Just David

  CHAPTER XVI

  DAVID'S CASTLE IN SPAIN

  On his return from the House that Jack Built, David decided to counthis gold-pieces. He got them out at once from behind the books, andstacked them up in little shining rows. As he had surmised, there werea hundred of them. There were, indeed, a hundred and six. He waspleased at that. One hundred and six were surely enough to give him a"start."

  A start! David closed his eyes and pictured it. To go on with hisviolin, to hear good music, to be with people who understood what hesaid when he played! That was what Mr. Jack had said a "start" was. Andthis gold--these round shining bits of gold--could bring him this!David swept the little piles into a jingling heap, and sprang to hisfeet with both fists full of his suddenly beloved wealth. With boyishglee he capered about the room, jingling the coins in his hands. Then,very soberly, he sat down again, and began to gather the gold to putaway.

  He would be wise--he would be sensible. He would watch his chance, andwhen it came he would go away. First, however, he would tell Mr. Jackand Joe, and the Lady of the Roses; yes, and the Hollys, too. Just nowthere seemed to be work, real work that he could do to help Mr. Holly.But later, possibly when September came and school,--they had said hemust go to school,--he would tell them then, and go away instead. Hewould see. By that time they would believe him, perhaps, when he showedthe gold-pieces. They would not think he had--STOLEN them. It wasAugust now; he would wait. But meanwhile he could think--he couldalways be thinking of the wonderful thing that this gold was one day tobring to him.

  Even work, to David, did not seem work now. In the morning he was torake hay behind the men with the cart. Yesterday he had not liked itvery well; but now--nothing mattered now. And with a satisfied sighDavid put his precious gold away again behind the books in the cupboard.

  David found a new song in his violin the next morning. To be sure, hecould not play it--much of it--until four o'clock in the afternooncame; for Mr. Holly did not like violins to be played in the morning,even on days that were not especially the Lord's. There was too muchwork to do. So David could only snatch a strain or two very, verysoftly, while he was dressing; but that was enough to show him what abeautiful song it was going to be. He knew what it was, at once, too.It was the gold-pieces, and what they would bring. All through the dayit tripped through his consciousness, and danced tantalizingly just outof reach. Yet he was wonderfully happy, and the day seemed short inspite of the heat and the weariness.

  At four o'clock he hurried home and put his violin quickly in tune. Itcame then--that dancing sprite of tantalization--and joyously abandoneditself to the strings of the violin, so that David knew, of a surety,what a beautiful song it was.

  It was this song that sent him the next afternoon to see his Lady ofthe Roses. He found her this time out of doors in her garden.Unceremoniously, as usual, he rushed headlong into her presence.

  "Oh, Lady--Lady of the Roses," he panted. "I've found out, and I camequickly to tell you."

  "Why, David, what--what do you mean?" Miss Holbrook looked unmistakablystartled.

  "About the hours, you know,--the unclouded ones," explained Davideagerly. "You know you said they were ALL cloudy to you."

  Miss Holbrook's face grew very white.

  "You mean--you've found out WHY my hours are--are all cloudy ones?" shestammered.

  "No, oh, no. I can't imagine why they are," returned David, with anemphatic shake of his head. "It's just that I've found a way to makeall my hours sunny ones, and you can do it, too. So I came to tell you.You know you said yours were all cloudy."

  "Oh," ejaculated Miss Holbrook, falling back into her old listlessattitude. Then, with some asperity: "Dear me, David! Did n't I tell younot to be remembering that all the time?"

  "Yes, I know, but I've LEARNED something," urged the boy; "somethingthat you ought to know. You see, I did think, once, that because youhad all these beautiful things around you, the hours ought to be allsunny ones. But now I know it isn't what's around you; it's what is INyou!"

  "Oh, David, David, you curious boy!"

  "No, but really! Let me tell you," pleaded David. "You know I haven'tliked them,--all those hours till four o'clock came,--and I was soglad, after I saw the sundial, to find out that they didn't count,anyhow. But to-day they HAVE counted--they've all counted, Lady of theRoses; and it's just because there was something inside of me thatshone and shone, and made them all sunny--those hours."

  "Dear me! And what was this wonderful thing?"

  David smiled, but he shook his head.

  "I can't tell you that yet--in words; but I'll play it. You see, Ican't always play them twice alike,--those little songs that Ifind,--but this one I can. It sang so long in my head, before my violinhad a chance to tell me what it really was, that I sort of learned it.Now, listen!" And he began to play.

  It was, indeed, a beautiful song, and Miss Holbrook said so withpromptness and enthusiasm; yet still David frowned.

  "Yes, yes," he answered, "but don't you see? That was telling you aboutsomething inside of me that made all my hours sunshiny ones. Now, whatyou want is something inside of you to make yours sunshiny, too. Don'tyou see?"

  An odd look came into Miss Holbrook's eyes.

  "That's all very well for you to say, David, but you haven't told meyet, you know, just what it is that's made all this brightness for you."

  The boy changed his position, and puckered his forehead into a deeperfrown.

  "I don't seem to explain so you can understand," he sighed. "It isn'tthe SPECIAL thing. It's only that it's SOMETHING. And it's thinkingabout it that does it. Now, mine wouldn't make yours shine,but--still,"--he broke off, a happy relief in his eyes,--"yours couldbe LIKE mine, in one way. Mine is something that is going to happen tome--something just beautiful; and you could have that, youknow,--something that was going to happen to you, to think about."

  Miss Holbrook smiled, but only with her lips, Her eyes had grown somber.

  "But there isn't anything 'just beautiful' going to happen to me,David," she demurred.

  "There could, couldn't there?"

  Miss Holbrook bit, her lip; then she gave an odd little laugh thatseemed, in some way, to go with the swift red that had come to hercheeks.

  "I used to think there could--once," she admitted; "but I've given thatup long ago. It--it didn't happen."

  "But couldn't you just THINK it was going to?" persisted the boy. "Yousee I found out yesterday that it's the THINKING that does it. All daylong I was thinking--only thinking. I wasn't DOING it, at all. I wasreally raking behind the cart; but the hours all were sunny."

  Miss Holbrook laughed now outright.

  "What a persistent little mental-science preacher you are!" sheexclaimed. "And there's truth--more truth than you know--in it all,too. But I can't do it, David,--not that--not that. 'T would take morethan THINKING--to bring that," she added, under her breath, as if toherself.

  "But thinking does bring things," maintained David earnestly. "There'sJoe--Joe Glaspell. His mother works out all day; and he's blind."

  "Blind? Oh-h!" shuddered Miss Holbrook.

  "Yes; and he has to stay all alone, except for Betty, and she is n'tthere much. He THINKS ALL his things. He has to. He can't SEE anythingwith his outside eyes. But he sees everything with his insideeyes--everything that I play. Why, Lady of the Roses, he's even seenthis--all this here. I told him about it, you know, right away afterI'd found you that first day: the big trees and the long shadows acrossthe grass, and the roses, and the shining water, and the lovely marblepeople peeping through the green leaves; and the sundial, and you sobeautiful sitting here in the middle of it all. Then I played it forhim; and he said he could see it all just as plain! And THAT was withhis inside eyes! And so, if Joe, shut up there in his dark little room,can make his THINK bring him all that, I should think that YOU, here inthis beautiful, beautiful place, could make your think bring youanything you wanted it to."

  But Miss Holbrook sighed again and shook her head.

&
nbsp; "Not that, David, not that," she murmured. "It would take more thanthinking to bring--that." Then, with a quick change of manner, shecried: "Come, come, suppose we don't worry any more about MY hours.Let's think of yours. Tell me, what have you been doing since I saw youlast? Perhaps you have been again to--to see Mr. Jack, for instance."

  "I have; but I saw Jill mostly, till the last." David hesitated, thenhe blurted it out: "Lady of the Roses, do you know about the gate andthe footbridge?"

  Miss Holbrook looked up quickly.

  "Know--what, David?"

  "Know about them--that they're there?"

  "Why--yes, of course; at least, I suppose you mean the footbridge thatcrosses the little stream at the foot of the hill over there."

  "That's the one." Again David hesitated, and again he blurted out theburden of his thoughts. "Lady of the Roses, did you ever--cross thatbridge?"

  Miss Holbrook stirred uneasily.

  "Not--recently."

  "But you don't MIND folks crossing it?"

  "Certainly not--if they wish to."

  "There! I knew 't wasn't your blame," triumphed David.

  "MY blame!"

  "Yes; that Mr. Jack wouldn't let Jill come across, you know. He calledher back when she'd got halfway over once." Miss Holbrook's facechanged color.

  "But I do object," she cried sharply, "to their crossing it when theyDON'T want to! Don't forget that, please."

  "But Jill did want to."

  "How about her brother--did he want her to?"

  "N--no."

  "Very well, then. I didn't, either."

  David frowned. Never had he seen his beloved Lady of the Roses looklike this before. He was reminded of what Jill had said about Jack:"His face was all stern and white, and his lips snapped tight shutafter every word." So, too, looked Miss Holbrook's face; so, too, hadher lips snapped tight shut after her last words. David could notunderstand it. He said nothing more, however; but, as was usually thecase when he was perplexed, he picked up his violin and began to play.And as he played, there gradually came to Miss Holbrook's eyes a softerlight, and to her lips lines less tightly drawn. Neither the footbridgenor Mr. Jack, however, was mentioned again that afternoon.