The lilac-scented breeze of early morning blowing softly through the vine-latticed window and stirring its white draperies brought David to wakefulness. With the first surprise at the strangeness of his surroundings came a fluttering of memory. The fragrance of lilacs was always hereafter to bring back the awfulness of this waking moment.

He hurriedly dressed, and went down to the kitchen where M’ri was preparing breakfast.

“Good morning, David. Janey has gone to find some fresh eggs. You may help her hunt them, if you will.”

Knowing the haunts of hens, he went toward the currant bushes. It was one of those soft days that link late spring and dawning summer. The coolness of the sweet-odored air, the twitter of numberless dawn birds, the entreating lowing of distant cattle–all breathing life and strength–were like a resurrection call to David.

On the east porch, which was his retreat for a smoke or a rest between the intervals of choring and meals, Barnabas sat, securely wedged in by the washing machine, the refrigerator, the plant stand, the churn, the kerosene can, and the lawn mower. He gazed reflectively after David.

“What are you going to hev Dave do to help, M’ri?”

M’ri came to the door and considered a moment.

“First of all, Barnabas, I am going to have him eat. He is so thin and hungry looking.”

Barnabas chuckled. His sister’s happiest mission was the feeding of hungry children.

After breakfast, when Janey’s rebellious curls were again being brushed into shape, M’ri told David he could go to school if he liked. To her surprise the boy flushed and looked uncomfortable. M’ri’s intuitions were quick and generally correct.

“It’s so near the end of the term, though,” she added casually, as an afterthought, “that maybe you had better wait until next fall to start in.”

“Yes, please, Miss M’ri, I’d rather,” he said quickly and gratefully.

When Janey, dinner pail in hand and books under arm, was ready to start, David asked in surprise where Jud was.

“Oh, he has gone long ago. He thinks he is too big to walk with Janey.”

David quietly took the pail and books from the little girl.

“I’ll take you to school, Janey, and come for you this afternoon.”

“We won’t need to git no watch dog to foller Janey,” said Barnabas, as the children started down the path.

“David,” called M’ri, “stop at Miss Rhody’s on your way back and find out whether my waist is finished.”

With proudly protective air, David walked beside the stiffly starched little girl, who had placed her hand trustfully in his. They had gone but a short distance when they were overtaken by Joe Forbes, mounted on a shining black horse. He reined up and looked down on them good-humoredly.

“Going to school, children?”

“I am. Davey’s just going to carry my things for me,” explained Janey.

“Well, I can do that and carry you into the bargain. Help her up, David.”

Janey cried out in delight at the prospect of a ride. David lifted her up, and Joe settled her comfortably in the saddle, encircling her with his arm. Then he looked down whimsically into David’s disappointed eyes.

“I know it’s a mean trick, Dave, to take your little sweetheart from you.”

“She’s not my sweetheart; she’s my sister.”

“Has she promised to be that already? Get up, Firefly.”

They were off over the smooth country road, Forbes shouting a bantering good-by and Janey waving a triumphant dinner pail, while David, trudging on his way, experienced the desolate feeling of the one who is left behind. Across fields he came to the tiny, thatched cottage of Miss Rhody Crabbe, who stood on the crumbling doorstep feeding some little turkeys.

“Come in, David. I suppose you’re after M’ri’s waist. Thar’s jest a few stitches to take, and I’ll hev it done in no time.”

He followed her into the little house, which consisted of a sitting room “with bedroom off,” and a kitchen whose floor was sand scoured; the few pieces of tinware could be used as mirrors. Miss Rhody seated herself by the open window and began to ply her needle. She did not sew swiftly and smoothly, in feminine fashion, but drew her long-threaded needle through the fabric in abrupt and forceful jerks. A light breeze fluttered in through the window, but it could not ruffle the wisp-locked hair that showed traces of a water-dipped comb and was strained back so taut that a little mound of flesh encircled each root. Her eyes were bead bright and swift moving. Everything about her, to the aggressively prominent knuckles, betokened energy and industry. She was attired in a blue calico shortened by many washings, but scrupulously clean and conscientiously starched. Her face shone with soap and serenity.

Miss Rhody’s one diversion in a busy but monotonous life was news. She was wretched if she did not receive the latest bulletins; but it was to her credit that she never repeated anything that might work harm or mischief. David was one of her chosen confidants. He was a safe repository of secrets, a sympathetic listener, and a wise suggester.

“I’m glad M’ri’s hevin’ a blue waist. She looks so sweet in blue. I’ve made her clo’es fer years. My, how I hoped fer to make her weddin’ clo’es onct! It wuz a shame to hev sech a good match spiled. It wuz too bad she hed to hev them two chillern on her hands–”

“And now she has a third,” was what David thought he read in her eyes, and he hastened to assert: “I am going to help all I can, and I’ll soon be old enough to take care of myself.”

“Land sakes, David, you’d be wuth more’n yer keep to any one. I wonder,” she said ruminatingly, “if Martin Thorne will wait for her till Janey’s growed up.”

“Martin Thorne!” exclaimed David excitedly. “Judge Thorne? Why, was he the one–”

“He spent his Sunday evenings with her,” she asserted solemnly.

In the country code of courtships this procedure was conclusive proof, and David accepted it as such.

“He wuz jest plain Lawyer Thorne when he wuz keepin’ company with M’ri, but we all knew Mart wuz a comin’ man, and M’ri wuz jest proud of him. You could see that, and he wuz sot on her.”

Her work momentarily neglected, Rhody was making little reminiscent stabs at space with her needle as she spoke.

“’T wuz seven years ago. M’ri wuz twenty-eight and Mart ten years older. It would hev ben a match as sure as preachin’, but Eliza died and M’ri, she done her duty as she seen it. Sometimes I think folks is near-sighted about their duty. There is others as is queer-sighted. Bein’ crossed hain’t spiled M’ri though. She’s kep’ sweet through it all, but when a man don’t git his own way, he’s apt to curdle. Mart got sort of tart-tongued and cold feelin’. There wa’n’t no reason why they couldn’t a kep’ on bein’ friends, but Mart must go and make a fool vow that he’d never speak to M’ri until she sent him word she’d changed her mind, so he hez ben a-spitin’ of his face ever sence. It’s wonderful how some folks do git in their own way, but, my sakes, I must git to work so you kin take this waist home.”

This was David’s first glimpse of a romance outside of story-books, but the name of Martin Thorne evoked disturbing memories. Six years ago he had acted as attorney to David’s father in settling his financial difficulties, and later, after Peter Dunne’s death, the Judge had settled the small estate. It was only through his efforts that they were enabled to have the smallest of roofs over their defenseless heads.

“Miss Rhody,” he asked after a long meditation on life in general, “why didn’t you ever marry?”

Miss Rhody paused again in her work, and two little spots of red crept into her cheeks.

“’Tain’t from ch’ice I’ve lived single, David. I’ve ben able to take keer of myself, but I allers hed a hankerin’ same as any woman, as is a woman, hez fer a man, but I never got no chanst to meet men folks. I wuz raised here, and folks allers hed it all cut out fer me to be an old maid. When a woman onct gets that name fixt on her, it’s all off with her chances. No man ever comes nigh her, and she can’t git out of her single rut. I never could get to go nowhars, and I wa’n’t that bold kind that makes up to a man fust, afore he gives a sign.”

David pondered over this wistful revelation for a few moments, seeking a means for her seemingly hopeless escape from a life of single blessedness, for David was a sympathetic young altruist, and felt it incumbent upon him to lift the burdens of his neighbors. Then he suggested encouragingly:

“Miss Rhody, did you know that there was a paper that gets you acquainted with men? That’s the way they say Zine Winters got married.”

“Yes, and look what she drawed!” she scoffed. “Bill! I don’t know how they’d live if Zine hadn’t a-gone in heavy on hens and turkeys. She hez to spend her hull time a-traipsin’ after them turkeys, and thar ain’t nuthin’ that’s given to gaddin’ like turkeys that I know on, less ’t is Chubbses’ hired gal. No, David, it’s chance enough when you git a man you’ve knowed allers, but a stranger! Well! I want to know what I’m gittin’. Thar, the last stitch in M’ri’s waist is took, and, David, you won’t tell no one what I said about Mart Thorne and her, nor about my gittin’ merried?”

David gave her a reproachful look, and she laughed shamefacedly.

“I know, David, you kin keep a secret. It’s like buryin’ a thing to tell it to you. My, this waist’ll look fine on M’ri. I jest love the feel of silk. I’d ruther hev a black silk dress than–”

“A husband,” prompted David slyly.

“David Dunne, I’ll box yer ears if you ever think again of what I said. I am allers a-thinkin’ of you as if you wuz a stiddy grown man, and then fust thing I know you’re nuthin’ but a teasin’ boy. Here’s the bundle, and don’t you want a nutcake, David?”

“No, thank you, Miss Rhody. I ate a big breakfast.”

A fellow feeling had prompted David even in his hungriest days to refrain from accepting Miss Rhody’s proffers of hospitality. He knew the emptiness of her larder, for though she had been thrifty and hard-working, she had paid off a mortgage and had made good the liabilities of an erring nephew.

When David returned he found Miss M’ri in the dairy. It was churning day, and she was arranging honey-scented, rose-stamped pats of butter on moist leaves of crisp lettuce.

“David,” she asked, looking up with a winning smile, “will you tell me why you didn’t want to go to school?”

The boy’s face reddened, but his eyes looked frankly into hers.

“Yes, Miss M’ri.”

“Before you tell me, David,” she interposed, “I want you to remember that, from now on, Barnabas and I are your uncle and aunt.”

“Well, then, Aunt M’ri,” began David, a ring of tremulous eagerness in his voice, “I can read and write and spell, but I don’t know much about arithmetic and geography. I was ashamed to start in at the baby class. I thought I’d try and study out of Jud’s books this summer.”

“That’s a good idea, David. We’ll begin now. You’ll find an elementary geography in the sitting room on the shelf, and you may study the first lesson. This afternoon, when my work is done, I’ll hear you recite it.”

David took the book and went out into the old orchard. When M’ri went to call him to dinner he was sprawled out in the latticed shadow of an apple tree, completely absorbed in the book.

“You have spent two hours on your first lesson, David. You ought to have it well learned.”

He looked at her in surprise.

“I read the whole book through, Aunt M’ri.”

“Oh, David,” she expostulated, “that’s the way Barnabas takes his medicine. Instead of the prescribed dose after each meal he takes three doses right after breakfast–so as to get it off his mind and into his system, he says. We’ll just have one short lesson in geography and one in arithmetic each day. You mustn’t do things in leaps. It’s the steady dog trot that lasts, and counts on the long journey.”

When David was on his way to bring Janey from school that afternoon he was again overtaken by Joe Forbes.

“Dave, I am going to Chicago in a few days, and I shall stop there long enough to buy a few presents to send back to some of my friends. Here’s my list. Let me see, Uncle Larimy, a new-fangled fishing outfit; Barnabas, a pipe; Miss M’ri–guess, Dave.”

“You’re the guesser, you know,” reminded David.

“It’s a new kind of ice-cream freezer, of course.”

“She’s going to freeze ice to-night,” recalled David anticipatingly.

“Freeze ice! What a paradoxical process! But what I want you to suggest is something for Miss Rhody–something very nice.”

“What she wants most is something you can’t get her,” thought David, looking up with a tantalizing little smile. Then her second wish occurred to him.

“I know something she wants dreadfully; something she never expects to have.”

“That is just what I want to get for her.”

“It’ll cost a lot.”

Joe disposed of that consideration by a munificent wave of the hand.

“What is it?”

“A black silk dress,” informed the boy delightedly.

“She shall have it. How many yards does it take, I wonder?”

“We can ask Janey’s teacher when we get to school,” suggested the boy.

“So we can. I contrived to find out that Janey’s heart is set on a string of beads–blue beads. I suppose, to be decent, I shall have to include Jud. What will it be?”

“He wants a gun. He’s a good shot, too.”

They loitered on the way, discussing Joe’s gifts, until they met Janey and Little Teacher coming toward them hand in hand. David quickly secured the pail and books before Joe could appropriate them. He wasn’t going to be cut out a second time in one day.

“Miss Williams,” asked the young ranchman, “will your knowledge of mathematics tell me how many yards of black silk I must get to make a dress, and what kind of fixings I shall need for it?”

“You don’t have to know,” she replied. “Just go into any department store and tell them you want a dress pattern and the findings. They will do the rest.”

“Shopping made easy. You shall have your reward now. My shanty boat is just about opposite here. Suppose the four of us go down to the river and have supper on board?”

Little Teacher, to whom life was a vista of blackboards dotted with vacations, thought this would be delightful. A passing child was made a messenger to the farm, and they continued their way woodward to the river, where the shanty boat was anchored. Little Teacher set the table, Joe prepared the meal, while David sat out on deck, beguiling Janey with wonderful stories.

“This seems beautifully domestic to a cowboy,” sighed Joe, looking around the supper table, his gaze lingering on Little Teacher, who was dimpling happily. Imaginative David proceeded to weave his third romance that day, with a glad little beating of the heart, for he had feared that Joe might be planning to wait for Janey, as the Judge was doubtless waiting for M’ri.

The children went directly home after supper, Joe accompanying Little Teacher. Despite the keenness of David’s sorrow the day had been a peaceful, contented one, but when the shadows began to lengthen to that most lonesome hour of lonesome days, when from home-coming cows comes the sound of tinkling bells, a wave of longing swept over him, and he stole away to the orchard. Again, a soft, sustaining little hand crept into his.

“Don’t, Davey,” pleaded a caressing voice, “don’t make me cry.”

CHAPTER IV

Outside of the time allotted for the performance of a wholesome amount of farm work and the preparation of his daily lessons, David was free for diversions which had hitherto entered sparingly into his life. After school hours and on Saturdays the Barnabas farm was the general rendezvous for all the children within a three-mile radius. The old woods by the river rang with the gay treble of childish laughter and the ecstatic barking of dogs dashing in frantic pursuit. There was always an open sesame to the cookie jar and the apple barrel.

David suffered the common fate of all in having a dark cloud. Jud was the dark cloud, and his silver lining had not yet materialized.

In height and physical strength Jud was the superior, so he delighted in taunting and goading the younger boy. There finally came a day when instinctive self-respect upheld David in no longer resisting the call to arms. Knowing Barnabas’ disapproval of fighting, and with his mother’s parting admonition pricking his conscience, he went into battle reluctantly and half-heartedly, so the fight was not prolonged, and Jud’s victory came easily. Barnabas, hurrying to the scene of action, called Jud off and reprimanded him for fighting a smaller boy, which hurt David far more than did the pummeling he had received.

“What wuz you fighting fer, anyway?” he demanded of David.

“Nothing,” replied David laconically, “just fighting.”

“Jud picks on Davey all the time,” was the information furnished by the indignant Janey, who had followed her father.

“Well, I forbid either one of you to fight again. Now, Jud, see that you leave Dave alone after this.”

Emboldened by his easily won conquest and David’s apparent lack of prowess, Jud continued his jeering and nagging, but David set his lips in a taut line of finality and endured in silence until there came the taunt superlative.

“Your mother was a washerwoman, and your father a convict.”

There surged through David a fierce animal hate. With a tight closing of his hardy young fist, he rushed to the onslaught so swiftly and so impetuously that Jud recoiled in fear and surprise. With his first tiger-like leap David had the older boy by the throat and bore him to the ground, maintaining and tightening his grip as they went down.

“I’ll kill you!”

David’s voice was steady and calm, but the boy on the ground underneath felt the very hairs of his head rising at the look in the dark eyes above his own.

Fortunately for both of them Barnabas was again at hand.

He jerked David to his feet.

“Fightin’ again, are you, after I told you not to!”

“It was him, David, that began it. I never struck him,” whimpered Jud, edging away behind his father.

“Did you, David?” asked Barnabas bluntly, still keeping his hold on the boy, who was quivering with passion.

“Yes.”

His voice sounded odd and tired, and there was an ache of bafflement in his young eyes.

“What fer? What did he do to make you so mad?”

“He said my mother was a washerwoman and my father a convict! Let me go! I’ll kill him!”

With a returning rush of his passion, David struggled in the man’s grasp.

“Wait, Dave, I’ll tend to him. Go to the barn, Jud!” he commanded his son.

Jud quailed before this new, strange note in his father’s voice.

“David was fighting. You said neither of us was to fight. ’T ain’t fair to take it out on me.”

Fairness was one of Barnabas’ fixed and prominent qualities, but Jud was not to gain favor by it this time.

“Well, you don’t suppose I’m a-goin’ to lick Dave fer defendin’ his parents, do you? Besides, I’m not a-goin’ to lick you fer fightin’, but fer sayin’ what you did. I guess you’d hev found out that Dave could wallop you ef he is smaller and younger.”

“He can’t!” snarled Jud. “I didn’t have no show. He came at me by surprise.”

Barnabas reflected a moment. Then he said gravely:

“When it’s in the blood of two fellers to fight, why thar’s got to be a fight, that’s all. Thar won’t never be no peace until this ere question’s settled. Dave, do you still want to fight him?”

A fierce aftermath of passion gleamed in David’s eyes.

“Yes!” he cried, his nostrils quivering.

“And you’ll fight fair? Jest to punish–with no thought of killin’?”

“I’ll fight fair,” agreed the boy.

“I’ll see that you do. Come here, Jud.”

“I don’t want to fight,” protested Jud sullenly.

“He’s afraid,” said David gleefully, every muscle quivering and straining.

“I ain’t!” yelled Jud.

“Come on, then,” challenged David, a fierce joy tugging at his heart.

Jud came with deliberate precision and a swing of his left. He was heavier and harder, but David was more agile, and his whole heart was in the fight this time. They clutched and grappled and parried, and finally went down; first one was on top, then the other. It was the wage of brute force against elasticity; bluster against valor. Jud fought in fear; David, in ferocity. At last David bore his oppressor backward and downward. Jud, exhausted, ceased to struggle.

“Thar!” exclaimed Barnabas, drawing a relieved breath. “I guess you know how you stand now, and we’ll all feel better. You’ve got all that’s comin’ to you, Jud, without no more from me. You can both go to the house and wash up.”

Uncle Larimy had arrived at the finish of the fight.

“What’s the trouble, Barnabas?” he asked interestedly, as the boys walked away.

The explanation was given, but they spoke in tones so low that David could not overhear any part of the conversation from the men following him until, as they neared the house, Uncle Larimy said: “I was afeerd Dave hed his pa’s temper snoozin’ inside him. Mebby he’d orter be told fer a warnin’.”

“I don’t want to say nuthin’ about it less I hev to. I’ll wait till the next time he loses his temper.”

David ducked his head in the wash basin on the bench outside the door. After supper, when Barnabas came out on the back porch for his hour of pipe, he called his young charge to him. Since the fight, David’s face had worn a subdued but contented expression.

“Looks,” thought Barnabas, “kinder eased off, like a dog when he licks his chops arter the taste of blood has been drawed.”

“Set down, Dave. I want to talk to you. You done right to fight fer yer folks, and you’re a good fighter, which every boy orter be, but when I come up to you and Jud I see that in yer face that I didn’t know was in you. You’ve got an orful temper, Dave. It’s a good thing to hev–a mighty good thing, if you kin take keer of it, but if you let it go it’s what leads to murder. Your pa hed the same kind of let-loose temper that got him into heaps of trouble.”

“What did my father do?” he asked abruptly.

Instinctively he had shrunk from asking his mother this question, and pride had forbidden his seeking the knowledge elsewhere.

“Some day, when you are older, you will know all about it. But remember, when any one says anything like what Jud did, that yer ma wouldn’t want fer you to hev thoughts of killin’. You see, you fought jest as well–probably better–when you hed cooled off a mite and hed promised to fight fair. And ef you can’t wrastle your temper and down it as you did Jud, you’re not a fust-class fighter.”

“I’ll try,” said David slowly, unable, however, to feel much remorse for his outbreak.

“Jud’ll let you alone arter this. You’d better go to bed now. You need a little extry sleep.”

M’ri came into his room when he was trying to mend a long rent in his shirt. He flushed uncomfortably when her eye fell on the garment. She took it from him.

“I’ll mend it, David. I don’t wonder that your patience slipped its leash, but–never fight when you have murder in your heart.”

When she had left the room, Janey’s face, pink and fair as a baby rose, looked in at the door.

“It’s very wicked to fight and get so mad, Davey.”

“I know it,” he acknowledged readily. It was useless trying to make a girl understand.

There was a silence. Janey still lingered.

“Davey,” she asked in an awed whisper, “does it feel nice to be wicked?”

David shook his head non-committally.