Mr. Tinker was a joyous bachelor of forty-five. He had been cashier of a bank. A deficit arising, he had been wrongfully accused of direct responsibility, and from prison he had come straight to the Poor Boy's settlement on special (most special) invitation. He had taken a room (and bath) in the village inn, and had made a little money out of contracts which the Poor Boy had thrown his way.

"What's the flow here in summer?" asked Mr. Tinker doubtfully.

"About half what it is now," said the Poor Boy.

"Hum--that would be width so and so--depth so and so.... What's the fall?"

"Thirty feet."

"Can't use it all, can we?"

The Poor Boy shook his head.

"Well--I tell you, I'll bring a tape-measure to-morrow and go into the thing thoroughly. By the way, you know Mrs. Caxton, who's staying at the inn?"

"Yes--yes," said the Poor Boy, "they accused her of shoplifting and it wasn't she at all."

"d.a.m.n them," said Tinker.

"By all means," said the Poor Boy.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Now how about a sawmill--right here?"]

"But what about her?" His eyes twinkled.

Mr. Tinker blushed and beamed.

"She's given up her rooms."

"What!" exclaimed the Poor Boy.

"And _we're_ going to move to the little house on the corner."

"Then," said the Poor Boy, "what are you doing alone in the woods?"

"Came to find you," said Tinker. "Couldn't get married without you."

"Turn around," cried the Poor Boy. "I'm with you."

He knelt swiftly and took off his skis.

He started to slide an affectionate arm round the older man's shoulders, but jerked it back before it was too late.

"No," he muttered, "you mustn't try to touch them or they vanish."

"What's that?"

"Just that this is the best thing that ever happened. You're just made for each other, you two."

They sped on through the pine forest, talking of village matters, of school matters, and hitching-posts, of politics, of sewers--but mostly of love.

It was dark when the Poor Boy got back to his own house. But he was very happy and (in spite of many hot crisp cookies at Mrs. Brown's kitchen door) very hungry.

After he had dressed and dined, he soaked his hands in hot water to make them supple, and played Beethoven till far into the night.

Martha went boldly into the room to listen, and sat in a deep chair by the fire, as was her right. But Miss Joy listened without the door, and during the Adagio from the Pathetique her hands covered her bowed face and tears came through the fingers.

Then she crept off to bed, but Martha came before she was asleep to say good-night.

"Miss Joy," she said, "it's the first time since he came that he's played; other times he's only fooled and toyed."

"Martha," said Miss Joy, "I think it's the first time that _anybody ever_ played."

"It's what the Poor Boy does best," said Martha, "and takes the least pride in. Listen now--he's making up as he goes--there's voices--only listen--there's one that insists and one that denies--but both their hearts are breakin'--breakin' in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s."

Miss Joy sat straight up in bed. "Listen, Martha--there's a third voice--things are going to come right for the other two--"

Thus the two women. As for the Poor Boy, he made music because he had been to a wedding that day and knew that if he got to thinking about it alone in the dark he might get so unhappy that he would remember where he had hidden his revolver and his rifles, and get up to look for them.

He played until he was exhausted in body and mind. Then he rose from the piano, closed it gently, and went to bed. He was very sad and unhappy, but quite sane again.

VIII

During the winter the Poor Boy made two excursions, lasting for a number of days, southward through his valley and beyond. It was supposed by Martha, wild with anxiety, and by Miss Joy, but little less so, that he went alone. As a matter of fact he had companions; Yardsley, the forester and surveyor; w.a.n.gog, the Huron chief, taciturn in talk, but a great woodsman; and Stephen Bell, a young man recently come to live in the village and a great favorite with the Poor Boy.

It had developed that there were enough people wrongfully accused of some crime or other in the world to settle the Poor Boy's lands from the big lake all the way to the salt sea. And the main object of his long excursions was to locate upon deep water, navigable for great ships, a site, not for a village, but for a city.

Already his first village had suburbs, and here and there, dotted about among the foot-hills, were villas belonging to a wealthier cla.s.s of people: Bradleys, G.o.dfreys, Warrens, Warings, etc., families of position and breeding, among whom was a constant round of little dinners and dances to which the Poor Boy dearly loved to be invited.

[Ill.u.s.tration: During the winter, the Poor Boy made two excursions southward through his valley and beyond.]

Government by a commission of three was an established and successful fact. Though it must be owned that as the man member and the woman member could never agree about anything, all reins of policy were gathered into the hands of the child.

"A child leads us," was often in the mouths of the village elders, and often anxiety expressed as to what would happen when the child grew up.

But that he would grow up was not likely, since he was the very image of what the Poor Boy himself had been at the same age--a charming, straightforward, most honorable boy, touched by the fairy G.o.dmother of justice, music, and fancy.

It was wonderful how much the school-children learned with three hours'

schooling a day (except Wednesday, Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday, when they had none), and how outdoor play the rest of the time was rapidly developing them physically and in the sense of responsibility and judgment. There were no recorded cases of weak eyes, nerves, or hysteria. There were no suicides among the children upon the occasion of failures to pa.s.s examinations.

Nor was morbid curiosity allowed to stalk among them, destroying as it went. They were brought up on a newer and more scientific catechism, beginning:

_Teacher:_ Who made you?

_Answer:_ My father and mother.