Part 7 (2/2)
”Look into my eyes, Willie. _I_ am not weeping. It seems to me I can never shed another tear. I feel so strong! The future, Brother! O the future! What a great huge painting it seems! But it is not full yet. _I_ shall do something there; _my_ hands will help to color it. Yes, _I_, little Phebe.”
”I do not doubt it. There is a destiny for such as you. A mission awaits you. I will be more brave, more manly. You could not remain with me. A higher position than the partners.h.i.+p with a cripple or hostler to a big mastiff is meted out to you.”
A smile for an instant broke over his clouded face, and Phebe laughed outright.
”Give me the lily,” he said, at last, reaching out his hand for the coveted treasure. ”We will divide it. You shall have the long smooth stalk while _I_ will keep the flower. Henceforth you are my lily, sweet and precious to me; while _I_--_I_--well, I am nothing but the withered, crooked tendril seeking to wind itself about your loving heart.”
She darted from his side before the last sentence was finished, and her companion following with his eyes her light, buoyant figure, saw standing on an elevation of ground not far off, the well known form of Crazy Dimis.
”I have found a double blackberry,” she called, holding up something between her long, bony thumb and finger, ”come and see it.”
Phebe went to her.
”Those are not double, Aunt Dimis,” she exclaimed.
”Don't two make a double? Put them together and then they do--there!
It's a good omen for you, silly child. Make them double, help the time.
We must help. Ha! ha! And help Fate! Don't _I_ know, child? Fate is waiting for you! Go and help her make omens. But make them good! Ha! ha!
_I_ didn't but I will. Silly fools. Cry and love; by and by it will be love and cry. Don't I now? Go back to _him_! _I_ don't want you.” And with a bound she sprang over the fence and was lost in the thick underbrush of the honeysuckle swamp.
Phebe called loudly after her but she was not heeded. She wanted to ask her about a certain good lady, Mrs. Ernest, for this same half-crazed gibbering woman had awakened an interest for Phebe in the heart of Mrs.
Ernest, and it was no idle jest when she told Willie that ”Crazy Dimis”
was her friend. She now returned slowly to her companion, who was watching her.
”What did that crazy creature say to you?” he asked, somewhat impatiently. ”Nothing good, I know.”
”Yes it was. She told me to go and help Fate. I suppose she meant to have me fill up that picture I was telling you about, and I must go.
To-morrow I shall start. Do not look at me so! you shall know all--everything I do or hope to do; and I shall come to see you often.
Mrs. Ernest has promised to help me all she can, and I think I can make her my friend. It will be only a short run for Rover, and you must ride over there often--as often as you would like to hear from me, will you?”
She kissed his white forehead, then giving a low shrill whistle, which the faithful dog well understood, she said: ”We must go home, for it is time to help get dinner.”
In a moment more Rover with his wagon came up in good style, and they started down the path which wound around by the meadow brook through the clump of pine trees which stood as sentinels over the two graves beyond the garden wall.
”How I wish Father were sleeping there instead of beneath the waves,”
cried Willie; and no other word was spoken. What wonder? How soon the paths were to branch off from each other! Already the lonely cripple felt the shadows creeping over him that were surely to cover his dreary pathway as he wandered on alone. His heart was full of these sad forebodings, and he pressed the memento of his helplessness more closely in his hand as the spirit of rebellion for a moment arose to goad him.
Then ”I will never leave thee nor forsake thee” came as a soft and gentle whisper to his soul, and looking up as Rover halted by the kitchen door he said mildly: ”We shall all come together again, Phebe.”
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER VIII.
OUT INTO THE WORLD.
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