Nelson Lloyd - The Soldier of the Valley

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[Illustration: Leander.]

"This here is the longest fairy story I ever heard tell of," said Elmer
Spiker, "We haven't even had a sign of the prin-cess."

"And there is a prin-cess in this here le-gend," returned Josiah. "She
was a be-yutiful one, too. Her name was Pinky Binn, a dotter of the
house of Binn, the Binns of Turkey Walley. She had the reddish hair of
the Binns and the pearl-blue eyes of the Rummelsbergers from over the
mountains. Her ma was a Rummelsberger. She wasn't too spare, nor was
she too fleshy; she was just rounded right; and when she smiled--ah,
boys, when Pinky Binn smiled at Ernest from behind her g'ography his
heart went like its spring had broke. Yet he never showed it. It
would have been ruination for him to let it be known by sign or act
that Pinky Binn was other than the general class of weemen; for is
there anything worse than weemen in general? It's the exceptions,
allus the exceptions, raises trouble with a man. Pinky Binn was
Ernest's exception. But the time of his great trial come, and he was
true. He stepped forth in his right light before all the school; he
showed himself what he was--the gentle lover, the masterful fighter,
the heroic-est scholar Six Stars school had ever seen."

[Illustration: "Her name was Pinky Binn, a dotter of the house of Binn,
the Binns of Turkey Walley."]

"He whipped the teacher, I know," cried Henry Holmes. "I told you,
Ike--he licked the teacher."

"This here is a fairy story, Henery," returned Isaac reprovingly.

"Even in a fairy story it 'ud be ridiculous to let a boy of fifteen
beat a trained teacher," said Josiah Nummler. "He didn't quite, and it
come this way. Leander asked Pinky Binn if he had eleven apples and
multiplied them by five how many was they left. She says sixty-five.
'Figure it out agin,' he says, wery stern. So she works her fingers
and her lips a-while, like she was deef and dumb. 'Five-timsone is
five,' she says, 'and five-timsone agin is five and one to carry is
six--sixty-five,' she says. 'Well, I'll be Scotch-Irished,' says
Leander gittin' wery angry. 'Sech obtusety' (Leander allus used fancy
words) 'is worthy of Ernest yander.' He pinted his long finger at
Ernest and says, 'How much is five times eleven apples? Ernest gits up
and faces the teacher, wery ca'am and wery quiet. 'Sixty-five,' says
he. 'It's fifty-five,' Leander shouts. Then says Ernest, wery cool,
'Pinky Binn says it's sixty-five, and Pinky Binn ain't no storyteller,
and you hadn't otter call her one.' That takes all the talk out of the
teacher. He just sets there wrappin' his legs round the chair and
glarin'. Ernest's voice rings clear above the school now, like the
Declaration of Independence. 'In Turkey Walley, teacher,' he says,
'five times eleven apples is sixty-five. They raises bigger apples
there.'

"Leander's legs unsprung. He ketched Ernest by the hair and lifted him
to the platform. Boys, you otter 'a' seen it. It was David and
Goliath all over agin, only fightin' fair. Havin' Leander holdin' his
hair give the boy an advantage--it was two hands agin one. Leander had
but the one to operate his stick with, while Ernest was drivin' both
fists right into the darkness in front of him. The stick was making no
impression, and some of the small boys that didn't know no better begin
to cheer. Boys, you otter 'a' been there. You'd have enjoyed it,
Henery. Leander seen what he needed was tactics, and his regular
tactics was to hold the scholar at arm's length by the hair. He tried
it and it didn't work. Ernest was usin' tactics too. He wasn't
wastin' strength and beatin' his arms around. He just smiled. That
smile aroused the teacher in Leander agin. He couldn't stand it. He
had never had a boy do that before; he forgot himself and sailed in.
Boys, that was fightin' then. You'd have enjoyed it, Henery. Still, I
guess it couldn't have been much to watch, for there was nothin' to see
but dust--a rollin', roarin' cloud of it, backward and forward over the
platform. I don't know just what happened. Pap couldn't tell.
Leander couldn't 'a' told you. Ernest couldn't 'a' told you. There
was war--real war, and after it come peace."

"Ernest whipped, I know," cried Henry Holmes.

"The teacher was licked--good--good!" shouted Isaac Bolum.

"No, boys," said Josiah solemnly, "that couldn't have been. Even in
fairy stories sech things couldn't happen. But when the dust cleared
away, Leander's body lay along the floor, and towerin' over him, one
foot on his boosom, stood the darin' scholar. I guess the teacher had
been took ill."

"Mebbe it was appleplexy," suggested Elmer Spiker.

"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 worship 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 Washington--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 illustrate?" 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!"

[Illustration: 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 cocked 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 shivering. 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 God'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 crashing on my knee.

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

[Illustration: "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.

Weston looked surprised.

"Does he like work?" he exclaimed.

"The boy is in love," I answered.

Weston dropped the hickory twig, and turning, gazed at me.

"I knew that," he said. "I knew that long ago."

"With Edith Parker," I hastened to explain. "You know her?"

"Oh--oh," he muttered.

He pulled out a cigar-case and a box of matches and spent a long time
getting a light.

Then with a glance of inquiry, he said, "Edith Parker?"

"Why, don't you know her?" I asked.

"I know a half a hundred Parkers," he replied. "I may know Edith
Parker, but I can't recall her."

"This one is your book-keeper's daughter," I said with considerable
heat.

"Indeed," said he calmly. "Parker--Parker--I thought our book-keeper's
name was Smyth. Yes--I'm quite sure it's Smyth."

"But Tim says it's Parker," said I. "Tim ought to know."

"Tim should know," laughed Weston. "I guess he does know better than
I. A minute ago I would have sworn it was Smyth; but to tell the
truth, I never gave any attention to such details of business. Well,
Edith is my book-keeper's daughter."

"She lives in Brooklyn," said I, "and she is very beautiful. Every
letter I get from Tim, the more beautiful she becomes, for in all my
life I never heard of a fellow as frank as he is. Usually men hide
what sentiment they have except from a few women, but his letters make
me blush when I read them."

"They are so full of gush," said Weston, calmly smoking.

He seemed very indifferent, and to be more listening to the cries of
the dogs working around the hollow than to the affairs of the Hope
family.

"Gush is the word for it," I answered. "Tim never gives me a line
about himself. It's all Edith--Edith--Edith."

"And he is engaged to Miss Smyth?" Weston struck his legging a sharp
blow with his stick. "Confound it!" he cried, "I can't get it out of
my head that our book-keeper's name is Smyth."

"But Tim knows, surely," said I.

"Yes--he must," answered Weston. "Of course I'm wrong. But this Miss
Parker--are they engaged?"

"I can't tell from his last letter," I replied. "It seems that they
must be pretty near it--that's what Mary says, too."

Weston started. Then he rose to his feet very slowly, and wheeling
about looked down on me and smoked.

"Mary says so too," he repeated. "How in the world does Mary know?"

"I read her the letter," said I, apologetically. It did seem wrong to
read Tim's letter that way. From my standpoint it was all right now,
but Weston did not know that, so he whistled softly to himself.

From the hollow came the long-drawn cry of the hound. It was old
Captain. Betsy joined in, then Mike; and now the ridges rang with the
music of the chase. They were on a fresh trail; they were away over
hill and hollow, singing full-throated as they ran.

"They've found him," I cried, rising to hear the song of the hounds.

Weston sat down on the log.

"They are making for the other ridge," said I, pointing over the narrow
gully. "Hark! There's young Colonel."

But Weston went on smoking. "Poor Tim!" I heard him say.

Full and strong rang the music of the dogs, as they swung out of the
hollow, up the ridge-side. For a moment, in the clearing, I had a
glimpse of them, Captain leading, with Betsy at his haunches, and Mike
and Major nose and nose behind them. Far in the rear, but in the
chase, was little Colonel. A grand puppy, he! All ears and feet. But
he runs bravely through the tangled brush. Many a stouter dog comes
from it with flanks all torn and bloody. I waved my hat wildly,
cheering him on. I called to him loudly, in the vain hope he might
look back, as though at a time like this a hound would turn from the
trail. On he went into the woods--nose to the ground and body low--all
feet and ears--and a stout heart!

"Now we must wait," I said, "and watch, and hope."

Already they had turned the crest of the hill, and fainter and fainter
came the sound of the chase.

"Mark," Weston began, "I hope this affair of Tim's turns out all right.
What little I can do shall be done, and to-night I'm going to write to
the office that they must help him along. He deserves it."

"But the poorer men are, the greater their love," I laughed. "With
money to marry, Tim might think that after all he'd better look around
more--take a choice."

"But Tim is the most serious person that ever was," returned Weston.
"I have found that out. Once he makes up his mind, there is no
changing it. He is full of ideas. He actually thinks that a man who
is in business is doing something praiseworthy; that a man who has
bought and sold merchandise at a profit all his life can fold his hands
when he dies and say; 'I have not lived in vain.' He does not know yet
that the larger estate a man leaves to his relatives the more useful
his life has been. Now I suppose he hopes some day to be a tea-king.
Perhaps he will. I hope so. I don't want the job. But once he has
picked out his queen, you can't change him by making marriage a
financial impossibility."

"Well, I'm certainly not protesting against your raising his salary,"
said I.

"You needn't. To tell the truth, it's too late. I wrote to the office
about that yesterday."

It was of no use to thank Weston for anything. I tried to, but he
brushed it aside airily and told me to attend to my own affairs and
light one of his cigars. When we were smoking together, his mood
became more serious, and as he spoke of Tim and Tim's ambition, and of
his interest in the boy, he was carried back to his own earlier life.
So for the first time I came to understand his prolonged stay in the
valley.

Like Elmer Spiker, in my heart Weston's conduct puzzled me. When he
told me that he had come here simply because he liked the country I
believed him that far, but I suspected some deeper reason to keep a man
of his stamp dawdling in a remote valley. Now it was so simple. The
foundation of Weston's fortunes had been laid in one small saloon; its
bulk had been built on a chain stretching from end to end of the city.
Its founder had been a coarse, uneducated man, but his success in the
liquor trade had been too great to be forgotten, even years after he
had abandoned it and built up the great commercial house that bore his
name. His ambition for his son had been boundless. He had spared
nothing to make him a better man in the world's eye than his father.
He had succeeded. But the world had persisted in remembering the
parental bar. Robert Weston had never seen that bar, for he had
entered on the scene when there was a chain of them, and his father had
brought him up almost in ignorance of their very existence. Even at
the university he had little reason to be ashamed of them. It was
after he had spent years in rounding out his education abroad, and had
returned to take his place in those circles which he believed he was
entitled to enter, that he found that the world persisted in pointing
to the large revenue stamp that seemed to cling to him. A stronger man
would have fought against odds like those and won for himself a place
that would suffer no denial. But Weston was physically a delicate man.
By nature he was retiring, rather than aggressive. If those who were
his equals would have none of him because of his father's faults, then
he would not seek them. Equally distasteful were those who equalled
him in wealth alone, for by a strange contradiction, the very fact that
the rumshop did not jar on their sensibilities, marked them for him as
coarse and uncongenial. Weston had turned to himself. It is the study
of oneself that makes cynics. The study of others makes egotists.
Then a woman had come. Of her Weston did not say much, except that she
had made him turn from himself for a time to study her. He had become
an egotist and so had dared to love her. She had loved him, he
thought, for she said so, and promised to become his wife. Things were
growing brighter. But they met an officious friend. They were in
Venice at the time, he having joined her there with her family. The
officious friend joined the family too, and he held up his hands in
horror when he heard of it. Didn't the family know? Oh, yes, Bob was
himself a fine fellow; but he was Whiskey Weston!

"Of course, no good woman wants to be Mrs. Whiskey Weston," said my
friend grimly. "Still, I think she did care a bit for me; but it was
all up. Back I came, and here I am, Mark, just kind of stopping to
stretch my legs and rest a little and breathe. I came on a wheel, for
I had ridden for miles and miles trying to get my mind back on myself
the way it used to be."

Then he smoked.

"Is that the dogs again?" I said, to break the oppressive silence.

Weston did not heed me, but pointed down the valley to the house by the
clump of oaks.

"Do you know sometimes I think that Mary there, with all her bringing
up, would edge away from me if she knew that my father had kept saloons
and gambling places and all that." Weston spoke carelessly, puffing at
his cigar, for he had recovered his easy demeanor. "I think a world of
Mary, Mark. She is beautiful, and good, and honest. Sometimes I
suspect that I've stayed here just for her. Sometimes I think I will
not leave till she goes--" Weston sprang to his feet. "It's the dogs!
Hear them!" he cried.

I was up too. Away down the ridge we heard the bay of the hounds again.

"I want to tell you something," I said, pointing to the house by the
clump of oaks. "I wish for your sake that there were two Marys,
Weston. But there is only one, and she is good and beautiful, and for
some reason--Heaven only knows why--she is going to be my wife."

Weston stepped hack and gazed at me. I did not blame him. He seemed
to study me from head to foot, and I knew that he was trying to find
some reason why the girl should care for me. It was natural. I had
puzzled over the same problem and I had not solved it. Now I did not
care.

"Stare on," I cried, laughing. "You can't think it queerer than I do.
It's hard for me to convince myself that it is true."

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