The listener would naturally suppose that the cowboy was dead in his blanket that lovely May morning; but that idea had to be abandoned as the song went on, because the cowboy was very much alive in the succeeding verses, when--

Round the bar b.u.mmin' where bullets were hummin'

He snuffed out the candle to show why he come!

Then his way of giving directions for his funeral was somewhat out of the usual procedure but no one seemed to notice these little discrepancies--

Beat the drum slowly boys, beat the drum lowly boys, Beat the dead march as we hurry along.

To show that ye love me, boys, write up above me, boys, "Here lies a poor cowboy who knows he done wrong."

In accordance with a popular custom, John SPOKE the last two words in a very slow and distinct voice. This was considered a very fine thing to do--it served the purpose of the "Finis" at the end of the book, or the "Let us pray," at the end of the sermon.

The applause was very loud and very genuine.

Bud Perkins, who was the wit of the Perkins family, and called by his mother a "regular cut-up," was at last induced to sing. Bud's "Come-all-ye" contained twenty-three verses, and in it was set forth the wanderings of one, young Willie, who left his home and native land at a very tender age, and "left a good home when he left." His mother tied a kerchief of blue around his neck. "G.o.d bless you, son," she said. "Remember I will watch for you, till life itself is fled!" The song went on to tell how long the mother watched in vain. Young Willie roamed afar, but after he had been scalped by savage bands and left for dead upon the sands, and otherwise maltreated by the world at large, he began to think of home, and after shipwrecks, and dangers and hair-breadth escapes, he reached his mother's cottage door, from which he had gone long years before.

Then of course he tried to deceive his mother, after the manner of all boys returning after a protracted absence--

Oh, can you tell me, ma'm, he said, How far to Edinboro' town.

But he could not fool his mother, no, no! She knew him by the kerchief blue, still tied around his neck.

When the applause, which was very generous, had been given, Jim Russell wanted to know how young Willie got his neck washed in all his long meanderings, or if he did not wash, how did he dodge the health officers.

George Slater gravely suggested that perhaps young Willie used a dry-cleaning process--French chalk or brown paper and a hot iron.

Peter Slater said he did not believe it was the same handkerchief at all. No handkerchief could stand the pace young Willie went. It was another one very like the one he had started off with. He noticed them in the window as he pa.s.sed, that day, going cheap for cash.

The young Englishman looked more and more puzzled. It was strange how Canadians took things. He turned to Camilla.

"It is only a song, don't you know," he said with a distressed look.

"It is really impossible to say how he had the kerchief still tied around his neck."

The evening would not have been complete without a song from Billy McLean. Little Billy was a consumptive, playing a losing game against a relentless foe; but playing like a man with unfailing cheerfulness, and eyes that smiled ever.

There is a bright ship on the ocean, Bedecked in silver and gold; They say that my Willie is sailing, Yes, sailing afar I am told,

was little Billy's song, known and loved in many a thresher's caboose, but heard no more for many a long day, for little Billy gave up the struggle the next spring when the snow was leaving the fields and the trickle of water was heard in the air. But he and his songs are still lovingly remembered by the boys who "follow the mill," when their thoughts run upon old times.

Peter and Fred Slater came in with the coffee. Jim Russell with a white ap.r.o.n around his neck followed with a basket of sandwiches, and Tom Motherwell with a heaping plate of cake.

"Did you make this cake, Nell?" Tom whispered to Nellie in the pantry as she filled the plate for him.

"Me!" she laughed. "Bless you no! I can't make anything but pancakes."

Martha Perkins still sat by the window. She looked older and more careworn--she was thinking of how late it was getting. Martha could make cakes, Tom knew that. Martha could do everything.

"Go along Tom," Nellie was saying, "give a piece to big John. Don't you see how hungry he looks." Their eyes met. Hers were bright and smiling.

He smiled back.

Oh pshaw! pancakes are not so bad.

Jim Russell whispered to Camilla, as he pa.s.sed near where she and Arthur sat, "Will you please come and help Nellie in the pantry? We need you badly."

Camilla called Maud Murray to take her seat. She knew Maud would be kind to the young Englishman.

When Camilla reached the pantry she found Nellie and Tom Motherwell happily engaged in eating lemon tarts, and evidently not needing her at all. Jim was ready with an explanation. "I was thinking of poor Thursa, far across the sea," he said, "what a shock it would be to her if Arthur was compelled to write home that he had changed his mind," and Camilla did not look nearly so angry as she should have, either.

After supper there was another song from Arthur Wemyss, the young Englishman. He played his own accompaniment, his fingers, stiffened though they were with hard work, ran lightly over the keys. Every person sat still to listen. Even Martha Perkins forgot to twirl her fingers and leaned forward. It was a simple little English ballad he sang:

Where'er I wander over land or foam, There is a place so dear the heart calls home.

Perhaps it was because the ocean rolled between him and his home that he sang with such a wistful longing in his voice, that even his dullest listener felt the heart-cry in it. It was a song of one who reaches longing arms across the sea to the old home and the old friends, whom he sees only in his dreams.

In the silence that followed the song, his fingers unconsciously began to play Mendelssohn's beautiful air, "We Would See Jesus, for the Shadows Lengthen." Closely linked with the young man's love of home was his religious devotion. The quiet Sabbath morning with its silvery chimes calling men to prayer; the soft footfalls in the aisle; the white-robed choir, his father's voice in the church service, so full of divine significance; the many-voiced responses and the swelling notes of the "Te Deum"--he missed it so. All the longing for the life he had left, all the spiritual hunger and thirst that was in his heart sobbed in his voice as he sang:

We would see Jesus, For the shadows lengthen O'er this little landscape of our life.

We would see Jesus, Our weak faith to strengthen, For the last weariness, the final strife.

We would see Jesus, other lights are paling, Which for long years we have rejoiced to see, The blessings of our pilgrimage are failing, We would not mourn them for we go to Thee.

He sang on with growing tenderness through all that divinely tender hymn, and the longing of it, the prayer of it was not his alone, but arose from every heart that listened.

Perhaps they were in a responsive mood, easily swayed by emotion.

Perhaps that is why there was in every heart that listened a desire to be good and follow righteousness, a reaching up of feeble hands to G.o.d.

The Reverend Hugh Grantley would have said that it was the Spirit of G.o.d that stands at the door of every man's heart and knocks.

The young man left the organ, and the company broke up soon after.

Before they parted, Mr. Slater in whom the Englishman's singing had revived the spiritual hunger of his Methodist heart, requested them to sing "G.o.d be with you till we meet again." Every one stood up and joined hands. Martha, with her thoughts on the b.u.t.ter and eggs; Tonald McKenzie and big John with the vision of their lonely dwellings in the hills looming over them; Jim and Camilla; Tom and Nellie, hand in hand; little Billy, face to face with the long struggle and its certain ending. Little Billy's voice rang sweet and clear above the others--

G.o.d be with you till we meet again, Keep love's banner floating o'er you, Smite death's threatening wave before you; G.o.d be with you till we meet again!

CHAPTER XIX

PEARL'S DIARY

When Pearl got Tom safely started for the party a great weight seemed to have rolled from her little shoulders. Tom was going to spend the night--what was left of it--with Arthur in the granary, and so avoid the danger of disturbing his parents by his late home-coming.

Pearl was too excited to sleep, so she brought out from her bird-cage the little note-book that Mrs. Francis had given her, and endeavoured to fill some of its pages with her observations.

Mrs. Francis had told her to write what she felt and what she saw.

She had written:

August 8th.--I picked the fethers from 2 ducks to-day. I call them cusmoodles. I got that name in a book. The cusmoodles were just full of cheety-wow-wows. That's a pretty name, too, I think. I got that out of my own head. The cheety-wow-wows are wanderers to-night, I guess. They lost their feather-bed.

Arthur's got a girl. Her name is Thursa. He tells me about her, and showed me her picter. She is beautiful beyond compare, and awful savin'

on her clothes. At first I thought she had a die-away-ducky look, but I guess it's because she was sorry Arthur was comin' away.