Part 19 (1/2)

The man hesitated, then questioned slowly.

”And may I ask you where you--er--learned to--fight like that?”

”I used to box with father. He said I must first be well and strong. He taught me jiujitsu, too, a little; but I couldn't make it work very well--with so many.”

”I should say not,” adjudged the man grimly. ”But you gave them a surprise or two, I'll warrant,” he added, his eyes on the cause of the trouble, now curled in a little gray bunch of content on the window sill. ”But I don't know yet who you are. Who is your father? Where does he live?”

David shook his head. As was always the case when his father was mentioned, his face grew wistful and his eyes dreamy.

”He doesn't live here anywhere,” murmured the boy. ”In the far country he is waiting for me to come to him and tell him of the beautiful world I have found, you know.”

”Eh? What?” stammered the man, not knowing whether to believe his eyes, or his ears. This boy who fought like a demon and talked like a saint, and who, though battered and bruised, prattled of the ”beautiful world”

he had found, was most disconcerting.

”Why, Jack, don't you know?” whispered the little girl agitatedly.

”He's the boy at Mr. Holly's that they took.” Then, still more softly: ”He's the little tramp boy. His father died in the barn.”

”Oh,” said the man, his face clearing, and his eyes showing a quick sympathy. ”You're the boy at the Holly farmhouse, are you?”

”Yes, sir.”

”And he plays the fiddle everywhere,” volunteered the little girl, with ardent admiration. ”If you hadn't been shut up sick just now, you'd have heard him yourself. He plays everywhere--everywhere he goes.”

”Is that so?” murmured Jack politely, shuddering a little at what he fancied would come from a violin played by a boy like the one before him. (Jack could play the violin himself a little--enough to know it some, and love it more.) ”Hm-m; well, and what else do you do?”

”Nothing, except to go for walks and read.”

”Nothing!--a big boy like you--and on Simeon Holly's farm?” Voice and manner showed that Jack was not unacquainted with Simeon Holly and his methods and opinions.

David laughed gleefully.

”Oh, of course, REALLY I do lots of things, only I don't count those any more. 'Horas non numero nisi serenas,' you knew,” he quoted pleasantly, smiling into the man's astonished eyes.

”Jack, what was that--what he said?” whispered the little girl. ”It sounded foreign. IS he foreign?”

”You've got me, Jill,” retorted the man, with a laughing grimace.

”Heaven only knows what he is--I don't. What he SAID was Latin; I do happen to know that. Still”--he turned to the boy ironically--”of course you know the translation of that,” he said.

”Oh, yes. 'I count no hours but unclouded ones'--and I liked that. 'T was on a sundial, you know; and I'M going to be a sundial, and not count, the hours I don't like--while I'm pulling up weeds, and hoeing potatoes, and picking up stones, and all that. Don't you see?”

For a moment the man stared dumbly. Then he threw back his head and laughed.

”Well, by George!” he muttered. ”By George!” And he laughed again.

Then: ”And did your father teach you that, too?” he asked.

”Oh, no,--well, he taught me Latin, and so of course I could read it when I found it. But those 'special words I got off the sundial where my Lady of the Roses lives.”

”Your--Lady of the Roses! And who is she?”