Just David Part 16

In his mountain home everything the house afforded in the way of food had always been freely given to the few strangers that found their way to the cabin door. So now David had no hesitation in going to Mrs.

Holly's pantry for supplies, upon the occasion of his next visit to Joe Glaspell's.

Mrs. Holly, coming into the kitchen, found him merging from the pantry with both hands full of cookies and doughnuts.

"Why, David, what in the world does this mean?" she demanded.

"They're for Joe and Betty," smiled David happily.

"For Joe and--But those doughnuts and cookies don't belong to you.

They're mine!"

"Yes, I know they are. I told them you had plenty," nodded David.

"Plenty! What if I have?" remonstrated Mrs. Holly, in growing indignation. "That doesn't mean that you can take--" Something in David's face stopped the words half-spoken.

"You don't mean that I CAN'T take them to Joe and Betty, do you? Why, Mrs. Holly, they're hungry! Joe and Betty are. They don't have half enough to eat. Betty said so. And we've got more than we want. There's food left on the table every day. Why, if YOU were hungry, wouldn't you want somebody to bring--"

But Mrs. Holly stopped him with a despairing gesture.

"There, there, never mind. Run along. Of course you can take them.

I'm--I'm GLAD to have you," she finished, in a desperate attempt to drive from David's face that look of shocked incredulity with which he was still regarding her.

Never again did Mrs. Holly attempt to thwart David's generosity to the Glaspells; but she did try to regulate it. She saw to it that thereafter, upon his visits to the house, he took only certain things and a certain amount, and invariably things of her own choosing.

But not always toward the Glaspell shanty did David turn his steps.

Very frequently it was in quite another direction. He had been at the Holly farmhouse three weeks when he found his Lady of the Roses.

He had pa.s.sed quite through the village that day, and had come to a road that was new to him. It was a beautiful road, smooth, white, and firm. Two huge granite posts topped with flaming nasturtiums marked the point where it turned off from the main highway. Beyond these, as David soon found, it ran between wide-spreading lawns and flowering shrubs, leading up the gentle slope of a hill. Where it led to, David did not know, but he proceeded unhesitatingly to try to find out. For some time he climbed the slope in silence, his violin, mute, under his arm; but the white road still lay in tantalizing mystery before him when a by-path offered the greater temptation, and lured him to explore its cool shadowy depths instead.

Had David but known it, he was at Sunny-crest, Hinsdale's one "show place," the country home of its one really rich resident, Miss Barbara Holbrook. Had he also but known it, Miss Holbrook was not celebrated for her graciousness to any visitors, certainly not to those who ventured to approach her otherwise than by a conventional ring at her front doorbell. But David did not know all this; and he therefore very happily followed the shady path until he came to the Wonder at the end of it.

The Wonder, in Hinsdale parlance, was only Miss Holbrook's garden, but in David's eyes it was fairyland come true. For one whole minute he could only stand like a very ordinary little boy and stare. At the end of the minute he became himself once more; and being himself, he expressed his delight at once in the only way he knew how to do--by raising his violin and beginning to play.

He had meant to tell of the limpid pool and of the arch of the bridge it reflected; of the terraced lawns and marble steps, and of the gleaming white of the sculptured nymphs and fauns; of the splashes of glorious crimson, yellow, blush-pink, and snowy white against the green, where the roses rioted in luxurious bloom. He had meant, also, to tell of the Queen Rose of them all--the beauteous lady with hair like the gold of sunrise, and a gown like the shimmer of the moon on water--of all this he had meant to tell; but he had scarcely begun to tell it at all when the Beauteous Lady of the Roses sprang to her feet and became so very much like an angry young woman who is seriously displeased that David could only lower his violin in dismay.

"Why, boy, what does this mean?" she demanded.

David sighed a little impatiently as he came forward into the sunlight.

"But I was just telling you," he remonstrated, "and you would not let me finish."

"Telling me!"

"Yes, with my violin. COULDn't you understand?" appealed the boy wistfully. "You looked as if you could!"

"Looked as if I could!"

"Yes. Joe understood, you see, and I was surprised when HE did. But I was just sure you could--with all this to look at."

The lady frowned. Half-unconsciously she glanced about her as if contemplating flight. Then she turned back to the boy.

"But how came you here? Who are you?" she cried.

"I'm David. I walked here through the little path back there. I didn't know where it went to, but I'm so glad now I found out!"

"Oh, are you!" murmured the lady, with slightly uplifted brows.

She was about to tell him very coldly that now that he had found his way there he might occupy himself in finding it home again, when the boy interposed rapturously, his eyes sweeping the scene before him:--

"Yes. I didn't suppose, anywhere, down here, there was a place one half so beautiful!"

An odd feeling of uncanniness sent a swift exclamation to the lady's lips.

"'Down here'! What do you mean by that? You speak as if you came from--above," she almost laughed.

"I did," returned David simply. "But even up there I never found anything quite like this,"--with a sweep of his hands,--"nor like you, O Lady of the Roses," he finished with an admiration that was as open as it was ardent.

This time the lady laughed outright. She even blushed a little.

"Very prettily put, Sir Flatterer" she retorted; "but when you are older, young man, you won't make your compliments quite so broad. I am no Lady of the Roses. I am Miss Holbrook; and--and I am not in the habit of receiving gentlemen callers who are uninvited and--unannounced," she concluded, a little sharply.

Pointless the shaft fell at David's feet. He had turned again to the beauties about him, and at that moment he spied the sundial--something he had never seen before.

"What is it?" he cried eagerly, hurrying forward. "It isn't exactly pretty, and yet it looks as if 't were meant for--something."

"It is. It is a sundial. It marks the time by the sun."

Even as she spoke, Miss Holbrook wondered why she answered the question at all; why she did not send this small piece of nonchalant impertinence about his business, as he so richly deserved. The next instant she found herself staring at the boy in amazement. With unmistakable ease, and with the trained accent of the scholar, he was reading aloud the Latin inscription on the dial: "'Horas non numero nisi serenas,' 'I count--no--hours but--unclouded ones,'" he translated then, slowly, though with confidence. "That's pretty; but what does it mean--about 'counting'?"

Miss Holbrook rose to her feet.

"For Heaven's sake, boy, who, and what are you?" she demanded. "Can YOU read Latin?"

"Why, of course! Can't you?" With a disdainful gesture Miss Holbrook swept this aside.

"Boy, who are you?" she demanded again imperatively.

"I'm David. I told you."

"But David who? Where do you live?"

The boy's face clouded.

"I'm David--just David. I live at Farmer Holly's now; but I did live on the mountain with--father, you know."

A great light of understanding broke over Miss Holbrook's face. She dropped back into her seat.

"Oh, I remember," she murmured. "You're the little--er--boy whom he took. I have heard the story. So THAT is who you are," she added, the old look of aversion coming back to her eyes. She had almost said "the little tramp boy"--but she had stopped in time.