"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 them suspended for an amazed instant.

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

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

"Different?"

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

"Nuisance, indeed!" Mrs. Holly resumed her dishwashing with some asperity. "Well, I should think that might have been just about like him."

"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 all to-day?"

"To walk? Where?"

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

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

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

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

"Oh, won't it?" beamed David, his face changing. "I'm so glad! I don't mind the rain, either. Father and I used to go in the rain lots of times, only, of course, we couldn't take our violins then, so we used to like the pleasant days better. But there are some things you find on rainy days that you couldn't find any other time, aren't there? The dance of the drops on the leaves, and the rush of the rain when the wind gets behind it. Don't you love to feel it, out in the open s.p.a.ces, where the wind just gets a good chance to push?"

Mrs. Holly stared. Then she shivered and threw up her hands with a gesture of hopeless abandonment.

"Land's sake, boy!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed feebly, as she turned back to her work.

From dishes to sweeping, and from sweeping to dusting, hurried Mrs.

Holly, going at last into the somber parlor, always carefully guarded from sun and air. Watching her, mutely, David trailed behind, his eyes staring a little as they fell upon the mult.i.tude of objects that parlor contained: the haircloth chairs, the long sofa, the marble-topped table, the curtains, cushions, spreads, and "throws," the innumerable mats and tidies, the hair-wreath, the wax flowers under their gla.s.s dome, the dried gra.s.ses, the marvelous bouquets of scarlet, green, and purple everlastings, the stones and sh.e.l.ls and many-sized, many-shaped vases arranged as if in line of battle along the corner shelves.

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

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

"Well, no," deigned Mrs. Holly, with just a touch of superiority. "We don't use this room common, little boy, nor the bedroom there, either.

This is the company room, for ministers and funerals, and--" She stopped hastily, with a quick look at David; but the boy did not seem to 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 about him.

"No, not--now." Mrs. Holly drew in her breath with a little catch, and glanced 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 was so--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, so that 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 in those. You don't HAVE to live in here."

"'Have to live in here'!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the woman, still too uncomprehending to be anything but amazed.

"Yes. But do you have to KEEP all these things, and clean them and clean 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, the horrified woman seemed to be trying to encompa.s.s in a protective embrace each last endangered treasure of mat and tidy. "Boy, are you crazy? These things are--are valuable. They cost money, and time and--and labor. Don't you know beautiful things when you see them?"

"Oh, yes, I love BEAUTIFUL things," smiled David, with unconsciously rude emphasis. "And up on the mountain I had them always. There was the sunrise, and the sunset, and the moon and the stars, and my Silver Lake, 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 have been. Of course you could not appreciate such things as these. Throw them away, indeed!" And she fell to work again; but this time her fingers carried a something in their touch that was almost like the caress a mother might bestow upon an aggrieved child.

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

"It was only that I thought if you didn't have to clean so many of these 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 caressing fingers, turned about and wandered out onto the side porch. A minute later, having seated himself on the porch steps, he had taken from his pocket two small pieces of folded paper. And then, through tear-dimmed eyes, he read once more his father's letter.

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

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

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

After supper that night, Simeon Holly and his wife again sat on the kitchen porch, resting from the labor of the day. Simeon's eyes were closed. His wife's were on the dim outlines of the shed, the barn, the road, or a pa.s.sing horse and wagon. David, sitting on the steps, was watching the moon climb higher and higher above the tree-tops. After a time he slipped into the house and came out with his violin.

At the first long-drawn note of sweetness, Simeon Holly opened his eyes and 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, just for to-night. He's lonesome--poor little fellow." And Simeon Holly, with a frowning shrug of his shoulders, sat back in his chair.