“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, her quivering red mouth against his cheek. “I’m sorry; but I am your little sister now, so you must love me, Davey. Aunt M’ri told me so.”
CHAPTER III
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