Part 16 (1/2)

The interest in which the little ones took in their new home and their new companions, Jem's enthusiasm over his new master and his school work, Violet's triumphs in her little house-keeping successes, filled him with wonder which was not always free from anger and contempt. Even his mother's gentle cheerfulness was all read wrong by Davie. He said to himself that his father had been more to him than to the other children, and that he missed him more than they, but he could not say this of his mother; and daily seeing her patient sweetness, her constant care to turn the bright side of their changed life to her children, it seemed to him almost like indifference--like a willingness to forget.

He hated himself for the thought, and shrunk from his mother's eye, lest she should see it and hate him too.

But all this did not last very long. It must have come to an end soon, in one way or other, for youth grows impatient of sorrow, and lays it down at last, and thanks to his mother's watchful care, it ended well for David.

He had no hay-loft to which he could betake himself in these days when he wished to be alone; but when he felt irritable and impatient, and could not help showing it among his brothers and sisters, he used to go out through the strip of gra.s.s and the willows into the dry bed of the shrunken stream that flowed beneath the two bridges, and sitting down on the large stones of which the abutment of the railroad bridge was made, have it out with himself by the bank of the river alone. And here his mother found him sitting one night, dull and moody, throwing sticks and stones into the water at his feet. She came upon him before he was aware.

”Mamma! you here? How did you come? On the track?”

”No; I followed you round by the willows and below the bridge. How quiet it is here!”

The high embankment of the railway on one side, and the river on the other, shut in the spot where David sat, and made it solitary enough to suit him in his moodiest moments, and his mother saw that he did not look half glad at her coming. But she took no notice. The great stones that made the edge of the abutment were arranged like steps of stairs, and she sat down a step or two above him.

”Did the sun set clear? Or were there clouds enough about to make a picture to-night?” asked she, after a little.

”Yes, it was clear, I think. At least not very cloudy. I hardly noticed,” said Davie, confusedly.

”I wish we could see the sun set from the house.”

”Yes, it is very pretty sometimes. When the days were at the longest, the sun set behind the highest part of the mountain just in a line with that tall elm on the other side of the river. It sets far to the left now.”

”Yes, the summer is wearing on,” said his mother. And so they went on talking of different things for a little while, and then there was silence.

”Mamma,” said David, by and by, ”are you not afraid of taking cold? It is almost dark.”

”No. I have my thick shawl.” And moving down a step, she so arranged it that it fell over David too.

”Ah! never mind me. I am not so delicate as all that, mamma,” said David, laughing, but he did not throw the shawl off, but rather drew a little nearer, and leaned on her lap.

”See the evening star, mamma. I always think--”

David stopped suddenly.

”Of papa,” said his mother, softly.

”Yes, and of the many, many times we have seen it together. We always used to look for it coming home. Sometimes he saw it first, and sometimes I did; and oh! mamma, there don't seem to be any good in anything now,” said he, with a breaking voice.

Instead of speaking, his mother pa.s.sed her hand gently over his hair.

”Will it ever seem the same, mamma?”

”Never the same, Davie! never the same! We shall never see his face, nor hear his voice, nor clasp his hand again. We shall never wait for his coming home in all the years that are before us. It will never, never be the same.”

”Mamma! how can you bear it?”

”It was G.o.d's will, and it is well with him, and I shall see him again,”

said his mother, brokenly. But when she spoke in a minute her voice was clear and firm as ever.

”It will never be the same to any of us again. But you are wrong in one thing. All the good has not gone out of life because of our loss.”

”It seems so to me, mamma.”