Treasure Valley Part 17

"No."

"Only Daddy an' Mammy Sawyer knows. Our father he was a bad man, so we don't tell. The kids don't mind him, but I do. He wasn't bad to us, but he done somethin' awful, an' then he ran away, an' our mother died, an' he sent us miles an' miles away to a city, an' we lived with old Mother c.u.mmins. But I mind the ocean--it smelt like--ok, it smelt awful good! Did you ever smell the ocean?"

The man was supporting his head on his hand; his face was turned away.

"Oh, say! it's bully! It's somethin' like the smell o' the crick, jist below the falls, on a hot day--only--only different. That's why I play hookey so often down in the holler, 'cause it smells like the ocean."

Tim made his statement proudly. It was a wonderful privilege to boast of how bad you were, and be sure you would be unreproved.

"We had good times when we lived there, but when ole Mother c.u.mmins got us it was different. She wasn't so awful bad at first, 'cause our father uster send money; but he stopped. I guess he must 'a' died, or run away farther. An' after that, say! didn't our ole woman uster hammer us? She'd get drunk an' sleep on the floor, an' I uster pinch her black an' blue an' stick pins into her for poundin' Joey!" His small, withered face was fierce, his old eyes were cruel. "An' one day she cut Lorry's head open with her stick; so we all lit out. I carried Joey for miles an' miles, an' then some folks took us to the Home, an'

then Daddy an' Mammy Sawyer came. Do you s'pose G.o.d sent them for us?

Miss Scott said He did. Did He? Eh?"

"I--I suppose so."

"You ain't dead sure about anything G.o.d does, are you?" asked Tim sympathetically. "Ain't you remembered about the harmless thrush yet?"

John McIntyre did not answer. He sat still so long, with his face in his hands, that the boy grew weary, and rising, hobbled homeward.

The man's gray head sank lower. His thin hands, hard, and worn with heavy toil, were trembling violently. His stooped shoulders, in their poor, thread-bare covering, heaved convulsively. For the first time in years he had dared to look back into the blossom-strewn past, and the sight had been too much for his strength.

His misfortunes had come upon him in a way that, at first, had left him no time to reflect. His home had gone, and then his friend, just at the time when he needed his help. Then had come greater trials.

Sickness stalked hand in hand with poverty. One by one his children were laid away in the earth; and then toil and want and grief had at last taken her, his best beloved, and in her grave John McIntyre had buried happiness and hope and faith.

What had he left in life? His home, his loved ones, were gone--even Martin must be dead, or he would have come to him long ago. Nothing remained but misery, and distrust of his fellow-men--and hatred--hatred of the man who had defrauded him, and who was now, no doubt, living in wealth and prosperity.

And what had he done to deserve it all? That had always been John McIntyre's cry. Why must he and his be singled out for such suffering?

Why should his innocent loved ones be the victims of a villain's rapacity?

And how he had worked to save them from want! Oh, G.o.d! how he had toiled, until his back was bent and his health broken! And it had all been of no use--no use!

He clenched his shaking hands, striving to gain control of himself. In the early days of his misfortunes the necessity for straining every effort had kept him from brooding upon his losses, and finally a numbness of despair had seized him. But to-night the child's artless talk had brought back vividly the old home scene. He could see it now, as he had seen it so often in the light of a summer evening. The sparkling sea, with the tang of salt water wafted up over his fields; the rippling stream, winding like a thread of gold down to the Bay of Fundy; his cozy home peeping from its orchard nest, and Mary at the doorway, singing their baby's lullaby; Martin's gay voice pa.s.sing down the road; and in the purpling woods the tender song of the hermit thrush:

"_O hear all! O hear all! O holy, holy!_"

A wave of desperate longing for the old days swept over him; a very pa.s.sion of loneliness and homesickness shook his desolate soul.

Why should he struggle against it? he asked himself. Why live on in misery, only to die in misery at the end? Why not end it now? There was no G.o.d, at least none that cared; and as for the future--he had laughed when the minister mentioned h.e.l.l. What profounder wretchedness could it hold than all he had already endured?

He rose to his feet stealthily. His eyes were burning in his white face. He stepped cautiously along the bank of the pond to a place where the water was deep. He glanced about fearfully. His only feeling was one of dread lest he be intercepted. He slipped into the shadow of a pile of logs, then crept to the edge of the dark water.

Suddenly he paused, startled. Something had rustled in the willows.

It was only a muskrat; but as he stood, listening, another sound fell upon his ear, the sound of a voice singing a familiar hymn. There was something in the singer's tone, a compelling sweetness, that made John McIntyre pause on the brink of death to listen.

CHAPTER IX

THE SONG IN THE NIGHT

Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human need Beat down the soul, at moments blind and dumb With agony; yet, patience--there shall come Many great voices from life's outer sea, Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed, Murmurs and glimpses of eternity.

--ABCHIBALD LAMPMAN.

Miss Ella Anne Long was busy "reddin' up" the parlor, for to-night the young people of the village who were musically inclined--and, for that matter, who wasn't?--were to hold a final practice for the Temperance Society's concert.

The Longs' home was the musical center of the village, the organ being kept as busy as the telescope, and Miss Long was the leading musician.

Even Elsie Cameron could not compete with her, for Ella Anne was organist in the church, and had a voice that, when she wished, could drown out all the rest of the choir. Every one in Elmbrook was musically inclined, irrespective of talent. To "play a piece" or sing a solo at a public gathering was the great ambition of every young lady in the place. Masculine performance on any instrument, except a mouth-organ or a fiddle, which last was distinctly worldly, was regarded as rather inclining to effeminacy. But the men all sang, for, of course, it went without saying that every one could sing ba.s.s.

Tenors were scarce, there being only one at present--a young Englishman who had come out to learn farming at Sandy McQuarry's, and who suffered from chronic huskiness.

Each of the sopranos had an attendant swain in the ba.s.ses. That was a necessity to any smallest hope of enjoyment when the choir went abroad.

To have a sweetheart who could sing alone in public was to be distinguished far above one's fellow-songstresses. Bella Winters once sang "The Larboard Watch" with Wes Long at the Glenoro Dominion Day picnic, and until this was transcended she was the envy of one and all.

Ella Anne Long, of course, was the one who achieved even greater heights. She and Mack McQuarry sang "The Larboard Watch" at the next Elmbrook harvest home, while at one and the same time she played the accompaniment. No one had ever before conceived of such a triple triumph, and it was felt by all that Ella Anne would surely experience some disciplining misfortune to balance things. So, every one nodded her head and said, "I told you so," when Mack went off to Athabasca, or some such out-of-the-way corner of Canada, and married a half-breed, when Ella Anne had her wedding clothes all ready. And now she was no longer quite one of the young people of the village, and, besides, was receiving attentions from Sawed-Off Wilmott, a little widower, who ran the cheese factory, and who could not have sung even ba.s.s if he had had all his teeth.

Nevertheless, as Miss Long went about her duties she was watching eagerly for Mr. Wilmott's buggy. It was not for the reasons why a maiden usually looks for her lover, but because Davy Munn and the oldest orphan were sitting on the sidewalk at the doctor's gate, with mischievous designs upon her middle-aged admirer. As she stood on the porch, shading her eyes from the slanting rays of the sun, Sawed-Off's buggy came whizzing down the street, and Miss Long modestly withdrew.

Two or three of the earliest arrivals had already entered by the store door, and Mr. Wilmott soon joined them. He had safely pa.s.sed Scylla and Charybdis at the doctor's gate, but a worse fate awaited him, for the Sawyer twins were there, and his youthful spirits proved so attractive that they appropriated him as their own, and kept him from even speaking to Ella Anne all evening.

On practice nights the whole village gathered at the Longs', the company dividing itself into three parts. Ella Anne's friends a.s.sembled in the parlor, Mrs. Long received the mothers in the kitchen, and Silas entertained on the store veranda.

The Elmbrook kitchen was a fine place to receive one's friends; it was not the tiny workshop now in fas.h.i.+on, but a big, roomy place, where the homemaker sacrificed to the household G.o.ds, with the stove a sort of s.h.i.+ning high altar in the center, and the incense from the merry kettle curling up to the ceiling.

The frequenters of the milkstand got on the nail-kegs and packing-boxes of the veranda, and discussed astronomy and enjoyed the music. It was a fine situation for studying the stars, for the house stood at the end of the village, opposite the school, and commanded a view of the pond and the valley and a great stretch of sky.

The planet Mars, and its possible inhabitants, was under discussion when Spectacle John Cross came up the steps with a bundle of hymn-books under his arm.

"Ye see," Silas was explaining, "it ain't one o' yer ordinary stars.

Lord love ye! it's a 'igh sight better'n that. It's a planet, that's wot it is, like our own world, an' it keeps a-spinnin' 'round the sun like our earth, too." He ended up with a descriptive sweep of his arm, and gazed triumphantly at his enemy.

"Did ye ever hear the likes o' such balderdash?" sneered Spectacle John, appealing to Jake Sawyer.

Jake pa.s.sed his hands, in some perplexity, over the youngest orphan's curls. "Most folks'll tell ye the same, John," he said, regarding his partner doubtfully. "The doctor, there, now--look at the eddication he's had!--an' he says the same."

"It's my opinion," said the miller, "that the more book learnin' a man crams into his head the more common sense gets squeezed out. It stands to reason that there couldn't be room for everything unless his head was to swell like a punkin."

"Huh!" cried Sandy McQuarry impatiently. "Ony fool can see the world's round; but when folks go far enough to tell a body that pin-points like yon are as big as this world, that's jist clean ridic'l'us."

"Well," exclaimed Spectacle John, "if ye once get it fixed in yer head that this world's b.u.mpin' 'round through the air like a football, there isn't anny fool yarn you're not ready to believe." He stopped suddenly. The Duke of Wellington was coming up the steps, and his remarks trailed off into coughs and incoherent murmurs about the weather. Spectacle John knew better than to air his scientific theories before the Duke. She gave a contemptuous sniff and pa.s.sed into the parlor.

Silas Long chuckled. "John knows w'en to shut his mouth, don't ee, now, John?" he asked facetiously.

Sandy McQuarry grunted scornfully. "Los.h.!.+ afore Ah'd be scared by a wumman!" he exclaimed witheringly.

Spectacle John looked sheepish. "There's weemin an' weemin," he announced meaningly. "I'm no more afraid of the ordinary run o' them than you, Sandy. I got a wife that can hold her own with annybody, and my word's law at home. But I'm not ashamed to say that woman's one too many for me. I've been a trustee," he ended up feelingly.

"Sandy thinks he's a mighty hand at managin' folks," put in William Winters, happy to second any one who lived in fear of the gentler s.e.x.

"But I'm willin' to make a bet right here that if he was to run again'

the Dook she'd come out ahead."