Part 4 (1/2)
”David,” he said softly, ”I've brung yer ma some posies. She liked my yaller roses, you know. I'm sorry my laylocks are gone. They come early this year.”
”Thank you, Uncle Larimy.”
A choking sensation warned David to say no more.
”Things go 'skew sometimes, Dave, but the sun will s.h.i.+ne agen,”
reminded the old man, as he went on into the house.
Later, when sundown shadows had vanished and the first glimmer of the stars radiated from a pale sky, Joe came over. David felt no thrill at sight of his hero. The halo was gone. He only remembered with a dull ache that the half dollar had brought his mother none of the luxuries he had planned to buy for her.
”David,” said the young ranchman, his deep voice softened, ”my mother died when I was younger than you are, but you won't have a stepmother to make life unbearable for you.”
The boy looked at him with inscrutable eyes.
”Don't you want to go back with me to the ranch, David? You can learn to ride and shoot.”
David shook his head forlornly. His spirit of adventure was smothered.
”We'll talk about it again, David,” he said, as he went in to consult M'ri.
”Don't you think the only thing for the boy to do is to go back with me? I am going to buy the ranch on which I've been foreman, and I'll try to do for David all that should have been done for me when I, at his age, felt homeless and alone. He's the kind that takes things hard and quiet; life in the open will pull him up.”
”No, Joe,” replied M'ri resolutely. ”He's not ready for that kind of life yet. He needs to be with women and children a while longer.
Barnabas and I are going to take him. Barnabas suggested it, and I told Mrs. Dunne one day, when her burdens were getting heavy, that we would do so if anything like this should happen.”
Joe looked at her with revering eyes.
”Miss M'ri, you are so good to other people's children, what would you be to your own!”
The pa.s.sing of M'ri's youth had left a faint flush of prettiness like the afterglow of a sunset faded into twilight. She was of the kind that old age would never wither. In the deep blue eyes was a patient, reflective look that told of a past but unforgotten romance. She turned from his gaze, but not before he had seen the wistfulness his speech had evoked. After he had gone, she sought David.
”I am going to stay here with you, David, for two or three days. Then Barnabas and I want you to come to live with us. I had a long talk with your mother one day, and I told her if anything happened to her you should be our boy. That made her less anxious about the future, David. Will you come?”
The boy looked up with his first gleam of interest in mundane things.
”I'd like it, but would--Jud?”
”I am afraid Jud doesn't like anything, David,” she replied with a sigh. ”That's one reason I want you--to be a big brother to Janey, for I think that is what she needs, and what Jud can never be.”
The boy remembered what his mother had counseled.
”I'll always take care of Janey,” he earnestly a.s.sured her.
”I know you will, David.”
Two dreary days pa.s.sed in the way that such days do pa.s.s, and then David rode to his new home with Barnabas and M'ri.