Just David............................................................................................................................................................1

Eleanor H. Porter.....................................................................................................................................1

CHAPTER I. THE MOUNTAIN HOME ................................................................................................1

CHAPTER II. THE TRAIL.....................................................................................................................6

CHAPTER III. THE VALLEY ..............................................................................................................11

CHAPTER IV. TWO LETTERS ...........................................................................................................15

CHAPTER V. DISCORDS ....................................................................................................................21

CHAPTER VI. NUISANCES, NECESSARY AND OTHERWISE .....................................................26

CHAPTER VII. "YOU'RE WANTEDYOU'RE WANTED!" ..........................................................32

CHAPTER VIII. THE PUZZLING "DOS" AND "DON'TS" ...............................................................37

CHAPTER IX. JOE...............................................................................................................................42

CHAPTER X. THE LADY OF THE ROSES.......................................................................................47

CHAPTER XI. JACK AND JILL ..........................................................................................................52

CHAPTER XII. ANSWERS THAT DID NOT ANSWER ...................................................................55

CHAPTER XIII. A SURPRISE FOR MR. JACK .................................................................................58

CHAPTER XIV. THE TOWER WINDOW ..........................................................................................63

CHAPTER XV. SECRETS...................................................................................................................66

CHAPTER XVI. DAVID'S CASTLE IN SPAIN.................................................................................71

CHAPTER XVII. "THE PRINCESS AND THE PAUPER"................................................................75

CHAPTER XVIII. DAVID TO THE RESCUE....................................................................................79

CHAPTER XIX. THE UNBEAUTIFUL WORLD ...............................................................................85

CHAPTER XX. THE UNFAMILIAR WAY........................................................................................89

CHAPTER XXI. HEAVY HEARTS .....................................................................................................93

CHAPTER XXII. AS PERRY SAW IT................................................................................................96

CHAPTER XXIII. PUZZLES...............................................................................................................99

CHAPTER XXIV. A STORY REMODELED ....................................................................................104

CHAPTER XXV. THE BEAUTIFUL WORLD .................................................................................107

Far up on the mountainside stood alone in the clearing. It was roughly yet warmly built. Behind it jagged

cliffs broke the north wind, and towered graywhite in the sunshine. Before it a tiny expanse of green sloped

gently away to a point where the mountain dropped in another sharp descent, wooded with scrubby firs and

pines. At the left a footpath led into the cool depths of the forest. But at the right the mountain fell away again

and disclosed to view the picture David loved the best of all: the farreaching valley; the silver pool of the

lake with its ribbon of a river flung far out; and above it the grays and greens and purples of the mountains

that climbed one upon another's shoulders until the topmost thrust their heads into the wide dome of the sky

There was no road, apparently, leading away from the cabin. There was only the footpath that disappeared

into the forest. Neither, anywhere, was there a house in sight nearer than the white specks far down in the

Within the shack a wide fireplace dominated one side of the main room. It was June now, and the ashes lay

cold on the hearth; but from the tiny leanto in the rear came the smell and the sputter of bacon sizzling over

a blaze. The furnishings of the room were simple, yet, in a way, out of the common. There were two bunks, a

few rude but comfortable chairs, a table, two musicracks, two violins with their cases, and everywhere

books, and scattered sheets of music. Nowhere was there cushion, curtain, or knickknack that told of a

woman's taste or touch. On the other hand, neither was there anywhere gun, pelt, or antlered head that spoke

of a man's strength and skill. For decoration there were a beautiful copy of the Sistine Madonna, several

photographs signed with names well known out in the great world beyond the mountains, and a festoon of

From the little leanto kitchen the sound of the sputtering suddenly ceased, and at the door appeared a pair of

From one of the bunks came a slight stir and a murmured word. At the sound the boy at the door leaped softly

into the room and hurried to the bunk in the corner. He was a slender lad with short, crisp curls at his ears,

and the red of perfect health in his cheeks. His hands, slim, long, and with tapering fingers like a girl's,

"Daddy, come! I've done the bacon all myself, and the potatoes and the coffee, too. Quick, it's all getting

Slowly, with the aid of the boy's firm hands, the man pulled himself half to a sitting posture. His cheeks, like

the boy's, were redbut not with health. His eyes were a little wild, but his voice was low and very tender,

"Of course it's David! Who else should it be?" laughed the boy. "Come!" And he tugged at the man's hands.

The man rose then, unsteadily, and by sheer will forced himself to stand upright. The wild look left his eyes,

and the flush his cheeks. His face looked suddenly old and haggard. Yet with fairly sure steps he crossed the

Half of the bacon was black; the other half was transparent and like tough jelly. The potatoes were soggy, and

had the unmistakable taste that comes from a dish that has boiled dry. The coffee was lukewarm and muddy.

"Things aren't so nice as yours, father," he apologized. "I'm afraid I'm nothing but a discord in that orchestra

today! Somehow, some of the stove was hotter than the rest, and burnt up the bacon in spots; and all the

water got out of the potatoes, too,though THAT didn't matter, for I just put more cold in. I forgot and left

the milk in the sun, and it tastes bad now; but I'm sure next time it'll be betterall of it."

"Why not? What do you mean? Aren't you ever going to let me try again, father?" There was real distress in

The man hesitated. His lips parted with an indrawn breath, as if behind them lay a rush of words. But they

"Well, son, this isn't a very nice way to treat your supper, is it? Now, if you please, I'll take some of that

If the truant appetite "came back," however, it could not have stayed; for the man ate but little. He frowned,

too, as he saw how little the boy ate. He sat silent while his son cleared the food and dishes away, and he was

still silent when, with the boy, he passed out of the house and walked to the little bench facing the west.

Unless it stormed very hard, David never went to bed without this last look at his "Silver Lake," as he called

"Daddy, it's gold tonightall gold with the sun!" he cried rapturously, as his eyes fell upon his treasure.

It was a longdrawn cry of ecstasy, and hearing it, the man winced, as with sudden pain.

'Daddy, I'm going to play itI've got to play it!" cried the boy, bounding toward the cabin. In a moment he

The man watched and listened; and as he watched and listened, his face became a battleground whereon

It was no new thing for David to "play" the sunset. Always, when he was moved, David turned to his violin.

Always in its quivering strings he found the means to say that which his tongue could not express.

Across the valley the grays and blues of the mountains had become all purples now. Above, the sky in one

vast flame of crimson and gold, was a molten sea on which floated rosepink cloudboats. Below, the valley

with its lake and river picked out in rose and gold against the shadowy greens of field and forest, seemed like

And all this was in David's violin, and all this, too, was on David's uplifted, rapturous face.

As the last roseglow turned to gray and the last strain quivered into silence, the man spoke. His voice was

"I know. It has been home; but, David, you didn't think we could always live here, like this, did you?"

Why not?" he asked dreamily. "What better place could there be? I like it, daddy."

The man drew a troubled breath, and stirred restlessly. The teasing pain in his side was very bad tonight,

and no change of position eased it. He was ill, very ill; and he knew it. Yet he also knew that, to David,

sickness, pain, and death meant nothingor, at most, words that had always been lightly, almost

unconsciously passed over. For the first time he wondered if, after all, his trainingsome of ithad been

For six years he had had the boy under his exclusive care and guidance. For six years the boy had eaten the

food, worn the clothing, and studied the books of his father's choosing. For six years that father had thought,

planned, breathed, moved, lived for his son. There had been no others in the little cabin. There had been only

the occasional trips through the woods to the little town on the mountainside for food and clothing, to break

All this the man had planned carefully. He had meant that only the good and beautiful should have place in

David's youth. It was not that he intended that evil, unhappiness, and death should lack definition, only

definiteness, in the boy's mind. It should be a case where the good and the beautiful should so fill the

thoughts that there would be no room for anything else. This had been his plan. And thus far he had

succeededsucceeded so wonderfully that he began now, in the face of his own illness, and of what he

As he looked at the boy's rapt face, he remembered David's surprised questioning at the first dead squirrel he

"Why, daddy, he's asleep, and he won't wake up!" he had cried. Then, after a gentle touch: "And he's

The father had hurried his son away at the time, and had evaded his questions; and David had seemed

content. But the next day the boy had gone back to the subject. His eyes were wide then, and a little

"The boy who brings the milkhe had the squirrel this morning. He said it was not asleep. It wasdead."

"It means that the squirrel, the real squirrel under the fur, has gone away, David."

David had fallen silent at this. He had remained strangely silent indeed for some days; then, out in the woods

with his father one morning, he gave a joyous shout. He was standing by the icecovered brook, and looking

"It's like the water in the brook, you know; THAT'S going to a far country, and it isn't coming back. And it

leaves its little cold icecoat behind it just as the squirrel did, too. It does n't need it. It can go without it.

"Yes, David." And David's father had sighed with relief that his son had found his own explanation of the

Later, in his books, David found death again. It was a man, this time. The boy had looked up with startled

"Do people, real people, like you and me, be dead, father? Do they go to a far country?

"Yes, son in timeto a far country ruled over by a great and good King they tell us.

David's father had trembled as he said it, and had waited fearfully for the result. But David had only smiled

And there the matter had ended. David was ten now, and not yet for him did death spell terror. Because of

"We must go away. Out in the great world there are men and women and children waiting for you. You've a

"Not always, David; six years. You were four when I brought you here. You don't remember, perhaps."

"I think I'd like itto goif I could sail away on that little cloudboat up there," he murmured.

"We can't go on cloudboats. We must walk, David, for a wayand we must go soonsoon," he added

He rose unsteadily, and tried to walk erect. His limbs shook, and the blood throbbed at his temples. He was

appalled at his weakness. With a fierceness born of his terror he turned sharply to the boy at his side.

"Yes, yes, come!" He stumbled blindly, yet in some way he reached the cabin door.

Behind him David still sat, inert, staring. The next minute the boy had sprung to his feet and was hurrying

A curious strength seemed to have come to the man. With almost steady hands he took down the photographs

and the Sistine Madonna, packing them neatly away in a box to be left. From beneath his bunk he dragged a

large, dusty travelingbag, and in this he stowed a little food, a few garments, and a great deal of the music

David, in the doorway, stared in dazed wonder. Gradually into his eyes crept a look never seen there before.

"Father, where are we going?" he asked at last in a shaking voice, as he came slowly into the room.

"Yes, my son; and beyondfar beyond." The man spoke dreamily. He was looking at a photograph in his

hand. It had slipped in among the loose sheets of music, and had not been put away with the others. It was the

"Daddy, who is that? Who are all these people in the pictures? You've never told me about any of them

Instead of answering, the man turned faraway eyes on the boy and smiled wistfully.

"Ah, David, lad, how they'll love you! How they will love you! But you mustn't let them spoil you, son. You

Once again David asked his question, but this time the man only turned back to the photograph, muttering

After that David did not question any more. He was too amazed, too distressed. He had never before seen his

father like this. With nervous haste the man was setting the little room to rights, crowding things into the bag,

and packing other things away in an old trunk. His cheeks were very red, and his eyes very bright. He talked,

too, almost constantly, though David could understand scarcely a word of what was said. Later, the man

caught up his violin and played; and never before had David heard his father play like that. The boy's eyes

filled, and his heart ached with a pain that choked and numbedthough why, David could not have told. Still

later, the man dropped his violin and sank exhausted into a chair; and then David, worn and frightened with it

In the gray dawn of the morning David awoke to a different world. His father, whitefaced and gentle, was

calling him to get ready for breakfast. The little room, dismantled of its decorations, was bare and cold. The

bag, closed and strapped, rested on the floor by the door, together with the two violins in their cases, ready to

The man stooped and tightened a strap that was already quite tight enough. Then he laughed lightly.

"Why, of course you're coming back sometime, David. Only think of all these things we're leaving!"

When the last dish was put away, the last garment adjusted, and the last look given to the little room, the

travelers picked up the bag and the violins, and went out into the sweet freshness of the morning. As he

fastened the door the man sighed profoundly; but David did not notice this. His face was turned toward the

"Daddy, let's not go, after all! Let's stay here," he cried ardently, drinking in the beauty of the morning.

"We must go, David. Come, son." And the man led the way across the green slope to the west.

It was a scarcely perceptible trail, but the man found it, and followed it with evident confidence. There was

only the pause now and then to steady his nonetoosure step, or to ease the burden of the bag. Very soon the

forest lay all about them, with the birds singing over their heads, and with numberless tiny feet scurrying

through the underbrush on all sides. Just out of sight a brook babbled noisily of its delight in being alive; and

away up in the treetops the morning sun played hideandseek among the dancing leaves.

And David leaped, and laughed, and loved it all, nor was any of it strange to him. The birds, the trees, the

sun, the brook, the scurrying little creatures of the forest, all were friends of his. But the manthe man did

He knew now that he had undertaken more than he could carry out. Step by step the bag had grown heavier,

and hour by hour the insistent, teasing pain in his side had increased until now it was a torture. He had

forgotten that the way to the valley was so long; he had not realized how nearly spent was his strength before

he even started down the trail. Throbbing through his brain was the question, what if, after all, he could

At noon they paused for luncheon, and at night they camped where the chattering brook had stopped to rest in

a still, black pool. The next morning the man and the boy picked up the trail again, but without the bag.

Under some leaves in a little hollow, the man had hidden the bag, and had then said, as if casually:

"I believe, after all, I won't carry this along. There's nothing in it that we really need, you know, now that I've

"Of course!" laughed David. "We don't need that." And he laughed again, for pure joy. Little use had David

They were more than halfway down the mountain now, and soon they reached a grassgrown road, little

traveled, but yet a road. Still later they came to where four ways crossed, and two of them bore the marks of

many wheels. By sundown the little brook at their side murmured softly of quiet fields and meadows, and

David was not laughing now. He was watching his father with startled eyes. David had not known what

anxiety was. He was finding out nowthough he but vaguely realized that something was not right. For

some time his father had said but little, and that little had been in a voice that was thick and

unnaturalsounding. He was walking fast, yet David noticed that every step seemed an effort, and that every

breath came in short gasps. His eyes were very bright, and were fixedly bent on the road ahead, as if even the

haste he was making was not haste enough. Twice David spoke to him, but he did not answer; and the boy

could only trudge along on his weary little feet and sigh for the dear home on the mountaintop which they

They met few fellow travelers, and those they did meet paid scant attention to the man and the boy carrying

the violins. As it chanced, there was no one in sight when the man, walking in the grass at the side of the

With a painful effort the man roused himself and sat up. For a moment he gazed dully into the boy's face;

then a halfforgotten something seemed to stir him into feverish action. With shaking fingers he handed

David his watch and a small ivory miniature. Then he searched his pockets until on the ground before him lay

"Take themhide themkeep them. David, until youneed them," panted the man. "Then gogo on. I

"Alone? Without you?" demurred the boy, aghast. "Why, father, I couldn't! I don't know the way. Besides, I'd

rather stay with you," he added soothingly, as he slipped the watch and the miniature into his pocket; "then

Almost impatiently the boy began picking up the money and tucking it into his pockets.

"But, father, I'm not going without you," he declared stoutly, as the last bit of gold slipped out of sight, and a

The driver of the horse glanced disapprovingly at the man and the boy by the roadside; but he did not stop.

After he had passed, the boy turned again to his father. The man was fumbling once more in his pockets. This

time from his coat he produced a pencil and a small notebook from which he tore a page, and began to write,

David sighed and looked about him. He was tired and hungry, and he did not understand things at all.

Something very wrong, very terrible, must be the matter with his father. Here it was almost dark, yet they had

no place to go, no supper to eat, while far, far up on the mountainside was their own dear home sad and

lonely without them. Up there, too, the sun still shone, doubtless,at least there were the roseglow and the

Silver Lake to look at, while down here there was nothing, nothing but gray shadows, a long dreary road, and

a straggling house or two in sight. From above, the valley might look to be a fairyland of loveliness, but in

David's father had torn a second page from his book and was beginning another note, when the boy suddenly

jumped to his feet. One of the straggling houses was near the road where they sat, and its presence had given

David an idea. With swift steps he hurried to the front door and knocked upon it. In answer a tall, unsmiling

David removed his cap as his father had taught him to do when one of the mountain women spoke to him.

"Good evening, lady; I'm David," he began frankly. "My father is so tired he fell down back there, and we

The woman in the doorway stared. For a moment she was dumb with amazement. Her eyes swept the plain,

rather rough garments of the boy, then sought the halfrecumbent figure of the man by the roadside. Her chin

"Oh, would you, indeed! Well, upon my word!" she scouted. "Humph! We don't accommodate tramps, little

It was David's turn to stare. Just what a tramp might be, he did not know; but never before had a request of

his been so angrily refused. He knew that. A fierce something rose within hima fierce new something that

sent the swift red to his neck and brow. He raised a determined hand to the doorknobhe had something to

"See here, boy," began the woman, looking out at him a little less unkindly, "if you're hungry I'll give you

some milk and bread. Go around to the back porch and I'll get it for you." And she shut the door again.

David's hand dropped to his side. The red still stayed on his face and neck, however, and that fierce new

something within him bade him refuse to take food from this woman.... But there was his fatherhis poor

father, who was so tired; and there was his own stomach clamoring to be fed. No, he could not refuse. And

with slow steps and hanging head David went around the corner of the house to the rear.

As the halfloaf of bread and the pail of milk were placed in his hands, David remembered suddenly that in

the village store on the mountain, his father paid money for his food. David was glad, now, that he had those

goldpieces in his pocket, for he could pay money. Instantly his head came up. Once more erect with

selfrespect, he shifted his burdens to one hand and thrust the other into his pocket. A moment later he

The woman began to shake her head; but, as her eyes fell on the money, she started, and bent closer to

examine it. The next instant she jerked herself upright with an angry exclamation.

"It's gold! A tendollar goldpiece! So you're a thief, too, are you, as well as a tramp? Humph! Well, I guess

you don't need this then," she finished sharply, snatching the bread and the pail of milk from the boy's hand.

The next moment David stood alone on the doorstep, with the sound of a quickly thrown bolt in his ears.

A thief! David knew little of thieves, but he knew what they were. Only a month before a man had tried to

steal the violins from the cabin; and he was a thief, the milkboy said. David flushed now again, angrily, as

he faced the closed door. But he did not tarry. He turned and ran to his father.

So urgent was the boy's voice that almost unconsciously the sick man got to his feet. With shaking hands he

thrust the notes he had been writing into his pocket. The little book, from which he had torn the leaves for

And he did walk, though very slowly, ten, a dozen, twenty steps. From behind came the sound of wheels that

"Yes, sir." David's answer was unhesitating. Where "the village" was, he did not know; he knew only that it

must be somewhere away from the woman who had called him a thief. And that was all he cared to know.

"Yes, sir. Thank you!" cried the boy joyfully. And together they aided his father to climb into the roomy

There were few words said. The man at the reins drove rapidly, and paid little attention to anything but his

horses. The sick man dozed and rested. The boy sat, wistfuleyed and silent, watching the trees and houses

flit by. The sun had long ago set, but it was not dark, for the moon was round and bright, and the sky was

"Well, I'm sorry, but I guess I'll have to drop you here, friends. I turn off to the right; but 't ain't more 'n a

quarter of a mile for you, now" he finished cheerily, pointing with his whip to a cluster of twinkling lights.

"Thank you, sir, thank you," breathed David gratefully, steadying his father's steps. "You've helped us lots.

In David's heart was a wild desire to lay at his good man's feet all of his shining goldpieces as payment for

this timely aid. But caution held him back: it seemed that only in stores did money pay; outside it branded

Alone with his father, David faced once more his problem. Where should they go for the night? Plainly his

father could not walk far. He had begun to talk again, too,low, halffinished sentences that David could

not understand, and that vaguely troubled him. There was a house near by, and several others down the road

toward the village; but David had had all the experience he wanted that night with strange houses, and strange

women. There was a barn, a big one, which was nearest of all; and it was toward this barn that David finally

"We'll go there, daddy, if we can get in," he proposed softly. "And we'll stay all night and rest."

The long twilight of the June day had changed into a night that was scarcely darker, so bright was the

moonlight. Seen from the house, the barn and the low buildings beyond loomed shadowy and unreal, yet very

beautiful. On the side porch of the house sat Simeon Holly and his wife, content to rest mind and body only

It was just as Simeon rose to his feet to go indoors that a long note from a violin reached their ears.

"Simeon, it's a fiddle!" exclaimed Mrs. Holly, as a second tone quivered on the air "And it's in our barn!"

Simeon's jaw set. With a stern ejaculation he crossed the porch and entered the kitchen.

"Simeon, ddon't go," begged the woman, tremulously. "Youyou don't know what's there."

"Fiddles are not played without hands, Ellen," retorted the man severely. "Would you have me go to bed and

leave a halfdrunken, ungodly minstrel fellow in possession of our barn? Tonight, on my way home, I

passed a pretty pair of them lying by the roadsidea man and a boy with two violins. They're the culprits,

likely,though how they got this far, I don't see. Do you think I want to leave my barn to tramps like them?"

"Nno, I suppose not," faltered the woman, as she rose tremblingly to her feet, and followed her husband's

Once inside the barn Simeon Holly and his wife paused involuntarily. The music was all about them now,

filling the air with runs and trills and rollicking bits of melody. Giving an angry exclamation, the man turned

then to the narrow stairway and climbed to the hayloft above. At his heels came his wife, and so her eyes,

almost as soon as his fell upon the man lying back on the hay with the moonlight full upon his face. Instantly

the music dropped to a whisper, and a low voice came out of the gloom beyond the square of moonlight

"If you'll please be as still as you can, sir. You see he's asleep and he's so tired," said the voice.

For a moment the man and the woman on the stairway paused in amazement, then the man lifted his lantern

A boy's face, round, tanned, and just now a bit anxious, flashed out of the dark.

"Oh, please, sir, if you would speak lower," pleaded the boy. "He's so tired! I'm David, sir, and that's father.

Simeon Holly's unrelenting gaze left the boy's face and swept that of the man lying back on the hay. The next

instant he lowered the lantern and leaned nearer, putting forth a cautious hand. At once he straightened

himself, muttering a brusque word under his breath. Then he turned with the angry question:

"Why, father asked me to play" returned the boy cheerily. "He said he could walk through green forests then,

"See here, boy, who are you?" cut in Simeon Holly sternly. "Where did you come from?"

"Why, home, sir, where I live. In the mountains, 'way up, up, upoh, so far up! And there's such a big, big

sky, so much nicer than down here." The boy's voice quivered, and almost broke, and his eyes constantly

It was then that Simeon Holly awoke to the sudden realization that it was time for action. He turned to his

"Take the boy to the house," he directed incisively. "We'll have to keep him tonight, I suppose. I'll go for

Higgins. Of course the whole thing will have to be put in his hands at once. You can't do anything here," he

added, as he caught her questioning glance. "Leave everything just as it is. The man is dead."

"Dead?" It was a sharp cry from the boy, yet there was more of wonder than of terror in it. "Do you mean that

There was no answer. Mrs. Holly caught her breath convulsively and looked away. Even Simeon Holly

"But he's hereright here," he challenged shrilly. "Daddy, daddy, speak to me! It's David!" Reaching out his

hand, he gently touched his father's face. He drew back then, at once, his eyes distended with terror. "He isn't!

He isgone," he chattered frenziedly. "This isn't the fatherpart that KNOWS. It's the otherthat they

Suddenly the boy's face changed. It grew rapt and luminous as he leaped to his feet, crying joyously: "But he

asked me to play, so he went singingsinging just as he said that they did. And I made him walk through

green forests with the ripple of the brooks in his ears! Listenlike this!" And once more the boy raised the

violin to his chin, and once more the music trilled and rippled about the shocked, amazed ears of Simeon

For a time neither the man nor the woman could speak. There was nothing in their humdrum, habitsmoothed

tilling of the soil and washing of pots and pans to prepare them for a scene like thisa moonlit barn, a

strange dead man, and that dead man's son babbling of brooks and squirrels, and playing jigs on a fiddle for a

"Boy, boy, stop that!" he thundered. "Are you madclean mad? Go into the house, I say!" And the boy,

dazed but obedient, put up his violin, and followed the woman, who, with tearblinded eyes, was leading the

Mrs. Holly was frightened, but she was also strangely moved. From the long ago the sound of another violin

had come to hera violin, too, played by a boy's hands. But of this, all this, Mrs. Holly did not like to think.

"Are you hungrydear?" stammered Mrs. Holly again; and this time David's clamorous stomach forced a

"yes" from his unwilling lips; which sent Mrs. Holly at once into the pantry for bread and milk and a

Like any hungry boy David ate his supper; and Mrs. Holly, in the face of this very ordinary sight of hunger

being appeased at her table, breathed more freely, and ventured to think that perhaps this strange little boy

"But your father's name?" Mrs. Holly had almost asked, but stopped in time. She did not want to speak of

"On the mountain, 'way up, up on the mountain where I can see my Silver Lake every day, you know."

So plainly aghast was the questioner that David looked not a little surprised as he explained.

"You don't understand. She is an angelmother, and angelmothers don't have anything only their pictures

down here with us. And that's what we have, and father always carried it in his pocket."

"Ohh," murmured Mrs. Holly, a quick mist in her eyes. Then, gently: "And did you always live

"Yes. Didn't you miss thingspeople, other houses, boys of your own age, andand such things?"

"Why, how could I?" he cried. "When I had daddy, and my violin, and my Silver Lake, and the whole of the

"Why, yes. It was the little brook, you know, after the squirrel, that told me about being dead, and"

"Yes, yes; but never mind, dear, now," stammered the woman, rising hurriedly to her feetthe boy was a

little wild, after all, she thought. "Youyou should go to bed. Haven't you aa bag, oror anything?"

"No, ma'am; we left it," smiled David apologetically. "You see, we had so much in it that it got too heavy to

"So much in it you didn't bring it, indeed!" repeated Mrs. Holly, under her breath, throwing up her hands with

It was not meant for a question, but, to the woman's surprise, the boy answered, frankly, simply:

"Father says that I'm one little instrument in the great Orchestra of Life, and that I must see to it that I'm

"My land!" breathed the woman, dropping back in her chair, her eyes fixed on the boy. Then, with an effort,

she got to her feet. "Come, you must go to bed," she stammered. "I'm sure bed isis the best place you. I

In a snug little room over the kitchen some minutes later, David found himself at last alone. The room,

though it had once belonged to a boy of his own age, looked very strange to David. On the floor was a

ragcarpet rug, the first he had ever seen. On the walls were a fishingrod, a toy shotgun, and a case full of

bugs and moths, each little body impaled on a pin, to David's shuddering horror. The bed had four tall posts

at the corners, and a very puffy top that filled David with wonder as to how he was to reach it, or stay there if

he did gain it. Across a chair lay a boy's long yellowwhite nightshirt that the kind lady had left, after

hurriedly wiping her eyes with the edge of its hem. In all the circle of the candlelight there was just one

familiar object to David's homesick eyesthe long black violin case which he had brought in himself, and

With his back carefully turned toward the impaled bugs and moths on the wall, David undressed himself and

slipped into the yellowwhite nightshirt, which he sniffed at gratefully, so like pine woods was the perfume

that hung about its folds. Then he blew out the candle and groped his way to the one window the little room

The moon still shone, but little could be seen through the thick green branches of the tree outside. From the

yard below came the sound of wheels, and of men's excited voices. There came also the twinkle of lanterns

borne by hurrying hands, and the tramp of shuffling feet. In the window David shivered. There were no wide

sweep of mountain, hill, and valley, no Silver Lake, no restful hush, no daddy,no beautiful Things that

Long minutes later, David, with the violin in his arms, lay down upon the rug, and, for the first time since

babyhood, sobbed himself to sleepbut it was a sleep that brought no rest; for in it he dreamed that he was a

In the early gray dawn David awoke. His first sensation was the physical numbness and stiffness that came

"Why, daddy," he began, pulling himself halferect, "I slept all night on" He stopped suddenly, brushing

his eyes with the backs of his hands. "Why, daddy, where" Then full consciousness came to him.

With a low cry he sprang to his feet and ran to the window. Through the trees he could see the sunrise glow

of the eastern sky. Down in the yard no one was in sight; but the barn door was open, and, with a quick

indrawing of his breath, David turned back into the room and began to thrust himself into his clothing.

The gold in his sagging pockets clinked and jingled musically; and once half a dozen pieces rolled out upon

the floor. For a moment the boy looked as if he were going to let them remain where they were. But the next

minute, with an impatient gesture, he had picked them up and thrust them deep into one of his pockets,

Once dressed, David picked up his violin and stepped softly into the hall. At first no sound reached his ears;

then from the kitchen below came the clatter of brisk feet and the rattle of tins and crockery. Tightening his

clasp on the violin, David slipped quietly down the back stairs and out to the yard. It was only a few seconds

then before he was hurrying through the open doorway of the barn and up the narrow stairway to the loft

At the top, however, he came to a sharp pause, with a low cry. The next moment he turned to see a

"Oh, sir, pleaseplease, where is he? What have you done with him?" appealed the boy, almost plunging

"Yes, yes, I'm David. But where is he my father, you know? I mean thethe part hehe left behind

"But, maybe you don't know," interrupted David feverishly. "You aren't the man I saw last night. Who are

"No, II wa'n't herethat is, not at the first," spoke up the man quickly, still unconsciously backing away.

"MeI'm only Larson, Perry Larson, ye know. 'T was Mr. Holly you see last nighthim that I works for."

"Then, where is Mr. Holly, please?" faltered the boy, hurrying toward the barn door. "Maybe he would

knowabout father. Oh, there he is!" And David ran out of the barn and across the yard to the kitchen porch.

It was an unhappy ten minutes that David spent then. Besides Mr. Holly, there were Mrs. Holly, and the man,

Perry Larson. And they all talked. But little of what they said could David understand. To none of his

Neither, on his part, could he seem to reply to their questions in a way that pleased them.

They went in to breakfast then, Mr. and Mrs. Holly, and the man, Perry Larson. They asked David to goat

least, Mrs. Holly asked him. But David shook his head and said "No, no, thank you very much; I'd rather not,

if you pleasenot now." Then he dropped himself down on the steps to think. As if he could EATwith

David was thoroughly dazed, frightened, and dismayed. He knew now that never again in this world would

he see his dear father, or hear him speak. This much had been made very clear to him during the last ten

minutes. Why this should be so, or what his father would want him to do, he could not seem to find out. Not

until now had he realized at all what this going away of his father was to mean to him. And he told himself

frantically that he could not have it so. HE COULD NOT HAVE IT SO! But even as he said the words, he

David began then to long for his mountain home. There at least he would have his dear forest all about him,

with the birds and the squirrels and the friendly little brooks. There he would have his Silver Lake to look at,

too, and all of them would speak to him of his father. He believed, indeed, that up there it would almost seem

as if his father were really with him. And, anyway, if his father ever should come back, it would be there that

he would be sure to seek himup there in the little mountain home so dear to them both. Back to the cabin

With a low word and a passionately intent expression, David got to his feet, picked up his violin, and hurried,

firmfooted, down the driveway and out upon the main highway, turning in the direction from whence he had

The Hollys had just finished breakfast when Higgins, the coroner, drove into the yard accompanied by

William Streeter, the town's most prominent farmer,and the most miserly one, if report was to be credited.

"Well, could you get anything out of the boy? " demanded Higgins, without ceremony, as Simeon Holly and

"Why, he was here on the steps a few minutes ago." Simeon Holly looked about him a bit impatiently.

"Yes. Found it in his father's pocket," nodded the coroner, with all the tantalizing brevity of a man who

knows he has a choice morsel of information that is eagerly awaited. "It's addressed to 'My boy David,' so I

calculated we'd better give it to him first without reading it, seeing it's his. After he reads it, though, I want to

see it. I want to see if what it says is any nearer being horsesense than the other one is."

"Oh, yes, there's another one," spoke up William Streeter tersely. "And I've read it all but the scrawl at the

"Well, I'm free to confess 't is a stickerthat name," he admitted." And it's the name we want, of course, to

tell us who they aresince it seems the boy don't know, from what you said last night. I was in hopes, by

"Gosh! I should say 't was," cut in Perry Larson, with emphasis. "An' queer ain't no name for it. One minute

he'd be talkin' good common sense like anybody: an' the next he'd be chatterin' of coats made o' ice, an' birds

an' squirrels an' babbling brooks. He sure is dippy! Listen. He actually don't seem ter know the diff'rence

between himself an' his fiddle. We was tryin' ter find out this mornin' what he could do, an' what he wanted

ter do, when if he didn't up an' say that his father told him it didn't make so much diff'rence WHAT he did so

long as he kept hisself in tune an' didn't strike false notes. Now, what do yer think o' that?"

"Yes, I, know" nodded Higgins musingly. "There WAS something queer about them, and they weren't just

ordinary tramps. Did I tell you? I overtook them last night away up on the Fairbanks road by the Taylor

place, and I gave 'em a lift. I particularly noticed what a decent sort they were. They were clean and

quietspoken, and their clothes were good, even if they were rough. Yet they didn't have any baggage but

"The letter? Oh, you're welcome to read the letter," he said, as he handed over a bit of folded paper.

It was a leaf torn apparently from a note book. It was folded three times, and bore on the outside the

superscription "To whom it may concern." The handwriting was peculiar, irregular, and not very legible. But

Now that the time has come when I must give David back to the world, I have set out for that purpose.

But I am illvery ill, and should Death have swifter feet than I, I must leave my task for others to complete.

Deal gently with him. He knows only that which is good and beautiful. He knows nothing of sin nor evil.

Then followed the signaturea thing of scrawls and flourishes that conveyed no sort of meaning to Simeon

"Well, I couldn't. Neither could half a dozen others that's seen it. But where's the boy? Mebbe his note'll talk

But David was very evidently not "somewheres'round." At least he was not in the barn, the shed, the kitchen

bedroom, nor anywhere else that Larson looked; and the man was just coming back with a crestfallen,

"Mr. Higgins," she cried, in obvious excitement, "your wife has just telephoned that her sister Mollie has just

"So that's where he is!" interposed Larson, hurrying forward. "Doggone the little rascal! He must 'a' slipped

"Yes. But, Simeon,Mr. Higgins,we hadn't ought to let him go like that," appealed Mrs. Holly

tremulously. "Your wife said Mollie said she found him crying at the crossroads, because he didn't know

which way to take. He said he was going back home. He means to that wretched cabin on the mountain, you

"In Mollie's kitchen eating bread and milk; but she said she had an awful time getting him to eat. And she

wants to know what to do with him. That's why she telephoned your wife. She thought you ought to know he

"Mollie said she tried to have him come back, but that he said, no, thank you, he'd rather not. He was going

home where his father could find him if he should ever want him. Mr. Higgins, wewe CAN'T let him go

off like that. Why, the child would die up there alone in those dreadful woods, even if he could get there in

"Yes, of course, of course," muttered Higgins, with a thoughtful frown. "There's his letter, too. Say!" he

added, brightening, "what'll you bet that letter won't fetch him? He seems to think the world and all of his

daddy. Here," he directed, turning to Mrs. Holly, "you tell my wife to tellbetter yet, you telephone Mollie

yourself, please, and tell her to tell the boy we've got a letter here for him from his father, and he can have it

"I will, I will," called Mrs. Holly, over her shoulder, as she hurried into the house. In an unbelievably short

"He's started, so soon," she nodded. "He's crazy with joy, Mollie said. He even left part of his breakfast, he

"Oh, yes, we'll see him all right," echoed Simeon Holly grimly. "But that isn't telling what we'll do with him

"Oh, well, maybe this letter of his will help us out on that," suggested Higgins soothingly. "Anyhow, even if

it doesn't, I'm not worrying any. I guess some one will want hima good healthy boy like that."

"A little changea few cents. Nothing to count. If the boy's letter doesn't tell us where any of their folks are,

"He had a fiddle, didn't he? And the boy had one, too. Wouldn't they bring anything?" Streeter's round blue

"Maybeif there was a market for 'em. But who'd buy 'em? There ain't a soul in town plays but Jack

Gurnsey; and he's got one. Besides, he's sick, and got all he can do to buy bread and butter for him and his

"Hmm; maybe not, maybe not," grunted Streeter. "An', as you say, he's the only one that's got any use for

'em here; an' like enough they ain't worth much, anyway. So I guess 't is up to the town all right."

"Yes; butif yer'll take it from me,"interrupted Larson,"you'll be wise if ye keep still before the boy.

It's no use ASKIN' him anythin'. We've proved that fast enough. An' if he once turns 'round an' begins ter ask

"I guess you're right," nodded Higgins, with a quizzical smile. "And as long as questioning CAN'T do any

good, why, we'll just keep whist before the boy. Meanwhile I wish the little rascal would hurry up and get

here. I want to see the inside of that letter to HIM. I'm relying on that being some help to unsnarl this tangle

"Well, he's started," reiterated Mrs. Holly, as she turned back into the house; "so I guess he'll get here if you

"Oh, yes, he'll get here if we wait long enough," echoed Simeon Holly again, crustily.

The two men in the wagon settled themselves more comfortably in their seats, and Perry Larson, after a

halfuneasy, halfapologetic glance at his employer, dropped himself onto the bottom step. Simeon Holly

had already sat down stiffly in one of the porch chairs. Simeon Holly never "dropped himself" anywhere.

Indeed, according to Perry Larson, if there were a hard way to do a thing, Simeon Holly found itand did it.

The fact that, this morning, he had allowed, and was still allowing, the sacred routine of the day's work to be

thus interrupted, for nothing more important than the expected arrival of a strolling urchin, was something

Larson would not have believed had he not seen it. Even now he was conscious once or twice of an

Impatient as the waiting men were for the arrival of David, they were yet almost surprised, so soon did he

"Oh, where is it, please?" he panted. "They said you had a letter for me from daddy!"

"You're right, sonny; we have. And here it is," answered Higgins promptly, holding out the folded paper.

Plainly eager as he was, David did not open the note till he had first carefully set down the case holding his

As he read, the four men watched his face. They saw first the quick tears that had to be blinked away. Then

they saw the radiant glow that grew and deepened until the whole boyish face was aflame with the splendor

of it. They saw the shining wonder of his eyes, too, as he looked up from the letter.

Simeon Holly scowled. Larson choked over a stifled chuckle. William Streeter stared and shrugged his

"No, sonny," he stammered. "We found it on theerI mean, iteryour father left it in his pocket for

"Oh, I hoped I'd heard" he began. Then suddenly he stopped, his face once more alight. "But it's 'most the

same as if he wrote it from there, isn't it? He left it for me, and he told me what to do."

"What's that, what's that?" cried Higgins, instantly alert. "DID he tell you what to do? Then, let's have it, so

"Why, yyes," stammered David, holding it out politely, but with evident reluctance.

David's letter was very different from the other one. It was longer, but it did not help much, though it was

easily read. In his letter, in spite of the wavering lines, each word was formed with a care that told of a

father's thought for the young eyes that would read it. It was written on two of the notebook's leaves, and at

David, my boy [read Higgins aloud], in the far country I am waiting for you. Do not grieve, for that will

grieve me. I shall not return, but some day you will come to me, your violin at your chin, and the bow drawn

across the strings to greet me. See that it tells me of the beautiful world you have leftfor it is a beautiful

world, David; never forget that. And if sometime you are tempted to think it is not a beautiful world, just

You are among new faces, surrounded by things and people that are strange to you. Some of them you will

not understand; some of them you may not like. But do not fear, David, and do not plead to go back to the

hills. Remember this, my boy,in your violin lie all the things you long for. You have only to play, and the

broad skies of your mountain home will be over you, and the dear friends and comrades of your mountain

"Gorry! that's worse than the other," groaned Higgins, when he had finished the note. "There's actually

nothing in it! Wouldn't you thinkif a man wrote anything at such a timethat he'd 'a' wrote something that

had some sense to itsomething that one could get hold of, and find out who the boy is?"

There was no answering this. The assembled men could only grunt and nod in agreement, which, after all,

The dead man found in Farmer Holly's barn created a decided stir in the village of Hinsdale. The case was a

peculiar one for many reasons. First, because of the boyHinsdale supposed it knew boys, but it felt inclined

to change its mind after seeing this one. Second, because of the circumstances. The boy and his father had

entered the town like tramps, yet Higgins, who talked freely of his having given the pair a "lift" on that very

evening, did not hesitate to declare that he did not believe them to be ordinary tramps at all.

As there had been little found in the dead man's pockets, save the two notes, and as nobody could be found

who wanted the violins, there seemed to be nothing to do but to turn the body over to the town for burial.

Nothing was said of this to David; indeed, as little as possible was said to David about anything after that

morning when Higgins had given him his father's letter. At that time the men had made one more effort to

"get track of SOMETHING," as Higgins had despairingly put it. But the boy's answers to their questions were

anything but satisfying, anything but helpful, and were often most disconcerting. The boy was, in fact,

regarded by most of the men, after that morning, as being "a little off"; and was hence let severely alone.

Who the man was the town authorities certainly did not know, neither could they apparently find out. His

name, as written by himself, was unreadable. His notes told nothing; his son could tell little moreof

consequence. A report, to be sure, did come from the village, far up the mountain, that such a man and boy

had lived in a hut that was almost inaccessible; but even this did not help solve the mystery.

David was left at the Holly farmhouse, though Simeon Holly mentally declared that he should lose no time in

On that first day Higgins, picking up the reins preparatory to driving from the yard, had said, with a nod of

his head toward David: "Well, how about it, Holly? Shall we leave him here till we find somebody that

"Oh, yes; yes, indeed," she urged. "I'm sure hehe won't be a mite of trouble, Simeon."

"Perhaps not," conceded Simeon Holly darkly. "Neither, it is safe to say, will he be anything elseworth

"That's it exactly," spoke up Streeter, from his seat in the wagon. "If I thought he'd be worth his salt, now, I'd

take him myself; butwell, look at him this minute," he finished, with a disdainful shrug.

David, on the lowest step, was very evidently not hearing a word of what was being said. With his sensitive

Something in the sudden quiet cut through his absorption as the noisy hum of voices had not been able to do,

Receiving no answer from the somewhat awkwardly silent men, he went on, as if in explanation:

"You know he's waiting for mein the far country, I mean. He said he was. And when you've got somebody

waiting, you don't mind staying behind yourself for a little while. Besides, I've GOT to stay to find out about

the beautiful world, you know, so I can tell him, when _I_ go. That's the way I used to do back home on the

mountain, you see,tell him about things. Lots of days we'd go to walk; then, when we got home, he'd have

"Yes," nodded David earnestly; "to learn about the beautiful world. Don't you remember? And he said I was

not to want to go back to my mountains; that I would not need to, anyway, because the mountains, and the

sky, and the birds and squirrels and brooks are really in my violin, you know. And" But with an angry

frown Simeon Holly stalked away, motioning Larson to follow him; and with a merry glance and a low

chuckle Higgins turned his horse about and drove from the yard. A moment later David found himself alone

with Mrs. Holly, who was looking at him with wistful, though slightly fearful eyes.

"Did you have all the breakfast you wanted?" she asked timidly, resorting, as she had resorted the night

before, to the everyday things of her world in the hope that they might make this strange little boy seem less

"Oh, yes, thank you." David's eyes had strayed back to the note in his hand. Suddenly he looked up, a new

something in his eyes. "What is it to be aa tramp?" he asked. "Those men said daddy and I were tramps."

"A tramp? Oherwhy, just aa tramp," stammered Mrs. Holly. "But never mind that, David. II

"But what is a tramp?" persisted David, a smouldering fire beginning to show in his eyes. "Because if they

"No, no, David," interrupted Mrs. Holly soothingly. "They never meant thieves at all."

"Why, it's just toto tramp," explained Mrs. Holly desperately;"walk along the road from one town to

"Oh!" David's face cleared. "That's all right, then. I'd love to be a tramp, and so'd father. And we were tramps,

sometimes, too, 'cause lots of times, in the summer, we didn't stay in the cabin hardly anyjust lived out of

doors all day and all night. Why, I never knew really what the pine trees were saying till I heard them at

"Yes. Oh, haven't you ever heard them at night?" cried the boy, in his voice a very genuine sympathy as for a

grievous loss. "Why, then, if you've only heard them daytimes, you don't know a bit what pine trees really

are. But I can tell you. Listen! This is what they say," finished the boy, whipping his violin from its case, and,

after a swift testing of the strings, plunging into a weird, haunting little melody.

In the doorway, Mrs. Holly, bewildered, yet bewitched, stood motionless, her eyes halffearfully,

halflongingly fixed on David's glorified face. She was still in the same position when Simeon Holly came

"Well, Ellen," he began, with quiet scorn, after a moment's stern watching of the scene before him, "have you

"Oh, Simeon! Why, yes, of course. II forgotwhat I was doing," faltered Mrs. Holly, flushing guiltily

David, on the porch steps, seemed to have heard nothing. He was still playing, his rapt gaze on the distant

"See here, boy, can't you do anything but fiddle?" he demanded. Then, as David still continued to play, he

The music stopped abruptly. David looked up with the slightly dazed air of one who has been summoned as

"You mean at home?" David's face expressed mild wonder without a trace of anger or resentment. "Why, yes,

of course. I couldn't play ALL the time, you know. I had to eat and sleep and study my books; and every day

we went to walklike tramps, as you call them," he elucidated, his face brightening with obvious delight at

being able, for once, to explain matters in terms that he felt sure would be understood.

"Tramps, indeed!" muttered Simeon Holly, under his breath. Then, sharply: "Did you never perform any

"Oh, I wasn't idle, sir. Father said I must never be that. He said every instrument was needed in the great

Orchestra of Life; and that I was one, you know, even if I was only a little boy. And he said if I kept still and

"Yes, yes, but never mind that now, boy," interrupted Simeon Holly, with harsh impatience. "I mean, did he

"Work?" David meditated again. Then suddenly his face cleared. "Oh, yes, sir, he said I had a beautiful work

to do, and that it was waiting for me out in the world. That's why we came down from the mountain, you

"Well, no," retorted the man, "I can't say that it was. I was referring to workreal work about the house. Did

"Oh, you mean getting the meals and tidying up the house," he replied. "Oh, yes, I did that with father,

only"his face grew wistful"I'm afraid I didn't do it very well. My bacon was never as nice and crisp as

father's, and the fire was always spoiling my potatoes." "Humph! bacon and potatoes, indeed!" scorned

Simeon Holly. "Well, boy, we call that women's work down here. We set men to something else. Do you see

"Very good. In the kitchen you'll find an empty woodbox. Do you think you could fill it with wood from that

"Oh, yes, sir, I'd like to," nodded David, hastily but carefully tucking his violin into its case. A minute later he

had attacked the woodpile with a will; and Simeon Holly, after a sharply watchful glance, had turned away.

But the woodbox, after all, was not filled. At least, it was not filled immediately. for at the very beginning of

gathering the second armful of wood, David picked up a stick that had long lain in one position on the

ground, thereby disclosing sundry and diverse crawling things of many legs, which filled David's soul with

It was only a matter of some strength and more patience, and still more time, to overturn other and bigger

sticks, to find other and bigger of the manylegged, manyjointed creatures. One, indeed, was so very

wonderful that David, with a whoop of glee, summoned Mrs. Holly from the shed doorway to come and see.

So urgent was his plea that Mrs. Holly came with hurried stepsbut she went away with steps even more

hurried; and David, sitting back on his woodpile seat, was left to wonder why she should scream and shudder

and say "Ughhh!" at such a beautiful, interesting thing as was this little creature who lived in her woodpile.

Even then David did not think of that empty woodbox waiting behind the kitchen stove. This time it was a

butterfly, a big black butterfly banded with gold; and it danced and fluttered all through the back yard and out

into the garden, David delightedly following with softtreading steps, and movements that would not startle.

From the garden to the orchard, and from the orchard back to the garden danced the butterflyand David;

and in the garden, near the house, David came upon Mrs. Holly's pansybed. Even the butterfly was forgotten

then, for down in the path by the pansybed David dropped to his knees in veritable worship.

"Why, you're just like little people," he cried softly. "You've got faces; and some of you are happy, and some

of you are sad. And youyou big spotted yellow oneyou're laughing at me. Oh, I'm going to play

youall of you. You'll make such a pretty song, you're so different from each other!" And David leaped

Five minutes later, Simeon Holly, coming into the kitchen, heard the sound of a violin through the open

window. At the same moment his eyes fell on the woodbox, empty save for a few small sticks at the bottom.

With an angry frown he strode through the outer door and around the corner of the house to the garden. At

once then he came upon David, sitting Turkfashion in the middle of the path before the pansybed, his

"Oh, no, sir, this isn't filling the woodbox," he laughed, softening his music, but not stopping it. "Did you

think that was what I was playing? It's the flowers here that I'm playingthe little faces, like people, you

know. See, this is that big yellow one over there that's laughing," he finished, letting the music under his

Simeon Holly raised an imperious hand; and at the gesture David stopped his melody in the middle of a run,

"I'm not talking of your playing," retorted Simeon Holly severely. "I'm talking of that woodbox I asked you

"I know, sir, and I started to," he answered, with the obvious patience of one who finds himself obliged to

explain what should be a selfevident fact; "but I saw so many beautiful things, one after another, and when I

"No, I can't say that I do, when I'd already told you to fill the woodbox," rejoined the man, with

"But my songI'd have lost it!" he exclaimed. "And father said always when a song came to me to play it at

once. Songs are like the mists of the morning and the rainbows, you know, and they don't stay with you long.

But Simeon Holly, with a despairingly scornful gesture, had turned away; and David, after a moment's

following him with wistful eyes, soberly walked toward the kitchen door. Two minutes later he was

That for David the affair was not satisfactorily settled was evidenced by his thoughtful countenance and

preoccupied air, however; nor were matters helped any by the question David put to Mr. Holly just before

"Do you mean," he asked, "that because I didn't fill the woodbox right away, I was being a discord?"

"Being a discordplaying out of tune, you know," explained David, with patient earnestness. "Father

said" But again Simeon Holly had turned irritably away; and David was left with his perplexed questions

For some time after dinner, that first day, David watched Mrs. Holly in silence while she cleared the table and

Mrs. Holly, with a dubious glance at the boy's brown little hands, shook her head.

For another sixty seconds David was silent; then, still more wistfully, he asked:

Mrs. Holly lifted dripping hands from the dishpan and held them suspended for an amazed instant.

"Are theyWhy, of course they are! What a silly question! What put that idea into your head, child?"

"Yes. He said they were a necessary nuisance,dishes, and getting meals, and clearing up,and he didn't

"Nuisance, indeed!" Mrs. Holly resumed her dishwashing with some asperity. "Well, I should think that

"Yes, it was. He was always that way," nodded David pleasantly. Then, after a moment, he queried: "But

"Walking in the woods, NOWJUST WALKING? Land's sake, boy, I've got something else to do!"

"Oh, that's too bad, isn't it?" David's face expressed sympathetic regret." And it's such a nice day! Maybe it'll

"Maybe it will," retorted Mrs. Holly, with slightly uplifted eyebrows and an expressive glance. "But whether

"Oh, won't it?" beamed David, his face changing. "I'm so glad! I don't mind the rain, either. Father and I used

to go in the rain lots of times, only, of course, we couldn't take our violins then, so we used to like the

pleasant days better. But there are some things you find on rainy days that you couldn't find any other time,

aren't there? The dance of the drops on the leaves, and the rush of the rain when the wind gets behind it. Don't

you love to feel it, out in the open spaces, where the wind just gets a good chance to push?"

Mrs. Holly stared. Then she shivered and threw up her hands with a gesture of hopeless abandonment.

From dishes to sweeping, and from sweeping to dusting, hurried Mrs. Holly, going at last into the somber

parlor, always carefully guarded from sun and air. Watching her, mutely, David trailed behind, his eyes

staring a little as they fell upon the multitude of objects that parlor contained: the haircloth chairs, the long

sofa, the marbletopped table, the curtains, cushions, spreads, and "throws," the innumerable mats and tidies,

the hairwreath, the wax flowers under their glass dome, the dried grasses, the marvelous bouquets of scarlet,

green, and purple everlastings, the stones and shells and manysized, manyshaped vases arranged as if in

"Yyes, you may come in," called Mrs. Holly, glancing back at the hesitating boy in the doorway. "But you

"Well, no," deigned Mrs. Holly, with just a touch of superiority. "We don't use this room common, little boy,

nor the bedroom there, either. This is the company room, for ministers and funerals, and" She stopped

"And doesn't anybody live here in this house, but just you and Mr. Holly, and Mr. Perry Larson?" he asked,

"No, notnow." Mrs. Holly drew in her breath with a little catch, and glanced at the framed portrait of a

"But you've got such a lot of rooms andand things," remarked David. "Why, daddy and I only had two

"I should say it might have been!" Mrs. Holly began to dust hurriedly, but carefully. Her voice still carried its

"Oh, yes," smiled David. "But you say you don't use this room much, so that helps."

"Why, yes. I mean, you've got so many other rooms you can live in those. You don't HAVE to live in here."

" 'Have to live in here'!" ejaculated the woman, still too uncomprehending to be anything but amazed.

"Yes. But do you have to KEEP all these things, and clean them and clean them, like this, every day?

"Throwthesethingsaway!" With a wild sweep of her arms, the horrified woman seemed to be trying

to encompass in a protective embrace each last endangered treasure of mat and tidy. "Boy, are you crazy?

These things areare valuable. They cost money, and time andand labor. Don't you know beautiful things

"Oh, yes, I love BEAUTIFUL things," smiled David, with unconsciously rude emphasis. "And up on the

mountain I had them always. There was the sunrise, and the sunset, and the moon and the stars, and my Silver

"Never mind, little boy. I might have knownbrought up as you have been. Of course you could not

appreciate such things as these. Throw them away, indeed!" And she fell to work again; but this time her

fingers carried a something in their touch that was almost like the caress a mother might bestow upon an

David, vaguely disturbed and uncomfortable, watched her with troubled eyes; then, apologetically, he

"It was only that I thought if you didn't have to clean so many of these things, you could maybe go to walk

moretoday, and other days, you know. You saidyou didn't have time," he reminded her.

"Well, well, never mind, little boy. I dare say you meant all right. You couldn't understand, of course."

And David, after another moment's wistful eyeing of the caressing fingers, turned about and wandered out

onto the side porch. A minute later, having seated himself on the porch steps, he had taken from his pocket

two small pieces of folded paper. And then, through teardimmed eyes, he read once more his father's letter.

"He said I mustn't grieve, for that would grieve him," murmured the boy, after a time, his eyes on the

faraway hills. "And he said if I'd play, my mountains would come to me here, and I'd really be at home up

With a little choking breath, David tucked the note back into his pocket and reached for his violin.

Some time later, Mrs. Holly, dusting the chairs in the parlor, stopped her work, tiptoed to the door, and

listened breathlessly. When she turned back, still later, to her work, her eyes were wet.

"I wonder why, when he plays, I always get to thinking ofJohn," she sighed to herself, as she picked up her

After supper that night, Simeon Holly and his wife again sat on the kitchen porch, resting from the labor of

the day. Simeon's eyes were closed. His wife's were on the dim outlines of the shed, the barn, the road, or a

passing horse and wagon. David, sitting on the steps, was watching the moon climb higher and higher above

the treetops. After a time he slipped into the house and came out with his violin.

At the first longdrawn note of sweetness, Simeon Holly opened his eyes and sat up, sternlipped. But his

"Don't say anything, please," she entreated softly. "Let him play, just for tonight. He's lonesomepoor little

fellow." And Simeon Holly, with a frowning shrug of his shoulders, sat back in his chair.

Later, it was Mrs. Holly herself who stopped the music by saying: "Come, David, it's bedtime for little boys.

I'll go upstairs with you." And she led the way into the house and lighted the candle for him.

Upstairs, in the little room over the kitchen, David found himself once more alone. As before, the little

yellowwhite nightshirt lay over the chairback; and as before, Mrs. Holly had brushed away a tear as she

had placed it there. As before, too, the big fourposted bed loomed tall and formidable in the corner. But this

time the coverlet and sheet were turned back invitinglyMrs. Holly had been much disturbed to find that

Once more, with his back carefully turned toward the impaled bugs and moths on the wall, David undressed

himself. Then, before blowing out the candle, he went to the window kneeled down, and looked up at the

David was sorely puzzled. He was beginning to wonder just what was to become of himself.

His father had said that out in the world there was a beautiful work for him to do; but what was it? How was

he to find it? Or how was he to do it if he did find it? And another thing; where was he to live? Could he stay

where he was? It was not home, to be sure; but there was the little room over the kitchen where he might

sleep, and there was the kind woman who smiled at him sometimes with the sad, faraway look in her eyes

There were the goldpieces, too; and concerning these David was equally puzzled. What should he do with

them? He did not need themthe kind woman was giving him plenty of food, so that he did not have to go

to the store and buy; and there was nothing else, apparently, that he could use them for. They were heavy, and

disagreeable to carry; yet he did not like to throw them away, nor to let anybody know that he had them: he

had been called a thief just for one little piece, and what would they say if they knew he had all those others?

David remembered now, suddenly, that his father had said to hide themto hide them until he needed them.

David was relieved at once. Why had he not thought of it before? He knew just the place, too,the little

cupboard behind the chimney there in this very room! And with a satisfied sigh, David got to his feet,

gathered all the little yellow disks from his pockets, and tucked them well out of sight behind the piles of

books on the cupboard shelves. There, too, he hid the watch; but the little miniature of the angelmother he

David's second morning at the farmhouse was not unlike the first, except that this time, when Simeon Holly

asked him to fill the woodbox, David resolutely ignored every enticing bug and butterfly, and kept rigorously

He was in the kitchen when, just before dinner, Perry Larson came into the room with a worried frown on his

"Mis' Holly, would ye mind just steppin' to the side door? There's a woman an' a little boy there, an' somethin'

ails 'em. She can't talk English, an' I'm blest if I can make head nor tail out of the lingo she DOES talk. But

"Why, Perry, I don't know" began Mrs. Holly. But she turned at once toward the door.

On the porch steps stood a very pretty, but frightenedlooking young woman with a boy perhaps ten years

old at her side. Upon catching sight of Mrs. Holly she burst into a torrent of unintelligible words,

Mrs. Holly shrank back, and cast appealing eyes toward her husband who at that moment had come across

At sight of the newcomer on the scene, the strange woman began again, with even more volubility.

"No," said Simeon Holly, after a moment's scowling scrutiny of the gesticulating woman. "She's talking

"Gosh! I should say she did," muttered Perry Larson. "An' whatever 't is, she wants it powerful bad."

The woman looked from one to the other with the piteous, pleading eyes of the stranger in the strange land

who cannot understand or make others understand. She had turned away with a despairing shake of her head,

when suddenly she gave a wild cry of joy and wheeled about, her whole face alight.

The Hollys and Perry Larson saw then that David had come out onto the porch and was speaking to the

"Why, yes! Didn't you? She's lost her way, and" But the woman had hurried forward and was pouring her

At its conclusion David turned to find the look of stupefaction still on the others' faces.

"She wants to find the way to Francois Lavelle's house. He's her husband's brother. She came in on the train

this morning. Her husband stopped off a minute somewhere, she says, and got left behind. He could talk

English, but she can't. She's only been in this country a week. She came from France."

"Gorry! Won't ye listen ter that, now?" cried Perry Larson admiringly. "Reads her just like a book, don't he?

There's a French family over in West Hinsdaletwo of 'em, I think. What'll ye bet 't ain't one o' them?"

"Very likely," acceded Simeon Holly, his eyes bent disapprovingly on David's face. It was plain to be seen

"An', say, Mr. Holly," resumed Perry Larson, a little excitedly, "you know I was goin' over ter West Hinsdale

in a day or two ter see Harlow about them steers. Why can't I go this afternoon an' tote her an' the kid along?"

Perry Larson turned to the woman, and by a flourish of his arms and a jumble of broken English attempted to

make her understand that he was to take her where she undoubtedly wished to go. The woman still looked

uncomprehending, however, and David promptly came to the rescue, saying a few rapid words that quickly

"She says no, thank you," translated David, with a smile, when he had received his answer. "But the boy says

"Then, tell them to come into the kitchen," directed Mrs. Holly, hurrying into the house.

"French? Oh, no, sir," smiled David, proudly. "I'm an American. Father said I was. He said I was born in this

"Why, I learned it." Then, divining that his words were still unconvincing, he added: "Same as I learned

German and other things with father, out of books, you know. Didn't you learn French when you were a little

Immediately after dinner Perry Larson drove away with the woman and the little boy. The woman's face was

wreathed with smiles, and her last adoring glance was for David, waving his hand to her from the porch steps.

In the afternoon David took his violin and went off toward the hill behind the house for a walk. He had asked

Mrs. Holly to accompany him, but she had refused, though she was not sweeping or dusting at the time. She

was doing nothing more important, apparently, than making holes in a piece of white cloth, and sewing them

David had then asked Mr. Holly to go; but his refusal was even more strangely impatient than his wife's had

"And why, pray, should I go for a useless walk nowor any time, for that matter?" he demanded sharply.

"Oh, but it wouldn't be a useless walk, sir. Father said nothing was useless that helped to keep us in tune, you

"I mean, you looked as father used to look sometimes, when he felt out of tune. And he always said there was

nothing like a walk to put him back again. II was feeling a little out of tune myself today, and I thought,

"Humph! Well, IThat will do, boy. No impertinence, you understand!" And he had turned away in very

It was Saturday night, and the end of David's third day at the farmhouse. Upstairs, in the hot little room over

the kitchen, the boy knelt at the window and tried to find a breath of cool air from the hills. Downstairs on the

porch Simeon Holly and his wife discussed the events of the past few days, and talked of what should be

"But what shall we do with him?" moaned Mrs. Holly at last, breaking a long silence that had fallen between

And at the words a small figure in a yellowwhite nightshirt stopped short. David, violin in hand, had fled

"Who can want a child that has been brought up in that heathenish fashion?" continued Simeon Holly.

"According to his own story, even his father did nothing but play the fiddle and tramp through the woods day

in and day out, with an occasional trip to the mountain village to get food and clothing when they had

David, at the kitchen door, caught his breath chokingly. Then he sped across the floor to the back hall, and on

through the long sheds to the hayloft in the barnthe place where his father seemed always nearest.

David was frightened and heartsick. NOBODY WANTED HIM. He had heard it with his own ears, so there

was no mistake. What now about all those long days and nights ahead before he might go, violin in hand, to

meet his father in that faraway country? How was he to live those days and nights if nobody wanted him?

How was his violin to speak in a voice that was true and pure and full, and tell of the beautiful world, as his

father had said that it must do? David quite cried aloud at the thought. Then he thought of something else that

his father had said: "Remember this, my boy,in your violin lie all the things you long for. You have only to

play, and the broad skies of your mountain home will be over you, and the dear friends and comrades of your

mountain forests will be all about you." With a quick cry David raised his violin and drew the bow across the

"Of course there's the orphan asylum, or maybe the poorhouseif they'd take him; butSimeon," she broke

"And he'll go to bed again," asserted Simeon Holly grimly, as he rose to his feet and stalked across the

As before, Mrs. Holly followed him, and as before, both involuntarily paused just inside the barn door to

listen. No runs and trills and rollicking bits of melody floated down the stairway tonight. The notes were

longdrawn, and plaintively sweet; and they rose and swelled and died almost into silence while the man and

They were back in the long agoSimeon Holly and his wifeback with a boy of their own who had made

those same rafters ring with shouts of laughter, and who, also, had played the violinthough not like this;

and the same thought had come to each: "What if, after all, it were John playing all alone in the moonlight!"

It had not been the violin, in the end, that had driven John Holly from home. It had been the possibilities in a

piece of crayon. All through childhood the boy had drawn his beloved "pictures" on every inviting space that

offered,whether it were the "bestroom" wallpaper, or the fly leaf of the big plush album,and at

eighteen he had announced his determination to be an artist. For a year after that Simeon Holly fought with

all the strength of a stubborn will, banished chalk and crayon from the house, and set the boy to homely tasks

That was fifteen years ago, and they had not seen him since; though two unanswered letters in Simeon

It was not of the grownup John, the willful boy and runaway son, however, that Simeon Holly and his wife

were thinking, as they stood just inside the barn door; it was of Baby John, the little curlyheaded fellow that

had played at their knees, frolicked in this very barn, and nestled in their arms when the day was done.

"Simeon," she began tremulously, "that dear child must go to bed!" And she hurried across the floor and up

the stairs, followed by her husband. "Come, David," she said, as she reached the top; "it's time little boys

Her voice was low, and not quite steady. To David her voice sounded as her eyes looked when there was in

them the faraway something that hurt. Very slowly he came forward into the moonlight, his gaze searching

The woman drew in her breath with a little sob. Before her stood the slender figure in the yellowwhite

gownJohn's gown. Into her eyes looked those other eyes, dark and wistful,like John's eyes. And her

"Yes, yes, for my very ownand for always!" she cried with sudden passion, clasping the little form close.

Simeon Holly's lips parted, but they closed again with no words said. The man turned then, with a curiously

On the porch long minutes later, when once more David had gone to bed, Simeon Holly said coldly to his

"I suppose you realize, Ellen, just what you've pledged yourself to, by that absurd outburst of yours in the

barn tonightand all because that ungodly music and the moonshine had gone to your head!"

Harsh lines came to the man's mouth, but there was a perceptible shake in his voice as he answered:

"We're not talking of John, Ellen. We're talking of this irresponsible, hardly sane boy upstairs. He can work, I

suppose, if he's taught, and in that way he won't perhaps be a dead loss. Still, he's another mouth to feed, and

"But you say there's moneyalmost enough for itin the bank." Mrs. Holly's voice was anxiously

"But there's timemore than two months. It isn't due till the last of August, Simeon."

"I know, I know. Meanwhile, there's the boy. What are you going to do with him?"

"Perhaps. I doubt it, though," gloomed the man. "One can't hoe corn nor pull weeds with a fiddlebowand

"But he can learnand he does play beautifully," murmured the woman; whenever before had Ellen Holly

ventured to use words of argument with her husband, and in extenuation, too, of an act of her own!

There was no reply except a muttered "Humph!" under the breath. Then Simeon Holly rose and stalked into

The next day was Sunday, and Sunday at the farmhouse was a thing of stern repression and solemn silence. In

Simeon Holly's veins ran the blood of the Puritans, and he was more than strict as to what he considered right

and wrong. When halftrained for the ministry, illhealth had forced him to resort to a less confining life,

though never had it taken from him the uncompromising rigor of his views. It was a distinct shock to him,

therefore, on this Sunday morning to be awakened by a peal of music such as the little house had never

known before. All the while that he was thrusting his indignant self into his clothing, the runs and turns and

crashing chords whirled about him until it seemed that a whole orchestra must be imprisoned in the little

room over the kitchen, so skillful was the boy's double stopping. Simeon Holly was white with anger when he

"And didn't you know?" he asked. "Why, I thought my music would tell you. I was so happy, so glad! The

birds in the trees woke me up singing, 'You're wantedyou're wanted;' and the sun came over the hill there

and said, 'You're wantedyou're wanted;' and the little treebranch tapped on my window pane and said

"You're wantedyou're wanted!' And I just had to take up my violin and tell you about it!"

"Are you quite a heathen, then?" catechised the man sharply. "Have they never told you anything about God,

"Oh, 'God'?of course," smiled David, in open relief. "God wraps up the buds in their little brown blankets,

"I am not talking about brown blankets nor roots," interrupted the man severely. "This is God's day, and as

"But those are good things, and beautiful things," defended David, his eyes wide and puzzled.

"Oh!"and David's face cleared. "That's all right, then. Your God isn't the same one, sir, for mine loves all

There was a moment's silence. For the first time in his life Simeon Holly found himself without words.

"We won't talk of this any more, David," he said at last; "but we'll put it another wayI don't wish you to

play your fiddle on Sunday. Now, put it up till tomorrow." And he turned and went down the hall.

Breakfast was a very quiet meal that morning. Meals were never things of hilarious joy at the Holly

farmhouse, as David had already found out; but he had not seen one before quite so somber as this. It was

followed immediately by a halfhour of Scripturereading and prayer, with Mrs. Holly and Perry Larson

sitting very stiff and solemn in their chairs, while Mr. Holly read. David tried to sit very stiff and solemn in

his chair, also; but the roses at the window were nodding their heads and beckoning; and the birds in the

bushes beyond were sending to him coaxing little chirps of "Come out, come out!" And how could one

expect to sit stiff and solemn in the face of all that, particularly when one's fingers were tingling to take up

the interrupted song of the morning and tell the whole world how beautiful it was to be wanted!

Yet David sat very still,or as still as he could sit,and only the tapping of his foot, and the roving of his

wistful eyes told that his mind was not with Farmer Holly and the Children of Israel in their wanderings in

After the devotions came an hour of subdued haste and confusion while the family prepared for church.

David had never been to church. He asked Perry Larson what it was like; but Perry only shrugged his

That one must be spick and span to go to church, David soon found outnever before had he been so

scrubbed and brushed and combed. There was, too, brought out for him to wear a little clean white blouse and

a red tie, over which Mrs. Holly cried a little as she had over the nightshirt that first evening.

The church was in the village only a quarter of a mile away; and in due time David, openeyed and

interested, was following Mr. and Mrs. Holly down its long center aisle. The Hollys were early as usual, and

service had not begun. Even the organist had not taken his seat beneath the great pipes of blue and gold that

It was the pride of the townthat organ. It had been given by a great man (out in the world) whose

birthplace the town was. More than that, a yearly donation from this same great man paid for the skilled

organist who came every Sunday from the city to play it. Today, as the organist took his seat, he noticed a

new face in the Holly pew, and he almost gave a friendly smile as he met the wondering gaze of the small

Down in the Holly pew the small boy held his breath. A score of violins were singing in his ears; and a score

of other instruments that he could not name, crashed over his head, and brought him to his feet in ecstasy.

Before a detaining hand could stop him, he was out in the aisle, his eyes on the blueandgold pipes from

which seemed to come those wondrous sounds. Then his gaze fell on the man and on the banks of keys; and

For long minutes he stood motionless, listening; then the music died into silence and the minister rose for the

invocation. It was a boy's voice, and not a man's, however, that broke the pause.

The organist choked over a cough, and the soprano reached out and drew David to her side, whispering

something in his ear. The minister, after a dazed silence, bowed his head; while down in the Holly pew an

angry man and a sorely mortified woman vowed that, before David came to church again, he should have

With the coming of Monday arrived a new life for Davida curious life full of "don'ts" and "dos." David

wondered sometimes why all the pleasant things were "don'ts" and all the unpleasant ones "dos." Corn to be

hoed, weeds to be pulled, woodboxes to be filled; with all these it was "do this, do this, do this." But when it

came to lying under the apple trees, exploring the brook that ran by the field, or even watching the bugs and

As to Farmer HollyFarmer Holly himself awoke to some new experiences that Monday morning. One of

them was the difficulty in successfully combating the cheerfully expressed opinion that weeds were so pretty

growing that it was a pity to pull them up and let them all wither and die. Another was the equally great

difficulty of keeping a small boy at useful labor of any sort in the face of the attractions displayed by a

In spite of all this, however, David so evidently did his best to carry out the "dos" and avoid the "don'ts," that

at four o'clock that first Monday he won from the stern but wouldbejust Farmer Holly his freedom for the

rest of the day; and very gayly he set off for a walk. He went without his violin, as there was the smell of rain

in the air; but his face and his step and the very swing of his arms were singing (to David) the joyous song of

the morning before. Even yet, in spite of the vicissitudes of the day's work, the whole world, to David's

homesick, lonely little heart, was still caroling that blessed "You're wanted, you're wanted, you're wanted!"

David knew crows. In his home on the mountain he had had several of them for friends. He had learned to

know and answer their calls. He had learned to admire their wisdom and to respect their moods and tempers.

He loved to watch them. Especially he loved to see the great birds cut through the air with a wide sweep of

This crow was not cutting through the air with a wide sweep of wing. It was in the middle of a cornfield, and

it was rising and falling and flopping about in a most extraordinary fashion. Very soon David, running toward

it, saw why. By a long leather strip it was fastened securely to a stake in the ground.

"Oh, oh, oh!" exclaimed David, in sympathetic consternation. "Here, you just wait a minute. I'll fix it."

With confident celerity David whipped out his jackknife to cut the thong; but he found then that to "fix it"

The crow did not seem to recognize in David a friend. He saw in him, apparently, but another of the

stonethrowing, gunshooting, torturing humans who were responsible for his present hateful captivity. With

beak and claw and wing, therefore, he fought this new evil that had come presumedly to torment; and not

until David had hit upon the expedient of taking off his blouse, and throwing it over the angry bird, could the

boy get near enough to accomplish his purpose. Even then David had to leave upon the slender leg a twist of

A moment later, with a whir of wings and a frightened squawk that quickly turned into a surprised caw of

triumphant rejoicing, the crow soared into the air and made straight for a distant treetop. David, after a

minute's glad surveying of his work, donned his blouse again and resumed his walk.

It was almost six o'clock when David got back to the Holly farmhouse. In the barn doorway sat Perry Larson.

"Oh, I didn't mind that part," returned David. "What I didn't like was pulling up all those pretty little plants

"But they WERE pretty," defended David, reading aright the scorn in Perry Larson's voice. "The very

prettiest and biggest there were, always. Mr. Holly showed me, you know,and I had to pull them up."

"Oh, yes. I had a splendid walk. I went 'way up in the woods on the hill there. I was singing all the

timeinside, you know. I was so glad Mrs. Hollywanted me. You know what it is, when you sing inside."

"Well, no, sonny, I can't really say I do," he retorted. "I ain't much on singin'."

"When I'moh!" The man stopped and stared, his mouth falling open. Suddenly his face changed, and he

grinned appreciatively. "Well, if you ain't the beat 'em, boy! 'T is kinder like singin'the way ye feel inside,

"Oh, yes. Why, that's where I get my songsinside of me, you knowthat I play on my violin. And I made

"SINGA CROW!" scoffed the man." Shucks! It'll take more 'n you ter make me think a crow can sing, my

"But they do, when they're happy," maintained the boy. "Anyhow, it doesn't sound the same as it does when

they're cross, or plagued over something. You ought to have heard this one today. He sang. He was so glad

"You mean, you CAUGHT a crow up there in them woods?" The man's voice was skeptical.

"Oh, no, I didn't catch it. But somebody had, and tied him up. And he was so unhappy!"

"A crow tied upLook ahere, boy, what are you talkin' about? Where was that crow?" Perry Larson's

"Well, he wouldn't let me TOUCH him," halfapologized David. "He was so afraid, you see. Why, I had to

"Cut him loose!" Perry Larson sprang to his feet. "You did n'tyou DIDn't let that crow go!"

"Why, yes; he WANTED to go. He" But the man before him had fallen back despairingly to his old

"Well, sir, you've done it now. What the boss'll say, I don't know; but I know what I'd like ter say to ye. I was

a whole week, off an' on, gettin' hold of that crow, an' I wouldn't have got him at all if I hadn't hid half the

night an' all the mornin' in that clump o' bushes, watchin' a chance ter wing him, jest enough an' not too

much. An' even then the job wa'n't done. Let me tell yer, 't wa'n't no small thing ter get him hitched. I'm

wearin' the marks of the rascal's beak yet. An' now you've gone an' let him gojust like that," he finished,

"Like it! What if he didn't? I didn't like ter have my corn pulled up, either. See here, sonny, you no need ter

look at me in that tone o' voice. I didn't hurt the varmint none ter speak ofye see he could fly, didn't

ye?an' he wa'n't starvin'. I saw to it that he had enough ter eat an' a dish o' water handy. An' if he didn't flop

an' pull an' try ter get away he needn't 'a' hurt hisself never. I ain't ter blame for what pullin' he done."

"But wouldn't you pull if you had two big wings that could carry you to the top of that big tree there, and

away up, up in the sky, where you could talk to the stars?wouldn't you pull if somebody a hundred times

"See here, sonny, I wa'n't askin' you ter do no preachin'. What I did ain't no more'n any man 'round here

doesif he's smart enough ter catch one. Riggedup broomsticks ain't in it with a live bird when it comes ter

drivin' away them pesky, thievin' crows. There ain't a farmer 'round here that hain't been green with envy,

ever since I caught the critter. An' now ter have you come along an' with one flip o'yer knife spile it all,

"No, that's so, isn't it? I'm glad of that. I was thinking of the crows, you see. I'm so sorry for them! Only think

how we'd hate to be tied like that" But Perry Larson, with a stare and an indignant snort, had got to his

Very plainly, that evening, David was in disgrace, and it took all of Mrs. Holly's tact and patience, and some

private pleading, to keep a general explosion from wrecking all chances of his staying longer at the

farmhouse. Even as it was, David was sorrowfully aware that he was proving to be a great disappointment so

soon, and his violin playing that evening carried a moaning plaintiveness that would have been very

Very faithfully, the next day, the boy tried to carry out all the "dos," and though he did not always succeed,

yet his efforts were so obvious, that even the indignant owner of the liberated crow was somewhat mollified;

Alas, for David's peace of mind, however; for on his walk today, though he found no captive crow to

demand his sympathy, he found something else quite as heartrending, and as incomprehensible.

It was on the edge of the woods that he came upon two boys, each carrying a rifle, a dead squirrel, and a dead

rabbit. The threatened rain of the day before had not materialized, and David had his violin. He had been

"Oh!" At sight of the boys and their burden David gave an involuntary cry, and stopped playing.

The boys, scarcely less surprised at sight of David and his violin, paused and stared frankly.

David, his grieved eyes on the motionless little bodies in the boys' hands, shuddered.

"Sure. We just shot 'emthe squirrels. Ben here trapped the rabbits." He paused, manifestly waiting for the

But in David's startled eyes there was no awed admiration, there was only disbelieving horror.

"Sure," he answered with laconic indifference. "We sent 'em to the far country, all right."

"WantedEh?" exploded the big boy. Then he grinned again, still more disagreeably. "Well, you see, my

"Then you don't know at all. And maybe they DIDn't want to go. And if they didn't, how COULD they go

singing, as father said? Father wasn't sent. He WENT. And he went singing. He said he did. But theseHow

would YOU like to have somebody come along and send YOU to the far country, without even knowing if

There was no answer. The boys, with a growing fear in their eyes, as at sight of something inexplicable and

uncanny, were sidling away; and in a moment they were hurrying down the hill, not, however, without a

David often wore, during those first few days at the Holly farmhouse, a thoughtful face and a troubled frown.

There were so many, many things that were different from his mountain home. Over and over, as those first

long days passed, he read his letter until he knew it by heartand he had need to. Was he not already

And they were so very strangethese people! There were the boys and men who rose at dawnyet never

paused to watch the sun flood the world with light; who stayed in the fields all dayyet never raised their

eyes to the big fleecy clouds overhead; who knew birds only as thieves after fruit and grain, and squirrels and

rabbits only as creatures to be trapped or shot. The womenthey were even more incomprehensible. They

spent the long hours behind screened doors and windows, washing the same dishes and sweeping the same

floors day after day. They, too, never raised their eyes to the blue sky outside, nor even to the crimson roses

that peeped in at the window. They seemed rather to be looking always for dirt, yet not pleased when they

More extraordinary than all this to David, however, was the fact that these people regarded HIM, not

themselves, as being strange. As if it were not the most natural thing in the world to live with one's father in

one's home on the mountaintop, and spend one's days trailing through the forest paths, or lying with a book

beside some babbling little stream! As if it were not equally natural to take one's violin with one at times, and

learn to catch upon the quivering strings the whisper of the winds through the trees! Even in winter, when the

clouds themselves came down from the sky and covered the earth with their soft whiteness,even then the

forest was beautiful; and the song of the brook under its icy coat carried a charm and mystery that were quite

wanting in the chattering freedom of summer. Surely there was nothing strange in all this, and yet these

Day by day, however, as time passed, David diligently tried to perform the "dos" and avoid the "don'ts"; and

day by day he came to realize how important weeds and woodboxes were, if he were to conform to what was

evidently Farmer Holly's idea of "playing in, tune" in this strange new Orchestra of Life in which he found

But, try as he would, there was yet an unreality about it all, a persistent feeling of uselessness and waste, that

would not be set aside. So that, after all, the only part of this strange new life of his that seemed real to him

was the time that came after four o'clock each day, when he was released from work.

And how full he filled those hours! There was so much to see, so much to do. For sunny days there were field

and stream and pasture land and the whole wide town to explore. For rainy days, if he did not care to go to

walk, there was his room with the books in the chimney cupboard. Some of them David had read before, but

many of them he had not. One or two were old friends; but not so "Dare Devil Dick," and "The Pirates of

Pigeon Cove" (which he found hidden in an obscure corner behind a loose board). Side by side stood "The

Lady of the Lake," "Treasure Island," and "David Copperfield"; and coverless and dogeared lay "Robinson

Crusoe," "The Arabian Nights," and "Grimm's Fairy Tales." There were more, many more, and David

devoured them all with eager eyes. The good in them he absorbed as he absorbed the sunshine; the evil he

cast aside unconsciouslyit rolled off, indeed, like the proverbial water from the duck's back.

David hardly knew sometimes which he liked the better, his imaginative adventures between the covers of his

books or his real adventures in his daily strolls. True, it was not his mountain homethis place in which he

found himself; neither was there anywhere his Silver Lake with its far, farreaching sky above. More

deplorable yet, nowhere was there the dear father he loved so well. But the sun still set in rose and gold, and

the sky, though small, still carried the snowy sails of its cloudboats; while as to his fatherhis father had

With his violin for company David started out each day, unless he elected to stay indoors with his books.

Sometimes it was toward the village that he turned his steps; sometimes it was toward the hills back of the

town. Whichever way it was, there was always sure to be something waiting at the end for him and his violin

to discover, if it was nothing more than a big white rose in bloom, or a squirrel sitting by the roadside.

Very soon, however, David discovered that there was something to be found in his wanderings besides

squirrels and roses; and that waspeople. In spite of the strangeness of these people, they were wonderfully

interesting, David thought. And after that he turned his steps more and more frequently toward the village

At first David did not talk much to these people. He shrank sensitively from their bold stares and

unpleasantly audible comments. He watched them with round eyes of wonder and interest, however,when

he did not think they were watching him. And in time he came to know not a little about them and about the

There was the greenhouse man. It would be pleasant to spend one's day growing plants and flowersbut not

under that hot, stifling glass roof, decided David. Besides, he would not want always to pick and send away

There was the doctor who rode all day long behind the gray mare, making sick folks well. David liked him,

and mentally vowed that he himself would be a doctor sometime. Still, there was the stagedriverDavid

was not sure but he would prefer to follow this man's profession for a lifework; for in his, one could still

have the freedom of long days in the open, and yet not be saddened by the sight of the sick before they had

been made wellwhich was where the stagedriver had the better of the doctor, in David's opinion. There

were the blacksmith and the storekeepers, too, but to these David gave little thought or attention.

Though he might not know what he did want to do, he knew very well what he did not. All of which merely

goes to prove that David was still on the lookout for that great work which his father had said was waiting for

Meanwhile David played his violin. If he found a crimson rambler in bloom in a dooryard, he put it into a

little melody of pure delightthat a woman in the house behind the rambler heard the music and was

cheered at her task, David did not know. If he found a kitten at play in the sunshine, he put it into a riotous

abandonment of tumbling turns and trillsthat a fretful baby heard and stopped its wailing, David also did

not know. And once, just because the sky was blue and the air was sweet, and it was so good to be alive,

David lifted his bow and put it all into a rapturous paean of ringing exultationthat a sick man in a darkened

chamber above the street lifted his head, drew in his breath, and took suddenly a new lease of life, David still

again did not know. All of which merely goes to prove that David had perhaps found his work and was doing

It was in the cemetery one afternoon that David came upon the Lady in Black. She was on her knees putting

flowers on a little mound before her. She looked up as David approached. For a moment she gazed wistfully

"Oh, yes, I've been here quite a lot of times." Purposely the boy evaded the questions. David was getting tired

"Here? Oh, no, they aren't here. My mother is an angelmother, and my father has gone to the far country. He

"But, that's the samethat is" She stopped helplessly, bewildered eyes on David's serene face. Then

suddenly a great light came to her own. "Oh, little boy, I wish I could understand thatjust that," she

breathed. "It would make it so much easierif I could just remember that they aren't herethat they're

But David apparently did not hear. He had turned and was playing softly as he walked away. Silently the

Lady in Black knelt, listening, looking after him. When she rose some time later and left the cemetery, the

Toward boys and girlsespecially boysof his own age, David frequently turned wistful eyes. David

wanted a friend, a friend who would know and understand; a friend who would see things as he saw them,

who would understand what he was saying when he played. It seemed to David that in some boy of his own

age he ought to find such a friend. He had seen many boysbut he had not yet found the friend. David had

begun to think, indeed, that of all these strange beings in this new life of his, boys were the strangest.

They stared and nudged each other unpleasantly when they came upon him playing. They jeered when he

tried to tell them what he had been playing. They had never heard of the great Orchestra of Life, and they fell

into most disconcerting fits of laughter, or else backed away as if afraid, when he told them that they

themselves were instruments in it, and that if they did not keep themselves in tune, there was sure to be a

Then there were their games and frolics. Such as were played with balls, bats, and bags of beans, David

thought he would like very much. But the boys only scoffed when he asked them to teach him how to play.

They laughed when a dog chased a cat, and they thought it very, very funny when Tony, the old black man,

tripped on the string they drew across his path. They liked to throw stones and shoot guns, and the more

creeping, crawling, or flying creatures that they could send to the far country, the happier they were,

apparently. Nor did they like it at all when he asked them if they were sure all these creeping, crawling, flying

creatures wanted to leave this beautiful world and to be made dead. They sneered and called him a sissy.

David did not know what a sissy was; but from the way they said it, he judged it must be even worse to be a

David had found himself in a very strange, very unlovely neighborhood that afternoon. The street was full of

papers and tin cans, the houses were unspeakably forlorn with sagging blinds and lack of paint. Untidy

women and bleareyed men leaned over the dilapidated fences, or lolled on mudtracked doorsteps. David,

his shrinking eyes turning from one side to the other, passed slowly through the street, his violin under his

arm. Nowhere could David find here the tiniest spot of beauty to "play." He had reached quite the most

forlorn little shanty on the street when the promise in his father's letter occurred to him. With a suddenly

illumined face, he raised his violin to position and plunged into a veritable whirl of trills and runs and

"If I didn't just entirely forget that I didn't NEED to SEE anything beautiful to play," laughed David softly to

David had passed the tumbledown shanty, and was hesitating where two streets crossed, when he felt a light

touch on his arm. He turned to confront a small girl in a patched and faded calico dress, obviously outgrown.

Her eyes were wide and frightened. In the middle of her outstretched dirty little palm was a copper cent.

"He wanted you to stay and play some more. He said to tell you he'd 'a' sent more money if he could. But he

"Yes. He said he knew 't wa'n't muchthe cent. But he thought maybe you'd play a LITTLE for it."

"Play? Of course I'll play" cried David. "Oh, no, I don't want the money," he added, waving the

againproffered coin aside. "I don't need money where I'm living now. Where is hethe one that wanted me

"In there by the window. It's Joe. He's my brother." The little girl, in spite of her evident satisfaction at the

accomplishment of her purpose, yet kept quite aloof from the boy. Nor did the fact that he refused the money

In the window David saw a boy apparently about his own age, a boy with sandy hair, pale cheeks, and

"Is he coming? Did you get him? Will he play?" called the boy at the window eagerly.

"Yes, I'm right here. I'm the one. Can't you see the violin? Shall I play here or come in?" answered David, not

The small girl opened her lips as if to explain something; but the boy in the window did not wait.

"Oh, come in. WILL you come in?" he cried unbelievingly. "And will you just let me touch itthe fiddle?

"Of course I will!" David fairly stumbled up the broken steps in his impatience to reach the wideopen door.

"Did you like itwhat I played? And did you know what I was playing? Did you understand? Could you see

the cloudboats up in the sky, and my Silver Lake down in the valley? And could you hear the birds, and the

winds in the trees, and the little brooks? Could you? Oh, did you understand? I've so wanted to find some one

that could! But I wouldn't think that YOUHERE" With a gesture, and an expression on his face that

"There, Joe, what'd I tell you," cried the little girl, in a husky whisper, darting to her brother's side. "Oh, why

But the boy reached out a quickly silencing hand. His face was curiously alight, as if from an inward glow.

"Stop, Betty, wait," he hushed her. "MaybeI think I DO understand. Boy, you meanINSIDE of you, you

see those things, and then you try to make your fiddle tell what you are seeing. Is that it?"

"Yes, yes," cried David. "Oh, you DO understand. And I never thought you could. I never thought that

" 'Anything but these to look at'!" echoed the boy, with a sudden anguish in his voice. "Anything but these! I

guess if I could see ANYTHING, I wouldn't mind WHAT I see! An' you wouldn't, neither, if you

"Blind!" David fell back. Face and voice were full of horror. "You mean you can't seeanything, with your

"Oh! I never saw any one blind before. There was one in a bookbut father took it away. Since then, in

"Yes, yes. Well, never mind that," cut in the blind boy, growing restive under the pity in the other's voice.

"But how are you EVER going to know what a beautiful world it is?" shuddered David. "How can you know?

And how can you ever play in tune? You're one of the instruments. Father said everybody was. And he said

"Joe, Joe, please," begged the little girl "Won't you let him go? I'm afraid. I told you"

"Shucks, Betty! He won't hurt ye," laughed Joe, a little irritably. Then to David he turned again with some

"Yes, oh, yes, I'll play," faltered David, bringing his violin hastily to position, and testing the strings with

"There!" breathed Joe, settling back in his chair with a contented sigh. "Now, play it againwhat you did

But David did not play what he did beforeat first. There were no airy cloudboats, no farreaching sky, no

birds, or murmuring forest brooks in his music this time. There were only the povertystricken room, the

dirty street, the boy alone at the window, with his sightless eyesthe boy who never, never would know

Then suddenly to David came a new thought. This boy, Joe, had said before that he understood. He had

seemed to know that he was being told of the sunny skies and the forest winds, the singing birds and the

Possibly never before had David played as he played then. It was as if upon those four quivering strings, he

was laying the purple and gold of a thousand sunsets, the rose and amber of a thousand sunrises, the green of

a boundless earth, the blue of a sky that reached to heaven itselfto make Joe understand.

"Gee!" breathed Joe, when the music came to an end with a crashing chord. "Say, wa'n't that just great? Won't

you let me, please, just touch that fiddle?" And David, looking into the blind boy's exalted face, knew that Joe

It was a new world, indeed, that David created for Joe after thata world that had to do with entrancing

music where once was silence; delightful companionship where once was loneliness; and toothsome cookies

The Widow Glaspell, Joe's mother, worked out by the day, scrubbing and washing; and Joe, perforce, was left

to the somewhat erratic and decidedly unskillful ministrations of Betty. Betty was no worse, and no better,

than any other untaught, irresponsible twelveyearold girl, and it was not to be expected, perhaps, that she

would care to spend all the bright sunny hours shut up with her sorely afflicted and somewhat fretful brother.

True, at noon she never failed to appear and prepare something that passed for a dinner for herself and Joe.

But the Glaspell larder was frequently almost as empty as were the hungry stomachs that looked to it for

refreshment; and it would have taken a far more skillful cook than was the flyaway Betty to evolve anything

With the coming of David into Joe's life all this was changed. First, there were the music and the

companionship. Joe's father had "played in the band" in his youth, and (according to the Widow Glaspell) had

been a "powerful hand for music." It was from him, presumably, that Joe had inherited his passion for melody

and harmony; and it was no wonder that David recognized so soon in the blind boy the spirit that made them

kin. At the first stroke of David's bow, indeed, the dingy walls about them would crumble into nothingness,

Nor was listening always Joe's part. From "just touching" the violinhis first longing pleahe came to

drawing a timid bow across the strings. In an incredibly short time, then, he was picking out bits of melody;

and by the end of a fortnight David had brought his father's violin for Joe to practice on.

"I can't GIVE it to younot for keeps," David had explained, a bit tremulously, "because it was daddy's, you

know; and when I see it, it seems almost as if I was seeing him. But you may take it. Then you can have it

After that, in Joe's own hands lay the power to transport himself into another world, for with the violin for

Nor was the violin all that David brought to the house. There were the doughnuts and the cookies. Very early

in his visits David had discovered, much to his surprise, that Joe and Betty were often hungry.

"But why don't you go down to the store and buy something?" he had queried at once.

Upon being told that there was no money to buy with, David's first impulse had been to bring several of the

goldpieces the next time he came; but upon second thoughts David decided that he did not dare. He was not

wishing to be called a thief a second time. It would be better, he concluded, to bring some food from the

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

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

"Plenty! What if I have?" remonstrated Mrs. Holly, in growing indignation. "That doesn't mean that you can

"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"

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

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,

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 passed 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

widespreading 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 bypath

offered the greater temptation, and lured him to explore its cool shadowy depths instead.

Had David but known it, he was at Sunnycrest, 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

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 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, blushpink, 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 allthe beauteous lady with hair like the gold of

sunrise, and a gown like the shimmer of the moon on waterof 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

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

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

"Yes. Joe understood, you see, and I was surprised when HE did. But I was just sure you couldwith all this

The lady frowned. Halfunconsciously she glanced about her as if contemplating flight. Then she turned

"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

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!"

" 'Down here'! What do you mean by that? You speak as if you came fromabove," 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

"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; andand I am not in the habit

of receiving gentlemen callers who are uninvited andunannounced," 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

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

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

countnohours butunclouded ones,' " he translated then, slowly, though with confidence. "That's

"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.

"I'm Davidjust David. I live at Farmer Holly's now; but I did live on the mountain withfather, you

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 littleerboy 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

"Yes. And now what do they mean, please,those words, 'I count no hours but unclouded ones'?"

"Why, it means what it says, of course, boy. A sundial counts its hours by the shadow the sun throws, and

when there is no sun there is no shadow; hence it's only the sunny hours that are counted by the dial," she

"Well, really! And how, pray?" In spite of herself a faint gleam of interest came into Miss Holbrook's eyes.

David laughed and dropped himself easily to the ground at her feet. He was holding his violin on his knees

"Why, it would be such fun," he chuckled, "to just forget all about the hours when the sun didn't shine, and

remember only the nice, pleasant ones. Now for me, there wouldn't be any hours, really, until after four

o'clock, except little specks of minutes that I'd get in between when I DID see something interesting."

"What an extraordinary boy you are, to be sure," she murmured. "And what, may I ask, is it that you do every

"Well, there are lots of things. I hoed potatoes and corn, first, but they're too big now, mostly; and I pulled up

weeds, too, till they were gone. I've been picking up stones, lately, and clearing up the yard. Then, of course,

there's always the woodbox to fill, and the eggs to hunt, besides the chickens to feed,though I don't mind

THEM so much; but I do the other things, 'specially the weeds. They were so much prettier than the things I

"Well, they were; and really" persisted the boy, in answer to the merriment in her eyes; "now wouldn't it be

nice to be like the sundial, and forget everything the sun didn't shine on? Would n't you like it? Isn't there

Miss Holbrook sobered instantly. The change in her face was so very marked, indeed, that involuntarily

David looked about for something that might have cast upon it so great a shadow. For a long minute she did

"Oh, Lady of the Roses!" expostulated David in a voice quivering with shocked dismay. "You don't

"I mean just that," bowed Miss Holbrook wearily, her eyes on the somber shadows of the pool; "just that!"

David sat stunned, confounded. Across the marble steps and the terraces the shadows lengthened, and David

watched them as the sun dipped behind the treetops. They seemed to make more vivid the chill and the

gloom of the lady's wordsmore real the day that had no sun. After a time the boy picked up his violin and

began to play, softly, and at first with evident hesitation. Even when his touch became more confident, there

was still in the music a questioning appeal that seemed to find no answeran appeal that even the player

For long minutes the young woman and the boy sat thus in the twilight. Then suddenly the woman got to her

"Come, come, boy, what can I be thinking of?" she cried sharply. "I must go in and you must go home.

Goodnight." And she swept across the grass to the path that led toward the house.

David was tempted to go for a second visit to his Lady of the Roses, but something he could not define held

him back. The lady was in his mind almost constantly, however; and very vivid to him was the picture of the

garden, though always it was as he had seen it last with the hush and shadow of twilight, and with the lady's

face gloomily turned toward the sunless pool. David could not forget that for her there were no hours to

count; she had said it herself. He could not understand how this could be so; and the thought filled him with

Perhaps it was this restlessness that drove David to explore even more persistently the village itself, sending

him into new streets in search of something strange and interesting. One day the sound of shouts and laughter

David still knew very little of boys. In his mountain home he had never had them for playmates, and he had

not seen much of them when he went with his father to the mountain village for supplies. There had been, it is

true, the boy who frequently brought milk and eggs to the cabin; but he had been very quiet and shy,

appearing always afraid and anxious to get away, as if he had been told not to stay. More recently, since

David had been at the Holly farmhouse, his experience with boys had been even less satisfying. The

boyswith the exception of blind Joehad very clearly let it be understood that they had little use for a

youth who could find nothing better to do than to tramp through the woods and the streets with a fiddle under

Today, however, there came a change. Perhaps they were more used to him; or perhaps they had decided

suddenly that it might be good fun to satisfy their curiosity, anyway, regardless of consequences. Whatever it

"Golly, boys, look! Here's the fiddlin' kid," yelled one; and the others joined in the "Hurrah!" he gave.

David smiled delightedly; once more he had found some one who wanted himand it was so nice to be

wanted! Truth to tell, David had felt not a little hurt at the persistent avoidance of all those boys and girls of

Again the boys shouted gleefully as they hurried forward. Several had short sticks in their hands. One had an

old tomato can with a string tied to it. The tallest boy had something that he was trying to hold beneath his

"David! David! His name is David," chanted the boys, as if they were a comicopera chorus.

The boys stared, then sniffed disdainfully, and cast derisive glances into each other's eyesit appeared that

this little sissy tramp boy did not even know enough to discover when he was being laughed at!

"David! David! His name is David," they jeered into his face again. "Come on, tune her up! We want ter

"Play? Of course I'll play," cried David joyously, raising his violin and testing a string for its tone.

"Here, hold on," yelled the tallest boy. "The Queen o' the Ballet ain't ready". And he cautiously pulled from

"Sure! We want her in the middle," grinned the boy with the tin can. "Hold on till I get her train tied to her,"

he finished, trying to capture the swishing, fluffy tail of the frightened little cat.

David had begun to play, but he stopped his music with a discordant stroke of the bow.

" 'Matter'!" called a derisive voice. "Sure, nothin' 's the matter with her. She's the Queen o' the Balletshe

"What do you mean?" cried David. At that moment the string bit hard into the captured tail, and the kitten

cried out with the pain. "Look out! You're hurting her," cautioned David sharply.

Only a laugh and a jeering word answered. Then the kitten, with the bag on its head and the tin can tied to its

tail, was let warily to the ground, the tall boy still holding its back with both hands.

"Eh? What?" They could scarcely have been more surprised if the kitten itself had said the words.

"Hoitytoity! Won't ye hear that now?" laughed a mocking voice. "And what if we say we won't let her go,

"Then I'll make you," vowed David, aflame with a newborn something that seemed to have sprung

The kitten, released, began to back frantically. The can, dangling at its heels, rattled and banged and thumped,

until the frightened little creature, crazed with terror, became nothing but a whirling mass of misery. The

boys, formed now into a crowing circle of delight, kept the kitten within bounds, and flouted David

For a moment David stood without movement, his eyes staring. The next instant he turned and ran. The jeers

became a chorus of triumphant shouts thenbut not for long. David had only hurried to the woodpile to lay

down his violin. He came back then, on the runand before the tallest boy could catch his breath he was

Over by the church a small girl, redhaired and redeyed, clambered hastily over the fence behind which for

"He'll be killed, he'll be killed," she moaned. "And it's my fault, 'cause it's my kittyit's my kitty," she

sobbed, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of the kitten's protector in the squirming mass of legs and arms.

The kitten, unheeded now by the boys, was pursuing its backward whirl to destruction some distance away,

and very soon the little girl discovered her. With a bound and a choking cry she reached the kitten, removed

the bag and unbound the cruel string. Then, sitting on the ground, a safe distance away, she soothed the

And what a fight it was! There was no question, of course, as to its final outcome, with six against one; but

meanwhile the one was giving the six the surprise of their lives in the shape of welldealt blows and skillful

twists and turns that caused their own strength and weight to react upon themselves in a most astonishing

fashion. The one unmistakably was getting the worst of it, however, when the little girl, after a hurried dash

to the street, brought back with her to the rescue a tall, smoothshaven young man whom she had hailed from

Jack put a stop to things at once. With vigorous jerks and pulls he unsnarled the writhing mass, boy by boy,

each one of whom, upon catching sight of his face, slunk hurriedly away, as if glad to escape so lightly. There

was left finally upon the ground only David alone. But when David did at last appear, the little girl burst into

"Oh, Jack, he's killedI know he's killed," she wailed. "And he was so nice andand pretty. And

David was not killed, but he wasa sight. His blouse was torn, his tie was gone, and his face and hands were

covered with dirt and blood. Above one eye was an uglylooking lump, and below the other was a red bruise.

Somewhat dazedly he responded to the man's helpful hand, pulled himself upright, and looked about him. He

The unexpected happened then. With a sobbing cry the little girl flung herself upon him, cat and all.

"Here, right here," she choked. "And it was you who saved hermy Juliette! And I'll love you, love you,

"There, there, Jill," interposed the man a little hurriedly. "Suppose we first show our gratitude by seeing if we

can't do something to make our young warrior here more comfortable." And he began to brush off with his

"Why can't we take him home, Jack, and clean him up 'fore other folks see him?" suggested the girl.

"The real 'Jack and Jill' that 'went up the hill'?" The man and the girl laughed; but the girl shook her head as

"Not reallythough we do go up a hill, all right, every day. But those aren't even our own names. We just

"Oh, do you do that?" he breathed. "Say, I just know I'd like to play to you! You'd understand!"

"Oh, yes, and he plays, too," explained the little girl, turning to the man rapturously. "On a fiddle, you know,

She had not finished her sentence before David was away, hurrying a little unsteadily across the lot for his

"Suppose you come home with us, boy," he said. "It isn't farthrough the hill pasture, 'cross lots,and we'll

"Thank you," beamed David. "I'd like to go, andI'm glad you want me!" He spoke to the man, but he

looked at the little redheaded girl, who still held the gray kitten in her arms.

"Jack and Jill," it appeared, were a brother and sister who lived in a tiny house on a hill directly across the

creek from Sunnycrest. Beyond this David learned little until after bumps and bruises and dirt had been

carefully attended to. He had then, too, some questions to answer concerning himself.

"And now, if you please," began the man smilingly, as he surveyed the boy with an eye that could see no

further service to be rendered, "do you mind telling me who you are, and how you came to be the center of

"Well, that's direct and to the point, to say the least," laughed the man. "Evidently, however, you're in the

habit of being that. But, David, there were six of them,those boys,and some of them were larger than

"I used to box with father. He said I must first be well and strong. He taught me jiujitsu, too, a little; but I

"I should say not," adjudged the man grimly. "But you gave them a surprise or two, I'll warrant," he added,

his eyes on the cause of the trouble, now curled in a little gray bunch of content on the window sill. "But I

David shook his head. As was always the case when his father was mentioned, his face grew wistful and his

"He doesn't live here anywhere," murmured the boy. "In the far country he is waiting for me to come to him

"Eh? What?" stammered the man, not knowing whether to believe his eyes, or his ears. This boy who fought

like a demon and talked like a saint, and who, though battered and bruised, prattled of the "beautiful world"

"Why, Jack, don't you know?" whispered the little girl agitatedly. "He's the boy at Mr. Holly's that they took."

Then, still more softly: "He's the little tramp boy. His father died in the barn."

"Oh," said the man, his face clearing, and his eyes showing a quick sympathy. "You're the boy at the Holly

"And he plays the fiddle everywhere," volunteered the little girl, with ardent admiration. "If you hadn't been

shut up sick just now, you'd have heard him yourself. He plays everywhereeverywhere he goes."

"Is that so?" murmured Jack politely, shuddering a little at what he fancied would come from a violin played

by a boy like the one before him. (Jack could play the violin himself a littleenough to know it some, and

"Nothing!a big boy like youand on Simeon Holly's farm?" Voice and manner showed that Jack was not

"Oh, of course, REALLY I do lots of things, only I don't count those any more. 'Horas non numero nisi

serenas,' you knew," he quoted pleasantly, smiling into the man's astonished eyes.

"Jack, what was thatwhat he said?" whispered the little girl. "It sounded foreign. IS he foreign?"

"You've got me, Jill," retorted the man, with a laughing grimace. "Heaven only knows what he isI don't.

What he SAID was Latin; I do happen to know that. Still"he turned to the boy ironically"of course you

"Oh, yes. 'I count no hours but unclouded ones'and I liked that. 'T was on a sundial, you know; and I'M

going to be a sundial, and not count, the hours I don't likewhile I'm pulling up weeds, and hoeing potatoes,

"Well, by George!" he muttered. "By George!" And he laughed again. Then: "And did your father teach you

"Oh, no,well, he taught me Latin, and so of course I could read it when I found it. But those 'special words

"Why, don't you know? You live right in sight of her house," cried David, pointing to the towers of

Sunnycrest that showed above the trees. "It's over there she lives. I know those towers now, and I look for

them wherever I go. I love them. It makes me see all over again the rosesand her."

The voice was so different from the genial tones that he had heard before that David looked up in surprise.

"Yes; she said that was her name," he answered, wondering at the indefinable change that had come to the

"Not muchsome. II think I'll be going," replied David, a little awkwardly, reaching for his violin, and

The little girl spoke then. She overwhelmed him again with thanks, and pointed to the contented kitten on the

window sill. True, she did not tell him this time that she would love, love, love him always; but she beamed

David bowed himself off, with many a backward wave of the hand, and many a promise to come again. Not

until he had quite reached the bottom of the hill did he remember that the man, "Jack," had said almost

nothing at the last. As David recollected him, indeed, he had last been seen standing beside one of the

veranda posts, with gloomy eyes fixed on the towers of Sunnycrest that showed redgold above the treetops

It was a bad halfhour that David spent at the Holly farmhouse in explanation of his torn blouse and bruised

face. Farmer Holly did not approve of fights, and he said so, very sternly indeed. Even Mrs. Holly, who was

usually so kind to him, let David understand that he was in deep disgrace, though she was very tender to his

"Mrs. Holly, who are those peopleJack and Jillthat were so good to me this afternoon?"

"They are John Gurnsey and his sister, Julia; but the whole town knows them by the names they long ago

"Yes, except for the Widow Glaspell, who comes in several times a week, I believe, to cook and wash and

sweep. They aren't very happy, I'm afraid, David, and I'm glad you could rescue the little girl's kitten for

"Yes, yes, I know; but" She did not finish her sentence, and David was only waiting for a pause to ask

"Tut, tut, David, it's a long story, and you wouldn't understand it if I told it. It's only that they're all alone in

the world, and Jack Gurnsey isn't well. He must be thirty years old now. He had bright hopes not so long ago

studying law, or something of the sort, in the city. Then his father died, and his mother, and he lost his health.

Something ails his lungs, and the doctors sent him here to be out of doors. He even sleeps out of doors, they

say. Anyway, he's here, and he's making a home for his sister; but, of course, with his hopes and

"Oh, yes, I do," breathed David, his eyes pensively turned toward a shadowy corner. "He found his work out

Life at the Holly farmhouse was not what it had been. The coming of David had introduced new elements

that promised complications. Not because he was another mouth to feedSimeon Holly was not worrying

about that part any longer. Crops showed good promise, and all ready in the bank even now was the

necessary money to cover the dreaded note, due the last of August. The complicating elements in regard to

To Simeon Holly the boy was a riddle to be sternly solved. To Ellen Holly he was an everpresent reminder of

the little boy of long ago, and as such was to be loved and trained into a semblance of what that boy might

have become. To Perry Larson, David was the "derndest checkerboard of sense an' nonsense goin'"a game

At the Holly farmhouse they could not understand a boy who would leave a supper for a sunset, or who

preferred a book to a toy pistolas Perry Larson found out was the case on the Fourth of July; who picked

flowers, like a girl, for the table, yet who unhesitatingly struck the first blow in a fight with six antagonists:

who would not go fishing because the fishes would not like it, nor hunting for any sort of wild thing that had

life; who hung entranced for an hour over the "millions of lovely striped bugs" in a field of early potatoes,

and who promptly and stubbornly refused to sprinkle those same "lovely bugs" with Paris green when

Yet David worked, and worked well, and in most cases he obeyed orders willingly. He learned much, too,

that was interesting and profitable; nor was he the only one that made strange discoveries during those July

days. The Hollys themselves learned much. They learned that the rose of sunset and the gold of sunrise were

worth looking at; and that the massing of the thunderheads in the west meant more than just a shower. They

learned, too, that the green of the hilltop and of the farreaching meadow was more than grass, and that the

purple haze along the horizon was more than the mountains that lay between them and the next State. They

There were, too, the long twilights and evenings when David, on the wings of his violin, would speed away

to his mountain home, leaving behind him a man and a woman who seemed to themselves to be listening to

the voice of a curlyheaded, rosycheeked lad who once played at their knees and nestled in their arms when

the day was done. And here, too, the Hollys were learning; though the thing thus learned was hidden deep in

It was not long after David's first visit that the boy went again to "The House that Jack Built," as the

Gurnseys called their tiny home. (Though in reality it had been Jack's father who had built the house. Jack

and Jill, however, did not always deal with realities.) It was not a pleasant afternoon. There was a light mist

"I came toto inquire for the catJuliette," he began, a little bashfully. "I thought I'd rather do that than

"Good! I'm so glad! I hoped you'd come," the little girl welcomed him. "Come in andand see Juliette," she

added hastily, remembering at the last moment that her brother had not looked with entire favor on her

Juliette, roused from her nap, was at first inclined to resent her visitor's presence. In five minutes, however,

The conquest of the kitten once accomplished, David looked about him a little restlessly. He began to wonder

why he had come. He wished he had gone to see Joe Glaspell instead. He wished that Jill would not sit and

stare at him like that. He wished that she would say somethinganything. But Jill, apparently struck dumb

with embarrassment, was nervously twisting the corner of her apron into a little knot. David tried to recollect

what he had talked about a few days before, and he wondered why he had so enjoyed himself then. He

wished that something would happenanything!and then from an inner room came the sound of a violin.

"It's Jack," stammered the little girlwho also had been wishing something would happen. "He plays, same

Over and over the violin was playing a single phraseand the variations in the phrase showed the indecision

of the fingers and of the mind that controlled them. Again and again with irritating sameness, yet with a still

more irritating difference, came the succession of notes. And then David sprang to his feet, placing Juliette

somewhat unceremoniously on the floor, much to that petted young autocrat's disgust.

"Here, where is he? Let me show him," cried the boy, and at the note of command in his voice, Jill

"Oh, please, Mr. Jack," burst out David, hurrying into the room. "Don't you see? You don't go at that thing

right. If you'll just let me show you a minute, we'll have it fixed in no time!"

The man with the violin stared, and lowered his bow. A slow red came to his face. The phrase was peculiarly

a difficult one, and beyond him, as he knew; but that did not make the present intrusion into his privacy any

"Oh, will we, indeed!" he retorted, a little sharply. "Don't trouble yourself, I beg of you, boy."

"But it isn't a mite of trouble, truly," urged David, with an ardor that ignored the sarcasm in the other's words.

"Well, David, I believe you. And I'll warrant you'd tackle this Brahms concerto as nonchalantly as you did

To his surprise, the man found himself relinquishing the violin and bow into the slim, eager hands that

reached for them. The next moment he fell back in amazement. Clear, distinct, yet connected like a string of

rounded pearls fell the troublesome notes from David's bow. "You see," smiled the boy again, and played the

phrase a second time, more slowly, and with deliberate emphasis at the difficult part. Then, as if in answer to

some irresistible summons within him, he dashed into the next phrase and, with marvelous technique, played

"Well, by George!" breathed the man dazedly, as he took the offered violin. The next moment he had

" 'Father'!" The man echoed the word with a gesture of comic despair. "First Latin, then jiujitsu, and now the

David lifted his head and frowned a little. He had been questioned so often, and so unsympathetically, about

"I don't know. We didn't seem to have a name likelike yours down here. Anyway, if we did, I didn't know

"But, David,"the man was speaking very gently now. He had motioned the boy to a low seat by his side.

The little girl was standing near, her eyes alight with wondering interest. "He must have had a name, you

know, just the same. Didn't you ever hear any one call him anything? Think, now."

"No." David said the single word, and turned his eyes away. It had occurred to him, since he had come to live

in the valley, that perhaps his father did not want to have his name known. He remembered that once the

milkandeggs boy had asked what to call him; and his father had laughed and answered: "I don't see but

you'll have to call me 'The Old Man of the Mountain,' as they do down in the village." That was the only time

David could recollect hearing his father say anything about his name. At the time David had not thought

much about it. But since then, down here where they appeared to think a name was so important, he had

wondered if possibly his father had not preferred to keep his to himself. If such were the case, he was glad

now that he did not know this name, so that he might not have to tell all these inquisitive people who asked

so many questions about it. He was glad, too, that those men had not been able to read his father's name at the

end of his other note that first morningif his father really did not wish his name to be known.

"But, David, think. Where you lived, wasn't there ever anybody who called him by name?"

"I told you. We were all alone, father and I, in the little house far up on the mountain."

"I don't remember." There was a touch of injured reserve in the boy's voice which the man was quick to

"Oh, but that's because they don't understand," soothed the man. "Now, tell meyou must have practiced a

Once again David told his story, more fully, perhaps, this time than ever before, because of the sympathetic

"But now" he finished wistfully, "it's all, so different, and I'm down here alone. Daddy went, you know, to the

"Yes. It was in his pocket, you see. Theyfound it." David's voice was very low, and not quite steady.

Reverently, tenderly, but very eagerly the man took the note and read it through, hoping somewhere to find a

name that would help solve the mystery. With a sigh he handed it back. His eyes were wet.

"Thank you, David. That is a beautiful letter," he said softly. "And I believe you'll do it some day, too. You'll

go to him with your violin at your chin and the bow drawn across the strings to tell him of the beautiful world

"Yes, sir," said David simply. Then, with a suddenly radiant smile: "And NOW I can't help finding it a

"You don't what?oh, I remember," returned Mr. Jack, a quick change coming to his face.

"Hullo, girlie, you there?and so still all this time? Ask David. He'll tell you what a sundial is. Suppose,

anyhow, that you two go out on the piazza now. I've gotersome work to do. And the sun itself is out;

see?through the trees there. It came out just to say 'goodnight,' I'm sure. Run along, quick!" And he

Alone, he turned and sat down at his desk. His work was before him, but he did not do it. His eyes were out

of the window on the golden tops of the towers of Sunnycrest. Motionless, he watched them until they turned

graywhite in the twilight. Then he picked up his pencil and began to write feverishly. He went to the

"Remember, boy, that when there's another note that baffles me, I'm going to send for you."

It is not to be expected that when one's thoughts lead so persistently to a certain place, one's feet will not

At four o'clock one afternoon, with his violin under his arm, he traveled the firm white road until he came to

the shadowed path that led to the garden. He had decided that he would go exactly as he went before. He

expected, in consequence, to find his Lady exactly as he had found her before, sitting reading under the roses.

Great was his surprise and disappointment, therefore, to find the garden with no one in it.

He had told himself that it was the sundial, the roses, the shimmering pool, the garden itself that he wanted to

see; but he knew now that it was the ladyhis Lady of the Roses. He did not even care to play, though all

around him was the beauty that had at first so charmed his eye. Very slowly he walked across the sunlit,

empty space, and entered the path that led to the house. In his mind was no definite plan; yet he walked on

and on, until he came to the wide lawns surrounding the house itself. He stopped then, entranced.

Stone upon stone the majestic pile raised itself until it was etched, cleancut, against the deep blue of the sky.

The towershis towersbrought to David's lips a cry of delight. They were even more enchanting here than

when seen from afar over the treetops, and David gazed up at them in awed wonder. From somewhere came

the sound of musica curious sort of music that David had never heard before. He listened intently, trying to

place it; then slowly he crossed the lawn, ascended the imposing stone steps, and softly opened one of the

Once within the room David drew a long breath of ecstasy. Beneath his feet he felt the velvet softness of the

green moss of the woods. Above his head he saw a skylike canopy of blue carrying fleecy clouds on which

floated little pinkandwhite children with wings, just as David himself had so often wished that he could

float. On all sides silken hangings, like the green of swaying vines, halfhid other hangings of feathery,

snowflake lace. Everywhere mirrored walls caught the light and reflected the potted ferns and palms so that

David looked down endless vistas of loveliness that seemed for all the world like the long sunflecked aisles

The music that David had heard at first had long since stopped; but David had not noticed that. He stood now

in the center of the room, awed, and trembling, but enraptured. Then from somewhere came a voicea voice

"Well, boy, when you have quite finished your inspection, perhaps you will tell me to what I am indebted for

"O Lady of the Roses, why didn't you tell me it was like thisin here?" he breathed.

"Well, really," murmured the lady in the doorway, stiffly, "it had not occurred to me that that was

"But it was!don't you see? This is new, all new. I never saw anything like it before; and I do so love new

"Yeson my violin," explained David, a little breathlessly, softly testing his violin. "There's always

something new in this, you know," he hurried on, as he tightened one of the strings, "when there's anything

new outside. Now, listen! You see I don't know myself just how it's going to sound, and I'm always so

"But, see here, boy,you mustn't! You" The words died on her lips; and, to her unbounded amazement,

Miss Barbara Holbrook, who had intended peremptorily to send this persistent little tramp boy about his

business, found herself listening to a melody so compelling in its sonorous beauty that she was left almost

" 'What to say'!well, that's more than I do" laughed Miss Holbrook, a little hysterically. "Boy, come here

and tell me who you are." And she led the way to a low divan that stood near a harp at the far end of the

It was the same story, told as David had told it to Jack and Jill a few days before, only this time David's eyes

were roving admiringly all about the room, resting oftenest on the harp so near him.

"Did that make the music that I heard?" he asked eagerly, as soon as Miss Holbrook's questions gave him

"Yes. I was playing when you came in. I saw you enter the window. Really, David, are you in the habit of

walking into people's houses like this? It is most disconcertingto their owners."

"Yesnowell, sometimes." David's eyes were still on the harp. "Lady of the Roses, won't you please play

"Yes. I can see them from so many places, and I always watch for them. They show best of anywhere,

"You meanMr. John Gurnsey's house?" A deeper color had come into Miss Holbrook's cheeks.

"Yes. Over there at the top of the little hill across the brook, you know. You can't see THEIR house from

here, but from over there we can see the towers finely, and the little windowOh, Lady of the Roses," he

broke off excitedly, at the new thought that had come to him, "if we, now, were in that little window, we

Explicit as this was, Miss Holbrook evidently did not hear, or at least did not understand, this request. She

settled back on the divan, indeed, almost determinedly. Her cheeks were very red now.

Again Miss Holbrook ignored the question put to her. "And did you walk into their house, unannounced and

"No. He asked me. You see he wanted to get off some of the dirt and blood before other folks saw me."

"No. I did it on purpose. I HAD to, you see," he finally elucidated. "But there were six of them, and I got the

"Yes'm. I wanted the catand I got it, but I wouldn't have if Mr. Jack hadn't come to help me."

"Well, he pulled the others off, and of course that helped me," explained David truthfully. "And then he took

"No, only her cat. They had tied a bag over its head and a tin can to its tail, and of course I couldn't let them

do that. They were hurting her. And now, Lady of the Roses, won't you please play?"

For a moment Miss Holbrook did not speak. She was gazing at David with an odd look in her eyes. At last

"David, you are thethe LIMIT!" she breathed, as she rose and seated herself at the harp.

David was manifestly delighted with her playing, and begged for more when she had finished; but Miss

Holbrook shook her head. She seemed to have grown suddenly restless, and she moved about the room

calling David's attention to something new each moment. Then, very abruptly, she suggested that they go

upstairs. From room to room she hurried the boy, scarcely listening to his ardent comments, or answering his

still more ardent questions. Not until they reached the highest tower room, indeed, did she sink wearily into a

David looked about him in surprise. Even his untrained eye could see that he had entered a different world.

There were no sumptuous rugs, no silken hangings; no mirrors, no snowflake curtains. There were books, to

be sure, but besides those there were only a plain low table, a workbasket, and three or four woodenseated

though comfortable chairs. With increasing wonder he looked into Miss Holbrook's eyes.

"Nothing; only I've been wondering all the time I've been here how you couldwith all those beautiful

"That other day in the gardenabout ALL your hours being cloudy ones. So I didn't know today but what

you LIVED up here, same as Mrs. Holly doesn't use her best rooms; and that was why your hours were all

"Nonsense, David! You shouldn't always remember everything that people say to you. Come, you haven't

seen one of the views from the windows yet. We are in the larger tower, you know. You can see Hinsdale

village on this side, and there's a fine view of the mountains over there. Oh yes, and from the other side

there's your friend's houseMr. Jack's. By the way, how is Mr. Jack these days?" Miss Holbrook stooped as

David ran at once to the window that looked toward the House that Jack Built. From the tower the little house

appeared to be smaller than ever. It was in the shadow, too, and looked strangely alone and forlorn.

Unconsciously, as he gazed at it, David compared it with the magnificence he had just seen. His voice choked

"No; but Mrs. Holly told me about him. He's sick; and he'd just found his work to do out in the world when

Instead of coming nearer Miss Holbrook fell back to the center of the room; but her eyes were still turned

"Yes, I see," she murmured. The next instant she had snatched a handkerchief from David's outstretched

hand. "NonoI wouldn't wave," she remonstrated hurriedly. "Comecome downstairs with me."

"But I thoughtI was sure he was looking this way," asserted David, turning reluctantly from the window.

There was no answer. The Lady of the Roses did not apparently hear. She had gone on down the stairway.

David had so much to tell Jack and Jill that he went to see them the very next day after his second visit to

Sunnycrest. He carried his violin with him. He found, however, only Jill at home. She was sitting on the

There was not so much embarrassment between them this time, perhaps because they were in the freedom of

the wide outofdoors, and David felt more at ease. He was plainly disappointed, however, that Mr. Jack was

"You'd better stay, then. He'll be home by and by," comforted Jill. "He's gone potboiling."

"Well, you see, really it's this way: he sells something to boil in other people's pots so he can have something

to boil in ours, he says. It's stuff from the garden, you know. We raise it to sell. Poor Jackand he does hate

"Still, of course he knows he's got to do it, because it's out of doors, and he just has to be out of doors all he

can," rejoined the girl. "He's sick, you know, and sometimes he's so unhappy! He doesn't say much. Jack

never says muchonly with his face. But I know, and itit just makes me want to cry."

At David's dismayed exclamation Jill jumped to her feet. It owned to her suddenly that she was telling this

unknown boy altogether too many of the family secrets. She proposed at once a race to the foot of the hill;

and then, to drive David's mind still farther away from the subject under recent consideration, she deliberately

Very soon, however, there arose new complications in the shape of a little gate that led to a path which, in its

"To the Lady of the Roses!" cried David eagerly. "I know it goes there. Come, let's see!"

"But it goes to a beautiful place; I was there yesterday," argued David. "And I was up in the tower and almost

waved to Mr. Jack on the piazza back there. I saw him. And maybe she'd let you and me go up there again

"But I can't, I say," repeated Jill, a little impatiently. "Jack won't let me even start."

"Oh, yes, he does, 'cause I told him. I used to go when I was littler and he wasn't here. I went once, after he

came,halfway,and he saw me and called to me. I had got halfway across the bridge, but I had to come

back. He was very angry, yet sort ofqueer, too. His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight

shut after every word. He said never, never, never to let him find me the other side of that gate."

David frowned as they turned to go up the hill. Unhesitatingly he determined to instruct Mr. Jack in this little

matter. He would tell him what a beautiful place Sunnycrest was, and he would try to convince him how very

desirable it was that he and Jill, and even Mr. Jack himself, should go across the bridge at the very first

Mr. Jack came home before long, but David quite forgot to speak of the footbridge just then, chiefly because

Mr. Jack got out his violin and asked David to come in and play a duet with him. The duet, however, soon

became a solo, for so great was Mr. Jack's delight in David's playing that he placed before the boy one sheet

David, nothing loath, played on and on. Most of the music he knew, having already learned it in his mountain

home. Like old friends the melodies seemed, and so glad was David to see their notes again that he finished

each production with a little improvised cadenza of ecstatic welcometo Mr. Jack's increasing surprise and

"Pooh! as if that was anything wonderful," laughed the boy. "Why, I knew those ages ago, Mr. Jack. It's only

that I'm so glad to see them againthe notes, you know. You see, I haven't any music now. It was all in the

"Yes, 't was so, heavy" murmured David abstractedly, his fingers busy with the pile of music before him.

"Oh, and here's another one," he cried exultingly. "This is where the wind sighs, 'oouOOUOOU'

through the pines. Listen!" And he was away again on the wings of his violin. When he had returned Mr. Jack

"David, you are a wonder," he declared again. "And that violin of yours is a wonder, too, if I'm not

mistaken,though I don't know enough to tell whether it's really a rare one or not. Was it your father's?"

"Oh, no. He had one, too, and they both are good ones. Father said so. Joe's got father's now."

"You don't mean Widow Glaspell's Joe, the blind boy? I didn't know he could play."

"He couldn't till I showed him. But he likes to hear me play. And he understoodright away, I mean."

"What I was playing, you know. And he was almost the first one that didsince father went away. And now

I play every time I go there. Joe says he never knew before how trees and grass and sunsets and sunrises and

birds and little brooks did look, till I told him with my violin. Now he says he thinks he can see them better

than I can, because as long as his OUTSIDE eyes can't see anything, they can't see those ugly things all

around him, and so he can just make his INSIDE eyes see only the beautiful things that he'd LIKE to see.

For a moment there was silence. In Mr. Jack's eyes there was an odd look as they rested on David's face.

"Wellyes; you might say it that way," smiled the man, after a moment's hesitationnot yet was Mr. Jack

"And he was right, David. The only trouble is, we like to pick it out for ourselves, pretty well,too well, as

"I know, Mr. Jack, I know," breathed David. And the man, looking into the glowing dark eyes, wondered at

what he found there. It was almost as if the boy really understood about his own life's disappointmentand

"And it's all the harder to keep ourselves in tune then, too, is n't it?" went on David, a little wistfully.

"Oh!" And Mr. Jack, who had already heard about the "Orchestra of Life," smiled a bit sadly. "That's just it,

my boy. And if we're handed another instrument to play on than the one we WANT to play on, we're apt

toto let fly a discord. Anyhow, I am. But"he went on more lightly"now, in your case, David, little as I

know about the violin, I know enough to understand that you ought to be where you can take up your study of

it again; where you can hear good music, and where you can be among those who know enough to appreciate

"My, but I would like that, Mr. Jack!but THAT wouldn't be WORK, so that couldn't be what father

"Hmm; well, I wouldn't worry about the 'work' part," laughed Mr. Jack, "particularly as you aren't going to

"Wellyes. You can't get those things here in Hinsdale, you know; and it takes money, to get away, and to

"Sureif they were big enough. Anyway, David, they'd start you, and I'm thinking you wouldn't need but a

start before you'd be coining goldpieces of your own out of that violin of yours. But why? Anybody you

For a moment David, his delighted thoughts flying to the goldpieces in the chimney cupboard of his room,

was tempted to tell his secret. Then he remembered the woman with the bread and the pail of milk, and

decided not to. He would wait. When he knew Mr. Jack betterperhaps then he would tell; but not now.

NOW Mr. Jack might think he was a thief, and that he could not bear. So he took up his violin and began to

play; and in the charm of the music Mr. Jack seemed to forget the goldpieceswhich was exactly what

Not until David had said goodbye some time later, did he remember the purposethe special purposefor

"Oh, and Mr. Jack, I 'most forgot," he cried. "I was going to tell you. I saw you yesterdayI did, and I

The man's voice sounded so oddly cold and distant that David noticed it at once. He was reminded suddenly

of the gate and the footbridge which Jill was forbidden to cross; but he dared not speak of it thennot when

"Oh, but, Mr. Jack, it's such a beautiful place! You don't know what a beautiful place it is."

"Why, yes, I believe I did, David, long ago," murmured Mr. Jack with what seemed to David amazing

"But, let me see; you said you almost waved, didn't you? Why did n't you, quite?" asked the man.

David drew himself suddenly erect. Instinctively he felt that his Lady of the Roses needed defense.

"Because SHE didn't want me to; so I didn't, of course," he rejoined with dignity. "She took away my

"I'll warrant she did," muttered the man, behind his teeth. Aloud he only laughed again, as he turned away.

David went on down the steps, dissatisfied vaguely with himself, with Mr. Jack, and even with the Lady of

On his return from the House that Jack Built, David decided to count his goldpieces. He got them out at

once from behind the books, and stacked them up in little shining rows. As he had surmised, there were a

hundred of them. There were, indeed, a hundred and six. He was pleased at that. One hundred and six were

A start! David closed his eyes and pictured it. To go on with his violin, to hear good music, to be with people

who understood what he said when he played! That was what Mr. Jack had said a "start" was. And this

goldthese round shining bits of goldcould bring him this! David swept the little piles into a jingling

heap, and sprang to his feet with both fists full of his suddenly beloved wealth. With boyish glee he capered

about the room, jingling the coins in his hands. Then, very soberly, he sat down again, and began to gather

He would be wisehe would be sensible. He would watch his chance, and when it came he would go away.

First, however, he would tell Mr. Jack and Joe, and the Lady of the Roses; yes, and the Hollys, too. Just now

there seemed to be work, real work that he could do to help Mr. Holly. But later, possibly when September

came and school,they had said he must go to school,he would tell them then, and go away instead. He

would see. By that time they would believe him, perhaps, when he showed the goldpieces. They would not

think he hadSTOLEN them. It was August now; he would wait. But meanwhile he could thinkhe could

always be thinking of the wonderful thing that this gold was one day to bring to him.

Even work, to David, did not seem work now. In the morning he was to rake hay behind the men with the

cart. Yesterday he had not liked it very well; but nownothing mattered now. And with a satisfied sigh

David found a new song in his violin the next morning. To be sure, he could not play itmuch of ituntil

four o'clock in the afternoon came; for Mr. Holly did not like violins to be played in the morning, even on

days that were not especially the Lord's. There was too much work to do. So David could only snatch a strain

or two very, very softly, while he was dressing; but that was enough to show him what a beautiful song it was

going to be. He knew what it was, at once, too. It was the goldpieces, and what they would bring. All

through the day it tripped through his consciousness, and danced tantalizingly just out of reach. Yet he was

wonderfully happy, and the day seemed short in spite of the heat and the weariness.

At four o'clock he hurried home and put his violin quickly in tune. It came thenthat dancing sprite of

tantalizationand joyously abandoned itself to the strings of the violin, so that David knew, of a surety, what

It was this song that sent him the next afternoon to see his Lady of the Roses. He found her this time out of

doors in her garden. Unceremoniously, as usual, he rushed headlong into her presence.

"Oh, LadyLady of the Roses," he panted. "I've found out, and I came quickly to tell you."

"About the hours, you know,the unclouded ones," explained David eagerly. "You know you said they were

"No, oh, no. I can't imagine why they are," returned David, with an emphatic shake of his head. "It's just that

I've found a way to make all my hours sunny ones, and you can do it, too. So I came to tell you. You know

"Oh," ejaculated Miss Holbrook, falling back into her old listless attitude. Then, with some asperity: "Dear

"Yes, I know, but I've LEARNED something," urged the boy; "something that you ought to know. You see, I

did think, once, that because you had all these beautiful things around you, the hours ought to be all sunny

"No, but really! Let me tell you," pleaded David. "You know I haven't liked them,all those hours till four

o'clock came,and I was so glad, after I saw the sundial, to find out that they didn't count, anyhow. But

today they HAVE countedthey've all counted, Lady of the Roses; and it's just because there was

something inside of me that shone and shone, and made them all sunnythose hours."

"I can't tell you that yetin words; but I'll play it. You see, I can't always play them twice alike,those little

songs that I find,but this one I can. It sang so long in my head, before my violin had a chance to tell me

what it really was, that I sort of learned it. Now, listen!" And be began to play.

It was, indeed, a beautiful song, and Miss Holbrook said so with promptness and enthusiasm; yet still David

"Yes, yes," he answered, "but don't you see? That was telling you about something inside of me that made all

my hours sunshiny ones. Now, what you want is something inside of you to make yours sunshiny, too. Don't

"That's all very well for you to say, David, but you haven't told me yet, you know, just what it is that's made

"I don't seem to explain so you can understand," he sighed. "It isn't the SPECIAL thing. It's only that it's

SOMETHING. And it's thinking about it that does it. Now, mine wouldn't make yours shine,

butstill,"he broke off, a happy relief in his eyes,"yours could be LIKE mine, in one way. Mine is

something that is going to happen to mesomething just beautiful; and you could have that, you

"But there isn't anything 'just beautiful' going to happen to me, David," she demurred.

Miss Holbrook bit, her lip; then she gave an odd little laugh that seemed, in some way, to go with the swift

"I used to think there couldonce," she admitted; "but I've given that up long ago. Itit didn't happen."

"But couldn't you just THINK it was going to?" persisted the boy. "You see I found out yesterday that it's the

THINKING that does it. All day long I was thinkingonly thinking. I wasn't DOING it, at all. I was really

"What a persistent little mentalscience preacher you are!" she exclaimed. "And there's truthmore truth

than you knowin it all, too. But I can't do it, David,not thatnot that. 'T would take more than

"But thinking does bring things," maintained David earnestly. "There's JoeJoe Glaspell. His mother works

"Yes; and he has to stay all alone, except for Betty, and she is n't there much. He THINKS ALL his things.

He has to. He can't SEE anything with his outside eyes. But he sees everything with his inside

eyeseverything that I play. Why, Lady of the Roses, he's even seen thisall this here. I told him about it,

you know, right away after I'd found you that first day: the big trees and the long shadows across the grass,

and the roses, and the shining water, and the lovely marble people peeping through the green leaves; and the

sundial, and you so beautiful sitting here in the middle of it all. Then I played it for him; and he said he could

see it all just as plain! And THAT was with his inside eyes! And so, if Joe, shut up there in his dark little

room, can make his THINK bring him all that, I should think that YOU, here in this beautiful, beautiful place,

"Not that, David, not that," she murmured. "It would take more than thinking to bringthat." Then, with a

quick change of manner, she cried: "Come, come, suppose we don't worry any more about MY hours. Let's

think of yours. Tell me, what have you been doing since I saw you last? Perhaps you have been again toto

"I have; but I saw Jill mostly, till the last." David hesitated, then he blurted it out: "Lady of the Roses, do you

"Whyyes, of course; at least, I suppose you mean the footbridge that crosses the little stream at the foot of

"That's the one." Again David hesitated, and again he blurted out the burden of his thoughts. "Lady of the

"Yes; that Mr. Jack wouldn't let Jill come across, you know. He called her back when she'd got halfway over

"But I do object," she cried sharply, "to their crossing it when they DON'T want to! Don't forget that, please."

David frowned. Never had he seen his beloved Lady of the Roses look like this before. He was reminded of

what Jill had said about Jack: "His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shut after every

word." So, too, looked Miss Holbrook's face; so, too, had her lips snapped tight shut after her last words.

David could not understand it. He said nothing more, however; but, as was usually the case when he was

perplexed, he picked up his violin and began to play. And as he played, there gradually came to Miss

Holbrook's eyes a softer light, and to her lips lines less tightly drawn. Neither the footbridge nor Mr. Jack,

It was in the early twilight that Mr. Jack told the story. He, Jill, and David were on the veranda, as usual

watching the towers of Sunnycrest turn from gold to silver as the sun dropped behind the hills. It was Jill who

"But how will David like that?" Mr. Jack had demurred. "Maybe he doesn't care for fairies and princesses."

"I read one once about a prince't was 'The Prince and the Pauper,' and I liked that," averred David stoutly.

Mr. Jack smiled; then his brows drew together in a frown. His eyes were moodily fixed on the towers.

"Hmm; well," he said, "I might, I suppose, tell you a story about a PRINCESS anda Pauper. Iknow

"She was not always a Princess, and he was not always a Pauper,and that's where the story came in, I

suppose," sighed the man. "She was just a girl, once, and he was a boy; and they played together andliked

"Eh? Oheryes, SOMETHING like this," returned Mr. Jack, with an odd halfsmile. "And she lived in

"They couldn't, ALWAYS. It was only summers when she came to visit in the boy's town. She was very near

him then, for the old aunt whom she visited lived in a big stone house with towers, on another hill, in plain

"Eh? What? Oheryes," murmured Mr. Jack. "We'll say the towers were something like those over

there." He paused, then went on musingly: "The girl used to signal, sometimes, from one of the tower

windows. One wave of the handkerchief meant, 'I'm coming, over'; two waves, with a little pause between,

meant, 'You are to come over here.' So the boy used to wait always, after that first wave to see if another

followed; so that he might know whether he were to be host or guest that day. The waves always came at

eight o'clock in the morning, and very eagerly the boy used to watch for them all through the summer when

"No; sometimes the girl had other things to do. Her aunt would want her to go somewhere with her, or other

cousins were expected whom the girl must entertain; and she knew the boy did not like other guests to be

there when he was, so she never asked him to come over at such times. On such occasions she did sometimes

run up to the tower at eight o'clock and wave three times, and that meant, 'Dead Day.' So the boy, after all,

never drew a real breath of relief until he made sure that no dreaded third wave was to follow the one or the

"Seems to me," observed David, "that all this was sort of onesided. Didn't the boy say anything?"

"Oh, yes," smiled Mr. Jack. "But the boy did not have any tower to wave from, you must remember. He had

only the little piazza on his tiny bit of a house. But he rigged up a pole, and he asked his mother to make him

two little flags, a red and a blue one. The red meant 'All right'; and the blue meant 'Got to work'; and these he

used to run up on his pole in answer to her waving 'I'm coming over,' or 'You are to come over here.' So, you

see, occasionally it was the boy who had to bring the 'Dead Day,' as there were times when he had to work.

And, by the way, perhaps you would be interested to know that after a while he thought up a third flag to

answer her three waves. He found an old black silk handkerchief of his father's, and he made that into a flag.

He told the girl it meant 'I'm heartbroken,' and he said it was a sign of the deepest mourning. The girl laughed

and tipped her head saucily to one side, and said, 'Pooh! as if you really cared!' But the boy stoutly

maintained his position, and it was that, perhaps, which made her play the little joke one day.

"The boy was fourteen that summer, and the girl thirteen. They had begun their signals years before, but they

had not had the black one so long. On this day that I tell you of, the girl waved three waves, which meant,

'Dead Day,' you remember, and watched until the boy had hoisted his black flag which said, 'I'm

heartbroken,' in response. Then, as fast as her mischievous little feet could carry her, she raced down one

hill and across to the other. Very stealthily she advanced till she found the boy bent over a puzzle on the back

"How she teased him then! How she taunted him with 'Heartbroken, indeedand whistling like that!' In

vain he blushed and stammered, and protested that his whistling was only to keep up his spirits. The girl only

laughed and tossed her yellow curls; then she hunted till she found some little jingling bells, and these she

tied to the black badge of mourning and pulled it high up on the flagpole. The next instant she was off with a

run and a skip, and a saucy wave of her hand; and the boy was left all alone with an hour's work ahead of him

"And yet they were wonderfully good friendsthis boy and girl. From the very first, when they were seven

and eight, they had said that they would marry each other when they grew up, and always they spoke of it as

the expected thing, and laid many happy plans for the time when it should come. To be sure, as they grew

older, it was not mentioned quite so often, perhaps; but the boy at least thoughtif he thought of it allthat

"Eh? The girl? Oh," answered Mr. Jack, a little bitterly, "I'm afraid I don't know exactly what the girl did

"Well, to begin with, the old aunt died. The girl was sixteen then. It was in the winter that this happened, and

the girl was far away at school. She came to the funeral, however, but the boy did not see her, save in the

distance; and then he hardly knew her, so strange did she look in her black dress and hat. She was there only

two days, and though he gazed wistfully up at the gray tower, he knew well enough that of course she could

not wave to him at such a time as that. Yet he had hopedalmost believed that she would wave two waves

"But she didn't wave, and he didn't go over. She went away. And then the town learned a wonderful thing.

The old lady, her aunt, who had been considered just fairly rich, turned out to be the possessor of almost

fabulous wealth, owing to her great holdings of stock in a Western gold mine which had suddenly struck it

rich. And to the girl she willed it all. It was then, of course, that the girl became the Princess, but the boy did

"For three years he did not see her. She was at school, or traveling abroad, he heard. He, too, had been away

to school, and was, indeed, just ready to enter college. Then, that summer, he heard that she was coming to

the old home, and his heart sang within him. Remember, to him she was still the girl. He knew, of course,

that she was not the LITTLE girl who had promised to marry him. But he was sure she was the merry

comrade, the truehearted young girl who used to smile frankly into his eyes, and whom he was now to win

for his wife. You see he had forgottenquite forgotten about the Princess and the money. Such a foolish,

"So he got out his flags gleefully, and one day, when his mother wasn't in the kitchen, he ironed out the

wrinkles and smoothed them all ready to be raised on the pole. He would be ready when the girl wavedfor

of course she would wave; he would show her that he had not forgotten. He could see just how the sparkle

would come to her eyes, and just how the little fine lines of mischief would crinkle around her nose when she

was ready to give that first wave. He could imagine that she would like to find him napping; that she would

like to take him by surprise, and make him scurry around for his flags to answer her.

"But he would show her! As if she, a girl, were to beat him at their old game! He wondered which it would

be: 'I'm coming over,' or, 'You are to come over here.' Whichever it was, he would answer, of course, with the

red 'All right.' Still, it WOULD be a joke to run up the blue 'Got to work,' and then slip across to see her, just

as she, so long ago, had played the joke on him! On the whole, however, he thought the red flag would be

better. And it was that one which he laid uppermost ready to his hand, when he arranged them.

"At last she came. He heard of it at once. It was already past four o'clock, but he could not forbear, even then,

to look toward the tower. It would be like her, after all, to wave then, that very night, just so as to catch him

napping, he thought. She did not wave, however. The boy was sure of that, for he watched the tower till dark.

"In the morning, long before eight o'clock, the boy was ready. He debated for some time whether to stand out

of doors on the piazza, or to hide behind the screened window, where he could still watch the tower. He

decided at last that it would be better not to let her see him when she looked toward the house; then his

"Eight o'clock came and passed. The boy waited until nine, but there was no sign of life from the tower. The

boy was angry then, at himself. He called himself, indeed, a fool, to hide as he did. Of course she wouldn't

wave when he was nowhere in sightwhen he had apparently forgotten! And here was a whole precious day

"The next morning, long before eight, the boy stood in plain sight on the piazza. As before he waited until

nine; and as before there was no sign of life at the tower window. The next morning he was there again, and

the next, and the next. It took just five days, indeed, to convince the boyas he was convinced at lastthat

"The boy remembered it then," went on Mr. Jack, after a pause,"about the money, and that she was a

Princess. And of course he knewwhen he thought of itthat he could not expect that a Princess would

wave like a girljust a girl. Besides, very likely she did not care particularly about seeing him. Princesses

did forget, he fancied,they had so much, so very much to fill their lives. It was this thought that kept him

from going to see herthis, and the recollection that, after all, if she really HAD wanted to see him, she

"There came a day, however, when another youth, who did not dare to go alone, persuaded him, and together

they paid her a call. The boy understood, then, many things. He found the Princess; there was no sign of the

girl. The Princess was tall and dignified, with a cold little hand and a smooth, sweet voice. There was no

frank smile in her eyes, neither were there any mischievous crinkles about her nose and lips. There was no

mention of towers or flags; no reference to wavings or to childhood's days. There was only a stiffly polite

little conversation about colleges and travels, with a word or two about books and plays. Then the callers

went home. On the way the boy smiled scornfully to himself. He was trying to picture the beauteous vision

he had seen, this unapproachable Princess in her filmy lace gown,standing in the tower window and

"The boy, during those last three years, had known only books. He knew little of girlsonly one girland

he knew still less of Princesses. So when, three days after the call, there came a chance to join a summer

camp with a man who loved books even better than did the boy himself, he went gladly. Once he had refused

to go on this very trip; but then there had been the girl. Now there was only the Princessand the Princess

"Well, then,there wasn't much worth telling," rejoined Mr. Jack gloomily. "Two more years passed, and

the Princess grew to be twentyone. She came into full control of her property then, and after a while she

came back to the old stone house with the towers and turned it into a fairyland of beauty. She spent money

like water. All manner of artists, from the man who painted her ceilings to the man who planted her seeds,

came and bowed to her will. From the four corners of the earth she brought her treasures and lavished them

through the house and grounds. Then, every summer, she came herself, and lived among them, a very

"Not often, David; and when he did, it did not make him anyhappier. You see, the boy had become the

"Wasn't he? Well, then, I'll tell you about that. You see, the boy, even though he did go away, soon found out

that in his heart the Princess was still the girl, just the same. He loved her, and he wanted her to be his wife;

so for a littlefor a very littlehe was wild enough to think that he might work and study and do great

things in the world until he was even a Prince himself, and then he could marry the Princess."

"No. To begin with, he lost his health. Then, away back in the little house on the hill something happeneda

something that left a very precious charge for him to keep; and he had to go back and keep it, and to try to see

"But that isn't a mite of a nice end," complained David. "They always get married and live happy ever

"The Pauper and the Princess? Never! Paupers don't go to Princesses, David, and say, 'I love you.'"

"Why not? I don't see whyif they want to do it. Seems as if somehow it might be fixed."

"It can't be," returned Mr. Jack, his gaze on the towers that crowned the opposite hill; "not so long as always

before the Pauper's eyes there are those gray walls behind which he pictures the Princess in the midst of her

To neither David nor Jill did the change to the present tense seem strange. The story was much too real to

"Well, anyhow, I think it ought to be fixed," declared David, as he rose to his feet.

"So do Ibut we can't fix it," laughed Jill. "And I'm hungry. Let's see what there is to eat!"

It was a beautiful moonlight night, but for once David was not thinking of the moon. All the way to the Holly

farmhouse he was thinking of Mr. Jack's story, "The Princess and the Pauper." It held him strangely. He felt

that he never could forget it. For some reason that he could not have explained, it made him sad, too, and his

It was after eight o'clock. David had taken supper with Mr. Jack and Jill, and not for some hours had he been

at the farmhouse. In the doorway now he stopped short; then instinctively he stepped back into the shadow. In

the kitchen a kerosene light was burning. It showed Mrs.Holly crying at the table, and Mr. Holly,

whitefaced and sternlipped, staring at nothing. Then Mrs. Holly raised her face, drawn and tearstained,

David was frightened then, so angry was the look that came into Simeon Holly's face.

"Ellen, we'll have no more of this," said the man harshly. "Understand, I'd rather lose the whole thing

David fled then. Up the back stairs he crept to his room and left his violin. A moment later he stole down

"Perry, what is it?" he asked in a trembling voice. "What has happenedin there?" He pointed toward the

"Well, sonny, I s'pose I may as well tell ye. You'll have ter know it sometime, seein' as 't won't be no secret

"By sugar, boy, I s'pose if I tell ye, there ain't no sartinty that you'll sense it at all. I reckon it ain't in your

"Well, it's moneyand one might as well talk moonshine to you as money, I s'pose; but here goes it. It's a

thousand dollars, boy, that they owed. Here, like this," he explained, rummaging his pockets until he had

found a silver dollar to lay on his open palm. "Now, jest imagine a thousand of them; that's heaps an'

"ExACTLY! Well, they owed thisMr. an' Mis' Holly didand they had agreed ter pay it next Sat'day.

And they was all right, too. They had it plum saved in the bank, an' was goin' ter draw it Thursday, ter make

sure. An' they was feelin' mighty pert over it, too, when terday along comes the news that somethin's broke

kersmash in that bank, an' they've shet it up. An' nary a cent can the Hollys git nowan' maybe never.

"But won't he wait?that man they owe it to? I should think he'd have to, if they didn't have it to pay."

"Not much he will, when it's old Streeter that's got the mortgage on a good fat farm like this!"

"What is aa mortgage?" he asked. "Is it anything like a portecochere? I KNOW what that is, 'cause my

"Gosh, if that ain't 'bout what I expected of ye! No, it ain't even second cousin to aathat thing you're

atalkin' of. In plain wordin', it's jest this: Mr. Holly, he says ter Streeter: 'You give me a thousand dollars

and I'll pay ye back on a sartin day; if I don't pay, you can sell my farm fur what it'll bring, an' TAKE yer pay.

Well, now here 't is. Mr. Holly can't pay, an' so Streeter will put up the farm fur sale."

"I don't see how, kid,not unless some one ponies up with the money 'fore next Sat'day,an' a thousand o'

them things don't grow on ev'ry bush," he finished, gently patting the coin in his hand.

At the words a swift change came to David's face. His cheeks paled and his eyes dilated in terror. It was as if

A dawning relief came into David's eyesit was as if he saw a bridge across the abyss.

"You meanthat there wouldn't ANYTHING do, only silver pieceslike those?" he questioned hopefully.

"Sugar, kid, 'course there would! Gosh, but you BE a checkerboard o' sense an' nonsense, an' no mistake!

"Sure!gold, or silver, or greenbacks, oror a check, if it had the dough behind it."

David did not appear to hear the last. With an oddly strained look he had hung upon the man's first words; but

at the end of the sentence he only murmured, "Oh, thank you," and turned away. He was walking slowly now

"Now, ain't that jest like that chap," muttered the man, "ter slink off like that as if he was a whipped cur. I'll

bet two cents an' a doughnut, too, that in five minutes he'll be what he calls 'playin' it' on that 'ere fiddle o' his.

An' I'll be derned, too, if I ain't curious ter see what he WILL make of it. It strikes me this ought ter fetch

On the porch steps David paused a breathless instant. From the kitchen came the sound of Mrs. Holly's sobs

and of a stern voice praying. With a shudder and a little choking cry the boy turned then and crept softly

He played, too, as Perry Larson had wagered. But it was not the tragedy of the closed bank, nor the honor of

the threatened farmselling that fell from his violin. It was, instead, the swan song of a little pile of

goldgold which lay now in a chimney cupboard, but which was soon to be placed at the feet of the

mourning man and woman downstairs. And in the song was the sob of a boy who sees his house of dreams

burn to ashes; who sees his wonderful life and work out in the wide world turn to endless days of

weedpulling and dirtdigging in a narrow valley. There was in the song, too, something of the struggle, the

fierce yea and nay of the conflict. But, at the end, there was the wild burst of exaltation of renunciation, so

"Gosh! if he hain't turned the thing into a jigdurn him! Don't he know more'n that at such a time as this?"

"I've been thinking," stammered David, "that maybe Icould help, about that money, you know."

"Now, look ahere, boy," exploded Perry, in open exasperation, "as I said in the first place, this ain't in your

class. 'T ain't no pink cloud sailin' in the sky, nor a bluebird singin' in a blackb'rry bush. An' you might 'play

it'as you call ittill doomsday, an' 't wouldn't do no goodthough I'm free ter confess that your playin' of

them 'ere other things sounds real pert an' chirky at times; but 't won't do no good here."

David stepped forward, bringing his small, anxious face full into the moonlight.

"But 't was the money, Perry; I meant about, the money," he explained. "They were good to me and wanted

me when there wasn't any one else that did; and now I'd like to do something for them. There aren't so

MANY pieces, and they aren't silver. There's only one hundred and six of them; I counted. But maybe they 'd

help some. Itit would be astart." His voice broke over the once beloved word, then went on with

renewed strength. "There, see! Would these do?" And with both hands he held up to view his cap sagging

Perry Larson's jaw fell open. His eyes bulged. Dazedly he reached out and touched with trembling fingers the

heap of shining disks that seemed in the mellow light like little earthborn children of the moon itself. The

"See here, boy, for once, if ye can, talk horsesense! Surely, even YOU don't expect me ter believe that he's

"Great snakes!" muttered Perry Larson, reaching out his hand and gingerly picking up one of the goldpieces.

"Won't theydo?" he faltered. "There aren't a thousand; there's only a hundred and six; but"

"Do!" cut in the man, excitedly. He had been examining the goldpiece at close range. "Do! Well, I reckon

they'll do. By Jiminy!and ter think you've had this up yer sleeve all this time! Well, I'll believe anythin' of

yer nowanythin'! You can't stump me with nuthin'! Come on." And he hurriedly led the way toward the

"But they weren't up my sleeve," corrected David, as he tried to keep up with the long strides of the man. "I

There was no answer. Larson had reached the porch steps, and had paused there hesitatingly. From the

kitchen still came the sound of sobs. Aside from that there was silence. The boy, however, did not hesitate.

He went straight up the steps and through the open kitchen door. At the table sat the man and the woman,

With a swift overturning of his cap, David dumped his burden onto the table, and stepped back respectfully.

At the jingle of the coins Simeon Holly and his wife lifted their heads abruptly. A halfuttered sob died on

the woman's lips. A quick cry came from the man's. He reached forth an eager hand and had almost clutched

the gold when a sudden change came to his face. With a stern ejaculation he drew back.

David sighed in a discouraged way. It seemed that, always, the showing of this gold mean't

"Surely," continued Simeon Holly, "you did not" With the boy's frank gaze upturned to his, the man could

Before David could answer came the voice of Perry Larson from the kitchen doorway.

"No, sir, he didn't, Mr. Holly; an' it's all straight, I'm thinkin'though I'm free ter confess it does sound

"Why, there wasn't anything else to do wiih it," answered the boy perplexedly. "I hadn't any use for it, you

" 'Hadn't any use for it'!" blustered Larson from the doorway. "Jiminy! Now, ain't that jest like that boy?"

"We never used to use themfather and Iexcept to buy things to eat and wear; and down here YOU give

"Gorry!" interjected Perry Larson. "Do you reckon, boy, that Mr. Holly himself was give them things he

"What do you mean? Do you mean that" His face changed suddenly. His cheeks turned a shamed red.

"Why, he didhe did have to buy them, of course, just as father did. And I never even thought of it before!

Then, it's yours, anywayit belongs to you," he argued, turning to Farmer Holly, and shoving the gold

"They're tendollar gold pieces, sir," spoke up Larson importantly; "an' there's a hundred an' six of them.

"One thousand and sixty dollars!" he gasped. Then, to David: "Boy, in Heaven's name, who are you?"

"I don't knowonly David." The boy spoke wearily, with a grieved sob in his voice. He was very tired, a

good deal perplexed, and a little angry. He wished, if no one wanted this gold, that he could take it upstairs

again to the chimney cupboard; or, if they objected to that, that they would at least give it to him, and let him

go away now to that beautiful music he was to hear, and to those kind people who were always to understand

"Of course," ventured Perry Larson diffidently, "I ain't professin' ter know any great shakes about the hand of

the Lord, Mr. Holly, but it do strike me that this 'ere gold comes mighty near bein' proverdentialfur you."

Simeon Holly fell back in his seat. His eyes clung to the gold, but his lips set into rigid lines.

"David is nothing but a child, Perry. He doesn't realize at all what he is doing, nor how valuable his gift is."

"I know, sir, but you DID take him in, when there wouldn't nobody else do it," argued Larson. "An', anyhow,

couldn't you make a kind of an I O U of it, even if he is a kid? Then, some day you could pay him back.

"I know, I know," nodded Simeon Holly thoughtfully, his eyes going from the gold to David's face. Then,

aloud, yet as if to himself, he breathed: "Boy, boy, who was your father? How came he by all that goldand

Across the table Mrs. Holly drew a quick breath, but she did not speaksave with her pleading eyes. Mrs.

Holly seldom spokesave with her eyeswhen her husband was solving a knotty problem. She was

dumfounded now that he should listen so patiently to the man, Larson,though she was not more surprised

than was Larson himself. For both of them, however, there came at this moment a still greater surprise.

Simeon Holly leaned forward suddenly, the stern lines quite gone from his lips, and his face working with

"You're a good son, boy,a good loyal son; andand I wish you were mine! I believe you. He didn't steal

it, and I won't steal it, either. But I will use it, since you are so good as to offer it. But it shall be a loan,

David, and some day, God helping me, you shall have it back. Meanwhile, you're my boy, David,my boy!"

"Oh, thank you, sir," rejoiced David. "And, really, you know, being wanted like that is better than the start

"Nnothing," he stammered, looking about for a means of quick escape. "II was just talking," he finished.

And he was immeasurably relieved to find that Mr. Holly did not press the matter further.

In spite of the exaltation of renunciation, and in spite of the joy of being newly and especially "wanted," those

early September days were sometimes hard for David. Not until he had relinquished all hope of his "start" did

There were times, to be sure, when there was nothing but rejoicing within him that he was able thus to aid the

Hollys. There were other times when there was nothing but the sore heartache because of the great work out

in the beautiful world that could now never be done; and because of the unlovely work at hand that must be

done. To tell the truth, indeed, David's entire conception of life had become suddenly a chaos of puzzling

To Mr. Jack, one day, David went with his perplexities. Not that he told him of the goldpieces and of the

unexpected use to which they had been putindeed, no. David had made up his mind never, if he could help

himself, to mention those goldpieces to any one who did not already know of them. They meant questions,

and the questions, explanations. And he had had enough of both on that particular subject. But to Mr. Jack he

"Well," he said, "I believe some people make claims to quite a number, and perhaps almost every one owns

"Never mind, David. I don't think you know the gentlemen, anyhow. They're only something like the little

"Oh, yes, I know them; they're the ones that come to me," returned David, with a sigh. "I've had them a lot,

"Yes; and that's what's the trouble. How can you drive them offthe one that is bad, I mean?"

"Well, really," confessed Mr. Jack, "I'm not sure I can tell. You seethe gentlemen visit me sometimes."

"I'm so gladthat is, I mean," amended David, in answer to Mr. Jack's uplifted eyebrows, "I'm glad that you

understand what I'm talking about. You see, I tried Perry Larson last night on it, to get him to tell me what to

do. But he only stared and laughed. He didn't know the names of 'em, anyhow, as you do, and at last he got

really almost angry and said I made him feel so 'buggy' and 'creepy' that he wouldn't dare look at himself in

the glass if I kept on, for fear some one he'd never known was there should jump out at him."

"Well, I suspect, David, that Perry knew one of your gentlemen by the name of 'conscience,' perhaps; and I

also suspect that maybe conscience does pretty nearly fill the bill, and that you've been having a bout with

"Yes; but father was on the mountain. And down herewell, down here there are lots of things that I don't

"Why, lots of thingstoo many to tell. Of course there are things like catching fish, and killing birds and

squirrels and other things to eat, and plaguing cats and dogs. Father never would have called those beautiful.

Then there are others like little Jimmy Clark who can't walk, and the man at the Marstons' who's sick, and Joe

Glaspell who is blind. Then there are still different ones like Mr. Holly's little boy. Perry says he ran away

years and years ago, and made his people very unhappy. Father wouldn't call that a beautiful world, would

he? And how can people like that always play in tune? And there are the Princess and the Pauper that you

"Yes; and people like them can't be happy and think the world is beautiful, of course."

"Because they didn't end right. They didn't get married and live happy ever after, you know."

"Well, I don't think I'd worry about that, David,at least, not about the Princess. I fancy the world was very

beautiful to her, all right. The Pauperwell, perhaps he wasn't very happy. But, after all, David, you know

happiness is something inside of yourself. Perhaps half of these people are happy, in their way."

"There! and that's another thing," sighed David. "You see, I found that outthat it was inside of

yourselfquite a while ago, and I told the Lady of the Roses. But now Ican't make it work myself."

"Well, you see then something was going to happensomething that I liked; and I found that just thinking of

it made it so that I didn't mind raking or hoeing, or anything like that; and I told the Lady of the Roses. And I

told her that even if it wasn't going to happen she could THINK it was going to, and that that would be just

the same, because 't was the thinking that made my hours sunny ones. It wasn't the DOING at all. I said I

"Well, I've found out that it isn't the same at all; for now that I KNOW that this beautiful thing isn't ever

going to happen to me, I can think and think all day, and it doesn't do a mite of good. The sun is just as hot,

and my back aches just as hard, and the field is just as big and endless as it used to be when I had to call it

"You're getting into too deep waters for me, David. I suspect you're floundering in a sea that has upset the

boats of sages since the world began. But what is it that was so nice, and that isn't going to happen? Perhaps I

"No, you couldn't," frowned David; "and there couldn't anybody, either, you see, because I wouldn't go back

now and LET it happen, anyhow, as long as I know what I do. Why, if I did, there wouldn't be ANY hours

that were sunny thennot even the ones after four o'clock; II'd feel so mean! But what I don't see is just

"Why, at the very first, when she said she didn't have ANY sunshiny hours, I told her"

"Yes; it was the sundial. Didn't I tell you? Yes, I know I didabout the words on itnot counting any hours

that weren't sunny, you know. And she said she wouldn't have ANY hours to count; that the sun never shone

"Why, David," demurred Mr. Jack in a voice that shook a little, "are you sure? Did she say just that?

"I wasn't, because I said that same thing to her myselfafterwards. And then I told herwhen I found out

myself, you knowabout its being what was inside of you, after all, that counted; and then is when I asked

her if she couldn't think of something nice that was going to happen to her sometime."

"She shook her head, and said 'No.' Then she looked away, and her eyes got soft and dark like little pools in

the brook where the water stops to rest. And she said she had hoped once that this something would happen;

but that it hadn't, and that it would take something more than thinking to bring it. And I know now what she

Mr. Jack did not answer. He had risen to his feet, and was pacing restlessly up and down the veranda. Once or

twice he turned his eyes toward the towers of Sunnycrest, and David noticed that there was a new look on his

Very soon, however, the old tiredness came back to his eyes, and he dropped into his seat again, muttering

"Ernothing; nothing that you would understand, David. Go onwith what you were saying."

"There isn't any more. It's all done. It's only that I'm wondering how I'm going to learn here that it's a

Mr. Jack roused himself. He had the air of a man who determinedly throws to one side a heavy burden.

"Well, David," he smiled, "as I said before, you are still out on that sea where there are so many little

"Mr. Holly says," mused the boy, aloud, a little gloomily, "that it doesn't make any difference whether we

find things beautiful or not; that we're here to do something serious in the world."

"That is about what I should have expected of Mr. Holly" retorted Mr. Jack grimly. "He acts itand looks it.

"I have an idea that you're going to find that answer just where your father said you wouldin your violin.

See if you don't. Things that aren't beautiful you'll make beautifulbecause we find what we are looking for,

and you're looking for beautiful things. After all, boy, if we march straight ahead, chin up, and sing our own

little song with all our might and main, we shan't come so far amiss from the goal, I'm thinking. There! that's

preaching, and I didn't mean to preach; butwell, to tell the truth, that was meant for myself, forI'm

"Yes, sir, I know," returned David fervently. And again Mr. Jack, looking into the sympathetic, glowing dark

Even yet Mr. Jack was not used to David; there were "so many of him," he told himself. There were the boy,

the artist, and a third personality so evanescent that it defied being named. The boy was jolly, impetuous,

confidential, and delightfulplainly reveling in all manner of fun and frolic. The artist was nothing but a

bunch of nervous alertness, ready to find melody and rhythm in every passing thought or flying cloud. The

thirdthat baffling third that defied the namingwas a dreamy, visionary, untouchable creature who floated

so far above one's head that one's hand could never pull him down to get a good square chance to see what he

did look like. All this thought Mr. Jack as he gazed into David's luminous eyes.

In September David entered the village school. School and David did not assimilate at once. Very confidently

the teacher set to work to grade her new pupil; but she was not so confident when she found that while in

Latin he was perilously near herself (and in Frenchwhich she was not required to teachdisastrously

beyond her!), in United States history he knew only the barest outlines of certain portions, and could not

name a single battle in any of its wars. In most studies he was far beyond boys of his own age, yet at every

turn she encountered these puzzling spots of discrepancy, which rendered grading in the ordinary way out of

David's methods of recitation, too, were peculiar, and somewhat disconcerting. He also did not hesitate to

speak aloud when he chose, nor to rise from his seat and move to any part of the room as the whim seized

him. In time, of course, all this was changed; but it was several days before the boy learned so to conduct

himself that he did not shatter to atoms the peace and propriety of the schoolroom.

Outside of school David had little work to do now, though there were still left a few light tasks about the

house. Home life at the Holly farmhouse was the same for David, yet with a differencethe difference that

comes from being really wanted instead of being merely dutifully kept. There were other differences, too,

Mr. and Mrs. Holly, more than ever now, were learning to look at the world through David's eyes. One

dayone wonderful daythey even went to walk in the woods with the boy; and whenever before had

It was not accomplished, however, without a struggle, as David could have told. The day was a Saturday,

clear, crisp, and beautiful, with a promise of October in the air; and David fairly tingled to be free and away.

Mrs. Holly was bakingand the birds sang unheard outside her pantry window. Mr. Holly was digging

All the morning David urged and begged. If for once, just this once, they would leave everything and come,

they would not regret it, he was sure. But they shook their heads and said, "No, no, impossible!" In the

afternoon the pies were done and the potatoes dug, and David urged and pleaded again. If once, only this

once, they would go to walk with him in the woods, he would be so happy, so very happy! And to please the

It was a curious walk. Ellen Holly trod softly, with timid feet. She threw hurried, frightened glances from side

to side. It was plain that Ellen Holly did not know how to play. Simeon Holly stalked at her elbow, stern,

silent, and preoccupied. It was plain that Simeon Holly not only did not know how to play, but did not even

The boy tripped ahead and talked. He had the air of a monarch displaying his kingdom. On one side was a bit

of moss worthy of the closest attention; on another, a vine that carried allurement in every tendril. Here was a

flower that was like a story for interest, and there was a bush that bore a secret worth the telling. Even

Simeon Holly glowed into a semblance of life when David had unerringly picked out and called by name the

spruce, and fir, and pine, and larch, and then, in answer to Mrs. Holly's murmured: "But, David, where's the

"Oh, but they aren't, you know. Just see how much more pointed at the top that fir is than that spruce back

there; and the branches grow straight out, too, like arms, and they're all smooth and tapering at the ends like a

pussycat's tail. But the spruce back thereITS branches turned down and outdidn't you notice?and

they're all bushy at the ends like a squirrel's tail. Oh, they're lots different! That's a larch 'way aheadthat

one with the branches all scraggly and close down to the ground. I could start to climb that easy; but I

couldn't that pine over there. See, it's 'way up, up, before there's a place for your foot! But I love pines. Up

there on the mountains where I lived, the pines were so tall that it seemed as if God used them sometimes to

And Simeon Holly heard, and said nothing; and that he did say nothingespecially nothing in answer to

David's confident assertions concerning celestial and terrestrial architectureonly goes to show how well,

Nor were these all of David's friends to whom Mr. and Mrs. Holly were introduced on that memorable walk.

There were the birds, and the squirrels, and, in fact, everything that had life. And each one he greeted

joyously by name, as he would greet a friend whose home and habits he knew. Here was a wonderful

woodpecker, there was a beautiful bluejay. Ahead, that brilliant bit of color that flashed across their path was

a tanager. Once, far up in the sky, as they crossed an open space, David spied a long black streak moving

"Oh, see!" he exclaimed. "The crows! See them?'way up there? Wouldn't it be fun if we could do that, and

"But they do! These look as if they'd started on their winter journey South, too; but if they have, they're early.

Most of them don't go till October. They come back in March, you know. Though I've had them, on the

"My! but I love to watch them go," murmured David, his eyes following the rapidly disappearing blackline.

"Lots of birds you can't see, you know, when they start for the South. They fly at nightthe woodpeckers

and orioles and cuckoos, and lots of others. They're afraid, I guess, don't you? But I've seen them. I've

"Oh, David," remonstrated Mrs. Holly, again, her eyes reproving, but plainly enthralled.

"But they do tell each other," claimed the boy, with sparkling eyes. "They must! For, all of a sudden, some

night, you'll hear the signal, and then they'll begin to gather from all directions. I've seen them. Then,

suddenly, they're all up and off to the Southnot in one big flock, but broken up into little flocks, following

one after another, with such a beautiful whir of wings. OofOOFOOF!and they're gone! And I don't

see them again till next year. But you've seen the swallows, haven't you? They go in the daytime, and they're

the easiest to tell of any of them. They fly so swift and straight. Haven't you seen the swallows go?"

"Why, II don't know, David," murmured Mrs. Holly, with a helpless glance at her husband stalking on

There was more, much more, that David said before the walk came to an end. And though, when it did end,

neither Simeon Holly nor his wife said a word of its having been a pleasure or a profit, there was yet on their

faces something of the peace and rest and quietness that belonged to the woods they had left.

It was a beautiful monththat September, and David made the most of it. Out of school meant out of doors

for him. He saw Mr. Jack and Jill often. He spent much time, too, with the Lady of the Roses. She was still

the Lady of the ROSES to David, though in the garden now were the purple and scarlet and yellow of the

David was very much at home at Sunnycrest. He was welcome, he knew, to go where he pleased. Even the

servants were kind to him, as well as was the elderly cousin whom he seldom saw, but who, he knew, lived

Perhaps best, next to the garden, David loved the tower room; possibly because Miss Holbrook herself so

often suggested that they go there. And it was there that they were when he said, dreamily, one day:

"I like this placeup here so high, only sometimes it does make me think of that Princess, because it was in

"No, not exactly, though there was a Princess in it. Mr. Jack told it." David's eyes were still out of the

"Well, and what did the Princess do?" Miss Holbrook's voice was still light, still carelessly preoccupied. Her

"She didn't do and that's what was the trouble," sighed I David. "She didn't wave, you know."

The needle in Miss Holbrook's fingers stopped short in midair, the thread halfdrawn.

"Nothing," laughed the boy, turning away from the window. "I forgot that you didn't know the story."

"But maybe I dothat iswhat was the story?" asked Miss Holbrook, wetting her lips as if they had grown

"Oh, do you? I wonder now! It wasn't 'The PRINCE and the Pauper,' but the PRINCESS and the Pauper,"

cited David; "and they used to wave signals, and answer with flags. Do you know the story?"

There was no answer. Miss Holbrook was putting away her work, hurriedly, and with hands that shook.

David noticed that she even pricked herself in her anxiety to get the needle tucked away. Then she drew him

"David, I want you to tell me that story, please," she said, "just as Mr. Jack told it to you. Now, be careful and

put it all in, because II want to hear it," she finished, with an odd little laugh that seemed to bring two

"Oh, do you want to hear it? Then I will tell it," cried David joyfully. To David, almost as delightful as to

hear a story was to tell one himself. "You see, first" And he plunged headlong into the introduction.

David knew it wellthat story: and there was, perhaps, little that he forgot. It might not have been always

told in Mr. Jack's language; but his meaning was there, and very intently Miss Holbrook listened while David

told of the boy and the girl, the wavings, and the flags that were blue, black, and red. She laughed

once,that was at the little joke with the bells that the girl played,but she did not speak until sometime

later when David was telling of the first homecoming of the Princess, and of the time when the boy on his

tiny piazza watched and watched in vain for a waving white signal from the tower.

"Do you mean to say," interposed Miss Holbrook then, almost starting to her feet, "that that boy expected"

She stopped suddenly, and fell back in her chair. The two red spots on her cheeks had become a rosy glow

"Nnothing. Go on. I was soso interested," explained Miss Holbrook faintly. "Go on."

And David did go on; nor did the story lose by his telling. It gained, indeed, something, for now it had woven

through it the very strong sympathy of a boy who loved the Pauper for his sorrow and hated the Princess for

"And so," he concluded mournfully, "you see it isn't a very nice story, after all, for it didn't end well a bit.

Miss Holbrook drew in her breath a little uncertainly, and put her hand to her throat. Her face now, instead of

"But, David," she faltered, after a moment, "perhaps hethePauperdid notnot love the Princess any

David lifted his chin. With all his dignity he answered, and his words and accent were Mr. Jack's.

"But perhaps if they didthat isif" Miss Holbrook bit her lips and did not finish her sentence. She did

not, indeed, say anything more for a long time. But she had not forgotten the story. David knew that, because

later she began to question him carefully about many little pointspoints that he was very sure he had

already made quite plain. She talked about it, indeed, until he wondered if perhaps she were going to tell it to

some one else sometime. He asked her if she were; but she only shook her head. And after that she did not

For a week David had not been near the House that Jack Built, and that, too, when Jill had been confined

within doors for several days with a cold. Jill, indeed, was inclined to be grieved at this apparent lack of

interest on the part of her favorite playfellow; but upon her return from her first day of school, after her

"Jack, it hasn't been David's fault at all," she cried remorsefully. "He's sick."

"Feversome sort. Some say it's typhoid, and some scarlet, and some say another kind that I can't

remember; but everybody says he's awfully sick. He got it down to Glaspell's, some say,and some say he

didn't. But, anyhow, Betty Glaspell has been sick with something, and they haven't let folks in there this

"Why, you know,he told us once,teaching Joe to play. He's been there lots. Joe is blind, you know, and

can't see, but he just loves music, and was crazy over David's violin; so David took down his other onethe

one that was his father's, you knowand showed him how to pick out little tunes, just to take up his time so

he wouldn't mind so much that he couldn't see. Now, Jack, wasn't that just like David? Jack, I can't have

"No, dear, no; of course not! I'm afraid we can't any of us, for that matter," sighed Jack, his forehead drawn

into anxious lines. "I'll go down to the Hollys', Jill, the first thing tomorrow morning, and see how he is and if

there's anything we can do. Meanwhile, don't take it too much to heart, dear. It may not be half so bad as you

think. Schoolchildren always get things like that exaggerated, you must remember," he finished, speaking

To himself the man owned that he was troubled, seriously troubled. He had to admit that Jill's story bore the

earmarks of truth; and overwhelmingly he realized now just how big a place this somewhat puzzling small

boy had come to fill in his own heart. He did not need Jill's anxious "Now, hurry, Jack," the next morning to

start him off in all haste for the Holly farmhouse. A dozen rods from the driveway he met Perry Larson and

"Good morning, Larson; I hope this isn't truewhat I hearthat David is very ill."

Larson pulled off his hat and with his free hand sought the one particular spot on his head to which he always

"Well, yes, sir, I'm afraid 't is, Mr. JackerMr. Gurnsey, I mean. He is turrible sick, poor little chap, an'

"Oh, I'm sorry! I hoped the report was exaggerated. I came down to see ifif there wasn't something I could

"Well, 'course you can askthere ain't no law ag'in' that; an' ye needn't be afraid, neither. The report has got

'round that it's ketchin'what he's got, and that he got it down to the Glaspells'; but 't ain't so. The doctor

says he didn't ketch nothin', an' he can't give nothin'. It's his head an' brain that ain't right, an' he's got a

"As I was sayin', 'course you can ask, but I'm thinkin' there won't be nothin' you can do ter help. Ev'rythin'

that can be done is bein' done. In fact, there ain't much of anythin' else that is bein' done down there jest now

but, tendin' ter him. They've got one o' them 'ere edyercated nurses from the Junctionwhat wears caps, ye

know, an' makes yer feel as if they knew it all, an' you didn't know nothin'. An' then there's Mr. an' Mis' Holly

besides. If they had THEIR way, there wouldn't neither of, em let him out o' their sight fur a minute, they're

"I fancy they think a good deal of the boyas we all do," murmured the younger man, a little unsteadily.

"Yes; an' that's what beats me," he answered slowly; " 'bout HIM,Mr. Holly, I mean. 'Course we'd 'a'

expected it of HERlosin' her own boy as she did, an' bein' jest naturally so sweet an' lovin'hearted. But

HIMthat's diff'rent. Now, you know jest as well as I do what Mr. Holly isevery one does, so I ain't

sayin' nothin' sland'rous. He's a good mana powerful good man; an' there ain't a squarer man goin' ter work

fur. But the fact is, he was made up wrong side out, an' the seams has always showed badturrible bad, with

ravelin's all stickin' out every which way ter ketch an' pull. But, gosh! I'm blamed if that, ere boy ain't got him

so smoothed down, you wouldn't know, scursely, that he had a seam on him, sometimes; though how he's

done it beats me. Now, there's Mis' Hollyshe's tried ter smooth 'em, I'll warrant, lots of times. But I'm free

ter say she hain't never so much as clipped a ravelin' in all them forty years they've lived tergether. Fact is, it's

worked the other way with her. All that HER rubbin' up ag'in' them seams has amounted to is ter git herself

so smoothed down that she don't never dare ter say her soul's her own, most generally,anyhow, not if he

"'T ain't likely ye cannot so long as Mr. an' Mis' Holly is on their two feet. Why, there ain't nothin' they

won't do, an' you'll believe it, maybe, when I tell you that yesterday Mr. Holly, he tramped all through

Sawyer's woods in the rain, jest ter find a little bit of moss that the boy was callin' for. Think o' that, will ye?

Simeon Holly huntin' moss! An' he got it, too, an' brung it home, an' they say it cut him up somethin' turrible

when the boy jest turned away, and didn't take no notice. You understand, 'course, sir, the little chap ain't

"Oh, I'm sorry, sorry!" exclaimed Gurnsey, as he turned away, and hurried toward the farmhouse.

"Thank you, sir," she said gratefully, in reply to his offer of assistance, "but there isn't anything you can do,

Mr. Gurnsey. We're having everything done that can be, and every one is very kind. We have a very good

nurse, and Dr. Kennedy has had consultation with Dr. Benson from the Junction. They are doing all in their

power, of course, but they say thatthat it's going to be the nursing that will count now."

"No. Of course, if he gets better" She hesitated; then lifted her chin a little higher; "WHEN he gets better,"

"And he shall see me," asserted Gurnsey. "And he will be better, Mrs. Holly,I'm sure he will."

"Yes, yes, of course, onlyoh, Mr. Jack, he's so sickso very sick! The doctor says he's a peculiarly

sensitive nature, and that he thinks something's been troubling him lately." Her voice broke.

"There couldn't anybody, Mr. Jack,and that's just it. Now, since he's been sick, we've wondered more than

ever who he is. You see, I can't help thinking that somewhere he's got friends who ought to know about

"He isn't an ordinary boy, Mr. Jack. He's been trained in lots of waysabout his manners, and at the table,

and all that. And lots of things his father has told him are beautiful, just beautiful! He isn't a tramp. He never

"I do; he talks of that, also," she hurried on, working her fingers nervously together; "but oftenest hehe

speaks of singing, and I can't quite understand that, for he didn't ever sing, you know."

"Singing? What does he say?" The man asked the question because he saw that it was affording the

overwrought little woman real relief to free her mind; but at the first words of her reply he became suddenly

"It's 'his song,' as he calls it, that he talks about, always. It isn't muchwhat he saysbut I noticed it

because he always says the same thing, like this: I'll just hold up my chin and march straight on and on, and

I'll sing it with all my might and main.' And when I ask him what he's going to sing, he always says, 'My

For a moment the man did not answer. Something in his throat tightened, and held the words. Then, in a low

"I think he did, Mrs. Holly, andI think he sang it, too." The next moment, with a quick lifting of his hat and

a murmured "I'll call again soon," he turned and walked swiftly down the driveway.

So very swiftly, indeed, was Mr. Jack walking, and so selfabsorbed was he, that he did not see the carriage

until it was almost upon him; then he stepped aside to let it pass. What he saw as he gravely raised his hat

was a handsome span of black horses, a liveried coachman, and a pair of startled eyes looking straight into

his. What he did not see was the quick gesture with which Miss Holbrook almost ordered her carriage

One by one the days passed, and there came from the anxious watchers at David's bedside only the words,

"There's very little change." Often Jack Gurnsey went to the farmhouse to inquire for the boy. Often, too, he

saw Perry Larson; and Perry was never loath to talk of David. It was from Perry, indeed, that Gurnsey began

"It does beat all," Perry Larson said to him one day, "how many folks asks me how that boy isfolks that

you'd never think knew him, anyhow, ter say nothin' of carin' whether he lived or died. Now, there's old Mis'

Somers, fur instance. YOU know what she issour as a lemon an' puckery as a chokecherry. Well, if she

didn't give me yesterday a great bokay o' posies she'd growed herself, an' said they was fur himthat they

"'Course, I didn't exactly sense what she meant by that, so I asked her straight out; an' it seems that somehow,

when the boy first come, he struck her place one day an' spied a great big red rose on one of her bushes. It

seems he had his fiddle, an' he, played it,that rose agrowin' (you know his way!), an' she heard an' spoke

up pretty sharp an' asked him what in time he was doin'. Well, most kids would 'a' run,knowin' her temper

as they does,but not much David. He stands up as pert as ye please, an' tells her how happy that red rose

must be ter make all that dreary garden look so pretty; an' then he goes on, merry as a lark, aplayin' down

"Well, Mis' Somers owned up ter me that she was pretty mad at the time, 'cause her garden did look like

tunket, an' she knew it. She said she hadn't cared ter do a thing with it since her Bessie died that thought so

much of it. But after what David had said, even mad as she was, the thing kind o' got on her nerves, an' she

couldn't see a thing, day or night, but that red rose agrowin' there so pert an' courageouslike, until at last,

jest ter quiet herself, she fairly had ter set to an' slick that garden up! She said she raked an' weeded, an' fixed

up all the plants there was, in good shape, an' then she sent down to the Junction fur some all growed in pots,

'cause 't was too late ter plant seeds. An, now it's doin' beautiful, so she jest could n't help sendin' them posies

ter David. When I told Mis' Holly, she said she was glad it happened, 'cause what Mis' Somers needed was

somethin' ter git her out of herselfan' I'm free ter say she did look betternatured, an' no mistake,kind o'

"An' then there's the Widder Glaspell," continued Perry, after a pause." 'Course, any one would expect she'd

feel bad, seein' as how good David was ter her boyteachin' him ter play, ye know. But Mis' Glaspell says

Joe jest does take on somethin' turrible, an' he won't tech the fiddle, though he was plum carried away with it

when David was well an' teachin' of him. An' there's the Clark kid. He's lame, ye know, an' he thought the

" 'Course, there's you an' Miss Holbrook, always askin' an' sendin' thingsbut that ain't so strange, 'cause

you was 'specially his friends. But it's them others what beats me. Why, some days it's 'most ev'ry soul I meet,

jest askin' how he is, an' sayin' they hopes he'll git well. Sometimes it's kids that he's played to, an' I'll be

triggered if one of 'em one day didn't have no excuse to offer except that David had fit him'bout a cat, or

somethin'an' that ever since then he'd thought a heap of himthough he guessed David didn't know it.

"An' once a woman held me up, an' took on turrible, but all I could git from her was that he'd sat on her

doorstep an' played ter her baby once or twice;as if that was anythin'! But one of the derndest funny ones

was the woman who said she could wash her dishes a sight easier after she'd aseen him go by playin'. There

was Bill Dowd, too. You know he really HAS got a screw loose in his head somewheres, an' there ain't any

one but what says he's the town fool, all right. Well, what do ye think HE said?"

"Well, he said he did hope as how nothin' would happen ter that boy cause he did so like ter see him smile,

an' that he always did smile every time he met him! There, what do ye think o' that?"

"Well, I think, Perry," returned.Mr. Jack soberly, "that Bill Dowd wasn't playing the fool, when he said that,

"Hmm, maybe not," murmured Perry Larson perplexedly. "Still, I'm free ter say I do think 't was kind o'

queer." He paused, then slapped his knee suddenly. "Say, did I tell ye about StreeterOld Bill Streeter an'

"Well, then, I'm goin' to," declared the other, with gleeful emphasis. "An', say, I don't believe even YOU can

explain thisI don't! Well, you know Streeterev'ry one does, so I ain't sayin' nothin' sland'rous. He was

cut on a bias, an' that bias runs ter money every time. You know as well as I do that he won't lift his finger

unless there's a dollar stickin' to it, an' that he hain't no use fur anythin' nor anybody unless there's money in it

for him. I'm blamed if I don't think that if he ever gits ter heaven, he'll pluck his own wings an' sell the

"Well, seein' as we both understand what he is, I'll tell ye what he DONE. He called me up ter his fence one

day, big as life, an' says he, 'How's the boy?' An' you could 'a' knocked me down with a feather.

Streeteraaskin' how a boy was that was sick! An' he seemed ter care, too. I hain't seen him look so

longfaced sincesince he was paid up on a sartin note I knows of, jest as he was smackin' his lips over a

"Well, I was that plum puzzled that I meant ter find out why Streeter was takin' sech notice, if I hung fur it.

So I set to on a little detective work of my own, knowin', of course, that 't wa'n't no use askin' of him himself.

Well, an' what do you s'pose I found out? If that little scamp of a boy hadn't even got round himStreeter,

the skinflint! He hadan' he went there often, the neighbors said; an' Streeter doted on him. They declared

"They saidthe neighbors didthat it all started from the pear treethat big one ter the left of his house.

Maybe you remember it. Well, anyhow, it seems that it's old, an' through bearin' any fruit, though it still

blossoms fit ter kill, every year, only a little late 'most always, an' the blossoms stay on longer'n common, as

if they knew there wa'n't nothin' doin' later. Well, old Streeter said it had got ter come down. I reckon he

suspected it of swipin' some of the sunshine, or maybe a little rain that belonged ter the tree t'other side of the

road what did bear fruit an' was worth somethin'! Anyhow, he got his man an' his axe, an' was plum ready ter

"'T was when the boy first come. He'd gone ter walk an' had struck this pear tree, all in bloom,an' 'course,

YOU know how the boy would acta pear tree, bloomin', is a likely sight, I'll own. He danced and laughed

and clapped his hands,he didn't have his fiddle with him,an' carried on like all possessed. Then he sees

"They said it was rich thenBill Warner heard it all from t'other side of the fence. He said that David, when

he found out what was goin' ter happen, went clean crazy, an' rampaged on at such a rate that old Streeter

couldn't do nothin' but stand an' stare, until he finally managed ter growl out: 'But I tell ye, boy, the tree ain't

"Bill says the boy flew all to pieces then. 'No useno use!' he cries; 'such a perfectly beautiful thing as that

no use! Why, it don't have ter be any use when it's so pretty. It's jest ter look at an' love, an' be happy with!'

Fancy sayin' that ter old Streeter! I'd like ter seen his face. But Bill says that wa'n't half what the boy said. He

declared that 't was God's present, anyhow, that trees was; an' that the things He give us ter look at was jest as

much use as the things He give us ter eat; an' that the stars an' the sunsets an' the snowflakes an' the little

white cloudboats, an' I don't know whatall, was jest as important in the Orchestra of Life as turnips an'

squashes. An' then, Billy says, he ended by jest flingin' himself on ter Streeter an' beggin' him ter wait till he

could go back an' git his fiddle so he could tell him what a beautiful thing that tree was.

"Well, if you'll believe it, old Streeter was so plum befuzzled he sent the man an' the axe awayan' that

tree's alivin' terday't is!" he finished; then, with a sudden gloom on his face, Larson added, huskily: "An'

I only hope I'll be sayin' the same thing of that boycome next month at this time!"

And so one by one the days passed, while the whole town waited and while in the great airy "parlor bedroom"

of the Holly farmhouse one small boy fought his battle for life. Then came the blackest day and night of all

when the town could only wait and watchit had lost its hope; when the doctors shook their heads and

refused to meet Mrs. Holly's eyes; when the pulse in the slim wrist outside the coverlet played hideandseek

with the cool, persistent fingers that sought so earnestly for it; when Perry Larson sat for uncounted sleepless

hours by the kitchen stove, and fearfully listened for a step crossing the hallway; when Mr. Jack on his porch,

and Miss Holbrook in her tower widow, went with David down into the dark valley, and came so near the

rushing river that life, with its petty prides and prejudices, could never seem quite the same to them again.

Then, after that blackest day and night, came the dawnas the dawns do come after the blackest of days and

nights. In the slender wrist outside the coverlet the pulse gained and steadied. On the forehead beneath the

nurse's fingers, a moisture came. The doctors nodded their heads now, and looked every one straight in the

eye. "He will live," they said. "The crisis is passed." Out by the kitchen stove Perry Larson heard the step

cross the hall and sprang upright; but at the first glimpse of Mrs. Holly's tearwet, yet radiant face, he

"Gosh!" he muttered. "Say, do you know, I didn't s'pose I did care so much! I reckon I'll go an' tell Mr. Jack.

David's convalescence was picturesque, in a way. As soon as he was able, like a king he sat upon his throne

and received his subjects; and a very gracious king he was, indeed. His room overflowed with flowers and

fruit, and his bed quite groaned with the toys and books and games brought for his diversion, each one of

which he hailed with delight, from Miss Holbrook's sumptuously bound "Waverley Novels" to little crippled

Only two things puzzled David: one was why everybody was so good to him; and the other was why he never

could have the pleasure of both Mr. Jack's and Miss Holbrook's company at the same time.

David discovered this last curious circumstance concerning Mr. Jack and Miss Holbrook very early in his

convalescence. It was on the second afternoon that Mr. Jack had been admitted to the sickroom. David had

been hearing all the latest news of Jill and Joe, when suddenly he noticed an odd change come to his visitor's

The windows of the Holly "parlor bedroom" commanded a fine view of the road, and it was toward one of

these windows that Mr. Jack's eyes were directed. David, sitting up in bed, saw then that down the road was

approaching very swiftly a handsome span of black horses and an open carriage which he had come to

recognize as belonging to Miss Holbrook. He watched it eagerly now till he saw the horses turn in at the

"It's my Lady of the Roses! She's coming to see me. Look! Oh, I'm so glad! Now you'll see her, and just

KNOW how lovely she is. Why, Mr. Jack, you aren't going NOW!" he broke off in manifest disappointment,

"I think I'll have to, if you don't mind, David," returned the man, an oddly nervous haste in his manner. "And

YOU won't mind, now that you'll have Miss Holbrook. I want to speak to Larson. I saw him in the field out

there a minute ago. And I guess I'll slip right through this window here, too, David. I don't want to lose him;

and I can catch him quicker this way than any other," he finished, throwing up the sash.

"Oh, but Mr. Jack, please just wait a minute," begged David. "I wanted you to see my Lady of the Roses,

and" But Mr. Jack was already on the ground outside the low window, and the next minute, with a merry

"Mrs. Holly said I was to walk right in, David, so here I am," she began, in a cheery voice. "Oh, you're

"I am better," caroled David; "and today I'm 'specially better, because Mr. Jack has been here."

"Oh, has Mr. Jack been to see you today?" There was an indefinable change in Miss Holbrook's voice.

"He didn't go through the hall," laughed David gleefully. "He went right through that window there."

"The window!" An angry flush mounted to Miss Holbrook's forehead. "Indeed, did he have to resort to that to

"Escape? Oh, HE wasn't the one that was escaping. It was Perry. Mr. Jack was afraid he'd lose him. He saw

him out the window there, right after he'd seen you, and he said he wanted to speak to him and he was afraid

"Oh, yes, Isee," murmured Miss Holbrook, in a voice David thought was a little queer.

"Oh, yes, I did. But he couldn't stay, even then. You see, he wanted to catch Perry Larson."

"I've no doubt of it," retorted Miss Holbrook, with so much emphasis that David again looked at her with a

"But he'll come again soon, I'm sure, and then maybe you'll be here, too. I do so want him to see you, Lady of

"Nonsense, David!" laughed Miss Holbrook alittle nervously. "Mr.Mr. Gurnsey doesn't want to see me.

"Oh, yes, he told me he'd seen you long ago," nodded David gravely; "but he didn't act as if he remembered it

"Didn't he, indeed!" laughed Miss Holbrook, again flushing a little. "Well, I'm sure, dear, we wouldn't want to

tax the poor gentleman's memory too much, you know. Come, suppose you see what I've brought you," she

"Oh, what is it?" cried David, as, under Miss Holbrook's swift fingers, the wrappings fell away and disclosed

a box which, upon being opened, was found to be filled with quantities of oddly shaped bits of pictured

"It's a jigsaw puzzle, David. All these little pieces fitted together make a picture, you see. I tried last night

"Oh, thank you! I'd love to," rejoiced the boy. And in the fascination of the marvel of finding one fantastic bit

that fitted another, David apparently forgot all about Mr. Jackwhich seemed not unpleasing to his Lady of

It was not until nearly a week later that David had his wish of seeing his Mr. Jack and his Lady of the Roses

meet at his bedside. It was the day Miss Holbrook brought to him the wonderful set of handsomely bound

"Waverley Novels." He was still glorying in his new possession, in fact, when Mr. Jack appeared suddenly in

"Hullo my boy, I justOh, I beg your pardon. I supposed you werealone," he stammered, looking very

"He isthat is, he will be, soonexcept for you, Mr. Gurnsey," smiled Miss Holbrook, very brightly. She

"No, no, I beg of you," stammered Mr. Jack, growing still more red. "Don't let me drivethat is, I mean,

don't go, please. I didn't know. I had no warningI didn't seeYour carriage was not at the door today."

"I sent it home. I am planning to walk back. I have several calls to make on the way; and it's high time I was

"But, Lady, of the Roses, please, please, don't go," besought David, who had been looking from one to the

But neither coaxing nor argument availed; and before David really knew just what had happened, he found

Even then disappointment was piled on disappointment, for Mr. Jack's visit was not the unalloyed happiness

it usually was. Mr. Jack himself was almost cross at first, and then he was silent and restless, moving jerkily

Mr. Jack had brought with him a book; but even that only made matters worse, for when he saw the

beautifully bound volumes that Miss Holbrook had just left, he frowned, and told David that he guessed he

did not need his gift at all, with all those other fine books. And David could not seem to make him understand

that the one book from him was just exactly as dear as were the whole set of books that his Lady of the Roses

Certainly it was not a satisfactory visit at all, and for the first time David was almost glad to have Mr. Jack go

and leave him with his books. The BOOKS, David told himself, he could understand; Mr. Jack he could

Several times after this David's Lady of the Roses and Mr. Jack happened to call at the same hour; but never

could David persuade these two friends of his to stay together. Always, if one came and the other was there,

the other went away, in spite of David's protestations that two people did not tire him at all and his assertions

that he often entertained as many as that at once. Tractable as they were in all other ways, anxious as they

seemed to please him, on this one point they were obdurate: never would they stay together.

They were not angry with each otherDavid was sure of that, for they were always very especially polite,

and rose, and stood, and bowed in a most delightful fashion. Still, he sometimes thought that they did not

quite like each other, for always, after the one went away, the other, left behind, was silent and almost

sternif it was Mr. Jack; and flushedfaced and nervousif it was Miss Holbrook. But why this was so

The span of handsome black horses came very frequently to the Holly farmhouse now, and as time passed

they often bore away behind them a whitefaced but happyeyed boy on the seat beside Miss Holbrook.

"My, but I don't see how every one can be so good to me!" exclaimed the boy, one day, to his Lady of the

"Oh, that's easy, David," she smiled. "The only trouble is to find out what you wantyou ask for so little."

"But I don't need to askyou do it all beforehand," asserted the, boy. "you and Mr. Jack, and everybody."

"Really? That's good." For a brief moment Miss Holbrook hesitated; then, as if casually, she asked: "And he

tells you stories, too, I suppose,this Mr. Jack,just as he used to, doesn't he?"

"Well, he never did tell me but one, you know, before; but he's told me more now, since I've been sick."

"Oh, yes, I remember, and that one was 'The Princess and the Pauper,' wasn't it? Well, has he told you any

"No, he doesn't tell me any more like that, andand I don't want him to, either."

"I've asked him to change it," went on David, in a grieved voice. "I asked him just the other day, but he

"Perhaps hehe didn't want to." Miss Holbrook spoke very quickly, but so low that David barely heard the

"Didn't want to? Oh, yes, he did! He looked awful sober, and as if he really cared, you know. And he said

he'd give all he had in the world if he really could change it, but he couldn't."

"Did he sayjust that?" Miss Holbrook was leaning forward a little breathlessly now.

"Yesjust that; and that's the part I couldn't understand," commented David. "For I don't see why a

storyjust a story made up out of somebody's headcan't be changed any way you want it. And I told him

"He didn't say anything for a minute, and I had to ask him again. Then he sat up suddenly, just as if he'd been

asleep, you know, and said, 'Eh, what, David?' And then I told him again what I'd said. This time he shook his

head, and smiled that kind of a smile that isn't really a smile, you know, and said something about a real,

truetolife story's never having but one ending, and that was a logical ending. Lady of the Roses, what is a

The Lady of the Roses laughed unexpectedly. The two little red spots, that David always loved to see, flamed

into her cheeks, and her eyes showed a sudden sparkle. When she answered, her words came disconnectedly,

"Well, David, II'm not sure I cantell you. But perhaps Ican find out. This much, however, I am sure

What she meant David did not know; nor would she tell him when he asked; but a few days later she sent for

It was November, and the garden was bleak and cold; but in the library a bright fire danced on the hearth, and

She looked particularly pretty, David thought. The rich red of her dress had apparently brought out an

answering red in her cheeks. Her eyes were very bright and her lips smiled; yet she seemed oddly nervous

and restless. She sewed a little, with a bit of yellow silk on whitebut not for long. She knitted with two

long ivory needles flashing in and out of a silky mesh of bluebut this, too, she soon ceased doing. On a low

stand at David's side she had placed books and pictures, and for a time she talked of those. Then very

"Tomorrow. I'm going up to the House that Jack Built to tea, and I'm to stay all night. It's Halloweenthat is,

it isn't really Halloween, because it's too late. I lost that, being sick, you know. So we're going to pretend, and

Mr. Jack is going to show me what it is like. That is what Mr. Jack and Jill always do; when something ails

the real thing, they just pretend with the makebelieve one. He's planned lots of things for Jill and me to do;

with nuts and apples and candles, you know. It's tomorrow night. so I'll see him then."

"Tomorrow? Soso soon?" faltered Miss Holbrook. And to David, gazing at her with wondering eyes, it

seemed for a moment almost as if she were looking about for a place to which she might run and hide. Then

determinedly, as if she were taking hold of something with both hands, she leaned forward, looked David

"David, listen. I've something I want you to say to Mr. Jack, and I want you to be sure and get it just right. It's

about thethe story, 'The Princess and the Pauper,' you know. You can remember, I think, for you

remembered that so well. Will you say it to himwhat I'm going to tell youjust as I say it?"

"Why, of course I will!" David's promise was unhesitating, though his eyes were still puzzled.

"It's about thethe ending," stammered Miss Holbrook. "That is, it mayit may have something to do with

the endingperhaps," she finished lamely. And again David noticed that odd shifting of Miss Holbrook's

gaze as if she were searching for some means of escape. Then, as before, he saw her chin lift determinedly, as

The pretended Halloween was a great suceess. So very excited, indeed, did David become over the swinging

apples and popping nuts that he quite forgot to tell Mr. Jack what the Lady of the Roses had said until Jill had

gone up to bed and he himself was about to take from Mr. Jack's hand the little lighted lamp.

"Oh, Mr. Jack, I forgot," he cried then. "There was something I was going to tell you."

"Never mind tonight, David; it's so late. Suppose we leave it until tomorrow," suggested Mr. Jack, still

"But I promised the Lady of the Roses that I'd say it tonight," demurred the boy, in a troubled voice.

With an abrupt exclamation Mr. Jack set the lamp on the table and turned to a chair. He had apparently lost

"See here, David, suppose you come and sit down, and tell me just what you're talking about. And firstjust

"Why, she knows it all, of course," returned the boy in surprise. "I told it to her."

"Well, I don't know as I can tell, exactly, but I'm sure she did n't like it, because just before she told me

WHAT to say to you, she said thatthat what she was going to say would probably have something to do

with the ending, anyway. Still" David paused in yet deeper thought. "Come to think of it, there really isn't

anythingnot in what she saidthat CHANGED that ending, as I can see. They didn't get married and live

"Yes, but what did she say?" asked Mr. Jack in a voice that was not quite steady. "Now, be careful, David,

"Did she?" Mr. Jack leaned farther forward in his chair. "But tell me, how did she happen toto say

anything about it? Suppose you begin at the beginningaway back, David. I want to hear it allall!"

"Well, to begin with, you see, I told her the story long ago, before I was sick, and she was ever so interested

then, and asked lots of questions. Then the other day something came upI've forgotten howabout the

ending, and I told her how hard I'd tried to have you change it, but you wouldn't. And she spoke right up

quick and said probably you didn't want to change it, anyhow. But of course I settled THAT question without

any trouble," went on David confidently, "by just telling her how you said you'd give anything in the world to

"Why, yes, I had to," answered David, in surprise, "else she wouldn't have known that you DID want to

"Oh, yes! Iseea good deal that I'm thinking you don't," muttered Mr. Jack, fallig back in his chair.

"Well, then is when I told her about the logical endingwhat you said, you know,oh, yes! and that was

when I found out she did n't like the ending, because she laughed such a funny little laugh and colored up,

and said that she wasn't sure she could tell me what a logical ending was, but that she would try to find out,

"She did; and then yesterday she asked me to come over, and she said some more things,about the story, I

mean,but she didn't say another thing about the ending. She didn't ever say anything about that except that

"Yes, yes, but what did she say?" demanded Mr. Jack, stopping short in his walk up and down the room.

"She said: 'You tell Mr. Jack that I know something about that story of his that perhaps he doesn't. In the first

place, I know the Princess a lot better than he does, and she isn't a bit the kind of girl he's pictured her."

" 'Now, for instance,' she says, 'when the boy made that call, after the girl first came back, and when the boy

didn't like it because they talked of colleges and travels, and such things, you tell him that I happen to know

that that girl was just hoping and hoping he'd speak of the old days and games; but that she could n't speak, of

course, when he hadn't been even once to see her during all those weeks, and when he'd acted in every way

"But she hadn't wavedthat Princess hadn't wavedonce!" argued Mr. Jack; "and he looked and looked for

"Yes, SHE spoke of that," returned David. "But SHE said she shouldn't think the Princess would have waved,

when she'd got to be such a great big girl as thatWAVING to a BOY! She said that for her part she should

It was plain to be seen that David's sympathies had unaccountably met with a change of heart.

"Oh, yes, and that's another thing," interrupted David. "The Lady of the Roses said that she didn't like that

name one bit; that it wasn't true, anyway, because he wasn't a pauper. And she said, too, that as for his

picturing the Princess as being perfectly happy in all that magnificence, he didn't get it right at all. For SHE

knew that the Princess wasn't one bit happy, because she was so lonesome for things and people she had

Again Mr. Jack sprang to his feet. For a minute he strode up and down the room in silence; then in a shaking

"David, youyou aren't making all this up, are you? You're saying just whatwhat Miss Holbrook told you

"Why, of course, I'm not making it up," protested the boy aggrievedly. "This is the Lady of the Roses'

storySHE made it uponly she talked it as if 't was real, of course, just as you did. She said another thing,

too. She said that she happened to know that the Princess had got all that magnificence around her in the first

place just to see if it wouldn't make her happy, but that it hadn't, and that now she had one placea little

roomthat was left just as it used to be when she was the girl, and that she went there and sat very often.

And she said it was right in sight of where the boy lived, too, where he could see it every day; and that if he

hadn't been so blind he could have looked right through those gray walls and seen that, and seen lots of other

"I don't knowI don't know, David," halfgroaned Mr. Jack. "Sometimes I think she meansand then I

"But do you think it's helped it anythe story?" persisted the boy. "She's only talked a little about the

"But she said it might, Davidshe said it might! Don't you remember?" cried the man eagerly. And to

David, his eagerness did not seem at all strange. Mr. Jack had said beforelong agothat he would be very

glad indeed to have a happier ending to this tale. "Think now," continued the man. "Perhaps she said

"No, onlyyes, there was a little something, but it doesn't CHANGE things any, for it was only a

'supposing.' She said: 'Just supposing, after long years, that the Princess found out about how the boy felt long

ago, and suppose he should look up at the tower some day, at the old time, and see a ONETWO wave,

which meant, "Come over to see me." Just what do you suppose he would do?' But of course, THAT can't do

any good," finished David gloomily, as he rose to go to bed, "for that was only a 'supposing.' "

"Of course," agreed Mr. Jack steadily; and David did not know that only stern selfcontrol had forced the

steadiness into that voice, nor that, for Mr. Jack, the whole world had burst suddenly into song.

Neither did David, the next morning, know that long before eight o'clock Mr. Jack stood at a certain window,

his eyes unswervingly fixed on the gray towers of Sunnycrest. What David did know, however, was that just

after eight, Mr. Jack strode through the room where he and Jill were playing checkers, flung himself into his

hat and coat, and then fairly leaped down the steps toward the path that led to the footbridge at the bottom of

"Why, whatever in the world ails Jack?" gasped Jill. Then, after a startled pause, she asked. "David, do folks

ever go crazy for joy? Yesterday, you see, Jack got two splendid pieces of news. One was from his doctor. He

was examined, and he's fine, the doctor says; all well, so he can go back, now any time, to the city and work.

I shall go to school then, you know,a young ladies' school," she finished, a little importantly.

"He's well? How splendid! But what was the other news? You said there were two; only it couldn't have been

"The other? Well, that was only that his old place in the city was waiting for him. He was with a firm of big

lawyers, you know, and of course it is nice to have a place all waiting. But I can't see anything in those things

"Why, yes, maybe," declared David. "He's found his workdon't you see?out in the world, and he's going

to do it. I know how I'd feel if I had found mine that father told me of! Only what I can't understand is, if Mr.

Jack knew all this yesterday, why did n't he act like this then, instead of waiting till today?"

David found many new songs in his violin those early winter days, and they were very beautiful ones. To

begin with, there were all the kindly looks and deeds that were showered upon him from every side. There

was the first snowstorm, too, with the feathery flakes turning all the world to fairy whiteness. This song

David played to Mr. Streeter, one day, and great was his disappointment that the man could not seem to

"But don't you see?" pleaded David. "I'm telling you that it's your peartree blossoms come back to say how

"Peartree blossomscome back!" ejaculated the old man. "Well, no, I can't see. Where's yer peartree

"Of course I do! Now, can't you see it? Why, the whole tree was just a great big cloud of snowflakes. Don't

you remember? Well, now it's gone away and got a whole lot more trees, and all the little white petals have

come dancing down to celebrate, and to tell you they sure are coming back next year."

"Well, by ginger!" exclaimed the man again. Then, suddenly, he threw back his head with a hearty laugh.

David did not quite like the laugh, neither did he care for the fivecent piece that the man thrust into his

fingers a little later; thoughhad David but known itboth the laugh and the fivecent piece gift werefor

It was soon after this that there came to David the great surprisehis beloved Lady of the Roses and his no

less beloved Mr. Jack were to be married at the beginning of the New Year. So very surprised, indeed, was

David at this, that even his violin was mute, and had nothing, at first, to say about it. But to Mr. Jack, as man

"I thought men, when they married women, went courting. In storybooks they do. And youyou hardly

ever said a word to my beautiful Lady of the Roses; and you spoke oncelong agoas if you scarcely

And Mr. Jack laughed, but he grew red, too,and then he told it all,that it was just the story of "The

Princess and the Pauper," and that he, David, had been the one, as it happened, to do part of their courting for

And how David had laughed then, and how he had fairly hugged himself for joy! And when next he had

picked up his violin, what a beautiful, beautiful song he had found about it in the vibrant strings!

It was this same song, as it chanced, that he was playing in his room that Saturday afternoon when the letter

"Ellen, we've got a letter fromJohn," he said. That Simeon Holly spoke of it at all showed how very far

along HIS unfamiliar way he had come since the last letter from John had arrived.

Simeon sat down and tried to hide the shaking of his hand as he ran the point of his knife under the flap of the

envelope. "We'll see whathe says." And to hear him, one might have thought that letters from John were

DEAR FATHER: Twice before I have written [ran the letter], and received no answer. But I'm going to make

one more effort for forgiveness. May I not come to you this Christmas? I have a little boy of my own now,

and my heart aches for you. I know how I should feel, should he, in years to come, do as I did.

I'll not deceive youI have not given up my art. You told me once to choose between you and itand I

chose, I suppose; at least, I ran away. Yet in the face of all that, I ask you again, may I not come to you at

"Well?" said Simeon Holly, trying to speak with a steady coldness that would not show how deeply moved he

"Yes, Simeon, yes!" choked his wife, a world of motherlove and longing in her pleading eyes and voice.

"Uncle Simeon, Aunt Ellen," called David, clattering down the stairs from his room, "I've found such a

beautiful song in my violin, and I'm going to play it over and over so as to be sure and remember it for

And Simeon Holly listenedbut it was not the violin that he heard. It was the voice of a little curlyheaded

When David stopped playing some time later, only the woman sat watching himthe man was over at his

John, John's wife, and John's boy came the day before Christmas, and great was the excitement in the Holly

farmhouse. John was found to be big, strong, and bronzed with the outdoor life of many a sketching tripa

son to be proud of, and to be leaned upon in one's old age. Mrs. John, according to Perry Larson, was "the

slickest little woman goin'." According to John's mother, she was an almost unbelievable incarnation of a

longdreamedof, longdespairedof daughtersweet, lovable, and charmingly beautiful. Little

Johnlittle John was himself; and he could not have been more had he been an angelcherub straight from

John Holly had been at his old home less than four hours when he chanced upon David's violin. He was with

his father and mother at the time. There was no one else in the room. With a sidelong glance at his parents, he

picked up the instrumentJohn Holly had not forgotten his own youth. His violinplaying in the old days

"Oh, the boy. You say youtook him in? By the way, what an odd little shaver he is! Never did I see a BOY

"David is a good boya very good boy, indeed, John. We think a great deal of him."

John Holly laughed lightly, yet his brow carried a puzzled frown. Two things John Holly had not been able

thus far to understand: an indefinable change in his father, and the position of the boy David, in the

"Hmm," he murmured, softly picking the strings, then drawing across them a tentative bow. "I've a fiddle at

A flicker of something that was very near to humor flashed from his father's eyes.

"Jove! but he's got the dandy instrument here," cried the player, dropping his bow after the first halfdozen

superbly vibrant tones, and carrying the violin to the window. A moment later he gave an amazed ejaculation

"Great Scott, father! Where did that boy get this instrument? I KNOW something of violins, if I can't play

" 'Had it when he came'! But, father, you said he was a tramp, andoh, come, tell me, what is the secret

behind this? Here I come home and find calmly reposing on my father's sittingroom table a violin that's

priceless, for all I know. Anyhow, I do know that its value is reckoned in the thousands, not hundreds: and

yet you, with equal calmness, tell me it's owned by this boy who, it's safe to say, doesn't know how to play

sixteen notes on it correctly, to say nothing of appreciating those he does play; and who, by your own

account, is nothing but" A swiftly uplifted hand of warning stayed the words on his lips. He turned to see

"Come in, David," said Simeon Holly quietly. "My son wants to hear you play. I don't think he has heard

you." And again there flashed from Simeon Holly's eyes a something very much like humor.

With obvious hesitation John Holly relinquished the violin. From the expression on his face it was plain to be

seen the sort of torture he deemed was before him. But, as if constrained to ask the question, he did say:

"I don't know. We've always had it, ever since I could rememberthis and the other one."

"Oh!" He hesitated; then, a little severely, he observed: "This is a fine instrument, boy,a very fine

"Yes," nodded David, with a cheerful smile. "Father said it was. I like it, too. This is an Amati, but the other

is a Stradivarius. I don't know which I do like best, sometimes, only this is mine."

"Why, noyesthat is, it's worth everythingto me," answered David, in a puzzled voice.

"At Joe Glaspell's. I gave it to him to play on, because he had n't any, and he liked to play so well."

"I loaned it to him," corrected David, in a troubled voice. "Being father's, I couldn't bear to give it away. But

" 'Something to play on'! Father, he doesn't mean the River Street Glaspells?" cried John Holly.

"I think he does. Joe is old Peleg Glaspell's grandson." John Holly threw up both his hands.

"A Stradivariusto old Peleg's grandson! Oh, ye gods!" he muttered. "Well, I'll be" He did not finish his

From his seat by the stove Simeon Holly watched his son's faceand smiled. He saw amazement, unbelief,

and delight struggle for the mastery; but before the playing had ceased, he was summoned by Perry Larson to

the kitchen on a matter of business. So it was into the kitchen that John Holly burst a little later, eyes and

"Father, where in Heaven's name DID you get that boy?" he demanded. "Who taught him to play like that?

I've been trying to find out from him, but I'd defy Sherlock Holmes himself to make head or tail of the sort of

lingo he talks, about mountain homes and the Orchestra of Life! Father, what DOES it mean?"

Obediently Simeon Holly told the story then, more fully than he had told it before. He brought forward the

"Perhaps you can make it out, son," he laughed. "None of the rest of us can, though I haven't shown it to

anybody now for a long time. I got discouraged long ago of anybody's ever making it out."

"Make it outmake it out!" cried John Holly excitedly; "I should say I could! It's a name known the world

"Easily guessed, from the letter, and from what the world knows," returned John, his voice still shaking with

excitement. "He was always a queer chap, they say, and full of his notions. Six or eight years ago his wife

died. They say he worshiped her, and for weeks refused even to touch his violin. Then, very suddenly, he,

with his fouryearold son, disappeareddropped quite out of sight. Some people guessed the reason. I

knew a man who was well acquainted with him, and at the time of the disappearance he told me quite a lot

about him. He said he was n't a bit surprised at what had happened. That already half a dozen relatives were

interfering with the way he wanted to bring the boy up, and that David was in a fair way to be spoiled, even

then, with so much attention and flattery. The father had determined to make a wonderful artist of his son,

and he was known to have said that he believedas do so many othersthat the first dozen years of a

child's life are the making of the man, and that if he could have the boy to himself that long he would risk the

rest. So it seems he carried out his notion until he was taken sick, and had to quitpoor chap!"

"But why didn't he tell us plainly in that note who he was, then?" fumed Simeon Holly, in manifest irritation.

"He did, he thought," laughed the other. "He signed his name, and he supposed that was so well known that

just to mention it would be enough. That's why he kept it so secret while he was living on the mountain, you

see, and that's why even David himself didn't know it. Of course, if anybody found out who he was, that

ended his scheme, and he knew it. So he supposed all he had to do at the last was to sign his name to that

note, and everybody would know who he was, and David would at once be sent to his own people. (There's

an aunt and some cousins, I believe.) You see he didn't reckon on nobody's being able to READ his name!

"I see, I see," nodded Simeon Holly, frowning a little. "And of course if we had made it out, some of us here

would have known it, probably. Now that you call it to mind I think I have heard it myself in days gone

bythough such names mean little to me. But doubtless somebody would have known. However, that is all

"Oh, yes, and no harm done. He fell into good hands, luckily. You'll soon see the last of him now, of course."

"Keep him! Why, father, you forget who he is! There are friends, relatives, an adoring public, and a mint of

money awaiting that boy. You can't keep him. You could never have kept him this long if this little town of

yours hadn't been buried in this forgotten valley up among these hills. You'll have the whole world at your

doors the minute they find out he is herehills or no hills! Besides, there are his people; they have some

There was no answer. With a suddenly old, drawn look on his face, the elder man had turned away.

Half an hour later Simeon Holly climbed the stairs to David's room, and as gently and plainly as he could told

David was amazed, but overjoyed. That he was found to be the son of a famous man affected him not at all,

only so far as it seemed to set his father right in other eyesin David's own, the man had always been

supreme. But the going awaythe marvelous going awayfilled him with excited wonder.

Simeon Holly's face paled a little; still, he knew David had not meant to make it so hard.

"Why, it's my 'start'just what I was going to have with the goldpieces," cried David joyously. Then,

Something, either the boy's agitation, or the luckless mention of the goldpieces sent a sudden dismayed

David shook his head. He did not intend to tell. But gently, persistently, Simeon Holly questioned until the

whole piteous little tale lay bare before him: the hopes, the house of dreams, the sacrifice.

David saw then what it means when a strong man is shaken by an emotion that has mastered him; and the

"Uncle SimeonPLEASE! II think I don't want to go, anyway. II'm sure I don't want to goand leave

"Go? Of course you'll go, David. Do you think I'd tie you here to meNOW?" he choked. "What don't I owe

to youhome, son, happiness! Go?of course you'll go. I wonder if you really think I'd let you stay! Come,

we'll go down to mother and tell her. I suspect she'll want to start in tonight to get your socks all mended

up!" And with head erect and a determined step, Simeon Holly faced the mighty sacrifice in his turn, and led

The friends, the relatives, the adoring public, the mint of moneythey are all David's now. But once each

year, man grown though he is, he picks up his violin and journeys to a little village far up among the hills.

There in a quiet kitchen he plays to an old man and an old woman; and always to himself he says that he is

practicing against the time when, his violin at his chin and the bow drawn across the strings, he shall go to

meet his father in the faraway land, and tell him of the beautiful world he has left.