Shepherd of the Hills — 16 - Chapters 30 and 31
CHAPTER XXX. SAMMY GRADUATES.
The next day when young Stewart came, the books were all back on the shelf in the main room of the cabin, and Sammy, dressed in a fresh gown of simple goods and fashion, with her hair arranged carefully, as she had worn it the last two months before Ollie’s coming, sat at the window reading.
The man was surprised and a little embarrassed.
“Why, what have you been doing to yourself?
” he exclaimed.
“I have not been doing anything to myself.
I have only done some things to my clothes and hair,” returned the girl.
Then he saw the books.
“Why, where did these come from?
” He crossed the room to examine the volumes.
“Do you—do you read all these?
” “The shepherd has been helping me,” she explained.
“Oh, yes.
I understood that you were studying with him.
” He looked at her curiously, as though they were meeting for the first time.
Then, as she talked of her studies, his embarrassment deepened, for he found himself foundering hopelessly before this clear-eyed, clear-brained backwoods girl.
“Come,” said Sammy at last.
“Let us go for a walk.
” She led the way to her favorite spot, high up on the shoulder of Dewey, and there, with Mutton Hollow at their feet and the big hills about them, with the long blue ridges in the distance beyond which lay Ollie’s world, she told him what he feared to learn.
The man refused to believe that he heard aright.
“You do not understand,” he protested, and he tried to tell her of the place in life that would be hers as his wife.
In his shallowness, he talked even of jewels, and dresses, and such things.
“But can all this add one thing to life itself?
” she asked.
“Is not life really independent of all these things?
Do they not indeed cover up the real life, and rob one of freedom?
It seems to me that it must be so.
” He could only answer, “But you know nothing about it.
How can you?
You have never been out of these woods.
” “No,” she returned, “that is true; I have never been out of these woods, and you can never, now, get away from the world into which you have gone.
” She pointed to the distant hills.
“It is very, very far over there to where you live.
I might, indeed, find many things in your world that would be delightful; but I fear that I should lose the things that after all are, to me, the really big things.
I do not feel that the things that are greatest in your life could bring happiness without that which I find here.
And there is something here that can bring happiness without what you call the advantages of the world to which you belong.
” “What do you know of the world?
” he said roughly.
“Nothing,” she said.
“But I know a little of life.
And I have learned some things that I fear you have not.
Beside, I know now that I do not love you.
I have been slow to find the truth, but I have found it.
And this is the one thing that matters, that I found it in time.
” “Did you reach this conclusion at the mill yesterday?
” he asked with a sneer.
“No. It came to me here on the rock last evening after you were gone.
I
heard a strange story; the story of a weak man, a strong man, and a God who was very kind.
” Ollie saw that further persuasion was of no avail, and as he left her, she watched him out of sight for the last time—along the trail that is nobody knows how old.
When he was gone, in obedience to an impulse she did not try to understand, she ran down the mountain to the cabin in the Hollow—Young Matt’s cabin.
And when the shepherd came in from the hills with his flock he found the house in such order as only a woman’s hand can bring.
The table was set, and his supper cooking on the stove.
“Dad,” she asked, “Do you think I know enough now to live in the city?
” The old man’s heart sank.
It had come then.
Bravely he concealed his feelings, as he assured her in the strongest terms, that she knew enough, and was good enough to live anywhere.
“Then,” said Sammy; “I know enough, even if I am not good enough, to live in the hills.
” The brown eyes, deep under their shaggy brows, were aglow with gladness, and there was a note of triumph in the scholar’s voice as he said, “Then you do not regret learning the things I have tried to teach you?
You are sure you have no sorrow for the things you are losing.
” “Regret?
Dad.
Regret?
” The young woman drew herself up and lifted her arms.
“Oh, Dad, I see it all, now; all that you have been trying in a thousand ways to teach me.
You have led me into a new world, the real world, the world that has always been and must always be, and in that world man is king; king because he is a man.
And the treasure of his kingdom is the wealth of his manhood.
” “And the woman, Sammy, the woman?
” “‘And they twain shall be one flesh.
’” Then the master knew that his teaching had not been in vain.
“I can lead you no farther, my child,” he said with a smile.
“You have passed the final test.
” She came close to him, “Then I want my diploma,” she said, for he had told her about the schools.
Reverently the old scholar kissed her brow.
“This is the only diploma I am authorized to give—the love and homage of your teacher.
” “And my degree?
” She waited with that wide, questioning look in her eyes.
“The most honorable in all the world—a sure enough lady.
” CHAPTER XXXI. CASTLE BUILDING.
The corn was big enough to cultivate the first time, and Young Matt with Old Kate was hard at work in the field west of the house.
It was nearly three weeks since the incident at the mill, since which time the young fellow had not met Sammy Lane to talk with her.
He had seen her, though, at a distance nearly every day, for the girl had taken up her studies again, and spent most of her time out on the hills with the shepherd.
That day he saw her as she turned into the mill road at the lower corner of the field, on her way to the Forks.
And he was still thinking of her three hours later, as he sat on a stump in the shade of the forest’s edge, while his horse was resting.
Young Matt recalled the fight at the mill with a wild joy in his heart.
Under any circumstances it was no small thing to have defeated the champion strong man and terror of the hills.
It was a glorious thing to have done the deed for the girl he loved, and under her eyes.
Sammy might give herself to Ollie, now, and go far away to the great world, but she could never forget the man who had saved her from insult, when her lover was far too weak to save even himself.
And Young Matt would stay in the hills alone, but always he would have the knowledge and the triumph of this thing that he had done.
Yes, it would be easier now, but still—still the days would be years when there was no longer each morning the hope that somewhere before the day was gone he would see her.
The sun fell hot and glaring on the hillside field, and in the air was the smell of the freshly turned earth.
High up in the blue a hawk circled and circled again.
A puff of air came sighing through the forest, touched lightly the green blades in the open, slipped over the ridge, and was lost in the sky beyond.
Old Kate, with head down, was dreaming of cool springs in shady dells, and a little shiny brown lizard with a bright blue tail crept from under the bottom rail of the fence to see why the man was so still.
The man turned his head quickly; the lizard dodged under the rail; and old Kate awoke with a start.
Someone was coming along the road below.
Young Matt knew the step of that horse, as well as he knew the sound of old Kate’s bell, or the neigh of his own sorrel.
The brown pony stopped at the lower corner of the field, and a voice called, “You’d better be at work.
I don’t believe you have ploughed three rows since I passed.
” The big fellow went eagerly down the hill to the fence.
“I sure ought to o’ done better’n that, for it’s been long enough since you went by.
I always notice, though, that it gets a heap farther to the other side of the field and back about this time o’ day.
What’s new over to the Forks?
” Sammy laughed, “Couldn’t hear a thing but how the champion strong man was beaten at his own game.
Uncle Ike says, ‘Ba thundas!
You tell Young Matt that he’d better come over.
A man what can ride Wash Gibbs a bug huntin’ is too blamed good a man t’ stay at home all th’ time.
We want him t’ tell us how he done it.
Ba thundas!
He’ll be gittin’ a job with th’ gov’ment next.
What!
’” The man crossed his arms on the top rail of the worm fence, and laughed.
It was good to have Sammy deliver her message in just that way.
“I reckon Uncle Ike thinks I ought to go dancin’ all over the hills now, with a chip on my shoulder,” he said.
“I don’t think you’ll do that,” she returned.
“Dad Howitt wouldn’t, would he?
But I must hurry on now, or Daddy’s supper won’t be ready when he comes in.
I stopped to give you these papers for your father.
” She handed him the package.
“And—and I want to thank you, Matt, for what you did at the mill.
All my life you have been fighting for me, and—and I have never done anything for you.
I wish I could do something—something that would show you how—how I care.
” Her voice faltered.
He was so big and strong, and there was such a look of hopeless love and pain on his rugged face—a face that was as frank and open as a child’s. Here was a man who had no need for the shallow cunning of little fox-like men.
This one would go open and bold on his way, and that which he could not take by his strength he would not have.
Had she not seen him in battle?
Had she not seen his eyes like polished steel points?
Deep down in her heart, the woman felt a thrill of triumph that such a man should stand so before her.
She must go quickly.
Young Matt climbed slowly up the hill again to his seat on the stump.
Here he watched until across the Hollow he saw the pony and his rider come out of the timber and move swiftly along the ridge; watched until they faded into a tiny spot, rounded the mountain and disappeared from sight.
Then, lifting his eyes, he looked away beyond the long blue line that marked the distant horizon.
Some day he would watch Sammy ride away and she would go on, and on, and on, beyond that blue line, put of his life forever.
Ollie had gone over there to live, and the shepherd had come from there.
What was that world like, he wondered.
Between the young man of the mountains and that big world yonder there had always been a closely shut door.
He had seen the door open to Ollie, and now Sammy stood on the threshold.
Would it ever open for him?
And, if it did, what?
Then came a thought that made his blood leap.
Might he not force it open?
The shepherd had told him of others who had done so.
Young Matt felt a strong man’s contempt for the things Ollie had gotten out of the world, but he stood in awe before Mr. Howitt.
He told himself, now, that he would look for and find the things yonder that made Dad the man he was.
He would carry to the task his splendid strength.
Nothing should stop him.
And Sammy, when she understood that he was going away to be like the shepherd, would wait awhile to give him his chance.
Surely, she would wait when he told her that.
But how should he begin?
Looking up again, his eye caught a slow, shifting patch of white on the bench above Lost Creek, where the little stream begins its underground course.
The faint bark of a dog came to him through the thin still air, and the patch of white turned off into the trail that leads to the ranch.
“Dad!
” exclaimed the young man in triumph.
Dad should tell him how.
He had taught Sammy.
And so while the sunlight danced on the green field, and old Kate slept in the lengthening shadows of the timber, the lad gave himself to his dreams and built his castles—as we all have builded.
His dreaming was interrupted as the supper bell rang, and, with the familiar sound, a multitude of other thoughts came crowding in; the father and mother—they were growing old.
Would it do to leave them alone with the graves on the hill yonder, and the mystery of the Hollow?
And there was the place to care for, and the mill.
Who but Young Matt could get work from the old engine?
It was like the strong man that the fight did not last long.
Young Matt’s fights never lasted very long.
By the time he had unhitched old Kate from the cultivator, it was finished.
The lad went down the hill, his bright castles in ruin—even as we all have gone, or must sometime go down the hill with our brightest castles in ruin.
