The Soldier of the Valley Part 15

"Mebbe it was," said Josiah. "It must have been somethin' like that; but whatever it was, there stood the boy. 'You is free,' he says, addressin' the scholars. And the children broke from the seats and started for'a'd to wors.h.i.+p him. And Pinky Binn was almost on her knees at his feet, when a strange thing happened.

"There was music. It come soft first, and hushed the school, and froze the scholars like statutes. Louder it come and louder--a heavenly choir--the melodium, the cordine, and the fiddle. Then a great white light flooded the school-room. It blinded the boys, and it blinded the girls. The music played softer and softer--the melodium, the cordine, and the fiddle--and with it, keepin' time with it, the light come softer, too; so lookin' up the scholars seen there in the celestial glow, a solemn company gethered round the boy--the he-roes of old--Hercules and General Grant, Joshuay and Was.h.i.+ngton--all the mighty fighters of history. Just one glimpse the scholars had, for the music struck up louder, and the light glowed brighter and brighter till it blinded them. Softer and softer the music come--the melodium, the cordine, and the fiddle. It sounded like marchin', they said, and they heard the tramp, tramp, tramp of the sperrit soldiers. Then there was quiet--only the roarin' of the stove and the snuffin' of the little ones. And when they looked up Leander was alone--settin' there on the platform, kind of rubbin' his eyes--alone."

There was silence in the store. Josiah Nummler's pipe was going full blast, and while the white cloud hid him from the others, I could see a gentle smile on his fat face.

"Mighty son's!" cried Henry Holmes, "that there's unpossible."

Josiah planted his pole on the floor and lifted himself to his feet.

"It's only a fairy story, Henery," he said.

"What does it ill.u.s.trate?" cried Aaron Kallaberger. "Nothin', I says.

We was talkin' about Mark and William Bellus, and you switches off on Leander and Ernest. To a certain pint your story agrees with what my boy told me of the doin's in the school this afternoon."

"What doing's?" I exclaimed. This talk puzzled me, and I was determined to get to the bottom of the mystery.

"Why, wasn't you there?" cried Isaac Bolum. "Wasn't it you and William?"

"No," I fairly shouted. "Perry Thomas had the school."

Josiah Nummler's pole clattered to the floor, and he sank into a chair.

"I see--I see," he gasped. "Poor William!"

"I see--I see," said I. "Poor William!"

For William had felt the hand of "Doogulus!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: William had felt the hand of "Doogulus."]

XII

It was young Colonel's first day of life. He had been born six months before, but for him that had been simply the beginning of existence.

Now he was to live. He was to go with Captain, and with Betsy his mother, with Arnold Arker's Mike and Major, the best of his breed, to learn to take the trail and follow it, singing as he ran.

It was young Colonel's first day of life. He was out in the great dog world, and about him were the mighty hunters of the valley. Arnold Arker was there with his father's rifle, once a flint-lock, always a piece of marvellous accuracy, and a hero as guns go, and the old man patted the puppy and pulled his silky ears. Tip Pulsifer approved of him. Tip shut one eye and gazed at him long and earnestly; he ran his bony fingers down the slender back to the very end of the agitated tail. One by one he took the heavy paws in his hands and stroked them.

Then Tip smiled. Murphy Kallaberger smiled too, and declared that the young un took after his pa; clarifying this explanation he pointed his fat thumb over his shoulder to old Captain, beating around the underbrush.

It was young Colonel's first day of life. And what a day to live, I thought, as I stroked his head and wished him luck! He could not get it into his puppy brain that I was to wait there while the others went racing down the slope into the wooded basin below, so he lingered, to sit before me on his haunches, his head c.o.c.ked to one side, eyeing me inquisitively. There was a tang in the air. The wind was sweeping along the ridge-top and the woods were s.h.i.+vering. All about us rattled Nature's bones, in the stirring leaves, in the falling pig-nuts, in the crash of the belated birds through the leafless branches. The sun was over us, and as I looked up to drink with my eyes of the warm light, I was taking a draught of G.o.d's best wine from off yonder in the north, of the wine that quickens the blood and drives away the brain-clouds.

A day of days this was to race over the ridges while the music of the hounds rang through them; a day of days to dash from thicket to thicket, over the hills and through the hollows, leaping logs and vaulting fences, with every sense keyed to the highest; for the fox is a clever general. So young Colonel was puzzled, for there I was on a log, at the crest of the ridge, with my crutches at one side and my gun at the other, when I should be away after old Captain, the real leader of the sport, after Arnold and Tip and Betsy. This was the best I could do, to sit here and listen and hope--listen as the chase went swinging along the ridges; hope that a kind fate and an unwise Reynard would bring them where I could add the bark of my rifle to the song of the hounds. You can't explain everything to a dog. With a puppy it is still harder. So Colonel was restless. He looked anxiously down the hill; then he lifted those soft, slantwise eyes to mine very wistfully.

"Go, Colonel," I commanded, pointing to the hollow.

Instead, he came to me and lifted to my knee one of those ponderous feet of his, and tried to pull me from my log.

"Aren't you coming?" he seemed to say.

"No, old chap," I answered, pulling the long ears gently till he smiled. "I prefer it here where I can look over the valley, and from here I can see where Mary lives--down yonder on the hillside; that's the house by the clump of oaks, where the smoke is curling up so thick."

The slantwise eyes became grave, and the long tail paused. The second ponderous paw came cras.h.i.+ng on my knee.

"Aren't you coming?" young Colonel seemed to say.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Aren't you coming?" young Colonel seemed to say.]

I was flattering myself that the puppy was choosing my company to the hunt, for I always value the approval of a dog. Now I found myself hoping that with a little coddling the young hound would forget the great doings down in the hollow and would stay with me on the ridge-top. But I should have known better. There is an end even to a dog's patience. The place for the strong-limbed is in the thick of the chase. You can't interest a puppy in scenery when his fellows are running a fox.

"Look, Colonel," said I, pointing over the valley, "yonder's where Mary lives, and I suspect that at this very minute she is looking out of the window to this very spot, and----"

The call of a hound floated up from the hollow. Old Captain was on a trail. With a shrill cry young Colonel answered. This was no time to loaf with a crippled soldier. With a long-drawn yelp, a childish imitation of his father's bay, he was off through the bushes. Young Colonel was living. And I was left alone on my log.

But this was my first day of life, too. Some twenty-four years before I had been born, but those years were simply existence. Now I was living. I had a secret. I had hinted at it to young Colonel. Had he stayed, I would have told him more, but like a fool he had gone jabbering off through the bushes, cutting a ludicrous figure, too, I thought, for his body had not yet grown up to his feet and ears, and he carried them off a bit clumsily. Had he stayed I might have told him all, and there never was a bit of news quite so important as that the foolish puppy missed; never a story so romantic as that he might have heard; never in the valley's history an event of such interest. He had scorned it. Now he was with the dog mob down there in the gulch. I could hear them giving tongue, and I knew they were on an old trail.

Soon they would be in full cry, but I did not care. It was fine to be in full cry, of course, but from my post on the ridge-top, I could at least keep in sight of the house by the clump of oaks on the hillside.

Last week I should have moped and fumed here, and cursed my luck in being bound to a log on a day like this. Now I turned my face to the sunlight and drank in the keen air. Now I whistled as merry a tune as I knew.

"You seem to take well with solitude," came a voice behind me.

Looking about, I saw Robert Weston fighting his way through the thicket.

"I take better to company," I said. "Why have you deserted the others?"

Weston sat down at my side with his gun across his knees.

"Arnold Arker says there is a fox in that hollow," he answered. "You can hear the dogs now, and he thinks if they start him, this is as good a place as any, as he is likely to run over on Buzzard ridge, and double back this way, or he'll give us a sight of him as he breaks from the gully. Then as we went away, I looked back and saw you sitting here and I envied you, for yours is the most comfortable post in all the ridges."

"When you could be somewhere else, yes," said I. "Having to sit here, I should prefer running closer to the dogs."

"As you have to stay here, I'd rather sit with you, and after all what could be better?" Weston laughed. "You know, Mark, in all the valley you are the man I get along with best."

"Because I've never tried to find out why you were here."

"For that reason I told you," said he. "How simple it was, too. There was no cause for mystery."

"It would still be a mystery to Elmer Spiker, say. He can't conceive a man living in the country by choice."

"To Elmer Spiker--indeed, to most of the folks around here, the city is man's natural environment. It's just bad luck to be country-born."

"Exactly," said I.

Weston is a keen fellow. There was a quiet, cynical smile on his face as he sat there beating a tattoo on his leggings with a hickory twig.

"Look at your brother," he exclaimed after a while. "I always told Tim that if he knew what was best he'd stay right here and----"

"If you told him that now, he would laugh at you," I interrupted.