Hidden Creek | Page 7

deserted, and the only car in sight was Hudson's own, which wriggled
and slipped its way courageously along the rutted, dirty snow.
Around the corner next to the hotel stood Hudson's home. It was a large
house of tortured architecture, cupolas and twisted supports and strange,

overlapping scallops of wood, painted wavy green, pinkish red and
yellow. Its windows were of every size and shape and appeared in
unreasonable, impossible places--opening enormous mouths on tiny
balconies with twisted posts and scalloped railings, like embroidery
patterns, one on top of the other up to a final absurdity of a bird cage
which found room for itself between two cupolas under the roof.
Up the steps of the porch Mrs. Hudson mounted grimly, followed by
Babe. Sylvester stayed to tinker with the car, and Sheila, after a
doubtful, tremulous moment, went slowly up the icy path after the two
women.
She stumbled a little on the lowest step and, in recovering herself, she
happened to turn her head. And so, between two slender aspen trees
that grew side by side like white, captive nymphs in Hudson's yard, she
saw a mountain-top. The sun had set. There was a crystal, turquoise
translucency behind the exquisite snowy peak, which seemed to stand
there facing God, forgetful of the world behind it, remote and reverent
and most serene in the light of His glory. And just above where the
turquoise faded to pure pale green, a big white star trembled. Sheila's
heart stopped in her breast. She stood on the step and drew breath,
throwing back her veil. A flush crept up into her face. She felt that she
had been traveling all her life toward her meeting with this mountain
and this star. She felt radiant and comforted.
"How beautiful!" she whispered.
Sylvester had joined her.
"Finest city in the world!" he said.

CHAPTER IV
MOONSHINE
Dickie Hudson pushed from him to the full length of his arm the ledger

of The Aura Hotel, tilted his chair back from the desk, and, leaning far
over to one side, set the needle on a phonograph record, pressed the
starter, and absorbed himself in rolling and lighting a cigarette. This
accomplished, he put his hands behind his head and, wreathed in
aromatic, bluish smoke, gave himself up to complete enjoyment of the
music.
It was a song from some popular light opera. A very high soprano and a
musical tenor duet, sentimental, humoresque:
"There, dry your eyes, I sympathize Just as a mother would-- Give me
your hand, I understand, we're off to slumber land Like a father, like a
mother, like a sister, like a brother."
Listening to this melody, Dickie Hudson's face under the gaslight
expressed a rapt and spiritual delight, tender, romantic, melancholy.
He was a slight, undersized youth, very pale, very fair, with the face of
a delicate boy. He had large, near-sighted blue eyes in which lurked a
wistful, deprecatory smile, a small chin running from wide cheek-bones
to a point. His lips were sensitive and undecided, his nose unformed,
his hair soft and easily ruffled. There were hard blue marks under the
long-lashed eyes, an unhealthy pallor to his cheeks, a slight
unsteadiness of his fingers.
Dickie held a position of minor importance in the hotel, and his pale,
innocent face was almost as familiar to its patrons as to those of the
saloon next door--more familiar to both than it was to Hudson's
"residence." Sometimes for weeks Dickie did not strain the scant
welcome of his "folks." To-night, however, he was resolved to tempt it.
After listening to the record, he strolled over to the saloon.
Dickie was curious. He shared Millings's interest in the "young lady
from Noo York." Shyness fought with a sense of adventure, until
to-night, a night fully ten nights after Sheila's arrival, the courage he
imbibed at the bar of The Aura gave him the necessary impetus. He
pulled himself up from his elbow, removed his foot from the rail,
straightened his spotted tie, and pushed through the swinging doors out

into the night.
It was a moonlit night, as still and pure as an angel of annunciation--a
night that carried tall, silver lilies in its hands. Above the small, sleepy
town were lifted the circling rim of mountains and the web of blazing
stars. Sylvester's son, after a few crunching steps along the icy
pavement, stopped with his hand against the wall, and stood, not quite
steadily, his face lifted. The whiteness sank through his tainted body
and brain to the undefiled child-soul. The stars blazed awfully for
Dickie, and the mountains were awfully white and high, and the air
shattered against his spirit like a crystal sword. He stood for an instant
as though on a single point of solid earth and looked giddily