The Mountain Girl Part 8

"How was it? Did your brother hurt you?"

"Naw. He nevah hurted me all his life. Hit--war my own se'f--"

Ca.s.sandra patted the child on his shoulder. "He can't beah to tell hu-come he is hurted this way, he is that proud. It was a mean, bad, coward man fetched him such a blow across the face. He asked little son something, and when Hoyle nevah said a word, he just lifted his arm and hit him, and then rode off like he had pleased himself." A flush of anger kindled in her cheeks. "Nevah mind, son. Doctah can fix you up all right."

A sigh of relief trembled through the boy's lips, and David asked no more questions.

"You hain't goin' to tie me up that-a-way, be you?" He pointed to the bed whereon his mother lay, and they all laughed, relieving the tension.

"Naw," shrilled the mother's voice, "but I reckon doctah mount take off your hade an' set hit on straight agin."

"I wisht he could," cried the child, no whit troubled by the suggestion.

"I'd bar a heap fer to git my hade straight like Frale's." Just then his brother entered the room. "You reckon doctah kin take off my hade an'

set hit straight like you carry yours, Frale?" Again they all laughed, and the big youth smiled such a sweet, infantile smile, as he looked down on his little brother, that David's heart warmed toward him.

He tousled the boy's hair as he pa.s.sed and drew him along to the chimney side, away from the doctor. "Hit's a right good hade I'm thinkin' ef hit be set too fer round. They is a heap in hit, too, more'n they is in mine, I reckon."

"He's gettin' too big to set that-a-way on your knee, Frale. Ye make a baby of him," said the mother. The child made an effort to slip down, but Frale's arm closed more tightly about him, and he nestled back contentedly.

So the evening pa.s.sed, and Thryng retired early to the bed in the loom shed. He knew something serious was amiss, but of what nature he could not conjecture, unless it were that Frale had been making illicit whiskey. Whatever it was, he chose to manifest no curiosity.

In the morning he saw nothing of the young man, and as a warm rain was steadily falling, he was glad to get the use of the horse, and rode away happily in the rain, with food provided for both himself and the beast sufficient for the day slung in a sack behind him.

"Reckon ye'll come back hyar this evenin'?" queried the old mother, as he adjusted her bandages before leaving.

"I'll see how the cabin feels after I have had a fire in the chimney all day."

As he left, he paused by Ca.s.sandra's side. She was standing by the spout of running water waiting for her pail to fill. "If it happens that you need me for--anything at all, send Hoyle, and I'll come immediately.

Will you?"

She lifted her eyes to his gratefully. "Thank you," was all she said, but his look impelled more. "You are right kind," she added.

Hardly satisfied, he departed, but turned in his saddle to glance back at her. She was swaying sidewise with the weight of the full pail, straining one slender arm as she bore it into the house. Who did all the work there, he wondered. That great youth ought to relieve her of such tasks. Where was he? Little did he dream that the eyes of the great youth were at that moment fixed darkly upon him from the small pane of gla.s.s set in under the cabin roof, which lighted Frale's garret room.

David stabled the horse in the log shed built by Doctor Hoyle for his own beast,--for what is life in the mountains without a horse,--then lingered awhile in his doorway looking out over the billows of ranges seen dimly through the fine veil of the falling rain. Ah, wonderful, perfect world it seemed to him, seen through the veil of the rain.

The fireplace in the cabin was built of rough stone, wide and high, and there he made him a brisk fire with fat pine and brushwood. He drew in great logs which he heaped on the broad stone hearth to dry. He piled them on the fire until the flames leaped and roared up the chimney, so long unused. He sat before it, delighting in it like a boy with a bonfire, and blessed his friend for sending him there, smoking a pipe in his honor. Among the doctor's few cooking utensils he found a stout iron tea-kettle and sallied out again in the wet to rinse it and fill it with fresh water from the spring. He had had only coffee since leaving Canada; now he would have a good cup of decent tea, so he hung the kettle on the crane and swung it over the fire.

In his search for his tea, most of his belongings were unpacked and tossed about the room in wild disorder, and a copy of _Marius the Epicurean_ was brought to light. His kettle boiled over into the fire, and immediately the small articles on his pine table were shoved back in confusion to make room for his tea things, his bottle of milk, his corn pone, and his book.

Being by this time weary, he threw himself on his couch, and contentment began--his hot tea within reach, his door wide open to the sweetness of the day, his fire dancing and crackling with good cheer, and his book in his hand. Ah! The delicious idleness and rest! No disorders to heal--no bones to mend--no problems to solve; a little sipping of his tea--a little reading of his book--a little luxuriating in the warmth and the pleasant odor of pine boughs burning--a little dreamy revery, watching through the open door the changing lights on the hills, and listening to an occasional bird note, liquid and sweet.

The hour drew near to noon and the sky lightened and a rift of deep blue stretched across the open s.p.a.ce before him. Lazily he speculated as to how he was to get his provisions brought up to him, and when and how he might get his mail, but laughed to think how little he cared for a hundred and one things which had filled his life and dogged his days ere this. Had he reached Nirvana? Nay, he could still hunger and thirst.

A footstep was heard without, and a figure appeared in his doorway, quietly standing, making no move to enter. It was Ca.s.sandra, and he was pleased.

"My first visitor!" he exclaimed. "Come in, come in. I'll make a place for you to sit in a minute." He shoved the couch away from before the fire, and removing a pair of trousers and a heap of hose from one of his splint-bottomed chairs, he threw them in a corner and placed it before the hearth. "You walked, didn't you? And your feet are wet, of course.

Sit here and dry them."

She pushed back her sunbonnet and held out to him a quaint little basket made of willow withes, which she carried, but she took no step forward.

Although her lips smiled a fleeting wraith of a smile that came and went in an instant, he thought her eyes looked troubled as she lifted them to his face.

He took the basket and lifted the cover. "I brought you some pa'triges,"

she said simply.

There lay three quail, and a large sweet potato, roasted in the ashes on their hearth as he had seen the corn pone baked the evening before, and a few round white cakes which he afterwards learned were beaten biscuit, all warm from the fire.

"How am I ever to repay you people for your kindness to me?" he said.

"Come in and dry your feet. Never mind the mud; see how I've tracked it in all the morning. Come."

He led her to the fire, and replenished it, while she sat pa.s.sively looking down on the hearth as if she scarcely heeded him. Not knowing how to talk to her, or what to do with her, he busied himself trying to bring a semblance of order to the cabin, occasionally dropping a remark to which she made no response. Then he also relapsed into silence, and the minutes dragged--age-long minutes, they seemed to him.

In his efforts at order, he spread his rug over the couch, tossed a crimson cushion on it and sundry articles beneath it to get them out of his way, then occupied himself with his book, while vainly trying to solve the riddle which his enigmatical caller presented to his imagination.

All at once she rose, sought out a few dishes from the cupboard, and, taking a neatly smoothed, coa.r.s.e cloth from the basket, spread it over one end of the table and arranged thereon his dinner. Quietly David watched her, following her example of silence until forced to speak.

Finally he decided to question her, if only he could think of questions which would not trespa.s.s on her private affairs, when at last she broke the stillness.

"I can't find any coffee. I ought to have brought some; I'll go fetch some if you'll eat now. Your dinner'll get cold."

He showed her how he had made tea and was in no need of coffee. "We'll throw this out and make fresh," he said gayly. "Then you must have a cup with me. Why, you have enough to eat here for three people!" She seemed weary and sad, and he determined to probe far enough to elicit some confidence, but the more fluent he became, the more effectively she withdrew from him.

"See here," he said at last, "sit by the table with me, and I will eat to your heart's content. I'll prepare you a cup of tea as I do my own, and then I want you to drink it. Come."

She yielded. His way of saying "Come" seemed like a command to be obeyed.

"Now, that is more like." He began his dinner with a relish. "Won't you share this game with me? It is fine, you know."

He could not think her silent from embarra.s.sment, for her poise seemed undisturbed except for the anxious look in her eyes. He determined to fathom the cause, and since no finesse availed, there remained but one way,--the direct question.

"What is it?" he said kindly. "Tell me the trouble, and let me help you."

She looked full into his eyes then, and her lips quivered. Something rose in her throat, and she swallowed helplessly. It was so hard for her to speak. The trouble had struck deeper than he dreamed.

"It is a trouble, isn't it? Can't you tell it to me?"

"Yes. I reckon there isn't any trouble worse than ours--no, I reckon there is nothing worse."

"Why, Miss Ca.s.sandra!"

"Because it's sin, and--and 'the wages of sin is death.'" Her tone was hopeless, and the sadness of it went to his heart.

"Is it whiskey?" he asked.

"Yes--it's whiskey 'stilling and--worse; it's--" She turned deathly white. Too sad to weep, she still held control of her voice. "It's a heap worse--"

"Don't try to tell me what it is," he cried. "Only tell me how I may help you. It's not your sin, surely, so you don't have to bear it."

"It's not mine, but I do have to bear it. I wish my bearing it was all.

Tell me, if--if a man has done--such a sin, is it right to help him get away?"