Treasure Valley Part 1

Treasure Valley.

by Marian Keith.

CHAPTER I

THE HERMIT THRUSH SINGS

Then twilight falls with the touch Of a hand that soothes and stills, And a swamp-robin sings into light The lone white star of the hills.

Alone in the dusk he sings, And the joy of another day Is folded in peace and borne On the drift of years away.

--BLISS CARMAN.

Other years, by the time the mid-June days were come, the little brook that sang through John McIntyre's pasture-field had shrunk to a mere jeweled thread of golden pools and silver shallows, with here and there only the bleached pebbles to mark its course. But this summer was of a new and wonderful variety. Just two or three brilliant, hot days, and then, as regular as the sun, up from the ocean's rim would rise dazzling cloud-mountains, piling themselves up and up into glorious towers and domes and battlements; and when the earth had begun to droop beneath the sun's blaze, with a great thunder signal they would fling their banners to the zenith, and pour from their dark heights a rain of silver spears, till the thirsty hills were drenched with bounty, and the valleys laughed and sang.

And so there had never before been such a June, not even in Acadia: such lavish wealth in orchard and garden, such abundant promise of harvest in fields choked with grain. And that was why John McIntyre's little brook ran brimful to the clumps of mint and sword-gra.s.s, high up on its banks, so content that it made no murmur as it slipped past the Acadian orchards to the sea.

John McIntyre leaned against the fence that bordered his hay-field, his feet deep in the soft gra.s.s at the water's edge. His straw hat was pushed back, showing the line where his white forehead met the tan of his face. His hands were in his pockets, a sprig of mint in his mouth; his eyes were half closed in lazy content.

Away down yonder, where the little stream met the ocean, the sun was sinking into the gleaming water, a great, fiery ball dropping from an empty sky. Far over in the east one lonely cloud reflected its glory, blossoming up from the darkening hills like a huge white rose, flushed with pink.

The fiery ball touched the ocean's rim, and the whole world kindled into a glory of color. The fading green fields brightened, quivered and glowed, as over them fell a veil of lilac mist. Through them wound the little river, a stream of molten gold. Just at John McIntyre's feet it pa.s.sed lingeringly through a bed of rushes, where the dark green of the reeds turned the golden water to a glittering bronze.

Their shadows wrought a marvelous pattern on the glossy surface, a magic piece of delicate bronze filagree such as nature alone could trace. Above it the swallows wheeled in the violet shadows, or soared up, flashing, into the amber light.

John McIntyre's eye followed their dizzy curves into the vast crystal dome. Yes; to-morrow would surely be a fine day. For to-morrow he was to take Mary and the children away down to that dazzling line of jewels on the horizon, where the winds and the waves of the Bay of Fundy tumbled about and buffeted one another joyously in the coolness of the ocean spray. It was their one great day in the year--the anniversary of their wedding. They had never missed its celebration in their eight happy years of married life. And there would be six altogether in the party to-morrow, besides Martin. How a man's family did grow, to be sure! The smiling content in John McIntyre's eyes deepened. He turned toward the white house on the face of the rising slope, half hidden in a nest of orchard trees. A woman's figure swayed to and fro beneath the vines of the veranda. The sunlight glanced on her fair hair and her light gown, as she swung from the green shadows into its golden pathway in time to the sweet notes of his baby's lullaby. The words came faintly across the hay-field:

"_Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide; When other helpers fail and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me!_"

Down the dim lane that led to a farther pasture-field a boy was driving a slow-moving line of cows. Around them a frisky terrier darted here and there, barking encouragingly. The boy was whistling gaily. He, too, knew that to-morrow promised to be fair.

A little breeze stirred the reeds in their bronze setting, and brought up a tang of the sea. The man slowly turned, and, skirting the edge of the hay-field, walked toward the house. His pathway ran parallel to the public highway, and from it there arose the clatter of a wagon approaching through a clump of woodland. John McIntyre waited, smiling.

Down the road it came, b.u.mping noisily. The driver was a young man, with a dashing air and a merry, kindly eye. He was sitting on the extreme edge of the wagon-box, his feet swinging in the dust, and his hat stuck rakishly on the side of his head, and was giving forth to the echoing landscape a long, tragic "Come-all-ye" in an uproariously joyful voice:

"_Come all yez true-born shanty byes, Whoever yous may be, I'd have yez pay atten-ti-on, To hear what I've got for to say, Concerning six Can-a-jen byes, Who manfully and brave, Did break the jam on the Gar-ry Rocks, And met a wat-e-ry grave!_"

"Whoa! Hold up!" shouted John McIntyre, as the horses' heads appeared beyond the line of timber. "What do you mean by making such a row on the road at night and disturbing peaceable citizens?"

The driver pulled up, and the two eyed each other with that air of severity which men affect when they are afraid of displaying the fact that their love for each other is deep and tender.

"And what do you mean by holdin' up a peaceable citizen on the Queen's highway like this?" demanded the younger man, threateningly.

"You seem to be mighty gay about something. Another letter from Annie Laurie?"

"Aw, go an' choke yourself! No, siree. It'd be more like it if I was weepin' instead o' singin'. I bet you'd have been, if you'd heard the news I did to-day. Who d'ye suppose is to be your next-door neighbor?"

"I don't know."

"Satan Symonds--no less!"

John McIntyre's fine, gentle face expressed only surprised interest.

"Well, let him come. He won't eat us."

"Won't he, though?" cried the young wagoner, vigorously. "He's got his eye on your farm, John McIntyre; yes, and one claw, don't forget that!

I'd rather have the devil himself runnin' the next farm to me."

The man in the field leaned his bare, brown arms on the top of the fence-rails and surveyed his friend with an indulgent smile.

"I'm afraid he's closer than that to most of us already, Martin," he said, shaking his head. "Don't you worry about Joe Symonds. Why, we were boys at school together. There's no harm in him."

The younger man looked at his friend with mingled admiration and impatience in his eyes. "Lookee here, John, you're far too easy. You take a warning in time, and don't let that sneak get his claws any further into your wool than you can help. I'd shut off every bit of dealings with him. He's as sharp as a weasel. Don't you forget that he's got a hold on you already."

"Tuts! That's nothing. I'll pay that next fall, if the crops turn out only half as well as they look now."

The other shook his head. "John McIntyre," he said, with affectionate severity, "you're too honest for this world. Symonds belongs to a crooked stock. His father before him was crooked, and his grandfather was crookeder, and he's the crookedest o' the whole bunch. I--I"--he hesitated, boyishly--"I hate to go away thinkin' he's livin' next farm to you--that's all."

"Well, then, why don't you rent the River Farm yourself," said John McIntyre, banteringly, "instead of running off West like this? You and that little Ontario girl would run things just fine down there, and show Mary and me how to do it right."

A warm flush mingled with the tan on the younger man's cheek. "Maybe we will, some day," he said, with a wistful note in his voice, "but I'll have to wait till that kid is on his own feet. That won't be long, either. I bet he'll plank down all the money I've lent him before he's through college. And then I'll come scootin' home, an'

there'll be a lot o' things happen all at once, 'round about that date."

"I hope so, Martin; I hope so. It's a big thing you're doing for that boy. I hope he'll never forget it."

"Not him! Bless me, it was a bigger thing he did for me. When he gets to be an M.D. I'll go back to Ontario and get little Annie Laurie, and we'll run Symonds into the river, and set up housekeeping on his tombstone. Well, so-long, John. We're goin' to have a bully day for your honeymoonin' to-morrow. Tell Mary to put up a clothes-basket o'

them lemon pies, 'cause I'll be holler 'way down past my boot-soles.

Good-night, John."

He started off noisily, but turned to shout back through a cloud of dust: "Mind you don't let that snake come any o' his monkey-shines over you, John! Good-night!"

The wagon rattled away down the lilac road, the driver's voice rising gaily, if jerkily, above its clatter:

"_O-o-o-o-o-o-o-o! They broke the jam on the Gar-ry Rocks, And met a wat-e-ry grave!_"

The other man was still smiling as he turned and made his way along the edge of the wood. Good old Martin! Where was there another such a friend as he? When John McIntyre's spirit rose in thankfulness to his Maker for the many temporal blessings lavished upon him, he never forgot to say, "And I thank thee, Lord, most of all, for Martin Heaslip!"

The fiery ball had sunk beyond the rim of the sea; the earth was still darkly radiant, pulsating with the thought of his departed glory. The great rose on the eastern horizon was fading to a tender mauve. The wooded glen was dark and silent. From its warm depths arose the perfume of the young, green earth. John McIntyre stood for a moment on the pathway, where its shadows met the lights of the open fields. He threw back his head and looked up into the quivering deep of the heavens. Involuntarily his eyes closed against their glory. He was overcome, too, with the glory of a sudden devout thought. G.o.d, away up there, encompa.s.sed by ineffable light and beauty, was like His own abiding place--too blindingly radiant to be gazed at by mortal eye, and therefore inscrutable and mysterious, but all-bountiful, nevertheless, sending down each day His largess of blessings, just as the heavens sent down their life-giving rains. At the thought John McIntyre took off his hat.

And as he stood, out of the hush of the woods there stole the last wondrous miracle of the departing day. The spirit of the twilight took voice, a marvelous voice, indescribably sweet. Away in the depths of the forest there arose a strain of music, the hermit thrush, in his woodland sanctuary, raising his hymn to the night. Calm and serene, carrying an exquisite peace, it floated out over field and hill and river, until the very heavens seemed flooded with its harmony.

"_O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!_"

That was what the voice seemed to say to John McIntyre as he stood in the lush June gra.s.s, just on the borderland between the purple and the amber, and held his breath to listen. G.o.d had sent more than one prophet into the wilderness to prepare His way, he thought in reverent awe. For this voice spoke to him of all his Maker's goodness. What more could a man desire than he possessed, he asked, in a rush of grat.i.tude; to live out his life of healthful toil in G.o.d's free sunshine, with the happy home nest, holding Mary and their little ones safe under his eye; with a friend's strong arm to help when the day's burden grew heavy; with the world a garden of beauty and light, and at night the solemn voice of the hermit; calling him to prayer?