Just David Read online

  CHAPTER VI

  NUISANCES, NECESSARY AND OTHERWISE

  For some time after dinner, that first day, David watched Mrs. Holly insilence while she cleared the table and began to wash the dishes.

  "Do you want me to--help?" he asked at last, a little wistfully.

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

  "No, I don't. No, thank you," she amended her answer.

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

  "Are all these things you've been doing all day 'useful labor'?"

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

  "Are they--Why, of course they are! What a silly question! What putthat idea into your head, child?"

  "Mr. Holly; and you see it's so different from what father used to callthem."

  "Different?"

  "Yes. He said they were a necessary nuisance,--dishes, and gettingmeals, and clearing up,--and he didn't do half as many of them as youdo, either."

  "Nuisance, indeed!" Mrs. Holly resumed her dishwashing with someasperity. "Well, I should think that might have been just about likehim."

  "Yes, it was. He was always that way," nodded David pleasantly. Then,after a moment, he queried: "But aren't you going to walk at allto-day?"

  "To walk? Where?"

  "Why, through the woods and fields--anywhere."

  "Walking in the woods, NOW--JUST WALKING? Land's sake, boy, I've gotsomething else to do!"

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

  "Maybe it will," retorted Mrs. Holly, with slightly uplifted eyebrowsand an expressive glance. "But whether it does or does n't won't makeany difference in my going to walk, I guess."

  "Oh, won't it?" beamed David, his face changing. "I'm so glad! I don'tmind the rain, either. Father and I used to go in the rain lots oftimes, only, of course, we couldn't take our violins then, so we usedto like the pleasant days better. But there are some things you find onrainy days that you couldn't find any other time, aren't there? Thedance of the drops on the leaves, and the rush of the rain when thewind 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 agesture of hopeless abandonment.

  "Land's sake, boy!" she ejaculated feebly, as she turned back to herwork.

  From dishes to sweeping, and from sweeping to dusting, hurried Mrs.Holly, going at last into the somber parlor, always carefully guardedfrom sun and air. Watching her, mutely, David trailed behind, his eyesstaring a little as they fell upon the multitude of objects that parlorcontained: the haircloth chairs, the long sofa, the marble-toppedtable, the curtains, cushions, spreads, and "throws," the innumerablemats and tidies, the hair-wreath, the wax flowers under their glassdome, the dried grasses, the marvelous bouquets of scarlet, green, andpurple everlastings, the stones and shells and many-sized, many-shapedvases arranged as if in line of battle along the corner shelves.

  "Y--yes, you may come in," called Mrs. Holly, glancing back at thehesitating boy in the doorway. "But you mustn't touch anything. I'mgoing to dust."

  "But I haven't seen this room before," ruminated David.

  "Well, no," deigned Mrs. Holly, with just a touch of superiority. "Wedon't use this room common, little boy, nor the bedroom there, either.This is the company room, for ministers and funerals, and--" Shestopped hastily, with a quick look at David; but the boy did not seemto have heard.

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

  "No, not--now." Mrs. Holly drew in her breath with a little catch, andglanced at the framed portrait of a little boy on the wall.

  "But you've got such a lot of rooms and--and things," remarked David."Why, daddy and I only had two rooms, and not hardly any THINGS. It wasso--different, you know, in my home."

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

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

  "Helps!" In her stupefaction Mrs. Holly stopped her work and stared.

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

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

  "Yes. But do you have to KEEP all these things, and clean them andclean them, like this, every day? Couldn't you give them to somebody,or throw them away?"

  "Throw--these--things--away!" With a wild sweep of her arms, thehorrified woman seemed to be trying to encompass in a protectiveembrace each last endangered treasure of mat and tidy. "Boy, are youcrazy? These things are--are valuable. They cost money, and timeand--and labor. Don't you know beautiful things when you see them?"

  "Oh, yes, I love BEAUTIFUL things," smiled David, with unconsciouslyrude emphasis. "And up on the mountain I had them always. There was thesunrise, and the sunset, and the moon and the stars, and my SilverLake, and the cloud-boats that sailed--"

  But Mrs. Holly, with a vexed gesture, stopped him.

  "Never mind, little boy. I might have known--brought up as you havebeen. Of course you could not appreciate such things as these. Throwthem away, indeed!" And she fell to work again; but this time herfingers carried a something in their touch that was almost like thecaress a mother might bestow upon an aggrieved child.

  David, vaguely disturbed and uncomfortable, watched her with troubledeyes; then, apologetically, he explained:--

  "It was only that I thought if you didn't have to clean so many ofthese things, you could maybe go to walk more--to-day, and other days,you know. You said--you didn't have time," he reminded her.

  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 caressingfingers, turned about and wandered out onto the side porch. A minutelater, having seated himself on the porch steps, he had taken from hispocket two small pieces of folded paper. And then, through tear-dimmedeyes, he read once more his father's letter.

  "He said I mustn't grieve, for that would grieve him," murmured theboy, after a time, his eyes on the far-away hills. "And he said if I'dplay, my mountains would come to me here, and I'd really be at home upthere. 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 hispocket and reached for his violin.

  Some time later, Mrs. Holly, dusting the chairs in the parlor, stoppedher work, tiptoed to the door, and listened breathlessly. When sheturned back, still later, to her work, her eyes were wet.

  "I wonder why, when he plays, I always get to thinking of--John," shesighed to herself, as she picked up her dusting-cloth.

  After supper that night, Simeon Holly and his wife again sat on thekitchen porch, resting from the labor of the day. Simeon's eyes wereclosed. His wife's were on the dim outlines of the shed, the barn, theroad, or a passing horse and wagon. David, sitting on the steps, waswatching the moon climb higher and higher above the tree-tops. After atime he slipped into the house and came out with his violin.

  At the first long-drawn note of sweetness, Simeon Holly opened his eyesand 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, justfor 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 wi
th 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 oncemore alone. As before, the little yellow-white nightshirt lay over thechair-back; and as before, Mrs. Holly had brushed away a tear as shehad placed it there. As before, too, the big four-posted bed loomedtall and formidable in the corner. But this time the coverlet and sheetwere turned back invitingly--Mrs. Holly had been much disturbed to findthat David had slept on the floor the night before.

  Once more, with his back carefully turned toward the impaled bugs andmoths on the wall, David undressed himself. Then, before blowing outthe candle, he went to the window kneeled down, and looked up at themoon through the trees.

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

  His father had said that out in the world there was a beautiful workfor him to do; but what was it? How was he to find it? Or how was he todo it if he did find it? And another thing; where was he to live? Couldhe stay where he was? It was not home, to be sure; but there was thelittle room over the kitchen where he might sleep, and there was thekind woman who smiled at him sometimes with the sad, far-away look inher eyes that somehow hurt. He would not like, now, to leave her--withdaddy gone.

  There were the gold-pieces, too; and concerning these David was equallypuzzled. What should he do with them? He did not need them--the kindwoman was giving him plenty of food, so that he did not have to go tothe store and buy; and there was nothing else, apparently, that hecould use them for. They were heavy, and disagreeable to carry; yet hedid not like to throw them away, nor to let anybody know that he hadthem: he had been called a thief just for one little piece, and whatwould they say if they knew he had all those others?

  David remembered now, suddenly, that his father had said to hidethem--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,--thelittle cupboard behind the chimney there in this very room! And with asatisfied sigh, David got to his feet, gathered all the little yellowdisks from his pockets, and tucked them well out of sight behind thepiles of books on the cupboard shelves. There, too, he hid the watch;but the little miniature of the angel-mother he slipped back into oneof 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 keptrigorously to the task before him until it was done.

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

  "Mis' Holly, would ye mind just steppin' to the side door? There's awoman an' a little boy there, an' somethin' ails 'em. She can't talkEnglish, an' I'm blest if I can make head nor tail out of the lingo sheDOES talk. But maybe you can."

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

  On the porch steps stood a very pretty, but frightened-looking youngwoman with a boy perhaps ten years old at her side. Upon catching sightof Mrs. Holly she burst into a torrent of unintelligible words,supplemented by numerous and vehement gestures.

  Mrs. Holly shrank back, and cast appealing eyes toward her husband whoat that moment had come across the yard from the barn.

  "Simeon, can you tell what she wants?"

  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 thegesticulating woman. "She's talking French, I think. And shewants--something."

  "Gosh! I should say she did," muttered Perry Larson. "An' whatever 'tis, she wants it powerful bad."

  "Are you hungry?" questioned Mrs. Holly timidly.

  "Can't you speak English at all?" demanded Simeon Holly.

  The woman looked from one to the other with the piteous, pleading eyesof the stranger in the strange land who cannot understand or makeothers understand. She had turned away with a despairing shake of herhead, when suddenly she gave a wild cry of joy and wheeled about, herwhole face alight.

  The Hollys and Perry Larson saw then that David had come out onto theporch and was speaking to the woman--and his words were just asunintelligible as the woman's had been.

  Mrs. Holly and Perry Larson stared. Simeon Holly interrupted David witha sharp:--

  "Do you, then, understand this woman, boy?"

  "Why, yes! Didn't you? She's lost her way, and--" But the woman hadhurried forward and was pouring her story into David's ears.

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

  "Well, what does she want?" asked Simeon Holly crisply.

  "She wants to find the way to Francois Lavelle's house. He's herhusband's brother. She came in on the train this morning. Her husbandstopped off a minute somewhere, she says, and got left behind. He couldtalk 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 inWest Hinsdale--two of 'em, I think. What'll ye bet 't ain't one o'them?"

  "Very likely," acceded Simeon Holly, his eyes bent disapprovingly onDavid's face. It was plain to be seen that Simeon Holly's attention wasoccupied by David, not the woman.

  "An', say, Mr. Holly," resumed Perry Larson, a little excitedly, "youknow I was goin' over ter West Hinsdale in a day or two ter see Harlowabout them steers. Why can't I go this afternoon an' tote her an' thekid along?"

  "Very well," nodded Simeon Holly curtly, his eyes still on David's face.

  Perry Larson turned to the woman, and by a flourish of his arms and ajumble of broken English attempted to make her understand that he wasto take her where she undoubtedly wished to go. The woman still lookeduncomprehending, however, and David promptly came to the rescue, sayinga few rapid words that quickly brought a flood of delightedunderstanding to the woman's face.

  "Can't you ask her if she's hungry?" ventured Mrs. Holly, then.

  "She says no, thank you," translated David, with a smile, when he hadreceived his answer. "But the boy says he is, if you please."

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

  "So you're French, are you?" said Simeon Holly to David.

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

  "But how comes it you can speak French like that?"

  "Why, I learned it." Then, divining that his words were stillunconvincing, he added: "Same as I learned German and other things withfather, out of books, you know. Didn't you learn French when you were alittle boy?"

  "Humph!" vouchsafed Simeon Holly, stalking away without answering thequestion.

  Immediately after dinner Perry Larson drove away with the woman and thelittle boy. The woman's face was wreathed with smiles, and her lastadoring glance was for David, waving his hand to her from the porchsteps.

  In the afternoon David took his violin and went off toward the hillbehind 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 thetime. She was doing nothing more important, apparently, than makingholes in a piece of white cloth, and sewing them up again with a needleand thread.

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

  "And why, pray, should I go for a useless walk now--or any time, forthat matter?" he demanded sharply.

  David had shrunk back unconsciously, though he had still smiled.

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

  "In tune!"

  "I mean, you looked as father used to look sometimes, when he felt outof tune. And he always said there
was nothing like a walk to put himback again. I--I was feeling a little out of tune myself to-day, and Ithought, by the way you looked, that you were, too. So I asked you togo to walk."

  "Humph! Well, I--That will do, boy. No impertinence, you understand!"And he had turned away in very obvious anger.

  David, with a puzzled sorrow in his heart had started alone then, onhis walk.