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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 6, 1914)
HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION 13 In the Light of the Morning A Short Story by Elma Cadwallader. THE kitchen door banged, and Tom dashed out blindly into the peace of tho spring morning. He cut across his mother's flower beds, leaving be hind a trail of tender young plants, trampled and broken, and ran into the burn to whero his horse's head was thrust in greeting to him over the bars of a box-stall. Tom flung both arms about Chub's neck, then tho tenra came tears all bom of rage, humiliation, and more dangerous passions. Tho drops fell slowly, dropping off the horee's ercam-colored mane into the straw. "Pa licked me awful, this time!" gasped the boy. "lie shan't do it again. I'll I'll get even. I'll" Uis hand went to his pocket and touched the knifo there, and as his fingers curled round it, the confusion in bis thoughts elcared. Suddenly his mind seemed possessed of a definite resolve. Ho shuddered and the tears dried quiekly on his face. The bars of tho box-stall were bent . and the horno was taxing their frail re sistance. At last Tom took the old bridlo from a peg, but before he led his treasure out into tho sunshine, he pressed his cheek, with a kind of fur tive tenderness, against the warm, vel- vet like nostrils. Tho farmhouse showed white and freshly painted at tho end of a short path, between tall stalks of hollyhocks in bloom. Tom dodged around the barn and mado for the lower meadow, lie would be out of call of his moth er's voice there. He dropped astride a rock and allowed his horse to crop the grass near. After a futilo effort to recall details of his fight of the previous day with Tod Cutheral, . in the school yard he could remember nothing but thuds and blood and dust, then being shown the brick he had hurled after Ted's re treating form-r-he fell to considering for the thousandth time Chub's fine points. A better mood touched him. It neutralized his passion, temporarily, passion that was like physical pain. Wasn't ho the owner of the best horse in tho county I A horse that was swifter, sounder, smarter than any of which he had ever read or heard! Was there ever such a slender, arched neck, when it was raised like that; and the ears pricked. Then Tom saw what the horse had been quicker to notice. A young man had crept through the bushes bordoring the creek, stumbled forward and stopped. All the morning was peace, yet the man's face showed haggard and dark, with eyes that gleamed like the eyes of a trapped animal. His hair was black, ragged, damp with dow, and the whole of him appeared drenched and torn as if with heavy storms. Tom came suddenly to his feet "What d' yoa wantf" he stammered. "Where where d' you come from?" There was no answer. Tho dark face quivered, and there was such over whelming terror in the eyes that. Tom forgot his own. "Are you sick hnrtf Is somebody after yout" Tom approachod a step or two nearer tho stranger. "No. Nobody's after me not that I know of." The words wcro uttered uncertainly, heavily, as from a mind bending under a burden beyond its strength. The young man swayed a little, but steadied himself again by a hand on the horse's flank, All the ragged length of him denoted muscular power, yet he was bent, and moved as an old man moves. "Sit down here," tho boy said, quickly compassionate. The wild eyes shifted to the rock an instant, then returned to Tom 's sympa thetic face and stnyed there. "I can't rest," he muttered. "I'm beat out, but I can't rest. I've walked from Fulton, whore I live. It's twonty-fivc miles ovor that mountain at the end of the valley, but I' can't sleep nor rest." "If something's thoublin' you, it might help to tell," Tom urged. "I tell my horse things. I know." "I didn't want to tell. I didn't think to talk to you, but maybe I'd bet ter. Feels liko I'd go mad if I didn't; tell some one." He seemed driven to speech by a great need, yet held back by some great fear. Ilia breath shook him as ho Btood, as though he bad been running, and he moistened his lips and moved them again and again before he continued. The words ap peared to be wrung from him against his will, yet he spoke with a passion ate relief. "I've" "Go on," Tom persisted, in the grip of a fearsome ana irrosistible curios ity. "I've killed a man!" Tho meadow was very still. The horse stopped cropping tho grass to listen to a tinkling cowbell across the valley. From Tom's mind tho fog of his recent anger vanished, leaving him in sudden, confusing light. He bent down and carefully removed a beetle from his overalls without knowing what he did. "Why J" he breathed, at last. But the Btraugor only repeated, "I've killed a man." Ho shivered in the warm rayB of the sunshine, and as the horse moved he groped his way up till ho clung to its mane. "Did he hit you 7" "No. It wasn't that. I've a mad temper. I struck in blind, crazy rage, before I knew, lie was my step father, hut he'd always treated mo square. 'Twas abont money that we quarreled money my mother left him. He'd earned the right to it, workin' on the ranch for more'n ten ycara, bo as the mortgage could be paid off. Ho done splendid by the old place. Maybe if I hadn't got to caro a lot for him a lot more'n 1 thought I wouldn t feel like this. People don 't know how xauch they care till something happens to show 'em." Tom drew a long breath. "I've been runnin' since yesterday noon seems liko I'd been runnin' for weeks." His hand went to his bare throat. "I was afraid of the woods. Tho face was with me, his face and the eyes, after I 'd struck. I was afraid of the Bhadows under the trees in the woods, and the nights, and the wind in the canyons. I can't stay alone. It's awful to be alone with thoughts. I had to come baek to see people. Yet I'm afraid to talk against my will, as I'm doin' now. I'n afraid to see men eomin' to take Die, end the women's scared faces, and ehiliren followin' to watch. When I saw yon and your horse I came out Perhaps he'll help me get away, I thought." Tom brushed his clean s-.irt sleeve across his eyes and clammy forehead, and under tho shirt he felt a chill creeping and perspiration burpting out over arms, and neck, and body. "Help you get away," he echoed slowly. "That's it. I gotta. The horse might you see I'm weak." A flash seemed to pass over the dark face, and the black eyes wavered and shifted from Tom's whito i'r.co. There was a silence, then the boy put his arms around Chub's neck and hold it pressed against his i.eart, which was thump;ng hard. "You mean you want the loan of my horse!" ho cried. "Cut you shan't have him not to run away! Why why don't you go backf You oughtto go back." It was a thought that shook thora both, and they stared into each other's eyts for a long, frightened, speechless half min ute. "Go back!" the young man whis pered in a dull key of uncomprehen sion. He turned his bead aside, then suddenly hid his face in his hands. Tom stood motionless. When the face was raised it had changed. "I'd not thought of it," he said, with all a child's simplicity. "If I go back I can rest. It will be good to rest anywhere not to be afraid Yes, I'll go back," Ho made the announce ment with the blank, unreasoning yield ing of an exhausted child. "I'd walk back, only I'm weak it'll tale a long time." A suspicion of the man's good faith flashed before Tom 's mind, then he put it from him with shame and a fine pride, and led the horse op close to the Tock. "You can have him" he said, "for today. Nobody ain't ever riddon him" he choked over the words, all that they meant to him "but me. Ho '11 carry you over the mountain by noon, then you can turn him loose and he'll come home, 'cause he's awful fond of me. I raised him. No one can catch him, either, when he 's loose, but me. That 's it leave the reins easy, 'cause his mouth's tender. It ain't ever been hurt, or jerked." "It's good of yon," the young man faltered, "and it's awful good of yon to trust me." Tom made a gesture of dissent. He couldn't spcaTt just then. The horso started forward. The man did not look back, but Tom beard him sobbing, first in great fugitive gasps, then more gently till he had left the meadow and turned tho bend in the road toward the old stone bridge. At sundown, a smaL' figure, dishev eled and dust-stained, eat huddled in tho ditch by the roadside. Tom 't knees were drawn up and his arms locked round them, nod the blue eyes, softened, but dulled with watching, stared toward an expanse of county road in the distance. All his defiance and anger of the morning, the bravado and swaggering self-assurance of him, were gone utterly. His chin trembled occasionally as he noted the shadows deepening, turning day surely into uight under the great oaks. Then a horse appeared. It was dimly outlined against the light patch of road, but it was riderless and com ing in his direction. Tom lifted his head. Crub! It must be it was Chub, his own horse! Ho did not shout, er whistle, or throw his straw hat np in the air. Instead he rolled over on tfc grass, face downward, and hid his eyes in the bend of his arm. He was tast ing of the bitterness of repentance mixed with bis great joy. Ilia father had praised him that day, and the words seemed to be prieking their way Bow, like hed-hot needles, into his heart. In the midst of it all there eame tha dark, wild face of thn young man, with its forever unforgettable marks of suf fering. Tom felt suddenly humbled, and very tender toward every person is his small world. 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