The music stopped abruptly. David looked up with the slightly dazed air of one who has been summoned as from another world.

"Did you speak to me, sir?" he asked.

"I did--twice. I asked if you never did anything but play that fiddle."

"You mean at home?" David's face expressed mild wonder without a trace of anger or resentment. "Why, yes, of course. I couldn't play ALL the time, you know. I had to eat and sleep and study my books; and every day we went to walk--like tramps, as you call them," he elucidated, his face brightening with obvious delight at being able, for once, to explain matters in terms that he felt sure would be understood.

"Tramps, indeed!" muttered Simeon Holly, under his breath. Then, sharply: "Did you never perform any useful labor, boy? Were your days always spent in this unG.o.dly idleness?"

Again David frowned in mild wonder.

"Oh, I wasn't idle, sir. Father said I must never be that. He said every instrument was needed in the great Orchestra of Life; and that I was one, you know, even if I was only a little boy. And he said if I kept still and didn't do my part, the harmony wouldn't be complete, and--"

"Yes, yes, but never mind that now, boy," interrupted Simeon Holly, with harsh impatience. "I mean, did he never set you to work--real work?"

"Work?" David meditated again. Then suddenly his face cleared. "Oh, yes, sir, he said I had a beautiful work to do, and that it was waiting for me out in the world. That's why we came down from the mountain, you know, to find it. Is that what you mean?"

"Well, no," retorted the man, "I can't say that it was. I was referring to work--real work about the house. Did you never do any of that?"

David gave a relieved laugh.

"Oh, you mean getting the meals and tidying up the house," he replied.

"Oh, yes, I did that with father, only"--his face grew wistful--"I'm afraid I didn't do it very well. My bacon was never as nice and crisp as father's, and the fire was always spoiling my potatoes."

"Humph! bacon and potatoes, indeed!" scorned Simeon Holly. "Well, boy, we call that women's work down here. We set men to something else. Do you see that woodpile by the shed door?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very good. In the kitchen you'll find an empty woodbox. Do you think you could fill it with wood from that woodpile? You'll find plenty of short, small sticks already chopped."

"Oh, yes, sir, I'd like to," nodded David, hastily but carefully tucking his violin into its case. A minute later he had attacked the woodpile with a will; and Simeon Holly, after a sharply watchful glance, had turned away.

But the woodbox, after all, was not filled. At least, it was not filled immediately, for at the very beginning of gathering the second armful of wood, David picked up a stick that had long lain in one position on the ground, thereby disclosing sundry and diverse crawling things of many legs, which filled David's soul with delight, and drove away every thought of the empty woodbox.

It was only a matter of some strength and more patience, and still more time, to overturn other and bigger sticks, to find other and bigger of the many-legged, many-jointed creatures. One, indeed, was so very wonderful that David, with a whoop of glee, summoned Mrs. Holly from the shed doorway to come and see.

So urgent was his plea that Mrs. Holly came with hurried steps--but she went away with steps even more hurried; and David, sitting back on his woodpile seat, was left to wonder why she should scream and shudder and say "Ugh-h-h!" at such a beautiful, interesting thing as was this little creature who lived in her woodpile.

Even then David did not think of that empty woodbox waiting behind the kitchen stove. This time it was a b.u.t.terfly, a big black b.u.t.terfly banded with gold; and it danced and fluttered all through the back yard and out into the garden, David delightedly following with soft-treading steps, and movements that would not startle. From the garden to the orchard, and from the orchard back to the garden danced the b.u.t.terfly--and David; and in the garden, near the house, David came upon Mrs. Holly's pansy-bed. Even the b.u.t.terfly was forgotten then, for down in the path by the pansy-bed David dropped to his knees in veritable worship.

"Why, you're just like little people," he cried softly. "You've got faces; and some of you are happy, and some of you are sad. And you--you big spotted yellow one--you're laughing at me. Oh, I'm going to play you--all of you. You'll make such a pretty song, you're so different from each other!" And David leaped lightly to his feet and ran around to the side porch for his violin.

Five minutes later, Simeon Holly, coming into the kitchen, heard the sound of a violin through the open window. At the same moment his eyes fell on the woodbox, empty save for a few small sticks at the bottom.

With an angry frown he strode through the outer door and around the corner of the house to the garden. At once then he came upon David, sitting Turk-fashion in the middle of the path before the pansy-bed, his violin at his chin, and his whole face aglow.

"Well, boy, is this the way you fill the woodbox?" demanded the man crisply.

David shook his head.

"Oh, no, sir, this isn't filling the woodbox," he laughed, softening his music, but not stopping it. "Did you think that was what I was playing? It's the flowers here that I'm playing--the little faces, like people, you know. See, this is that big yellow one over there that's laughing," he finished, letting the music under his fingers burst into a gay little melody.

Simeon Holly raised an imperious hand; and at the gesture David stopped his melody in the middle of a run, his eyes flying wide open in plain wonderment.

"You mean--I'm not playing--right?" he asked.

"I'm not talking of your playing," retorted Simeon Holly severely. "I'm talking of that woodbox I asked you to fill."

David's face cleared.

"Oh, yes, sir. I'll go and do it," he nodded, getting cheerfully to his feet.

"But I told you to do it before."

David's eyes grew puzzled again.

"I know, sir, and I started to," he answered, with the obvious patience of one who finds himself obliged to explain what should be a self-evident fact; "but I saw so many beautiful things, one after another, and when I found these funny little flower-people I just had to play them. Don't you see?"

"No, I can't say that I do, when I'd already told you to fill the woodbox," rejoined the man, with uncompromising coldness.

"You mean--even then that I ought to have filled the woodbox first?"

"I certainly do."

David's eyes flew wide open again.

"But my song--I'd have lost it!" he exclaimed. "And father said always when a song came to me to play it at once. Songs are like the mists of the morning and the rainbows, you know, and they don't stay with you long. You just have to catch them quick, before they go. Now, don't you see?"

But Simeon Holly, with a despairingly scornful gesture, had turned away; and David, after a moment's following him with wistful eyes, soberly walked toward the kitchen door. Two minutes later he was industriously working at his task of filling the woodbox.

That for David the affair was not satisfactorily settled was evidenced by his thoughtful countenance and preoccupied air, however; nor were matters helped any by the question David put to Mr. Holly just before dinner.

"Do you mean," he asked, "that because I didn't fill the woodbox right away, I was being a discord?"

"You were what?" demanded the amazed Simeon Holly.

"Being a discord--playing out of tune, you know," explained David, with patient earnestness. "Father said--" But again Simeon Holly had turned irritably away; and David was left with his perplexed questions still unanswered.

CHAPTER VI

NUISANCES, NECESSARY AND OTHERWISE

For some time after dinner, that first day, David watched Mrs. Holly in silence 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.