in larn to make things like you b'en makin' with these, an' Cass,
she'll he'p me," he cried.

"What is Cass doing to-day?" David ventured.

"She be'n up here most all mornin', an' I he'ped get the light ud fer
fire, an' then she sont me home to he'p maw whilst she stayed to fix
up."

"But now, I mean, when you came up here?"

"Weavin' in the loom shed. Maw, she has a lot o' little biddies. The ol'
hen hatched 'em, she did."

"What have you done to your thumb?" asked David, seeing it tied about
with a rag.

"I plunked hit with the hammer when I war a-makin' houses fer the
biddies. I nailed 'em, I did."

"You made the chicken coops? Well, you are a clever little chap. Let me
see your hand."

"Yas, maw said I war that, too."

"But you weren't very clever to do this. Whew! What did you hit your
thumb like that for?"

"Dunno." He looked ruefully at the crushed member which the doctor laved
gently and soothingly.

"Why didn't you come to me with it?"

"Maw 'lowed the' wa'n't no use pesterin' you with eve'ything. She tol'
me eve'y man had to larn to hit a nail on the haid."

David laughed, and the child trotted away happy, his hand in a sling
made of one of the doctor's linen handkerchiefs, and his box of pencils
and his book hugged to his irregularly beating heart; but it was with a
grave face that Thryng saw him disappear among the great masses of pink
laurel bloom.

That evening, as the glow in the west deepened and died away and the
stars came out one by one and sent their slender rays down upon the
hills, David sat on his rock with his flute in his hand, waiting for a
moment to arrive when he could put it to his lips and send out the
message of glad hopes he had sent before. She had asked that one little
thing, that his music might still be glad, and so for Cassandra's sake
it must be.

He tried once and again, but he could not play. At last, putting away
from him his repentant thoughts, he gave his heart full sway, saying to
himself: "For this moment I will imagine harmlessly that my vision is
all mine and my dream come true. It is the only way." Then he played as
if it were he whom she had kissed so passionately, instead of his flute;
and thus it was the glad notes were falling on her spirit when Frale
found her.

CHAPTER XVI

IN WHICH FRALE RETURNS AND LISTENS TO THE COMPLAINTS OF DECATUR IRWIN'S
WIFE

All was quiet and lonely around Carew's Crossing when Frale dropped from
the train