第15章 NUISANCES,NECESSARY AND OTHERWISE(2)

But Mrs.Holly only shook her head and sighed:--"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.Aminute later,having seated himself on the porch steps,he had taken from his pocket two small pieces of folded paper.And then,through tear-dimmed 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 far-away hills."And he said if I'd play,my mountains would come to me here,and I'd really be at home up there.He said in my violin were all those things I'm wanting--so bad!"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 of--John,"she sighed to herself,as she picked up her dusting-cloth.

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 tree-tops.After a time he slipped into the house and came out with his violin.

At the first long-drawn note of sweetness,Simeon Holly opened his eyes and sat up,stern-lipped.But his wife laid a timid hand on his arm.

"Don't say anything,please,"she entreated softly."Let him play,just for to-night.He's lonesome--poor 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 yellow-white nightshirt lay over the chair-back;and as before,Mrs.Holly had brushed away a tear as she had placed it there.As before,too,the big four-posted bed loomed tall and formidable in the corner.

But this time the coverlet and sheet were turned back invitingly--Mrs.Holly had been much disturbed to find that David had slept on the floor the night before.

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 moon through the trees.

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,far-away look in her eyes that somehow hurt.He would not like,now,to leave her--with daddy gone.

There were the gold-pieces,too;and concerning these David was equally puzzled.What should he do with them?He did not need them--the 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 them--to 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 angel-mother he slipped back into one of his pockets.

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 to the task before him until it was done.

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

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