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. He was grasping some
thing of the meaning of the brother
hood of man, since temptation had, for
a while, found him, too, capitulating to
its call.
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