at last alone. The room, though it had once belonged to a boy
of his own age, looked very strange to David. On the floor was a
rag-carpet rug, the first he had ever seen. On the walls were a
fishing-rod, a toy shotgun, and a case full of bugs and moths, each
little body impaled on a pin, to David's shuddering horror. The bed had
four tall posts at the corners, and a very puffy top that filled David
with wonder as to how he was to reach it, or stay there if he did gain
it. Across a chair lay a boy's long yellow-white nightshirt that the
kind lady had left, after hurriedly wiping her eyes with the edge of
its hem. In all the circle of the candlelight there was just one
familiar object to David's homesick eyes--the long black violin case
which he had brought in himself, and which held his beloved violin.

With his back carefully turned toward the impaled bugs and moths on the
wall, David undressed himself and slipped into the yellow-white
nightshirt, which he sniffed at gratefully, so like pine woods was the
perfume that hung about its folds. Then he blew out the candle and
groped his way to the one window the little room contained.

The moon still shone, but little could be seen through the thick green
branches of the tree outside. From the yard below came the sound of
wheels, and of men's excited voices. There came also the twinkle of
lanterns borne by hurrying hands, and the tramp of shuffling feet. In
the window David shivered. There were no wide sweep of mountain, hill,
and valley, no Silver Lake, no restful hush, no daddy,--no beautiful
Things that Were. There was only the dreary, hollow mockery of the
Things they had Become.

Long minutes later, David, with the violin in his arms, lay down upon
the rug, and, for the first time since babyhood, sobbed himself to
sleep--but it was a sleep that brought no rest; for in it he dreamed
that he was a big, white-winged moth pinned with a star to an ink-black
sky.

CHAPTER IV

TWO LETTERS

In the early gray dawn David awoke. His first sensation was the
physical numbness and stiffness that came from his hard bed on the
floor.

"Why, daddy," he began, pulling himself half-erect, "I slept all night
on--" He stopped suddenly, brushing his eyes with the backs of his
hands. "Why, daddy, where--" Then full consciousness came to him.

With a low cry he sprang to his feet and ran to the window. Through the
trees he could see the sunrise glow of the eastern sky. Down in t