"Yes, who knows?" said Dorothea, gently, rearranging the pillows and bidding the invalid fall asleep again.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE LITTLE LAD

"Better to be driven out from among men, than to be disliked of children."

--Dana.

Pepeeta took her place in this hospitable household as an orphan child might have done. Just as a flower unfolding from a plant, or a bird building its nest in a tree is almost instantly "at home," so it was with Pepeeta.

When she was strong enough to work, she began to a.s.sume domestic cares and to discharge them in a quiet and beautiful way which brought a sweet relief to the full hands of the overburdened housewife. And her companionship was no less grateful to Dorothea than her help, for life in a frontier household in those pioneer days was none too full of animation and brightness, even for a quiet nature like hers. To Steven she soon became a companion; and Jacob, the father, yielded no less quickly and easily to the charms of this strange guest than did mother and child.

He was a man of earnest piety and of deep insight into human nature. He had, as Dorothea said, made shrewd guesses at Pepeeta's story before she told it, and had formed his own theories as to her nature and her errand.

"I tell thee, Dorothea, she is a lady," were the words in which he had uttered his conclusions to his wife, in one of their many conversations about the mysterious stranger.

"What makes thee think so?" she asked.

"Every feature of that delicate face tells its own history. These three years of contact with David and a different life could never have so completely wiped out the traces of the vulgar breeding of a gypsy camp and the low education of a rogue's society, unless there were good blood in those veins. Mark my word, there is a story about that life that would stir the heart if it were known."

"No wonder David loved her," said the wife.

"No wonder, indeed. But if it is as it seems, there is a mystery in their influence on each other that would confound the subtlest student of life."

"To what does thee refer?"

"Two such natures ought to have made each other better instead of worse by contact. You can predict what frost and sunlight, water and oil, seed and soil will do when they meet; but not men and women! Two bads sometimes make a good, and two goods sometimes make a bad."

"Thee thinks strange thoughts, Jacob, and I do not always follow thee, but even if it be wrong, I cannot help wishing that our dear David could have had her for his lawful wife," said Dorothea.

"The tale is not all told yet," responded her husband, opening his book and beginning to read.

With feelings like these in their hearts, they could not but extend to Pepeeta that sympathy which alone could soothe the sorrow of her soul.

The sweet atmosphere of this home; the consciousness that she was among friends; the knowledge that they would do all they could to find the wanderer whom every one loved with such devotion, gave to Pepeeta's overwrought feelings an exquisite relief.

Her natural spirits and buoyant nature, repressed so long, began to rea.s.sert themselves, and soon burst forth in gladness. The change was slow, but sure, and by the time the spring days came and it was possible to get out into the open air, the color had come back to the pale face and the light to the dimmed eyes. She was like a flower transplanted from some dark corner into an open, sunny spot in a garden. But that which, more than all else, tended to develop within her graces still unfolded, was her constant contact with Steven. A subtle sympathy had been established between them from their very first meeting and they gradually became almost inseparable comrades. Their common love of outdoor life took them on long walks into the woods, from which they came burdened with the first blossoms of the springtime, or they would return from the river, laden with fish, for Steven insisted upon making Pepeeta his companion in every excursion; nor was it hard to persuade her to join him, she was so naturally a creature of the open air and sunlight.

Among the many happy days thus pa.s.sed, one was especially memorable.

Steven had told her much of a famous fishing place in the big Miami, several miles away, and had promised that if she would go with him on the next Sat.u.r.day he would show it to her and also reveal a secret which no one knew but himself and in which she could not but take the greatest interest. The day dawned bright and clear, and while the dew was still on the gra.s.s they started.

One of Pepeeta's sources of enjoyment in these excursions was the constant prattle of the boy about that uncle whose long absence had served rather to increase than to diminish the idolatry of his heart.

This morning, so like the one on which Pepeeta had seen David by the side of the brook when first they met, awakened all the fervor of her love and she could think of nothing else.

"You must point out to me all the places where you and your uncle have ever been together, little brother," she said to him, as they crossed the field where she had first caught sight of David at the plow.

"Why does thee care to know so much about him?" he asked, naively looking up into her face.

"Do you not know?" she inquired.

"No, I have asked father and mother, but they will not tell me."

"If I tell you, will you be true to me?"

"Won't I, though? I love thee. I would fight for thee, if I were not a Quaker's son! Perhaps I would fight for thee anyway."

"You will not need to fight for me, dearest. I could tell you a story about fighting that would make you wish never to fight again. Perhaps I will, sometime; but not now, for this must be a happy day and I do not want to sadden it by telling you too much about the shadows that cloud my life."

He looked up with a pained expression. "Has thee had troubles?" he asked.

"Great troubles, and they are not ended yet. I should be very wretched, but for you and your dear parents. You are but a child, and yet it would comfort me to tell you that I love your uncle with a love that can never die. And so when I ask you about him you will tell me everything you know, will you not? And remember that in doing so you are helping to make happy a poor heart that carries heavy burdens. There, that will do.

I have told you more, perhaps, than I ought; but although you are young, I am sure that you are brave and true. And so, if there is any story about your uncle which you have never told me, let me hear it now. And if there is not, tell me one that you have told me over and over again."

"Did I ever tell thee how he saved a little lamb from drowning?"

"No! did he do that?"

"Yes, he did! Thee knows that when the snow melts, this little brook swells up into a great river and sometimes it happens so suddenly that even the grown people are scared. It did that day, and came just pouring out of those woods and through the meadow where our old Maisie was playing with two little lambs. One of them was bounding around her, and it slipped over the edge of the bank and fell into the bed of the creek.

It wasn't a very high bank, you know; but the lamb was little, and it just stood bleating in the bed, and its mother stood bleating on the bank. Well, Uncle David heard them and started to see what was the matter, and though the rain had begun to fall, he ran across the field as hard as he could. But by the time he reached the place the flood caught up the little lamb and rolled it over and over like a ball. Uncle Dave didn't even wait to take off his coat, but plunged right into that water, boiling like a soap kettle, and swam out and grabbed that little lamb and hung to it until he landed down there on a high bank a quarter of a mile away. What does thee think of that, Pepeeta?"

Her eyes kindled; pride swelled in her heart, and her spirits rose with that wild feeling of joy with which women always hear of the bold deeds of those they love.

"How beautiful and n.o.ble he is," she cried.

"And strong!" added the boy, to whose youthful imagination physical prowess was still the greatest grace of life. And as he said it they reached a little rivulet so swollen by the spring rains as to be a formidable obstacle to their progress. Steven had not considered it in laying out their route and stood before it in dismay.

"How is thee ever going to get across?" he asked, and then under the impulse of a sudden inspiration rushed to the fence, took off the top rail and hurrying to the side of the brook flung it across for a bridge, with all the gallantry of a Sir Walter Raleigh.

But the spirits of his companion were too high to accept of aid! The strength of her lover had communicated itself to her, and with a light, free bound, she leaped to the other side.

The boy's first feeling was one of chagrin at having his offer so proudly scorned; but his second was that of boundless pride at a feat so worthy of the hero whose praises they had just been sounding. "Hurrah!"

he cried, bounding after her and flinging his hat into the air.

"Thee is as good a jumper as a man," he exclaimed, regarding her with astonishment and admiration.

As they moved forward Nature wove her spells around them and they gave themselves utterly to her charms, pausing to look and listen, rapt in an ecstasy of communion and sympathy. Pepeeta's familiarity with the flowers was greater than Steven's, but she knew little about birds, and propounded many questions to the young naturalist whose knowledge of the inhabitants of field, forest and river seemed to be communicated by the objects themselves, rather than by human teachers.

"Hark! What is that bird, singing on the top of that tall stake?" she asked, pausing to listen, her hand lifted as if to invoke silence.

"That? Why, it's a meadow lark," said Steven.

"And there is another, 'way up in the top of that tall tree. Oh! how sweet and rich his song is. What is his name?"

"That's a red bird, and if thee listens thee can hear a brown thrasher over there in the woods."