David Dunne

“I’ll try,” said David slowly, unable, however, to feel much remorse for his outbreak.

“Jud’ll let you alone arter this. You’d better go to bed now. You need a little extry sleep.”

M’ri came into his room when he was trying to mend a long rent in his shirt. He flushed uncomfortably when her eye fell on the garment. She took it from him.

“I’ll mend it, David. I don’t wonder that your patience slipped its leash, but–never fight when you have murder in your heart.”

When she had left the room, Janey’s face, pink and fair as a baby rose, looked in at the door.

“It’s very wicked to fight and get so mad, Davey.”

“I know it,” he acknowledged readily. It was useless trying to make a girl understand.

There was a silence. Janey still lingered.

“Davey,” she asked in an awed whisper, “does it feel nice to be wicked?”

David shook his head non-committally.

CHAPTER V

The rather strained relations between Jud and David were eased the next day by the excitement attending the big package Barnabas brought from town. It was addressed to David, but the removal of the outer wrapping disclosed a number of parcels neatly labeled, also a note from Joe, asking him to distribute the presents.

David first selected the parcel marked “Janey” and handed it to her.

“Blue beads!” she cried ecstatically.

“Let me see, Janey,” said M’ri. “Why, they’re real turquoises and with a gold clasp! I’ll get you a string of blue beads for now, and you can put these away till you’re grown up.”

“I didn’t tell Joe what to get for you, Aunt M’ri; honest, I didn’t,” disclaimed David, with a laugh, as he handed the freezer to her.

“We’ll initiate it this very day, David.”

David handed Barnabas his pipe and gave Jud a letter which he opened wonderingly, uttering a cry of pleasure when he realized the contents.

“It’s an order on Harkness to let me pick out any rifle in his store. How did he know? Did you tell him, Dave?”

“Yes,” was the quiet reply.

“Thank you, Dave. I’ll ride right down and get it, and we’ll go to the woods this afternoon and shoot at a mark.”

“All right,” agreed David heartily.

The atmosphere was now quite cleared by the proposed expenditure of ammunition, and M’ri experienced the sensation as of one beholding a rainbow.

David then turned his undivided attention to his own big package, which contained twelve books, his name on the fly-leaf of each. Robinson Crusoe, Swiss Family Robinson, Andersen’s Fairy Tales, Arabian Nights, Life of Lincoln, Black Beauty, Oliver Twist, A Thousand Leagues under the Sea, The Pathfinder, Gulliver’s Travels, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and Young Ranchers comprised the selection. His eyes gleamed over the enticing titles.

“You shall have some book shelves for your room, David,” promised M’ri, “and you can start your library. Joe has made a good foundation for one.”

His eyes longed to read at once, but there were still the two packages, marked “Uncle Larimy” and “Miss Rhody,” to deliver.

“I can see that Uncle Larimy has a fishing rod, but what do you suppose he has sent Rhody?” wondered M’ri.

“A black silk dress. I told him she wanted one.”

“Take it right over there, David. She has waited almost a lifetime for it.”

“Let me take Uncle Larimy’s present,” suggested Jud, “and then I’ll ask him to go shooting with us this afternoon.”

David amicably agreed, and went across fields to Miss Rhody’s.

“Land sakes!” she exclaimed, looking at the parcel. “M’ri ain’t a-goin’ to hev another dress so soon, is she?”

“No, Miss Rhody. Some one else is, though.”

“Who is it, David?” she asked curiously.

“You see Joe Forbes sent some presents from Chicago, and this is what he sent you.”

“A calico,” was her divination, as she opened the package.

“David Dunne!” she cried in shrill, piping tones, a spot of red on each cheek. “Just look here!” and she stroked lovingly the lustrous fold of shining silk.

“And if here ain’t linings, and thread, and sewing silk, and hooks and eyes! Why, David Dunne, it can’t be true! How did he know–David, you blessed boy, you must have told him!”

Impulsively she threw her arms about him and hugged him until he ruefully admitted to himself that she had Jud “beat on the clutch.”

“And say, David, I’m a-goin’ to wear this dress. I know folks as lets their silks wear out a-hangin’ up in closets. Don’t get half as many cracks when it hangs on yourself. I b’lieve as them Episcopals do in lettin’ yer light shine, and I never wuz one of them as b’lieved in savin’ yer best to be laid out in. Oh, Lord, David, I kin jest hear myself a-rustlin’ round in it!”

“Maybe you’ll get a husband now,” suggested David gravely.

“Mebby. I’d orter ketch somethin’ with this. I never see sech silk. It’s much handsomer than the one Homer Bisbee’s bride hed when she come here from the city. It’s orful the way she wastes. Would you b’lieve it, David, the fust batch of pies she made, she never pricked, and they all puffed up and bust. David, look here! What’s in this envylope? Forever and way back, ef it hain’t a five-doller bill and a letter. I hain’t got my glasses handy. Read it.”

“Dear Miss Rhody,” read the boy in his musical voice, “silk is none too good for you, and I want you to wear this and wear it out. If you don’t, I’ll never send you another. I thought you might want some more trimmings, so I send you a five for same. Sincerely yours, Joe.”

“I don’t need no trimmin’s, excep’ fifty cents for roochin’s.”

“I’ll tell you what to do, Miss Rhody. When you get your dress made we’ll go into town and you can get your picture taken in the dress and give it to Joe when he comes back.”

“That’s jest what I’ll do. I never hed my likeness took. David, you’ve got an orful quick mind. Is Joe coming home? I thought he callated to go West.”

“Not until fall. He’s going to spend the summer in his shanty boat on the river.”

“I’ll hurry up and get it made up afore he comes. Tell me what he sent all your folks.”

“Joe’s a generous boy, like his ma’s folks,” she continued, when he had enumerated their gifts. “I am glad fer him that his pa and his stepmother was so scrimpin’. David, would you b’lieve it, in that great big house of the Forbeses thar wa’n’t never a tidy on a chair, and not a picter on the wall! It was mighty lucky for Joe that his stepmother died fust, so he got all the money.”

David hastened home and sought his retreat in the orchard with one of his books. M’ri, curious to know what his selection had been, scanned the titles of the remaining eleven volumes.

“Well, who would have thought of a boy’s preferring fairy tales!”

David read until dinner time, but spent the afternoon with Uncle Larimy and Jud in the woods, where they received good instruction in rifle practice. After supper he settled comfortably down with a book, from which he was recalled by a plaintive little wail.

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