In League with Israel Part 21

Bethany told him of their errand. "Who could have brought more?" she said, touching the shining yellow flower; "for with this little drop of gold is the myrrh of a childish grief, and the frankincense of a loving remembrance."

She felt that he could appreciate the pathos of the gift, and the love that prompted it. They had grown so much closer together in the last twenty-four hours.

"You've been here nearly all day, haven't you?" he asked, noticing her tired face. "I wish you would go home and rest, and let me take your place awhile."

He insisted so kindly that at last she yielded. Her sympathies had been sorely wrought upon during the day, and she was nearly exhausted.

After she had gone, he sat down with his overcoat on, near the front window. There was only a smoldering remnant of a fire in the grate.

The last rays of the sunset were streaming in between the slats of the shutters. He could hear the boys playing in the snowy streets, and the occasional tinkle of pa.s.sing sleighbells.

"I wonder where Lee is," he thought. He had not seen the child since morning.

Two working men came in presently. They looked long and silently at the doctor's peaceful face, and tiptoed awkwardly out again.

The minutes dragged slowly by.

The heavy perfume of the flowers made David drowsy, and he leaned his head on his hand.

The door opened cautiously, and Lee looked in. His eyes were swollen with crying. He did not see David sitting back in the shadow. Only one long ray of yellow sunlight shone in now, and it lay athwart the still form in the center of the room.

Lee paused just a moment beside it, then slipped noiselessly over to the grate. There was a pile of books under his arm. He stirred the dying embers as quietly as he could, and one by one laid the books on the red coals. They were the ones Jack had so unreservedly condemned. Last of all he threw on a dogeared deck of cards. They blazed up, filling the room with light, and revealing David in his seat by the window.

"O," cried Lee in alarm, "I didn't know any one was in here."

Then leaning against the wall, he put his head on his arm, and began to sob in deeper distress than he had yet shown. He felt in his pocket for a handkerchief, but there was none there.

David took out his own and wiped the boy's wet face, as he drew him tenderly to his knee.

"Now tell me all about it," he said.

Lee nestled against his shoulder, and cried harder for awhile. Then he sobbed brokenly: "O, I've been so bad, and he never knew it! I came in here early this morning before anybody was up, to tell him I was sorry--that I would be a good boy--but he was so cold when I touched him, and he couldn't answer me! O, papa, papa!" he wailed. "It's so awful to be left all alone--just a little boy like me!"

David folded him closer without speaking. No words could touch such a grief.

Presently Lee sat up and unfolded a piece of paper. It was only the sc.r.a.p of a fly-leaf, its jagged edges showing it had been torn from some school-book.

"Do you think it will hurt if I put this in his pocket?" he asked in a trembling voice. "I want him to take it with him. I felt like if I burned up those books in here, and put this in his pocket, he'd know how sorry I was."

David took the bit of paper, all blistered with boyish tears, where a penitent little hand, out of the depths of a desolate little heart, had scrawled the promise: "Dear Papa,--I will be good."

A sob shook the man's strong frame as he read it.

"I think he will be very glad to have you give him that," he answered.

"You'd better put it in his pocket before any one comes in."

Lee slipped down from his lap, and crossed the room. "O, I can't," he moaned, attempting to lift the lifeless hands.

David reached down, and unb.u.t.toning the coat, laid the promise of the little prodigal gently on his father's heart, to await its reading in the glad light of the resurrection morning. Then he called some one else to take his place, and went to telephone for a sleigh. In a little while he was driving through the twilight out one of the white country roads, with Lee beside him, that nature's wintry solitudes might lay a cool hand of healing sympathy on the boy's sore heart.

Bethany took him home with her after the funeral, and kept him a week.

Miss Caroline and Miss Harriet petted him with all the ardor of their motherly old hearts. Jack did his best to amuse him, and with the elasticity of childhood, he began to recover his usual vivacity.

"This can not go on always," Mr. Marion said to Bethany one day. He had gone up to the office to talk to her about it.

Dr. Trent had left a small insurance, requesting that Frank Marion be appointed guardian.

"Ray wants him," continued Mr. Marion. "She would have turned the house into an orphan asylum long ago if I had allowed it. But she has so many demands on her time and strength that I am unwilling to have her taxed any more. You see, for instance, if we should take Lee, I am away from home so much, that the greater part of the care and responsibility would fall on her. Just now his father's death has touched him, and he is making a great effort to do all right; but it will be a hard fight for him in a big place like this, so full of temptations to a boy of his age. He would be a constant care. The only thing I can see is to put him in some private school for a few years."

"Let me keep him till after Christmas," urged Bethany. "I can't bear to let the little fellow go away among strangers this near the holiday season. I keep thinking, What if it were Jack?"

"How would it do for me to take him out on my next trip?" suggested Mr.

Marion. "I will be gone two weeks, just to little country towns in the northern part of the State, where he could have a variety of scenes to amuse him."

"That will be fine!" answered Bethany. "I'm sure he will like it."

Lee was somewhat afraid of his tall, dignified guardian. He had a secret fear that he would always be preaching to him, or telling him Bible stories. He hoped that the customers would keep him very busy during the day, and he resolved always to go to bed early enough to escape any curtain lectures that might be in store for him.

To his great relief, Mr. Marion proved the jolliest of traveling companions. There was no preaching. He did not even try to make sly hints at the boy's past behavior by tacking a moral on to the end of his stories, and he only laughed when Taffy crawled out of the innocent-looking brown paper bundle that Lee would not put out of his arms until after the train had started.

Such long sleigh-rides as they had across the open country between little towns! Such fine skating places he found while Mr. Marion was busy with his customers! It was a picnic in ten chapters, he told one of the drivers.

One afternoon, as they drove over the hard, frozen pike, one of the horses began to limp.

"Shoe's comin' off," said the driver. "Lucky we're near Sikes's smithy.

It's jes' round the next bend, over the bridge."

The smoky blacksmith-shop, with its flying sparks and noisy anvils, was nothing new to Lee. He had often hung around one in the city. In fact, there were few places he had not explored.

The smith was a loud, blatant fellow, so in the habit of using rough language that every sentence was accompanied with an oath.

Mr. Marion had taken Lee in to warm by the fire.

"I wonder what that horrible noise is!" he said. They had heard a harsh, grating sound, like some discordant grinding, ever since they came in sight of the shop.

Sikes pointed over his shoulder with his sooty thumb.

"It's an ole mill back yender. It's out o' gear somew'eres. It set me plumb crazy at first, but I'm gettin' used to it now."

"Let's go over and investigate," said Mr. Marion, anxious to get Lee out of such polluted atmosphere.

The miller, an easy-going old fellow, nearly as broad as he was long, did not even take the trouble to remove the pipe from his mouth, as he answered: "O, that! That's nothing but just one of the cogs is gone out of one of the wheels. I keep thinking I'll get it fixed; but there's always a grist a-waiting, so somehow I never get 'round to it. Does make an or'nery sound for a fact, stranger; but if I don't mind it, reckon n.o.body else need worry."

"Lazy old scoundrel," laughed Mr. Marion, after they had pa.s.sed out of doors again. "I don't see how he stands such a horrible noise. It is a nuisance to the whole neighborhood."

When he reported the conversation at the smithy, Sikes swore at the miller soundly.

Frank Marion's eyes flashed, and he took a step forward.