Austin Bishop - "Tom of the Raiders"

Eugene Field - "Love Songs of Childhood"

GERTRUDE ATHERTON - "THE VALIANT RUNAWAYS"

Edgar B. P. Darlington - "The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings"

The Shepherd of the Hills

H >> Harold Bell Wright >> The Shepherd of the Hills




"Ah, yes, that was God's gold," said the older man softly.

The lad touched his friend on the arm, and with the other hand
again pointed to the glittering heap on the floor. "Pete says that
there's God's gold too, and Pete he knows."

The man started and looked at the boy in wonder; "But why, why
should it come to me at such a time as this?" he muttered.

" 'Cause you're the Shepherd of Mutton Hollow, Pete says. Don't be
scared, Dad. Pete knows. It's sure God's gold."

The shepherd turned to the fireplace and dropped the letter he had
written upon the leaping flames.





CHAPTER XXII.

A LETTER FROM OLLIE STEWART.


The Postoffice at the Forks occupied a commanding position in the
northeast corner of Uncle Ike's cabin, covering an area not less
than four feet square.

The fittings were in excellent taste, and the equipment fully
adequate to the needs of the service: an old table, on legs
somewhat rickety; upon the table, a rude box, set on end and
divided roughly into eight pigeon holes, duly numbered; in the
table, a drawer, filled a little with stamps and stationery,
filled mostly with scraps of leaf tobacco, and an odd company of
veteran cob pipes, now on the retired list, or home on furlough;
before the table, a little old chair, wrought in some fearful and
wonderful fashion from hickory sticks from which the bark had not
been removed.

With every change of the weather, this chair, through some unknown
but powerful influence, changed its shape, thus becoming in its
own way a sort of government weather bureau. And if in all this
"land of the free and home of the brave" there be a single throne,
it must be this same curiously changeable chair. In spite of, or
perhaps because of, its strange powers, that weird piece of
furniture managed to make itself so felt that it was religiously
avoided by every native who called at the Forks. Not the wildest
"Hill-Billy" of them all dared to occupy for a moment this seat of
Uncle Sam's representative. Here Uncle Ike reigned supreme over
his four feet square of government property. And you may be very
sure that the mighty mysterious thing known as the "gov'ment" lost
none of its might, and nothing of its mystery, at the hands of its
worthy official.

Uncle Ike left the group in front of the cabin, and, hurriedly
entering the office, seated himself upon his throne. A tall, thin,
slow moving mule, brought to before a certain tree with the grace
and dignity of an ocean liner coming into her slip. Zeke Wheeler
dismounted, and, with the saddle mail pouch over his arm, stalked
solemnly across the yard and into the house, his spurs clinking on
the gravel and rattling over the floor. Following the mail
carrier, the group of mountaineers entered, and, with Uncle Ike's
entire family, took their places at a respectful distance from the
holy place of mystery and might, in the north east corner of the
room.

The postmaster, with a key attached by a small chain to one corner
of the table, unlocked the flat pouch and drew forth the contents-
-five papers, three letters and one postal card.

The empty pouch was kicked contemptuously beneath the table. The
papers were tossed to one side. All eyes were fixed on the little
bundle of first class matter. In a breathless silence the official
cut the string. The silence was broken. "Ba thundas! Mary Liz
Jolly'll sure be glad t' git that there letter. Her man's been
gone nigh onto three months now, an' ain't wrote but once. That
was when he was in Mayville. I see he's down in th' nation now at
Auburn, sendin' Mary Liz some money, I reckon. Ba thundas, it's
'bout time! What!"

"James Creelman, E-S-Q., Wal, dad burn ME. Jim done wrote t' that
there house in Chicago more'n three weeks ago, 'bout a watch
they're a sellin' fer fo' dollars. Ba thundas! They'd sure answer
ME quicker'n that, er they'd hear turkey. What! I done tole Jim it
was only a blamed ol' fo' dollar house anyhow."

At this many nods and glances were exchanged by the group in
silent admiration of the "gov'ment," and one mountaineer, bold
even to recklessness, remarked, "Jim must have a heap o' money t'
be a buyin' four dollar watches. Must er sold that gray mule o'
hisn; hit'd fetch 'bout that much, I reckon."

"Much you know 'bout it, Buck Boswell. Let me tell you, Jim he
works, he does. He's the workingest man in this here county, ba
thundas! What! Jim he don't sit 'round like you fellers down on
th' creek an' wait fer pawpaws to git ripe, so he can git a square
meal, ba thundas!" The bold mountaineer wilted.

Uncle Ike proceeded with the business of his office. "Here's
Sallie Rhodes done writ her maw a card from th' Corners. Sallie's
been a visitin' her paw's folks. Says she'll be home on th' hack
next mail, an' wants her maw t' meet her here. You can take th'
hack next time, Zeke. An' ba thundas! Here's 'nother letter from
that dummed Ollie Stewart. Sammy ain't been over yet after th'
last one he wrote. Ba thundas! If it weren't for them blamed gov'-
ment inspectors, I'd sure put a spoke in his wheel. What! I'd
everlastin'ly seva' th' connections between that gentleman an'
these here Ozarks. Dad burn me, if I wouldn't. He'd better take
one o' them new fangled women in th' city, where he's gone to, an'
not come back here for one o' our girls. I don't believe Sammy'd
care much, nohow, ba thundas! What!" The official tossed the
letter into a pigeon hole beside its neglected mate, with a
gesture that fully expressed the opinion of the entire community,
regarding Mr. Stewart and his intentions toward Miss Lane.

Sammy got the letters the next day, and read them over and over,
as she rode slowly through the sweet smelling woods. The last one
told her that Ollie was coming home on a visit. "Thursday, that's
the day after to-morrow," she said aloud. Then she read the letter
again.

It was a very different letter from those Ollie had written when
first he left the woods. Most of all it was different in that
indefinable something by which a man reveals his place in life in
the letters he writes, no less than in the words he speaks, or the
clothing he wears. As Sammy rode slowly through the pinery and
down the narrow Fall Creek valley, she was thinking of these
things, thinking of these things seriously.

The girl had been in a way conscious of the gradual change in
Ollie's life, as it had been revealed in his letters, but she had
failed to connect the change with her lover. The world into which
young Stewart had gone, and by which he was being formed, was so
foreign to the only world known to Sammy, that, while she realized
in a dim way that he was undergoing a transformation, she still
saw him in her mind as the backwoods boy. With the announcement of
his return, and the thought that she would soon meet him face to
face, it burst upon her suddenly that her lover was a stranger.
The man who wrote this letter was not the man whom she had
promised to marry. Who was he?

Passing the mill and the blacksmith shop, the brown pony with his
absorbed rider began to climb the steep road to the Matthews
place. Half way up the hill, the little horse, stepping on a loose
stone, stumbled, catching himself quickly.

As a flash of lightning on a black night reveals well known
landmarks and familiar objects, this incident brought back to
Sammy the evening when, with Ollie and Young Matt, she had climbed
the same way; when her horse had stumbled and her face had come
close to the face of the big fellow whose hand was on the pony's
neck. The whole scene came before her with a vividness that was
startling; every word, every look, every gesture of the two young
men, her own thoughts and words, the objects along the road, the
very motion of her horse; she seemed to be actually living again
those moments of the past. But more than this, she seemed not only
to live again the incidents of that evening, but in some strange
way to possess the faculty of analyzing and passing judgment upon
her own thoughts and words.

Great changes had come to Sammy, too, since that night when her
lover had said good-by. And now, in her deeper life, the young
woman felt a curious sense of shame, as she saw how trivial were
the things that had influenced her to become Ollie's promised
wife. She blushed, as she recalled the motives that had sent her
to the shepherd with the request that he teach her to be a fine
lady.

Coming out on top of the ridge, Brownie stopped of his own accord,
and the girl saw again the figure of a young giant, standing in
the level rays of the setting sun, with his great arms
outstretched, saying, "I reckon I was built to live in these
hills. I don't guess you'd better count on me ever bein' more'n I
am." Sammy realized suddenly that the question was no longer
whether Ollie would be ashamed of her. It was quite a different
question, indeed.





CHAPTER XXIII.

OLLIE COMES HOME.


The day that Ollie was expected at the cabin on Dewey Bald, Mr.
Lane was busy in the field.

"I don't reckon you'll need me at th' house nohow," he said with a
queer laugh, as he rose from the dinner table; and Sammy,
blushing, told him to go on to his work, or Young Matt would get
his planting done first.

Jim went out to get his horse from the stable, but before he left,
he returned once more to the house.

"What is it, Daddy? Forget something?" asked Sammy, as her father
stood in the doorway.

"Not exactly," drawled Jim. "I ain't got a very good forgetter.
Wish I had. It's somethin' I can't forget. Wish I could."

In a moment the girl's arms were about his neck, "You dear foolish
old Daddy Jim. I have a bad forgetter, too. You thought when I
began studying with Dad Howitt that my books would make me forget
you. Well, have they?" A tightening of the long arm about her
waist was the only answer. "And now you are making yourself
miserable trying to think that Ollie Stewart and his friends will
make me forget you; just as if all the folks in the world could
ever be to me what you are; you, and Dad, and Uncle Matt, and Aunt
Mollie, and Young Matt. Daddy, I am ashamed of you. Honest, I am.
Do you think a real genuine lady could ever forget the father who
had been so good to her? Daddy, I am insulted. You must apologize
immediately."

She pretended to draw away, but the long arm held her fast, while
the mountaineer said in a voice that had in it pride and pain,
with a world of love, "I know, I know, girl. But you'll be a
livin' in the city, when you and Ollie are married, and these old
hills will be mighty lonesome with you gone. You see I couldn't
never leave the old place. 'Tain't much, I know, so far as money
value goes. But there's some things worth a heap more than their
money value, I reckon. If you was only goin' t' live where I could
ride over once or twice a week to see you, it would be different."

"Yes, Daddy; but maybe I won't go after all. I'm not married, yet,
you know."

Something in her voice or manner caused Jim to hold his daughter
at arm's length, and look full into the brown eyes; "What do you
mean, girl?"

Sammy laughed in an uneasy and embarrassed way. She was not sure
that she knew herself all that lay beneath the simple words. She
tried to explain. "Why, I mean that--that Ollie and I have both
grown up since we promised, and he has been living away out in the
big world and going to school besides. He must have seen many
girls since he left me. He is sure to be changed greatly, and--
and, maybe he won't want a backwoods wife."

The man growled something beneath his breath, and the girl placed
a hand over his lips; "You mustn't say swear words, Daddy Jim.
Indeed, you must not. Not in the presence of ladies, anyway."

"You're changed a heap in some ways, too," said Jim.

"Yes, I suppose I am; but my changes are mostly on the inside
like; and perhaps he won't see them."

"Would you care so mighty much, Sammy?" whispered the father.

"That's just it, Daddy. How can I tell? We must both begin all
over again, don't you see?" Then she sent him away to his work.

Sammy had finished washing the dinner dishes, and was putting
things in order about the house, when she stopped suddenly before
the little shelf that held her books. Then, with a smile, she
carried them every one into her own room, placing them carefully
where they could not be seen from the open door. Going next to the
mirror, she deliberately took down her hair, and arranged it in
the old careless way that Ollie had always known. "You're just the
same backwoods girl, Sammy Lane, so far as outside things go," she
said to the face in the glass; "but you are not quite the same all
the way through. We'll see if he--" She was interrupted by the
loud barking of the dog outside, and her heart beat more quickly
as a voice cried, "Hello, hello, I say; call off your dog!"

Sammy hurried to the door. A strange gentleman stood at the gate.
The strangest gentleman that Sammy had ever seen. Surely this
could not be Ollie Stewart; this slender, pale-faced man, with
faultless linen, well gloved hands and shining patent leathers.
The girl drew back in embarrassment.

But there was no hesitation on the part of the young man. Before
she could recover from her astonishment, he caught her in his arms
and kissed her again and again, until she struggled from his
embrace. "You--you must not," she gasped.

"Why not?" he demanded laughingly. "Has anyone a better right? I
have waited a long while for this, and I mean to make up now for
lost time."

He took a step toward her again, but Sammy held him off at arm's
length, as she repeated, "No--no--you must not; not now." Young
Stewart was helpless. And the discovery that she was stronger than
this man brought to the girl a strange feeling, as of shame.

"How strong you are," he said petulantly; ceasing his efforts.
Then carefully surveying the splendidly proportioned and developed
young woman, he added, "And how beautiful!"

Under his look, Sammy's face flushed painfully, even to her neck
and brow; and the man, seeing her confusion, laughed again. Then,
seating himself in the only rocking-chair in the room, the young
gentleman leisurely removed his gloves, looking around the while
with an amused expression on his face, while the girl stood
watching him. At last, he said impatiently, "Sit down, sit down,
Sammy. You look at me as if I were a ghost."

Unconsciously, she slipped into the speech of the old days, "You
sure don't look much like you used to. I never see nobody wear
such clothes as them. Not even Dad Howitt, when he first come. Do
you wear 'em every day?"

Ollie frowned; "You're just like all the rest, Sammy. Why don't
you talk as you write? You've improved a lot in your letters. If
you talk like that in the city; people will know in a minute that
you are from the country."

At this, Sammy rallied her scattered wits, and the wide,
questioning look was in her eyes, as she replied quietly, "Thank
you. I'll try to remember. But tell me, please, what harm could it
do, if people did know I came from the country?"

It was Ollie's turn to be amazed. "Why you can talk!" he said.
"Where did you learn?" And the girl answered simply that she had
picked it up from the old shepherd.

This little incident put Sammy more at ease, and she skilfully led
her companion to speak of the city and his life there. Of his
studies the young fellow had little to say, and, to her secret
delight, the girl found that she had actually made greater
progress with her books than had her lover with all his supposed
advantages.

But of other things, of the gaiety and excitement of the great
city, of his new home, the wealth of his uncle, and his own bright
prospects, Ollie spoke freely, never dreaming the girl had already
seen the life he painted in such glowing colors through the eyes
of one who had been careful to point out the froth and foam of it
all. Neither did the young man discover in the quiet questions she
asked that Sammy was seeking to know what in all this new world he
had found that he could make his own as the thing most worth
while.

The backwoods girl had never seen that type of man to whom the
life of the city, only, is life. Ollie was peculiarly fitted by
nature to absorb quickly those things of the world, into which he
had gone, that were most different from the world he had left; and
there remained scarcely a trace of his earlier wilderness
training.

But there is that in life that lies too deep for any mere change
of environment to touch. Sammy remembered a lesson the shepherd
had given her: gentle spirit may express itself in the rude words
of illiteracy; it is not therefore rude. Ruffianism may speak the
language of learning or religion; it is ruffianism still. Strength
may wear the garb of weakness, and still be strong; and a weakling
may carry the weapons of strength, but fight with a faint heart."
So, beneath all the changes that had come to her backwoods lover,
Sammy felt that Ollie himself was unchanged. It was as though he
had learned a new language, but still said the same things.

Sammy, too, had entered a new world. Step by step, as the young
man had advanced in his schooling, and, dropping the habits and
customs of the backwoods, had conformed in his outward life to his
new environment, the girl had advanced in her education under the
careful hand of the old shepherd. Ignorant still of the false
standards and the petty ambitions that are so large a part of the
complex world, into which he had gone, she had been introduced to
a world where the life itself is the only thing worth while. She
had seen nothing of the glittering tinsel of that cheap culture
that is death to all true refinement, But in the daily
companionship of her gentle teacher, she had lived in touch with
true aristocracy, the aristocracy of heart and spirit.

Young Matt and Jim had thought that, in Sammy's education, the
bond between the girl and her lover would be strengthened. They
had thought to see her growing farther and farther from the life
of the hills; the life to which they felt that they must always
belong. But that was because Young Matt and Jim did not know the
kind of education the girl was getting.

So Ollie had come back to his old home to measure things by his
new standard; and he had come back, too, to be measured according
to the old, old standard. If the man's eyes were dimmed by the
flash and sparkle that play upon the surface of life, the woman's
vision was strong and clear to look into the still depths.

Later in the day, as they walked together up the Old Trail to
Sammy's Lookout, the girl tried to show him some of the things
that had been revealed to her in the past months. But the young
fellow could not follow where she led, and answered her always
with some flippant remark, or with the superficial philosophy of
his kind.

When he tried to turn the talk to their future, she skillfully
defeated his purpose, or was silent; and when he would claim a
lover's privileges, she held him off. Upon his demanding a reason
for her coldness, she answered, "Don't you see that everything is
different now? We must learn to know each other over again."

"But you are my promised wife."

"I promised to be the wife of a backwoodsman," she answered. "I
cannot keep that promise, for that man is dead. You are a man of
the city, and I am scarcely acquainted with you."

Young Stewart found himself not a little puzzled by the situation.
He had come home expecting to meet a girl beautiful in face and
form, but with the mind of a child to wonder at the things he
would tell her. He had found, instead, a thoughtful young woman
trained to look for and recognize truth and beauty. Sammy was
always his physical superior. She was now his intellectual
superior as well. The change that had come to her was not a change
by environment of the things that lay upon the surface, but it was
a change in the deeper things of life--in the purpose and
understanding of life itself. Like many of his kind, Ollie could
not distinguish between these things.





CHAPTER XXIV.

WHAT MAKES A MAN.


Mr. Matthews and his son finished their planting early in the
afternoon and the boy set out to find old Kate and the mule colt.
Those rovers had not appeared at the home place for nearly two
weeks, and some one must bring them in before they forgot their
home completely.

"Don't mind if I ain't back for supper, Mother," said Young Matt.
"I may eat at the ranch with Dad. I ain't been down there for
quite a spell now, an' I'd kind o' like to know if that panther
we've been a hearin' is givin' Dad any trouble."

"Dad told me yesterday that he thought he heard old Kate's bell
over on yon side of Cox's Bald," said Mr. Matthews; "I believe if
I was you I'd take across Cox's, along the far side of th' ridge,
around Dewey an' down into the Hollow that way. Joe Gardner was
over north yesterday, an' he said he didn't see no signs on that
range. I reckon you'll find 'em on Dewey somewheres about Jim
Lane's, maybe. You'd better saddle a horse."

"No, I'll take it a foot. I can ride old Kate in, if I find them,"
replied the big fellow; and, with his rifle in the hollow of his
arm, he struck out over the hills. All along the eastern slope of
the ridge, that forms one side of Mutton Hollow, he searched for
the missing stock, but not a sound of the bell could he hear; not
a trace of the vagabonds could he find. And that was because old
Kate and the little colt were standing quietly in the shade in a
little glen below Sand Ridge not a quarter of a mile from the
barn.

The afternoon was well on when Young Matt gave up the search, and
shaped his course for the sheep ranch. He was on the farther side
of Dewey, and the sun told him that there was just time enough to
reach the cabin before supper.

Pushing straight up the side of the mountain, he found the narrow
bench, that runs like a great cornice two-thirds of the way around
the Bald Knob. The mountaineer knew that at that level, on the
side opposite from where he stood, was Sammy's Lookout, and from
there it was an easy road down to the sheep ranch in the valley.
Also, he knew that from that rocky shelf, all along the southern
side of the mountain, he would look down upon Sammy's home; and,
who could tell, he might even catch a glimpse of Sammy herself.
Very soon he rounded the turn of the hill, and saw far below the
Lane homestead; the cabin and the barn in the little clearing
looking like tiny doll houses.

Young Matt walked slowly now. The supper was forgotten. Coming to
the clump of cedars just above the Old Trail where it turns the
shoulder of the hill from the west, he stopped for a last look.
Beyond this point, he would turn his back upon the scene that
interested him so deeply.

The young man could not remember when he had not loved Sammy Lane.
She seemed to have been always a part of his life. It was the
season of the year when all the wild things of the forest choose
their mates, and as the big fellow stood there looking down upon
the home of the girl he loved, all the splendid passion of his
manhood called for her. It seemed to him that the whole world was
slipping away to leave him alone in a measureless universe. He
almost cried aloud. It is the same instinct that prompts the
panther to send his mating call ringing over the hills and through
the forest, and leads the moose to issue his loud challenge.

At last Young Matt turned to go, when he heard the sound of
voices. Someone was coming along the Old Trail that lay in full
view on the mountain side not two hundred yards away.
Instinctively the woodsman drew back into the thick foliage of the
cedars.

The voices grew louder. A moment more and Sammy with Ollie Stewart
appeared from around the turn of the hill. They were walking side
by side and talking earnestly. The young woman had just denied the
claims of her former lover, and was explaining the change in her
attitude toward him; but the big fellow on the ledge above could
not know that. He could not hear what they were saying. He only
saw his mate, and the man who had come to take her from him.

Half crouching on the rocky shelf in the dark shadow of the cedar,
the giant seemed a wild thing ready for his spring; ready and
eager, yet held in check by something more powerful still than his
passion. Slowly the two, following the Old Trail, passed from
sight, and Young Matt stood erect. He was trembling like a
frightened child. A moment longer he waited, then turned and
fairly ran from the place. Leaving the ledge at the Lookout, he
rushed down the mountain and through the woods as if mad, to burst
in upon the shepherd, with words that were half a cry, half a
groan. "He's come, Dad; he's come. I've just seen him with her."

Mr. Howitt sprang up with a startled exclamation. His face went
white. He grasped the table for support. He tried to speak, but
words would not come. He could only stare with frightened eyes, as
though Young Matt himself were some fearful apparition.

The big fellow threw himself into a chair, and presently the
shepherd managed to say in a hoarse whisper, "Tell me about it,
Grant, if you can."

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