and +fancy of this girl, but Matilda Markham realized that they gave her +strength and purpose as they had poor Sandy before her. + +"Oh! my dear, my dear!" was all she could say, but she freed one of her +cool hands from Cynthia's hot one, and laid it like a benediction on +the girlish head. + +"I am waiting, dear lady, for the thing I am to do, and Lans is mighty +kind. He is my big brother and I am his little sister--until I can +read my way plain. You did not know he was so good?" + +"I thank God that he is!" breathed Matilda Markham devoutly. + +"I wish I could make--Mrs. Treadwell understand. She--laughs!" + +Matilda felt her ire rise. The laugh of Olive Treadwell could be +brutal and cruel in its sweetest ripple! + +"It seems right long and wearying waiting, waiting for the meaning." + +Cynthia's slow words flowed on. She had ceased crying and was looking +up now with brave, clear eyes, "and part of me is there--in Lost +Hollow. That part of me comes to comfort _this_ part of me--can you +understand, dear lady?" + +Matilda nodded. She did, indeed, understand. + +"And that part of me makes this part of me--stay here! After that +mighty hurry and trouble when Lans and I came away alone I was right +frightened. There was just once--while we stayed a few hours in New +York that I--that something happened. I was in a room, Lans had gone +out to order luncheon and I felt I had to run away! I stood with my +back against the wall when he came in and I reckon I was wild, for he +came close and took my hands this-er-way----" Cynthia was acting the +vivid scene standing now before Matilda Markham and holding her +hands--"and he said slow and firm, 'lil' girl, I'm not going to hurt +you. You and Sandy Morley are not going to see me fail!' And then +that part of me that lives always in Lost Hollow went back mighty safe +and strong. I haven't been afraid, dear lady, since." + +Then it was that Miss Markham arose and realized her strength to its +full extent. + +"Child," she said, "I've changed my mind about going back to Lost +Hollow to-morrow. I'm going to Bretherton and that is only a half hour +by rail from here. I want you to come to me, there. I must see you +again. I'll explain to Mrs. Treadwell and Lans. I declare I haven't +felt so like my old self for years and years." + +"Oh! dear lady!" Cynthia's shining eyes were large and happy; "dear +lady! you mean you will let me see you in your own home?" + +"I mean--just that." + +"Oh! Oh! why sometimes I think that soon God will say, 'lil' girl, +your task is done. Run back home now! Run back to your hills.' Maybe +I can go back with you!" + +A gayety rang in the sweet voice that almost reduced Matilda to tears. +The abandon and inconsequence were so oddly mingled with the strange +determined strength that the elderly woman was confused and irrational. + +The wayward, wild creature of the hills, ensnared in the net woven by +Lans's blind passion and irresponsibility, seemed so incapable of +fulfilling any role that demanded the recognition of her as a wife in +this superficial environment that Matilda felt immoral and +sacrilegious. She wanted to say, instead of leaving it to a higher +power, "Your task is done, lil' girl! Run back to your hills!" but +instead she said brokenly: + +"You will come to Bretherton?" + +"Indeed, yes; dear lady!" + +"Perhaps you will go out with me to-morrow if I stay over night in +town?" + +"If--oh! if they will let me. But you see, there are a mighty lot of +things to do--I'm learning!" + +"Good-bye then, dear child." + +And that night, on the paper of a quiet little hotel, Matilda wrote a +brief note to Lost Hollow. She addressed it to Levi. + + +I'm going to stay on a spell. I never felt better in my life. It was +the thinking that life didn't need me any more, that was running me +down. It's awful foolish for old folks to let go of things. By the +way, I called at Olive Treadwell's to-day and saw Lans's wife. She's +real fascinating and real good looking. Brother, I want you to +reconsider about leaving Lans out of your will. He's coming out real +strong and blood is blood! Tell Sandy this girl, Cynthia, sends kind +regards and is enjoying her stay in Boston better than she expected. + + +This letter had a marvellous effect upon Levi and Sandy. + +"What do you think of that?" Levi exclaimed shaking with laughter. "If +that ain't spunk and real grit." + +Sandy was looking out of the study window and did not reply. + +"That's the old New England spirit. Never say die and all the rest!" +Levi chuckled. + +"Thank God for it!" was all Sandy said in return. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +The work God had sent Cynthia to do came to hand very shortly after Miss +Markham's return to Bretherton. Cynthia had spent one blessed day at the +quiet old farm, then Mrs. Treadwell and she went down together and stayed +over one night, and once Lans ran down and had an hour's talk with his +Aunt 'Tilda before she slipped back to Lost Hollow and Cynthia's task +came for her doing. + +Lans's visit had sent Matilda to her knees beside the four-post bedstead +in the room that had once been Caroline Markham's. + +"Caroline," the trembling old lips had breathed, "it was _your_ boy who +came home to-day. _Your_ boy!" + +For Lans quite frankly and naturally had told his story. The hot blood +of the South was well in command and the light of reason was in the sorry +eyes. + +"Aunt 'Tilda, all my life I've been excused and forgiven for my +faults--bat I'm going to work my way out now, God helping me! I'm going +to take whatever punishment and joy comes. Up there in the hills I was +like a devil caged. I had passed through a trouble and been worsted; I +saw Morley standing where I should have stood, had I been less a fool +years ago. I couldn't seem to see, up there, how he deserved all that +was his. I was just maddened. I wanted to get on top and--I let go +myself! Cynthia seemed a child at first but all of a sudden she flashed +upon all that was evil in me--and I went blindly ahead until I stood +among them all in Morley's cabin. They all seemed so big and fine and +true and I saw--myself! All at once I found myself wanting more than I +had ever wanted anything in my life--to make good! I took my own way. +Some day you will all understand. That little girl is going to have her +choice by and by--I only wanted my fair chance to win out. When she +makes her choice her soul will be hers--I promised Sandy Morley that!" + +It was this that had sent Matilda to her knees beside the bed of Lans's +mother. + +And one evening--it was two days before Christmas, Lans took Cynthia and +his Aunt Olive Treadwell to a theatre in Boston. The play was a popular +one and, being late, Lans was obliged to take a box in order to get +seats. Cynthia felt and looked like a child. The excitement and +brilliancy brought colour to her cheeks and made her eyes dance. She +hardly spoke and only now and then heard what her companions said. + +"Lans," Olive Treadwell said during the first act, "there is Marian +Spaulding in the tenth row!" + +This did not interest Cynthia but Lans's sharp start did. She turned and +looked at him and then followed his eyes. A pale, slim woman in black +was looking at them from the orchestra seats. The expression on the thin +face remained in Cynthia's memory even when the scenes of the enthralling +play drove it, for the time being, into shadow. + +"Blue is Cynthia's colour," Mrs. Treadwell next remarked apropos of +nothing. "She's right handsome, Lans. You ought to be less a fool and +behave normally. She'd make a mighty sensation if----" But this did not +interest the absorbed third party in the box at all. + +When the play was over and the audience was crowding into the lobby, +Cynthia noticed the girl of the tenth row near them. She was not looking +at them, but she gave the impression of listening to what they said. +Again the face claimed Cynthia's attention. + +"Brother," she said softly to Lans, "is that a friend of yours? She +looks mighty sad." + +Lans gave another sharp start and rather abruptly replied: + +"I knew her once. Come, little sister, that is our number being called. +We must not hold up the line of taxis. Aunt Olive is out of sight." + +Strangely enough Cynthia did not dream of the play that night; nor did +the sad, fair face of Lans's one-time friend hold part in her visions, +but she did dream of Lost Mountain as she had not dreamed of it in many a +night. She was back among the dear, plain home scenes. She was planning +with Sandy the Home-school; she was in the cabin at Trouble Neck with the +little doctor. The sun was shining in the broad, opened door and she and +Marcia Lowe were sitting where the warm brightness flooded them. And at +that juncture of the dream something very vivid occurred. Quite +distinctly she heard the little doctor say: + +"In all the world there is nothing so important as this, Cyn. Remember +it as long as you live." + +Upon awakening, Cynthia, in her still, dark room, found herself haunted +by the dream and the little doctor's words. They were startling, yet +strangely familiar. When, before, had Marcia Lowe spoken them; what had +she meant? Then suddenly it came back to Cynthia. It was about little +children! + +"Our loves and our poor selves!" Marcia Lowe had often said, and +especially when she and Cynthia were working over the little ones of the +hill cabins, "what do they matter compared to the sacred lives of these +helpless creatures?" + +She had been quite fierce about it once when she had told Liza Hope that +God would hold her responsible if she brought any more blighted souls +into existence through Mason's passion and her own weak yielding. + +Lying awake and trembling in the small room off of Olive Treadwell's, +Marcia Lowe's words returned with sharp insistence and kept Cynthia +wakeful for many an hour. + +The next morning she was alone when the maid came to her and said a lady +wanted to see her on very important business and had asked that they +might be undisturbed for a half hour. Cynthia, puzzled and half afraid, +bade the girl bring the caller to the sitting-room in which she then was. + +What followed was so vital and impressive that all her life Cynthia was +to recall the setting of the scene. The whiteness of the sunlight +streaming into the east windows, the deep red of the wall paper, the tick +of the marble clock on the shelf, and the crackle of the cannel coal fire +on the hearth. While she waited for the visitor she was unconsciously +preparing for the part and the lines of what was to follow. By the time +the slow, light steps were at the room door, Cynthia seemed to know who +the stranger was. The maid closed the door after the guest and then +Cynthia said quietly to the tall, black-robed girl: + +"You--are--Marian Spaulding!" + +"He--he has told you?" + +"No. Mrs. Treadwell--told me! Please sit down." + +They faced each other with only a few feet between them. Cynthia was +obsessed with but one conscious thought--she must go on as she was led; +say what she would be told to say. She could not think for herself. But +the stranger--distracted and ill at ease, leaped at conclusions; hurried +to her goal and took no heed of the obstacles in her path. + +"I did not know until last night that he--that Lans had a sister," she +said. "Our own affairs were so engrossing and--and exclusive--at that +time!" + +Marian Spaulding had an odd habit of spacing her words as if the sharp +breaths in between were dashes to emphasize her thought. "I knew Mrs. +Treadwell was aware of--of our arrangement--I knew, from Lans, that she +was broad minded and generous but when I saw you two together last +night--I--I wanted to come to you instead of to her!" + +An overpowering excitement in the speaker began to affect Cynthia. She +drew her chair closer and whispered: + +"Please tell me--all about it!" + +The significant words rushed Marian Spaulding breathlessly onward. + +"I--I could not go to him--to Lans--until I made sure--as sure as +possible--that I would not be injuring him by--by my demands. I wanted +to tell some one who loved him and would think of him, first. He was +always so heavenly good to me--I would not harm him even--now!" + +"No!" Cynthia's deep eyes were fastened on the white, strained face. "I +reckon no one would want to hurt Lans." + +"I was so unhappy when--when he saved me from my life of shame and +misery. There was no other way--and--and we had to choose! He was so +noble--it was I who--who--gave myself to him; he never exacted--anything. +I--loved him as only God and I can know! Poor Lans never comprehended +why I left--but he--my husband was ill; dying and I could not help it. +Something made me go back. It was the good in me that Lans had created +that most of all compelled me to go. If Lans could believe that! oh! if +he only could! A woman could, but could a man?" + +Poor Cynthia was struggling to understand a strange language. + +"I'm right sure," she faltered, "that Lans could understand." + +"Do you think so? Oh! I have been so tortured. He told me to come to +him if I needed him and God knows I need him now--but I wanted most of +all--not to hurt him--or exact too much from his goodness. You see----" +a palpitating pause followed. Then: "I did not _know_ of my condition +when I went away; I only heard and saw the wretched man who was once, who +was still--my husband. I stayed and nursed him; he died--a month +ago--and now--I must think of--of--the child!" + +"The child?" Faintly Cynthia repeated the words and her bewildered mind +struggled with them and fitted them, somehow, into the Hopes' cabin, and +that scene where Marcia Lowe arraigned Liza. + +The door of the sitting-room opened and Lans entered noiselessly. Marian +Spaulding's back was toward it and in her slow, vague way Cynthia was +wondering why he should be there just then. The last shielding crust of +childhood was breaking away from Cynthia--her womanhood, full and +glowing, was being fanned to flame by the appeal this strange woman was +making upon it. Cynthia, the girl who had been caught in the net, had no +longer any part in this tragedy--she was free! + +"The child?" she again repeated, "what child?" + +"Why, Lans's and mine!" + +Then Cynthia stood up quite firm and straight. She looked full and +commandingly at Lans who was leaning, deadly white, against the door he +had closed behind him. + +"Here is Lans, now," she said, more to the haggard man than to the pale +woman. + +It was as if, in those four simple words, she appealed to the best and +finest of him to deal with this fearful responsibility which was his, not +hers. In that instant she relinquished all the forced ties that held him +and her--she cast him off superbly at this critical time of his life; not +bitterly or unkindly--but faithfully. + +Marian Spaulding turned and rose unsteadily to her feet, then with +outstretched arms, she staggered toward Lans. Over her pitiful, wan face +a flood of passion and love surged--her lonely, desperate soul claimed +its own at last! + +"Lans! Lans!" she cried, falling into his arms; "you will understand! +you must understand--and there is--our child!" + +Lansing Treadwell held the little form close, but his wide, haunted eyes +sought Cynthia's over the head pressed against his breast. Cynthia +smiled at him; smiled from a far, far place, helpfully, bravely. She +demanded his best of him with confidence, and the unreality of it all +held no part in the thought of either. + +"I must take her--away!" Lans found words at last to say. + +"Yes," Cynthia nodded, still smiling her wonderful smile at him. + +"I will return--soon. Come--Marian!" + +Cynthia saw them depart, heard the lower door close upon them and then +she awoke from her spell. Sitting down in a deep chair before the fire +she took the incidents of the past few moments, one by one, and set them +in order. Like an ignorant child selecting block after block and asking +some wiser one what they meant, she demanded of her new self the answer +to all she had witnessed. + +The travail was long and desperate--and when Lans Treadwell found her, an +hour later, he was shocked at the sight of her face. + +"My God!" was all he could say. + +"We must--talk it over," Cynthia said gravely. "I can understand now. +You see, dear, I couldn't have her hurt--her and--and the child." + +Lans dropped in the chair Marian Spaulding had sat in and bowed his head +in his hands. + +"Was there ever such a cruel situation?" he groaned. Cynthia came to him +and knelt beside the arm of his chair. She had never come to him so +before and the touch of her body thrilled the man. + +"You did not tell her--about me, big brother? did you? You let her +believe I am your sister." + +"Good God! how could I tell the truth? I was afraid of killing her." + +"And--the child. Of course you must not tell--now." + +"Cynthia, in heaven's name, don't be too hard upon me--you are my wife!" + +Fiercely Lans proclaimed this as if, by so doing, he could find refuge +for her as well as himself. But Cynthia shook her head and drove him +back upon his better self again. + +"Those little words spoken by that man in the hills," she whispered, +"couldn't count, I reckon, against--all the rest." + +"They can! They shall, Cynthia. I can make the past clear to you, +little girl----" Then he stopped still before the look in Cynthia's eyes. + +"I am a--woman, Lans!" it seemed to say. + +Presently he heard her speak. + +"You told Sandy, dear, that night in the cabin, that you would leave my +soul to me--until--well! You have left it to me, and the time has come! +I have much to learn; but I understand a mighty lot now. It came to me +while I waited, for you to come back from her! My soul would never be +clean again, Lans, if--I forgot--the little child--hers and yours! God +will be very kind to us-all, dear, if we do right. It's mighty +puzzling--but it will come straight. You once loved her?" + +"Yes, Cynthia--yes!" + +"And you never loved me in _that_ way, dear?" + +"You are my wife!" Again the fierceness, "you must and shall come first." + +"No, Lans; I am not your wife!" + +And with this Cynthia stood up and clasped her hands close. + +"Every law in the land says you are!" Treadwell flung his head back and +faced her; "this is a hideous tangle, but above all--through all--you are +my wife!" + +"I do not know, I cannot make you feel how I see it--but I am not your +wife! I--I do not want to be! Why, when I saw the light in--in Marian +Spaulding's eyes a little time ago as she ran to you--I seemed to know +all at once--that it was not to you, Lans dear, that I wanted to run in +my trouble, but to----" + +"Whom?" + +"To Sandy, dear. Sandy, up there in Lost Hollow." + +"Cynthia!" + +Was she shamming? Was she striving, ignorantly, to make escape easy for +them all? Was she utterly devoid of moral sense? "Moral sense!" At +that Lans Treadwell paused. The glory shining from Cynthia's eyes as she +stood before him, made him shrink and drop his own. The strength and +purity of the high places was upon her. She was lovely and tender, but +primitively firm. The law of the cities she did not know; but the law of +the secret places of the hills was hers. The law of love and Love's God. + +"You must take her away, Lans, dear, and be right good to her as you have +been to me, big brother," the sweet voice, the unutterable tenderness and +firmness more and more carried everything before them; "and let the +little child have its chance--poor lil' child! And by and by--oh! a long +time perhaps--when you are all mighty happy and safe, you must tell her +all about it, Lans, and make her love me--a little! Tell her--it was all +I could do. She will understand and be right glad." + +"And you--little Cyn?" The words came in a groan. + +"I? oh! I reckon this is what God meant me to do, Lans. For this he +brought me down The Way, and now he will let me go home!" + +Mrs. Treadwell's step outside the door brought them both back to the poor +artificial environment that bound them. + +"I--I cannot see her now!" + +Cynthia crouched before the stern, conventional tread of the approaching +woman as if she were in a place she had no right to be and Lans quickly +opened a door leading from the sitting-room to a bedroom through which +she might escape. And as the slight figure ran from his sight he had a +sickening feeling as if, wakening from a dream of mystery and +enchantment, he found himself in the midst of sordid reality. The sweet +purity of the hills passed with Cynthia and the actualities of his future +entered with Olive Treadwell. + +"Lans," she asked sharply, looking about the room, "who was the woman who +called here this morning? The woman Cynthia saw?" + +"It was--Marian Spaulding." + +"Good heavens! Did she talk to Cynthia?" + +"She--tried to--Cynthia--could not understand." + +"She will some day, though, Lans! Can you buy Marian off? I wouldn't +have believed she was so vicious. Did she--lie?" + +"I rather imagine she spoke only--truth." + +"Well! I reckon this is about the worst confusion that was ever brought +about. Without being positively bad, Lans, you've managed to create a +mighty lot of trouble for a good many innocent people." + +"Yes, Aunt Olive." + +Lans was standing by the window looking down into the empty street. + +"What are you--going to do about it?" + +Then Lans turned. + +"Aunt Olive, I'm going to untangle the snarl--somehow! And I'm going to +stand by--Marian!" + +"Marian? You talk like a madman, Lans, or a fool--and a depraved one at +that. You owe everything to Cynthia--you'll be held to it, too, by law!" + +"Aunt Olive," and then Lans laughed a mirthless, cold laugh, "I wonder if +either you or I ever really seriously thought we could--hold Cynthia? +There is no law that could keep her here. She is of the hills. She came +into our lives just long enough to purify our air and--clear my vision. +She'll go back now. We--cannot keep her!" + +"Go back--to whom?" + +This practical question took the smile from Lans's lips. + +"To Sandy Morley, I reckon," he said grimly; "most of every noble thing I +might have had--gets to him--sooner or later. He always loved her; she +has just confessed to me that she loves him." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +There was a crust of glistening snow upon The Way; every branch of the +tall, bare trees was outlined with a feathery whiteness which shone, as +one looked deep into the woods, like the tracery of some fantastic +spirit going where it listeth without design or purpose. From Lost +Mountain the shadows had long since fled, and the gaunt peak rose clear +and protectingly over The Hollow, which, somehow, had undergone a +mysterious change in a few short months--or, was the change due to the +magic touch of love that dwelt in the eyes of a young girl who had left +the early train at The Forge and, on foot and alone, was wandering up +The Way with a song of joy trembling upon her lips? So quietly and +quickly had she run from the station, that Smith Crothers, standing by +the door of the saloon opposite, had been the only one to notice the +passenger in the long coat, rich furs, and quaint little velvet hat. + +"Who's that?" he asked of the bartender inside. The man, on his knees, +scrubbing the floor, rose stiffly and came to Crothers. + +"Ole miss from The Holler?" he ventured vaguely. + +"Ole miss--be damned!" Crothers was in an ill humour. + +"Company, maybe, for the Morley cabin. It's mighty 'mazing how many +folks, first and last, do tote up The Way these days. But I don't +see--nobody!" + +Neither did Crothers, now, for the stranger was hidden from sight. +Then he began to wonder if there really had been any one. The night's +revel had been rather wilder than usual, and Crothers was not as young +as he once was. + +The bell of his factory was ringing, however, and he unsteadily made +his way thither. + +It was Cynthia who was treading lightly up The Way, but not the Cynthia +who a few months before had gone so blindly to do the bidding of that +inner voice of conscience. + +"It was here," murmured she, standing behind a tall tree by the road, +"that you fled from Crothers the night of the fire. Poor little Cyn!" + +That was it! The child, Cynthia, walked beside the woman, Cynthia, +now, and the woman with clear, awakened eyes--understood at last! + +"Poor little Cyn! How frightened you were and how bravely you fought +for--me! Or was it I who fought for you? Never mind! we have come +home. Come home together, dear, you and I! How heavenly good it is +for us to come--together!" + +At every step the weariness and sense of peril, engendered by her +experience, dropped from Cynthia. She was a woman, but Lans had left +her soul to her, and she could clasp hands with the past quite +confidently and joyously. + +"Home! home!" The word thrilled and thrilled through her being, and on +every hand she noted the touch of Sandy Morley with tender +appreciation. She laughed, too, this thin, pale girl, and could Sandy +have seen her then he would have thought her shining white face, set in +the dark furs, more like, than ever, the dogwood bloom under the pines! + +"And here I met him on The Way!" Cynthia paused at the spot where she +had stood that spring morning, and saw, with a shock of disappointment, +the man who had usurped her childish ideal of Sandy Morley. + +"How lonely he must have been--when I did not know him! Oh! Sandy--to +think I did not know you. You, with your brave, kind eyes and your +tender heart!" + +A tear rolled down the uplifted face. It was a tear of joy, for +Cynthia was going to Sandy. From the unrest and unreality she had fled +to him feeling confident that he would gather up the tangled and +dropped threads of her life, and weave them, somehow, into a new and +perfect pattern. She had so much to tell him! And he was there, close +to her! Waiting, waiting for her to come to him and she could afford +to dally by the wayside; gather up the precious memories--so like toys +of the child she once had been and, by and by, she would go to him like +a little girl tired of her day's wandering, and he would comfort her! + +By the time Cynthia reached Theodore Starr's church all the heaviness +of recent happenings was forgotten; it had no part in her thought. The +church was gay in Christmas green and red holly berries. The morning +sun, quite high by now, shone in the windows. + +"Father!" whispered the girl as if in prayer, and then she knelt, where +once her childish feet had borne her in terror, and buried her face in +her hands. How well she now understood her dear, dead father! Strong +in human love and sympathy, incapable of inflicting pain--even when +pain would have been better and kinder than the lack of it--how like +him she, the daughter, was! How she had slipped aside from the right +path because weak desire to escape, or inflict pain, had been her +portion. Well, she had suffered; had endured her exile; been +mercifully spared from worse things, and now God had led her--home! + +The unseen presence seemed to bend pityingly from the rude desk-pulpit +and comfort the gentle heart of the returned wanderer. + +Presently, choosing a time when the store near by was deserted, Cynthia +ran from the church, across The Way, and escaped, unseen, to the trail +leading up to Stoneledge. Her gay spirits returned and she sang +snatches of song as she once used to sing. There was no sequence, no +meaning of words, but the short sharp turns and trills were as wild and +sweet as the bird notes. She tried Sandy's call--but her memory failed +her there! + +"Oh! the old tree," Cynthia ran to it. For months and months she had +forgotten it, and the secret it held in its dead heart. Yes, the box +was there! The box in which lay the outbursts of a girl's fancy and +imaginings. With a mischievous laugh Cynthia removed the old letters +and put them in the bag that hung from a girdle at her waist. Then she +walked on to the old Walden Place. There a shock awaited her. What +had happened? The crumbling walls had fallen in many places; but there +were props and scaffoldings, too! Sandy had begun his work of +redemption on the Great House. It was to be the home of the Markhams, +but the surprised onlooker could not know that the property, taken by +the county for unpaid taxes, had been bought in by Levi Markham in +Sandy's name. + +"Dear old Stoneledge!" And then Cynthia sat down upon a fallen log and +knew the heavy heartedness of one who arrives too late to receive the +welcome that was hushed forever. But suddenly her face brightened. In +the general demoralization a portion of the house still stood--it was +the wing, the library! + +The roof had caved in, but the Significant Room stood open and stark to +the glittering winter sunlight! Reverent hands had removed the +furniture, books, and pictures; the stark and staring walls, with their +stained and torn paper, were bared to the gaze of every chance +passerby. Suddenly, to the yearning heart of the onlooker, a miracle +appeared. The scene of devastation disappeared; there was a fragrance +of honeysuckle and yellow roses in the sharp air and, in a dim, sweet, +old, sheltered room stood a little girl with patched gingham gown and +long smooth-hanging braids of hair, gazing up at a portrait that no +eyes but hers had ever seen. It was little Madam Bubble and she was +lovingly, proudly, exultingly, looking at "The Biggest of Them All!" + +Unheeded, the tears rained down the cheeks of the woman standing by the +ruins of her old home; she stretched her arms out tremblingly as if to +hold the vision to the exclusion of all the rest of life. + +"Oh! my Sandy, you have indeed cut your way through your enemies. Oh! +my love; my dear, dear love." + +How long she stood rapt in her vision Cynthia never knew. Her day of +wonders enchanted and held her oblivious of weariness, hunger, or +physical pain, but she must get to Trouble Neck; she must throw herself +into the safe arms of the little doctor and--find peace and guidance. +Later they--the Cup-o'-Cold-Water Lady and she--would go to Sandy's +cabin as they had that night when Lans had claimed her and then--well, +beyond that Cynthia could not see! + +At Trouble Neck another disappointment met her. The trim cabin was +empty! The unlocked door gave way to the eager pressure; the sunny +room was full of generous welcome, and a gleam of fire on the hearth +showed that the little mistress had not been gone long. + +Some people leave a room more vacant than others. Like the breath of +perfume, after the flower has been removed, their personality and +dearness linger, making one miss them more, and long for them more +keenly. As a child might suffer at not finding its mother awaiting it +at the close of day Cynthia suffered then. She wandered to the table +on which lay the little doctor's work--a child's dress! Beside it was +a medical book opened at a chapter on the diseases of--children. And +on the widespread book lay an unsealed note addressed to--Tod Greeley! + +A smile, a wan, understanding smile touched Cynthia's lips, but +presently it softened into the dear, old, slow smile, and the girl bent +and kissed the penciled name of the postmaster, for the dear, absent +hand had rested there last! + +There were bread and milk and bacon in the pantry, and with happy +familiarity Cynthia made a meal for herself, and ate heartily. After +this she went into the lean-to chamber and taking off her hat and +wraps, lay down upon the couch, for she began to realize how weary she +was. She slept several hours and was awakened by a step in the outer +room. Thinking it was Marcia Lowe she raised herself and looked +through the half-opened door. It was Tod Greeley! He had lighted the +oil lamp and stood by the table with Marcia's note in his hand. Over +and again he read it, then folded it slowly and put it in his breast +pocket. + +A change had been wrought upon Greeley. He stood straight and firm; he +was shaven and shorn and neatly dressed; his face was happier, too, +than Cynthia had ever seen it. The lazy good humour was merged into +purpose and dignity. + +"To-morrow, then!" Cynthia heard him murmur; "to-morrow then!" + +He extinguished the light and passed from the house, leaving Cynthia +more lonely than she had been since she left the train that morning. + +For an hour or two Cynthia struggled with herself. Abstractedly she +knew that she ought not to go to Sandy Morley alone. Something that +some one--she could not remember who or where--taught her, warned her +that it was not right for her to leave Trouble Neck that evening. + +"But why?" asked the great longing, "why?" + +"You are Lans Treadwell's wife; his wife!" + +At this Cynthia laughed outright. That part of her life had touched +her only as her awful experience with Crothers had done; except that +Lans had gained her confidence in Man while Crothers had imperilled it. +The real self of Cynthia was pure and untouched; ready to offer now, to +offer itself, upon the true altar of love and consecration. Nothing +could change that; nothing could blind her to it; but over and through +the knowledge ran the discord of suggestion left by the contact with +convention, down, and far, from Lost Mountain. + +It was eight o'clock when Cynthia gained her triumph over the claim +upon her, and cloaked and hooded, started out. + +She wore her own, old cloak and the red hood that Marcia Lowe's loving +fingers had knitted for her. Sandy must not be disappointed in her; it +must be little Cyn, not the Cynthia Lans Treadwell had claimed, who was +to put forth her appeal for help. + +The crisp, starry night was still and fine; the walk from Trouble Neck +to Sandy's cabin brought the blood to the pale cheeks, light to the +large eyes. How quiet the cabin was--and dark! Only one light shone +forth and that was from the study. Cautiously Cynthia stepped close +and looked in; the curtains were parted where a hasty hand had left +them. Sandy, seated near the glowing fire, was painting at his easel. +After a long day's work in the open air he was indulging his fancy, +forgetting the trials and disappointments of his life in the poor +talent that was his. The canvas was so placed that the watcher from +outside could see it plainly over the back bent toward it. A face +gleamed from a crown of dogwood blossoms--pink and white blossoms! It +was the face of--Madam Bubble! The girl-face with the slow, alluring +smile and the waiting eyes! + +The woman outside bent her head upon her cold clasped hands while the +waves of love and surrender engulfed her. All her life she had been +coming to--Sandy! He had cut down every barrier but one! He must +crush that! How strong he looked, how fine! + +A tap as gentle as the touch of a bird's wing fell upon the frosty +glass and Sandy turned sharply. He waited a moment, then came to the +window. Cynthia, frightened at her daring, shrank into the shadow and +breathed hard. Sandy waited a moment longer and then drew the heavy +curtains together close, leaving the outer world in darkness. + +A moment later Cynthia, regaining courage, crept close to the glass and +tapped again. This time Sandy strode to the door, flung it wide and, +standing in the panel of warmth and light with uplifted head, said +sternly: + +"Who is there? What is wanted?" + +Who he expected he hardly knew himself, but the answer he received +caused him to reel backward. + +"It's--it's lil' Cyn, Sandy, and she wants--you!" + +Then he drew her in, closed the door upon the world and, holding her +before him by the shoulders, looked deep and searchingly into her eyes +which met his unflinchingly and trustfully. + +"Thank God!" was all he said, but in that moment poor Lans Treadwell +passed unscathed before his last judge. + +"How thin you are, little Cyn!" + +Sandy had drawn the big leather chair to the hearth and seated her in +it. He took off the cloak and hood and then stood back. + +"I reckon the longing for home did it, Sandy." + +"You have--been homesick?" + +"Oh! mighty homesick. I have wanted the mountain until my soul hurt." + +"Poor lil' Cyn." + +"Say it again, Sandy, say it again!" The dimmed eyes implored him. + +"Poor lil' Cyn." + +No suggestion of impropriety had entered with Cynthia. Sandy was too +fine and self-forgetful to be touched by worldliness. Cynthia had come +to him; he and she were safe! + +"And Lans, Cynthia?" + +"Come close, Sandy. There, sit so, on the stool. I want to touch you, +I want to see you near while I go back--go away from our mountain for a +time. Come with me, Sandy, down to Lans!" + +Then she told him. The red firelight played on her pale, sweet face; +her hand sometimes reached out and lay upon the shoulder by the arm of +her chair; once the fingers touched his cheek--but Sandy did not move +and his eyes never looked up from the heart of the glowing log. + +"It was a long journey to the day when I understood, Sandy. It was a +hard path for ignorant feet and blind eyes--but God was very good to +me. The South is slow with us-all, dear, but up there in the North--I +awakened! I think it came--the truth, dear, when she--the girl, ran to +Lans. In the mighty times of a woman's life she can only run that +way--to one man! And like the mists, clearing from Lost Mountain, the +shadows left me and I knew right well that come what might, Sandy dear, +in all the time on ahead, in joy or sorrow, pain or--death it would be +to you I would want to run." + +The log fell apart in rich glory and then Sandy looked up into the +drooping, flower-like face. + +"Don't, lil' Cyn," he whispered, "you do not understand, but--you must +not speak so to me." + +Then she laughed. + +"Oh! I reckon I know what you mean, Sandy. I've been through it all +and--run away from it! Sandy, tell me true; before the good and great +God, doesn't that poor girl belong to Lans more than I do?" + +"Yes!" + +"Isn't his duty to her?" + +"Yes, yes, lil' Cyn." + +"Then what is left? Just--you and me, I reckon, Sandy." + +Sandy gripped his clasped hands close as if by so doing he could better +control the rising passion of his love for the girl beside him. Her +ignoring of stern fact turned his reason. She was right--but she was +wrong! He must protect her and never fail her; he must not be less +than Lans. + +Then her words came to him in the chaos of his emotions; a new thought +had claimed her. She had finished, at last, with the story of her +exile; she was back among her hills. + +"And the factory, Sandy, it is coming on right fast, I reckon?" + +"It is nearly done." + +"And--the Home-school?" + +"That, too, is nearly ready." + +"You haven't forgotten the lil' room, off in the corner, have you, +Sandy? The lil' room where the baby-things are to come to me to +be--cuddled?" + +Sandy shivered. + +"You--haven't left _that_ out, have you, Sandy?" + +"I had, lil' Cyn, but I am going to put it aback--to-morrow." + +"I'm right glad, Sandy, for I've learned some mighty sweet lil' tunes, +and I've bought some pictures and books with stories that will make +them-all laugh when we've taught them how. My trunk is full of things +for the babies." + +Sandy permitted himself one look at the dear face so close to his own. +It wore the white rapt look he remembered so well; the wonderful, +brooding tenderness as fancy held it. It was so she had looked upon +him when, as a ragged boy, he sat beside her. She had awakened +imagination within his starved soul and given his ambition wings with +which to soar. + +He and she were now bent forward toward the smouldering fire; he on the +stool, she in the deep chair. + +"Do you remember, Sandy, lil' Madam Bubble?" + +"I reckon I remember nothing else so--clearly." + +He looked away, he could trust himself no farther. + +"And the 'Biggest of Them All'--you remember him?" + +"I--I have forgotten him, Cynthia." + +"No--you have not forgotten him, Sandy!" + +"He--he does not seem to have any place, lil' Cyn." + +"Oh! yes and yes he does! I reckon he is bigger than even you or +I--know!" + +Did she suspect the terrible weakness of desire that was overpowering +him? At this thought Sandy gripped his hands closer; he felt her deep, +true eyes upon him and a rush of blood dyed his dark face to crimson. +Cynthia saw this and laid her cool hand upon his shoulder while she +asked bravely, daringly: + +"Do you love me--Sandy?" + +What other woman on earth could have put that question at such a time? +He and she were alone in the empty woods and the night held them. +Sandy turned to her. + +"As God hears me--yes, lil' Cyn, with all my heart and soul. I have +loved you all my life." + +"In this bag," Cynthia touched the bag at her waist, "are the letters I +wrote to you, Sandy, while you were away. I hid them in an old tree by +Stoneledge. The tree kept them safe for--me. There are a right +many--all answers to the one you sent me. Do you want them, Sandy?" + +"Yes." + +"Here--Sandy!" + +The letters, more precious than any other gift, lay in his keeping at +last. + +"God bless you, lil' Cyn." + +She smiled divinely. + +"I wandered far down in the valley, Sandy, and I had a hard lesson to +learn; a hard thing to do, and I've come home to find you waiting for +me. Oh! tell me, dear, isn't there one law, just one in our land to +set a lil' girl free who has made a mistake?" + +Behind the two by the fire a door opened and, on the threshold stood +Levi Markham perplexed and awed. Slowly the meaning of the scene came +to him; Matilda had somewhat prepared him; the question of the girl by +Sandy's side shed a blinding light upon the confusion of his thoughts. +Standing there, rugged and strong, he seemed the personification of +power and solution. But he was waiting; he must know what Sandy felt! +He drew back into the cold, dark passage and played the eavesdropper +for the first and last time in his life. + +"Mine! mine!" Never had Sandy's voice known that tone before. Levi +bowed his head. + +"You are mine! Yes, lil' Cyn, there is a law, there must be a law that +can give us to each other; I have been waiting for you by The Way all +my life, and you have come to me, lil' girl, at last--my lil' Cyn." + +Then Levi Markham stole away. He felt along the passage with +outstretched hands for his eyes were blinded. He must waken Matilda; +he must--but there he paused. The door, at which he had just stood, +was opening! He had time, only, to crouch in the shadow of a turn of +the hallway before Sandy and Cynthia came out. Sandy had his right arm +protectingly around the girl; her bright head rested on his shoulder; +in his left hand Sandy held high a lighted candle. + +"We must tell them, dear heart," he was whispering; "they two before +any one else." + +And then Levi, seeing flight possible, ran to his sister's room in +order that he might share the confidence that he already possessed. + + + + +THE END + + + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Son of the Hills, by Harriet T. 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