Across lots to the Brumble farm came the dusty apparition of a boy, a tousle-headed, freckle-faced, gaunt-eyed little fellow, clad in a sort of combination suit fashioned from a pair of overalls and a woman’s shirtwaist. In search of “Miss M’ri,” he looked into the kitchen, the henhouse, the dairy, and the flower garden. Not finding her in any of these accustomed places, he stood still in perplexity.

“Miss M’ri!” rang out his youthful, vibrant treble.

There was a note of promise in the pleasant voice that came back in subterranean response.

“Here, David, in the cellar.”

The lad set down the tin pail he was carrying and eagerly sped to the cellar. His fondest hopes were realized. M’ri Brumble, thirty odd years of age, blue of eye, slightly gray of hair, and sweet of heart, was lifting the cover from the ice-cream freezer.

“Well, David Dunne, you came in the nick of time,” she said, looking up with kindly eyes. “It’s just frozen. I’ll dish you up some now, if you will run up to the pantry and fetch two saucers–biggest you can find.”

Fleetly David footed the stairs and returned with two soup plates.

“These were the handiest,” he explained apologetically as he handed them to her.

“Just the thing,” promptly reassured M’ri, transferring a heaping ladle of yellow cream to one of the plates. “Easy to eat out of, too.”

“My, but you are giving me a whole lot,” he said, watching her approvingly and encouragingly. “I hope you ain’t robbing yourself.”

“Oh, no; I always make plenty,” she replied, dishing a smaller portion for herself. “Here’s enough for our dinner and some for you to carry home to your mother.”

“I haven’t had any since last Fourth of July,” he observed in plaintive reminiscence as they went upstairs.

“Why, David Dunne, how you talk! You just come over here whenever you feel like eating ice cream, and I’ll make you some. It’s no trouble.”

They sat down on the west, vine-clad porch to enjoy their feast in leisure and shade. M’ri had never lost her childish appreciation of the delicacy, and to David the partaking thereof was little short of ecstasy. He lingered longingly over the repast, and when the soup plate would admit of no more scraping he came back with a sigh to sordid cares.

“Mother couldn’t get the washing done no-ways to-day. She ain’t feeling well, but you can have the clothes to-morrow, sure. She sent you some sorghum,” pointing to the pail.

M’ri took the donation into the kitchen. When she brought back the pail it was filled with eggs. Not to send something in return would have been an unpardonable breach of country etiquette.

“Your mother said your hens weren’t laying,” she said.

The boy’s eyes brightened.

“Thank you, Miss M’ri; these will come in good. Our hens won’t lay nor set. Mother says they have formed a union. But I ’most forgot to tell you–when I came past Winterses, Ziny told me to ask you to come over as soon as you could.”

“I suppose Zine has got one of her low spells,” said Barnabas Brumble, who had just come up from the barn. “Most likely Bill’s bin gittin’ tight agin. He–”

“Oh, no!” interrupted his sister hastily. “Bill has quit drinking.”

“Bill’s allers a-quittin’. Trouble with Bill is, he can’t stay quit. I see him yesterday comin’ down the road zig-zaggin’ like a rail fence. Fust she knows, she’ll hev to be takin’ washin’ to support him. Sometimes I think ’t would be a good idee to let him git sent over the road onct. Mebby ’t would learn him a lesson–”

He stopped short, noticing the significant look in M’ri’s eyes and the two patches of color spreading over David’s thin cheeks. He recalled that four years ago the boy’s father had died in state prison.

“You’d better go right over to Zine’s,” he added abruptly.

“I’ll wait till after dinner. We’ll have it early.”

“Hev it now,” suggested Barnabas.

“Now!” ejaculated David. “It’s only half-past ten.”

“I could eat it now jest as well as I could at twelve,” argued the philosophical Barnabas. “Jest as leaves as not.”

There were no iron-clad rules in this comfortable household, especially when Pennyroyal, the help, was away.

“All right,” assented M’ri with alacrity. “If I am going to do anything, I like to do it right off quick and get it over with. You stay, David, if you can eat dinner so early.”

“Yes, I can,” he assured her, recalling his scanty breakfast and the freezer of cream that was to furnish the dessert. “I’ll help you get it, Miss M’ri.”

He brought a pail of water from the well, filled the teakettle, and then pared the potatoes for her.

“When will Jud and Janey get their dinner?” he asked Barnabas.

“They kerried their dinner to-day. The scholars air goin’ to hev a picnic down to Spicely’s grove. How comes it you ain’t to school, Dave?”

“I have to help my mother with the washing,” he replied, a slow flush coming to his face. “She ain’t strong enough to do it alone.”

“What on airth kin you do about a washin’, Dave?”

“I can draw the water, turn the wringer, hang up the clothes, empty the tubs, fetch and carry the washings, and mop.”

Barnabas puffed fiercely at his pipe for a moment.

“You’re a good boy, Dave, a mighty good boy. I don’t know what your ma would do without you. I hed to leave school when I wa’n’t as old as you, and git out and hustle so the younger children could git eddicated. By the time I wuz foot-loose from farm work, I wuz too old to git any larnin’. You’d orter manage someway, though, to git eddicated.”

“Mother’s taught me to read and write and spell. When I get old enough to work for good wages I can go into town to the night school.”

In a short time M’ri had cooked a dinner that would have tempted less hearty appetites than those possessed by her brother and David.

“You ain’t what might be called a delikit feeder, Dave,” remarked Barnabas, as he replenished the boy’s plate for the third time. “You’re so lean I don’t see where you put it all.”

David might have responded that the vacuum was due to the fact that his breakfast had consisted of a piece of bread and his last night’s supper of a dish of soup, but the Dunne pride inclined to reservation on family and personal matters. He speared another small potato and paused, with fork suspended between mouth and plate.

“Mother says she thinks I am hollow inside like a stovepipe.”

“Well, I dunno. Stovepipes git filled sometimes,” ruminated his host.

“Leave room for the ice cream, David,” cautioned M’ri, as she descended to the cellar.

The lad’s eyes brightened as he beheld the golden pyramid. Another period of lingering bliss, and then with a sigh of mingled content and regret, David rose from the table.

“Want me to hook up for you, Mr. Brumble?” he asked, moved to show his gratitude for the hospitality extended.

“Why, yes, Dave; wish you would. My back is sorter lame to-day. Land o’ livin’,” he commented after David had gone to the barn, “but that boy swallered them potaters like they wuz so many pills!”

“Poor Mrs. Dunne!” sighed M’ri. “I am afraid it’s all she can do to keep a very small pot boiling. I am glad she sent the sorghum, so I could have an excuse for sending the eggs.”

“She hain’t poor so long as she hez a young sprout like Dave a-growin’ up. We used to call Peter Dunne ‘Old Hickory,’ but Dave, he’s second-growth hickory. He’s the kind to bend and not break. Jest you wait till he’s seasoned onct.”

After she had packed a pail of ice cream for David, gathered some flowers for Ziny, and made out a memorandum of supplies for Barnabas to get in town, M’ri set out on her errand of mercy.

The “hooking up” accomplished, David, laden with a tin pail in each hand and carrying in his pocket a drawing of black tea for his mother to sample, made his way through sheep-dotted pastures to Beechum’s woods, and thence along the bank of the River Rood. Presently he spied a young man standing knee-deep in the stream in the patient pose peculiar to fishermen.

“Catch anything?” called David eagerly.

The man turned and came to shore. He wore rubber hip boots, dark trousers, a blue flannel shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. His eyes, blue and straight-gazing, rested reminiscently upon the lad.

“No,” he replied calmly. “I didn’t intend to catch anything. What is your name?”

“David Dunne.”

The man meditated.

“You must be about twelve years old.”

“How did you know?”

“I am a good guesser. What have you got in your pail?”

“Which one?”

“Both.”

“Thought you were a good guesser.”

The youth laughed.

“You’ll do, David. Let me think–where did you come from just now?”

“From Brumble’s.”

“It’s ice cream you’ve got in your pail,” he said assuredly.

“That’s just what it is!” cried the boy in astonishment, “and there’s eggs in the other pail.”

“Let’s have a look at the ice cream.”

David lifted the cover.

“It looks like butter,” declared the stranger.

“It don’t taste like butter,” was the indignant rejoinder. “Miss M’ri makes the best cream of any one in the country.”

“I knew that, my young friend, before you did. It’s a long time since I had any, though. Will you sell it to me, David? I will give you half a dollar for it.”

Half a dollar! His mother had to work all day to earn that amount. The ice cream was not his–not entirely. Miss M’ri had sent it to his mother. Still–

“’T will melt anyway before I get home,” he argued aloud and persuasively.

“Of course it will,” asserted the would-be purchaser.

David surrendered the pail, and after much protestation consented to receive the piece of money which the young man pressed upon him.

“You’ll have to help me eat it now; there’s no pleasure in eating ice cream alone.”

“We haven’t any spoons,” commented the boy dubiously.

“We will go to my house and eat it.”

“Where do you live?” asked David in surprise.

“Just around the bend of the river here.”

David’s freckles darkened. He didn’t like to be made game of by older people, for then there was no redress.

“There isn’t any house within two miles of here,” he said shortly.

“What’ll you bet? Half a dollar?”

“No,” replied David resolutely.

“Well, come and see.”

David followed his new acquaintance around the wooded bank. The river was full of surprises to-day. In midstream he saw what looked to him like a big raft supporting a small house.

“That’s my shanty boat,” explained the young man, as he shoved a rowboat from shore. “Jump in, my boy.”

“Do you live in it all the time?” asked David, watching with admiration the easy but forceful pull on the oars.

“No; I am on a little fishing and hunting expedition.”

“Can’t kill anything now,” said the boy, a derisive smile flickering over his features.

“I am not hunting to kill, my lad. I am hunting old scenes and memories of other days. I used to live about here. I ran away eight years ago when I was just your age.”

“What is your name?” asked David interestedly.

“Joe Forbes.”

“Oh,” was the eager rejoinder. “I know. You are Deacon Forbes’ wild son that ran away.”

“So that’s how I am known around here, is it? Well, I’ve come back, to settle up my father’s estate.”

“What did you run away for?” inquired David.

“Combination of too much stepmother and a roving spirit, I guess. Here we are.”

He sprang on the platform of the shanty boat and helped David on board. The boy inspected this novel house in wonder while his host set saucers and spoons on the table.

“Would you mind,” asked David in an embarrassed manner as he wistfully eyed the coveted luxury, “if I took my dishful home?”

“What’s the matter?” asked Forbes, his eyes twinkling. “Eaten too much already?”

“No; but you see my mother likes it and she hasn’t had any since last summer. I’d rather take mine to her.”

“There’s plenty left for your mother. I’ll put this pail in a bigger one and pack ice about it. Then it won’t melt.”

“But you paid me for it,” protested David.

“That’s all right. Your mother was pretty good to me when I was a boy. She dried my mop of hair for me once so my stepmother would not know I’d been in swimming. Tell her I sent the cream to her. Say, you were right about Miss M’ri making the best cream in the country. It used to be a chronic pastime with her. That’s how I guessed what you had when you said you came from there. Whenever there was a picnic or a surprise party in the country she always furnished the ice cream. Isn’t she married yet?”

“No.”

“Doesn’t she keep company with some lucky man?”

“No,” again denied the boy emphatically.

“What’s the matter? She used to be awfully pretty and sweet.”

“She is now, but she don’t want any man.”

“Well, now, David, that isn’t quite natural, you know. Why do you think she doesn’t want one?”

“I heard say she was crossed once.”

“Crossed, David? And what might that be?” asked Forbes in a delighted feint of perplexity.

“Disappointed in love, you know.”

“Yes; it all comes back now–the gossip of my boyhood days. She was going with a man when Barnabas’ wife died and left two children–one a baby–and Miss M’ri gave up her lover to do her duty by her brother’s family. So Barnabas never married again?”

“No; Miss M’ri keeps house and brings up Jud and Janey.”

“I remember Jud–mean little shaver. Janey must be the baby.”

“She’s eight now.”

“I remember you, David. You were a little toddler of four–all eyes. Your folks had a place right on the edge of town.”

“We left it when I was six years old and came out here,” informed David.

Forbes’ groping memory recalled the gossip that had reached him in the Far West. “Dunne went to prison,” he mused, “and the farm was mortgaged to defray the expenses of the trial.” He hastened back to a safer channel.

“Miss M’ri was foolish to spoil her life and the man’s for fancied duty,” he observed.

David bridled.

“Barnabas couldn’t go to school when he was a boy because he had to work so she and the other children could go. She’d ought to have stood by him.”

“I see you have a sense of duty, too. This county was always strong on duty. I suppose they’ve got it in for me because I ran away?”

“Mr. Brumble says it was a wise thing for you to do. Uncle Larimy says you were a brick of a boy. Miss Rhody says she had no worry about her woodpile getting low when you were here.”

“Poor Miss Rhody! Does she still live alone? And Uncle Larimy–is he uncle to the whole community? What fishing days I had with him! I must look him up and tell him all my adventures. I have planned a round of calls for to-night–Miss M’ri, Miss Rhody, Uncle Larimy–”

“Tell me about your adventures,” demanded David breathlessly.

He listened to a wondrous tale of western life, and never did narrator get into so close relation with his auditor as did this young ranchman with David Dunne.

“I must go home,” said the boy reluctantly when Joe had concluded.

“Come down to-morrow, David, and we’ll go fishing.”

“All right. Thank you, sir.”

With heart as light as air, David sped through the woods. He had found his Hero.

CHAPTER II

David struck out from the shelter of the woodland and made his way to his home, a pathetically small, rudely constructed house. The patch of land supposed to be a garden, and in proportion to the dimensions of the building, showed a few feeble efforts at vegetation. It was not positively known that the Widow Dunne had a clear title to her homestead, but one would as soon think of foreclosing a mortgage on a playhouse, or taking a nest from a bird, as to press any claim on this fallow fragment in the midst of prosperous farmlands.

Some discouraged looking fowls picked at the scant grass, a lean cow switched a lackadaisical tail, and in a pen a pig grunted his discontent.

David went into the little kitchen, where a woman was bending wearily over a washtub.

“Mother,” cried the boy in dismay, “you said you’d let the washing go till to-morrow. That’s why I didn’t come right back.”

She paused in the rubbing of a soaped garment and wrung the suds from her tired and swollen hands.

“I felt better, David, and I thought I’d get them ready for you to hang out.”

David took the garment from her.

“Sit down and eat this ice cream Miss M’ri sent–no, I mean Joe Forbes sent you. There was more, but I sold it for half a dollar; and here’s a pail of eggs and a drawing of tea she wants you to sample. She says she is no judge of black tea.”

“Joe Forbes!” exclaimed his mother interestedly. “I thought maybe he would be coming back to look after the estate. Is he going to stay?”

“I’ll tell you all about him, mother, if you will sit down.”

He began a vigorous turning of the wringer.

The patient, tired-looking eyes of the woman brightened as she dished out a saucer of the cream. The weariness in the sensitive lines of her face and the prominence of her knuckles bore evidence of a life of sordid struggle, but, above all, the mother love illumined her features with a flash of radiance.

“You’re a good provider, David; but tell me where you have been for so long, and where did you see Joe?”

He gave her a faithful account of his dinner at the Brumble farm and his subsequent meeting with Joe, working the wringer steadily as he talked.

“There!” he exclaimed with a sigh of satisfaction, “they are ready for the line, but before I hang them out I am going to cook your dinner.”

“I am rested now, David. I will cook me an egg.”

“No, I will,” insisted the boy, going to the stove.

A few moments later, with infinite satisfaction, he watched her partake of crisp toast, fresh eggs, and savory tea.

“Did you see Jud and Janey?” she asked suddenly.

“No; they were at school.”

“David, you shall go regularly to school next fall.”

“No,” said David stoutly; “next fall I am going to work regularly for some of the farmers, and you are not going to wash any more.”

Her eyes grew moist.

“David, will you always be good–will you grow up to be as good a man as I want you to be?”

“How good do you want me to be?” he asked dubiously.

A radiant and tender smile played about her mouth.

“Not goodygood, David; but will you always be honest, and brave, and kind, as you are now?”

“I’ll try, mother.”

“And never forget those who do you a kindness, David; always show your gratitude.”

“Yes, mother.”

“And, David, watch your temper and, whatever happens, I shall have no fears for your future.”

His mother seldom talked to him in this wise. He thought about it after he lay in his little cot in the sitting room that night; then his mind wandered to Joe Forbes and his wonderful tales of the West. He fell asleep to dream of cowboys and prairies. When he awoke the sun was sending golden beams through the eastward window.

“Mother isn’t up,” he thought in surprise. He stole quietly out to the kitchen, kindled a fire with as little noise as possible, put the kettle over, set the table, and then went into the one tiny bedroom where his mother lay in her bed, still–very still.

“Mother,” he said softly.

There was no response.

“Mother,” he repeated. Then piercingly, in excitement and fear, “Mother!”

At last he knew.

He ran wildly to the outer door. Bill Winters, fortunately sober, was driving slowly by.

“Bill!”

“What’s the matter, Dave?” looking into the boy’s white face. “Your ma ain’t sick, is she?”

David’s lips quivered, but seemed almost unable to articulate.

“She’s dead,” he finally whispered.

“I’ll send Zine right over,” exclaimed Bill, slapping the reins briskly across the drooping neck of his horse.

Very soon the little house was filled to overflowing with kind and sympathetic neighbors who had come to do all that had to be done. David sat on the back doorstep until M’ri came; before the expression in his eyes she felt powerless to comfort him.

“The doctor says your mother died in her sleep,” she told him. “She didn’t suffer any.”

He made no reply. Oppressed by the dull pain for which there is no ease, he wandered from the house to the garden, and from the garden back to the house throughout the day. At sunset Barnabas drove over.

“I shall stay here to-night, Barnabas,” said M’ri, “but I want you to drive back and get some things. I’ve made out a list. Janey will know where to find them.”

“Sha’n’t I take Dave back to stay to-night?” he suggested.

M’ri hesitated, and looked at David.

“No,” he said dully, following Barnabas listlessly down the path to the road.

Barnabas, keen, shrewd, and sharp at a bargain, had a heart that ever softened to motherless children.

“Dave,” he said gently, “your ma won’t never hev to wash no more, and she’ll never be sick nor tired agen.”

It was the first leaven to his loss, and he held tight to the horny hand of his comforter. After Barnabas had driven away there came trudging down the road the little, lithe figure of an old man, who was carrying a large box. His mildly blue, inquiring eyes looked out from beneath their hedge of shaggy eyebrows. His hair and his beard were thick and bushy. Joe Forbes maintained that Uncle Larimy would look no different if his head were turned upside down.

“David,” he said softly, “I’ve brung yer ma some posies. She liked my yaller roses, you know. I’m sorry my laylocks are gone. They come early this year.”

“Thank you, Uncle Larimy.”

A choking sensation warned David to say no more.

“Things go ’skew sometimes, Dave, but the sun will shine agen,” reminded the old man, as he went on into the house.

Later, when sundown shadows had vanished and the first glimmer of the stars radiated from a pale sky, Joe came over. David felt no thrill at sight of his hero. The halo was gone. He only remembered with a dull ache that the half dollar had brought his mother none of the luxuries he had planned to buy for her.

“David,” said the young ranchman, his deep voice softened, “my mother died when I was younger than you are, but you won’t have a stepmother to make life unbearable for you.”

The boy looked at him with inscrutable eyes.

“Don’t you want to go back with me to the ranch, David? You can learn to ride and shoot.”

David shook his head forlornly. His spirit of adventure was smothered.

“We’ll talk about it again, David,” he said, as he went in to consult M’ri.

“Don’t you think the only thing for the boy to do is to go back with me? I am going to buy the ranch on which I’ve been foreman, and I’ll try to do for David all that should have been done for me when I, at his age, felt homeless and alone. He’s the kind that takes things hard and quiet; life in the open will pull him up.”

“No, Joe,” replied M’ri resolutely. “He’s not ready for that kind of life yet. He needs to be with women and children a while longer. Barnabas and I are going to take him. Barnabas suggested it, and I told Mrs. Dunne one day, when her burdens were getting heavy, that we would do so if anything like this should happen.”

Joe looked at her with revering eyes.

“Miss M’ri, you are so good to other people’s children, what would you be to your own!”

The passing of M’ri’s youth had left a faint flush of prettiness like the afterglow of a sunset faded into twilight. She was of the kind that old age would never wither. In the deep blue eyes was a patient, reflective look that told of a past but unforgotten romance. She turned from his gaze, but not before he had seen the wistfulness his speech had evoked. After he had gone, she sought David.

“I am going to stay here with you, David, for two or three days. Then Barnabas and I want you to come to live with us. I had a long talk with your mother one day, and I told her if anything happened to her you should be our boy. That made her less anxious about the future, David. Will you come?”

The boy looked up with his first gleam of interest in mundane things.

“I’d like it, but would–Jud?”

“I am afraid Jud doesn’t like anything, David,” she replied with a sigh. “That’s one reason I want you–to be a big brother to Janey, for I think that is what she needs, and what Jud can never be.”

The boy remembered what his mother had counseled.

“I’ll always take care of Janey,” he earnestly assured her.

“I know you will, David.”

Two dreary days passed in the way that such days do pass, and then David rode to his new home with Barnabas and M’ri.

Jud Brumble, a refractory, ungovernable lad of fifteen, didn’t look altogether unfavorably upon the addition to the household, knowing that his amount of work would thereby be lessened, and that he would have a new victim for his persecutions and tyrannies.

Janey, a little rosebud of a girl with dimples and flaxen curls, hung back shyly and looked at David with awed eyes. She had been frightened by what she had heard about his mother, and in a vague, disconnected way she associated him with Death. M’ri went to the child’s bedside that night and explained the situation. “Poor Davey is all alone, now, and very unhappy, so we must be kind to him. I told him you were to be his little sister.”

Then M’ri took David to a gabled room, at each end of which was a swinging window–“one for seeing the sun rise, and one for seeing it set,” she said, as she turned back the covers from the spotless white bed. She yearned to console him, but before the mute look of grief in his big eyes she was silent.

“I wish he would cry,” she said wistfully to Barnabas, “he hasn’t shed a tear since his mother died.”

No sooner had the sound of her footsteps ceased than David threw off his armor of self-restraint and burst into a passion of sobs, the wilder for their long repression. He didn’t hear the patter of little feet on the floor, and not until two mothering arms were about his neck did he see the white-robed figure of Janey.

“Don’t cry, Davey,” she implored,