CHAPTER VIII
THE FIDDLER OF APPLE TREE LANE
People said that the Brighton children could "never manage," when itwas said that they were planning to live in the little cottage on thehill above Medford Valley.
"There's always a wind there from the sea, dearie," said old GrannyFullerton to Barbara Brighton. "It will search out your very bones,come winter."
Barbara shook her head cheerfully. A plump and rosy young person oftwelve years old does not worry much about cold winds.
People said also, with the strange blindness of those who can liveclose by for years and yet never know what is in their neighbors'hearts, that it was an odd thing that Howard Brighton should havebuilt that little house so far from the town in the midst of thatgreat stretch of wild land where so few folk lived.
"It is marshy in the valley and wooded on the hills," Granny Fullertonsaid to Barbara, "with never a neighbor for miles. Of course the landhas been in your family time out of mind, but those that are yournearest kin have always lived in the town. What could Howard Brightonhave been thinking to do such a thing!"
They did not know how he had toiled and planned in his narrow littleoffice down near the wharves of the seaport town, how he and his wifehad dreamed together that their three children should live in someother place than on the cramped, stony street where they had beenborn. After his wife's death he had still gone forward with his dreamand, when he found that he had, himself, not very long to live, he hadmade haste to build the cottage that they had so greatly desired.
"It is pleasure enough to think of the children's having it," he saidto a plain-spoken neighbor who remonstrated with him on the groundthat he could never live there. "The boys will be old enough to carefor their sister, and the house on the hill will be just the place fora little maid to grow up."
His children were of widely separated ages, for Ralph, the eldest, wastwenty-one, Felix seventeen, and Barbara, as has been said, onlytwelve. It happened also that they had not all of them the sametastes, for while the two younger ones loved the country and lookedforward to living on the Windy Hill, Ralph's desire was to go onworking in the dusty office where he had already begun to prosper.
"He is a good getter, but a poor spender," the neighbors said, and inthis were right. Ralph, with his first success, had begun to thinktoo much of money and too little of other things.
In the end the cottage was never finished, only the main portion, atiny dwelling, was completed without the two broad wings with whichHoward Brighton had meant to enlarge it and which he did not live tobuild. When their father had gone from them his children found that hehad left everything he had to Ralph, since the laws of seventy-fiveyears ago made some difficulty over property being held by those whowere not of age.
"Ralph has a wise head on his young shoulders and will know how totake good care of the younger ones," was the comment of busy tongues.
Perhaps Ralph heard them, with the result that he felt older and wiserthan he really was, but of that no one can be sure.
It was on a clear, warm day of mid-July when they moved from theairless street of the town to their new, wind-swept dwelling on thehill.
"It looks like home already," Barbara said as they came up to thedoor, for, with its wide, low roof, its broad windows, and itsswinging half doors that let in the sunshine and the fresh breezes, itseemed indeed a place in which to forget their sadness and to find anew, happy life. The rustling voice of the oak tree above seemed to bebidding them welcome, and a tall clump of hollyhocks by thedoor-stone, shell pink and white, seemed to have come into bloom thatvery day just for their home-coming.
Barbara ran from room to room, exclaiming in delight over the newfreedom, while the two brothers sat on the doorstep to look down overtheir new domain and to talk of the future. Their father had plannedto turn the meadow below into an orchard, and had even managed to setout the first half of the little trees, slim, tiny saplings thatdotted the sloping green.
"We will put in the others next autumn and spring," Felix said, "and Iwill be building new cupboards and shelves for old Chloe in thekitchen, I will mend the press in Barbara's room and I will finish offthe garret chamber under the eaves for myself, and there I can playthe fiddle to my heart's content and never disturb you at all. I thinkthat life will be very pleasant here."
So their lives swung into the new channel, with Chloe, Barbara's oldnurse, to cook for them and with Felix to tend the apple trees and thelittle garden, to saw and hammer and whistle all day at the task ofsetting the new place in order.
"It's a pity you haven't a proper, handsome house, with long windowsfrom the ceiling to the floor and a high roof and a carved front doorand with black marble chimneypieces instead of these rough stonefireplaces," Chloe would sigh, for she thought that the elegance ofthat time was none too good for the people she loved. It may be thatRalph sighed with her, but Felix and Barbara were frankly delightedwith the painted floors, the casement windows, and the low, big-beamedrooms. In the evenings, as the two would sit on the wide doorstep, thevoice of Felix's violin would mingle with the voice of the wind in theoak, while Barbara listened, entranced, for her brother was a realmaster of his instrument. It would laugh and sing and sigh, whileBarbara pressed closer and closer to his knee while the stars came outand the evening breeze stirred the hollyhocks and the great branchesof the oak tree. Ralph rode every day to the town to labor over heavyaccount books in his cramped little office and he always brought homea sheaf of papers under his arm. He would sit at the table inside thewindow in the candlelight and, as the music rose outside, singing tothe child and the flowers and the stars, he would scowl and fidget andtap irritably on the table with the point of his pen, for he did notlove his brother's playing.
"There is too much time spent on it," he would say, "when you might bedoing useful things."
"I have no head for adding up your endless columns of dollars andcents," Felix would answer, "so I must make myself useful in my ownway."
A warm, golden October had painted the valley with blazing colors, hadturned the oak tree to ruddy bronze, and had afforded ideal weatherfor the further planting of the orchard. Here Felix was at work, withBarbara following at his heels, and helping, when each tree wasplanted, to hold it upright while he pressed down the earth about itsroots.
"We will leave an open space through the center," he said, "a lanethat will lead straight up toward the house, so that when Ralph and Icome home we can look up to the open door and the hollyhocks aroundthe step. Only," he shook his head regretfully, "I am afraid Ralphwon't see the flowers. His head is too full of dollar signs when hecomes home from the town."
Barbara turned about to look through the orchard. Some one cametrudging along between the little trees, his heavy, tired feetcrunching in the leaves.
"Oh, it's a peddler," she cried eagerly, for she was always pleasedwhen these traveling merchants came past, with their laces and gayembroideries and colored beads to dazzle the eyes of little girls. Butthis was a peddler of another sort, a dark-faced man with meltingblack eyes and eager speech that was less than half of it English. Hewas an immigrant Italian, newly come to this great America, he managedto explain, and he was trying to sell the trinkets and small householdtreasures that he had brought with him.
They led him up to the house, for he was weary and hungry, and whileBarbara brought him food, Felix was plying him with questions as towhere he had come from and whither he was going. He had meant tosettle down in the little seaport, so he told them, but--here hebecame so voluble that it was almost impossible to understand him--hedid not wish to stop there now, he must go on--on.
"It is the gold," he cried excitedly, making wide gestures with bothhis brown hands, "the beautiful yellow gold. They find it everywhere!"
He brought out a tattered newspaper to let them see for themselveswhat he could not explain. News traveled slowly in those days, so thatin this out-of-the-way corner of Medford Valley the brother and sisternow heard for the first time of the disc
overy of gold in California.Yet in the towns and where people could gather to tell one anotherever-growing stories, the world was rapidly going mad over tales ofgold lying loose for the gathering, of nuggets as big as a fist, ofrivers running yellow with the precious shining dust.
"Listen, Barbara; why, it can't be true!" cried Felix as he readaloud, the Italian interrupting excitedly, trying to tell them more.It was for this that he had abandoned his plans, that he was sellingeverything he had to follow a far, golden dream across the country toCalifornia.
"A terrible journey, they say," he admitted, "but what does one care,with such fortune at the other end?"
He had little left to sell, nor had they much money to buy; but, socarried away were they by his ardor, they would have given himanything they had. There was a carved ivory crucifix, a silver chainand, at the very bottom of his bag, a square box that gave forth acurious humming noise.
"Take care," he cautioned, as Barbara would have peeped within, "theyfly away--the bees!"
"Bees?" she echoed in astonishment.
Yes, he had brought all the way to America a queen bee and her retinueof workers, for Italian bees, he told them gravely, were known theworld over for their beauty, industry, and gentleness.
"They sting you only if you hurt them," he declared. "Other times,never."
He explained how they were to be put into a hive and just how theywere to be tended, for he was wise in the bee lore of Italy. Felix hadseen some of the farmers round about struggling with the wild blackbees whose tempers were so vicious that the only way to gather theirhoney was to smoke the whole hiveful to death. The man opened the boxa little way to let the yellow-banded creatures crawl over hisfingers, to show their gentleness.
"I must sell them quick," he said, "for they live not much longer in abox."
They bought the bees, Felix and Barbara, though it took every pennythey had in the house and even the store in the little carved box onthe mantel which they were all saving, by Ralph's advice, against arainy day. The man went away down through the orchard, turning to wavehis ragged hat in joyful good-by, for now he had sold everything andwas off and away to California.
Felix sat on the doorstep, watching him go, while Barbara moved aboutinside, laying the table for supper. A thought suddenly struck her andshe went to the door.
"Felix," she said, "I wonder what Ralph will say?"
But Felix was not listening.
"Gold," he repeated softly. "Did you hear what he said, Barbara? Thesands of the rivers yellow with it, the Indians giving their childrennuggets to play with, a year's earnings to be picked up in a day!"
He was so lost in his dream that he could talk of nothing else. It wasnot the sort of gold that Ralph loved, minted coins that could besaved and counted and stacked away, but it was the shining treasure ofromance, wealth that, unlike dully satisfying riches, meant battle andadventure and triumph after overwhelming odds. He did at last consentto help Barbara house the bees in a suitable dwelling, but he talkedstill of the tale he had heard and his eyes were shining with thewonder of it.
"Did you hear him say that there was just one beaten trail across theplains, all the way from the Mississippi to California? Think of aroad, a single road, two thousand miles long, reaching out through thewilderness, over the deserts, through the mountains, with no towns orhouses or people, just one lonely highway--and gold at the far end!"
Ralph was late that evening, late and tired and impatient after anunsatisfactory day. He brushed past Felix, still sitting on the step,flung down his bundle of papers, and went over to the fire. The littlecarved money box stood open on the mantel, revealing its emptiness.
"What is this?" he asked Barbara sternly, as she stood in the corner,twisting her apron and finding, suddenly, that it was very difficultto explain. Felix came in, the light of excitement still on his face,eager to tell the tale.
He began to recount what they had heard, so carried away that he nevernoticed the gathering thundercloud upon his brother's face. Theplains, the mountains, the shining rivers running to the sea--heseemed to conjure up all of them as he told the story, but Ralph'sface never changed.
"So," cut in the elder brother at last when the younger stopped forbreath, "it is for a fairy tale like this that you have wasted yourtime and your substance, have emptied my money box. You bought beeswith it--_bees_! To buy bees when the forest is full of them and youcan have a swarm from any neighbor for the asking. You spend _my_money that some lying rascal may be helped upon his way!"
"It was our money," Felix reminded him gently, beginning to beawakened from his dream by the bitter anger of the other's tone.
"Mine," repeated Ralph. A cold fury seemed to possess him, whichdiscussions over money could alone bring forth. "Have you forgottenthat everything here is mine, given me by our father? The bread youeat, the roof over your head, they belong to me; do you understand?"
Barbara saw, in the firelight, that Felix's face flushed, then turnedwhite. No one but herself could know just how such words would hurthim, how his pride, his love for his brother, and his sturdyindependence were all cut to the very quick. He went out of the roomwithout a word and could be heard climbing the ladderlike stairs thatled to the room he had made for himself under the eaves. Ralph satdown by the fire, muttering uneasily something about "it all blowingover." With lagging steps Barbara went on setting the table.
They were not prepared to see Felix come down the stairs a few minuteslater with his coat and cap and with his violin under his arm.
"I will take no man's charity, not even my brother's," he saidhuskily, as he stood still for a moment on the threshold. Then he wasgone.
Barbara leaned over the half door and watched him go down the path,saw him pass through the lane of tiny apple trees, saw the dusk gatherabout him as he went on, a smaller and smaller, plodding figure thatdisappeared at last into the dark. The autumn wind in the oak treesounded blustering and cold as she closed the door and turned back tothe room again.
"He has only gone down to the town, he will come back to-morrow,"growled Ralph, but Barbara knew better.
"He has gone to look for gold," she cried, and, sitting down on thebench by the fire, she buried her face in her hands and burst intotears.
* * * * *
Felix used to think, as the days and weeks passed, and as that strangejourney upon which he had launched so suddenly dragged on and on, thatthe grassy slope above the orchard and the cool dark foliage of theoak tree must be the very greenest and fairest things on earth. Therewas no green now before his aching eyes, only the wide stretch ofyellow-brown prairie, a rough trail, deep in dust, winding across it,a line of white-topped wagons crawling like ants over the vast plain,and a blue arch of sky above, blinding-bright with the heat.
It was October when he went away from home, it was a month later when,by leisurely stage and slow canal boat, he arrived at the MississippiRiver, the outpost of established travel. Here he was obliged to waituntil spring, for even in the rush of '49 there were few bold enoughto attempt the overland trail in winter. He turned his hand to everysort of work, he did odd jobs during the day and played his violin fordancing at night, he grew lean and out-at-elbows and graver than heused to be. He slept in strange places and ate stranger food, hesuffered pangs of hunger and of homesickness, but he never thought ofgoing back. His violin went everywhere with him, and in more than oneof the little towns along the big river, people began to demand theboy fiddler who could make such gay music for their merrymakings.
When at last the snow melted, the wild geese flew northward, and thewilderness trail was open again, he had no difficulty in finding anemigrant party to which to attach himself. Abner Blythe was a lean,hard Yankee, but he had lived for years in the Middle West and hadmade journeys out into the prairie, although he had never gone thewhole of the way to the mountains and the coast. He knew how to drivecattle with the long black-snake whip, whose snapping lash alone canvoice the master's orders and which can fli
ck the ear or flank of awandering steer at the outermost limit of reach. His frail, eager-eyedlittle wife was to go with them, their boy of five, and a company ofhelpers who were to drive the wagons of supplies and to serve forprotection against Indians.
The road was crowded at first, and the prairie grass grew green andhigh, full of wild strawberries, pink wild roses, and meadow larks.But as they journeyed slowly westward, as spring passed into summer,the green turned to brown under the burning sun, the low bluffs andtree-bordered water-courses were left behind, and they came to thewide, hot plains that seemed to have no end. At the beginning theysometimes passed farmhouses to the right and left of the trail, builtby some struggling pioneer, where there was a little stream of waterand where a few trees were planted. The places looked to Felix likethe Noah's Ark he used to play with when he was small--the tiny, toytrees, the square toy house, little toy animals set out on the bare,brown floor of the prairie. Even the gaunt women in shapeless garmentswho always came to the door to watch the wagon train go by were notunlike the stiff wooden figures of Mrs. Noah. At last, however, eventhe scattered houses came to an end and there was nothing before thembut the wilderness.
It was desperately hot, with the blazing sun above and the scorchingwinds swooping over the prairie to blow in their faces like the blastof a furnace. They made long stops at noontime, resting in the shadeof the wagons and pressed on late into the night, so that not an hourmight be lost. They went by herds of buffalo, big, clumsy, inertcreatures, that looked so formidable from in front and soinsignificant from behind. They saw slim, swift little antelope and,on the far horizon, they sometimes made out moving dots that must beIndians. Their numbers and their vigilance, however, seemed greatenough to keep them safe from attack.
A deadly weariness began to fall upon them all, so that Abner Blythebecame morose and silent, his wife looked haggard and hollow-eyed,the men grew irritable, and the animals lagged more and more. Otherswho had passed that way had left many of their footsore beasts behindthem--horses, oxen, cows, and sheep--to fall a prey at once to thegreat gray prairie wolves that hung behind every wagon train, waitingfor the stragglers who could not keep up.
"It is only the human beings who have the courage to go on," AbnerBlythe said to Felix. "You would think that horses were stronger thanmen and oxen the strongest of all, but the beasts give up and lie downby the road to die, yet the men keep on. It is not strength but spiritthat carries us all to our journey's end."
There was one high-spirited black mare, the dearly beloved of Felix'sheart, who, whether dragging at the heavy wagon or cantering under thesaddle, was always full of energy and fire. She was the boy's especialcharge, and, as the weeks passed, the two became such friends as areonly produced by long companionship and unbelievable hardships enduredtogether. It was a dreadful hour when, one night as they were makingcamp, the little mare lay down and not even for a feed of oats or theprecious lump of sugar offered her, would she get up again. The veryspirit that had driven her forward more bravely than the rest hadproduced greater exhaustion now.
"We will have to go on without her," said Abner Blythe dejectedly, asthey sat about the camp fire.
Felix was feeding the flame with the sparse fuel, and Anna Blythe,Abner's wife, was sitting on a roll of blankets with her child on herlap. The little boy was ill and lay wailing against her shoulder.
"Don't leave the mare," Felix begged. "A day or two of rest will cureher entirely. There is water here, and grass beside the stream. Wecould camp two or three days until she can go on."
Abner shook his head wearily.
"We have no time to waste," he declared. "It is August now and we mustcross the mountains before the middle of September. We haven't a day,not even an hour, to lose."
Anna Blythe sighed a deep, quivering sigh. Felix knew that she lovedthe little horse, too, and, so he sometimes thought, she was herselfso weary that she often longed to lie down beside the trail and perishas the tired dumb animals did. She had never made complaint before,but to-night, perhaps appalled by the thought of the mountains stillto be crossed, she burst out into fierce questioning:
"Abner, why don't we turn back? What is it all for? Can gold, all thegold we could ever gather, repay us for this terrible journey? We arelittle more than halfway and the worst is still before us. We could goback while there is still time. Why do we go on?"
Abner, spreading his big hands upon his knees, sat staring into thefire.
"I don't know," he said at last, "I vow I don't know. It is not theexcitement, nor the gold that drives us, there is no telling what itmay be. Our country must go on, she must press forward to newopportunities, she must dwell in new places. It is through people likeus that such growth comes about, we don't ourselves know why. A littleambition, a little hope, a great blind impulse, and we go forward.That is all."
They sat very still while the fire died out into charring embers anddarkness filled the wide sky above them, showing the whole circlingmarch of the stars like a sky at sea.
"We must be moving," Abner said at last, "we can make a few miles morebefore it is time to sleep."
They all arose wearily and made ready to go on. Felix went to wherethe black mare lay and passed his hand down her smooth neck. Shewhinnied and thrust her soft nose against his cheek, but would make noeffort to move. He stood for a moment thinking deeply. Very clearlydid he understand Abner's unreasoning desire to go forward, but,perhaps because he was only a boy, he did not feel that same wish socompletely and passionately. There were other ideas in his mind, anduppermost among them was the feeling that one can not desert awell-loved friend. Just as the foremost wagon creaked into motion andrumbled forward into the dark, his resolution found its way intowords.
"I think I will stay with the mare," he said. "In three days at leastshe will be rested enough to go on, and then I can easily overtakeyou. We don't want to lose her." He tried to hide the depth of hisfeeling with commonplace words. "It wouldn't be sensible, when we haveso few horses."
Abner did not consent willingly, but he agreed at last.
"She'll travel fast when she is on her feet again," he said, "and Idon't like leaving her myself."
Felix took some provisions from the cook's wagon, gathered up hisblankets, slung his gun over his shoulder, and, as a last thought,reached in for his violin. It would be good company in the dark, hethought.
"Keep your gun cocked for Indians," were Abner's last instructions,"look out for rattlesnakes at the water holes, and catch us up whenyou can. Good luck to you."
The boy stood beside the trail and listened to the slow complaining ofthe wheels and the shuffling of the feet of horses and oxen in thedust as the whole train moved onward. For a little while he could hearthem and could see the bulk of the wagon tops outlined against thestars, then the long roll of the prairie hid them and he was left allalone in the wide, wild, empty plain.