The Children's Portion Part 14

"Too fine to drink with us cowboys?" asked the man by the fire.

"Let him alone," said Dave. "He ain't going to drink if he don't want to."

Sid went back to his tree. He put an old gray quilt around him, and lay down. Then he remembered. He rose again, and knelt in the dark by the tree trunk. He asked G.o.d to keep the cattle from injuring anybody, and to keep the men and Dave from becoming very drunk. Sid was afraid.

He lay down again. Once in a while he looked over toward the fire.

Dave came to it sometimes, and always one or the other of the men offered him a bottle. Sometimes Dave acted as though he were going to refuse; but the other men always joked, and then Dave drank.

"Why doesn't he stay away from the fire if he doesn't want to drink?"

thought Sid. "Maybe he's cold. I wonder if mother--"

He went to sleep.

Next day they drove the cattle again a long, long way. At last they came to a town. There was the railroad, and there were the stock cars.

When the cattle were on board, Dave and Sid jumped on their horses.

"Want to stay in town over night?" asked Dave. "Like a little change from the hills?"

"Let's go and get something to eat," said one of the other men, who rode up. "I want somethin' different from ranch cookin'. Ain't a first-cla.s.s cook myself."

Sid was glad to eat bread that did not have yellow streaks in it. He was glad to have some meat, too. But, after eating, the other man said to Dave:

"Come take a drink."

They were on the sidewalk, untying their horses. Sid pulled Dave by the sleeve.

"Don't," whispered Sid.

Dave stopped and smiled.

"Come on!" said the other man.

"I don't get down to town only once in a while," said Dave. "Never drink other times, Sid."

He went with the man. Sid waited; it seemed to him that he had to wait a long time.

"Round-ups are bad things for Dave," thought he. "Mother'd be sorry."

There was a great noise from the saloon on the corner. Pretty soon Dave came out. He looked very white as he came to the place where the boy waited. Dave leaned against Rix, and groaned.

"What's the matter?" asked Sid in alarm.

"It's my arm," said Dave, growing whiter. "There was a fight--in that place--somehow. They knocked against me. I fell. One man fell on top of me and my arm was sort of doubled up under me. It hurts--awful. I don't know whether it's sprained--or broken--or--"

They had to stay in town a week before they could go back to the ranch.

When they went back Dave had his arm in a sling.

"It's a good thing the twenty-three tons of hay are in," said Sid.

"You couldn't do much with that arm."

Dave did not say anything.

Next Sunday night Sid sat in the door of the shanty on the ranch. He was singing to himself a little. "Safely through another week," he hummed. His mother always sang that Sundays at home. Sid was a bit homesick Sundays in the hills.

Dave came and sat down by Sid, and looked out at the sunset and the dry river away down in the valley. Rix came trotting up near the shanty.

"He's a smart colt--ain't he?" said Sid. "He hasn't been bothered with fox-tail since that day you'n and I took that piece out of his eye.

He's kept his eyes away from the stuff, whether he's meant to or not.

Do you suppose he has as much sense as that?"

"Critters ain't the only things that walk into trouble with their eyes open," said Dave. "I ain't goin' to let Rix be smarter than I be. I'm goin' to keep out of trouble, too, Sid. I ain't goin' to drink no more, ever."

"Not round-up times?" asked Sid.

"Not round-up times, nor other times, if G.o.d will help me," said Dave, soberly.

"He will," said Sid. "Oh, I'm so glad!"

THE MAN WHO LOST HIS MEMORY.

It was on a morning of May, 1613, that a lady, still young, might be seen, followed by her two children, going toward the cemetery of a village near Haerlem. The pale cheeks of this lady, her eyes red with weeping, her very melancholy face, bespoke one of those deep sorrows over which Time might fling its flowers, but it would be all in vain. Her children, the elder of whom was barely four years old, accompanied her, with the carelessness natural to their age. Indeed, they were astonished to see their n.o.ble mansion still in mourning, and their mother and themselves in mourning also, though a melancholy voice had said to them one day, when they were shown a bier covered with funereal pall, "Children, you have no more a father."

A month after this they were playing as gaily as ever. Can it be that the griefs of our early years are so terrible that heaven will not permit them to dwell in remembrance? It may be so; but at all events those children forgot for whom they had been put into mourning.

As that lady arrived at the little cemetery gate, the pa.s.sers-by asked aloud (for curiosity respects neither modesty nor grief) who might be that lady who pa.s.sed on so sadly, and who it seemed had good cause for her sadness.

And an old beggar-woman said, "That lady pa.s.sing by is the widow of John Durer, who died this three months gone, and who was in his time Minister to his Majesty the Emperor."

II.

John Durer belonged to the family of a poor shepherd. He worked hard as a scholar, but even when he was at play he showed a violent disposition to domineer over the rest. He seemed to be devoured with ambition: at all events he carried off every prize at school. By the time he was fifteen he was the admiration, he was the pride, of all his masters. But John was not loved by his schoolmates; he displayed a vanity which repelled them, which sometimes provoked them. He made few friendships, spoke freely with few, and looked haughtily down on such of his little companions as were less happily gifted than he was. His words were short, his look was cold, and the pride in which he shut himself up on purpose, made him unapproachable. He lived by himself.

One evening this young Durer, feeling, even more than usually, the necessity of solitude and meditation, went out into the country, dreaming, no doubt, of the grandeur to which his pride aspired, and which he was hopeless of ever reaching; for his face was sad, and he walked with a slow step, as does some discouraged traveler on a road without end, toward something in the distance that perpetually escapes him. At last he stopped in a hollow, called the Valley of Bushes, on account of the gigantic white-thorn trees that grew there. He sat down in their shadow: a small bird was fluttering about, and singing blithely overhead; but he did not hear her.

When the storm is loud, all natural sounds are silenced. Thus it was with Durer; the throbbing of ambition in every vein with him absorbed all the sweeter melodies which should charm the heart and fancy of youth.

He was dreaming of fame and fortune. How to rise was his sole thought; and it was not probable, except by some very rare circ.u.mstance and chance, that his dream should be realized; for in those days of the world, at least, it was thought that a shepherd's son should have a shepherd's tastes. The young man did not see a single path open in which he could plant his foot--one was barred by wealth, another by position, another by birth. All that he could dream of was some blest chance that should break down for him one of these barriers. He was sullen, afflicted, ashamed, indignant, and alarmed,--above all, when he thought of one thing--that thing was his poverty.

For this had the shepherd of the village near Haerlem labored twenty years; for this had he spent the savings of those twenty years, in giving an education to this young n.o.bleman.

John was buried deep in these reveries--too deep for his age--when some one came up smiling to him. This was a little, fat, chubby-faced man, as round as a barrel, with a low brown hat on his head. He had on a large brown cloak, a handsome yellow doublet, black breeches in the old fashion, and square-toed glossy shoes, with large roses of purple ribbon.

The glance of this man, whose hair was already becoming gray, was keen and penetrating. Though his lips were thick, there was an open, honest expression about his mouth; while his clear eyes and sharply-cut eyebrows seemed to belong to a man of strict uprightness.

"I do not like to see youth melancholy," said the little man, coming close to John Durer, and examining him--"it is a sign of the disease too common among young people--which is a desire to be something and somebody before they are well born into the world. I would bet my fortune against this boy's dreams that he is already an old scholar. Plague take those parents who fill their children's heads with learning ere they have made men of them! who neglect all care to form a character, and think only how to bring forward the understanding!--Vanity kills right feeling!"